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

[Daedros]

How about adding multiple pages of Save/Load to Lloyd's Beacon, so that we can have more locations stored with a single GM Water Magic char. Having to use three different chars to store the non-Town Portal locations in Jadame, Enroth, and Erathia is tedious.
I still think Web Station Beta 5 should be added as a reward for the Good Path of MM7, with portals to all the non TPable areas in M&M 6/7/8. Evil Path could receive the Heavenly Forge, allowing them to craft Blaster Rifles from Stalt Ore. Maybe a project for the Community Branch to make into an option. Blasters should be buffed as well, given +1 Damage per skill point at GM skill, allowing them to somewhat compete against the Noblebone Bow.

Any way to use the console to place an empty, non-respawning chest at my feet? Wouldn't mind turning Castle Harmondale and the Ravenshore Merchant House into major storage hubs (more like player housing). Or there any way to alter those maps and add them to it, and be able to access them in a current game (without having to restart)?

I encountered an interesting, though not serious bug. Playing Rodril's base Merge version (the one from first post).



Got this from wine rack in Mercenary Guild in Tatalia.

Yeah, that one's been around for awhile. I encountered that over a year ago.

[raekuul]

Probably the most important buff Blasters could receive is making the Hive Core immune to anything that isn't a Blaster (as it should be).

[Wormwood]

Ohhh, if we're allowed to make suggestions, I have a few (modest) proposals, ranked in no special order:

1) Lizardman NPCs in Tatalia? I guess it's supposed to be the Erathia-occupied parts but still, did Cathy and/or Markham really genocide the whole native population? Just a couple here and there, maybe the swamp-hut trainers and the free-range ones thereabouts, with humans in the fancier areas (speaking of swamps, maybe add a few more trees in the Tatalia swamp? But I digress).
2) I've seen there was an unimplemented Manticore monster (which sometimes appear in the arena but invisible and will crash the game?), any chance this one could get included somehow? The Mt Thunderfist and Eofel tunnels would be ideal areas too!
3) I second (for whatever that's worth) raekuul's suggestion to make the Hive Core blaster-damage only!
4) I believe there are (several) empty NPC houses in Deyja/the Pit, and around castles Kriegspire/Darkmoor, possible places to install some friendly monster trainers (Minotaurs, Vampres and Necromancer-->Lich)?
5) On that note, a possible druid promotion quest remains in MM8, the circle of stone in Murmurwoods, kill the rocks, get the golden crown thingy.
6) The new bounty-hunt mechanic is, to use the vulgate, extremely rad! Yet, it got me thinking (a terrifying notion I know), is it possible to, for lack of better word, diversify some of the monsters of the Antagarich countryside? Harmondale has goblins, Braccada has griffins, Tatalia has trolls, Tularean Forest has trees. Tatalia at least could have some basilisks, maybe a herd of gorgons somewhere? Braccada could have some genies swooping around? Harmondale some rogue wizards?

Just some crazy ideas, no idea how had any of this would be to actually implement....

[Xfing]

Practically all of these are very reasonable suggestions and I really like them personally.

Ohhh, if we're allowed to make suggestions, I have a few (modest) proposals, ranked in no special order:

1) Lizardman NPCs in Tatalia? I guess it's supposed to be the Erathia-occupied parts but still, did Cathy and/or Markham really genocide the whole native population? Just a couple here and there, maybe the swamp-hut trainers and the free-range ones thereabouts, with humans in the fancier areas (speaking of swamps, maybe add a few more trees in the Tatalia swamp? But I digress).
2) I've seen there was an unimplemented Manticore monster (which sometimes appear in the arena but invisible and will crash the game?), any chance this one could get included somehow? The Mt Thunderfist and Eofel tunnels would be ideal areas too!
6) The new bounty-hunt mechanic is, to use the vulgate, extremely rad! Yet, it got me thinking (a terrifying notion I know), is it possible to, for lack of better word, diversify some of the monsters of the Antagarich countryside? Harmondale has goblins, Braccada has griffins, Tatalia has trolls, Tularean Forest has trees. Tatalia at least could have some basilisks, maybe a herd of gorgons somewhere? Braccada could have some genies swooping around? Harmondale some rogue wizards?

These three points are pretty much what would ideally be one of the latest content integration phases: monster mix-and-matching from all three games to have them appear in logical places on all 3 continents. That could probably be implemented wholesale and would probably not be that hard to do technically, but it would require a comprehensive list of all areas in the game and suggestions regarding what monsters to add. The games in general never went above 3 monster types per area if I remember correctly (be it an outside area or a dungeon, and not counting bosses), but with this we'd probably have to exceed that limit. But I agree - it would really invigorate the world if we added some more monsters and mix-and-matched the existing ones. Imagine, for instance, some dragonflies on Dagger Wound Island to make navigating the jungle a bit more threatening - also supplementing the pirate forces with the weak versions of the Regnan Mages and Arbalesters, which are both in the game but only the former was implemented in the Dagger Wound Pirate Outpost. The possibilities are literally endless - MM6 Cobras could be added to the Abandoned Temple for instance, the unused tiers of Dark Elf and Mino warriors could be added somewhere too - like for instance given a periodic respawn like Buccaneers on Dagger Wound, fighting periodically respawning Centaurs and/or Dire Wolves in Ravenshore or something? Same with minos and ogres/wyverns for instance. As you see the possibilities are literally huge, and it would require lots of painstaking work to truly realize - each area could take days of planning and implementation. Would it be cool to see one day though? You bet lol

3) I second (for whatever that's worth) raekuul's suggestion to make the Hive Core blaster-damage only!

Yep, that stands to reason. I would also either throw out the MM6 Blaster and Blaster Rifle graphics and make all the findable blasters those from MM7 (much better looking), or alter their stats and flavor text to mention they're different models or something, like it was done with most equipment already.

4) I believe there are (several) empty NPC houses in Deyja/the Pit, and around castles Kriegspire/Darkmoor, possible places to install some friendly monster trainers (Minotaurs, Vampres and Necromancer-->Lich)?

Not likely. That would require formulating entire quests. While possible, it'd be kinda hard and time consuming to do, and would probably require coding.

5) On that note, a possible druid promotion quest remains in MM8, the circle of stone in Murmurwoods, kill the rocks, get the golden crown thingy.

With this I agree - this is a simple fetch quest so it could be restored - it'd just be a matter of adding a relevant NPC to one of the houses in Murmurwoods, like Dantillion maybe, since he mentions the thing. That way you could start out with Great Druids (Jadame starts with classes already promoted once) and get to Arch Druid in Jadame. I wouldn't mind that one.

[duncanklysh]

Hey is it intended that my rep drop to next to nothing after freeing archi, in MM6 and not get fixed by clearing the Hive and saving the world? Everyone hates me in Enroth so much right now I can't do **** due to costs and guards attacking me.

That's exactly what happens in the original. Donate in the temple to become respectable again.

been trying, in the merged version each donation I make is 1 positive rep point, but it's costing me thousands of gold per donation and I'm 3k in the hole (despite being super well-liked before Archie). Only way I can think to get reputable is to use the NWC gold chest and just beacon between the chest and temple getting 2-3 points per portal which will take hours to do.

[Panda Tar]

Playing the Antagarich part, the Hunter promotion quest is not being accomplished. I get to that Fairy Cove in Avlee, already did all businesses there was to do in there, but the quest-giver at Turalean does not accept it as done, and keeps saying that I need to go there. I also got 2 fairy keys at that place.

Are these known issues?

[raekuul]

Hunter promotion is finalized directly by the Faerie King, not by the quest-giver.

[Panda Tar]

Ah, yes. I think I got confused because the word Hunter remained as option with the quest-giver. It also happens with all others and I failed to keep that in mind. Thanks!

[rampage77t]

Ah, yes. I think I got confused because the word Hunter remained as option with the quest-giver. It also happens with all others and I failed to keep that in mind. Thanks!

That is because the promotion missions once completed follow the option there for when you hire a character that has not been promoted, then you touch the option and promote the character without having to do the mission again

[Wormwood]

Practically all of these are very reasonable suggestions and I really like them personally.

Oh wow! I was really just spitballing, but glad my suggestions were appreciated!

These three points are pretty much what would ideally be one of the latest content integration phases: monster mix-and-matching from all three games to have them appear in logical places on all 3 continents. That could probably be implemented wholesale and would probably not be that hard to do technically, but it would require a comprehensive list of all areas in the game and suggestions regarding what monsters to add.

That makes a lot of sense, and while I'm anxious to play through the merge with mix and matched monsters/NPCs I realize you guys have your hands full already. I shall be patient ^^

The possibilities are literally endless - MM6 Cobras could be added to the Abandoned Temple for instance...

By the Gods not the cobras, giving me PTSD over here man! Those things are way nastier than any coatls or serpentmen xD

Not likely. That would require formulating entire quests. While possible, it'd be kinda hard and time consuming to do, and would probably require coding.

Oh, I hadn't thought of that (I'm not a coder and can barely handle my e-mails), but that makes sense. I suppose I'm mostly bugged by doors that are either unopenable or empty when you go inside. In retrospect, having 'monster' trainers would most likely be redundant anyways, seeing as by the time you'll want to turn your Cowman into a MinoLord or your Edgy Mage into a Skeleman you'd have the continent hopping option anyways.

Last thought on the matter, concerning liches in particular, there IS that one book inside Dartmoor that could possibly work as a fetch-item quest? Alternatively give Ethric's tomb some lichjars for the same. I won't die on this hill though and I understand it would probably be more work than it's worth to implement so I'll let it rest.

With this I agree - this is a simple fetch quest so it could be restored - it'd just be a matter of adding a relevant NPC to one of the houses in Murmurwoods, like Dantillion maybe, since he mentions the thing. That way you could start out with Great Druids (Jadame starts with classes already promoted once) and get to Arch Druid in Jadame. I wouldn't mind that one.

Cool! It was always annoying that there was this big and by no means easy dungeon just sitting there unused except if you decided to explore it on your own.

BTW, I mentioned this in an earlier post but got no reply. I get a lot of error messages in Ironsand, entering it either from adjacent maps or exiting dungeons (the latter will without exceptions crash the game). Killing gogs will bring up the error/debug textbox as well. Checking earlier posts this seems to be an issue with the latest update?

I also recently attempted to do the lich promotion quest from mm7, and once again the jars are nowhere to be found.... I thought this was fixed in Graymane's patch which is included in the merge?

If these are known issues currently being fixed then disregard my kvetching lol, all in all I'm loving this mod, warts and all, and will be watching the development with great interest!

Cheers!

[Panda Tar]

That is because the promotion missions once completed follow the option there for when you hire a character that has not been promoted, then you touch the option and promote the character without having to do the mission again

Oh, so that's that. Thanks! I still have not hired anyone. Probably going to hire only when going to another 'continent'.

Speaking of which, there is this place in Tatalia, next to the Mercenary's Guild. Visiting that place showed a screen likely to that of MM8 to hire people. However, there was no one to hire there and it looked like we could 'deposit' or unhire people there, like it was a bank of hirelings and you could hire them back later. Is that how it works?

[rampage77t]

That is because the promotion missions once completed follow the option there for when you hire a character that has not been promoted, then you touch the option and promote the character without having to do the mission again

Oh, so that's that. Thanks! I still have not hired anyone. Probably going to hire only when going to another 'continent'.

Speaking of which, there is this place in Tatalia, next to the Mercenary's Guild. Visiting that place showed a screen likely to that of MM8 to hire people. However, there was no one to hire there and it looked like we could 'deposit' or unhire people there, like it was a bank of hirelings and you could hire them back later. Is that how it works?

That's right, all the characters that you fire from your team are there in case you want to hire them again, there is a place of those in each continent, in Jadame it is in Ravenshore, and in Enroth I think it is in Free Haven.

[Panda Tar]

Squee! Ah, that's good!

I don't like to dismiss characters, as I grow fond of them easily hohohoho. But knowing that I can get them back is good. Makes it easier to test others, see what's what without having to restart the game too often.

P.S.: And also liked how the Bounty hunting businesses are handled now. It was simply too much out of our way going to get bounties that required you to move around too far and wide, with so little in return.

P.S.2: And I second that, if possible, giving a little diversity on the local fauna would be really refreshing. Somehow, thinking about the Hunter quest always makes me remind of the time when I thought we should have marks as part of that promotion quest, when I played this game years ago. Mainly because it was too easy simply entering a place, whilst other quests required you not to be petrified by rampaging medusas while colorful bloodthirsty oozing creatures dissolved your items hither and thither.

[pheYonyx]

I don't like to dismiss characters, as I grow fond of them easily hohohoho. But knowing that I can get them back is good. Makes it easier to test others, see what's what without having to restart the game too often.

Here's the reason why this change I view as a good addition — it really satiates my desire to hoard stuff without hindering myself.
Backpacks of dismissed characters are immune to location respawn (chest refill).
So i use characters in the Inn as a place where i can store things i can't/won't use, like, for example, Journal Entries, late game ores, Spell Books i can't learn yet, unfitting Artifacts/Relics, some whatever equipment with high values on stats for later challenge revisiting (like t3 boots with +24 Personality), some gems for testing the tree in mm8 as well as equipment for later forced character. Because i started in mm7 world, i also get to keep Genie lamps there until the time comes

[Panda Tar]

That was something I was wondering, if dismissed characters kept their inventory. Good to know.

[cthscr]

Probably the most important buff Blasters could receive is making the Hive Core immune to anything that isn't a Blaster (as it should be).

Blasters always deal melee physical damage in MM8. While it can be easily fixed for ranged attack (with object 135), I'm not sure about melee range.

Upd: also they should be non-immune to anything with damage type different to 0-4,6-10. Like dragons (who have damage type 50)...

[cthscr]

I traveled between Shadowspire and Ironsands while it happens.

Oh, but I encountered another problem, namely whenever I enter the Ironsand map, an error/debug message pops up. Entering the map from adjacent maps (Alvar and Shadowspire) only makes the message pop up (see img#1), after closing the box everything proceeds as normal.

Scripts/General/NPCNewsTopics.lua, line 38. Add a comma at the end. Add new line after it: [const.Bolster.MonsterType.Troll] = const.Race.Troll
So the result should be like this:

Code: Select all

	[const.Bolster.MonsterType.Minotaur]	= const.Race.Minotaur,
	[const.Bolster.MonsterType.Troll]	= const.Race.Troll
}

Upd: fixed in 'master' and 'rodril-fixes' (along with the root issue), merge request was pushed to rodril.

[cthscr]

There are tons of issues still though, several of them are bugs from vanilla games even.

Right. Do we report these bugs somewhere? List them together or so? Considering that we don't know which bugs are known arealdy, that is.

https://gitlab.com/templayer/mmmerge/-/issues - like the last line in my signature

I encountered an interesting, though not serious bug. Playing Rodril's base Merge version (the one from first post).

Probably an empty bottle from MM7. I don't know why Rodril did it that way.

How about adding multiple pages of Save/Load to Lloyd's Beacon

That will require messing with Lloyd's slots preview files, which is already bugged in vanilla/patched MM8. While it should be fixed somehow one day, I suspect this day is far from now.

Any way to use the console to place an empty, non-respawning chest at my feet?

No. Chests aren't objects like an item or something. There are some facets (right word I hope?) that are tied with events that open chests. You can open any map chest with command evt.OpenChest(N) where N is a number from 0 to 19 (there could be less than 20 chests on different maps).

I believe there are (several) empty NPC houses in Deyja/the Pit, and around castles Kriegspire/Darkmoor, possible places to install some friendly monster trainers (Minotaurs, Vampres and Necromancer-->Lich)?

Adding new NPC will break old savegames for base Merge. I've added one once in Community Branch (that was MM6 arena master actually) and restore it from NPCData.txt (because it was filled with garbage - any newly added NPC will be).
Aside from that adding new quests is one of the easiest things with MMExtension.

The games in general never went above 3 monster types per area if I remember correctly

There are three types of spawning monsters per map. One can add several placed monsters of any type (like it is done with unique monsters). MM6 maps had two types of spawning monsters. (MM3 maps had two types also if anyone is curious.)

in the merged version each donation I make is 1 positive rep point, but it's costing me thousands of gold per donation and I'm 3k in the hole (despite being super well-liked before Archie).

Cost is dependent on your current money (non-bank, I suppose).

error messages in Ironsand, entering it either from adjacent maps or exiting dungeons (the latter will without exceptions crash the game).

I'm too lazy to check the crash without a savegame.

Killing gogs will bring up the error/debug textbox as well.

Can't reproduce with troll line added.

[joanthedark]

The games in general never went above 3 monster types per area if I remember correctly

MM6 maps had two types of spawning monsters.

What about Blackshire? I remember there having 3 monster types (Wolves, Twisters, Lizards).
Same for Kriegspire (Minotaurs, Rock Elementals and Drakes).
Or Castle Ironfist (Baa followers, Archers, Blood Suckers).

Unless you meant MM6 was the only game who had some maps with two types, in which case I misunderstood your post, my bad!

[cthscr]

The games in general never went above 3 monster types per area if I remember correctly

MM6 maps had two types of spawning monsters.

What about Blackshire? I remember there having 3 monster types (Wolves, Twisters, Lizards).
Same for Kriegspire (Minotaurs, Rock Elementals and Drakes).
Or Castle Ironfist (Baa followers, Archers, Blood Suckers).

Unless you meant MM6 was the only game who had some maps with two types, in which case I misunderstood your post, my bad!

My bad. Read as "About 1/3 of MM6 maps ...".

List of Merge maps that have no third type of spawning monsters (several of them have no second or even first monster type; several should stay that way - like Arenas):

Code: Select all

| 15 | Tutorial | out15.odm |
| 16 | Abandoned Temple | d05.blv |
| 19 | Dire Wolf Den | d08.blv |
| 20 | Merchant House of Alvar | d09.blv |
| 21 | Escaton's Crystal | d10.blv |
| 22 | Wasp Nest | d11.blv |
| 24 | Troll Tomb | d13.blv |
| 25 | Cyclops Larder | d14.blv |
| 26 | Chain of Fire | d15.blv |
| 27 | Dragon Hunter's Camp | d16.blv |
| 28 | Dragon Cave | d17.blv |
| 29 | Naga Vault | d18.blv |
| 32 | Vampire Crypt | d21.blv |
| 33 | Temple of the Sun | d22.blv |
| 35 | Balthazar Lair | d24.blv |
| 37 | The Crypt of Korbu | d26.blv |
| 38 | Castle of Air | d27.blv |
| 39 | Tomb of Lord Brinne | d28.blv |
| 40 | Castle of Fire | d29.blv |
| 46 | Escaton's Palace | d35.blv |
| 51 | Uplifted Library | d40.blv |
| 52 | Dark Dwarf Compound | d41.blv |
| 53 | Arena | d42.blv |
| 54 | Ancient Troll Home | d43.blv |
| 58 | Old Loeb's Cave | d47.blv |
| 59 | Ilsingore's Cave | d48.blv |
| 60 | Yaardrake's Cave | d49.blv |
| 61 | NWC | d50.blv |
| 62 | Emerald Island | 7out01.odm |
| 63 | Harmondale | 7out02.odm |
| 64 | Erathia | 7out03.odm |
| 67 | The Bracada Desert | 7out06.odm |
| 74 | Shoals | 7out15.odm |
| 75 | The Erathian Sewers | d01.blv |
| 79 | The Arena | 7d05.blv |
| 83 | The Titans' Stronghold | 7d09.blv |
| 87 | Zokarr's Tomb | 7d13.blv |
| 88 | The School of Sorcery | 7d14.blv |
| 92 | Lord Markham's Manor | 7d18.blv |
| 93 | Grand Temple of the Moon | 7d19.blv |
| 95 | White Cliff Cave | 7d21.blv |
| 96 | The Hall under the Hill | 7d22.blv |
| 97 | The Lincoln | 7d23.blv |
| 98 | Stone City | 7d24.blv |
| 101 | Colony Zod | 7d27.blv |
| 102 | The Dragon's Lair | 7d28.blv |
| 108 | The Red Dwarf Mines | 7d34.blv |
| 110 | Tunnels to Eeofol | 7d36.blv |
| 112 | Barrow VII | mdk01.blv |
| 113 | Barrow IV | mdk02.blv |
| 114 | Barrow II | mdk03.blv |
| 115 | Barrow XIV | mdk04.blv |
| 116 | Barrow III | mdk05.blv |
| 117 | Barrow IX | mdt01.blv |
| 118 | Barrow VI | mdt02.blv |
| 119 | Barrow I | mdt03.blv |
| 120 | Barrow VIII | mdt04.blv |
| 121 | Barrow XIII | mdt05.blv |
| 122 | Barrow X | mdr01.blv |
| 123 | Barrow XII | mdr02.blv |
| 124 | Barrow V | mdr03.blv |
| 125 | Barrow XI | mdr04.blv |
| 126 | Barrow XV | mdr05.blv |
| 127 | Wromthrax's Cave | mdt09.blv |
| 128 | William Setag's Tower | mdt10.blv |
| 129 | The Hidden Tomb | mdt11.blv |
| 130 | The Dragon Caves | mdt12.blv |
| 131 | The Bandit Caves | mdt14.blv |
| 132 | The Small House | mdt15.blv |
| 135 | Grand Temple of the Sun | t03.blv |
| 137 | Sweet Water | outa1.odm |
| 144 | Free Haven | outc2.odm |
| 146 | Silver Cove | outd1.odm |
| 150 | Misty Islands | oute2.odm |
| 151 | New Sorpigal | oute3.odm |
| 154 | Shadow Guild Hideout | 6d03.blv |
| 155 | Hall of the Fire Lord | 6d04.blv |
| 156 | Snergle's Caverns | 6d05.blv |
| 161 | Dragoons' Keep | 6d10.blv |
| 166 | Icewind Keep | 6d15.blv |
| 171 | Caves of the Dragon Riders | 6d20.blv |
| 173 | Temple of the Fist | 6t2.blv |
| 175 | Temple of the Sun | 6t4.blv |
| 185 | Oracle of Enroth | oracle.blv |
| 186 | Control Center | sci-fi.blv |
| 188 | The Arena | zarena.blv |
| 189 | Dragon's Lair | zddb01.blv |
| 190 | pending | zddb02.blv |
| 191 | pending | zddb03.blv |
| 192 | pending | zddb04.blv |
| 193 | pending | zddb05.blv |
| 194 | pending | zddb06.blv |
| 195 | pending | zddb07.blv |
| 196 | pending | zddb08.blv |
| 197 | pending | zddb09.blv |
| 198 | pending | zddb10.blv |
| 199 | pending | zdtl01.blv |
| 200 | pending | zdtl02.blv |
| 201 | pending | zdwj01.blv |
| 202 | Devil Outpost | zdwj02.blv |
| 203 | New World Computing | znwc.blv |
| 204 | The Breach | Breach.odm |
| 206 | Basement of the Breach | BrBase.blv |
| 207 | The Strange Temple | 7nwc.blv |