Wizardry's heritage

[Tarjan]

I'm just curious-- does Wizardry 8 actually have ANY connection at all to the original Wizardry games? I haven't played all of the Wizardry games. I played "Proving Grounds," then a little bit of "Knight of Diamonds," and an extremely little bit of "Legacy of Llylgamon." They all seemed to fit well as parts of single series. I skipped Part 4 and went straight to "Heart of The Maelstrom." It didn't feel quite as connected as parts 1-3, but it WAS still very much a Wizardry game.

After "Heart of the Maelstrom," I played the first half of "Bane of The Cosmic Forge," and things started to seem a bit different. In essence, it still felt like Wizardry (exploring a castle, fighting off knights, etc.) But where was Boltac's Trading Post and the Temple of Cant? And what happened to my DUMAPIC spell? Gone!

I never got to play "Crusaders of the Dark Savant" because I had an Amiga computer at the time, and although Sir Tech planned to release it for the Amiga, they then changed their mind. But I remember seeing a bit of it at friend's house, and I couldn't figure out why the series now suddenly included space ships and such. From what I saw of it, it bore practically no resemblance to the "Wizardry" games I knew, and I didn't like the change. It was as if someone was just using the name as a marketing ploy, but they didn't really want to make a Wizardry game.

Now, with Wiz8, it seems Sir-Tech has completely forgotten about Boltac, The Temple of Cant, Dumapic, the creeping coins, etc, etc... all those little things that pretty much defined Wizardry for me.

Don't get me wrong, I love Wiz8, and I understand things have to progress (I'm glad they don't still have vector graphics!), but it would be nice to see some little references thrown in which allude to the series' origins. I'm not very far into the game at all, but does anyone know if we ever hear anything about Werdna or any other characters/places from way back? Any little easter eggs like that?

(having said all that, I DO greatly appreciate the fact that they kept the combat system as it is and did not decide to give us a modern Diablo-esque click-fest. This old-school combat system suits me much better, and keeps it feeling at least a little bit like a true Wizardry game.)

[TINKER_TINKERMAN]

I don't know to much about Wizardry 1-5 (I've never played them).

Wizardry 6 (Bane of the Cosmic Forge), is actually the opening chapters in the current storyline. You will meet someone who will reference it. Remember you were hunting for the Cosmic Forge and Altheades comes and takes it from you at the end.

Wizardry 7 (Crusaders of the Dark Savant), Mentions when the Cosmic forge was stolen The three hidden planets became known. So you find yourself on Lost Guardia (Altheades teleported you here at the end of Wizardry 6 they just don't mention this). Why are you here? well to find the Astrial Dominai of course. When you find it what happens? The Dark Savant shows up, takes it from you and takes off for Dominus. What do you do? Jump in a ship and follow him.

Wizardry 8, Well, let's just say that this is the rest of the story.

[Tarjan]

Ah, thanks for clearing up what happened in Wiz 6 and 7! Like I said, I only played the first half (maybe not even) of Wizardy 6. Soon after I got out of the castle, I stopped. And I missed Wiz 7 entirely.

I guess, then, we could consider the Wizardry series to consist of two separate trilogies, with a couple of extra games thrown in the middle. The first 3 games in the series were loosely connected. Part 4 was just an odd spin-off in which you controlled the villain from the first game and had to exact revenge on the heroes. Part 5, Heart of The Maelstrom, wasn't really connected to anything much (although it still took place in Llylgamyn.) Then the last three games form the second trilogy, unconnected to the first (no more Llylgamyn, no familiar names, places, spells, etc.)

[ 08-06-2003, 02:00 PM: Message edited by: Tarjan ]

[Nightowl2]

Keep in mind also that different designers were involved here. Woodhead, Greenberg, et al. did the first four games. David W. Bradley did V, VI, and VII. Linda Currie et al. did Wizardry VIII.

So it's no surprise the games have a different feel to them. Personally, I don't miss the Creeping Coins myself (Though they certainly were different!)

Nightowl2

[Tarjan]

Nightowl2-- You don't miss the Creeping Coins?! My life feels empty without them!!

Okay, so I'm kidding. All in all, I think the changes are a very good thing. As I said, I'm glad the vector graphics are gone, and it's nice not to have to remember words like TILTOWAIT when casting a spell. But I guess since Wizardry 8 is the grand finale, I just thought it might be nice if they at least paid some sort of homage to the early days so that it all feels connected (yeah, I know the designers are different, but since they're using the name Wizardry, it should feel connected at least loosely.) A mention of Llylgamyn, maybe. Better yet, a chance to finally SEE Llylgamyn! (remember, in those first games, we were always in some sort of pit/dungeon that somehow appeared near the city. The only time we "saw" the city itself was through text menus.) Of course, if the game designers were REALLY kindhearted people, they would have hidden the "Proving Grounds" somewhere in this new game. Same maps as the original, but with the all-new engine and, of course, a few creeping coins.

[EEWorzelle]

So many valuable computer gaming innovations have come through and out of this series.

I loved Proving Grounds through Legend of Llylgamyn, too, but they (Wizardry 2 and 3) were actually what we would call "modules" today, requiring the original game in order to play them. Andrew Greenberg, one of the key, creative originators went on to lead the Starsaga series, a little known but superb computer/board game system.

D. W. Bradley is great, but is being held down, IMO, with cute and fluffy projects that are the only ones he can get in todays game development wasteland. (no pun intended on that great game of the same name).

With the Sir-Tech Canada development team, notably Linda Curie, Brenda Braithwait, and Ian Curie, a new level of strategic sophistication was brought into the Wizardry series. It combines great strategic ideas from many different gaming systems (no rolling of characters, freedom to select Level-Up attributes and skills, enemies that respawn and level up as you do, etc.). These have created a balanced and strategic game that, perhaps, works even better than the designers anticipated. The whole idea of Strategy in RPGs, instead of puzzles, is an emphasis that is new. Puzzles may not be fun for those with greatly different backgrounds than the developers, plus, once you have solved them, the challenge is over. Wizardry 8 is a shorter game, by far, than Wizardry 7, but to make up for that, at least in part, the strategic aspects continue to be fun and challenging in game after game.

[ 08-06-2003, 05:03 PM: Message edited by: EEWorzelle ]

[The Procrastinator]

You know what I miss from the original Wizardry? The vorpal bunnies! Remember your first encounter with those? I do! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!

[Nightowl2]

Actually, EE, only Knight of Diamonds required you to have saves from Proving Grounds, because there was no way to create characters in KOD.

Wiz III allowed you to bring your Wiz II chars over, but they were heavily nerfed and there was no point, really, to doing that. You were better off making a new party from scratch.

Tarj, there are some easter egg retro dungeons in this game, but they have monsters from 8, not earlier ones. Pity about that.

Nightowl2

[Tarjan]

The Vorpal Bunnies WERE amusing... and scary! Actually the first few Wizardry games had a very amusing sense of humor throughout. Remember the diagrams in the manual explaining the concept of Armor Class? If I remember correctly, there was a guy wearing nothing but a barrel around his midsection, and he had an armor class of 10. Then there was a fully armored tank, which had an armor class of -10 (you had to see the pictures to understand why this was funny.)

Anyway, to keep things in perspective, here are some things I DON'T miss from the first few Wizardry games--

1. Losing stats when advancing. I hated that. I'd be so thrilled to see that my character gained a level, but then I be informed that he gained "-2 to Strength." What?! Yes, to those of you who haven't played the earlier games, characters occasionally LOST points when advancing!

2. Having to leave the dungeon in order to advance a character. Characters could only advance while sleeping, and they could only sleep in the stables. This also meant healing your characters was pretty difficult/tedious until you had a fairly competent spellcaster.

3. Those vector graphics. Yes, I said it before, and I'll say it again. Oddly though, at the time, they didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the game. Just required a bit more imagination.

4. As was already pointed out, you needed characters from Wizardry 1 before you could play Wizardry 2. And not just any characters. They had to be pretty darn powerful! I had almost completed Wizardry 1 when I decided to transfer my characters to Wizardry 2. I figured they would be pretty powerful on the first few levels of Wiz2. WRONG! They were slaughtered immediately!

5. The dark areas (and smoke filled areas) in which you could see nothing but a gray box on your screen, forcing you to walk around blindly. Never quite did understand what was supposed to be fun about that.


All that aside, there is one little nod to the earlier games that I noticed immediately-- those slimes that you fight in the monastery. Remember how they populated the first level of "Proving Grounds" too? As soon as I saw them in Wizardry 8, I thought "Aha! These guys again!"

[The Procrastinator]

I wonder what you guys mean by vector graphics? AFAIK, vector graphics are like the ones used in some Atari arcade machine, like asteroids or tempest, or the home console Vectrex (remember these? I have one!) Maybe you're talking about the way the maze was represented with simple lines? I guess they were programmed in a vectorial way... I liked that, personnally. What else could you do with an Apple II display? (Ok, you could do Bard's Tale, but it didn't look that good on the Apple.)

I liked how you could dig out dead character bodies and try to ressurect them. That game was so tough about these things. No saving when in dungeon, no character back-up (unless you used a third party utility), I think it was tougher than Wiz8 in iron man mode. Not talking about the aging thing... "What? My character is too old?" Never seen that feature in any other RPG.