The Dragon Gallery VIII
DOUG The Eagle Dragon

Parcival, 2004-07-31

Personalia

I'm 27 years old (but not for long), and I design mobile computing software for a living, since I enjoy the challenges. The ability I have to out-think the designers of computer games (enabling me to write the anti-walkthroughs which people so love) comes in very handy, since it extends to more mundane programs as well, and makes program testing a lot more fun.

At home, I'm designing my own Ultima 6-like game [*], which takes a large chunk of my spare time.  I also record my own music using a home studio that I've constructed over the last year.  Some of the music is for the game, some of it is just for fun.  All of it is recorded on open-reel analogue tape as God intended.

I also have a penchant for progressive rock and SF, quotes from which tend to find their way into my website, whether they be appropriate or no.

The name 'DOUG the Eagle' stems from the mythology I created for my own games.. 'DOUG' was the first artificial intelligence, built into an F-15 eagle.

Ultima

I'll be characteristically blunt.. it was through software piracy.  While I'm not proud of that, it was, and presumably still is, perfectly commonplace for teenage schoolkids to swap games illicitly.  Naturally, I eventually purchased the game, and in fact now own three copies (via several Collections).

The game in question was Ultima 6, and it was so radically different to anything else around at the time, that I was pretty much obssessed with it for a long, long time. It was extremely liberating, since I could try out things I would never dream of doing otherwise, such as bankrobbery, sword-running, pillage, and drugs… the forbidden fruit that holds such strong fascination to teenagers.

Indeed, one of the first things I did in U6 was to consume all of Nystul's potions at once.  I was instantly gratified with a startling display of pretty lights and psychedelic colours, coupled with the fact that the Avatar was now glowing blue, believed he was invisible, could see through walls and hear the grass grow.  Then he slumped to the floor.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  My first Avatar was based upon my art teacher, a certain Mr. Danby.  He was a very mild man, and as I was wont to do at the time, I speculated that he was too inoffensive and there must be some hidden dark side to the man.

U6 gave me the perfect medium to explore such possibilities, and so it was under the name of 'Mr. Danby' that I began numerous reigns of terror and attempted coups against the King.

Your Ultima

U6 has to be my all-time favourite, not least because it was my first one. I suppose I should have shot out and bought U7 as well, but I had a 286 until about 1995 and U7 wouldn't have worked on it anyway.  So I stayed with U6 for a long time, and that allowed me to get really, really deep into it and discover things that I wouldn't have done if I had jumped straight on to U7.

I did come across SI in a shop some years later, but I didn't buy it. I curse that now, of course, but it was £40, which today would be more like £80, which I guess is around $120.  This was a LOT of money for a game, no matter how good, and since it was badged at U7 Part TWO, I figured it needed U7 first.

Favourite Ultima Character

Well, from U6, I really like Glen D'Arc, the vampire undertaker in Empath abbey, and many times I've had need of his services over the years. Sutek the Mage comes a close second.

I have a certain admiration for Lord British, too, the way in which he can rise from his throne, calmly stride over to the Avatar and kill him instantly with a single blow by some unknown means.

But I guess my absolute favourite has to be Batlin.  He represents everything that 'Mr. Danby' only tries to.  A friendly, happy fat sage who by night is secretly a cross between the Godfather and the Antichrist, plotting to bring about the end of the world with smile and a cheery wave.

Ultima Internet Community

I joined around 1996.  I don't have the exact date, but I could probably find it.  I had just discovered USENET at University, and the fact that there were other people enjoying the Ultima series was a revelation, and the opportunity to swap tales and deeds was too good to miss.

It also gave an outlet for the U6 map editor I had been working on.  Today, a project like that would be in the internet almost immediately, and people could collaborate, ask questions, or find example code.  I wrote the entire thing myself, with help from Martyn Smart, a schoolfriend who was also with me at college.  It was quite satisfying to see that other people far away were interested in the thing.

However, the re-organisation of the UDIC newsgroup caused a big problem and I was unable to receive the group for a while.  Later on, I could read it but not reply, which took me a while to realise.  I conducted a lot of my access through 'Deja News' at the time, which wasn't much fun.

Ultima projects

At the time, my sole contribution was the Editor, although I had done a lot with Ultima before University.   Since then I wrote a walkthrough for Pagan which was powered by all the bugs I could find in the game.  It is this which gave me a certain measure of fame (or notoriety) and I wrote a number of similar pages and walkthroughs for U7, SI, U9, System Shock, Deus Ex and Arx Fatalis.  For some reason I never got into Underworld.

I got interested in the Exult project around 1998, although I never contributed much code, and what I did contribute was rejected. Instead I sampled all the sound effects from U7 and SI, so that they could be used in it. That was accepted, but I gradually became disillusioned with the project since I feel that it does not preserve the games correctly. It has a lot of possibility as an engine for other games, though.

Beyond Ultima

I haven't played U6 seriously for a while, other than as research for the game I'm developing, which is heavily based on U6.  I need to give it time so that I can forget the details.. then, when I return to play it properly, I'll have a lot more fun.

I'm currently playing U9, and trying to make a reasonably 'straight' go of that, and avoiding the temptation to bend the rules too much. I've completed U8 again last month, and I'm going to play U7 after U9.

I've promised to do Thief as the next 'anti-walkthrough', but I haven't yet found the right time and mood to take it on.  My machine won't run Deus Ex 2, let alone Doom 3, so I am ignoring both these games for now.

Pass it on

I would nominate Whreky/Optician or Refractor.