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Nubsauce
Do you want to play the game?

You know not of what I speak.
In the start all is well, the Lord of Time is not the goal.
Take heed your steps and chase them close.
Think hard now, what is thy goal?
When one foot falls view the tread.
Make sure the point will move you there.

I’m sure that you’ll figure it out soon enough. And I’m sure there are plenty of people that already know what I’m talking about (even if they have no idea what the above meant).

Personally, I feel that the 10 FPS option looks horrific. Yes, it is faster, but it looks terrible and can be quite disorienting.

Scaling up the video does make things look nicer, however it makes a huge impact on the speed of the game if the CPU can’t keep up. This also increases the size of the video, and can lead to dropped frames.

As far as the audio goes, I’d say the best way to go is to use the digitized sounds. I can give a short write-up on configuring everything if needed, as the Exult documents are a bit outdated.

Also, Glass Swords don’t seem to work the way you think they do, not under Exult anyhow. For instance, with the Avatar at level 6, it takes three swords to kill the Stone Harpy in Spektran. With the Avatar at level 3, the thing is still alive after the fourth.

Things you seem to have overlooked:

* Getting the Ethereal Ring from Spektran (the Stone Harpy must be killed to get the key).

* Getting the requisite items to unlock Penumbra’s house.

Helpful Tips:

* Use the Orb of the Moons to jump to the Minoc Moongate, then run through the tunnel. It will put you out right at the Gypsy wagon.

* Then use the orb to jump to the Yew gate. Taylor (I think) is just a bit South East of the gate at this point during the game.

* Now you can run down to the Magic Carpet at Despise.

* There is a thieves’ camp due South of the Emp village. They have some honey in a backpack near the fire. You can land the carpet at the camp and jack the honey, which is considerably faster than running through the Giant Bee Cave.

* After you have destroyed the Liche in Skare Brea, you don’t have to convince the Mayor to jump into the Well of Souls (unless you really want the Firedoom Staff). Caine will give you the Answers to Life and Death without doing this step. This save a lot of time.

* Don’t forget that you can talk to people while still flying the carpet. You don’t have to land. This saves a lot of time when speaking to the Emps and Ben the lumberjack (as well as the Ferryman at Skare Brea if you go for the Firedoom Staff). You can even talk to Nystul in Castle British this way (he is in the courtyard during the day) if you need regs, or if you can not afford a specific spell the first time you are there.

* Use the Northern entrance to Dungeon Deceit (fly North past the main entrance, there is a valley in the mountains with another entrance at the northern-most point). This saves a lot of time.

* In Dungeon Deceit, be sure to stick to the Eastern side of the North-bound hallway to avoid being struck by lightning.

* Finally, the big red guy inside the Tetrahedron does not have to be killed! Just use a blue potion on him. He will disappear (he’s not gone, he will reappear in just a few seconds). Use the cube thing in the middle before he reappears and the Tetrahedron will crumble!

Notsomaster: If done well, you will only be in the general area of Paws once, and that’s when you run up from Trinsic. I have not yet investigated using the carriage, that might be something to look into. However, you have to leave the carriage in Paws anyway (I think), so I don’t think it would make too much of a difference. As far as the ships go, it’s not really necessary because you get the carpet very quickly.
Hmmm all nice analyzes of the game how ever the glass swords were working for me in my normal run I will test again if not I will have to find something to substitute in place of it.  What are your thoughts on the use of the chest south of trinsic it has some nice goodies including a full set of rings and magic armour as well as 600 gold and fire sword and sword of defense.  I found using the ring of invisibility an easy and cheap way to kill things safely especially the liches at the end as they have an instant death spell.  Could a spell such as death bolt be used against enemies instead of glass swords.  I won't be actively doing a lot on the run for a few weeks coming to the end of semester so lots of fun exams for me but it looks like we will be working together yet competing and as for graphics settings after playing for a while I see you opposition to 10fps so lets play at 5fps that sound fair
Edit history:
qbradq: 2007-05-15 10:34:24 pm
Nubsauce
Glass Swords - I am not entirely sure what is going on with my glass swords. Either I am missing and they are still breaking, or the damage is random rather than a static 127. I any case, it doesn’t matter that much.

Chest South of Trinsic – Totally unnecessary. Just use the invisibility rings and glass swords to kill what needs to be killed. Never mind about the money (see below).

Killing Stuff – The liches at the end of the game can be ran through while wearing an invisibility ring. It just wastes time to kill them. The fellowship members at the Black Gate are a waste of time as well. I know it kind of sucks to get the bad ending, but this is a speed run after all.

Money - All you’ll need is 156 gold. You need 155 for spells (Unlock Magic and Telekinesis). The extra gold is to unlock Penumbra’s house. The Mayor of Trinsic gives you 100 gold for investigating the murders, and you start with 10 gold (I think). The Fellowship Hall in Trinsic has a bag with a gold ring in it (for Penumbra’s house) and a bag with 100 gold in it. This takes care of all the gold you will need.

Dispel Field Spell – It’s not needed. You’ll just have to wait a bit to see why, as it’s kind of hard to explain.

I am sorry to hear that you won’t be working on the run for a while. I started recording last night Tongue I got about half-way through the game twice (after Deceit, going to wake up Nicodemus). Unfortunately, the first run I forgot to grab the bed roll from Castle British. This REALLY hacked me off, because I encountered a fun bug during this run that resulted in Rydum (sp) flying on the carpet with me Cheesy The second time I had an odd bug with a ring of invisibility.

My first run will be segmented. The first two attempts used quick saves to save a little bit of time and hassle. Unfortunately, that means I can’t go back three segments if I messed something up or hit a bug. If I can figure out where Exult stores the quick save data, I’ll still use that method and just back everything up. If not, I’ll be using the clunky save screen.

[EDIT]
The quick save is basically the game data state. Just backup {U7DIR}\gamedata . One very convenient way of doing this is to use WinRar (right-click, add to archive).
[/EDIT]

I’ll post the first run to YouTube as well as some quality samples on the forums. I imagine it will be a while before we ever figure out if SDA will accept the run, and if anyone is willing to validate it. Still, you and me can be working on improving the route and other things.

From a Previous Post:
“I did a bit of tinkering tonight on the specifics of the first part of the game (Trinsic through to the Time Lord). We have much different approaches.”

I’ve been toying with you a bit. You’ll see what I mean when I get the first run up.

QBRADQ
First off if your doing the bad ending don't bother getting anything except the spells, ring of invisibility and the key from buccaneers den.  Ultima 7 can be broken into a couple of run categories

Good ending with cheat room - I don't think is too exciting
Good ending without cheat room - The one I plan to do as it is the most interesting IMO
Bad ending (with/without) - This one doesn't change that much whether you cheat or not it is pretty much a rush toe the Isle of the Avatar either way the cheat may just make it quicker
Then 100% which I would say is all the little side quests and doing all the fellowship stuff as well as the main goals this is pretty boring and not worth it in my opinion as it would involve a lot of travel and talking to people and anyone watching it would get lost very quickly.

And SS runs, maybe since you're doing more planning than may and ATM will get through quicker I may try to do an SS run, this isn't greatly difficult just requires me to maintain concentration and not fuck up too much

With recording I was going to use CamTasia this quickly chews through disc space but produces a nice quality video file I did try ZDsoft GameRecorder it doesn't work with exault and I don't have FRAPS so this will probably be how I record.  I'd be surprised if this did get SDA approved but it would be cool if it did.
Edit history:
qbradq: 2007-05-16 08:12:56 am
Nubsauce
I don’t really follow. I thought you had to have the Sphere, Cube, and Tetrahedron to even get the bad ending. Is there a way to run into the gate without having these three items?

As far as getting the good ending, the way I have it planned at the moment is sufficient to get the good ending as well, just have to kill Hook (and maybe the other Fellowship members, I’m not too sure) at the black gate. I’ve toyed with the idea of casting Armageddon to do them in (either buy the spell or jack the mage’s book within the Isle of the Avatar), but I haven’t even looked into the MP cost yet.

I agree that a 100% run would just be boring, same for using the cheat rooms. A single segment run is probably where this should head to, as there aren’t too many things that can totally ruin a run. There are a few bugs, but nothing that bad.

I am using CamTasia to record, using the TechSmith codec. It looks lossless. I’m not totally sure that it is lossless. It does save a ton of disk space though.

I’m also recording the game at 320x200 with no scaling. I figure there’s not much of a point in up-sampling it.

Now, if I could just stop playing GTA long enough to record this run Tongue

[EDIT]
Welp, the rough draft is now done in spite of GTA Cheesy

Now to edit and encode it, then upload it to YouTube. I’ll make a separate post in this forum for the rough draft, I don’t want to take over your thread.
[/EDIT]
QBRADQ
Edit history:
Rake: 2007-05-16 07:23:08 am
If your running the game at 2x Scaling it actually records at 640x400 and it gives me reasonable quality play so thats how I've been doing it.  A few little things I'll have to get down is the answers to the mayors questions in trinsic and just make sure I have good inventory management just it would be a pain to have your pack get too heavy and have it ruined.  Also are you taking any party members with you just I found they got in the way more than they helped, are you using mark recall, I wouldn't imagine so costs too much in gold regents and mp the time saved would be negated by the time used to get and maintain.  Are you using any weapons other than the glass swords.  With the invisibility ring although useful I was going to aim to where it as little as possible just the black and white gets annoying and wouldn't make for a nice video and I think there only a few times you really need it like the harpy the Isle and maybe the generators.  I will see if I can get the stuff I need done for Friday finished so that I will have tomorrow to play around with it but one of these assignments is being a bitch so no promises.

Edit:  Sorry you do need the prisms to get the bad ending my mistake, to get the good ending you have to kill hook but you might as well just get the bad ending it is quicker.
OK to qbradq here is a summary of suggestions on your run for those haven't seen it http://speeddemosarchive.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=pcgames;action=display;num=1179304922

- Hold down enter in conversation makes it faster
- You don't need to open the chest in Sparks house
- Maybe look for alternative way to kill harpy to remain on route
- Just micromanagement after that, making sure inventory is usable, clicking the right stuff etc.

and I must say that is one very nice route it will be hard to improve on.
Nubsauce
Quote:
Ok so I found your youtube account and watch the three videos.  Your route planning is very good and I enjoyed your wall running to avoid the liches.  However the run didn't feel polished it is frustrating to do but making sure you don't have missed clicks and have optimal inventory management is important to me.  Another tip is in conversation hold down enter you'll see why.  I had forgotten about the key and pick hot keys they will be useful and it seems only one enemy (stone harpy) must die it may be worth finding a way to kill it with out going to the glass sword cave there may be another means on route I'll have a look in to it.  I may have some time tomorrow to do my competing run only time will tell.

Ok sorry I moved this down so your comments were a block. also you don't need to use the chest in sparks house

also you don't need to use the chest in sparks house


As I said, it’s a rough draft. I mainly wanted to put the video out to set a bit of a benchmark, and to demonstrate all the little things I’ve picked up along the way. I did this run in about three hours give or take, a production quality run would take a lot longer than that (and might be single-segment).

As far as the parrot cave goes, I would like to skip it. There is a Juggernaught Hammer  in Hook’s Hideout in Buc’s Den in the backpack. It’s very fast to grab. It can take a while to take out the Stone Harpy with it though. Also, I’d need to find an invis ring at some point before the harpy. I suppose I could use invis dust as well if I could figure out where to get some, but then going the rest of the game with one invis ring would require some tinkering.

I thought you had to open Spark’s chest to get the “a chest” option during the murder report. I’ll double-check.

Also, thanks for the enter tip. I’ll have to tape that sucker down! Tongue

Origionaly posted to wrong post. Sorry about that.
Edit history:
Rake: 2007-05-16 12:29:44 pm
The judgment hammer was what I was thinking and to use a sleeping potion on it haven't tested that however.  Another option if you could get the cash is death bolt.  Also another thing that I just found is double clicking where you want to go instead of single clicking increases your running speed a lot.

Edit: OK so the judgment hammer takes 4 or 5 hits to take down the harpy and you can do it safely by using a sleeping potion you pick up from the infirmary at the start this should be quick however this mean the invisibility ring will need better management.  When buying spells at the start if you run to the edge of the castle roof so your right next to the court yard you should just be able to see the mage avoiding coming back around to speak to him.  I think it is important when you pick up the bag of regents to make sure it goes in to the carry slot in your inventory this may be a good time to do organization of the inventory.  With the double click movement it is better to swap over to holding down the movement button as you approach doors and things you wish to pick up other wise you'll end up with a lot of miss clicks.  I will tomorrow see if I can work out away to manage mana consumption so that there is no need for the sleep hopefully this will be possible but I'm not overly optimistic on this one.  I hope this helps.
Nubsauce
Quote:
When buying spells at the start if you run to the edge of the castle roof so your right next to the court yard you should just be able to see the mage avoiding coming back around to speak to him.


Yup, I try to do this on every run, but it usually doesn’t work out for me.

Quote:
I think it is important when you pick up the bag of regents to make sure it goes in to the carry slot in your inventory this may be a good time to do organization of the inventory.


You’re probably right on this one. I haven’t given much thought to inventory management on this route yet. The previous route I was using had a very nice flow to it. However, that was mainly due to the fact that I had Iolo with me.

Quote:
I will tomorrow see if I can work out away to manage mana consumption so that there is no need for the sleep hopefully this will be possible but I'm not overly optimistic on this one.


I’m not terribly optimistic myself. It mainly comes down to the order in which you do the events. The five or so seconds it takes to sleep could easily be lost in travel time. There again, we might be able to come up with a better sequence.

Last time I tried using the hammer on the harpy, I spent about twenty seconds whacking at it (I miss all the time). Same with the glass swords. What’s your secret?

Also, thanks for reminding me that there are potions in the healer’s in Trinsic Tongue

Now, maybe I’ll write a program to dump the location of every item of a certain type. That should make figuring a few things out a lot easier. Hrmm… Just thinking aloud.

QBRADQ
Edit history:
Rake: 2007-05-16 11:33:35 pm
I don't know why I'd hit more often but from watching your videos my picks also work more frequently I've never used more than three frequently get in one and then the rest of the time it takes 2.  Maybe you changed the difficulty setting its in one of the options, I've left that at normal so remains close to the original setup.

Edit: OK so I did some more with the harpy and had wildly varying luck but a good out come.  It takes two clean hits to kill it this how ever can be a bitch as you miss a lot but segmented it will be very very easy an SS run may have to consider another way of doing this.
Nubsauce
Just to let you know, I'm currently attempting to develop a method of recording the original Ultima 7 engine running under Windows 9x. If we can manage this, there would be a much greater likelihood that SDA will accept a run.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/U7inWindows.html

This has some very interesting stuff on it. However, it patches the game at execution time, which I don't think would fly. Plus, the Windows NT-based solution is totally hideous.

Right now I am focusing my efforts on finding a stable, standardize, and accurate execution slowing program that will not interfere with the capture software. I won't be able to test anything until I get 98 installed though.

Your thoughts?

QBRADQ
Nubsauce
I've been working on my item finder program, and it's going fairly well. I have found a ring of invisibility in the Isle of the Avatar caves. It's right next to the dragon, kind of under a set of magic gauntlets. It's directly on the way, so it should be quick to grab. Might come in handy, but it's so close to the end of the run it probably won't.

I'll give you the app and source code once it's more useable. In the mean time, can you think of any items that would be good to look for?

QBRADQ
Maybe if you can find a glass sword that is on the route to replace the judgment hammer.  Thats all I can think of at the moment but my brain is fried from working on a really annoying assignment all day
Edit history:
Rake: 2007-05-18 01:12:35 pm
After finish one bastard of an assignment I've managed to find a little bit of time for me at last Smiley however this time will be short lived with 3 assignments and 2 test next week, however in this rest time before next week if I find time between work and drinking I'll try get a clean first segment run (I'm going to the same point as qbradq just so the runs are consistent and are competing on fair ground)  I believe the only changes to the route for the first segment is picking up the blue potion in the infirmary, instead of talking to the guard when leaving trinsic just double clicking the winch (I believe this is faster) and getting lucky and having it so you can talk to the mage from the roof of the castle.  I have had a couple of goes at it, I had one very clean run up until I spoke to the mayor and didn't know the answer to his last question.  Mouse co-ordination is a little more difficult than I thought it would be but none less I will endeavor.

I think the judgment hammer sleeping potion or maybe just judgment hammer I will test method is better for the segmented run, depending on your patients it may be better for the SS run as well.  If I have time tomorrow I'll try do a full rough run trying to do it without the need for that sleep.

Edit: So segmented judgment hemmer almost definitely the way to go but strongly suggest at the very start of the segment with minimal to do before it.  It requires a reasonable amount of luck like over 1in 20 at least to do it as you need to land two solid hits in a row straight up, there is no need for a sleeping potion you just need to be lucky.  It is easy if you quick save as the door to the harpy is lowering and just load that point and make sure it dies in the two hits.  I don't know what the best approach for a single segment run would be however.
I'm gay, seriously.
Just tossing out crazy ideas for killing the stone harpy:

- Pick up some of the half-invisible traps from the caves, if they deal enough damage and can actually hit flying monsters. Well, that's probably a bad idea.

- Poison it. Eh, too slow.

- Bomb it to death with a powder keg or black rock. Hehe...

- One idea is to test different keys to the door. I'm not sure, but I think there were some badly designed keys that opened multiple doors in the game.

- There are some common items that can be used to cause damage on enemies, but maybe it was in Serpent Isle only? One was called "blood device" or something? Spamming it on enemies worked quite well, if my memory is correct.

I guess these did not help that much. :p

By the way, what happens if you use the Mark spell while flying over a mountain? Do you get Recalled on top of the mountain? If so, it might be possible to trigger some of the teleports that way, if they activate by walking above them (even if you don't touch them directly). There are at least two types of teleports: the teleport pads and the invisible lines. Maybe some of those could be activated from above. Or use Telekinesis through the mountain in the last dungeon to activate the liches teleport throne. I think Telekinesis should be tested in many other places too. It is potentially a game breaking spell.

I don't have U7 anymore, but I might consider installing it again sometime, because speedrunning it seems so fun idea. Then I could test some ideas myself instead of shooting stupid ideas around.
Nubsauce
Those are some good ideas Notsomaster.

I have fooled around with the Powder Kegs a bit, but for some reason I have never been able to damage the Stone Harpy with them. I’ve never used them before, so I’m not quite sure what must be done.

I do recall an FAQ referring to a “Skeleton Key” somewhere to the West of Trinsic. That FAQ did not know where it was, and I certainly don’t either. If we were able to find such a key, it would be awesome. If it did in fact open everything that is key-locked, it could save some major time.

Here’s a short list off the top of my head:

* Skip Buccaneer’s Den completely
* Won’t have to futz with all the items for Penumbra’s house
* Skip the cells with the dead woman in the Isle of the Avatar
* Skip killing the Stone Harpy for the Ethereal Ring

I know I’m jumping ahead of myself on this one, but what ever. I am going to have to re-write my item finder, as the source was on a flash drive that I lost. When I do that (should be tonight), I’ll see if there is anything named “Skeleton Key” or similar in the game’s data files.

Also, I forgot to mention previously that the Ethereal Ring is in fact needed to enter the Tetrahedron Generator. The lightning bolts still come at you a lot of the time even with the ring equipped, but if it’s not in your inventory you can’t enter the Tetrahedron.


QBRADQ
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
YAY! Ultima 7. One of my favourite games ever. The rough draft videos are very promising.  Smiley

About the Skeleton Key. In this walkthrough is described where to find it:
"(110 South, 27 West)  This island is west of Trinsic, and it is probably one of
the most important islands to visit.  Inside you'll find a key on the ground. 
This is the Skeleton Key.  It basically serves as an infinite lock pick.  It
will open any chest or door that lock picks would, yet it never breaks.  You'll
also find a few reagents".
I'm gay, seriously.
The Skeleton Key probably fails at all the important doors.

It seems that even the writer of that FAQ is not aware of the purpose of all keys. Actually, I believe there are so many keys in the game that it is possible that even the game developers made a few mistakes with them. If you, qbradq, have access to the game data, you might want to check if there are keys with identical properties. The only way to really find out would be to gather every single key in the game and test them to the harpy door.

Too bad the game is not realistic enough so that you could crush the harpy with the closing metal door. Smiley But the juggernaut hammer strategy is not bad, anyway.
Nubsauce
Thanks for that info AngusT. I had read that FAQ before, I guess I didn’t read it as well as I had thought.

The skeleton key is just a regular key (shapeType = 641) with a quality (or lock ID if you will) of 0. There are 30 such keys in the game’s map, although it is unclear at this point how many are accessible without cheating.

As for the usefulness of these keys, I’d say it’s fairly minimal. With a segmented run, there should be no reason to get any more lock picks than you start with. For a single segment run, plenty of lock picks can be stolen from the shipwright’s house in Trinsic (along with a sextant in case you get lost on the carpet).

As for normal keys, there are a total of 45 in the game’s map, which use a total of 30 different lock ID’s. Again, it is unclear how many of these keys are actually accessible.

Not in this list is the Stone Harpy’s key (lockID = 252). This is because I have yet to parse the NPC data files yet. All I can see at the moment are those items that are not within an NPC’s inventory. I will be adding this functionality shortly.

I have made a bit of progress running Ultima 7 under Windows 98 SE, but it will take much more doing to get it to work properly. And even then, I may not be able to capture the output properly.

Till next time,
QBRADQ
OK so I've found some time for testing over the weekend and found that it is unlikely that we'll be able to avoid the sleep unless the route is changed a bit or you can induce another level up in the time between needing to cast the spells, SS will be very difficulty just to give you heads up, skeleton key seems useless, where do you get the key to the back of the gambling hall I can't find it.  Been trying to record this first segment at a near perfect level but it is very frustrating so it is going to have some give but there are plenty of little things you can do to mess up like miss a click hit the wrong option in a convo have spark be standing in a spot where you can't see him to click on, have the mayor give you a shit set of questions that you mess up, have the mage in the castle stand in the wrong spot, get to the carpet and realize you forgot to get the, hammer, ring, hour glass, thread or bed role.  I will get it one of these times and I'm also getting better at clicking the slider to where I want it.
Nubsauce
As far as the key to the back of the gaming house, I have no idea how to get it. That door is lock ID 234. A key with that ID does not exist in the map data. I hope to have the NPC item data loading done fairly soon, so we'll see at that point.

It's great to hear that you're working on a run. Can't wait to see it!

QBRADQ
I wouldn't hold your breath on it as I have 6 assesment items this week and I doubt next week, the week after or even the week after that will be too much better how ever the week after those I should be on holidays and have abundant amount of time to do this run and some others I've been wanting to do for a while
Any news on this?
Well I kinda ran into some problems, 1) For that last month I was very busy and now just having a little break and playing a lot of poker 2) My recordings keep having annoying frame drops which I haven't been able to work out how to solve 3) I'm looking at doing an FFXII run which will take up a bit of time