What we hope is in wiz8

[slug]

multiple pathways. a delta in the road early that makes replay required for sense of completion, and confusion. player impact. yeah, if you killed too many upmani they stopped liking you, but i know they can do better than that.

[Sazerac]

Varied quests, and not just the FedEx variety; lots of NPC interaction and information; a free-form text speech mechanism rather than just a list of keywords, and easily understandable maps that can be annotated by the player.

-Sazerac

[Wyvern]

An easy way to keep track of quests and not have to take too many notes.
A bag of holding, a clock, a spell of reveal map.
A variety of monsters that don't become sweeping generalizations (like all the lady vamps in W&W).
Murphy's Ghost.
Full color maps.
A variety of environments.
Dungeons which are not so extremely dark (I'm really TIRED of dark, dark dungeons - there are so many other solutions)

More later!
Wyv

[slug]

some incredibly diabolical use for the #$%@&*# LOADSTONE!

[jsalsb]

What, just lugging it around Lost Guardia for 9 months wasn't diabolical enough??

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JonII

[jsalsb]

I loved the rain that fell on occasion in W&W. I'd love to see snow too, and... snow accumulation! Wouldn't it be great if the ground started to get white after a few hours of snow, and tracks started appearing? And, tracks you thought were there started getting covered over and disappearing?

I'd love to see realistic recognition of your accomplishments by the denizens of Wiz8. What bugged me he most about W&W was that the characters (and landscape)looked more realistic than I've ever experienced in a CRPG, so my sense of absorption in the game world was correspondingly more complete. BUT... the characters acted and responded as two dimensionally as ever (perhaps even more than ever before, because they would now spout these detailed speeches over and over again for no apparent reason, which seemed lifelike in their content, but not in context). There was therefore a mismatch between my heightened expectations and the game's flat return. It's hard to take someone seriously who says "Don't be a fool. You're outnumbered!" some 5 seconds AFTER I've dispatched him to That Place Where Highland Bandits Are Eternally Blessed. It's also disappointing to be a 32nd level Paladin, the Chosen one, wielder of the Mavin (or the ?Strange Sword? you get from Kerrah in its place - damned if I know what it's really called, my level 9 artefacts skill can't read it, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend 30,000 clams at the Armory to get it identified!), vanquisher of the Evil Lord Cet, savior of the Gael Serran, yet you continue to get dissed by the lowly mage in the Valaya Magic Shop for failing to finish an early quest!

What I REALLY liked about Wiz7, but missed in W&W, was that the game was really non-linear. Where W&W had your life and adventures more or less linearly planned out for you, Wiz7 let you vary the course of your campaign to a much greater degree. In fact, you COULDN'T do everything, and doing some things first would later preclude other actions in a meaningful way. This made the whole thing much more lifelike. I hope it is a key feature in Wiz8.

$0.02


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JonII

[Wyvern]

What was the loadstone??

[Sazerac]

Wyvern: We still haven't figured it out!!

The Lodestone in Wizardry 7 was to carry over and bury in the Pile of Sand in Wizards and Warriors, I believe. It was Wiz 7's version of the "Rat Skull." Except that it weighed about 40 lbs....oof!

I finally dropped it, when I realized it had no use.

-Sazerac

[This message has been edited by Sazerac (edited 03-19-2001).]

[Wyvern]

Ah - a very BIG rat skull!!

(gotta love those designers sense of humor, eh??)

Wyv

[Balgin]

I'd like someone who designs things to pay attention to the fact that hafted weapons (being end heavy) have considerably greater striking power, landing with more force. However the awkard weight requires a slower rate of swing when compared to lighter items (rapiers, katana, wakizashi, rope), and is awkard for the long of limb (unless they've mastered the martial artists "hand swapping trick" in wich the hands glide past each other in order to swap places thus allowing for a varied and alternate angle of attack as demonstrated by Samurai and vikings). Also a curved blade makes a deeper cut (curve on curve, rather than straight on curve) and is more devastating. However the concentration of danger at one end means that strikes with the haft are less limited in effectiveness.

In short I wasn't very happy in the balance of effective weapons in Wizards and Warriors. I'd like to see each weapon (in a good role playing system) do three kinds of damage, cuting, crushing and stun damage. Cutting damage would effect tendons, skin surface, veins and arteries, extreme amounts would result in severed locations by means of crushing minor criticals (breaking the bones that hold the joints). Crushing damage would beat people down, bruising and fatigueing the more heavily armoured, exhausting the foe until he drops, extreme ammounts would include cuting and stun damage( cutting if a blow is actually powerfull enough to break the skin as well as the bone beneath). Stunning damage would be a side product of both of the other two (if not only from the obvious stunning effect of heavy percusive blows but from the excruciating pain of edged wounds) and extreme ammounts could easily incapacitate the person on the recieving end.

It's a nice idea but it's not going to happen for a while yet. Although I'd like to be around when it does

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Balgin, the Dwarf