[New Mod] Might and Magic VII: Amber island is finally out!

[neutonm]

Thanks for the congrats vladimir-maestro and Tomsod.

@Phobos

Thank you very much for the feedback. It was lovely to read it

As for that quest:

Spoiler

Search for the rabbit hole somewhere on the amber town island (and no other islands). It's quite distinguishable and not really hidden that well - no "pixel hunt" required. Let's just say that barrels that provide stats are using same logic of "hiding" as bunny home - you probably just have'nt been to "that part" of the island.

Apart from that quest:

Spoiler

there is also "hidden" quest for the BECK sword you might have found in Abandoned Mines - you could simply return the sword to the owner.

[Macros the Black]

Congrats on release of the mod! I finished it today. I really liked the adventure and how filled the areas were, level design was top notch - although, I didn't need that many potions xD

Is the last quest a hint at things to come?

[neutonm]

Congrats on release of the mod! I finished it today. I really liked the adventure and how filled the areas were, level design was top notch - although, I didn't need that many potions xD

Is the last quest a hint at things to come?

Thanks!
Many potions are there to reduce "temple runs" and for those who wish to go on rampage with 4 sorcs

As for the last quest - yep.
Amber Island is like Emerald island - you supposed to get ~10 levels there, get experts at some skills and sail to mainland. A place with lot of outdoor locations and quests. The general idea is to make might and magic campaign with same amount of gameplay hours of original games.

It's of course a next milestone and gonna take a lot of time to develop.

[neutonm]

News:

I'm planning to release a new update with some extra tweaks:
* Turn-based mode crash fix
* Minor bug fixes as well as balance tweaks
* Game difficulty choice: Adventurer and Warrior. It is planned to be so called "designer difficulty" which adds some stuff to the game and not just boosts stats.

Warrior difficulty is for hardcore players.
It will take some time to prepare this update.

Additionally, the project now has its own GitHub page!
https://github.com/neutonm/might-and-ma ... island-mod

[rampage77t]

News:

I'm planning to release a new update with some extra tweaks:
* Turn-based mode crash fix
* Minor bug fixes as well as balance tweaks
* Game difficulty choice: Adventurer and Warrior. It is planned to be so called "designer difficulty" which adds some stuff to the game and not just boosts stats.

Warrior difficulty is for hardcore players.
It will take some time to prepare this update.

Additionally, the project now has its own GitHub page!
https://github.com/neutonm/might-and-ma ... island-mod

Maybe it's a problem that's happening to me now that I'm testing the game, I was on the first map you start in the game and when I face the "basilisks" that are crossing a bridge the game crashes, it happens to me several times.

[neutonm]

Maybe it's a problem that's happening to me now that I'm testing the game, I was on the first map you start in the game and when I face the "basilisks" that are crossing a bridge the game crashes, it happens to me several times.

Yeah, activating "turn-based" mode at certain moments (like the bridge connecting town and the swamp island with lizards around) will crash the game.
Frankly, i'm counting on GrayFace to fix that ('he's aware of it), because this is definitely a bug i can't personally handle.

[vladimir-maestro]

Found some tips:

you've got VERY big file in your mod that could be optimezed to 10 times smaller, from 100mb into 10mb!!!

[klaymen]

I have found out about this mod from the FB group a few days ago. Tried it yesterday, did some poking around and exploring and I love it!

One minor question, though: except for expert trainers teaching their skills, did you change anything else in the core game?

[neutonm]

Found some tips:

you've got VERY big file in your mod that could be optimezed to 10 times smaller, from 100mb into 10mb!!!

Thanks, didn't knew about it.

I have found out about this mod from the FB group a few days ago. Tried it yesterday, did some poking around and exploring and I love it!

One minor question, though: except for expert trainers teaching their skills, did you change anything else in the core game?

You also can also hire mercenaries - upgradeable summoned units.
Monsters stats were changed. One item is tweaked (club +1 dmg) and some other minor tweaks.

[kotgaf]

Started playing recently (lvl 7 now).
Well it's VERY solid work.
I liked dungeons level design very much. Oak Cottage is perfect starting dungeon, far better than original Temple from Emerald Island. Very nice and thematic. Shortcut in Apple Cave is nice too
However, due to the complexity of the level, automap turned to a total trash (not drawing some areas, and overall difficult to read)
During play, I had to revisit Apple Caves a few times, because of filled inventory. What do you thing about ratling trader inside a dungeon?
Also, it's very hard to find teacher in main town, some area markings can be very helpful. In MM8 there were nice ablity to check hous on a map, to see who lives here and find teacher. But I guess it's impossible in MM7 engine.

Some other thoughts:
I love M&M very much, but during play I had feeling that old M&M system, well... holding you back? It's partly because we know all tips and tricks of old MM, like bless+heroism+fire aura= death to everything.
Have you thought about making a totally new game,not a standalone mod? Like a tribute to all M&M series.
I do understand that it's a hell of work, impossible to bear alone. But may be if it was divided by episodes, starting with Amber Islands as first, may be this can be done.

Anyway, loved your mod very much, thank you for sharing with us!!
p.s. I'm not sure that sharing this mod with gog version of the game is legal (on your site)

[rampage77t]

Greetings, I hate to have to ruin the immersion of the game, but I'm in the Archmage Residence dungeon checking from top to bottom and I'm missing a teleporter gem, the one in the sun room, I found the other one but it doesn't appear, try avoid having to ask for a guide but I don't know where to look anymore

[kotgaf]

Greetings, I hate to have to ruin the immersion of the game, but I'm in the Archmage Residence dungeon checking from top to bottom and I'm missing a teleporter gem, the one in the sun room, I found the other one but it doesn't appear, try avoid having to ask for a guide but I don't know where to look anymore

Had same problem. Check the Inn in the City (mentioned in quest giver's speech)

[rampage77t]

After completing the main mission (which I suppose is as far as the mod goes for now) I have only one mission pending, that of Lucky Coin, I did not find it on any map or dungeon

[klaymen]

After some more poking around, I got a crash on the bridge south of the main town on Amber Island, where you go to bog dwellers. After loading a save i tried it again and got a crash in the same circumstance. Is it something on my end, or it is caused by the mod?

[Tomsod]

I've started playing, some observations so far: (EDIT: two more points)

• There's no music in the title screen?
• I guess since there aren't any promotions, there's little reason not to pick Druid instead of Sorcerer. Some other classes, like Thief or Ranger, are also crippled since they'll never get magic.
• If you load the autosave created at game start, there'll be some error messages, but you get a bunch of stuff that's normally given with starting skills (weapons, books etc.)
• On that topic, empty bottles given for starting with some skills like Perception are not deleted. Everything but them.
• I kept getting stuck while climbing various house stairs, although stepping back or changing direction slightly resolves this.
• The "hidden" chest on the house just before the town proper is trapped, but when I failed to disarm it, it exploded somewhere far away instead of damaging me.
• In the crate delivery quest, the NPC says she pays in advance, but no money is given.
• So far, no completed quests granted awards or changed reputation, unlike in vanilla.
• In the ratman mansion, just to the left from the entrance, you can Jump "outside" through the windows. There's a chest, but the sky glitches horribly, so I'm not sure if this is intentional.
• City hall bounty seems to be broken, I got one for a skeleton and then for a hobgoblin, killed both, but was unable to get money. I think the problem here is that the game doesn't really support adding new city halls beyond the five vanilla ones. Consider replacing one of those?
• The quest bunny will speak like you were sent by the quest giver, even if you weren't yet.

After completing the main mission (which I suppose is as far as the mod goes for now) I have only one mission pending, that of Lucky Coin, I did not find it on any map or dungeon

Hint: all you need is Expert Wizard Eye and Jump. Well, really just Jump. There are scrolls for sale, likely specifically for this purpose. It was the first quest I completed.

[zealot]

Hello Henrik, I love your work ! I just did the solo Druid run, and I see that the winning text is unchanged. I hope you'll have time to make more adventures and expand your mod moreover.

[Tomsod]

I think you've got the same bug as MAW, in that if you buy something from a shop, then immediately save and reload, the shop restocks.

I'm not complaining though, as I'm trying out Stealing for the first time in my life (disregarding my very first vanilla playthrough when I was very proud of myself for even figuring out how it works), and with infinite shops it's pretty bonkers -- at Expert 4 I can potentially steal anything worth up to 1000 gold (without being banned), at the cost of two temple donations! That means any expert-level spellbook, which otherwise would drain me of gold pretty quickly. And so I just keep reloading and shoplifting ATM. My only regret is that Grayface hasn't fixed item bonuses to the skill yet (they just don't work in vanilla), otherwise I'd be able to steal everything.

EDIT: turns out the shop bug also resets the ban timer, so unless fines matter in this demo, the real limit is 1500 gold.

[neutonm]

I've started playing, some observations so far: (EDIT: two more points)

• There's no music in the title screen?
• I guess since there aren't any promotions, there's little reason not to pick Druid instead of Sorcerer. Some other classes, like Thief or Ranger, are also crippled since they'll never get magic.
• If you load the autosave created at game start, there'll be some error messages, but you get a bunch of stuff that's normally given with starting skills (weapons, books etc.)
• On that topic, empty bottles given for starting with some skills like Perception are not deleted. Everything but them.
• I kept getting stuck while climbing various house stairs, although stepping back or changing direction slightly resolves this.
• The "hidden" chest on the house just before the town proper is trapped, but when I failed to disarm it, it exploded somewhere far away instead of damaging me.
• In the crate delivery quest, the NPC says she pays in advance, but no money is given.
• So far, no completed quests granted awards or changed reputation, unlike in vanilla.
• In the ratman mansion, just to the left from the entrance, you can Jump "outside" through the windows. There's a chest, but the sky glitches horribly, so I'm not sure if this is intentional.
• City hall bounty seems to be broken, I got one for a skeleton and then for a hobgoblin, killed both, but was unable to get money. I think the problem here is that the game doesn't really support adding new city halls beyond the five vanilla ones. Consider replacing one of those?
• The quest bunny will speak like you were sent by the quest giver, even if you weren't yet.

After completing the main mission (which I suppose is as far as the mod goes for now) I have only one mission pending, that of Lucky Coin, I did not find it on any map or dungeon

Hint: all you need is Expert Wizard Eye and Jump. Well, really just Jump. There are scrolls for sale, likely specifically for this purpose. It was the first quest I completed.

Thanks for the feedback, points noted.

As for the music, it's quite odd - did you use full build or just mod zip?
It appears i didn't include music into mod zip archive...

glitched sky is part of old engine shenanigans, i can't do anything there.
And, um... that was a secret place

[neutonm]

Hello Henrik, I love your work ! I just did the solo Druid run, and I see that the winning text is unchanged. I hope you'll have time to make more adventures and expand your mod moreover.

Thanks zealot. There are plans to expand upon this mod.

[neutonm]

After some more poking around, I got a crash on the bridge south of the main town on Amber Island, where you go to bog dwellers. After loading a save i tried it again and got a crash in the same circumstance. Is it something on my end, or it is caused by the mod?

Game crashes at certain points - like the bridge leading to swamp island. It's somehow connected with enemy/ally aggro (the knight rushes at lizards) and triggered when turn-based mode is on. It's a strange bug that i have no solution for yet.

If it crashes withou turn-based mode, please give me more details.