I uninstalled the obsolete Quicktime 4.0 that the game came with, and installed Quicktime 7.7.3 instead manually.

That fixed the audio in the FMV parts, no scratchy sound anymore. But the videos are still displayed as slow slideshows where each frame takes a second or two to draw from top to bottom, line by line. Odd.

This game was horribly broken on release, hopefully you're working with a more patched version than I have on disk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrORCz5q1AQ

Looks pretty cool, from what YouTube is showing me. :)

Not sure about the OP, but at least I am using the latest patch from Patches & Scrolls (333B):

http://www.patches-scrolls.com/search.php?game=wheel+of+time&platform=1&cnt=25

I would have thought my version is "International English" as it was bought here and even the readme suggests so, but the "International" patch gives an error of being incompatible, while the US patch installs fine. So I guess I have the US version after all, similar suprise as with the Rise of Legends game I bought earlier (it was also US version IIRC).

There's also some separate "Direct3D patch #2", I am unsure if the 333B patch includes it or not. But installing it as well doesn't seem to make any change, either to the FMV problem.

333B is quite much needed though because without it the game would not detect my 3D chipset at all, and let me play only with SW renderer (which seemed to work fine though). I haven't faced similar crashing issues though as some others on any PC I've tried the game with.

With 333B, the only issues I've seen myself so far on two different Win7 machines:

- The FMV problem (slideshow); googling for it, many haver reported the same but I didn't find a fix, only some general suggestions.

- Not sure if this is an issue, but there is certain enclosed area in the third level ("The Bowels of Shadar Logoth") that seems inaccessible, as if it is a secret area you can't open any way. I didn't see it mentioned in GameFAQs WoT walkthrough either, I think. If you use cheats to get into that enclosed room, there are some accessories and an enemy or two there.

I am unsure if that "secret" can never be accessed, or if it is some triggering problem when playing the game on newer PCs/OSes. Some other games like "Requiem" have had similar triggering problems on newer PCs.

Just for the heck of it, I decided try the "virtual PC" approach:

- Installed the newest VMWare Player in Win7/64bit.
- Installed Win98SE in it, and installed the (unofficial) final service pack for 98SE (sesp21a-en.exe), as well as DirectX 8.1 (DirectX8.1bRedistPackage.EXE).
- Installed Wheel of Time from within Win98SE (including Quicktime 4.0), and installed the latest US 333B patch for the game.

VMWare Player seems to support Win98 nowadays officially, and even has VMWare Tools for it and supports 3D acceleration, yay! This seems to be different from about one year ago when I tried the same. This is good news for Win9x gaming on modern machines.

However... here are the findings:

- I was unable to make VMWare Player display the game (1024x768 resolution) in full-screen. Either I missed some option, or the only way to display the game in full-screen is to set the Win7 resolution to the same as where the game is running, e.g. 1024x768?

- I couldn't get sound to work at all for some reason. Win98SE control panel says there is no sound source, even though I have enabled sound support in VMWare settings and installed VMWare Tools.

- When trying to run the original game installation, WoT.exe always crashes. But when you replace WoT.exe with a cracked no-CD version, the game starts ok. So it seems the virtual environment doesn't like the copy protection of the game?

- The game detected a Direct3D card when running the game setup! And the game seems to run at a good speed too.

- The intro and FMV are played fine (not a slideshow as in Win7), but they are not in full screen, just like the rest of the game is not.

- I am unable to tell though whether the graphics are really 3D accelerated. The rocks and walls look like 3D accelerated (filtered, ie. fuzzy, textures), but the trees look the same as with SW renderer, pixellated mess? It doesn't look quite as good as running the game straight from Win7, but still pretty good.

- But the real killer is that mouse support is completely broken in the game. It seems mouse sensitivity is set to two millions because if I merely move the mouse one millimeter, the screen seems to roll 720 degrees, and usually I end up looking at the sky for some reason. The mouse support is broken in other ways too, like as if the horizontal axis is reserved, ie. moving mouse to the left turns you to the right, etc.

So due to the lack of sound and the mouse problem, the game would actually run pretty good in a virtualized Win98SE environment. I find this quite encouraging. Too bad though that the game apparently has to be cracked so that it doesn't crash, which is not good news for those with a collection of old legit games. Damn DRM and copy protections to the depths of heck!

Interesting experiment, anyway.

Running Windows 7 - 64 bit and have Wheel of Time running well with beautiful graphics, but I am unable to get the cutscene Quicktime videos to play. I am not a programer, but I have wondered if it is possible to convert the Quicktime .MOV to WMV and edit the configuration so that it will play. Any programmers out there that can offer an advice/fix?

Doesn't the FMV play at all, even if you install the latest Quicktime on your system (and don't install the old Quicktime that the game is proposing)? For me the movies play ingame, but only as slideshows. This on two different Win7/64bit machines.

If GOG ever released this game, I'm pretty sure they could fix it, considering they have fixed somewhat similar FMV problems for some other games (e.g. Return to Krondor retail would not play the FMV either for me, but the GOG version does; not sure what format the video is. And I think something similar with Intel Indeo on Thief games etc.).

If someone is familiar with the game:

In the sixth mission ("The vault (beneath the white tower)"), there's some kind of Easter egg, which I don't see mentioned in any WoT walkthroughs, and I came up empty googling for it too.

The level is the one where there are traps everywhere, and no enemies. In one small room (alcove) you can see through the cracks on the wall that there is something orange (fire?) behind the wall. So, later when I got the Shift-spell that lets me go through gratings etc., I used it there, and instantly I got to that closed room.

It has some skull painting on the floor, and a text box comes on the screen saying: Also the cracked wall behind me is now fully open, so I can get out of the room now without a Shift spell. The problem is that now I've used up the Shift spell, and I can't get through another grating on the level to proceed to the next level.

I checked www.ocrana.de, and such web page seems to still exist (the game is from 1999, mind you). Some German-speaking gaming forum, I couldn't tell much. I would ask about the easter egg in that forum, but my German is not up to it.

So is this just some stupid easter egg I shouldn't care about, and is there some optional way to get to it, so that I don't use the Shift spell on it? I tried earlier to break the cracked wall with a fireball spell, but it did nothing.

The whole Vault level is confusing as heck anyway, it seems there are several ways to go through it.

EDIT: About Ocrana.de, I found this: http://wiki.quakeworld.nu/Ocrana

Without having played the game I can't really say, but it sounds like an intentionally obscure easter egg you're either not "supposed" to find, or bad level design. Maybe you need to progress further in the level to get more charges of the weave before exploring the secret room?

So, as part of my summer quest to play forgotten games, I've been playing this on Windows XP 64-bit.

I had 3Dfx running pretty well for the first few gameplays, then it started freezing as soon as I loaded a save game. So I switched to software rendering and while it certainly isn't as pretty, it still runs well. :)

I enjoyed Heavy Metal FAKK 2, but I can't really get into this. I'm not entirely sure what it is, perhaps the setting or what I find a weird mesh of RPG and FPS? At the first boss battle I finally had to cheat (despite being on "easy") because I found myself getting too tensed up to think about what ... t'nthernadal thing ... I should use at what point. Likewise I had to do that later when I had to survive until dawn. The talking smog (which I assume cannot die) is what pisses me off the most.

Hopefully I'll enjoy Revenant more. I may continue this after a little while, however...

Oh, I do think the soundtrack is pretty good, though. If this game came here, GOG would want to bring that too (even though the music can be easily obtained in the game files, lol). I uploaded the soundtrack to Skydrive for those interested: http://sdrv.ms/15qgqap

Talking smog? Do you mean that mist that follows you around? It sure is annoying as you need to run all the time as soon as you see it, I hate it when you have to be on constant alert but for some reason this game is kind of fun.

About the first boss, what I did was turn on the spirit shield then run to a tunnel where the boss can't chase you but he can attack you with his skulls but those you can shoot with arrows. Then just spam fireballs and that seeker missile until he dies.

Yeah, that stuff. :P It's not by any means a horrible game, I just haven't been enjoying it as much as Heavy Metal FAKK 2. Already got past that, but thanks. Maybe I should turn off cheating, at least temporarily.

I got the same files from e.g. here:

http://www.patches-scrolls.com/

(or http://www.patches-scrolls.de/)

Search for Wheel of Time, and they are there. That site is my main source for patches/updates for older retail PC games, albeit I wish they kept some descriptions for their patches, or readme files.

I didn't use the Direct3D patch though as I was unsure whether it is needed, if you use the 333b patch too. And I don't seem to need it anyway, I can play fine with both Direct3D and 3Dfx (nGlide) as long as the 333b patch is installed. Without it, the game doesn't recognize my Direct3D chipset. I didn't see any difference to that whether I used the Direct3D patch too on top of it.

The movie playing problem still persists (ie. the movies play only as slideshows in-game) though, but I just watch the movies separately with Quicktime player when I finish a level. :) VLC plays them also, but for some reason the audio is scratchy with VLC. Are the movies playing ok for you in Win7?

As for the "ocrana.de" Easter egg I mentioned earlier for the Vault level, I decided to let it be and move on with the game, as there was nothing to get from that hidden room anyway, no spells or anything.

At least for me Direct3D seems to run fine in all my PCs where I've tried it, as long as I installed the 333b update. Without it, only software rendering would work (and maybe 3Dfx with nGlide). But it still has the movie playing bug for me on anything newer than Win98SE (I'd like to see GOG fix that, albeit the movies are not that great in quality. But they contain a big part of the story between missions, being many times like 10 minutes in length).

And I agree the music is pretty nice in places, but still a bit... shallow. Like some good elevator music. :)

As for the rest of the game (so far, now in mission 7 I think ("The Ways/Blight"), playing with the hardest difficulty):

+ It is a bit different kind of FPS, as most of your weapons are actually spells, like slowly moving homing spells that eat enemies health over time as long as it hits them, or area damage spells like the earth quake spell (tremor?). And as at least I keep running out of spells all the time, I kinda have to try different spells to survive.

+ I guess the graphics are quite ok for a 1999 FPS game, but certainly they have aged.

+ Some levels are pretty atmospheric (I liked "The Wind" that you have to run away from in The Ways level, quite creepy and haunting).

+ There's some nice variation with the gameplay levels, e.g. one level where there are only traps, no enemies at all.

- But still, overall I haven't been overly crazy about the gameplay at any point. It's ok, but nothing more. You can see the age in the gameplay for example how the enemy monsters just stand forever on their spot, until they notice you or you attack them, at which point they start wake up and start attacking you. The same as in Wolf3D or Doom already. As far as I can tell, the enemies don't patrol or do any other things one might be expecting them to do. They mostly just stand there in one spot doing nothing.

- What's up with that training mission where you have to set up traps for the invading monsters, a bit like a first person view tower defense game? I think I am already past 60% of the game, and I haven't seen that same gameplay mode in any other levels besides the training level. Or is it only for multiplayer sessions?

- In a couple of levels you have fellow NPCs that fight along with you, but they seem pretty useless. They just run around like headless chickens, maybe are able to kill an enemy or two if they are lucky, and then die away. So you'll play rest of the level alone anyway. Nothing like the friendly NPCs in e.g. Half-life which were actually useful, and you could even use to your advantage for ambushing enemies etc.

So considering this game came out one year after Half-life, I feel it is eclipsed by it quite a bit, even if it is quite different FPS.