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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  Gaming  |  Topic: Grimoire (VERY old school CRPG. Demo available!) 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Grimoire (VERY old school CRPG. Demo available!)  (Read 17589 times)
Zetor
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Reply #35 on: August 04, 2017, 04:40:33 AM

This is now released and available on steam -- some microissues remain, like doubleclicking on a character portrait crashing the game.

We're gonna need a bigger  why so serious?...
« Last Edit: August 04, 2017, 04:43:27 AM by Zetor »

raydeen
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Reply #36 on: August 04, 2017, 07:26:20 AM

Well, I took one for the team and bought it. Will report back later wth my findings.

I was drinking when I wrote this, so sue me if it goes astray.
HaemishM
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Reply #37 on: August 04, 2017, 09:30:02 AM

Why do you motherfuckers want to enable the mentally ill?

Ginaz
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Reply #38 on: August 04, 2017, 11:06:14 AM

Why do you motherfuckers want to enable the mentally ill?

It worked for Trump?
WayAbvPar
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Reply #39 on: August 04, 2017, 12:54:28 PM

Well, I took one for the team and bought it. Will report back later wth my findings.

I was going to leap, but the reviews are SAVAGING it. Will give it a few days to see if he can unfuck some of it, but the more I learn about Cleve the less interested I am in putting anything but a live grenade in his pocket.

When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM

Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood

Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
koro
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Reply #40 on: August 04, 2017, 02:23:39 PM

Quote
So GRIMOIRE is out. It's a little late, since it was delayed from its original August 1 release date, which was delayed from its June release date, which was delayed from its original March 2013 release date, which was delayed from its 2005 release date, which was delayed from its 2000 release date, which was delayed from its 1997 release date. So it's been a long time coming! In the meantime, Cleve "Neanderthal" Blakemore has espoused his opinions on many things, like game design and black people and the fact that satanists designed television to make women to go crazy and eat Ben and Jerrys Ice Cream and this causes men to become stupid because they can't have sex with women who are eating ice cream so much. It's definitely a real problem, which is explained on his blog here http://vault-co.blogspot.com/2007/06/television-is-designed-to-kill.html . Fortunately men playing videogames for 600 hours doesn't affect women or themselves in any way, so Cleve is definitely NOT a hypocrite for making an endless CRPG and that's not a big deal. Phew!

Anyway, I don't want to get sidetracked with discussing Cleve's opinions, like how he thinks Stephen Hawking secretly died and was replaced by a duplicate or that black people are intrinsically stupid. Let's discuss the game! If you are familiar with CRPGs from the late 90s, you know that Wizardry 7 was to many people the pinnacle of game design and dungeon crawling. It's a well-designed product, and stands out from the other games that came out at the time, most of which tried to improve on the formula by adding bad gimmicks or lots of meaningless stats or changing the combat in ways which were detrimental to the experience. For example, FATE "improved" on Wizardry by making everything enormous for no reason, which allowed them to claim 200 hours of gameplay even though most of the world was empty or contained repeats of other areas because they simply didn't have time to make a game that big and put interesting things in all of it. Grimoire fits right into this period of CRPG design, because it's clearly based on Wizardry -- and Wiz7 in particular -- but changes the formula in ways that make it worse.

Let's talk about party composition. Wizardry had six party members. Grimoire has eight! EIGHT IS MORE! IT'S BETTER BECAUSE MORE!!! Anyway eight characters attacking an enemy at once would be a bit much if they remained the same as in Wizardry or Bard's Tale or whatever so as a result Cleve has to weaken party members and buff enemies. The result is over a long term the same balance is maintained, but in the specific case random encounters can simply kill your party members with no recourse and with nothing you could have done to prevent it. This is mostly true early on, of course, before you get spells and skills to mitigate it, and before you grind out the levels to improve your characters. If you're a big Bard's Tale fan you won't mind having your party die for no real reason over and over again early on. Anyone who's used to newer RPG design, or early RPG design in actual good games, should stay away. This ain't Might & Magic; it's more of a Wizards & Warriors. I was originally going to call it Dungeon Lords but that's, frankly, too harsh for this game. Cleve Blakemore may believe that Europeans are genetically predisposed to avoid jaywalking and Americans jaywalk because of all the non-white people poisoning our genes but even he doesn't believe David W. Bradley's Dungeon Lords is good.

Anyway! If you like shoddy Wizardry ripoffs that overpromise on everything but more or less deliver some dungeons and places to explore and items to puzzle over, and you don't mind giving your money to an insane white supremacist, then you should buy Grimoire Heralds of the Winged Exemplar. I can't say you should buy it if you like Wizardry, because those games are too good to really serve as a measuring stick. This is a game for people who have exausted every CRPG series already, for people who struggled through every other game there is. This is a game for people who think insect noises that repeat every half a second, layered for every insect in a six-enemy stack so that they make you want to kill yourself, and which you can't turn off without also turning off the music because apparently coding SFX and BGM meters separately is too hard even for a Neanderthal Supergenius, are good and cool. This is a game for people who like Eye of the Beholder -- not the real one, the GBA one -- or I guess for people who really really hate Aboriginal people. If you fit both those descriptions, buy Grimoire immediately. You will never find another game as perfect for you as this one. Hell, maybe someday Cleve will add custom portraits and you can make everyone look like Pepe or something and then you'll never need to play another game as long as you live! Mazel tov!

Preserving this Steam review for posterity before Cleve inevitably deletes it.
WayAbvPar
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Posts: 19268


Reply #41 on: August 04, 2017, 03:03:00 PM

Haha yeah that was the one that stopped my purchase dead in its tracks. I already own Wiz6-8 on GOG, but bought them on Steam too. First thing I found was an automap mod for 6!

When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM

Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood

Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
Ginaz
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Reply #42 on: August 04, 2017, 03:56:00 PM

Quote
So GRIMOIRE is out. It's a little late, since it was delayed from its original August 1 release date, which was delayed from its June release date, which was delayed from its original March 2013 release date, which was delayed from its 2005 release date, which was delayed from its 2000 release date, which was delayed from its 1997 release date. So it's been a long time coming! In the meantime, Cleve "Neanderthal" Blakemore has espoused his opinions on many things, like game design and black people and the fact that satanists designed television to make women to go crazy and eat Ben and Jerrys Ice Cream and this causes men to become stupid because they can't have sex with women who are eating ice cream so much. It's definitely a real problem, which is explained on his blog here http://vault-co.blogspot.com/2007/06/television-is-designed-to-kill.html . Fortunately men playing videogames for 600 hours doesn't affect women or themselves in any way, so Cleve is definitely NOT a hypocrite for making an endless CRPG and that's not a big deal. Phew!

Anyway, I don't want to get sidetracked with discussing Cleve's opinions, like how he thinks Stephen Hawking secretly died and was replaced by a duplicate or that black people are intrinsically stupid. Let's discuss the game! If you are familiar with CRPGs from the late 90s, you know that Wizardry 7 was to many people the pinnacle of game design and dungeon crawling. It's a well-designed product, and stands out from the other games that came out at the time, most of which tried to improve on the formula by adding bad gimmicks or lots of meaningless stats or changing the combat in ways which were detrimental to the experience. For example, FATE "improved" on Wizardry by making everything enormous for no reason, which allowed them to claim 200 hours of gameplay even though most of the world was empty or contained repeats of other areas because they simply didn't have time to make a game that big and put interesting things in all of it. Grimoire fits right into this period of CRPG design, because it's clearly based on Wizardry -- and Wiz7 in particular -- but changes the formula in ways that make it worse.

Let's talk about party composition. Wizardry had six party members. Grimoire has eight! EIGHT IS MORE! IT'S BETTER BECAUSE MORE!!! Anyway eight characters attacking an enemy at once would be a bit much if they remained the same as in Wizardry or Bard's Tale or whatever so as a result Cleve has to weaken party members and buff enemies. The result is over a long term the same balance is maintained, but in the specific case random encounters can simply kill your party members with no recourse and with nothing you could have done to prevent it. This is mostly true early on, of course, before you get spells and skills to mitigate it, and before you grind out the levels to improve your characters. If you're a big Bard's Tale fan you won't mind having your party die for no real reason over and over again early on. Anyone who's used to newer RPG design, or early RPG design in actual good games, should stay away. This ain't Might & Magic; it's more of a Wizards & Warriors. I was originally going to call it Dungeon Lords but that's, frankly, too harsh for this game. Cleve Blakemore may believe that Europeans are genetically predisposed to avoid jaywalking and Americans jaywalk because of all the non-white people poisoning our genes but even he doesn't believe David W. Bradley's Dungeon Lords is good.

Anyway! If you like shoddy Wizardry ripoffs that overpromise on everything but more or less deliver some dungeons and places to explore and items to puzzle over, and you don't mind giving your money to an insane white supremacist, then you should buy Grimoire Heralds of the Winged Exemplar. I can't say you should buy it if you like Wizardry, because those games are too good to really serve as a measuring stick. This is a game for people who have exausted every CRPG series already, for people who struggled through every other game there is. This is a game for people who think insect noises that repeat every half a second, layered for every insect in a six-enemy stack so that they make you want to kill yourself, and which you can't turn off without also turning off the music because apparently coding SFX and BGM meters separately is too hard even for a Neanderthal Supergenius, are good and cool. This is a game for people who like Eye of the Beholder -- not the real one, the GBA one -- or I guess for people who really really hate Aboriginal people. If you fit both those descriptions, buy Grimoire immediately. You will never find another game as perfect for you as this one. Hell, maybe someday Cleve will add custom portraits and you can make everyone look like Pepe or something and then you'll never need to play another game as long as you live! Mazel tov!

Preserving this Steam review for posterity before Cleve inevitably deletes it.

Game developers can't remove Steam reviews unless they violate Steam's rules.
WayAbvPar
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Posts: 19268


Reply #43 on: August 04, 2017, 05:13:20 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMAsPyYonNg

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha OMG. I dodged a $40 bullet on this turd.

When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM

Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood

Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
HaemishM
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Reply #44 on: August 05, 2017, 12:17:20 AM

Good Christ.  ACK! I'm not even sure that would have been tolerable when I was playing Might & Magic 3.

Mandella
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Reply #45 on: August 05, 2017, 09:41:12 AM

To be fair, at this moment and 104 reviews, it's seventy five percent positive. Of course, right now all we have posting are Cleve fanbois/hatebois battling it out, reviewing the person more than the game. And we can already tell that if you don't like the game, you really just don't get "old school."

Or that's what Cleve is going to be saying anyway.
WayAbvPar
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Posts: 19268


Reply #46 on: August 05, 2017, 11:25:58 AM

Watching the gameplay in that video (having to click the mouse several thousand times per combat round, for instance) makes me wonder. I was hoping for an old school game with an non-shitty UI. I am playing W6 again, and that AI is enough punishment for me.

When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM

Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood

Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
Signe
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Muse.


Reply #47 on: August 05, 2017, 12:50:57 PM

I read reviews and some people are calling this Cleve character a racist among other things.  Is that true?  I do enjoy old school games but I'm not entirely sure I want to support some creepy racist.  And that UI really does look very unpleasant.  I mean I understand "old school", but it doesn't mean you can't snip out the bits that everyone hates.

My Sig Image: hath rid itself of this mortal coil.
Mandella
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Reply #48 on: August 05, 2017, 01:28:31 PM

I read reviews and some people are calling this Cleve character a racist among other things.  Is that true?  I do enjoy old school games but I'm not entirely sure I want to support some creepy racist.  And that UI really does look very unpleasant.  I mean I understand "old school", but it doesn't mean you can't snip out the bits that everyone hates.

Yes, it's true, although calling him a racist is like -- I dunno, it's like the scum on top of the sewage pond. The shit really gets deeper.

Koro's quote above has a link to his blog if you want to get started exploring Cleve's philosophy.

It's not going to help your faith in humanity at all.
Sir T
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Reply #49 on: August 05, 2017, 02:02:35 PM

Way back I played Might and Majic 7 and loved it, and the interface was a lot better than that.

Hic sunt dracones.
Ginaz
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Reply #50 on: August 05, 2017, 03:34:24 PM

I read reviews and some people are calling this Cleve character a racist among other things.  Is that true?  I do enjoy old school games but I'm not entirely sure I want to support some creepy racist.  And that UI really does look very unpleasant.  I mean I understand "old school", but it doesn't mean you can't snip out the bits that everyone hates.

He's part of the 'thal master race and therefore superior to all of us mere sapians. awesome, for real
Sir T
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Reply #51 on: August 05, 2017, 03:51:39 PM

I thought he thought of himself as a Neanderthal throwback, and he has superior muscle mass to everyone living today. He was full of tall tales about his immense feats of strength and general superiority.

Hic sunt dracones.
Ginaz
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Reply #52 on: August 05, 2017, 06:30:12 PM

I thought he thought of himself as a Neanderthal throwback, and he has superior muscle mass to everyone living today. He was full of tall tales about his immense feats of strength and general superiority.

thal=neanderthal and if his photos are anything to go by, I can almost guarantee you I'm way stronger than he is even with all that inferior sapien blood running through me.  I remember watching a youtube video from some effeminate sounding black man who claimed Africans were superior to Europeans because they didn't have any Neanderthal DNA in them.  The reason being that scientists believe neanderthals were less intelligent than homo sapiens because of their skull structure and therefore having thal DNA makes you less intelligent.  So to this guys way of thinking, since people of European descent have neanderthal DNA and Africans don't, that means Africans are more intelligent than Europeans.  He also kept referring to white women as "cave Becky's" which I guess was supposed to be a racist insult, though it's probably about as effective as calling a white person a honky.  Maybe we should hook those two guys up and watch ensuing clash of racist crackpot theories. awesome, for real
« Last Edit: August 05, 2017, 10:22:01 PM by Ginaz »
raydeen
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Reply #53 on: August 08, 2017, 08:53:24 PM

I'd hoped to have some more info by this point, but it looks like I'm going to have to dig out an actual Windows PC to properly play it. WINE won't do the trick as it crashes looking for a midi file player (yep, the music is all midi). I got it to work in a Win7 VM but the mouse is really 'floaty' and a bit tough to control. So I really haven't gotten anywhere into the actual gameplay yet. I'll keep plugging away. I like these 'problems'. Gives me something to do other than watching Youtube and shitposting.

I was drinking when I wrote this, so sue me if it goes astray.
Zetor
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Reply #54 on: August 10, 2017, 08:49:08 PM

It does work on WINE if you install directmusic and some midi library (link), but imo you're playing with fire considering how non-robust the program itself seems to be even on Windows 10.  Then again, that's probably part of the Trve Grimoire Experience™!

Speaking of robustness, apparently there was a hilarisad patch rollercoaster where Cleve managed to invalidate save games for three patches in a row - forcing players to restart from scratch each time - and then release a version of the game that couldn't overwrite saves, probably because he mixed up pointers and the game tried to create a file literally called NO, DON'T OVERWRITE THIS FILE... obviously he went off on a rant about these bugs being caused by ?HACKERS? targeting his obscure vaporware game for whatever reason. Neanderthals don't believe in regression testing (or the concept of development / test builds in general), it looks like.

That said, I'm kinda torn -- Wiz7-8 were among my all-time favorite games, and I've been waiting for another game in the same vein (even if it's cargo cult-y) for like 15 years now. I know this game is supposed to be super obtuse, but my curiosity and jank tolerance is high enough to get past that. OTOH I really don't want to give Cleve money... sigh.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2017, 08:54:22 PM by Zetor »

Sir T
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Reply #55 on: August 11, 2017, 06:51:05 AM

That said, I'm kinda torn -- Wiz7-8 were among my all-time favorite games, and I've been waiting for another game in the same vein (even if it's cargo cult-y) for like 15 years now. I know this game is supposed to be super obtuse, but my curiosity and jank tolerance is high enough to get past that. OTOH I really don't want to give Cleve money... sigh.

I've heard that Elminage Gothic is pretty good on the Wiz 8 vein

https://www.gog.com/game/elminage_gothic

Hic sunt dracones.
Zetor
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Reply #56 on: August 11, 2017, 07:10:58 AM

That said, I'm kinda torn -- Wiz7-8 were among my all-time favorite games, and I've been waiting for another game in the same vein (even if it's cargo cult-y) for like 15 years now. I know this game is supposed to be super obtuse, but my curiosity and jank tolerance is high enough to get past that. OTOH I really don't want to give Cleve money... sigh.

I've heard that Elminage Gothic is pretty good on the Wiz 8 vein

https://www.gog.com/game/elminage_gothic
I already played EG and most of the dungeon crawlers on steam (Stranger of Sword City, the Tokyo Abyss games, StarCrawlers, etc) as well as the Etrian Odyssey games on DS, and they just don't measure up. Most of those games are Wiz 1-3 clones: super-simplistic character system built on grinding, the danger of permadeath, and almost no gameplay other than going through dungeons and fighting dudes... most of them expect you to farm the crap out of XP too. I got bored of the monotonous grind in EG after the first dungeon -- in comparison, I still can't get bored of replaying Wiz7/8 ever so often, even though I've played them quite a few times in the last 20 years (jesus). StarCrawlers is somewhat unique if really simplistic, and probably the best of the bunch (but still not worthwhile to play through more than once).

Just some examples of what Wiz7 have that those games don't: a gameworld with nonlinear exploration and towns that are actual places instead of just a single screen you visit after each dungeon delve to level up and rest your mages, nontrivial puzzles and riddles that feel like they're part of the world, NPCs that do their own thing with a lot of interaction options instead of just 'here is this quest', sometimes competing with you and getting critical items before you, a complex yet rewarding character system, etc etc... it's not even in the same league. Wiz8 was even better, except for combat being too slow (but mods fix that).


e: anyway, the tldr of all this angst is that someone needs to create a proper Wiz7/8 sequel... someone who isn't Cleve.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2017, 08:17:46 AM by Zetor »

Rendakor
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Reply #57 on: August 11, 2017, 10:08:55 AM

I already played EG and most of the dungeon crawlers on steam (Stranger of Sword City, the Tokyo Abyss games, StarCrawlers, etc) as well as the Etrian Odyssey games on DS, and they just don't measure up.
As someone who liked most of those games you've listed but has never played a Wizardry game, where should I start? I see 6, 7 and 8 on Steam, should I just start there? Or are the older ones worth playing? If any of them need mods, what mods should I look for?

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
Signe
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Muse.


Reply #58 on: August 11, 2017, 10:40:38 AM

That's where I would start, Rendakor.  The earlier ones were really rudimentary.   I would go nuts having to play through something that looked like that.  I did play the Wizardry games a million years ago and really enjoyed them.

My Sig Image: hath rid itself of this mortal coil.
Zetor
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Reply #59 on: August 11, 2017, 11:01:23 AM

Yea, you should definitely grab the 6-7-8 trilogy pack. It's intended to be played in order, you can even transfer your characters and stuff (they become depowered quite a bit after a transfer, but there's still some advantage over a noob squad).

Fair warning, though, Wizardry 6 can be kind of offputting. The combat/character system/UI isn't as refined as in 7, the graphics are way worse, the story/setting is all over the place, and some of the puzzles are super turbo obnoxious unless you consult a walkthrough. OTOH there is at least one plot item that transfers from 6 all the way to 8, and a NPC even reacts to it (not critical in any way, though)!

Wizardry 7 is an absolute masterpiece, however, and 8 improves on it even further (though it changes some fairly major things about how the game works).

Essentials:
Wiz6 - Automap mod. You have to do some fiddling to get it to work with steam, this guide may help.
Wiz8 - WizFast to solve one half of the 'combat takes forever' problem.

Nice-to-haves:
All games - Cosmic Forge editor is a full-blown modding tool, but most importantly it can patch Wiz6/Wiz7 with a lot of QoL things like boosting the RNG at character generation (so you aren't spending 2 hours trying to create a faerie ninja) and such.
Wiz7 - Automap mod. Not strictly necessary because there's an ingame map + mapping skill (to get better / more detailed maps), plus it doesn't play nice with some of the Cosmic Forge editor's changes.
Wiz8 - Wizardry 8 Enhanced - Rebalance mod that also fixes the other half of the 'combat takes forever' problem (faster animations for projectiles). It also has some experimental new content, but you can just not install it. Comes with an installer and everything. edit: Here is an alternative that just changes the animation speed.
Wiz8 - a bunch of mods to keep the game fresh on replays, though most of them aren't that good
« Last Edit: August 11, 2017, 08:21:00 PM by Zetor »

Rendakor
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Reply #60 on: August 11, 2017, 11:03:05 AM

Thanks, I'll have to check them out when I'm not deep into Minecraft.

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
Sir T
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Reply #61 on: August 11, 2017, 12:37:22 PM

Ya, I need something at the moment to get sucked into and the Wiz series might be just the trick.

Hic sunt dracones.
Lucas
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Further proof that Italians have suspect taste in games.


Reply #62 on: August 11, 2017, 03:57:32 PM

Personally, before Wizardry, I would suggest starting with the Might&Magic series: I'm playing the second chapter ("Gates to Another World", 1988) right now and having a blast. For a slightly improved experience, at least with the interface, go with the third one (Isles of Terra)

" He's so impatient, it's like watching a teenager fuck a glorious older woman." - Ironwood on J.J. Abrams
WayAbvPar
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Reply #63 on: August 15, 2017, 01:36:53 PM

I am in the middle of my latest attempt at Wiz6 and having a ball. I am about to leave the mines, which will mark the farthest I have ever gotten  awesome, for real

When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM

Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood

Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
koro
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Reply #64 on: August 16, 2017, 05:14:26 PM

I too have been playing Wiz6, and I'm past the mines and into the pyramid. I'm digging it, though the entire game having only a single tileset really gets old after a while.
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