Wizardry 8 mods

[Nael]

I really, really hope not, I hate dungeon crawlers. I hope there's a good amount of questing/exploration in there too.

Who told you that? No it's definitely not a dungeon crawler. It's somewhat exploration based. Some of the outdoor areas are larger than most but there are boundries so there isn't an Oblivionesque mentality of seeing a mountain and being able to climb it. The game does reward for exploring every nook and cranny in the game if you have a ranger or a psionicist though. And about questing, while there aren't a ton of "sidequests" the main quest is very much multifaceted and you can tackle it a number of ways. Think of a less bloated version of Daggerfall's mainquest. Factions are important in this game.

There are dungeons in the gaame but they tend to be well done and are handcrafted. No cookiecutter, 2-3 tileset, repetitive trite we see mostly today.

If you have enough patience for the combat I think you'll really love the game. And learning how to best approach different situations will alleviate some of the potential mobswamps.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

It was just a random search on the internet that came up with some reviews, including a Codex review from someone here about a year ago. But your comments have put my mind at ease, so thankyou.

 

[FrancoTAU]

The only thing is if you're looking for tons of dialog than you're shit out of luck. There's only a couple people in every town that have something interesting to say. Everything else is top notch.

Oh, and most of the spells are actually useful. Most people find them more effective casting stuff like blind, sleep, paralyze, web, etc than using damaging spells. Keep casting buff spells on your own dudes before battles.

 

[Elwro]

That "not level up too much before Arnika" bit is really important, imo at least. I explored every nook and cranny of the starting areas to be prepared for my journey and then discovered it was the worst thing I could do.

 

[Human Shield]

Don't be afraid of looking at a walkthrough, some of the puzzles are annoying like an adventure game.

You can also use custom protraits if you want.

 

[Jasede]

Yes, Wizardry 8 is not an oldschool dungeon crawler.

Wizardry 8 is an oldschool dungeon crawler without dungeons!

 

[crakkie]

With level scaling!

 

[FrancoTAU]

Yeah, but level scaling with limits. It's probably the best implementation of level scaling in any RPG that I've played.

If you go wandering too far ahead you'll still get your ass kicked. And if you go back to a place you cleared out 5 levels ago than the fights will be easier.

 

[Ion Flux]

Here is a link for the Wiz8fast mod: http://wolfie.wiz8.de/Wiz8Fast.html

Thanks Nael!

 

[DoddTheSlayer]

New Mod

For anyone still owning wizardry 8. I have recently made a mod for it which is tested and well played by the VN Board users in their Wizardry 8 spoiler board.
It is called: DoddTheSlayer 1.0

There is normal and expert version.

Normal is here: http://www.badongo.com/file/5208346
Expertis here: http://www.badongo.com/file/5208860


After intalling it you will need the patch that6 fixes all the bugs found y the community.


For the Normal patch_02 go here: http://www.mediafire.com/?eg9y2qkbgdg
For the Expert patch_02 go here: http://www.mediafire.com/?1tgiqtdnicl


This Mod was made using the cosmic forge editor made by Madgod.


For anyone wanting to know more about this mod from those who have played it.
Go here :
http://vnboards.ign.com/wizardry_8_spoi ... /b21210/p1

 

[Au naturel]

Hmm, lots of information there. Perhaps you could tell us briefly what it changes, the goal of the mod, etc?

 

[DoddTheSlayer]

Well the VN spoiler board i gave you the link tohas about 2 pages of threads on the mod, but if you want to avoid spoillers then here is a list of the changes.

1: New monsters
2: New monster skins plus a couple unused sirtech monsters
3: New quests
4: New npc's
5: Extended storyline via the new npc's and quests given by them.
6: New items and traders.

Goals of the mod were twofold.

1: To give players something new to do within the gme by extending the storyline.
2: To make the game more challenging from level 20 onwards where those who have
Played much start to find things too easy.

With regard to the second point i have done much work on the monster generators and so there will be many tough battles. This mod is certainly not for beginners.

Coming soon.
More storyline, More quests, new ability for specialist casters to make them more useable and new locations which is a recently added feature of the cosmic forge editor.
Should be just a couple or 3 months away for version 2.0

 

[jorgamesh]

Are there any unofficial patches for W8, besides openGL patch?

 

[DoddTheSlayer]

A s far as i know there is just the patch that takes you up to 1.2.4 version which is needed for playing any mod made with the cosmic forge editor if your disks are not that version already.

Is there something in paticular you want to see fixed ?

 

[SkeleTony]

The cool thing about the Cosmic Forge editor is that, even for someone who is not into modding, you can easily use the editor to change the game to fit your preferences. You can remove the 'RPC won't go to area 'X'' thing with a mouse click. I think you can even alter or maybe stop entirely the random re-spawning crap(though I have not tried this yet). In fact there is not a lot you CAN'T do with the editor.

 

[Au naturel]

Hmm, someone should see if the random respawning crap could be lightly toned down. That would be nice. I will have a hunt for my disks, but if someone wants to see if it can be done, all to the good.

 

[DoddTheSlayer]

I would suggest not to bother with my mod, or in fact Wizardry 8 at all if this is the way you feel about monster spawns.
Try the Might and Magic series instead.

You see the thing is that the way Wizardry 8 works is that you need those spawns in order to get the exp to advance in the game.
For you to change this would involve a lot more than just toning down or removing monster generators, both of which can be done.
You would also have to find a new way of giving players the exp to advance in the game, which would mean creating lots of quests that award larger and larger amounts of exp as you go through the game.
Problem there is that the cosmic forge editor has a cap of 1million exp, which is fine up until level 17 where you start need more than this to advance a level.

At level 23 you would need 3 quest each giving 1 million exp just to advance to level 24.
So unless you plan on forcing players to finish the game at about level 23-25 then there would be no point in making a mod that takes away monster spawns.

You also need lots of battles for your combat and magic skills to improve in Wizardry 8
and there is no way around this.

IMHO Modding should never attempt to interfere with the fundamentls of how a game works. It should be created to complement and\or enhance those principles.

 

[SkeleTony]

I would suggest not to bother with my mod, or in fact Wizardry 8 at all if this is the way you feel about monster spawns.
Try the Might and Magic series instead.

I am quite familiar with Wizardry 8 AND Might and Magic thank you and what I really want is a W8 game with less respawning. You are the second person in the last few weeks to insinuate that Might and Magic games are somehow like Wizardry 8 and I must wonder how far this meth' epidemic has spread?

You see the thing is that the way Wizardry 8 works is that you need those spawns in order to get the exp to advance in the game.

Then it needs to be modded so that this is not the case. I am also not sure that this is true as I am usually able to skip the overwhelming majority of these spawns when I play and still make it through the end game. You can get quite a lot of experience simply doing all the quests and scripted encounters. It is just that the effort I put into dodging/avoiding those random encounters makes the game almost as painful as just slogging through every combat. I would rather play a simple mod where the respawns were eliminated/toned down and the scripted encounters and quests were increased/jacked up.

For you to change this would involve a lot more than just toning down or removing monster generators, both of which can be done.
You would also have to find a new way of giving players the exp to advance in the game, which would mean creating lots of quests that award larger and larger amounts of exp as you go through the game.
Problem there is that the cosmic forge editor has a cap of 1million exp, which is fine up until level 17 where you start need more than this to advance a level.

At level 23 you would need 3 quest each giving 1 million exp just to advance to level 24.
So unless you plan on forcing players to finish the game at about level 23-25 then there would be no point in making a mod that takes away monster spawns.

Cap of 1 million experience? That sounds like something we need to speak to MadGod about. Should not be too hard to remove such a cap I would imagine. Until then though I could live with much less frequent re-spawns(since I hardly bother with random encounters anyway).

You also need lots of battles for your combat and magic skills to improve in Wizardry 8
and there is no way around this.

There are plenty of ways around this if you know what you are doing.

IMHO Modding should never attempt to interfere with the fundamentls of how a game works. It should be created to complement and\or enhance those principles.

I agree. I just do not consider tons of random re-spawns to be "fundamental" to the game. An annoying(for us) convenience(for the designers) at best.

 

[DoddTheSlayer]

There have so far been over 160 downloaded of my mod and not one single complaint about the monster spawns which i have actually increased rather than decreased, and made the battles much harder to win.


Tell me though. How many Wizardry 8 fans do you think are there out there that want the kind of mod you are looking for ? Are you looking at doing such a mod yourself ?
I think it would be very unlikely that this mod will happen if you wait for someone else to do it.

 

[Elwro]

BTW, M&M games (at least the 6-8 parts) have a lot of respawning (though time based, not random) so they're not recommended for someone whose chief gripe with Wizardry was respawning.

 

[SkeleTony]

There have so far been over 160 downloaded of my mod and not one single complaint about the monster spawns which i have actually increased rather than decreased, and made the battles much harder to win.


Tell me though. How many Wizardry 8 fans do you think are there out there that want the kind of mod you are looking for ? Are you looking at doing such a mod yourself ?
I think it would be very unlikely that this mod will happen if you wait for someone else to do it.

No idea. I DO know that THE biggest criticism leveled at Wiz 8 is in relation to the monster spawns(& level scaling). But my point was NOT that your mod sucked or something(I would not know as I would not download it since that is not my idea of fun personally. I am sure many disagree). Just that I, as in ME, would like to see a modded game with less of that tedious crap having to deal with hordes of plant creatures and juggernauts on the road from the Monastery to Arnika.

Personal preference guy.

 

[SkeleTony]

BTW, M&M games (at least the 6-8 parts) have a lot of respawning (though time based, not random) so they're not recommended for someone whose chief gripe with Wizardry was respawning.

Big difference there though. in the M&M games the respawns occur like once every year or two. By the time the first respawn occurs your party's average level will be so high that whatever you are having to deal with(goblins etc.) can be swatted to the side while running without even going to turn based mode. Plus the treasure drops respawn as well which comes in handy when you are scraping for cash for some reason.

So yeah, even IF your chief gripe with Wizardry 8 is the respawning, you will love M&M 7. While I would be happy with NO respawning, there is a difference between respawns that occur every time you run ten steps and respawns that occur once in a blue moon.

 

[DoddTheSlayer]

A Wizardry 8 mod M&M style might be something that i would be interested in trying just for the challenge if i was not tied up with what i am doing now.

There is one easy way that you could take away the respawns and still level up.
Keep the respawns away from frequently visited locations or have them in one location only.
That way players will have an area to go off to ans bash monsters specifically to level up in order to be tough enough to face the increasingly difficult monster guardians that you need to kill to do the quests.
Monster guardians are not generated they are static once you kill them thats it.

So you would have one location that could be a training ground. It could be an existing location or a new location added by the mod specifically for the purpose.

This training ground would have to be accesible from early game on in order for players not to get blocked from going beyond a certain point in the game because of not being strong enough to do the quests at that point.
Obviously the training ground would get tougher as you go up levels. It could even be an Arena like in M&M 7 only you would be able to go in and out whenever you like.
The exp would be your only reward for doing this. ie no monster drops from training monsters.

Could be interesting and anyone who didn't like it could just stick with the current crop of mods.

 

[ortucis]

Wizardry 8 has level scaling like Oblivion? Also, it has shit NPC's?

Too bad, wanted to play this game (not really a fan of RPG's focussing on too much combat).

...

 

[Renegen]

There is a demo... why don't you try it out. And major necro.