Wizardry
Bane of the Cosmic Forge
When the Wizardry series moved from Apple ][ to PC as the main platform, it underwent a complete makeover, maybe due to the fact that David W. Bradley replaced Andrew C. Greenberg and Robert Woodhead as main designer.
The concept of a single town above a single dungeon, later so successfully revived by Diablo, gave way for a wide, explorable world. Gone was Gilgamesh's Tavern, Boltac's Trading Post and the Temple of Cant. Parties, once assembled, remained the same for the whole game, and dead adventurers were revived by their pals with spells or scrolls.
The character system was greatly expanded. There were six new races, most of them some sort of antropomorphic animal, and six new classes. The strict separation between base and elite classes was removed, though each race still had only a limited number of classes that could be chosen as character creation. Only Wizardry 8 would introduce the concept that all the classes were available right from the start.
Bane of the Cosmic Forge created a new look for the Wizardry games, one that would stay till the end of the series, with the six character portraits, with bars for life, stamina, and mana, flanking the main window, which now showed a textured world. Enemies appeared right in this world. While the inspiration by Dungeon Master is obvious, it was really more like Dragon Wars, for enemies still appear out of nowhere and do not move in a 3D world. This, too, would have to wait till Wizardry 8.
