stalepie Posted August 30, 2010 Share Posted August 30, 2010 I am unfamiliar with old computers and emulating them, so I may be doing something wrong. But when I use Applewin and start up Wizardry 1 I cannot seem to delete a character. It freezes on the "Are you sure you want to delete this character (Y/N)" part. I need to delete at least 6 characters because I want to start with a fresh party and the copy of the ROMs I have come filled with premade characters. Also I was wondering if anyone could offer their opinions on what are the best versions of the early Wizardry games. I know they exist on NES, Famicom, Super Famicom and SNES, and I have the NES and Famicom games in my collection. I also have a copy of the IBM-DOS version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted August 30, 2010 Share Posted August 30, 2010 Don't have it in front of me... I'll see if I can test it later.. Just throwing this out there... Did the file get marked Read-Only? I've seen that happen (copying from CDs, etc) and it confuses things.. desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted August 30, 2010 Share Posted August 30, 2010 Try a different emulator. Also, make sure your disk images aren't set to read-only. The later Wizardry games for DOS had NPC parties that would quest and progress just like your party. I also heard that some had digital sound through the PC speakers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted August 30, 2010 Author Share Posted August 30, 2010 Oh, they ARE marked as read-only. However I followed this person's advice in marking them read only because it wouldn't start up the game properly without doing so (it would go to a blank screen after you pressed return at the title screen). Anyway, I am playing the NES version now, which as far as I can tell is very faithful to the original in regards to stats and gameplay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted August 30, 2010 Share Posted August 30, 2010 (edited) Oh, they ARE marked as read-only. However I followed this person's advice in marking them read only because it wouldn't start up the game properly without doing so (it would go to a blank screen after you pressed return at the title screen). OK, that's why you can't remove character's then... My guess is that there is a way to use/create a character disk or something similar??? Been too long.. I have to try that.. This link should help: http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/1/docs/bt1-command_summary_card-apple_ii.htm desiv Edited August 30, 2010 by desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streck Posted August 31, 2010 Share Posted August 31, 2010 (edited) Oh, they ARE marked as read-only. However I followed this person's advice in marking them read only because it wouldn't start up the game properly without doing so (it would go to a blank screen after you pressed return at the title screen). You should be able to temporarily mark the file as writeable, just for as long as it takes to delete the character. Heck, you can leave it that way for the whole time you're playing, and then just remember to mark the file read-only again before your next boot. As I recall, a separate character disk was the preferred way to go, though. Also I was wondering if anyone could offer their opinions on what are the best versions of the early Wizardry games. I know they exist on NES, Famicom, Super Famicom and SNES, and I have the NES and Famicom games in my collection. I also have a copy of the IBM-DOS version. I have a thing about playing games on the platforms for which they were originally designed. Sometimes they offer the best experience, sometimes not. But man, if you're playing the very first Wizardry game it only seems appropriate to play it on its original system, the Apple II. Edited August 31, 2010 by Streck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted August 31, 2010 Author Share Posted August 31, 2010 Ticking and unticking the read-only box doesn't seem to work. I think Applewin keeps in memory the version you loaded and doesn't check to see if the .dsk file on your hard drive has changed. I am having trouble creating a blank disk (I think). I looked at the help files that come with Applewin and it says to load DOS 3.3 master disk image into drive 1, then click on drive 1 to make a blank disk (make up any name you want and press enter), then type a simple program, such as 10 PRINT CHR$(4);"CATALOG" Then type INIT HELLO to initialize or format the disk. So I did all that and thought I had a blank disk for making the scenario disk in Wizardry. Well, to get to that screen you load up Wizardry and before you press "S" for start game, you go into Utilities and select Make Scenario Disk. It says, place original master scenario side in drive 2, and a formatted diskette in drive 1. I assume by "original master scenario" they mean disk 2 of Wizardry because when I tried disk 1 it did not work (my disk files are not labeled "original master scenario" and I am unfamiliar with the way the original disks looked). So I try that and I get ERROR MAKING SCENARIO ----------------------------------- DISK ERROR PRESS [RET] Any idea what I do instead? I looked at the Bard's Tale page but I didn't understand it because it said something about making a copy of the back side of Bard's Tale's boot disk. No idea how to do that.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted August 31, 2010 Share Posted August 31, 2010 I looked at the Bard's Tale page but I didn't understand it because it said something about making a copy of the back side of Bard's Tale's boot disk. No idea how to do that.. Go here: http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/1/files/index.html DL the Apple II version. It has a character disk in the archive. I am guessing that would be it.. desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted August 31, 2010 Author Share Posted August 31, 2010 I looked at the Bard's Tale page but I didn't understand it because it said something about making a copy of the back side of Bard's Tale's boot disk. No idea how to do that.. Go here: http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/1/files/index.html DL the Apple II version. It has a character disk in the archive. I am guessing that would be it.. desiv Why do I want to use a Bard's Tale character disk? I'm trying to play Wizardry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Climber Posted August 31, 2010 Share Posted August 31, 2010 Where is Tempest? This topic has his name all over it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted August 31, 2010 Author Share Posted August 31, 2010 Ah ha! I figured it out!! I simply had to ONLY mark the boot disk as read-only, not the scenario disk. This was quite stupid of me. I had both of them marked as read only. Thanks everyone for your help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streck Posted August 31, 2010 Share Posted August 31, 2010 (edited) Oh man, and I had a super-long post typed up. Glad you got it working! Incidentally, my preferred way to format new DOS 3.3 disks is with Copy II Plus. AppleWin has to be set to use "Authentic" disk speed when doing this, though, otherwise it errors out. You way may actually be faster though. Edited August 31, 2010 by Streck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatta Posted August 31, 2010 Share Posted August 31, 2010 I have a thing about playing games on the platforms for which they were originally designed. Sometimes they offer the best experience, sometimes not. But man, if you're playing the very first Wizardry game it only seems appropriate to play it on its original system, the Apple II. I do the same thing. Getting a game to run is part of the fun. Even if a game has an enhanced remake, historical curiosity is a big part of the reason why I do this. So having the same experience on the same hardware is a big draw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desiv Posted August 31, 2010 Share Posted August 31, 2010 (edited) Why do I want to use a Bard's Tale character disk? I'm trying to play Wizardry. D'oh!! Sorry, multiple forums, got confused! My bad.. desiv p.s. In the mean time Bard's Tale is fun! Edited August 31, 2010 by desiv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted September 5, 2010 Author Share Posted September 5, 2010 My party died today and I am busy rebuilding a new one to either fetch them from the dungeons or just stick with the new one and leave them there (or bring them back in case this happens again)... I like to play without cheats and walkthroughs, although i have cheated a little (I know where Murphy's Ghost is and a couple of other things), but mostly I've been drawing my own maps and slowly, carefully making my way through it. hard game! However a question: does anyone know if it was possible (or easy) to simply copy your character backups of Wizardry on Apple II to another disk in case you lose your party deep in the dungeons? I just don't want to go through with this again, and while I know that there are tricks (like resetting your machine before Wizardry automatically saves after a fight), I want to play it in the legit way, but it just occurred to me that this MAY BE the legit way that I was supposed to be doing all along! Like, duh! Of course I'm supposed to be making backups of my characters... in other words, using save states. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted September 5, 2010 Share Posted September 5, 2010 However a question: does anyone know if it was possible (or easy) to simply copy your character backups of Wizardry on Apple II to another disk in case you lose your party deep in the dungeons? Aren't you using an emulator (applewin)? Then can't you just take the disc images and make a copy of them (ctrl-c/ctrl-v) and there you go? Instant backup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted September 5, 2010 Author Share Posted September 5, 2010 However a question: does anyone know if it was possible (or easy) to simply copy your character backups of Wizardry on Apple II to another disk in case you lose your party deep in the dungeons? Aren't you using an emulator (applewin)? Then can't you just take the disc images and make a copy of them (ctrl-c/ctrl-v) and there you go? Instant backup? uh yeah but as I said I want to be sure that I'm not cheating - i.e., doing something that couldn't easily be done back in the early 80s on an apple 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streck Posted September 5, 2010 Share Posted September 5, 2010 However a question: does anyone know if it was possible (or easy) to simply copy your character backups of Wizardry on Apple II to another disk in case you lose your party deep in the dungeons? Aren't you using an emulator (applewin)? Then can't you just take the disc images and make a copy of them (ctrl-c/ctrl-v) and there you go? Instant backup? uh yeah but as I said I want to be sure that I'm not cheating - i.e., doing something that couldn't easily be done back in the early 80s on an apple 2. It was pretty common, back in the day, to back up character disks. There wasn't any copy protection on those, so you could easily use Copy II Plus (or any other copying program) to do it. If you'd invested enough time into the game then this was something that you'd definitely do. Trust me, you wouldn't be cheating! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted September 5, 2010 Author Share Posted September 5, 2010 However a question: does anyone know if it was possible (or easy) to simply copy your character backups of Wizardry on Apple II to another disk in case you lose your party deep in the dungeons? Aren't you using an emulator (applewin)? Then can't you just take the disc images and make a copy of them (ctrl-c/ctrl-v) and there you go? Instant backup? uh yeah but as I said I want to be sure that I'm not cheating - i.e., doing something that couldn't easily be done back in the early 80s on an apple 2. It was pretty common, back in the day, to back up character disks. There wasn't any copy protection on those, so you could easily use Copy II Plus (or any other copying program) to do it. If you'd invested enough time into the game then this was something that you'd definitely do. Trust me, you wouldn't be cheating! Thanks!!!! Still though... it makes me wonder why the game seems designed around the principle of not being able to easily recover your characters. For instance, there are whole features in the game related to this, like to restore your character in case of a power outage, to disband and retrieve characters later (out party), inability to revive characters in the Temple of Cant, etc. etc. PLUS there was a promise to try to retrieve characters from corrupted disks if you sent them in to Sir-Tech and included 15 dollars (i downloaded the apple 2 manual .pdf and saw this mentioned at the end). So if they went to all that trouble it makes me think the designers didn't expect players to easily be able to back up their characters and essentially "save" the game when they wanted (or at least whenever you were back in the castle). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted September 5, 2010 Share Posted September 5, 2010 Exactly.. back in the Apple 2 days I constantly copied my discs for Castle Wolfenstein or Aztec to still have my "good" saves. Only difference is now instead of taking many minutes it takes 1 second. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted September 5, 2010 Author Share Posted September 5, 2010 Exactly.. back in the Apple 2 days I constantly copied my discs for Castle Wolfenstein or Aztec to still have my "good" saves. Only difference is now instead of taking many minutes it takes 1 second. lol, I just clicked on your website url (from your profile) -- that's not you, right?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted September 5, 2010 Share Posted September 5, 2010 (edited) lol, I just clicked on your website url (from your profile) -- that's not you, right?? You know I didn't even know what you were talking about until I checked it out and lo and behold, I put that in as a joke years and years ago and totally forgot about it. Well, it's staying because it's hilarious And no, it isn't. Edited September 5, 2010 by NE146 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted September 5, 2010 Author Share Posted September 5, 2010 lol, I just clicked on your website url (from your profile) -- that's not you, right?? You know I didn't even know what you were talking about until I checked it out and lo and behold, I put that in as a joke years and years ago and totally forgot about it. Well, it's staying because it's hilarious And no, it isn't. aw, man! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatta Posted September 5, 2010 Share Posted September 5, 2010 So if they went to all that trouble it makes me think the designers didn't expect players to easily be able to back up their characters and essentially "save" the game when they wanted (or at least whenever you were back in the castle). Yes, save scumming is cheating. But everyone did it, so it's ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stalepie Posted September 5, 2010 Author Share Posted September 5, 2010 So if they went to all that trouble it makes me think the designers didn't expect players to easily be able to back up their characters and essentially "save" the game when they wanted (or at least whenever you were back in the castle). Yes, save scumming is cheating. But everyone did it, so it's ok. Actually I just noticed there is a backup option in the utilities section of the boot disk. So I guess it's not save scumming after all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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