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?