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

[SpectralDragon]

Also, good Ancients, so many weird bugs. And then we're left to believe Rodril sees this mod as complete, especially the awkward wetsuit bugs.

[Heroes]

really amazing work, Rodril!

I hope that you will be back very soon

Dont let die this project!

[qtish]

I think monster bolster needs some balancing. Low level monsters do tremendous amount of physical damage. Playing 200% my liches get 1-2 shot by 90% of low level monsters. After save/loading every 1 minute, I start to think its like trying to run marathon while having carrot in the anus, just gimping yourself. And gimping, because you gain nothing from killing a stronger monster - exp same, gold same, but just A LOT harder and more time consuming. Most of players who play this mod, already finished whole 3 games, several times. When you have higher chance to die from Expert Swordsman, than from Gold Dragon, you know - something is very wrong here.

[Templayer]

really amazing work, Rodril!

I hope that you will be back very soon

Dont let die this project!

NEW GUY! YAY! Check the tracker for additional information! It is in my signature!
It has no ads, so I don't get a single dime for my efforts.

I think monster bolster needs some balancing. Low level monsters do tremendous amount of physical damage. Playing 200% my liches get 1-2 shot by 90% of low level monsters. After save/loading every 1 minute, I start to think its like trying to run marathon while having carrot in the anus, just gimping yourself. And gimping, because you gain nothing from killing a stronger monster - exp same, gold same, but just A LOT harder and more time consuming. Most of players who play this mod, already finished whole 3 games, several times. When you have higher chance to die from Expert Swordsman, than from Gold Dragon, you know - something is very wrong here.

There are ways to configure the bolster, at least I remember there being ones. I also remember Rodril explaining why it is such a b-itch to balance.

[Maslyonok]

Until now, I can't translate some strings (they are found in the Breach, mostly).
one
two
three

Also, I have the same problem with riddles. They respond negatively to any answer. Well, why the hell did I translate them?
there is left so little to the finish line...

[alekssandros]

I think using the "quick save / load" trick may be affecting the game and generating the error. I DO NOT HAVE PROOFS. Just a theory.

What trick?

He probably means how he quick-loaded until there was a bounty that he wanted.

yes, that is

[pheYonyx]

So, I decided to finally attempt playing the merge but almost instantly encountered a major issue.
If I start in MM6 continent, most of the NPCs in houses ignore my attempts at clicking their dialogue options, for example, Andover's paying gold for a letter or the dude starting the Spider Queen quest, however, teachers, shops and Guild membership dealers are fine. Travelling between regions and entering locations is fine.
If I start in MM7 continent, nothing related to talking (starting quest with Markham, Swordsman exchanging potion for a hat, Malwick giving the wand) responds to my attempts. Entering locations is fine but I can't progress to check regions because Markham quest ain't starting. Also Can't turn off The Guide because her dialogue options are non-responsive as well.
If I start in MM8 continent, most things break. Every house on the Dagger Wound Islands is one of three things: random shop, tavern or throne room (example — https://i.imgur.com/ReSrldM.jpg + https://i.imgur.com/jeIP4MN.jpg) of a region ruler from MM6. Random shops included armoursmith from Regna in MM8, armoursmith from Castle Ironfist in MM6, armoursmith from Stone City in MM7 instead of the Training Center, Paramount Light Magic guild (probably from Celeste in MM6) instead of town hall, "Protective Spells" Elemental guild from Regna in MM8 instead of Adventurers' Inn, at least 9 different Taverns with Arcomage of different tiers playable in every one of them, "Infernal Temptations" Alchemy shop from the Pit in MM7 instead of the Temple and "Feathers and String" Bow/Weapon shop from Free Haven in MM6 instead of the ship that's supposed to travel to Ravenshore.
When I tried to run around just to check how are other, non-building things are, I found out that occasionally, mostly near bodies of water, I would get this https://i.imgur.com/U3gUQjy.jpg "event".

Installation process I performed: Get MM8 from gog, install patch for it, then replace files downloaded from Mega in the OP, then replace the files with the most recent update downloaded from dropbox in the OP. English version. The first launch took 8 minutes.

Before 'installing' the merge mod I tried to run regular MM8 and it worked great with no issues except some sound stuttering, mostly made by doors when entering/leaving builds.

Not sure what should I do to fix things. I think, I'm going to shift+delete everything in the GOG's folder of MM8, reinstall the game, then paste in mod files from MEGA (replacing existing ones) without both patches installed.

P.S. The game was ran as Administrator and no extra machinations with compatibility were made.
P.P.S. Specs if needed — https://i.imgur.com/jFBELnL.png.

[qtish]

I think bolster needs to be balanced not overall like it is now, but every monster given some sort of bonuses at different levels. Similar to Heroes 3 WOG monster experience, where they gain a bit of stats, but interesting skills. For example Dragons start using dragon breath and other dragon abilities. Other monsters gain interesting effects, like animals can disease you, bees can poison you. Ogres gain armor breaking and so on.

Right now monster bolster heavily favors monsters which hit physical damage. Monsters which shoot magic just get more hp and defense, thats it.

[raekuul]

tl;dr: Quest dialog didn't work for me

The installation order in the opening post is slightly wrong, which is to say "it has two steps out of order that will break this 100% of the time as written". You need to install the base mod first (the MEGA link), then the mod patch (the dropbox link), and then install the latest GrayFace patch on top of that. The base mod already includes an older GrayFace patch since it runs on MMExtension, so patching with GrayFace before installing any part of the mod will break it since you're then replacing newer files with older ones.

[Templayer]

So, I decided to finally attempt playing the merge but almost instantly encountered a major issue.
If I start in MM6 continent, most of the NPCs in houses ignore my attempts at clicking their dialogue options, for example, Andover's paying gold for a letter or the dude starting the Spider Queen quest, however, teachers, shops and Guild membership dealers are fine. Travelling between regions and entering locations is fine.
If I start in MM7 continent, nothing related to talking (starting quest with Markham, Swordsman exchanging potion for a hat, Malwick giving the wand) responds to my attempts. Entering locations is fine but I can't progress to check regions because Markham quest ain't starting. Also Can't turn off The Guide because her dialogue options are non-responsive as well.
If I start in MM8 continent, most things break. Every house on the Dagger Wound Islands is one of three things: random shop, tavern or throne room (example — https://i.imgur.com/ReSrldM.jpg + https://i.imgur.com/jeIP4MN.jpg) of a region ruler from MM6. Random shops included armoursmith from Regna in MM8, armoursmith from Castle Ironfist in MM6, armoursmith from Stone City in MM7 instead of the Training Center, Paramount Light Magic guild (probably from Celeste in MM6) instead of town hall, "Protective Spells" Elemental guild from Regna in MM8 instead of Adventurers' Inn, at least 9 different Taverns with Arcomage of different tiers playable in every one of them, "Infernal Temptations" Alchemy shop from the Pit in MM7 instead of the Temple and "Feathers and String" Bow/Weapon shop from Free Haven in MM6 instead of the ship that's supposed to travel to Ravenshore.
When I tried to run around just to check how are other, non-building things are, I found out that occasionally, mostly near bodies of water, I would get this https://i.imgur.com/U3gUQjy.jpg "event".

Installation process I performed: Get MM8 from gog, install patch for it, then replace files downloaded from Mega in the OP, then replace the files with the most recent update downloaded from dropbox in the OP. English version. The first launch took 8 minutes.

Before 'installing' the merge mod I tried to run regular MM8 and it worked great with no issues except some sound stuttering, mostly made by doors when entering/leaving builds.

Not sure what should I do to fix things. I think, I'm going to shift+delete everything in the GOG's folder of MM8, reinstall the game, then paste in mod files from MEGA (replacing existing ones) without both patches installed.

P.S. The game was ran as Administrator and no extra machinations with compatibility were made.
P.P.S. Specs if needed — https://i.imgur.com/jFBELnL.png.

I've seen this happen with bad installs. What are the patches you are mentioning?
It should be - Install gog, copy merge, get merge update. It has GrayFace's patch already included, albeit not the newest version (which you can do as a last step!), but that alone should get it working.

tl;dr: Quest dialog didn't work for me

The installation order in the opening post is slightly wrong, which is to say "it has two steps out of order that will break this 100% of the time as written". You need to install the base mod first (the MEGA link), then the mod patch (the dropbox link), and then install the latest GrayFace patch on top of that. The base mod already includes an older GrayFace patch since it runs on MMExtension, so patching with GrayFace before installing any part of the mod will break it since you're then replacing newer files with older ones.

Crud, this happens when I don't read everything before replying.
You did a better job at explaining it than I did.

[pheYonyx]

I've seen this happen with bad installs. What are the patches you are mentioning?
It should be - Install gog, copy merge, get merge update. It has GrayFace's patch already included, albeit not the newest version (which you can do as a last step!), but that alone should get it working.

As the raekuul said, I misunderstood the opening post saying this:

Grayface's MMPatch 2.3 have been released recently, if you want to apply new, do following:
4. Install patch.
5. Apply latest update.

.
I reinstalled and it seems to be working fine now, however, if I begin in Enroth (mm6 start) and die, game freezes and crashes instead of putting me at a starting point. Dying in mm8 doesn't seem to be an issue.
Also, moving between regions by foot diagonally seems to be disabled by design?

[Templayer]

I've seen this happen with bad installs. What are the patches you are mentioning?
It should be - Install gog, copy merge, get merge update. It has GrayFace's patch already included, albeit not the newest version (which you can do as a last step!), but that alone should get it working.

As the raekuul said, I misunderstood the opening post saying this:

Grayface's MMPatch 2.3 have been released recently, if you want to apply new, do following:
4. Install patch.
5. Apply latest update.

.
I reinstalled and it seems to be working fine now, however, if I begin in Enroth (mm6 start) and die, game freezes and crashes instead of putting me at a starting point. Dying in mm8 doesn't seem to be an issue.
Also, moving between regions by foot diagonally seems to be disabled by design?

I hope that isn't the case, I quite liked that feature. Added both to the Bug Tracker.

[pheYonyx]

if I begin in Enroth (mm6 start) and die, game freezes and crashes instead of putting me at a starting point.

Happened again.
Start as MM6 (Enroth) as a solo character, don't talk to anyone in New Sorpigal, get a scroll of Fly from the wall, move to another region (Castle Ironfist). Cast Fly, Baa Mystic hits mid-air with Mind Blast, knocks solo character unconscious, freeze, CTD.
Didn't crash if I talked to NPC in a house.

Extra stuff — I can't seem to be able to fire the NPC hirelings, or open their respective dialogue options at all. Can't scroll either. Holding RMB and 'touching' hired NPC's portrait only reveals their name, not their profession, so I can't even check whom did I hire on the Emerald Isle.
Also, NPCs outside the party have this "you're" mistake in their response — https://i.imgur.com/pbge9mW.jpg.
Quicksave/quickload doesn't work (if by default it is set to ON and bound to F5/F9).
The male Elf doll's background has several light-blue pixels near the left hand — https://i.imgur.com/ZBJUXQV.png. I think, I've seen them near his toes as well during the character selection / party creation step but in the adventure itself that part of his leg is covered by the UI.

[Templayer]

if I begin in Enroth (mm6 start) and die, game freezes and crashes instead of putting me at a starting point.

Happened again.
Start as MM6 (Enroth) as a solo character, don't talk to anyone in New Sorpigal, get a scroll of Fly from the wall, move to another region (Castle Ironfist). Cast Fly, Baa Mystic hits mid-air with Mind Blast, knocks solo character unconscious, freeze, CTD.
Didn't crash if I talked to NPC in a house.

Extra stuff — I can't seem to be able to fire the NPC hirelings, or open their respective dialogue options at all. Can't scroll either. Holding RMB and 'touching' hired NPC's portrait only reveals their name, not their profession, so I can't even check whom did I hire on the Emerald Isle.
Also, NPCs outside the party have this "you're" mistake in their response — https://i.imgur.com/pbge9mW.jpg.
Quicksave/quickload doesn't work (if by default it is set to ON and bound to F5/F9).
The male Elf doll's background has several light-blue pixels near the left hand — https://i.imgur.com/ZBJUXQV.png. I think, I've seen them near his toes as well during the character selection / party creation step but in the adventure itself that part of his leg is covered by the UI.

Some of these might not be the Merge's fault. I mean we had the other guy recently doing a bug while using quicksave and quickload, so it works for him. Have you tried changing the settings? Opening up the configuration file and setting stuff for quicksaving and quickloading?
Anyway, added to the Bug Tracker for now.

[pheYonyx]

I assume I can't do anything with the hirelings issue? I thought that there could be a possibility of me not knowing the changed/updated controls because I always played vanilla.

Have you tried changing the settings? Opening up the configuration file and setting stuff for quicksaving and quickloading?

I have not tried anything with it yet cause things tend to break if I touch something without asking.
mm8.ini says:

Code: Select all

QuickSavesCount=2
QuickSavesKey=122
QuickLoadKey=0

I don't know how/what to change to make it work.
Also, none of my regular versions that came from disks had the quicksave/quickload, so the existence of that feature was a surprise for me

[Templayer]

I assume I can't do anything with the hirelings issue? I thought that there could be a possibility of me not knowing the changed/updated controls because I always played vanilla.

Have you tried changing the settings? Opening up the configuration file and setting stuff for quicksaving and quickloading?

I have not tried anything with it yet cause things tend to break if I touch something without asking.
mm8.ini says:

Code: Select all

QuickSavesCount=2
QuickSavesKey=122
QuickLoadKey=0

I don't know how/what to change to make it work.
Also, none of my regular versions that came from disks had the quicksave/quickload, so the existence of that feature was a surprise for me

Because it isn't in vanilla. GrayFace has pretty much reverse engineered the whole game, so we can add in-game custom buttons with custom functionality, etc. Quicksave and load are among those.
F11 seems to be the quick save key, with no quick load (I do not know what index 0 is for a keyboard button for the patch)
If you want to use F5 as quick save and F9 as quick load, switch it to:
QuickSavesKey=116
QuickLoadKey=120

I haven't really played the Merge myself yet, so I do not know about the hirelings. I'm only the tracker maintainer, and I also did some additional modifications to the Merge (the Character Creation Unlocker (that allows you to play as any race class combination on any continent, Zombies and Skeletons included), Dracoliches,... it's on the Tracker in my signature if you are interested)

The project lead developer Rodril has been on a hiatus, no one knows what has happened to him, he has been developing this for years. GrayFace might take the project over in autumn.

[pheYonyx]

Okay, I found out what bugged the hirelings — forced MouseLook always on.
I searched this topic, found how to disable it, disabled it and now talking to them is fine.
Although after the change I reloaded several times, fired extra Teacher and now the first NPC that's already hired has "Join" option and "Diplomacy Expert" option.
If I click "Diplomacy Expert", the game freezes, giving me this thing:

Code: Select all

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
...- Day of the Destroyer\Scripts\General\NPCNewsTopics.lua:64: attempt to index a nil value

stack traceback:
	...- Day of the Destroyer\Scripts\General\NPCNewsTopics.lua: in function 'v'
	Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:68: in function <Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:63>

local variables of 'v':
	(*temporary) = (function: 0x059a0fa0)
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = 1185
	(*temporary) = "attempt to index a nil value"

upvalues of 'v':
	MapNews = (table: 0x05d6aa90)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

If I click "Join", normal joining NPC dialogue opens. If I click there to join, the screen flashes and nothing happens (fortunately, they don't take the upfront payment as well). If I come back, "Diplomacy Expert" option/line is gone and NPC function normally.

[Templayer]

Okay, I found out what bugged the hirelings — forced MouseLook always on.
I searched this topic, found how to disable it, disabled it and now talking to them is fine.
Although after the change I reloaded several times, fired extra Teacher and now the first NPC that's already hired has "Join" option and "Diplomacy Expert" option.
If I click "Diplomacy Expert", the game freezes, giving me this thing:

Code: Select all

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
...- Day of the Destroyer\Scripts\General\NPCNewsTopics.lua:64: attempt to index a nil value

stack traceback:
	...- Day of the Destroyer\Scripts\General\NPCNewsTopics.lua: in function 'v'
	Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:68: in function <Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:63>

local variables of 'v':
	(*temporary) = (function: 0x059a0fa0)
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = 1185
	(*temporary) = "attempt to index a nil value"

upvalues of 'v':
	MapNews = (table: 0x05d6aa90)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

If I click "Join", normal joining NPC dialogue opens. If I click there to join, the screen flashes and nothing happens (fortunately, they don't take the upfront payment as well). If I come back, "Diplomacy Expert" option/line is gone and NPC function normally.

You know, you are the first to report these in half a year, I think. By these I mean hireable NPC bugs, I do not remember these things happening after Rodril fixed them some time ago.
I'll add it to the bug tracker.

[raekuul]

So can we talk about Bolster Monsters for a moment? It doesn't seem to work as expected or as intended when you look at it closely enough.

The far left is with bolster set to 0%, which is to say unbolstered. These are the default stats.

• 86 Hit Points
• 20 Armor Class
• Rolls 3 4-sided Dice
• The effective damage range is 3-12
• Attacks deal an additional +12, for a final damage range of 15-24

The middle left is with bolster set to 5%. In this state:

• Hitpoints have not changed. +5% would put it at 90 hit points.
• Armor Class has increased from 20 to 80 (+300%)
• Number of dice rolled has increased from 3 to 4 (+25%)
• Sides on the dice rolled has increased from 4 to 8 (+100%)
• The effective damage range is now 4-32
• Additional damage from attacks is +12, for a final damage range of 16-44

The middle right is with bolster set to 100%, which is the default value. In this state:

• Hitpoints have increased from 86 to 222 (+158%)
• Armor Class has increased from 20 to 80 (+300%)
• Number of dice rolled has increased from 3 to 4 (+25%)
• Sides on the dice rolled has increased from 4 to 20 (+400%)
• The effective damage range is now 4-80
• Additional damage from attacks is +33 (+275%), for a final damage range of 37-113

The far right is with bolster set to 200%, which is the maximum value. In this state:

• Hitpoints have increased from 86 to 1044 (+1213%)
• Armor Class has increased from 20 to 100 (+400%)
• Number of dice rolled has increased from 3 to 4 (+25%)
• Sides on the dice rolled has increased from 4 to 96 (+2300%)
• The effective damage range is now 4-384
• Additional damage from attacks is +156 (+1200%), for a final damage range of 160-540

Is... is this even close to being correct? Average party level is 45, with Cauri Blackthorne as the highest at 62 and Devlin Arcanus as the lowest at 40. Starting continent is Jadame, second continent is Enroth. Antagarich has not been visited yet.

[Templayer]

So can we talk about Bolster Monsters for a moment? It doesn't seem to work as expected or as intended when you look at it closely enough.

The far left is with bolster set to 0%, which is to say unbolstered. These are the default stats.

The middle left is with bolster set to 5%. In this state:

• Hitpoints have not changed. +5% would put it at 90 hit points.
• Armor Class has increased from 20 to 80 (+300%)
• Number of dice rolled has increased from 3 to 4 (+25%)
• Sides on the dice rolled has increased from 4 to 8 (+100%)
• Additional damage from attacks has not changed

The middle right is with bolster set to 100%, which is the default value. In this state:

• Hitpoints have increased from 86 to 222 (+258%)
• Armor Class has increased from 20 to 80 (+300%)
• Number of dice rolled has increased from 3 to 4 (+25%)
• Sides on the dice rolled has increased from 4 to 20 (+400%)
• Additional damage from attacks has increased from 12 to 33 (+275%)

The far right is with bolster set to 200%, which is the maximum value. In this state:

• Hitpoints have increased from 86 to 1044 (+1213%)
• Armor Class has increased from 20 to 100 (+400%)
• Number of dice rolled has increased from 3 to 4 (+25%)
• Sides on the dice rolled has increased from 4 to 96 (+2300%)
• Additional damage from attacks has increased from 12 to 156 (+1200%)

Is... is this even close to being correct? Average party level is 45, with Cauri Blackthorne as the highest at 62 and Devlin Arcanus as the lowest at 40. Starting continent is Jadame, second continent is Enroth. Antagarich has not been visited yet.

I think it is also based on the highest level of your party members, or something like that.
Hmmm. Added to the Bolster Monster Modifications post on the Suggestion Tracker.

What would be great (GrayFace could do this!) would be to make a BolsterMonsterConfig configuration file, where everyone could fine-tune as much as they can.
People like you would presumably make presets that suit them the best, and those could then be made available as well, packing the presets with the Merge.
The user would then have an option of: Not using Bolster Monster (for the radical purists that we unfortunately have encountered in this forum), using default setting, using one of the community presets or making a custom preset. This could be as easy as one property in that configuration file (BolsterPreset=0->X) that would switch available presets.
I am going to put this notion of mine to the same place on the Suggestion Tracker.