Hi everyone... and some afterthoughts (END GAME SPOILERS)

[jsalsb]

Hi All

I've not been around the boards for the past couple months, because I finally got my copy of Wiz8 (*at last*), and wanted to try my hand at playing through without any help or hints. Ironically, Wiz 8 was not available in Canada for quite a while, and when it was it was quickly sold out. So, even though I had pre-ordered mine before Christmas, I didn't get one till late January. Hey ho. Hope everyone has been enjoying themselves (honestly, I ask this with no bitterness whatsoever!).

Well, I finally finished. I did need to seek your sage advice at some points: I couldn't figure out for myself that you had to touch the bottom beam at rapax rift to get the rocks to fall into the lava passage. And I needed help to figure out the dagger puzzle in the cemetery (I had touched all the icons on the grave stones, but honestly my hat is off to whoever of you first figured out that you had to stick a dagger in the corner stone!).

Now that it's over I'm feeling strangely unsatisfied. I'm not sure why. I've waited SOOOOO long for this game (better part of a decade, really!). Perhaps it's just that: heightened expectations. I felt much more satisfied at the end of W&W last year. I found the endgame to Wiz 8 anticlimactic. It went by really quickly (I played all three endings in under half an hour!), and I was disapointed that you could not then cruise the world with your victorious characters, as you could in W&W and in Wiz 7 (and most other games).

I was also very disappointed that there was no big multi-racial showdown at ascension peak. The whole game through, high level npc's were telling me that they'd meet us at the peak, but in the end, there was no one there but us, the DS and Bela. I was hoping to find the Umpani and the T'rang at the very least vying for cosmic lord status as well (if not the trynnies, rapax, razuka, rinjin, higardi...).

And I'm sure I'm not the first to think that the Darth Vader twist at the end was a little trite. DS = Phoonzang... I mean, really! I'm sure DW Bradley (and perhaps George Lucas) are feeling their souls stretched a bit by this one. I guess its a bit early for them to be rolling in their graves yet... We'd been idolizing Phoonzang for ever, just to find out that he's become a bitter old man (android?). All those eons ago, couldn't the cosmic lords just have used the Forge to write that young Phoonzang never stepped out of line? Or for that reason, couldn't young Anikin, sorry, I mean Phoonzang, have used the Forge to make it that the other lords agreed with his methods? Obviously the lords themselves are not immune to the power of the pen. And if Aletheides knew all along, I don't understand his actions at all.

Anyhow, I rant. I did enjoy the game and It kept my wife sufficiently annoyed at me for about 6 weeks (Wiz 7 took me 6 months in 1992!).

Comments? (I think I may replay W&W now).

Jon

[ 03-10-2002: Message edited by: Ziroc ]

[Bad Mr. Frosty]

u forgot to substitute The Forge with The Force.
Or the Cosmic Lords with the Jedi Knights

hehe
u are right
im like you in the fact that ive been waiting for this game since i was in high school.

and although i really enjoyed it, its dissapointing that the game is in such an unfinished state story wise.
the actual gameplay is great
the only flaw is the waiting for all the enemies or whatever creatures are helping you to attack. but that isnt really so bad overall.
and the magic system is great, only thing i would do diffrent would be to make offensivre spells more devastating.
again not a huge complaint.

but the great thing about these games was the story,
and while the story is pretty good.
its not great.
and damnit it should have been great.

It deserved to be

my ending would have come to tie in events from all 7 previous wizardries. since this is supposed to be the end of the series.
maybe the dark savant was a decendant of werdna.
and our party could be decendants from the original party that dedfeated werdna. our destiny brought us together.
they could have thrown in the knight of diamonds in there.
maybe because of his heroics he acended and was now a cosmic lord.
and he would give us some riddle or maybe a quest that showed us where he had hidden his diamond armor and weapon.
maybe u had to take the mook ship back to a moon of of guardia where he had hidden his armor.

or maybe he would come down and fight along with you in human form, like raiden from mortal combat

ok i killed it.
but they just should have made the story a bit more interesting.
I was really hoping for an epic.

[jsalsb]

Ziroc:

My ever so humble and ashamed apology! I was so deep in rant mode that I didn't consider that my comments were rife with spoilers. Thanks for the edit.

Bad Mr. Frosty:

I agree with you totally. I thought the game design, enginewise and graphicswise, was brilliant. But the story seemed to come to nothing in the end. The plot appeared to be building towards something grand, yes Epic, but just fizzled out in the end. In my next playthrough (I couldn't have been that upset, huh), I won't kill off the T'rang; that way at least I'll have the Rapax away camp and T'rang-Umpani alliance sequences. That seems to add a bit more to the plot. But still... It does seem that Sir-Tech must have run out of resources at the end, because the game WAS good up to the end. But then it squandered its story potential. Yes, it would have been wonderful to see more of our old friends from past installments tied in (I did like encountering the Razuka, and was a bit sorry that Jan-et died. She would have been a good party npc- and maybe she would have brought her red rocket sled?). Maybe the DS could have been the Mad Overlord (I can't remember if we've killed him off), or yes, a relative of Werdna. Anyhow...

I do want the Curries to understand that I appreciate their effort, and applaud the way they produced the game. It hearkens back to the pioneering ways of independent game designers of yore. They had a bumpy ride, and I do very much appreciate that they did it. I'm much happier that there was a Wizardry 8 than if it never came to be. I will certainly play it again, and will certainly continue to buy more installments should they ever see the light of day.

Jon

[Bad Mr. Frosty]

Yeah we can only hope for another wizardry game someday.

But there is hope.
Sirtech is basically over, they are cash strapped so they might be willing to sell the wizardry license to another company.
They already did it for the PS2 game of wizardy.
So that says they are willing to sell lease out the name.
Maybe even the story line too. Since the console version is a whole different story.
Maybe some of the old wizardry programmers can go over and help in the design.
Shoot they could at least get some of the designers of old interplay games like dragon wars.
That and the first wizardry are my favorite games of all time.
It was programmed by William Heineman, someone needs to give this guy a job.

Here is a description of the game by mobygames website.

Dragon Wars takes place in the magical land of Dilmun, an island of salvation perverted into a world of horror by Namtar (as you might expect - the bad guy).
You start with a party of four in the city of Purgatory, equipped with nothing more than.. well - nothing.
Worst of all your magic users won't help you out, either, because magic has been banned (to correct this unpleasing situation is one of your main objectives).
Other main targets are surviving, getting out of Purgatory and toppling Namtar (maybe getting some decent clothing, one or two shiny swords and the like on your way out).

Gameplay instantly reminds of the Bard's Tale-Series. Step-by-step first person 3D, opponents materialize out of the air. The combat system is turn based.

Unlike its (spiritual?) predecessors the game features a full-blown skill system, auto-mapping and many places to actually use all these abilities.
Reasonable distribution of your skill points is rather critical.

This game has a good story line all the way through.
It even hits on our worlds philosophy, religion, history, and literature.
That is a game the should be redone by someone.