Post for people who love really high characters

[Thry Cracix]

I tried some new things in my second run through the game and thought I would share them with you...

1. You don't have to set foot in either the skull castle or Anephas Shrine to beat the game. If you "Vanish" into the lost sea area, you can complete the underwater city and Cet's Tomb without resurrecting Anephas and without Cet attacking Gezerred Ra. I think that's just poor game writing.

2. If you love to exp until you have a really really high level character with fat weapons and an amazing array of abilities, listen up. I got my solo party Zenmaster to level 236, but make sure you always have an attribute available to raise with attribute points, otherwise when you level to the point where all your skills on the skill page are maxxed, you will be stuck on that page and unable to return to the game. I had to reload from when I was level 168 and raise skills one at a time instead of buying them all at the guilds (i tried to get every skill that was available to me, I succeeded, but with the problem I just mentioned. In other words, I can't level again.

3. If you love to hack and slash and are a sword user, buy normal weapons (I recommend the Tonomari Katana and the Wakazashi (2nd weapon), then damage bless the bejesus out of them. It got to the point when, with heroic might and frenzy, I was doing 110 with each weapon (220/round). I love it!

I'd like to hear from other players that have obsessions about obscenely high characters without hex editing. My level 236 Zenmaster had all stats at 24, all resistances at 100% except for elements (90%), +400 to hit, +200 to parry...in other words, fearsome. I only got his AC to 38 though because of the damn double enchanting to protect from magic/fire/cold. I'll have to fix that.

Walk Safe,
Thry

------------------
"I am Maximus Decimus Meridius
Commander of the Armies of the North,
and General of the Felix Legions.
Brothers, Remember that what you do in life shall echo through all Eternity.
Strength and Honor."

[Wyvern]

Wow, Thry!! Most impressive!!!

Thanks for sharing all the good tips for other players who might want to also create megacharacters!!

and if I haven't already - Welcome to the board!!!

Wyv

[mlrichman]

I'm curious; when did your zen master start as?

[Thry Cracix]

My Zenmaster:

Lvl 10 Warrior-->Level 15 Barbarian-->Level 15 Paladin-->Level 20 Samurai--Zenmaster...

Also, I've been through the game twice, killed Oakenmir and Erasthmedor twice, and didn't use the Scorpion Cheat...I just ran around Isle of Sands for three days getting Exp.

[Sazerac]

Running around the Isle of Sands for 3 days will definitely do it, especially with Respawn on frequent and difficulty setting on "Hard".

And, BTW, the gold scorpion thing isn't a "cheat", it's a game feature. "Cheating" is when someone hacks a character to get superhuman scores or uses a 3rd-party trainer (character editor). Using something that ever respawns is not cheating, IMO. Just a point of clarification.

-Sazerac

[Ryanamur]

Dear Saz,

I have to dissagree with you on that one. Think about it this way: if you were in the Gael Serran, would you purposefully jump into that pit and kill everything over and over again? Probably not! You go in once, realize it's a trap then leave and make sure you wouldn't come back again. Let's face it XPs are only there to quantify the advancement of our character (though I'd love to meet the next level up in real life... and gain super huge biceps or be really intelligent ). So, IMO if you do something to take advantage of a feature that you wouldn't do if you really were the character, then, you're are cheating.

Mind you, killing Rumphy over and over again or having a scorpion hacking session is, even by my standards, a very small cheat. But it's a cheat.

Cheers,

Ryanamur

[Thry Cracix]

I understand both sides of your argument...I tend to agree that if the game designers and beta testers missed it (or hell, maybe put things in there purposely), then it's not only our right but our duty to exploit it!

However, it's usually not the type of thing I do until after I have beaten the game, otherwise it make the end just too easy.

I liken it to having Grandmaster Spirit Magic in M&M 7 and casting Protection from Magic then using that well that gives +10000 exp in the Land of the Giants over and over again without dying.

I only used the Money "cheat" (the arrow that you can buy for 300 and sell for 1900 in the Bushi Guild) well after I had beaten the game the second time. Again though, it's not hacking into the game, it's just a sneaky way to do things one thinks one normally should not be able to do.

Also, I wanted to see if I could find a red dragon. I scouted one once but I never actually saw it. Bleh, I'm still trying.

I think the worst oversight the designers made with this one was to make the skills/characterstics page unscrollable. Don't they know there are people out there who want to give characters every possible skill there is???

[Scronan]

Hiya,

I have to agree with Sazerac here. I do not believe the scorpion trick is a cheat, perhaps a better term is a "trick". All of us veteran RPG players know when you play a serious game (like this one), the player must seek out and learn everything. That means tricks, and cheats for others.

What is a cheat? Something that really takes advantage of a flaw in the game, and you use it to really achieve something that would be impossible another way. The Gold cheat is a terrible cheat, and back when I first discovered it, no one on any of the forums I was on knew about it.

Believe me, I hesitated for a full day before I posted with how to do it, then I figured, ah, what the hell, I probably wasn't the first person to find it, but I did feel a little guilty for some reason.

So, I think its also a matter of player preference. If you want to cheat, then cheat. If you want to use tricks and good hints, then do so as well. I played through the game without using any hints or advice from anyone, but that was my choice since I'm nuts. If you want to make a level 700 character than can kill every monster in the Gael Serran with one blow, then do it.

Just have fun, and remember, its just a game!

Scronan

[This message has been edited by Scronan (edited 07-17-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Scronan (edited 07-17-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Scronan (edited 07-17-2001).]

[Sazerac]

Originally posted by Ryanamur: Dear Saz, I have to dissagree with you on that one. Think about it this way: if you were in the Gael Serran, would you purposefully jump into that pit and kill everything over and over again? Probably not! You go in once, realize it's a trap then leave and make sure you wouldn't come back again. Let's face it XPs are only there to quantify the advancement of our character (though I'd love to meet the next level up in real life... and gain super huge biceps or be really intelligent ). So, IMO if you do something to take advantage of a feature that you wouldn't do if you really were the character, then, you're are cheating. Mind you, killing Rumphy over and over again or having a scorpion hacking session is, even by my standards, a very small cheat. But it's a cheat. Cheers, Ryanamur

Ryanamur, I agree with you to a point. Having effects like that in a game is clearly unrealistic...but it is not a cheat. There are many people who (including me) find that word distasteful and offensive, and it has been the source of more than one flame war. (If you doubt this, check out news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg and check through the threads there; sooner or later you'll find some rants on the use of this word.)

One could argue that doing things against the will of the programmers is in effect a "cheat." The trouble is, you're second-guessing what the programmer's original intent was. Unless one is a mindreader (which I'm not), I can't tell what a designer put in there as a "fun" feature or whether it could be classified as a "bug," in other words, an unintentional flaw.

Knowing D.W. Bradley's style as well as I do, I have little doubt that Rumphy is exactly what he is: a legitimate in-game "character trainer," a way for characters to get XP and cash. Realistic? No. Legitimate? Yes. Rumphy's legacy dates back 20 years to the original Wizardry 1 (Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord) and the "Murphy's Ghosts" in that hidden closet that ever-respawned. It is also not difficult for me to imagine a "magic machine" that generates an endless supply of scorpions. In Baldur's Gate 2 (forgive me for mentioning it here!) in the first room after the opening of the game, there's a room with a machine that continually generates little imps until you turn off a switch. A person could legitimately stand outside the room, let the room fill up with imps, put "Lightning protection" on him/herself, and go in and play "whack-an-imp" as long as they liked for the XP, exit the room, and repeat the process. That is NOT a cheat...it is a programmed feature of the game. Boring and repetitive? Undoubtedly. Unless the person is a "munchkin", one soon tires of that activity quickly.

Let me ask you this...is playing the game over again with the same characters at super-high levels considered to be "realistic?" What was the first play-through then, a dream sequence like the character Pam Ewing on TV's "Dallas" had to explain an entire season? Certainly unrealistic. Is it cheating, though, if it was designed into the game?

As far as the "Inn Gold" feature, that is clearly a "bug" since it did go against the original intent of the programmers (and was fixed in the subsequent patch as were other potential "exploitative" features.)

Hacking characters, unless to get them around a game flaw (like the Glowstone problem in Collasium), is clearly going against the rules of the game, as is using a 3rd-party game editor, otherwise known as a "trainer" program. Since W&W is a solitaire game, the only person getting "cheated" is you, so you alone decide how you want the rules of the game to be played.

My problem, again, is with the gratuitous use of the word "cheat." It is a rather nasty and mean-spirited word and is designed to raise the hackles of many readers. The purpose of these games is to have fun, not to pass judgement on how others play them. I personally would never think of killing the good NPC's for the sole purpose of getting the XP, yet that is not cheating, since it was allowed by the designers to occur. Personally, I'd rather see someone leave Oakenmir and Erathsmedor alone and kill as many gold scorpions as they could instead. But that's just my play style, and others may differ with me. Neither one of us is "cheating", in my book.

So let's try to slack off of the "judgemental" aspect and accept different methods as personal play styles and not look at them as "cheating." As I said before, in the end, it's how much fun you get out of the game anyway.

Respectfully,

-Sazerac

[Sazerac]

One last thing I wanted to point out, then I'll let it go:

Did anyone ever notice that "Rumphy" is an anagram of "Murphy"? Need I say more? (For those veterans of Wizardry 1). Nice little Easter Egg there...and as I said, completely intended by Bradley.

-Sazerac