Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[LarryTyphoid]

Based JVC included the preamble to the Constitution as a puzzle in MM2

Kek. Every game should include this kind of non-American copy protection.

 

[Covenant]

Hmm...

So Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth seem to be the ones referred to in the last four lines - that's 5, 1, and 3, based off the numbering of the books. 'Only the four keys remain'... My first thought was that this was just basically saying 'and the other number is 4', which would make the answer 5134 or 4513, but that seems too simple in retrospect. 'Remain'... Could it be that the point is that 5, 1, and 3 aren't in the code? You'd still need to eliminate two other numbers to leave yourself with four, though. Maybe four keys is a reference to King Lear or something that I'm just completely blanking on.

You only need to eliminate one number to get four digits. You're right that the reference to four keys refers to the number of digits in the code, and is not a reference to any Shakespeare play. You also identified the plays correctly.

Here's the solution:

Spoiler

Romeo and Juliet is book 1, King Lear is book 2, Macbeth is book 3, Hamlet is book 4, and Othello is Book 5. "A false lunacy, a madly dancing man" refers to Hamlet. "As did this one, playing at death, find true death at last" refers to Romeo and Juliet. "Doth lie invite truth?" refers to Othello. "Still amidst lies, though the end cometh not, wherefore yearn for death?" refers to King Lear. "Is not a silence brimming with love more precious than flattery?" refers to Macbeth. Putting the numbers of the books in the order these verses are delivered, you're left with 41523. Now, this code must be filtered through the final verse. "One vengeful man spilled blood for two"; the vengeful Hamlet spilled blood, so the number referring to Hamlet, 4, is doubled because the blood was spilled for two: 8. "Two youths shed tears for three"; Romeo and Juliet's number, 1, is tripled: 3. "Three witches disappeared thusly"; Macbeth has 3 witches, and Macbeth's number is 3, so it is removed from the code. "And only the four keys remain"; you're left with the 4 digits you need to enter into the keypad. The final solution is 8352.

You'd need to have a lot of time on your hands to solve this one.

I still think Wizardry hit its peak with puzzles in V with the Loon's watch one.

I haven't had to deal with much in terms of puzzles quite yet in Wizardry 4 or 5. I've heard that Wizardry 7 has some pretty dirty Sierra Quest-style puzzles that can leave you unable to complete the game if you're not careful. I completed Ultima 4-7 without walkthroughs, so hopefully I'll be able to solve Bradley's Wizardry games as well.

Thank you for explaining (though I think you've mixed up a couple of them here - the bit about a 'silence brimming with love' would, I think, refer to Cordelia and her love for her father in comparison to her sisters, whereas the reference to 'a game of turning white to black' means Othello, but due to the 3 being removed it ends up being the same).

It's a good puzzle until you get to the bit with the manipulations, but you could interpret that last verse in so many different ways that it falls short there.

And yeah, the Zork II baseball puzzle is a good example of the real life knowledge requirement not being well-targeted.

 

[octavius]

Stupid Adventure game puzzles is what walkthroughs are for.

 

[Desiderius]

not being well-targeted

Baseball was big among American gamers of that era. More of us played it as kids and most of us followed it. Strat-o-Matic was a big precursor of modern-day gaming.

 

[The Limper]

not being well-targeted

Baseball was big among American gamers of that era. More of us played it as kids and most of us followed it. Strat-o-Matic was a big precursor of modern-day gaming.

Yes! Strat-o-Matic baseball was an excellent game. We had complete leagues, every team ran by another. I played in a league run by an ex- MLB player. 1989, 100 buckaroos to become a team owner. I had to mow a shitlload of lawns to raise that sum. It was well worth it! I had Vince Coleman with his AAA stealing rating and Boggs batting behind him. Boggs ended up with 130+ ribbies…..

 

[The Limper]

That was 1987, not 1989. I have the pc version with about 6 seasons to play GM mode.

 

[Grauken]

I've heard that Wizardry 7 has some pretty dirty Sierra Quest-style puzzles that can leave you unable to complete the game if you're not careful.

Wiz 7 has maps with various hints, and those maps can be gotten by the dynamic competitive parties and if you want them you either have to barter for them or kill the party who has gotten their hand on it. There's one map you need to advance and if that gets away from you, you can get kinda stuck if you don't find the party who has it (you randomly meet those alternate parties). Otherwise, I can't think of any Sierra-style dead ends.

 

[Viata]

Man, what a game Wiz7 was.
I hope Cleve's new game doesn't take 20 years.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

It's gonna be awhile before I get to Wiz7. I always like having something to look forward to, though. How much incline can I really expect?

 

[unseeingeye]

So, after much frustration and deep searching, I finally managed to secure a copy of the Japanese only remakes of the first three games for Windows in the form of Wizardry Llylgamyn Saga, update the game with the 1.10 patch, and then patch it in English and get it to run.

Using Windows 10 I was unable to get beyond the initial menu for the rendering mode, after which it immediately closes regardless what compatibility, administrative and screen modes I tried, so I tried it on VirtualBox running a copy of Windows 95. After a bunch of bullshit I got it to at least load, however I could only actually enter the Maze if I selected wire frame mode; opting for Bitmap graphics would throw up a direct3d error with a bunch of gibberish symbols (presumably because I don't have the Japanese font installed in the virtual machine) and crash to desktop. Curious, because it had no trouble with the monster graphics in either setting.

Despite being in the middle of both a dedicated play through of Grimoire and having just arrived at New City in Wizardry 7 a few hours earlier I was really not in the mood to waste more time trying to figure this out, but I couldn't let it go and was determined to see this game in action. I ended up completely scrapping my VirtualBox and setup instead a Windows 95 OSR 2.5 emulation using PCem running a virtual VooDoo 2 and sure as shit it worked flawlessly right away. I had to drop down from True Color 32bit to 16bit because at the higher setting the dungeon graphics were all kinds of distorted, but at the lower setting it worked perfectly. My gaming laptop is fairly powerful but it isn't a super computer, so I set it to emulate a Pentium 166 at 128MB RAM and it ran at a steady 99 - 100 % without stuttering. While I was there I figured I'd install Fallout 1 and 2, and I used the GOG backup installer setup for Baldur's Gate and installed that too and it worked beautifully, taking me right back to the experience I had as a kid when I first played that game on an old Gateway. In case anyone else wants to try it, this is the steps I took: With the GOG installation files I simply made it into an archive, put the archive in a folder and made the folder into an ISO image, mounted the image within PCem and extracted it to a folder in the virtual machine, then changed the configuration folder so that the paths to the HDD and CDs 1 through 6 each reflected that of the virtual directory I'd extracted to and launched it using BGMain.exe and it came right up. I made a character and started a new game to test it out and it totally works, though it is more demanding so I had to drop my CPU down to Pentium 100/66 for it to stabilize at 100%.

Anyway I'm posting a question here because there was something I found myself unable to accomplish, and that is I couldn't find a source for the New Age of Llylgamyn if indeed it actually exists? I know that these are not the best versions of the first 5 Wizardry games, I'm just collecting version I can to set them all up on modern computers for preservation and for simple curiosity. If anybody knows where I can find a copy of the one I'd be sincerely grateful. I know that KeighnMcDeath posted a link at one point in response to a query seeking to source the Llylgamyn Saga, and the link is to a file named New Age of Llylgamyn, yet when I downloaded it I found it apparently to be the actual Llylgamyn Saga version that the person was asking for that must have been misnamed for some reason. I cannot find it anywhere and it is the last version of the early Wizardry games that I don't have setup and ready to go in my emulation library.

In the meantime I'm relieved I've at least got the Llylgamyn Saga setup, along with the console versions and all the rest of the early Wizardry games, and I can return to my Grimoire and Wizardry 7 saves. Playing Wizardry 7 again is just.. man, there are no words. Might it be the greatest video game ever made? Quite possibly, though my volatile moods leave that position open to a perpetual rotation involving Fallout and a few others, but I would say that it is the best game of its kind ever made.

 

[Grauken]

New Age of Llylgamyn if indeed it actually exists?

It does

 

[Dorateen]

How much incline can I really expect?

So much Incline, you'll need a rocket ship to get there.

 

[unseeingeye]

It does

I'm a believer, I just have not been able to find it anywhere and the few mentions of it that I have found seem to be sparse. The Llylgamyn Saga version has become a bit difficult to find but it is out there and I would be more than happy to provide a copy with the patch and the English translation patch to anybody who needs help getting it.

 

[octavius]

It's gonna be awhile before I get to Wiz7. I always like having something to look forward to, though. How much incline can I really expect?

A huge incline in amounts of enemies and their HP.
When I had finished the trilogy, more than half the party's total kills were in Wiz 7.

OTOH, Wiz 7 introduces the competing parties and factions, so it's more dynamic.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Really liking Wizardry 5. After 3 games of DOS Wizardry in a row, can you possibly understand how satisfying it is to level up and actually have your stats fucking go up? It's amazing. It's like I'm playing a real RPG or something.

 

[Grauken]

It does

I'm a believer, I just have not been able to find it anywhere and the few mentions of it that I have found seem to be sparse. The Llylgamyn Saga version has become a bit difficult to find but it is out there and I would be more than happy to provide a copy with the patch and the English translation patch to anybody who needs help getting it.

you could ask aweigh, I shared a copy with him a couple of years ago or I could try to find out if I still have it somewhere on my HDs, though that could take a while to find

 

[unseeingeye]

you could ask aweigh, I shared a copy with him a couple of years ago or I could try to find out if I still have it somewhere on my HDs, though that could take a while to find

I'll send him a message then, thank you very much for the suggestion!

If you happen to come across a copy you may have that would be amazing but definitely don't want to bother you. I'm encouraged by the assurance that it exists!

 

[Grauken]

you could ask aweigh, I shared a copy with him a couple of years ago or I could try to find out if I still have it somewhere on my HDs, though that could take a while to find

I'll send him a message then, thank you very much for the suggestion!

If you happen to come across a copy you may have that would be amazing but definitely don't want to bother you. I'm encouraged by the assurance that it exists!

I hope you didn't mention me, he reacts allergic to my name these days

 

[octavius]

Doesn't aweigh just hang out in the shoutbox ghetto these days?

 

[Modron]

Doesn't aweigh just hang out in the shoutbox ghetto these days?

Not up on current news?

 

[Viata]

Doesn't aweigh just hang out in the shoutbox ghetto these days?

What shoutbox? kek

 

[mediocrepoet]

Doesn't aweigh just hang out in the shoutbox ghetto these days?

What shoutbox? kek

Ok, but can he tell? He normally just talks to himself anyway.

 

[hayst]

Did Steam add their own linux config for Wizardry 6 & 7?

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Did Steam add their own linux config for Wizardry 6 & 7?

Yes, but they suck like most Steam and GOG DOSBox configs. With Wiz6, it's not so bad, because it doesn't have any real audio config you need to do like in some games like Ultima Underworld, but I think Wiz6's default Steam config uses a nasty output method, and has autolock enabled. Here's the relevant portions of my config that fix this:

[sdl]
fullscreen=false
fulldouble=True
fullresolution=desktop
windowresolution=1024x768
output=texturenb
autolock=false
sensitivity=100
raw_mouse_input = true
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper-0.74-2.map
usescancodes=true

[dosbox]
language=
machine=svga_s3
captures=capture
memsize=16

[render]
frameskip=0
aspect=True
scaler=none

[cpu]
core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=fixed 3000
cycleup=1000
cycledown=1000

There's some superfluous stuff in there, but I usually copy and paste the same config into all games with minor tweaks to MIDI soundfonts and cycle counts. With output set to texturenb and aspect set to True, you get a crisper display.

 

[hayst]

Did Steam add their own linux config for Wizardry 6 & 7?

Yes, but they suck like most Steam and GOG DOSBox configs. With Wiz6, it's not so bad, because it doesn't have any real audio config you need to do like in some games like Ultima Underworld, but I think Wiz6's default Steam config uses a nasty output method, and has autolock enabled. Here's the relevant portions of my config that fix this:

[sdl]
fullscreen=false
fulldouble=True
fullresolution=desktop
windowresolution=1024x768
output=texturenb
autolock=false
sensitivity=100
raw_mouse_input = true
waitonerror=true
priority=higher,normal
mapperfile=mapper-0.74-2.map
usescancodes=true

[dosbox]
language=
machine=svga_s3
captures=capture
memsize=16

[render]
frameskip=0
aspect=True
scaler=none

[cpu]
core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=fixed 3000
cycleup=1000
cycledown=1000

There's some superfluous stuff in there, but I usually copy and paste the same config into all games with minor tweaks to MIDI soundfonts and cycle counts. With output set to texturenb and aspect set to True, you get a crisper display.

Appreciate it. They clearly have some really talented people working on compatibility stuff, its a shame they haven't touched up dosbox configs.