showing 5 games

namepublisher(developer)year arrow_downwarddescription
Tibia CipSoft1997The idea of writing an online role-playing game emerged during autumn 1995. Unlike the text based multi-user-dungeons at that time, Tibia should have a graphical user-interface, thus giving players a better impression of the world they live in. Concrete plannings started in the Easter holidays 1996, and by January 7th, 1997, a permanent public server was ready to be launched. Since then, the game has continuously been developed further, and the number of players grew steadily. Now tens of thousands of players visit Tibia every day, thus making it one of Europe's largest online role-playing games.
[From official site]***Requires Internet access.
[Zerothis]
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A Tale in the Desert  eGenesis;Pluribus Games2003A monthly fee, free software, social MMORPG set in Ancient Egypt without combat. The focus of the game is activities such as fishing, growing crops, training animals, mining, and such whereby players advanced most efficiently when they cooperate. There are also personal and group challenges to perform. The game has a unique in game government where players themselves are elected and a legal system operated much by the players also. The legal system can ban players, redistrubute abandon property, or even allow or disallow rule altering actions such as individual requests to have a sex-change. The highest office is Demi-Pharaoh, a position that allows the player power to reassign property absolutely, change and influence rules of the game, and even effectively remove players from the game making a tyrannical regime with real-world powers a real possibility (so elections are taken seriously). The systems of the game require a tremendous amount of cooperation. Attempts at adding currency to the game have not been effective, the setting (like the real world example) just doesn't lend well to anything except bartering. New players enter the world at 'newbie island' where experienced players can gain advancement by visiting and helping new players to learn the basics of the game while they also advance. Tests, challenges and player development are divided into categories: Architecture, Art, Body (Health), Harmony (replaced and is a variant the Conflict category), Leadership, Thought, and Worship. There are 127 other 'lesser' categories that have not all been found. Details of the game are sometimes added by developers without announcement. It is up to a player to discover it the new features and tell others so that they can explore it together.

Unique challenges have been presented to the players due to this games unusual format.
Knightmare, Mafia, and another player attempt to force everyone to use the legal system more responsibly. As part of their effort, Mafia damaged a vital resource in the game (effectively detrimentally altering the entire game experience for all players). Players used the legal system to ban Mafia from the game.
A player named Khepry overly-depleted resources and indirectly cause massive environmental catastrophe in the game.
Some skills, called 'stranger skills' allow a player to take advantage of everyone else when they learn them. Effectively, it is possible to learn and then use anti-social skills in the game.
A Character named Malaki traded worthless materials and advocated slavery for women (in addition to treating them as worthless to begin with).
In one phase of the game, treasure chests contaminated with Lung Spore Disease began washing ashore. Players were offered the challenge of finding a cure. Getting the disease inhibited the victim making it more difficult to participate in finding a cure or efforts to stop the disease from spreading. The sick had to be treated. It was left entirely to players to solve the various secondary problems with only the cure itself being programmed into the game.

2014-04-29 ATitD operations were shifted to Pluribus Games
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XUltima IV  author2004Choices for installing**.
1. Ultima Arcanum PPA (as of 2014-08-01, I recommend this option for Ubuntu users)
2. Acquire and convert the RPM to DEB
3. Compile from source


Check here for resources <http://xu4.sourceforge.net/download.php>
Acquire the original Ultima VI, v1.01 perferred.
Optionally, acquire the VGA patch.

===================================================================
1. Ultima Arcanum PPA
===================================================================
$sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dallen.wilson/ultima
$sudo apt-get install xu4

OR for compiling:

$sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dallen.wilson/ultima
$sudo apt-get source xu4

The PPA has versions for Maverick and Trusty but the package doesn't enforce these versions (may install on any version of Ubuntu).

===================================================================
2. One simple way for DEB systems is to install the dependencies and convert and install the RPM to DEB using alien in a terminal
===================================================================
[code]$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install alien libsdl1.2 libsdl-mixer1.2 libxml2 timidity
$sudo alien -di xu4-1.0beta3-1.i386.rpm[/code]

The RPM package provided by the creators will convert to deb with no problems to DEB platforms (Alien or another package converter) up to version 1.0beta2 (beta3 and beta4 fail due to dependencies). The source code will also compile easily on ubuntu systems. Dallen Wilson's Ultima Arcanum PPA has source and deb packages for Ubuntu Maverick and Trusty (which covers all version between). The Trusty build is provided daily.

===================================================================
2. How to Compile xu4 from SVN in Ubuntu (and possibly other NIXum)
===================================================================
In Terminal:
[code]$sudo apt-get install alien build-essential checkinstall libxml2-dev libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev subversion timidity[/code]

Acquire the latest xu4 source code:
**[code]$svn co https://xu4.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xu4 xu4[/code]
These directories may need to be created first. It harms nothing to run this command anyway:
[code]$sudo mkdir /usr/local/share/pixmaps /usr/local/lib/u4 /usr/local/share/applications/[/code]

Enter the main xu4 source directory and build the project*:
[code]$cd xu4/trunk/u4/src
make clean
make[/code]

Use your package manager to remove any older version of xu4 you have*

Now to install*:
$sudo checkinstall -Dy --pkgname xu4-mybuild --arch i386

Check install will create a deb file with a name similar to xu4-mybuild_20110730_i386.deb (based on the pkgname you chose and the date of the svn)
Use "--arch amd64" with checkinstall if you built for 64-bit (and are not on 64-bit, likewise "--arch i386" will build a 32-bit version).
Use "-Sy" to build a Slackware package
Use "-Ry" to build an RPM package
Slackware and RPM have additional options that can be investigated with:
$man checkinstall

To get the latest xu4 again, go to the directory that contains the xu4 directory and enter*:
$svn update xu4


*These steps must be done every time to compile from source.
**2014 These instructions no longer work on Ubuntu 12.04 precise and must be modified. I have found no RPM that converts successfully due to additional package requirements that will not function properly after converting.
**instead, use [code]$svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/xu4/code/trunk xu4-code[/code]***The xu4 game engine is a standalone Ultima IV clone also capable of running the original or VGA patched versions of Ultima IV on a variety of platforms. It is also capable of running new RPGs. xu4 Also allows extensive modding of the graphics, enemies, items, and certain game logic. To date (2014), no totaly conversions or hacks have been created to utilized these features (I guess the developers got UIV perfect on the first try :)

The full version of Ultima IV for DOS was 'made available for free download' at selected sites by Origin (subsequently purchased by Electronic Arts). However, it remains proprietary and not defined as "freeware" or "public domain" (these downloads can disappear or the priced raised at any time at Electronic Art's option). Several homebrew upgrades exist for this game that add features such as VGA graphics and Midi sound. xu4 can used these upgrades as well, or simply recreated the original DOS experience (or the Amiga experience, for that matter). The xu4 project allows this game to run on Linux, Mac OS 8, Mac OS X, Windows, and other operating systems.

The Ultima series continued to innovate with the release of each game in the series. With the 4th game released for Apple ][ and then ported to IBM-PC, the genre was taken to bran new places. And now, playable on Linux. There is no evil big bad enemy to defeat, and the point of the game is not to take advantage of people to get stuff to go defeat the enemy. Rather, the point of the game is for the main character to become a champion of virtue. The goals are literally honesty, humility, honor, spirituality, valor, justice, compassion, sacrifice, courage, truth, and love. Actions, inactions, even words can have less than apparent unhelpful or helpful consequences. Yes, there are still monsters to fight and treasures to find, but this makes up less than 1/8th of the game and the care and purpose in handling these things is more important than the end result.

[spoiler=Show Orb Refresh Cheat;hide cheat]Use an orb. Press Q to save. Press Alt+X to exit. Find the dngmap.sav file (.xu4/ in your home folder in Linux). Delete it. Run the game and [b]J[/b]ourney onward. The orb is ready to use again. [b]Note, deleting dngmap.sav undoes everything in the current dungeon as if you'd gone to another dungeon and come back.[/b][/spoiler][spoiler=Show Chest Refresh Cheat;hide cheat][b]G[/b]et all the chests in a level of a dungeon (not ones in a room on on the surface). Press Q to save. Press Alt+X to exit. Find the dngmap.sav file (.xu4/ in your home folder in Linux). Delete it. Run the game and [b]J[/b]ourney onward. All the chests you have [b]G[/b]otten are there to [b]G[/b]et again. [b]Note, deleting dngmap.sav undoes everything in the current dungeon as if you'd gone to another dungeon and come back.[/b][/spoiler]
[Zerothis]
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ogame  author2013Excessive waiting can be mitigated or eliminated by using dark matter. Natrually occuring dark matter is extremely rare. However, this version of the game does not impliment sales using real monetary sources (by default) and therefore dark matter is free (by default). labelminimizeminimize
Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues  Portalarium2018The game includes an offline mode. A classic Ultima style story by Tracy Hickman (no involvement by EA). 5 guaranteed episodes (there probably be more eventually)

Online modes are "open", "friends", and interestingly, "solo". It seems one can experience the online world version populated only by AI players and opponents or with only a select group of friends (together or verses, it would seem).

It seems to be shaping up to be a [s]direct competitor[/s] superior replacement to Ultima Online, period[s]by offering all the UO features plus many more[/s]. Also, I've been playing beta content and seeing some content that seems vaguely familiar. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that among the vast amount of worlds and content a small subset of it is [game=#38049]Ultima IX[/game] done right.

"Vendors sell vendors.. Its obscene" -redfish***[media=youtube]gSZLrF657yo[/media]
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