Hey guys, I just uploaded a video demonstrating some patches I've written for Ultima Underworld II, most notably adding mouse-look + WASD controls to the game.

As shown in the video, the patches work in DOSBox (with Roland music), and they should work on 386 or 486 PC hardware. I don't have an old PC to test this with, but I would be delighted to hear from anyone who would like to try playing the game with my patches on old hardware.

I'm not allowed to post links here, but you'll find the video if you search "mouse look in Ultima Underworld II" on YouTube.

Cheers.

EDIT (as I am now able to post links):

The patches can be downloaded here:
https://github.com/JohnGlassmyer/UltimaHacks

Please report problems with the patches, or request any additional features, at the Github site, rather than on the GOG forums:
https://github.com/JohnGlassmyer/UltimaHacks/issues

Nice! Looks pretty awesome.

Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgVaLrpsApM

Any chance you’ll post a link to the patch?

Hi. As linked to in the video description, my Github site has instructions and a little webpage that will apply the patch to your UW2.EXE.

https://github.com/JohnGlassmyer/UltimaHacks

Also, I have since ported the patches to Underworld I (The Stygian Abyss). Also available at my Github site.

(Also, I don't seem to receive email notifications of replies here.)

any chance to fix some of the remaining bugs in UU1 and 2? like the inventory bug and some progession issues in UU2?

Unfortunately, GOG gives me no way to be notified when people post on this thread, so if you have issues running the games with my patches applied or if you'd like me to consider patching other parts of the games, please file Issues on my Github:

https://github.com/JohnGlassmyer/UltimaHacks/issues

Hmm, can you add a key to invert the mouse y-axis? I like to play with the mouse y-axis inverted.

EDIT: Thank you for making this patch. :) It works so far in UW1.

EDIT 2: Just a bug report. When i quit UW1 it hangs with a blinking cursor. I have to close Dosbox then.

Thanks. This patch really helped me enjoy Ultima Underworld again. I had gotten so used to mouse look and WASD controls that Underworld felt extremely awkward.

To provide a bit of feedback: Your patch worked flawlessly through a complete play through of Ultima Underworld 2 on macOS.

First off, I want to thank the OP/programmer for doing this impressive bit of hacking. While I've never had a problem with how Underworld handles input, this is an interesting quality of life enhancement.

Now, I will add that I had quite a bit of trouble actually applying the patches. I had to go through 3 web browsers across 2 OSes before I found one that would work with the patcher correctly (which turned out to be Firefox 63). I also had issues with what particular exe the UW patcher would accept. It would NOT accept the one from GOG, but strangely would accept the one from the dual-game CD release which I own. UW seems to sometimes lock up in DOSBox on exit, requiring it to be closed to finish the exit. I'm not sure if this is from the patch (I would assume) or if it's due to the specific version I used. The patch seems to work fine otherwise.

Patches like these should really be released as already patched files or using a win32 console application, that way you don't contend with the often massive differences in functionality from one browser to the next (often worse than dealing with multiple OSes).

To that end, for posterity, I'm releasing the files prepatched, so no one else has to trouble themselves with any of these issues :

UW : http://www.mediafire.com/file/22zwnjx8r51a22s/UWm.EXE/file
UW 2 : http://www.mediafire.com/file/3gn4xn3441clhey/UW2m.EXE/file I don't know how many people are going to be making accounts on Github just to post error reports outside the few who already have one (there aren't tons of programmers here). Realistically, I think you're probably going to need to check here to followup on errors and add them to your buglist yourself.

Additionally, I'd post the original message to the subforum on TTLG forums where you'll likely get your target audience; that being UW players.

This is amazing! You sir, are doing the Lord's work. You've somehow made Underworld even more immersive than it already was. The movement fixes eg. the player's view not "bouncing" off walls, and actually walking where aiming, are especially nice touches.

Holy crap! It only took 26 years, but Ultima Underworld finally has mouselook!

Thanks very much to the OP for this! I am now back to playing UW1 all over again!

I hope pocococo/JohnGlassmyer will be returning to see his feedback, because I have a few notes on his hack:

I was able to hack the exe's of both games without any problems. (Thanks for the web interface!) I did not play very far into UW2, but I have been playing UW1 for about ten hours. I have experienced a few glitches, but I do not know if they are due to this hack.

Some information on my setup: I am playing the game on Windows 7 64-bit. In addition to the mouse-look hack, I also installed the UW1 GM Patch from Ultima: The Reconstruction (reconstruction dot voyd dot net). In order to run the game with the modified exe and the modified sound files, I extracted all the contents of the game.gog iso image to a directory and adjusted the dosbox .conf files to use that directory as the game CD. (As is noted in several other forum topics, the soundblaster audio of the game is terrible, and the configuration takes some fiddling with to use the better midi music.)

(As a side-note, by moving the CD files to the hard drive, it makes the CD version of the game behave just like the floppy version of the game. I even kept the CD data separate from the UNDEROM1 directory, but running the game from the modified executable (or the unmodified executable), rather than the uw.bat file, puts save files in the CD 'UW' directory, and the uinstall.exe progam also modifies the uw.cfg file in the CD 'UW\DATA' subdirectory, allowing you to change the sound settings through dosbox.)

On to the few glitches: Occasionally the game freezes, and also, the music cuts out.

The music cuts out usually after playing the combat music. That problem is addressed also mentioned in another forum topic, so I know it is not due entirely to this hack. But, the game could be freezing up because of the sound issue, I don't know, because I haven't tested the game in every possible set-up.

The game-freezes don't seem to follow any pattern or regularity; they can happen after playing for hours or only a few minutes, so by saving regularly, I can make progress in the game.

Other than that, the availability of mouse-look is a godsend. I have been waiting for something like this for decades! The keyboard shortcuts are also very welcome! I am so grateful for the OP's hard work!

If I could suggest any new features, I would ask for the ability to rebind the keys. WASD is fine, but personally I would prefer, for example, to jump using the SPACE key rather than SHIFT. Also maybe the same key to close the map as to for opening it.

And FYI, CTRL+ALT+M (to use the M rune) also brings up the VirtualMIDISynth control interface. It's possible that one or more keyboard commands like that are interfering with the OS, and contributing to freezes.

Thank you and here is hoping that your hack will bring around a new era in Ultima Underworld modifications!

Thank you for the enthusiastic feedback.

The music cutting out sounds like it's probably not related to my patch, but I'm curious to investigate. Would you please file an issue on the Github listing which sound and music device(s) you're using, and in which specific conditions this occurs?

Having the same key open and close the map screen sounds like a lot of sense. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure how much effort it would require - it might be very easy. If you would please file this as a Github issue, I'll look into it when I get a chance.

Update: Been playing for a while with a new sound setup, and without any crashes!

Using a mt-32-enabled Dosbox, getting much better sound out of the game. Uninstalled VirtualMIDISyth, since I didn't need it.

Switched the SPACE and SHIFT keys via Dosbox keymapper, and jumping is more natural for me, but need to remember to type SHIFT to write spaces, i.e. in mantras for shrines.

Thanks for answering! Glad to know you are still supporting your hack!

Still loving this game, twenty-eight years after it was created! :D

The music cutting off is a known issue. You can find some threads on this forum about it if you search a little. Nobody seems to have discovered what causes it or how to fix it.