Anyone remember the original wizardry where you had to type in the name of the spells to cast them?

Ah, the old days.

Wireframe graphics, 4 color creature art.  4-cardinal direction facing.

All-caps text (Apple ][+ days)

10 levels of hard core dungeon running.  No respawn points, if your entire party died; you had to go back into the dungeon with another group to pick up their remains in order to resurrect them.

Class-switching ability (if I remember correctly), many classes, races, etc.

What are your first memories of this game?

PS: I'm surprised there aren't more posts in this forum.

I joined RPG gaming a bit late (not until MS-DOS clones became the rage in the late 80's) so my first Wizardry title was IV, Return to Werdna as I recall. An extremely tough title, few people actually ever managed to complete it.

Which was the rub really, among 3 of the biggest RPG series in the day were also Might and Magic and Bards Tale.  I found the latter two much more enjoyable and it was actually possible to complete them. 

I went on to play Wizardry 5-8 (?) and each time, they just seemed too frustatingly hard, although I do recall finishing 7 and 8 mostly because there were guides or online chats by then to assist.

But with all 3 series, remember using graph paper to map your way through the dungeon.  Gah I used to hate those random teleports in dark zones and I was all out of torches. (unless of course it was magic darkness that wouldn't let you see no matter what you cast or use)

Totally different game designs, would likely kill most modern game players. (or result in a lot of smashed keyboards)

Definitely used graph paper to map out the dungeons for almost every game back in those days.

Originally posted by aryaba

PS: I'm surprised there aren't more posts in this forum.

The only press this game's gotten is that it's closed beta apps are open. Sites that  embrace f2p games wrote articles on it like last year when the JP version came out. I guess Sony doesn't have a bribe budget for this one, so it doesn't get front paged. I think it also doesn't help that half the English labeled videos out there make the game look like a turn based game. Instead of moving around, the people are just standing there trading whacks with the enemies.

Really wish there was more English info.

Played every Wizardry since the first one. Wizardry Online looks like it's staying true to several core aspects of the series - dungeons designed to kill you and permadeath - so I'm anxious to check it out.

Interesting trivia on two of the original Wizardry folks:

Robert Woodhead, aside from running SelfPromotion.com and Animeigo.com, is also one of the members of the player council in EVE Online.

Brenda Brathwaite, one of the original QA people on Wizardry, has also kept herself busy in the industry since then, and currently has a Kickstarter campaign for an Old School RPG she's developing.

Originally posted by Betakodo

Really wish there was more English info.

I've also been looking for more info, as well. I started migrating my Wiz 8 mod site to more of a Wizardry Online focus because I'm really excited about a Wizardry MMO, but finding any new info has been near impossible. The latest news I saw was about the Beta Sign up, but that sign up has been live for a couple months so not sure what's up with that.

I still have my save disk framed from Wiz 1.  I got into the record books according to Sir-Tech

my Party was all level 400+

my group was

Lord

Ninja

Samurai

Bishop

I ran a 4 person party to optimize exp, I had 3 bench guys I would rotate in, My Fighter, who was actually level 450, Thief, who was only around 300, and a back up Priest who was in the high 200's

This was done on the IBM model, so the Bishop identify EXP wasnt an option

Gilgamesh FTW

talk about farming, I once fought a group of greater demons for 3 weeks straight, just never turned off my computer

Originally posted by Loktofeit

 The latest news I saw was about the Beta Sign up, but that sign up has been live for a couple months so not sure what's up with that.

 

They're starting to gear up I guess, by at least getting the gaming websites to post about their beta. They've also started posting stupid stuff along with a picture on weekdays for 5 days now on their Facebook page. They erased one of the pics though because it was a duplicate. The last one said "Many will enter, few will survive. Are you up for the challenge?" and it had an in game screenshot as the photo.

Originally posted by Myrdynn

I still have my save disk framed from Wiz 1.  I got into the record books according to Sir-Tech

my Party was all level 400+

my group was

Lord

Ninja

Samurai

Bishop

I ran a 4 person party to optimize exp, I had 3 bench guys I would rotate in, My Fighter, who was actually level 450, Thief, who was only around 300, and a back up Priest who was in the high 200's

This was done on the IBM model, so the Bishop identify EXP wasnt an option

Gilgamesh FTW

talk about farming, I once fought a group of greater demons for 3 weeks straight, just never turned off my computer

 

This is epic; what games used to be like.  I just fired up an emulator and ran the old version of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the mad overlord.  My 9th level party died 5 levels down.  Now to get them back I have to roll new characters and go to the spot in the dungeon they died.