Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[Turjan]

Fuck the haters, the sci-fi elements in M&M and Wiz are fucking awesome. Campy fantasy + campy scifi makes for the ultimate awesome setting.

Yup, I loved the mix. In Might & Magic, the mix makes perfect sense. In Wizardry, it was a little bit more of a stretch.

 

[Eyeball]

Just finished playing MM7 as my first MM game. My overall reaction: I wish this was as good as Wizardry 8.

Almost all combat became exceptionally tedious by the end game and there was just so fucking much of it. I kind of died inside halfway through the Medusa and Behemoth infested tunnels to Giantland at the end. Wasn't hard, just took 30000 years.

And what the FUCK was up with all that sci-fi stuff in the end? Blasters? Robot assassin droids? Downed spaceships? Get the fuck out of here with that shit!

Nice spell system, though, although it seemed to encourage metagaming quite badly and some schools were essential while others useless. I don't know what the hell I'd have done without a water mage to cast town portal and water walk, but my psionic didn't seem to get many spells that really changed gameplay apart from blastin' foo's.

So you didn't have a problem with sci-fi elements in Wiz8, though they were completely absurd, and found M&M blasters appalling?

No, I did not. In Wiz8, the intro cinematic shows you arriving on an ALIEN PLANET on a SPACESHIP and tells of a conflict between two ALIEN RACES and an INTERGALACTIC SPACE WARLORD. The introductory dungeon looks crude, but has tons of alien tech in it and lifts powered by modern machinery. You can even hire a gadgeteer with a futuristic gun into your starting party. The setting is CONSISTENTLY a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid from the very first second of gameplay and I agree that it is an awesome gameworld that balances the mix of swords&sorcery and robotic warrior monks and Chewbacca ripoffs perfectly.

MM7 had me play in a fantasy setting with elves and dragons for 20+ hours without seeing any kind of hint that sci-fi was involved, apart from the rather bizarre intro sequence which I promptly forgot about, then all of a sudden goes "right, enough dragons, it's LASERTIME!" and goes full motherfucking retard with robots, aliens and spaceships. This is NOT consistent and pissed me off. The final "spaceship dungeon" wasn't even especially interesting, there was no big sci-fi boss to kill, just loads of hard trash mobs, and the blasters weren't fun for me to use at all, felt like a shittier version of Dark Forces and forced me to invest heavily in a new combat skill and discard my trusty +4 Swords of Dicksucking.

The game would have been far better had it ended with defeating the Demon Prince, especially if they made that a less fagtacular boss fight. The sci-fi elements were just not well done. At all.

Fuck, I need to replay Wiz8. Again. For the 7th time or so. Old as dirt and still unsurpassed.

 

[GaemzDood]

Its a tie between World of Xeen & Mandate of Heaven. But I had to go with Mandate of Heaven because of the amazingly (although not Daggerfall) big overworld & the awesome art style; everything just came together so smoothly in Mandate of Heaven

 

[Stabwound]

How does the overworld size of MM6 compare to MM4 or 5? Alone MM4 and MM5 aren't even really that large; you can cross the world from one boundary to the other in literally about 20 seconds. Is MM6 actually larger or does it just feel that way because of slower movement speed?

 

[GaemzDood]

How does the overworld size of MM6 compare to MM4 or 5? Alone MM4 and MM5 aren't even really that large; you can cross the world from one boundary to the other in literally about 20 seconds. Is MM6 actually larger or does it just feel that way because of slower movement speed?

Might and Magic VI is much larger than the former titles that you named; even on its own, its really big (though not Daggerfall big).

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

I didn't have any strong feelings towards the science fiction items/areas, the fantasy M&M6 setting was as generic as it gets anyway - so I didn't care about the consistency of plot/setting/etc.

 

[Turjan]

How does the overworld size of MM6 compare to MM4 or 5? Alone MM4 and MM5 aren't even really that large; you can cross the world from one boundary to the other in literally about 20 seconds. Is MM6 actually larger or does it just feel that way because of slower movement speed?

As GaemzDood said, it's relatively big. In principle, you have one consecutive overland map that is shown on the game's nice paper map:

Within the game, this map is split into 15 single maps in a 3 times 5 grid. I remember it to be reasonably large, but can't tell you the exact size anymore. Walking from one side to the other of these grid maps didn't take terribly long, especially as soon as you could fly over obstacles, but it was quite large for the time.

Here you can find the actual ingame map put together. There's not much of a spoiler involved if you just look at the map.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Just looking at that map makes me want to replay M&M6. And Heroes 3.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I don't think 6 is bigger than 4 or 5, and certainly not as big as WoX. It just takes longer to clear the areas.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Bros, I need help. I never played any of the Might and Magic games, so I decided to take them all on starting with number 1. My characters are now all level 9, but I understand that I can't beat the game until I have the Astral Spell, a Level 7 spell I cannot cast until my sorcerer becomes level 13. So all I am doing now is grinding in the city of Dusk, attacking a pack of banshees on an anti-magic square for 6000xp a battle. My characters will require hundreds of thousands of experience points before I can get to level 13, so it looks as if I'll be grinding for another couple of hundred iterations of this battle. Most other battles don't offer a similar XP reward compared to the risk involved, and even long quests only give ten to twenty thousand experience points. How do I get out of this rut? This game was fun, but now I'm getting bored of it and want to finish it off so I can move onto another classic.

 

[octavius]

There's no need to grind in MM1. Just explore everywhere and do all the castle quests and you'll have more than enough XP. But if you want much XP and fat loot, the north west part of the map is the richest one. Lots of dragons and one or two of the very rare black boxes.

 

[CorpseZeb]

I don't think 6 is bigger than 4 or 5, and certainly not as big as WoX. It just takes longer to clear the areas.

Yeah, I guess so. I always thought, VI was a smaller beast compared even to III (no to mention combined IV and V together).

Ps. One of problem is, VI "full 3D"'ness while rest is "cell" based, so is like comparing breasts to bras, a bit.
Ps2. Mentioning Dagger is discussion about size is... well... kind a rude thing, because nothing is/was/will bigger than it. Ever.

 

[DaveO]

New versions of the GreyFace patches for MM6-MM8 are available at his site: https://sites.google.com/site/sergroj/mm

 

[Iselor]

Might and Magic VI it is magnificent game, but sometimes bored (Castle Alamos, Tomb of VARN). Difficulty level also was sometimes too extreme (Control Center). My favourite M&M it For Blood and Honor. Four races, new classes (thief!), big world, good music, very good dungeons, great story.

 

[Mastermind]

VII dungeons were too small. It's still my favorite because of the class system and the wishing well exploit.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

my level 255 solo ninja.

Someone should find a way to beat the game with no character whatsoever, that would be so much fun.

 

[Luzur]

OK guize, time to get some shit done

Might and Magic X
Press Release: September 1st, 2012

Might and Magic X: Children of the Void

Project Update: September 1st, 2012

We are still hanging in there, when the going gets tough. We have the publish support to push this game forward, thanks to you guys, however, we still don't have the developers to make things go as quickly as we'd like to. Even if we don't finish the tutorial by the end of this year, there will be nothing stopping us in 2013. I've been hoping for a MMX ever since MM9, and I've been trying to make MMX happen for the past 2 years. It's finally happening! We are actually making another Might and Magic game. It's slow, that's for sure, but maybe more help will arrive. We need reinforcements, that's what we need! 3d modelers to design the diverse world in all its glory, and 2d artists to paint pictures of what it should look like. I still wait for the day when we won't need more help to make this game, but that day has not arrived, and maybe it won't for a long while. Until then, we're going to find some way to make this happen, and anyone else who wants to make this dream into a reality, please join us. MMX is our destiny!

What are the 2012 end-of-the-year goals for Might and Magic X?
• Production of a 2-3 minute gameplay video (est. January 2013)
• Finish level design for tutorial level (est. January 2013)
• Finish soundtrack and ambience for tutorial level (est. December 2012)
• Finish all dialogues and texts for tutorial level (est. December 2012)
• Program major interactions between the player and the game world (ongoing)
• Learn the entire design process for a town and dungeon so we can follow this process with other game areas (ongoing)

August 2012 Project Status

Major Game Design
• Main storyline script is 100% complete.
• Programming iteration 2 is 100% complete.
• World map is 70% complete.
• Enroth reference materials is 50% complete.
• Programming iteration 3 is 32% complete.

Game Mechanics/Databases
• Skills database version 1.0 is 100% complete.
• Items database version 1.0 is 100% complete.
• Races, classes, promotions database 1.0 is 100% complete.
• Potions database version 1.0 is 75% complete.
• Bestiary database version 1.0 is 25% complete.

Tutorial Level Design
• Designing and producing the tutorial level - IN PROGRESS.
• Tutorial plot summary is 100% complete.
• Tutorial region map is 100% complete.
• Tutorial texts/documents/cinematics/quests/dialogues are 60% complete (9 out of 15 assignments).
• Tutorial landmass is ~50% complete.
• Tutorial sewer dungeon infrastructure is ~33% complete (floor 1 is 100%, floors 2 & 3 in progress).
• Tutorial character/NPC/monster concept art is 17% complete (17 out of 99 drawings).
• Tutorial town concept art is 13% complete (4.2 out of 32 drawings).
• Tutorial 3d models (all) is 1% complete.
• Tutorial objects concept art is 0% complete.

(Note: these figures are relevant only to the level design/3d, art, and writing departments.)

September 2012 Project Goals

Major Game Design
• Finish 100% world map.
• Finish 100% programming iteration 3.
• Finish 100% programming iteration 4.
• Finish 75% Enroth reference materials.

Game Mechanics/Databases
• Finish 100% potions database 1.0.
• Finish 100% races, classes, promotions database 2.0.
• Finish 50% bestiary database 1.0.
• Finish 25% spells database 1.0.
• Finish 25% skills database 2.0.

Tutorial Level Design
• Finish 100% tutorial texts/documents/cinematics/quests/dialogues (15 out of 15 assignments).
• Finish 100% tutorial landmass.
• Finish 100% tutorial sewer dungeon infrastructure (floor 1 is 100%, floors 2 & 3 in progress).
• Finish 100% of all 3 WIP 3d models (slime, goblin, wolf).
• Finish 30% tutorial character/NPC/monster concept art (30 out of 99 drawings).
• Finish 30% tutorial town concept art (10 out of 32 drawings).

Concept Art Digest

Because the fans deserve to see what we’re working on, and now we have enough artists to generate a decent amount of quality art every month, MMX is going to release a select amount of concept art in the form of a digest during every monthly project update. This art will include mock drawings from our sketch jams, as well as some finished monsters, items, NPCs, and environment art. Although MMX has not yet acquired a sufficient amount of finished 3d artwork, we are doing not too shabby in the 2d realm.

Livestream News

There will be 3 livestream episodes per week on the official channel (http://www.livestream.com/mm10) and the playthrough channel (http://www.livestream.com/retromm) hosted by Corry and Ryan. We are going to try and hold more developer interviews with MMX project staff. The first developer interview was a great success and we had about 35 viewers online. Thanks everyone!

New Leader of Audio Department

One of our Audio Department leaders, Andrew Riechel, has stepped up to lead all Audio Department operations, including music, sound effects, and voice acting. Andrew has plenty of project management experience and will do a fine job with the audio for MMX. It's going to take a lot of spunk to fill the shoes of Rob King, Paul Romero, and Steve Baca, but we have a whole Audio Department ready for the job!

Still Wanted: 3d Modelers

The 3d/level design department will soon be putting together an ad for more 3d modelers. We need all the help we can get in this area, especially with texture art, which is taking hours and the 3d staff dislike having to do so much texturing instead of modeling. So we are looking for 3d modelers and texture artists to help speed up the production of the game. The landmass will be taken care of well, however, the models needed to populate the game areas and to build the dungeons are the trickiest part of development. Be on the lookout for our 3d ad, which will be finished and released in September 2012!

Sewers Progress

The first dungeon area in MMX is still in progress, but we promise it will look great when it's finished. Because some of our 3d modelers and texture artists were tied up with their jobs and education, progress on the sewers this month was stunted. The completion date for the sewer will be pushed back to the end of September. The sewer will have three floors, and the first floor is complete as of the end of August 2012. Now we just have to finish the other two and add monsters, static and dynamic entities, and basic game functionality. More 3d modelers would definitely help to speed up the level design process. We are highly short-staffed in the 3d department but still able to make progress for the time being. With the 3d ad released, my hope is to get another 4-5 skilled modelers to help build game world objects. We will also accept novices who want to improve their 3d modeling skills.

Storyline Script

The main outline of the MMX storyline is fully finished and contains five acts. There is the possibility of releasing the game in episodes, act by act; however, no major decision has been made on this aspect of the game. A unique feature of the MMX story has been borrowed from MM7 - instead of a good/evil split we will have an order/chaos split. You will also have unique heroes join your party, which should be quite entertaining. The Writer's Department will soon begin getting into more detail with the main quests, lore, and world-building.

Dynamic Game World

Some ideas we've had lately is to have more different types of player-to-world interactions. For example, in some MM games you are able to break items in the actual world, for example, crates, pottery, and glass windows. MMX will have all that and more, and the developers will meet sometime in the next several months to nail down ideas for specific dynamics that we can integrate into the development process, whether it be AI, player/object interactions, animations, etc. This layer of dynamics won't be ready to implement for awhile, so it will be in the form of ideas floating around amongst the development team in the meantime. But, with that said, we are going to come up with plans for a lot of cool features for you guys in the upcoming months!

Progress Tracking

The project leaders of Might and Magic X are going to begin tracking our progress to the very last detail. This will help us break our many tasks into manageable chunks in order to more forward towards the completion of the tutorial level by the end of the year.

As always, thank you fans for keeping up the faith in Might and Magic X: Children of the Void. It's time for us to work harder to bring you evidence of a new Might and Magic game on the horizon!

Sincerely,

MMXAlamar
President of Might and Magic X
mmxalamar@gmail.com

also, Grayface updated his MM7-MM8 patches.

 

[octavius]

So, are there no hirelings in World of Xeen?
If so, that is definitely a decline compared to the previous games.

 

[JarlFrank]

There aren't.

 

[octavius]

There aren't.

Bummer.
First tactical combat was all but removed in MM3 and then hirelings were removed in MM4?
What kind of popamole crap is this? I can't believe the hard core Codex approve of this.

 

[JarlFrank]

What kind of popamole crap is this?

 

[Luzur]

What kind of popamole crap is this?

is that the Macintosh version?

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah.

Apart from the larger selection of portraits (MOAR PRETTY FEMALES FOR ALL-FEMALE PARTY YEAAAH) I actually think it's looking worse than the DOS version, though. The higher resolution of the graphics makes them lose some of their charme.

 

[octavius]

Hmm...no alignments in World of Xeen?
And no spell levels? Does that mean my characters can cast any spell they learn from the Guild?

 

[Damned Registrations]

They can but spells have level requirements to learn. I forget if finding spells in dungeons lets you learn them early.

Also, pretty sure alignments are still in. Aren't they? Maybe not. I know there was shit that only affected certain party members but maybe it was racial and never alignment.