Ultima: Exodus: Ultima: A New Exodus

Ultima. A pioneering name in computer RPGs. A series that always has attempted to give a wide amount of leeway to players wanting to immerse themselves in a deep and engaging world. The emphasis of Ultima's creators has always been the complexity of the game world (hence their slogan "We create worlds"). Character development, however, was not the forte of games in the series (especially up until Ultima Underworld).

It could be said that of the early Ultimas, the third installment, Exodus, had the best potential. Eleven classes, five races. Two separate spell systems. Surely this could keep any character development nerds happy, right?

Well, not exactly. The class concept was implemented in a completely broken sort of way, as if it was added as an afterthought (it would be perfectly reasonable to believe this if each class didn't have its separate cool-looking avatar). When you are almost universally advised by players to avoid certain character classes (Alchemist, Barbarian, Illusionist, and even the Druid comes to mind) because they simply don't stack up to other classes, then you've failed in balancing your character development system properly. Not only this, but every class has exactly the same HP totals, and increasing levels actually hampered the party's chance of survival as Sosaria's monstrous denizens were made to scale to the most powerful adventuring character's level.

Thus, the reason for A New Exodus is clear. Though not strictly an "Easy type" mod, it endeavors to blunt several annoying aspects of gameplay, and accentuate Ultima 3's strengths. It serves to provide better distinctions between the 11 classes and 5 races, and combine the following: balance between character concepts, a smoother gradation in level of difficulty, interesting character development, balance Sosaria's scalable monsters with desirable level up features, and in so doing minimize Ultima 3's "annoyance factor". It is believed that once you play A New Exodus, you will never want to go back to the stock version!

As putting a full changelog here would make for a needlessly long entry, you can read the readme (link above), or view a comprehensive changelog with screenshots at .

Ultima 3: Exodus for NES- Ludmeister's A New Exodus Mod v1.0
http://jeffludwig.com/
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This patch kit will convert a stock version of Ultima 3: Exodus to Ultima 3:
A New Exodus Mod v1.0. Here's exactly what this will accomplish:

Though not strictly an "Easy type" mod, I have endeavored to blunt several
annoying aspects of gameplay, and accentuate Ultima 3's strengths. There's
a difference between giving the player legitimate challenges, and annoying the
crap out of the player for the sake of annoying them. For me personally,
Ultima 3 crossed that line. For example, why would raising a character's level
actually serve to penalize the party's chance of survival? Raising a level
did not meaningfully add power to the character, but it did ensure that you
would be facing much more difficult enemies.

This said, I obviously feel that the game's good qualities could be made to
overshadow those difficulties. As with many of my other mods, I have attempted
to give the player as many party customization choices as possible given the
confines of what the Ultima 3 devs gave me, and I hope I have dramatically
improved the gameplay of this early gem of an RPG, and ultimately made it
more accessible to players. Enjoy!



Notice, effective March 1st, 2012
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For this release and all new releases, I am discontinuing the use of
IPS2EXE to create patches that can be applied without an IPS patching
program. These executable patches set off certain virus and malware
scanners.



Version 1.0 Changelog
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* Painstakingly balanced the 11 Classes and 5 Races, per the charts below:

Best Weapon Best Armor HP Base HP/Lvl SP
Fighter Rune Axe Dragon Armor 225 75 None
Cleric Mace Cuirass 100 60 WIS
Wizard Staff Robe 0 50 INT
Thief Stiletto Cuirass 125 55 None
Paladin Sun Sword Dragon Armor 100 70 WIS * 1/2
Barbarian Rune Axe Leather 250 90 None
Lark Elven Bow Chainmail 75 65 INT * 1/2
Illusionist Longbow Chainmail 25 55 WIS * 3/4
Druid Shortbow Robe 50 50 (INT+WIS) * 1/2
Alchemist Spear Leather 100 50 INT * 3/4
Ranger Battleaxe Full Plate 125 75 (INT+WIS) * 1/4

STR/lvl DEX/lvl INT/lvl WIS/lvl
Fighter 2 2 0 0
Cleric 1 0 0 3
Wizard 0 1 3 0
Thief 1 3 0 0
Paladin 2 1 0 1
Barbarian 3 1 0 0
Lark 1 2 1 0
Illusionist 0 1 1 2
Druid 0 0 2 2
Alchemist 0 1 2 1
Ranger 1 1 1 1

STR/lvl/max DEX/lvl/max INT/lvl/max WIS/lvl/max
Human 1 80 1 80 1 80 1 80
Elf 1 75 1 99 1 85 0 40
Dwarf 1 99 1 80 0 45 1 75
Gnome (Bobbit) 1 70 0 50 1 80 1 99
Pixie (Fuzzy) 0 30 1 70 1 99 1 99


o More characters can use mid-range weapons, and many can use better armor.

o Alchemists, Illusionists, and especially Druids are much better casters.
You're not effectively limited to using a Cleric and a Wizard now!

o Thieves are great combatants defensively, due to much better armor
(they are upgraded to a Rogue-type, fighting-wise). Barbarians are beasts
offensively. Fighters are well-rounded combatants, albeit with no thieving
capabilities.

o The races have slightly different maximums now. Humans, notably, have
a maximum of 80 in all statistics, as a bonus for being well-rounded.


* Characters increase stats based on their Race and Class at level up
(but never increase a stat beyond their racial maximum).

* HP varies between the Classes now.

* Characters may allocate 48 points when Hand Making them, 1 point at a time.
30 points may be pumped into one stat.

* Spells cost Mana at a rate of 3 Mana for every successive spell. The most
expensive spells cost 45 Mana (down from 75).

* The Wizard and Cleric spell sets have been markedly changed. It should
make for more interesting tactical choices for spellcasters.

* The effectiveness of attack spells have changed. Base damage for the Wizard's
attack spells are as follows: Missile is 25 (unchanged), Flame is INT * 2,
Crush is 125, Psi is 50 to all, PsiKill is INT * 2 to all(unchanged).
The Cleric's new attack spells: Hurt is 50, and Purify is WIS * 2 to all.

* The effectiveness of the Cleric's healing spells has likewise changed.
Heal improves HP by 25 to 60, and Renew improves HP by 200 to 250.

* You can reach Level 8 before taking the Mark of Kings.

* The monsters you fight in more dangerous locales (like dungeons, Ambrosia, and
Exodus Castle) have always done more damage, but now they give you a bonus to
EXP received. However, characters receive less EXP per kill the more EXP they
gain (this is because if it were based on character level, this would be an
incentive to not level up!) The penalty is 1 starting at 128 EXP, and increases
by 1 for every 256 EXP after that.

* Armor reduces all battle damage (even ranged attacks and magical strikes)
now, as well as its usual effect of making physical attacks slightly less
likely to hit.

* Monsters are rebalanced. No monsters steal stuff. A few monsters have
different special abilities than before. And monsters are renamed (the
pluralization of all the monster names bothered me).

* Pirates now appear when a party member reaches level 3. Fewer Demonic-type
creatures appear when a party member reaches level 5, but Insect-category
monsters appear then instead. There are a few other changes to monster
appearances as well.

* One monster happened to be dummied out in the code, and it can be encountered
now.

* Higher level characters receive more gold from treasure chests.

* Food is consumed more slowly.

* Food is available in higher quantities at the grocery store.

* Characters regenerate HP a little bit faster.

* As well as some spells, weapons and armor are also renamed. Many armors
cost a bit less than before; weapons cost a bit more.



To convert your stock Ultima 3 ROM:
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The following applies this and all future releases of the A New Exodus mod.

0. First of all, you will need to obtain a clean NES ROM of Ultima 3: Exodus. You
are on your own for this step, as it is illegal to provide ROMs of copyrighted
material. There are sites that do provide this ROM though, and you should be
able to obtain it.

1. When you get it, make a backup of it if you would want to play the stock version,
play another mod, or, in case I post an updated version of the mod here... I am not
going to make version 1.0 to "version whatever" patches for my mods, for instance.

2. Download Ludmeister's A New Exodus mod.

3. Use the IPS patching program of your choice to apply the .ips patch to the
correct ROM. As I use IPS XP (http://home.arcor.de/minako.aino/ipsXP/) to
create my patches, I recommend using this program to patch your ROM.

4. I hope you enjoy it!



Ultima - Exodus (U) [!].nes - GOODNES 3.14
CRC32: C1A9E6C0
MD5: 4740AF03D83472F4A50872FB8A369C29
SHA-1: 5CCA5711144626A28F9BC2B4445E1C334FCEA770
SHA-256: 9CA1CCB218BF0F5E59E56E054AA3B2A2F72F7D59BF79B733A4E7B042496AE456