Ultima marathon: the employed need not apply
by Tony Carnevale 
{ Mar 29th 2007 at 7:45AM }
If you've ever played an old-school Ultima CRPG, you know that finishing just one is a true feat of gaming endurance. Finishing them all could take a lifetime. But that's exactly the task undertaken by a determined Virginian who goes by the name "Ophidian Dragon." (Really hardcore Ultima fans name themselves "Dragons," with a modifier in front, like "Oatmeal Raisin Dragon" or "New York Super Fudge Chunk Dragon.") You can follow the adventure in real-time at Ophidian Dragon's website, Blogging Ultima. When will this quest end? In the words of the O.D. himself: "I have no idea." So far, it's taken a month and a half, and he's got more than four games to go. Now that's some Avatar-quality dedication.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Stephen Totilo @ Mar 29th 2007 8:05AM
Tony,
How about "Two Bit Fanboy Hack Dragon"? Welcome to the Joystiq world. Good to see you writing for them.
-Stephen
mj @ Mar 29th 2007 8:51AM
Give that man an honorary XBL Achievement! MS should just buy Guinness records and rename them Real World Achievements.
UO Guy @ Mar 29th 2007 9:35AM
Good luck trying to beat Ultima Online. The last boss is really hard.
JodyAnthony @ Mar 29th 2007 9:37AM
that is awesome! the Ultima games are some of the best games I've ever played. This would take absolutely forever though.
Diskoboy @ Mar 29th 2007 10:36AM
Oh man, we used to have weekend Ultima and Alkalabeth marathon sessions, alot of weekends, back in the early 80's. Those were the days! :)
vadermaggot @ Mar 29th 2007 11:21AM
I'd rather take a power drill to my temple.
Crono @ Mar 29th 2007 11:33AM
Funny, I was under the impression that the only people who called themselves "dragons" wore white sheets at night and lived in alabama.
JodyAnthony @ Mar 29th 2007 12:03PM
I'm not into any ultima groups or whatever but calling yourselves 'dragons' is really lame.
Bluebreaker @ Mar 29th 2007 8:09PM
That reminds me, I need to start my blog for Romance of the Three Kingdoms!!
ophidian @ Mar 30th 2007 8:03PM
It's always good to get publicity. For what it's worth, I technically *am* in Alabam right now, but I'm not that kind of dragon. Anyway, the name comes from http://www.udic.org, and you'll find most of the Ultima afficianados working on remake projects and the like also have such names.
I also want to clear up one thing in the article--There are actually 11 games left, and they'll probably all take much longer than, say, Akalabeth...So at my fairly casual pace I expect to be done sometime in 2008.
Tony Carnevale @ Mar 31st 2007 12:07AM
Hi Ophidian, great to hear from the man himself! I totally missed the part where you mentioned you were playing all the spinoffs -- my bad. So, that's the "Worlds of Ultima" games and the "Underworld" games... Plus VI, VII, VIII, and IX... even if we call the VII expansions part of VII and not full-fledged games, that's a heck of a lot of Ultima. You're a brave man.