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

[raekuul]

About your mod TCC redone, does it exist mm6 + hd textures + your mod?

It should be possible to make TCC Redone as a total conversion of MM7 (which would give you the hardware mode you're asking for), but (1) that's outside the scope of TCC, (2) that's outside the scope of this thread (though MMMerge proves the possibility) and (3) nobody seems to want to do that when TCC *works* in the MM6 engine already.

[Heroes]

Good Day

Some question here:
1. About repainting mm6/7 armors to fit mm8 dolls -> how long does it take usually to repaint those?
Because i like " Plate Armor " / " Paladin Boots " from MM7 and im still waiting for those armor.

2. Im thinking to create more humans face. Firtsly i need to learn how to make and i saw some little tutorial how to make. But how hard / how long would it take if im new beginner?

3. Just a dream: Possible to create new monster/map/spell into MM6-8 merge, since the limit are gone?

Thanks and have a nice day

[m&m_fan]

Hi, new user here. I've been really enjoying playing through this, but now I'm at the end and I can't figure out how to enter the breach. I've beaten the three storylines and reunited the lost heroes, but when I cast TP where Escation's tower used to be it's just a regular TP. I'm not sure if I've done something wrong or not done something..? I never got a prompt about the breach, I only knew about it from reading through this board. If this has already been solved or is a known bug, just lmk. I looked quite a bit and couldn't find an answer to my problem.

[joanthedark]

I found a normal Golden Chain Mail in Nighon, near one of the entrances of Thunderfist Mountain:


The relic that shares the same model has the right coordinates, but not this one:

Clicking the red logo on the top left will unequip the armor, clicking the character's chest won't do anything. The item stats are still applied to the character, so it's only a visual issue.

I also found a normal Royal Leather but I don't remember where (forgot to take screenshot at the time), either Thunderfist Mountain or The Maze:

Same issue as the previous one, wrong coordinates and shows the red logo on the top left of a character with the Leather skill.

There's a typo on this quest (the "10" at the beginning):


And that quest removed one I had, this is how the questline looked like before obtaining that specific quest:


And last but not least, there is a sound bug with the new quick cast hotkeys, the sound will always play even if there's a condition that prevents the player from casting the spell, for example:

- Casting Fly indoors will play the sound effect, but the message that you can't cast it indoors will still appear, I use "F7" for this one (the sound doesn't play with the regular "S" hotkey, and if you share Fly with both "S" and "F7" then "F7" will not play the sound effect).
- Casting Fireball during turn based mode after the last action was already done (the action right before the movement one where the turn based hand turns into a fist and starts showing fingers for every step you make), if I hold the key (in this case I set it to "F5"), the Fireball sound effect will play many times consecutively (because I'm holding the key), but no Fireball will be cast because it's not that player's turn yet (it will be his/her turn after the movement and enemies attacks).

[nowy0000]

Is there any way to use this mod with Reshade? I try use DX8 to DX9 wrapper ( https://reshade.me/releases/419-d3d8to9) with Reshade ( https://reshade.me/) DX9 option but it doesn't work. It would be nice to use this program because you could strongly improve the graphics by adding new graphic effects

[SpectralDragon]

Good Day

Some question here:
1. About repainting mm6/7 armors to fit mm8 dolls -> how long does it take usually to repaint those?
Because i like " Plate Armor " / " Paladin Boots " from MM7 and im still waiting for those armor.

2. Im thinking to create more humans face. Firtsly i need to learn how to make and i saw some little tutorial how to make. But how hard / how long would it take if im new beginner?

3. Just a dream: Possible to create new monster/map/spell into MM6-8 merge, since the limit are gone?

Thanks and have a nice day

Hey there, welcome among us!
As someone that does stuff like that, let me just be blunt about and answer you honestly:

1. That depends how many individual armor piece/boot sprites does an item have. For ones that have at least 2 individual armor sprites like Plate Armors of MM6, it takes around 1-2 hours to make them "seem fit" onto a MM8 paperdoll graphically (like in sprites, since there need to be 5 individual sprites for both "main armor plate" and "plate armor side" - human male, human female, Minotaur, Troll, Dwarf) and even longer to make them "fit" onto those paperdolls via coding/programming (since the game needs coordinates in order to properly "fit" those onto character paperdolls). Boots, same thing, only for 4 paperdolls total (Minotaurs aren˙t known for wearing boots ), since they´re tricky to be placed on said paperdoll˙s legs and feet without much visual clipping (those always look super-jarring in a game like this) and inaccuracies like missing shine or something. When it comes to programming those in though, well ... that˙s a story for ones that are developing MMMerge, since yes, there have been some new items made, but they´re still not programmed to be inside the mod, even if it´s been months now.

2. Definitely longer than you would expect, since you˙d need to keep stuff consistent both between the "paperdoll face" and the portraits you see below. Now, let me tell you, I´m not a professional at all, but creating a new character (even if they just have a changed face) usually takes me at least 4-6 days without breaks, even longer if I do have breaks. That time can be increased or decreased depending on details you plan on putting onto said character´s face, but remember, gotta keep consistency between (not even joking) one "paperdoll face" and 56 different facial expressions a character uses in total.

3. There actually is a new completed monster, the Ghost Dragon, but ??? if it˙ll ever be used without making the purist members of the community mad. For maps, I don´t have much info, but for now they aren˙t considered and for new spells, you bet they are as long as old "forgotten spells" (Guardian Angel, Finger of Death ...) managed to get re-coded back into the game, which is still a very long way to go, from info I got.

[SpectralDragon]

I found a normal Golden Chain Mail in Nighon, near one of the entrances of Thunderfist Mountain:
(image)
The relic that shares the same model has the right coordinates, but not this one:
(image)
Clicking the red logo on the top left will unequip the armor, clicking the character's chest won't do anything. The item stats are still applied to the character, so it's only a visual issue.

I also found a normal Royal Leather but I don't remember where (forgot to take screenshot at the time), either Thunderfist Mountain or The Maze:
(image)
Same issue as the previous one, wrong coordinates and shows the red logo on the top left of a character with the Leather skill.

That red logo basically shows that the sprites for those particular items are missing and honestly, I still don˙t know what is Rodril˙s train of thought even for making Relic versions of those different than the regular versions of said armors (sure, diversity, but that makes the job of ones that do sprites like myself that much more time-consuming) when worn by characters. Let´s approach this like this: whenever you find an item inside MMMerge that has that red logo when equipped, just notify me about those via private messages and I˙ll list them as "top priority" when it comes to making sprites out of them. I´ll do my best in doing sprites for them and forwarding them to both DaveHer (he makes in-game coordinates for them to fit onto characters) and ones that are developing the mod.

Don´t count on me when it comes to actually putting them in the game though, that bit can take months if not even years.

[andrey]

Hello! Thanks for reporting the bugs. I submitted some issues on your behalf:
https://gitlab.com/templayer/mmmerge/-/issues/612
https://gitlab.com/templayer/mmmerge/-/issues/613
https://gitlab.com/templayer/mmmerge/-/issues/614

Do you have some saves? It might help:
- Any time when you have that buggy armor
- Near completion of alchemy collection quest (right before the quest line gets overwritten)

[joanthedark]

Golden Chain Mail Save:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/5rjhc67c ... 9.dod/file

Quest Save:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/and0wm5g ... 9.dod/file

Sometimes I cannot replicate the quest override, but the typo is still there ("Acquire 10 5"), and for the next quest sometimes it doesn't take all 5 Wolf Eyes, only needs 1 and I end up with 4 on my inventory, no idea what the exact conditions are to replicate these issues.

Something else I forgot to mention in my previous post regarding quick cast hotkeys: Using Meteor Shower (F6) while in turn based mode will only play the initial casting sound, and never plays the second one (meteors falling sound), but it plays the sound with "S" hotkey just fine.

[andrey]

Thanks! I added all the info. Also created a new issue for Meteor Shower bug: https://gitlab.com/templayer/mmmerge/-/issues/616

[m&m_fan]

Figured out my way into the breach. If you don't get the completion prompts after finishing each game, the ability to TP from Escatons isn't available. Also found a bug/oversight? I've never tried this before, so maybe you can do it in vanilla, but you can set up a Lloyds Beacon in the arena in MM7. This allows you to do as many arena runs as you want in a day...Not sure if it's already known about, but just figured I'd mention it. Also, after starting to do bounties in MM7/8 late game, monsters started sporadically appearing in the wrong zones. I've found a titan in Pierpont and earth elementals in and around Harmondale.

[andrey]

Hello!

Figured out my way into the breach. If you don't get the completion prompts after finishing each game, the ability to TP from Escatons isn't available. Also found a bug/oversight?

As I understand, Verdant gives you breach quest after you complete all three main games. You can't go to the breach before getting the quest for it. So, looks fine to me.

I've never tried this before, so maybe you can do it in vanilla, but you can set up a Lloyds Beacon in the arena in MM7. This allows you to do as many arena runs as you want in a day...Not sure if it's already known about, but just figured I'd mention it.

Thanks for the info! Yes, it is a known bug: https://gitlab.com/templayer/mmmerge/-/issues/597
I added your info to it.

Also, after starting to do bounties in MM7/8 late game, monsters started sporadically appearing in the wrong zones. I've found a titan in Pierpont and earth elementals in and around Harmondale.

This is a new bounty system. With 3 continents it is barely possible for non-teleporting party to do any bounty hunting. So the things were made simpler. Now when you check the bounty, a monster of that type is spawned in the area.

However, those monsters should appear in remote parts of the map, not within city borders. Sometimes it is not like that, and it is also a known bug: https://gitlab.com/templayer/mmmerge/-/issues/287

[qtish]

Is there some sort of page with info on patch classes, because it has been changed so much from the vanilla MM6,7,8.

[joanthedark]

Is there some sort of page with info on patch classes, because it has been changed so much from the vanilla MM6,7,8.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xf4 ... mZ3o/edit#

[Heroes]

Good Day

Some question here:
1. About repainting mm6/7 armors to fit mm8 dolls -> how long does it take usually to repaint those?
Because i like " Plate Armor " / " Paladin Boots " from MM7 and im still waiting for those armor.

2. Im thinking to create more humans face. Firtsly i need to learn how to make and i saw some little tutorial how to make. But how hard / how long would it take if im new beginner?

3. Just a dream: Possible to create new monster/map/spell into MM6-8 merge, since the limit are gone?

Thanks and have a nice day

Hey there, welcome among us!
As someone that does stuff like that, let me just be blunt about and answer you honestly:

1. That depends how many individual armor piece/boot sprites does an item have. For ones that have at least 2 individual armor sprites like Plate Armors of MM6, it takes around 1-2 hours to make them "seem fit" onto a MM8 paperdoll graphically (like in sprites, since there need to be 5 individual sprites for both "main armor plate" and "plate armor side" - human male, human female, Minotaur, Troll, Dwarf) and even longer to make them "fit" onto those paperdolls via coding/programming (since the game needs coordinates in order to properly "fit" those onto character paperdolls). Boots, same thing, only for 4 paperdolls total (Minotaurs aren˙t known for wearing boots ), since they´re tricky to be placed on said paperdoll˙s legs and feet without much visual clipping (those always look super-jarring in a game like this) and inaccuracies like missing shine or something. When it comes to programming those in though, well ... that˙s a story for ones that are developing MMMerge, since yes, there have been some new items made, but they´re still not programmed to be inside the mod, even if it´s been months now.

2. Definitely longer than you would expect, since you˙d need to keep stuff consistent both between the "paperdoll face" and the portraits you see below. Now, let me tell you, I´m not a professional at all, but creating a new character (even if they just have a changed face) usually takes me at least 4-6 days without breaks, even longer if I do have breaks. That time can be increased or decreased depending on details you plan on putting onto said character´s face, but remember, gotta keep consistency between (not even joking) one "paperdoll face" and 56 different facial expressions a character uses in total.

3. There actually is a new completed monster, the Ghost Dragon, but ??? if it˙ll ever be used without making the purist members of the community mad. For maps, I don´t have much info, but for now they aren˙t considered and for new spells, you bet they are as long as old "forgotten spells" (Guardian Angel, Finger of Death ...) managed to get re-coded back into the game, which is still a very long way to go, from info I got.

Hello, thank you for detailed explanation!

Wow, it seems that i have to wait for long time, even it takes me other years. At least, i hope they will finish to repaint all armors.

4-6 Days without break? omg... Unfortunately, i dont have time because i have to take care of my family All i wanna make some Asia Chick face maybe, one day, if i have time and will take a challange

[cthscr]

I didn't like the way skill bonus limits were increased in Merge (it's bug inducing and have kinda faulty design logic). So I've rewritten RemoveSkillBonusLimits.lua in Community Branch. Now skill base+bonus value is limited by 255 (0xFF), base skill value is limited by 80 instead of 60; Expert, Master and GM bits moved left by 4. Base value and Base+Bonus value limits can be easily increased up to 0x3FF (1023). Mastery bits are mostly hardcoded (I've add all necessary code for them to be settable too late).

Most of "skill cycles on 64" issues were fixed with this change (including Armsmaster and Bow).

Amount of dependencies on Community Branch specific code is low: lines 1, 88, 92, 561 (you have to choose one of following code blocks), 1027.

Scripts/Structs/After/RemoveSkillBonusLimits.lua

[andrey]

Thanks!

Most of "skill cycles on 64" issues were fixed with this change (including Armsmaster and Bow).

When reaching level 64, were M/GM mulitpliers included? Or only items? E.g. if master gives triple effect, would affected 22M skill (effectively 66) be equal to 2 novice?

Why asking: in vanilla MM7 it felt like stealing skill had some kind of overflow. Just wondering if it was an illusion or not.

[cthscr]

When reaching level 64, were M/GM mulitpliers included? Or only items? E.g. if master gives triple effect, would affected 22M skill (effectively 66) be equal to 2 novice?

No multipliers, raw base+bonus skill value.
In mm8 novice skill (base+bonus) can't go over 63 (was cutting down if getting over), and 64 is an Expert bit. In Merge bonus value was allowed to go over if higher bit was set (i.e. you have M or GM). As you may guess, not every check was patched.

Why asking: in vanilla MM7 it felt like stealing skill had some kind of overflow. Just wondering if it was an illusion or not.

Cycling on 64 is Merge specific bug. Still vanilla MMs had enough bugs that hadn't been fixed since MM6. Maybe stealing had the same formula as Repair and IdItem, and they have 10000 as GM 100% in MM8.

[Xfing]

Hey - as far as the non-relic versions not having painted sprites while the painted versions do - I think it's nothing more than a pattern-matching error. The fact that the relic versions have indeed been repainted is probably the reason why the regular versions have been left in the game as pickups - though I suspect that these instances are fixed spawns (like Royal Leathers outside of the Dragon Caves in Eeofol for example).

If for instance the Governor's Armor is painted for all body types and implemented, and the regular Golden Chainmail still uses identical sprites, it's entirely possible to just duplicate the graphics and assign proper flags to them and it'll work. The unique item can then be adjusted from there if necessary. MM6 suffered of the problem that all unique items shared graphics of regular items, this was addressed to an extensive degree in MM7 and 8. I do recall reading in this thread that there were plans to make the unique versions of MM6 armors have slightly different color accents to help tell them apart, but I'm not sure what came of it.

[m&m_fan]

Hello!

Figured out my way into the breach. If you don't get the completion prompts after finishing each game, the ability to TP from Escatons isn't available. Also found a bug/oversight?

As I understand, Verdant gives you breach quest after you complete all three main games. You can't go to the breach before getting the quest for it. So, looks fine to me.

I've never tried this before, so maybe you can do it in vanilla, but you can set up a Lloyds Beacon in the arena in MM7. This allows you to do as many arena runs as you want in a day...Not sure if it's already known about, but just figured I'd mention it.

Sorry, the bug/oversight comment was about the arena issue. My problem with getting into the breach was that I never got the congratulations speech from Verdant for beating MM6 after destroying the reactor. Right after I watched the end animation I left Enroth, and Verdant never congratulated me until I went back. It worked out fine, I just didn't realize I had to get the ending speeches from Verdant before I could get the story prompt to enter the breach.