Ultima IX - Tidbits #32: Guardian scene camera displacement (+mechanics)

Channel:

CastChaos

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Published on December 18, 2021 11:00:59 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKF797GfwEk

Game:

Ultima IX: Ascension (1999)

Duration: 1:43

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What you see here is what you get if you cast Wizard Eye just before the Guardian teleports you out.
The camera gets fixed and the game will adhere to certain rules. I discuss them wirst, then I mention some mechanics about the scene, itself.

I. Displaced camera mechanics:
-The camera is fixed into a position, but you can cast Wizard Eye again to position it different. The spell doesn't have infinite range.
-The Avatar will move only in the pane he got teleported into. No falling in water, though the step sound will differ.
-I tried to get close to the offcamera dragons before realizing that I could re-cast Wizard Eye, but my health didn't go down. Maybe I just couldn't reach the dragon.
-Jump happens not forwards, it might look for the original cursor position. Still, the Avatar stays in the same pane.
-Small spells can be cast.
-If a camera movement spell, like full heal is cast onscreen, the game crashes. Offscreen nothing happens.
-For all this, I couldn't direct the camera to NPCs in far away towns, nor could I initiate conversation with Robin... Rebecca... eh, whatever. Even though it would have been top interesting to see how the game handles ship travelling in this state, though it would surely just crash right at the beginning of the dialogue, since that's already camera movement. (Maybe if Wizard Eye is recast in a way to place the cursor on Raven.)
-The game, like, usually, take any excuse to crash. Loading the save I made in this state initially made a crash, but then when I started U9 again (without deleting start.dat) it loaded, with a bit higher camera position. (That's when I found out about recasting Wizard Eye.)
-So far I found nothing about this that would give an advantage or help a speedrun.

II. Guardian scene mechanics:
I entered from behind with flying cheat to be able to try things. Attacking the Guardian makes him cast lightning on you, as usual, but casting Full Heal stops that. Summoning an army worth of undead does nothing for him, nor can he be charmed. The scene advances when you go to the points close to the entry door and besides the first text, you need to lose health for the next to appear. It happened with me by the skeletons that were chasing me, so it doesn't necessarily has to be the Guardian, himself.
When then undead attack him, the Avatar's health doesn't go down, even more, when I attacked him before he asked, no lightning, arrows or fireballs made the damage ricochet.
I found no way to manipulate the pillars and place the sigils prematurely. Actually, I didn't even try it before the final teleport, since I was experimenting with Wizard Eye there.

Meanwhile, I thought of some other things to experiment on. I will update the description much later if any of them turns out to be any interesting.


UPDATE 1:
- As it could be guessed and maybe as I was told, this works with any teleports. Actually, it's linked to the "jump after Wizard Eye" glitch that is used in speedruns. There almost everything stays in unresponsive state till the first serious action (like jumping). Here everything stays permanently unresponsive, camera included.
- It's possible to get out from this locked camera status via activating the flying cheat, but there won't be HUD and if you go to Wrong to lose your backpack and then get it back, the game crashes. Finding a safe and cheatless way to exit the locked camera could have valid use cases.
- It's still possible to interact with anything if you exit the Wizard Eye mode while the cursor is at the interactive point. Like switches or NPCs. If this involves camera movement, it doesn't cause a crash, the camera moves as normal and then returns to the locked state.
- Enemies don't attack, teleport pads cease to function, speaking with Raven doesn't trigger actual sailing. However, more serious actions, like trying to attack enemies, crashes the game.

UPDATE 2:
- Leaving the Guardian scene with flying cheat prematurely makes Raven act like it haven't even started yet and returning to the chamber the Guardian doesn't continue the speech. I lowered my health by multiple means, but that didn't do anything, either.

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