Ultima-Unreal Team Interview
Shocking Revelations!

Naked_Lunch, 2005-01-25

This is UltimaDot's first interview with Ultima-Unreal team since 2002. You may have been wondering what awesome things they've accomplished over that span of time, and trust it's been worth it.

Ultima-Unreal Team: First of all I'd like to thank you for this interview. You are the first people we inform about our new plans! The time has come to announce the end of Ultima Unreal, and the rise of a new power: Evil Places Of Sandria What I'm trying to say is, that we have stopped working on the UnnrealTournament (1) engine and changed over to our own one! This allows us following new features:

*better graphics

*better gameplay

*more customizability

and, and, and....

In total, not only our work gets alleviated, the users will profit too!

Naked_Lunch: How will NPC interactions work?

Ultima-Unreal Team: We have a very powerful quest and dialogue editor. With these two programs, we are able to create almost every story-like event you can think of. Basically, if you are in the conversation menu, you have multiple-choice answers and can ask questions. Sort of like in Morrowind. (I think that's a good example). Our NPCs (f.ex. the humans in the town(s)) won't just stand on one place the whole day, or always do the same actions in a time interval. We will have a random pool of actions, from which the NPC picks one out. So let's say on day X human Y goes 'shopping' to the blacksmith, and on the next day he goes hunting in the woods or gets drunk in the tavern :) That will create a realistic environment, and also gives us new possibilities for quests!

Naked_Lunch: A recent trend in RPGs and games in general nowadays is the added affect of morality, like that done in KOTOR. Will Ultima-Unreal have a sort of morality or alignment system?

Ultima-Unreal Team: I have to admit that I don't know how the morality system in KOTOR works, because I didn't play it *shame on me* I'll try to explain our (currently) planed system: You start as a 'standard player model'. If you fight a lot, you get stronger (like in every RPG ;)). But in our game, you can also see that you really get more muscles! And for example if you kill a lot of innocent people, we can transform the model to more evil looking! (But we have to discuss this feature on how it afflicts the engine, it is not sure if this feature will be in the game on the final release, we'll keep you up to date though!)

Naked_Lunch: When we asked you if there will be an automap, you responded "you won't need it for the gameplay we plan"; care to elaborate on how the gameplay won't require an automap (which is kind of standards nowadays!)?

Ultima-Unreal Team: Well, I guess you mean the first interview here on rpgdot. That was with our former project leader Merandis. Due to our technical abilities, Ultima Unreal was planed to be more linear. Much time has passed since then. Actually, the whole concept has been changed, and at current, we do need an automap! Now we can say that the world you play in is built up on non-linear quests and actions, with a main background story. (Which has to be sort of linear, 'cause other wise you can't tell the story ;))

Naked_Lunch: What are you using as a main influence for Ultima-Unreal, if any?

Ultima-Unreal Team: Our team consists of gaming freaks ;) Everybody is involved in the game concept, meaning if somebody says: 'What about this feature...' or 'hey, listen up...' we discuss it. So you actually can't say that there is a main influence. It's our total gaming-experience combined with our mighty brains...

Naked_Lunch: Why a first person perspective? Do you feel it's more immersive that way or is it a technical issue?

Ultima-Unreal Team: Evil Places Of Sandria will contain a switchable perspective. Means you can choose, either 3rd person or 1st person view. (I guess for outdoor parts the 3rd p.v. is better, and for frightening dungeons you better switch to the 1st p.v.)

Naked_Lunch: Now that you've switched to your own engine, will sell the game now as opposed to it being a mod?

Ultima-Unreal Team: But to the commercial part: Our primary goal is to create a game, which makes fun playing. We all have a so-called 'real life' to accomplish, and that means we can't spend 40+ hours working on our project a week. To give you a clear answer: on current state it is not planed to sell it. But never say never ;)

Naked_Lunch: And finally, what do you consider to be "the defining element" so-to-speak of Ultima-Unreal?

Ultima-Unreal Team: For the single player part: We want to tell the players a story. You can become a part of it, but you don't have to. If you want to tyrannize the others, go do it. If you want to brew beer, why not? Just do want you want to do ;)

Ultima-Unreal Team: Our multiplayer part will offer the possibility to let so called 'Game Masters' update and change the world (adding new items, quests, etc.) In Evil Places Of Sandria you can also change the world 'at runtime', this great feature would allow users to build their own houses on an online shard.

Naked_Lunch: Ultima-Unreal (Now the Evil Places of Sandria team I guess ;): Once again, thanks for your time and good luck!

Ultima-Unreal Team: I have to thank, it was a pleasure. And if I'm allowed to make an announcement: We always welcome new, talented people in our team. So if you're interested, check out our forum (http://uu.sweepy.de/) and write me