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Reply 1560 of 5847, by appiah4

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clueless1 wrote:
appiah4 wrote:

clueless1, I was also thinking of doing the same, I will certainly give that playthrough a look!

I'm still researching potential party mixes, spreadsheet style. This is almost required for me, if I get this invested in my party, it will make the game that much more immersive. Here's a good site I found:
https://sorcerers.net/Games/Wizardry/Wizardry … rough/index.php

Ah, I see. I'm kind of different, I usually have a thematic idea of a party (or character) when I am going into a game and I don't try to make it mechanically sound, just coherent with a narrative in my mind as far as I'm concerned. From thereon I try to make it work in the game, it's a challenge in many games but one I like a lot. It feels a lot more immersive to me. Do share your party here though. I will do the same if I start, though I may go ahead and start Divinity Original Sin instead 😎

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Reply 1561 of 5847, by clueless1

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appiah4 wrote:
clueless1 wrote:
appiah4 wrote:

clueless1, I was also thinking of doing the same, I will certainly give that playthrough a look!

I'm still researching potential party mixes, spreadsheet style. This is almost required for me, if I get this invested in my party, it will make the game that much more immersive. Here's a good site I found:
https://sorcerers.net/Games/Wizardry/Wizardry … rough/index.php

Ah, I see. I'm kind of different, I usually have a thematic idea of a party (or character) when I am going into a game and I don't try to make it mechanically sound, just coherent with a narrative in my mind as far as I'm concerned. From thereon I try to make it work in the game, it's a challenge in many games but one I like a lot. It feels a lot more immersive to me. Do share your party here though. I will do the same if I start, though I may go ahead and start Divinity Original Sin instead 😎

Depends on the game for me. I've also done thematic builds. I tend to collect character names and reuse them (many names from the Ultima series), trying to keep the characters skills close to the named characters. But Wizardry is a HARD game and pretty unforgiving with weak parties, so I'm doing everything I can to maximize fun and minimize frustration.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 1562 of 5847, by clueless1

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appiah4 wrote:

Do share your party here though. I will do the same if I start, though I may go ahead and start Divinity Original Sin instead 😎

Here's what I settled on:

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All elite professions, so no class changes planned except for the Bard. From my research, Bards are very powerful for the first half of the game because of unlimited sleep spells from their innate lute playing. But they eventually become underpowered in the late game, so a class change to Ranger made sense to me, since she is an Elf and can use the Elven Bow (the most powerful bow in the game).

I will start rolling my characters in the morning. 😎

edit: rolled my characters and started the game. I'm actually REALLY enjoying it so far! Took a little while to get used to the oldschool interface, but I'm having tons of fun exploring, fighting, and getting XP. Just got downstairs and am about to meet up with the first merchant, Queequeg. Still haven't been able to pick any locks or get any keys from my battles, so all the locked doors in the first level are jammed.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 1563 of 5847, by clueless1

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I've logged a little over 5 hrs on Wizardry 6 now. My biggest concerns about being able to play this one long-term were:
-primitive EGA graphics (they were bad for 1990 when this game was released)
-only PC speaker sounds, zero music
-no built-in automapping
-tedious menu navigation

So far, the game has managed to stay fun and addictive. Some tips for anyone else thinking about playing this one:
-plan your party out ahead of time on a spreadsheet. I did this over a one week period, took my time, made sure I was completely satisfied with the composition. I even created a little mental narrative of their stories and how they came together. This made it more personal, and helped me to become deeply invested in their development.
-don't be shy about using the cluebook or any other online help materials. I keep the maps open on another screen and look up items before buying them to make sure they are a) usable by my party members and b) actually an upgrade to their current equipment (yeah, there's NO WAY to know equipment stats of items being sold until AFTER you buy it and can "assay" or "identify" it).
-find a good dungeon-crawling soundtrack to play in the background. I'm shuffling the music of Ultima Underworld I, II, and Wizardry 8 in the background.
-using a spreadsheet, document each of your character's equipment to make shopping more efficient:

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There's nothing quite like browsing Queequeg's inventory and not being able to remember which party member needed a pair of shoes, or whether the leg armor he's selling is an upgrade for any of your characters.
-spend some extra time in the starter level getting comfortable with the interface. Back up your save game whenever you exit the game (there's only one save slot). Figure out speed settings, as this game is speed sensitive. My P200 with all caches disabled is about as fast as a 33Mhz 386, which is still a little fast for this game. Monster animations are mostly where this is noticeable. Also, there's a Delay setting in the Game Configuration that you'll want to tweak til it's just right. This controls the speed of combat messages. You want to be able to read them before they whiz by, but not be sitting there waiting forever for the next combat message. Finally, learn to use the keyboard interface. Setting input to Mouse is point-and-clicky, but ends up being much less efficient due to the multiple menu layers that must be navigated.

I hope this continues to hold my interest! I think it just might. 😎

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 1564 of 5847, by clueless1

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clueless1 wrote:

I hope this continues to hold my interest! I think it just might. 😎

I think it's official. I'm in this one for the long haul. 😎
I'm 19 hours in and just starting to explore The Hazard Area of the Lower Castle. I'm averaging over 2 hrs/day on this game, which tells me it's super fun and dare I say, addicting. My characters are all level 6 (my ninja is the slowest leveler and just hit 6 this morning) and the game continues to captivate me. This probably would not be true without the cluebook and online guides, but that's fine. Here's a brief rundown of my party:
-----------------------------
Arnelis, Male Dwarf Lord
Level 6, 79 kills
Spells learned: Heal Wounds, Dispel Undead, Bless, Armorplate
Equipment: Sword of Striking, Heraldic Shield, Steel Helm, Chain Hauberk, Quilt Leggings, Cuir Gauntlets, Leather boots.
Specialty: Tank, with Priest spells
------------------------------
Khal, Male Mook Samurai
Level 6, 127 kills
Spells learned: Energy Blast, Chilling Touch, Terror, Sleep
Equipment: Katana, Wakizashi, Leather Helm, Leather Hauberk, Leather Leggings, Cuir Gauntlets, Buskins.
Specialty: Tank, dual wielding attack, Mage spells
------------------------------
Jaana, Female Dwarf Valkyrie (Arnelis' wife)
Level 6, 85 kills
Spells learned: Heal Wounds, Dispel Undead, Enchanted Blade, Cure Lesser Condition
Equipment: Halberd, Leather Helm, Stud-Cuir Bra +2, Quilt Leggings, Steel Gauntlets, Leather boots.
Specialty: Tank, Priest spells
-------------------------------
Mihru, Male Felpurr Monk
Level 6, 49 kills
Spells learned: Heal Wounds, Mental Attack, Bless, Cure Lesser Condition
Equipment: Hands & Feet, Anointed Cloak, Skullcap, Robes (upper), Robes (lower), Sandals
Specialty: Hide in Shadows->sneak attacks, Priest spells
--------------------------------
Arya, Female Faerie Ninja
Level 6, 41 kills
Spells learned: Poison, Sleep
Equipment: Hands & Feet, Ninja Cowl, Ninja Garb (upper), Ninja Garb (lower), Tabi boots.
Speciality: Hide in Shadows->sneak attacks, Alchemist spells
--------------------------------
Gwenno, Female Elf Bard
Level 6, 5 kills
Spells learned: Energy Blast, Chilling Touch, Terror, Armor Shield, Direction, Knock-knock
Equipment: Light Crossbow, Feathered Hat, Leather Cuirass, Fur Leggings, Leather Boots.
Speciality: Music (unlimited sleep and itching skin spells), lock-picking, Mage and Alchemist spells

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 1565 of 5847, by liqmat

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As I test a P-III 500 Gateway I found the other day at a thrift store I am sitting down to some Windows 98 gaming goodness. Have an original copy of Soldier of Fortune and had no idea how much fun it was. Pretty addicted right now.

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Reply 1566 of 5847, by appiah4

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First SOF is Good. The rest are rather mediocre though.

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Reply 1567 of 5847, by clueless1

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I collated a music playlist for Wizardry 6 and other old RPGs (like EOB, etc) that don't have their own soundtrack. Shuffle play for maximum enjoyment. 😉

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 1568 of 5847, by clueless1

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I'm 41 hours in on Wizardry 6 and just got to the Pyramid. Based on the various walkthroughs I'm consulting, that puts me about halfway through the game. I'll be clear here: I would have given up on this game without walkthroughs and online maps. Some of these levels are very confusing, and without an automap, nearly impossible. But with them, you can focus on the story and the best part of this game: party development. It's extremely satisfying leveling up party members, deciding how to diversify their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses. Buffing, and to a lesser extent, debuffing spells are extremely important. The Ninjutsu and Kirijutsu skills are awesome. One determines success at hiding and surprise attacks, the other determines success at critical hits. Practice makes perfect, so the more you use a type of weapon, the better your skill with that weapon. Speed determines attack priority and number of attacks per round. My characters are all between level 8-9 at the moment, and are coming into their own with good weapons, spells and multiple attacks per round. The Monk, Ninja, and to a lesser extent the Bard all have been practicing hiding and surprise attacks, which often yields massive damage per round from the rear flanks. Simply awesome. This game hasn't gotten old at all in 40+ hours.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 1569 of 5847, by henryVK

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I've been playing EGA Trek which, for me, is just one of those games from my childhood that I can always go back to and play a couple of rounds. It helps that the format is so compact and allows for short, roguelike-y sessions.

Also playing Flashback right now which, so far, is a blast, and I started looking into a couple of adventure games as well, these being: Infocom's Journey which the CRPG addicd had a lot of good things to say about iirc, The Colonel's Bequest and the 1986 DOS release of The Pawn. The latter looks really cool... I'd kinda forgotten about Amiga text adventures even though I did play a couple at a friend's house back in the early 90s. I must have been some of the Magnetic Scrolls stuff, because the Amiga's (then) fancy mouse support and pop-uppy text menus in "Pawn" seem very familiar.

Reply 1570 of 5847, by badmojo

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I've been back playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance after a PC upgrade - this is the only game that's really made my trusty old i5 sweat in the ~10 years I've owned it, but my new Ryzen 3600X based system bashes out the frame rates and makes a world of difference to the enjoyment factor.

There have been countless patches since I last played and it's feeling like a very polished game these days. The save system still blows chunks but that's easy to mod around - I'm using a handful of other mods too but generally I find the gameplay fantastic. The graphics are stunning and the attention to detail superb, and although it's more story driven than something like Oblivion - computer game stories can go either way - it's well written and voiced acted.

Combat is one of the more controversial aspects of this one and although it can be rage inducing at times due its attempts at realism, it can also be way more rewarding than just mashing the mouse to produce a blur of sword swings. I'm finally able to shoot Hares consistently, but my sword and shield efforts are still hit and miss (pun intended).

Not for everyone but it all works for me; I can quite literally get lost in the world.

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Reply 1571 of 5847, by foil_fresh

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appiah4 wrote:

First SOF is Good. The rest are rather mediocre though.

i never played SoF but have fond memories of the SoF2 multiplayer demo from 02 or whenever it was. i plan to play both of the campaigns soon.

im doing MOHAA atm, its holding up better than i expected. i played it on an athlon xp 1800+ with geforce mx 200 back in the day, now on an athlon xp 2200+ with dual channel ddr and a 9600xt at 1152 resolution and its smooth as silk.

one thing i dont like about MOHAA is the insane aimpunch from enemies, i feel it doesnt work properly considering the guns are hitscan. i dont feel like the player's damage to enemies gives them aimpunch so it's also a bit unfair.

anyone got strategies on how to take fights properly in MOHAA without taking (much) damage? im just trying to get headshots to knock helmets off with the SMGs, then a burst to the chest to finish but it is inconsistent, sometimes its 2 bursts. i dont want to cheese with the bolt actions unless they're at a decent range to warrant it (plus ammo is scarce for the kar98). grenades are crappy, they really dont travel far enough or quick enough to do what you want to do. how should one use grenades "correctly"?

cheers

Reply 1572 of 5847, by Duouk2000

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Since we're in October I'm malking my way through the first Resident Evil. I just killed the plant with my shotgun, forgetting that the game had just given me some flame rounds for the bazooker. Still, it went down quick enough.

Now i'm playing a bit of inventory tetris and need to get back to a safe room to drop some items off without taking too much damage from the hunters.

-edit-
And beat. Total playtime: 06:21:07 with 36 saves on Jill's route. IIRC you can unlock certain weapons if you beat the game under a certain time limit and save count. That's for another playthrough though 😀

Reply 1573 of 5847, by badmojo

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I decided to man up and finish the play-through of Gothic II that I started months ago (edit: haha I just checked, it was 12 months ago) Oh how I love the first 3/4 of this game but man the last bit is a grind. Endings are hard I suppose and all Piranha Bytes games suffer from grindy endings, but boy this one gets tedious - wave after wave of annoyingly hard mobs with dumb puzzles to work out b/w waves. Anyway I got there - the final boss was an un-dead dragon who I could only beat by finding the exact spot to stand that glitched him out long enough for me to hit him in the nads with blue fireballs (150 times).

I'm super keen to re-play this game though for all that - this time with the Night of the Raven expansion turned on (I'd been playing with it turned off). But first I might see if I can mod Gothic 1 up a bit and play that through to the end - I've never managed that.

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Reply 1574 of 5847, by Miphee

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My all-time favourite: System Shock 2.

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Reply 1575 of 5847, by clueless1

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Miphee wrote:

My all-time favourite: System Shock 2.

I fell in love with System Shock 1 first, so that one will always be my favorite, even though SS2 is a technically superior game all around.

Still working on Wizardry 6 ATM. Just about 60 hrs in, and I'm currently XP grinding on the Isle of the Damned in The River Styx. My characters are all level 10, but the jump from 10 to 11 is huge (from roughly 300000 EXP to 600000). I've picked up a few cool weapons since the last time I wrote: Arnelis the Dwarf Lord now dual-wields a Vulcan Hammer and Bec de Corbin; my Samurai Khal went from dual wielding a Katana and Wakizashi to a two-handed No-Dachi; Jaana my Dwarf Valk uses a Beastmaster and Bec de Corbin; our Monk is still using only hands and feet and getting along quite nicely, thanks; Arya the ninja has picked up a Sai to use as a secondary weapon along with hands and feet; and Gwenno the Bard has been practicing the Hide in Shadows skill and has gotten quite good at backstabbing from the rear flanks with her Skull Dagger. For fun, here's each party member's kill count:
Arnelis, Male Dwarf Lord: 287
Khal, Male Mook Samurai: 332
Jaana, Female Dwarf Valkyrie: 240
Mihru, Male Felpurr Monk: 169
Arya, Female Faerie Ninja: 138
Gwenno, Female Elf Bard: 40

The first three slots are the frontline, so they can attack at any time. The second three slots are backline, so they can only attack with ranged weapons, spells, or by hiding in the first round, then sneak attacking. So it makes sense that my first three have many more kills than the backline.

This game is huge on buffing and debuffing spells (one of the reasons why a Bard is so critical in this game due to their starting the game with the Lute's endless sleep spells). Even my best front-line tanks will start each combat with spells such as Armorplate and Enchanted Blade. Bless and Haste are awesome at tilting the scales in our favor, while debuffing spells like Sleep, Silence, Slow and Weaken keep the bad guys from kicking our asses. Especially here in The River Styx, almost every demon attacks primarily with spells, so the more of them I can Silence in the first round of combat, the better my chances.

The game system is extremely well-designed and retains that fun, addictive quality of the much more refined Wizardry 8. Yeah, Wiz 6 is really rough around the edges but still a masterpiece in the area of fun. They obviously put all their resources in design infrastructure, cuz the graphics are bad even for 1990, there's no music and terrible sound fx, and the lack of any automapping help makes cluebooks and walkthroughs required. Not for the faint of heart, but if you put the effort in, SO rewarding.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 1576 of 5847, by liqmat

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clueless1 wrote:
Still working on Wizardry 6 ATM. Just about 60 hrs in, and I'm currently XP grinding on the Isle of the Damned in The River Sty […]
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Still working on Wizardry 6 ATM. Just about 60 hrs in, and I'm currently XP grinding on the Isle of the Damned in The River Styx. My characters are all level 10, but the jump from 10 to 11 is huge (from roughly 300000 EXP to 600000). I've picked up a few cool weapons since the last time I wrote: Arnelis the Dwarf Lord now dual-wields a Vulcan Hammer and Bec de Corbin; my Samurai Khal went from dual wielding a Katana and Wakizashi to a two-handed No-Dachi; Jaana my Dwarf Valk uses a Beastmaster and Bec de Corbin; our Monk is still using only hands and feet and getting along quite nicely, thanks; Arya the ninja has picked up a Sai to use as a secondary weapon along with hands and feet; and Gwenno the Bard has been practicing the Hide in Shadows skill and has gotten quite good at backstabbing from the rear flanks with her Skull Dagger. For fun, here's each party member's kill count:
Arnelis, Male Dwarf Lord: 287
Khal, Male Mook Samurai: 332
Jaana, Female Dwarf Valkyrie: 240
Mihru, Male Felpurr Monk: 169
Arya, Female Faerie Ninja: 138
Gwenno, Female Elf Bard: 40

The first three slots are the frontline, so they can attack at any time. The second three slots are backline, so they can only attack with ranged weapons, spells, or by hiding in the first round, then sneak attacking. So it makes sense that my first three have many more kills than the backline.

This game is huge on buffing and debuffing spells (one of the reasons why a Bard is so critical in this game due to their starting the game with the Lute's endless sleep spells). Even my best front-line tanks will start each combat with spells such as Armorplate and Enchanted Blade. Bless and Haste are awesome at tilting the scales in our favor, while debuffing spells like Sleep, Silence, Slow and Weaken keep the bad guys from kicking our asses. Especially here in The River Styx, almost every demon attacks primarily with spells, so the more of them I can Silence in the first round of combat, the better my chances.

The game system is extremely well-designed and retains that fun, addictive quality of the much more refined Wizardry 8. Yeah, Wiz 6 is really rough around the edges but still a masterpiece in the area of fun. They obviously put all their resources in design infrastructure, cuz the graphics are bad even for 1990, there's no music and terrible sound fx, and the lack of any automapping help makes cluebooks and walkthroughs required. Not for the faint of heart, but if you put the effort in, SO rewarding.

A funny thought came into my head as I was reading this. At least you don't have to commute to this job. 🤣 Definitely sounds like they went the old school route for this RPG.

Reply 1577 of 5847, by clueless1

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liqmat wrote:

A funny thought came into my head as I was reading this. At least you don't have to commute to this job. 🤣 Definitely sounds like they went the old school route for this RPG.

Yeah. 🤣. Even Wizardry 8, released in 2001, has the same old school feel, but with a nice improvement in graphics, music, sounds, and automapping. It's probably the most perfect RPG I've ever played (IMO). I think it's just incredible that Sir Tech built in character transfers from 6->7->8 with over a decade between 6 and 8.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 1578 of 5847, by henryVK

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I started playing Infocom's Journey: The Quest Begins. I'm maybe four or five hours into the game and so far it's been pretty cool. I really like the interface and the prose is absolutely fantastic (for a computer game); admittedly, this is my first Infocom game, so maybe that can account for my surprise regarding the quality of the writing. I'm a sucker for atmosphere and this game has it in spades, even though the story is highly derivative of Tolkien. The graphics do a super good job of supporting the gloomy mood and have this weird, very evocative, almost caricaturesque quality (the characters in particular) beside showing an excellent use of the EGA palette. Illustrator Donald Langosy, who was responsible for the art in Journey, went on to work for developer Legend Entertainment, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of his stuff when I get to some of their titles.

Reply 1579 of 5847, by clueless1

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I'm just about 80 hours into Wizardry 6. Still in The River Styx spamming XP near the healing and magic fountains. Man, the jump from level 11 to 12 is brutal: XP from 11 to 12 goes from roughly 700k to 1.1m, so lots of combats to get my characters powerful enough to move on to the next segment. Considering each combat (depending on which enemy and how many) averages around 5000 XP per character, that's roughly 80 battles to level my characters up. So far, my Bard and Valkyrie have made it to 12. The rest have about 115k XP to go to get to level 12. Good thing the combat is so awesome in this game. Strategy so brilliant, deciding on spells, combat, hiding, etc. 😎

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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