I want to play Wizardry 1. Without cheats and similar things. But I was wondering if I should play the DOS version or the original Apple. I read somewhere that the DOS version has bugs? Even if GOG doesn't have the game I guess this is the right forum to ask.

I dont want to play the good looking NES, SNES & PS1 versions.

The version contained in the Wizardry Archives collection is the one that has a nasty bug involving stat growth, one where at least one player has reported having young characters die of old age.

The DOS floppy version, I believe, is quite playable without the same flaw. I do not know what bugs, if any, are present in this version.

The Apple 2 version suffers from worse graphics and a worse interface, but it has the advantage that the identify glitch is present, allowing you to break the game if you so choose. (The glitch only happens if you press something outside the 1-8 range when having a Bishop identifiy items.) This version has a few other quirks, like the fact that you can encounter 2 groups of enemies at once on the first floor (in other versions, this doesn't happen until at least the second floor, though I'm not even sure about that), and that spells can be cast during the surprise round (this can be unfair if a group of mages ambushes your party). Also, there are cheat programs for the Apple 2 (like WizPlus) and even some that let you make custom dungeons and monsters; I am not aware of similar programs for the DOS version.

Alright. So I will try to play the Dos floppy version. The thing about spells can be cast during the surprise round in the Apple version sounds horrible :D Thanks!

I didn't encounter any bugs when playing the DOS version myself, unless you consider it a bug having an about 1/3 chance of losing a stat when leveling up.
Also, I suggest changing the video card option to CGA to get the correct colours of the original game.

The actual chance of losing a stat in the Apple 2 version (which seems to not have any bugs) is as follows:

1 in 4 chance that a stat won't change at all.
If the stat is 18, the stat has a 1 in 6 chance of having a chance of going down.
The chance of the stat going down is age / 130; otherwise the stat increases if not already 18.

For example, a 26 year old character has a (3 / 4) * (1 / 5) = (3 / 20) = 15% chance that any given non-maxed out stat will decrease at level up (and a 60% chance of it increasing).

In the Wizardry Archives version, the chance of a stat decreasing is much greater for whatever reason, and *that* I consider a bug. I believe the floppy disk versions of the game do *not* have this particular bug.

Also, just because you don't notice a bug doesn't mean it isn't there; in at least the Apple 2 version, for example, there are significant bugs with the HAMAN and MAHAMAN spells (which most players probably never use in Wizardry 1) that cause only certain effects to be possible. (Also, did you know that there is a small chance (1 / level, but maybe it's supposed to be 5 / level (another bug) that the spell would mangle the character's spell books?)

(Side note: Spell books being mangled appear to be one of two instances where the game uses a male pronoun to refer to one of your characters; the other one involves losing experience after being level drained.)

Edit: These chances are only approximate due to the fact that the game generates a random number and reduces it modulo the range; hence, lower numbers are *slightly* more common than higher numbers. Also, I don't know how good the PRNG (which is the one Apple Pascal uses) is.

I thought I had found the floppy version but I seem to loose a lot of points when leveling up. To me it looks like its 50-50 if some stat goes up or down. Maybe I got wrong version. Think you could direct me to a site which has the floppy version :) PM maybe. Does this make the game alot harder? Or its it possible to complete the game with this bug? I guess you never gonna get the ninja... Playing the Apple II with surprise attacks 1st round spells sounds to harsh.

Maybe the C64 version is good?

Okey. Probably will continue with the dos versions then. Tried the C64 this evning and its rather slow. Leveled up one level and the 3 first characters only got stats going up so I was really excited. But then the other 3 looked more like the dos version with 2 to 3 stats going down. So I dont know.

I just completed floppy version of Wizardry1, didn't see any real issues with it. I like the Apple 2 version better for the most part, though I don't recall why (was many years ago). I think it has a few extra features like hiding if I remember right. But the dos floppy version may be easier. If I remember right, teleporter trap was bad news on Apple 2 version. In floppy dos version, I get teleported all round on level 10 and never end up in stone. I just don't recall if that was true in Apple 2 version.

I have been playing for a couple of hours now. But this one thing I dont understand. My evil priest became good. I have never let any friendly group go. Killed them all :) So why did my priest change alignment? This really destroyed my situation.

I am playing the C64 version. A bug?

Do you know how alligment works and how it can change? I have really no clue why my priest turned good. We were killing everything.

In the Apple 2 version:
A friendly encounter will only occur if you have at least one good aligned character in the party.
The chance of a group of monsters seems to be in the range of 1-31% depending on the type of monster. (The code is a bit convoluted; the random number (1-1)) must be at least 50, but not more than a monster type dependent value.)
If an encounter is friendly, all monster groups are automatically identified (in case you choose to fight them).
If you choose to fight, there is, for each good character in the party, a 1/2000 chance that the character will turn evil. (The game checks to see if the random number is exactly equal to 565; this smells like a bug to me.)
There is no code to change a character's alignment from evil to good, even if you somehow get into a friendly encounter with an evil character in the party.

In other words, it appears that what happened to you *can't* actually happen in the Apple 2 version (barring some memory corruption bug, but the only one I know of (the identify bug) can't change alignment, I believe).

I'll look up the code for Wizardry 3 in a moment, as I wouldn't be surprised if the behavior changed, and if the changes also appeared in other versions of Wizardry 1.


Wizardry 3 (Apple 2 version) did change some things:

There's some check (looks like it might be comparing party and enemy alignment) that can prevent an encounter for being friendly; otherwise, there's a chance (3-50% (or is it 3-30%?) depending on enemy type) of the encounter being friendly (and this is calculated in a more straightforward way than in Wizardry 1). Again, the enemies are identified when this happens.

If you choose to fight, each good character has a 5% chance of turning evil; if you choose to leave, each evil character has a 5% chance of turning good.

It seems that they really cleaned up the routine between Wizardry 1 and 3; the Wizardry 3 routine makes more sense. Isn't this behavior more sensible?

This seems to be the only thing that can change a character's alignment.

The C64 version is probably broken then.

I got a Evil - Neutral party and has encountered a friendly group of enemies 15-25 times already so something is not right I guess. It is actually the second time this happend. The first time it was my theif that turned good but I didnt care that much because he was useless.

If I would run away from all these kind of battles? Are there something about that in the code. If I did that maybe alignment wont change?

But this is not something that happens in the Dos floppy version? I think the c64 is based on the Dos and might have similar problem?

The C64 version is probably following Wizardry 3's logic (allowing evil parties to find friendly monsters); I suspect that the developers hadn't really thought through the mechanics when Wizardry 1 was written. It is pretty obvious from the rather sloppy code in W1 that was re-written by the time of W3 that they didn't quite know what they were doing at times. Another example is that, in the Apple 2 version of W1, it is possible for both party members and enemies to cast spells during the surprise round (imagine being ambushed by a group of mages who blast your party with spells before you can do anything); this was changed in other versions and in W2 and W3.

In any case, the way to prevent evil characters from turning good, assuming there's no bug, is to fight friendly monsters. If fighting them is making your characters turn good, it is possible that there may be a bug specific to the C64 version; maybe the check is wrong and leaving them in peace is how you would prevent your characters from changing alignment?

(By the way, the Apple 2 version of W1 has a couple other bugs I am aware of; one is the Identify glitch, and the other involves the HAMAN and MAHAMAN spells, which can't produce all the effects they should be able to (and which don't scramble your spellbooks as often as what I suspect was intended.)

Thanks for the answers. Guess I am quite screwed. I will maybe try flee battles instead and see what happens. But with the game going quite slow and I need to roll and level up a new priest it will be pretty time consuming. So we will see if I want to put the time into it.

Is it possible to meet evil enemies in this choose what to do encounters? Maybe I just missed that? Grasping at straws here :D

Another question. When you change class. What happens to HP? Will I gain a similar amount as I gained in the previus class for each exp level?