The Major BBS Forums

Elwynor Technologies is completely excited to share the great news that, for the first time in over 30 years, Quest for Sorcery is back! Thank you to JAMS for this amazing find from the v4.x era. It was a priority to port after completing Alchemy II and Quest of the Alchemists, and this has been done. It's on beta test on bbs.elwynor.com. I'm sure something will be wonky because this game is so old -- but this is a game long thought lost forever. So happy to be able to share it.

THE BACK STORY...

You are a master wizard from the world of Peyennuu, who has arrived upon a
strange, mystical world through a portal between dimensions. This world is
called Sargoin, and odd and mysterious place where weird plants and animals
surround you, and magic as you know it does not exist. Instead, this world is
the center of a power, although new to you, is as ancient as the universe
itself--SORCERY! To survive, you must learn everything you can discover, and
to grow in power you must master this force known as SORCERY. It is only by
using your skill and imagination that you can hope to control your destiny and
find you niche in the universe.

WHAT IS QUEST FOR SORCERY?

Quest for Sorcery is a multi-player adventure game in which many players
can interact in the same simulated universe at the same time.

Quest for Sorcery takes place on the other side of a portal from the swords-
and-sorcery fantasy world of Peyennuu, the mythical land which was the setting
for QUEST FOR MAGIC, QUEST OF THE ALCHEMISTS, and ALCHEMY II: THE HANGOVER.
This game takes place in Sargoin, a realm where sorcery remains strong but
the world is strangely in ruin.

The object of the game is to "master" sorcery--you must figure out what this
entails!

GAMEPLAY

Quest for Sorcery is an on-line RPG (Role-Playing Game), where you, and
up to 255 other users, can take on the "role" of an imaginary character within
the context of the fantasy world of Sargoin. It is similiar in nature to the
popular TSR, Inc. game of "Dungeons & Dragons", except the computer acts as an
"automated Dungeon Master". Game play is similiar to that of Zork, or any
other text adventure, but with a key difference -- many people can
simultaneously be interacting, in real-time, in the same simulated universe.

COMBAT

Combat in the QUEST FOR SORCERY is done by spell attacks and use of magical
items, not hand to hand combat. Swords, daggers, and the like are not found
in the game, and no such style of combat is used in combating foes (be these
other players or other things...).

Armor is not available in this game due to the strict laws of magic use which
forbid mundane protection. Instead, you must learn and use the spells of
protection which will defend you from other mystical forces, depending on your
magical strength!

SPELLS

The casting of magical spells is one of the major pastimes in the QUEST FOR
SORCERY, and plays an intricate part in the solution of the game itself.
Spells are cast by typing in the required "incantation" and if the moon is
right--it's magic!! Sometimes you will encounter difficulty in casting a
certain spell, but we can not help you with that puzzle. You alone must
decide how the "mechanics of sorcery" work, and how to "master" them.

MODULE HISTORY

Quest for Sorcery was one of a series of 7 text-based adventure RPGs written
by Scott Brinker. It is based upon the Quest for Magic game, which itself was
based upon Fazuul by Tim Stryker, which at the time, was mired in copyright
issues as it was written pre-Galacticomm for a client. It is set in a world
just off the same world as Quest for Magic. Quest for Sorcery was written in
February & March of 1987. It was sold by Moonshae Telecomm (later called
Galactic Innovations, and later acquired by Galacticomm). It was never sold
under the Galactic Innovations TPD name, nor by Galacticomm. In fact, by 1989,
it wasn't sold at all. A sequel, Quest for Sorcery II (and referred to in the
original game messages as Quest on Sargoin) was written in late 1987, but may
never have been released. We only have a binary copy of that one,
unfortunately. Both Sorcery games inspired Sorcerer's Isle, which was released
by Galactic Innovations prior to the acquisition by Galacticomm.

Quest for Sorcery was acquired by Elwynor Technologies in 2005. But as the
game was so old and so rare, it was not found until 2021! It was immediately
ported to Worldgroup 3.2. This is the first time this game has been made
available in over 30 years!

Amazing news

Lots of exploration & tests ahead... I'll play that one in parallel with Alchemy 2 (which looks very stable, so far so good!)

Thanks for putting them up!

After some time, it seems there's no way to progress, but maybe I haven't figured it out yet and that's the point.
I just want to be sure there's no actual bug preventing normal progress. If not I will just keep on looking and poking ;-)

Strange things:

- Anyone ever got out of the initial map ? (I mean around the plaza+garden+shrine ?)
It's asif you are confined there in a 4+7 room area, but maybe I haven't found the exact sentence to type to get out. That priest basically tell you to get lost :)
Have no way to check with the original v4 game (or peek at the MSG for hints)

- The garden rooms are 7 "stable" rooms, but going out of them player warps around in a strange way.
Now maybe it's not a bug but a feature to confuse the player (by stable I mean that going E, then W goes back to same room)

- Spells: After a while you can't cast them. I would expect some kind of indicator of why I can't anymore (like no mana or energy).
The help file doesn't hint at condition or status commands. I found "hits" to get HP status, but that's it.
This morning I could resume casting a specific spell, so I guess there's some long-duration "tick/timer" involved.. or BBS restart...

- AIM WAND AT <type_anything> will self-inflict damage (my HP going to 50%). Not sure if that's expected or a bug. Just strange.

Send me an email to info at elwynor com and I'll send you something to help you test

Kracken wrote:
> After some time, it seems there's no way to progress, but maybe I haven't figured it
> out yet and that's the point.
> I just want to be sure there's no actual bug preventing normal progress. If not I
> will just keep on looking and poking ;-)
>
> Strange things:
>
> - Anyone ever got out of the initial map ? (I mean around the plaza+garden+shrine ?)
> It's asif you are confined there in a 4+7 room area, but maybe I haven't found the
> exact sentence to type to get out. That priest basically tell you to get lost :)
> Have no way to check with the original v4 game (or peek at the MSG for hints)
>
> - The garden rooms are 7 "stable" rooms, but going out of them player warps
> around in a strange way.
> Now maybe it's not a bug but a feature to confuse the player (by stable I mean
> that going E, then W goes back to same room)
>
> - Spells: After a while you can't cast them. I would expect some kind of indicator of
> why I can't anymore (like no mana or energy).
> The help file doesn't hint at condition or status commands. I found "hits"
> to get HP status, but that's it.
> This morning I could resume casting a specific spell, so I guess there's some
> long-duration "tick/timer" involved.. or BBS restart...
>
> - AIM WAND AT <type_anything> will self-inflict damage (my HP going to 50%).
> Not sure if that's expected or a bug. Just strange.

you did a good job verifying my quest of the alchemists port was winnable.... think you
beat my forbidden lands port too..... you'll figure it out!

Forbidden lands 1 is not really puzzling, just heavy grinding, keep going down in the dungeon as you grow stronger, until the bottom!

In Alchemists, there are some places where without the MSG + data there's no way to solve the riddles.
Like you need to type some sentence exactly at that time in that room, and there's no hints on it. ie: xyzzy accross time and space atasilf!
That and coordinate 4 player character to do somethng synchronously.. such game cannot be finished on a 1 user-per-IP BBS. (qfm and fazuul are similar)

I'm sure releasing these hints were at the discretion of the Sysop back then...

I guess Alchemy 2 contain such riddle at some point... :D

Looks like Kracken has moved forward with his testing -- I shared some info with him that I won't post here to spoil the game. I'm open to writing additional hints / steps into the game to make it easier.

But just sharing with the community that the game still appears to be working as designed!

Hi!

I know I'm late to this party, but I'm very much interested in these old Major BBS games, and I would love to work through Quest for Sorcery, if anyone is still working on it. I played a bit yesterday and today, and I think I'm at the same point that Kracken had gotten to before getting some info from Questman. Anyway, if anyone is out there, let me know. I was feeling nostalgic to map out some old BBS games, document items, locations, etc.. It brings back fun memories.

Sean

Hi Sean,

Sure ! I'd love to resume this game, I was solidly stuck to that point where you just randomly try stuff that makes no sense... hoping the parser gets out of the usual : "you can't do this" line.. I usually obstinate around for some time before giving up. In Quest for Sorcery, it seems you unblock little parts of maps one at a time. I've left last year at the the Shrine of Water... I recall I needed 2 PC to get around some tasks (that ORB can be nasty, have to sacrifice a player just to get it to throw out an item)

I've digged my notes and we can share our findings. I think it's best we do privately so to not spoil the puzzles.. let me know your email we can follow up from there !

Let's "sorga" as much as we can through this one ;)