Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[Efe]

you move around with wasd , look around wth mouse and shoot with Q,E
I dont see any dps reduction.
Had a weird bug in turn based where my character shot 20 or so arrows (until i let go of button) without anyone else getting a turn.

 

[JarlFrank]

Does anyone else have lag?

I had it, it was based on a lot of monster sounds playing at once. That's because the GoG version is set to start with Windows 95 compatibility.

Go to the M&M8 exe and right click to see properties. Change compatibility mode from Win 95 to Win XP and the lag goes away.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

you move around with wasd , look around wth mouse and shoot with Q,E
I dont see any dps reduction.
Had a weird bug in turn based where my character shot 20 or so arrows (until i let go of button) without anyone else getting a turn.

Gatling Bow activate maybe?

 

[Invictus]

Forgotten how enormously addictive these games are... just had a 5 hour marathon (yes, I am old and have to work tomorrow) with my older savegame of Might and Magic 6
BTW found a weird glitch but not so bad if anybody else besides me doesn’t love the widescreen display; if you add the Greyface patch after installing all the Merge Mod with it’s patches you can add Greyface’s own mouselook settings and that somehow resets the main window to match the window of the original Might and Magic 8, so you get the hi res textures and monsters woth the original display... not bad at all and a bit more to my liking

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

These instructions all wriiten out for the inept of us? With pics?

 

[Invictus]

These instructions all wriiten out for the inept of us? With pics?

Install Might and Magic 8
Set compatibility to Win XP sp3 for EXE
Run the game
Install Merge Mod
Install Merge Mod patch (either Community or Service)
Install Greyface 2.4.1 Mouselook patch
Run game
Everything running ok?
Install Greyface’s Mouselook setting file
Enjoy Might and Magic Merge Mod with the original look of 8

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

So I've been replaying WoX for the first time in a little over a decade (I believe this is my fourth playthrough overall, discounting incomplete starts). I'm roughly 2/3 of the way through Clouds, and I have barely touched Darkside at all, so I still have quite a way to go.

Some thoughts:

-Red Dwarf Mines aren't as bad as I remembered. They're definitely the weakest dungeon in terms of design/layout/art, but it's also much more apparent to me that you're meant to come and go while exploring the overworld, and not just bruteforce your way through the deep mines.

-Exploration remains a genre-high for me. Few games can rival WoX's sense of grandeur and openness. It's legitimately exciting to gain new traversal skills/spells, and the game never holds you by the hand to show you where you can go and what you can do. Unfortunately, even 10+ years after playing the game, meta-knowledge does dampen this (which brings me to the next point).

-Going to Darkside early completely breaks Clouds, much more so than I remembered. Getting 100,000 xp from a fucking copy-protection puzzle (potentially at level 1) just utterly trivializes the first 1/3 of Clouds. Same with getting mountaineering, swimming, or pathfinding at level 1. I get that they were trying to allow players who bought V but not IV a chance to skill up, but the implementation leaves much to be desired.

-I forgot how many spells serve utilitarian/traversal purposes. Levitate, Jump, Walk on Water, teleport, etc.; the spellbook is very PNP DND, and that's awesome, more games should learn from this.

-The UI, although inarguably ahead of its time, leaves something to be desired. I think a lot of the time that people are singing the praises of WoX's UI, what they really mean is that it has an excellent control scheme and a slightly better than average UI. The game plays very fluidly (especially with a numpad) once you know all the keyboard shortcuts, but the actual UI elements outside of the animated gargoyles (the item menu, the unannotatable map, the awful char gen/party deletion at NG) are cumbersome as fuck. Ultima Underworld had an overall superior UI IMO (I know the'yre different kinds of games).

-Combat remains as underwhelming as always. It's fast, so it's completely tolerable, but as a result some of the more combat heavy dungeons encourage cheesey behavior (rest-spam, Lloyd's Beacon spam) a bit much for my taste. Of particular note are the dungeons which inflict the insane status (which I forgot was uncurable outside of temples before Mandate of Heaven). It's not rage-inducing, but it is tedious.

-General obfuscation of stats. I know, I know, I can go to the smith and identify items, or I can learn the identify monster spell, and it's a cool nod to PNP roots, but in practice it's just not fun in a crpg. I want to be able to make quick and concise decisions about the optimal course of action/equipment and not waste time casting spells. Maybe I've just gotten acclimated to the popamole tendencies of the modern world, but I don't think so; WoX is basically the popamole of its era after all.

I'm excited to get to Darkside, which from memory is largely a straight-up improvement over Clouds in terms of content. Currently in Clouds I have the Northern Sphinx, Darzog's Tower, the Volcano, and the Golem Dungeon all open to me, so I'm not too far from getting into the good stuff. I'll try and weigh in with thoughts again after another 20 hours.

 

[Tweed]

Clouds is just a warmup to Darkside. The first time I played Clouds I'd already long since played Darkside so nothing held a challenge. When you turn it the other way around you really have to avoid Darkside altogether if you want Clouds to have any challenge.

And it's obvious that's where they really went all out anyway. Clouds is pretty generic compared to the aesthetic and design of Darkside. Some really tricky dungeons the first time you take them on. It had better and more interesting looking enemies with a great artstyle, better soundtrack, and pretty much just better everything.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Meanwhile I encountered bug in Merger mod, Blade's edge and Buccaneer Lair teach the same skills and on top of that - both of them missing daggers skill. Not only that, but you can't learn daggers skill even in MM7 and MM8 content from blacksmiths. It's seems the only way to recive this skill is to start in MM7.


Eddit: Correction, you CAN obtain dagger skill. But it's as far as in Harmondale smithy. What was logic behind this change is beyond me. Berserker's fury , Buccanir and Blade's edge is still buggy I think. The fact that you don't need to pay 50 gold to join, yet dialogue with npc's remains is quite strange.

 

[Storyfag]

Eddit: Correction, you CAN obtain dagger skill. But it's in Harmondale smithy. What was logic behind this change is beyond me.

Dagger skill is also found in the Dagger Wound Island smithy.

 

[DaveO]

The Peasants start with Bow which is easily the most important early skill in MM6-MM8. Then you can train them in the class you want.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Dagger skill is also found in the Dagger Wound Island smithy.

Thanks for information, will try to go there in search for skill.

The Peasants start with Bow which is easily the most important early skill in MM6-MM8. Then you can train them in the class you want.

Yes, figured that out on my own, got thief class on top of New Sorpigal Inn, but Daggers was not included so this is why I started my Odyssey between continents and times.

 

[fantadomat]

Eddit: Correction, you CAN obtain dagger skill. But it's in Harmondale smithy. What was logic behind this change is beyond me.

Dagger skill is also found in the Dagger Wound Island smithy.

And in one of the free heaven ones.

 

[Storyfag]

The Peasants start with Bow which is easily the most important early skill in MM6-MM8. Then you can train them in the class you want.

So how does it work? Can I start a peasant in MM6 and train him into a MM8 class?

 

[fantadomat]

Different cities offer different skills in the blacksmith and the armourer,same as mm7

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

So how does it work? Can I start a peasant in MM6 and train him into a MM8 class?

Just to check out smithy on Dagger Wound Island for dagger skill, I created full peasant party. I managed to convert almost all of them into mm7 classes (besides cleric and ranger), but haven't seen possibility to become troll or something, at least on starting island. And maybe I am stupid or blind, but no luck finding dagger skill in True Mettle (smithy on Dagger Wound island) or anywhere else on starting islands.

 

[Storyfag]

maybe I am stupid or blind, but no luck finding dagger skill in True Mettle (smithy on Dagger Wound island) or anywhere else on starting islands.

Weird, I definitely had it.

 

[Efe]

can any class become any other class?
or only peasants become everything?

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

can any class become any other class?
or only peasants become everything?

I have managed to do this only with peasants. After fucking around in attempts to gain daggers skill as fast as possible, I cannot confidentially reassure you, but I think it's the only way.

 

[Invictus]

So I've been replaying WoX for the first time in a little over a decade (I believe this is my fourth playthrough overall, discounting incomplete starts). I'm roughly 2/3 of the way through Clouds, and I have barely touched Darkside at all, so I still have quite a way to go.

Some thoughts:

-Red Dwarf Mines aren't as bad as I remembered. They're definitely the weakest dungeon in terms of design/layout/art, but it's also much more apparent to me that you're meant to come and go while exploring the overworld, and not just bruteforce your way through the deep mines.

-Exploration remains a genre-high for me. Few games can rival WoX's sense of grandeur and openness. It's legitimately exciting to gain new traversal skills/spells, and the game never holds you by the hand to show you where you can go and what you can do. Unfortunately, even 10+ years after playing the game, meta-knowledge does dampen this (which brings me to the next point).

-Going to Darkside early completely breaks Clouds, much more so than I remembered. Getting 100,000 xp from a fucking copy-protection puzzle (potentially at level 1) just utterly trivializes the first 1/3 of Clouds. Same with getting mountaineering, swimming, or pathfinding at level 1. I get that they were trying to allow players who bought V but not IV a chance to skill up, but the implementation leaves much to be desired.

-I forgot how many spells serve utilitarian/traversal purposes. Levitate, Jump, Walk on Water, teleport, etc.; the spellbook is very PNP DND, and that's awesome, more games should learn from this.

-The UI, although inarguably ahead of its time, leaves something to be desired. I think a lot of the time that people are singing the praises of WoX's UI, what they really mean is that it has an excellent control scheme and a slightly better than average UI. The game plays very fluidly (especially with a numpad) once you know all the keyboard shortcuts, but the actual UI elements outside of the animated gargoyles (the item menu, the unannotatable map, the awful char gen/party deletion at NG) are cumbersome as fuck. Ultima Underworld had an overall superior UI IMO (I know the'yre different kinds of games).

-Combat remains as underwhelming as always. It's fast, so it's completely tolerable, but as a result some of the more combat heavy dungeons encourage cheesey behavior (rest-spam, Lloyd's Beacon spam) a bit much for my taste. Of particular note are the dungeons which inflict the insane status (which I forgot was uncurable outside of temples before Mandate of Heaven). It's not rage-inducing, but it is tedious.

-General obfuscation of stats. I know, I know, I can go to the smith and identify items, or I can learn the identify monster spell, and it's a cool nod to PNP roots, but in practice it's just not fun in a crpg. I want to be able to make quick and concise decisions about the optimal course of action/equipment and not waste time casting spells. Maybe I've just gotten acclimated to the popamole tendencies of the modern world, but I don't think so; WoX is basically the popamole of its era after all.

I'm excited to get to Darkside, which from memory is largely a straight-up improvement over Clouds in terms of content. Currently in Clouds I have the Northern Sphinx, Darzog's Tower, the Volcano, and the Golem Dungeon all open to me, so I'm not too far from getting into the good stuff. I'll try and weigh in with thoughts again after another 20 hours.

Interesting points especially about the UI since its predecessor (Terra) was arguably one of the first interfaces that had interactive displays which you could see at a glance all the various spell effects and status ailments reflected right there on the screen so I daresay it has not only aged very well but largely unsurpassed on even modern games which have elaborated on mechanics and graphics but keep everything behind different screens and oblique systems.

As for the fountains... I think that it is not an exploit if the designers of the game allowed for it in the first place; especially on the design philosophy of Might and Magic where the front end of the dungeon has more manageable monsters while the back end often has the heavy hitters which do require a bit more buffing

The fountain are there in case you want to micromanage and bruteforce your way into the game but I don’t consider anything specially placed there by designers to be an exploit per se
Now selling an almost depleted wand to repurchase it at full charge its another matter

 

[Storyfag]

So, has anyone managed to assemble the golem in MMMerge? How?

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

So I've been replaying WoX for the first time in a little over a decade (I believe this is my fourth playthrough overall, discounting incomplete starts). I'm roughly 2/3 of the way through Clouds, and I have barely touched Darkside at all, so I still have quite a way to go.

Some thoughts:

-Red Dwarf Mines aren't as bad as I remembered. They're definitely the weakest dungeon in terms of design/layout/art, but it's also much more apparent to me that you're meant to come and go while exploring the overworld, and not just bruteforce your way through the deep mines.

-Exploration remains a genre-high for me. Few games can rival WoX's sense of grandeur and openness. It's legitimately exciting to gain new traversal skills/spells, and the game never holds you by the hand to show you where you can go and what you can do. Unfortunately, even 10+ years after playing the game, meta-knowledge does dampen this (which brings me to the next point).

-Going to Darkside early completely breaks Clouds, much more so than I remembered. Getting 100,000 xp from a fucking copy-protection puzzle (potentially at level 1) just utterly trivializes the first 1/3 of Clouds. Same with getting mountaineering, swimming, or pathfinding at level 1. I get that they were trying to allow players who bought V but not IV a chance to skill up, but the implementation leaves much to be desired.

-I forgot how many spells serve utilitarian/traversal purposes. Levitate, Jump, Walk on Water, teleport, etc.; the spellbook is very PNP DND, and that's awesome, more games should learn from this.

-The UI, although inarguably ahead of its time, leaves something to be desired. I think a lot of the time that people are singing the praises of WoX's UI, what they really mean is that it has an excellent control scheme and a slightly better than average UI. The game plays very fluidly (especially with a numpad) once you know all the keyboard shortcuts, but the actual UI elements outside of the animated gargoyles (the item menu, the unannotatable map, the awful char gen/party deletion at NG) are cumbersome as fuck. Ultima Underworld had an overall superior UI IMO (I know the'yre different kinds of games).

-Combat remains as underwhelming as always. It's fast, so it's completely tolerable, but as a result some of the more combat heavy dungeons encourage cheesey behavior (rest-spam, Lloyd's Beacon spam) a bit much for my taste. Of particular note are the dungeons which inflict the insane status (which I forgot was uncurable outside of temples before Mandate of Heaven). It's not rage-inducing, but it is tedious.

-General obfuscation of stats. I know, I know, I can go to the smith and identify items, or I can learn the identify monster spell, and it's a cool nod to PNP roots, but in practice it's just not fun in a crpg. I want to be able to make quick and concise decisions about the optimal course of action/equipment and not waste time casting spells. Maybe I've just gotten acclimated to the popamole tendencies of the modern world, but I don't think so; WoX is basically the popamole of its era after all.

I'm excited to get to Darkside, which from memory is largely a straight-up improvement over Clouds in terms of content. Currently in Clouds I have the Northern Sphinx, Darzog's Tower, the Volcano, and the Golem Dungeon all open to me, so I'm not too far from getting into the good stuff. I'll try and weigh in with thoughts again after another 20 hours.

Interesting points especially about the UI since its predecessor (Terra) was arguably one of the first interfaces that had interactive displays which you could see at a glance all the various spell effects and status ailments reflected right there on the screen so I daresay it has not only aged very well but largely unsurpassed on even modern games which have elaborated on mechanics and graphics but keep everything behind different screens and oblique systems.

As for the fountains... I think that it is not an exploit if the designers of the game allowed for it in the first place; especially on the design philosophy of Might and Magic where the front end of the dungeon has more manageable monsters while the back end often has the heavy hitters which do require a bit more buffing

The fountain are there in case you want to micromanage and bruteforce your way into the game but I don’t consider anything specially placed there by designers to be an exploit per se
Now selling an almost depleted wand to repurchase it at full charge its another matter

?

I didn’t say anything about the fountains. I rarely use them outside of early early game, because their status effects don’t last very long.

Regarding your comments on the UI, unless I’ve been missing something for the last 30 years, that’s just not true. If one of your characters has multiple status afflictions you have to open the character menu and then examine the condition in order to see all of them.

 

[fantadomat]

It is a shame that they chose the most retarded spell system of them all,also missing the fire blast. Should have used the mm6 spell book,not that chaotic garb age from mm7.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Does this mod need further patching? Are all cutscenes shown? Am I thinking wrong (since its effectively an mm8 mod), but you can basically play 6-8 with same characters with/without mob scaling?

 

[Kaldurenik]

I have not run into anything that causes any serious issues for the mod so far.
You can play 6 7 8 with the same characters.
You can also unlock extra options (races / class combinations).
I think you can edit, change or even remove mob scaling but I have not tried it.

Over at (page 37):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/...li8_APq3a_ECxmZ3o/edit#heading=h.oj30u56p9rl7
You can see how promotions work for the classes.