Quest for Glory III: Wages of War

Quest for Glory III: Wages of War is a hybrid adventure/role-playing game developed and published by Sierra On-Line in August 1992 for MS-DOS. It is the sequel to Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire, and it was the first entry in the series to be made as a VGA game using the SCI1.1 Interpreter version 1.001.050. The game was later planned to be called Quest for Glory III: Seekers of the Lost City for re-releases, but this never occurred.

Quest for Glory II hinted that Ad Avis would return in Quest for Glory III: Shadows of Darkness(However, this game begins by just hinting at the whereabouts of Ad Avis). The plotline was pushed back to be in the fourth installment in 1993's Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness, dropping the roman numeral.

Plot
Rakeesh the Paladin brings the Hero and Prince of Shapeir to his homeland, Tarna, a jungle and savanna environment that mimics the central African ecosystem.

Tarna is on the brink of war; the Simbani, the tribe of Uhura, are ready to do battle with the Leopardmen. Each enemy has stolen a sacred relic from the other tribe and refused to return it before the other does. The Hero must prevent the war and then thwart a demon who may be loosed upon the world.

The Hero earns membership in the warring tribes, and leads his newfound allies into battle against the Demon Wizard. As soon as the battle is won, the Hero suddenly disappears into darkness.

Gameplay
Any user class who proved honorable enough in the previous game can be imported as a Paladin. Also, anyone with a character from a previous game could change the character to a different class, including paladin, before the start of the game.

The Magic User character is given the opportunity to create a magical staff. While it is summoned, the player can't move and retain the staff, but the spells don't cost mana points (but their skills don't raise either).

As for Thieves, the game's reliance on combat and tests of physical strength leave this character underdeveloped in this sequel. Furthermore, Quest for Glory III is the only game in the series to feature neither a single house to steal from in the main town nor a Thieves' Guild in general in which the Thief can fence stolen goods, hone his skills, and upgrade his equipment.

In a departure from the first two games, Quest for Glory III features an "overworld" viewscreen where all important cities and landmarks are represented in miniature. While traveling from one landmark to another, time passes rapidly, and the player is prone to random encounters, most of which are hostile. The stealthy Thief character is less prone to these encounters. Some random encounters are not hostile, and others are downright silly yet nevertheless helpful in one way or another, such as the Awful Waffle Walker (meant to save the Hero from starvation), and Arne the Aardvark (possible to question for hints).

Each Quest for Glory title usually had a cameo by a comedian or a comedy team: the designers put Sanford and Son in this game, as merchants (i.e. junk dealers) in the Tarna marketplace.

It also possible to randomly meet Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in the savanah, as French Foreign Legion soldiers.

Credits

 * Design: Corey Cole, Lori Ann Cole
 * Lead Programming: Oliver Brelsford
 * Programming: David Artis, Chris Carr, Rick Comstock, Marc Hudgins, Brett Miller, Kevin L. Ray, Henry Yu
 * Interpreter / Development System: Chad Bye, Bill Crow, Dan Foy, Brian K. Hughes, Ken Koch, Jack Magné, J. Mark Hood, Larry Scott, Christopher Smith, Jeff Stephenson, Mark Wilden
 * Lead Animator: Marc Hudgins
 * Graphics / Artwork: Jeff Crowe, Dana Moody, Frank Ferrell, Jay Allan Friedmann, Darrin Fuller, Roger Hardy Jr., Jerry Jesserun, Tim Loucks, Mustafa Powell
 * Music: Rudy Helm
 * Additional Music: Mark Seibert
 * Art Director: Andy Hoyos
 * Producer: Tammy Dargan
 * Director: Lori Ann Cole
 * Writing / Dialogue / Story: Lori Ann Cole
 * Quality Assurance: Dave Clingman, Keri Cooper, Bill Davis Jr., David Fleming, Matthew Genesi, Diana Mulligan, Sharon Simmons, Sharon Hoban-Smith, Douglas Wheeler, Danny A. Woolard
 * Acting / Voiceovers: Robert Ballew, Corey Cole, Lori Ann Cole, Dana Moody, Terrence C. Falls, Frank Ferrell, Jay Allan Friedmann, Darrin Fuller, Gloria Garland, Roger Hardy Jr., Jerry Jesserun, Josh Mandel, Brett Miller, Richard Powell, Guruka Singh Khalsa, Barry T. Smith
 * Undetermined: Robert Ballew
 * Video Capture: Robert Ballew
 * "Field Guide" Writer: Lori Ann Cole
 * Technical Documentation: Lori Ann Cole, Lorelei Shannon, Corey Cole
 * Manual Designer: Nathan Gams
 * Special Thanks: Guruka Singh Khalsa, Douglas Herring, Jerry Shaw, Barry T. Smith, Ruben Huante, Gloria Garland

Technical Information
Wages of War marked the first game in the series to use the VGA graphics engine which would be used for the next game of the series (the fifth game, Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire, utilized 3D graphics). Instead of a text parser interface to control the hero, the use of the mouse to point and click was the main input device. Many diehard fans were disappointed with this change, complaining the game was too "restricting" of its options.

It is intentional to only receive 500 points in Quest for Glory III. But due to a number of bugs it is impossible to reach this score in any classes.. It is intended for there to be more points than maximum score, to allow for players to achieve the maximum score in many different ways. The hintbook shows all the various points totals, but none actually add up to over 500 (short of the Fighter to Paladin).

The QFG3 Hintbook shows a different score list than what characters can actually earn for certain actions in the game. It is not known if the hintbook was based on earlier design ideas (and not updated), or if the hintbook contains typographical errors. However, the maximum score is intended to be 500 as seen in the game, and was intended for extra points available above that to compensate for player's alternative solutions. However, even in the documented score in the Hintbook, the score does not add up to 500. It is impossible for the Magic User and Thief classes to get 500 maximum points even with having done all the 'correct' actions (and certainly not without exploiting the game in some manner). ScummVM fixes at least one of the point glitches allowing Paladin to gain a maximum score (three points for being able to talk about the initiation afterwards to Kreesha and Rakeesh). Some points are only available if the game difficulty is set high enough (as an incentive for playing on the highest difficulty). Normally without exploits and not playing on SCUMMVM, its only possible for Fighters to reach the 500 maximum score (513 total), Paladins to reach 497, Wizards reach 493, and Thieves reach 495. Depending on when the Opal is collected it is possible to get an additional 5 points for Wizards and Thieves, bringing the total for Wizards up reach up to 498, and 500 for thieves.

Also, due to an unforeseen glitch early in the game, it's possible to make the game unwinnable if the player misses a key event.

Patches

 * Quest for Glory III Patch (QG3PAT): Patch to update Quest of Glory 3 to version 1.1. Corrects several problems, including looping, and Shaman endlessly waving arms.
 * Quest for Glory III Patch (QfG3_NRS): This non-Sierra update is one of NewRisingSun's script level timer bugs patches. Fixes:
 * Raajah and Sekhmet Talkers now have modeless windows
 * Laibon conversation
 * Thief conversation
 * Simbani initiation
 * Various animations
 * 'Dissolve' transition effect
 * Quest for Glory III Fan Patch 1.3.1A : See Quest for Glory 3: Enhanced Edition.