Might and Magic 6, 7, 8 merge based on mm8 engine. [upd. 05.11.2023]

[Rodril]

Also, a little suggestion that has been in the back of my mind recently: what if we reduced the clutter in the game by instead of every scroll and spellbook from MM6, 7, 8 being able to carry every spell? I was thinking, based on their appearance:
- the MM6 books/scrolls could be for the Self schools
- the MM7 ones could be for the Elemental schools
- the MM8 ones could be for Light and Dark

Hello. This is great idea. Speaking of protection from magic potion, I constantly delay it, because changing description is painstacking work not only with english texts, but also with bunch of localizations we have at the moment. Maybe I will change it's effect to something that fits "protection from magic" (all resistances + temporary scripted immunity to some conditions), but does not affect entire party. Not sure when, though.
Cannot comment scrolls recipes at the moment, have to check it first.

Another problem that i have, when i tried to add pictures of the armor from Orlock's archives in game i got untransparent armors. But if i add pictures of the armor from "mmmerge.icons.lod Backup" they will be transparent again, despite they have the same file size and name. How to fix that?

If I remember correctly, you have to encode bmp files as 256 colors, before packing it into lod. If it does not work, you'll have to encode it as indexed picture, where transparancy color is first in the palette.

Edit: I corrected coordinates for all female armor. I made changes in Complex item pictures.txt, hope i did it in right place Here is the corrected file:
https://file.io/MS9uxXnkZOI1

hello, i found female armor issue and fix it, please add fix to patch

Thank you. I will post patch this weekend.

[Xfing]

Thanks for getting back Rodril! Always happy to offer some ideas I can also help with the legwork on some of these (like the scrolls and spellbooks) if you'd like, since I have some experience editing the item tables, I'd just need some instructions. Or if you prefer to do it yourself that's fine by me too hehe

[Xfing]

Oh, and one more thing I remember - it's now possible to get Troll peasants to become Trolls by visiting a Regeneration teacher, but there still doesn't seem to be a way to make a minotaur peasant get the "Minotaur" class. I suggested having Axe teachers let you do that, since they don't have any such mechanic as of now (to become a Ranger you need to visit an Identify Monster trainer).

[Maslyonok]

The new version of localization is done! I would like to hear some feedback of mistranslations, typos, etc.

Rodril

please, pin this to the top page.

Latest russian localization
Latest russian localization with videofiles (Buka)

Install files within zip archive after mod installation on GOG version of MM8

[Rodril]

Hello. Adding 13.01.2024 patch link to the first post:
-- Offsets of armor repaintings made by Orolock have been adjusted. I've included text table linked by Majesty above, could not obtain one posted by xom94ok, link seem to be broken.
-- I've included skill value limits removal script from cthscr' Revamp branch into base merge. It should eliminate bugs with skill level overflow, when value over 60 causes game to interprete it as 1 of higher mastery tier, also max skill level is raised to 80. I have not completed full playthrough with this addition, but so far it seem to work very well. If you'll notice weird skills behaivor or unexpected crashes, please warn me.

please, pin this to the top page.

Added, thanks.

[Xfing]

Hello,

I dove a bit into the game's files in an attempt to fix the fact that items labeled "Good" or "Evil" no longer worked in the Merge, because the flag from MM7 that determined party alignment based on the choice of the judge is no longer in use in the Merge. I was able to fix this problem by simply hard-specifying the classes that can equip the items, so now it works again.

Good classes include: Champion, Spy, Hero, Master Archer, Ranger Lord, Master, Arch Druid, Priest of the Light and Archmage.
Evil classes include: Black Knight, Assassin, Villain, Sniper, Bounty Hunter, Ninja, Warlock, Priest of the Dark, Nercomancer, Master Necromancer, Lich, Vampire and Nosferatu.
Neutral classes include: All unpromoted classes unless mentioned above, Peasant, Dark Elf Patriarch, Minotaur Lord, War Troll, Great Wyrm, High Priest and Master Wizard.

Using this, I've fixed the "Necromancer"-specific Blade of Mercy so that it will now also work for the Master Necromancer class, which it didn't previously.

I've also changed the shield Eclipse from working for all Clerics to just Priests of the Light - in MM8 the Clerics were already heavily implied to be aligned with the Light in the first place, but this game uses MM7's system, where characters can only learn Light Magic after the final promotion. So this fits.

And I've also added some items into the categories:

Good: Mace of the Sun
Evil: Spiritslayer, Hades, Vampire's Cape

And created new categories: "Not Good" and "Not Evil". These are basically "Evil + Neutral" and "Good + Neutral" - for items that are not inherently good/evil, but it still wouldn't sit well with fully good or evil people to use them. Here's a list of those:

Not Evil: Elsenrail, Archangel Wings, Ghoulsbane, Sun Cloak, Igraine
Not Good: Glomenthal, Judicious Measure, Hell's Cleaver, Corsair, Ruler's Ring, Villain's Blade, Moon Cloak, Mordred

Of course the labels of all the items have also been altered, as you can see here:


The changes to the labels are in ITEMS.txt, which needs to be imported into mmmerge.T.lod as before, while the changes to the item behavior were done in ExtraArtifacts.lua, which just needs to be put in the Scripts/Global folder.

If you like the change, feel free to implement it! I requested this a while ago, but decided to do the legwork myself after all, since it's just some text editing. The package with the files is below:

[cthscr]

-- I've included skill value limits removal script from cthscr' Revamp branch into base merge. It should eliminate bugs with skill level overflow, when value over 60 causes game to interprete it as 1 of higher mastery tier, also max skill level is raised to 80. I have not completed full playthrough with this addition, but so far it seem to work very well. If you'll notice weird skills behaivor or unexpected crashes, please warn me.

I have a feeling that ConvertMap might be called when it's not needed. Like create a character in Jadame, load autosave (that have MM8 maps only, right?) and move into Enroth.

[Gray Magic Expert]

Hello,

I dove a bit into the game's files in an attempt to fix the fact that items labeled "Good" or "Evil" no longer worked in the Merge, because the flag from MM7 that determined party alignment based on the choice of the judge is no longer in use in the Merge. I was able to fix this problem by simply hard-specifying the classes that can equip the items, so now it works again.

Good classes include: Champion, Spy, Hero, Master Archer, Ranger Lord, Master, Arch Druid, Priest of the Light and Archmage.
Evil classes include: Black Knight, Assassin, Villain, Sniper, Bounty Hunter, Ninja, Warlock, Priest of the Dark, Nercomancer, Master Necromancer, Lich, Vampire and Nosferatu.
Neutral classes include: All unpromoted classes unless mentioned above, Peasant, Dark Elf Patriarch, Minotaur Lord, War Troll, Great Wyrm, High Priest and Master Wizard.

Using this, I've fixed the "Necromancer"-specific Blade of Mercy so that it will now also work for the Master Necromancer class, which it didn't previously.

I've also changed the shield Eclipse from working for all Clerics to just Priests of the Light - in MM8 the Clerics were already heavily implied to be aligned with the Light in the first place, but this game uses MM7's system, where characters can only learn Light Magic after the final promotion. So this fits.

And I've also added some items into the categories:

Good: Mace of the Sun
Evil: Spiritslayer, Hades, Vampire's Cape

And created new categories: "Not Good" and "Not Evil". These are basically "Evil + Neutral" and "Good + Neutral" - for items that are not inherently good/evil, but it still wouldn't sit well with fully good or evil people to use them. Here's a list of those:

Not Evil: Elsenrail, Archangel Wings, Ghoulsbane, Sun Cloak, Igraine
Not Good: Glomenthal, Judicious Measure, Hell's Cleaver, Corsair, Ruler's Ring, Villain's Blade, Moon Cloak, Mordred
[...]
The changes to the labels are in ITEMS.txt, which needs to be imported into mmmerge.T.lod as before, while the changes to the item behavior were done in ExtraArtifacts.lua, which just needs to be put in the Scripts/Global folder.

If you like the change, feel free to implement it! I requested this a while ago, but decided to do the legwork myself after all, since it's just some text editing.

Why do you want to nerf most master sword users and ban them from using Sword of Light + Sword of Dark?
Vampires, Paladins, Knights are out of the picture with your suggested changes! How adding restrcitions to artifacts is supposed to make game better rather than worse???

Why ban Dark Clerics from being top tier Self Casters by banning even the Ring of Self from them???

Frankly, most mm7 Good-Bad restrictions were pretty pointless anyway... Old Nick, Twilight and Ghoul are really niche items anyways. Taledon's Helm is very niche too, unless you go for Light Magic. This leaves only Ethric's staff (+15 meditation) and Justice (Of body and mind magic is effective).

Frankly, it was cool that merge disabled those stupid restrictions.
Of course, I can understand turning them back on for original Might and Magic Relics. This is in line with the whole merge concept, by fully including mm7 features.
It may be also cool to add such restrictions for powerful new artifacts, if you want to create any.
But adding alignment restrictions to artifacts/relics/spec.items that never had them will only make the game boring!

[raekuul]

yeah the more restrictive artifacts probably should be an optional add-on rather than part of the core mod. I'm fine with reimplementing it for the MM7 set because that was actually a major choice you made with actual consequences, but for MM6 and MM8 it's just adding complexity for the sake of adding complexity (especially since Mordred is a guaranteed drop).

[Xfing]

Yeah, those extra ones are easy to exclude, I just thought it'd be fun to make hero alignment matter even more than it did already. Still, at the very least Spiritslayer should remain evil, even if we drop everything else.

As for Elsenrail/Glomenthal - the idea was that dual wielding them would be a Dark Elf thing, which for me it always was anyway. Oh, and trolls too. Other classes such as paladins, vamps or thieves are better with their GM weapons than with 2 swords anyhow. But I can understand your apprehension, I just like to go a bit far with changes sometimes. If Rodril wants to pull this fix, he'll decide to what degree to implement it.

Why ban Dark Clerics from being top tier Self Casters by banning even the Ring of Self from them???

I can understand this messes with the power fantasy, since in the Merge you can collect an ungodly amount of stacking magic upgrading relics. That in itself is already overpowered - keep in mind that in the original games the best you could get was a 50% boost to your magic school (1 item's worth). So you'd only have level 60's worth of skill at level 40 with one boosting item. I know it's fun in the Merge to get like 200% to your magic school by stacking items, but to be perfectly frank - without the bolster it's already way past overpowered, and WITH the bolster the only thing that'll save your ass is shrapmetal anyways, so...

Frankly, most mm7 Good-Bad restrictions were pretty pointless anyway... Old Nick, Twilight and Ghoul are really niche items anyways. Taledon's Helm is very niche too, unless you go for Light Magic. This leaves only Ethric's staff (+15 meditation) and Justice (Of body and mind magic is effective). Frankly, it was cool that merge disabled those stupid restrictions.

Pointless from a gameplay perspective maybe, but they were good for immersion and worldbuilding. You're sounding like a min-maxer who wants maximum possible power at the expense of immersion and believability. Sure, an evil character being able to benefit from wielding Justice would be pretty nifty, but it'd mess with the role playing aspect greatly. I only went after the artifacts that had something about them that really showed a clear affiliation.

Of course, I can understand turning them back on for original Might and Magic Relics. This is in line with the whole merge concept, by fully including mm7 features.
It may be also cool to add such restrictions for powerful new artifacts, if you want to create any.
But adding alignment restrictions to artifacts/relics/spec.items that never had them will only make the game boring!

Of course it would be great if we could add more artifacts/relics someday, and shouldn't be hard to implement given the data format. Basically all we need is some new art, and even that is not necessary since we can reuse existing art (MM6 did only that).

As for the "boring" part, I disagree. I heard the same accusations when I suggested that races should have penalties to skills in adition to bonuses - well, today we at least have bonuses, but if there was a tradeoff, the bonuses could afford to be bigger. That would let you experiment with race-class combos more and come up with really powerful combinations that come with a drawback - which you then could compensate for with other party members. So while some think it'd be boring, I think it'd make teambuilding more engaging and fun. A difference of perspective I guess.

[Maslyonok]

Game crashes with an error then trying to use Enchant Item spell on catalyst potion (potion power >100)

Code: Select all

D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts\General\SpellsTweaks.lua:200: array index (0) out of bounds [1, 138]

stack traceback:
	[C]: in function 'error'
	D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts/Core/RSMem.lua:1429: in function '__index'
	D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts\General\SpellsTweaks.lua:200: in function 'v'
	D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:66: in function 'docall'
	D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:126: in function 'call'
	D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts\General\ExtraEvents.lua:871: in function 'f'
	D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts/Core/RSMem.lua:1992: in function <D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts/Core/RSMem.lua:1990>
	[C]: in function 'pcall'
	D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts/Core/Common.lua:203: in function 'pcall2'
	D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts/Core/RSMem.lua:1779: in function <D:\Games\MMMerge test\Scripts/Core/RSMem.lua:1776>

arguments of 'v':
	t = (table: 0x1fd02220)

local variables of 'v':
	item = 0
	(*temporary) = (table: 0x04e80c00)
	(*temporary) = 4
	(*temporary) = 7.0970318400404e-281
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

Using that spell on a more powerful potion (278 for example) causes "spell failed" message.

[Rodril]

Game crashes with an error then trying to use Enchant Item spell on catalyst potion (potion power >100)

Send me savegame, where it happens, please.

[rampage77t]

Greetings to everyone who created this fantastic mod, I wanted to ask something that I hope you can help me with, after much searching on different web pages and videos, and seeing that the main publication of the mod is not updated, I decided to get to work on the translation of the mod into Spanish, based on the translations I obtained from the three games separately including the audios, only some small details are missing. First, I don't know if you can change the audio of the videos that appear in the game when you perform certain story missions, but if so, I'm missing the animations in Spanish from MM8, I find it difficult, but if by chance some you have it, you can send me the files. Another thing is that I would need new audios in Spanish of certain characters that appear exclusively in this mod (bone dragons, zombie minotaur, etc.). I seem to remember that I saw a video on YouTube where someone uploaded a video of what those characters would be like in Spanish, but I haven't been able to find it, I hope they haven't been deleted. I really appreciate all the effort they make to give us a great experience of this trilogy that has always been my favorite in this series of games, and I want to contribute on my part, even though there probably aren't many Spanish-speaking players lol .

[cthscr]

I would need new audios in Spanish of certain characters that appear exclusively in this mod (bone dragons, zombie minotaur, etc.).

They were created by Templayer based on present localized files. Can't tell if asking him directly would help in any way now.

[Maslyonok]

Game crashes with an error then trying to use Enchant Item spell on catalyst potion (potion power >100)

Send me savegame, where it happens, please.

Here

I played it later on and the problem disappeared by the way. (at least after I gave all philosopher's stones to Verdant)

[Rodril]

Here
I played it later on and the problem disappeared by the way. (at least after I gave all philosopher's stones to Verdant)

Thanks. I've uploaded new patch, link is also in the first post. Problem was caused by applying spell to a potion in inventory of other player, I did not handle this properly in the script. Should work fine now.
Though there's another bug, that I don't have fix for at the moment: when selecting item target for a spell, switching character with TAB button, rather than with number buttons, won't trigger inventory screen update. This is reproducable in clear mm8 (non merge). Could cause unexpected spell fail, but should not be gamebreaking.

I have a feeling that ConvertMap might be called when it's not needed. Like create a character in Jadame, load autosave (that have MM8 maps only, right?) and move into Enroth.

Doublechecked, seem to work correctly. ConvertMap won't be called if map just refilled, and any map, that player visit for the first time, is refilled. Should only trigger in populated maps of old savegames.
Loading autosave won't allow to switch continent, since save is maden once continent is already selected. Moving to Enroth via dimension door should not cause trouble, since it will be regular first visit. Though every new game contains data for all MM8 maps, these maps will still be refilled on first visit.

[sinoda]

Hi guys. I hired scholar but he doesn't do item identification as it's stated. How warehouse option works? To buy warehouse I had fist to rent it and then to buy but later in the game it said that I am in debt and have to pay rent. Thanks in advance.

[Gray Magic Expert]

Yeah, those extra ones are easy to exclude, I just thought it'd be fun to make hero alignment matter even more than it did already. Still, at the very least Spiritslayer should remain evil, even if we drop everything else.

If I am not mistaken, Spiritslayer description says only:
"Many under the rule of Luthiner the Severe saw the existence of his spear Spiritslayer as proof of the existence of evil. The injuries caused by the spear go beyond the physical as Spiritslayer takes a strike as an opportunity to drink its target's very essence."
Does this really imply anything beyond Master Spirit Magic "Spirit Lash" spell?
And there is also no Spear-wielding Evil Classes in might and magic 8 - so restricting a MM8 artifact in such a way feels wrong...

I think, Hades would make for a better new Evil-Only Item.
Hades originally comes from MM6, and MM6 has easily-accessible dark-light trainers. Also, Hades is described as a vile Relic (arguably, more vile than Spiritslayer). This is the case, where adding an Evil-only requirement will greatly enhance immersion, unlike
- Old Nick (Just a renoun assassin weapon. Infamous? Definitely! But not more Vile than a wand of Sharpmetal/Paralysis...)
- Twilight Cloak (Described as a sneaky tool for Assassins and Spies. Spies are a Light class in MM7...)
- Taledon's Helmet (Just a cool hat of a dead Sun Priest. Ghoulsbane or Sun Amulets are not Good Only, despite their coonection to Sun Temple)
Only Etric's Staff and Justice felt really worthy of their alignment restrictions in vanilla MM7.
(And those are exactly the items powerful enough to reward a choice of a Light/Dark path, unlike the above three items.)

I can understand this messes with the power fantasy, since in the Merge you can collect an ungodly amount of stacking magic upgrading relics. That in itself is already overpowered - keep in mind that in the original games the best you could get was a 50% boost to your magic school (1 item's worth). So you'd only have level 60's worth of skill at level 40 with one boosting item. I know it's fun in the Merge to get like 200% to your magic school by stacking items, but to be perfectly frank - without the bolster it's already way past overpowered, and WITH the bolster the only thing that'll save your ass is shrapmetal anyways, so...

By penalizing evil clerics and banning them from Igraine, you will only punish quirky builds.
True min-maxers will simply make a one Dark specialist and one Self specialist.

And this is true for many of the suggested restrictions.
- Elsenrail/Glomenthal do not work on knights? A really cool-looking setup is disabled. But min-maxer would use Vampiric Weapons and/or Terminus/Wallace anyways for most of the fights!
- Harek's Leather is now not Good? Well, my Archmage lost a really kickass piece of fashion! Back to old, boring and reliable Alvarian Leather
of Earth/Serndine's Protection options. They are more powerful items anyways...

This is what I mean by "Boring". Removing funny options does not make the game deeper!
Same is true for many Race restrictions. Penalizing armmaster on elves, for example, would make them pathetic knights. They are unoptimal, but funny and playable knights right now. But they will become unplayable without GM armmaster. Same goes for, say, penalizing maces on elven paladins. Or penalizing Bows on dwarven Archers. Or penalizing magic skills on goblins.
Skill penalties may reduce class variety instead of improving it!

[raekuul]

Wouldn't it be better to negate relic stacking instead, since that's where the overpoweredness is coming from anyway?

[Gray Magic Expert]

Wouldn't it be better to negate relic stacking instead, since that's where the overpoweredness is coming from anyway?

No, it would be worse.
Problem is: most Artifacts/Relics are rather meh compared to normal high-level items. The fact that relic bonuses can stack, unlike normal enchantments, makes relics cool.

Without stacking, too many relics would become almost pointless from gameplay perspective. And this devalues the immersion too: when description says that the Item is famous, powerful and ancient, but the item itself is worse then a boring Duelist Longsword of the Vampire - then description feels like a joke, and the world feels more flat.

As for the balance issue:
To reach a really overpowered stage, a player needs to have a really fat stack of proper relics.
Finding all the needed relics by accident requires luck.
Finding all the needed relics by reloading is insanely time-consuming. If a power-gamer wants to do this - power to them, I'd say.

So, unless we are talking about serious late game (clearing 2 continets worth of High-level locations), there is definitely no problem with overpowered-ness. And if we are talking about serious late game - then what's the problem?
Being really OP in the lategame is arguably the part of the whole deal. This was the case in vanilla Might and Magic 6, 7, 8. It arguably was the case even in Chaos Conspiracy lategame (Land-That-Time-Forgot; Pyramid 2). So I don't see a problem here.