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

[lightbringer23]

I should also add:
I LOVE the cross continent questline! Verdant is a hoot. Well done bringing it all together!

[Daedros]

sorry asking here but how to find philosopher stone? (I need 10 for Verdant)
I know they are grey ingredents from mm8 but IDK how to find them...

Lol. Philosopher's Stones are incredibly rare in M&M8. They do not spawn on the ground anywhere, they are not sold in stores, and basically the only thing that can drop them as loot, is Dragons. A few NPCs come with one in their inventory as well when you hire them.
If i remember correctly though, Clanker's Lab in M&M 7 has a number of Philosopher's Stones laying around in it.

[lightbringer23]

Continuing my Echo Monstrosity and Merge tests. I just did a fly around of the outdoor maps with my existing lvl48 Jadame party after swapping in Echo's Games.lod files.

HOLY COW I forgot how epic her map repopulations are! Apparently the new Games.lod caused all of the maps to respawn. Incidentally, Merged Boosting kicked in too. I used the default mapstat.txt that comes with the merge, so the base stats of the monsters is as in the merge.

Maps were swarming with all kinds of foes. Dire wolves packs swarming around ratman and dark dwarf camps in Ravenshore, rows of Centaurs lining the canyon walls in Alvar raining down arrows, mercenary camps all over the place guarding valuables, dragons flying around Regna Island. SO much fun!

So, if anyone is interested in doing so, it seems to be very viable to take the games.lod file from Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling and swap it wholesale with the Merge's games.lod -- even in an existing save game. I can't guarantee some issue won't arise -- and it's epic hardcore re-balancing -- but I was able to load and fly around all 9 outdoor maps without incident. I'm SO glad I got this to work.

Incidentally, I also feel quite justified in my plans to amp up artifact stats xD

[lightbringer23]

Quick followup that I don't have a solution for at the moment:

Echo did some cool retexture work in Ironsand and Shadowspire. I haven't figured out how to add those textures -- simply adding them in to bitmaps.lod or 00 patch bitmaps.lod doesn't work, and replacing bitmaps.lod entirely is a disaster.

@Echo, if you can give me a little guidance about how to apply your retextures from your separated (dismembered) modling, I'd appreciate it.

Monstrosity Modling Merge idea is still completely playable. Echo's maps expect those textures, and in the lack seem to default to the kind of brown cracked earth found in Enroth. It's a little jarring in Shadowspire :O Not pretty, but entirely cosmetic.

[asthrab]

sorry asking here but how to find philosopher stone? (I need 10 for Verdant)
I know they are grey ingredents from mm8 but IDK how to find them...

Land of Giant has like 4-5 philo stone

[Vetrinus]

I have been playing this merge for over six months with the same party and I have to say this experience will never get dull. Well done Rodril!
I have a few issues to point out as well as some questions to ask (latest patch applied):

-I have beat all three games a while ago (as well as save the goobers) but V is not registering that I beat MM7 and keeps telling me to deliver the Oscillation Overthruster.
-The bolster doesn’t seem to be working on special enemies (ex: Mega Dragon, Old Loeb, Zog, Xenofex…). These enemies, once formidable foes, are now jokes.
-It is also not working on the acolytes, clerics, or priests of Baa in MM7.
-Nor is it working in the arena (though I don’t know whether or not this is intentional).
-Cauldrons still not granting resistances.
-In both The Pit (to which I am allied) and Castle Gloaming there seems to be one MM7 shade that is hostile to me gliding about. This shade reappears whenever the maps refresh.
-I like what has been done with the weapon damage (great job you guys ) and I was wondering: Can the same thing be done to the AC of gauntlets and shields?
-This one’s a stretch, but can class restrictions on relics and artifacts be permanently removed just like the race ones? It’s frustrating especially given the limited selection of artifact armors.

[Super Goober]

I showed this merge to Tim Lang who worked on Might and Magic 6 and he says it looks pretty cool. ^^

[kristal]

Rodril. If not difficult, you can write a script for my modification, which will add to the game NPCPROF.TXT This will complicate the game, because the NPC take the gold. And the peasants will not be as decorations.

[lightbringer23]

-This one’s a stretch, but can class restrictions on relics and artifacts be permanently removed just like the race ones? It’s frustrating especially given the limited selection of artifact armors.

I was able to accomplish this by editing ExtraArtifacts.lua in Scripts/Global. Backup your original file, the open with a text editor. Find the section referring to Equip Requirements. Artifacts exclusive to races, classes, and genders are listed here. If you simply delete these entries and re-save, the limitations will be removed in-game. The item's flavor text will still refer to Knight Only, or Dark Elf Only, or what have you, but you will be able to freely equip the item.

I didn't see anything for Good/Evil restrictions in there, but I didn't investigate further as I always ally with Good and am not interested in the Evil artifacts.

[lightbringer23]

One quick note in case anyone else has this issue.

In New Sorpigal, I wasn't initially able to get the Cobra Eggs buyer to buy my Cobra Eggs. I discovered this was because I stored them in the 5th character's inventory. I suspect there's something hardcoded, as there was no 5th character in vanilla MM6. I moved them to the 1st character's inventory and everything proceeded as normal. Just a head's up for adventuring in Enroth (and possibly Antagarich). The "glitch" may appear elsewhere in the game, too.

[lightbringer23]

Found an oddity.
When I slay any Coatl with Bolstering on, I receive the "Trillions of XP needed to Level" bug that Xfing found earlier with cacti.

There are a few interesting caveats:
I started in Enroth, and ran to Jadame early (I'm only level 11). Bolstering affects Coatl class monsters, but no others. The bug occurs with Bolstering on, and any non-zero percent. I'm thinking the game treats 0% Bolster as non-bolstered. With any level of bolstering, Coatls also doubled their movement speed.

The other thing is that I AM using Echo's Games.lod file from her Modling, and I know she said she gave the Coatls a boost. I didn't think that occurred within Games.lod though, so it may be irrelevant. With no Bolstering, Coatls are unchanged from vanilla, so I don't think any of her monster changes are occurring.

All the monster data, including mapstats.txt, is native to the Merge. I just seems odd that one of the monsters she buffs (presumably in other files than Games.lod) is the one monster that is bugged here.

I only altered Class HP SP.txt, Class Skills.txt, items.txt, rnditems.txt, and ExtraArtifacts.lua -- plus the games.lod swap. (I created a custom class, buffed artifacts, and pointed MM6&7 armor artifacts to MM8 paper doll sprites and reactivated them)

[lightbringer23]

Also, does anyone know of a way to edit the "of Carnage" spell effect to not damage party members? I've seen it in another mod, but I don't remember which one (maybe one of BDJ's?). I'd love to make it so for my Merge concoction.

[Rodril]

Hello, patch link have been updated. I've rechecked evt scripts, try again if you had issues before; inventory of random hirelings won't be broken anymore; maps will remember state of their weather effect upon leaving/entering and loading saved game; Algorythm of entering Castle Lambent and Castle Gloaming throne rooms was altered, i hope you won't stuck with forever hostile monsters anymore - you'll always be able to enter if there are no hostiles around (hostile indicator is green); I could not reproduce issues with stacking bonuses of armors and weapons for now, if possible, send me your savegame; same with black potions - in my tests characters could not drink same potion twice; I have not fixed issue with increased height of second and further jumps yet. Thanks.

I started in Enroth, and ran to Jadame early (I'm only level 11). Bolstering affects Coatl class monsters, but no others.

Bolster starts to work, when average level of monster's family becomes lower than average level of your group, maybe other monsters still stronger.

Rodril. If not difficult, you can write a script for my modification, which will add to the game NPCPROF.TXT This will complicate the game, because the NPC take the gold. And the peasants will not be as decorations.

I'll look into it a bit later.

Edit: It seems that the Tables folder doesn't really work as an override, at least as far as I could tell. Using MMArchive, however, I was able to extract ITEMS.txt, modify it, and inject it back in to EnglishT.LOD. Simple enough.

All tables in "Tables" folder are additions - not overrides, but it is not necessary to change EnglishT.lod, you can make additional .lod archive named "patch.EnglishT.lod" or "modling.EnglishT.lod", and put files there, they will override ones in EnglishT.lod. Or even smplier way - put ITEMS.txt into DataFiles folder, it should override existing too.
But make sure you won't put shortened version of Items.txt there, it must contain all items from three games.

-I have beat all three games a while ago (as well as save the goobers) but V is not registering that I beat MM7 and keeps telling me to deliver the Oscillation Overthruster.

Strange. Maybe it was fixed in previous updates. If problem persist, open debug console with ctrl+f1, and execute this with ctrl+enter:

Code: Select all

Party.QBits[738] = true

Verdant should catch you next time you visit Castle Gloaming/Lambent. In two weeks of game time she'll lead you into final part of story.
I'll check cauldrons, epic enemies and bolstering at arena.

[GrayFace]

Also, does anyone know of a way to edit the "of Carnage" spell effect to not damage party members? I've seen it in another mod, but I don't remember which one (maybe one of BDJ's?). I'd love to make it so for my Merge concoction.

In MM6 it doesn't do damage to party for some reason.

[lightbringer23]

@Rodril
Hey, thanks for the info. I had wondered exactly how Bolstering works. Still don't know why the Coatl make my current/needed XP soar into the quadrillions.

I'll try the patch idea for my edits to the .lod files. Better to keep originals intact.

[StormyG7]

I've been playing through starting in Enroth. If editing the game as you have it is anything like editing it as it was, I should be capable of doing some 2D edits to the armor from MM6 and 7 to make them fit. Also, there should be a file that determines the inventory size of game items. I've had glitches where items transferred into new character inventories will be placed on top of the existing items causing them to disappear if one is picked up. One other glitch while I'm here, drinking at certain fountains with poison effects in Enroth causes the 5th team character to instantly be unconscious.

What's more important to me personally is that ever since MM6 the descriptions and weapons names didn't have the best match with the art, such as how the Warrior's Sword in MM6 looks like it's supposed to be the Lionheart Sword. I can go through and make Artifacts and Relics unique looking for MM6. I can edit existing items to look more proportionate so that there isn't such a violent clash of contrast between MM8s sloppy artwork and the others. I can balance the items according to their appearances a little better too as I see you've done a bit noticing how MM6 starting weapons look a world more capable than MM7/8 crude weapons.

[eldothb]

Hi all! I've just set an account here to post in this thread. Thank you Rodril for all your excellent work on the merge, ive been having a blast playing it for the last couple of days.

Ive got a question though. Im playing with my Jadamean party and decided to get into the vault of time quite early. Is it still possible to spawn the Unicorn King without touching all the obelisks? I went to murmurwoods on June 24th 9 am, but he doesnt seem to be there. Does he spawn in the same place as in the original game (near the well in the middle of the map)?

Also, one more comment, my first characters inventory seems bugged a bit - he's got a couple of empty slots, but claims he's got no room left when i pick anything up with him.

Thanks!

[Roor]

Hi. I can't post without repeating how much I love this project.

I stumbled over my old CDs for MM6, MM7 and MM8, and slowly begun the work of using them to localize the Merge to Spanish (my native tongue).

So far I replaced all audio, and most of the imagery and it already rings in Spanish.
I'm slowly updating the texts too, but most of it remains in english for now.

Here's the DropBox link in case anyone want to have a look or give it a hand.

Also, I run into problem when trying to edit PCX files ( I've been using Paint.Net)... but it seems that it's good for reading PCX... but the saved PCX are unreadable by MM (any help or suggestion regarding this, is welcomed)!
Even with MMArchive the images look good, but they just look "solid black" in-game.
(I included PNG version of the images in dropbox, just in case)

Anyway... here's the link for the work-in-progress: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/chkqg9sonz7z ... c6dua?dl=0

I even have the videos in Spanish, but that would make the localization unnecesarily big.
I'll upload those later into DropBox too.

----------------

UPDATE: I fixed the PCX issue, and updated 70% of the texts in the game to Spanish.
Only more complex text files that were heavily modified by Rodril are still in English (as they have pieces from multiple games and there is no direct equivalent in the original game translation for the whole file).
I still haven't uploaded translated videos though.
And I think I'll modify few pieces in the UI just for it not to say "Might&Magic VIII" but just "Might&Magic"

[majaczek]

Preservation spell doesn't work (characters still dies)

[StormyG7]

I'm stuck in Jadame because Murmurwoods doesn't allow teleportation spells like Town Portal outside of the small zone where the cleric town is located. I'm going to have to stop playing for now since this is a game breaking bug.

All in all, I'm not a fan of the new side quest to travel to the other games. I think there's no reason that the timeline or story should exclude the ability to travel by ship to each continent. Each one tells it's own story when the characters reach the starting point. The terrible amount of unnecessary effort and questing to go to specific spots to "time travel" between each land is a hindrance to being able to enjoy going between the games to take care of individual quests and promotions. Also, why is the ceiling for traveling between each land so damn high? Each story has a starting location set up for new low-level heroes. I managed to race up to level 20 and get town portal for my level 15 mage so I could salvage the ability to pace my way through each game but I'd much rather simply take turns enjoying the start of each game at my own pace. If I can I'm going to try to make the ships at Ironfist, Steadwick and Ravenshore all can ship to one another on Sundays.