Sep 19

First Impressions: Dungeon Fighter Online

Late last year, RaneofSOTN on the SDA forums brought to SDA’s attention a game called Dungeon Fighter Online, one of the Nexon Network of games (Probably best known for Maple Story at this point). What differentiates this game from a lot of other MMOs out there is that it’s not an RPG, so much as a beat-em-up with RPG Elements–if Final Fight had you gaining levels and equipment with each cleared stage, you’d have a good idea of what Dungeon Fighter Online–henceforth DFO–is like. Of course, I didn’t play it until this weekend…with timeliness like that, it’s a wonder I ever actually complete a speedrun.

In short, in DFO, you can select from one of six classes (Male and Female Gunners are separate classes; each other character is one gender only), and each of those classes can, beginning at level 18, then split off into one of four (Three, in the case of the Priest) subclasses. You talk to people to take on quests, although you can wander into dungeons without quests as well. Dungeons are instanced, meaning no waiting around for 12 hours for that one boss to pop up–you (Or your party if you’re in one) walk into the dungeon, and it’s yours to do as you please in.

I’ll grant that I haven’t had much time to really get into a lot of what the game has to offer–although I’ve enjoyed the little I have played, there’s a reason this post is titled “First Impressions”–like crafting items, the aforementioned subclasses, etc (My current character, Emptyeye the Fighter, is at level 7)..not the least of which is that actual “playing with other people” thing that is supposedly a draw of these games (“Offline”, as Silver will tell you, I tend to prefer my own company to that of friends and family. I have no reason why this should be any different online, various streams I’m constantly watching notwithstanding). That said, it strikes me that this is very much meant to be a “casual” MMO. For one, the dungeons themselves are fairly small, although this may be a symptom of early-game content; the dungeons may well expand later on. What’s not just a symptom of early-game content is the Fatique System, which is DFO’s way of making sure that its name doesn’t become associated with the next “Hardcore Gamer Gaming Marathons Self to Death” tragedy. In short, each day, you get roughly 150 Fatigue Points, and each dungeon room you visit consumes one fatigue point. The limit is actually rather generous–I’ve never come close to running out of fatigue, and according to RaneofSOTN, those fatigue points will generally last you about 3 hours a day if you actually run them dry each day. While 3 hours a day is, admittedly, a lot of gaming, this as an upper limit pales in comparison to a lot of World of Warcraft content (Particularly early on in that game’s history).

Oh, and did I mention that it’s free? Yes, there are things you can buy with real-life money, but you don’t need to. This is quite nice for people on a budget.

In all, if you like beat-em-ups a la Final Fight, but don’t want to have to spend hours a day (Or a monthly fee) on the same game to even have the potential to get anywhere, give DFO a try. And try to find my character if you can; I’m generally on the Eastern channels.

-EE

Sep 17

Adventures in Air Conditioner Removal

Since I would be home several hours before Silver, I received the assignment of “remove our air conditioner before she gets home”. Right away, I knew this was going to be a challenge. For one, said air conditioner is a horrifically old, heavy model that was in the window when we first moved into the apartment two-plus years ago (It’s been in and out a couple times since then, but I had never actually removed it by my lonesome). While I’m not one to refuse free stuff, especially something like that, it’s nonetheless old and clunky, and probably guzzling electricity to boot.

Adding to the challenge is that fact that the window the air conditioner is in is broken–that is, it doesn’t stay up on its own. The reason for this? Said air conditioner is bulky enough that the only way to make it fit in the window is to break the stuff that stops the window from slamming down on the sill.

Knowing this would not be an easy feat, I collected some plastic totes from our bedroom closet to act as an intermediate place for the air conditioner once I had removed it from the window, plus a stepstool to give me an extra bit of height so I wasn’t lifting the air conditioner at such a high point relative to my height. Preparations made, I try to open the window, to find it’s stuck. Completely unlocking the window slowly yielded results, as it slowly opened up more and more, until finally, I had enough room to get to the air conditioner!

…which had already toppled backward out of the window.

Luckily, Silver and I live on the basement floor, and our window is on the side of the building, meaning that the air conditioner fell only a few inches onto soft dirt. Mission accomplished!

Of course, implicit in “remove the air conditioner” was the instruction “Also put it in its proper storage place for the winter”. This was going to be a good deal more difficult. Putting on my socks and sneakers, I walked outside and around the building. After a rather unsuccessful attempt to drag it through the dirt, followed by “flipping” the air conditioner (Think something like the Tire Flip only more laterally, and you’ll have a good idea of what I was attempting) a short distance, I managed to get one corner of it onto my foot somehow. This gave me the leverage I needed to pick it up and carry it to the complex door. After a rest stop, followed by grabbing something to hold the door open, I lift the air conditioner again, this time managing to walk it down a small flight of stairs and to the entrance of our building’s storage room. Dragging the air conditioner the final distance, and probably scratching up the floor while I’m at it, I finally get the unit out of sight and out of mind.

…I really need a better, smaller air conditioner.

Sep 16

Wizardry I Liveblog Bonus Edition: Chapter 3

Update hooray!

Part 3: Grindin’, Angstin’, Bumblin’

Before heading back down into the dungeon, Emptyeye, Nyperold and mahel042 all bought themselves Plate Mail to make it even harder to damage them. Xanatos also got himself an Anointed Flail in case some emergency came up and he was called to the front lines.

After descending the stairs to the dungeon, Xanatos spoke:

Xanatos: “Hey guys, check out my new magic trick! LOMILWA!”

And with that, the area around the party was illuminated, and they could see down the hallways much further than before. The spell also allowed them to see secret doors in the dungeon.

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: In the original computer versions, the spell names acted as a form of pseudo-copy protection—if you didn’t know the name of the spell you wanted to cast, you couldn’t cast it. In the console versions, you just select the spell you want from a list…but in the pre-Internet days, these still served as a “Hope you’ve saved your manual” measure, as with names like “Kalki”, “Lomilwa”, “Dialma”, and “Tiltowait” to name but a few, you’re going to be more or less slinging spells by trial and error at first without one. Of course, with the advent of the Internet, this effect is lessened.)

Xanatos: “And that’s not all. LATUMAPIC!”

There was no apparent effect.

Emptyeye: “Okay, and that did…”

Xanatos: “Now we’ll know exactly what we’re fighting when we enter combat.”

mahel042: “Oh, neat.”

Nyperold: “Totally. I like knowing exactly what I’m killing.”

For a good 45 minutes, the group did nothing but pound on Murphy’s Ghost over and over.

Rocky: “You know, I feel like someone should create a montage of us doing this. Maybe over a song that has a driving bassline in the key of C. That’d be pretty neat.”

Emptyeye: “Hmm…nah, I don’t think that would work.”

After the training session, the group as a whole felt quite a bit stronger. Zudak had learned to use even larger columns of flame on foes, and instill fright in them, and Xanatos could cure more severe wounds, and even raise the dead! He could also cast a mid-size field of protection that would follow the party around even out of combat.

But things were not all rosy. For one thing, Emptyeye felt that, despite being the nominal leader of the group, he was being outclassed in terms of getting stronger, and especially in terms of being able to withstand injury before succumbing to wounds. While he had known and accepted that the two Fighters in the group would eventually overtake him in this regard, he hadn’t expected the effect to be quite so pronounced—currently, everyone in the group with the exception of Zudak (and Willy, who had yet to see any firsthand combat) had more endurance than he did, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy about it.

As the group reconvened at the Tavern, Emptyeye soon found that he was not the only one in the group uncomfortable with their role..

Rocky: “Guys, I feel unwanted here. I mean, yeah, okay, I’m not the warrior that Emptyeye, Nyperold and mahel are, and that’s fine, so I stay in the back of the group. But I..I can’t cast spells, either. So what this means is that we train and train and train, and I…do nothing to help out. I Parry, and I Parry, and I Parry some more…and then Murphy’s Ghost isn’t even courteous enough to have a treasure chest on them so I can actually do my thing. You know, disarming traps and whatnot.”

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: Beginning with Wizardry V, Thieves have a Hide option in combat. If successful, they then gain an Ambush option enabling them to deal damage from the back row. This was also included as an option in the Japan-only Story of Llylgamyn collection, a Super Famicom compilation of Wizardry I-III. Here, though, Thieves are rather useless in normal combat, since they won’t be in the front lines [Even in the “default” party, the third physical slot would be taken by the Cleric].)

Nyperold: “Wow, I know what you mean man. If I couldn’t constantly kill things…geez, I’d be devastated.”

Emptyeye: “…right. Anyway, I’ll tell you what. I think we’ve done enough training for now. Let’s explore the rest of the first floor to confirm that there’s nothing that…whoever made this map missed. While we’re doing that, we should come across quite a few treasure chests for you to unlock.”

Rocky: “Cool!”

So the group explored the first floor, finding plenty of treasure chests. At first, everything went swimmingly, with Rocky disarming traps with ease. Toward the end of the exploration, though, he started to get sloppy.

Rocky: “Okay, this looks like it’s trapped with a Poison Needle. Now if I just….OW! That wasn’t a Poison Needle at all!”

The rest of the group was amused by his failure to correctly diagnose a Crossbow Bolt trap. They would be much less amused by his next mistake.

Rocky: “Now this! This is obviously—obviously!—an Exploding Box trap. Now if I just…oops.”

Emptyeye: “‘Oops’? What do you mean ‘oops’?”

Treasure Chest: *KA-BOOOOOOOM!!!*

All: “Aaaaagh!”

Rocky: “Well, at least I had the kind of trap correct, right guys? Right? …guys?”

Zudak: “Goddammit Rocky!”

It was the third mistake that convinced the group to head for home, though.

Rocky: “Let’s see here…this looks to me to be a Poison Needle trap. I’ll just remove this spring and…Gah! Yeah, definitely a Poison Needle trap.”

A quick use of the Potion of Neutralizing the group found earlier and Rocky was all better. Without a way to cure him should be screw up again, though (Perhaps showing where his priorities were, though Xanatos could raise the dead, he could not yet cure poison), the group trotted back to town.

Back in the Tavern…

Emptyeye: “Okay. Despite Rocky’s apparently starting to doze off near the end of that little excursion, I think we did all right for ourselves. Let’s go get some new equipment with our hard-won gold and rest up. Next time, we’ll head down to level two!”

The group pawned off an ordinary Staff on Willy after having him confirm that it was, in fact, an ordinary Staff. At Boltac’s, Emptyeye got himself a Sturdy Plate (The last one in stock!), Xanatos outfitted himself in a suit of Body Armor, and Rocky picked himself up an Iron Shield. He also replaced the Potion of Neutralizing he had used, and as an extra defensive measure, Nyperold and mahel042 each grabbed both a Potion of Curing and a Potion of Neutralizing, giving the group a total of three of each.

Rocky: “If an emergency situation arises where I’m called to the front lines, you’d better believe I’ll be ready.”

Xanatos: “Damn right! *High fives Rocky*”

Next Time: Floor 2!

Neat Bonus Commentary!

  • Typo alert: I originally misspelled “Anointed” as “Annointed” near the beginning. Additionally, I still can’t decide what the actual correct tense is in Rocky’s complaining about Murphy’s Ghost (..”on him”? or “on them”? I left it as “on them” here, although I suspect that’s wrong.). Finally, while not a typo per se, the original “Eye of the Tiger” video I had linked to has since been removed from Youtube for violating their Terms of Service. I linked to a different one here.
  • Nyperold is so cute here…as cute as a bloodthirsty killing machine can be, anyway. He’s trying so hard to have empathy for Rocky’s plight, but he just completely misses Rocky’s larger point regarding his feelings of self-worth, instead latching on to “I can’t kill things”.
  • Meanwhile, Zudak’s “calling people out on their idiocy” aspect is further extended here, as he berates Rocky after he clumsily makes a treasure box explode in the group’s collective face.
  • Emptyeye’s silent angsting to himself here reflects my own out-of-game bewilderment at how the HP rolls were going to this point. Part of the issue may have been that Emptyeye was a level lower than everyone else–besides being outclassed by Fighters level-for-level in the HP department, it takes Samurai longer than any class besides Lords and Ninjas to actually gain levels–but Emptyeye’s HP were currently lower than everyone except for Zudak’s…and Zudak is, as you’ll recall, the Mage of the group, so we’d have major problems if his HP were higher than Emptyeye’s.
  • Finally, I love how Xanatos learned a Level 5 Cleric spell (Di, which actually raises the dead, contrary to what you’d think by its name) before a Level 4 one Latumofis, which is the Cure Poison spell I mentioned earlier.)
  • By the way, the brief out-of-context snippets before the chapter headings are usually me responding to other people’s posts in the topic. In this case, “update hooray!” is referring to the fact that I hadn’t updated for a few days before this.

-EE

Sep 15

Wizardry I Liveblog Bonus Edition: Chapter 2

Glad to see some people enjoying this, anyway. Let me know what you think of the writing style, etc.

And now…

Part 2: More first floor exploration

The party descended back into the dungeon.

Mahel042: “So where to now? I feel like we can wander a little farther and not have to fear death with every step.”

Emptyeye: “Agreed. Let’s see here…it looks like there are a couple keys on this floor. No clue what they open, but let’s try for those.”

The group eventually found itself in the southeast corner of the first level, looking at a statue that had the body of a chicken and the head of a cat. The statue was made of bronze, with an onyx pedestal. Looking around the statue…

Xanatos: “Ah-ha! You were right Emptyeye, I found what seems to be a key of…some kind. Looks like bronze, but we’ll have to talk to that Willy fellow to be sure.”

Consulting the map again, the party made their way to the northeast region of the level, where they found another statue. This one was silver, and was in the shape of a boar. Ominously, there were some partially obscured writings, talking about demons and ghosts. Despite that, the party looked around…

Rocky: “Ah, looks like it’s my turn. Again, we’ll have to identify it definitively, but this looks like a silver key to me.”

Emptyeye: “Awesome. There’s one more thing I want to check before we head back…”

The group backtracked to the southeast. There was one more gem-encrusted statue of a hooded man. A golden light emanated from the hood, and there was an altar in the room which smelled of incense.

Zudak: “Now let’s see herAUUUUGH!”

????: “Hey, how’s it going? I’m Murphy’s Ghost.”

Emptyeye: “Not bad, not bad. How’re you? I’m Emptyeye, by the way.”

Murphy’s Ghost: “Nice to meet you. I’m doing all right, I suppose. For being a ghost who can’t leave this room anyway.”

Emptyeye: “I…can’t say I know what that’s like. Can you tell us any…”

Emptyeye’s conversation with the ghost was interrupted by Nyperold, who could hold himself back no longer.

Nyperold: “DIE, marginally-less-evil-than-me Monster!”

Emptyeye: “Goddammit Nyperold!”

And the group followed Nyperold into battle.

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: This was a “a friendly group of…” battle. Hence the Neutral Emptyeye attempting to hold a conversation with the ghost before being overruled by his Evil party. Note that in the actual game, your options are “Fight” or “Leave”, but as if the game wasn’t hard enough, I’m trying to make an interesting Liveblog out of “Wizard is down at the bottom of the dungeon, kill him. That’s all the story you’re getting, pal.” How am I doing with that anyway?)

The battle was time-consuming, but the party noticed that, while they had difficulty injuring the Ghost, the Ghost likewise had trouble doing significant damage to them. The group eventually triumphed, and noticed that the battle with the ghost made them quite a bit stronger than any of their previous skirmishes had. That gave Zudak an idea.

Zudak: “What happens if I searrrrWHOA!”

Murphy’s Ghost: “Oh no, I’m not falling for that again.”

Again the group fought and defeated the ghost.

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: This was a generic battle with the ghost.)

Zudak: “You know, it seems that every time we search this room, that ghost will appear. We could probably get ourselves pretty strong just fighting him over and over. It may be a bit time consuming, but not really difficult.”

Emptyeye: “That’s an excellent idea.”

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: If you’re wondering why Zudak seems to have a somewhat disproportionate amount of ideas/lines, it’s because he has far and away the highest I.Q. stat, either 17 or 18 (Out of a max of 18) at last check. Emptyeye, at about 12, is the only other party member even in double digits. Yes, this includes Xanatos.)

The party killed Murphy’s Ghost a few more times before returning to the surface with their booty. Willy confirmed what the party had suspected.

Willy: “Yep, those are bronze and silver keys, all right. Additionally, these potions you’ve found are a Potion of Curing and a Potion of Neutralizing, respectively.”

Emptyeye: “Thanks. We’ll be taking all that stuff back now.”

Willy: “All right…” as he walked away.

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: As you might expect, the Potion of Neutralizing cures poison. Poison acts like it does in most other RPGs—which makes it hugely dangerous in this game, because your HP is much lower than in, say, Final Fantasy, and because you can actually die from it instead of simply being lowered to 1HP. And death is painful in this game. Thus, a Potion of Neutralizing is a huge help in an emergency situation, at least until your Cleric learns the cure poison spell.)

The party all rested in the Stables to officially improve their skills. The main benefits to this were that Emptyeye gained a command of basic Mage spells—the small fireball and sleep spells that Zudak had mentioned way back in their first encounter, plus the location spell Zudak had learned not long after that. Zudak had nothing to fear though—this latest level up had given him the power to injure entire groups of enemies, via columns of fire or showers of sparks. Xanatos, for his part, learned to cast an even larger forcefield, cure paralysis, and magically inspect trapped chests in case the group didn’t trust Rocky’s judgment on such things for whatever reason.

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: You have to actually stay at the inn in order to level up. Think sleeping to level up in Oblivion)

Next time: The Grind

Wicked Bonus Commentary!

  • First, typo alert: The original version read “This was a a generic battle with the ghost.” in one of the Liveblog Notes. That’s been corrected. There are a couple other questionable things that I didn’t correct–Willy’s final line may work better as “‘All right…'” and he walked away”, for one, and my over reliance on the word “huge” in describing poison and the cute for it for another.
  • Even though he’s allegedly the leader, Emptyeye does very little actual leading–in both this and Chapter 1, it’s mahel042 who actually comes up with the overarching plan (“Don’t wander too far” in Chapter 1, “We can go exploring now” in this chapter), although Emptyeye does iron out the particulars.
  • Speaking of character development, Nyperold’s “CRUSH EVERYTHING” philosophy really begins to take hold here. Additionally, TV Tropes loves their Xanatos…which makes his low IQ score in my party even more amusing.
  • Like pretty much any RPG of its time, Wizardry takes a lot of inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons. The somewhat arcane armor class system is one way (You start at 10, lower is better, it influences how hard you are to hit as opposed to how much damage you take), but the primary one for purposes of this discussion is the alignment system. Your characters can be Good, Neutral, or Evil. In this game, that exclusively influences what you’re supposed to do when you encounter “Friendly” groups of monsters. Good characters are supposed to leave them alone; Evil characters are supposed to fight; Neutral characters can do either. Acting contrary to your alignment runs the risk of your characters swapping alignment, which means that they can’t join the rest of your opposite-aligned characters upon returning to the Castle.
  • By the way, I plan to eventually put up the maps I made of the dungeon (Well, part of it) online, although not necessarily immediately.

Sep 14

Hacking Biomonster Brains

I was messing around with a save state of my current Phantasy Star II playthrough. This actually will have a purpose later on when I attempt (And fail) to change the outcome of a certain climactic scene in the game. In the meantime, I have an alternate savestate in which one of the characters is basically a genetically engineered super-soldier with power levels over 9000 far beyond anything the game normally allows. This is mainly so I know what I have to edit to do the same thing during said climactic battle (Hacking the save state is a lot easier than actually doing the excessive level grinding I would normally need to do to pull it off legitimately).

Sep 13

Wizardry I Liveblog Bonus Edition: Interlude 1

Interlude: Back in town…

While the group (Hahaha disregard what was here earlier) was relaxing in the tavern, they were approached by a bespectacled young man.

???: “Hello, hello, you look like you could use a dashing young man such as myself in your party!”

Emptyeye: “Um…who might you be?”

???: “Willy the Wizard, at your service!”

Emptyeye: “Wizard, huh? Sounds impressive, but what exactly does that mean?”

Willy: “Oh, it is, it is! I can cast spells from both schools of magic!”

Zudak: “Well hold on there, buddy, my Cleric friend and I have magic covered, thanks very much.” as he pointed out Xanatos.

Willy: “But…but I can also dispel the undead!”

Xanatos: “So can I.”

Emptyeye: “Looks like we have no need for you, four-eyes.”

Willy: “Wait! I can…I can identify items you might find in the maze!”

Rocky: “Big freakin’ deal, we can get that at Boltac’s. You’re completely…”

Emptyeye: (Interrupting) “Now hold on a second. Yes, we can theoretically get that service at Boltac’s…but if this guy can do it cheaper…”

The group conferred. When they were done, Emptyeye turned to Willy:

Emptyeye: “Here’s the deal. We have no need for another person in the party. But your skill at identifying items may prove useful to us. Here’s a simple test. Identify this dagger that we found in our travels.”

Willy: “Okay…um…hrm…well, sorry to tell you this, but it appears to be just an ordinary dagger.”

Emptyeye: “Well that’s too bad. On the other hand, you did well to pass the test. I’ll make you a deal. When we have items that we need identified, we’ll come find you here. You’ll identify them for us. Anything you identify that we decide we don’t need, you can keep or sell, and any proceeds you get from this are yours to do as you please.”

Willy: “Well, I’d really like to join you on your expedition…”

Emptyeye: “That’s the offer, take it or leave it.”

Willy: “Fine, fine. Identifying stuff and taking your unwanted items off your hands it is..I guess…”

Emptyeye: “Excellent! Pleasure doing business with you.”

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: I will actually be occasionally bringing Willy with me down into the dungeon, if for no other reason than leveling up a Wizard seems to improve his skill at identifying items as well. Also, some Nethack techniques work well in identifying items in Wizardry without “actually” identifying them, especially since Wizardry is on the whole less random. That is, you can make a pretty good guess at what an item is based on knowing its type (Provided) and price (Go to Boltac’s and see what he’ll charge to identify the item).)

After that conversation, a trip to Boltac’s was in store. Emptyeye bought himself a cool Breast Plate, and cleared his debt to Xanatos (Though not necessarily the rest of the group) by spotting him the difference between what he had and what he needed for a Breast Plate of his very own. Nyperold and mazel bought Helms for themselves. In all, the front lines plus Xanatos were fortified slightly, ready for their next trip down.

Next Time: That stuff I promised last time!

Super Cool Bonus Commentary!

  • This was an interlude I randomly put in to introduce Willy the Wizard. Poor Willy, getting abused by pretty much the entire primary group. In re-reading this, I was surprised at how obnoxious I had written everyone in said primary group to be in terms of personality (Maybe in response to Willy’s being a bit full of himself at the start.).
  • I don’t exactly remember what “(Hahaha disregard what was here earlier)” was in reference to, although if my recollection is correct, I had initially written that only one character, probably Emptyeye, was in the Tavern. Then I saw that I had other party members in the conversation, went “Oh crud that’s wrong”, and went back and edited the post to reflect that.
  • A bit of context for the non-Wizardry players out there: There are two schools of magic in the game, the Cleric school and the Mage school. Each school has a class named for it who specializes in that school (Samurai learn Mage spells at a slower rate than do Mages, but are much better fighters. There’s also a class called the Lord that is the same thing for the Cleric school). The third primary magic class is the Wizard, who eventually learns spells from both schools, but at a slower rate than either Clerics or Mages. They can also Dispel undead monsters, but their most useful skill is being able to Identify items you find in the dungeon. While an advanced Wizardry player can “pseudo-identify” items based on their type and how much they cost to identify, for a more casual player (If such a thing as a “casual Wizardry player” exists…like most RPGs of its day, Wizardry is not really a game that can be played casually), Wizards are great for saving massive amounts of cash over the store for getting stuff identified.
  • Willy is named for fellow Troper Willy Four Eyes, hence his having glasses, and Emptyeye’s calling him “four-eyes” during the conversation.

Sep 12

Gently Streaming

Earlier today I decided to start streaming a casual playthrough of Phantasy Star II. I figure this is something different from what either of the two primary stream fora that I go to. It’s a casual playthrough, so it doesn’t come with endless resetting after five minutes of attempts like a lot of the SDA streams do when the runners are making serious attempts at runs, and Phantasy Star II is a little more “classic”, in terms of RPGs, than a lot of the Speed Gamers community leans to (Heck, having come out in 1989, the game is older than a lot of the members of said community), so playing that is a nice history lesson for them in what “JRPGs” used to be like (Although in 1989 the more accurate distinction in play styles was probably “Computer versus Console RPGs” rather than “Japanese versus Western”. Outside of the Ultima series, dungeon-crawlers like Wizardry and Might & Magic were more typical of the Computer RPG.).

Where this differs from a lot of other playthroughs of the game is in the fact that, once I have more than 4 members in my party, I’ll be letting the TSG community decide what characters I should use. This also serves as a Self-Imposed Challenge of sorts. Without spoiling too much about the game for those who haven’t played it, the game can basically be divided into 3 “Acts” (If you’ve beaten the game before, you can probably figure out where the dividing points are in my mind). There’s basically one optimum party for Act I, and one of two optimal setups for Acts II and III; deviating from these setups will make things a lot harder for you (Especially in Act I, before you get items that make the endgame bearable). To make it so that this doesn’t drive me completely insane, I figure what I’ll do is close any character polls 24 hours or so before I go to stream, and take that day to do any level-grinding, equipment purchasing, etc. “off-stream”.

It should be fun, whenever I decide to actually do it.

-EE

Sep 11

Wizardry I Liveblog Bonus Edition: Chapter 1

Can it be? An actual update featuring actual gameplay?! It can!!!

Part 1: The First Excursion

Before the group set out on their first journey into the depths of the dungeon, they stopped one more time at Gilgamesh’s Tavern.

Gilgamesh: “Your little group looks promising. Here, take this.” as he handed Emptyeye what seemed to be a small book. As Emptyeye looked through the book…

Emptyeye: “Wow, this…this looks to be…well, it’s at least a partial map of the dungeon!”

Gilgamesh: “Indeed. This tome is said to come from an alternate dimension. Legend says that within that dimension, a group of adventurers actually succeeded in defeating Werdna and recovering the amulet. But that group had divine intervention on their side…and no small amount of luck to boot.”

Emptyeye: “Thanks Gilgamesh! Okay guys, let’s go kick some Wizard butt!”

And so the party set out into the dungeon. It wasn’t long at all before they were attacked by a group of 5 small humanoids. As the leader of the group, Emptyeye quickly devised a strategy.

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: Without a spell, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to definitively identify what enemies are in combat beyond a group level. In other words, “Small Humanoids” can be any one of several monsters. Sometimes you’ll be able to determine what they are mid-battle.)

Emptyeye: “Okay, here’s the plan. Zudak, you’re a Mage, wave your hands and make these dudes’ heads explode. Xanatos, throw up a forcefield that will make us impervious to everything. Rocky, you, umm, hang out in the shadows, you’re good at that kind of thing. And Nyperold, mahel and myself will…Zudak, why are you looking at me like I’m crazy instead of making with the head-kerblooey?”

Zudak: “Well, I’d love to do what you commanded, but…”

Emptyeye: “But what?”

Zudak: “You see, I have as much combat experience as you do—which is to say, zero. Making heads explode is quite a ways off for me.”

Emptyeye: *Sigh* “Okay, what can you do at this point?”

Zudak: “I can launch a small fireball at one of these guys, or I can try and put them all to sleep.”

Emptyeye: “Well, it’s not making their heads blow up, but try that sleep thing. While I’m on the subject of ‘Magic Users Whose Current Abilities Fall Woefully Short of My Hopes’, Xanatos, anything you’d like to say?”

Xanatos: “I’m certainly not capable of making us ‘impervious to everything’…but I do think I can throw up something that will make us a bit harder to hit.”

Emptyeye: “Excellent. Do that then.”

mahel042: “Okay, so what about the rest of us?”

Emptyeye: “CHAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGE!!”

And the group did just that. The plan was executed to perfection; Emptyeye quickly cut down one of the humanoids, while Zudak put the remaining four to sleep. Xanatos invoked a small forcefield that ultimately turned out to be unnecessary, as the humanoids would never wake up again. Each of the warriors killed one humanoid before inspecting the monsters closely and realizing that they were facing a group of Orcs. Emptyeye stabbed the last Orc to death, and the group high-fived over their first victory. Experience, and a small amount of gold, were their rewards for this triumph.

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: Because the spell system works like that of Dungeons & Dragons or the original Final Fantasy, you may be tempted to only use spells in emergency situations. Especially early on, this is a bad idea—like in Nethack, spells and items are there to be used; if you find yourself in an “Emergency Situation” in combat, it’s likely already too late to save your party.)

After the brief celebration, the group decided to form their plan.

Zudak: “I think we should probably stick close to the stairs for now. Your plan for that battle was impeccable…but let’s face it, we were also lucky that none of the Orcs woke up. Staying in this hallway will allow us to get back to safety quickly should the need arise.”

Emptyeye: “Well, there are really only a few points of interest on this floor if this book is anything to go by. It wouldn’t hurt to corroborate that though.”

Nyperold: “Aww, but I want to kill stuff!”

Zudak: “Don’t worry…it’s not like there’s a shortage of monsters down here.”

So the group stuck to the plan, getting to know the three chambers closest to the stairs extremely well, making frequent trips back to town where Xanatos and Zudak could recover their magic by staying in the Stables of the Adventurer’s Inn overnight.

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: Yes, seriously. Apparently in the original computer versions, you recovered magic by simply making it back up to the surface. This is not the case in the NES version, where you have to stay in the Adventurer’s Inn to recover your magic. The best place to do this is actually the free Stables, which only age you one day. The other options age you a week at a time and recover varying amounts of HP per week in addition to your magic for varying amounts of gold. Because aging in this game isn’t a good thing (After Age 50, you begin to lose Vitality; going to 0 Vitality makes your character useless for everything but sitting on a porch and cursing out whippersnappers), the best option is to enter town, have a Cleric or Wizard stay in the Stables, go back into the dungeon, have the Cleric/Wizard heal the other characters until they run out of magic, and repeat the process. Also, holy cow this was a long note.).

Eventually, the group began to feel more capable. Emptyeye felt stronger, more agile, more pious, heartier, and smarter. Nyperold, strangely, felt weaker than when he had started, although otherwise he felt the same benefits as Emptyeye. mahel042 felt smarter, heartier, more pious, and even luckier than he had before. Xanatos learned a selection of new spells (Most notably the ability to make the party even harder to hit in combat than they had been previously), and felt heartier, more agile, more pious and luckier, although he also felt dumber, perhaps from having a leader with such unrealistic expectations of his abilities. Rocky and Zudak felt all-around improvement, with Zudak also learning a selection of new spells—most notably, a spell that would reveal the group’s exact location within the maze.

(LIVEBLOG NOTE: It’s actually possible to gain levels and lose stats in the process, although it apparently doesn’t happen as often as in the original versions. Note that I won’t be going this in-depth on subsequent level ups except to note some of the better/more useful spells you gain.)

Next time: More exploration…maybe even some key items!

Amazing Bonus Commentary!

  • With the group’s first combat experience comes a bit more fleshing out of the characters’ personalities–particularly Nyperold, who is beginning to develop into the “Kill first, don’t ask questions” member of the party. Of course, given my party is of Evil alignment, that could really apply to most of the group. Almost as importantly, we see here that Emptyeye is eager to be the tactical leader of the group. Unfortunately, whether due to excess optimism or just outright ignorance, he’s rather misinformed about his group’s actual abilities at this point. He does, however, recover well enough to lead the party to victory in their first battle.
  • I definitely remember reading somewhere that just making it back to the Castle recovered your magic in the computer versions. MatrixTN, who has actually played said original versions, has since informed me that this is incorrect. In hindsight, that doesn’t make much sense anyway–what would the point of the Stables be in that case?
  • The original post was refreshingly free of typos, although there is one bit of bad writing upon a second look. “After the brief celebration, the group decided to form their plan.” Their plan for what? Their plan to explore and stay alive in the dungeon (What I actually meant)? Their plan to head to Gilgamesh’s Tavern for refreshing drinks?
    -EE

    • Sep 09

    So You Want to be a Speedrunner Progress- Day 29

    I made another pass through the presentation today, this time using the notes that I stated I had created in a previous entry. This time went much quicker, 43 minutes, which is just about where I want to be. I think this was primarily due to cutting out material, stories, etc. rather than actually speaking quicker. Unfortunately, I still have nervous habits with my hands (Clasping them, passing the remote back and forth between them) that I’ll have to try and eliminate. On the other hand, the speech part of it is coming along pretty well. The other piece of good news is that there’s enough video footage that I really only have to memorize small parts at a time, at which point I can consult my notes while everyone else is watching the video, which will get me through to the next video, etc.

    Sep 08

    Hello Nano!

    As I mentioned a few days ago, I ordered a 16GB iPod Nano via my credit card rewards (The fact that I have enough rewards points to get an iPod Nano is another issue, although as mentioned, I use the credit card for pretty much everything). It came today, and you can see some pictures in far-bigger-than-they-need-to-be size here. Thanks to Silver for holding up the Nano in three of the pictures.

    I’m less ashamed than I perhaps should be to admit that I took the 2GB Nano for a “Farewell Tour” at work today, listening to it more than I had in quite awhile. In a sense, it was appropriate, and although I have some sentimental connection to it (Again, it was really my last link to the pre-“adult” world that is college, even though I technically won it after I had been graduated for four months), said “last hurrah” was itself a sign that I needed a new iPod–despite allegedly being fully charged, the 2GB Nano ran out of battery before the end of the day.

    If you’re curious, the first album to be downloaded onto the new iPod was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, mainly by virtue of being the first album that caught my eye when sorting the songs by Artist.