Might and Magic 6-8; Who is playing, or has ever played?
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
The thread title says it. I am doing an MM6 run currently while waiting for BG:EE. The voice-acting, the live-acted portraits, and the gameplay are superlative, imo. This three-game series rivals BG in its awesomeness.
Interestingly, there has never again been a live-acted avatar set tried in other games. For some reason, people almost universally panned it as "goofy", or whatever, in MM6, which was a pioneer of game art in its time. I'm just glad it got done, because those MM6 actors have become some of my best virtual friends over the years. I believe that current-day motion-capture technology, as seen in Beowulf, Jim Carrey's A Chirstmas Carol, and other movies, has somewhat resurrected the fantasy movie magic that I first experienced with MM6. Here's hoping that some or the other future games will try it again, after the anticipated wild success of BG:EE.
Interestingly, there has never again been a live-acted avatar set tried in other games. For some reason, people almost universally panned it as "goofy", or whatever, in MM6, which was a pioneer of game art in its time. I'm just glad it got done, because those MM6 actors have become some of my best virtual friends over the years. I believe that current-day motion-capture technology, as seen in Beowulf, Jim Carrey's A Chirstmas Carol, and other movies, has somewhat resurrected the fantasy movie magic that I first experienced with MM6. Here's hoping that some or the other future games will try it again, after the anticipated wild success of BG:EE.
Post edited by BelgarathMTH on
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Enjoy!
http://www.celestialheavens.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11731
http://mightandmagic.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
In a nutshell, HOMM 1 is the first, historically. In the original printed manual that came with the game, Lord Ironfist Senior is presumed to have been gated involuntariy to Enroth from an unknown world. He establishes himself there, and, through his military and economic genius, defeats Lords Slayer and Alamar, and Lady Lamanda, for dominance over the continent onto which he gated.
HOMM 2 comes next, with the Succession Wars. Lord Ironfist Senior has two sons, Roland and Archibald. The canon story assumes the good path - Roland defeats Archibald, turns him to stone, and places the statue in Castle Ironfist.
Then come the events of MM6. You are part of a party of four heroes and two utility characters. The world of Enroth has been attacked by the Kreegan. You must prevent them from stripping the planet of its resources and then destroying it with their Death-Star level technology. In order to succeed, you must free Archibald from his petrification in order to access his worlds-spanning knowledge of how to defeat the superior technology of the Kreegan. Along the way, you will also meet the Ancients, who are divided into the Goa'uld like Varn, who use Egyptian art and look like the Egyptian god Anubis, and, later, in HOMM3 and MM7, the Tok'ra like "Angels".
Then come the events of HOMM 3. Queen Catherine has been forced to leave her beloved Roland and Nicholai, and to return to her home continent of Erathia, which is besieged by both Kreegan and the mysterious elemental lords.
Then, MM7. You are again part of a party of four heroes and two utility characters. King Roland has been kidnapped and spirited away to parts unknown in Erathia. You must work for Queen Catherine and rescue him. Meanwhile, Archibald has also traveled to Erathia, and is making nefarious plans. Even worse, the Ancients have returned to the planet, and the "Goa'uld" plan to start producing technology that will dominate the galaxy, while the "Tok'ra" plan to stop them, and to reopen the ancient, long-lost Stargate system and restore travel and communication to the galaxy.
Then, MM8. The Ancients, who have now left humankind to its own devices after sending the MM7 party out into the cosmos as anti-Kreegan peacekeepers, had created, long ago, a now-forgotten artificial intelligence known as Eschaton. Its mission was to stop any Kreegan it found, by any means necessary, up to and including the destruction of entire infested planets. Your new party of four adventurers and two utility characters must discover why the very elements are wreaking destruction upon the planet, and to eventually find and convince Eschaton that the Kreegan can be purged from Enroth without the destruction of the planet.
Unfortunately, after you succeed at stopping Eschaton, two foolish rivals obtain the Blade of Armaggedon and its opposite, more or less weapons composed of matter and anti-matter. They are hell-bent on mutual destruction, and they fight with the horrible blades. The Ancients (Tok'ra/Angels), are too late to prevent the final destruction of Enroth, so they save as many beings as possible and carry them through Stargates to a new planet while our beloved, lamented, doomed Enroth is slowly exploding from the core outward, due to the meeting of matter and anti-matter within its atmosphere. Thus begins the events of HOMM IV.
Whew, this game has one of the best game stories I've ever experienced.
The first episode of the Stargate TV series was released in July 1997. Might and Magic 6 was released in 1998. However, the previous installments of Might and Magic 1-5, which were DOS-based and pre-Windows, had many of the same story elements.
So, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Great minds think alike, I suppose. The story-element of the "magic portal" has been around since "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Chronicles of Narnia."
(oops meant to say MM9 not good not MM8)
Things I especially liked were the diverse enemies, lots of area to explore (also diverse areas), mini-games, factions and skill trees - through occasionally a pain to find a master or grand master. Also the game had a certain ambiance which helped to convey the feeling of being there i.e the shop interfaces and buildings had good sounds and ambient effects.
That Might and Magic X fan project has been going on for many, many years. I've about given up that they're ever going to actually get a game out, but they aren't dead yet.
I go to the Celestial Heavens website frequently. This is where all the remaining fans of Homm and MM hang out, and they have a vast library of Homm maps you can download.
http://www.celestialheavens.com/forums/index.php?sid=435ace2190284256258adb60fe205520
There was a Might and Magic IX rushed out the door right before 3DO and New World Computing shut down. It was released in a very unfinished state, and did not hold true to the spirit of the game. Most fans, including me, thought it was such a horrible abomination that we do not even acknowledge its existence.
Homm IV was also a move in a "new" direction, going to a new planet and all that, so many fans didn't like that release, either. For them it all ended with Homm III. I enjoyed Homm IV for its gameplay, which was admittedly quite different from Homm I-III, but whatever story there was was so forgettable that, well, I forgot it.
So, for me as a fan, this beloved story arc ends with the destruction of the planet Enroth at the beginning of Homm IV, which gives it a tragic ending. It's also kind of a "wtf - I just spent the last 15 years of my life saving this fictional planet, and they blow it all up, just like that?" kind of ending. So, I prefer to think that the story ends with the saving of Enroth from the artificial intelligence Eschaton at the end of MM8, and that everybody lived happily ever after, and history marched on.
Belgar did a great job detailing some of the history. Let me add a simple synopsis.
The Ancients were a peaceful, knowledge-loving powerful race that spread across the universe. They created worlds with four letter names and linked them in a vast technological network sharing information and travel. Then they ran into the Kreegan, a monstrous race bent on destruction and consumption of resources. The Kreegan and Ancients fought, and the Kreegan destroyed the network. With the link broken, all the planets were now on their own and the peoples eventually degraded technologically to a medieval level. They turned to magic as a result. Here's a link with a good accounting of this history. Major spoilers.
http://www.angelfire.com/ma3/neatpics/mmhistory.html
What I liked was how the games connected in the lengthy continuation of a story. It's rare to find a game series like that. For example, your eight member party disappears at the end of MM3, apparently lost in space. However, they show up again and become the plot point of MM7. Several names in the games like Crag Hack and Sandro were in the very first MM1. Not Homm 1, MM1.
6 was awesome, 7 was good, 8 was decent, and 9 shall not be mentioned. Apparently Caneghem spent all his time with his race cars during MM9, didn't communicate with the design team at all, and when he came back when the game was near completion, told them it was all wrong and wanted them to do it over, so they started to change it, but it was too late, and it just got all Fucked up. A disappointing end to an awesome series.
There is also a great fan mod for Homm3 called In the Wake of Gods, which adds a lot of content. @belgarathmth, did you ever play any peasant games in MM6?
"So, I prefer to think that the story ends with the saving of Enroth from the artificial intelligence Eschaton at the end of MM8, and that everybody lived happily ever after, and history marched on. "
I do the same thing; everything past MM8 is ignored. It's a shame Ubisoft bought the M&M name and then totally debased it. Dark Messiah had nothing to do with MM. Piss on Ubisoft.
Homm 2 intro
MM6 intro
For those who have seen the movie Serenity, I was watching the beginning and right after the Universal logo faded, I started saying "they came from the depths of the void..." Watch the beginnings of the MM6 and serenity vids and you'll see the similarity.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-_uGEJb7hbm7m/serenity_2005_river_in_class/
One of the mysteries that fans still debate about is, who are the angels? The series didn't really make it clear. I always just thought they were the servants of the Ancients, or that maybe they *were* the Ancients, but other fans have other theories, and I've seen heated arguments break out over the issue.
I don't know what you mean by "peasant games" in MM6, but no, I've only every played the vanilla game. (Over and over - I've got a run going right now.)
The intro movie to MM6 is the best video game intro movie I've ever seen. Panning in from outer space, and then seeing the dragon flying over the sea from underneath, and then from behind as it passes over the camera, and that fantastic music, puts me in exactly the same emotional state as the famous intro scene to Star Wars Episode IV, where the rebel blockade runner and the imperial star destroyer pass over the camera with Tatooine below.
EDIT:
I think the MM8 intro movie is also pretty good. It has good scenes of the elemental destruction spreading across the planet, along with more really good music.
http://users.icnet.net/~klar/MISC/MODs.html
The concept is simple. You start with no gold, no items, and all your stats are 0. That's right, 0, including your level. The link contains saved games you can download that were modified with an editor. Once you've played with a party of peasants, for more challenge, you can then try to play with a solo peasant. Then you could even try a solo peasant that never levels (finishing at level 0). There are also saves for 7-9 as well, including different themes. If you google, I'm sure you can find numerous old threads of people discussing their peasant games.
There are a ton of other SIRs you can do also, to make your game more challenging, like no shop, no loot, or no black. I once started writing some fanfic based on the MM6 intro, then my hard drive died. : (
For Homm 2, the ones I really love are the second set of sound tracks that came with the Price of Loyalty expansion pack; a lot of people don't know about those. They were the first CD quality tracks that got released, using full orchestra instead of midi.
Here's the sorceress, starting with a beautiful flute solo over strings and harp, and then a soprano singing "Stay in peace, who is worthy, stay in peace today, peace to they who come, peace to they who come" it's the only one of the opera arias that's sung in English for the whole series - the rest are all in German.
Another favorite - the baritone warlock singing in the style of Richard Wagner, after a long introduction reminiscent of Ride of the Valkyries:
My favorite from HOMM I, a baroque rondo. There's a delightful English Horn solo at 1:04:
And the warlock, whose castle plays an orchestration of the Rondeau in D minor from the Bach English Suites for Harpsichord:
You might enjoy this interview with Paul Romero, where he talks about how he composed the tracks, and his relationship with sound producer Rob King:
The first 40 seconds of the video are of the interviewer explaining how he got the interview - he's just a regular guy, a college student.
German opera in anything but German would be kind of an abomination to any opera lover. Most opera lovers are also enthusiastic foreign languages students, especially German and Italian.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/5753/neverwinter-nights