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).

Up to know I didn't have much quests. I'm at the point where I must make my choice between witch alliance I do (I have both letters). But ways to few quests for a RPG :(

[Changes: Title name more accurate ]

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: ice3 ]</p>

Why don't you finish the game before you make a statement like that?

I found plenty of quests to do between the
1) to find the items for the custom armor (7)
2) helping the Trynnie
3) assisting the T'Rang (5)
4) assisting the Umpani (5)
5) finding the three artifacts (3)
6) becoming a templar
7) defusing the bomb

And there were plenty of mini-quests if you consider finding the right key or special item for the right door/area. Not to mention all of the exploring to do as well as the three Retro dungeons. And all of that is before you get to Ascension Peak!

And most of the quests have multiple parts to them as well or tie in with other quests. With all of that taken into consideration, this is a VERY complicated game and an excellent CRPG. It's head and shoulders above anything else I've ever played with the exception of the other Wizardry games. Yes, even more quests would have been better and I wouldn't have minded some of the vaguely worded riddle quests like Wiz7's various maps but on the whole this game has better and more complicated quests than anything else I've played.

Couldn't agree more Jem.

Don't forget the kidnap quest either, there was absolutely no way I was going to bed until I got my Ranger back!

"If you take out the complex character making"

Um, RPG = Role Playing Game, if you can't make your own characters as completely as possible to match your desired adventuring party makeup, then you're left with the force-feed system that games like BG2 used (you make one character, the rest are pre-determined, all you can do is decide to keep them in the party or not, and even then that was not always the case).

Sorry, I have to disagree with you Ice3, Wizardry is one of the defining CRPGs with some 20 years of development (even before D&D was invented I believe).

"The wise speak only of what they know." - Gandalf, The Two Towers (Lord of the Rings), JRR Tolkien

I agree with Jem - finish the game before you make a judgement like that.

After having waited a number of years for Wizardry 8 to be released and often wondering if it would be released at all, I am grateful just to have it running on my PC. It annoys me to see so many "Wizardry 8 Bashers" shooting off at the mouth, saying that the game is unfair or it doesn't meet their expectations. If you don't have what it takes to play Wizardry 8, then don't complain to those who do, and stick to playing Space Invaders. [img]graemlins/arcadefreak.gif[/img]

To the developers of Wizardry 8 I say: Wizardry 8 kicks butt! [img]graemlins/knightsmile.gif[/img]
Anyone who disagrees needs to get off the drugs. [img]graemlins/bonghit.gif[/img]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Wolfie:
"If you take out the complex character making"

Um, RPG = Role Playing Game, if you can't make your own characters as completely as possible to match your desired adventuring party makeup, then you're left with the force-feed system that games like BG2 used (you make one character, the rest are pre-determined, all you can do is decide to keep them in the party or not, and even then that was not always the case).<hr></blockquote>

Is that not what I said? I critic the game because of the quests not about the character making! In my opinion, wizardry 8 has o of the best system I ever saw in CRPG gaming. The probleme here is the lag of quests!

Some pointed out here the quests given, well I did nearly all of them, execpt the final since I didn't finish. But if I compare with MM (might and magic) games this game just have few quests. Altrough they are moslty interesting since YOU have to look for a clue. In MM games the clue is given by the quest giver when the quest is given. I would have prefered much more side quests and not spending my time hacking and slahing monsters to get XP. If you see a game like MM 50% of the XP you can do are with quests. In Wiz8, what... 5% if you make a low level game.

So for the one that find this game with plenty of quests I propose you to have a look to Might and Magic games. Then you will understand what I mean.

I just scanned the Might and Magic 8 quests. There are totaly 59 quests to do and 22 are just for the main plot!


Ahem until now I didn't see that much in Wizardry 8.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by ice3:
So for the one that find this game with plenty of quests I propose you to have a look to Might and Magic games. Then you will understand what I mean.<hr></blockquote>

I have looked at M&M and I dislike the games for numerous reasons. Two primary ones are the inability to custom create more than one character and the fact that the clues are spoonfed to you so much. There is only one game I ever played that game close to the level of complexity of the quests in the Wizardry series and that was an old old game called 'Dusk of the Gods' where you had to complete a number of sub-quests to resolve your main quest to help stave off the defeat of the Norse gods at Ragnarok.

Perhaps rather than count the -number- of quests in the two games you should consider the level of complexity as well. I personally found plenty of quests to do as well as a number of complex ones to do and had no real complaints other than the one I stated in my earlier post. You obviously disagree and I doubt we'll see eye-to-eye on this subject but don't come in here bashing a game you haven't even finished yet.

Finish it once and then maybe we'll give some more validity to your complaints.

Well i agree a little with Ice3 i think it is to little quest`s in the game i to, look at Wiz 7 there is it a lot more quests like get all the maps(or what it was), bean puzzle and so on! I also like Migth and Magic series but the best of them must be "Isle of Terra" and number 5 Dark Side of Xeen"

Personally I liked the quests found in Wizardry 8. Most quests were long and took quite some time to complete. There are also a number of side quests not related to the main quest to complete.

I just finished the game last night at level 22 to 25 and based on the exp total of about 19,000,000 the quests account for at least 10% of my experience. Granted I did very little wandering around looking for fights and still managed to complete the game without too many problems.

As for Might and Magic, I have never been able to get into the games. I played both I & II as well as the latest. I really wanted to like I & II but the underground battles with several hundred low level idiots just took way too long and occured way too often. At least outside I could use my kill all spells to get rid of them.

I did try and play the latest M&M and was impressed to begin with but the game just started to bog down for me.

IMHO - The whole wizardry series is one of the best CRPGs of all time and wizardy 8 is the crown jewel of the series.

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

=============================================

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