Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[newtmonkey]

I'm saving Wiz 4 for last, and I mean really last, like, the game I will play as an old man in a rest home.

My plan is to skip 4 and go straight to 5 next!

 

[newtmonkey]

Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn

Finished! The game was much shorter than I expected; when I was facing PO'LE I figured I still had at least half the game left ahead of me, but it turned out I was pretty close to the end.

I explored every floor as much as I could, with the exception of Floor 6, where I stumbled upon the statue that gives you the orb, headed back to the Castle and won the game. I feel like I missed a lot on Floor 6; for example, I didn't encounter any Priests of Fung (mentioned by octavius), so I assume they are somewhere in that floor. I considered going back and exploring the rest... but then decided I had had enough of Wiz 3. I'll hang onto my save just in case I decide to go back and finish exploring.

I dunno how I feel about this one. On the one hand, it addresses the major complaints people have had about Wiz 1 and Wiz 2—namely, it doesn't have the "empty" floors that took up half of Wiz 1... and it's much meatier and more difficult than Wiz 2, with much better dungeon design.

The biggest problem with the game, however, is the poor balance. Wiz 3 starts out ridiculously hard and progress just gets slower and slower as you play. It's also overloaded with enemies that drain, poison, paralyze, and you quickly run out of spells to deal with it, making progress slow to a crawl toward the middle.

I also felt that itemization was poor. I kept expecting to finally start getting some great drops in chests each time I got to a new floor, only to be disappointed with endless bags of gems and cursed items. If I were to play the whole trilogy all over again, I wouldn't want a Thief in my Wiz 3 party.

I know I said this when I finished Wiz 2, but I am probably going to take some time off before I continue on to Wiz 5 (I'm going to skip Wiz 4 for now).

 

[Strange Fellow]

One nice thing about the Steam version of Wizardry 6 and 7 is that they're being actively supported by expired-copyright vacuum cleaners Nightdive Studios, so the games come with custom ready-to-go installs of DOSBox as well as nifty features like DOSBox DAUM, which makes it much more convenient to edit .conf files for stuff like aspect correction, sound output, default CPU cycles, etc. Just now I noticed that Steam had downloaded updates for both games, updating this program to the latest version. What it also did was reset all settings to default as well as break the automap-mods I had installed. Now, I'm used to updates breaking mods, and it's not a big hassle to fix it, but I thought it was just a little funny to have this stuff happen to a game from 1992. Dammit Gabe!

 

[newtmonkey]

I had a similar thing happen with Myst Classic on Steam, where I had it set up just like I wanted it, and then an update killed all my settings. It's nice that it now works without an issue on modern OS, but it's annoying to get a tiny update and have to set everything all up again haha.

 

[DavidBVal]

I'm saving Wiz 4 for last, and I mean really last, like, the game I will play as an old man in a rest home.

My plan is to skip 4 and go straight to 5 next!

5 is everything you wanted from 1-3 made true. Useful thieves that pick locks and fire a bow, extended range weapons, varied encounters and a dungeon with stuff to discover. I love that game.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I love La La Moo-Moo.

ftfy

skip 4

Not sure if 'burn this heretic' or 'ah, you decided to play everything before trying the best one'.

 

[Jason Liang]

4 and 5 are certainly the Wizardry crown jewels.

5 > 4 > 7 > 1 > 8 > 6 > 3 > 2

 

[theSavant]

I reinstalled Wizardry 8 to try something out: Skilling "Shields" (probably works for "Stealth" as well)

The Powerlevel Guide suggests to get yourself bitten by the 3 bugs in the LowerMonastery. If you make a Lord-Party, there is something better. In the cellar of the Brotherhood building in Arnika is a room with ghosts. There are 7 ghosts (Level 6) which do nothing but touch and fist you. And quite fast as well. You may kill some of them first (especially the "Rebel Spirit"), so you don't have to deal with all of them concurrently. I had a full Dracon-Lord-Party (Level 8) and had to kill all but 3 of them. These 3 were about right so the attacks were not dangerous, and nicely distributed to all party members. You can "adjust" the number of ghosts after your liking though. Then I went into Defensive-Mode and just activated Continuous-Phases. Done. Leave the computer, come back some hours later and your whole party will have their Shields skilled.

This unattended process is only possible for Lords though, because they auto-regenerate 1-2 healthpoints per round.

The BIGGEST advantage in comparison to the bugs in the LowerMonastery was, that the ghosts seem to have much more (endless?) Stamina. I went away for 15 minutes, and when I came back every ghost still fully attacked. No one fell unconscious. In comparison the bugs in the Monastery often fell unconscious and stretched the "skilling process". That was annoying. Also the spitting Seekers in the UpperMonastery, which I previously used for Stealth-skilling, fell unconscious very soon. I say: these ghosts are a better way to skill.

 

[No Great Name]

Continued playing through Wizardry I after having mostly recovered from the flu this past week. Each time I start a new session, I notice myself playing a lot more carefully and conservatively with my resources the further in I get. I started exploring the 3rd floor this time around which ended up not being too bad except for the pit traps and hard-hitting encounters (fucking bears in particular who paralyze AND poison everything they touch I swear). I started playing smarter in battle by having my spellcasters start off with sleep and statue spells first until my Mage learned the instant death Makanito spell and started destroying everything with it. Also in retrospect, I made a good decision to completely map out what I could first before paying attention to all the little messages in some of the intersections because they seem to just be there to purposefully mislead you.

Also on one of my return trips, I got ambushed by a group of Highwaymen on the 2nd floor again and they decapitated 3 of my party members instead of 4 like last time so my luck must be improving somewhat.

Anyways, finished mapping floor 3 and I plan to tackle floor 4 the next time I play.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The BIGGEST advantage in comparison to the bugs in the LowerMonastery was, that the ghosts seem to have much more (endless?) Stamina.

Iirc they have regular stamina but are immune to KO, so nothing happens once they reach 0.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

Level 3 is where the shit hits the fan in Wiz 1. You get the wraparound level design, the pit traps and the breath monsters. Don't ninjas and vorpal bunnies also show up for the first time?

 

[No Great Name]

Level 3 is where the shit hits the fan in Wiz 1. You get the wraparound level design, the pit traps and the breath monsters. Don't ninjas and vorpal bunnies also show up for the first time?

The first 2 floors kind of prepared me for the wraparound levels so that wasn't an issue, and as far as the pit traps go I was basically returning to the surface after every 1 or 2 pits I fell into just in case. I only encountered vorpal bunnies once but I got lucky and I put most of them to sleep on the first turn while the rest ran away so I still have no idea what they can really do. Ninjas haven't given me too much trouble yet though. Most of the encounters that I was getting in level 3 were those that paralyzed and/or poisoned my party along with the occasional group of cougars. I ran into

 

[newtmonkey]

Wizardry V (PC)
I was a fool to think I could take a break from playing Wizardry.

MASSIVE incline compared to Wizardry III, which was itself (besides the poor game balance) quite an incline over Wizardry II. I'm not very far into the game—average party level is 6 and I've only explored large portions of floors 1 and 2—but this may end up being my favorite Wizardry game yet.

5 is everything you wanted from 1-3 made true. Useful thieves that pick locks and fire a bow, extended range weapons, varied encounters and a dungeon with stuff to discover. I love that game.

This was is so true.

The changes might seem minor on paper but, once you get beyond LOLZ THE GRAPHICS LOOK THE SAME AS WIZ1, it makes the game feel like the evolution the formula needed. Just having range in combat makes encounters more interesting, but on top of that you have adventure game style inventory "puzzles" and NPCs with keyword dialog, and that unique love-it-or-hate-it DW Bradley humor. I am hoping to get some epic Bradley purple prose later in the game, but I won't be too disappointed if I have to wait for Wizardy 6 for that.

Finally the PC stat bug is fixed, and you typically either gain stats or don't. I've not seen a single stat loss yet. The shop is also full of items you can't afford even several hours into the game, so that's pretty satisfying.

I even like the CGA monster pictures! Definitely gotta set the game to CGA in DOSBOX tho to get red instead of magenta, or the skeletons end up having purple goo on their knives instead of blood.

The dungeon design so far is some of the best in the series. It hearkens back to Wizardry 1 in that "encounter" rooms are usually kept separate from navigation corridors, so you don't have to fight battle after battle just to get back to exploring. This was my major complaint with Wizardry 3, and it's a welcome change. It makes exploration just as enjoyable as it was in Wizardry 1.

 

[MpuMngwana]

Yeah, Wiz5 is extremely good. The biggest improvement are of course the useful thieves, the dungeons are top notch. That said, there are a couple of annoyances. The adventure game puzzles get tiresome after a while, mostly because they reset when you leave the dungeon, so you have to clutter your inventory with key items and solve them again and again and again. And the less said about the swimming mechanic, the better. I would recommend consulting a guide for that particular mechanic, since results of diving vary from combat encounters to key items to getting most of your party petrified (which is beyond terrible if you're playing iron man, and reload-promptingly annoying if you don't). Other than that, it's probably my second favorite Wizardry (after 8).

 

[octavius]

Interesting tidbit about our favourite mustache twirling games designer.

 

[Dorateen]

I can imagine that phone conversation with a tight-lipped, enigmatic Bradley: "Ask your few questions, though herein may be your only reply..."

 

[Eggs is eggs]

I don't understand how the lawsuit led to a falling out between Bradley and Sir-tech. Greenberg sued Sir-Tech and named Bradley as a co-defendant even though it seems like he had nothing to do with it. And Sir-Tech seemed to acknowledge this and covered the legal stuff for him. So what happened?

 

[groke]

I don't understand how the lawsuit led to a falling out between Bradley and Sir-tech. Greenberg sued Sir-Tech and named Bradley as a co-defendant even though it seems like he had nothing to do with it. And Sir-Tech seemed to acknowledge this and covered the legal stuff for him. So what happened?

D.W. Bradley remains trapped in an alien pod deep within the Sirotek estate, able to communicate only briefly through sheer force of his will for revenge; his imperfect doppleganger took the nom-de-plume C.M.B. and even now works to undo his former master and free Bradley from his otherworldly prison. On starless nights, Sirotek wakes in a cold sweat; in his rousing moments he hears ringing in his ears: THE CRACKERJACK IS COMING.

 

[aweigh]

newtmonkey

I don't remember right now if you mentioned whether you've gotten to Wiz Empire 2? If you haven't, boy oh boy, best Wizardry game by far in my opinion. It's almost perfect in blending together Wizardry mechanics and also functioning as a prototype of sorts for what later became Elminage. All of the dungeons are fantastic in there, probably Starfish's best work ever, some really inspired design in Empire 2. You can feel the love that went into that one.

The post-game dungeon is also the hardest shit ever (besides Wiz 4). I never actually beat the dragon god awaiting in th depths of the temple of the gods because that shit was just too hardcore. The final levels of the temple are actually more hard-core than most levels in Wiz 4. One of these days I'll beat it... I'll need to replay from start but that dragon must die!

Wiz Empire 2 also holds the distinction of being the only other Wiz-game that I know of that, besides Wiz 4, employed good usage of wall-bombs inside darkzones, lel. The game is really something else. One of the neatest mechanics new in Empire 2 is the Affinity system where each race, class and alignment has an affinity rating with each one of the others: for example the werebeast race dislikes humans so for every human in the party each werebeast receives a minor penalty, however if you have a fairy in the party the fairy will receive a bonus because faeries like humans, however draconians dislike faeries, so on and so forth.

it really makes you pay attention to alignment shifts, race and class composition throughout the game. having too many different alignments within the party will create problems as well, however that juggling act is part of what makes the simple mechanic great. The puzzle doors throughout the game are also quite fun, but anyway you get the idea.

 

[felipepepe]

I don't understand how the lawsuit led to a falling out between Bradley and Sir-tech. Greenberg sued Sir-Tech and named Bradley as a co-defendant even though it seems like he had nothing to do with it. And Sir-Tech seemed to acknowledge this and covered the legal stuff for him. So what happened?

All evidences lead to Sir-tech being a shitty place to work, up to their neck in shady deals and questionable ethics. The lawsuit basically threw all that at Bradley's face.

Also, if you read the lawsuit, some weird shit was going on. Sir-Tech claims the lawsuit was a big problem for Bradley:

No. 2 alleges that Bradley's contract with Sir-Tech required him to deliver the completed Crusaders game on or before September 1, 1991, that although Bradley was on schedule with his work at the time the Federal court action was commenced defendants' assertion of claims against Bradley caused him to stop working on Crusaders, and that as a result Sir-Tech missed the 1991 Christmas selling season, causing it to lose an investment in promotional materials and sales totaling $950,000.

But the court dismissed this, and some documents proved that they were having their own internal problems:

Perhaps most telling is an extensive series of communications between Sir-Tech and Bradley spanning the period from August 1991 through the end of August 1992 and detailing Bradley's progress (or, more appropriately, lack of progress) on the Crusaders project.   These contemporaneous memoranda do not indicate that Bradley was ever unable to work and, in fact, make absolutely no reference to the Federal court action.

 

[Ensi]

when am I gonna find interesting equipment in Wiz 7? I'm in Munkhara (sp?) after doing the ork dungeon thing. I do have a claymore on my valkyrie which is nice, but most chars still have starting weapons and armor. I have money...where do I spend it?! Or where do I find cool shit? I did manage to cross some water and find a chest with additional armor for my valk as well, and an axe but I don't use axes. And I found the amulet of stillness. Other than that...

 

[Grauken]

Best starting equipment is imported equipment from W6

 

[Machocruz]

I have a question about Wizardry V. Is it worth it to grind encounters for gold to get the item that gives you unlimited dumapics? I read a couple guides that recommended it, but I did so for hours and still didn't have anywhere near the gold to get the item. Could be because I wasn't frugal enough with my gold to begin with, but it didn't seem like a very worthwhile endeavor when I could just map the game as usual. This was on the SNES version btw.

And I found this little tidbit on Wikipedia

Reviewing the SNES version, GamePro opined that though the non-hostile monsters, riddles, and puzzles are admirable improvements from previous Wizardry games, the gameplay of Wizardry V is still outdated compared to other SNES RPGs such as Final Fantasy IV, noting in particular the need to repeatedly re-enter the same dungeon and the lack of multiple save slots

Decline has been with us forever.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

In Wizardry V, are those floor messages supposed to be words and when you put them all together they make a message?

It looks like "A I M E" or maybe "Time" if the first letter is supposed to be a T.

 

[octavius]

when am I gonna find interesting equipment in Wiz 7? I'm in Munkhara (sp?) after doing the ork dungeon thing. I do have a claymore on my valkyrie which is nice, but most chars still have starting weapons and armor. I have money...where do I spend it?! Or where do I find cool shit? I did manage to cross some water and find a chest with additional armor for my valk as well, and an axe but I don't use axes. And I found the amulet of stillness. Other than that...

Wiz 7 has about the most boring loot in any CRPG, at least relative to how friggin' huge the game is.
Coupled with an overabundance of HP bloated enemies, your best bet is to import gear from Wiz 6, 'cause it will take a looong time to find enything equal or better.