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Might & Magic X Legacy |OT| From Corak and Sheltem to Enroth and Erathia

Maxwood

Oh rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still. Oh lady moon shine down, a little people magic if you will.
So, I bought this game a couple of day's ago. Didn't plan on starting the game yet, but I just wanted to try the first hour. Watch the introvid. I know that's not smart with an RPG but I really wanted to take a small peek. That can't hurt. Or so I thought...
It's devouring all my spare time. Never played a Might & Magic game before but X has been on my radar for a long time. And just like I thought I would after reading some posts in this thread; i'm loving it.
I'm using the default party. Making a custom one would have been a lot smarter, but I didn't understand the stats at the time. Whatever. More replay value. And if I ever get stuck, i'll know what to do. :p

Combat is incredibly fun. Everyone in my party is currently Lvl7. Just beat that dude in the Dieves Then and the boss in the Lighthouse. Took me waaay too long to figure out that he instakilled everyone by throwing me off the tower. One heck of a tough fight, certainly took a couple of tries. When I defeated him I felt like a tactical genius (wandering back into a "dangerous cave" makes me humble again). Great stuff.
Exploration is exciting. It really feels like there's something worthwhile to be found at almost every corner. It's a pretty world, even if it's graphical fidelity is all over the place, with a really nice atmosphere.

And those books and poems are just rad.

Yeah, i'm really enjoying this. Game has had way too little publicity. This is GoTY stuff.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Yeah, i'm really enjoying this. Game has had way too little publicity. This is GoTY stuff.

9457466056_92759eb74a_o.gif
 

Munin

Member
Unity itself isn't the issue, just incompetent programming on a shoestring budget with little room for optimization.

Anyway I hope "more from Might & Magic" soon doesn't mean a Heroes title.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Unity itself isn't the issue, just incompetent programming on a shoestring budget with little room for optimization.

Anyway I hope "more from Might & Magic" soon doesn't mean a Heroes title.

Oh there is most certainly more HOMM coming. VI sold well enough to make a full on expansion pack and several sizable DLC's, even after the studio that made the game went under.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Unity itself isn't the issue, just incompetent programming on a shoestring budget with little room for optimization.

Anyway I hope "more from Might & Magic" soon doesn't mean a Heroes title.

Let's review:

HoMM1 = good for the time, but a bit limited compared to later entries
HoMM2 = godly, 100s of hours of gameplay, incredible music, charming spritework, amazing level editor, random map creation, huge online community at the time with tons of custom maps.
HoMM3 = godly, 100s of hours of gameplay, good music, ok modeled units, amazing level editor, huge online community at the time with tons of custom maps, great mods.
HoMM4 = said to be good with community patches, 100s of hours of gameplay, ok? music, ok modeled units, large online community.
HoMM5 = good gameplay, best battles in series (from prior games), large diversity of units with expansions, 100s of hours of gameplay, great music, nice 3D towns, not sure about multiplayer community.
HoMM6 = said to be good gameplay (I remember people claiming it was as good as HoMM3), 100s of hours of gameplay, good music, better 3D graphics (units don't look horrible now), not sure about level editor or online community.

So with hardly even a single dud, what's the aversion to a series that has had an amazingly high bar overall? :)
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
Unity itself isn't the issue, just incompetent programming on a shoestring budget with little room for optimization.

Anyway I hope "more from Might & Magic" soon doesn't mean a Heroes title.
That would be a heartbreaker if that's all they meant. This was one of the best revivals around, please keep going with it.
 

kmfdmpig

Member
Let's review:

HoMM1 = good for the time, but a bit limited compared to later entries
HoMM2 = godly, 100s of hours of gameplay, incredible music, charming spritework, amazing level editor, random map creation, huge online community at the time with tons of custom maps.
HoMM3 = godly, 100s of hours of gameplay, good music, ok modeled units, amazing level editor, huge online community at the time with tons of custom maps, great mods.
HoMM4 = said to be good with community patches, 100s of hours of gameplay, ok? music, ok modeled units, large online community.
HoMM5 = good gameplay, best battles in series (from prior games), large diversity of units with expansions, 100s of hours of gameplay, great music, nice 3D towns, not sure about multiplayer community.
HoMM6 = said to be good gameplay (I remember people claiming it was as good as HoMM3), 100s of hours of gameplay, good music, better 3D graphics (units don't look horrible now), not sure about level editor or online community.

So with hardly even a single dud, what's the aversion to a series that has had an amazingly high bar overall? :)

Both would be nice. I've loved the mainline M+Ms, but have never been able to get into the HOMM, so for me if they just mean one more HOMM then that'd be a huge disappointment.
 

Maxwood

Oh rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still. Oh lady moon shine down, a little people magic if you will.
Act 1 completed, just arrived in Seahaven. Bloody finally found a Shield Expert trainer.
Choosing the Adventurer difficulty was a good idea. There really are a lot of challenging battles. However, the game became a whole lot easier when I realised you could rest in dungeons without any penalty. :p

It's a bit of a technical mess, though. Weird framerate issues and pop-in. Encountered a couple of freezes, although they could be fixed by simply alt-tabbing. But whatever, I don't really mind. Because Great Scott, this game is fun!
It really was a horrible choice I made last week, I shouldn't have started playing this. Not with Divinity OS coming next week...
 

Serra

Member
So I am currently looking at buying this on Steam.

The Digital Deluxe edition is 3,35€ more. Is it worth it?

I don't care about the soundtrack or M&M VI, so is the exclusive dungeon (Dream Shard) and DLC (The Falcon and The Unicorn) worth 3,35€?
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
So I am currently looking at buying this on Steam.

The Digital Deluxe edition is 3,35€ more. Is it worth it?

I don't care about the soundtrack or M&M VI, so is the exclusive dungeon (Dream Shard) and DLC (The Falcon and The Unicorn) worth 3,35€?

It's about 5 hours of content total.
 

Serra

Member
Played for 2ish hours. Spent around 40 minutes of that in party creation. Went with Bladedancer, Hunter, Runemaster, Freemage.

I really like it so far!

I just did the very first quest of killing the spiders in the den. Should I spend some gold buying gear and potions or just use whatever loot drops I get?
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Played for 2ish hours. Spent around 40 minutes of that in party creation. Went with Bladedancer, Hunter, Runemaster, Freemage.

I really like it so far!

I just did the very first quest of killing the spiders in the den. Should I spend some gold buying gear and potions or just use whatever loot drops I get?

I didn't really feel the need to buy much gear, but gold is very abundant especially on Adventurer difficulty, so don't be too afraid to spend it.
 

Serra

Member
I didn't really feel the need to buy much gear, but gold is very abundant especially on Adventurer difficulty, so don't be too afraid to spend it.

Thanks, I have been buying alot of stuff and yeah, gold is abundant. Just finished Act 1, fun game.
 

Maxwood

Oh rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still. Oh lady moon shine down, a little people magic if you will.
Just fought a Cyclops. Three party members died. :/
But eventually my trusty Dwarf Defender got him! And it felt gooood.

Act Two really opens up, I love it. I have to find the brigands hideout in some forest, but going left instead of right apparently resulted in me walking to the other side of the continent. :p
Some of those treasure chest riddles are pretty fun, and completely unexpected. Cool stuff.

You really do get a shitload of gold. I'm playing on Adventurer but even if it would be halved, i'd still have around 20.000 G, and i've been buying a lot. Does reviving get any penalties on the higher difficulty?
 

Munin

Member
No, later you also get your own resurrection spell and then it's pretty much smooth sailing all the way. It's not the best balanced game, very challenging in the beginning and way too easy in the end, which I attribute to the developer's lack of experience, but still very much one of my favorite games this year.
 
Did we ever get any official sale numbers? Did it sell in the ballpark of 100k? 200k? 400k? (that would be amazing).

Did Ubi ever expressed the interest of continuing the "retro" Might and Magic line with M&M11?

I really hope this game had an amazing ROI and Ubi execs approved both greenlighting M&MX and the future M&M11.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Did we ever get any official sale numbers? Did it sell in the ballpark of 100k? 200k? 400k? (that would be amazing).

Did Ubi ever expressed the interest of continuing the "retro" Might and Magic line with M&M11?

I really hope this game had an amazing ROI and Ubi execs approved both greenlighting M&MX and the future M&M11.

No sales numbers and judging by job postings that just went up at Limbic it looks like they're back on HOMM. So who knows.
 

Maxwood

Oh rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still. Oh lady moon shine down, a little people magic if you will.
Just defeated
Melante
in the Fortress of Crows. Great Scott, that was a though fight. Hardest one yet. Those where some seriously effective fireballs.

Went back to the Elemental Forge, received all the blessings and discovered I was finally on the other side of the foodchain (i'm talking to you, air elementals) and it felt great. Some suprisingly challenging puzzles in there as well. The Ylath's blessing one had me stumped for a while.

I've completed almost every side-quest i've found, so I guess i'll have to continue the main-quest and go find a girl in the jungle. I guess i've almost completed Act 3. Any idea how much I have left?

I hope a lot. Original Sin can wait. 60-70 hours in :)|) and it feels like i've just begun. Loving it. And my interest in other, older games in the genre are growing by the minute.
 

Knurek

Member
I hope a lot. Original Sin can wait. 60-70 hours in :)|) and it feels like i've just begun. Loving it. And my interest in other, older games in the genre are growing by the minute.

Pity the next best thing (World of Xeen) has an UI that is orders of magnitude more hostile to the user.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Pity the next best thing (World of Xeen) has an UI that is orders of magnitude more hostile to the user.

Eh, takes a few minutes to learn the hotkeys then it actually becomes faster and more efficient then MMX to play.
 
%50 off on Steam. Super tempted...

Edit: Just noticed the developer is no longer supporting the game and that there are still graphics/performance issues. Hrm.
 
There are definitely issues with keeping the framerate up at higher settings even on fairly powerful computers. Fortunately it's not a game that requires a stable 60 FPS to be fun.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
%50 off on Steam. Super tempted...

Edit: Just noticed the developer is no longer supporting the game and that there are still graphics/performance issues. Hrm.

I've been playing about 40 hours so far, with everything at ultra/max, and haven't had a single issue with the performance on an older 5870+i7 720, runs great actually!
 

Maxwood

Oh rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still. Oh lady moon shine down, a little people magic if you will.
Finished.
And now i'm imprisoned and lost all my items. Thanks, Unicorn DLC.

The last act had some weak moments, the story's pacing is non-existent and the game is a bit rough around the edges, but overall, it was a really fun time and pretty damn impressive.
I've missed some dungeons, though, and there's the DLC, so there's still got enough "stuff" in there to keep me busy. ^^

EDIT: Is it just me, or does the DLC's difficulty feel unfair? Lvl34 party.
The fact that all your items and awesome relics are taken away doesn't help either.

I can get through the normal enemies even with they're ridiculously huge health bars, and they're pretty fun to fight. But i'm stuck against the first boss. He feels unbeatable. The moment my caster get's feebleminded i'm fucked. And there's no way to prevent it.
Unbeatable might not be the right word, though, since I did beat him. Once. But two of my raiders died during that fight and there's no way to bring them back so I had to reload an older savefile.

I'm...not really enjoying it. The idea is cool, though.
 

Maxwood

Oh rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still. Oh lady moon shine down, a little people magic if you will.
The hidden Limbo dungeon is pretty awesome. It made me fullfill one of my fantasy's.
Killing UPlay.
 
What a difficulty spike at the final boss(warrior mode).

So far liquid membrane + regenerate won me almost every battle, but suddenly those
elite faceless
keep purging them, and they hit hard.
 
This DLC is tough.
For the first time I suffer for not having any character with light magic.
It seems that no matter what i do, how much protection spells I use,one of my characters ends up dead,and i'm all out of resurrection scrolls.

Anyone has any good tips for handling those damned sunriders?
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
One of the best RPGs I had played in many years. Here I was thinking that the game had done really well ;_;
 
Even sadder when you hear that it wasn't overly successful and a sequel is unlikely.

:(

As a lifelong M&M fan, I never thought any sequel would see the light of day after M&M 9... so on one hand I was thrilled we were lucky enough to ever see X, even years later. On the other, quite depressing to know such a good game (that was well received) didn't make any money... even considering the small team who made it.
 

hemtae

Member
From the RPG Codex interview:

Jarl: So, is there any chance that we might see a Might and Magic XI in the near future?

This question made the mood of Arnaud and Erwan sink like a submarine for a moment. Their answer was phrased strategically, but it was pretty clear that there is no chance for this: "Right now, M&M XI is very very low on the list of next Might and Magic projects Ubisoft would choose to invest in". A more optimistic person might think, yay, it is on a list of possible next M&M related projects, but no... what Erwan meant was pretty clear. The game wasn't as much of a success as it should have been. He said that Ubisoft gave it the benefit of the doubt, an experiment to see if that kind of game would sell. Grimrock, which had been released not too long before MMX, was the main reason Ubisoft went ahead with this. Grimrock was a surprising success, and they jumped on the bandwagon, like any big company smelling big potential wads of cash does. For Ubisoft, the game didn't make enough money to warrant a sequel. It wasn't successful enough.

Of course, that led me to ask how successful MMX was. As a good, truth-seeking Codex reporter, I straight up asked "So, how much did it sell?"

They couldn't answer that, because releasing sales figures is not a thing big publishers do. They did reveal, however, that the game sold about 30% less copies than expected. The team would love to work on a sequel, but due to these disappointing sales, this ain't gonna happen. It kinda surprised them that their game bombed so hard, because Grimrock had been such a success, and they had been shooting for a similar amount of sales as that game. [Bubbles comment: You can infer that MMX sold roughly 70% as many copies as Legend of Grimrock, based on however Ubisoft calculated LoG's sales. Was turn based combat to blame?] Ultimately, it didn't sell enough for Ubisoft to be interested in any sequels, even if you count in the expansion. The Might and Magic RPG series is, after a brief resurrection, dead again.
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I bet Grimrock 2 didn't even perform as well as the first one, did it? Can't believe this one did poorly though, it's the real deal in a period where people really respond to that.
 

Moff

Member
I think it was a lot better than grimrock. shame but understandable if people do not want a game like that. I am still thankful they tried and gave us such an enjoyable game.
 
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