Ultima VII Tips and Easter Eggs by Tim Turner (HTML'ized by Bootstrike.Com)

The (other) Ultima Easter Eggs Compilation

Author: Tim Turner, a.k.a Dragonwarrior
Version: 0.9
Last Modified: 4-15-98

The original Easter Egg collection was created by Steven J. Saunders, but it was made in 1997 and I've only seen version 1.0, so I'm assuming e-mailing him would be useless. I originally planned to make this additional information to give to him, but I got so carried away with what knowledge I have of the Ultima series compared to what was in his version that I spent a whole afternoon writing this up.

Some of these entries are fairly simple and obvious, but I thought some of his were too so I included the ones he didn't have. I'm using pretty much the same format he is without writing backwards (don't ask) but I am giving him permission to leach off this document and add it to his own if he's still around.

Feel free to distribute this, but if you really want to modify it then put it in another format and pretend it's not the same as the one you're reading or something. Otherwise, e-mail me at mailto:dwturners@earthlink.net?subject=[Ultima Submission] for your own submissions, with the subject "[Ultima submission]. Try to follow this format (copied from Steve):

Title
System: <Information about which version the egg appears in>
Location: <where to be to find/use/whatever the egg>
Action: <what you should do to activate/whatever the egg>
Result: <what will happen>
Hint:: <extra information> Contributer: <who gave me some/all of this info>

If this document gets enough positive feedback, I'll clean out any errors and change the format a bit, but right now I'd like to see it get past version 1.0. Hopefully, you can find this file (as well as Steve's) in the Ultima Resource Library.

A word about Cheating: Cheating in a video game can be considered okay. However, when looking back on one's actions, one will notice the lack of challenge and enthusiasm in playing the game the way it was meant to be played. Ultima offers a unique option in that you can kill and steal from innocent civilians whenever you feel like it. This is not offered as a "solution" to a problem, even if it may at times help.

Recent Ultima games offer no consequence for some sinful actions, yet they leave you with a feeling of emptyness once you've cleansed out an entire town. Also, key characters may be destroyed and you will have doomed yourself by your own ignorance. Mostly cheating is a tool for those who have beaten the game and wish to have fun, not a means o get past a hard spot. There are FAQs all over the net, as well as numerous chances to save your game, which the Ultima series was apparently designed for, as it is generally hard to keep all of your party alive for several hours of hardcore gameplay,

I use the word "cheating" as a synonym to "easter egg," because an easter egg is generally an altering of the intended reality in a game, just as cheating is. This is not always the case, but many times it is. You must be really bored reading this, eh? I mean I'm just droning on and on and on and on and on and on and......

Oh yeah, about the Ultima Online "cheats." Being a game in which many random elements occur, it is nearly impossible to establish any solid foundation of control, either by chaos (cheating) or order (GMing). Thus, there will always be ways to cheat, and if Ultima Online is to be considered a true Ultima game, it must have cheats. That's my excuse, anyway.

Personally I hate the game and wish it never existed, and I couldn't give a damn because I'm going to be playing Everquest while you guys spend your six hours making furniture to earn your 5 cents while a PK hunts you down and leaves you at 1 HP and then summons a rabbit to kill you while you lag out for half an hour and the server crashes so you have to do it all over again. Other than that, there was no good source for cheating at UO that I could find. Note that these aren't "hardcore" cheats that would get your account deleted, these are mostly under the "risque" category and at most will annoy people, especially hackers who really know what they're doing. But anyways...

Ultima 4

No time to lose
System: Ultima 4
Location: Battle
Action: Make all your companions run off the screen
Result: The enemy you were fighting dissapears, although this may affect your valor or some other stat. You can even run away from LB and you won't see him again until you re-enter the castle.

Ultima 6

Night of the apparently useless dead
System: Ultima 6 (old version, don't know about updated ones)
Action: Take any NPC's body to a healer for revival or use the resurection spell.
Result: If that person is not in your party, they will simply stand around in the same area you revived them and refuse to talk with you. This really sucks if you killed an important character or someone in your party left and died.
Hint:: Try this with the bones of Zog or some character you're not supposed to have in your party. If you take them to a healer, you may get a party member you're not supposed to have, who might have the portrait of the two-headed horse or the icon of a pile of gold coins. This is really a glitch, however.

The end of the world as we know it
System: Ultima 6
Location: Usually the path between Britain and Empath Abbey at night.
Action: Say "secret" to any wisp you meet
Result: You will recieve the Armageddon spell, which the wisp will think is a common piece of information.

You just don't get it, do you?
System: Ultima 6
Location: Yew
Action: Blow up the prisoner's cell door with a powder keg.
Result: The guy inside will still believe he's trapped, even if you push him out. He'll still go back to his bed and sleep. He talks like he's in jail even if you promise to let him out.

Trinkets
System: Ultima 6
Location: British's castle
Action: cast Pickpocket on LB
Result: Steal one of LB's mystical amulets. I wish I knew what they actually did, though.

I've got you now!
System: Ultima 6
Location: British's castle
Action: Put several powderkegs aroun LB when he sits on his throne. Kill the people around him. Have fun.
Result: LB will be trapped and unable to attack you, but at the right angle you can hit him as much as you want. When you're really bored, light the kegs and kill yourself.

I didn't do it, it was the cannon's fault.
System: Ultima 6
Location: Trinsic, in the corridors between the fortress walls.
Action: Point the cannons towards the gaurds. Have a companion in solo-mode move the gaurds in the line of fire.
Result: You can keep killing gaurds with no consequences, since you're simply "using" the cannon instead of attacking. This is a great weay to gain halberds and plate armor.
Hint:: Of course you don't need plate armor since a store sells magic armor in town.

Ultima: The Savage Land

Where everybody knows your name
System: Ultima: The Savage Land
Location: All over the world
Action: Several of your old companions will be scattered about the world and can join you. Dokray=Dupre, Triolo=Iolo, Shamuru=Shamino. Say their original names and a glimmer of recognition will appear, but for the most part they will all have amnesia. Segallion is also hidden somewhere in a valley, but he's hard to find. The game never explains whether these are your original companions or just parallel versions, and how (or if) they get back to Britannia. Also, in the lost Kotl city you may encounter a wisp, although you cannot recieve Armageddon from it.

 

Prepare to meet your maker.
System: Ultima: The Savage Land
Location: Kotl city
Action: Go in solo mode with the Automaton
Result: Since the automaton cannot die, he can explore all the areas of the city and gather items, fight monsters, etc. He's also a great tool to find out where you need to go without actually going their yourself.
Hint:: Have the automaton get as many shields and wands as possible. He can also get the green balls, which are food, but just about everything else is useless. He can't talk to the doctor, so you'll need to know how to get back to your party eventually. And do everything you can here, because you'll lose the guy once you blow up the generator and leave the city.

Ultima 7

Why couldn't they invent keyrings before Serpent Isle??
System: Ultima 7
Location: Dungeon Deceit
Action: Nearly all of the locked chests and doors here can be opened by the keys you've collected throughout the game. Mostly you'll find useful but not great items, but it gives you something else to do with those keys at least.

Just die you fat old fool
System: Ultima 7
Location: The Fellowship headquarters in Britain
Action: Cast Death Bolt on Batlin.
Result: The only way to kill Batlin. He just drops dead.
Hint:: Take his body to the black gate and Batlin will still be there. You can revive the old body and watch one version try to kill you and the other give idle chit-chat on the Fellowship.

Over and through
System: Ultima 7
Location: The Fellowship retreat
Action: Fly the magic carpet over the walls and land inside.
Result: You've just bypassed the Ultima 7 copy protection Batlin gives you, as well as not having to join the Fellowship while still being able to beat the game.
Hint:: Remember, you need a Caddelite helm to go into the cube generator.

Come and get it
System: Ultima 7
Location: In an area where gremlins appear
Action: Run away from the gremlins in the direction they appeared, then run back past the gremlins that are chasing you, and repeat.
Result: You'll get an army of gremlins chasing you, which you can defeat for experience and a ton of food.
Hint:: At low levels, these guys can kill you if overwhelming you. Also, the more gremlins there are the slower you'll be able to move, and the game may crash if you get too many on the screen.

Serpent Isle

So that's what a bastard sword is...
System: Serpent Isle
Location: Monitor
Action: Talk to the commander wearing green and white, Brendann. Say "I am ready to spar" if you are a female.
Result: Go to his room at night. Wake him up and talk, and you will immediately engage in... sparring... heheh

The mouse is quicker than the eye
System: Serpent Isle
Location: After the trial in Moonshade
Action: Immediately after being sentenced to the mountains of freedom, you will walk to the teleporter pad near the jail cell. You have about a second to pause the game by pressing "I" when you see your mouse cursor flash up.
Result: Search the chest near you and retrieve all the items you need. You will now be able to go through the mountains with your original equipment, although it lessens the excitement of trying to survive, and you may not be able to carry all the new stuff you'll find in there.

Good vibrations
System: Serpent Isle
Location: Vibration spell is sold by the dealer in Sleeping Bull or the woman in Silver Seed.
Action: Use Vibrate on someone you can't normally kill.
Result: You'll usually get some extra stuf like potions, reagents, bags, etc. Once in a while you'll get special things like keys (from a guy in monitor) or a scroll (from a mage in moonshade)
Hint:: Some mages have spell icons, magical projectiles that act as items, which can be cast infinitely when carried in your backpack. They may spill out on the ground or remain in their backpack. You can't move these items off the ground because they have unlimited weight, but they contain no mass so you can move them from one backpack to another. They're also useful for disarming mages who rely on spellcasting.

Resistance is futile
System: Serpent Isle
Location: Fawn jail
Action: If the priestess of Beauty is in her cell, unlock it and start attacking her. make sure your own cell is unlocked.
Result: The gaurds will come in and jail you. Since she's invincible, and you reappear right in front of her, your companions will keep wailing on her in attack mode. more gaurds will rush up, and it'll keep repeating until you pause the game or stop. If you do this too much, the screen will dim a bit as the computer tries to figure out whats going on.
Hint:: Cast energy mist on yourself near a group of Xenkan monks for a similair effect.

He's not heavy, he's a knight.
System: Serpent Isle
Location: Arena in Monitor
Action: Place an object on the eastern or northern walls outside the arena, or cast a spell on one of the opponents.
Result: Depending on what you do, several things will happen. You can equip yourself with awesome armor and weapons and easily win, but they'll dissapear when you return to the gaurd. You can take off your free armor and weapon and use them or sell them at a shop. You can use an invisibility potion and confuse the hell out of multiple opponents. You can use a sleep potion on Luther and beat him up, then tell your companions to train with him and he may stay asleep the whole time but say you've won if you defeat him. You can cast vibrate on your opponents and have they'll pick up their bows but nothing else, although they get unlimited arrows. You can cast an offensive spell, although this will usually count as an illegal attack and the town gaurd will get on your ass.
Hint:: Casting things on your companions beforehand won't work, as protection will wear off and invisibility will make it impossible for the gaurd to see you, which is why you should leave an item beforehand and run up to it when you're actually in the tournament. Also, if you upset the people inside with energy mist and tell the gaurd you want to fight, you may get a weird error message about not being able to find the doors and he'll cancel the fight.

Batlin's been a naughty little boy
System: Serpent Isle
Location: Monk Isle, after the monks take Cantra's body from Shamino's Castle.
Action: Talk to Cantra
Result: She'll ignore you and say some very improper things for a young lady.

Sure I tried to kill you, but that's over now, isn't it?
System: Serpent Isle
Location: After visiting Shamino's castle
Action: Have Shamino killed anyplace outside of Shamino's Castle
Result: Shamino's lover will appear and save him from death one time, and give him a book of poems. Very useful, if Shamino's the only one getting killed...

I'm not dead yet
System: Serpent Isle
Location: The bridge to fawn, after releasing the Banes.
Action: Attack the gaurd that greets you.
Result: You may upset one of the nearby townsfolk at the front gate, who are supposed to get killed by rats. They will attack you so you can't speak to them, but eventually they die over a set time.

It's my dream, it's my nightmare...
System: Serpent Isle
Location: The dead room after talking to Smith in the dreamrealm.
Action: Warp to the area near the dead room, then hackmove yourself onto the stars where you can walk. Slowly inch yourself to the deadroom wall and press I. Hackmove yourself into the center of the deadroom and immediately press ESC and I.
Result: You can now see Smith the horse. Hackmove him into your backpack or away from you. I haven't figured a way to get him out of the deadroom yet, but if he talks to you, you can try escaping by jamming the mouse buttons away after he finishes his last sentence, or pressing I again. While in the deadroom, you can take time to observe nearly every main character that's died so far, which is a ton after releasing the banes.

Every bit helps
System: Serpent Isle
Location: A cave in the northern icy mountains
Action: After entering, go right through an invisible wall, and then zigzag. Defeat the gazers and go south, you'll find a dead end which is a door. Use the right key on it and it will unlock.
Result: You've just found a shortcut to the wall of lights, and Batlin's henchmen won't bother you if you kill them first.

U8 this ain't
System: Serpent Isle
Location: Just before Batlin and the wall of lights.
Action: Ask everyone in your party to leave. Make sure you stand several screens below the wall, near where Selina attacked you.
Result: Your 4 companions will be summoned, but Boydon will remain behind. If you do this right, the explosions from the banes will not affect your party members, and you can travel with them until they attack the banes later on, forming only one corpse. There are no conflicts between living members and the banes during conversation.

U8 this ain't, part 2
System: Serpent Isle
Location: Near Wilfred, Petra, or Mortegro after the banes.
Action: If there are 5 or more members in your party, kill them using a magic axe or a similair weapon, without asking them to leave. Tell Petra, Wilfred, or Mortegro to join. Now Use the hourglass of fate to restore your companions.
Result: You can now have a party of 8, just like the good old days (just don't click the double-sword icon). This won't work with an army of mindless automatons, as the game will bug out. Having extra members will not affect the overall plot, either. Just make sure you don't ask Petra or Mortegro to leave, or kill Boydon or Wilfred, as you cannot get them back.
Hint:: Yes, you can get Mortegro permanently. Simply make him join and then cast serpent bond on yourself, quickly going outside to the serpent gate. Go in it, and your companions will join you once the spell wears off. Note that Mortegro won't realize he's in Moonshade if you bring him there, and lightning will strike if he gets too close to the gate near where you found him.

Ultima 8

Running out of ideas?
System: Ultima 8
Location: the crypts, in a small door behind spitting fire.
Action: Jump through the fire and go past the door
Result: You'll be in a room filled with tons of flasks, food, and magical weapons. This is a lousy cheat room because it's so easy to find.

Ethereal Void
System: Ultima 8
Location: the edge of a map area
Action: empty your backpack and gather as many logs as possible. Climb up a wall you normally can't go ontop of.
Result: Depending on the location, you may enter a black area that will blurr the avatar's image when you move. This area may go on forever, or it may connect to another area. There are some secret rooms that contain quest items (the necromancer's key and old god statues), but mostly nothing useful, since you're usually lost or stuck once you're in here.
Hint:: Some dungeons have areas you can simply climb up to in order to walk along the outer walls and past things. Some caves have "holes" in hidden corners that let you enter into the darkness.

What you can't see won't hurt you.
System: Ultima 8
Location: In town
Action: Make sure any characters are off the screen, either them walking away or you standing far away. Have fun.
Result: Usually you can get away with stealing and murder without having the Cabal guy attack you. You can light oil and run away, and the explosion will kill innocent civilians. You can use the telekinesis-like spell to steal from the jeweler, etc.
Hint:: Like all Ultima games, make sure to save your game prior to doing anything stupid.

Ultima Online

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack throw away that candlestick
System: Ultima Online
Location: Any starting area, when few people are around.
Action: Placing items you recieve on the ground after creating a character tend to decay as soon as you have time to log in as a new character. Putting them in a backpack, however, will keep them intact. Place your items on the ground in a safe place such as an inn room and quickly log off, then create a new character and log on.
Result: You can transfer items you normally wouldn't be able to, especially tools that allow you to use new abilities like woodworking. Sometimes you won't get appropriate items when creating a new character, like a blacksmith with no hammer, so this will help in giving you what you need.
Hint:: You can also give your stuff to a player for safekeeping, but total strangers are generally untrustworthy. Either they'll not trust you, run away, or lag out. You could create a "business" of storing items for people, but unless they're your close friends, they won't let you handle anything of theirs. Also, you can amass a small fortune by creating four new characters every week for your one main character, but this makes your other characters worthless.

A bank you can trust.
System: Ultima Online
Location: The bank of Britain
Action: Just hang around and watch people die.
Result: For some odd reason, people really like to die here. You can loot their stuff and quickly open a bank box to store it in, then sell it to the gathering crowds. Some people like to steal from you and put their goods in a bank so they won't lose anything to the gaurds, but this is requires too much skill at thievery and is considered dishonorable, while stealing from idiots is generally considered okay.
Hint:: Even stranger, people tend to discard their items around the bank without bothering to sell them. You may be able to pick up bone armor for free, or cloth scraps you can cut into bandages. Most people don't mind, as long as you don't get on their case about it. If they get mad and tell you they accidentally dropped it there, give the items back. Some cooky wizards will leave things such as multicolored clothing and severed heads on the bank roof just to show off, so try not to steal from them unless it's ok.

Practice Lamerism
System: Ultima Online
Location: In battle
Action: Try such unconventional tactics as placing coins on the ground for your opponent to pick up, or opening the "safe exchange" window without checking your box. This will distract your opponent slightly, saving you milliseconds of mouse cursor time.
Result: You'll get your ass royally kicked. Also, try to shout "I can't move my body!" in front of some wizards so they waste spells on you as you casually step aside at the last moment.
Hint:: Only do this when a player isn't attacking you but probably will soon. Once they double-click on you, they will automatically attack so distraction will be somewhat useless.

No more torches
System: Ultima Online
Location: At night
Action: Set the brightness of your monitor higher.
Result: You'll be able to see at night without a torch, however, colors will be seriously faded. You won't be able to see in pitch-black caves either.

How to edit your UO.CFG file:

In the Client directory you can edit your UO.CFG file using a simple editor such as notepad. This simply changes personal settings and is legal in terms of editting. This information was obtained from the official Ultima Online website.

CacheSize In the case of an install other than maximum, this is the size in megabytes of the disk cache. Adjusting this setting may provide better performance depending on hard drive access speed, how much RAM you have, and other hardware factors.

Sound This can be set to "off" or "on" - turning sound off may prevent DirectSound conflicts.

Music This can be set to "off" or "on" - turning music off may make some systems more stable.

PageFlip This setting only applies to full screen mode. It can be set at one of "off", ","on", or "gdi" for different results. "Off" may be faster but the display may not be as smooth and there may be some "tearing" of the image. Setting it to "gdi" avoids using DirectDraw as much as possible while still being in full screen. Unfortunately, there can be some conflicts between DirectDraw and GDI, so what is more stable depends on the DirectX drivers you have installed on your machine.

FullScreen This can be set to "on" or "off" to select whether to start by default in full screen mode. Set this to "off" if you are having DirectX-related problems or prefer to play in a window.

ShowIntroAnim=no If you are having a lockup or crash in the intro movie you can add this line to skip the into movie.

use565=yes This is an experimental option: setting to "yes" does on the fly conversions to 565 color and may make some machines significantly faster, especially machines running under Windows NT. Some graphics may not look quite right, however. Effects are unpredictable.

OrderCache This toggle may be set at "startup" or "off" - startup means to reorder the cache file (non-max installs only) on startup. This can result in faster gameplay, but may take several minutes to start the client up.

Mouse Setting this to "slow" means to not run the mouse cursors in a separate thread. This almost always will make the mouse cursor feel jumpy, but may prevent crashes on some machines.

ChestOpening=off This will make the main screen come up automatically. You won't have to wait for the chest to open.

UseCircleTrans=yes A circle of transparency will allow you to see yourself behind buildings and other large obscuring objects, and manipulate items that are behind it.

NotorietyQuery=on If you set this to on you will have a yes/no window pop up when you attack someone that would cause your notoriety to fall. Note that this applies only to regular attacks at the moment, not to spells, and not to ordering pets, hirelings, or summoned creatures to attack!

FrameSkipping=on For people with slower video draw times. This will make the client attempt to skip draw frames when the time spent drawing becomes too high. (You may notice an improvement in performance when in crowded areas). Note that this can also cause "stuttering" in the image if your video card simply cannot keep up. Valid text for the toggle is "FrameSkipping=[yes/no/on/off]".

BarkTimeModifier=300 BarkTimeModifier sets how long all speech remains on screen (default is 4 seconds) as a percentage. The default is 300% as long for speech (12 seconds). The default is shown. Change it for a different effect.

ScaleBarkTimes=no ScaleBarkTimes is a toggle to adjust whether or not the duration scales based on the length of the text displayed. The default is shown. Change it for a different effect.

CombatHueColor=31 This option assists the colorblind. This will let you adjust the combat cursor color when in combat mode. The numbers are somewhat difficult to set, so you may wish to experiment. 31 (shown) is bright blue, while 992 is bright green.