This is incredably geeky but damnit it was annoying as crap! It was sunday, a day for rest and relaxation… but noooo you goddamn motherfucking video games are TOO MUCH WORK!
First off:
FUCK YOU WIZARDRY 8!
Gah I could cry this game is so hard. The last 3 Wizardry games I played were difficult, nay almost impossible. But I hunkered down, treated my party with kidness and love and brought them to greatness.
Then came Wiz8.
Again, someone jumped on the whole “lets have a RPG in an interactive 3D enviroment” followed by, “wait! Since it’s 3d lets have a party formation, you assign party members locations and facings and we can allow cool things like flanking, ambushes and what not, it’s all good!”.
It is NOT all good.
First off: You never encounter only 1 or 2 monsters. Every single goddamned encounter is at least 15-35 creatures. 15-35 creatures that can RUN and attack at the end of the round. My party can either attack or move. Not both.
15 monsters? Bah Some of you are saying. That’s nothing, I killed 5 groups of 20 vampire bats in Wizardry 6 with 1 level 7 alchemist’s spell.
To those people, “I CURSE THEE!”
Not only do I lack the magical firepower to kill anything with more than 30 hps. The second I see a group of monsters they encircle my party and ALL attack my 31 hp mage. And since I’m encircled they do double damage.
Lets not even go into those damn archers with 6 poison/stunning attacks a round. Literally EVERY bloody fight comes down dumb luck. Dumb luck like: My thief is at full health, with an armor rating of 17 (pretty bloody high) what’s the chance that each 6 monsters will attack him with 5 attacks each doing 10 points of damage? 95%.
What’s the chance that everyone will miss that 1 hp Ratkin Breeder with their attacks and that the Breeder will attack my party with 4 attacks for a total of 250 damage? 99%
Why am I so pissed at this stupid video game? I finally ganked an item I’ve been trying to get all weekend. I got it, managed to flee to a relatively safe room and healed up (saved my Ninja who was poisoned with 1 hp left YAY) and was making my way back to my base of operations. I decided I’d poke my head near the Dark Savant’s tower, ya know get a few thousand xps for little work.
I was attacked by 4 Savant Drones (50-70 hp flying, long range attack doing up to 10 points of damage 1 attack per turn).
I died.
Round 1: My level 11 mage backfired a power 7 fireball… The same spell she’s been slinging without a problem since level 8. My mage went down to 2 hps and my enginer to 30. All 4 drones attacked the engineer, she died.
Round 2: My cleric cast a level 4 healing spell on the mage, my fighters opened up with their bows and my mage tried a level 3 iceball spell…
Cleric’s spell backfires killing the mage, my thief goes down under massed firepower from the Savant Drones.
Round 3: I fight, cleric casting attack spells.
1 drone dies. Samurai and ninja are badly wounded.
Round 4: Cleric casts a LIGHT healing spell on the ninja and the Samurai drinks a healing potion.
Healing spell backfires, brining the ninja down to 5 hp and the Samurai FUMBLES his potion. CHRIST He’s got an artifact’s skill of 45! (Skill needed to use magic items) and potions require a skill of 0 to use!!!
Samurai and Ninja fall under volley of return fire.
Round 5: I cast make wound on my cleric to end his suffering.
The spell backfires!!! and hits him he’s at 15 hp.
All Savant Drones MISS! First time EVAR they missed!
Round 6: A band of allied fighters show up and engage the drones. A blinding flash spell backfires (again!) and blinds my cleric.
Round 7: Another BACKFIRED healing spell heals the last Savant Drone, this triggers the allied fighters to go hostile, since I’m helping their enemies…
My cleric stumbles blindly and then is beaten down.
ARRRRRG
So I switch over to playing darkspace.
I log in, I get some messages that there is an attack in the Wolf system. The Wolf system is two short jumps away from the Sol system, the homeworld of my faction. I log in to the game server and pull my Elite Assault Dread out of storage and go forth and kick ass.
I link up with 2 fleetmates and we take up position outside of the Ross to Wolf jumpgate and get some recon information to plan our entry into Wolf and an approach vector to the planets still held by our faction.
We slip into Wolf just as an enemy vessel enters Ross. We quickly jump to our planets and relative safety.
Another fleet mate is jumping out near enemy held planets and waiting until the enemy fleet attacks him then our fleet jumps in to ambush the attackers.
The 3rd time we get a distress mission. The bulk of the ICC fleet ignored the fient and hit one of our planets. We disengage and rush to the defence.
We lose a few ships, they lose more. The ICC get reinforcements.
The 3rd faction shows up.
A second ICC fleet bypassed the Wolf and Ross systems and attacked Earth. We quickly shift our fleet back.
We save earth and annihilated the enemy fleet. A fleet mate and I rush back to the defense of Wolf.
We get there in time to see the ICC fleet in wolf landing troops on the only Terran class planet. Luckilly, one of the ICC command ships is seperated from the rest of the fleet. We jump him, I cripple his engines and shift to attacking the ICC who have left orbit and are moving to save their teammate.
I run away like a scared little girl as my fleetmate kills the command ship.
He withdraws with me as a 3rd fleetmate shows up in a transport and dumps a cargohold full of ground troops on our invaded planet.
The ground war isn’t going well. 18 enemy Elite ground divisions vs the weak, the lame and the sick.
The ICC bring in another wave of ships with fresh troops.
I load up on troops and jump in, the situation on the planet is better. 9 enemy vs 2 friendly. The enemy fleet engages me.
I withdraw after savaging one enemy ship… My fleetmates jump in landing more troops and killing the damaged enemy.
I jump back in after minor repairs and take out withdrawing assault ship.
We land more troops.
They land more troops.
Reinforcements show up! Beautiful reinforcements show up.
Reinforcements die.
My fleetmate and I jump back in and polish off the damaged enemy ships still in close orbit around our planet.
We land troops. Planet is saved.
The rest of our reinforcements enter the system. We have a HUGE arguement about what to do, some of them want to attack the ICC homeword, the rest of us who realize it’s 17 on 6 decide to stay.
It’s now 21 on 3.
The Kluth attack.
The Kluth are driven back and some die. One of the 3 remaining defenders logs.
A few enemy ships make a couple of probing attacks… we kill them.
I get some water and when I come back, the ICC fleet is attacking our planet AGAIN. Apparently not knowing only 2 people were defending they drop troops and withdraw. The two of us keep jumping in, killing enemy ship after enemy ship and landing infantry.
In the meantime we’re screaming for help.
Turns out we were disconnected from the global sever and nobody could hear us 
We finally get reconencted and a fresh wave of reinforcements show up. After we saved the planet.
We mount a counter attack and capture the ICC’s staging planet.
The Kluth attack.
We fight them off.
We fight them off again.
I’m put in charge of the fleet 
I don’t want to be incharge, I want to go pee… very very badly.
We hold 4 of the 7 planets in this system…
We fight a series of 5 running battles with the Kluth in deepspace. Beating back their ships but only destroying a handful.
I’m noticing more and more Kluth but fewer ICC in this system.
Then we decide to attack the remaining 3 planets outside of our control.
Attempt 1) We jump in a bad location, 3 planets open fire with around 60 missiles every few seconds.
Our ships are battered around, half the fleet manages to orbit the enemy planet and land troops. I can’t enter orbit, too much massed firepower. Everyone who enters orbit dies.
Fresh ships come in and they try again. This time we approach from a less defended vector.
People hit the planet, run into a badly placed minefield and die from the planet’s defeneses.
3rd attempt is broken off by a counter attack.
That is put down.
Ignoring my 5th attempt at telling them NOT TO ATTACK they attack again.
I log off in disgust.
System is captured by the kluth in 45 min.
I spent a lot of time swearing.
Not only was I abandoned once, but three times to hold that freaking system practically BY MY SELF! People show up at the end of the worst of the running battles, want to attack and get slaughtered and then start yelling at me and everyone else on our side for not ‘helping’ them.
Look you inbred MORON, you were stopped dead in orbit where 3 goddamn planets could hit you.
Tell me, exactly what could we do when we don’t have a supply ship and you’re too stupid to LEAVE ORBIT. Gah. Then there is the guy in the transport.
You’re a TRANSPORT. You aren’t a front line combat ship. Do NOT RUSH THE ENEMY HELD PLANET! See that Ganglia. It has 6 cl2ks… the heaviest beamweapon in the game. It has more direct firepower than my EAD has, and I’ve got the heaviest ship in our faction. If you go in first, and enter orbit INFRONT OF IT EXPECT TO DIE.
Then they get in a huff and go join either ICC or Kluth.
Which puts us at a further disadvantage, both other factions have 2 or 3 to 1 numerical superiority… And both have more capible combat ships.
Gah. 3 hrs and 17 ships destoryed and we lose the system 45 min after I log off
and due to a glitch I had with 2 level ups for him I got 30 bonus points twice in a row I also have snake speed and reflexion.