Wizardry 8 Demo is released!

[Sazerac]

Originally posted by Neb: Hey Saz, for those of us who haven't played Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, could you possibly enlighten us as to what happened during that game so that we might better understand that which happens in Wizardry 8, also, could you please tell us of anything which has an effect on the Wizardry 8 storyline which has happened during Wizardry 1-6? I like to know such things.

Generally, the current storyline starts around Wizardry 6: Bane of the Cosmic Forge (BoCF). Since I don't think many of you care to go back to play a DOS game from 1990 I'll summarize it and CoDS here for you.

BoCF starts out with your party of adventurers searching for a magic pen (the Cosmic Forge), an instrument which has the ability to alter reality by what you write with it. Some 120 years past, an evil king, queen, and wizard banded together to steal the pen from an altar known as the Cosmic Circle, guarded by the Cosmic Lords so that no one could use it for ill. Throughout Wizardry 6, you unravel the mystery: the pen has a "curse" placed upon in (therefore, the "Bane" pen) in that whoever alters reality with it outside of the Cosmic Circle has to suffer as a curse whatever they have written. You encounter all of the hapless miscreants in their afterlife, suffering from the curses they wrought upon themselves: the king, who wished to become immortal, was cursed to be a vampire, the wizard, who wished to know everything, split into two beings (that which is and that which is not) and went insane, etc. Eventually you face off against the evil king and his "mistress", Rebecca (or you can choose to league with them instead, which gives a different start for the next game!), and then encounter the bane pen. Upon taking it, a mysterious alien appears and claims the pen for the Lords of the Cosmic Circle. Thus Wizardry 6 ends and the start of the next game is set.

Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant (1992) takes up where Wiz 6 leaves off. The strange alien, known as Aletheides, is a robotic servant for the Cosmic Lords. During the 120 years that the pen was lost, the Cosmic Lords were unable to use it to guard the hidden location of one of the most powerful artifacts in the universe, the Astral Dominae, the invention of one Phoonzang (a wizard, and also now a god). With this device, one can create and destroy universes (although one could argue the same thing with the pen!) The world where the artifact is hidden, Lost Guardia, became discovered, and now several forces are on their way to try to claim this device for themselves: the T'Rang, a loathesome race of spider-men, the Umpani, a militaristic race of rhinocerouses (think of the Giff in AD&D), and the Dark Savant, a being of mysterious origins and even more dubious motives for obtaining this artifact. With the Dark Savant travels a girl by the name of Vi Domina, who is a distant descendent of Phoonzang, the creator of the artifact. Into this scenario your party is "dumped" to try to find the artifact for the Cosmic Lords so as to safeguard the secret again.

On Lost Guardia you have several different "native" tribes: the Rattkin, a race of thieving rodents, the Munk and the Dane, rival religious sects, the Gorn, a race of Lawful Good orcs (!), and the Higardi, mysterious valkyries with high technology living in the mountains to the far south. Your party has to literally scour this whole world finding the pieces to the puzzle for finding the Astral Dominae.

To make the long story short, upon finding the Astral Dominae, you cannot get it to work. Only Vi Domina can (being Phoonzang's great-great-great-great-great-great-whatever-granddaughter) because she bears his genetic code. The Dark Savant ends up holding her hostage (not knowing the secret) and forces you to trade him the Astral Dominae for her release (that is, if you take the "Good" ending rather than the "Evil" one, in which you keep the artifact and let her die). He takes off for the Cosmic Circle, with your party and Vi Domina in pursuit.

This is where Wizardry 8 comes in.

Wizardry 8 starts with your party landing on the world Domina, the home of the Cosmic Lords and the Cosmic Circle. Apparently, there will be a lot of cameos from the NPC's in the past; the T'Rang and Umpani will be there, as well as the Dark Savant (of course). Expect a final standoff among all the different factions and yourself to determine the fate of the universe, after unraveling the final mystery of the artifact. You can choose to ally or make enemies with whichever faction you wish (in Wizardry 7, I allied with the Umpani (Lawful) which will influence my party's alliances on Domina in Wizardry 8. For those of you who start a fresh party, you can choose which faction you wish to ally with.

Hopefully this explains a bit about the background of the game, and wasn't TOO confusing!

Cheers,



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Welcome to Ironworks...over 4200 happy members and one old buzzard!

Kids are weird--#2 son says 'cool' at the notion the old Wizardry games are DOS. Any ideas on where to find them (or demos, etrc.)?

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~Garnet FalconDance~

• Guardian of the Forests
  
• Ranger-Protectoress of Ironworks
  
• Scourge of Hobgoblins and Assorted Bad Nasties Everywhere![/list]

[Neb]

DOS games ARE cool, a lot of them are better than the windows games we have now.

[MILAMBER]

I played it a bit more and it's kinda growin on me. For sure I'm buying it when it comes out.

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"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
-General George Patton (1885-1945)

Member of CLAN HADB

Originally posted by Garnet: Kids are weird--#2 son says 'cool' at the notion the old Wizardry games are DOS. Any ideas on where to find them (or demos, etrc.)?

Well just to let ya know, starting from Wiz 6 (BoCF) on back you need lots of graph paper to map with Ill bet if you look online you can find the compilation release they had a while ago....CD's with most or all of the wizardrys on them...Heck Im not sure but It might have come with Wiz ggold...Ill check and see if it did and if they are public domain I can send compies to people.


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Disintigration is easy, If you really want to impress me, ReIntegrate it.

[Sazerac]

Originally posted by Garnet: Kids are weird--#2 son says 'cool' at the notion the old Wizardry games are DOS. Any ideas on where to find them (or demos, etrc.)?

Interplay released a CD compilation called "The Ultimate Wizardry Archives" back in 1998. It's all the Wizardry games from 1-7, with Wizardry Gold (ecch!) thrown in. It's probably still available through their store. I'll see if I can find a link...

OK, here's a few links:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/sheet/gameId,1367/
http://www.cdaccess.com/html/pc/wizarch.htm
http://www.greenbaycd.com/ultimatew.html

You can also try over at Ebay http://www.ebay.com/ and see if anyone is selling a copy there. Sometimes the prices are better.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,




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Welcome to Ironworks...over 4200 happy members and one old buzzard!

[sageridder]

bump

[ 11-04-2001: Message edited by: sageridder ]

[Lady Avalon]

Thanks Saz. Sounds like a great game. I am in the process of downloading the demo and can't wait to give it a try.

[Davros]

Demo fantastic - loved it. A good 10 hours of gameply in itself if you camped a few times and encouraged monsters.

[PixieChic]

quote:

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Originally posted by Garnet:
Kids are weird--#2 son says 'cool' at the notion the old Wizardry games are DOS. Any ideas on where to find them (or demos, etrc.)?

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I found the entire series (Wizardry 1-7 and Wizardry Gold) for $14.95 on CDAccess.com.

For anyone that has played Wizards & Warriors as well as tried out the Wizardry 8 demo...how similar are they? Graphics, mechanics, etc.?