...but still trying.

I am not an avid player of CRPGs, but I'm not a rookie either.

We need a can of bug spray....bad! I have had only a few short sessions with this game and it is starting to wear on me. I have been around Nymph Lake, to the Toad Village, the cemetery, seen the Oracals and been on a couple of micro quests. Here is a sample of some bugs and thing I find irritating and things that I like.

1. Time to reload is way too long. This becomes tiresome after awhile and I start dreading having to start over.

2. Only 8 or so save game slots. Am I missing something? I thought developers were over this years ago. I have already overwritten a few savegames that I know will come back to haunt me.

3. I have gotten used to the way battles are run. Not too bad there.

4. I see no difference between D3D setting and the software mode. Smooth scrolling. A bit jerky when in Valeia. Funny.

BTW: PII 450, 128 Mb, Monster Fusion 3dfx 16Mb so and so video card.

5. First Toad that you meet will not know that you have been to the Toad Village when you see him again. He keeps saying why haven't I gone to the village.

6. In the tunnels at the Toad Village, the toads keep getting in your way while moving about. Darn irritating. Someone on the HP board said that you can kill the villagers off without harm to the quest. Well, that might be, but the Shaman gets pretty Pi##ed when you off any of his people.

7. There is a water bucket, a water trough and some plants in one of the rooms in the Toad tunnels. The water bucket and trough are empty. I thought it would be fun to see if if you could fill the bucket/trough with water and perhaps win some points with the Toads. I picked up the bucket and carried it down the tunnel towards the water on the floor. Of a sudden I got stuck in a turn. I could not go forward. I could go backward, but not with the bucket. The bucket, it seems, is now permanantley stuck in mid air and I can't get around it save for going back and climbing up a ladder swimming to another "hut" and dropping down BTW...............

8. I'll wear the dunce cap for sure, but can someone tell me how to climb down a ladder? Going up is easy. Go to a ladder and push up. While on the ladder, if I push down, I back away from the ladder and fall. (usally to my death, though I'm getting tougher)

9. The Graphics themselves are great. I like the style and the resolution. A bit dark though. The horse is cool.

10. Can see better walking than with the horse in fact it is kinda irritating watching branches and leaves hit you PC's face all the time instead of the trail. Oh well.

11. A few plants in mid air around the lake, two blue birds flying in place (wings a-flappin'going nowhere) next to the Fortune Tellers place. Kinda neat actually. There are a few other I've seen but can't remember now.

12. Voices out of nowhere. When around the water huts (outside) at the Toad village, you hear "welcome warmskin" and such when you know that it was not the intent of the developers to have that ocurr at that time when ther was no Toad in site. Happens in a couple of spots.

13. Oh yeah... after I killed a couple of Toads that were in my way as a trial, I found that I could not go past where they had fallen down and died. It was as if they were still blocking me. I'm wondering if this is game play or bug play.

Anyway, I'll stop now. I hope that some of these issues will go away in time. If this is an example of the rest of the game..... Ouch!

Started off as a 10 slipped to an 8 now a 7. IMO.

• .....but getting better,Marc, 07:13 PM, Oct-03-00
  • RE: Bugs.,Draco -ur, 10:33 PM, Oct-10-00
    • RE: Bugs.,Asrial, 10:54 PM, Oct-10-00
      • Bugs vs Story,Llevram, 07:06 AM, Oct-11-00
        • Expect a Patch?,Asrial, 02:03 PM, Oct-11-00
          • Define patch :),Llevram, 02:21 PM, Oct-11-00
            • A little green here, a little green there..,Asrial, 05:44 PM, Oct-11-00
              • If you've got the system......... ,Marc, 09:38 PM, Oct-11-00
                • RE: If you've got the system......... ,Asrial, 10:30 PM, Oct-11-00
        • RE: Bugs vs Story,joan212, 02:16 PM, Oct-14-00
          • Replayability - some,Llevram, 07:32 PM, Oct-14-00

The Crypt area at the cemetery is cool!! Good monsters and battles. Ranged spell casting on the fly certainly has its appeal. Great spell effects, including the fireball (of some type) that a Banshe(?) hit me with.

Had to laugh. Going down the "broken stairs" in the Crypt I saw something wiggeling back and forth about a foot up off the stairs. I put the curser on it and the game said "Rat". Went down the stairs and turned around to look at it at eye level and there were three fish! Bug number ??? and not counting anymore....

Game is getting better for sure.

There are lots of bugs in this game. It's too bad. However it is such a good game underneath that you eventually see through them... for a while anyway.

Worst bug so far was a game-stopper. Lost 8 hours because the game would crashed consistently on the death sequence of one particular monster.

I've also had several quest bugs. I think the most unfortunate thing is that nobody at HP is listening -- which means they took the money and ran. So I don't foresee a patch.

Hey! I found the three-bodied fish-rat too! Heh heh.

I can look past bugs like that. They aren't going to seriously stop my gameplay and I'm starting to get the hang of the combat system, though it still leaves much to be desired.

I'm still undecided about the game. I'm getting hooked into it, but then, I haven't encountered any "serious" problems yet. I played around with a ladder, and saved some info about some toad that's going to block my path. I've been sticking with the crypt and you're right, that area is a blast (aren't all crypts? <grins>)

Ya, I am finding myself getting ready to take another run at it. This time knowing what to expect and see how it goes. I think for lack of anything else with the classic RPG feel to play (short of Wiz 7 again), we are all drawn to this game.

It would be nice to hear what HP's plans are regarding a patch(es). That way we could know to put it down, not get overly frustrated and come back and really enjoy it.

I am really starting to question why most of us are shunning Baldur's Gate II. Seems I hear more good and less bad about that game.

Tools for your Wizardry(r) toolkit

From everything I've been hearing at a few other boards, it seems that Activision has no plans to put out a patch of any kind whatsoever.

The only thing I have seen that looked like a release to address anything, was a mention that the "green crypt lighting" problems were caused by a level desgner going overboard with the green. So, on some setups it is too green and they were looking at releasing a different set of files with more white lighting.

Other than that, it has been very quiet on the HP and Activision sides.

Tools for your Wizardry(r) toolkit

Heh heh.

I honestly don't know, they're falling into the silence problem alot of companies have so their customers (like me) jump to a conclusion of being ignored.

I never saw any green in software mode so it's not an entire spectrum of people being affected.

One question I do have is, which is better?

Software or one of the D3D modes?

Software mode for sure. Most of my playing time has been in D3D. I just switched to software mode and I think the colors and resolution are far better. Well... lets say apparent resolution. It is a much cleaner image and it got rid of the darn green walls. I don't care for the lamps (lights) in software mode. Quite a bit fuzzier and distracting at a distance. It kinda looks like oncoming headlights.

There seems to be a lot more hesitation to the scrolling as you move along. I've wrecked a few times as the computer tries to keep up with the scroll commands. Happens more when I run. I also hear a bit more swapping going on as well.

Over all, I would say that I like the software mode better. I will continue in this mode for awile and see how things go.

PII 450, W98, 128MB

AMD-K6-II 500 mhz, 164 megs of ram, Voodoo 3 with 16 megs of ram

I get some slow down in software mode, mostly noticeable with the lighting (coming out of the crypt into daylight, and going into the crypt at night) but then I have the lighting set to high because I like how dark it is.

I've only played about 10 hours (not counting rolling characters)...it came yesterday and I got home late...but my over all feel is that it is more like drakan than Wiz 7. I am not sure about the importance of party balance and the niceties of small changes in the characters but then 10 hours of playing is not the same as eight years. I do know that picking things up is driving me crazy.
I am sure that I am going to enjoy playing the game, but I am not sure about replayability. I enjoyed nemesis..once.
I have played the first quest several times trying out different combinations and I am even getting to know my way around the woods in the dark between village, gorthius, stout, and cemetary.
(Using the torch is cheating...besides it makes you a better target, at least in real life
So those of you who are further along, how replayable do you think it is going to be? joan

So far, I think I am feeling about the same way you do. Though I think it reminds me more of Thief. Replayability will really be a question better answered when we are done. From things I have heard there are (at least) three endings. So, getting to all of those may be challenging. Also the elite-elite classes seem like another thing that would be worth playing for one more time (assuming you didn't get all three and wanted to).

I am at about the same spot you are, maybe a bit further, and it seems easier than Wiz 7, no matter what party I start with, most of the time. Playing with the various races hasn't made a noticable difference so far - with two exceptions: whiskas seeing slightly better at night and gourks (or was it a lizzord) sniffing out trols, before you can see 'em. Still, neither of those are real deciding factors for going with those races.

Here's a tip to help pick up stuff - run it over Once you pick up one (or maybe if you just already have a like item in your inventory), just walking over more of them picks them up. Still a pain, but much less so than the pixel hunt/pick up the loot dance
Tools for your Wizardry(r) toolkit