In February, Thursday 26, Sith Dragon posted in his Ultima IX News and links, a letter from Bob White, explaining that there would be no Party Memebers in Ultima IX, do to the difficult task to implement the 3d pathfind code.

The Ultima IX
Party Crusade.

Submit your vote now, and tell origin that you need partners in Ultima IX

I you have an Ultima related Web Site, please join the crusade by adding a link in your site.
(follow the image link to the left)

Now you may think, how difficult would be to implement a true 3d-pathfinding code?

As Ultima IX is a complete 3d world, to achieve the movement, each character would be able to decide how to avoid an obstacle. Each Party member would be able to jump, climb (and perhaps swim) to find his way out. As we haven't taken a deeper look into the geographic of the game, we cannot imagine which difficulties will face the characters.

Let's imagine a difficult situation (it may or not be present in the game). There is a small hill and a cave leading to a dungeon. The character is in front of the cave and he must reach the top of the hill. Which path must he take? If he continues the straight way he would enter the dungeon, and never find the way to the top of the hill....

Situation like this are difficult to program, but not impossible, especially if we think that the party members just follow the Avatar.

A nice fix to the path finding code, is that when a character can not make it trough an obstacle, or it is some distance away from the party, he just get lost! He would begin to shout for help like "I'm Lost Avatar, hey I'm out here", or tell the Avatar: "I'll wait here"

It seems that Origin, more that a working pathfinding code; they want a nice looking working code. Too much time had been spent in Ultima IX, and they cannot afford to do it.
But I think that most Ultima Fans wouldn't mind, if the party members get stuck here or there (like in Ultima VII). After all what kind of strategic combat we'll get if we got no partners!!!!

Please Origin, remember the critics of Ultima VIII, do not go the same mistake twice!!