Ultima VII: The Black Gate

Ultima VII: The Black Gate is the seventh installment of the Ultima series of role-playing video games, released on April 16, 1992.

The Black Gate was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, being widely lauded as a high point in the series and as one of the best RPGs ever created. In an interview with GameSpot, Richard Garriott stated that Ultima VII "was the most masterfully executed of the Ultima series." He has also often stated that the game was, along with Ultima IV, his own favorite installment overall.

Gameplay

Game system

Ultima VII introduced major changes in the Ultima series. The most serious alteration is that as far as the player is concerned, the world is no longer tile and grid-based; tiles are still used internally (in a largely improved way where the tiles themselves are smaller and frequently grouped), but they no longer affect character and monster movement or the item placement the same way. The maps are also more visibly multi-layered, and objects and things can be stacked on top of each other. This can also affect movement, and be part of puzzles; some places are inaccessible unless the player stacks items to form stairs. A striking visual change is that the gameworld now takes up the entire screen in its original DOS environment, while previous Ultimas used a substantial portion of the screen for text, dialogue, buttons, icons, and the like.

Exult Inc.

Exult Inc. was a company, headquartered in Irvine, California that provided business services related to Human Resources (HR)) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

Exult was created in 1998 and originally operated under the name of BPO US, Inc. Its business model was based on the premise that big corporations could be persuaded to outsource the most mundane human-resources tasks to outside contractors.

Founded by Jim Madden, who also served as chairman and chief executive officer of Exult, the company experienced rapid growth. Exult was initially funded by private-equity firm General Atlantic Partners.

Exult provided administrative services like payroll and benefits plans, as well as recruiting and learning and development for businesses. The company ran some of these services on intranet technology, called myHR, in which clients' employees could access general data on human resources.

In addition to human resource functions, Exult provided financial process outsourcing solutions options to its clients inclusive of accounts receivable, general ledger and finance, accounts processing, and fixed asset and procurement tools.