Might and Magic IX Supplementary FAQ (Version 3.7 - Incomplete Struggle) Current Update: Sunday, 23 June 2002 Previous Update: Sunday, 16 June 2002 Created: Sunday, 14 April 2002 By Don "Gamera" Chan (crs1219@hotmail.com) Note: If you haven't installed the MM9 patches, install them! Get the official v1.2 (or above) patch from the MM9 official sites, and the unofficial patch from Carg85's MM9 fan page. The patches fix the serious bugs, don't fix the cheap bugs that MM9 players can exploit, don't disrupt the save games, and prevent a lot of confusion and frustration. 0. Wanted 1. Acknowledgements 2. 1st Impression 2.1 2nd Impression 2.2 3rd Impression 3. Character Creation 3.1 Character Development 3.2 Skill Ranks 4. Solution 4.1 Ravensford 4.2 Isle of Ashes 4.3 Sturmford 4.4 Sturmford City 4.5 Beet Hoven 4.6 Drangheim 4.7 Drangheim City 4.8 Drangheim Prison 4.9 Kluso's House 4.10 Chasm of the Dead 4.11 Guberland 4.12 Guberland City 4.13 Dook's Castle 4.14 Temple of Honk 4.15 Thjorgard 4.16 Thjorgard City 4.17 Arena 4.18 Thjorad Mine 4.19 Lindisfarne 4.20 Ta'Sar Academy 4.21 Mountain Pass 4.22 Frosgard 4.23 Dungeon of Secrets 4.24 Thronheim 4.25 Thronheim City 4.26 Inventa Storca 5. Promoters and Trainers 6. Civilians 7. Monsters 8. Links "Setsunasa!" (*1) 0. WANTED I'm looking for: - A list of the details of the promotion quests of each class. - A list of the promoter and trainer NPCs, including their skills, exact locations, names, and appearances. - Any Easter Egg or weirdness that the overworked, underpaid, and now jobless MM9 programmers planted, or any undocumented feature that the debuggers missed. - A table of which class can achieve which skill rank in which skill. - How to adapt and overcome the various bugs. - A Greek translation of the Disclaimer (see below). Disclaimer: I send the newest version of this file to only six Websites: - http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/12292.html - http://vgstrategies.about.com/ - http://DLH.Net/ - http://www.gamesover.com/ - http://www.cheathappens.com/ - http://gameguru.box.sk/cheat.php3?cheat=4788 If you downloaded or read this file at other Websites, the SysOps of the other Websites probably leeched it from one of the above Websites. Dementi: J'ai envoye la plus recente version de ce fichier a seulement six sites webs. - http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/12292.html - http://vgstrategies.about.com/ - http://DLH.Net/ - http://www.gamesover.com/ - http://www.cheathappens.com/ - http://gameguru.box.sk/cheat.php3?cheat=4788 Si vous avez telecharge ou lu ce fichier a partir d'autres sites, les responsables de ces sites l'auront probablement pompe a partir de l'un des sites ci-dessus. 1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to these sierra hotel persons/organisations: - Allan Mills, for feedback. - Carg85, for hosting the unofficial patch in his MM9 fan page, feedback, reviewing this file, and Q&A. - Chickenator, colonelessssss, Doomgiver, Gamin Granny, han clan solo, I Need Game Rehab, Livejazz, nifboy, peepsbucket, ullteppe, Xenogias, and other MM9 fans and players in the MM9 message board in GameFAQs.com, for Q&A. - Elf, Nobody, Peter2, Sir William S. Titan, and other MM9 fans and players in the TELP's MM9 Tavern message board, for Q&A. - Jean-Luc Barbera of France, for the French translation of the Disclaimer, and the English translation of the NOIR foreword. (After all, English and French are the two official languages up here in Canada, the True North Strong and Free.) - Mass Confusion, for the Arena trick and some weirdness. - Sharkman8, for the Dungeon of Secrets trick and Q&A. - T08145, for the MM9 Boat Schedules FAQ. - The now jobless MM9 programmers. - Tim Hollebeek (beek), for his MM9 FAQ. (Social democracy in action.) No thanks to these lima delta persons/organisations: - M27Power.Com, for computer virus. - The now jobless MM9 programmers' employers at 3DO. In memory of: - The victims of the terrorist attacks in the USA in the morning on 11 September 2001. God bless America. "Le noir, ce mot designe depuis une epoque lointaine le nom du destin. "Les deux vierges regnent sur la mort. "Les mains noires protegent la paix des nouveaux-nes." - NOIR (TV: 2001) 2. 1ST IMPRESSION MM9 (Might and Magic IX) is on two CDs. The game doesn't allow the player to choose the install size, and it occupies about 1.01 GB. The install programme automatically checks if the player's hardware passes the system requirements defined by the programmers. BTW, MM9 is rated Teen for blood and violence. (IIRC, the last Might and Magic that I played was MM1. (@_@;) And the last two first-person-view, real-time, action RPG that I played were System Shock I and Ultima Underworld I: Stygian Abyss.) On Disc 2, the MM9 manual is a 6.11 MB PDF file. RTFM! When the player begins a new game, the player creates a party of four PCs. Later, the party can reportedly up to three more NPCs. Character creation is IMO relatively simple, and reminds me of the old TRPG called TFT (The Fantasy Trip), which evolved into GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System) by SJG (Steve Jackson Games). The MM9 player chooses each PC's race, sex, class, voice, and skills, as well as allocating extra points to the PC's six statistics. Four races are available: Human, Dwarf, Elf, and Half-Orc. (No Gnome, Half-Elf, or Hobbit.) Each race has two female and two male, head-only portraits, which look IMO less comical than those in WIZ8 (Wizardry 8), and less attractive than those in IWD1 (Icewind Dale I) and HOW (Heart of Winter). Two classes are initially available: Fighter (warrior) and Initiate (priest/wizard). Each class is actually a career path, like in the Langrisser series and Warhammer TRPG. Later, according to the quests the party completes, a Fighter can advance into a Crusader or Mercenary. Later^2, a Crusader can advance into a Paladin or Ranger. Or, a Mercenary can advance into an Assassin or Gladiator. Each class begins with two occupational (default) skills, and chooses two more skills from a list of optional skills. A Fighter always begins with Blade and Armour, and an Initiate always begins with Elemental and Spirit. Elemental and Spirit are two schools of magic spells. Other schools are Dark and Light. Some of the Fighter's optional skills aren't available to the Initiate, and vice versa. Each skill has four ranks: Normal (N), Expert (E), Master (M), and Grandmaster (G). Each class can achieve different maximum ranks in different skills. For example, any non-Fighter apparently can't have Blade or Bow at Grandmaster. The statistics are: Might, Magic, Endurance, Accuracy, Speed, and Luck. The initial values of the statistics depend on the PC's race: Mig Mag End Acc Spe Luc Human 13 10 11 11 11 11 Dwarf 11 10- 15+ 11 9 11 Elf 10 13 10- 13+ 11 11 Half-Orc 15+ 10 14 10 9- 10 In addition, the player can allocate 10 extra points to the statistics. The non-Human races have advantageous (+) and disadvantageous (-) statistics. For instance, an Elf spends one extra point to increase her Accuracy by two, but has to spend two extra points to increase her Endurance by one. The player can also decrease a statistic to below its initial value for more extra points. In the game, the party will find items (barrels, wells, &c) that permanently or temporarily increases the party's statistics and resistances. Each PC's name can't contain a hyphen. The name can have a blank space, but the letter after the blank space can't be in upper case. When the party begins a new adventure, each PC has minimal equipment. Every PC should immediately equip the (poor) armour, weapon, and accessories she has, learn spells from the spellbooks she may have, and choose her quick spell. PCs with the Bow skill get free bows, but aren't given arrows. (?_?) Any PC, Fighter or Initiate, who doesn't have the Armour and Shield skills can't use armours and shields. A Fighter needs a higher skill level in Armour to wear better armours, such as chain-mail and plate-mail. An Initiate always get an Elemental Bolt spellbook. In the inventory screen, I think the clothed, full-body, heroic portrait depends on the PC's sex and class, and doesn't depend on the PC's race? (I got used to the anatomical incorrect, frontal, full-body nudity in WIZ8.) The game has a finite number of save game slots. Each save game slot has a screen shot of where the player saved that slot. Based on the other MM9 players' comments in the MM9 message board in GameFAQs.com at http://cgi.gamefaqs.com/boards/gentopic.asp?board=12292 I (plan to) create two Fighters and two Initiates. Initiate 1 will become a Mage, Initiate 2 will become a Lich, Fighter 1 will become an Assassin (melee offense) or Gladiator (melee defense), and Fighter 2 will beomce an Assassin, Gladiator, or Ranger (ranged offense). The Mage and Lich reportedly have adequate healing spells to compensate for no Druid, Paladin, or Priest... BTW, Icewind Dale II is scheduled for 2002.08.05. Cool, no, cold. Later (2002.05.16): OTOH, a high-level Druid with Grandmaster Dodge and Unarmed Combat is reportedly an excellent martial artist with high number of attacks, high damage per attack, and high base armour class. Also, the Druid's healing spells reportedly heal more HP than a high-level Lich or Mage's. (Thanks to Sharkman8.)