I'm thinking about to buy it..

[Zoltan]

Hi there. I like RPG's and these days I'm boring because there isnt any good rpg game these days. I played lots of RPG's, I like eye of the beholder, daggerfall, baldur's gate, icewind dale etc.. Should I give this game a chance? What about its gameplay scenario etc? Also I heard about people say do not advance level after level 5 because monsters get strong. What's the point of RPG and advancement if I cannot gain level? If so, I wont buy this game can you enlighten me?

[Nightowl2]

The "stop at level 5" is only advice for the beginning of the game, when you take your party from the starting dungeon to the first town. Not everyone agrees with that advice, by the way.

Yeah, go ahead and get the game. It's good, and my only real complaint is that it isn't long enough, but then they had to push it out the door.

Nightowl2

[EEWorzelle]

Welcome Zoltan!

That Level 5 thing is highly-recommended just for new players the first time they play the game, and then only until they reach the first city and have access to some decent weapons, armor and purchased spells. Some veteran players do the same things in all their games, but rarely after that point in each game.

If you are experienced with RPGs, as you mentioned, you may not need to do it, but do not be embarrassed, or think the game is flawed, if you flounder when you hit the open road for the first time. It's just very difficult there and most people do feel it is a flaw to have such a difficult challenge so early in the players first game.

As you may have guessed by my phrasing, many of us have had a blast, after the initial time, with playing the game again. It gets easier but never easy, because the monsters level up as you do. The level you are at when you first enter an area also determines the specific monsters you will encounter there. If you linger and go up in level, they will respawn and go up in level, too. Monsters go up in level just as enthusiastically whether your party is well equipped or poorly.

There is a great deal of value in going up in level, after this initial thing. In fact, a lot of the fun is going up in level well, developing your character and party effectively, so you gain on your foes as you go up in levels.

As Nightowl says, not all of us do the holding off on level thing. I don't and never have, but the first time playing the game I played on Expert Mode and floundered, never making it to the first city even with reloads. I put the game back on the shelf then, for about a month, but am I ever glad I picked it back up. I've been playing, much of the time, for almost two years now, and still find it a blast! Note that even though the game is good for replay, it is not short. There is plenty of game there.

Note, if you try it without holding off on level ups or going to Easy mode, what you will see if you are not making it is long, tedious battles, coming one after the other without real progress. If that happens to you, you are not going to make it without changing something. It may feel like you have played a lot at that point but it is still just the beginning of the game. Even if you hold at Level 5 until you reach the first city, you can still play the other 99.5% of the game without holding off on level-ups.

Enjoy!!

[ 08-10-2003, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: EEWorzelle ]

[Halsey]

Zoltan:
Buying this game is a no-brainer...it's one of the best out there. I loved Wiz 7, but IMHO Wiz 8 is a better game.
The advice about not leveling up above 5 is a matter of preference. Since the monsters are 'scaled' (i.e. they get stronger as you get stronger) many people 'save' leveling up until they get to Arnika. Most players don't have too much difficulty getting to Arnika in one piece, but it is a challenge compared to the Monastary. Get the game!

[Tarjan]

It IS a good game. I bought it just a couple of weeks ago, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. Also, you should be able to get it quite cheaply now, so it won't empty your wallet.

A few warnings-- You must be a patient gameplayer to enjoy this. You need to spend considerable time balancing your party, and fights can take a VERY long time (use the WizFast utility if it bothers you too much.) Also, the game is not properly balanced after the first "dungeon." As others have said, when you hit the open road, you will face some very tough and lengthy battles, and your mages won't be powerful enough to resurrect anyone. So, if a party member dies during one of these long battles (and believe me, they WILL die many, many times), it can be infuriating because you know that character is pretty much gone for good. I spent quite a few hours screaming obscenities at my monitor (something I haven't done for a very long time with any other game.) The good news is, things DO get better once you're off the open road.

So ultimately it comes down to how patient you are and much you enjoy strategically managing your party. Unlike other RPGs of today, this is not a clickfest, nor does it rely much on puzzles. I won't flat-out say "Buy this game!" because it depends on your tastes. This is a very oldschool RPG with 21st century make-over.

[EEWorzelle]

Hummm,

I guess I am a player out of the "old school" in the sense I played Wizardry 1 when it came out for the PC and a sampling of most of the RPGs over the years (missed some recent ones in the last year or two).

Being familiar with "old school," I do not find Wizardry 8 to be old school at all. The strategy and balance of the game (other than that one difficult run when you first hit the open road) is incredible. I have never had a RPG come even close to this in terms of strategic content and there is nothing "old" about that.

The graphics and sound, while not as big-budget as some games, is quite excellent and, IMO, nothing like the old games.

If to be modern it has to be a frantic click-fest, then, no, it is not modern. Being modern in that sense is no virtue.

By designing entire parties you can build extreme characters within a balanced party. It makes things more interesting vs just having to take whatever characters the designers put in your way. Parties based on themes and with strange abilities can be tried. There is a lot of freedom and great balance between character types and races.

A note about the combats. The combats, by design, are longer, and fewer in number then some other games. That is excellent, IMO, because it makes them less repetitive. Remember the "Gold Box" games and the endless supply of orcs and hobgoblins? Well this is the opposite of that. What's a little danger? Risk it!

[ 08-11-2003, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: EEWorzelle ]

[Halsey]

Tarjan:
By the way....just where did you purchase Wiz 8? I wanted to get an extra copy.

[Tarjan]

EEworzelle--

What I meant by Wizardry 8 being "old school" is that it uses turn based combat, and relies on the traditional method of gaining experience to advance levels. I happen to like this system, having been a fan of "Proving Grounds," and countless other games that worked that way. But in today's market, it's becoming quite rare to see games using such traditional gameplay. A lot of RPGs these days are using newer systems that I don't care for much. Wizardry 8 stays true to its roots by using an "old-school" combat system (enhanced, of course, but when you get right down to it, it is not drastically different from what was used in Proving Grounds-- assign an action for each character... attack, defend, protect, cast a spell, etc... and then sit back and watch what happens.)


Halsey--
I bought my copy in EBX at the Palisades Center Mall. It was a used copy, though, and the only one on the shelf. Cost me $12... well worth it.

[Ziggurat]

I like the old school RPGs, in both of the senses. Wix 8 does it proud and with great graphics and playability for an RPG.

I also would like to say you can level up at the beginning as much as you like. I was holding back for awhile but with my latest party we had no trouble getting to the first city while leveling up each time. It depends on the strength of the party and the random monster parties. Save one game before leaving the Monastery (first dungeon)so you can rest and meet new, fewer, and less dangerous monsters on a random cast of the die.

Get this game.

Another place to get it ($19.95)is at http://www.chipsbits.com

http://www.chipsbits.com/cgi-bin/ord.../WIZA8.IR.html

[ 08-11-2003, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Ziggurat ]

[EEWorzelle]

Tarjan, I hear you, respect you opinion, and appreciate that you calling Wizardry 8 old school is a compliment. Fair enough.

It's just that in my opinion, in spite of surface similarities, this is a fundamentally different game then ever before. I think we are looking at the future here, not the past.

You see, all of you are very familiar with RPGs, but some, maybe most of us have been almost as heavy, over the years, in the strategy and adventure genres, also. Strategy games have hit a sort-of brick wall. They start out small, where you can and should control all of the elements, but then they grow, and slow down, and become tedious if that same level of control of each thing accumulated is to be maintained. Game designers have tried most recently, in MOO3, to remove the tedium by keeping the billowing size the same (or even larger) as turns progress, but try to limit the tedium by letting the player control less, at least directly, about what is going on. That way there are only a few things to do, every turn, even when you have hundreds of... well, in MOO3 it's planets or colonies, to call your own. Some players really love it, some hate it. Overall, I would say the game is less popular than it's predecessors, at least at this time.

The beauty of W8, viewed as a character development strategy game, is that the size of what you control never gets way out of hand. You get 8 characters, with RPCs, and no more. It is possible, and even wise, to remain intimately knowledgable about each one of your characters and their development as you move up.

In previous RPGs, including Wizardry, too much was random or fixed to also have them be good strategy games. In Wizardry 7 some attributes went up and some down at level-up. You had no control over it unless you cheated and reloaded (I did that some - blush). The number of initial points you got was random, so character creation, to get enough for a Faerie Ninja, for example, was very tedious.

In the BG games, there are also (like Wizardry 8) fixed points at creation and a tiny bit of this kind of strategy, but it is based upon the D&D model and increases in attributes are few and far between. The fact you can't both choose your party and experience the game fully is a drag, also. Your own characters that you created and control changing, from the inside out, in their inherent abilities, is great strategy and role playing! It would be difficult to both do that and maintain a balanced game, but the Wizardry 8 team did an excellent job, IMO.

The whole commonly accepted fixed idea in strategy games, that you need, necessarily, to have a rapidly increasing number of things you control less and less intimately, to have it be a strategy game has been proven false by Wizardry 8. I don't know of any other game that has done that. None of the previous RPGs nor Strategy games did it that way.

As you say, setting up what will take place in a round of combat ahead of time is not new, but the alternative, at the other extreme, is to decide on the fly, which becomes a "think fast frantic click fest" again - boring. It would encourage only "Bam Bam" type of bash-em weapons to keep the uninteresting and repetitive combat as short as possible. I like games like that, for a time, but the repetition gets to me after a while.

[ 08-12-2003, 03:00 AM: Message edited by: EEWorzelle ]