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Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
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1,878,406
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Djibouti
MzdR4Hb.png

this is the best rpg party i've ever seen
 

Twizman

Scholar
Joined
Oct 24, 2016
Messages
136
Interesting to hear that the return to town to save aspect came from technical limitations.
 

Covenant

Savant
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
343
but good luck taking it to the end through those robot fuckers.

You had to have been underleveled, I carved through those things like a whirlwind of death.

Huh, maybe so, but it's worrying to hear that. It's not like I went through the game thinking 'You know what this needs? More combat!'. Though to be fair, I'd have had no problem swapping a few dozen of the Gorn Lancer fights for a couple more Emerald Dragon ones. Or some of those devilfish or crows for more giants and demons.

I think out of all of them, the series of fights with the trees (culminating with Tobogan, I think?) was the best combat sequence in the game. Really felt like a true test of attrition.
 

Max Heap

Arcane
Joined
Jul 21, 2011
Messages
617
I wonder what happened to D. W. Bradley
The guy isn't much older than Warren Spector but I haven't heard anything from him since Dungeon Lords.
 

newtmonkey

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
1,725
Location
Goblin Lair
I find Bradley far more noble than a guy like Spector, as he brought us two of the finest games ever created, followed by a decent followup, and then pure decline (but still fun) Dungeon Lords.

After that, instead of exposing us to his increasing madness ala Lord British or Specter, he instead ascended to a higher plane, and the last humanity ever heard of him was a brief but positive and good natured interview with felipepepe.

God speed, DW Bradley
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,185
Location
Bjørgvin
Before Wiz 6-7 (and don't forget 5) he also made the very ambitious Cybermage, an interesting proto Deus Ex but too hampered by the technical limitations of the time.

Now his manly mustache is haunting the dreams of the CRPG Addict.
 
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newtmonkey

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
1,725
Location
Goblin Lair
I really do like how he just showed up out of nowhere, helped to make prob the best trad Wiz game (after the first I guess), and then followed up by making two absolute fucking masterpieces basically on his own.

I do like W&W and even to some extent Dungeon Lords (better than oblivion 10/10 FIVE STARS), but I think it's clear he probably felt he had accomplished everything he wanted to (creatively) with Wiz 5-7 and possibly W&W, and was just trying to make money for his new company with DL.

People burn out, especially with creative stuff, and especially with certied megagenuises like Bradley, so I suppose he figured out he could work 1/5th the time and make 5 time more money converting mobile apps.
 

Atomboy

Atom Team
Developer
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
713
Speaking of something almost unrelated, just spent 3 days playing the Wizards and Warriors GOG edition. Never got to play pass the first dungeon as a kid, despite owning the CD, but those magicians, they finally did it! They made it work! Call me crazy, but that thing is better than Wizardry 8! Everyone should totally check it out. It has a god damn narrator, narrating things you find. Like, you're walking around, and there's a thing in a corner, and out of nowhere a voice starts telling how the party saw the thing, and how the thing looked and stuff. It's so simple, and yet I'd never think of it as a designer. And that made me sad ;( And get this - you fight an ancient mummy,
it drops a locket, if you inspect it there's a prayer written in it. You go to an angel statue, push the Speak button even though the statue isn't an NPC and can't be talked to, and you type the prayer you read into the talk menu, and the statue reacts and opens a gate!
Like, who does that nowadays? Figuring this puzzle alone made me think like an adventurer and imagine the world my party is in is real! This game made me feel like a young adult again!
And it made me think...

Anyone know where D.W. Bradley is? It's like, we know where Lord British is, and what Josh Sawyer is doing, and we all know the guy behind Daredevil Donut Lad, but here's that genius, that unsung RPG hero who made some of the best games of all time, and sure as hell had an interesting personality, judging by all the naked ladies and innuendos and verbose prose and design ideas and furries, and all I know about him is a 2 paragraph biography and a pic where he sports a mullet of some sorts. Is he alive? Is he like 90? Are there videos of him? Or funny stories? Is he retired? Is he on the Codex? Is he a recluse? Or am I simply clueless? Would love to hear anything about the man.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
3,086
Location
デゼニランド
Anyone know where D.W. Bradley is?

WTF, men! zwanzig_zwoelf answered it just on the previous page.
Oh jeez, I missed that page. Wow. That's so sad. :( Nobody deserves to go like this.
In Soviet Russia you start making bigger indie games to get away from mobile crap and shovelware.
In America you start making mobile games and shovelware because your incline has failed.

SAD!

Ну чо, когда скооперируемся и сделаем свою визку?
 

Atomboy

Atom Team
Developer
Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
713
Anyone know where D.W. Bradley is?

WTF, men! zwanzig_zwoelf answered it just on the previous page.
Oh jeez, I missed that page. Wow. That's so sad. :( Nobody deserves to go like this.
In Soviet Russia you start making bigger indie games to get away from mobile crap and shovelware.
In America you start making mobile games and shovelware because your incline has failed.

SAD!

Ну чо, когда скооперируемся и сделаем свою визку?

Exactly! Now when I'm writing for an RPG, I would rather kill myself than write for a newspaper ever again :/ And writing for a newspaper is at least funny bcz you can say stuff that makes people angry, unlike making a match 3 game :(
Как только релизнем Атом в декабре, начну агитировать команду за это дело 1000%!
 

Citizen

Guest
Cleve M. Blakemore's Atomboi's and zwanzig_zwoelf's Wizmoire: Pioneers of the Russian Vapourware
 

coldcrow

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2009
Messages
1,650
It's a charming game, like a good childhole tale. Mechanically, it is a total mess (compared to Wiz8). It allows for totally breaking the game though - which is something Wiz8 does not really allow (if you disregard grinding skills). And truth to be told, D.W.B. is also responsible for Dungeon Lords.
 

gman42

Scholar
Joined
Sep 15, 2018
Messages
148
Been replaying Wiz6 and working on the River Styx right now. I went on my preliminary shopping spree from Mai-Lai before I make her disappear, but then in the excellent game-mechanics guide here: http://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/walk/w6/4/w6walk4.htm, I found this interesting tidbit under the section with all the vendor info:

Note that it is possible to win the game
without giving her the claim information. If you do that, you will still be
able to get equipment from Mai Lai even after winning the game; some of this
gear can transfer freely to Wizardry VII.

Of course since this guide isn't a strict walkthru, though, it doesn't tell me how exactly to do this. I kinda want to keep her around if possible, just so I can buy stuff for transfer later on when I feel like it. Any veterans here remember how it's done?
 

newtmonkey

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
1,725
Location
Goblin Lair
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (PC)
I had got nearly to the end of this game a long while back, but in a fit of curiosity gave the PSX version a try and was lured in by the sheer quality of that port... and ended up abandoning my PC playthrough. The PSX port is seriously great. You can switch nearly everything between Japanese and English, change the dungeon and monster graphics between classic wireframe with PC98 monster sprites or (shitty) PSX polygon dungeons and "high res" monster art, and even turn quality of life options like automapping ON/OFF. On top of that, with the exception of a much higher chance of rolling higher bonus points during character creation, the difficulty is pretty much unchanged from the original game. You really could not wish for a better console port.

HOWEVER, there are two things holding it back, and both are due to it being a console game. First is the fact that, if I want to play Wiz on the PSX, I need to get my PSX hooked up to my TV, insert the disc, load the game up, etc. etc. etc. It sounds like whining about nothing, but it adds up. Second is that you have to use a controller. The early Wizardry games are quite comfortable to play on a controller, but it's still not as comfortable as just hitting a key to immediately execute any action listed on the screen.

At first none of this stuff bothered me, but after several hours it really started to get to me, so I have resumed my PC playthrough. I forgot how far I had got already; it only took 30 mins or so to catch up to my progress in the PSX version.

One thing that is absolutely horrible about the DOS PC version of Wiz 1 is how often your stats decrease when leveling up. There is no way this is not bugged. My Priest's INT dropped pretty much every level up over 11 levels and now she has 0 INT. My Thief's AGILITY dropped 4 times in a row down to 14, making him useless at identifying/disarming traps. Luckily, his next two levels were increases and now he can disarm most chests. I would say that, overall, my characters have slightly to noticeably worse stats 11 or so levels later.

People have a lot of theories on this. Some say that the original release of the game was not bugged, but that the Ultimate Wiz Archives version broke it (this is the one I have). Others argue that the game was never meant to run on such fast hardware, and that the decreases can be minimized by running it in DOSBOX at a VERY low CPU cycle setting. Still others claim that staying in higher priced rooms in the Inn give you a better chance at getting increases.

I dunno, it just seems broken. I have the game running at 750 cycles (500 is slightly too slow) and have been staying at the most expensive room in the Inn, and my last few level ups have been mostly increases.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,185
Location
Bjørgvin
It is bugged. Otherwise you would not see the overflow bug, where your stats can decrease from 0 to 31.
But it also provides an extra challenge for the master race.
 
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newtmonkey

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
1,725
Location
Goblin Lair
octavius
Do you know if DOS Wiz 2&3 are similarly bugged? I searched around, and people only seem to mention it with regard to Wiz 1 (maybe they never went on to play any others due to the bug haha).
 

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