This mod was made before any new promotion (or other) quests were added to the Merge. Any map edits the quests introduced *WILL BE LOST* (probably) if you install Convergence, which means broken quests. I don't have time to update it and merge my changes with quest changes. I cleaned up the links and packages to make it easier to sort through. You can omit the maps you don't want replaced or you can combine the changes yourself.
You are free to edit, dismantle, dismember, reupload, and repurpose any and all parts of this little project for the sake of your own MM endeavors.
"LOOK MAN, I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING I JUST WANT NEW CONTENT. SO SOME QUEST WON'T WORK OR GOLEM IS ANGRY SO WHAT, I'LL JUST KICK ITS BUTT OMG. JUST GIVE ME THE MOD AND LET ME PLAY IT, LIKE RIGHT NOW!!"
Okay, fine! Here's the full thing packaged up. The one thing you have to do is use MMArchive and drag-and-drop files from the marked folder into the named file. Tables were made for community branch so best to use that. Shouldn't *explode* either way, but I've no idea what spaghetti you'd cook up using the default branch. Then again, it's probably all spaghetii anyway due to new quests and such so...
: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NW6eGT ... share_linkRight, now let's get to the fun part, shall we? Merge Converge!
Want to see some content from MM6 and MM7 converging in Jadame? You've come to the right place!
Monsters, treasures, and various little goodies of old can now be found on the revamped maps and in the face-lifted dungeons.
This mod does a few things:
1. It adds cosmetic stuff to liven up some areas - chickens, farms, travelers in Ravenshore, cats wandering the strees of Shadowspire. Some decorations - also in the dungeons - and "environmental storytelling" bits (well, that's a generous term, but it's that direction
)2. It adds a lot of MM6 and MM7 goodies to the overworld maps and into the dungeons - did you miss the cool little bags of gold you could pick in MM6? I did! And now you can find some. Together with more kettles, cookpots, fruit bowls.
3. It brings back plenty of creatures from MM6 and MM7 and places them in locations that make sense (at least to me...). Shadowspire was admittedly the most fun to do, such an undead variety! Now you can enjoy them all in MM8. Be careful, Zanthora's lab difficulty spike is probably the highest of all dungeons. Fun!
4. It revamps most of the dungeons - some a whole lot, some just a little. It adds a bit of difficulty, and a bit of treasure. Several Dimension Door scrolls can be hunted down. They're very scarce, and rather tricky to acquire. Like Easter Egg hunt!
5. [OPTIONAL] It can increase the game's difficulty significantly by increasing the spawn rate of all pre-set vanilla monster packs. It will affect all three of the games, but the MM6 is just a slight adjustment. All spawns were increased by the same amount, so if originally it was 1-3, now it will be 3-6, 2-4 will become 4-7 etc, keeping the original variance. MM6 spawns were increased by 1 creature only, MM7 and MM8 by 3.
6. [OPTIONAL] It can change item stats causing Magic Books to cost much more (the cost scales from the original price, with several chosen utility spells being more expensive: Town Portal, Lloyd's Beacon, Fly and Invisibility are the notable ones). This file will also flip items around making some stronger and some weaker. It will not affect the balance of randomly generated items and is a cosmetic change (in the original Merge some things that looked strong were surprisingly weak to me and vice versa, so I made my own hierarchy).
If you use the Items.txt file, ALSO USE the RNDITEMS.txt! They're meant to work together and if you don't use both, some randomly generated loot will be too strong/too weak.
THESE FILES HAVE TO GO TO MMMERGE.T.LOD!! If you don't have it, it means your Merge install is broken and incomplete! Putting these files into English.T.lod will cause all sorts of silliness with item prices and power
7. [OPTIONAL] It can come with new bitmap sets for Ravenshore and Shadowspire, grounds and paths, and some skies. Cosmetic and subjective for sure, but you can always copy your original bitmaps and swap back.
8. [OPTIONAL] I also included the Chinese Mod for MM7 sprites and bitmaps converted for Merge. I made my map changes with this installed, so if you don't use it, you may end up having more cacti than anticipated or some other silliness. Nothing big, nothing game breaking. Probably mostly a cactus invasion, really.
9. [OPTIONAL] A small new quest giving purpose to the Druidic Circlet of Power you can find in Murmurwoods. Nothing impressive, just a bittie for completionists
WARNING: Some naturally friendly creatures in MM7 will be hostile! You *can* play through MM7 part and complete it, it will just be a bit weird.
Details can be found in my long post on the 2nd page with feedback from another player. Long story short: in MM8 only Mercenary type and Wererat/Animalist types are affected. In MM7 a lot more creatures are hostile by default (most notably: Necromancers in the Pit also for evil teams, Fighters in Markham's manor/Castle Gryphonheart, Golems in Bracada even for neutral and good teams). MM6 is most likely untouched as it didn't have so many (if any) creatures with default hostility of 0. This is not intended, but I didn't have the time to figure out a way to fix it. It *does not* break any quests (such as Markham's Quill - as long as you don't trespass by clicking on the door, you can murderize his guards with no repercussions).
Downloads, then!
Folder with all the .zips inside for 1-click download:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... share_link
(I've included readmes in each package, which are parts of this post saying what goes where, but do refer to do this post when in doubt, I could've easily mixed them up, cause in a moment of brilliance I called them all "readme"
)Map edits (needs the Hostility "fix" from next link or most of MM7 added monsters will be friendly):
Put in Data:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GOsWqJ ... share_link
Loose files (including .dat) if you only want to use some, or if you'd like to view/edit them in the MMEditor without overwriting anything (.dat files go to Maps folder -- it's in root, not in Data):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gWZgpE ... share_link
The Bootleg Hostility "fix" file:
Put in mmmerge.t.lod with MMArchive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EWdwqs ... share_link
If you're after straight up increased difficulty, here's also my adjusted Mapstats file:
Put in mmmerge.t.lod with MMArchive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cc-1Ne ... share_link
This file works both without the changed maps and with them. It's a simple table edit - stick it into the mmmerge.t.lod.
(changes: respawn time increased to 3 M&M years [1008 days], aside of end-end-game locations which are set to 1 day to try and remedy some excessive leave-and-heal cheesing [Hives, Lincoln, Escaton's Palace]; 3 more monsters on average in all packs - including dungeons - for MM7 and MM8, and 1 more monster on average in packs for MM6 to spice it up a little in return for having 5 not 4 team members)
Bitmaps file, if you want my textures (Ravenshore is a lil off, but nothing extremely horrid):
Put in Data:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kf-Wyu ... share_link
Loose bitmaps files, in case some of them need to go to some mmmerge.bitmaps file, or if you want to edit them:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zhhmUe ... share_link
Chinese textures and sprites for MM7 converted for Merge:
Put all 3 files in Data:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gQAin_ ... share_link
I used them for my map edits and I have a feeling some non-cacti things might revert to cacti without this
(Don't use it if you dislike the revamp though! Worst case scenario you'll see a lot of cacti and small trees, no worries)The item changes:
Put in mmmerge.t.lod with MMArchive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sdcTsx ... share_link
QOL Autonote with Pure Y alchemy recipes instead of "X liquid gives Y stat" notes:
Put in mmmerge.t.lod with MMArchive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1afXHIJ ... share_link
TABLES (based on Community Branch, don't use without or game will prolly crap itself!)
Put in Data/Tables:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16OG8bC ... share_link
Unlock all voices for undead males (vampire can sound young if u want).
Put in Data/Tables:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gh2DLv ... share_link
QOL quick casting buff spells (recovery of 20). Might be cheesy if you use them mid-combat, I make it a rule not to rebuff unless no enemies are actively engaged in combat. Or you can also make no rules and just have quick buffing cause nobody cares, it's a single player game
### Ramble Time ###
Druid circlet quest: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b4n87K ... share_link
Once upon a time I created the monstrosity I called a monstrosity modling for MM8. That's cause with MM8 having so few and small maps compared to its predecessors, there just wasn't enough content in my eyes. So I spammed a lot of crap everywhere (and sneks, so many sneks) in order to fill out the world and increase the challenge level significantly.
I've dug out those files now and considered including them in my Merge playthrough but
a) they'd overwrite any possible Merge changes to the areas
b) they were... not great
Very random, not too thought out, chaotic, clearly meant to be using chests, yet having no chestsI saw so many mistakes, I was genuinely bothered by the badness of the thing and decided to create something a little similar for the Merge, but less random and weird.
And then I realized I could import assets from MM7 and MM6 now, because, well, it's the Merge!
And so, the Mini Merge Convergence happened.
Examples of the additions:
Alvar gets some more vegetation around town (even some angry chickens), here's a small mushroom garden:
Skyrim isn't the only place where you can get robbed in shady canyons nowadays:
Shadowspire has a slight problem with suckers nesting in the nearby trees. They're not very dangerous, and there aren't many of them, but they can-and-will pester hot blooded visitors a bit:
The Necromancer's guild (and vampire crypt) finally got their hands on some thematic vampire bats! Praise be.
Ghosts. This place really needed some damn ghosts. The bed sheet ghosts guard the obelisk, while some shades frolick here and there on the fields.
Zanthora's realm is no longer a complete sausage party. Now she's got some ladies to lend her a hand in guarding the entrance. They also brought a big eyeball along, to establish domination (he's shy and didn't get in the photo though):
Meanwhile on Daggerwound, some obligatory sneks make an appearance. It's not confirmed, and it's not denied, that they might have found a snaky way of using the teleporters and are now sightseeing the archipelago.
The sunken library caught attention of a couple of Regnan Archmages and they came poking around there with an entourage.
The explosion which created the portal to the plane of earth ejected a bunch of angry rocks. But there could be some useful ore scattered around the debris.
The Temple of Eep is no longer left unguarded! (well, that's a lie, cause they're all friendly xD but it won't be once it works as it should)
I'm so hyped up 
" cause it dillutes continent identity 
Well, I'm happy to contribute, as always whatever I conjure up here will be free to use, reuse, edit and dismantle by anyone who feels like it needs a slap this or that way.
