Mr. Bradley..?

[Northwest 76]

Does anyone know if Mr. D W Bradley ever visits forums like this?

[mpnorman10]

Bradley left Sir-Tech before Wizardry 8. He was involved in games after that including Wizards and Warriors in 2000.

The Wizardry 8 designers did frequent earlier forums for a while, for a few years after the game's release. Brenda Braithwaite and Linda Curie among them.

[Northwest 76]

Yeah, too bad Sir-Tech had to go under. It’s also too bad there will probably never be a Wizardry 9.
I wonder what David Bradley’s thoughts would be if he read the countless posts about his (their) game. Almost 20 years later, and there are still people talking about the almost endless facets of this masterpiece. Not to mention all the YouTube videos on W8 alone. I imagine maybe, he would laugh at hearing some of our theories, guesses and discoveries. I wonder if he ever intended people to go extreme, like “Solo Faerie Ninja” or crazy self imposed restrictions.
I wonder what the game designers, whom you mentioned, have talked about in those forums. I mean, it seems there were people like “Flamestryke” and others who did all kinds of research and trial and error to give us all kinds of in depth info. Didn’t the designers themselves ever reveal anything? It would nice to be able to ask them some things.
It’s late, I can’t sleep and I’m just rambling...

[mpnorman10]

Linda Currie was the producer. I believe that means she was overall responsible for the product and if I recall correctly, her posts were generally business related and overall. A lot of people were asking for and about Wizardry 9 back then as well.

The game design (from the credits) was primarily four people: Brenda (Garno) Brathwaite, Linda Currie, Alex Meduna and Charles Miles. There was content about the game posted by the designers back then, but nothing like the formulas like from Silicoid's disassembly of the code. There was discussion about weapons, skills and more, but unfortunately I do not recall too many specifics. One I remember was the discussion of skills like locks and traps that was changed in an update to not be easily trainable to 100 in an hour or two with a single lock. I was fairly new to discussion groups at that time and did not realize that eventually the posts, even from the designers, would be entirely deleted from the board.

There was a period of archiving and numerous web page owners wanted to copy the archive... but for some reason that was not allowed. Then it was gone. That was, I believe, the IGN forums (do not remember for certain since I only saved the links and never really looked at them). There was both a spoiler and non-spoiler blog.

The same thing happened to the Ironworks blog. There is still an Ironworks Wizardry 8 blog but I believe there was a change of ownership and the vast volume of earlier studies and analysis is all gone (from a period when 100 - 1000 times as many players were playing).

Alex Meduna was the lead programmer and did not post as often, but I believe there were some.

At the time I did not realize the information would be going away at some point or I would have copied and pasted it into documents (especially the designer info and experimental analysis).

The one detailed thing I did take note of at the time (and shared in other posts recently), that I noted because of high personal interest was actually from Charles Miles, who, in a post, said he was responsible for the design of the beginning of the game and, in particular the Arnika road that must be traveled before Arnika is reached. He said it was his intent for that portion of the game to, in essence, train the player on the use of running and using terrain (nooks). It is no accident that there are numerous excellent places on that road from which to fight and it was good to know that the relatively difficulty of that portion of the game was by design.

Unfortunately, several of the initial reviews of the game by professional reviewers were at least partially negative. Reviewers of numerous RPGs seemed to consider that they were RPG experts, so when they fell on their face on Arnika road they blamed the game for their own failings. It is easy to point at them now and say their reviews were more than short-sighted, but at the time when not everyone could do reviews that everyone could read and the available reviews were few, the reviewers at the time had a lot of power to influence potential buyers. Most likely, however, that was only one of the factors that cost us Wizardry 9.

Consoles were providing terrible competition and that competition did not want games like Wizardry 8 to succeed, since they wanted to become the last word in gaming. The Sir-Tech folks had a terrible time trying to publish and, out of desperation, enlisted the aid of the retailer Babages in order to do so, in exchange for a one-month exclusive when the game was first released. Other retailers hated this and boycotted the game for at least several months even after the first month was past. I am sure there were other factors in Sir-Tech's demise as well.

[Northwest 76]

Sad, sad story.
Thanks for sharing this. Well, if there are any game designers or people who have influence out there...
HEY! CONTINUE THE FREAKIN’ SERIES, WILL YA?!!

[Northwest 76]

Oh yeah, ....
My mistake on the DW Bradley reference.
1) I didn’t realize he was not part of W8
2) You even said as much in your last comment, and I completely glossed over that part.
Thank you for setting the record straight. To the “makers” of W8, excellent work. It will remain a true, one of kind masterpiece. Credit is due.

[Freankh]

Bane of the Cosmic Forge is still the best RPG ever. It is hardcore. Every Item has it´s sense. It feels like it was created by a writer. These atmosheric texts in some rooms of the castle. And "the black" that covers everything far away, was, combined with the noises just... exciting. I often wondered, if he might be a son of Marion Zimmer Bradley. I just wish, this game could be remaked in the same style, just more mondern in graphics and controls.

[////]

Originally posted by Marc Remillard:

Wouldn't like to be a son of MZB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley#Child_sex_abuse_allegations

Monster.

Originally posted by Marc Remillard:

Google David and Leigh Eddings too if you want to be disappointed about childhood authors. Also monsters/scummy human beings unfort.

wow, those hippies were crazies. not without a "helping" hand of frankfurt school most likely.