Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Hello all! I joined RPG Codex only recently, and this is my first ever post, so this will be my short introduction:
I'm a M&M and HoMM veteran.
Played King's Bounty, HoMM1, HoMM2, HoMM3, MM6, MM7, MM8 shortly after they came out.
Then in 2010, bought the M&M 6-pack on GoG.
Got started on MM1, but lost interest at level 14 because as ambitious as that game was when it came out, too much lunky stuff that got on my nerves: having to type in number for spells, no automap, and random HP level ups. So I ended up abandoning it.
Fast forward to 2022, and I REALLY would like to try again because MM2-3-4-5 look and sound like they are awesome. So I forced myself to finish MM1.

Got Started on MM2 shortly after, finished it at lev 75, managed to beat the 66 devil kings.
Loved the automap and they removed the random HP level ups from MM1. Loved being able to enchant my weapons to +28 by the end. Too bad you still had to enter numbers for spells. I did not know about the Where are We mod.

MM3, I took my time, started in january 2023, beat it only this september. Liked it even more than MM2.
I thought Obsidian weapons were far too common, far too early, and far too powerful though, so I UGE-edited them to Diamond.
(and Diamond weapons I got got downgraded to Sapphire).

Started M&M4-5 World of Xeen, which I'm currently playing, level 12, inside the Golem Dungeon. I'm loving it.


I even started a new MM1 game with the Where Are We mod, just to toy with it. Unsurprisingly, this makes it way more fun, I wish I had it back in 2010.

I still think MM6 and MM7 are awesome , still think MM8 is weak sauce.

 

[Kayato]

Thanks for all the replies! One last question, how do hirelings work? Do they add to the party or do you replace a party member?

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Thanks for all the replies! One last question, how do hirelings work? Do they add to the party or do you replace a party member?

In MM2 and MM3, they take up the 7th and 8th slot, but they CAN replace a real character, should you want less than 6 of your own (but why would you want to). They get paid a salary each day, that grows exponentially according to their level.

In MM6 and MM7, the hirelings take up a 5th and 6th slot just for them, but all they do is add a bonus to an existing skill, or cast a spell once (or a few times) per day. They do not participate in battle, and have no inventory or equipment. Instead of getting paid daily like in MM2-MM3, they take a % of your gold findings.

 

[Dorateen]

Don't forget, in MMII there are speficic quests that you can only take characters of a particular class. There are also class restricted areas. In those instances, it could be helpful to round out your party with hirelings when you have to bench your regulars for a little while.

 

[Mauman]

Also, there's one quest you actually NEED* a hireling to complete it.

Spoiler

I still find it amusing how getting the orb required you to "game" the system by dismissing a hireling

*perhaps there is a different way, but I don't know of it off the top of my head.

As an aside, the two basic hirelings you get in Middlegate are just fine for completing the game. Though I'd argue the sorcerer(ess) that you can get in Vulcania is worth picking up as she's easy to get, cheap, and comes with EVERY arcane spell in the game (including the really really hard to find ones).

 

[Sceptic]

Thanks for all the replies! One last question, how do hirelings work? Do they add to the party or do you replace a party member?

In MM2 and MM3, they take up the 7th and 8th slot, but they CAN replace a real character, should you want less than 6 of your own (but why would you want to). They get paid a salary each day, that grows exponentially according to their level.

MM2 and MM3 are a little different actually, what you described is more MM3. In MM2 they only take their payment when you rest, and with the way the game is set up it is very possible to not do this for a very long time and avoid paying them anything. In MM2 they also pay for their own training so it's free for you, it makes having a full 8-slot party with both hirelings (I usually go with 1 of each class) very feasible. In MM3 the cost of hirelings when they get high level can get a bit prohibitive, especially since gold is finite.

 

[behold_a_man]

So, I've finished the first one:

ending

And my observations:

1) Save system - Paired with the exploration system, it might be my favourite save system of all the RPGs I've played. I constantly needed to make decisions about whether to continue exploring (and possibly need to fight some encounters anew) or continue and maybe perish, losing some equipment and experience; while this seemed more important on the early levels, cockiness once cost me the Ultimate Sword I lost in a fight to some schmucks in a magic-free zone. It also shows the merits of a randomized itemization with sparse good loot - I encountered black boxes ~5 times in the entire game, so saving over after finding any of them was pretty optimal, as they didn't need to reoccur.

2) The framework of exploration - the entire system built around exploration in this game might be the most advanced I ever saw. With the saving system and randomized encounters, transporting spells did not only speed up the exploration; they made it viable. It was quite dangerous to explore the vastness of the world until getting Fly; venturing into a deep dungeon until getting the cleric's Surface (4-8) was suicidal; etherealize was quite distinct from teleportation (unlike in Isles of Terra); Shelter (sorcerer's 5-4) became crucial after a handicapping fight. I think the lack of easily available saves gave a completely different strategic dimension to the game.

3) The exploration was quite similar to later titles in the series - every single place needed something special, something distinguishing it from other dungeons - and, well, it did roughly as expected, though arguably not as well as some later titles; sometimes the only thing I got were golden messages, and they weren't exactly useful - I knew pretty much what should be done when I got the last one; some rewards were very meager, like getting +10000 EXP for solving a king's quest, where I had to fight through encounters that gave me ten times more experience. I have mixed feelings about the lack of automapping; on the one hand, creating my own maps in one way or another turned out to be quite rewarding; furthermore, each map became more memorable; on the other, creating an automapper felt like a menial job.

4) Puzzles were much easier than in Isles of Terra: I was able to solve pretty much every meaningful one. They were coherent, logical, and sparse; also, helpfully, most messages in the game (except for jokes) were hints for solving them. What I didn't manage to figure out (and had to resort to a cluebook) was that the 'Search' option could be useful not only after combat. I found it ridiculous that almost always, if there is something on a cell (like a box), you have information about it when you stumble upon a cell - except for ?three? places in the entire game, all near its end. JVC could have at least hinted at it in the manual.

5) Combat is way simpler than I expected, given the comments about it here.
-> There was no resource management to speak of for almost the entire game. Rest was almost always possible, the interesting resources (that is, thundranium) were renewable, and there was close to no use for all the gold I hoarded.
-> There is not much of a variety of options during encounters. Fighters pretty much had a single option during combat, my wizard usually used lethal spells, seldom buffs. Spells progressed pretty much linearly - the next level combat spell was almost always strictly superior to the one from the previous level. The enemies' resistances were not really important - at the beginning, I had not much to choose from, and in the end, I used spells in order to affect multiple enemies (which were usually distinct), so I didn't really care about the resistances of a single monster (which I couldn't even read). The only non-banal idea regarding combat I found was the ability to stack Weaken (sorcerer's 3-7) which was useful during long encounters - quite rare occurrences in this game.
-> What was pretty interesting was the variety of enemies - I had to learn which ones could screw me over with their abilities - unlike in the later titles, where I usually fought a single type of enemy at the time. Though the idea of gold dragons teaming up with ghosts and militiamen to whack me is quite astounding.
-> I loved the unconditional nature of some spells and the dependence of their success on the caster's alignment (albeit the alignment system didn't make sense). When my cleric cast the Holy Word, I could be sure that no undead will survive the onslaught.

6) Surprisingly, given what I read here, the game is filled with typical Van Caneghem humor - it's full of notes like 'The Ugliest Club - members only!' (of course, the room turned out to be filled with trolls), 'Demons in Conference, do not disturb!' or 'Dungeon under construction'. The main quest consisted of, like, 20 dialogue lines, and it wasn't very exhilarating - but neither were the main quests in some later titles. Also, the monster icons were anything but doomy and gloomy:

monsters

As a side note, I've left my automapper

here

https://github.com/codexianbeholdaman/mapper
It was made for this game but might be of some use for other games; the difference is, my automapper does not access the game (or know any game is running at all), so it gets all the data from the keyboard presses and clicks. It's pretty bare-bones, but functional enough. I don't know how it'll behave in different environments, and the 'auto' part probably won't work out of the box unless you have Linux. I've also left my maps to show how they can be done.
Maps look roughly like

this

.

, if anyone is interested.

 

[Mauman]

So, I've finished the first one:

If you liked the first one then you'll probably love the 2nd one.

If you wish to jumpstart your game a little, I recommend picking up the sorceress hireling in Vulcania and the Cleric hireling in Atlanteum.

Why you may ask? Because Hireling spellcasters come with EVERY SPELL IN THE GAME. Helps quite a bit.

I'd still have one of each of those in your player made party, of course. Doubling up on cleric/sorcerer is not a bad thing.

 

[behold_a_man]

So, I've finished the first one:

If you liked the first one then you'll probably love the 2nd one.

If you wish to jumpstart your game a little, I recommend picking up the sorceress hireling in Vulcania and the Cleric hireling in Atlanteum.

Why you may ask? Because Hireling spellcasters come with EVERY SPELL IN THE GAME. Helps quite a bit.

I'd still have one of each of those in your player made party, of course. Doubling up on cleric/sorcerer is not a bad thing.

Doesn't it make the game very simple? Progressing exploration spells was, for me, a seminal part of the whole experience of the first game.

 

[Mauman]

So, I've finished the first one:

If you liked the first one then you'll probably love the 2nd one.

If you wish to jumpstart your game a little, I recommend picking up the sorceress hireling in Vulcania and the Cleric hireling in Atlanteum.

Why you may ask? Because Hireling spellcasters come with EVERY SPELL IN THE GAME. Helps quite a bit.

I'd still have one of each of those in your player made party, of course. Doubling up on cleric/sorcerer is not a bad thing.

Doesn't it make the game very simple? Progressing exploration spells was, for me, a seminal part of the whole experience of the first game.

Perhaps. You'll still want to get (most) of the spells for your non-hireling casters.

Also, I'm sure you realize this (but I'll say it just to make myself clear), just because they have the spells, doesn't mean they can use them. You still have to level them up to the right level.

 

[behold_a_man]

Perhaps. You'll still want to get (most) of the spells for your non-hireling casters.

Also, I'm sure you realize this (but I'll say it just to make myself clear), just because they have the spells, doesn't mean they can use them. You still have to level them up to the right level.

In MM1 spells you have are determined by your level. I thought they introduced learning spells in MM3. So, in MM1, having a level 7 spell implies being on level 13+, for example.

 

[Mauman]

Perhaps. You'll still want to get (most) of the spells for your non-hireling casters.

Also, I'm sure you realize this (but I'll say it just to make myself clear), just because they have the spells, doesn't mean they can use them. You still have to level them up to the right level.

In MM1 spells you have are determined by your level. I thought they introduced learning spells in MM3. So, in MM1, having a level 7 spell implies being on level 13+, for example.

Been so damn long since I've played mm1.

MM2 has a hybrid. When you reach the right level, you're given a few spells for free, you have to buy a few from temples/guilds, and you have to find a few others. Hirelings have all of them from the get go but they can't use them till they get to the proper level.

 

[Sceptic]

Doesn't it make the game very simple? Progressing exploration spells was, for me, a seminal part of the whole experience of the first game.

Considering how much you liked exploration in MM1, and the specifics of what you liked about it, my advice is to ignore most of the hints you're going to be given (which are bound to be about powergaming and skipping swathes of stuff you can are otherwise supposed to get through exploration). I'm actually curious to see what you'll think of MM2. I think that some mechanics (including ones you've complained about) are done better, and there's no doubt there's joy in exploring, but I don't think the maps are as interesting and well designed. Also, it's not that MM1 doesn't have any jokes (all the games have plenty), it's that MM2 has a LOT more.

Much as I adore MM1 and fanboy about it (and I cannot completely deny that some of it might be due to nostalgia), I can't disagree with many of the criticisms you've made. Reading your post about it was a joy though, I hope you make another one when you finish MM2 (or better yet, share your impressions as you play). Have fun!

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I pity da fool who play MM2 on c64 though…. Them load times are trying. I know that all too well.

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Considering how much you liked exploration in MM1, and the specifics of what you liked about it, my advice is to ignore most of the hints you're going to be given (which are bound to be about powergaming and skipping swathes of stuff you can are otherwise supposed to get through exploration).

100% agreed.

I'm actually curious to see what you'll think of MM2. I think that some mechanics (including ones you've complained about) are done better, and there's no doubt there's joy in exploring, but I don't think the maps are as interesting and well designed. Also, it's not that MM1 doesn't have any jokes (all the games have plenty), it's that MM2 has a LOT more.

About the maps:
I have to somewhat disagree with you. I think MM2's overworld map is fantastic: to truly appreciate it, you need wait a little while and explore a bit outside the thick forests before investing in Pathfinding, and explore the main roads/grass lands, same with Mountaineering. The developers even added invisible, one-way secret paths in the mountains that you can't experience if you bought Mountaineering too soon. MM1's overworld felt just like a more open dungeon with different tilesets and some cardboard trees you can pass through.
MM2's main castles are huge and wonderfully complex, with multiple floors.

The only plus I will acknowledge to MM1 is that many of its (non-castle) caves and dungeons have multiple floors, making them longer and more dangerous. For some reason, no caverns/dungeons do in MM2, outside of those awesome castle dungeons.
But MM1 has many useless rooms/sections containing nothing interesting except locked doors with fixed encounters.... MM2 has those too, but often include something else of interest to reward the player: jailed NPCs you can free, switches, loot, stat bonuses, race/class restricted rooms, etc

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I really enjoyed that cardboard cutout effect in MM1. You know what I never tried? Overlaying my mapped tiles over the land maps given in the boxed set to see if I could get them to closely match. I believe all the way to xeen the maps give the alpha-numeric zones in the picture maps. All I’d have to do is try to fit the grids on there. They probably don’t match close at all.

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I really enjoyed that cardboard cutout effect in MM1. You know what I never tried? Overlaying my mapped tiles over the land maps given in the boxed set to see if I could get them to closely match. I believe all the way to xeen the maps give the alpha-numeric zones in the picture maps. All I’d have to do is try to fit the grids on there. They probably don’t match close at all.

Actually they all match perfectly!The "Where Are We" mod includes the official drawn maps and uses them as background for grid squares you haven't explored yet.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

For 1-XEEN?

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

For 1-XEEN?

Yep. I tried it myself with all games. It's perfect. You can see what I'm talking about on the right most map, the official map getting filled out and replaced as you explore.

https://www.eskimo.com/~edv/lockscroll/WhereAreWe/

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

WHAOH!!! That’s awesome! Thanks for the link.

Edit…. My old fart memory. Apparently, I have been here to that site before. Why I forgot? Dunno. Thanks for the reminder. It is still awesome.

 

[Luzur]

So i made a box kit for Swords of Xeen, if anyone wants to try it.

https://delafil.se/586406152484b965/Might_and_Magic_Swords_of_Xeen.7z

 

[Luzur]

I pity da fool who play MM2 on c64 though…. Them load times are trying. I know that all too well.

MM2 on c64 was my first foray into MM.

 

[Luzur]

Interested but pessimist.
CHances are it will turn out to be a Far Cry/Assassin's Creed in a fantasy setting.
And one on a mediocre budget, too.

!!Annotation regarding the M&M FATES domains tweet!! It's possible that Ubisoft is working on multiple Might and Magic projects, and FATES might not be a AAA open-world game but a mobile title. The AAA Might and Magic project could have a different name. Alternatively, it could be a AAA open-world mobile game similar to Genshin Impact.I want to emphasize that I always try to use words like 'maybe,' 'probably,' or 'possibly' precisely so that no one treats my predictions, which are based on gathered information, as a fact. I've used 'probably' because right know all we know is that they were hiring for AAA open world project and the only new possible title we know for M&M is Fates. I have not found any information about Ubisoft working right now on a new mobile M&M game.The 10th-anniversary of the last Might and Magic main title is in January, so it would be a great time to announce something regarding the future of the franchise.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

So i made a box kit for Swords of Xeen, if anyone wants to try it.

https://delafil.se/586406152484b965/Might_and_Magic_Swords_of_Xeen.7z

Translation result

DELAFIL.SE - MIGHT AND MAGIC SWORDS OF XEEN.7ZWith DelaFil.se,

You can easily and quickly share larger files with your friends. With us, you can upload several files at the same time up to 6 GB completely free of charge. The files remain with us for a full 30 days, from the last time they were downloaded. Of course, you decide yourself whether the file should be deleted or remain on our servers.

I have to wait until I download to my laptop. Phone can’t open up .7z

 

[Luzur]

So i made a box kit for Swords of Xeen, if anyone wants to try it.

https://delafil.se/586406152484b965/Might_and_Magic_Swords_of_Xeen.7z

Translation result

DELAFIL.SE - MIGHT AND MAGIC SWORDS OF XEEN.7ZWith DelaFil.se,

You can easily and quickly share larger files with your friends. With us, you can upload several files at the same time up to 6 GB completely free of charge. The files remain with us for a full 30 days, from the last time they were downloaded. Of course, you decide yourself whether the file should be deleted or remain on our servers.

I have to wait until I download to my laptop. Phone can’t open up .7z

you'll have to provide the box part yourself, i reused an old KKND box i had, i know there are box cut-out kits out there you can print.