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Might&Magic Old School Minimal and No Reload Thread (spoilers):

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  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    A solid, excellent progress! Dealing with Minotaur Kings... Having 350+ HPs and 220+ SPs... Also, Belgarath looks interesting in that party ;)
    BelgarathMTH
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Supplemental Update, 110315B:

    We need to go to Darkmoor at last so that Minsc can get master plate - the trainer who lives above Lord Temper will not train anyone who has not done Lord Humphrey's final promotion quest, to kill a named dragon. More on this later.
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    While we're right here in Castle Ironfist, we visit Archbishop Inquisitorio, who will train me to master spirit magic at only rank 8, now that I am a high priest.
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    We work through Corlagon's dungeon for Dynaheir's final promotion to archmage. Corlagon, I presume? I see you decided to become a lich after your humiliating failure to dual class from Knight to Necromancer in HoMM2. Lichdom doesn't pay, dude.
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    Corlagon's item that we need for Dynaheir.
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    Dynaheir becomes an archmage. No one, not even the Child of Baa Imoen, can rival her for arcane spell points now.
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    BTW, I am freely using Temples of Baa whenever I need them for their cheapness of healing and convenience on so many maps. If Daddy Dearest wants to work against his own interests by healing me and mine on the cheap, while I openly serve his rival good deities, then, sure. I'm really more of a relentlessly practical "neutral good" leaning towards "true neutral" type. I lean heavily towards lawful good and lawful neutral, but sometimes the lawful good and lawful neutral are just too unbalanced and rigid in their beliefs for their own good. ;)

    As we head back out to go to Darkmoor, we happen upon the Shrine of Electricity during the month of September. Plus ten to electricity resistance? Yes, please.
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    We arrive in Darkmoor, finally. Dynaheir places a Lloyd's Beacon here, because the place is important for three or four trainers, and for Loretta Fleise, and also for an optional quest called "Place the Statuettes", which I doubt we're going to do.. We will probably get this guy his grimoire, but it will be much, much later, since it's in a castle swarming with beholders, gauths, elder orbs, and liches. Sigh. We'll wait until the other thing there becomes important and unavoidable. ;)
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    Minsc finds his spear master trainer here. Yay!
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    We might help to defeat the evil dwarf king Snergle for the good dwarves, even though we don't have any axe users.
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    The town of Darkmoor is the most confusing and frustrating town ever developed for a classical RPG game. We search for almost an hour of real time to *finally* find this guy who can train Imoen to master perception. You have to have the patience of Job, and to *really* want master perception, or you'll never find this dude. We finally found him. Yay! Imoen can now see all hidden treasure in the game.
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    So, behind Darkmoor is our "named dragon" that we need to kill so Minsc can get his master plate skill. We will eventually have to face mobs of these class VI monstrosities, but a single individual is not much of a match for us at our current level of 30+.
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    A beautiful photograph of this (sort of) Firkraag equivalent. I wish I didn't have to kill him.
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    The deed is done, sadly.
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    Humphrey promotes us so we can get our master plate. Then we teleport to Free Haven and get it for Minsc.
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    Before going back into level training, we decide to complete Lord Humphrey's council quest to find the late Lord Kilburn's shield. We can fly over these wolfmen, get the shield, and avoid fighting them if we want to. Luckily however, they have none of what I will be calling "Red Shorts". Red shorts mark the second upgrade of wolfmen, and those have an instant KO attack, making them no-TPK enders in large numbers. We'll only need to deal with Red Shorts later if we decide to do the optional quest of healing the people of Blackshire from lycanthropy. We'll probably wind up doing it, because I insist that we be total goody-goodies and help every people in need, everywhere. ;)

    We recover the shield, and return to Regent Humphrey to gain his support on the High Council of Enroth. I'm sure his representative's name of "Slither Slicktongue" doesn't mean anything. We also find a super awesome spear for Minsc in the chest with the late Lord Kilburn's shield.

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    It's getting very near to September 23, the Autumn Equinox when we can complete Lady Fleise's first druid quest for boohoodles of xp (and the first prestige class promotion for any druids if we had any.) While we're in Silver Cove, we may as well do this optional quest to wipe out some evil druids for this woman.
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    There's another reason for us to start adventuring in Silver Cove. Minsc's promotion quest is here. We'll likely be here for awhile. If we can't get past the cuisinarts (they're evil knights who do just what they sound like), we'll probably go do the last dungeon in Free Haven to do Lady Loretta's second promotion quest on the full moon, and train up some more levels. There's a Silver Helm outpost here with an Ankh quest item in it, but for the life of me, I can never remember what that stupid Ankh is for. I might go ahead and pick it up just for the xp, and also some practice against the warlocks I will face en masse in the dreaded Gharik's Forge.

    Party summaries:
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    One of the party member's skill screens is refusing to upload again.

    BTW, I forgot to post a picture of Mordred. It's one of the best daggers ever in a game.
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    Party Level: 33
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Update 110415a:

    At last! A Raise Dead spell! I was beginning to despair of ever finding it without save-scumming the spirit guild in Free Haven. The coming end game would be a nightmare if I didn't have this spell!
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    We clear out the shadow druid monolith in Silver Cove to complete this minor sidequest:
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    After I buy a Power spell for myself in Free Haven, and using Dynaheir to teleport from the might fountain in New Sorpigal back to Silver Cove, Minsc has 100 might and can pull this sword from its stone. It is possibly the best two-handed sword in the game, but it's still not as good as dual-wielding spear and sword at master level. Minsc will probably hang onto it, though, because the fire damage could be helpful fighting oozes.
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    At long last we find an Implosion spell at the Free Haven air guild. This is one of the best air magic spells in the game, as it bypasses most resistances.
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    We decide to attack the Tomb of Ethric the Mad for extra treasure and xp before bringing Minsc to face the Cuisinart Warlord. This room is always interesting, especially if you try to do this dungeon at too low a level to withstand any Fireball hits. (There's a lot of super awesome spell effect action in this game that is very hard to catch on still shots.)
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    Ethric the Mad, I presume? He is accompanied by a small army of liches. The thing that makes liches really nasty in MM6 is that they spam Dispel Magic, so you have little choice but to fight them with *no* magical protections active. Think of fighting a mob of two dozen or so BG liches who all keep casting Breach, Remove Magic, etc. at you. They are much easier to beat as individuals in MM6 than they are in BG, but in MM6 they always come in mobs.
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    The deed is done, and we collect Ethric's skull.
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    There is usually unbelievably fantastic treasure in this place. We find a sword that would be perfect for a paladin. Unfortunately, it is of no use to Minsc. We will have to sell it. But there are a lot of other gear upgrades here that we can use, including a winged mana helmet for me. I always did like to look like Thor wielding a hammer when I play a D&D cleric. Durkon and I are kindred spirits. :)
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    We return Ethric's skull to the questgiver:
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    Another very useful helmet found in the Tomb of Ethric the Mad, that Dynaheir couldn't identify at only expert level. As I've said, +10 to All Resistance is my favorite item affix. More of these, please. Oh look, the shop had another one. Awesome sauce!
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    Party summary:
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    Party Level: 35
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Supplemental Update: 110415B:

    We go after the Cuisinart Warlord and Minsc's final promotion quest, which will end in his having over 600 hit points. The treasure in this dungeon is awesome. The trouble with the Warlord is that he is not only a Cuisinart himself, he has a small army of other Cuisinarts protecting him. The trouble with Cuisinarts is that they each individually hit like dragons, and they have about the same hit points as a dragon each. I keep forgetting that the Cuisinarts drop some of the best plate mail in the game when you finally take them down. The chests in this dungeon often contain the best plate mail to be had in the game, as well. There are awesome swords to be had as well. This is a warrior's dungeon through and through, though your arcane casters will likely be doing most of the damage - Cuisinarts are very vulnerable to both ice and lightning.
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    Aha! Our first suit of golden plate armor! Minsc now has the same golden colors as his golden miniature giant space hamster, Boo! Both Minsc and Boo are rejoicing!
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    Yikes! Two of them at once!
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    Luckily, the Warlord himself is not any tougher as an individual than any of his Cuisinart friends. We return to Lord Temper and get Minsc promoted. Did I mention he now has over 600 hit points?
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    We decide it's time to find the way to Kriegspire so we can continue our quest progression. It turns out that it's easiest to get there by way of a coach in Free Haven. This guy wants us to find an "egg" for him in Castle Kriegspire. Umm, yeah, we won't be doing that for awhile. Castle Kriegspire is a very hard endgame dungeon swarming with Minotaur Kings.
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    With Imoen's enabling spell of Flight for our Quartet of Kryptonians, though, a couple of quests in Kriegspire are very easy. Here is the weather-controlling hermit's house that Lord Stromgard wants us to find. While we're at it, we fly down to a chest guarded by a swarm of earth elementals, and find me the chain mail of my dreams. :)
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    Lord Stromgard is delighted, and gives us his support on the High Council. (Why are we so worried about gaining the support of the High Council? Well, apparently they are guarding an Oracle who can tell us how to stop the devils. Why are they making us jump through hoops to find out how to beat the devils? Umm, I don't know, maybe they don't trust us? We started as nobodies? Suspension of disbelief?)
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    By training frequently, which takes a week of in-game time, we are able to reset the magic guilds in Free Haven often. Our various spell books are becoming complete. I complete my spirit magic and body magic access. Imoen completes her air spell access. Dynaheir is one spell short of complete water magic knowledge - Acid Burst, which would actually be a very useful spell for us at this point. But, no-reload, and all that.
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    We teleport back to Kriegspire and defeat the devil outpost for Lord Temper. The devil outpost is one of the easiest and smallest objectives in the game, once you are high level and can get there and back safely (have free access to teleportation and flight).
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    We use our free teleportation via Dynaheir's master Town Portal and Lloyd's Beacon spells to complete Lady Fleise's council quest:
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    We visit the High Council in Free Haven to see our progress. Only Lord Newton's representative is still giving "thumbs down". Or, wait a minute, why is Slicker Silvertongue still giving thumbs down? We completed his lord's council quest. More on that later. For now, we need to teleport back to New Sorpigal and enter the dreaded Ghaarik's Forge in order to get the Hourglass of Time for Lord Newton. This will be my least favorite, most dreaded dungeon in the game, as it is a stupid, hated, puzzle dungeon. I still might have to consult a walkthrough to solve that hated bridge puzzle. But yeah, more on that Friday or Saturday. (I can't play tomorrow, Thursday.)
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    Party summary screens:
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    Notice the pink lettered awards on this screen. These are the council quest completions, vital to the main story line. We have five of seven completed. (There's an extra one needed because of Slicker Slicktongue, who is totally not a traitor to Enroth.)
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    Party Level: 41
    TPKs: 0
    Post edited by BelgarathMTH on
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Update: 110615

    We attack the dreaded Gharik's Forge to get Lord Newton's Houglass of Time. The Warlocks here drop a lot of staves, giving you your best chance in the game to get a good staff (95 percent of them are lousy junk). In a stroke of luck for a really good roll, Dynaheir gets a staff that is so good, it does more damage at staff skill level one than her dual daggers at expert level four. She regrets that the thing looks so evil, topped with a horned skull with glowing red eyes, but it's too good not to use. And we will use it for good, to be sure.
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    We arrive at the climactic battle for this dungeon, a small army of warlocks and fire elementals. I consider going somewhere else and building more levels first, but I take my shot. Dynaheir discovers that the Warlocks are vulnerable to master level Incinerate, and Imoen discovers that they are vulnerable to master level Implosion. Using these spells, and lots of healing from me, we manage to win, surprising ourselves.
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    I get my dream shield in this dungeon.
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    Dynaheir teleports us to New Sorpigal to rest and recharge mana. We have over 100,000 gold in the bank. It might be fun to see how much we can save by the end of the game. Can we end the game with a million or more gold in the bank? Doubtful - we will keep spending to train. There's no such thing as too much gold in this game. We will spend fortunes upon fortunes right up through the end.
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    Dynaheir teleports us daily to a fountain in Whitecap that gives us plus ten to level, every day. It doesn't give us any extra skills, but it is a huge bonus to hit points and spell points.
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    Continuing Gharik's Forge. More Warlocks attack from the side corridor.
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    It turns out that the dreaded Warlocks of Enroth are no match for the mighty magics of Dynaheir and Imoen, who laugh at their puny skills. Hahaa! (Umm, they totally will not try to get the last laugh later, in even greater numbers, in any huge, sprawling castles. Nope, they're totally puny wusses who will be no further threat to us.)

    The Houglass of Time is ours. Or, I guess it's Lord Newton's. There's also some other awesome treasure in here.
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    Lord Newton is pleased.
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    It's time to deal with Slicker Silvertongue. Lord Humphrey needs proof that his lackey is a traitor. He gives us a cloak that will help us get into the Superior Temple of Baa in Kriegspire. He suspects that Silvertongue is involved, but will not act without solid proof. What a standup lawful good guy.
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    Party summary screens:
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    I think I may take a break from the main quest at this point and do some optional sidequesting in order to gain more xp before I tackle the endgame. I've especially been avoiding the wolfman dungeon of Blackshire, since it can easily end my no-TPK status regardless of party level. I can also help Lady Fleise with some medusas and shadow druids in Free Haven, help rescue an innocent from some more medusas in Blackshire, or attack an evil dragonrider outpost in Kriegspire.

    There are also many, many outdoor areas in miles of unexplored map where I can start fighting swarms of Class V and Class VI mosnters for treasure chests, xp, and obelisk pieces. One of the awesome things about MM6 is that it has a huge, sprawling endgame. Once your characters reach godlike power, there are swarms of godlike creatures for them to fight if they want, and the challenge and rewards continue until you as the player finally call it quits. (By either finishing the main quest, or, if you do, the game will still put you back out into the world to keep playing if you want.)

    Party Level: 43
    TPKs: 0
    Post edited by BelgarathMTH on
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Update 110715A:

    We visit and pray at the Shrine of Magic in December, and all of us gain +10 to magic resistance. This is the hardest resistance to get, so the bonus is very welcome.
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    We have cleared the Free Haven shadow druid temple of medusas, so that we can return the quest to Lady Fleise and be promoted to Honorary Archdruids at the next full moon.

    This lady wants us to rescue her husband from more medusas. We will do so very soon.
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    First we will stop evil dwarf King Snergle from usurping power from good dwarf King Rocklin. As we later discover, evil King Snergle has allied with the Kreegan. This quest involves two optional dungeons. In the first one, in Darkmoor, we free a prisoner who gives us a key to open evil King Snergle's hidey hole. In the second dungeon, in Castle Ironfist, after we open the hidey hole, we get swarmed with an entire army of evil dwarves that King Snergle has held back with him to protect him. The opening of Snergle's door can be an easy no-TPK game-over for the unwary, even for adventurers of our high level. Luckily, Dynaheir's teleportation magic can get us out of certain death, and then return us with a single "bamf" to a more strategically advantageous position that Snergle cannot overcome. Our reward at the end of all of this is free master axe skill for Minsc, as soon as he spends the low, low cost of four skill points on axe skill and training in expert axe. There was a lot of good treasure to be had along the way, and much gold and xp earned.
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    Dynaheir finally completes her fire spell book in Free Haven. Without save-scumming the guilds. I'm rather proud of filling out our spell books without save-scumming in this run.
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    Party summary:
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    Party Level: 45
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Hey, I'm thinking ahead to taking this BG party to MM7 and MM8. I think I might do MM8 before MM7. I just created this projection of my current BG party using Grayface's party creation script for MM8. (The original won't let you create your own party, but Grayface fixed that.) I'm interested in feedback for this before I actually finish my current MM6 no-TPK (or, if it turns out to be so, minimal-TPK).

    One has to ignore for MM8 that it makes Dynaheir be a "necromancer". MM8 has what for me is a major flaw in trying to force you to play evil, including trying to get you to have monsters in your party. The "temptation to the dark side" in MM8 will be no worse-realized than with Dynaheir, who will have to become a lich if she wants to gain grandmastery of the elements. I'll really have to struggle with this decision for her in MM8. My temptation will be to take the title of "lich", but to edit her portrait and paperdoll to make her look like her living appearance. I'd be interested in any advice about this. If I let her become a lich in MM8, the game will change her portrait appropriately to the part unless I edit it. I'm thinking that Dynaheir would never choose to do that, so I may need to give myself a challenge to play MM8 without any access to grandmaster elements.

    Here's my first draft of my MM6 party continued into MM8:
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    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Here's what I came up with for my BG party carried into MM7:

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    Post edited by BelgarathMTH on
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Update: 110815:

    We got a lot done, including facing the dread Greater Werewolves, without losing our TPK status.

    Since I'm pretty sure @bengoshi is the only person reading this, and maybe even the only other person who even opens the thread, I'm going to just let the pictures tell the story. :)

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    Party Level: 50ish
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • CahirCahir Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 2,819
    Hey, I'm reading this too. It's kinda fascinating. I played this game to death like 15 years ago. I still remember hunting legendary items by fighting respawned mobs of titans and dragons:) Please do not be discourage by lack of responses and don't stop writing. It's a great story to read!
    JuliusBorisovBelgarathMTH
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Thanks, @Cahir, it's nice to know more than one person is reading the run. Although, on reflection, I think I really do these kinds of journals mostly for myself, because I enjoy looking back over the summaries and the screen shots of my own runs. I'd recommend to more people that they try it, in the BG run threads if not in this one. Keeping a record of your runs that you can enjoy looking back over is kind of rewarding, if you have the time.

    I also find that it keeps me more honest as a player, since others can see what I'm doing, and it makes me less likely to restart or use character editors, and more likely to press through to the end of a run.
    JuliusBorisovCahir
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Update 111015:

    We attack the temple of Baa in Kriegspire to find evidence for Lord Humphrey that Slicker Silvertongue is a willful traitor acting of his own free malice, and not just insane or dominated.

    We find the high sorcerer's key almost as soon as we enter the dungeon, but it will neither unlock all the doors nor the suspiciously ornate looking chest in his room by itself. Puzzled, we proceed to try to explore the temple while being mobbed by evil priests, warlocks, and shadow druids.

    At last, we kill a seemingly random high priest in this room, and are caught by surprise at finding the High Priest's key on him. He was a single enemy out of, I'd say, at least 200 or more in this dungeon.
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    With two keys, one from the high sorcerer, and the second from the high priest, we are able to open the quest chest and find the incriminating letter. Humphrey is distraught, but gives us his authority to remove Slicker Silvertongue from the High Council of Enroth.
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    Slicker is pissed off. There is actually a live action movie here, and the guy you see in the screenie is a live actor. He says his lines, swirls his black cape at us, showing the red logo of a bloody sword thrust through a bloody world, and disappears in a cloud of smoke and sparks with a nice "bamf".
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    Now we can finally enter the oracle chambers beneath the High Council of Enroth courtroom, through the space formerly occupied by Slicker Silvertongue. I think all five of these guys are dumbfounded, and they are quite obviously clueless about what we are going to find down there. They only built their court above it and denied people access to it just because it gave them nice, cushy, high-paying, bureaucratic jobs with the ability to lord it over supplicants.
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    WTF? Is this a high fantasy epic, or a science fiction? There's a Stargate in here? Enter chevron alpha! Enter chevron beta! Enter chevron delta! Enter chevron epsilon! Oh, crap, Ancient One Tokra, you say all four chevron crystals are missing, and scattered all over Enroth in four separate castles heavily guarded by Jaffa? The Minotaur Guard? The Beholder Guard? The Magyar Guard? The Warlock Guard? Baa and the Kreegan are Goa'uld? We haven't even met their elite Anubis Guard yet? They landed here in a pyramid ship? We're going to eventually attack their main reactor and fight killer Cylon Borg floating spheres? We need laser blasters? What's a laser? Crap!
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    The heart and soul of the entire Might and Magic franchise is that it starts as a D&D fantasy epic, and then you find out by the end of each game that you are actually playing a science fiction. This series was almost definitely inspired by both the Stargate and Star Trek series, and we will even see the Battlestar Galactica crashed to the bottom of the AvLee sea in MM7.

    Tragically, the newer fans of the franchise brought in by Heroes of Might and Magic 1, 2, and 3 had no clue. A negative fan backlash actually forced New World Computing and 3D0 to backtrack and change their plans to have a technological Ancient Forge as a town type and faction in HOMM 3. (Pet peeve: It's FACTION, people, not "fraction". A faction is a side in a conflict. A fraction is a division of a whole.)

    They had to hastily replace the Ancient Forge with the Elemental Conflux not long before release, based on their market research.

    To this day, a significant percentage of HOMM3 fans do not know that their beloved strategy franchise is a SCIENCE FICTION, and always was. Or at least, it was until clueless newer fans forced NWC and 3D0 to change the entire concept of the franchise, greatly impoverishing it from its original glory.
    CahirJuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    I just thought I'd add, this D&D module from 1980 set a precedent for genre-twisting from fantasy to science fiction in D&D. The term "science fantasy" came into use to describe this and other works. The hybrid "science fantasy" genre may have been revived into popular culture with Star Wars in 1977.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedition_to_the_Barrier_Peaks

    My high school D&D group played the module, and I always remembered it as a fascinating experience. (I had to resurrect one of my friends when he disintegrated himself with a laser pistol pointed the wrong way!)

    What would happen if a formerly technological society descended into swords and sorcery barbarism, and then characters from that society began to rediscover the technology thousands of years later?

    Anne McCaffrey explored similar themes in the "Dragonriders of Pern" series that I read through high school and college.

    I'll always remember the big reveal moment described in the previous post in Might and Magic 6 as being one of the best implementations of genre-twisting that I've ever experienced, though. The first time I played, I was completely blindsided. It was wonderful. I don't think any other game has ever done that for me.
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Update 111115A:

    We recovered memory crystal Epsilon from the Jaffa Bull Guard in the dreaded Castle Kriegspire.

    Here is the location of the button hidden in a column that will ruin your day when you can't find it, if you didn't already know it was there. There is even a huge basement to this dungeon where you could fight hundreds of drakes and Agar's Horrors, thinking that it is the way when you discover it, and at the end of it, nope, it was just a *huge* red herring. This thrice-cursed gods-damned button was one of many reasons I had to go out and buy a paperback guide when I first played this game in 1998. If you don't find it, you're stuck forever on the main questline. Today, I still couldn't find my way up to the balcony where this button is without using the Jump spell. Thank the gods for the Jump spell! More on that when we go to the dreaded Castle Darkmoor.
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    That button opens this door near the entrance to Castle Kriegspire.
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    You will find Lurch there. Since he has a name, you will think he has something important to drop or to guard. Nope, he's another red herring. A very, very tough, *literal* red herring, as per his shorts color. He's also an "Addams Family" reference. This game has a *lot* of Easter egg pop culture references. Later, we will use the names of the entire crew of Starship Enterprise to gain access to the core of a Goa'uld pyramid protected by Jaffa jackal guard. (Like I said, the devs of this game just *loved* "Stargate" and "Star Trek."
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    Yay! We obtain Memory "chevron" Epsilon for the "stargate". Obtaining this crucial main storyline McGuffin involves jumping through a very narrow upper level window down into the area where you can get it. You have to be *perfectly* aligned on the window in order to jump through it with the normal keyboard jump command. (The spell Jump will make you crash into the roof here, and it won't work.) If you try it three or four times without success, you will think that this is not the way to get to the memory crystal, and you will wind up in the red herring basement fighting and killing at least 100 drakes - and still winding up stumped as to how to continue the game. NWC *really* wanted you to buy their paperback guide for $15 in 1998 dollars, unadjusted for inflation.
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    We return to the "Tokra" base in Free Haven, and replace the "chevron" Epsilon memory crystal into the "stargate", for 100,000 xp. I figured correctly that since we had fought "earth magic" creatures to get it, i.e. the "Jaffa Bull Guard", that it was the "earth magic" crystal, symbolized by the brown wall within this department of the ruined "SGC".

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    We proceed to the dreaded Darkmoor Castle, protected by the equally dreaded "Jaffa Beholder and Lich Guard" These are "air magic" creatures, I think. Below are closeups of MM6's version of the "beholder". They are the stuff of nightmares, and they are mechanically as dangerous or more dangerous than BG's versions. What makes them most dangerous is that they spam Sleep spells. You'd better have two or more characters or means to dispel Sleep, or you could be in trouble with an unlucky dice roll. (Means to dispel Sleep are Restoration potions from alchemy, or the Awaken spell from water magic.) I know that if the hundreds of "beholders" here ever get lucky with their Sleep spell spamming, my no -TPK status is over for this run.

    The second most dangerous thing about both "beholders" and liches, of which there are literally hundreds in the dreaded Castle Darkmoor, is that they spam Dispel Magic. You can forget about facing these creatures in mobs with any buffs or protections active.

    So, here is a very close call with the spammed Sleep spells from the "beholders" Our strategy is to kill as many "beholders" as possible, then to use Dynaheir's master water magic teleportation skills to come back to New Sorpigal for cheap healing, then return via Lloyd's Beacon. We have "rinsed and repeated" this procedure dozens of times, and we have dozens more times to go. I also keep using Town Portal to collect reagents every day to keep a full supply of Divine Magic potions available to extend each cycle for a bit longer by restoring 100 spell points for both Dynaheir and Imoen per gulp. Also, it is hugely helpful to have two master level arcane casters in the party.

    image


    Up close and personal with the stuff of nightmares, beholder style. We can hear the memory crystal we need buzzing in our ears from here with its otherworldly electronic basso profundo sound, but still we are barred from our goal by hundreds of beholders (and that is not an exaggeration).

    (We had to use the Jump spell twice to get this far over two different barriers. I think there's a way to do it without the Jump spell, but you could wander around in the first part of Castle Darkmoor probably forever and never find it, without purchasing the official NWC paperback guide to MM6 for the low, low cost of only $15 at your local bookstore or electronics store.)
    imageimageimage


    Party Level: 53
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    Castle Darkmoor is probably the scariest dungeon for me in all computer games.

    Also, I always giggle when look on the face expressions of people who were in the cast for MM6. It should have been a lot of fun to record them.
    BelgarathMTH
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Update 111315 (Friday the 13th!)

    Continuing Castle Darkmoor.

    I wonder if we should jump down there? Looks like there are 1001 beholders and liches down there. Our goal is clearly there, but will we be overwhelmed and end our no-TPK? I steel my nerves, and we jump.
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    We run, run, run, run , run, run, run (tribute to @Necomancer) after jumping, and luckily find a defensible alcove. Dynaheir sets our "transporter beacon" here. I don't know who this "Lich King" is, since he's no more powerful than just a regular power lich. Whatever, he's toast. For the first time, I start to find a worthwhile use for light magic - Destroy Undead allows me to finally join our two witches in actually doing some damage to the enemies in addition to my healing powers.
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    Geez Louise, there are a lot of liches in here!
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    And beholders!
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    We prevail! The final legion of the Jaffa Beholder/Lich Guard is turned into the bunch of yellow dots representing dead enemies you can see on the map in the upper right hand corner.
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    Hmm, I wonder why the teleportation cubes turned red? It has to do with the Book of Liches we almost forgot about, for that guy from way back, in Darkmoor Town. I almost missed the significance of this until I got out of here and realized I still had that quest in my book, which I could not return until I came back here.

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    Ah, Memory "Chevron" Crystal Delta, I presume? Yep.
    imageimage


    Returning after realizing we'd missed it, we click on the red teleportation cube and wind up in the chamber of the Book of Liches. Now we can return the quest and tie up that loose end. I am *so* glad that we are *done* with the dreaded Castle Darkmoor for this run.
    imageimageimage


    We return to the ruined SGC base in Free Haven to insert Memory "Chevron" Delta into the Stargate. The beholders and liches were in fact "air magic" creatures, as shown by the sky blue walls in the Memory "Chevron" Delta chambers.
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    I checked my journal before going into training, and realized that I left a quest undone in Castle Kriegspire. We return there to recover the "jeweled egg" for the quest. After killing all the drakes and Agar's horrors in what I earlier called the "red herring basement", we found a plaque offering magically to tell us the "secret of the dungeon" for 50,000 gold. This reminded me that if you pay it, it will show you a picture of that button in the column on the balcony that opens the way to Memory "Chevron" Epsilon. It won't show you exactly where the button is, or how to get up there, though. I'm really glad I already knew where it was. I will never forget where to find that STUPID button!
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    After discovering an entire new wing of Castle Kriegspire, we finally find our jeweled egg, which allows us to return the sidequest for bonus xp.
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    We go back to Free Haven to finally enter training. We reach party level 60, and discover that level 60 is the maximum level to which we can train in Free Haven. I think the only places where we can train higher are in Blackshire and Castle Ironfist, at exorbitant costs. If you are interested in comparing what "level 60" in "Might and Magic" would mean at an equivalent BG or NWN power level, I'd say the ratio is about 1/3. So, we have reached "level 20" in BG or NWN power level equivalency.
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    Party summary:
    imageimageimageimageimage


    Party Level: 60
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Update 111415:

    We attacked Agar's Laboratory and killed Agar's Lich in Kriegspire. I don't remember if this was an optional dungeon, or if it might have some significance later. I think it was optional.

    Then, we spent most of the rest of today's play session clearing out the Cave of the Dragonriders in Kriegspire, for equipment upgrades and xp. This optional dungeon can drop the best armor, shields, and weapons in the game.

    imageimageimageimageimageimageimage


    Our post-training fortune is getting closer to half a million. I'm interested in seeing if I can get a post-training fortune of a million in the bank by the end of this run.
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    Party summary:
    imageimageimageimage


    Party level: 62-63
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Update 111615:

    We recovered the memory crystal from the Superior Temple of Baa in the Eel-Infested Waters.
    imageimageimage


    We recovered the last memory crystal from Castle Alamos. This place is gigantic, and it's a show stopper. You have to find five trees hidden around the castle with clues to solve a five letter password. I never could find the tree with the clue for the first letter, as it was behind a locked door that I could never find a key or a switch for. I did find one switch, but I have no idea what it opened. I could have wandered around in there forever and never found that last tree. Luckily, the trees I did find were enough to make me remember the password - it is everybody's favorite character class, plus a random letter in front. I just happened to remember the random letter from past playthroughs. Lord, this dungeon is frustrating if you don't already know that password. And it's still very hard to find your way to the password-protected memory crystal.
    imageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimage


    Now the Oracle is repaired, and it wants us to find a control cube in the "Tomb of VARN" in the Dragonsand Desert, so it can open the way to the Control Center deep underground in Free Haven. There, we are to find ancient, powerful weapons that will make us a match for the alien Kreegan.
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    Party summary:
    imageimageimageimageimage


    Party Level: 68-69
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Good god, looking back this game is absolutely massive....especially considering that although in many ways it was a vanguard for the modernization of the genre, it was still very much old school in most respects, outside of real 3D movement and a simple, great interface. It's not just the world that is massive either, but the amount of mobs you have to contend with in any given area is probably larger than any game I've ever seen. Only Mandate of Heaven would throw ARMIES of Liches and Beholders at you and not even bat an eyelash. Reading this has me thinking this has to rank as one of the top 3 most involved and content-rich RPGs ever created, even if it's not the best. Baldur's Gate feels like a walk around the block compared to this. What's even more impressive is that it is relatively free of any bugs or nonsense at all.
    JuliusBorisovBelgarathMTH
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Update 111715A:

    Today we tackle the famous "Tomb of VARN". This is one of the hugest and most exciting dungeons ever designed, so I'm going to post in stages today so I don't get overwhelmed with stuff to post.

    "VARN" stands for "Vehicular Astropod Research Nacelle". It's apparently been around since MM1, where the big reveal was that your entire adventure has taken place on this ship, which was originally designed as a space-travelling planet simulation by an ancient spacefaring people, where something went terribly wrong. This idea could have been inspired by the Star Trek: OS episode "For the World is Hollow, And I Have Touched the Sky".
    http://mightandmagic.wikia.com/wiki/VARN-4

    Upon entering the "tomb", which is shaped like a pyramid, and looks an awfully lot like the Goa'uld pyramid ship from the Stargate movie, we find two murals that tell us a lot about what is really going on on Enroth. Were humans ever indigenous to this planet at all? Btw, what's a planet?
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    Our first encounter with the Jaffa Jackal Guard. The blue ones aren't that tough, at least not against our level. The red ones we'll encounter later are much tougher. All enemies in this dungeon, including the mobs of the Djinn Alliance who are assisting this Goa'uld System Lord, (Baa, I presume?), are very resistant to most magic. If you find just the right element to throw at just the right color of enemy, you can do reliable but underwhelming damage to the enemies here. Minsc is the only one who can hurt them with consistently high damage, and we have to get him up close to do it, while the Djinn mobs will try to fly up over his reach.
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    The first main chamber of the VARN. It is so huge, I can't communicate the size of it in a single screen shot. Notice that you can climb or Jump to the ledge above the red doors to access even more parts of the ship. The water pools in here may save our lives later.

    imageimageimage


    In the chambers to the left of the pictures above, (the door looks very small in the distance on those screenies), we find our first crystal skull. These can save our lives later, though it will be very hard to find four of them for our whole party, as they are scattered all over the ship - which is dozens of square miles big.
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    The same chest has our first artifact besides the dagger Mordred, a cool pair of boots. Imoen will use them, though they have a heavy penalty to accuracy. Our stats are so high at this point, a minus 40 penalty to accuracy barely amounts to minus 1 to hit. One minor flaw of this game is that, by the time you can get the various artifacts, (and they all give a huge bonus in exchange for a pretty big penalty), they are mostly irrelevant because of the way MM handles diminishing returns on stats. But it still feels exciting to collect them because of the Rule of Cool.
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    And a key to get us further into the ship.
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    It's interesting to note that Imoen couldn't disarm the trap on that chest with master level 8 disarm skill. I may invest in taking her on up to level 10. It's not that big a deal, though, since I don't think any traps can hurt us much through our massive resistances.

    A letter with the first clue about passwords we'll need later. Notice that this particular password is "Kirk" spelled backwards. I forgot about the spelled backwards part. Since I know the crew of the Starship Enterprise, I could enter the passwords right now, but I don't think it will work until I find the other scrolls. In fact, I don't even think the ship will work until I thoroughly finish exploring it and find a bunch of other stuff, like buttons and other reactivation points. But it'll be fun to rediscover everything, as it's been some time since I played through the VARN.

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    Good grief, that's a lot of Jaffa Jackal Guard! We'd better retreat and come back - this will not end well if we fight from such a wide open, disadvantageous position!
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    Party Level: 68-69
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Update 111715B:

    We've discovered that the DJinn are at least moderately vulnerable to acid. The Jackal Guard are immune to acid, but are at least moderately vulnerable to implosions. So, our witches are switching back and forth between those two spells. I don't know what we'd do if we didn't have two witches who are masters of air and water. I've found fire and earth to be relatively useless for attack, except in very rare situations. Pretty much every high end monster in the game is immune to any damage I can do with Self magic.

    This chest looks important. We found it at the end of two long passages with legions of Djinn. Too bad it's locked. Sigh. I'm not finding any more keys yet. I guess I'll have Imoen place a transporter beacon here for later.
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    Oh, my. This place is SO big.
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    Seriously? SERIOUSLY? *Another* legion of Djinn? Sigh. Thank goodness for our two witches who can gradually Acid Burst them to death. I am good for nothing but healing, and Minsc has become good for nothing but hit point fodder for my occasional Shared Life spells to restore the two witches and myself.
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    This place is big. SO big. (shaking head and feeling awestruck by the ginormity of it.) Up or down here?
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    Or maybe through this door about a mile over this other way?
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    This looks important. The "Water Temple". Let's go in here. "This door is magically locked, and cannot be opened by simple skills or enchantments." Sigh. Another critical area to find a way into. (Begins to bang head against wall.)
    imageimage


    Okay, we'll try the only other obvious path further into the ship - the one we saw about a mile distant through the waters. Oh, look, it's another ginormous chamber with several passages out.
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    I don't think I'm going to be able to finish this today. I'll have to continue the story in tomorrow's play session. BTW, I'm roleplaying my characters' increasing awe and exasperation at finding their way about this place. I as the player am having a tremendous amount of fun. ;)
    JuliusBorisov
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    There is a sense of awe and exasperation just READING this. And yes, the dungeons in this game are absolutely MASSIVE, and typing it in all caps doesn't even really do it justice. Hell, the first or second dungeon you enter is a endless battle through nothing but cobras and spiders, and it only gets worse from there. Infinite enemies, endless hallways. This game is wholly impressive, but I don't think I could ever recommend it as an entry point into this later day trilogy anymore than I would send a novice interested in the DOS-era part of the series to Might and Magic 1 or 2. This might be the most non-linear RPG that I can think of. Certainly it has Baldur's Gate beat on that front. Skyrim and Oblivion don't count due to scaling issues. Daggerfall might qualify but massive parts of both that and Arena are copy and pasted junk. Every square inch of M&M 6 serves a purpose.

    I'm reminded of the quest that requires you to find the Prince. It's obvious enough if you read his dialogue he went to the circus. But the circus itself is only in something like two locations on specific weeks or months (I forget) of the year in-game. The only thing that made Mandate of Heaven more palatable to modern tastes was the fact that you no longer had to map anything and the interface was way better. Everything else about it is as hardcore as it gets, much more so than World of Xeen is.
    JuliusBorisovBelgarathMTH
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Update 111815A:

    At last, we have the power cube from the Tomb of VARN.

    It took me more than an hour of real time wandering around to finally find a side passage I had missed going down, and to find this new area. Which was an elevator down to nothing.
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    Another hour of wandering, and I finally find a passage to a new area. Sigh.
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    SIGH.
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    At last we find the chest with the Water Temple key!
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    And in the Water Temple, the key to that chest from way back in the library we couldn't open.
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    In the library chest, the key that will allow us to finally open our way to the heart of the "tomb". As well as a fantastic new shield for me.
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    Back to the Red Room. The code words are Enterprise crew names spelled backwards. I forgot to take a picture of Mr. Spock's pool, "kcops".
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    Now this central pool will slide back to reveal a secret chamber.
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    Umm, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.
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    Omg, Omg! Floating killer droids. With red eye sensors that move back and forth like those of Cylons. For convenience's sake, I'm just going to refer to these puppies as "Cylons". Or maybe "Toasters". Or "Flying Toasters".
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    The second upgrade of these things has an instant eradication attack, making them arguably the most dangerous enemy in the game. Luckily, only the base type and one first upgrade unit are here. That's about to sadly change when we return to the Control Base in Free Haven. The Flying Toasters are vulnerable to lightning (shorts them out, I guess?), and are also surprisingly vulnerable to maces, swords, and spears.
    imageimageimageimage


    Coming up: To the Control Center!
    JuliusBorisov
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Both this and the Wizardry series (at least the later parts) seem to get some kind of weird credit for incorporating sci-fi into a fantasy setting, but it always seems to happen at the tail end of the game where some ship whisks you away to another adventure, which immediately reverts back to a fairly typical fantasy universe for 99% of the game, until the end of THAT adventure of course. I'd say the Ultima series actually committed to the sci-fi/fantasy amalgamation alot more, even if for the most part it made no sense and had no continuity until later on.
  • SouthpawSouthpaw Member Posts: 2,026
    ...when you guys done with MM6, maybe do MM7. I'd watch (and maybe join) that.
    Myself, I never got too into MM6.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited November 2015
    Southpaw said:

    ...when you guys done with MM6, maybe do MM7. I'd watch (and maybe join) that.
    Myself, I never got too into MM6.

    As long as Might and Magic is the subject, I think it's fairly obvious that in getting the bang for your buck, nothing beats the Might and Magic series. The first two are probably the most hardcore dungeon crawls of the early-era outside of Wizardry and Bard's Tale. Isles of Terra and Darkside/Clouds/Sword of Xeen pretty much define the heyday of DOS-RPGs. The trilogy and engine that kicked off with VI are chock full of exactly what you're reading about in this thread. And though it's severely flawed and a real bitch to get running, Might and Magic IX isn't exactly terrible, and you can become a Lich. And after getting ahold of a copy of X recently, I can say it's a highly polished game that doesn't get near the credit it deserves for keeping with the spirit of the original New World Computing games while keeping it palatable for the modern era. All in all, you're looking at well over a THOUSAND hours of playtime if you want to play all these games.
    BelgarathMTH
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Update 112015A:

    We return the Control Cube to the Oracle and gain access to the Control Center to find blaster weapons. The Oracle warns us that we're eventually going to need a spell from Archibald before we attack the Kreegan Main Reactor in Sweetwater, or it'll destroy the planet, (!), so we decide to take care of that first.


    imageimageimageimageimageimageimageimage


    Interesting side note: One time, when I was about to finish the game, I deliberately threw down Archibald's spell scroll before destroying the reactor, so I could see what would happen. The game actually treats you to a great cinematic of planet Enroth exploding, that looks a lot like the scene in Star Wars where the Death Star blows up Alderaan. Then, you lose the game, and you get no win certificate. What, you wanted an award for destroying the world? So, the game actually has an ending for "Boy, you're really stupid, aren't you? You lose, chump. Rocks fall, everyone dies." Except it's more "The whole planet explodes, everyone dies." It's kind of funny if you think about it.

    -We return to the Control Center in Free Haven to obtain our blasters. The computer here seems very friendly and helpful. Maybe this won't be so bad.

    imageimageimage


    -Uh oh. I take it back. It's bad. These terminator units can instantly eradicate party members. They are *not* friendly and helpful.
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    There is a hallway or corridor that goes around the main chambers of the Control Center containing crew quarters and maintenance areas. The main chambers are swarming with terminators. We decide to try to find enough blasters without risking the terminator army in the main chambers. Here we find a blaster rifle stashed away in a storage unit.

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    More computer records and a crew log explaining that something has gone wrong, leading to the base being permanently sealed to keep the terminators contained. I think they turned into Daileks or Cylons or something.
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    We find one more storage unit with the other three blasters we need to equip the party. Four rifles would be ideal, and I think there are more rifles around if we fight the terminators, but we decide to make do with two rifles and two pistols. I'd like to keep using my shield anyway.
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    We train the levels we got for freeing Archibald and killing quite a few enforcer units (weaker terminators) and use the skill points on blaster skill. Then we go to the expert and master trainers. Everyone has master blaster skill now. I could have had our skill much higher, but I forgot to save skill points for this at our last level up. It won't matter though. Only a few ranks of blaster skill at master level is enough to break the game. Nothing from here to the end will be any challenge, unless we get careless.
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    These hydras and titans would have been very difficult and scary to fight without blasters, even at our level. But we do have blasters, so we mow them down like goblins. Blasters are even more powerful than was likely intended, because when you combine them with a Haste spell, they almost always freeze the creature sprites into their recoil animations, because the attacks are happening so fast, the graphics engine can't handle it. This has the effect of not only paralyzing the monster you're blasting, but it mass paralyzes the entire mob.
    imageimageimage


    Next up: The Kreegan Main Reactor. I may take the time to finish the obelisk treasure quest, but nothing in it will be useful compared to our blasters.

    Party level: 82
    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    FINAL Update, 112015B

    We have destroyed the Kreegan Main Reactor and saved planet Enroth.

    First, we take the time to visit the last obelisk in Sweet Water, then return to Dragonsand to take the obelisk treasure. This stuff is actually more useful for the final battle than I had remembered. It's not random. Rather, you get the ultimate spells for both Dark and Light magic, plus jewelry artifacts to give bonuses to all spell schools. That's actually not too shabby, considering what we're about to face.

    imageimageimageimageimage


    Our final post-training fortune in gold. It's more than a half million, but nowhere near a million. There's really nothing we can buy in shops at this point that would help, but we could theoretically keep playing and spend the money to level on up. Some people like to grind levels after the main quest is over, believe it or not, and then they take pride in achieving levels of 100+, and collecting more artifacts.
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    Hmm, so this is what a Kreegan Main Reactor "Hive" looks like.
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    Okay, I said before that having blasters "breaks the game", and that nothing from there to the end of the game would be any challenge. I was wrong. I spoke too soon. The final dungeon of this game is actually worthy of godlike characters with blasters, because the Kreegan don't just come in mobs, they come in SWARMS. And swarms. And more swarms. They cause disease, and they drain all your spell points. Moreover, the entire main reactor is transporter shielded. You cannot place Lloyd's Beacons to leave and heal. You also cannot rest successfully in here. It will be very easy to end my no-TPK status.
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    Switches, switches, switches. This final dungeon also gives you the runaround to get doors open. We find an important key, along with one last artifact, a shield, and at last we find our way to the main reactor.
    imageimageimageimageimageimageimageimage


    We destroy the reactor easily with blasters, but some kind of fail safe teleports us directly in front of the Borg Queen. (The Kreegan are very much like Borg. They might have even been inspired by the Borg.)
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    The Borg Queen goes down easily to blasters. This is where things get really, really, really frustrating. She has a final swarm of drones to defend her, that come up behind us. I had forgotten exactly how to end this. We are about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory from this final Borg swarm. In a panic, I forget that we can run past the dead Borg Queen to an exit door that will win us our no-TPK, no -reload game. Instead, I Town Portal out. And get the "bad ending" where the planet explodes. AUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!
    imageimage


    Sigh. SIGH. After all this!

    Well, okay, reload. GRRRRR.

    Here are some shots from the victory cinematic with Prince Nicholai knighting our party. I unfortunately wasn't fast enough on the button to get a photo of Archibald's "Ritual of the Void" shield going up around the exploding main reactor.
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    Archibald is pleased to be freed from his petrification predicament that Roland inflicted upon him at the end of HoMM2. He thanks us for freeing him, and for saving HIS kingdom, thus setting up the story for MM7. (Roland was abducted by the Kreegan Lord Xenofex, and still has not been found. This loose end is also part of the story of MM7. For now, Archibald is in control of Enroth Kingdom, and, as we will find out in HoMM3, Roland's Queen, Catherine, will take control of Erathia, which has also been beset by even MORE Kreegan. And also beset by Archibald's attention, though by MM7, he is aspiring to far more than merely control of the kingdoms of the known world. He wants to control the UNIVERSE. Dun, dun, DUN.)
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    Victory Certificate, with time and score, and a thanks from the devs:
    imageimage


    Final TPKs: ONE. Ouch, how that hurts! Almost a perfect no-reload win, and I blow it with my victory click literally around the corner and one click away! Oh well, on to MM7. :)

    Total time played according to Gog Galaxy: 81 hours, 23 minutes
    Post edited by BelgarathMTH on
    JuliusBorisov
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Good lord....81 hours for someone who knows EXACTLY where to train, has at least a good knowledge of the dungeons, spells and enemies. Belgarath is what we would call a fairly experienced RPG-player, and it took him nearly 100 hours to complete a game he's probably played a half a dozen times. Which means that in all likelihood a first-time player of Might and Magic VI would probably be looking at double that, at least. Especially if they don't look anything up.
    BelgarathMTHJuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    So, tomorrow I will begin my MM7 run. I previously posted a party picture with the same party as my MM6 run, that is, Minsc, Dynaheir, Imoen, and myself.

    But, I am thinking I'd like to shake things up a bit for my MM7 run. I'd also like to tie in this run for a near future BG run that is focused on fully experiencing Beamdog's new characters for both BG and SoD. (Good ones only - sorry Dorn and Hexxat - although there is a green goblin portrait and voice set for MM7 that would be *perfect* for Dorn in MM7, and at least two vamp portraits and voice sets that would be *perfect* for Hexxat in MM8, if a player wanted to tie in a BG evil Beamdog party to MM.)

    So, if I don't change my mind by tomorrow, here is the party I'm considering for my MM7 run:
    image

    This party, if I run with it, will challenge me like I've never been challenged before in an MM7 run, in a couple of ways. I've never played a monk and without a knight and thief before. That *might* be compensated by having two healers and access to grandmaster alchemy. (I don't even want to *think* about trying MM7 without access to grandmaster body magic and grandmaster elemental magic. As always, Light and Dark magic are strangely overrated, and I find them as irrelevant to my game here as in MM6. Although, I will have access to Light magic, just because I insist on being a cleric and getting grandmaster body. As for grandmaster elements, the big "ruin your day without it" is grandmaster air, because of a little main quest dungeon called "Walls of Mist" that we'll get to eventually.)

    The biggest challenge in the early game, I think, will be that we will have no access to even expert level disarm traps skill without a thief. In MM7's version of the monk, Rasaad will eventually get master level disarm trap, but he has to get his first class advance before he can get even merely expert. There is going to be a lot of trap damage to take in the early game if I play this party.

    I may be able to mitigate the trap damage if I can find a Locksmith npc to boost Rasaad's puny basic disarm traps skill.

    Then, I am not at all sure whether Rasaad is going to be able to hold a candle to a Minsc or Dorn knight character in the end game as far as hit points, tankiness, and damage output.

    But, I am thinking that it might be fun to find out, if nothing else, just because I've never played a party with a monk/sorcerer/druid/cleric combo before, at the rather obvious and dangerous sacrifice of a knight and a thief. What do y'all think?
    JuliusBorisov
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