Finally Finished

[BOUND4DOOM]

Finally I finished Wizards and Warriors,

I give it a rating of 7 out of 10. It would have been a perfect 10 except for all the bugs in it. That is the only thing that really brought it down. Sometimes the bugs left it so completely frustrating I had to walk away for a while.

Who am I to give it a rating well, that is a long story. I have been Beta Testing these games since Untila 1 game out on the apple 2 +, Now I am a developer, but not of game, I am a MCSE + I, a Certified Microsoft Developer among several other things. I play these games as a hobby an Beta test for fun. I beta test as long as the developers take the testing seriously. I will find logical bugs that they never imagined. I have Beta tested games such as Thief, Meridian, Ashceron’s Call, and EverQuest. I love the Medieval type games and bought WW because was so frustrated with EQ my normal homeland this year because Bugs I reported back in Beta are still there on their 3rd release of the game. I am also Second in Command of the Assassin’s Guild, an online internet assassin’s guild which get paid in online game cash to hit other players. I have been second in command for over 7 years. Also I am second in command of Artful Death. A guild devoted to PVP on the internet.

If this would have been a bug free game it would have been a perfect 10 in my book. Even of the service pack would have fixed the major bugs I would have given it a 9. an example of major bugs is well the intro I have never seen it, I am running ME and W2K and it always crashed. The Finish, I am sure there is more to the finish than me being teleported out of the crypt of Cet and the game crashing. Yeah both instances it would just crash, Dead you hit the reset button or turn the computer off. Another thing that causes problem is any pop up windows that happen the game doesn’t minimize to a point of recovery. Like for example: Windows ME and 2K will go out and auto check for updates, Well if there is an update it will pop up a window to let you know. Well that window when it popped up would crash the game actually crash the whole computer. Same thing if you have a live permanent connection to the net and use AOL instant messenger, ICQ, or any other messnging. When a Message popped up the game would cause your computer to crash.

Other Bugs besides those I found, were the initial ring, in the first cemetery, you have to have the quest to find it. I went through the whole thing before I got the quest to get the ring I had to go back and get the ring. The story of why the first thief leader was killed, I have no idea why he was killed other than the circle didn’t like him. The Serpent guy that was looking for someone in town at the very beginning, What the hell was that all about, you never do find out. Also, I remember something about a sword Quest I was never able to solve. Also the frog town the damn frogs wandering around cause problems. Even after the patch. You could get around it if you could kill then in one cast.

Ishad, Nab, well that was fairly good made it through that ok, I would recommend the one design flaw of the spider juice that is bottled not be yellow and cure poison like a cure poison potion. Yeah I realized this but you got to remember the common computer users doesn’t have common sense, you got to protect the stupid user.

The Dragon, you should have allowed a quick way back through. After you completed it. Hey even I thought I needed to go back to the same vendor I got the quest from to finish the quests in there, then when I went back I had dropped the crank on my mule spare so I wouldn’t have to carry it around. Well I went back to have to go through the whole mountain again only to find the drawbridge had retracted, So I had to go all the way back to town to get the crank to get back out of the mountain to move to the next city.

Maybe after a Quest item like that is used it disappears permanently and that use for it is never reset.

The last 3rd of the game is where the bugs really began. You can tell it was rushed into production here. Either that or a new programmer took over entirely. The Thief Quest to delver a book, I was never ever given anything to delver hell I killed the guy and well screw it I was never able to return anything. Speaking of Thieves was very disappointed, Yeah they were necessary but they didn’t get a guild till the second city, so he was left on his own through the first part. Design Flaw, I dunno, shortly after he got the thieves’ guild he was an Assassin. So not much time to spend there.
In the underwater city, the freaking gems needed, even the walk through says the gems you need might not show up all the time, I experienced this first hand, I only got 1 gem the first time, I tried to continue by blocking doors with chest (which is lame that you can, you shouldn’t need to) unfortunately north of the spinning room I bumped the chest out of the way and had to reset to the last time I left the city. Fortunately this time I found all the gems.

Temple of Cet, there is a sever memory leak after cet is summoned through the portal and the angel I turned. Any time I switched characters or went into inventory or went o change spells (Inventory) the whole game would freeze, had to reset the computer again. Finally after giving the angel holy water I saved the game, then exited and rebooted then reloaded the saved game, that cured the memory leak. And the really stupid thing was that the valkirie quest came at that point When the female character was of no use. Or only had lord cet to defeat.

Then as far as fighting lord Cet, I expected more of a challenge, hell I brought him down to red the whole time he was talking to me offering me an alliance. Anyway I am sure I could name more bugs if I sat and thought about it.

My recommendation for a WW2 and making it a hit game. Would be a lot less bugs

Other area of improvement would be Create a portal in a dungeon that you could get to by teleporting in, and Town portal being able to be cast in a dungeon. Would save a lot of travel time. I never even got to see what the hell I got from the Cet Tomb as I never left it once entering

[slug]

i got teleported back to brimloch roon and looked at my new stuff before retiring. i never did try to get every single item out of that place so i wansn't much impressed with what i did get. it's alright though, i'm never very concerned about the STUFF aspect in a game. other than what you need to beat it.

[BOUND4DOOM]

Oh yeah forgot completely, I have 3 books that follow the traditional eart, air, Water and Fire schee, I only have 3 dunno, if I found a fouth but never found a use for them. what the hell are they for. I know that taditional on earth and ancient mystiscm that earth, wind, fire and water, are symbolized by tobacco, Cedar(trees), Sweet grass, and sage. I never found a use for the 3 books I found

The 4 tomes were to be used for ascending to Zenmaster.

Hope you never get paid to off me!!! ; )

: )
Moni

[Sazerac]

Dear Bound4Doom:

I appreciate your comments on the game. There are a couple of points I would like to bring up:

an example of major bugs is well the intro I have never seen it, I am running ME and W2K and it always crashed. The Finish, I am sure there is more to the finish than me being teleported out of the crypt of Cet and the game crashing. Yeah both instances it would just crash, Dead you hit the reset button or turn the computer off. Another thing that causes problem is any pop up windows that happen the game doesn’t minimize to a point of recovery. Like for example: Windows ME and 2K will go out and auto check for updates, Well if there is an update it will pop up a window to let you know. Well that window when it popped up would crash the game actually crash the whole computer. Same thing if you have a live permanent connection to the net and use AOL instant messenger, ICQ, or any other messnging. When a Message popped up the game would cause your computer to crash.

With all due respect, the makers of the game have asserted that the game was not developed for either the Windows Me or Windows 2K platforms, and is highly unstable under either one. The game was developed for Windows 95/98, and, although I will grant it has some "bugs", the ones you describe are largely not an issue under these platforms. Forgive me for saying so, but a beta tester such as you claim to be should have noticed the system requirements of the game first off...not to mention reading the Readme.rtf file in the game directory, which clearly requests that outside Windows programs such as ICQ or other TSRs not be running during the game execution. The same goes for the game not supporting the ALT+TAB function. I agree, this is a major frustration, and one that I have not seen in games thus far, but, HPI having stated the requirements of the game system, you are incorrectly faulting the game for running on a system that it is not designed to run on and alongside programs that it was not designed to run with. It is a simple matter to disable these programs temporarily while running the game. There are also workarounds to the Win2K problem, which I have repeatedly posted at this site.

I do not mean to sound inflammatory, but IMO, your attack of the game on this basis is rather unfair.

Other Bugs besides those I found, were the initial ring, in the first cemetery, you have to have the quest to find it. I went through the whole thing before I got the quest to get the ring I had to go back and get the ring. The story of why the first thief leader was killed, I have no idea why he was killed other than the circle didn’t like him. The Serpent guy that was looking for someone in town at the very beginning, What the hell was that all about, you never do find out. Also, I remember something about a sword Quest I was never able to solve. Also the frog town the damn frogs wandering around cause problems. Even after the patch. You could get around it if you could kill then in one cast.

The ring quest, along with the entire quest engine, I agree is very cumbersome and ridiculous at times. I found this to be a trifle after a while. This seemed to be geared toward a multiplayer environment at one time, which was later disabled.

The Toad Village problem is also one of the buggier areas of the game, rivalled only by the "Cet head" problem and the "Fighting Kerah" scenario in the final dungeon. Although I have yet to have experienced either of these problems on my system, they have caused enough problems for players on the board that I do not question that they exist. The official patch released by HPI earlier this year addressed this issue; however, never having downloaded and used it, I cannot comment on whether or not these problems were actually fixed. Others who have the patch may be better to comment on it.

The Dragon Spire problem: yes, yes, yes! I agree with you fully. After finishing the spire, there should have been a clear path back and forth; probably by being able to open up a "secret" entrance that would remain open for the remainder of the game.

All of your other comments I agree with. The endgame sequence: well, I have yet to see an endgame that was truly satisfying in any game I've played. Cet was a disappointment; one would have wished that he would have at least been a better fight, such as the Spider Priestess in the arena of the Temple.

Again, the only contention I have is with your issues about the system. Just so you know, I too have an IT background; I am a Novell CNE and am currently working on obtaining my Windows 2000 MCSE. I say this not to brag, but so that you know that I'm not speaking on something of which I am ignorant.

Once again, I appreciate your comments. Thanks.

-Sazerac

[Elara]

The fourth Tome is in Cet's Pyramid. There are two conjoined big long rooms, which require that you pull a lever reached by passing through a crushing blocks trap hall to open up the next part of the pyramid. At the opposing end of the newly opened entry is a small room with a chest and the Tome.

With the 4 Tomes in one char's inventory, you'd go to the Bushi Dojo to become a Zen Master, which gives you access to all the spells in the game, plus the use of all implements, armor and weapons, if I understand it correctly. Though without the patch you could make all chars a Zen Master.