Wizardry What makes a Wizardry game to you?

[Bruma Hobo]

I had to vote aweigh: Turn-based blobber, risk and reward gameplay focused on resource management, class swapping, perma-death, must take place mostly indoors with a simple menu-based hub to rest, level up and buy stuff.

The Dark Savant trilogy is not real Wizardry, although it has its own strengths.

 

[Ysaye]

I had to vote aweigh: Turn-based blobber, risk and reward gameplay focused on resource management, class swapping, perma-death, must take place mostly indoors with a simple menu-based hub to rest, level up and buy stuff.

The Dark Savant trilogy is not real Wizardry, although it has its own strengths.

Its D-Wizbradlery.

 

[mondblut]

The Dark Savant trilogy is not real Wizardry

Good riddance, then.

Muh life and death dilemma of opening a random chest after a random encounter or walking away to hit another random encounter with another random chest 15 seconds later. Choices, choices!

 

[Bruma Hobo]

The Dark Savant trilogy is not real Wizardry

Good riddance, then.

Muh life and death dilemma of opening a random chest after a random encounter or walking away to hit another random encounter with another random chest 15 seconds later. Choices, choices!

You're agreeing with me then, of course these two series have different strengths and weaknesses, and completely different objectives, we both know that. Bradley fans are kind of hurt by this obvious truth though, since they grew fond of the Wizardry brand name and don't know how to call their favorite games. The Dark Savant saga, maybe?

 

[Ysaye]

The Dark Savant trilogy is not real Wizardry

Good riddance, then.

Muh life and death dilemma of opening a random chest after a random encounter or walking away to hit another random encounter with another random chest 15 seconds later. Choices, choices!

You're agreeing with me then, of course these two series have different strengths and weaknesses, and completely different objectives, we both know that. Bradley fans are kind of hurt by this obvious truth though, since they grew fond of the Wizardry brand name and don't know how to call their favorite games. The Dark Savant saga, maybe?

I don't think the DW fans are hurt; more that they just think that they and their Wizardry are vastly superior species.

 

[V_K]

Wiz1-3, for all intents and purposes, is just one game with two expansion packs. Wiz4 is a one-off experiment that has very little in common with what came before or after it, and Wiz5 is already made by Bradley. I'd say Bradley's Wizardries have a stronger claim to the TM.
Besides, each successive Ultima game had a new enginge, and starting with 4 - a new design philosophy. Should we say then that only U1-3 is the real Ultima?

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Wiz1-3, for all intents and purposes, is just one game with two expansion packs. Wiz4 is a one-off experiment that has very little in common with what came before or after it, and Wiz5 is already made by Bradley. I'd say Bradley's Wizardries have a stronger claim to the TM.
Besides, each successive Ultima game had a new enginge, and starting with 4 - a new design philosophy. Should we say then that only U1-3 is the real Ultima?

Ultima was always about world-building and treasure hunting, and while the series did change, it did gradually. You claim that there's a huge difference between the first 3 Ultima games and the rest of the series, but I don't really believe there are that many differences between Ultima 3 and 5 other than plot.

Wizardry 5 may have been made by Bradley, but he was obviously constrained by the Wizardry formula, which he respected and even improved at first, but then he decided to discard all previous work and make his own thing with Wizardry 6, where he could finally display all his puzzle designs and furry fetishes. By turning the tense dungeon delve gameplay from the previous games into a "save early save often" experience which encourages the player to rest and save after each rat encounter (making him fearless of losing progress in the process), Bradley made a completely different thing. Since then, games like Might and Magic 1, Dark Heart of Uukrul, and even dumbed down JRPGs like Dragon Quest 3 felt much closer to Wizardry than the official Wizardry sequels.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Never played Wizardry. I once considered it but the pixel graphics turned me off.

 

[V_K]

Wizardry 5 may have been made by Bradley, but he was obviously constrained by the Wizardry formula, which he respected and even improved at first, but then he decided to discard all previous work and make his own thing with Wizardry 6, where he could finally display all his puzzle designs and furry fetishes.

Wizardry 5 has the full extent of Bradley's inventory-based puzzles and whimsy writing. Removing permadeath was a logical next step because it doesn't really mix well with puzzles - and an improvement at that.

Ultima was always about world-building and treasure hunting

And Wizardry has always been about dungeon crawling and abstracted turn-based combat with a 6-strong party. At that level of abstraction, both series have the same level of coherence.

 

[jackofshadows]

Never played Wizardry. I once considered it but the pixel graphics turned me off.

You may try Wiz8. Imo it has passable graphics even by today's standarts. Great art direction, animated portraits coupled with awesome companion's banter lines also makes up for generally outdated visual part. I discovered this game for myself truly only several months ago (had copy for years but constantly encountered tech difficulties) and after I finally sank into it - coudn't tear myself away from the laptop for a couple of weeks (normal>hard>hard iron man). Which was quite unusual for me (unfortunately).

The game has some questionable design aspects, and the biggest one is: level scaled packs everywhere. That's right. The moment I've realized it while got too much exp at the starting area with my non-full party I've got a fucking Oblivion flashbacks. But once I've learned that lesson and dug into other game's mechanics it become a very, very pleasant ride. Wiz8 overall is just... too good to dwell on it's flaws.

 

[mondblut]

Ultima was always about world-building and treasure hunting, and while the series did change, it did gradually.

I thought Ultima was about the Avatar doing goodly things. Which... didn't happen until 4. 3 had full party creation ffs. And 4 was touted as the first revolutionary arpeegee that is totally NOT about killing shit for xp and loot.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I had to vote aweigh: Turn-based blobber, risk and reward gameplay focused on resource management, class swapping, perma-death, must take place mostly indoors with a simple menu-based hub to rest, level up and buy stuff.

The Dark Savant trilogy is not real Wizardry, although it has its own strengths.

The Dark Savant trilogy is the only one that matters, everything else was the sketch to get the masterpieces right.

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

Wizardry is about tense dungeon expeditions where you have to carefully manage your resources and consider the risks of delving deeper. That tension is what really makes Wizardry for me and what is missing in so many RPGs now.

 

[Casual Hero]

Unorus Janco is correct.

 

[DraQ]

You may try Wiz8. Imo it has passable graphics even by today's standarts.

Apart from (few) slightly prosperous skins and general texture blurriness characteristic of many mid-early 3D games, Wizardry 8 is quite pleasing to the eye.
It also uses lighting pretty damn well.

...Aaand really nails this adventuring party atmosphere.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Wizardry 5 may have been made by Bradley, but he was obviously constrained by the Wizardry formula, which he respected and even improved at first, but then he decided to discard all previous work and make his own thing with Wizardry 6, where he could finally display all his puzzle designs and furry fetishes.

Wizardry 5 has the full extent of Bradley's inventory-based puzzles and whimsy writing. Removing permadeath was a logical next step because it doesn't really mix well with puzzles - and an improvement at that.

That's what I said, he really felt constrained by the real Wizardry formula, so he decided to change everything to focus on his fetishes.

Which is OK I guess, since the Dark Savant games are also fine, don't get me wrong, but the original Wizardry formula deserved to survive outside Japan (where they keep cloning these games, but without the will to actually improve them, all they do is the same old shit but bigger and tougher), and unfortunately it didn't. Bradley should have started his own series right there instead of supplanting the actual Wizardry games.

Ultima was always about world-building and treasure hunting

And Wizardry has always been about dungeon crawling and abstracted turn-based combat with a 6-strong party. At that level of abstraction, both series have the same level of coherence.

Early Wizardries were about tense dungeon crawling focused on gambling-like risk and reward gameplay, while late Wizardry games were about risk-free munchkinism and solving puzzles to advance the plot. To me they're fundamentally different experiences.

I thought Ultima was about the Avatar doing goodly things. Which... didn't happen until 4. 3 had full party creation ffs. And 4 was touted as the first revolutionary arpeegee that is totally NOT about killing shit for xp and loot.

The author's vision never changed that much, the difference between the early and late games in the series was that at first Garriott foolishly assumed that the players would LARP as good and noble heroes without an actual incentive from the game, instead of murder and raping everything in sight for gold and experience points. This happened again when he tried to implement a complex ecosystem in Ultima Online only for the players to completely destroy it by killing everything in sight, Garriott's not a learning animal.

 

[mondblut]

"should have started his own series"

"The author's vision never changed that much"

My nigga...

 

[V_K]

That's what I said, he really felt constrained by the real Wizardry formula, so he decided to change everything to focus on his fetishes.

Which is OK I guess, since the Dark Savant games are also fine, don't get me wrong, but the original Wizardry formula deserved to survive outside Japan (where they keep cloning these games, but without the will to actually improve them, all they do is the same old shit but bigger and tougher), and unfortunately it didn't. Bradley should have started his own series right there instead of supplanting the actual Wizardry games.

For one thing, Wiz6 isn't exactly risk-free, as you only get one save slot, and it's not impossibly to save yourself into a walking dead situation if you abuse the save function too much.
For another, my point wasn't that Bradley's Wizardries are the same as the first trilogy (although there is a clear continuity, much more so than with e.g. BT or M&M), but that they are superior and more relevant Wizardries. Honestly, even five years ago there would have been no discussion about that, it's only with the Japanese Wiz-clones making it to PC that the Llylgamyn trilogy started gaining some interest beyond purely historical one.
Finally, when all the contemporaries - the aforementioned BT, M&M and other TB blobbers - tried to improve on Wizardry formula (not necessarily successfully), then it's obvious the formula needed improving. Compare that to Dungeon Master situation, which produced a ton of direct clones, became an evolutionary dead end, then got revived 20 years later, and produced another wave of clones.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Who cares if Wizardry 8 (or Wizardry 6-7 to that end, shamefully enough to admit I still have not played those) is not 'real' Wizardry lol. The character building and encounters (and overall experience) simply felt more rewarding and more fun in Wizardry 8, it's all what matters to me.
When I started playing Wizardry 5 and realised I had more fun mapping out the levels than actually playing the game, it became apparent to me that something was wrong, and the need to play super carefully and return to the town often so as not to get your entire party killed (in which case you effectively have to start over and go through the same levels again) only contributed to the tedium and made me really wondering why in the hell I'm wasting my time on this, when Wizardry 8 is clearly superior and I have more important matters to attend to anyway.

 

[Casual Hero]

Who cares if Wizardry 8 (or Wizardry 6-7 to that end, shamefully enough to admit I still have not played those) is not 'real' Wizardry lol.

I thought that was the subject of this thread.

 

[Casual Hero]

There seems to be a lot of misinformation being thrown around here. A lot of you are confused as to what makes Wizardry 1 so good.
"Finally, when all the contemporaries - the aforementioned BT, M&M and other TB blobbers - tried to improve on Wizardry formula (not necessarily successfully), then it's obvious the formula needed improving."
First off, no, these games were not trying to improve on Wizardry, except maybe Bard's Tale 1. Might & Magic is a discussion for another day, but it was only inspired by Wizardry as far as the game engine and style. M&M is not about dungeon crawling, it is about exploration and loot.

 

[Casual Hero]

One of the things like makes Wizardry 1 so classic is the succinctness of it. I place it in the same tier as Fallout as far as compact and focused cRPGs go. I think that Wizardry 7 suffers when it comes to the overall experience. Things like combat and character building in 7 are great, but the minute to minute gameplay just becomes very tedious. There is a lot of down time of just running around between towns and trying to track down NPCs. That is why I like to recommend Wizardry 1 to people who want to play a good cRPG; it is very to-the-point, and you won't waste much time without making progress, and that is one of it's strengths.

Ultimately, in my opinion I think that the scope of Wizardry 7 just didn't fit with the gameplay that Bradley employed. Wizardry 1 wants to be a dungeon crawler, and the vision and the actual application of the systems in the game synch up beautifully. Wizardry 7 wants to be a months long planetary romp, but it is marred by its own tedium and unpolished systems. Wizardry 7 feels like the halfway point to a truly great open-world RPG, but it falls a little short of its mark.

 

[Ysaye]

One of the things like makes Wizardry 1 so classic is the succinctness of it. I place it in the same tier as Fallout as far as compact and focused cRPGs go. I think that Wizardry 7 suffers when it comes to the overall experience. Things like combat and character building in 7 are great, but the minute to minute gameplay just becomes very tedious. There is a lot of down time of just running around between towns and trying to track down NPCs. That is why I like to recommend Wizardry 1 to people who want to play a good cRPG; it is very to-the-point, and you won't waste much time without making progress, and that is one of it's strengths.

Ultimately, in my opinion I think that the scope of Wizardry 7 just didn't fit with the gameplay that Bradley employed. Wizardry 1 wants to be a dungeon crawler, and the vision and the actual application of the systems in the game synch up beautifully. Wizardry 7 wants to be a months long planetary romp, but it is marred by its own tedium and unpolished systems. Wizardry 7 feels like the halfway point to a truly great open-world RPG, but it falls a little short of its mark.

I agree BUT I also think that there is much unexplored territory still to come in the CRPG world down the DW.Bradley path, whereas the fate of the earlier Wizardries are in the space of refining very good game mechanics and dungeon crawling antics, for which there is arguably smaller scope (but also maybe less cost in development terms). It is very unfortunate that Wizards and Warriors was basically the last in that line of type of DW game, coming just after the arguably superior Wizardry 8; if there was scope for a kickstarter project it would be to build something like Wizardry 8 in low polygon graphics.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Only games made by a Cracker Jack.

 

[Lady_Error]

Wizardry 7 wants to be a months long planetary romp, but it is marred by its own tedium and unpolished systems. Wizardry 7 feels like the halfway point to a truly great open-world RPG, but it falls a little short of its mark.

How is Wizardry 7 more tedious than the early Wizardries, when it has much more variation to offer: cities, shops, NPC's, factions, puzzles... Roaming a single dungeon for random encounters and random loot is more interesting for you?

I love both Wizardry 7 and Grimoire, which expands on the D.W. Bradley formula.