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      <h5><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">//<a href="../../../index.html"><font color="#7C420E">loonygames</font></a>://<a href="../index.html"><font color="#7C420E">issue 
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              <h5 align="right"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#00025E"><img src="../../images/icons/bent_final.jpg" width="192" height="243" align="left"><loonystart>Vol. 
                2, Issue 5<br>
                December 8, 1999 </font></b></h5>
             <br>
              <div align="center">
                <p align="center"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="3">Beaker's 
                  Bent:</font></i></font></b></p>
                <p align="center"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="6"> 
                  Yet More on the Future of RPGs</font></i></font></b></p>
                <p align="right"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">by 
                  Rich &quot;<a href="mailto:rich@loonygames.com">Beaker</a>&quot; 
                  Wyckoff</font></p>
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              <p align="left"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="../../images/letters_new/t.jpg" width="19" height="38" align="left">his 
                Thanksgiving, I made the mistake of being excited for<b> Ultima 
                IX</b>. Regular readers of this site probably remember that I 
                consider the <b>Ultima</b> series my favorite RPGs ever, and that 
                I got into the industry because of <b>Ultima Underworld</b>. However 
                <b>Ultima VIII</b> had done so much to ruin the series forever 
                for me, and I had heard so many bad things about <b>U9</b>'s development 
                and design history, that I didn't really think Origin had any 
                chance of reclaiming the golden years of <b>Ultima</b>. In fact, 
                I was prepared for the worst: an <b>Ultima</b> even worse than 
                <b>Ultima VIII</b>.</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Nonetheless, 
                I knew I was going to buy <b>U9</b>. And then the demo came out, 
                and even though it had a truly <b>Trespasser</b>-equivalent framerate 
                coupled with even worse graphics and physics, I was amazed to 
                see that it seemed to have a design that was going to work for 
                a 3D realtime RPG. This design wasn't particularly original: in 
                fact it basically looked like Origin had set out to clone the 
                core gameplay of <b>Zelda 64</b>. <b>Zelda 64</b>'s puzzles consist 
                of things like shooting specific targets with specific types of 
                arrows, using your hammer to bash or move blocks, or sometimes 
                even tasks as simple in concept as defeating all the enemies in 
                the room.<b> Zelda 64</b>'s basic combat system also turned out 
                to be an incredibly good metaphor for 3D 3rd person games, too 
                - players could press the trigger button to lock on to an enemy, 
                and while in lock on mode, the player's controls were remapped 
                to circle the targeted enemy. Fairly complicated dodging and attacks 
                were finally possible in 3D without a complicated interface.</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Clearly, 
                <b>U9</b>'s designers were trying to make their game feel like 
                a deeper version of <b>Zelda</b> with the puzzles in the demo 
                which consisted of shooting targets with arrows or igniting torches 
                to open doors. I enjoyed <b>Zelda</b> so much it seemed from the 
                demo like <b>U9 </b>would be guaranteed to be fun - of course, 
                I also thought that the speed, bugginess and general lack of polish 
                of the demo would be corrected before ship. I swear, this is the 
                last time I'll believe that any developers are capable of correcting 
                the most obvious flaws in their products. But anyway, the point 
                of this column is not to list all the many things about <b>Ultima 
                IX</b>, which make it the second worst <b>Ultima</b> after <b>U8</b>. 
                Instead, I'm interested in what the game might signify for the 
                future of RPGs in general.</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The most 
                important thing about <b>U9</b> is that the engine, while certainly 
                greatly flawed, is an attempt at making a true 3D environment 
                for an RPG. As I've gone on about at great lengths in a previous 
                column, today's &quot;revolutionary&quot; RPG, <b>Baldur's Gate</b>, 
                has a laughably non-interactive engine. Players direct their little 
                characters across areas that are essentially giant paintings, 
                with annoying loads between them. The world is sprinkled with 
                what look like piles of items and barrels and crates to dig through, 
                but interaction with these interesting-looking things is limited: 
                ugly highlights appear on almost randomly selected parts of the 
                background, bluntly revealing that the game content is layered 
                on top of a static image. </font></p>
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<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Illustration 
  &copy; 1999 Dan Zalkus. Beaker's Bent is &copy; 1999 Rich Wyckoff. All other 
  content is &copy; 1999 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited, 
  so don't do it or we'll sick our lawyers on you. Muhahahahahahahah. ph3ar our 
  m@d l3gal sk1lz y0.</font></i></p>
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