Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[Parsifarka]

Use the automap then -you need a cartographer. Direction Sense skill will tell you through the compass which direction are you facing.

 

[octavius]

^^That guy looks like he knows what he's talking about.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Just use the wizard eye spell. It's dirt cheap and lasts all day.

 

[Siobhan]

Not following the business side of things that closely but it does seem the only cases where rights change hands these days are bankruptcy proceedings. Then rights are obtained by some obscure hedge fund from Cyprus and never see the light of day ever. Pretty frustrating.

I'm not sure if that's better or worse than what you have in the movie business, where companies produce crap like Amazing Spiderman just to keep the rights. Overall, though, IPs are way less important in games because the important thing is gameplay, not the lore, characters or story (we're talking about an industry where Albion, the story-precursor to Avatar, has one of the more intriguing narratives).

And that's actually what I really love about the M&Ms: you start up the game, get some adorably cheesy cutscene featuring a Dragon with three pairs of glasses rubbing a magic ball, and then you just continue to lawnmower across some overworld killing monsters. What does the former have to do with the latter? No shits given.

 

[duchU]

Has anyone tried this (http://dege.freeweb.hu/) with MM7? Maybe I am blind but the game seems to look better. Should work with MM8 too. Have no luck with MM6 though...

Screenshots (13 files, ~50mb): http://imgur.com/a/lQtRo

EDIT: MM6 works too. Btw there are 'HD' sprites for this game if someone would want to try.

Shit, even Quest for Glory 5 looks better - sharpens text for example. But there are some mouse pointer problems... At least with GoG version.

Have to check Wizardry 8...

Here is MM6 screenshot:

 

[Epsilon]

Looks like you ran a hq2x scaler on it. I'm afraid I don't see the appeal.

 

[Alchemist]

Has anyone tried this (http://dege.freeweb.hu/) with MM7? Maybe I am blind but the game seems to look better. Should work with MM8 too. Have no luck with MM6 though...

Screenshots (13 files, ~50mb): http://imgur.com/a/lQtRo

EDIT: MM6 works too. Btw there are 'HD' sprites for this game if someone would want to try.

Shit, even Quest for Glory 5 looks better - sharpens text for example. But there are some mouse pointer problems... At least with GoG version.

Have to check Wizardry 8...

Here is MM6 screenshot:

The dgVoodoo 2 wrapper looks handy for possible display compatibility issues with old games. Hopefully that scaler is optional though, I'd rather see the grainy pixels.

 

[duchU]

It's dgVoodoo 2 combined with ReShade. ReShade works cos dgVoodoo 'gives' DX11. There are a lot of effects to choose that come with ReShade. One thing they are missing is anisotropic filtering (dgVoodoo 2 has Bilinear and Trilinear filtering though). Of course if someone likes to look at an image with several pixels in height and width on 27-inch monitor then he can play in original resolution without any additional stuff anyway.

 

[Sceptic]

Oh amazing, I hadn't realized dgVoodoo was still being worked on, or that it now seems to wrap EVERYTHING, not just Glide. I've been having a horrible time running older Windows games, the last problem I had was trying to run Warcraft 2 (the 1999 re-release). Tried it again with dgVoodoo from your link and it works flawlessly, the crashes, glitches, messed colours, missing map on the "act" screens... all fixed. Thanks!

 

[Alchemist]

That is good to hear Sceptic - I've heard a lot of those old windows games can be problematic on modern systems. This will be great to have for those cases.

 

[duchU]

Here is link to ReShade: http://reshade.me/ (Version 1.1.0f1) and how it looks like:

 

[Naraya]

I use it but I really hate the interface. It's beyond retarded and completely unintuitive

 

[Watser]

So I finished Clouds of Xeen and..... Well that was unexpectedly fast. I Have just about discovered half of the gameworld before having done all the requisite stuff for facing Lord Xeen, which is very different from I-III, where all the items/NPCs required to progress through the main quest are scattered throughout the entire world. Lord Xeen himslf was also a total let-down, lackluster abilities and went down in 2 hits from a level 17 barbarian. Lolthefuck. Easiest MM ever.

Mountaineering felt very lackluster compared to III. The only thing I have encountered in the mountain areas are scattered groups of enemies and some enemy huts/breeding grounds/respawn parameter or whatever you call them. In III yyou would often stumble upon secluded NPCs, treasure and other interesting stuff. I still need to explore the second half of the gameworld so that might change.

There are a huge amount of side-quests now, which I like. What I don't like is if you have done what is asked of you before getting the quest from respective npc, it wil immediately jump to the "O thank you brave adventurers" speech and give you a reward instead of telling me what he wanted me to do and why. The quests so far have all been very forgettable though as it has all boiled down to "kill these monsters/get me this item". The mainquest was a bit more interesting, with having to build your own castle which I thought was neat. It doesn't come close to the unicorn quest in III with the depressed princess in the swamp, that was really cool.

So far I'd rate Clouds as the worst in the franchise thus far, but I still have half the gameworld to check out so my opinion might change.

Unfortunately the game decided to freeze during the ending cinematic so I don't have my score, but I imagine it to be quite shit.

 

[Dorateen]

I still think Clouds is best enjoyed as part of the combined World of Xeen experience.

 

[Watser]

I still think Clouds is best enjoyed as part of the combined World of Xeen experience.

I am not doubting that, just stating my opinion based on what I have seen thus far. I still have a long way to go to conclude the entire WoX storyline.

 

[kmonster]

If you want a challenge do the optional areas in Clouds without the Darkside part and play MM5 with a new party which doesn't get anything from MM4. Combined WoX is too easy in terms of combat, even at warrior difficulty.

 

[Goblino]

Been getting into some oldies lately ( like ur mom). I'm feeling like I'll take on m&m 1 now-YE GODS!!

 

[octavius]

Remember the game is area scaled, so if one area proves too difficult, try another. Hard to find any "easy" areas in the beginning, though.
Always Search after each battle.

 

[Goblino]

Been enjoying it so far. Early game is definitely a glass ceiling but it's not much tougher than por was. Should I bother mapping the overworld? It's a series of 16x16s hooked together right? It feels like I should use location then map coordinates from there... Brb exploration boner

 

[Sceptic]

Mapping everything is a good idea (expect to have 50-something by the end), since you're likely to have to revisit a lot of places once you figure out what to do there (and have what you need). It'll also allow you to use Fly liberally later on, which makes traveling quick and painless. Quality of the exploration is fantastic, you're in for a great time.

 

[Goblino]

Just completed mapping the main area of Sorpigal. A bit tedious but totally satisfying to see a map of the town. Still haven't hit level deuce or found exposition dumps beyond cryptic statues and the barman's tip to meet a man in the scary-ass under city. I may be overreaching but the exposition dumps feel like a precursor to dark souls/kings field, in that you stumble around in a dangerous environment and piece together clues about what's going on. I think the whole d-souls narrative style is supposed to be a call back to how old games would tickle your imagination by being empty boxes full of enemies and confusing text dumps. D-souls just fills in the blanks more with richer graphics and world design that bolsters lore.Nuff about jrpgs tho, this is pretty snappy thus far.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Well, if you think about it, the Souls games are just a natural extension of the King's Field games, which were in turn a try by From to make a sort of realtime Wizardry with Ultima Underworld influences. So yeah, there's definitely a lineage there.

 

[Wayward Son]

Playing through the Might and Magic series up to 6. The first one so far can be brutal, but the fun kind of brutal. My brother saw me doing some grinding, and had to ask why I wasn't leveling and was extremely confused when I told him that you had to pay. We got into an arguement over the merit of doing both pay and XP models.

 

[Goblino]

I like how I wandered into an arena in the sewers under the first city and they put me up against like ten minor demons.

 

[Goblino]

So how do I identify my scrolls? I used detect magic and, if I'm not mistaken, I have 229 charges on a vellum scroll. No idea what it do though.