Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[victim]

Oh man....you have just brought on waves of nostalgia. I miss this game so damn much.

There is an Android game called Wandroid #1 that is a Wiz I clone. I didn't think nostalgia would get the best of me but..well, I have graph paper maps of the first 5 floors for Wandroid..

 

[Luzur]

This guy (Demiath) is actually a member here. I guess the Japanese UI makes this difficult.

Also, the JRPG style combat screen in that version is pretty bad for immersion.

Demiath is a peculiar fellow, blocked me on youtube because we didnt agree on some things.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

Anyone read those?

http://www.mediafire.com/view/tj1r23a5958fean/Wizardry_6_Novel.pdf
http://www.mediafire.com/view/77ct3x47fuxdjo1/Wizardry_8_Novel.pdf

Just found them lying on my hard drive.

 

[DraQ]

what I specifically like is how they managed to get good party banter for a player generated party.

And that's the point where we should all point at Bioware and laugh. Derisively.

'Tactics' on the last part of the road were something like back to a corner and play bagpipes until everything is dead

Like a tru Scotsman.

Demiath is a peculiar fellow, blocked me on youtube because we didnt agree on some things.

Sounds faggy.

 

[Scroo]

Anyone read those?

http://www.mediafire.com/view/tj1r23a5958fean/Wizardry_6_Novel.pdf
http://www.mediafire.com/view/77ct3x47fuxdjo1/Wizardry_8_Novel.pdf

Just found them lying on my hard drive.

Huh, interesting. Fanfiction to Wizardry. Thanks for the links, might read them when I find some time.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I'm in Wizardry I on NES and I am on floor 9, however many of my members are underpowered, and I am scared to go confront Werdna. I don't know if it's possible to revive party members that are killed by Werdna like it would be if they would die on another tile.

I am underpowered and grinding is really slow. It's most of all extremely frustrating when you get a monster that drains your level and it gets to attack you first without you can run. That was one insufferably annoying design flaw. At least allow to be healed of the draining at the Temple of Cant for a significant sum.

 

[WarHamster]

So, what's the Codex consensus on the Mad God's patches (i.e. mods) for Wiz7, namely the resting mod?

I just took a new party for a test drive through the starter dungeon with the mod installed and it seems overpowered as all hell. I didn't need to use the fountain on the 1st level even once, which unmodded was a gift from the gods. HP and Mana seem to recover pretty damn fast with the mod. Is it supposed to be the easy mode or something? Or maybe this is due to the fact that my characters are still at low levels and they have pitiful amounts of HP and Mana, which are thus quick to replenish. At level 4-5 my party still gets the 'ZAPP - you're healed and mana's been fully recovered' with a short rest (barely get the resting music going and everyone's OK already), however, maybe this will even out at higher levels. Or will it? Will it conversely get even more out of hand at higher levels?

Anyone have more hands-on experience with this resting mod? At low levels it's practically a cheat.

The other patch/mod of his, the removal of double damage done by and to the fighters (nearly all the time) seems golden, though.

 

[ZodoZ]

Do you really need RPGCodex to tell you how to play a game?

 

[WarHamster]

Do you really need RPGCodex to tell you how to play a game?

Ooh, edgy! Do you feel manly now?

No, I don't need Codex to tell me how to play a game, just want discussion and opinions about the mod from those who have tested it more thoroughly than I have. Maybe the mod starts to shine on higher levels after hours of gameplay, maybe it doesn't, but as I don't have all the time in the world to play CRPGs anymore, I thought I'd to ask what other players think of it before sinking tens of hours into it myself. You know, discussion on a discussion forum, FFS.

 

[TigerKnee]

I don't remember what the resting mod does. Speeds up the rate of healing when resting a lot?

Simply speaking from personal experience, I snooze and heal to full after just about every battle anyway. The threat of enemies attacking during your sleep seems very rare to not even be worth considering compared to walking into a next battle that you might regret not having full MP stores. With this patch, at least I don't have to wait fucking forever where nothing of value happens as my party members snore while their health/MP are SLOWLY being refilled.

 

[Wizfall]

Mad God's patches are all good except the resting mode (the added range attack option is a must have, it rebalances things).
I activate the resting mode at the beginning though to speed up thing (especially to be able to quickly train swim).
Otherwise i used to rest a minimum.

 

[mondblut]

I just took a new party for a test drive through the starter dungeon with the mod installed and it seems overpowered as all hell.

"Balancing" something by forcing you to sit on your ass doing nothing whatsoever for many long minutes is the most idiotic way to balance something, and anything that makes the tedium of resting go is good. What's overpowered in that, too few random encounters? I am sure it can be modded somewhere, too.

 

[DraQ]

The best way to balance healing by resting is removal of healing by resting or limiting it to characters that are only lightly wounded.

 

[iZerw]

Please, tell me there is no lifestealers below 5th level. The permanent level drain is such a great idea (on par with the original level up system). I have to restore my backup every time I meet these fuckers.

It's most of all extremely frustrating when you get a monster that drains your level and it gets to attack you first without you can run. That was one insufferably annoying design flaw. At least allow to be healed of the draining at the Temple of Cant for a significant sum.

Lucky you, you can't restore your levels in PC version.

 

[octavius]

So, after three months without playing any games (due in no small part to unusually nice weather in this cold, wet shithole) I've decided to reboot my play-games-chronologically project (I've gotten to the end of 1996) and play some of the games I for various reasons skipped.
I don't recall why I skipped Wizardy 1-5, but the more games I played, and also by reading crpgaddict's blog, I realized just how influential Wizardry 1 was, so that's the game I'll start my reboot with.

So what version to play?
I've heard that with the DOS version there is a "major leveling bug in Wizardry 1 on the UWA".
The Apple version probably looks better, and is also the original version. But if I'm to learn how use a new emulator maybe I should just as well try the nice looking (no anime artwork that I could see) SNES version that Crooked Bee used in her Let's Play?

Anything else I should know?

 

[TigerKnee]

Well, if fidelity to the original except in terms of graphics is required because you're doing this for some kind of "getting in a historical mood" purpose, Monstrous Bat just posted a bunch of stuff in the tail end of the Let's Play on the Wiz 2 and 3 part of the Snes Wiz 1-3 version which might skewer things a bit. Apparently Wiz 2 and 3 was swapped in the Japanese console versions of the game and tinkered with?

For strict "quality of life" reasons, I would definitely pick SNES though.

 

[iZerw]

Don't play the PC version. My party often gets weaker with level ups and I play the most recent version (from Wizardry Archive). Look at this shit, my LV7 samurai. It's insane.

 

[octavius]

Well, if fidelity to the original except in terms of graphics is required because you're doing this for some kind of "getting in a historical mood" purpose, Monstrous Bat just posted a bunch of stuff in the tail end of the Let's Play on the Wiz 2 and 3 part of the Snes Wiz 1-3 version which might skewer things a bit. Apparently Wiz 2 and 3 was swapped in the Japanese console versions of the game and tinkered with?

For strict "quality of life" reasons, I would definitely pick SNES though.

Thanks for that info about the SNES version. Since I may want to transfer my party to Wiz 2 I think I'll try the Apple version instead. Besides, with Nintendo versions there's always the risk of things being censored. Better graphics is nice, but not at the cost of game content being changed for the worse.
Also, I'm not playing it only for "historical" reason, but because I want to play a hard old school CRPG with a good mapping challenge again. Sadly that specific segment of CRPGs was dead already by 1990, at least in the West.
Last CRPG I played was Anvil of Dawn (not much a challenge) last year.

Don't play the PC version. My party often gets weaker with level ups

I think that's actually normal in the old Wizardry games.

 

[octavius]

After finally getting it to run on AppleWin (first version of Apple Wizardry 1 I downloaded would hang on the title screen) I got it to work, but it's painfully slow with an unfriendly UI, having to type in your characters' names instead of just choosing a letter A-Z from a menu, and using some special symbols for which there are no obvious equivalent on my keyboard.
So I think I'll take my chances with the DOS version after all.

 

[octavius]

Question about recovering spell points in Wiz 1: how long do you need to rest at the Inn? The manual lists how much time you need to recover hit points, but not spell points.

 

[iZerw]

Just rest and that's it, no matter how long. I always rest at stables then heal my party with priest spells btw.

 

[Gragt]

If you want to play Wizardry 1 to 5, I'd say pick either the Wizardry Archives version for fidelity or the PSX remakes—I find them superior to the SNES port—if you are not averse to PSX emulation.

Since you know about the Wizardry Archives version, I'll only tell you about the PSX one. It comes in two CDs: The LLylgamyn Saga that covers Wizardry 1 to 3 (correctly numbered and with possibility to easily import characters from one scenario to the other) and the New Age of Llylgamyn (covers Wizardry 4 and 5, and features a special version of the Return of Werdna but only in Japanese). Both are from the same developer, so you can expect them to look and feel similar. These are Japanese version but they also include all the original text in English, available from the option menu. All the extra text, like spell descriptions, stays in Japanese since it wasn't in the original to begin with, and the same goes for extra features like items or monsters galleries; it's a bit of a shame but at the same time these are extras not available in the original version and so you can still play the game without problems with a copy of the manual for spell descriptions.

The games just play like the old Wizardry games but with nice and smooth visuals and decent music. There is also an automap function but it can be completely disabled in the options menu—you could also chose to not use it at all but disabling it althogether gets rid of the temptation of using it. You can even revert the look of the dungeon and monsters to the classic one if you feel like it. Everything else is there and unchanged, though I find the menus a bit easier to navigate that way, and spellcasting only requires you to select the spell in a list instead of typing it.

Being emulated, unless you play it on real hardware, it also means you can use some scum functions like save states if you want to. It can ruin a game like this but the option is there.

My only complaint about this version is that there is a special effect when you get teleported in enhanced visual mode. It looks neat but gives you a clue that you changed location, whereas the original would do nothing and screw up your mapmaking. There is also a bug about secret doors that may happen if you turn in front of them, obviously giving you another big clue. Other than that it looks like a modern update while keeping the classic game intact. Pretty good if you feel the old DOS or Apple version are too Spartan. Else if you want to play it the way it was back in the day, pick the Wizardry Archives version.

Edit: obviously if you already played and mapped the dungeon, these effects won't spoil anything for you.

 

[Invictus]

I had never heard of Mad God's mods but that recovery modification sounds very useful for removing the most annoying part of Wiz 7; the constant resting after a couple of battles. I found the site with the downloads but no mention on what they actualy do...anybody care to point me to the explinations?

 

[octavius]

I decided to use the Wizardry Archives version, rolled up a party with 15-19 bonus points, armed them and headed down into the maze and slaughtered a bunch of kobolds. I noticed that the game checks for encounters when turning, not just when moving, which brings up a question: the manual mentions grafitti on the walls. Is this actual writing on the walls that I can see without using the Inspect command, like in Might&Magic 2? IOW, do I need to check all walls for grafitti?

 

[Gragt]

As far as I know, you automatically get a message when you enter a square with a message. It even gets repeated if you move back. I)nspect is mainly used to find adventurers you abandonned in the dungeon—great trick to mix evil and good characters.

If you play it in DOSBox, don't forget to set it to CGA to have the magenta replaced by red.

Just rest and that's it, no matter how long. I always rest at stables then heal my party with priest spells btw.

Actually avoid resting as much as possible because it will make your characters age. Their stats will begin to decay when they reach 50 and they may eventually die of old age. Only use the stables and only for the spellcasters to recover their spells, after that heal the rest of the party with priest spells and have them rest again if necessary. The only time a non-spellcaster should rest is when they need to level up.