Thoughts and review on the game, after 60 hours

[{BFG} vanyelashke]

Note: My perspective is based off of the US server, your milaege may vary

For myself, I was able to find a group with little effort any time I cared for one, or solo as I wanted and never had a problem doing one or the other. I was able to find other partymembers in dungones I went to, able to get assitence on quests if I needed it, and have added several people to my friends list and seen them logged in when I have returned and been able to group again, definte plus.

Race wise they are straight forward. Simplestic variety in choices, though this, I belive does have a purpose. Making a chracter itself is designed to be stream lined and quick, who wants to spend hours getting THE perfect character...then losing it and having to amke it all over again? Understandable. In a related thought, while the standard fare of human, elf, and dwarf make an apperence there are also gnome and porkul ( thick chibi child race ) which various stats and bonus's for each. Races being what they are, all good. Japan took over the series, so if the additional races are unfamiler and you find yourself scratching your head...thats where the additional races came from; ( aside, for anyone that played the orignals, the races DO have a connection between the orignal races and what is currently used...bonus brownie points for those familer with it ^^ ).




The starting classes are fighter, thief, wizard, and cleric, and I have tried them all. There is also, at level 30, the possibility of Samurai ( fighter/mage mix), Ninja (thief/wizard mix), Bishop (wizard/priest mix), and Lord (fighter/cleric mix) so there is a bit possibility there, mix and match,nevermind the ability to use abilities from other classes later on, so one can be a fighter with thief abilities, if work is put into it, which I find to be an interesting aspect.

All the classes bring something to the table, so there is never a point to where one is NOT doing something, or not wanted. Play what you like, have fun with it. Or try them all out, still have fun with it. (or, play, die, make a new character ^^ ).

Breakdownwise from what I have seen, fighters are fairly prevelenet mainly for the shiney armour and the big swords. Who does not like a big sword? Rogues, you can not go five feet with out tripping over one. But, they are quite fun....Wizards...if you want to make it go boom? There you go. Enjoy being made of tissue paper to compensate for it. Priests...might as well be right up there with unicorns. Fabled, somewhere possibly they DO exsist...though shockingly I could not find ANY.....either they are hiding, or they are all at the local tavern eating pie...probably pie.

When looking at the aspect of permadeath, which the game is touted for, it does exsist. Is it something to be wary of? Yes, and no. At lower levels, dying happens and chances of losing your chracter are permently are slim. Later on, is it more likely? Quite, though by that point it is no longer a simple matter of " oops, I died, whatever, nothing seems to bother me " to " ... " and a nice tombstone for your character. Having watched a chest that normally does sleep gas or something minor, instead explode in lightning, kill one party member and then vaproise a second and turn them to ash? Priceless.

The player killing aspect of the game. It exsists, not so suprisingly. Is it a matter of others simply walking around, ganking others? Not so much. CAN one do so? Sure...if one wants the attention of groups in game that look out for that, and hunt the person down. There is still the possibility of running through a dungon and finding another person in it that is simply out to killothers, but, that is rare and few between, for several reasons. The first, all characters are linked on an account. Switch to a different character, people still know it is you, so there is no killing someone and then logging out to hide, which is a relief and cuts down on griefing. Anyone can be bountied after being killed by someone, and eneough bounties on ones head and your liable to be hunted down soley for the bounty. Karma at it's finest, I think. If dying bothers you every so often, perhaps not quite the game one is looking for.

Music and Graphics.

Music wise, the starting music is not much to write home about. Shut it off, play something else in the background, enjoy the scenary. The music does get better in later d ungeons, and scales nicely to match the more grandoise locations that seem to be around, though it does take a bit of effort to get there.

Graphics....if anyone is playing it for graphics, simply put, look elsewhere, this game is not for you., though an improvement over the orignal games by far.

Connection/Lag

I have had none, at all during any of the times I have played. Milage, and connection speed of course, will vary by player as is the same with any game.

Overall, the game is quite playable and one that -can- be enjoyable, if one goes into it with the understanding of what it is, and not what it is not. It is not a game where one can fly to end game, and be done with it. Run through all the quests, get the best gear, and be the " best " .There is quite a bit of effort that goes into earning what you get, that harkens back to games that were much more direct, much harder. There are many delightful aspects and smaller things in the game that are enttaining, and taken with a healthy dose of humour, the game is more then enjoyable, either for a casual few hours or for much longer preiods of time.

I could go at length about the nods to the previous games present through out the game, and the fun that can be had whilst playing, though why hold anyone back from the fun of exploring it for oneself?

From the rest of the threads here, had I bothered to look at most of them and take them at face value, I would ahve ran for the hills and never looked back. Does the game have it's flaws? Of that, I have no doubt. The game takes much longer to work with then most games currently on the market today. It is not the shinest, nor the prettiest. The community though is quite good if a bit of effort is made to partake of it, and simply remember the base rule of gaming.

If your not having fun, your doing it wrong ^^

[{Sleepless}Raven]

Magnificent Review you have revitalized my Sense of being a Powerful Adventurer in this game Well done sir

[Yuto]

4 hours ago! Nice timing. I only just heard about this game after buying wizardry 6-8 a few hours ago. Nice review too.

[{Sleepless}Raven]

Ey there Talon would you like some help ? Id be gald to help a new player

[The Faceless Man]

Excellent review. :) Although I think you could've elaborated more on each class a bit.

Originally posted by {BFG} vanyelashke:

Breakdownwise from what I have seen, fighters are fairly prevelenet mainly for the shiney armour and the big swords. Who does not like a big sword? Rogues, you can not go five feet with out tripping over one. But, they are quite fun....Wizards...if you want to make it go boom? There you go. Enjoy being made of tissue paper to compensate for it. Priests...might as well be right up there with unicorns. Fabled, somewhere possibly they DO exsist...though shockingly I could not find ANY.....either they are hiding, or they are all at the local tavern eating pie...probably pie.

Fighters and thieves are dominant classes because fighters can "pin" single targets to a wall with a great-axe, and thieves can lay traps on an area where multiple monsters spawn. Mages (you called them Wizards) are only really effective against specific monsters, otherwise their damage is basically on par with fighters (doesn't make any sense, I know). There are also a lot of priests in the game, though not very many that prefer to "heal".

[Yuto]

Well I haven't decided to play this yet. I was just curious because I never even knew a online game existed. But perma death and open pvp world... lol. Not my type of game and I just started playing the old wizardry game anyway.

[{BFG} vanyelashke]

Good evening, Gala.

I could ahve went more in depth on the classes, your right. I was partilly tongue in cheek with it because for most any game of this nature ifyou have played a similer game most are fmailer with the classes in concept in what they are and I was just looking to do ao brief over view, as it were.

I find that most are simply after " what class is OP " or " what class is the most fun " , and had I went into actul depth on each class I hazard it would have been much leghtier then it came out to already. Be that as it may however, I might have to do some more follow up on the classes and give them an actul right up for those curious on the specfics, thank you pointing it out ^^

@ThQ, thank you for the comments back and glad you liked the little review! From your comments I noticed your playing, if your on the US server, shoot me a tell some time and I will say hallo! I am at @pawpads on there, and more exploring then leveling most times, heh.

@Talon I will add that the game in open world, if you think of a game like Dungeons and Dragons online where it is a central location and one goes into dungeons from a starting point, it is similer to that. The orignal Wizdary games had a similer apprach because the twon was one's basic stop between leveling, selling gear, idetfying things ( untill one got a bishop and they could Identify things for them ) and exploring the deeper levels of a dungeon. It was about the exploration and finding what worked for one play style more then the twn, or world. The Dungeon was the focus, not the twon or world, and this was carried over conceptlly wise in this game so the focus was on that.

Permadeath wise it is simply a possiblity and one of the appeals of the game, to have that chance of something additional. Do not let it put you off however.

If your trying games 6&7 they are quite fun, if much harder in concept. 8 was the simplest and actul 3d graphics, though has a good story to it! Characters can be brought from 6 to 7, and 7 to 8 ( with minor sill changes ) so if you have the desire to use the same party through out all of them, you can!

[JayXan]

I played the game for quite a while, something like 500 hours or so. I lost interest because of one thing. Turning red.

I was a cleric. Turned red when I was new from healing a red party didnt realize the reprecussions of the max wait time cap on turning red. I was at the cap which was something like 300 played hours or something retarded like that. I wasnt able to enter the town any more and there was no other way to get rid of hte red than just waiting around town, alive. I spent a week being afk in town with no end in sight for my red. I would have even paid money to remove it but that wasnt an option and I couldnt even start a new character because I was stuck as a criminal on my entire account.

So all and all I quit playing 1, because I was perma red for doing nothing more than healing in pve, 2, the grind was stupidly high. There was no reason to have it so grindy to the point of it being near impossible to get to level 31. 3. there was no real permadeath.

[{BFG} vanyelashke]

Good morning, Jay.

I can understand the frustrations with the aspect of turning red and the problems it can cause. There is a side town outside of the main one for those that turn red, and still possible to group withothers that are red. it simply requires having camps, which is fine. The deterrant for the red aspect is there, though I have not seen many go out of there way to grief others. A few kills here and there sure, even I have been killed a few times just doing reguler things.

Grind was is it there? Sure, it is. The orignal Wizdary games had quite a bit of grind to them if one expected to go anywhere and this one seems to be no exception. For level 31 is it hard? sure. It is not as simple as most of the ones out there to level and it is not possible with in a day, but, it is possible. I have hit 31, almost 32, this with switching around characters and trying other things.

On the possibility of losing characers, it is more then possible. Is it frequent? At the lower levels, no. As one goes up in level it does become more of a chance, and there is also the aspects of traps changing as one goes higher in level. Normally when you die it is ghost, shrine, ash if fail, lose character if fail, so two chances to come back from being killed. The higher level chests have a trap that can turn you to ash when it goes off, which leaves one chance only to come back or lose the character, and I have lost a character before as a result, not particuerly fun but it happens.

I have tried cleric as well, and it can be useful, The game is a touch more self suffiencent in the player base for what people have for classes, builds and supplies, though a good cleric is always well liked by a group, and more so in dungeons.

If the aspect of being red as the main focus of what bothered you and t urned you off so badly to the game, I can see the frustration. It does go away however. I will not argue wit the grind, it exsists and is what it is and the level it is at at later levles to get to whee you want to be, does take some effort. No where near the levels of grind the orignal EQ took for example, though far more then most games currently out seem to have.

For what you did get to try I hope some of it was enjoyable at least ? ^^

[The Faceless Man]

The arguments against grind are just plain silly.

Most games that have an endgame (max level) that you can easily reach become incredibly boring and just as tedious. This game doesn't have a reachable level cap - you grind only because you want to. There's other things to do in this game, hidden battles, farm for loot, do progress, complete quests, etc.,

They really do need better warnings in place when you join a criminal group - which is why I always recommend staying away from reds.

[{Sleepless}Raven]

Nothing Wrong with Being Red Btw Been Leading My Red Union Of Mercenaries Since Beta Been Going Strong Ever Since

[The Faceless Man]

Originally posted by {THG} FallenAngel:

Nothing Wrong with Being Red Btw Been Leading My Red Union Of Mercenaries Since Beta Been Going Strong Ever Since

You don't need to capitalize almost Every Single Word of a sentence. >.>

And there's a lot of disadvantages that go with being red. Killing and looting reds yields very little consequences. No white healer will ever want to help you (good luck with boss fights). Can't use the better Inns. You'll never fully be trusted when spotted. Guards will kill you on sight, making it hard to use player shops. You have to rely on stealth to get to quest/mission NPCs.

The only advantage of going red is that you can now kill and loot anyone you like - if you can. You'll be considered an annoyance, a nuisance, a pest, a prankster, a fiend, a troll, a mild hazard, a reason to quit, and/or a disappointment to game by some (possibly half) of the game's community. That's basically all you get by going red. :P