Favorite from Ultima History

Randomly finding a magical throwing axe in a tree stump (circa U4 in the outskirts of new magincia)

 

Sherry the mouse was brilliant and there were things only she could do. For SOTA a mouse wouldn't work so well, because it would be too small to spot. I'd like to see some other talking animal, though, with a background story on how it became intelligent and learned speech. Maybe a racoon or some other animal which otherwise doesn't populate the world of SOTA.

 

They could have an old talking horse who talks smack to you and claims he can't remember his name.

 

I also remember spotting secret doors in the early ultimas. There was usually a little white dot on a wall which indicated a secret door. Very hard to spot though.

 

What one thing would I like to see in Shroud of the Avatar from the history of Ultima?

The ability to move any object in the world. So many secret passages and special/quest items were hidden under potted plants and rugs or behind chests and suits of armor..
Remember, moving an object around the room isn't stealing, possibly aggravating to NPCs, but not stealing. We should be able to push/pull anything around the room. My suggestion is, like doors and lights, have NPCs constantly move things back where they belong, so we have to work around their schedules, or wait for them to be distracted by conversation if we have a lot to move around.

This would allow for all sorts of non-combat quests and puzzling discoveries.

 

While don't see how it could work, nor and I sure that it should, I really enjoyed the ability to "Stay weak" in NES Ultima 3. The philosophy is that you'll only ever run into tier 1 enemies anywhere unless you level up, so instead roll your loot stash up and get top-tier gear then cash out in Ambrosia at the stat increase vendors to have well-geared high-attribute level 1 characters. The only weirdness in the plan is that you have to get at least one character leveled up to get a ship, then dismiss them from the party and replace with a level 1 again to resume super easy mode.

I don't know how that would translate to SotA though, and what kinda weird balancing issues would occur with it. As a crafting-centric character you really have to fight your way through enemies for harvesting opportunities, and it makes no sense to allow high-quality harvest nodes with low-level defenders just to balance gameplay for a solo crafting-centric character. Since we can't sail through a whirlpool and buy our stats up to unreasonable levels, the whole mechanic honestly wouldn't work.

 

So far, the game has or will have what I'm looking for. However, a minor item I'd like to see again is the silver swords from U5. Always liked using them in the game, and still did even after Mystic armaments were available.

 

Being able to put dirty diapers on NPC's lol