Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

[Wesp5]

Is there a way to play this godforsaken game without the camera shifting all over the fucking place?

You could check out the console commands on the linked page below, probably some of those can stop the camera movements:

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/List_of_Dark_Messiah_Cvars

 

[Technomancer]

Actual coop footage:

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I own it on Steam. Which is the best way to play it in 2021?

 

[Lord_Potato]

I own it on Steam. Which is the best way to play it in 2021?

It pretty much works out of the box. I did a full playthrough using the Steam version, on a modern laptop with Windows 10.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I had no idea there's a really shitty version of Dark Messiah on Xbox 360.

 

[YldrE]

Honestly the base game is so good that a compromised console port was nothing to scoff at if you couldn't play it on PC back then. Sure it has worse visuals and performance, and for some reason streamlined character building, but otherwise it's a straight port.

The marketing boasted "bonus levels", but if that's not the new tutorial it must have included some levels broken up for memory limitations because I don't remember any other difference. Some online forums mention a pre-order room with some hax items, and an NPC encounter turned into a minor boss fight, but again I have no recollection of that.

The only true difference is the tutorial, which I'd say is better than on PC. If you want to do a "full" run, play the tutorial on Xenia, then switch to the PC version and start over. There's zero reason to play on console now, but if you're familiar with the PC game the Xbox tutorial is a nice curiosity.

 

[Wesp5]

The only true difference is the tutorial, which I'd say is better than on PC.

Is there a PC version of this or would it be possible to convert it to the PC?

 

[BruceVC]

The only true difference is the tutorial, which I'd say is better than on PC.

Is there a PC version of this or would it be possible to convert it to the PC?

For me its basically impossible to think of a console gaming experience to be ever better than a PC experience. And I do appreciate consoles and they provide a level of gaming and fun that is about entertainment which is the whole point of why we play games. But the PC gaming experience can easily be superior because of PC components like advanced graphic cards, audio headsets and Mods

So I always play the PC version unless its an excellent game that only exists on console and then I happily adopt to the console

 

[Wesp5]

For me its basically impossible to think of a console gaming experience to be ever better than a PC experience

I completely agree, but what I meant is has somebody converted only this unique tutorial for the PC? Like for example there is a PC version of the unique Playstation episode Half-Life: Decay...

 

[Technomancer]

I completely agree, but what I meant is has somebody converted only this unique tutorial for the PC? Like for example there is a PC version of the unique Playstation episode Half-Life: Decay...

I don't think so but the guy who makes coop mod mentioned that they might port some stuff from xbox version of the game. And maybe finish and add cut enemies from original.

 

[Technomancer]

 

[Lagole Gon]

This is going to be great.

 

[Sykar]

Personally what I find cool about the game that the graphics looks still nice to this day despite being so old. It has a certain "timeless" quality that not many games from its era achieved.
Also it has the best fireball animation I have ever seen imho. How he forms that flaming sphere in his hands just looks damn sweet.

 

[Technomancer]

TLDR: COOP modding progress is slow, they are recruiting, no legal hurdles from Ubisoft and prototype RTX is shit (but is possible to improve with focused separate effort).



Made it into news, mainstream media article:
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-17-year-o...isoft-to-add-co-op-mod-tools-and-ray-tracing/

 

[Wesp5]

A little bit late . I always wondered why nobody made new maps for this great game!

 

[Technomancer]

always wondered why nobody made new maps for this great game

They did actually. There are some lying around. Kinda shitty though.

 

[deama]

Too bad no one tried remaking arx fatalis in the dark messiah engine, would have been great!
Was the modding too hard or just not enough people to spring up a scene?

 

[Technomancer]

Too bad no one tried remaking arx fatalis in the dark messiah engine, would have been great!
Was the modding too hard or just not enough people to spring up a scene?

Dark Messiah was always pretty obscure for some reason. Never got big or popular. Just happened that way.

 

[Wesp5]

Was the modding too hard or just not enough people to spring up a scene?

I would guess the later. I once took a look at the maps and the editing is similar to Bloodlines. Which doesn't have a huge modding community either, too many modders stay with HL2 because it is more famous!

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I don’t suppose UBI will quite crushing the balls and release Dark Messiah to GoG? (Mumble grumble and MMX….. fuck ubi third party log in!!)

 

[racofer]

Too bad no one tried remaking arx fatalis in the dark messiah engine, would have been great!
Was the modding too hard or just not enough people to spring up a scene?

It came out the same year as Oblivion. All the modding effort focused on the wrong game.

 

[deuxhero]

The mod tools were delayed and came out too long after the game to attract attention.

I don’t suppose UBI will quite crushing the balls and release Dark Messiah to GoG? (Mumble grumble and MMX….. fuck ubi third party log in!!)

I wonder if it's even contractually possible given it's Source based.

I still expect that Ubisoft will sell off M&M once they're in deep enough problems, since it has value (even just old releases on Steam/GoG still generate money) but Ubisoft isn't really doing anything with it. I'd love to see Dark Messiah EE that leads to a new expansion pack (is early Source considered a retro FPS at this point?), but that's just optimistic.

 

[Spukrian]

So I played Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. It's a good game, perhaps even a great game, but it's not for me. I sadly did not enjoy my time with Dark Messiah.

The combat was very difficult for me, playing on normal. The game demands better reaction times and hand to eye coordination than I can muster (maybe I'm getting old or something). As I played I did slightly improve, but I never got good at it and every melee combat encounter was extremely annoying and tedious.

I had to restart a few times because I had wasted skillpoints in stuff I never ended up using. When I finished the game it was with a stealth archer build.

I had big trouble with jumping, mantling and rope arrows. It was hard to predict where I would go when jumping off a rope. Mantling something when jumping from often failed. Mantling always failed if I was standing to close to whatever I wanted to mantle. Sometimes when crounching I would just slide off the edge. Some of this is due to body awareness, but I'm quite sure Thief Deadly Shadows wasn't this bad.

Many times in the game I would see somwhere I could shoot a rope arrow at to explore, hoping to find a secret except very often there would be an invisible wall (or worse, an instadeath) instead of a secret. Yes, there were a few times I shot a rope arrow, jumped onto it and started climbing down only for the screen to fade to black and getting a message that I fell to my death. Speaking of that, whether you die or not from a fall seems like it isn't based on how much health you have, only the height you fall from.

There's a chase sequence in this game. I hated it, though I hate most chase sequences.

Now that I've complained a lot about this game, let's see if I can muster up some positives.
*I complained about the rope arrows, but it's great that they're actually in the game. There were a few times I could make shortcuts thanks to them.
*The combat system isn't actually bad, it's (probably) very good, just not for me.
*The levels are well designed and look good.

I don't think I'll ever replay this. Oh, well.

 

[Wesp5]

As I played I did slightly improve, but I never got good at it and every melee combat encounter was extremely annoying and tedious.

Did you use your most powerful melee weapon? I never had as much fun kicking enemies from cliffs, into spikes or through fires !