Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[groke]

I wish World of Xeen 2 was more Xeen-y.

 

[Kosmonaut]

Sorry for hijacking this thread. But I just got this Might and Magic pack and I want to play all the six games in order. I have always been more a fan of Wizardry, and I'm ashamed to admit that I never played a M&M game for more than a few hours. So my question is... What do I need to know about this games? Specially the first ones... Is there a patch or a mod or a guide or something that can improve the game experience? Or I just go ahead and play as is? Please discuss!!

 

[Saxon1974]

I personally love the first 2 games and think the rest are OK. I know world of Xeen seems very popular but something about the space\sci fi cartoony look always turned me off. MM VI is also very popular and while I liked it the hordes and hordes of meaningless enemies made that game impossible to get very far without getting bored.

As to Kosmonaut,

For the first 2 games I dont think there are any patches. I prefer the C64 version of MM I using an emulator but there isn't that much difference in the DOS version. For MM II I love the amiga version. The first game is great and very rewarding but just a warning, your going to have to do your own mapping to get anywhere, and there is a ton of it to be done. You can use maps from the net but I think that kind of kills the exploration and makes the game less fun. MMII has an automap and still is very similar to the first game but has many improvements.

Post your impressions on what you decide to do...

 

[Kosmonaut]

I'll stick to my plan: Play from 1 to 6. By doing my own mapping...do you mean drawing the maps on paper as the old times? Or there's another, more modern solution?

Any recommendations with respect of builds and parties? Do you mind sharing some tips or hints about what to do to make exploration more fun and less difficult?

 

[Saxon1974]

I'll stick to my plan: Play from 1 to 6. By doing my own mapping...do you mean drawing the maps on paper as the old times? Or there's another, more modern solution?

Any recommendations with respect of builds and parties? Do you mind sharing some tips or hints about what to do to make exploration more fun and less difficult?

Yes on the mapping. No real modern way I can think of doing the mapping. You can find maps already filled out on the net if you want to use those, it will save time but I find its not as fun that way.

As far as builds its been quite a while since I played but I think I used the traditional party with each class type, 2 fighters, thief, cleric, sorceror etc.... MMI is real tough at first even in the starting city because you start with only clubs i think. Each time you win a fight you should probably go and save at the INN until you can get some experience and better gear. This game was criticized when released for being too hard in the beginning. Stay in the town and do the dungeon under the town before heading out if you want to survive.

It's a great game if you have the patience to map and stick with it. If you dont have alot of free time it will be tough

 

[Sceptic]

The only "modern" way to map I can think of is to do it in the background on Excel while you play the game in a DOSBox (or emulator) window.

Starting party is pretty good actually and they have pretty high stats rolled (it would take a LOT of rerolling to get a party with these stats, at least in the DOS version). An advantage of playing in DOS as well is that you can import your party into MM2 and not have to do the tedious grinding at the beginning all over again.

Best advice for MM1 is: take your time. Map everything, take notes on your maps of all interesting places, write down anything that may look like a clue, and don't be in a hurry to finish the game. You won't even know what the MQ is at the very start.

 

[Kosmonaut]

Saxon1974 and Sceptic: Thanks for the info. I'll do the mapping old school and use the vanilla, starting party.

 

[Alex]

Personally, I like mapping blobbers using dungeonographer. You can easily add notes anywhere, things fit into the squares by default and you can draw walls along the squares, so walls that are just line thick (instead of being square thick) aren't a problem either.

 

[Saxon1974]

Saxon1974 and Sceptic: Thanks for the info. I'll do the mapping old school and use the vanilla, starting party.

Your welcome. Mapping old school is time consuming and can be tedious until you get used to it, but if you have the time for i,t it definitely can be rewarding as well. When you map a whole area you get a nice sense of accomplishment and it does make areas more mysterious and fun to explore. Post your impressions and some screenies here if your inclined....

 

[Wolfus]

I am playing WoX now and I have BIG stability issues. The game is freezing or crashing in different situations and I cannot figure out why. I use floppy version under DOSBox 0.74. All the other games are running fine. Is WoX bugged or it has different reason?

 

[Luzur]

hmmm, maybe you got wonky floppies (or pirate version?) ive played both floppy and CD version without trouble in Dosbox.

 

[Wolfus]

It's possible reason. I'll try CD version.

 

[octavius]

Anyone played MM3 with Ludmeister's Might and Magic 3— Isles of Terra Monster Spawn Mod?
MM3 is next on my play list and I thought I'd give this mod a try. I already played MM3 before, but wasn't able to quite finish it since my characters died of old age. Ah, the joys of having only one save slot.

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about this mod.

PROS:
Some additional bug fixes compared to the same guy's MM3 patches.
Bonus map that was left out of the official release.
Heroism nerfed. I don't recall it being "absurdly powerful", but then I probably didn't use it much either.
Able to see excact bonuses from stats.

CONS:
Renamed classes.
I may be a combatfag, but too many random encounters is not fun, especially with monsters' HP also being increased and MM3 being such a big game.

Not sure about most of the rest.
Most of the items modifications sound good, but equipping several amulets sounds cheesy.

I just hope Ludmeister hasn't overdone it. Modders have a tendency of overdoing things, like the horrible The Hell Mod for Diablo 1, where the Butcher has 9999 HP, moves as fast as the player character and kills you in one or two hits, while you need hundreds of hits to kill him. Not excactly my idea of fun.

 

[groke]

Anyone played MM3 with Ludmeister's Might and Magic 3— Isles of Terra Monster Spawn Mod?
MM3 is next on my play list and I thought I'd give this mod a try. I already played MM3 before, but wasn't able to quite finish it since my characters died of old age. Ah, the joys of having only one save slot.

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about this mod.

PROS:
Some additional bug fixes compared to the same guy's MM3 patches.
Bonus map that was left out of the official release.
Heroism nerfed. I don't recall it being "absurdly powerful", but then I probably didn't use it much either.
Able to see excact bonuses from stats.

CONS:
Renamed classes.
I may be a combatfag, but too many random encounters is not fun, especially with monsters' HP also being increased and MM3 being such a big game.

Not sure about most of the rest.
Most of the items modifications sound good, but equipping several amulets sounds cheesy.

I just hope Ludmeister hasn't overdone it. Modders have a tendency of overdoing things, like the horrible The Hell Mod for Diablo 1, where the Butcher has 9999 HP, moves as fast as the player character and kills you in one or two hits, while you need hundreds of hits to kill him. Not excactly my idea of fun.

I was already quite far into my current playthrough when I read about this, it looks pretty intriguing though. MM3 could definitely bear being harder, once you get to level 20 or so, you just wander around steamrolling everything until you're level 60. I definitely want to see the restored map.

Renaming the classes is pretty derp, though. Archer->Samurai?

 

[Luzur]

i was thinking about redoing MM3 once again (it would be like, the 10th time) so i think i will try this mod out.

 

[octavius]

OK, tried the Monster Spawn mod a bit.
It seems to throw larger mobs at you. I can't remember being swarmed by Goblins, Bubble Men and Orc Warriors outside the first city.

But I also remember why I though MM3 was a decline compared to MM1 and MM2 in the combat department:
No ranks; all characters are in the front line. In MM2 there were font and rear ranks, the size of the front rank dependent on the terrain.
No textual feedback on hits and damage, just blood splatter and sound effect.
Overall MM3 is less tactical, but looks prettier.

EDIT:
Just tested the difference.
In the vanilla game you meet half a dozen goblins outside Fountain Head, and they each go down in two hits.
With the mod installed you meet an army of Goblins, backed by some Bubble Men and Orc Warriors and they each take several hits to kill. But they also seem to do less damage, or else my party has more HP.

 

[Falkner]

I just started playing the series with M&M IV and I'm having a blast with it. Rolled up a party consisting of a knight, a paladin, an archer, a cleric, a robber and a sorcerer. Combat is simple but fun and quick. Oh, wait, I meant "completely boring and slooohooow, oh my gosh, how can you guys play this? Don't you know that technology has improved and you can now have really visceral combat in realtime?". Honestly, this a prime example of how TB combat can be done fast and I will probably use this in the future when I spread the word to the realtimefags.
I also love the fact that the character portraits change depending on the characters status. It's silly, but I find it very charming and can't help but giggle at it. The only thing I would have liked to have is a scrollable map that you can make notes on.

Currently I'm trying to kill the mad dwarf king, who keeps putting half my party to sleep while his sergeants clobber them to death. My characters are already 19 at this point (I started this quest immediately after leaving Vertigo), should this worry me? As in, will my characters be too old at the end of the game to finish it at this rate? How big of a concern is aging in this game?

 

[octavius]

I just started playing the series with M&M IV and I'm having a blast with it. Rolled up a party consisting of a knight, a paladin, an archer, a cleric, a robber and a sorcerer. Combat is simple but fun and quick. Oh, wait, I meant "completely boring and slooohooow, oh my gosh, how can you guys play this? Don't you know that technology has improved and you can now have really visceral combat in realtime?". Honestly, this a prime example of how TB combat can be done fast and I will probably use this in the future when I spread the word to the realtimefags.

The combat is a bit too fast and simple to my taste.
As a combatfag I think MM2 was the best of the old MM games.

Currently I'm trying to kill the mad dwarf king, who keeps putting half my party to sleep while his sergeants clobber them to death. My characters are already 19 at this point (I started this quest immediately after leaving Vertigo), should this worry me? As in, will my characters be too old at the end of the game to finish it at this rate? How big of a concern is aging in this game?

I don't remember much of MM4, but in MM3 you could waste lots of time taking odd jobs, and you would age if getting to close to radioactivity.
So I wouldn't worry too much. I never had a problem with aging in MM4 and 5, but in my first MM3 game my characters dies from old age due to exposure to radioacticity.

 

[kmonster]

Currently I'm trying to kill the mad dwarf king, who keeps putting half my party to sleep while his sergeants clobber them to death. My characters are already 19 at this point (I started this quest immediately after leaving Vertigo), should this worry me? As in, will my characters be too old at the end of the game to finish it at this rate? How big of a concern is aging in this game?

Don't worry, you could start with 70 year old characters and still be able to finish the game in time easily so don't worry as long as your characters aren't much older. At your current pace I think your characters will be about 30-40 years old at the end.

 

[Sceptic]

I just started playing the series with M&M IV and I'm having a blast with it. [...] Currently I'm trying to kill the mad dwarf king, who keeps putting half my party to sleep while his sergeants clobber them to death. My characters are already 19 at this point (I started this quest immediately after leaving Vertigo)

Funnily enough you're going through the worst part of the entire WOX. Once you get past the mines the game gets much better, and keeps getting exponentially so as you move from Cloudside to Darkside. If you're already enjoying it so much then you're in for one hell of a ride. Glad you're having so much fun!

 

[Falkner]

I just started playing the series with M&M IV and I'm having a blast with it. Rolled up a party consisting of a knight, a paladin, an archer, a cleric, a robber and a sorcerer. Combat is simple but fun and quick. Oh, wait, I meant "completely boring and slooohooow, oh my gosh, how can you guys play this? Don't you know that technology has improved and you can now have really visceral combat in realtime?". Honestly, this a prime example of how TB combat can be done fast and I will probably use this in the future when I spread the word to the realtimefags.

The combat is a bit too fast and simple to my taste.
As a combatfag I think MM2 was the best of the old MM games.

Understandable, but I think it works in a game that seems focused on exploration. It's just as fast (if not faster) as the RT combat of games like Lands Of Lore or Eye Of The Beholder while giving you the comfort of being able to take your time if you need to.

Funnily enough you're going through the worst part of the entire WOX. Once you get past the mines the game gets much better, and keeps getting exponentially so as you move from Cloudside to Darkside. If you're already enjoying it so much then you're in for one hell of a ride. Glad you're having so much fun!

Yeah, I'm kinda glad to be out of the mines soon and looking forward to exploring the world map some more. Still, I didn't expect to like the game so much considering I'm not much of a blobber guy. Being a presentationfag, it certainly helps that the game is so colourful and pretty and has nice music and aural feedback.

Cool about the aging thing. I was just a bit worried after having read about some people being unable to continue in later games due to their characters being too old. Since this is basically a two game affair, I thought it was going to be a problem.

 

[Sceptic]

Being a presentationfag, it certainly helps that the game is so colourful and pretty and has nice music and aural feedback.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: what settings are you using for music?

 

[Falkner]

I'm using the preconfigured Gog.com version so I didn't really set anything up. According to the config file it's using the Soundblaster 16 emulation. What exactly do you want to know?

Edit: Sceptic, bro, don't leave me hanging. What is so essential about this? Am I doomed?

 

[octavius]

Jon van Ceneghem is a funny guy.

Most of you probably know the story, but anyway, Scorpia gave MM2 a rather bad review in Computer Gaming World.
He got back at her in M3:

That special attack - Poison - was a "nice" touch.
Looking through old issues of CGW I was rather disappointed that Scorpia's role in MM3 was not mentioned in the preview, reviewe or tips for MM3.

But Jonnie-boy didn't stop at that. He also introduced himself as one of the heroes - the Good Paladin, of course - in MM3:

Here's a picture of the real JVC:

Sadly I don't have a picture of the real Scorpia with which to compare the MM3 picture.

 

[Excidium]

What is he doing nowadays? I know he got involved with MMO development some time ago.