Ultima IV  Remastered
Original title: Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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A remastered version of Ultima IV

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Game Changes :

Graphics Overhaul
Character creation intro has new graphics drawn by Vanja ‘Mermaid’ Utne.
The tileset has been updated with new and more colorful tiles, mainly backported from Ultima V.
When peering at a gem or casting view the map is now in color.
The dungeon renderer has been sped up, and items and monsters are drawn in color.
Text Overhaul

NPC dialogue and game text now uses mixed case.
Many dialogue bugs have been fixed:
Fixed broken question trigger and added missing dialogue for Thevel in Britain.
Added missing dialogue for Serpent’s Hold gate guards.
Changed keyword for Michelle to avoid conflict with health in Serpent’s Hold.

Fixed broken message trigger for Water in Castle British.
Fixed misspelled keyword for Estro in the Lycaeum.
Fixed misspelled keyword for a poor beggar in Yew.
Fixed broken message trigger for Alkerion in Minoc.
Fixed broken message trigger for Shamino in Skara Brae.
Fixed broken message trigger for Charm in Cove.
Dozens of minor fixes to spelling, grammar, and formatting.
New Game Features

Select active character in combat with 1-8, 0 returns to party mode.
You can quit and save in dungeons.
If you move outside the border of a towne, castle, or keep, the game asks if you want to exit to Britannia.
Joystick control.
Dungeons get darker when a torch is close to burning out.
Bug Fixes

Meditating at shrines now gives different hints for 1, 2, and 3 cycles.
Hythloth dungeon rooms on level 6 are now accessible.
Character creation no longer suffers from random hangs.
Loading a saved game restores balloon flying mode.
Allow backspace when giving gold or using stones.
Don’t enter locations when flying in balloon.
Technical Enhancements

Fastloader with support for 1541, 1571, 1581, CMD FD, and CMD HD.
Runs from a single disk, no disk swapping when playing.
EasyFlash cartridge version.
Music is not interrupted when data is loaded from disk.
SuperCPU support.
Game Cheats

A save game editor is bundled with the game.
Unlimited magic.
Unlimited food.
Unlimited torches.
Unlimited keys.
Unlimited gems.
Avoid combat.
Control balloon.
Idle without pass.

Teleportation system, press T in Britannia and then (T)owne, (D)ungeon, (S)hrine, (L)ocation, or (C)oordinate.
Create transport if you try to (B)oard an empty tile, select (H)orse, (S)hip, or (B)alloon.
Additional Changes Since Ultima IV Gold

Disk drive no longer spins when there is no disk activity, and the game loads faster.
Balloon cheat has several bugs fixed.
Swapped lat/long for teleport cheat.
Added unlimited gems and idle cheats.
Fixed reagent editing in save game editor.
Known Bugs

If you’re playing the 1541 version and answer a question wrong during the ending the game is supposed to throw you out to Britannia, but instead it hangs. Play the 1571, 1581, or EasyFlash version instead to avoid this issue, or just make sure you get all the answers right.
The crack intro is out of sync and glitches a bit on NTSC, but should otherwise work fine.
Blue border doesn’t get redrawn properly around wind status after you exit a dungeon.
If you die and teleport back to Lord British the wrong music plays in Castle Britannia, until you klimb down the ladder or talk to Lord British.
If the savegame editor is started from cartridge and has problems accessing the flash saves you get an error asking you to insert a disk in device #239.

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Following the defeat of the evil triad in the previous three Ultima games, the world of Sosaria changed beyond recognition: continents rose and sank, and new cities were built, heralding the advent of a different civilization. Unified by the reign of the benevolent monarch Lord British, the new world was renamed Britannia. Lord British wished to base people's well-being on the ethical principles of Truth, Love, and Courage, proclaiming the Eight Virtues (Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility) as the ideal everyone should strive for. The person who could accomplish full understanding and realization of these virtues would serve as a spiritual leader and a moral example for the inhabitants of Britannia; he alone would be able to obtain holy artifacts, descend into the Stygian Abyss, and access the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. This person is the Avatar.

The fourth game in the Ultima series features an improved game engine, with color graphics and enhanced character interaction: the player can have conversations with non-playable characters by typing names of various topics. However, the main difference between Ultima IV and its predecessors in the series (as well as other role-playing games) lies in the game's objectives and the ways to fulfill them. 

Instead of building up a character by any means possible in order to face a villain in the end of the game, in Ultima IV the player is trying to become the Avatar, a role model for people. This means upholding the Eight Virtues, basically trying to become a better person. Making morally conscious decisions and helping other people is not done expecting a material reward, but because it is the actual goal of the game and the main focus of its gameplay. The game frowns on behavior typical of most other RPGs, such as backstabbing fleeing enemies or picking up everything that isn't nailed down even if it does not belong to the protagonist. This different approach established the game's reputation as the first "true" Ultima, influencing the design philosophy of later installments and the overall spirit of the series.

Character creation is done by choosing responses to morally ambiguous questions. Each of the Eight Virtues corresponds to a character class; by determining the player's personal priorities in the virtues, the game assigns a class and a starting location for the Avatar. After emerging in Britannia, the player is free to explore it in various ways (on foot, moongate teleportation, on horseback, by ship, etc.). Certain items must be collected in any order to enter the Stygian Abyss and complete the game. The Avatar also has to reach the highest level in all virtues. This is achieved by various means: donating blood increases Sacrifice, not fleeing from combat increases Valor, etc. The process, however, is not irreversible: should the Avatar overpay a blind seller, he gains Compassion points; should he, on the other hand, cheat the seller by underpaying, his level in several virtues would decrease.

These unorthodox features of the game co-exist with plenty of traditional RPG elements, such as dungeons to explore and hostile monsters to kill. Enemies are encountered on the world map as well as in dungeons; combat takes place on separate top-down screens, allowing player-controlled and enemy parties freely move on them. Characters accumulate experience points and level up, gaining higher amount of hit points and access to stronger magic spells. Like in the previous installments of the series, world map, town exploration and combat are presented from a top-down view, while the dungeons are pseudo-3D and are explored from first-person perspective.

Ultima IV also introduces several new gameplay features to the series and role-playing games in general. A number of initially non-playable characters living in various areas of the game world are able to to join the party and fight alongside the hero, replacing traditional player-generated characters or mercenaries and adventurers available only in special locations. Additional new elements include buying and combining reagents in order to cast spells, unique items such as grapple to pass through mountains, puzzle rooms in dungeons, and others.

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Trivia

Cancelled remake
 In 2001, Jaakko Peltonen organized an effort to completely remake Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar with an updated game engine, isometric graphics and symphonic music tracks. The project was abandoned three years later. 

Extras
 Original boxes of Ultima IV included a metal ankh symbol. 

Fan patches
 Aradindae Dragon & Wiltshire Dragon, members of the Ultima Dragons Internet Chapter, have created an upgrade for Ultima IV, adding upgraded 256 color graphics, MIDI sound, and other fixes. See the Links/Searches section for the URL. 

There is no music in PC version, but there exist a freeware patch that adds all the music from C-64/Apple versions to play properly with the PC version as MIDI. 

Freeware release
 In order to promote the release of Ultima IX: Ascension, Origin made Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar freeware. 

References
 Some of the town inhabitants in Ultima IV have the same names as famous historical figures. Or are they really those figures, magically transported to Britannia? For example, in one of the towns you meet a man named Shakespeare. In another one you see a person who looks like a philosopher, and when you ask him his name, he says: "I am Buddha". 

Virtues
 At the time of Ultima IV's development, RPGs were undergoing a bashing by right-wing extremists who claimed such fantasy gaming was amoral or downright evil. The concept of the virtues in Ultima IV were partially inspired by Richard Garriott's desire to prove otherwise.

The moral concept of the game was undoubtedly influenced by Buddhism. The number eight that appears in the game constantly (eight virtues, eight character classes, eight party members, etc.) is a sacred number in Buddhism (one of the most important concepts of which are the eight steps on the path to enlightenment). Shrines, meditation, mantras, the total independence of Britannia's moral codex from any supernatural power are all typical attributes of Buddhism. Lastly, the concept of the Avatar is nearly identical to the concept of bodhisattva, the Buddhist ideal person (although the word avatar itself derives from Hinduism and means reincarnation of God).

In an interview with Computer Games Online (www.cdmag.com), Richard Garriott offered some interesting insights about the creation of the virtues for Ultima IV. Here's the excerpt: 
I started with a whiteboard and wrote down all of the virtues and vices I could think of, the seven deadly sins, many, many others. Obviously I wanted to talk about a few of these, but I couldn't address them all.

As I did more research, I began to notice things like greed and envy would have some overlap, so I needed to create a core set. You can easily split them up into virtues and vices, and eventually arrived at three primary aspects, which became the principle virtues of Truth, Love and Courage. Truth became Honesty, Love became Compassion, Courage became Valor, and I created the eight possible combinations of these three. Truth tempered by Love became Justice, Love and Courage became Personal Self-sacrifice, Courage and Truth became Chivalric Honor. Truth Love and Courage was kind of arbitrary, so I thought, "What is the all-encompassing virtue?" I said, "Spirituality," whether or not you're doing good or bad deeds in the world. 

And what if you do none of the above? If not being virtuous is part of your psyche, I call it pride. Pride is not a virtue, so I decided to use the opposite, Humility. Since the eighth combination created a non-virtue, I began to create bits of pseudo-science I was pretty pleased with. 

Ultimas are big in mathematical pseudo-science and alchemy, so I invented the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom to graphically illustrate their relationship. Then I associated the cities with the virtues, with the eighth one - which I called Magincia, the city of Pride - destroyed. Having these seven positive things with one eighth one that had to be flipped made for a nice variety of quests you could create. 

Once the eight virtues were created, I needed to come up with quotes that expressed why each was important. And had to think of tests for people to see if they were supporting that virtue. Honesty was easy - I let you cheat shopkeepers and steal things, but the game kept a record where it could, later in the game, come back to haunt you. Just like the real world. Why is it you don't steal from people? Because if you do they'll throw you in jail or disown you. So that's how I designed the game - people will reject you if you're not honest. 

So I went virtue by virtue and tried to craft these types of experiences.
Awards
 This game is a member of Computer Gaming World's Hall of Fame.

In the 200th aniversary issue of Computer Gaming World, this game was rated the tenth best game of all time by the staff.

Ultima IV was named #2 overall among the “150 Best Games of All Time” by Computer Gaming World Magazine (15th Anniversary Issue--November 1996).

Ultima IV was ranked # 32 in the 50 Best Games of All Time list published by PC Gamer Magazine in its April 2005 issue. 
Computer Gaming World 
Hall of Fame Member
November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #2 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
200th anniversary issue - #10 Best Game of All Time
Happy Computer 
Issue 04/1987 - #16 Best Game in 1986 (Readers' Vote)
PC Gamer 
April 2005 - #32 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
Power Play 
Issue 01/1991 - Best Master System Game in 1990

Alternate Titles
"Ultima: Seisha e no Michi" -- Famicom title
"Ultima: Quest of the Avatar" -- NES title
"Ultima IV: Avatar no Tankyu" -- Japanese title
"Última IV" -- Brazilian Sega Master System title

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Description from the packaging:

Prepare yourself for a grand adventure: Ultima IV, sixteen times larger than Ultima III, is a milestone in computer gaming. Lord British has produced a game to challenge, not only your physical and mental skills, but the true fabric of your character.
The evil triad of Mondain, Minax, and the hellspawn Exodus, have been vanquished and peace reigns throughout the land of Britannia. Evil yet abounds, but in isolated pockets and in the hearts of men. A new age awaits the coming of one who can conquer evil on all frontiers through the mastery of both magic and the use of force. Daemons, dragons, and long-dead wizards still plague the countryside and must be destroyed. The seeker on the path of the Avatar will face hostile groups composed of mixed enemy types and will survive such encounters only by strategic use of weapons and terrain. Earthly victories over seemingly impossible odds lead to the final conflict, where the ultimate challenge- the self- awaits.

Two full game disks, front and back.
Full conversations with hundreds of characters.
Multiple range weapons.
Unified magic system of unmatched subtlety.
Dozens of combat screens.
Hundreds of individually designed dungeon chambers.
Dozens of unique shops to explore.


http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/ultima-iv-quest-of-the-avatar
