Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[Damned Registrations]

Paladins are pretty useful as secondary healers; otherwise it really sucks balls if your cleric is unavailable for whatever reason. Likewise, while Archers are kind of all round shitty, they give you another anchor for beacons, which is easily more valuable than pretty much anything a non-caster brings to the table. Seems like a decent party to me, not optimal but probably in the upper ~10-15% or so of arrangements.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Likewise, while Archers are kind of all round shitty, they give you another anchor for beacons, which is easily more valuable than pretty much anything a non-caster brings to the table.

Aye, I went for a fighter/mage kinda deal for precisely this reason.

Seems like a decent party to me, not optimal but probably in the upper ~10-15% or so of arrangements.

I do wonder what would be truly optimal, just as a thought exercise. My best guess for MM3 would be a heavy melee party, with Thievery acquired from the lion statue that teaches all skills (pure Robber seems to have little going for him) and maybe some The Raven support in the late game for beaconing and more Implosions against Terminators and such.

I mostly went for variety and having at least one member of each race, with some classes I haven't done in MM3 (though I still don't think highly of Druids and Rangers, also in concept).

 

[Damned Registrations]

I dunno, I kinda figure sorcerors are the best class. You're not really going to compare to the damage of their spells on a per turn basis, and having access to like 4 beacons would give you a shitton in the way of fountain buffs to abuse. And of course Teleport is some broken OP shit. You also want some clerics for healing. Thievery you can just forget about, there's enough loot to get by without picking locks to be honest. Having some decent melee certainly is nice for being able to just faceroll through the weak enemies without thinking though.

Having more variety is more fun though. Lets you get a thrill from finding loot more often, since you can use more of what drops. And the way you fight will be a bit more varied, instead of just spamming the shit out of spells all the time. And actually picking locks on doors and chests does feel satisfying, even if it's pretty trivial mechanically.

 

[Dzupakazul]

I dunno, I kinda figure sorcerors are the best class.

I thought about the melee-heavy early-mid game of MM3 and thought that, in terms of what's "best" (most convenient?) you're well-fit to go with a really heavy frontline, with the rest of the team serving as support. I'd probably see some Archers instead of Sorcs if we're only going to use Archer for Beaconing because I was not very impressed with most direct-damage spells pre-Implosion, and Archers seem to be like a little more light-weight Arcane Paladins, which doesn't seem too shabby a deal. I could probably go for a magic-heavy playthrough of MM3 if only to check how much of the combat prowess is related to class and how much of it can be easily done by Obsidian weaponry/temporary stat boosts. And on the other hand, I wonder how would a FF1-Fighter Medley style game would go, with something like 4 Barbarians and some Knight+Paladin to mix things up and provide utility; again, The Raven could provide the anti-Terminator/(Minotaur? Actually, lacking Power Shield really sucks against most status-inflicting baddies, when I think about it) measures for the late game.

Having more variety is more fun though. Lets you get a thrill from finding loot more often, since you can use more of what drops. And the way you fight will be a bit more varied, instead of just spamming the shit out of spells all the time. And actually picking locks on doors and chests does feel satisfying, even if it's pretty trivial mechanically.

Half the addicting factor of these games, to me, seems to be popping ludicrous XP and gold pinatas; I agree!

Now that I think of it, Might & Magic games could probably work well with self-imposed challenges and variants. Something like Living off the Land (no store use) for instance.

 

[Zeriel]

Hello, fellow beloved Might & Magic faggots. Since I never finished MM8, I'm starting a new playthrough where I plan to avoid certain races (dragons, mostly). Anything people think I should know/do/exploit going in?

(Also, as a sidenote, I noticed there are a few mods for MM6-8, are they all terrible fanfiction stuff as these things usually are?)

Edit: Looking through the classes... the dragon is the only one that can GM identify item? Are you fucking serious? Aaaaaaaaaaa. Kill me now.

 

[moraes]

I think that with enough points in Identify Item you can identify anything even on Master level.

Don't forget to install GrayFace's MM8 Patch.

Also, if you want a different experience you can download MM8 Choose Party Scripts and start the game with a party you create. You can even start with 5 dragons for maximum cheese.

 

[Zeriel]

I think that with enough points in Identify Item you can identify anything even on Master level.

Don't forget to install GrayFace's MM8 Patch.

Also, if you want a different experience you can download MM8 Choose Party Scripts and start the game with a party you create. You can even start with 5 dragons for maximum cheese.

Yeah, I'm using Grayface's patch. They really make these games a lot more modern UI/usability wise. What is everyone's feeling about forcing FXAA on the 6-8 games? Usually I hate FXAA and its downsides (detail-heavy things being blurred out, issues with text) are an annoyance here too, but without it on the texture flickering when you move is really intense. I'm on the fence.

Also, for some reason the Choose Party Scripts addon makes my game hang on loading.

 

[Archibald]

Never tried it but shouldn't Choose Party mod completely break the game?

 

[aleph]

Never tried it but shouldn't Choose Party mod completely break the game?

Yes, it should. But MM8 is so broken out of the box, the damage is negligible if you don't over do it and create 5 dragons or so.

 

[Zeriel]

Never tried it but shouldn't Choose Party mod completely break the game?

What aleph said, but it will only break the game by your intention rather than the vanilla game which breaks itself automatically. Being able to make a traditional Might & Magic party of (relatively) ordinary classes out the gate rather than hiring overpowered companions (vanilla MM8) to fill your roster is a good thing.

Too bad it makes the game unopenable for me.

 

[Archibald]

I don't mean it only from gameplay perspective where recruiting dragons fucks up game's balance, but whole driving point of various side-quests is "unlocking" cool/OP heroes. With preselected party it kinda doesn't have a point anymore.

 

[Zeriel]

Dredging up an old thread for a dumb reason, but does anyone use Dosbox SVN-Daum? If so, is "XEEN: Not enough memory" error something that can be fixed? It makes no sense in the context of the settings (changing memsizes makes no difference, etc), and it isn't an issue I have with normal Dosbox, which loads the game fine at the cost of having terrible sound/no mt-32 emulation.

 

[DaveO]

Hello, fellow beloved Might & Magic faggots. Since I never finished MM8, I'm starting a new playthrough where I plan to avoid certain races (dragons, mostly). Anything people think I should know/do/exploit going in?

(Also, as a sidenote, I noticed there are a few mods for MM6-8, are they all terrible fanfiction stuff as these things usually are?)

Edit: Looking through the classes... the dragon is the only one that can GM identify item? Are you fucking serious? Aaaaaaaaaaa. Kill me now.

From my understanding both the MM6 mod Chaos Consipacy and MM8 mod Echo of Destruction offer entirely new content. I know there was a very brief attempt of a Let's Play here on the Codex for Chaos Conspiracy. I have no idea how clean the mods are or whether they break the base game in various ways.

As far as Identify Item, I thought either the Necromancer or Dark Elf gets Mastery or Grand Mastery as well. You only really need Master at level 10 to identify everything. GM is not required.

 

[BLOBERT]

It's great, just repetitive. After a while of the same tune in town, dungeon and everywhere, I just turned it off because it kind of became mind-numbing.


Very much so. I get easily startled.

BRO WORD OF WARNING

XEEN SEEMS EASY AND BORING AS SHIT AFTER TERRA AT LEAST FOR ME

AND I FCKING LOVED XEEN MY FIRST PLAY THROUGH

 

[Pope Amole II]

Finished up a video VI LP with a singleton druid. All in alll, was more or less fo a nice experience - got bored a bit by the end, but that's the Alamos/Darkmoor/VARN chain for ya - those places are insanely huge. I rocked with the earth magic, quite literally so - Rock Blast can be crazily good thanks to ability to fight monsters indirectly, without even giving them a chance to hit back. Ditto for the Fire Ring - kill them through the walls so they can do nothing. And the surface is ruled by the meteor shower, as usual.

I did some sweet Mass Distortions too - once your effective magic skill becomes 37, it can insta-kill. Can be resisted, though, and many monsters are immune to magic. Still, was nice to try out. Also, I managed to train really infrequently here so the game ended rather fast. Could've shaved even more time by skipping the cheap corpse gathering (takes too much time), but whatever, that didn't change much. Also, could've gained higher score if I trained a higher learning, but there never was a convenient moment for that.

Out of notable stats - 50 fire magic, 45 earth (or so), 20 learning.

 

[Count Zero]

The cover art of the MM3 box is so total 80s, just look at the long haired (metal?) warrior with his sword https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Might_and_Magic_III:_Isles_of_Terra#/media/File:MM3_Box_Art.jpg :D
I think of 80s metal, Dio and Manowar, of Lee Aaron and Lita Ford although this is a Nineties game.

I can remember playing this all day, all night when being 20-something years and listening to Yngwie Malmsteen while playing it. Those were the times.....
Man this game gripped me and didn't let go for a long time. The map was so cool, the world endless or so it seemed and they hid a lot of surprising stuff there. It's true what was said before in this thread -the exploration totally kicks ass, I already loved it from MM2, but MM3 was even better. And the skills you could acquire and then explore mountains and so on, this was so rad. I also loved to teleport from town to town and then running 'HOME' to Baywatch with my tail between my legs after getting beaten up. I loved going to the roster and hiring new party members and seeing what the shops had to offer. A good way was to jump into new towns asap and getting superior gear then afterwards going to a "lower levelled" town and putting this to use. I loved the 'gold mine' in the dragon&fire area. I loved the whole game. I also liked the character pictures and them changing when the chars got drunk, sick etc.

Some of these old RPG games were so immersive, like MM, Ultima, Bard's Tale or Alternate Reality the Dungeon (I somehow never survived the City and liked Dungeon a whole lot more). In fact one of the AR/Dungeon artists designed Might and Magic games, too, and the story with the space ship is a little bit similar, too. But this is an old Fantasy&SF cliche, so I don't think what they say at http://www.eobet.com/alternate-reality/alt-reality_FAQ.txt about Might&Magic is true, but interesting nevertheless. I like the section "games like Alternate Reality" and there are many among my favourites. Sad fact the rest of the games never got made!

In fact I now really got an urge to replay the games from MM2 on I really long to be immersed in this world again. In fact I replayed MM3 a lot over the years, but never the other ones. So maybe it's time for that now.

 

[octavius]

You meet death itself in the form of
1 Kobold

 

[Dorateen]

I think of 80s metal, Dio... Yngwie Malmsteen

At the same time!

Spoiler

 

[Count Zero]

Cool Vid !!

You meet death itself in the form of
1 Kobold

Bard's Tale, right?


One question: I'm now starting with "world of xeen". How do I trade items between characters in this game? Thank you!

 

[Count Zero]

don't bother! found it! have been dumb :D

 

[Luzur]

Great Review of MM6.

also, Fans of MM should check this facebook page out:

https://www.facebook.com/mm7engine

A homely gang of bros remaking MM7 with a new engine.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Killing Headhunters & Cannibals

 

[Naraya]

A homely gang of bros remaking MM7 with a new engine.

It sucks. Why not just use Unity engine?

Spoiler

 

[Sceptic]

Me, obsessed with Might and Magic? Why would you ever think such a thing

I've been replaying bits and pieces of M&M and HOMM, and have come to the realization that my timeline as I originally posted may have some errors in it. Since I had some fun reworking it, I thought I might as well post the corrected version if anyone cares.

Might and Magic I: Secret of the Inner Sanctum
Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World
Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra
Might and Magic IV-V: World of Xeen (finish Cloudside before Darkside)
(Descendants campaign from Price of Loyalty)
Heroes Chronicles: Warlord of the Wasteland
Heroes Chronicles: Conquest of the Underworld
Heroes Chronicles: Revolt of the Beastmasters
Heroes Chronicles: Master of the Elements
Heroes Chronicles: The World Tree
Heroes Chronicles: The Fiery Moon
Heroes of Might and Magic I
Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars
Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty (Descendants starts much earlier, but ends around the same time the other campaigns take place)
(Dragon's Blood campaign from Armageddon's Blade)
Heroes Chronicles: Clash of the Dragons
Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Shadow of Death
Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven
(Foolhardy Waywardness campaign from Armageddon's Blade)
Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia
Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor
Heroes of Might and Magic III: Armageddon's Blade (except 2 of the campaigns, see above)
Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer
Heroes Chronicles: The Sword of Frost
Heroes of Might and Magic IV
Might and Magic IX: Writ of Fate

I still have problems fitting HOMM2 POL expansion into the timeline, but then it wasn't developed by NWC. I don't think there's anything in it that references any characters, events or places from any of the other games, including HOMM2 itself. Also, I've no idea if the HOMM4 expansions fit, and if they do, if they should occur after the base game campaigns, or before the Reckoning. The AB campaigns are largely independent but they all seem to occur after the main AB campaign, with 2 exceptions: Foolhardy Waywardness, which definitely occurs where I've placed it per its ending, and Dragon's Blood, which is giving me some trouble because of Clash of the Dragons. Clash of the Dragons, which definitely takes place after Dragon's Blood, mentions a King of Erathia, but there is no King of Erathia at any time after RoE. And finally, I lumped MM1-5 together at the beginning because it's simpler to do it this way than to try and figure out where they occur in the Enroth/Erathia timeline, to which they are almost completely unrelated anyway.

Maybe I should do something similar for the Ashan chronology

 

[Baron Dupek]

Than MM7 in new engine

We cooperate with M&M 8,5 Echo of Destruction.

Is it officially vapourware?
Now they are outsourcing into another (highly potential, obviously) vapourware?