Wizardry Online: Partying like it's 1997

[Bzalthek]

I'm just gonna RP a psychopath.

[Bzalthek]

Old Skool EQ loading times.  Hardcore!
Sorry Doublepost =/

[Lucas]

I gave it a quick whirl last night:

- Yep, it's atrociously amateur time when it comes to presentation and general clunkyness: something you expected to see about 10-13 yrs ago. But after a bit of messing around, you manage to adjust the interface/hotbar to your liking.

- Dialogue window...Well, you can get past it but I don't understand why it's conceived that way 

- The trial dungeon: umm, I was kicked out of it at a certain point: is there a time limit? (but if I understood well, you can re-enter it by talking with the same NPC)

- So, when you attempt a resurrection at a spirit guardian, you can raise your chances by offering items, including cash shop ones that you can lose if the attempt fails. Is that right? Seems legalized gambling to me.
---

You know, if I knew that this game got a competent team, that could churn out interesting dungeons, with diverse layouts and challenges at a decent rate (isn't it the philosophy behind D&D online and the upcoming Neverwinter Online?), I wouldn't dismiss it, even with the PvP and all that.

[Shatter]

I have a hard time believing that the market / interest for a game like this is anything but very small, even when its done well.  This game is catering to an already small small community with what appears to be a fairly shitty game in many aspects. 

[Falconeer]

Yes, there is a time limit on the first dungeon, I think it's twenty minutes. It warns you though, telling you have 5 minutes left. You might have missed that if you were afk or tabbed out. It's impossible to run out of time unless you were afk by the way. Seriously.

Sadly, this game does everything it can to turn away people. If the terrible dialogues and the stupid low resolution default settings weren't enough, the 20 to 40 minutes it takes to get to the real first open dungeon (Caligrase Sewers) are gonna kill the interest of anyone who isn't extremely resolute.

That's too bad cause I keep saying that the dungeon experience is, from a crawl-lover perspective, really engaging. The combat isn't as bad as it seems at first (moving around and especially blocking with the shield is VERY important, this isn't your auto-attack clone. Health doesn't regen, so you want to avoid being hit, got it?), and the exploration totally did the trick for me.

Maybe it's a shitty game in many aspects, but it's quite the only one of this kind that I can think of. Or the only ones that combines lots of features I've been hoping to get in one single game for a while. Anyone cares to remind me similar multiplayer dungeon crawlers with non-autoattack combat, severe death penalties, and open PvP? (Not a rethorical, or snarkym question. I am wondering if I am missing something similar but better that I haven't heard of).

[Fabricated]

Yes, there is a time limit on the first dungeon, I think it's twenty minutes. It warns you though, telling you have 5 minutes left. You might have missed that if you were afk or tabbed out. It's impossible to run out of time unless you were afk by the way. Seriously.

Sadly, this game does everything it can to turn away people. If the terrible dialogues and the stupid low resolution default settings weren't enough, the 20 to 40 minutes it takes to get to the real first open dungeon (Caligrase Sewers) are gonna kill the interest of anyone who isn't extremely resolute.

That's too bad cause I keep saying that the dungeon experience is, from a crawl-lover perspective, really engaging. The combat isn't as bad as it seems at first (moving around and especially blocking with the shield is VERY important, this isn't your auto-attack clone. Health doesn't regen, so you want to avoid being hit, got it?), and the exploration totally did the trick for me.

Maybe it's a shitty game in many aspects, but it's quite the only one of this kind that I can think of. Or the only ones that combines lots of features I've been hoping to get in one single game for a while. Anyone cares to remind me similar multiplayer dungeon crawlers with non-autoattack combat, severe death penalties, and open PvP? (Not a rethorical, or snarkym question. I am wondering if I am missing something similar but better that I haven't heard of).

Is it like a rejected prototype of a "true" Demon's/Dark Souls type MMO made 6-7 years ago? That's kinda the impression I got.

[Falconeer]

I would agree. But make it 10-12 years ago.

[Bzalthek]

Is this the same dungeon where the few mobs hit for 1-2 dmg?  The tutorial one?  As a fighter I jumped through hoops enough to get to a quest that put me into a real dungeon.  Mobs start doing 1/5 of your health on attack and respawn in 5 seconds.  Had three pieces of treasure drop, 2 of them in locked chests, which were trapped, which poisoned me, and I died without finding how to unpoison myself.  I guess you have to be prepared with antidotes. Well, at least the dick punchers finally found their nirvana.

[Mrbloodworth]

I died to the first chest in the "tutorial" dungeon, I uninstalled. Nothing about this title is compelling to me.

[Falconeer]

Block attacks. It's the shift key. You lose no HP when you are blocking. As a warrior is really easy to be in trouble in the first real dungeon (not the tutorial). So block, block, block. And dodge too.
Chests are the reason why you want a thief in your party. Basically, characters who are not thief should never try to open a chest, unless they feel lucky or they are full HP with no enemies around. Thieves can actually specialize as treasure hunters and trap disarmers, other than, well, thieves (they have a Steal skill).

[Dtrain]

The front end interface on this game needs an enema. It seems to have been written for a game without queues, but when SOE got it they couldn't be arsed to make simple changes to accommodate the F2P model. "Connecting," could have been replaced with "In queue..." People understand queues, especially if they're getting the game for free. You know what "Connecting" for unspecified  minutes tells them? This game is broken and shitty, ctrl+alt+del and go do something else. I'm not even saying that the game should give you an indication of your place in the queue and what your estimated wait time is - which any MMO queue should - I understand that sometimes you get a good deal on an IP and want to turn a quick profit. But this is just lazy.

Hopefully get into the actual game a bit this weekend. We'll see.

[Lantyssa]

Ah.  So the Connecting... is a queue?  I wondered, but after five minutes of no response, I just alt-f4'd and went to play MWO or GW2.

[UnSub]

WO pulled off Steam by SOE as they work to fix the "current issues". That was the day after launch. If I'm doing it right (or there's not some country lock on this title), it looks like it still hasn't been returned to Steam now, two weeks later.

[Pennilenko]

This is clunky and bad, but I'm going to give it more of a shake before i decide to uninstall.


Edit: Uninstalled