Ok, Let me throw in my 2 cents.

I have played all (except number 3) of the wizardry series, and all of the might and magic series. Countless hours leveling up and changing classes in wiz 1, and killing all those underground monsters in M&M2 [img]smile.gif[/img]

They are two very different flavors of games, and at the same time are very similar. I'm going to limit myself to the most recent of these games, just to keep things on an even footing. So, wizardry 6, 7, and 8 are all in many ways similar, though 8 is more real-time. And Might and magic 6,7, and 8 are also very similar.

The most basic difference between the two is how 'friendly' the games are. In M&M, if you die, you find a temple, and get your guys back. Stopping by town to sell stuff was easy, and there were nearly always good things to buy. Leveling never took too long. Reloading was rarely required except on the occasional trapped chest.

In Wizardry, you were always worried about death. Eventually once your spellcaster could raise the dead, it was a little better, but not much. Ressurection items were fairly scarce, and trips to town were often way out of the way, so encumbrance was always an issue. You save constantly, and a couple mistakes in a battle meant a reload was required.

Now, as for the quest part, lets take a look at mm6, which I have recently been helping my Girlfriend play, there are 15 overland areas (and countless dungeons). Each area has lots to do, there are a total of 50 quests, and plenty of other subquests (good saleable items, places or treasures that arent part of a quest etc). You can go through the game many different ways. And you can complete a dungeon or quest in a couple hours of time.

In wizardry 8, there are maybe a dozen quests, less if you aren't actively looking for them, though there are also a lot of subquests (neat chests and whatnot to find). There are a couple ways to go through the game, but the baseline of the plot if a little more directed than might and magic (or wiz 7 for that matter). A dungeon can take 4-6 hours or more to complete in wizardry 8.

All told, I love them both, but might and magic tends to keep me interested better. I have at absolute most 3-4 hours to play games in a night, and when faced with a game like M&M, I can go do something, a dungeon or a quest. In wizardry, I was at trynton, I decided I wanted to go back to do a couple things I missed on the way. The trip back to the monestary (to use my wheel key), and maybe 4-5 random encounters along the way (all fairly unavoidable), and my 4 hours were up. The pace of the game is slower, fights take a long time. I will play wizardry to completion, but I probably wont ever replay it all the way through again, at least not for a few years [img]smile.gif[/img] . On the other hand, I feel like I really think in wizardry, I couldn't just run through and hit attack to kill monsters, and until I figured out how to use my formation and choose spells and attacks well, I was afraid of even fights, which is something that no game has really made me do in a long time.

So, for the hardcore gamer, people that have lots of time to put into a game 30+ hours a week, (I manage maybe 10-15 hours a week) this kind of game is a great thing. For those of us that have less time, the might and magic series is probably more suited, I know I will be playing M&M9 when it comes out [img]smile.gif[/img]

-Oberon

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As an aside to Jem, you may want to try mm6 or 7, rather than 8. They were both better games. You create an entire party of 4 to start with in both, in 6, the world seemed a lot larger, and in 7 you have the ability to slowly retrofit your castle (though it was horribly non-interactive) and two fairly different directions to choose halfway through the game. The puzzles are also generally hardest in 7, though most of the hardest puzzles were in side dungeons, and from what I've seen of the puzzles in Wiz8, they pale next to the earlier wizardry games. I got the very definate feel that M&M8 was made mostly to pull in some more money, and less time than was really needed went into it. You also may want to try out 'Arcanum', the genre is interesting, and the level of detail and puzzles was quite nice.

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: Oberon ]

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: Oberon ]</p>

I'm not sure if I'd describe Wizardry 8 as more "hardcore", because it certainly has more than just "hardcore" appeal. I've played a great many CRPGs over the last 20 years, but for the past few years I never really got into any of them. I have pretty broad gaming tastes overall, although CRPGs have always been my favourite.

Wizardry 8 grabbed me from the first few moments of playing the demo. It was one of those games that instantly said "this game has got it right" - slick, fascinating, addictive as crack (so I hear!) and most of all fun. It's the first CRPG I've played in many years where the character creation process was really enjoyable. I spent a good 5 hours on it! I've never done that before (never needed to do that before [img]smile.gif[/img] ) Since then I've clocked up over 200 hours on it, easy, and I'll start over again when I've finished. I usually only play it on weekends as I'm too busy midweek.

I always feel that there's something interesting to do in the game - always several choices of areas I can visit, or quests I can continue, and many of the quests overlap so you end up finding new clues to older quests and suddenly going back to investigate them.

Games shouldn't be judged on the number of quests they have, or any such simple criteria. We're here to have fun, after all. As far as I'm concerned, Wizardry 8 has totally reinvigorated my interest in CRPGs, and I'm now extremely keen to check out Wiz 7 and others in the series. I really hope Sir-Tech is able to produce a follow up to this game - it would be a tragedy to lose the heritage that might produce more games of this caliber.

krok

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: krayzkrok ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by ice3:
Well wizardry 8 looks more like a good adventure game then a RPG. If you take out the complex character making and upgrading the whole game resums to a lot of fight and some quests (too few for a RPG).
[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: ice3 ]<hr></blockquote>

?? Ice, Do you understand what the terms "Role Playing" and "Adventure" mean? A true adventure game is ALL quests. These are games like Myst where all you do is go around solving quests and riddles. A Role Playing game is a game where you PLAY A ROLE. You put yourself into the life of a character and live it out. Part of playing that role is deciding what you are going to do next for yourself, not waiting around for someone else to tell you what to do for some quest.

There is plenty to do in Wiz 8, quite a bit more than any of the last 3 M&M games. The fact that the next step isn't always spoon fed
to you as a quest isn't a draw-back, it's a plus. It's one of the things that makes Wiz more challenging; which for a lot of us, is what makes it more fun.

One of the things that really appealed to me about the Might & Magic games is how your party members' faces get distorted in all sorts of hilarious ways when they are stricken with various adverse conditions, particularly in World of Xeen and The Mandate of Heaven. Always burst into uncontrollable laughter when I see how my characters' normal expressions twist into a hideous leer when they are drunk, diseased or insane, etc. In fact in those games I actually purposely made them drunk etc just to see those funny faces. Boy, if only you had such things in the Wizardry series.

Have to say I'm inclined to agree that the M&M games do seem to offer many more side-quests. There also seem many more exciting new things to discover, such as the odd fountain or well that confers extra levels or spell points, the hitherto unknown dungeon in the wild, or the obscure residence of the teacher who can raise your skills to new heights. But all the same, Wiz 8 is still a great game. After all, it's visually the best RPG game of all at present.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by K T Ong:
... After all, it's visually the best RPG game of all at present.<hr></blockquote>

Yes MM games are not know to have visual candies. The Wizardry Engine is great. It's just missing the realtime mode. That makes fights much more interesting. But for immertion it's great I love to see real houses where you can get in and out as you wish. We will see if NWC can make it in MM9.

I still think wiz8 will stay the reference for the character building for sometime! It just rocks! The skill leveling in MM7-8 games is very interesting as well, it's just different.

Some of the quests are mentioned above... but if you look, there's PLENTY of quests...

Rescue Vi
Bank Robbery
Rapax
The Rat Breeders
The Tower
'Help' Crock
Rescue Vanished Party Member
The Shaman
Marten's Idol

Almost each quest, spawns another.

And quite of few others (and I am nowhere near done with the game)...

If yer saying there's not enough quests, then yer not looking hard enough...

Why should you have to LOOK?

Cuz it shouldn't be forced on you. Each path is your own to take.

Interesting thread here, I must say. Well, in a sense there is some truth to saying that Wizardry 8 is rather thin on the amount of "quests", but, you really should be careful when you say something like that. You use a Might and Magic game as an example of a title with a lot of quests. Ok, in an M&M game you do get a lot of quests to do but most of them are so totally unrelated to the main plotline as to be worthless to do except just to complete more of the game. So compared to that, Wiz 8 IS lacking on the amount of quests, however the ones in the game are a lot more complete and have a lot of relevance to the main plot. Personally, though I do complete all the sidequests I find in the games I play just to give them a longer play time, I would rather see the approach to quests in Wiz 8 being copied than the approach of an M&M game or of another Baldur's Gate clone. Meatier, interesting and plot related quests are just more satisfying than more delivery boy jobs. And yes, most quests like that are optional in Wiz 8 but isn't it nice to know that half the plot of the game is optional to decipher and only if you undertake those quests?

I find that I enjoy Wizardry 8 greatly. However, I would like to see a few more quests, especially sidequests. I do find it a bit combat heavy, would like a bit more NPC interaction leading to quests and clues to the ultimate goal. I am not all that thrilled with Might and Magic, they are relatively enjoyable to play, but not particularly stimulating intellectually. Prior to playing Wizardry 8 I was spending all my time with Pool of Radiance, which I also enjoy greatly. Perhaps my ideal would be some mixture of both. My all time favorite CRPG was Betrayal at Krondor, and I have yet to see a more recent game which held my interest to the degree that game did.
Murph