Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Clockwork Knight]

How so? You don't get full map of the place from the start, only when you have already been there and only areas where your foot has stepped. And automaps usually don't show any secret passages, levers, trapdoors n stuff, only general directions/hubs. If you're a masochist with a lot of time on your hands, who likes to either wonder around in circles for hours to no end or scribble every single wall/turn/room for hours to no end, well, you go girl.

...so the automap doesn't matter, except when it does?

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Real nightmares are places with neutral patrols and narrow corridors. Like Trynton (and Rapax Castle to smaller extent). Those hamsters really like to push their guests around.

 

[Shadowfang]

Real nightmares are places with neutral patrols and narrow corridors. Like Trynton (and Rapax Castle to smaller extent). Those hamsters really like to push their guests around.

Oh no the memories of Trynton. I had to camp and wait for their patrols to move out of the way.

 

[Gnidrologist]

How so? You don't get full map of the place from the start, only when you have already been there and only areas where your foot has stepped. And automaps usually don't show any secret passages, levers, trapdoors n stuff, only general directions/hubs. If you're a masochist with a lot of time on your hands, who likes to either wonder around in circles for hours to no end or scribble every single wall/turn/room for hours to no end, well, you go girl.

...so the automap doesn't matter, except when it does?

wat

 

[Gnidrologist]

Real nightmares are places with neutral patrols and narrow corridors. Like Trynton (and Rapax Castle to smaller extent). Those hamsters really like to push their guests around.

I thought they were earless bunnies.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I do like Etrian Odyssey's manual mapping feature, and in my experience automapping does make some areas much more trivial than they should be.

On that note, (broken record mode on) I like Dark Heart of Uukrul's solution the most: make most areas auto-mappable, but not all, i.e. disable the auto-map in those cases where it'd make progression too trivial. DHoU did a lot of things right, actually. (broken record mode off)

 

[Clockwork Knight]

wat

The bolded part doesn't fit with the rest. You say that the automap doesn't make a dungeon less difficult to navigate, then you say that not having it results in a hellish experience.

 

[Gnidrologist]

No, i say that that automap doesn't reveal any of it's ''oooh mytsary sikrets'', it just shows you the routs where you have already been, which obviously makes the dungeon more easily to navigate AFTER, you have navigated it. Guess, that's too streamlined for teh hurrdcore gamerz and real men should search for the room they've been just few minutes ago for several hours crawling through generic blocks of copy paste corridors that show no significant difference from one another. That's how real life exploring works.

 

[octavius]

Some of us like mapping challenges. Others prefer guessing the right dialogue choice challenge.
Thankfully we can find different things in games to enjoy.

Automaps are fine in games with free movement, like Ultima Underworld and TES games, but for games like turn based blobbers and some real time blobbers making a map is part of the challenge. Hell, in Chaos Strikes Back it was a challenge just knowing which floor you were on.

 

[Gnidrologist]

It's is also a challenge playing blobber while squeezing your nutsack in pliers. Matter of taste i guess.

 

[Luzur]

I...kinda found Wizardry boring, atleast the earlier ones, want to go outside sometimes and not be in the same dungeon the entire game..

 

[Avellion]

I...kinda found Wizardry boring, atleast the earlier ones, want to go outside sometimes and not be in the same dungeon the entire game..

I dont know why, but I always enjoyed the atmosphere of the labyrinths earlier Wizardry games offered, due to being just you and a deep underground complex where everything is out to kill you and nothing inbetween.

Some of the later Wizardries took place outside, and personally, I feel this is one of the reasons I did not enjoy Wizardry 8 as much as earlier titles like Wizardry 1 or 4.

 

[Luzur]

I...kinda found Wizardry boring, atleast the earlier ones, want to go outside sometimes and not be in the same dungeon the entire game..

I dont know why, but I always enjoyed the atmosphere of the labyrinths earlier Wizardry games offered, due to being just you and a deep underground complex where everything is out to kill you and nothing inbetween.

Some of the later Wizardries took place outside, and personally, I feel this is one of the reasons I did not enjoy Wizardry 8 as much as earlier titles like Wizardry 1 or 4.

...while i feel the reversed, liked the later ones that had an actual world.

 

[Invictus]

I found the mapping system to be almost perfect in Wizardry 7; since it was a skill the more points the skill had the more detail the map would have. I say it was almost perfect since it didn't have a hotkey instead of digging around the inventory screen but really good nonetheless.

 

[Malignant Manor]

Wasn't the Wizardry 7 map pretty limited in the area it showed and didn't allow scrolling?

 

[Invictus]

Yeah it was limited at the start, and even at the higher skill levels it didn't show a big area but it did the job nicely for me

 

[Malignant Manor]

This automap mod also shows the hp, mp, and status effects of party members and monsters (no mp shown) when you mouse over them. You can play fullscreen and ignore the automap. The automap and added info seem to work well except the map will not change when you reload a save (i.e., you'll have things marked as explored that aren't). It would be better to only save when the game does or keep track of progress since you last saved and just gray out the areas. DOSBox doesn't close properly if you click on the close button.


KoriTama, you need to provide the source code for the DOSBox changes you made. This is the legal requirement of its license and so that people can play the game on systems other than Windows (or using Wine, if that even works).

The config file you provide is for DOSBox 0.73 instead of 0.74.
wizpopfix=6 was not added after pcspeaker=true

The batch file needs to remove
%CD%/
(at least for Windows XP)

Some people have PLAYBANE.BAT instead of BANE.BAT.


Edit: Having the automap be a configuration option would be nice for people who only want the other additions.

 

[Zetor]

Wasn't the Wizardry 7 map pretty limited in the area it showed and didn't allow scrolling?

The basic version was like that, though with high enough mapping skill (60+?) it'd show a ~5-tile radius and distinguish between different kinds of walls/tiles (e.g. doorways).

However, Wizardry Gold had an always-on automap that worked very similarly to the W6 mod (separate window, arrow in the center, and all). I think the level of detail was still connected to the mapping skill of the character with the map kit, but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Invictus]

Wizardry Gold is an anime based abomination, no real fan would prefer that to Wiz 7 DOS

 

[KoriTama]

This automap mod also shows the hp, mp, and status effects of party members and monsters (no mp shown) when you mouse over them. You can play fullscreen and ignore the automap. The automap and added info seem to work well except the map will not change when you reload a save (i.e., you'll have things marked as explored that aren't). It would be better to only save when the game does or keep track of progress since you last saved and just gray out the areas. DOSBox doesn't close properly if you click on the close button.


KoriTama, you need to provide the source code for the DOSBox changes you made. This is the legal requirement of its license and so that people can play the game on systems other than Windows (or using Wine, if that even works).

The config file you provide is for DOSBox 0.73 instead of 0.74.
wizpopfix=6 was not added after pcspeaker=true

The batch file needs to remove
%CD%/
(at least for Windows XP)

Some people have PLAYBANE.BAT instead of BANE.BAT.


Edit: Having the automap be a configuration option would be nice for people who only want the other additions.

Done! http://www.moddb.com/mods/wizardry-6-automap-mod/downloads/wizardry-6-automap-mod-11

 

[DraQ]

Wizardry Gold is an anime based abomination, no real fan would prefer that to Wiz 7 DOS

Still need to play Wiz7, but the portraits are

Wiz 7 on the left, gold on the right.

 

[Zetor]

Wizardry Gold is an anime based abomination, no real fan would prefer that to Wiz 7 DOS

Never said I'd actually play Wiz Gold, but Sirtech put in persistent automapping for a reason... and that reason actually has nothing to do with difficulty.

e: also, I just checked and my Ultimate RPG Archives box only includes Wiz Gold, not Wiz7.

 

[Invictus]

Good good Zetor, never stain yourself with that filth...plus you can get the DOS version on gog without the copy protection
DraQ are you kidding me?! Oh gawd it is not only the finest blobber ever but my favorte RPG
You are better off staring with an all caster party (plus a Ninja and a Bard) for much better skill progresson, oh and your favorite Drake Bishop build is deadly with the Holy Basher and gearded for support and status effects
Btw I just scored a stll shrink wrapped Darklands and the seller included an opened copy of Wiz 7 for $20 extra bucks...much better value than the $140 I wasted on PoE

 

[octavius]

The thing I abhorred most about Wiz Gold was the cringeworthy voice acting of the narrator (they probably paid the janitor an extra 20 bucks for the job) when I watched a friend playing it.
Thankfully there was a DOS version with no voice acting and normal artwork.

Too bad Wiz 7 is too big though, or else it would have been one of my all time favourites. It takes 2-3 times as much time to finish as other CRPGs, encounters are not varied enough (more random ala Bard's Tale or MM1-2 would have been much better for such a huge game), and the whole dynamic NPCs system stopped half way through the game.
It has much quality, but the sheer quantity of game dilutes it.

 

[Jaesun]

You can't actually play the Gold version, because any text at all immediately scrolls across the screen in seconds. You will never know a single thing that is happening heh.