Gilgamesh’s Tavern

**UPDATE**
Due to my general dissatisfaction with the game, I cancelled the podcast several months after the initial launch.

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been a lifelong fan of the Wizardry franchise. In fact, writing that post had me pining for the glory days of Wizardry again. So much so, that I began researching the upcoming Wizardry Online game rather heavily. I must say, I’m very impressed with what I’m seeing. My love for Japan has been established on this site. So has my love for the fantasy genre and dungeon-crawling type adventure games. The old Wizardry games were rooted very much in the classic Dungeons & Dragons vein of “fantasy gaming”. Which is perhaps why I found them so appealing.

As time went on and Wizardry declined in popularity, Final Fantasy seemed to quench my thirst for fantasy games well enough. Between the Japanese style art-direction and a swords and sorcery element.I was hooked. But, over time, Final Fantasy evolved into it’s own genre. I’d call it high-fantasy. While I still love the series, it’s easy to say that it is no longer rooted in the classic “knights and dragons” western ideal of fantasy gaming. In short, there is little to no Dungeons & Dragons left in Final Fantasy.

The Japanese takeover of Wizardry did not mirror  this trend. If anything, the Japanese developers of Wizardry are very careful to stay true to the material that inspired the original games, and from what I’ve seen, this has carried over to Wizardry Online.

This excitement has lead me to undertake a new project. I’d like to announce the beginning of both my first-ever podcast, and the first English language Wizardry Online podcast: Gilgamesh’s Tavern.

The first episode is already available on iTunes, with new episodes coming bi-weekly. I felt that, being a first-time podcaster, I needed something big to give myself a little credibility. Therefore, I sought out one of the original creators of Wizardry, Robert Woodhead and conducted a 30 minute interview about the origins of the game, and his thoughts and memories of Wizardry over the years.

I hope that over time, as Wizardry Online is released and grows in popularity, my podcast becomes one of the first places Wiz Online fans turn for news and community.

Links to the show in iTunes are provided below:

With that being said, now that the podcast project has been launched, I will again be able to update this blog with much for frequency and begin building a nice site for those you out there that share my passions.