Transferring Wizardry characters
 

I recently downloaded Wizardry, but before I play it I want to make sure I'll be able to transfer the characters. DosBox does not support floppy disk swapping, and I don't even think it uses any kind of floppy disk stuff when I run this game.

I've tried using a virtual floppy drive, but it didn't work. Does anyone know how to do this? Everything else works fine, but you can't create new characters in Wizardry 2 or 3.

I think you should check by installing W2 or W3.

Usually the way it works is to give the directory of the previous parts of the game (what is on the HDD), then choose the file from there.

As it already been said, check the method of transfer first.

Worse thing which can happen is that the game ask you for two A:\ or B:\ drives simultaneously... Which can most probably be bypassed by copying everything in a single folder and flagging it as A:\ or B:\.

If the game is good enough they'll even allow you to input the source and destination, in which case you should have no problem at all since you do have the power to mount whatever you want in DOSBox.

I never "installed" the game--it just came as a folder.

I have the two games in separate folders right now. The closest thing either one has to a disk is the ".dsk" file in each. Mounting that doesn't really do anything.

Each folder contains a batch file that I can use to run the game. When I run Wizardry 1, the characters show up when I try to transfer them. I assume that the game acts as though the Wizardry 1 disk is inserted. I just need to know how to "insert" the Wizardry 2 disk... unfortunately, DosBox doesn't support swapping floppy disks. I might be able to tell it I have two disk drives, though.

When I attempt to transfer characters, here is the process:

The game first says "insert the source disk into drive 1." I don't do anything, but after pressing enter, it brings up the list of characters I have in Wizardry 1. Like I said, it must be acting as though I have the disk inserted. It then says "insert the destination disk in drive 1." This is where I get confused. If I press enter without doing anything, nothing happens. It says "[character] was transferred." I assume it must be transferring the characters from Wizardry 1 to Wizardry 1. I don't know how to get it to work with other games.

Any help?

You seems to be familiar with folders so let's try this:

Run the game as normal until they ask you to swap disks. At that point, tab out of DOSBox and do this in Windows:

(I will use Folder1 for your Wizardry 1 folder and Folder2 for your Wizardry 2 folder.)

-Rename Folder2 as Folder3. (use whatever name you want, it won't matter)
-Rename Folder1 as Folder2. (use the exact same folder name you used to mount Wizardry 2)

Tab back in DOSBox.

Once this is done, hit enter so the characters are "being transferred". By transferred I am pretty much certain that it means "loaded in memory", so it should have no effect on either folders.

Once the game tell you "[character] was transferred.", do this:

-Rename Folder2 as Folder1.
-Rename Folder3 as Folder2.

And you should be back to normal folder with characters hopefully transferred.

Let us know how this work. ;)

Vista won't let me rename the folder while the program is running. I'll see if I can't find out how to do that.

EDIT: I don't think most OS's will let you rename folders like that. Any other suggestions?

Okay... This is a tough one.

Did you try trying to find the character files and move the Wizardry files to the Wizardry 2 folder directly? Or are the character files embedded in whatever other file?

Is there a save folder?

Gives:
Seems pretty clear to me what you must do.

Well, transferring the characters is pretty easy. Make sure all the game files are in the same folder, which would mean that:

- A game from the first trilogy of Wizardry has 3 files:
- wizX.com
- saveX.dsk
- wizX.dsk

Where X represents the number of the game which ranges 1-5. Only forward moving is possible - you can only transfer characters from an earlier game to a later game, like from 1 to 2 - so be sure to have strong characters before you move onto the next episode.
Now comes the important part: moving your characters. I'll describe this as if you were trying to do this with Wiz1 and Wiz2. Let's pretend you have 2 separate folders for each game they're called Wiz1 and Wiz2.
First of all, go into the Wiz1 folder, and copy it's contents (wiz1.com, save1.dsk, wiz1.dsk) to the Wiz2 folder. Check the contents of the second folder, now it should contain the following files:
- wiz1.com, wiz2.com, wiz1.dsk, wiz2.dsk, save1.dsk, save2.dsk

Run wiz2.com in dosbox, ignore the screen which says you must create a scenario disk, then move to the (E)dge of Town, (U)tilities, and (M)ove characters. There you can now select the characters which you want to transfer into Wizardry 2.

IMPORTANT: the game says the characters will be imported into Wiz2 permanently, but I'm sure you can delete them if you would like to. It only means you can't export them to Wiz1 from now on.

Have fun playing the game and feel free to ask if you have further questions.

Hmmm... that's a problem. My folder contains "WIZ1.BAT" (which is a batch file for running the game), WIZ1.DSK, WIZ1.ICN, WIZ1.RES, WIZ1M.ICN, WIZ1MAKE.BAT, and WIZDOS.COM. There is no "save1.dsk," and "WIZDOS.COM" is in every game folder. It's the same thing in each folder, used for running the game. Maybe I have a bad copy?

EDIT: The download on this site is the same. It probably isn't the copy of the game I have. Does anyone have any idea what's going on?

Did you try copying everything from 1 and 2 to a new folder? Maybe it will work that way...

Shit seems to went wrong. Obviously, the on-site game is something else than what I played. I know that there are numerous versions of the game, and they've been changed a little from time-to-time. The only answer can be that either I was playing with the original DOS release, or more likely I was playing the Wizardry Archives release (which was a nineties port/remake of the trilogy). Maybe I could provide you my archives, movezig5. But that might mean you would need to start over. :omg: Honestly, I didn't know about this. The situation makes me assume the other games were provided by someone else too, there just wasn't anyone willing to write a review them. But the fact that the on-site game is different from what I played scares me. Will then everyone bump into a wall of bugs when trying to transfer their characters? Dammit.

I see. I haven't started playing yet (because of this bug), but I think I'll see if I can't get the Ultimate Wizardry Archives. That would probably be easier than trying to get this to work.

Thanks for all your help!

EDIT: Wizardry Ultimate Archives works flawlessly. Time to finally start my game!

We're glad to help you. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. Have fun playing Wizardry:D

Figured it OUT! Wiz 1 Characters to Wiz 2
 

Finally figured out how to move the characters.

3 Folders in my root C folder: Wiz1 Wiz2 and WizCopy
Folder Wiz1 has the original Wiz1 .dsk file in it, but it is renamed to Wiz2.dsk
Folder Wiz2 has all the files for Wizardry 2
FolderWizCopy has a copy of the Wizardry 2 wiz2.dsk in it

Start game normally
Goto Edge of Town
Goto Utilities
Goto Move Characters

To enter your Source Disk (Wiz1.dsk)
Open the Command Prompt
Navigate to the folder Wiz 1
At the prompt type copy wiz2.dsk c:\wiz2
Press Enter
Press Enter on the Wizardry 2 game - it will copy the characters

It will then prompt you to enter your source disk.
Open the Command Prompt
Navigate to the folder WizCopy
At the prompt type copy wiz2.dsk c:\wiz2
Press Enter
Press Enter on the Wizardry 2 game - it will copy the characters

It will then prompt you to enter your source disk.
Press Enter - IT will give you an error about not really being the source disk.
Click the X and close to program.
Restart the program and shazam the characters are there.

Have fun!!!

I am way to inexperienced with computers to follow these instructions. I tried several times, without success. Any chance anyone can upload Wizardry II with characters already loaded? At this point, I don't even care about using my characters from Wizardry I, I just want to to play the second scenario.

hey everyone.

i had exactly the problem the thread opener had. and i was able to fix it, thanks to lokii's post.

however, i modified the method he described slightly.

1st, i had to start up wizardry 1 (I'm using DosBox, btw). there, i went to the edge of town, utilities, move and moved my party. it doesn't make a lot of sense (or does it?), but it didn't work before i did this, so i list it as step 1.

2nd, i made a backup of my wiz1.dsk, copied it to a new folder and renamed it to wiz2.dsk.

3rd, i made a backup of the original (blank, if you will) wiz2.dsk that came with wizardry 2.

4th, i started up wizardry 2, went to edge, utilities, move, until the game asked me to put in the disk i wanted to move the characters from.

5th, i copied the backed-up wiz1.dsk (renamed to wiz2.dsk) into the wizardry 2 folder, replacing the file of the same name present there.

6th, back in the game, i hit enter. finally i saw my party from wizardry 1, marked them for copy, hit enter again.

7th, the game asked me to insert the disk to copy the characters to, so i copied the backed-up original wiz2.dsk to the wizardry 2 folder, once again replacing the existing file.

8th, in the game, hit enter and i saw my characters being imported.

9th, ignoring the prompt to re-insert the original disk, i simply closed the game window and restarted the game normally. my characters were finally available to play wizardry 2!

i know, it sounds really complicated, and it's quite possible that there's a much easier way to do this - but it worked for me.
hopefully this post will help others in the future, too.

long nights and pleasant nights to you,
atantuo

Thanks, that worked perfectly. Like you said, I have no idea why it works, but it worked! So thanks again!

Transferring characters to Wizardry 3
 

I have the ultimate wizardry archives, and here is my procedure:
(make sure the save1.dsk or save2.dsk is in the same directory as the wiz3)
E)dge of town
U)tilities
M)ove Characters
select from which Wizardry...in my case 1) Proving Grounds and 2) Knight of Diamonds. I picked 1
select your character(s) and hit enter
go back to the E)dge of town
T)raining ground
I)nspect character - your new characters should be visible
select your new character
L)egate
enter to leave that character. select another and repeat if needed
enter to leave training grounds
new character should now be visible in Gilgamesh's Tavern

Note: be careful that you don't have too many characters in Wiz3 before you start this. Also, for the transfer process, use your dosbox settings to slow down wiz3 as much as possible, so you can read any error messages that come up. This is available in the CPU section of D-Fend Reloaded profile for the game. I had about 200 cycles to read the messages. That's how I found out I had a full roster, and it wouldn't transfer.