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"Barlone Edit (and other stuff)"

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Conferences Wizardry(r) 1-7 Conferences Wiz 7 - CoDS and Gold (Protected)
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Mash (1 posts) Click to EMail Mash Click to send private message to Mash Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Jun-18-14, 02:05 AM (Pacific)
"Barlone Edit (and other stuff)"
Hi folks,

being completely new to this awesome forum (it really is awesome; i've been strolling around its threads for hours and hours just being happy that there are other people loving the game as much as I do - probably much more) I apologize for bringing up the Barlone topic again but I have two questions that I "need" confirmed:

Could anyone please finally confirm that in Wiz 7 (not! the Gold version) I HAVE to edit the savegame to get to his chests in case I haven't paid my dues to Mick the Pick or Ratsputin before both of them died and that there is really no other way to get his treasury (not even making him hate you and getting him into a fight)?

If so: From the various threads I take that you can edit the game with a hex editor. I also learned (I think from one of Llevram's posts) that I have to edit the 543rd "spot" in the savegame from "00 "to "01". Well, I downloaded an editor but I am not able to find the right spot where I should put 01 instead of 00. Could anyone please describe the exact procedure I have to follow to edit the game to get to the Barlone chests? Since I am not a software specialist I am not familiar with hexing. Of course, it would be very helpful if the one so generous to answer my question would name the editor as well, so I could follow any given description step by step with the same editor.

Re-reading this it seems quite demanding but maybe this would not only help me but others as desperate and as not-into-hexing as me, too.

Thank you very much in advance. Very much!

---

1. Some other remarks and questions to the game (random and not in order):
- Could it be that the very powerful spells that require a lot of spell points (Nuclear Blast, Death Wish etc.) have quite a high likelihood of "fizzle" even when casted by Characters with Oratory 100?
- For me personally class changing is fun. I see that it might be against "the code" but it makes Wiz 7 much more rewarding as you have elevations all the time (and I support Llevram's opinion that the rewarding character of the game gets you addicted - I found his opinion in response to one of the very interesting entries of October 2012 by Zeldorn). Next time I play the game (in 2021 or so), I will class change right away. It will make it so much easier to get to the Cane of Corpus quite early in the game (this time I had to wait for a long time until my party was able to beat him and still I had to ressurrect two members).
- By the way: Where exactly is the Orkogre Castle spot where that generates battles anytime you pass by? Do you have to step on a certain field to "reload" it? And where exactly is the spot in the Greater Wilds (again a field to "reload" it?)?
- What about the Personal Skills? Does anyone know how they influence your fighting skills etc.? And by "know" I mean "know after having looked into the scenario files".
- My personal opinion is that - when it comes to fights - too many spells of the Alchemist and Psionic spellbooks are crap. In fact, the two most important spells are fireball and nuclear blast (and a little behind death wish because it saves time...). Most of the Psionic spells do not "affect" monsters and most of the Alchemist spells are too weak in the early game (before you have Alchemy 98 and get all the nice Air spells).

2. Having said this, let me get something off my chest:

The game is awesome. I am not a role playing giant like many others in this forum, I am not even a computer playing giant anyway, but this game, Wiz 7, really got me. My initial contact with Wiz 7 was in a Computer Games Magazine back then in 1993. I did not even have a computer (I was 12 years old) but was playing with a friend at his place (his parents were much more liberal and not at all the don't-sit-in-front-of-this-freaking-machine-all-the-time-kind). I opened the Magazine and was struck because Wiz 7 was the first game in the history of the magazine that received a 10 out of 10 points of the Magazine's score. I looked at the pictures of munks party creation and right away knew, that I had to have this game. So, when my the-above-kind parents finally bought a computer in 1994 the first game I bought was Wiz 7. Playing along - not being a role playing expert at all - I failed to get higher than level 12 with a vanilla party (the party was bad anyway), because somewhere in Nyctalinth I did not know how to solve the rest of the game. I got frustrated and left the game in the corner for many years. It was not before 2001 when I took on the game again. It haunted me that I had not finished the game of my dreams so I started playing again - following a walkthrough right from the start. I managed to solve all the Guardia mainland puzzles but after that my computer broke down and I lost all the savegames. Several years (2007) later I sat in the library working on some study related stuff and got bored. I went home at 4:30 in the afternoon, sat on the couch and I don't know why but suddenly visions of Wiz 7 flashed before my eyes. I downloaded the game and for the next 7 days I did hardly sleep and canceled all my appointments. I got through the game and felt a big, BIG relief.
Two weeks ago I started the game again and, of course, it keeps me thrilled. But somehow I must have forgotten that you HAVE to deal with Mick or Ratsputin, that explains the questions (even though I don't like editing).
I feel another big relief in writing this down because no one in my personal environment would understand what I feel about this game and that I spend nights and nights playing although I have a daytime job.

So much for this.

Sorry for entering the forum with such a long entry.

And a big thank you to the guys running this incredibly helpful forum and the ones posting the incredibly helpful posts.

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Llevram (5413 posts) Click to EMail Llevram Click to send private message to Llevram Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Jun-18-14, 05:59 PM (Pacific)
1. "RE: Barlone Edit (and other stuff)"
Hey, thaks for the post! I really got a kick out of it, and it reminded me of a few things, similar things, I can share:

1) First got into Wizardry with #1. I had recently got an Apple IIe and had injured my shoulder, so was taking some time off work. Once I got Wiz 1, I was playing a good 20 hours a day, almost the entire week. My living room and kitchen soon turned into a pile of empty TV Dinner trays. I kept starting up parties, adventuring in, levelling up a bit, getting slaughtered, rinse, repeat. One night, while in the dungeon, the power went out. Oh, crap I thought, I just lost everything. But, that was not the case ... I was able to recover my party. That is when the went off, and I started "cheating" ... causing my own "power outage" whenever my party was about to get slaughtered

At some point I also figured out I could make an uber party by rolling a stable full of fighters, keeping the best one, and transferring everyone else gear and $$ to him. Rinse, repeat with each class.

2) Got back into Wizardry about the same time you picked it up. Happened to see Wiz 7 in a bargain bin at Costco or Price Club or some big box store. Since it was in the bargain bin, it may have been a year or three later than you. Once again, I got into the 20 hour a day mode. I would stay up until 4:00 am playing, go to bed, get up at 7:00 am and off to work, back home and playing until 4:00. There were nights that I did have to go to bed for a while, then play later (I was either living with or married to my wife at that point) I think it took me three months to beat the game.

3) Fast forward to the arrival of Wizardry Gold. It had the name "Wizardry" and was new, so I figured it was the next installment.
Oh, what a disappointment. It was just Wiz 7, ported to Windows and with cartoony graphics .. though the mapping feature was nice.

Anyhow, beyond the disappointment was my horror! I had expected to load up my saved games from Wiz 7 and start off Wiz "8" ... but, like you, my saved games were no where to be found. Though I was not really interested in playing Gold, I did want to have some saved games to start Wiz 8 when it did finally come out, and the thought of playing another 3 months just to re-beat the game was not enticing. So, rather than play Wiz Gold, I reverse engineered the saved game file, to figure out how to give my characters a butt-load of experience, so they could level up and breeze through the game, right out of the gate.

That was easy enough, so I decided to take it a "step" further, learned Visual Basic (my 7th or so computer language at that point) and created my editor. That is a story, in itself The best part of the story probably being my dream of riches ... knowing that over 5 milion copies of Wiz 7 were sold, and if I reached just 1/10 of a percent of those Wziardry owners and sold my edtor for $10 I could be rich. Ah, the early days of the internet and the irrational exuberance we all had ... As it turned out, I think I made my money back after about 2 years

So, anyhow, I could point you to an editor (I still have my copy of SlickEdit - circa 1997 - that I use for hex-editing), and walk you through it ... or you could just send me your saved game file and I could edit it, and send it back. I've done that in other cases, many a time.

Later,
Llevram

Tools for Wizardry(r) 7

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zeldorn (13 posts) Click to EMail zeldorn Click to send private message to zeldorn Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Jun-21-14, 08:13 AM (Pacific)
2. "RE: Barlone Edit (and other stuff)"
LAST EDITED ON Jun-21-14 AT 08:17 AM (Pacific)

Hi,

I am glad that people still share affection for this great game. I also played it first time in 1993 or 1994, and for some reason still got desire to return to it every now and then.
Just few weeks ago I started it again, this time playing the mod from mad_god.
To address your question, in all my games as long as I remember I never have to pay "dues" to "Mick" or "Ratsputin". Means you can fight and kill them when you encounter them, or you can wait until both are dead, and if you go then to Barlone he will speak to you and you can proceed (after you supply certain code and pay 40k gold). However, if you come in between, and Barlone ask you to "pay dues" while some of them is still alive, this might be a problem. If you can you may want to revert to a save before talking to Barlone and wait until both are dead. Or edit the save file (for some reason I always avoided that solution).
Even if you miss it completely those four chests are IMO hardly worth the effort. There was somewhere here link to their possible content, I think it was

http://www.softwarespecialties.com/BarloneTopless.html

For other questions :

The possibility of success of casting a spell depends not just of points in appropriate skill (like alchemy) and oratory skill, but also of the level of the caster. Means if your spell caster just got the ability to cast level 7 nuclear blast it is highly likely it would "fizzle". You should go up few more levels before trying to cast it with high level of success. The formulas to calculate success are a bit complicated, "number crunchers" would perhaps add that high intelligence influence success of casting mage's spells, and high piety of priest's spells etc.

Battle generator below Orkogre castle is reset every time when you pass trough its central square. From memory : you step on the central square in that dungeon, then go NORTH-EAST-EAST-EAST-NORTH-NORTH, and you have to be facing a wall and having a battle. Once you finish the battle retrace your steps to reset generator (SSWWWS) and repeat it as many times as you want.

I don't recall where is exactly the other spot (in wilderness), but I do recall that it was discussed here many times, so you should check archives.
Same for personal skills, some people here who analyzed formulas posted their results here and you can find there their exact contributions. From my practical experience, "power strike" and "snake speed" has visible advantage, and you get them early enough. "Eagle eye" arrives at advanced stage of the game, and other skills offer too little for me.

I believe the game was designed to suit different playing styles, and to offer new challenges to anyone who decide to try different style. F.e. "nuclear blast" is a preferred choice for most players, and I liked to leave New City with at least someone in my party having it. But I found later that similar spells (Deadly Air, Word of Death, Death Wish, Asphyxiation) had similar effects. In that class is also Mind Flay, but it is a bit weaker in effect. The challenge could be also playing without using any of all-targeting spells, neither exploits like recharged thermal pineapple.

Well, have fun!

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