Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[Damned Registrations]

Minotaurs are the only scary enemies in MM3. Liches and ED-213s (or whatever those robots are called) can be nasty too. Otherwise things tend be be quite easy compared to MM2.

Pretty sure there were two kinds of robots, and they were both pretty nasty. Sorcerors weren't exactly slouches either from what I recall.

But yeah, almost all the enemies are joke if you've got power word shield up and are decently levelled. I think some of devils/demons can be problematic too, if they put the wrong people (and eventually all the people) to sleep.

 

[madrigal]

Minotaurs are the only scary enemies in MM3. Liches and ED-213s (or whatever those robots are called) can be nasty too. Otherwise things tend be be quite easy compared to MM2.

Dragon Lord?

 

[Jaesun]

Finally finished. There was a lot of stuff I had totally forgotten when playing this. And as someone already mentioned, the fact that Quest items also share inventory space is RAGE INDUCING. *Almost* ended up with all Obsidian weapons and armor (the last thing I got was Obsidian Padded Armor for my mage). I was like YYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!

Since I seem to be on a Might & Magic kick I shall now head off to World of Xeen <3 <3 <3 And I can now play it with a real Roland Sound Canvas.

 

[octavius]

That was quick!
Judging by the score you didn't do all the quests and/or turn in all the aretfacts and orbs.

 

[Luzur]

Positive, when I found out that the different trainers had different fees and that it was tied to the quality of training recieved I have only been training at atlantium since. I think since level 8-9 or so

One of your characters will get a small boost in HP related to the inefficient early training, you might have to rest before it changes.

Maybe you are able to help me with this one as well. Mapping Peabody's first level dungeon, and went to the 'no humans' tile. "Powerful currents move rapidly from your feet to your head", once again I dont seem to have noticed any effect.

It can be a kinda delayed effect, though, sleep and look again.

 

[Jaesun]

That was quick!
Judging by the score you didn't do all the quests and/or turn in all the aretfacts and orbs.

All I wanted to do was be able to see all the game and the music for each area, and the ending, so I could do some recordings of it in the MT-32. Sadly there is only a handful of songs in M&M III, and to be honest they were not all that memorable.

I turned in 8 orbs to the psychotic "good" dude (well they are all psychotic r00fles!). And then ran to the ending with the 7 holo-cards. I always loved that pseudo 3-D like ending with the face. It's very 90's. :D

EDIT: Oh man! The midi sound effects and music in Xeen with the Sound Canvas is GLORIOUS! <3 <3

 

[Sceptic]

EDIT: Oh man! The midi sound effects and music in Xeen with the Sound Canvas is GLORIOUS! <3 <3

Of course they are, it makes full use of the GS-only tones on the Sound Canvas, after all. Be sure to reset the CM-500 once in a while, if you start getting odd sound effects in the game (telephone rings when opening a door are usually a sign it's reverted to GM mode.... though the CM-500 may not do that).

 

[Jaesun]

And people complain about finding that diamond in that first area of Baldur's Gate, when the entire staring town in World of Xeen has trees that apparently grow gold...

 

[Sceptic]

Well if you're going to talk about realism, WOX has a bloody crossword puzzle taking up an entire dungeon level

 

[Mastermind]

Played M&M8 all day yesterday and so far it's a worthy successor IMO. Impressions:

+ I love the graphics. Everything feels right and I loved the mesoamerican theme of the starting area. The various locations (I think i've been everywhere except regna island and the elemental planes) keep up appearances and IMO do a better job than 6 and 7 when it comes to making the areas feel distinct and representative of their inhabitants
+ The race/class mish-mash works fairly well (with one exception) and do an even better job of making just about everything both distinct and useful than 7 did (which, in turn, was better than 6). I also like the race skills that add distinct flavor to them. A lot of RPGs don't make various races nearly distinct enough so I'll take what I can get.

- The controls are still shit, but that's to be expected I guess.
- Why are Minotaurs so shitty? Axe is a good offensive melee weapon but it's all downhill from there. They're not as good at tanking as trolls or knights and because of the lack of dual wielding they're not as good at hitting shit. I don't need their cleric spells either, if I wanted more of them I'm better off going with vampires who can reach higher mastery, have useful unique abilities and still hit hard in melee.

Back to bombarding motherfuckers while riding around on a dragon and cursing bioware's name. Between M&M and the previous 3 weeks' warlords battlecry marathons I'm seriously seething at how badly modern devs fucked up traditional fantasy.

 

[Sceptic]

MM8 is great and totally doesn't deserve all the hate it gets. I like the distinctive areas, and I think it does that better than MM7, but I think I prefer MM6's more organic blending of each area into the next. I've said this before, MM6 feels like a one-piece giant area was designed first, without real borders between zones, and then someone came and cut it into equal pieces just to it could fit into the engine. The world as a whole feels much more consistent as a result, something that MM1 also did really well. MM8 (and 7 for that matter) feels a bit more theme-park-ey with each region being its own completely separate little thing, but as you pointed out this also makes the zones very distinctive, and taken each on its own they're greatly designed.

I love the race/class system, you don't have many games where possible races include vampire, troll and dragon alongside the more typical knight and cleric. The minotaur is the only one that's truly useless I feel, for all the reasons you pointed. Even for raw damage I think a vampire will do better, since they get to GM daggers for even more ludicrous damage than the extra attacks they at Master. Levitation is also IIRC the ONLY way to avoid certain environmental obstacles, such as the floor damage in the fire dungeon at the end. Oh and Expert as a limit for spellcasting is IMO worthless in both MM7a nd MM8, even the useful spells just don't do much in late-game, and you only get Expert after the promotion anyway. This reminds me... the minotaur is like the monk in MM7, capped at Expert for cleric spells, but there's nothing like the MM7 Thief capped at lower than Master for elemental schools, is there?

Oh another reason minotaurs are useless. Their misc skill that they can GM? Perception... which Dragons can also GM, along with being the only ones that can GM Identify.

 

[Darth Roxor]

MM8 > MM7

 

[Jaesun]

What's the deal with Swords of Xeen? Wasn't that some kind of fan made game or something like that?

 

[aleph]

MM8 > MM7

8 is better than M&M9 though. I think the hate for 8 comes mainly from the fact that it was in some regards (party building) a too great departure from 7. Also some of the stuff it added was, let's say a tad broken, even for a M&M game (dragon party members, especially the fact that you get one quite early in the game)

 

[Deuce Traveler]

What's the deal with Swords of Xeen? Wasn't that some kind of fan made game or something like that?

Yes, but it was officially published by New World Computing and released with later Xeen editions. After finishing MM3, I tried it for a few hours, but didn't enjoy the experience much, so I moved on to the Worlds of Xeen game and didn't look back.

 

[Sceptic]

What's the deal with Swords of Xeen? Wasn't that some kind of fan made game or something like that?

Yes. It's also... not that great. Give it a try if you want, but compared to MM3 and WOX it's pretty disappointing. Design isn't anywhere near as solid and exploration not as interesting. I had fun with it, but aside from 9 it's probably the weakest entry in the series.

it was in some regards (party building) a too great departure from 7.

In a good way though!
Also, you don't get your first dragon that early unless you make a beeline for the Gorge, which new players won't do without metaknowledge. The real reason Dragons are broken is their regular attack doesn't have a miss chance, which I always thought was an oversight/bug (it hits harder than their actual, mana-costing special Dragon ability... which is nonsensical). Otherwise as Roxor delights in pointing out every time, EVERY M&M game is broken to an extent, and in many of them the exploits are part of the fun.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What's the deal with Swords of Xeen? Wasn't that some kind of fan made game or something like that?

It's more of an "official mod slash expansion" like Diablo: Hellfire.

 

[Dorateen]

Well if you're going to talk about realism, WOX has a bloody crossword puzzle taking up an entire dungeon level

I'll say this, though. I would prefer the crossword puzzle of Xeen to the pressure plate puzzles of Legacy that had no in-game world references at all. In contrast to those, I quite enjoyed Kilburn's cartography challenge and the need to remember the various locales of the peninsula.

 

[Luzur]

MM8 is great and totally doesn't deserve all the hate it gets. I like the distinctive areas, and I think it does that better than MM7, but I think I prefer MM6's more organic blending of each area into the next. I've said this before, MM6 feels like a one-piece giant area was designed first, without real borders between zones, and then someone came and cut it into equal pieces just to it could fit into the engine. The world as a whole feels much more consistent as a result, something that MM1 also did really well. MM8 (and 7 for that matter) feels a bit more theme-park-ey with each region being its own completely separate little thing, but as you pointed out this also makes the zones very distinctive, and taken each on its own they're greatly designed.

This is actually something ive felt too when playing MM6, its almost like you say that they where going for a fully walkable world AKA MM1-5, but had to chop it up to regions due to engine/memory limitation.

Also, found a video about some Heroes mod for Warband.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

MM8 is great and totally doesn't deserve all the hate it gets. I like the distinctive areas, and I think it does that better than MM7, but I think I prefer MM6's more organic blending of each area into the next. I've said this before, MM6 feels like a one-piece giant area was designed first, without real borders between zones, and then someone came and cut it into equal pieces just to it could fit into the engine. The world as a whole feels much more consistent as a result, something that MM1 also did really well. MM8 (and 7 for that matter) feels a bit more theme-park-ey with each region being its own completely separate little thing, but as you pointed out this also makes the zones very distinctive, and taken each on its own they're greatly designed.

This is actually something ive felt too when playing MM6, its almost like you say that they where going for a fully walkable world AKA MM1-5, but had to chop it up to regions due to engine/memory limitation.

If anyone had any doubts this website makes it pretty obvious:
http://www.mightandmagicwalkthrough.com/mightandmagic6/mm6-enroth-map.html

 

[Luzur]

Would have been crazy if you could somehow remove the borders of each region and recombine the map again and be able to walk without interruptions from New Soprigal to Paradise Valley.

Some russians are prob working on this as we speak.

 

[Mastermind]

This reminds me... the minotaur is like the monk in MM7, capped at Expert for cleric spells, but there's nothing like the MM7 Thief capped at lower than Master for elemental schools, is there?

I think minotaurs are more like the ranger, who could expert cleric and elemental spells (which minotaurs can't) and GM axe. It's like they looked at the Ranger (the shittiest class in 7) and thought to themselves "Damn this motherfucker's strong, we better nerf him for the next one".

 

[Sceptic]

And just to be sure they're even shittier fighters... they can't wear helmets.

They're the ones who are the real troll class.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

They can't wear boots either, IIRC. I think we all agree that they suck big time.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Minotaurs are retarded. I mean how could they not give them their killing blow - which was their defining ability since forever. They had been some crazy brutes and now all of sudden they are all spiritual? I'd say that 3DO wanted to copy Taurens but M&M 8 actually came before Warcraft 3.