"Hardcore" Wizardry MMO announced, permadeath, PKs

[jealouspirate]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06...zardry-online/

"Wizardry is a very difficult game, and delights in killing the player. MMOs today coddle the player, but we're taking a different route. That said, this is a fair game that rewards the strategic and skillful player."

"When you die, you become a ghost and have a chance to get your body back," the rep said. "But if you should fail, you'll lose your body forever."

Apparently their goal is to go back to the early days of UO and Everquest and their philosophy. Group play is necessary to survive and the player will be given essentially no direction on where to go or how best to proceed. Players, even ones you're grouped with, can kill you (permanently) at any time and loot your corpse.

Is there still any interest in this kind of game?

[Wizardry]

No. This is not Wizardry.

[jealouspirate]

Maybe not in spirit (I have no idea, really), but it most certainly is officially a game of the Wizardry franchise.

[Wizardry]

Not really. Some Japanese company bought the rights when Sir-Tech went bust. I haven't played any, but all the Japanese spin-offs seem to be based on the old Wizardry formula (I to V) rather than Wizardry VI to 8 (the best).

[Tikey]

I don't remember clearly, but I don't recall wizardy having anime characters.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

Some Japanese company bought the rights when Sir-Tech went bust.

Yes, but they licensed out the name to Japan for ten years before that happened.

[Wizardry]

Yes, but they licensed out the name to Japan for ten years before that happened.

Yes. And all of the games are spin-offs rather than part of the main Wizardry series. Plus, Wizardry is only worth talking about in a non-historic context today purely because of Wizardry VI to 8 rather than I to V.

[jealouspirate]

Spin-off or whatever, the point being that this is an MMO called "Wizardry Online" that is just about the exact opposite of every popular MMO today. How do people think it will do? Would anyone here have any interest in playing it?

[TillEulenspiegel]

Wizardry Online will be free-to-play with microtransactions

Step one in how not to run an MMO with free-for-all PK and permadeath...

I'm glad somebody is making a game like this. It's an interesting experiment. Do I want to play it? No. I also slightly hate that whenever someone mentions UO positively, they're almost always talking only about PK. Not the skill system, crafting, player housing, clothing, lack of overpowered gear, etc.

[Wizardry]

Spin-off or whatever, the point being that this is an MMO called "Wizardry Online" that is just about the exact opposite of every popular MMO today. How do people think it will do? Would anyone here have any interest in playing it?

Yeah, sorry for slightly derailing the thread.

I don't think I'll bother with the game. I don't play MMORPGs, for starters. The features seem quite interesting and fresh for an MMORPG, but I doubt it will result in a good game. I'm way too cynical to hope that some Japanese developers will make a good MMORPG that doesn't ruin the Wizardry name. I can't see it happening.

[Mouth of 10000 Teeth]

Dangerously OT, I'd be very interested in this if they can pull it off. I don't want to go back to the time in UO where you'd get ganked for 5 gold in the street, but having to keep an eye out for PKs, learning where was safe to mine at lower levels etc. was really the best era of the game for me. So long as there are clearly defined* non-PvP areas and the risk/reward balance is properly handled, great.

Till - I think that's because at one point, PvP in UO was very nearly ideal. Briefly perhaps, but it did something right. Housing, on the other hand, was a total disaster and lesson in how to totally ruin the atmosphere of a game world. Skills I'll agree with though. Just a shame the ruined it with all the damage/resist types, over-powered artifacts etc.

*And properly enforced. None of the "well you can kill someone in the town using a dagger and lethal poison but you'll get killed by the guards afterwards" nonsense. If I'm in a safe area then I'm safe and if I'm in a dangerous area I'm in danger. Degrees in between are fine, so long as each end is properly protected.

2nd edit: Okay, microtransactions has just totally killed this for me. They're the one thing that - cosmetic purchases aside - I absolutely will not tolerate in an MMO.

[Creeping Death]

Hmm... A game where I can buy in-game items with real world money and then lose it all because some idiot high level player randomly decides to kill me and loot my body for kicks?


No thanks.

[TillEulenspiegel]

Housing, on the other hand, was a total disaster and lesson in how to totally ruin the atmosphere of a game world.

Yes. Sort of. It's easily solvable, though, by setting and auctioning limited, variously-sized (from solitary shack to player-built city) parcels of land in a bigger world, as Horizons planned to do in the David Allen era. The benefits to player housing were massive (who doesn't want their own house or shop?), and it's an idea well worth revisiting and tweaking.

Skills I'll agree with though. Just a shame the ruined it with all the damage/resist types, over-powered artifacts etc.

Either my memory is failing, or you played some time after 1999. I remember a magic resist skill, which was "trained" by walking in a fire wall. Definitely no artifacts. Just some rare magic equipment that was hardly better than the GM-crafted equivalent.

[Mouth of 10000 Teeth]

Yes. Sort of. It's easily solvable, though, by setting and auctioning limited, variously-sized (from solitary shack to player-built city) parcels of land in a bigger world, as Horizons planned to do in the David Allen era. The benefits to player housing were massive (who doesn't want their own house or shop?), and it's an idea well worth revisiting and tweaking.

Did you ever visit the expanded lands, though? They were just endless player homes covered in garish trinkets. I think Trammel pretty much filled up in days and then the extra areas added later did the same. I agree that some sort of land auction in specified areas - or even street-planned areas for developing entire PC-populated towns - would work. Proper player vendors and the eventually essential rune-libraries were great examples of user-controlled content and community projects. I suppose that thinking about it, the fair conclusion would be that housing in UO was 50% hugely progessive success and 50% game-wrecking catastrophe.

Either my memory is failing, or you played some time after 1999. I remember a magic resist skill, which was "trained" by walking in a fire wall. Definitely no artifacts. Just some rare magic equipment that was hardly better than the GM-crafted equivalent.

I started playing around the time of UO The Second Age, either just before or just after. I continued playing fairly solidly until about 2003, by which point things had gone quite badly down hill. I then went back in about 2005/2006 for a jaunt and everything was so awful I couldn't stand it anymore. There were uber-bosses (think instances) that dropped l337ph4tl3wt, you could juggle equipment to essentially over-ride skills, purchase 'advanced' characters that started with higher skill allocations and all sorts of other stupidity. The only good thing that came from it was being able to effectively remove reagents, which made being a mage 10,000,000% less frustrating.

[vinraith]

I read "Wizardry" and got genuinely excited, finally a proper hardcore RPG of this stripe one the PC... and then I read "MMO." Dammit, dammit, dammit, nevermind.

[Wizardry]

I read "Wizardry" and got genuinely excited, finally a proper hardcore RPG of this stripe one the PC... and then I read "MMO." Dammit, dammit, dammit, nevermind.

There already are Wizardry games on the PC. The Wizardry series.

;)

[vinraith]

There already are Wizardry games on the PC. The Wizardry series.

;)

You know what I mean! :) Unfortunately the older ones are getting harder and harder to make run. I do have a functional copy of 8 around here, but can't even seem to find VI and VII. Sounds like a job for GOG to me.

[Anthile]

Yes, Wizardry is crazy popular in Japan for some reason and they made numerous spin-offs there with the latest title, Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls, coming out these days on PSN (it actually came out some some years ago but no export). It looks like this:



Hell, they even made a Wizardry anime based on the very first game, which is all kinds of baffling:

[Wizardry]

Ah! My eyes! Anime! Keep away from me!

You know what I mean! :) Unfortunately the older ones are getting harder and harder to make run. I do have a functional copy of 8 around here, but can't even seem to find VI and VII. Sounds like a job for GOG to me.

VI and VII are on abandonia. Easy to get. They work fine in DOSBox. Also, I can confirm that Wizardry 8 still works natively under Windows 7 x64.

[vinraith]

Ah! My eyes! Anime! Keep away from me!


VI and VII are on abandonia. Easy to get. They work fine in DOSBox. Also, I can confirm that Wizardry 8 still works natively under Windows 7 x64.

Ah, was about to update to 7 here soon, so I'm glad to hear that VIII will still run. I could swear I'd searched for Wizardry on Abandonia awhile back and failed to turn up VI and VII, likely I'm just misremembering. I'll have a look, thanks!