Development
In this part of the series, Garriott delegated most of the work to others. Garriott later explained, "... I sacrificed everything to appease stockholders, which was a mistake. We probably shipped it three months unfinished."
A patch was released to correct the game's bugs as well as fix some plot holes, and eliminate most of the problems with jumping (the original release only allowed jumping over a fixed distance in eight directions while the patch enabled jump distance to be targeted; the original release also contained many moving platforms to be jumped across, the patch stopped their motion). Long-time Ultima fans jokingly referred to Ultima VIII by the nickname 'Super Avatar Brothers', in reference to the abundance of platform-jumping puzzles.
The Ultima VIII engine was later reused in the Crusader game series.
Being a DOS title, Ultima VIII has problems running on modern systems such as Windows 98 and later; however, it works reliably under the DOSBox environment. Unlike Ultima VII which used Intel's undocumented "Big real mode" which became known as Voodoo Memory at Origin, Ultima VIII used a more conventional DOS extender. An open-source project called Pentagram aims to create an engine capable of running Ultima VIII on modern operating systems, most notably Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Read more about this topic: Ultima VIII: Pagan
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“I can see ... only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.”
—H.A.L. (Herbert Albert Laurens)
“The proper aim of education is to promote significant learning. Significant learning entails development. Development means successively asking broader and deeper questions of the relationship between oneself and the world. This is as true for first graders as graduate students, for fledging artists as graying accountants.”
—Laurent A. Daloz (20th century)
“On fields all drenched with blood he made his record in war, abstained from lawless violence when left on the plantation, and received his freedom in peace with moderation. But he holds in this Republic the position of an alien race among a people impatient of a rival. And in the eyes of some it seems that no valor redeems him, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to him.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)