The David W. Bradley's Wizards & Warriors Thread

[Great Deceiver]

Hey, thanks for the reply.

I remember playing it way back and I don't really remember the mouse issues - I guess it's been way too long. It's unfortunate that there appears to be no definitive way to get this running smoothly on a modern OS - I understand exactly what you mean about the awkward combination of being too old and too new at the same time; this is a cool game - in my opinion better than Wizardry 8, which I also liked quite a bit. It has more varied dungeons/creatures and less clunky fights - I also really enjoy the soundtrack. The graphics haven't aged all that badly, either, the animations are full of personality.

I read somewhere that Bradley was working on a new "remixed" version of Dungeon Lords, but that game was total rubbish - if only he had the same idea for W&W. Shame.

 

[Phelot]

You tried this? http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/screed/?p=1977

There's also this: http://www.jeffludwig.com/wizardswarriors/download.php


I had some trouble running it on XP, but I can't recall what I did to fix it and I doubt that would really help you with 7

 

[Great Deceiver]

Yeah, I'm running the latest patched version with the resolution fix and the restored (uncompressed) town .avi files - the game itself is functional; it's just filled with nagging issues like I described above, that makes playing it a chore, especially the mouse thing - also there's a weird redraw bug where the entire screen will be wiped, and as you move the mouse, the frame gets restored bit by bit. It happens at random in Software mode, and sometimes the issue doesn't "fix" itself at all, forcing a hard restart of the game. DirectX mode is a lot smoother (no sound crackling, or the strange speedup of the town interface), but there are rendering issues like I described, polygon faces missing, etc. I guess it's just a lost cause, and that's ok.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

 

[Anthony Davis]

I was just talking about this game at work today. I would be interested in knowing any fixes as well.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

I reinstalled it today on my Windows 7 x64 laptop with the fan-patches and it works without any problem. Weird game by the way, very good for it's fucking Bradley designing it but broken at the same time, gameplay and interface wise. I still really like it nevertheless.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

So Anthony, without spilling the beans, do you think that we will love W2? Or do you fear the Emperor Fargo's Dark Side? Just say yes or no You can PM me and rest assured that I won't ever say a word about it to no one.

 

[Jaesun]

To be honest, just read TheVeryBigSlayer's LP of it. It's far better reading that than actually playing it. Plus it was fucking hysterical.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

I agree with Jaesun, the gameplay is a bit of a chore to go through even if the game is still interesting. Wizardry 8 is a thousand times better.

I even had more fun playing Bradley's Dungeon Lords and god knows that this particular game is like the Graal of the retarded bizarro universe.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Beautiful Clown Painting, are you running it on Software or Direct3D rendering? Is your videocard nvidia or ati? Mine is nvidia, so maybe the rendering problems in hardware mode are related to some driver interaction.

I read and enjoyed Vazdru's LP, is that the same one you're talking about?

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

My laptop is a M11x Alienware, Nvidia graphic card. My graphic settings are Software rendering and it works like a charm without any kind of problem. It's an old game, it doesn't really need acceleration through a graphic card (and god knows that the M11x processor is weak). Just grab the Windows Vista/7 fan-made patches and you should be all right.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/44338-25-wizards-warriors-patch-both

 

[eric__s]

I agree with Jaesun, the gameplay is a bit of a chore to go through even if the game is still interesting. Wizardry 8 is a thousand times better.

I even had more fun playing Bradley's Dungeon Lords and god knows that this particular game is like the Graal of the retarded bizarro universe.

Do you really think Wizardry 8's combat is less of a chore than Wizards and Warriors', which is 100x faster and if you ever feel like leaving a battle you can just walk away? I'd say Wizards and Warriors is better than Wizardry 8 in quite a few regards, but especially combat and area design.

I had the same problems with town scrolling speed when I tried to play it on Windows 7 too and as far as I know, there aren't any fixes. As long as the AVI format is properly converted, I think this is the best you can do.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

I was not talking about combat which, as you rightly pointed, is less tedious than in Wizardry 8. More in terms of a sluggish engine, counter-intuitive controls and a bland storyline. That's the memories that I have of it, now that I installed it, I'll play it again and see if was right or wrong.

 

[lordi]

(sorry, but english is not my native language)

Problem: In software mode town scrolls too fast, so it’s impossible to stop scrolling on centre of town (for example, on Inn or Armory of Valeia village).

Solution: You must re-compress all avi files in "townavi" with modern video codec. In this case on right side town will scrolls as fast as before, but on left side it will scrolls more slowly. Most suit for this deed is free "TechSmith Screen Capture Codec", but free "x264" and "xvid" codecs also suits well. For re-compression you can use free video editor "VirtualDub".

 

[ZodoZ]

I had the same problems with town scrolling speed when I tried to play it on Windows 7 too and as far as I know, there aren't any fixes. As long as the AVI format is properly converted, I think this is the best you can do.

A few days ago, against all better judgement and scarred gaming memories, I installed Wizards & Warriors.
After an anti-climatical ending to a marathon of Avernum: Escape from the Pit { Will be re-visting that for a new ending } the urge to undertake another gargantuan epic took hold of me. In the end, decided to take a blind stab at a PC "game" from Ye Olden Tyme. I put game in quotes because at times Wizards & Warriors is more of an excercise in mind over machine code.

Anyway - I won't go in to detail yet...suffice it to say that the desire to "unlock" certain Role Ascensions earlier than intended - while forgetting how to do that and not reading hints can be downright punishing. Definitely a game of compromises that will bring any sane human to the brink of madness if not careful.

The real reason I posted is this, as I have not found this info anywhere in recent searches...which makes sense seeing as how most posts about this games are from 9-13 years ago.

I ran in to the same "speed" issue when in the first Town, which is Valeia. Back in the day people could just use Mo'slo to slow the CPU down. Now we have VirtualPC. VirtualPC is great but takes a while to set up. DosBox is not really made for a Win98 game so scratch that. So I searched for what would work on a "somewhat" modern era gaming rig {4 Ghz Black Edition Quad core}. I had found Wizards & Warriors runs pretty well on a Win 7 x64 rig but scrolls too fast in town even w/ the "townavi" VirtualDub fixes. My "fix":

UnderClock.

After entering BIOS and setting clock multiplier to 4x my PC reports running at 800 Mhz - stilll theoretically on the fast side for a game originally designed for 233 Mhz single cores - but lo and behold it worked. I also set the memory multiplier to 1x so RAM is running at 800Mhz also. Reversed the overclock on my GPU down to stock also. Granted, it is still a might be buggy now and then - but anyone who played this knows this going in ...

Btw - save before, save after, save for the hell of it - and make a directory of time stepped saves...Wizards & Warriors "blind play" takes no prisoners.

 

[Bubbles]

Another useful reminder that no matter how shit a game is, people will still be playing it ten years after release.

 

[V_K]

Oh, shut up, it was a great game. Head and shoulders better than most its contermporaries.

 

[mondblut]

For all its linearity and ridiculously cliche plot, it was more fun than any post-Xeen M&M. Or Wizardry 8.

 

[hoverdog]

For all its linearity and ridiculously cliche plot, it was more fun than any post-Xeen M&M. Or Wizardry 8.

Nope. But it was fun.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I wish Heuristic Park would release a working version of this game for modern systems, instead of trying to re-release Shit Lords for the 20th time.

W&W is a really good game, it deserves better.

 

[bonescraper]

Yeah, but it's probably in Kotick's greedy hands.

 

[Luzur]

hm, maybe i should re-install this game again, been years since last time.

 

[bonescraper]

It doesn't work well on modern machines i'm afraid.

 

[LESS T_T]

Yeah, but it's probably in Kotick's greedy hands.

As I understand Heuristic Park owning W&W. If it's owned by Activision, they already re-released it on GOG along with other Activision back catalogues.

 

[Turjan]

Yeah, but it's probably in Kotick's greedy hands.

As I understand Heuristic Park owning W&W. If it's owned by Activision, they already re-released it on GOG along with other Activision back catalogues.

That's not really a valid argument. The people at gog.com seem to not to release anything that doesn't run on modern machines, and this game seems to be difficult to make behave.

 

[LESS T_T]

That's not really a valid argument. The people at gog.com seem to not to release anything that doesn't run on modern machines, and this game seems to be difficult to make behave.

Hmm, if that's the case it's a real pity. But aside from that, copyright and trademark notice of the box and in-game indicated that it is owned by Heuristic Park. (And so is Dungeon Lords games.)