How similar is Wizardry VIII to Might and Magic VII & VIII?
Which do you think is best?

I prefer Wizardry 8. When I tried the demo for it ages ago I was hooked immediately.

I played Might and Magic 6 way back when it was released (which uses fundamentally the same engine as M&M 7 to my knowledge) and didn't care much for it. Never tried M&M 7 or 8 specifically, though.

The Wizardry 8 demo might still be out there for download if you'd like to take it for a test drive...

The picture sums it up succinctly. If you haven't played Wizardry 8 you should do so. Also if you haven't played Wizardry VI and VII you should play those as well. IMHO they are better than 8 just as World of Xeen is better than VI-IX

They are both great, overall I played alot more MM 6-8, but in my younger days, now (30+) I think Wiz8 is better because the character system is more fun to try things with. So they tricycle pic is pretty accurate, Wiz8 is for grown ups.

The difference is that Might and Magic games are for playing while Wizardry is for working. Usually the Might and Magic games are much bigger while the Wizardry games take far longer to complete, it might take hours walking a few hundred meters through an already cleared area because of battles with random monster respawns for example.

If your time is valuable and you want quality time play Might and Magic, if you want to be kept busy and don't mind long playing sessions where you barely get forward play Wizardry.

Hmm have you played the M&M where you spend 5 minutes running into a temple, then get poisoned and run 5 minutes back to the healer, then 5 minutes back to where you were, then fight further in and have to run 10 minutes back to cure some condition?

The difference between M&M and Wizardry is that M&M focuses on exploration and Wizardry focuses on party building then progression. Most of the work required in Wizardry is party progression. It is what makes Wizardry fun; the challenge of building a group that can meet any threat even if that threat is contingency (the largest threat). This work, structuring a solid progression, should be done before you play. Later you work at meeting those requirements while you explore the dungeon (or world like VII and VIII) which is about as much work as any other crpg. I'm not saying you have to power level like some walkthroughs urge you to do (like this one:[url=]http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/Wizardry/Wizardry-6-Walkthrough/index.php[/url] a good walkthrough but most of what he does isn't required to go through all games but it makes it much easier albeit a lot longer).

I don't think the Tricycle picture is derogatory. Might and Magic, especially the older ones, had a childish world that was fun to explore; much like child on a tricycle exploring what seems to him as a vast world accessible to him. Playing Wizardry is similar to owning a motorcycle. Most of the time is spent in the shop tinkering with it so later you can be the meanest bastard on the street.

I suspect you're talking about the dwarven mines in World of Xeen. There's a reason why you get a quest which yields antidotes as reward before. You can last a few hours poisoned before you have to cure it, the suppress poison spell increases this time and with the cure poison spell, antidotes or other poison healing equipment you don't even need a temple.
Later in the game you'll get the town portal and LLoyd's Beacon spell to get to town and back, there are also teleporters for fast and comfortable travelling so you can spend most of your time exploring new things instead of backtracking as in Wizardry. Those 5 minutes (you can do it much faster) you spent going back in M&M are usually hours in Wizardry.

Was talking about the beginning of MM6, the dungeons in the starting town. Its no biggie for me, I have played through MM6-8 about 5 to 10 times each in the past 15 years. I just don't think Wiz8 is worse in this regard,although I suppose with a really bad party and without wizfast.exe it could be pretty tedious.

I played and completed Wizardry 8 years ago, and the one thing that really annoyed me most about the game were the constant random encounters, you can't even escape them in town! It got excruciatingly boring fighting the same old weak enemies over and over just maneuvering my way around old areas.

It's been so long since I played it. Is there a way to disable monster encounters in town? Or is my memory foggy and I'm mixing things up???

No, but I wonder if a mod could be made to disable respawning at least in some areas.

Might and Magic is lighter, more accessible and far more focused on exploration, but I wouldn't call it worse. They're very different takes on the same style of RPG and do what they do very well.

I like both series, but I've always found some of the M & M to be more comic in tone than Wizardry in some areas like the character selection screens ("Pick Me! No, Pick Me!") and the combat faces in 3DO's games as well as other dialog options. Granted Wizardry has some humorous aspects as well, but I think the gameplay was a bot more "serious" in a few aspects.

They are both great; it really depends what you are most interested in. Wizardry 8 for balanced tactical combat. Might and Magic for fun dungeons.

For me Wiz 8 really stands out because as well as changing to 3D they got rid of the class conversion min-maxing that was in previous Wizardry games. But some may think the opposite way.

For both games you need the patience to kill many thousands of monsters! But if you could not cope with such things you would not be on GOG ;-)

First lets start with this: They're both great game series. Now when choosing one over the other, that can be a bit difficult.

Wizardry is fun, but the focus of it is based primarily on building characters and for slow, but tactical fights. Might and Magic is fun as well, but it focuses on exploration and fast fights with many monsters.

Wizardry focuses quite heavily on plot and your choices in it matter heavily, while Might and Magic is much more loose on plot and you rarely have an effect on it.

For me, observing from just a gameplay standpoint, I would definitely go with Might and Magic over Wizardry. The fast combat is easy for beginners and incredibly fun overall, with exploring being an absolute ball in the huge worlds of Might and Magic. Plus, Might and Magic has a ton of charm in each games, from clever humor to just knowing the game had a ton of love put into it. Wizardry's combat, while not showing up as much, can drag heavily. Sometimes it drags because of difficult battles, and other times, you're just waiting for monsters to die. There's not a lot to do in Wizardry when you're not fighting as well.

Both are great games, don't get me wrong. But I recommend Might and Magic over Wizardry. That little tricycle pic I would agree with, if Might and Magic was represented with a mountain bike instead, because you can't explore much with a tricycle.