Avatarship
Produced by: Zonker
Website: Avatarship – Ultima 4 Remake (re)Polished @ Neverwinter Vault
Releases:
A remake of Ultima 4 as a mod for Neverwinter Nights. This version requires the Shadows of Undrentide expansion.
A remake of Ultima 4 as a mod for Neverwinter Nights. This version does not require the Shadows of Undrentide expansion.
Game data and additional assets — beyond what is included by default in Neverwinter Nights — required by Avatarship.
Custom, Ultima-themed music files for Avatarship.
Zonker’s Neverwinter Nights-based remake of Ultima 4 is generally thought of as the first of the Ultima fan remakes to have reached completion. It is a reasonably faithful re-creation of Ultima 4, although due to the limitations of the engine there are some aspects of the original game that have not been implemented in it.
Avatarship should be compatible with most versions of Neverwinter Nights patched to at least version 1.32. There are two versions of the module, one that requires the Shadows of Undrentide expansion pack, and one that does not.
I tried the version off NWVault (not sure if this was the SoU one or not, only that it was 1.3) with NWN/SoU/HotU-1.68, and 99% of conversations were broken. Are there any known compatibility issues/fixes/workarounds with regards to Avatarship?
Well, I would assume that NWN 1.68 is now officially a compatibility issue.
1.3 is the “newest” version of the module, and requires NWN+SoU v1.32 to work. I see by the comments on its NWVault entry (link) that the most recent comment was…today, in fact, and apparently he had no troubles playing it.
This may be a hak pak problem — the latest version of the necessary hak pak is on the vault here if necessary.
It may also be an incompatibility with HotU; try installing only the NWN+SoU combo for the moment and see if that works.
Finally, it may indeed be a version incompatibility, and if so I’m not sure what to suggest. You might try opening the module in the Toolset, if you have it, as it will prompt for the module to be updated to the 1.68/HotU/SoU spec; this *might* fix whatever is wrong, but I don’t know for certain.
Nevermind, should have RTFM. I hadn’t realised the conversation system had been recreated to that degree…
And now that I know how to play the game and speak to people, I’m coming across an inventory issue. Stuff isn’t showing up properly.
Define “isn’t showing up properly”?
I open up the inventory display, nothing is shown. Click on another tab, then back, and it comes back again. However, none of the equiped items (e.g.) rings seem to be showing up, either.
i’m not aware that Zonker wrote his own inventory system, but I can also not find any mention in the NWVault entry for the project (in the comments) that people have had inventory issues of this nature.
I’ll investigate more. Note that my observations about an incompatibility with HotU, for example, might still apply here.
Hmmm — I never encountered that particular bug — SSlaxx – what version of NWN are you using ? Also — what expansions have you installed (if any) ?
I do recall some issues that did arise from having a character in the local vault that has a foreign item in its inventory — maybe you could try backinbg up the characters you have in there and try again just to see.
I just placed a bid on NWN Gold which supposedly includes the Shadows of Undrentide pack. When I look at bioware’s website the only patch I see for it is version 1.69. Can I patch NWN Gold all the way to this version and still be able to play Avatarship?
Thanks
DalTXColtsFan Dragon
You should be able to, yes; the game patch shouldn’t interfere with anything used by Avatarship.
Thanks buckets for the prompt response! I have NWN and all of the expansion packs on their way – it’ll probably be a week or two before I get around to installing them and installing this game, but I will provide feedback at my first opportunity!
Hey, no worries.
So what made you opt to bid and buy the game, rather than pick up NWN Diamond Edition off of Good Old Games?
I wish I *had* picked it up off GOG – it didn’t even occur to me that NWN would be old enough that they’d have it. I didn’t even look. I was even so dumb that I bought the Gold edition and bought the HOTU pack separately instead of just bidding on the diamond edition in the first place. I spent about 10 bucks more than I needed to.
Anyway, I installed the Gold edition, installed HOTU, and patched the whole bloody thing to 1.69. I have Avatarship Repolished 1.3 up and running (installed the mod, hak and music), but I can’t talk to anyone except the gypsy. It looks like sslax had the same problem 4 years ago – what’s the resolution?
Thanks
DalTXColtsFan Dragon
If I don’t see him comment here in the next day or so, I’ll make a post about it. Honestly, that’s not one bug I’m familiar with.
So, which one U4 NWN remake is better? I see that Avatarship have more size. Is it include more faithful graphical content? And can one of this U4 remakes match with Project Britannia ones ?
It’s kind of an apples-to-oranges comparison, Sevarian. Both Avatarship and Ultima 4 Reborn are built — as you note — with Neverwinter Nights. Project Britannia, on the other hand, is built in Dungeon Siege, a fundamentally different game with a substantially different engine. Everything will be different between games built with these two systems, including (and perhaps especially) graphics (especially vertical scale) and control style.
If you’re asking: can these remakes match the overall quality and experience of Lazarus or the Ultima 6 Project, my gut feeling is that the answer would be “no”, in no small part because those projects were the result of years upon years of coordinated teamwork. They will have substantially higher production values, as it were.
By contrast, the two NWN-based Ultima 4 remakes were (as far as I know) the work of small teams…maybe even a single person in each case. There’s almost no way that they will match either Dungeon Siege-based remake for overall quality…though it is possible that they might be more faithful remakes.
All of which is to say: it kind of depends on how you’re measuring what is better and what is not, doesn’t it?
Yeah, i should try both myself someday. Just because 4,5,6 form second trilogy and lack of proper reviews of both nwn modules makes me wonder about it.
They are older efforts, from before the remakes really became “high profile”. Hence the lack of attention, I suppose.
Still, out of the two U4 NWN remakes, which one’s “better”? Not compared to the DS remakes of U5 and U6, but to each other. Has anybody played both? How do they compare? What are the differences? What are the similarities? In which areas is this one better than “Ultima IV Reborn” and vice-versa?
I have both Ultima IV Reborn and Avatarship up and running on my machine, and my first response is that of the two, Avatarship seems the easier of the two to get started with. On January 31 I posted a comment (see above) that I couldn’t talk to anybody. I can now – I’m guessing that what happened is I was expecting Avatarship to have the same menu-driven conversations as U4Reborn and it doesn’t – when you right click on a character to talk, you actually have to type what you want to say in the Talk: window, then it works. I’m able to explore and talk in Avatarship and so far it looks good.
I started out in Ultima 4 Reborn as the Paladin and I’m struggling to figure out how to “get anywhere”. There’s no compass that I can see (unless I just don’t know how to turn it on), and when I leave Trinsic to go explore, I get to a place where the grass changes color, there’s one of those door icons along the border, but it won’t let me progress any further.
That’s my two cents!
DalTXColtsFan Dragon