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wizards and warriors impressions?
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RPGDot Forums > CRPGs General

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the mighty stamar
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 602
Location: arcata ca, humboldt county
wizards and warriors impressions?
   

I started wizardry 8 recently.
It has totally blown me away. For those crpg game players who wanted something like pnp d and d strategy gaming when they bought nwn... you got the wrong one, the only game like that is wizardry 8.
The 3d engine ( not the monsters though) are very up to date looking. Its probably the best crpg ever made.

But its the end. In order for me to play a sequel Im going to have to go backwards, to a game that is very hard to find, and received mixed reviews.

Made by different people also, the orignal wizardry 5-7 team made w&w. I had heard that when it came out it was too retro, still having some block/bards tale parts to it, and some 3d mm7-9 parts.

Anyhow, anyone who has played the game could you give me your opinion on whether i should try to hunt it down? How much like wizardry 8 is it?
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 3:46 am
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bilbump
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 25 Jan 2003
Posts: 11
   

hiya, stamar.
w&w is a mixed bag...it is sort of a hybrid between wiz7 and wiz8. i really liked it, but partly that's because i loved wiz7 and w&w reminds of that game in a lot of ways. if you played and liked the earlier wiz games then you'll probably enjoy w&w....if not, it's still worth checking out but there are some differences compared to wiz8...

both games are old-school rpgs and give you a lot of options with character development and all that. in w&w there is much much less combat, and combat takes place in (sort of) real-time, so there is less strategy involved. However, you can multi-class your characters as often as you like, giving them new skills and stuff...also, you need to complete a side quest each time you want to change class which makes things more interesting than simply choosing a new class at levelup. there are also side quests available by joining guilds, and completing quests for guilds allows you to train skills or learn new abilities.

the graphics are not as nice, but they feel more immersive, as you can swim underwater, ride a horse, sail a boat or raft, move any objects in the gameworld...and there's no break between exploring and combat mode. as for the story, i really can't say i find the plot for either game to be particularly original, but i think w&w tried to be a little more original.

the game has its flaws...it's certainly not as polished as wiz8, but it definitely has that old school charm. hope that helps...
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Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 6:09 am
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Danicek
The Old One
The Old One




Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic
   

Hi,

Wizardry 8 is ofcourse very good game and in my memories of young RPG player it is the best one...

I tried W&W because of nearly same reason. I wanted something similar, so I tried W&W, but it was so so full of bugs that I went away from it after several reinstallations and after hours of searching for patches, fixes and tips how to avoid them.
Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 2:09 pm
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Shoegazer




Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia
   

W&W had a great deal of potential. Activision abandoned this game the day after it shipped, so the design team was left holding the bag. They issued a patch which Activision refused to support, and it's pretty obvious the game was forced out the door about 6 months before the design team was ready to let it go.

The conversation system had some, ummm, idiosychrocies. Getting quests and getting your reward for completing them was awful, at best. The combat system (phased combat, which incorporates most of the bad parts of turn-based with most of the bad parts of real-time) could have been interesting, but needs some tuning.

I think the thing that made me dislike the game so much is the potential it showed. With additional development time, the numerous bugs (including a handful of CTD's) could have been stomped and some of the questionable design decisions could have been tuned. I think Heuristic Park recently announced a new game in development. While I won't buy it until some reviews come out (won't get bitten twice), I'll certainly keep an eye on it.
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Post Sat Feb 08, 2003 2:54 pm
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Danicek
The Old One
The Old One




Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic
   

And result is that you shouldnt try this game, unless you have some money you want to throw out of your window...
Post Mon Feb 10, 2003 8:11 pm
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Xeno
Village Dweller
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Joined: 10 Feb 2003
Posts: 1
Location: Norway
   

Erhm... I'm new here, hi
Anyway, I bought w&w a few weeks ago... I haven't really played any of the Wizardry games, so I can't compare it to any of them, but I find it quite good... and it's prolly pretty cheap by now (I got it veeery cheap), so IMO it'll be worth it
Post Mon Feb 10, 2003 8:37 pm
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The Hulk
Avenger, Defender
Avenger, Defender




Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 728
Location: Southeast U.S.A.
   

quote:
Originally posted by Danicek
And result is that you shouldnt try this game, unless you have some money you want to throw out of your window...


I don't think the game is that bad. I played it with the most recent patch installed and I did not encounter alot of bugs. True, there were some, but not enough to keep me from playing. I enjoyed the mature content in the game, which is rare for a fantasy rpg. I almost completed the game, but right when I was near the the end, I wanted to go back and have one of my characters become a zenmaster. So, I went all the way back to try to complete the quest, but there was a locked portcullis that I needed to get past and I had dropped the key to it long ago because I had found some cool stuff and my inventory was full, thinking that I would not need it again. I went around all over the world looking for it, trying to remember where I had dropped it, but never found it. Well, I kind of gave up in frustration after that, but if I had just hung onto that key, I would have won.
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Post Mon Feb 10, 2003 9:00 pm
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the mighty stamar
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 602
Location: arcata ca, humboldt county
   

Thanks for your opinions. I am going to try it out when i finish wizardry 8.
I think I can order it still actually.
Post Wed Feb 12, 2003 8:03 am
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Danicek
The Old One
The Old One




Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic
   

Ok, I shouldnt use so strong words, probably I just didnt try all I could.
Post Thu Feb 13, 2003 5:31 pm
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dteowner
Shoegazer
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Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia
   

C'mon now, Danicek. Stand by your words! They're all true, and just because they aren't nice doesn't make them any less valid.

As far as I know, there's only 1 patch available for W&W (the unsupported one). Get it. Before loading that patch up, I found the game to be nearly unplayable. It wasn't perfect afterwards by any measure, but at least I could get to the first dungeon without a CTD.
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Post Thu Feb 13, 2003 9:23 pm
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Raldor
Keeper of the Gates
Keeper of the Gates




Joined: 27 Sep 2001
Posts: 107
   

I won't go into what all I didn't like about W&W because everything I remember has already been pointed out well in this thread. I played it for pretty much the same reason as you're going to, which was desperation for a game in the Wizardry style. The wasted potential was what bothered me the most also. Even though I did have fun for the most part, I only got maybe halfway through it.

If you have some extra cash, I'd recommend giving it a try anyway or you'll always be wondering about it and , like others have said, it's probably pretty cheap by now. This isn't a financially smart way to go but it's what I usually do anyway.

The only thing I'm worried about is that playing Wiz 8 before playing W&W will make it seem even worse for you than it did for me when I played (which was when it first came out). Wizardry 8 is one of my favorite games ever and W&W is IMO a game that had outstanding potential but ended up mostly an unpolished mess. I would just keep my expectations fairly low and know it's not going to be another Wiz 8 and you might enjoy it.
Post Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:35 pm
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Nukester
Head Merchant
Head Merchant




Joined: 03 Nov 2002
Posts: 52
   

If you are going to play W&W on a WinXP machine, I think you are going to need to download VDMSound to convert the town sound files or something like that.
Post Fri Feb 14, 2003 3:18 am
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Provis
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 872
Location: Middle of the Forest
   

Okay, first off I LOVED this game, then again some would say I have strange taste.
Second there are some bugs, but I didn't notice any really bad ones.
Third if you get it and run win2k or (i think) XP one has to decompress the town AVI files
Fourth, one doesn't(at least I didn't) need VDMSound because it isn't a dos based game.

A good place to go for info about W&W is Ironworks Gaming's W&W forum, they are very active today and if one searches one is sure to find the answer to any question one may have.

There is a faq of sorts about technical problems one should look at on their forum, it should be the first post. It tells one what one has to do to decompress the town AVI's
I didn't post the links, cause I wasn't sure if anyone would get upset.
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Post Sat Feb 15, 2003 1:43 am
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the mighty stamar
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 602
Location: arcata ca, humboldt county
   

Well I did a quick peek into it and so far i really love wizards and warriors.

Nevermind the fact that the speech isnt working And I got into really advanced dos editting to get it running.

Its really excellent so far. I do surely think I have it set too fast because I have yet to win a fight with anything lol but Ill figure it out someday.

First I have to try and finish wizardry 8 and that will take a few weeks at my rate Im at around level 17 now heading into bayjin for the first time.

I enjoy both of these games more than more recent ones except for the oh wow graphics. And I think the graphics in both of these are very good really. The textures on wiz8 are better than ww but the monsters look better in ww...


And what is it with the town being an a layered avi file? I dont think Ive ever seen a game do that its a very bad idea considering everyones windows media player is set different filled with different bugs and leeches. I had a game stopping problem with the arx fatalis avi opening sequence also so I already had experience with what to mess with.
Post Sat Feb 15, 2003 11:59 am
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AvalonKnight
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 17 May 2002
Posts: 8
   

I really enjoyed Wizards And Warriors..a few bugs were ironed out with the patch although i must admit the game had some weird and wonderful eccentricities throughout!

Remined me of Dungeon Master..good puzzles especially, something that seems to be lacking with a lot of the hack and slash "rpg"s of late!

All the best.
Post Sat Feb 15, 2003 12:32 pm
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