Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Humbaba]

Ok, the game does NOT want to be played via steam. I got it running again with widescreen and all but my computer hard crashed upon quitting. I'll just boot the .exe directly from now on if you don't mind, jeez.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Soo, during my misadventures in Wizardry 8 I decided to level up Divinity with Divine magic in room with toxic box. After leveling up Divine Magic to 100, I noticed that Divinity stopped at 90.
I thought "HMM weird, oh well maybe will level up by itself later". Later in Arnika I tried to level up psionics with divine trap and noticed that Divinity went up too. I realized that divine trap belongs to two books and reloaded just to not fuck shit up. I went leveleing through mindread
Later it's turned out that I fucked up anyway and ended up with Psionics -73 and Mental magic -100 (And Divinity was 97 for some reason). Soo, is there a way to fix this without restarting walkthrough? I mean, it is possible to level up spellbooks when governed skillls all at 100?

I never had this problem but never grinded magic like this either, it's really autistic, how long did it take?
The one thing I do is always re-launching buff spells, starting with the character with the lower magic skills to "grind" a bit but after reading you, I can't call it grinding at all.

You don't even need to reach 100 in magic realms, I don't think I ever did, only in magic schools (divinity, wizardry ...)

Which mods and version of the game are you on?

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

I never had this problem but never grinded magic like this either, it's really autistic, how long did it take?
The one thing I do is always re-launching buff spells, starting with the character with the lower magic skills to "grind" a bit but after reading you, I can't call it grinding at all.

You don't even need to reach 100 in magic realms, I don't think I ever did, only in magic schools (divinity, wizardry ...)

Which mods and version of the game are you on?

Mod: Wizardry 8 Gameplay Overhaul
version of base game: GOG
Time to grind skills like this: shitload
I reached 100 in realms only because wanted 100 in school (or at least 90), yet apparently my planning is shit and it backfired.
Damn, I have spent so much fucking time on the grind, it's hurts to even think about it.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Mod: Wizardry 8 Gameplay Overhaul

Never heard of this one, it might be the cause of the bug.
Also, just don't grind this much, it's not even necessary, if you have to, grind +10 in divinity and stop there, it'll help the early game without hindering the mid-late game.

Also, I've read about a shield defense auto grind in the monastery by the falling spiders "trap", probably in continuous mode with someone using low level heal, not sure how it works but if you really find the game too difficult and need some grind to get ahead, it certainly looks better to do it AFK.
Last but not least, you can edit stats, I'm not sure which program to use but you can do it, if you want to cheat, just use the not time consuming option.

Not using fastanim and the other speedmod?

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Not using fastanim and the other speedmod?

I did not installed such mods.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I did not installed such mods.

It's mandatory, except if you overhaul thing does it already, it speeds-up battle animation and combat speed.

Here (snafaru's website) you'll get wizfast and the low framerate fix (don't think i ever needed it but I install it anyway, just in case), doesn't have fastanim but if you can't find it anywhere, I could upload it.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

It's mandatory, except if you overhaul thing does it already, it's speed-up battle animation and combat speed.

Here (snafaru's website) you'll get wizfast and the low framerate fix (don't think i ever needed it but I install it anyway, just in case), doesn't have fastanim but if you can't find it anywhere, I could upload it.

Oh, now I remember, I installed wizfast because it was required for Gameplay Overhaul I think. Thanks for answers, anyway.

 

[Humbaba]

I really like the sound willow saplings make, it's a very soothing kind of EUUURGHH that I can imagine myself falling asleep too.

 

[Grauken]

Found this comment on a youtube video by one of the guys who was working on the graphics for Wizardry 7, if you were ever interested in how they made them

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJvSDLA6z1g

 

[Dorateen]

The stonework in Wizardry 7 is beautiful. Not only in dungeons and caves, but the cobbled masonry of town environments, the grass peeking through cracks between the pavement.

 

[Bad Sector]

Yeah Wizardry 7's visuals are a massive upgrade over Wizardry 6's. Though i think that in both games they went a little overboard with the noise filter in Deluxe Paint :-P (i think DP called it "dither" but it was really just noise).

 

[Grauken]

Yeah Wizardry 7's visuals are a massive upgrade over Wizardry 6's. Though i think that in both games they went a little overboard with the noise filter in Deluxe Paint :-P (i think DP called it "dither" but it was really just noise).

They were doing every pixel manually, if the above quote is to be believed (which isn't that uncommon in that era, I heard similar stories from other dev teams and how they did their art)

 

[Bad Sector]

They were doing every pixel manually, if the above quote is to be believed (which isn't that uncommon in that era, I heard similar stories from other dev teams and how they did their art)

If you use DP a bit there are a lot of telltale signs of its filters/techniques in various games of the era, like the stones in the Wiz7 screenshot clearly being the result of the dithered gradient together with an antialised line for the corners. The way they work isn't like photoshop filters, you still need to do manual work with the mouse as they work in conjunction with the regular painting tools - the filter is basically applied to the brush and tool you work with.

They most likely also did manual pixel dithering as that allows more precision but it'd be limited to specific parts as it isn't very practical to do everything like that (and besides one doesn't buy DP to plot all pixels by hand, even the free paint program that often came with mice would do for that :-P).

For example in this Wiz6 image (i randomly found online):

The ground looks dithered using DP (which was most likely also used to make the perspective tiles as it had a dedicated tool for that) but the troll looks as if it was dithered by hand. TBH i'd expect the monster art to be done with more manual dithering than the environment.

As a quick test i spent a few minutes trying to make the dithering in the stone pillars at the top left and right corner in the Wiz7 UI in DP:

Obviously with not having used DP in many years (or barely at all, i have almost zero experience with it) and only using the default palette and spending only just a few minutes on it, i couldn't get them looking like the Wiz7, but i'm certain that they used that DP functionality to make these (also most likely they used the spray with translucency enabled to add a bit of shadow and variation). Sadly masking is kind of a PITA (and no such thing as layers either) so i guess the process still took them a lot of time.

Also the perspective tiling tool in DP is almost designed (or maybe even explicitly designed, considering it was made by EA for game art) for first person mazes :-P

...though obviously with some fixes after the fact for the magnified bits and adding some fade out (most likely with the spray tool and a black pixel brush) in the distance.

Sometimes i'm thinking about making a DP-like tool for fun at some point as it is neat for working with palettized images like sprites or retro styled textures (AFAIK DP was used for 2D art even in the midlate 90s, e.g. Quake 2's textures and most UI elements were made using it) :-P.

 

[Humbaba]

Sometimes i'm thinking about making a DP-like tool .

http://grafx2.chez.com/

 

[Bad Sector]

http://grafx2.chez.com/

Yeah i know about grafx2, but i always found its UI kinda weird. Also i was thinking about making the tool, not necessarily using it :-P.

 

[octavius]

Wiz 6 is probably the ugliest of the core Wizardries. It has this kind of "smudgy" (as I like to call it) graphics that is like a transition between simple and sharp graphics, and more realistic and sharp graphics. I prefer more cartoony graphics, like in Dungeon Master.

 

[Grauken]

Wiz 6 is probably the ugliest of the core Wizardries. It has this kind of "smudgy" (as I like to call it) graphics that is like a transition between simple and sharp graphics, and more realistic and sharp graphics. I prefer more cartoony graphics, like in Dungeon Master.

I love the graphics in W6, I even prefer them over the SNES W6 graphics, they just have that doomed, gothic feeling that really supports the whole story of the game

 

[RatTower]

Talking of Wiz6 I found an interesting screenshot:

It was listed as "Wizardry VI - Kindan no Mafude" for the SNES, but obviously, that's not an SNES game. It reminded me of the infamous Wiz7 port for PS1 so I dug a little deeper and stumbled over an old Sega Saturn bundle including both Wizardry 6 & 7:

Spoiler

I thought that was pretty cool, cause I've never seen that before and there is very little video material on it. But I found this:



It looks solid enough and definitely doesn't have the performance problems of the PS1 Wiz7 port.
Though, I wonder whether this bundle included a Sega Saturn version of that same port.
The GUI elements are very similar.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Talking of Wiz6 I found an interesting screenshot:

It was listed as "Wizardry VI - Kindan no Mafude" for the SNES, but obviously, that's not an SNES game. It reminded me of the infamous Wiz7 port for PS1 so I dug a little deeper and stumbled over an old Sega Saturn bundle including both Wizardry 6 & 7:

Show Spoiler

I thought that was pretty cool, cause I've never seen that before and there is very little video material on it. But I found this:

Now, all we need is a translation...
Is it the same thing as Llylgamyn saga, which was translated here (romhacking)?

 

[Reader]

Hi guys. Playing Wiz7 right now and i have a couple of questions.
First, i'm in the new city and i have leveling problems. Obviously i just have to go deeper into uncharted lands for more exp. But you see, i can't. Because fucking D'rang T'rang. How i hate this guy. Even if i made peace with him then he spawns with his retarded smile at my next step. I definitely gonna kill him with a great pleasure but right now i am too weak for him and his band.
So. Can i "unspawn" him somehow? Right now this guy gladly spawns right after i load my save.

Second question:can i actually talk with these unique enemies? with D'rang or Ratsputin? To ask them about various topics? Or am i supposed just to kill them?

 

[Covenant]

Hi guys. Playing Wiz7 right now and i have a couple of questions.
First, i'm in the new city and i have leveling problems. Obviously i just have to go deeper into uncharted lands for more exp. But you see, i can't. Because fucking D'rang T'rang. How i hate this guy. Even if i made peace with him then he spawns with his retarded smile at my next step. I definitely gonna kill him with a great pleasure but right now i am too weak for him and his band.
So. Can i "unspawn" him somehow? Right now this guy gladly spawns right after i load my save.

It's generally best to just leave/retreat whenever you encounter of the wandering NPCs, unless they have something you need. Particularly the nasty ones like D'rang T'rang, who frequently attack you. If he keeps showing up, go to another area for a while, if you can. He'll eventually move on.

Second question:can i actually talk with these unique enemies? with D'rang or Ratsputin? To ask them about various topics? Or am i supposed just to kill them?

You can talk to them - the keyword thing pops up when sufficiently friendly relations are established (either you succeed with diplomacy checks enough times while trying to truce, or you cast charm, or give them a bunch of gold). I never found it a particularly useful/engaging endeavor, though. If you need information (e.g. who's carrying what map piece), it's better to just check with an NPC already friendly to you.

 

[Reader]

If he keeps showing up, go to another area for a while, if you can. He'll eventually move on

Aha! so more save/load for me. With enough luck with diplomacy checks i guess i'll be able to crawl my way to eastern exit from the city.

You can talk to them - the keyword thing pops up when sufficiently friendly relations are established (either you succeed with diplomacy checks enough times while trying to truce, or you cast charm, or give them a bunch of gold)

Ah, i see, great!

I never found it a particularly useful/engaging endeavor, though

haha, even if for their mundane opinions about other races and such. still great!

Thanks a lot for the help and info!
man, Wiz6 wern't such a bitch! but still i'm enjoying playing and learning Wiz 7 nontheless.

 

[Humbaba]

Any tips for the Rynjin fight? Inb4 hurrrduddrrrr hev u tierd megck scren?????

 

[Lukifell]

the rynjin fight in the swamp is super nasty

this is where someone with the throwing skill comes in handy. use pandemonium powder. the range is super far and the sentries are monk class, so i believe they will be feared 100% (pandemonium can’t be resisted, it automatically hits them with fear, my fave spell in wiz8)

also, amulet of healing to help against the psi blast spam. and canned elemental can help also (i’m assuming you’re using soul shield)

 

[Lukifell]

Hi guys. Playing Wiz7 right now and i have a couple of questions.
First, i'm in the new city and i have leveling problems. Obviously i just have to go deeper into uncharted lands for more exp. But you see, i can't. Because fucking D'rang T'rang. How i hate this guy. Even if i made peace with him then he spawns with his retarded smile at my next step. I definitely gonna kill him with a great pleasure but right now i am too weak for him and his band.
So. Can i "unspawn" him somehow? Right now this guy gladly spawns right after i load my save.

Second question:can i actually talk with these unique enemies? with D'rang or Ratsputin? To ask them about various topics? Or am i supposed just to kill them?

I always just left any of the wandering NPCs as soon as they appeared because there’s a chance they’ll just randomly get angry. They were always really scary at low levels when playing ironman.