Classic Games Revisited
Ultima VIII: Pagan Walkthrough
5. Before we Begin
5.1. Directions
In Ultima VIII, North points to the top-right corner of the screen. Thus, East is bottom-right, South is bottom-left and West is top-left.
W N X S E
There are a few Recall Pads in Pagan where you can automatically teleport to after you find them. I will call them Waypoints because I am more used to that term.
5.2. Time on Pagan
A day on Pagan is divided into six 4-hour brackets: Bloodwatch → Firstebb → Daytide → Threemoons → Lastebb → Eventide. Resting for one period will progress you to the next bracket. Thus, if you are at Firstebb and need to wait until Bloodwatch for an event to trigger, rest for 5 periods by sleeping on someone’s bed or a bedroll.
Find out the current time by double-clicking any clock, or casting the Divination Air spell. If you come across a clock, you may wish to carry it with you though it is not really necessary.
Pagan also has its own months and seasons but they are not relevant to this walkthrough.
5.3. Locating Items
Quite a few items in Ultima VIII are hidden behind other objects. Keys could be hidden under vases or cushions, or equipment may be hidden behind bones. When examining contents of chests, wardrobes and dead bodies, move stuff around to make sure you aren’t missing out on something useful.
Beware of stealing. Tenebrae is a law-enforcing society. With a few exceptions, if you simply take things from someone’s house in their presence, they will call the guards on you or even themselves attack you. You want to avoid this. The citizens of Tenebrae are also a busy lot, so at different times of day they have various responsibilities to attend to. Hence, to steal something, simply rest for a period or two until the person goes away and you will be free to plunder.
This walkthrough does not provide an exhaustive list of items you can find. I intend to lead you to all important and magical items, but will not list all the consumables that happen to appear alongside. If you wish to stock up on potions, death disks, oil flasks, money, etc. it is up to you to pick them up and possibly explore a bit on your own to find more.
5.4. Automatic Doors
There are a few doors that close as you approach them. Simply walk away and return, and they will open as you approach. There is at least one place where you can do the opposite to use this behavior to intentionally close the door so that it blocks a trap.
5.5. Organization
It is tremendously useful to take the time to organize your inventory well. Items remain exactly where they are placed. If you drag an item on to your character, it will be placed somewhere in the backpack for you. That means it could get easily lost behind some larger item. Whenever possible, determine the placement of items by yourself.
Carry several bags to organize items. Each bag weighs 1 unit, but it is well worth the convenience. You can also carry jewelry boxes but they weigh more. Although you can carry a backpack in your backpack, you will not be able to add any other items if you do. You will have to drop the backpack, pick up the other object, then retrieve the backpack.
I myself carry a minimum of 4 bags (or 5 near the end) and organize my inventory thus:
Keyring with keys: top-left corner of the backpack.
1 red potion, 2 yellow potions, 1 orange potion: bottom-left corner of the backpack, half-overlapping each other.
Bedroll: bottom-right corner of the backpack.
Recall item: bottom-right corner of the backpack, in the space that is not covered by the bedroll.
Obsidian coins pile: partially under the bedroll, to its left.
5 bags lined up side-by-side, half-overlapping each other. The left-most one also overlaps the keyring since I don’t need to ever see all of the ring + keys.
From left to right, my bags serve the following purposes: Potions and scrolls, Air spell foci, Sorcery foci, Necromancy reagents and spells, Items picked up during journey (mostly magical weapons or armor that I don’t intend to use). Obviously, until you progress well into the game you will not need a bag for Air or Sorcery spells, but you need one empty bag to prepare Necromancy spells. So it’s best to carry at least 4 bags as soon as you find them.
Finally, I replicate this on the roof of the palace in Central Tenebrae by placing 3-4 backpacks in a neat row next to the waypoint there. They hold extra reagents, potions, scrolls, weapons, armor, books (Ethereal spells) and coins that I don’t wish to lug around.
5.6. Movement
Jumping is slightly different in the patched and unpatched versions of the game. In the unpatched version, you need to be fairly accurate in estimating the jump distance, direction as well as your starting position. There are many areas where you can fall to your death if you miss a jump. After about two-thirds of the game, you will learn Fire spells, and then be able to cast Flash to make these jumps safely but until then save/reload is your only option. Once you do get Flash though, use it for every death-defying jump. It will save you a lot of agony.
In the patched version, not only are jumps automatically accurate (95% of the time), but they are also slightly longer. Plus, the Avatar will shake his head and refuse to comply if you attempt to jump too far.
5.7. Conversations
Although this walkthrough won’t tell you explicitly to select particular conversation options in many instances, you should speak extensively to people, especially on your first go. Only in very select cases will you be directed to either choose or avoid specific options. Also speak to people not pointed out by the walkthrough to get general information.
5.8. Monsters
How you deal with monsters is up to you. There is no concept of experience in Ultima VIII so in most cases it is best to simply avoid them. You can usually run away from most monsters, or explore around them while being invisible. If you want more combat, that is up to you. Also, if you run away from a monster far enough and return to the spot, often the monster will despawn.