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

[SpectralDragon]

Ok, if Jamesx doesn't show up and thus Troll Zombie files remain in their "source" stage for good (as well as Dwarf Zombie paperdolls if I can make them work in the 1st place ^^; ), then who else of you people can both make them game-portable and test them in the game itself (I wish to make importing new stuff into the mod/game easier for Rodril and co. ), especially after Templayer needs to have his stuff done regarding surgery and all post-September 17th aka tomorrow?
I'm currently having my schedule cramped again, thus I cannot do both at the same time. >.<

[candida]

Xfing doesn't like some class/race combos and he basically wants to use the table to enforce people not using them. This might actually be why I blocked him in the first place. De Ja Vu.

Well, I don't like class and race combos, either, but do not block me please I am very busy with checking every single map one by one

[Templayer]

Xfing doesn't like some class/race combos and he basically wants to use the table to enforce people not using them. This might actually be why I blocked him in the first place. De Ja Vu.

Well, I don't like class and race combos, either, but do not block me please I am very busy with checking every single map one by one

By race and class combos I mean various combinations of race and class (Minotaur Archer, Goblin Necromancer, Troll Cleric, Vampire Knight,....) that you can make using the Unlocker.

I did not mean the racial classes (Dragons, Trolls, Vampires, Dark Elves,...) - I even made a Racial Skills modification that renders them obsolete (so a Dark Elf Knight would get Dark Elf Abilities based on his RACE, etc.)

I have nothing against people's opinions. You are free to like or hate something. I won't block people for that.
What will however get people blocked - enforcing your ideas and playstyle on others. Trying to limit the options for everybody just because you *think* that it is the correct (and only) way to play.
That pisses me off to no limit.

Like when Roticet spend entire pages in this thread boycotting any sort of optional content because he thought the games should stay pure... even though the content was... you know... OPTIONAL.

Makes my blood boil.

[Jezebeth Noir]

I like the idea to divide extra cool abilities between races and classes. For example, dark elves as race should have only two levels in bow and race ability, dark elves as class should also have two levels. Thus dark elf race+class will have four levels, like in the original game. But dark elven knights or necromancers will have only expert level in this skills. Vampires in addition should not become liches, it's an alternative form of necromantic ascension. So, vampire-necromancer will stay necromancer forever, that will balance them a little bit.

GM/E level in bows for elves and dwarves is too overpowered, imho. It would be enough to give them M/N levels. But instead of bows, I'd give dwarves one level in armsmaster and maybe alchemy. And we should do something with human race, now it's pathetic. Maybe give humans of any class an opportunity to become liches and vampires? As I recall, there was one lich-knight in HoMM.

[Xfing]

I'd appreciate some definite resolution to this idea so I can stop bringing it up again and again Here's the table, waiting for suggestions and adjustments: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f7znEE ... sp=sharing

I like idea of improvement Racial Skills' algorythm, but i am not sure about values in this table. Two points confuses me:
1. GM of Dark Elf and Vampire abilities for any class. I think these skills should be limited to Expert for classes who are not focused on their racial power.

Interesting point. I thought that simply because someone's born a vampire, that should automatically entitle them to GM in Vampire. Never had much of an idea how to solve this issue for zero mana classes though. A vampire knight with no mana wouldn't be able to use the abilities whatsoever. That's why this would require more thought, maybe something like character's mana determined by race, unless class gives a bigger mana pool or something? Dunno. Anyway, up to expert or maybe master vampire for low magic classes such as say, Rangers would perhaps be an interesting idea.

2. -1 values. Currently racial skills are not stated in any descriptions, only way to see their presence is to check highlighted skill steps (by rightclicking skills in character's sheet). Can't these values brake some existing classes-race combos?

I'm unfortunately not sure as to the implementation. I'm thinking it might require two separate skill tables - a primary one dictated by class, and a supplementary one that would modify the base skills of the class by class-specific modifiers, or overwrite their skill caps with hardcoded new ones. Not even sure if something like this is feasible within this engine, frankly I haven't even thought of it It's more of a conceptual idea, so I haven't thought about execution

[SpectralDragon]

Speaking of concepts, I´m starting my road in redoing Crystal Dragons. This is how they´ll look like in-game ... I hope (since their original sprites are super super messed up, as I´ve linked GrayFace. Thanks, MM!). ^^;
This is how redone Crystal Dragons will look like:

Emerald:


Sapphire:


Ruby:


Diamond (optionally added miniboss of the Crystal):


Thoughts?

[Xfing]

Xfing doesn't like some class/race combos and he basically wants to use the table to enforce people not using them.

That's kinda like... your opinion bro The goal here is not to keep anyone from using unlocker race/class combos, but to improve non-unlocker race/class combos, give races meaning beyond just the aesthetics, encourage experimentation with different race/class combos to improve replay value of the game and by extension make the game more fun to play. Anything about the unlocker class combos is completely beside the point - you chose to assume I had something against it, because you apparently enjoy having things to feel hostile about. Many players will definitely try the Unlocker for its novelty factor and I don't think making race alter the classes' skill caps will change that in any shape or form. That's all there's to it

I have nothing against people's opinions. You are free to like or hate something. I won't block people for that. What will however get people blocked - enforcing your ideas and playstyle on others.

Oh boy, then how come you haven't blocked Rodril yet?

Trying to limit the options for everybody just because you *think* that it is the correct (and only) way to play.

First off, my proposal doesn't limit your options - it expands them. You are choosing to frame it this way for some unspecified reason, but it's not even true

Second, since day one I said that it's just a proposal for game mechanics improvement that Rodril is to check. He wasn't around for the time being, but it was still always up to him since day one. By suggesting I'm enforcing something, you're suggesting I have this kind of power. Which I don't, so it's even more puzzling why you're feeling so aggravated

Not to mention I explained at length the ways it would benefit the game to have a human ranger have slightly different skill caps from a goblin ranger etc earlier in the thread. If you honestly feel that it limits your options because say, a goblin ranger can't get expert in one skill while a human one can, then you can't see the forest for the trees, or don't understand too well what "limiting one's options" means. Probably both

I could now pretend to be you and your mocking way of addressing people like "ZOMG I WANT MASTER SPEAR ON MY VAMPIRE RANGER WHY ONLY ELF RANGER CAN HAVE IT, LIMITING MY OPSHHUNSZZZZZZ" - yeah, that's you. How does it feel like?

[Jezebeth Noir]

A vampire knight with no mana wouldn't be able to use the abilities whatsoever.

Actually they would, they also have meditation skill.

[Maslyonok]

Speaking of concepts, I´m starting my road in redoing Crystal Dragons. This is how they´ll look like in-game ... I hope (since their original sprites are super super messed up, as I´ve linked GrayFace. Thanks, MM!). ^^;
This is how redone Crystal Dragons will look like:

Emerald:


Sapphire:


Ruby:


Diamond (optionally added miniboss of the Crystal):


Thoughts?

VERY good, Spectra! Keep it up. I like the most the Diamond one. Looks cool, really.
But, I think, the Ruby one is kinda too bright. I can barely see the details.

[Xfing]

Agreed, the dragons look excellent! Kinda wish the original ones could be kept in addition to these, though. Maybe as uniques or something. I mean the rose-colored original dragon

Also, glad the idea of racial skill modifiers caught on. Looking forward to see what Rodril makes of it!

[SpectralDragon]

VERY good, Spectra! Keep it up. I like the most the Diamond one. Looks cool, really.
But, I think, the Ruby one is kinda too bright. I can barely see the details.

Thanks and hilariously, that´s what I thought as well, thus I used another image layer of him that I got from the original sprite mess with a completely different palette to overlay the original Ruby Dragon one. Now it looks like this (note more details):

Oh, and just so you people know, this is how the original sprite for Crystal Dragon looks like:

Agreed, the dragons look excellent! Kinda wish the original ones could be kept in addition to these, though. Maybe as uniques or something. I mean the rose-colored original dragon

Also, glad the idea of racial skill modifiers caught on. Looking forward to see what Rodril makes of it!

Maybe these rose ones could be like Trees or Boulders (like no specific names, just varying HP, damage and whatnots) that can be found inside Elemental Lord prisons, like how you can find some of these inside Fire Lord˙s prison. Their name would be just "Crystal Dragon".

Thus I´m not commenting about that at all. I trust Rodril and others that they˙ll make the best use of it.

[Roor]

Dropbox was great... What happened?

Dropbox did corrupt files by removing TABs and sometimes lines, what caused random crashes for each installation.

Any chance of locating the files somewhere else?

Of course, suggest any file server, i'll share copy there.

Well... I think that the corruption happened because the files where uploaded uncompressed, and Dropbox's zip-compressor messed them up.
Maybe just uploading them as a single ZIP (or RAR) file would do the trick.

If not, Google Drive ( https://gsuite.google.com/intl/en-419/products/drive/ ), One Drive ( https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/ ) and MediaFire ( https://www.mediafire.com ) offer great free options.

Also, as an option... I can setup a FTP/HTTP in a server of my own, and even a SVN reposityory (so you can track changes).
My only concern is that those usually have a limit of 1 or 2Tb data transfer (per month).
(let me know through PM if this one can be of any help)

Sorry for asking for it, but Mega doesn't seem to be an option for me :'(

[GrayFace]

I'll write some thoughts on race/classes table format later. Maybe I'll do a proposal for some race/class combos.
Of course there are 2 ways:
1) Starting with blanket race bonuses/handicaps and tweaking them on individual race+class level. I doubt Xfing's table can be used as a base point, because balance-wise it's the equivalent of Dragon Minotaurs. It's too drastic.
2) Making race/classes combos independently of blanket bonuses and of each other. It would bring more variety, but could be harder for players to make sense of.
I think we should go in both directions. I want some new race+class combos (new as in Minotaur Cleric, for example) to be uncompromisingly unusual.

The riddles bug can now be removed from Tracker, it was caused by 2.3.x version of my patches.

Speaking of concepts, I´m starting my road in redoing Crystal Dragons. This is how they´ll look like in-game ... I hope (since their original sprites are super super messed up, as I´ve linked GrayFace. Thanks, MM!).

Such recoloring is very easy to do. You don't need to change any sprites, just the palette. It's best done in Corel Photo-Paint, as it will change the palette itself. Can't be done in GIMP like that, I doubt about PhotoShop too. Though, with an extra tool I can make this doable in them.

[SpectralDragon]

Such recoloring is very easy to do. You don't need to change any sprites, just the palette. It's best done in Corel Photo-Paint, as it will change the palette itself. Can't be done in GIMP like that, I doubt about PhotoShop too. Though, with an extra tool I can make this doable in them.

Shame I don˙t have such thing, thus it is like it is (and I did use a different palette to give them some variety, even though I know that managing to get a palette out of these will be quite the battle, as I don´t know which palette would be used for these even if I convert them back into .bmp images, which you can be sure I will just to try make the job easier for you when it comes to extracting the "base palette" (since these won´t change from image to image, obviously ) out of these, as I have no idea how. ^^; ). I can only wish you luck when it comes to extracting the palette out of them that would make them look like as they do here in the game as well ... and some patience as well, since I˙m doing all of these at the same time and thus it might take a while, maybe a month or more.

[Rodril]

Mirror for game files

Here's OneDrive mirror: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ahawm042WjjzaTkCBo6 ... Y?e=psWhg4
Added to first post as well.

Could you inform me if the source work correctly, please?

I'm able to open map via Hota map editor, both links work fine.
Outdoor map is good, any scheme of indoor maps would be very useful, - i'm really bad at inventing them myself.

[GrayFace]

Made the tool: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tie43q98lc0ui ... l.rar?dl=1
Drop a file onto it. It would immediately create a name.p24.bmp from it if it doesn't exits.
Edit name.p24.bmp with various color adjustments. Don't draw anything!
When you're done, press "Update From p24". This will extract palette information from the name.p24.bmp and overwrite name.bmp.
However, I also went ahead and made my versions of the dragon:

[edit] Tried them in game. Definitely too bright.
[edit2] Posted them after tweaks into MM8 Patch thread.

[SpectralDragon]

Made the tool: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tie43q98lc0ui ... l.rar?dl=1
Drop a file onto it. It would immediately create a name.p24.bmp from it if it doesn't exits.
Edit name.p24.bmp with various color adjustments. Don't draw anything!
When you're done, press "Update From p24". This will extract palette information from the name.p24.bmp and overwrite name.bmp.
[edit2] Posted them after tweaks into MM8 Patch thread.

These look really sweet! I´m totally taking these and arranging them as such, albeit with slight tweaks to their eyes! Thank you!

[GrayFace]

These look really sweet! Do you still have color codes for each of them, so that I can easily reproduce these on every frame of their animation with your tool?

What do you mean by color codes? Here are resulting frames with my palettes (their current iteration): https://www.dropbox.com/s/dwe6ev810hoes ... s.rar?dl=1
How much are you planning to edit frames? Just add eyes? Palette transformation can probably be carried over, so you only need to edit one variation.

Since my antivirus seem to be complaining about your little tool. (facepalm)

According to virustotal, it must be MaxSecure

[SpectralDragon]

What do you mean by color codes? Here are resulting frames with my palettes (their current iteration): https://www.dropbox.com/s/dwe6ev810hoes ... s.rar?dl=1
How much are you planning to edit frames? Just add eyes? Palette transformation can probably be carried over, so you only need to edit one variation.

Since my antivirus seem to be complaining about your little tool. (facepalm)

According to virustotal, it must be MaxSecure

Apologies, my mind still thinks in RGB. ^^; But that aside, when it comes to colored gem dragons, it˙s just eyes while for Diamond Dragon, I was thinking of adding a bit of yellow in there, but I˙m having problems with it because I don˙t know how to exactly transform the entire color palette without making the image look trashy. ^^;

But well, I´m fine doing the clear one as well, as I don˙t wish to bug you too much. Now you can see just how much of a newbie I am when it comes to being an artist for such an old game and why do I need help from others when it comes to making even playable characters being able to be imported into the game.

Not according to Avast. I cannot open it due to it, thus I´m stuck with GIMP and, with it, being forced to do RGB-mode images regardless of them being .bmp or .png ones (as only via that more I feel completely free editing stuff and making sure not to mess up horribly. Indexed ones feel like chains to me), thus in advance needing help from expert/master artists/coders like you/Templayer/Jamesx when it comes to making them both portable and compatible to the game (as I bet Ghost Dragon monster sprites face the same problem, even if DaveHer cannot add them mainly because of a presumed monster limit in the game/s) If I wish to contribute more to this mod/game overall. I'm so sorry that it's this way.

[GrayFace]

Now we're talking!

There gotta be some place where to use it. I like how it turned out too much
Frames: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5uuiqtz9b6caq ... d.rar?dl=1
[edit] This is not final version. I've tweaked colors a bit already. I'll also edit other variations of dragons using these glows.