The David W. Bradley's Wizards & Warriors Thread

[cardtrick]

shit is graphically more advanced than any current or next-gen game.

Mine's bump-mapped.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

none of these games offer any deep rplaying or npc interaction though; just hack and slash.

Sure thing, but, just because it crossed my mind, and because I'm too drunk to go any further than"It crossed my mind..." i was thinking that...

I mistook Rplaying for "replay value" and the best replay value I know of is to be found in hack and slash. That's why I replayed MM6, MM7, MM8 at least three times each. And that's good enough for me. But, then again, maybe I'm overstimating the values of replayablity. Whatever... Hack and slash CAN kick ass !

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

I actually really enjoyed the first half of the game- the dungeons were pretty darn diverse (anybody remember the party-turned-into-piggy-things situation?), but about halfway through after you found the sword, it just seemed to drag on and on and on with barely another good idea to be found.

Roll on the obligatory boss fight, game over. Still for the first half, it might be worth checking out. Don't know how well the game has aged, it's been years, really.

none of these games offer any of the copious amounts of maze-like dialogue scripts to slog through that many a man on the internet mistakes for deep npc interaction though

Fixed. :wink:

 

[ecliptic]

I liked it, some of the bugs are nasty though. Great wilderness, and worth a try. My game ground to a halt when a corpse did not have a quest key on it...

 

[Andhaira]

If you like Wizards and Warriors, try Anvil of Dawn. its abandonware now.

 

[thesheeep]

True, Anvil of Dawn is absolutely awesome, especially for its time.

 

[Binary]

Or you can go a bit behind in time and play Lands of Lore 1

 

[Andhaira]

Ah yes. lol can be downloaded at the same site (abandownware.com or something). And it truly is a gem that has aged very well.

 

[Au naturel]

What do people think of the generic 'Town' screen? It was used in lots of old school RPG's, but has been slowly done away with. For my part, it seems like a good option for any towns that the player has already visited before, and if they don't want to waste time walking around the same old town centre. If new NPC's are present, that might be different.

Glad they are gone? Or think they were a good idea?

 

[Norfleet]

I think town screens are a great idea, as they allow the town to be larger and more atmospheric than actually depicting the town, yet spare us the endless clickwalking to move about. Done well, a town screen can give a town a sense of scale that can never be accurately replicated by an actual, game-mapped town, yet still be navigable without turning moving about in the town into a painful experience. Town screens are a good thing, considering that the only purpose modelling some or all town in-game has is if you wish to give players the ability to trash the town. Since most games don't let you trash the town anyway, a town-screen does away with all the tedious walking, barrel-smashing, and house-raiding. A town-screen type deal can allow the player the sense of being in a city of thousands of people, rather than wandering through a "town" of all of 30 people. A town screen could even be combined with, say, procedurally generated instanced zones to make something hopefully really awesome. PST did a sort of "town screen" deal like that, although all the zones were fixed. It conveyed the idea that "Sigil Is Huge" without making the walking enormously tedious and boring or having tons of repetitive, useless zones.

 

[Mantiis]

I think town screens are a great idea, as they allow the town to be larger and more atmospheric than actually depicting the town, yet spare us the endless clickwalking to move about. Done well, a town screen can give a town a sense of scale that can never be accurately replicated by an actual, game-mapped town, yet still be navigable without turning moving about in the town into a painful experience. Town screens are a good thing, considering that the only purpose modelling some or all town in-game has is if you wish to give players the ability to trash the town. Since most games don't let you trash the town anyway, a town-screen does away with all the tedious walking, barrel-smashing, and house-raiding. A town-screen type deal can allow the player the sense of being in a city of thousands of people, rather than wandering through a "town" of all of 30 people. A town screen could even be combined with, say, procedurally generated instanced zones to make something hopefully really awesome. PST did a sort of "town screen" deal like that, although all the zones were fixed. It conveyed the idea that "Sigil Is Huge" without making the walking enormously tedious and boring or having tons of repetitive, useless zones.

Amen - the gold box games had it perfect. First person while exploring and third person tactical when in combat.

 

[Au naturel]

Agreed. The Goldbox method was very good in that regard.

I remember the town screens from Legend, Son of the Empire, which had flags flying over a huge oriental city and the occasional dispatch rider coming through the gates. It certainly can convey an impressive picture in the players mind. However, there is nothing wrong with being able to explore a town, if that town has a reason to be explored apart from the fact that it is 'there'. If nothing is available in a town, a town screen allows use of shops, and other places much more easily than spending half an hour walking around a town and waiting for the load screen.

 

[Andhaira]

Yeah I can understadn the charm of town scren's, but see actually being in a town ingame can result in fun encounters, npc interaction, etc. Kinda like Amn in BG2

 

[mondblut]

How did they manage to make 9 look worse than 6?

That's what 3d does to graphics

 

[mondblut]

What elements made it a better game for you?

Well, I liked dungeon design, the dualclassing system and over the top "epic" writing. For some time, until it became apparent how linear the game is, it really felt like a true Wizardry sequel.

 

[jorgamesh]

It works great on Win XP. You just have to use some patches:

Latest official patch:
http://www.tk421.net/wizardry/files/wwpatchV1_0.zip

Unofficial resolution patch
http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/wwpatch.html

Patch for unclickable buildings in town
http://www.tk421.net/wizardry/files/ww-townavi.zip

 

[Mareus]

I have seen a "Lets play" thread of Wizards&Warriors around here and decided to finally give this game a try. I have heard it was pretty unstable in XP, buggy and stuff, but since I heard those same things about almost every other game, I figured I will be able to figure out how to fix those problems and enjoy some DW Bradley stuff.

So I install the FULL game on my hard drive, install the patches, run the game and BOOM, a crash! I smile to myself and think 'nothing new'. I calmly type Wizards&Warriors XP problems and find a site with few dozen problems listed. Aha! Got you, I think to myself. I should have figured you need to set up the compatibility mode for Win95. I try the game and I manage to get to the main screen. I rub my hands with delight and click on play intro option. CRASH! Black screen. I smile calmly and check the site again. After hours of trying to make it work I finally give up from the intro and say to myself, 'Bah! Who the fuck needs a stupid intro movie anyway". So I decide to try out the game and here we go.... errr NOPE! My screen goes black every time I move my mouse, which is also pretty hacky...

Another few hours, and still I haven't solved half of the problems to make this game run.

Now, I saw a guy here make a 'Lets play thread", so I know there is a way to make it run, but what the hell am I supposed to do?

Here is my list of problems:
1. Intro crash
2. Mouse hacking
3. Black screen every few seconds when I move my mouse

My configuration is:
Intel core 2 duo E6550
2GB of RAM
Nvidia 7800 GT 256MB/256

I ve had experience with solving issues like this, but this one is driving me crazy.

 

[theverybigslayer]

You need Indeo codec 5.11
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/indeo_codec.htm
Try hardware or sofware rendering, I used hardware.

 

[Mareus]

Hope it works. Thank you for suggestion. Trying it out.

EDIT : Nope! Still the same problems remain. The intro doesn't work, and I still get the black screen. Mouse pointer still hacking.

Thanks for the try though.

 

[Troll]

if i remember correctly you need to uncompress the avi files - they are compressed using an old codec, perhaps indeo. anyway, first save your original files and try renaming a small avi file that you know it works in each of the moved avi. if it works you can start the conversion of the original avi files

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Hope it works. Thank you for suggestion. Trying it out.

EDIT : Nope! Still the same problems remain. The intro doesn't work, and I still get the black screen. Mouse pointer still hacking.

Thanks for the try though.

1. Install
2. Patch the game with the official patch
3. Decompress ww-townavi.zip into the folder townavi
4. Install W&WGraphicsPatch.zip
5. Play

patch - http://www.tk421.net/wizardry/files/wwpatchV1_0.zip
resolution fix - http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/wwpatch.html
additional patch http://www.tk421.net/wizardry/files/ww-townavi.zip

 

[Mareus]

Hope it works. Thank you for suggestion. Trying it out.

EDIT : Nope! Still the same problems remain. The intro doesn't work, and I still get the black screen. Mouse pointer still hacking.

Thanks for the try though.

1. Install
2. Patch the game with the official patch
3. Decompress ww-townavi.zip into the folder townavi
4. Install W&WGraphicsPatch.zip
5. Play

patch - http://www.tk421.net/wizardry/files/wwpatchV1_0.zip
resolution fix - http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/wwpatch.html
additional patch http://www.tk421.net/wizardry/files/ww-townavi.zip

I really appreciate you trying to help, but unfortunately it also didn't work. All the problems mentioned still remain

Is the game worth the trouble?

EDIT: I have managed to avoid the black screen by playing a bit with the options. It sure was pain in the ass because of the black screen, but after I made it using D3D Hardware the game does not have a mouse problems anymore nor the black screen problem. The only problem that remains is the intro. This is the error I recieve:

Application Error d:\games\WW\deep6.exe:
The instruction 005aecd3 referenced memory at 0004000c
The memory could not be read from

Click on OK to terminate the application

 

[theverybigslayer]

The only problem that remains is the intro. This is the error I recieve:

Application Error d:\games\WW\deep6.exe:
The instruction 005aecd3 referenced memory at 0004000c
The memory could not be read from

Click on OK to terminate the application

This was the same error for me, but the Indeo install solved it
See this as well:
http://www.atrip.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-4820.html

 

[Wintermute]

Here's a couple other threads that might help:

http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=98119

http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=31762

They seem to indicate it's an Indeo codec issue, too.
Maybe try using the gameopt.dat file that one guy posted in the first link (page 2 of the thread). That could help to get the game started if its a software/hardware rendering issue and your comp doesn't like the default.

 

[Mareus]

Here's a couple other threads that might help:

http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=98119

http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=31762

They seem to indicate it's an Indeo codec issue, too.
Maybe try using the gameopt.dat file that one guy posted in the first link (page 2 of the thread). That could help to get the game started if its a software/hardware rendering issue and your comp doesn't like the default.

I checked the list and I have the Indeo codecs installed. In the second link it says the memory message is connected with the compatibility, but I always get the same error when I try to run intro. Maybe it is something wrong with the intro.bik file?

EDIT: Ok, I found a work around to the problem with the intro. It isn't much but it will have to do. I installed RAD video tools which allow me to watch ____.bik files. Now I can watch the intro with that software before I start the game and then when the movie is finished, just start the game like nothing happened. I also found a book.bik file and I think it is the ending. That means the game will probably crash once I finish it, but I will just open the movie then and be done with it. If anyone else knows how to solve this problem in a different way, I am all ears. Apparently Vista does not support ___.bik files, but I don't have Vista, so it is maybe connected with my version of the Windows, or maybe I have some other codecs installed that block Indeo codecs. I am just guessing.