Wizardry Long Live Wizardry! (And The All-New Games By Ex-Wizardry Developers)

[aweigh]

hehe what deuce traveler describes with werdna is a huge part of the weird melting pot of reasons that make classic, traditional wizardry feature such depth of design in fact it's almost by pure accident. there is SO MUCH randomization in wizardry 1-5 that every single little thing ends up becoming a mountain; such as the fact that encounters, even after they make the incredibly smart decision to feature both random AND fixed encounters-- are still regulated by a dice roll as far as the amount of monsters are concerned... when you stop and think about this it is such a hot mess isn't it?

you can get lucky and catch werdna with his pants down, or you can be unlucky and face him with a full guard of vampire lords. imagine these two players, and both beat him and both have completely different psychological take-aways from their experience with the game. originally this was almost impossible to abuse because original versions of wiz 1-5 saved the game state automatically after every step; so you couldn't just re-load and hope for a better encounter roll.

the random way resistances work is also very similar: the percentile roll the game uses is so big that it might as well be a completely random thing; but the thing is that you know that it never truly is random. it makes for some extremely intense moments.

wizardry is like the perfect alchemical mix of skinner boxes and slot machines married with hard-core rpg game design.

 

[aweigh]

Alchemist

The first one, Wanderer, loads fine for me after downloading the missing .OCX file it says it needed and ticking Win 95 compat. Just for the hell of it I'm gonna quickly translate the menu in the beginning to see what the game's like

 

[aweigh]

um, well shit this is a ton of work. I extracted the files out of the two dat files and dat1 contains monsters/npc's and dat2 contains items and some stuff i don't understand

then the main .exe is packed to the brim with all of the game's dialog and code jumbled together. would make for a good translation project if one actually wanted to do it...

 

[aweigh]

at least a translation of the game's enemies and items is easy, that much is true. they're both in dat1. however i the programmer used some really tricky japanese programming ancient magics to pack the game executable with a ton of dialog and game code and it's all jumbled together. deciphering hot messes like this is actually exactly what i'm trying to learn right now. this might make a good learning project.

 

[aweigh]

btw, the very first enemy inside dat1 listed is "Green slime", just for anyone who is curious. :D

 

[aweigh]

Alchemist

You might find this brief video interesting:

 

[aweigh]

Translating a really old game like this Wanderer is great practice for getting a lot of stress and losing your hair... it's obvious the developer was extremely limited in terms of memory space so the game code is jam packed full of kanji and an english translation would necessitate that the person doing the hex editing move the pointers around for each monster entry. this is extremely time consuming and i personally don't even know how to do it :D so that means if it was me doing the hex editing since i lack pointer knowledge i would use a lot of abbreviations, or worse. Like using human being instead of humanoid organism LOL which is obviously wrong since a kobold isn't a human being, but that was just for show.

Thankfully modern games aren't so extremely limited in space, though it depends on what game and console you're gonnna do. When i attempted psx translation... ugh. ugh. fuck that. best case scenario games will always be translating a PC version.

 

[aweigh]

btw the humanoid organism i *think* might probably be the description for the kobold when you haven't yet identified the enemy but i'm just guessing. i already deleted the game off my HDD.

 

[Alchemist]

That video was interesting aweigh - looks like a lot of trouble to go through and who knows if the game is worth it. Interesting stuff, to see the process entailed though - thanks for sharing it.

btw the humanoid organism i *think* might probably be the description for the kobold when you haven't yet identified the enemy but i'm just guessing. i already deleted the game off my HDD.

That's how Wandroid works, from the same author - so yeah, that's probably the case. When I was playing today, most monsters had a generic "type" at first and as the combats went on the party figured out what they were more specifically.

By the way - I saw this entry at the bottom of the Wanderers download page:

While the name is amusing, considering the infamous vaporware with that title we all know and love... this looks to be more recent than the other Win 98 Wanderers games, because it uses the .NET framework. I wonder if it might be easier to translate?

I tried installing that one and it successfully installed, but I get a crash upon loading the game. Not sure what the issue is. I might try running it in my XP virtual machine at some point. I can't read any of it anyway - just curious how it was set up. I've got plenty of English games in my backlog to play anyway!

 

[aweigh]

well, what does the crash say? that's how i got Wanderer running. When it crashed it specified it was missing a file so I just googled for the file, downloaded it and placed inside the game folder and voila.

 

[aweigh]

I'm burning the midnight oil so to speak translating finally to the finish line Wizardry Empire 1; i FINALLY figured out what was causing the screen-flickering problem I had been whining about!

for whatever reason turns out the game doesn't seem to play well with certain setups that are running 32-bit versions of Win 7 specifically; at least that was the problem in my case. I would have never imagined it but there it is! I ended up installing today the 64 bit version of Win 7 and voila, flicker-free and flawless gameplay from Wizardry Empire 1.

So obviously that means my desire to finish translating it has once again become my top priority! i'm even teaching myself some new "tricks", specifically how to hex-edit in something called "single-width font" so I can make certain dialogs and item box informations "prettier" and "fit" better inside the boxes; now that I know i can actually play the game without graphical issues it's full speed ahead.

 

[aweigh]

btw if you are using Chrome (and i suggest you do, it's the best browser for viewing japanese text) there is an AMAZING extension that brings up a blue pop-up with the english translation of whatever japanese sentence/word you're highlighting.

 

[Alchemist]

well, what does the crash say? that's how i got Wanderer running. When it crashed it specified it was missing a file so I just googled for the file, downloaded it and placed inside the game folder and voila.

It was a big long list of .NET related errors. I'll check into it a bit more tomorrow as it's late here.
I have the latest .NET installed, but that might be the problem.

 

[Siveon]

Siveon

you hadn't played an Elminage game yet!??? I thought you had. Is Original your first? I'm very glad you like it. Any questions you have don't hesitate to ask me here or in PM i'll gladly explain the game mechanics. i can talk about elminage series til the end of time.

I have, just not extensively. And the community for Gothic is more comprehensive thanks to the much better manual and larger community on steam.

 

[aweigh]

THE links i sent ya will be enough, i think. that "sakura wiki" website has one such identically comprehensive wiki for all 5 elminage games, PER CONSOLE version. stuff like the drop tables is invaluable. also browsing the item list in its completeness is good because they even mark what weapons can only be gotten by theft

 

[Hirato]

btw if you are using Chrome (and i suggest you do, it's the best browser for viewing japanese text) there is an AMAZING extension that brings up a blue pop-up with the english translation of whatever japanese sentence/word you're highlighting.

Firefox has by far the best one though: http://rikaisama.sourceforge.net/

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I started a petition awhile ago to get the Elminage games translated for PC. It didn't amount to too much, only garnering about 100 signatures before I submitted it, and then Ross from Ghostlight said it probably wasn't enough signatures to really convince them to do anything.

Are you guys familiar with the Android port of Oubliette? It's pretty sweet. Obviously it's quite good as it's the game that Wizardry was inspired by. Pretty traditional dungeon crawler with some hardcore-ness to it. I recommend checking it out.

 

[aweigh]

i actually had it in the list in the "Compilation of Turn-Based Dungeon Crawlers" thread which you still haven't checked out but i removed it because it's not turn-based. (the remake)

and also it wasn't made by the original designers of Oubliette and they're just cashing in on the name. I don't think that's a good thing; especially since the remake they're selling on mobile devices is nothing like the original game in design philosophy. it's closer to a game like "The Quest" or perhaps Bethesda's "Arena" than a proper Wizardry-clone. (again, referring to oubliette remake).

 

[aweigh]

btw fluent elminage 2 is being translated (or attempted to) by a group from GBATemp. I'm helping them out translating the item/monster/spell/etc lists.

you can watch that exciting process in action in this thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ll-of-relevant-utilities.107721/#post-4445902

when elminage 2 is eventually translated i plan to dedicate the rest of my life (because that's basically how long it'll take lol) finishing up the rest of the series as well :D

EDIT: Maybe you should send that video of me translating the weapon items to the guy you know from Ghostlight so he can see my fucking pain. That's worth more than 10 thousand signatures

 

[Alchemist]

i actually had it in the list in the "Compilation of Turn-Based Dungeon Crawlers" thread which you still haven't checked out but i removed it because it's not turn-based. (the remake)

and also it wasn't made by the original designers of Oubliette and they're just cashing in on the name. I don't think that's a good thing; especially since the remake they're selling on mobile devices is nothing like the original game in design philosophy. it's closer to a game like "The Quest" or perhaps Bethesda's "Arena" than a proper Wizardry-clone. (again, referring to oubliette remake).

I'm pretty sure John Gaby (of Gabysoft, publisher of the mobile port) was one of the original authors. And I think it was made with the blessings (and possible collaboration?) of Jim Schwaiger the original designer of the game.
Check this out: http://gabysoft.com/Oubliette/AuthorInterview.aspx

And...

As for the turn-based or not, I haven't played the Android version lately but I thought it was turn-based. I'll double-check.

 

[Alchemist]

Oh yeah you were right, it is real-time but can be pretty slow-paced if needed. Kind of reminds me of the way Demise / Mordor does combat.
And I confirmed both John Gaby and Jim Schwaiger are in the mobile game credits as designers and programmers.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

The Oubliette remake is great and pretty similar to Wizardry. I've played it a bit. It's definitely an old-school dungeon crawler with no BS.

 

[aweigh]

if it's not turn-based then it is not "similar to Wizardry". in any case I have no problems with the game now if the game was indeed made with the blessings of the original creator.

however it is still not a turn-based dungeon crawler, i.e. the genre under which Wizardry and Oubliette belong to.

it is a real-time dungeon crawler similar to The Quest. from what Alchemist writes it seems to have a bit more depth than the Quest though since he is comparing it to the Demise series of games (which are actually listed in the compilation of turn-based dungeon crawlers thread).

the remake of oubliette however i would have no problems recommending it to someone who enjoys games like legend of grimrock and other real-time crawlers. i personally don't enjoy rpg's that aren't turn-based all that much, and the ones i do enjoy that aren't turn-based tend to use systems that are basically turn-based in disguise (like PoE's implementation of RTwP which is not real RTwP, as Sensuki has so many times described: it is actually an entirely new way of implementing RTwP to best simulate a turn-based system as much as is possible under the constraints of RTwP).

tl;dr even if the oubliette remake was made with the blessings of the original designers it STILL wouldn't fall under any category that includes the original game as the audience for the remake is completely different from the audience the original game was made for. i'm not saying both can't be enjoyed; what i'm talking about in this post is entirely in the context of categorization.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

aweigh, Have you seen Oubliette in action? You can essentially turn down the speed if you choose and make it very slow. It's basically a hybrid between turn-based and real-time, very reminiscent of the Final Fantasy 7 (and other FF games) "ATB" system (Active Time Battle). It's a unique system and is quite nice.

Don't let that fool you, though. The game is very much a mature dungeon crawler. I would play it a little bit even if it is a bit different and not technically turn-based. It still is very much a Wiz-style 'crawler (with slightly different systems and all).

 

[aweigh]

one of the biggest problems when discussing dungeon crawlers is that there are 3 seperate genres of games that people who don't know that much about the subject will lump all together:

- Rogue-likes, like net hack
- Wizardry (turn based crawler) style
- real time dungeon crawler (eye of the beholder, etc)

all 3 are 100% completely seperate genres and enjoyed by different sets of players.

fluent sure, i have nothing personal against trying the game out. I will do so, thanks. especially now that i know the original designers are credited.