Who in the heck is Gwenno?

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by DaBigDawgND, Nov 15, 2006.

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  1. DaBigDawgND

    DaBigDawgND I am the Grim Reaper

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    I have ran in to her every game I have played and have just played along. Is there a specific reason that you run into her? I hope I am not asking to reveal a spoiler here just dont understand is all. Thanx.
     
  2. Old Book

    Old Book Established Member

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    Character from the Ultima games, making a cameo courtesy of the great Shining Ted.
     
  3. ShadowDragoon

    ShadowDragoon Advocate of Vengence

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    Ah. So, my guess was right about her being from Ultima. I heard those games are pretty good. This just gives me a reason to play them now.
     
  4. Astaroth

    Astaroth Member

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    The Ultima Games rule. I don't know about the online or underworld, but 1 through 8 were all amazing huge games. What I loved most about them, was they were the first game that allowed you to attack townspeople or rip stuff off. You'd pay a harsh price with the guards and so forth, but that the option was there.. that was really cool.
     
  5. DaBigDawgND

    DaBigDawgND I am the Grim Reaper

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    Forgive my ignorance but what are the Ultima games? Never heard of them. Are they anything like ToEE?
     
  6. ShadowDragoon

    ShadowDragoon Advocate of Vengence

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    It's one of the oldest computer roleplaying game franchises. Counting among its ranks is the first ever MMORPG. The earlier games were text-based, but later ones were more like Baldur's Gate.
     
  7. Astaroth

    Astaroth Member

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    The Ultima games had huge levels and dungeons and each game literally had at least a hundred different quests. Out of 1-8, the only one I didn't like was number 2, but all the rest were awesome. You could hike through out giant maps and wander into different creatures and towns. There were pirate ships, magic carpets, demons and dragons. I've never played a game that had harder dragons to beat. Sometimes a dragon would gate in a demon, and then that demon would gate in another demon, etc... Brutal. One of the games you would actually have to buy or find the different spell components or you couldn't cast the spells.

    They are worth checking out if you have a few hundred free hours on your hands, cause that's about how long it took to beat them. I was only able to beat number 5 and number 7.

    The characters and story lines are all done quite well.
     
  8. Enilno

    Enilno Quicksword

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    My favorites were Ultimas III - V (on the Commodore 64!), but maybe that's because I never really played VI or VII. VII, in particular, seems to be well regarded. I liked Ultima I and II OK, but they're a bit more primitive than the others (what, no music?!?). I played VIII, but couldn't get into it. I understand Ultima IX was an unfortunate finale.

    Ultima III was really a step forward -- a much larger world, with music, and you got to bring a party of four adventuring 'heroes'. You could be quite evil, lots of stealing and killing guards, and still wind up the hero in the end.

    Ultima IV was another huge step forward, with much richer storyline, and you had to actually behave like a hero -- this was the goal, to be the avatar of virtue.

    Ultima V built on IV beautifully with an even richer storyline (the eerie Shadowlords), and more realistic play (night and day, NPC schedules, etc.).

    Gwenno was Iolo's wife. (So, who was Iolo?)

    Gwenno, I think first showed up in Ultima II (as Gwen, with Iolo -- both jesters IIRC, but I don't think you could talk to either of them). Ultima II was a bit strange taking place on Earth (instead of the usual Ultima world of Sosaria/Britannia) and with the time travel (and rocket ships and other planets). You even got to time travel to the post nuclear apocolypse future (Cold War era influence ... appropriate for the early '80s). A bit primitive, though ... amazing how fast one could run right across Asia. The most powerful weapon in Ultima II was 'Enilno', the Quicksword (hey that sounds familiar...).

    I don't recall Gwenno in Ultima III, but she shows up again in Ultima IV (the first Ultima when you actually get to have conversations with the NPCs instead of canned one-liner responses) as Iolo's wife. (Iolo is one of the recruitable companions, a Bard.) In Ultima V, Gwenno is still Iolo's wife, but you can also recruit her into your party (she's a Bard like her husband).
     
  9. Astaroth

    Astaroth Member

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    One of the classic bugs in Ultima was camping for the night. The party would circle a little fire and sleep. If you had a bard in the party, he would play a little tune on his mandolin, to ease the party members to sleep. The bug was, after your party made their little campfire, the members would randomly find a place around the fire to sleep, but sometimes someone in the party would actually decide to sleep in the fire. ACK! ACK! ACK! Throughout the night as they took fire damage, waking up worse off then when they went to sleep.
     
  10. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    I don't think I had that happen... weird.

    Ultima II was my favourite! That game was sheer fun from beginning to end (with no moral issues like U4 to spoil things ;) ). It wasn't the best in the series by any means, but it was (imho) the most fun.

    I never finished U7 part II or U8 (and never even saw U9 :( ) but certainly for the first 7 they maintained a very hi level of quality of gameplay.
     
  11. Enilno

    Enilno Quicksword

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    Well, I did enjoy Ultima II, but it got a little tedious with the old gather gold, go to Hotel California, try to increase stats routine (randomly -- and don't go over 99 or you're back to 0!). I found the best gold gathering method was to commandeer a ship in the time of 'Legends' and sail around the world a few times and then blast away at the line of baddies that formed.

    I liked Ultima III the best for sheer fun (with no morals). First of all there was music -- different themes for different situations (e.g., the creepy 'dungeon' theme, or the battle theme (so catchy it made its way into Shiningted's Desperate Housewives)). I also enjoy having a party instead of just a solo adventurer. And you could play Ultima III with many many different party combinations (races and classes). Some of the classes were pretty crappy (think Alchemist and Illusionist), so you could give yourself a challenge (especially if you pick non-optimized race and class combos (e.g., Dwarf Alchemist)). The graphics were better. The dungeons were better (and you had reasons to go in them). Of course you also had the tedious 'gather gold and go to Ambrosia to increase your stats' routine that usually consisted of raiding the merchant store room in Death Gulch over and over and then off to Ambrosia. Of course, you could always break up with wiping out the Guards and anyone else who annoys you in Death Gulch. The Daemon greeter usually bit it every time my party left town regardless (Begone Fool!).

    There's a well-done shareware remake of Ultima III available here if you have a Macintosh to run it on. (It's free to play or download, but you can't get to Ambrosia unless you pay $15 for the code to unlock it.) I have on old Mac that I keep around pretty much only for this purpose when I decide I need an old-school Ultima fix.

    As for the campfire ACK! ACK! ACK!, was that Ultima V? That sounds vaguely familiar.
     
  12. shoprat

    shoprat Member

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    actually I think you can get all the games in the original manner at: abandonia.com and do a search for ultima. I dont know if there is copy protection on the games or not but if there are (I found some on dark sun when I found it on there site) you can find a lot of game manuals for download free if you searh google for game docs and the name of the game you want to find also.
    I found a link that has the first 6 ultima game manuals here www.ultimainfo.net/documents/index.htm
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2006
  13. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    I've got CD versions, C-64 emulators, remakes and abandonia stuff... and yeah, U III was damn atmospheric, the music, the inability to see what was behind the deep wooods or the mountains (and the ability to raid the towns). Back when games were a sheer joy on every level (well, the good ones).

    hint: the 'other' command in U III could be used to 'bribe' guards, as u probably know. But the parsing thing meant any 5-letter word ending in e would do the job: i 'f*cke'd many a guard who stood in my way ;)
     
  14. Sapper_Astro

    Sapper_Astro Established Member

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    Ultima 5 was my favourite of the bunch.
     
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