After I yesterday switched on my old 386 DOS computer I thought about the older parts of the Wizardry games. I've played them from W6 to W8. I know that W5 was named "Heart of the Maelstrom". In the past I often tried to get the older parts but unfortunatly I had no luck with that.

I think there must be someone out there old enough to know about the first parts. Do they have the same plot like W6 up to W8 or do they have own, finished stories ?
I sometimes play old DOS games. Is there a chance to get the older parts for DOS or is this hopeless ?

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[ 01-27-2004, 01:45 AM: Message edited by: Loudhy ]

A search on ebay revealed some wizardry 5 but nothing older.

Also found this:
http://www.mobygames.com/game_group/...meGroupId,114/

Gives links to places where you can buy every wizardry game. Just click on the games name in the boxes.

I've been trying to find wiz gold (7) but not had much luck, looked on E-bay and amazon etc but not had any luck finding it.
Has anyone got any suggestions where I can find a copy, (and time to play it!! ha ha) I'm in the UK.

Ebay Germany actually does sell older Wizardries, like Wizardry Archives (version 1-7) (from different vendors even). My guess would be that you need DOSbox or the like to play it though (at least i need it to start wiz 5 & 6).

Hi Target,

maybe I can help you. I remember, that I bought a box called "The Ultimate RPG Archive" some years ago with some Ultima games, Wasteland and Wiz VII Gold.
Can't promise it, but if I find it somewhere in my "software junk yard" I'll tell you next week.

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Wizardry: Proving Grounds Of The Mad Overlord was the first in the series. You were hired by Werdna to plod through a 10-level dungeon and retrieve an amulet from the evil Trebor. Werdna and Trebor were Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead, the game's creators.

Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds was something of a sequel, but not much. You had to import a party from the previous game (no char creation here), and hack through a smaller dungeon, picking up pieces of the armor once worn by the Knight of Diamonds.

Wizardry III: Legacy of Lyllgamn (sp?) was unusual in that you had to create two teams, one good and one evil. Certain areas of the dungeon were open only to one kind or the other (neutrals could go to any of them). Each team retrieved a globe, and the two globes were then merged into one. This allowed one team to get to the end. Unfortunately, I no longer recall what the main objective was.

Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna had you playing the part of Werdna, who hadn't actually died way back when. You worked your way up through ten levels of dungeon, then adventured around a castle. The game had multiple endings depending on your actions and choices during play. Most interesting feature was that, as Werdna, you could summon groups of monsters to help you fight the parties of adventurers trying to prevent you from leaving the dungeon.

All these games had no graphics to speak of. The visuals were similar to what you see in the retro dungeons, and monsters were representd by small portraits.

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Cheers Loudhy,
look forward to hearing from you.

I think the objective of Legacy of Llyllgamen was to get a couple or three objects (won't mention them, just in case you do get to play it) in order to stop the dragon Llyllgamen from causing catastrophes that were destroying the lands in which the first four (or five) Wizardries took place. One facet not mentioned above was that you more or less HAD to transfer characters from Wiz I to Wiz II, as even the first level of the dungeon was quite a bit tougher than what 1st levelers could handle. Another interesting factor was that in Wiz III, you could transfer in old characters, but instead of getting them, you got their 1st level descendents along with their heirlooms (i.e., their good equipment.) Anyway, I think that's how it worked.

Back in Wiz I-III the only classes were: Fighter, Mage, Priest, Thief; who could advance into (or with some of these classes you could get lucky and have enough points to start as) Bishop, Samurai, Lord, Ninja. Wiz IV, of course, only had Werdna, but the characters you fought against were the traditional character classes from I-III, and supposedly were teams sent in by Wiz enthusiasts.

Wiz V made some changes; for the first time you got new spells, and there might have been a few new classes? I never played that one much. It was only with Wiz 6 that you got the full complement of classes and races we are all familiar with (oh, forgot to mention, races for wiz 1-3 were human, elf, dwarf, hobbit ... maybe gnome?).

Personally, even though I logged in hours of playing Wizardry I - III, and they were pretty cool for their time, I never really really enjoyed Wizardry until D. W. Bradley (maybe he had some help, I dunno) revitalized the system with 6. But, hey, you may love them, especially if you get into training, cause you kind of have to have that ability to endure repetition to do well in those games. In my slacker, never-actually-finished-any-of-them-except-I opinion.

Incidentally, there are a few custom-made Wizardry I scenarios floating around. I think they can be found on Snaferu's Wizardry site. They require and Apple IIe emulator, but he provides one.

Hrr, I was wrong about a few things in the previous post. L'kbreth is the name of the Dragon in Wiz 3; Llyllgamen is the city in which Wiz 1-5 take place. For pretty much any info you might want about the games, you could try http://www.tk421.net/wizardry/

Wiz 6-8 were all connected. In Bane of the Cosmic Forge (6), the Bane King steals the Cosmic Forge and you have to get it back, or something along those lines. Bela was in that one...

Crusaders of the Dark Savant(Wiz7) was about one giant race for the Astral DOminae, on the of the three artifacts needed to ascend. Of course, your good ol friend the Dark Savant is there, along with Vi, Umpani, and T'rang, and Helazoid (cousins of Higardi). THose who played will probably remember Janette, the Helazoid prisoner on the Rynjin island. IF you played wiz7, she will recognize you.

And we all know Wiz8 concludes the trilogy.

As for 1-5, they were not connected, or at least to my knowledge.

I have this Wizardry-Archive, containing all parts of the series.

But i think it is too old , Cosmic Forge was already...hm...at the edge of being playable.

If u are interessted in this archive, i think it will cost u only 20 Euro or something, the difficulty is to FIND it ;)

Wiz 1-5 were connected, sort of. Without going into too much detail,

In Wiz 1 you must retrieve a magical amulet from the wizard Werdna and return it to you boss, Trebor.

In Wiz 2 you must gather the armor of the Knight of Diamonds and retrieve the staff of Gnilda. You use the same characters you defeated Wiz 1 with, as any new characters would be way too weak to survive.

In Wiz 3 you must retrieve a magical orb from the Dragon L'kbreth. You use the same characters from Wiz 1 & 2, only they are supposed to be descendants and get knocked back down to level 1.

In Wiz 4 you play the evil wizard Werdna from Wiz 1, returned to life and seeking escape.

In Wiz 5 I don't think you can transfer characters from older games, and it takes places many generations after 3 & 4. The only connection is that it someone ties into the story line of 3, and you are still in the city/kingdom of Llyllgamen.

Wiz 6 is also supposed to take place in Llyllgamen, but so far in the future that 1-5 are now ancient history.

Off topic but did anyone play Dungoen Hack!! I
loved that game. simple but fun!!

Just out of curiosity, were you the buyer of the Archives Loudhy? (sold yesterday for 14 Euro)

Wow rbeane! Talk about a blast from the past .. I also loved Dungeon Hack and the other pure-ASCII game "Mines of Moria".

Anyone else wanna give a shout-out for ASCII gaming?

ADOM

Any of you guys who played Bane or Maelstrom know what the deal with Bela is?

Bela was some kind of a king turned vampire in Bane. He had a really hot daughter, and was a wee bit difficult to dispatch.

No. No. No.

Bela was a watching Dragon in Bane, just as he is in 8. Iirc he didn't make it to CoDS (you could ally with him, and he'd fly you to lost guardia, but that was about it). He wasn't easy to reach, and you would miss him altogether, unless you searched very well at the end. He was the source for the Cameo Locket though.

The King turned vampire was just that (I don't think he had a name), the Queen was the Queen, and the daughter was Rebecca ofc [img]smile.gif[/img] (not the Queens daughter though, things were slightly more complicated).

Doh! Yes, I remember now. It's been years. Sorry. I think you met Bela right after finishing with the King, they kind of ran together in my fogged memory. Proably should try Bane again. Been long enough to make it semi-fresh. I won't miss "here come the bats!" though.

But the wood will fall unexpectedly on your head ;)

Off topic: Did anybody else play a really old game called...well, that's what I can't remember. It had graphics like Ultima I-III, but there were 2 continents, your home and the bad guy's conquered continent. It was innovative for the time in that maps actually changed. For example, after you did a certain quest, you came home to find that the baddie had razed your town to the ground. The other thing I remember is that there were insane Swiss Pikemen running around in the dungeons.

Yeah, it's a really old game.

Yes Ziggurat, I too thought about playing Bane again. It was the first Wizardry game I played. I had no strategy, created only a good party and never changed classes. ( I really can't remember, if it's possible ). It would be nice to find out after such a long time , how one can optimize a game like this. It's one of two games I had to reload because of party destruction .In one of the last rooms, short before the Forge, they were killed .

I didn't found Bela. Only grabbed the pen and ,I think, all went dark.

P.S. Now we know, that we reached Dominus already in W6 :D

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Concerning Bela, same here, only long time after i first played it, i read of bela and how to find him, just grabbed the pen as well. I was already playing cods when i heard of the bela thing. But i remember that i ran through the last temple a zillion times while classchanging. And ofc the bridge with the cryptic instructions. I solved it once (by accident), and never managed to solve it again. Even tried the walkthrough (much later), but the german version obviously has different settings than the english one.

If you played Moria, did you ever try angband (and its variants)?
Still my 'other' game aside wiz8.

So Bela is just a "watching" dragon (whatever that means)? Not like some prince who is supposedly decended from some famous Wizardry character that was cursed into dragon form and maybe supposed to marry Rebecca?

He's got to be the biggest mooch in the universe ... hey we're going to become Cosmic Lords, why don't you come along and invite yourself?

Concerning "watching", well, it's been some time, and I don't remember the wording but it was like this:
There was a fake wall, you could find it with skullduggery, and then go through it (but not back iirc), then you would encounter Bela (maybe after even another many-tumbler-or-key-lock) and were greeted by "I've watched you progress all the time", and some sermon of fate. But that was after you finished the game, and at least i couldn't fit it into the rest (and the chars didn't know of other worlds then, for the game to continue you'd need altheides or bela, or at least belas ship to commute to guardia). I'd say definitely nothing with rebecca and the storyline there.

IIRC bela wasn't just watching. I think he was some kind of a monster child. Was mentioned in the story, but it is too long gone.

In wiz6, you had to make a choice near the end of the game. IIRC it was about a silver cross; if you throw it away, someone made suicide, and if you kept it, you had to fight him. Now, if you did fight and kill this one, Bela was hostile at the end. And IIRC he had lots of spell power.

Wiz6 had three ends, corresponding to different starts in wiz7. If you tool the pen, atheides took you, and you landed near the Dane. If you had a friendly Bela, you landed near the Umpani. And if you fought bela, you took the ship yourself, and landed near the T'Rang.

I just downloaded the manual for wiz6 from the replacementdocs site somebody mentioned.

I dunno spoiler?
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you are in the castle of a king and queen. both are very evil. they joined forces with some wizard, found the cosmic forge. later wizard and king decide to duke it out, and bam! nobody hears from them in a while. then you show up and have adventures. basically that's all it says.