Your thoughts on M&M 8 and 9

[TheCoolinator]

Ok,

A long time ago I actually bought M&M 8 and then for some odd reason immediately returned it. I guess I was kind of disappointed with the graphics and having only one person in my party at the beginning. Eitherway it was gone and I got my money back.

Later on I bought M&M9 and played the hell out of it. Now it wasn't as interesting or exciting as M&M 7 but it still was a nice transition from the old graphics engine to the new one.

Just recently I downloaded a copy of M&M8 and was wondering how it is compared to MM 6, 7, and 9. And is there anything that I should look out for when I start it up in the near future?

[darknessfood]

For me, 8 was pretty good. It was just a MM game like 6 and 7 (who were great) and did some twists like fullscreen, different races and 5 party team. The dungeons were kinda small, and the game wasn't that hard, but all in all, it was e good experience.

Now let's start about 9. It's bad, terrible, crap, it sucks. Seriously, the whole world except for 2 parts (IIRC) were the same greenish stuff. The exploring was a joke (perhaps a 3 way fork, but nothing spectaculair). Character creation was dull, and they took away the nice paper dolls (I LOVE THEM). The music for some reason was also pretty boring to me. The combat was a f*cking joke and was nothing more that bashing your left mouse button and most enemies were dead. Only a few dungeons were actualy decent, but not more than that. The story was weird and I didn't really care. Enemies weren't that inspiring (like weird flowers puking on you or something), and were kinda ugly. Every city was dull and confusing to navigate. Let's not forget that the game was very buggy because of the funds 3DO had left, but I rather have the game never to be released, than this piece of garbitch...

[Tress]

Like mm7 it use same engine, only slightly modified. Also personally I see it as bit lower quality product than its predecessor and I would say that graphic wise mm8 it is bit worse than 7. For positive moments I can mention updated GUI and better map functionality.
Game itself is rather easy an if you use everything game offers (i.e dont limit yourself) you can finish game really quickly by getting high lvl characters that easily speeds up game play.
Unlike previous parts, starting character can play relatively little role as you can freely change 4 members of the team, and even if you made team setup you think is wrong you can switch at any time.
SKill system is bit less stiff and it allows characters to develop more GM skills than in previous installments. Only minotaur class(somewhat ranger from mm7) is rather unlucky design.
Game features only 1 promotion quest per class, and most of them can also be avoided since most of the time you can hire already promoted character instead.

[Lord13]

MnM 9 not even had paper dolls! Haha...seriously was a great
disappointment. Cold graphics(yes were more advanced than
previous parts but the artwork was terrible imo), crappy world,
worst skill system, very unattractive interface, gameplay generally
was much lower than the previous parts.

MnM 8 has many similar parts with 6+7 (for me MnM 6-7-8 is something
like trilogy), graphic engine, skill system, gameplay, same style and
atmosphere at artwork. I still don't like the fact that you cannot start
with a custom full party but at least is an original Might And Magic experience.
Weaker at details from MnM 6-7 imo, but still a great game
that I enjoy playing it every few years.

[arturchix]

I probably played them in the best possible order - first MM8, then MM7 and MM6 and finally MM9. Since the latter is bugged as hell and poorly optimized (the game itself was developed in something like 7 months and rushed to release), it is mostly meant for hardcore M&M fans but I still enjoyed it, not as much as MM6-MM8 but still. Can't say that also MM8 was optimized very well - poor gold balance and overpowered dragons to name a few issues.

To summarize it all, MM6 was a revolutionary game, sort of unpolished diamond but still with flaws so devs kept polishing it with new installments until nothing was left. MM7 took the best of it, made it shorter and improved a lot of aspects like setting skill limits for classes. MM8 was even shorter, had better graphics but some cool features like NPCs, blasters and stealing skill were cut. Needless to say that almost no new features were introduced (except for Arcomage in MM7 and Bounty Hunters Guild perhaps). MM9 was meant to be a completely revolutionary game but due to 3DO's financial trouble turned into a disaster and marked the end of the M&M RPG brand...for now.

[GreatEmerald]

And is there anything that I should look out for when I start it up in the near future?

GrayFace's patch of course

[Sure Valla]

mm8 is really good!

[Corlagon]

I realise this doesn't pertain to functionality, but out of all the MM games, I really enjoyed the atmosphere and general setting of MM8 the most, by far. Of the "Enroth trilogy" I would like to see a graphical remake of this one more than the rest... with gameplay updates, obviously. If only NWC had been given / demanded time to develop their engine.

[TheCoolinator]

Wow, I really need to play it MM8 now......is playing as vampires or minotaurs as cool as it sounds?

[Tress]

Unfortunately those 2 classes are generally considered as weakest ones in game.
Minotaur like troll has unique paper doll, but his gameplay aspect leaves much to be desired since knight mostly beats him on every aspect.
Vampire although many says he's useless i consider them quite good class,NWC could have made them bit better looking(specially males)but apart from that they are quite good , specially because of early levitate ability, and GM knives are quite deadly at the endgame.

[GreatEmerald]

I realise this doesn't pertain to functionality, but out of all the MM games, I really enjoyed the atmosphere and general setting of MM8 the most, by far. Of the "Enroth trilogy" I would like to see a graphical remake of this one more than the rest... with gameplay updates, obviously. If only NWC had been given / demanded time to develop their engine.

What do you mean, their engine? Traditionally they seem to be switching engines every 2-3 games: MM1 and MM2 use JVC's engine (I don't think it's ever named), MM3-5 use NWC's MM3 engine (again, never officially named AFAIK), MM6-8 use Horizon and Labyrinth (were they NWC's?) and finally MM9 uses Lithtech engine, an earlier version of what F.E.A.R. uses. In fact, MM9 graphics strongly remind me of Unreal Engine 1 (it, Lithtech and id Tech 3 were rivals at that time, and Lithtech was the least popular), and with all those spells MM9 looks very similar to The Wheel of Time game.

So which engine are you talking about? Since they didn't develop Lithtech, and I'm not sure about Horizon/Labyrinth.

[Tress]

Since they didn't develop Lithtech,

Even if they didn't, every developer who buy license to engine brings huge corrections into it to shape it under his needs. For example thief3 uses modified UT2k3/4 engine, but its really hard to recognize it underneath, even more considering Unreal tech 2 doesnt support dynamic lightning.
Also litech engine probably was choice for NWC because of monolith policy - to sell engine to low budget games, and charge not per product, but per coder who works on it, or something like that.
Most likely unreal tech was superior to littech but it would be heavily unfair to say that its bad engine( I wonder what was that made it impossible Isles of ashes look like last level from NOLF2)

[GreatEmerald]

True, you can mod engines, but that has its limitations as well. I have to agree that Bioshock, which is Unreal Engine 2 (Not Unreal tech I know, I'm picky), looks extremely similar to Unreal Engine 3. But you're mistaken about no dynamic lighting - it is even possible to use that in Unreal Engine 1, which was released in 1998. There are maps that even have a full day/night cycle there.

[Tress]

Thats driving bit into offtopic but anyway..

But you're mistaken about no dynamic lighting - it is even possible to use that in Unreal Engine 1, which was released in 1998.

Not really, thats one of differences that U1 engine had compared to U2. Lightning model was better for1998 year engine. I was big fan of thief based UT mod, and there was huge discussion why u2 engine cant be used to remake it, and core problem was problematic lightning model.
Also Bioshock is U3 engine rather than 2,( ye i know its odd that UT came later than first few games on its engine)

As for mm9 and litech. I am disappointed that NWC made so little changed in it, leaving even movement dynamic to its default level and even then it could most of it could be compensated if artists would have bothered to place any other texture than boring green upon ground. Whats even worse to trash talk litech afterward that it was unsuitable for their needs. I know they didn't had much time to create game , but still.

[DaveO]

I'll ignore the part where you admitted you pirated the game.

In regards to MM8, I've played thru it multiple times and I think if you avoid the balance issues mentioned it's still an OK. I'll be posting an MM8 character creation video soon where I'll discuss the game a bit and have a planned party of Troll, Minotaur, Vampire, and Necromancer.

P.S. - Did I happen to mention that I'm actually a part of MM8, and am one of the guardians to Lord Brinne's Tomb?

[Tress]

P.S. - Did I happen to mention that I'm actually a part of MM8, and am one of the guardians to Lord Brinne's Tomb?

Good way to get killed by haters in-game Still cool to be mentioned in game.

[Corlagon]

MM6-8 use Horizon and Labyrinth (were they NWC's?)

Yes. And I'm the one who wrote that on Wikipedia by the way.

You took me way too literally, I didn't imply there was a game engine they didn't finish, I mean they wanted to redevelop/revise the game engine with *every* new installment but couldn't thanks to Trip and his 9-month development deadlines. LithTech was a crappy framework for this series at least, it couldn't support their original design for LoMM and we know where MM9 went.

A miracle the games still turned out quite well under this insane kind of pressure.

[GreatEmerald]

Tress, lighting in UE2 is the same as in UE1, but lighting options are in different parts of the actor properties, and in UE2 you also have to check "bDynamicLight" to make it dynamic. They might have overlooked this or something, since there is also a full port of Unreal 1 to Unreal Tournament 2004, including its dynamic lighting.
And BioShock IS UE2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock
Also, you can't kill people in the tomb. I tried, no success XD

Corlagon, oh, I see. Deadlines... They are the things that make most promising games mediocre. Same thing happened with Unreal II and The Wheel of Time, after which Legend Entertainment, their developers, were closed. Too bad

[Tress]

Well it has extent of dynamic lightning, but it wast as good as it wasnt as good as ut1. To sum up limitation i can quote one of coders from that project

You can make dynamic light, BUT!
They wont cast shadows, and they will shine trough surfaces!
...
This means we can use create flares, but using lights with switches to light up rooms would not work, since there would be no shadows and the light would go right trough the walls, lightning up the next room.

Thats pretty much means that only static lightning generates propper shadows.
Ye gotta admit I was wrong on bioshock engine tou, although there is multiple contradictorily info on the net on that topic.

Also, you can't kill people in the tomb. I tried, no success XD

Try dragon fire(default attack one), that thing is bugged as hell, it pretty much has rules of its own.

[Sure Valla]

So you say the trolls, and minotaurs are the weakest classes, i finished the game with a troll on level 1!