Fabulous thread.
Speaking of Wizardry IV, I worked for Sir-Tech on that game as the principal tester and Wizardry V. I took a hiatus as an attorney to enter rpg gaming. If you remember, and pardon the self-promotion, there was a Memorial Fountain named after me on an upper level.
I've been wracking my brain for the past 5 minutes, but the fountain doesn't spring to mind (pardon the hideous pun]. I have the whole Wizardry Archive on CD and will pop it in for a trip down memory lane so I can find the it.
...Certainly the first couple of Wizardry's. Another nostalgic tidbit: The original Wizardry was called Dungeon of Doom and there was no ability to save. Finally, as to frantic rpg moments, was there anything better than having to traipse through the upper dungeon levels in Wizardry, low on hit points, no potions or spells, and just 3 steps from the castle where you could save, there was always an encounter. Talk about sweaty palms. And, that was a game with wireframe graphics, no less.
Yep, yep, yep! I had those same sweaty palms but after I figured out that you could keep re-rolling the dice to get a good 'beefed' up party (for the beginning), I would spend hours getting just the right combination of characters. Two fighters, one cleric, one mage and a thief. But the name of the company was not Sir-Tech back then. Wasn't it called Nemesis or Naricon (something like that)? I think Sir-Tech came in on the 3rd game.
Colossal Cave. Ah, The Original Adventure. I remember playing the longer 550-point version. You may or may not know that Crowther or Woods, I forgot which of the creators, was a real spelunker and the game environment is patterned after a cave in Kentucky.
Will Crowthers and Don Woods were both avid spelunkers and mapped portions of the Mammoth and Flint Ridge cave systems in Kentucky for the Cave Research Foundation. I loved the game's humor and puzzles. Speaking of law firms. I was an administrative assistant for a large firm in Philadelphia in the early 80's until the early 90's. Our first computer system, a Wang, came with Colossal Cave on it. That's how I got hooked. Lucky for me, since I was one of the administrators, I could secretly keep it on my computer, but we blocked the rest of the employees (executive committee decision) from being able to access it. Bad, Faralas! Bad, bad girl!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
As for Sacred, I was one of the fortunate ones who was able to play it through. I recently closed a high-mark review of the game with the following sentence:
"Nevertheless, given some of the technical problems afflicting some users, I would not purchase Sacred unless I had at least the recommended system levels. I also would avoid that initial patch (1.5), especially if multiplayer is your thing. This is not a guarantee, just a suggestion duplicating my experience."
Thanks all for the nostalgia.
Btw, I have a question: are you a writer now within the industry or are you a game developer (or both)? Inquiring minds and all that!
This has been a great discussion and a wonderful diversion for me since I'm cramming for a deadline when I should be <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/sleepey.gif" alt="" />.
Faralas <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" /> (back to work!!)
