Ultima 3: Exodus for Nintendo Entertainment System
Ultima. A pioneering name in computer RPGs. A series that always has attempted to give a wide amount of leeway to players wanting to immerse themselves in a deep and engaging world. The emphasis of Ultima's creators has always been the complexity of the game world (hence their slogan "We create worlds"). Character development, which is of course my favorite aspect of RPGs, while not completely ignored by Ultima was not the forte of games in the series (especially up until Ultima Underworld).
But, of the early Ultimas, the third installment, Exodus, I think had the best potential. Eleven classes, five races. Two separate spell systems. Surely this could keep any character development nerds happy, right?
Well, not exactly 
. The class concept was implemented in a completely broken sort of way, as if it was added as an afterthought (and I'd be totally inclined to believe this if each class didn't have its separate cool-looking avatar). When you are almost universally advised by players to avoid certain character classes (Alchemist, Barbarian, Illusionist, and even the Druid comes to mind) because they simply don't stack up, then you've failed in balancing your character development system properly. Not only this, but every class has exactly the same HP totals, and increasing levels actually hampered the party's chance of survival as Sosaria's monstrous denizens were made to scale to the most powerful adventuring character's level.
And so, you might see the reason I created A New Exodus. As with many of my other modifications for games, this mod serves to provide better distinctions between the 11 classes and 5 races, and combine the following: balance between character concepts, a smoother gradation in level of difficulty, interesting character development, balance Sosaria's scalable monsters with desirable level up features, and in so doing minimize Ultima 3's "annoyance factor". While it's a rather fantastic boast, I yet believe that once you play A New Exodus, you will never want to go back to the stock version! Visit the A New Exodus downloads page to download the current version.
I have not yet completed playtesting the mod, but I do not believe that there are any showstopping bugs. If you have any questions on the Ultima 3: A New Exodus mod, find any bugs in the mod, or if you complete the mod, please let me know!
Copyright notice
The content in this portion of the website pertains to "software" known as "Ultima 3: Exodus", which was created by Richard Garriott (aka Lord British), and published by Origin Systems, FCI, and Pony Canyon. The mod is completely unofficial, and was an amateur fan-made undertaking. I respect the intellectual property of Richard Garriott and Origin Systems/FCI/Pony Canyon, and under no circumstances will I distribute the ROMs for the NES versions of Ultima 3. The patch available for download is a derivative work and is completely my own. It is offered totally free of charge.