How do you think the MM series would have ended?

[Xfing]

If NWC and Caneghem did it right til' the end, that is MM13.

The scope of the game would obviously need to go much wider, as with every story that progresses far enough. In MM1-3 we got a party chasing Corak, while in MM8 we had a party directly saving the planet (we actually had that in 6 already, duh). MM7 had a party decide the future fate of the world in a way that really felt like it mattered. That's what was good about the MM games - the fragments of the story they entailed were grand and satisfactory in their own rights, but ultimately only just fragments of the huge universe.

So what would the final 4 parts of the game contain? Would the ending tie up all the loose ends and finally end the Silence and bring all the worlds back to the former technological glory?

[zib]

It depends. If a Lich would win the 4 games, he would probably rather develop the Uber-grandmastery of Dark Magic, then go in a shrapmetalling frenzy and destroy all technology fans while taking over the universe.

[GreatEmerald]

It was supposed to have 13 games in total? Huh. Well, in that case, obviously at least MM10 and MM11 would take place on Axeoth. One of them would be on the same continent as HoMM4 took place, and would have you visiting all the new kingdoms and investigating the Kreegan portals.

I could totally see MM10 ending with you travelling through one portal into a Fiery Realm and foiling some Kreegan invasion plan. Even better if it's not a plan to invade Axeoth, but rather some Ancient planet.

Then perhaps in MM11 it would be you investigating the way to make use of the Web of Worlds to your advantage. Perhaps the knowledge that you collected from the Kreegan in MM10 could allow mapping out hostile planets and identifying the weak points of the Kreegan plans to isolate the Ancients. The game could end with you stepping through the Web and arriving safely on a new planet. That would maintain the whole "3 games per setting" theme that was going on previously.

Then with MM12, you would explore the new world, and meet the heroes from MM7 who happened to land on the same world. Together you would craft a plan to sabotage whatever was the weak point identified in MM11. Perhaps ally with the elemental lords to sweep out most of the Kreegan off the planet, then destroy their jamming devices, taking whatever technology could be useful or stolen from the Ancients. For that matter, the defining characteristic of the world could be that there is just a small holdout of humans, elves, dwarves, dragons, minotaurs etc. who are in a sort of "last alliance" against the Kreegan, and the MM7 heroes are helping the alliance stand against them.

And in MM13, you would see how the world is being rebuilt after the Kreegan dominion and wiping out the remainder of the Kreegan and foiling the plans of the Temple of Meow. Then discovering a local spaceship that was hidden away from the Kreegan for a long time on the planet, taking it into orbit, finding whatever was the operations centre of the Kreegan, and then ramming it with the spaceship. Your heroes evacuate in escape pods, then see as the Kreegan centre is engulfed in flames. Finally you would see the Ancient fleet arrive, taking advantage of the discord in the Kreegan lines. Your escape pods would be collected by one of their ships, and you would see, by the help of the Wire, scenes of battle from various other planets – Axeoth, Xeen, Terra. You would also see CRON with its VARNs in action. The Ancients finally victorious, and rejoining with their seeded planets once more.

[Xfing]

Amazing predictions, I like'em a lot!

And yeah, there was supposed to be 13 games. Someone with connections once posted this, dunno if it wasn't Ribannah.

[Xfing]

I have just extracted this from a 2011 article from this very site, Celestial Heavens.

"In the nation-state of Mendossus, it's been 5 long years since the king began conscripting the population to fight in the war across the sea against the violent and ruthless Chedian. The Chedians had briefly stopped raiding Mendossus for a short time while the joined together to fight off the invading Beldonian hordes 6 years ago. Because of the conscriptions, the formerly safe nation is rife with violence. The roads are now unsafe to travel because of bandits. Large groups of predators have taken up residence in the forests. Formerly safe temples and forts have been overrun by monsters.

Because of this abuse of conscription by the king, a small resistance had formed in Mendossus. Led by a mysterious outsider, this resistance has become a thorn in the side of the king and his advisor, Archibald. They actively hunt down the members of the resistance. When the player first meets the king, the first mission he gives the party is to infiltrate the resistance and kill its leader.

Once the party infiltrates the resistance, they discover who is in charge of this group of rebels is none other than Nicolai Ironfist, nephew of Archibald and son of the king of the now destroyed Enroth. He tells them a dangerous secret about the conscriptions.

Under the influence of the evil Archibald Ironfist, the king has been lying to the population. There is no war with Chedian, and none of the men conscripted ever go into the army. Archibald has teamed up with a very powerful creature to disrupt one of the most important projects in the history of the universe.

A group of Ancient Scientists, after thousands of years of hibernation have awoke to find that Research Platform Enroth has been disrupted by the destruction of the planet. Banding together, they begin a mission to rebuild the Research Platform and continue its important mission of study. Archibald, along with a creature known as a Sheltem are actively working to not only disrupt the construction of the new Research Platform Enroth, but take it over for their own, nefarious use."

Damn, this sounds soooo awesome. I would DIE to play this. I sooo hope Ubisoft goes bankrupt sometime and JVC reacquires the rights to his franchise. This sounds way too epic.

[Tress]

In the nation-state of Mendossus, it's been 5 long years since the king began conscripting the population ....

Personally I find this plot not that much interesting and heavily misusing old characters. Its like script writers did not knew what to do. They semi reboot universe and still try to use old characters, often in extremely misused way. Homm 4 introduced enough developed characters to use, so such homm/mm spliting of by "huge sea" is just lazy writing imo. After all it was part of charm of mm7 that we could revisit locations first person and talk to characters of homm3.
Stating that Axeoth is huge setting and thus mm side of story can have zero relation to homm side is not story telling device, it's lazy writing.

[MadeOMeat]

I got the impression that MM8 and 9 didn't go the way that JVC had planned. The plot of 8 would have had a bit more polish and involved the Ancients a little more had JVC had his way, I expect. When you hear him talk about 8 he's always on about his dissatisfaction with the hurried annual release cycle.

I'd expect that by 9, had they their druthers, they would have wanted to launch another strong plot arc. The Kreegan thing was played out and done and the Ironfist dynasty story was wrapping up in the Heroes games. Something new to tie the next few games together. Something as different as the Kreegan saga had been to the Sheltem one. Same universe, new planet, new villain. Something we could never have guessed.

I would love JVC to go to Kickstarter and launch a proper continuation of the M&M series. I'd back the hell out of it. He wouldn't need to call it Might and Magic - we'd recognise it for what it is.

"Might and Magic" is words on a box now, nothing more.

[MadeOMeat]

Damn, this sounds soooo awesome. I would DIE to play this. I sooo hope Ubisoft goes bankrupt sometime and JVC reacquires the rights to his franchise. This sounds way too epic.

I used to hope the same thing for Ubisoft, but now I've stopped caring. If Ubisoft want to use the Might and Magic label for their crappy games then so be it. If JVC were to Kickstarter some new games called "Legacy of Korac [note misspelling]" (or whatever) then we'd know what they were. That's got to be up to him, but I wonder if there's anything we can do to encourage it.

[Talin_Trollbane]

well they could have followed up on the whole Ancient's portals and stuff.

but i still miss Sheltem.

[Xfing]

In the nation-state of Mendossus, it's been 5 long years since the king began conscripting the population ....

Personally I find this plot not that much interesting and heavily misusing old characters. Its like script writers did not knew what to do. They semi reboot universe and still try to use old characters, often in extremely misused way. Homm 4 introduced enough developed characters to use, so such homm/mm spliting of by "huge sea" is just lazy writing imo. After all it was part of charm of mm7 that we could revisit locations first person and talk to characters of homm3.
Stating that Axeoth is huge setting and thus mm side of story can have zero relation to homm side is not story telling device, it's lazy writing.

Well sure, I agree, the Archibald part is kinda overdoing things. What got me so excited were those Ancient Scientists that wanted to restore Enroth. Now THAT would be a satisfying freakin' ending to a game!

And yeah, it would be awesome if one could encourage JVC to gather cash for the rightful continuation of MM. I would also back it, broke as I am. I have recently necroed a thread about contacting him.

[Tress]

Well sure, I agree, the Archibald part is kinda overdoing things. What got me so excited were those Ancient Scientists that wanted to restore Enroth. Now THAT would be a satisfying freakin' ending to a game!

Well it's not like Archibald shouldn't be used anymore , but if they written of old world then that should be about it. Basically for me as "purist" everything beyond HOMM SOD/ mm8 is not to my taste for classic mm world, so chronicles and homm4 left sour taste already so, since that is already burred by that(for me at least), I even sort of welcome ubi reboot as they at least don't dance on nwc created worlds grave(I guess that is reason why I don't feel any particular dislike towards ubi created stuff - I just dont feel they overwritten anything particularly worthy), they just write new one.
As for Archibald, I always assumed that he redeemed (sort of) by end of mm7 so I would have expected him to be, if not good character then at least one that helps party, even if that means with somewhat evil methods. He already was disillusioned with empire he ruled and wanted peace and quiet, so why they feel need to portray him as some megalomaniac again?

[GrayFace]

He lost interest in world domination, fully devoting himself to magic, especially necromancy. If that research platform holds the key to immortality without body decay, I'd expect Archibald to go for it.

[Xfing]

Exactly. Archibald was reformed in MM7. Wouldn't go so far as to say he was redeemed, but maybe in a way he was - he helped save his brother after all. He showed human feelings etc.

Plus, as Grayface said, his goal of developing lichdom so that the body doesn't decay was a great plot-point-turned-red-herring -__-

[MadeOMeat]

And yeah, it would be awesome if one could encourage JVC to gather cash for the rightful continuation of MM. I would also back it, broke as I am. I have recently necroed a thread about contacting him.

What thread is that? I guess he's happy making online RTSs these days but you never know.

Edit: Never mind, I found it.