It just struck me as I was reading a post here about there being no negatives attached to certain acts like killing the Dragon, etc. that NPC's (like Haephastus) have certainly gotten alot dumber since the days of Wizardry 7 (CDS). The reason I've noticed this is because I've gotten nostalgic for replaying Wiz 7 after playing W&W and upon checking out the Wiz 7 boards for info on getting it to run on my modern PC (still can't get enough low mem for sound yet, btw) I noticed some posts about certain NPC's (such as Xen Xheng) in Wiz 7 actually STALKING and then attacking the PC group if they killed certain friends or allies of that NPC. Now it's been a LONG time since I've played CDS so I can't actually remember this first hand but I do recall that certain actions and affliations with the NPC groups had definite impact on the other NPC's and groups.

But that is not the case in W&W. For instance, did anyone manage to get any new responses out to Torin AFTER having talked to his father Grunaxe's ghost in Boogre Caves? I couldn't even get him to take his father's ring back!

So while graphics and sound may have certainly come a LONG way (as I noticed last night upon getting CDS to run for the first time and BOY DID THAT BRING BACK MEMORIES!) in the 8 years since CDS came out in 1992 it seems NPC interaction hasn't!

Fyreball