MM3- Isles of Terra modding progress

[ludmeister]

If all goes well, I am going to release my World of Xeen Monster Spawn mod tonight. It will be available for download at my site, and there will be a (mostly) exhaustive changelog, a few screenshots and a full item list documenting what is different in the mod.

The time is largely dependent on how difficult imy 11-month-old son (aka Little Dude™) is to put to sleep tonight, and how much touch-up is necessary. Stay tuned...

EDIT: The mod is now released. Download the World of Xeen Monster Spawn mod here. I hope you all enjoy it!

[ludmeister]

More news on the Might and Magic 3 front. In my playtesting for the MM3 Monster Spawn (and more) mod, I have found and squashed another bug that was in stock MM3. As of now, the MM3.exe conversion kit available at my site includes these two bugfixes:

Arena Experience bugfix— Arena awards its bonus properly (MM3 used to actually penalize experience if you had won more than 32 arena battles).

Damage resistance bugfix— This bug surfaces in the late-game when characters are hitting for tons of damage, and monsters have damage resistance. A 16-bit overflow occurs when multiplying out the resistance of the creature, resulting in far reduced damage. Damage is now calculated properly.

These bugfixes won't work unless you convert your MM3.CC as well.

[Talin_Trollbane]

so, how goes this? any news?

[Rune_Caster]

In Might and Magic 3/4/5 what causes monsters to make two actions?

edit (Not sure if this in WoX only)

When you click on a Xeen Power Water, Red, Orange, Blue, Green, Purple, Yellow, and White Potions then hit esc why does the game consider the item used (as in if you click then click esc 3 times the potion will vanish and no stats will be given)

[tolich]

When you click on a Xeen Power Water, Red, Orange, Blue, Green, Purple, Yellow, and White Potions then hit esc why does the game consider the item used

It's a magic item. When you use it, one charge is deduced, then the spell is cast. If you cancel this spell, this doesn't return charges. Try scroll of Town Portals (can be obtained in Lakeside), it works the same.

[ludmeister]

Rune_Caster wrote:
When you click on a Xeen Power Water, Red, Orange, Blue, Green, Purple, Yellow, and White Potions then hit esc why does the game consider the item used (as in if you click then click esc 3 times the potion will vanish and no stats will be given)

You are thinking about the stat modifying potions in Temple of Bark, right? Or are you thinking about the Xeen Power Juice in Castle Alamar? I'm not aware that Xeen Power Juice suffers from this bug, though it might.

In the case of the Temple of Bark potions, my suspicion is that this is an example of a poorly coded event (as in a XEEN##.EVT file defined in your save game)... as Tolich was saying (i think) is that the logic would look something like this:

-> Player activates potion (clicky or space bar)
-> Increase # of uses by 1
-> Choose a character to receive the boon
-> If # of uses is three, then remove potion.

This would be just fine, except that when we choose a character, we can also hit [ESC], and cancel the action. Event scripting allows for a (optional?) branch if the "Choose Who" command is cancelled... and this should be used to trap whether the drinking was aborted or not.

In Might and Magic 3/4/5 what causes monsters to make two actions?

This is a great question, and one I still have not answered to my satisfaction. It bugs the crap out of me though, especially because of its intermittent nature. Probably bugged NWC, too.

In MM3, I have never seen monsters act twice in succession like that (if memory serves.)

In MM4/5, I have identified two things that seem to trigger the bug... some of the time:

• 1. Using a miscellaneous item to cast a spell. If you do this when not in melee, I have also seen monsters move two squares forward!

• 2. Engaging two monsters in battle, and not finishing them off before a new monster joins the melee. On a somewhat rare basis, this seems to trigger the bug.

One interesting tendency in the bug that I have seen is that #2 seems to happen in Darkside a lot. I believe that is because this part of the bug is Initiative (Speed) driven! While playing my mod, I toned down the Darkside monsters' Speed rating a bit, so my Ninja, Ranger and Samurai were attacking before many monsters. When the bug would fire, at times the Ninja would attack, then the Samurai, and then the Ranger, and then the monsters would hit me. Then the round would end prematurely!

I believe this is the crux of the bug-- a faulty check to determine the end of a round of battle. Perhaps Xeen sets a memory location which determines when a round of battle will end, and this memory location is wrongly set when certain, somewhat rare, circumstances are true.

I'm curious as to your experiences with this bug.

[Rune_Caster]

Rune_Caster wrote:
When you click on a Xeen Power Water, Red, Orange, Blue, Green, Purple, Yellow, and White Potions then hit esc why does the game consider the item used (as in if you click then click esc 3 times the potion will vanish and no stats will be given)

You are thinking about the stat modifying potions in Temple of Bark, right? Or are you thinking about the Xeen Power Juice in Castle Alamar? I'm not aware that Xeen Power Juice suffers from this bug, though it might.

Here is a list of all the items affected by this "glitch"

Temple of Bark
Red Potion + 5 Mgt (6)
Orange Potion + 5 Int (3)
Blue Potion + 5 Per (6)
Green Potion + 5 End (3)
Purple Potion + 5 Spd (6)
Yellow Potion + 5 Acy (6)
White Potion + 5 Luck (3)

Sandcaster
Orange Potion + 10 Int (6)
Purple Potion + 10 Spd (3)

Dragon Tower
Green Potion + 40 End (8)

Castle Alamar lv. 3 (near the sky road entrence)
Xeen Power Water + 5 Levels Perm (2)

Castle Alamar Dungeon
Xeen Power Water + 5 Levels Perm (12)

List of attribute improvements for Might and Magic WoX

[tolich]

I'd say it's not a bug, but a wart or misfeature instead. It makes some inconvenience, but it's just game mechanics. Playing solo, you haven't even a chance to press Esc, and this is even a more serious wart.

[asparky]

Someone has discovered the MM3 compression is LZHUF:
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.p ... 003#306003
--> http://www8.cs.umu.se/~isak/snippets/lzhuf.c
--> http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.p ... 116#306116

[Talin_Trollbane]

Someone has discovered the MM3 compression is LZHUF:
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.p ... 003#306003
--> http://www8.cs.umu.se/~isak/snippets/lzhuf.c
--> http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.p ... 116#306116

this mean victorious success on you modding i presume?