Dino's Guide to
Ultima VIII - Pagan

Bugs and Mistakes

Contents

• Ultima 8 Inaccuracies
• Necromancy problems
• Air problems
• Unreachable Places
• Problems with Items

Ultima 8 Inaccuracies

Ultima 8 inaccuracies [English | German] can be found at Hacki's Ultima Page [English | German].

Necromancy problems

• Vividos sends you on a pilgrimage to the Birthplace of Moriens. However, there is nothing that indicates where to access it. The patch fixes this by changing the sign at the entrance, which originally reads "Towards Fate do you Travel", to "The Birthplace of Moriens". The original sign seems to indicate enough that fate lies through that door, in other words you have to go through there, but alright, people want things to be more specific.
• Vividos promises to teach Necromantic spells but never does. However, I think this is not very plausible, as Vividos tells you that "in years to come" he will teach you spells, while you do not stay on Pagan for that long. You instead go and master the other magics, so Vividos is not even meant to teach you those spells he promised you.
• You can speak to the fourth Necromancer onwards without a Death Speak spell. Clearly a bug.
• Vividos speaks of an incredible vision to encounter in the Birthplace of Moriens, but you just get talking god statues and some lights. However, I think that talking to ancient gods is an experience incredible enough.

Air problems

• There are no books explaining Xavier's questions in the library. They are only there in the patch. I think that some of them do hint at Stratos being about honesty and air and all that, and in fact that's what got me through the questions in the unpatched version, but alright, perhaps they are too vague. I do think that the books present with the patch give out the answers too easily, however.
• You can neutralise Stratos on Pagan rather than in the Plane of Air by using the Breath of Air on her, and that teleports you to the Ethereal Plane, saving you the Ethereal Travel spell! Must be a bug, I guess. As noted by the Codex of Ultima Wisdom, doing this before collecting all the blackrock fragments would make the game unwinnable.

Unreachable Places

• The manual mentions Vengeance Bay, but there is no such place! Well, you can't expect to get to see everything. What if Vengeance Bay was just a place mentioned in the manual to add to the things to mention? It also says specifically that it is out of reach for those without a ship, so it is foolish to expect to visit there.
• The double doors in the cave that houses Bonecrusher do not lead anywhere. These doors were supposed to be the entrance to the Lost Vale, but since the add-on was never released, the only way of opening them is by using an earth golem (as Shawn Varga writes, below). Still, they obviously don't lead anywhere.

Shawn Varga writes: "You need to summon an earth elemental and make it open the doors for you."

"Summoning the elemental is tricky... you typically require a patch of dirt to do so (and there's no such dirt in the cave). However, the game seems to distinguish dirt by pixel colour! If you target just the right pixel (I believe there is a proper pixel or two just above the doors themselves on the stone itself) you can actually bring in the elemental and make him open the door for you."

"Don't get too excited though. Even when opened, the doorway doesn't take you anywhere. It's just a dead-end empty space."

Problems with Items

• In the unpatched version, there is no Bone Crusher but just a Hammer of Strength in the cave on the Plateau. The patch fixes this and the Hammer of Strength becomes the Bone Crusher. I think this is pretty lame. I think that people should use their own logic to determine if that hammer is the Bone Crusher. One magic hammer is mentioned in books, so I guess it must be that one anyway... why must the thing be labelled for you as well? Besides, not all legends can be solved. That hammer may as well not be the Bone Crusher because you don't get to visit all of Pagan, so the real thing could just be somewhere else.
• In the unpatched version, the Ghost Armour is not very effective. The patch fixes this, adding to its armour bonus. I think this, too, is futile, as not all magical armour is meant to be better than regular armour. Some games, for example, have magical weapons which both give some bonuses and negative effects, so you have to choose which is more worthwhile. Just because some magical armour is not effective, it is not really a reason to complain.
• Why does the Avatar start without the serpent artifacts he obtained in Serpent Isle? An old theory of mine attempts to explain this.