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

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  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    What's the point in playing it again if you don't want to challenge yourself?? I say go for it.

    I myself am enjoying a run of Might and Magic IX, simply because I've finally been able to make it playable after a year of trying. It's not even close to as bad as people make it out to be. The towns feel totally without soul and the NPCs and mobs are horribly cookie cutter and repetitive, but there are many things going for it. For one thing, the fact that you are only able to start as a Fighter or Initiate means that the game is chock full of class quests, which are without fail always the best in any game.

    Furthermore, this is (to my knowledge) the only RPG in existence that let's you BECOME a Lich as your highest class advancement, and it's rightfully the hardest and most involved quest in the game. Any other flaws it may have become instantly ignored for that fact alone.

    Other than that, it's still relatively the same gameplay as VI-VIII. Still ridiculous not to have the bow skill on every character (yet I never learn and always fail to give it to 2 of the 4 forcing me to track down trainers. or skill books in this case).

    There is an issue though. I only got this game to work this week because of an obscure .dll file fix I found on a forum from almost a decade ago. And even with it, the screen goes completely black underwater AND from the hours of 5pm-6am in game. Thankfully (if anyone in the future cares) this appears to be redeemable anyway. After a cursory glance at the quests in the game, only two seem to be affected. One requires you to dive underwater, but it's a brief second and watching your compass and controlling your mouse right makes it fairly simple.

    The other is potentially more serious. The class quest promotion from Fighter to the intermediate level of Mercenary requires you to take over dock security from 3-6am....when I can't see anything, at which time you are attacked by six bandits you have to kill. You can still fight, but you can't see a thing. I took a low level party out to the spot just to see if this would be feasible or if I was doomed to never play this one through. Even though it's dark, with some timely saved games and manipulation of the rest feature, I don't doubt this is doable just by spamming blindly with some luck. If I take he clock to roughly 5:55am, they still spawn, and within seconds it turns to 6am and.....bam!!! light returns. The only problem may be that I have read in various walkthroughs that you have to kill them by 6am, but I'm honestly wondering if you just have to get them to spawn by then. Either way it seems doable with some creativity, though I may be the only person on Earth thinking about this right now.

    The game has no food mechanic, so the only thing resting to avoid the darkness bug (which only happens in outdoor areas) is possibly shelling out gold to mercs faster than you'd maybe like. At this point, in my head, I'm just taking the RP view that my characters can't see or fight AT ALL in the dark and are horrible swimmers. There are weirder things in Might and Magic games. And honestly, it does add a whole other layer to what I'm doing, as I have to watch the clock to make sure I'm not fighting when the sun goes down. Though I would kill for a workaround for this. However, I never expected to be able to play this game at all, so I should just count my blessings.
    BelgarathMTHJuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @jjstraka34 , I'm glad somebody likes MM9. I was so let down by it when it was released, I couldn't play it. I thought they took away most of the things that I like about MM games. Would you be willing to post a screen shot or two from your run?

    Are you using the GoG version of MMIX? I'm surprised to hear that you're having so many tech issues running the game. GoG's releases are usually pretty solid. Are you playing with the fan patch installed?
    http://telp.org/mm9/
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited November 2015
    Oh trust me, I've tried EVERYTHING and more. The GOG version actually comes with 1.3, which is the last one you posted. Until I found the .dll fix hanging around on the bottom of a forum post, even opening the inventory caused the game to freeze for over 30 seconds, and combat would sometimes just freeze the screen completely.

    Here's my party in the day:
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    And after 5pm:
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    The location of where you have to dive underwater:
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    And the future location of the fight against the bandits (you relieve this guard of his post for 3 hours):
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    Again, I already completed the one dealing with the water, and I've tested the Mercenary quest with a low level party just to see if it was feasible, which I think it is. And taking a quick glace at multiple walkthroughs, I don't see any other game-breaking issues.

    As you can see from the last picture, the NPCs are absolutely horrendous in that early Playstation/N64 kind of way they sometimes modeled humanoid characters. Also, the game is in real-3D this time, so flying enemies are an issue, as well as the fact that going into shops no longer takes you to a set screen, but a NPC still in an open world. Finding trainers is a bitch because they are just regular NPCs standing on the streets, and pretty much the entire population of each city teaches SOMETHING and it's hard to keep track of since they are just loitering about. I won't deny that the streets of the cities in this game are hollow husks of what they should be.

    That being said, every tavern has some cool events and dialogue the first time you walk in. The dungeons themselves are actually excellent. The interface is different but still intuitive. Controls are still solid, this plays very much like a VI-VIII in most respects. It's definitely worse than all 3 of them, but the dungeons and the class upgrade system are enough to make it worthwhile, at least as far as I can tell here. I'm having as much fun with it as I did with those games, even though it clearly needed another 3-6 months of polish before it was released. So just add it to the list of games that were sabotaged by greedy studios.

    As for the characters, I'll probably take the Dwarf from Fighter>Mercenary>Gladiator, the Orc from Initiate>Healer>Druid, the Elf from Initiate>Scholar>Lich, and the Human from Fighter>Crusader>Ranger.

    Again, every character starts out as a Fighter or Initiate. At the next fork in the road, Fighters go the route of Mercenary or Crusader, which in turn give you two more choices each, ultimately. Assassin and Gladiator for Mercenary, or Ranger/Paladin for Crusaders. Initiates can become Scholars or Healers, ultimately getting to decide between Mage/Lich or Druid/Priest respectively. Besides the obvious in-game benefits, the character art in your inventory changes when you upgrade each step. I like and value little aesthetic crap like that in RPGs.
    BelgarathMTHJuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @jjstraka34 , Hmm, those graphics and character portraits look a lot better than I remember. I sure would miss the paper dolls, though. That's one of the most fun things about MM 6-8 for me.

    I might consider trying to give MM9 another chance once I finish my MM7 and MM8 runs. But, those tech problems sound very off-putting, if you're saying that GoG's default vanilla download doesn't work. May I ask what operating system you're using?

    Meanwhile, I'll post the beginning of my new MM7 run soon. I've taken a lot of screenies, but I'm not sure any of them are all that interesting. The early game is a bit of a grind. I've about gotten Harmondale cleared of the first wave of goblins. I'm thinking about lighting the signal fires just so I can get the xp and gold from killing the second wave.

    Rasaad is surprising me with his effectiveness as our lead fighter and trap disarmer so far, and it is really helping that we have two healers with expert body magic. (Myself and Jaheira).

    We'll see how it all works out in the end game.

    I have changed Rasaad's portrait with MM7Che. The voice set that went with the first portrait I picked turned out to be one of the really bad ones. One of the problems with MM7 is that a few of the voice sets are unbearably bad. You can switch them out in the character creation screen, but my MM7Che character editor can only switch out portraits with their default soundsets, and, I didn't know when I created my party that the portrait I chose for Rasaad had one of the bad soundsets. Or, maybe it's not *that* bad, but it *really* doesn't suit the character of Rasaad.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Windows 10, but it never worked in 8 or 8.1 either, and I've read of other people having the same issue on Vista and 7. I suppose it might work on XP. This along with Wizards and Warriors are the ONLY two games out of a couple hundred of more that I could never get to run on my laptop. Have had the same problem on two computers.

    This is what fixed it to even be playable (link is on the bottom of the thread):
    http://telp.org/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi/mm9/tavern/anyboard?cmd=iYz&aK=39804&iZz=39804&gV=0&kQz=&aO=1&iWz=0

    That's to make it playable in all but underwater and at night. No other problems. DO NOT download the full-screen fix, it makes things worse. Just drag the above into the directory and replace.

    BelgarathMTH
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Update 112115:

    We have won a castle in Harmondale as our prize for the scavenger hunt on Emerald Island. Unfortunately, the entire Harmondale area, including the castle itself is overrun with goblins. We have cleared the area of goblins, found an arcomage deck, trained several levels, and several other things. I am especially looking forward to winning the arcomage tournament for defeating the champions in 13 taverns.

    I took a lot of pictures to document the beginning of the run. It's a *lot* of pictures. Do not open the spoiler tag if you are reading this on a low-bandwidth or small-screen device.

    imageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimage


    Party summary:
    imageimageimageimageimage


    TPKs: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Ok, so....in looking through a let's play video, it became obvious to me I would have to do too much underwater to complete the game as it's playing now. I was almost resigned to never playing it, when I got a wild idea to go to my closet and get my old, cheap Wal-Mart Gateway that happened to have Windows 8.1 installed that I'd never tried the new fix on. I downloaded Might and Magic IX, expecting nothing, applied the file to the data folder, replaced, opened up and prepared for the 100th disappointment of my miserable relationship with this game.

    However, the first thing that happened was that it went to full-screen without the full-screen fix. Hmmm....then I immediately created a new game, ran over to the pond in the training area, dove in the water......and lo and behold.....I could see. The game works, in glorious non-windowed mode, at night and underwater on my old piece of junk, which I'm now going to take much better care of.

    Anyway, in the spirit of what Belgarath has started here, I'm gonna try keep people filled in a little about the game. It won't be step-by-step, but I'll try give an idea of how the game is and looks, and maybe it'll help me finish the damn thing. So.....

    BelgarathMTH
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited November 2015
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    Might and Magic IX (Writ of Fate, a subtitle which was dropped for unknown reasons) essentially suffered from two things. The first is it's obviously rushed development cycle. But the second is that it shares a time/era with what also happens to be the most universally hated Heroes game, IV. The two games take place on a world called Axeoth, and they are the only two that do, as New World Computing would soon go bankrupt and lose the rights to Ubisoft, who essentially did another reboot with Heroes V and their recent duo of X and VI.

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    As I mentioned earlier, character creation is simple at first but offers customization in-game nearly as much as the previous 3 games. You have to start out as a simple Fighter or Initiate and choose your path from there through in-game questing.

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    One thing this game has going for it is very aesthetically pleasing inventory and menu artwork. I find it to be quite elegant and while the above picture show the Fighter illustration on the paper-doll, all classes and class upgrades have their own, and change when you advance (though they aren't race/gender specific, but class).

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    The spellbook features more of the same high quality art. The inventory does lose the drag from bag onto your characters body parts mechanic, but at the same time, it's hardly unrecognizable as a Might and Magic game. It still feels like one, and the in and out of turn-based combat music is exactly the same. And it's still more of the same in most other ways. You're still talking to every NPC you meet, taking boats back and forth from cities trying to string together the best non-linear way to advance your class and skills. There are minor differences, but the core of the previous three games is still here in almost every tangible way.

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    Where this game may even BEAT it's immediate predecessors is in it's dungeon design. The above shot is a prison I finished tonight. A elderly general has been imprisoned by a rival town (and you're doing dirty work for both of them) and you have to find your way to his cell and then essentially make a run for it to get out. The basement level is your typical grind/kill, but the top level of rescuing the general actually plays more like a crappy version of Thief, which is better than it sounds. More than the other 3D entries in this series, the dungeons really are almost their own scenarios. The first one you come across is the sewers beneath the first town, which features hordes of pod monsters that will overwhelm you until you figure out how to neutralize their numbers. The same dungeon then morphs as you go deeper into a mini-undead crypt. Another early one is an abandoned keep in which the objective is to close multiple portals that are spawning imps. They're good, and these are just the early ones with very uninteresting enemies.

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    So as it goes, here's my party. I prefer randomly generated, serious-sounding fantasy names in all my games. As you can see Bren is the only one who has so far picked up her promotion quest, which is going to involve taking out a group of bandits who are stealing nearly everything from peasants in the countryside near the prison shown earlier.

    So that's what I got so far. I've had such an ordeal (computer-wise) trying to get this game to work for the last year that I have to play it through. But the fact is, Might and Magic IX, as far as I can tell, isn't anymore of a step down in quality than VII was from VI or VIII was from VII. I don't doubt that it was a buggy, unplayable mess when it came out, but it's another game (among countless others we can mention) that has been saved by fan patches over the years. It's not Mandate of Heaven or World of Xeen, but it absolutely FEELS like Might and Magic, and really, how much do you really expect out of a 9th outing?? The 9th Friday the 13th movie was Jason Goes to Hell. Might and Magic IX is about 100 times better comparatively.
    BelgarathMTHJuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @jjstraka34 , Congrats on getting the game to work finally on your old computer. You've almost convinced me to give it a try after I finish MM7 and MM8. It'll probably be a comedy of errors if I do, since I've never played it. I'll have to cross my fingers that it will work on my computer. It's a Windows 8.1 system, so maybe it'll work.
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    edited November 2015
    Update 112215:

    We travel to AvLee and accept the gifts of the Fairy King. It is a very, very easy early game dungeon if you know about it, as it gives you a promotion for your ranger if you have one, an honorary promotion for xp if you don't, an easy sidequest resolution for xp, and some really good treasure. You need fight nothing but fireflies to get all of this win. The Fairy King likes to tease you, but he's actually a pretty standup guy, and an early game ally if you know how to get past his quirks. Neera likes him a lot.

    imageimageimageimage


    There's a keyhole hidden near the Fairy King's treasure room that you will very likely not be able to find without a guide or walkthrough. It's kind of "meh" treasure that you can get up there, but it can drive you crazy trying to find the way in when you hear the fireflies buzzing around up there, and see the clear outline of a door, when your key won't open it, and you don't know about the hidden keyhole.
    image


    The next thing to do is to travel to the Dwarven Barrow Downs, for both beseeching the help of the dwarven king to rebuild our castle, and to find the altar we need for Rasaad's first class promotion quest. There is a haunted house here that we could do for an honorary knight promotion quest for the xp, but it is more dangerous than Rasaad's quest due to some wights who can destroy our no-TPK with instant KO attacks.

    While searching for the ramp up to the entrance to the dwarven king's Stone City, we encounter this innocent looking treasure chest. I happen to know that it has the best treasure you can get this early in the game, and also that you're not actually supposed to be able to get it, since it trap teleports you into a swarm of gogs as soon as you open it. Surprise! Demon rocks fall, everyone dies. (Except, I found my favorite NPC, a gatemaster, wandering around in Pierpont, so I have her simply teleport us out of danger. Ye gods, how I *love* gatemasters in the early game. Don't leave home without one!)
    imageimageimage


    I have decided to change our party aesthetic one more time. (Hopefully it will be the last, but I think I can change party aesthetics without violating the no or minimal reload spirit of my games, especially this early)

    I really, really love alchemy in this game. I want to roleplay the person who does the alchemy, and I also like to have access to both elemental and self magic, which means I should be a "druid" in MM6 and MM7, which is actually a cleric-mage multiclass more than a traditional druid. Also, it will give me a connection with Professor Snape, my favorite character from the Harry Potter setting. :)

    In MM8, the "druid", i.e. "cleric-mage" multiclass will no longer exist. So, I will have to become a "necromancer" in order to get potential end game access to grandmaster alchemy and arcane magic. Thus, I will be tempted by the "Dark Side". Will I become a lich in order to save the world, thinking that I will be a baelnorn type lich and still making the sacrifice for the good, while probably deluding myself? Or will I complete MM8 without any grandmaster alchemy or arcane magic? This idea could be a very interesting self-study for me in my RPGing.

    In MM7, we also need a grandmaster body magic cleric to avoid boohoodles of trouble with instant death and eradication attacks in the late game. And, I kind of regretted not being a "druid" in MM6. So, I have switched places with Jaheira, and I have had my original cleric slot taken over by Branwen. This aesthetic change does not affect the mechanics of my run at all - I am still playing an MSDC run with no changes to anything I've done so far.

    I have also changed Rasaad's portrait one more time to one I find more pleasing for the character than the first two I tried.
    So, with those minor aesthetic adjustments, here is our current party summary for the run:
    imageimageimageimageimage


    TPKs:0
    JuliusBorisov
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    Congratulations, @BelgarathMTH , on completing MM6 without a single reload related to a failure in a battle. And thanks a lot for your reports. Thank you for those details from the manual - I didn't know about some things because never owned that manual. Looking forward to your MM7 run :)

    Didn't you try to defeat the Red dragon? :)

    @jjstraka34 - good luck on a MM 9 run! Nice to see this not popular game getting some recognition!
    BelgarathMTHjjstraka34
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @bengoshi , LOL, No, I always chicken out about that dragon. I especially didn't want to fight it in a no-TPK. I ran in, got the contestant's shield and the longbow for the scavenger hunt, then got the heck out of there, leaving the dragon to have a rat dinner instead of a people dinner. ;)
    JuliusBorisov
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    A little background before continuing with my relatively minor update. Might and Magic IX is clearly set in some Nordic-inspired land, though I can't say for sure why (I hear there is a frost giant later however). Your quest is fairly low-key. Your mission is to unite 6 Jarls (mayors) of different cities and lands to face the oncoming threat of a rampaging warlord. They seem to all be bumbling idiots, and furthermore, you're constantly working as a double or triple agent the whole time. It's conceivable that these 6 cities were originally conceived as some sort of faction system, but as it stands, one minute you will be helping the city of Sturmford rescue their general from a Drangheim prison, and the next minute you are sabotaging a keep in Sturmford near the Drangheim border that they rightfully think is theirs. You apparently only care about getting these guys to sign onto your plan to unite against the Warlord, even though the leaders and citizens of the towns hate each other at best and are xenophobic nimrods at worst.

    When last we left, I was contemplating taking up the quest to make one of my characters a Crusader. This involved taking out a band of bandits brazenly terrorizing the countryside. One thing that always strikes me about Might and Magic in the later years is that a ton of your combat plays like a crappy-first person shooter, at least til your enemy closes distance and you enter a more tactical, familiar turn-based approach. Unlike VI, the enemies are too fast for you to kite very far. I'd seen on fan sites this quest was listed as level 10, so of course I tried it at 5. 3 close tries, but no cigar. Once they closed distance, they took me out each time.


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    I had plenty of exp to level up so I head back to town. I grant each character one level, and while I'm there, I decide to pick up a second companion, a Half-Orc who assures me he is great at bashing things. I figure with one more melee character with high damage I'll squeak out the fight. The NPCs in this game (especially the Orcs) look like mongoloids.

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    With an extra level in hand and a extra swing every turn, I manage to get down the bandits only losing my magic damage dealer because I haven't bothered to buy any armor that hasn't dropped and his AC is almost nil. I rez him in the same temple where the quest giver for the Crusader quest stands patiently waiting for my return. Bren is now the first member of the party promoted.


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    I can definitely understand why people hate this game. I rather like it, because a flawed game is just as interesting to me as a near-perfect one (and most RPGs are severely flawed, even some of the best ones ever). The quest is and will likely remain nonsense. But again, I adore class quests of any variety, and even if the outside world is bare-bones (and I'd argue incomplete due to reasons likely beyond the control of the designers) the dungeons that they lead you to ARE well fleshed out, and the core of the game. Progress on this will be slow, as I often play chunks of 5 or 6 games at a time, plus I now have to write these, though I am going to dedicate most of my time to this one. As someone with a back catalog of literally HUNDREDS of games, I need to start finishing some instead of constantly dabbling. Maybe a let's play will fix that. I have a tortured past with this game that has nothing to do with it's quality or content, and I'm determined to put it in the "finished" file no matter what the cost.
    JuliusBorisovBelgarathMTH
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    edited November 2015
    Might and Magic IX is an odd game, in more ways than one. I'd actually love to read a book detailing what went on during the making of this. If I didn't know any better, I'd think it was a parody that was trying as hard as it could to still feel like it's forefathers. Half the people you meet seem to be partially or totally insane. And let me tell you a little more about this adventure....

    The third city of the six I visit is called Guberland, and it's exactly what you're thinking it is. Most of the male citizenry are smelly neanderthals who insist and imply they are sleeping with all the women in town, but when you actually talk to the local women, they steadfastly deny ever wanting to get near these cretins. This "dynamic" (and it really doesn't even deserve to be called that) is actually played out in the quest to take your Initiate to a Healer.

    The town's greatest warrior has taken ill with some affliction that has forced him to be locked up in a cage near the Jarl's headquarters. Visiting the town temple, you are offered a promotion if you are able to cure him and sent off to the town apothecary, who tells you he needs a lock of hair from an old hag who lives in a cave on the beach. I set off to the beach, find said cave, walk right in....and the lock is laying on a stool next to the women, which can immediately be picked up with no interaction. I talk to her anyway, and find out she placed a curse on the warrior for (wait for it)....basically lying about hooking up with her. An old crone, living in a cave on a beach. Regardless, I head back give the potion to the apothecary, rest for two hours while he brews it, head over to the warrior, and cure him (though he's still locked up).

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    Couple of notes on this: First off, this has all the hallmarks of a timeless RPG-trope, and something I'm sure I will find a multitude more of (and in fact I already have). And that is the unfinished quest. I seriously doubt the original intention of becoming a healer was to walk down to the beach and grab a lock of hair (in the same map no less). But this is the kind of stuff in games as large as most RPGs are that gets cut or (more likely) forgotten when pushed to a unrealistic deadline. Second, all Might and Magic games have their bizarre moments, but IX seems to revel in taking it to a sort of art-form. As you'll see as I continue.

    I pick up some more quests in Guberland, and I have more to do there concerning other matters, but it would be a true spoiler in regards to past games in the series that I don't want to give away. I head to the 4th city, Thronheim, and meet with the Jarl Kira the Cold. So far she is the most aware and level-headed ruler I've seen, and also the only NPC in the game who doesn't look like she was dropped on her head and flattened with a rolling pin at birth. Compared to everyone else, she might as well be Kate Upton. I deliver a letter from the Jarl of Strumford, who is in love with Kira (who doesn't share his affections). She asks me to tell him the truth but let him down easy. Oh boy.

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    She also asks me to rid her city of a certain group of people....a cult of sorts. But I'm not to kill them. You see, they are adherents of the Temple of Honk....and they worship geese....and....yeah....some of this you'll just have to see for yourself, but it's really more disturbing than amusing. The dockmaster can't stand them, and agrees to help you in your plot to get them out of the province.

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    Who the hell knows what's next....I've barely fought anything since I last posted, yet I bet I have enough exp at the moment to grant 3 levels to everyone, just trying to save some gold. Alot of backtracking coming up to tie up some quests I know I can complete before moving on to a dungeon that is level-appropriate or sailing out to a new city, where possibly some of the residents know how to tie their own shoes and don't worship water-fowl.
    JuliusBorisovBelgarathMTH
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @jjstraka34 , Thanks for the update. It sounds like the middle of the game is declining in quality due to unfinished quests. It's very interesting to read your insights about it as you press through.

    "Temple of Honk" was pretty clearly meant to be an insider joke referring to the earlier games, which had temples of Moo, Baa, and Eep (cows, sheep, and mice).
    JuliusBorisovQueegon
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    New MM7 run with me as cleric, with Minsc knight, Imoen thief, and Dynaheir sorceress:








    Just starting it tonight. It'll be as close to no-reload as possible.
    JuliusBorisov
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    Did you ever finish 10?? Unfortunately, IX has the same problems on my new computer as it had on my old one, and the one I had it working on reverted to the old problems, so until someone, somewhere in internet land comes up with a fix for the black screen underwater and at night, it will forever remain on the shelf, which sucks.
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @jjstraka34, nope, still didn't even get out of the first area of 10 because of excessive restarting, and then getting distracted with Neverwinter Online for a time, but thanks for reminding me. MM10 is yet another game I need to go back to.

    Sorry your MM9 stopped working for you.
  • jjstraka34jjstraka34 Member Posts: 9,850
    It's not a huge deal. I have the whole series, and I think I'm just going to focus on playing 3-8, and then X, eventually. The fact is, I just don't have time in my life with my back catalog of games to play anything that doesn't have some sort of auto-map, so I've dumped everything without it from my backlog forever (hell, even the GOLD BOX games have an automap).

    It's too bad you can't deal with the DOS-era control schemes (as you've said before). Both Isles of Terra and World of Xeen are fantastic games with alot of quirky looking enemies and an almost Saturday Morning cartoon meets D&D feel to them. 3-8 are all solid, fantastic CRPGs.
    BelgarathMTH
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    Good luck with a new MM7 run, Belgar! Looking forward to reading about it. I too have been thinking about MM lately ;)
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    I wouldn't call MM9 a proper continuation of the series anyway, so it's not like you're losing too much without it.
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Update September 28, 2016

    -We did all the easy stuff in Harmondale, Tularean Forest, Erathia, and Avlee.
    -Hired an enchanter and a gatemaster. These will be our NPC support for the foreseeable future.

    The plan for next play session is to go to Barrow Downs and start working on castle repair, and get Minsc's first class advance by defeating the Haunted House.







    Reloads: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    Update October 2, 2016

    -Cleared the Haunted Mansion and promoted Minsc to Cavalier.

    -Tackled the Dwarven Barrows. Found the quest item for the temple at Harmondale, and found the honorary monk promotion altar, by bearing left through the tunnels, and then flipping only two switches after reaching the bottom. Left quite a few barrows uncleared, because I find the whole dungeon tedious after completing the two quests there, and there is nothing but junk treasure, a bunch of unneeded potions, and a tedious number of low level monsters in the rest of it.

    -Went to Tatalia and gave the letter from Erathia to Lord Markham. Took a shot at getting Imoen's promotion quest item, hoping to use our gatemaster NPC to grab the vase and teleport, but the crusaders were blocking the door as soon as we opened it. We will have to wait for master air and invisibility to get Imoen promoted. I will have Dynaheir concentrate on air magic until we have it.

    -Traded two pieces of ore to the armor crafter in Erathia, got unusually lucky, and got two fantastic suits of leather for Imoen and Dynaheir.

    The plan for next play session is to start working on clearing the Tatalia area. We may go to Deyja soon for some masteries there, or maybe to Bracada to try to rescue the dwarves in the medusa infested mines for our main storyline quest.

    This game is unsurpassed in its non-linearity. There are pretty much infinite ways you could go about doing things in MM6-8.







    reloads: 0
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @JuliusBorisov , I have never really paid much attention to the "Bookmarks" feature on this forum. Revisiting it brought me to this "Blast from the Past" thread we once tried to get started. I think it fits in well with our newest attempts to get similar threads started for Divinity: Original Sin, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and Pillars of Eternity. :)
    JuliusBorisov
  • SorcererV1ct0rSorcererV1ct0r Member Posts: 2,176
    I never did an no reload challenge. Only the solo challenge for IWD mostly because i prefer to play with solo/small party(my first run was with 4 party members, one sorcerer(DD), one fighter, one druid and one cleric), but i think that i will try an no reload for the first time.

    The unique problem with this runs is that once you get the town portal/lloyd beacon, die in the game is pretty hard. I mean, still possible, but with an beacon set in from of a church to heal you and one in the entrace of the dungeon that you are exploring, is very hard to die. IMO if you are casting teleportation during battles, you need to concentrate for few rounds. Sure, is a grand master spell on MM8, but on 6 can be used even at normal level(despite the short duration and reach expert isn't hard).

    The question, is what M&M should i play? Since i never did an no reload run, what about M&M VIII? The easiest one? Only to get used?
    JuliusBorisov
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    @SorcererV1ct0r , You should play whichever MM you think will be the most fun for you. We all do this minimal and no reload business to have fun, and to share our love of the games with each other. If it's not fun, there's no good reason to be doing it. :)
    SorcererV1ct0rJuliusBorisov
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    edited April 2019
    I think you can start with M&M VI, and then continue into VII and VIII, probably using this idea: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/75117/might-and-magic-6-8-trilogy-run-idea#latest
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    So, I have found out that there is a mod to merge M&M VI, VII and VIII in one game. https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/10/16657 And even better, that is an absolutely working mod.

    ... I'm still shocked thinking about the possibilities...

    Here is how vanilla M&M VI looks:

    y96n83fdwt05.png

    Here is how M&M VI on the M&M VIII engine looks (you can create a party of 1, a party of 2, 3, 4 or 5):

    hs88n67prvj7.png

    The mod description says there might be problems in certain dungeons, then it's better to use the Software mode. Even with it, M&M VI on the M&M VIII engine looks better:

    rtugwpyax2f0.png

    But then... I loaded M&M VIII in the mod. Here is how M&M VIII looks without it:

    a0lq9ddzo44g.png

    And here's how M&M VIII looks with the mod:

    8irvrqu23ddt.png
    Grond0Ludwig_IIBelgarathMTH
  • Ludwig_IILudwig_II Member Posts: 369
    Wow, this looks amazing. Thanks a lot for sharing. I’m in the middle of my M&M 6 run, and will continue on to 7 afterwards, probably trying out with this mod. M&M6 is by no means unplayable now, but it is the one that needs the most graphical polish. So it would benefit a lot from this mod.
    JuliusBorisov
  • CahirCahir Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 2,819
    Interesting, does it mean you can play MM6 with MM8 mechanics, or it's only upgraded graphics? I don't remember MM8 that much, but I always loved the notion to became actual lich in MM7 (I'm pretty sure this was not possible in MM6).
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