Trip into the past

[Loudhy]

After I yesterday switched on my old 386 DOS computer I thought about the older parts of the Wizardry games. I've played them from W6 to W8. I know that W5 was named "Heart of the Maelstrom". In the past I often tried to get the older parts but unfortunatly I had no luck with that.

I think there must be someone out there old enough to know about the first parts. Do they have the same plot like W6 up to W8 or do they have own, finished stories ?
I sometimes play old DOS games. Is there a chance to get the older parts for DOS or is this hopeless ?

[img]graemlins/monster5.gif[/img]

[ 01-27-2004, 01:45 AM: Message edited by: Loudhy ]

[dplax]

A search on ebay revealed some wizardry 5 but nothing older.

Also found this:
http://www.mobygames.com/game_group/...meGroupId,114/

Gives links to places where you can buy every wizardry game. Just click on the games name in the boxes.

[Target]

I've been trying to find wiz gold (7) but not had much luck, looked on E-bay and amazon etc but not had any luck finding it.
Has anyone got any suggestions where I can find a copy, (and time to play it!! ha ha) I'm in the UK.

[ferro287]

Ebay Germany actually does sell older Wizardries, like Wizardry Archives (version 1-7) (from different vendors even). My guess would be that you need DOSbox or the like to play it though (at least i need it to start wiz 5 & 6).

[Loudhy]

Hi Target,

maybe I can help you. I remember, that I bought a box called "The Ultimate RPG Archive" some years ago with some Ultima games, Wasteland and Wiz VII Gold.
Can't promise it, but if I find it somewhere in my "software junk yard" I'll tell you next week.

[img]graemlins/monster5.gif[/img]

[Nightowl2]

Wizardry: Proving Grounds Of The Mad Overlord was the first in the series. You were hired by Werdna to plod through a 10-level dungeon and retrieve an amulet from the evil Trebor. Werdna and Trebor were Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead, the game's creators.

Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds was something of a sequel, but not much. You had to import a party from the previous game (no char creation here), and hack through a smaller dungeon, picking up pieces of the armor once worn by the Knight of Diamonds.

Wizardry III: Legacy of Lyllgamn (sp?) was unusual in that you had to create two teams, one good and one evil. Certain areas of the dungeon were open only to one kind or the other (neutrals could go to any of them). Each team retrieved a globe, and the two globes were then merged into one. This allowed one team to get to the end. Unfortunately, I no longer recall what the main objective was.

Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna had you playing the part of Werdna, who hadn't actually died way back when. You worked your way up through ten levels of dungeon, then adventured around a castle. The game had multiple endings depending on your actions and choices during play. Most interesting feature was that, as Werdna, you could summon groups of monsters to help you fight the parties of adventurers trying to prevent you from leaving the dungeon.

All these games had no graphics to speak of. The visuals were similar to what you see in the retro dungeons, and monsters were representd by small portraits.

Nightowl2

[Target]

Cheers Loudhy,
look forward to hearing from you.

[Dang]

I think the objective of Legacy of Llyllgamen was to get a couple or three objects (won't mention them, just in case you do get to play it) in order to stop the dragon Llyllgamen from causing catastrophes that were destroying the lands in which the first four (or five) Wizardries took place. One facet not mentioned above was that you more or less HAD to transfer characters from Wiz I to Wiz II, as even the first level of the dungeon was quite a bit tougher than what 1st levelers could handle. Another interesting factor was that in Wiz III, you could transfer in old characters, but instead of getting them, you got their 1st level descendents along with their heirlooms (i.e., their good equipment.) Anyway, I think that's how it worked.

Back in Wiz I-III the only classes were: Fighter, Mage, Priest, Thief; who could advance into (or with some of these classes you could get lucky and have enough points to start as) Bishop, Samurai, Lord, Ninja. Wiz IV, of course, only had Werdna, but the characters you fought against were the traditional character classes from I-III, and supposedly were teams sent in by Wiz enthusiasts.

Wiz V made some changes; for the first time you got new spells, and there might have been a few new classes? I never played that one much. It was only with Wiz 6 that you got the full complement of classes and races we are all familiar with (oh, forgot to mention, races for wiz 1-3 were human, elf, dwarf, hobbit ... maybe gnome?).

Personally, even though I logged in hours of playing Wizardry I - III, and they were pretty cool for their time, I never really really enjoyed Wizardry until D. W. Bradley (maybe he had some help, I dunno) revitalized the system with 6. But, hey, you may love them, especially if you get into training, cause you kind of have to have that ability to endure repetition to do well in those games. In my slacker, never-actually-finished-any-of-them-except-I opinion.

Incidentally, there are a few custom-made Wizardry I scenarios floating around. I think they can be found on Snaferu's Wizardry site. They require and Apple IIe emulator, but he provides one.

[Dang]

Hrr, I was wrong about a few things in the previous post. L'kbreth is the name of the Dragon in Wiz 3; Llyllgamen is the city in which Wiz 1-5 take place. For pretty much any info you might want about the games, you could try http://www.tk421.net/wizardry/

Wiz 6-8 were all connected. In Bane of the Cosmic Forge (6), the Bane King steals the Cosmic Forge and you have to get it back, or something along those lines. Bela was in that one...

Crusaders of the Dark Savant(Wiz7) was about one giant race for the Astral DOminae, on the of the three artifacts needed to ascend. Of course, your good ol friend the Dark Savant is there, along with Vi, Umpani, and T'rang, and Helazoid (cousins of Higardi). THose who played will probably remember Janette, the Helazoid prisoner on the Rynjin island. IF you played wiz7, she will recognize you.

And we all know Wiz8 concludes the trilogy.

As for 1-5, they were not connected, or at least to my knowledge.