I can do anytime that evening, so if adjusting slightly one way or the other works better for you, I'm all for it! I like the topic ideas, and I'm sure we can think of some more during the course of discussion.

I need to do some experimenting, but now I'm wondering if we could use something like Parsec to allow multiple people for switching player control. It shouldn't preclude OBS to live-stream from the host machine as long as there's sufficient bandwidth. Probably the biggest question is if Parsec would work with Sheepshaver at all, and if not, falling back to the single player plus chat is a good option.

Excellent idea, Pallas! I'm happy to help out any way I can 😀

Cythera's a bit tricky since there's no multiplayer, but we could have a Discord chat running while someone does the playing. Richard Moss' live stream for EV:O had him play while Matt Burch read and answered comments from the chat. Depending on the logistics of when/where/how, I imagine we can have at least a fun discussion and spend some time reminiscing about Cythera. I wonder if we should at least ask Gandreas if he would consider taking part... 🤔

I feel compelled to complain more about the Ultima user interface. As I mentioned, it's too much like a DOS game for my liking with mediocre graphics and bad UI, but honestly, that's being a bit generous about the UI. Just trying to test the different games, I found you can't exit from the main menu, only in game, and the method of exiting changes every single game! Sometimes it's X or Q, it could be ctrl-x or alt-x, or maybe alt-ctrl-right-click-x-q! AAAGGGHHH! It's really awful. It should not be so hard to save and exit.

Anyways, I toyed around with the Exile series the other day, and it's another franchise very similar to Ultima and Cythera. I guess I'd never played these turn-based RPGs outside Cythera, so I had no point of reference, but all of them have underlying commonalities in terms of dialogue, party management, and combat.

Exile is actually pretty nice. The plot is interesting, and each game further builds on the world and lore. You get a lot of control over each member in the party and combat is fun. I found the controls much easier to understand. It's hard to beat the simplicity of Cythera's modular system, but Exile feels more like a Mac game than Ultima ever could.

While I liked the story, Jeff Vogel, the creator of Spiderweb Software, must have loved it! Not only did he remake Exile in the early 2000's as the Avernum series, but he remade it a second time in the 2010's by rebooting Avernum I, II, and III. That's a reboot every 5 to 10 years; even Hollywood would be jealous!

@Wizard said in Someone was really mad at Andrew...:

Yes, I have a mostly complete backup of the HTML.

When I wrote this, I was sure everything but the "Just" discussion boards had been saved. However, at sierro's prompting, I had a look through the files to confirm which boards I have, and now I'm realizing the archive isn't as complete as I thought. Sadly, B&B, Redline, and Ambrosia's general support forums are missing as well. It's really too bad this slipped my mind! There were ample opportunities to get these backed up just a couple weeks ago, but I didn't worry since I was sure it was done! Oh well... so it is with all data loss.

I'd been leaning toward option 4, but that may be overkill for these reference forums since the general discussion boards are missing. I suppose a static archive is a good idea too; I'd just want to figure out a convenient way to search them.

This is some excellent detective work by Pallas, 453, and Buzzzzy! I have never managed to use the lock picking skill successfully, and this may well be the answer because I divide food frequently. It sounds like you can easily unlearn this skill. What a waste of an experience point! 😛

I still wonder why the mushroom steak exists at all but is never used in the game. Maybe it was for a quest or something.

In regards to the source of the bug and possible fix, why doesn't this happen with other foods/skills? Do most skills have a subtype or is it more to do with overlapping IDs?

@Pallas-Athene said in Someone was really mad at Andrew...:

Just to be clear, you have a complete but inaccessible archive, right? Mine is accessible but incomplete. I only backed up the Ares and Cythera forums, though I’m happy to incorporate more from a complete backup. (I would rather move it to a better URL, though)

Yes, I have a mostly complete backup of the HTML. I also didn't backup resources since the script that did the crawling was the same used to convert to NodeBB, and that was focused on preserving text due to resources largely being replaced by the new forum software.

Did you also back up addons? I have archives of the Ares, Cythera, Avara, and Harry addons.

Note that I didn’t back up all the resources, only the HTML, so now that ambrosiasw.com is down, the pages look a little broken.

Yep, here's that archive. It's quite ugly, but I didn't keep any of the original HTML for that. I just pulled the info into a json file and used that to generate the pages seen there.

I would favor the static archive option, though I’m not sure either location is necessarily the best place (I’ve considered registering the org variant of ambrosiasw.com for stuff like this, but haven’t yet).

Actually, I was checking the whois earlier, and ambrosiasw.com expires next March! Andrew may not renew it, although no knowing how much it would cost to get. That being said, since it's such a small community, the domain may not be as much an issue.

I don’t think it makes sense to do this work up-front. Maybe the B&Bers will want a live forum, but I suspect they would probably do that work themselves and host their own live forum.

The B&Bers might. They're part of my uncertainty as I'm happy to let them backup and host their own forum. On the other hand, there's so many other forums mixed in that I really want available for reference (e.g. Ferazel's Wand, PoG, EV, & EVO), but I'm not sure about splitting them out.

Last week, a new member of ASW's web board, aregag or something similar, went on a spamming spree and gravedug hundreds of topics across the various subforums. They'd made 600 or 700 posts last I saw, each with some variant on "Andrew Welch is a SCAMMER!!!". However you may feel about it, you must admit it was an impressive commitment to spamming!

That was around Monday July 15, and ASW was down, web board and all, by Friday July 19. They may come back online; they have before. In the six years since all the developers were laid off, ASW has gone off and on any number of times. But I have a feeling this is truly the end of Ambrosia. For one thing, their web board has been so thoroughly defaced with personal attacks levied at Andrew that I can't see him turning the forum back on without removing all the spam. For another thing, the web board has so many issues at this point, I doubt any moderator or admin can login to remove the spam. Then there's the problems of no email server, expiring SSL certificates, and the backlog of orders that need filling while the online store continues to take money. At the end of the day, Andrew probably decided to switch the server off and that's that.

We've been independent of ASW for some time, so I'm not worried about it. I'm making this post partly to record what happened for my own reference, partly to share the Ambrosia Times Archive it inspired me to make, and partly to solicit some opinions.

As an inveterate archivist, I'm trying to preserve as many old ASW materials as possible. Macintosh Garden has a nice collection, and of course you can visit the website throughout history using the Wayback Machine at archive.org. Cythera Guides has a few relevant pages as well. I'm comfortable saying everything is saved and accessible at this point, except the forums. Pallas has a very nice archive, although I don't believe he has subforums like Ferazel's Wand or Escape Velocity backed up. (Can you confirm if you have these, Pallas? I may just be struggling to find them and will happily add links if so!)

Since there's a lot of useful information spread throughout the old web board, it'd be good to have that content somewhere, and I did pull down a complete copy a few months ago. Now I'm trying to decide what to do with it.

One option is an archive in the older format, similar to what Pallas has. In this case, (1) if Pallas likes, we could morph the files into his archive and extend it to be a complete mirror of the old web board. Alternatively, I can (2) adjust the pages and put up a similar archive on Cythera Guides.

The other option is an updated format like these boards. It should be possible to (3) merge all the other boards into an "Archives" section of these forums, or I can (4) create a different subdomain (like forums.archives or asw.forums) and host a different NodeBB instance for the other forums there.

I'm really not sure what's best. I don't like (1) if it pushes a lot of effort on Pallas. (2) seems like a lot of work for a system that would ultimately not be searchable. I favor (3) or (4) because NodeBB makes browsing and searching so easy, it brings new life to all the old pages. However, (3) might migrate these boards away from a Cythera focus, and (4) might be an unnecessary use of resources if a static archive will do.

It's a bit of a quandary, and I don't want to be unfair to anybody. I'm happy to help preserve everything and encourage the different communities to take part but also want to balance that with the goals of Cythera Guides.

Sorry for another long and wandering Wizard™ post! All this was to ask: What do you guys think? Should a full web board archive exist? Which option would you favor?

Another gravedig... but after trying some Ultima, I started thinking about Theldrow and decided to look at it again.

Theldrow is too difficult if you ask me, and I"m honestly not sure if anyone's ever finished it without cheating. It's just too easy to lose your character to corruption or getting stuck, and there's no reliable way to build up a character given how limited resources like money are.

Following BW's lead, I played through with Pandora's Box. I was able to find almost all the stats that influence you, which made me invulnerable. BW, you're right that there are multiple variables affecting clerical spells, one for each of the five levels, a general one for divine favor, and a measure of devotion to gauge experience. I also agree that experience tracking doesn't seem to work correctly. The only thing I could find was a spell usage counter that probably increments your magical ability, but it resets when you save/quit. The chance-to-cast calculation eluded me as well; it's some combination of values, possibly including ones I've missed.

Regarding your other comments, The Void and Improvement both apply minor changes to your stats, only The Void has a chance to fail and de-improve your character or kill you outright. And it seems only Berabaku's temple is in the game. I bet you're right that he planned to add more as he was continuing to add new features and spells up until the last release before he decided to focus on building Delver instead.

--

Anyways, my brief review:

Complaints about difficulty aside, I enjoyed Theldrow. It's strangely captivating. When trying the black and white version, it has a really nice atmosphere, even without music or sound effects. There's elements reminiscent of Cythera (picking locks, bashing doors, or using magic to proceed) but a completely different setting and plot.

It is very short. There's a lot of spells and options the player has, but in reality, you'll only end up using a few of them. The bugs and occasional crashes hinder an overall fun experience, especially around the ending when you're trying to open the portal. Once you do reach the end, it's far too abrupt. He definitely planned to expand it and release a sequel in some form, but while I would like more of this story, we got Cythera instead, so I don't mind!

--

Since so little Theldrow material is out there, I recorded my play through and posted a Let's Play Theldrow! (Cheater's Edition) video of the complete game.

Additionally, it seemed a shame not to share all my findings about relevant values and ways to cheat in Pandora's Box, so I made a small Theldrow - Tips & Cheats page on Cythera Guides.

Thanks to mrdav from Macintosh Garden, I was also able to upload a copy of Theldrow's mythology. It's an interesting read. There's really nothing in the game that suggests a shared universe with Cythera, but parts of this document do in my opinion. Lots of -ari's and -ali's, but it seems possible to me that Cythera could be yet another Outari within the Void. That matches with the Elemantali being part of the Outari (elemental beings in Cythera?), which would make the Outari something like the "barrier" and the Eldari the "chimera" in Cythera's lingo. Finally, I'd point out that Theldrow's god of the Void, Yeqy, was a mortal wizard who learned control over the Void through magic... maybe like the author of the Cipher Manuscript?

That discussion may be worth another topic in itself, but for now, I hope everyone likes the abundance of new Theldrow content to explore!

I just wanted to gravedig this very old topic 😛 to say that I spent a couple hours playing the various Ultima games yesterday, and I have fully re-affirmed my earlier statement that Cythera is better. My impression was that Cythera is a combination of the graphics of Ultima VI and a blend of the drag-and-drop/interactive elements of Ultima VII. Gandreas has stated something similar in the past, and I agree that Cythera does it all better.

In my opinion, the heart of the matter is the UI. Cythera inherited a simple control scheme due to its Macintosh origins, and, likewise, Ultima inherited a very clunky one due to its Windows roots. In Ultima VII and VIII, common tasks like moving, fighting, or even managing stats and inventory space rely on complex combinations of keys and left/right mouse clicks. You may find yourself swapping the mouse's left and right buttons to make it feel more like a traditional game. The UI has not aged well, and with the distinctly Windows/DOS feel that pervades the entire series, I can understand why so few Cythera players knew about Ultima.

With that said, I liked some things about the games. The open map in Ultima VI is actually quite clever. Cities exist at the same scale as the rest of the island. There are no in-town or out-of-town "zones" like in Cythera, and I felt this made it more immersive. I also really enjoyed the opening of Ultima VII. Beginning the game as a murder mystery works well. Where you might otherwise be put-off by exposition or pointless backstory, the idea of solving a small town murder makes a compelling way to introduce new players to the franchise.

One last observation: Certain areas of Ultima IV switch from the overhead view to a first-person perspective that reminded me heavily of Glenn Andreas' other game Theldrow. It seems safe to say that the Ultima series had been a source of inspiration to him during development of his early games.

I know this won't really fit here, and Selax will no doubt consider this topic sacrilegious, but we don't have enough traffic to warrant a general discussion board.

Anyways, I'm trying to get some of my side projects caught up this weekend, as indicated by the posts about forum migration and soundtrack links on YT. Another thing I've been working on is a Let's Play series for Ferazel's Wand.

BW inspired me to make a playthrough after she posted the Cythera one, and while I considered doing another Cythera one, it occurred to me that no one's done a level-by-level breakdown of Ferazel's Wand. It's a game I enjoy a lot and thought worth doing. The gameplay actually didn't take too long and was recorded practically months ago. The editing has taken a bit longer as I've only been able to devote snippets here and there. Now that it's mostly done, I'm starting to upload videos. I thought it worth sharing for those of you who also like Ferazel's Wand:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMpENug413HEFKgpIxFLKTJ41mzD-jsaL