Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (DOS)

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
Developer: Origin Systems Publisher: Origin Systems Platform: DOS Released in US: March 1988 This game has unused areas. This game has a hidden developer message. This game has unused text.

The DOS version of the fifth game in the Ultima series.

Unused Areas

Inside DATA.OVL:

• If a party member's class (e.g., Avatar, Fighter, Mage, ...) is set to an invalid value, it shows up as Adept of Woznir.
• At the end of the list of spells, either as a placeholder to catch invalid values, or an end-of-list indicator, is "Frotz", a spell from the Enchanter series
• The file of combat arenas includes an unused one that takes place in a hallway full of barrels. There's a secret exit hidden in the western wall.

Inside MISCMSG.DAT:

• If you disable the Guardians and visit the Shrine of the Codex while not on a sacred quest, it asks, "HOW DID YOU GET HERE?"

Inside the map files:

• Britain has an orchard in the SE corner; this area of the map is out of view in the second-floor version of the map, but if you could fly there, you would see it shows a patch of crops there instead. Presumably this is from an older version of the farm.

Unused Text

• Weblock, when asked about Gorn or Hassad, is supposed to say, "He is a prisoner in the dungeon!". However, his dialogue config is broken, and instead, when asked about Gorn he says, "hass", and when asked about Hassad, says, "I cannot help thee with that".
• Sir Arbuthnot in the lighthouse near Trinsic has a corrupted dialogue configuration. If you ask him about the Avatar, he asks if you know the Avatar, and if you say yes, he asks if you _are_ the Avatar, and no matter what you say to this question, he just replies, "Oh." If the config error is fixed, he instead says, "'Tis indeed an honor!" and then asks your name. If you speak to him again after telling him your name, he greets you with, "Ah, [name], 'tis thee."
• Apparently David at Greyhaven once suggested you were a dimwit; if you ask him about "dim" or "wit", he says, "Aye, now I know that I speak the truth! Ye must have the brains of a jellyfish!"
• Similarly, Kristi at Serpent's Hold says, "There are many now that Lord British is gone." if you ask her about "land" or "evil", though nothing made it into the final game to suggest you should do that.
• If you ask Jacqueline about mud (the game says nothing to indicate you should), she replies, "Mmmmm, my favorite!"
• Mario, in the stocks in Yew, when asked about his crime, says, "I was convicted by Ye Court of Inquisition. I could afford only 40% of me earnings to give unto charity!" He's also supposed to say, "A fact that I did not confess until I was caught and tortured!", but a mistake in his dialog config prevents it. If you then ask about "caught" or "tortured", he replies, "Don't ask!"
• If you say "Steve" to Lord R'hien, he'll reply, "Hi, John! Thanks for putting me in Ultima V!"
• If you ask Dupre for a duck, he'll reply, "Wanna buy a duck?" If you decline, he'll say, "They're cheap." If you accept, he'll sell it to you for 5 gold and your food will be incremented.
• The guard on the roof of Lord British's castle is named Stillwelt, but you never get a chance to ask.

Patch:

The errors above can be fixed with the following Python script: https://github.com/raldi/ultima5-tools/blob/main/u5-dialog-fix.py

Unused data

Each monster in the game has a set of bits that are used to denote its characteristics (e.g., whether it can gate daemons, whether it divides in two when hit, etc).

Two of these bits don't seem to be checked anywhere in the game. One is present on Bards, Seahorses, Squids, Sea Serpents, Ettins, and Trolls, and may be a vestigial remain that related to nonmagical projectiles. Notably, seahorses' projectiles _are_ magical in the final game, so perhaps this was not always the case.

The other unused bit is present on Rats, Rotworms, and Shadowlords, and may have been planned as a poison-immunity bit.

Finally, there are actually two bits that control whether the monster's attacks poison you. The game treats them both the same, but the groupings are:

Poison group 1: Squid, Spider, Snake

Poison group 2: Rat, Spider, Mimic, Rotworm, Shadowlord

(Yes, spiders are in both groups.)