-------------------------------------------------- Might & Magic Tribute Demo Released: July 9th, 2003 Version Number: 0.1.142 -------------------------------------------------- Dear M&M fan, Thank you for downloading the Might & Magic Tribute Demo. This file contains important information regarding this release. I strongly recommend that you read the entire document. It is especially important that you please read the copyright notice below. I welcome your comments and suggestions. Sir Felgar -------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT: COPYRIGHT NOTICE This software is NOT produced by, endorsed by, connected with, supported by or even authorised by 3DO or New World Computing in any way. This software is only intended to be a tech demo to illustrate to the M&M community the possibility of producing a fan-made Might & Magic tribute game. Much of the media used in this demo is copyright of 3DO / NWC and is used for illustrative purposes only. Might & Magic & New World Computing are registered trademarks of the 3DO corporation. -------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS - Background - Features - System Requirements - Installation - Options - Controls - Missing Features & Known Issues - Feedback - Credits - Copyright notice - Licence Agreement -------------------------------------------------- BACKGROUND Back in the summer of 2002, Might and Magic fans were starting to ask when (or if) Might and Magic X would appear. The general consensus seemed to be that MMX was either a long way off or would never happen. A lot of fans also expressed their disappointment about the move to the fully 3D Lithtech engine with MMIX. Many wished that NWC had continued with the same style of engine used in mm6-8. Especially if this could result in more time spent producing a more detailed game. After all it was the game that mattered not the graphics. Many fans also seemed disappointed that the old world had been left behind and that the storyline with the ancients etc. had never been properly concluded. At one point, someone asked 'if MMX looks unlikely, and MMIX isn't what we expected, then why don't the fans make their own game?' This is the point at which I got interested (if only I hadn't read that post!). A programmer by trade, I took up the challenge. I set myself the task of coding a tech demo for release in a couple of months. I would use the demo to see if anyone was interested in joining a team to produce a fan-made Might & Magic "tribute" game. Well 2 months became 8 months and here we are. If I’d known what I was letting myself in for I would never have started, but finishing it became an obsession, and here we are today. Finally this tech demo has been released, basically to see if anyone is interested in helping to produce ... ah, you know how it goes! I'm not trying to cash in on JVC & NWC's hard work. This is purely a labour of love. Might & Magic has been part of my life for over twenty years now (ever since I played MM2 on the C64) and I want JVC & NWC to continue to produce these amazing games that have kept us all enthralled. However, with 3DOs current plight and the uncertainty surrounding NWC, it seems to me that Might & Magic's future is looking perilous. One thing is certain however, without a surviving fan base it will have no future. If the fans do get together and produce some kind of tribute game, expansion, remake, whatever, then it all helps to keep interest in the series alive and helps (in a small way) to keep the Might and Magic name in the public eye. That's in my humble opinion anyway. Speech finished! Enjoy. Sir Felgar July 2003 -------------------------------------------------- FEATURES It's important to remember that this software is very much a Tech demo and not a full game. There are many things missing that you would expect to see in an actual game (even a demo version). Please see the MISSING FEATURES section to see what is planned for future releases. So what is included? This demo allows your party to explore an area of outdoor wilderness and one dungeon area. This map is intended to be only an example of the kind of things that are possible and is not a finished level for any game. Because of this, only the terrain near the coast has been developed. The rest of the map is pretty much empty wilderness (but not entirely - feel free to explore!). The outdoor map is what I would describe as medium sized. Outdoor areas can be bigger or smaller than this if required. The included dungeon is fairly small scale (in the style of MM7/8). This is purely down to the amount of work required to create a larger level, Tomb of Varn sized dungeons are technically possible if required. There are a few basic quests to complete, again these are only for demo purposes and are not designed to be part of any final game. There is no real end to the demo, but if you wish to "finish" it, you should complete all the tasks the Oracle sets you. -------------------------------------------------- SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS The software requirements for this demo have not been fully tested. I am especially interested in receiving feedback as to how well (or not!) the demo runs on particular PC configurations. I've received acceptable framerates on a PII 450 Mhz PC with 128MB of RAM and a Voodoo 2 16Mb graphics card. This was using the lowest level of graphics detail. I would therefore expect the minimum requirements to be something along the lines of: Estimated Minimum system requirements: 1. PII 400Mhz or equivalent processor. 2. A minimum of 64MB of RAM. 3. A minimum of 10 MB of hard disk space for installation of the software. 4. A DirectX7 compatible 3D graphics card with at least 16MB of memory. 5. Any DirectX 7 compliant Soundcard for sound effects and music. 6. Microsoft DirectX 7 or higher. 7. Microsoft Windows Operating System. Please Note: Windows NT and Windows 95 or earlier are NOT supported (because they have no support for DirectX 7). The minimum requirements may be lower than this. They could also be higher. Until I receive some feedback from users I simply cannot tell. However as a guide, the following is the system that the software was developed on and can handle the maximum level of detail with ease. Software Development system specs: 1. Athlon 1800XP Processor (1.53Ghz) 2. 512 MB DDR RAM 3. 40 GB Hard Drive 4. Nvidia Geforce 3 TI200 64MB 5. Soundblaster Audigy soundcard 6. Microsoft DirectX 9. 7. Windows XP home edition. -------------------------------------------------- INSTALLATION Installation of the demo is straightforward. Simply Unzip all files to a location of your choice. The MMT demo will not install any files outwith the demo directory, nor will it enter any information in your registry. Uninstalling the demo is easy - simply delete all files within your install directory. No other action is required. -------------------------------------------------- OPTIONS From the Main menu screen there are a number of options available. Please note that these are only available during start up. You cannot return to the menu after starting the game. Your setings will be remembered next time you start the demo. Selecting "Reset to default" on any screen will reset all the options for that screen back to the default settings. The following options are available: GRAPHIC OPTIONS RESOLUTION : Defaults to 800 x 600. If your PC can handle it 1024 x 768 is also available. SCREEN DEPTH: Defaults to 32 bit for the best quality of graphics. If the demo is running too slowly or your graphics card cannot handle 32 bit colour then reduce to 16 bit. GRAPHICAL QUALITY: This determines how far the 3D engine can "see", i.e. the player's view distance. It also determines the maximum number of polygons that the engine will render in any scene. This option will have a big effect on frame rates so it is suggested you lower the graphic quality if the demo is running too slowly. ANTIALIASING: This enables Full Screen Antialiasing which will improve the quality of the graphics and make everything look "smoother". This process may be very demanding on some graphics cards and you may notice a big drop in frame rates. MIPMAP TEXTURES: Mipmapping makes textures look smoother at a distance. This should only be disabled if you are having problems with the graphics. TERRAIN SHADING: Recommended this is left on to enhance the 3D look of the terrain. This will be replaced with a different system in future releases. GAMMA LEVEL: Controls how bright the screen looks. A Higher percentage gives a brighter screen. DETAIL TEXTURES: This turns on or off the detail textures layer. This should only be disabled if you are having problems with the graphics. HARDWARE FOG: It is recommended this is left on as hardware fog is used for fading objects in the distance and underwater effects. Some older cards don't fully support hardware fog however, so if you are experiencing problems feel free to disable it. HARDWARE DITHERING: If you are running the demo in 16-bit colour mode then enabling this will improve the graphics. Not required for 32-bit colour mode. HARDWARE MULTITEXTURING: This should be left on as it will improve performance. However it may cause graphical problems on certain cards that don't fully support it. If you are experiencing graphical glitches feel free to disable it to see if there is any improvement. SPRITE TINTING: Tints sprites with different colours in the same way MM8 does. Note that this has only been enabled for monsters for now. GAME OPTIONS SOUND EFFECTS VOLUME: Sets the volume of all sound effects within the game. A value of zero will turn off all sound effects. PLAY MUSIC: Turns on or off the musical soundtrack. There is no volume control for music, this will be implemented at a later date. FLIP ON EXIT: When enabled this will flip the player viewpoint 180 degrees when exiting buildings. KEY TURN RATE: This controls the rate at which the player viewpointt turns left or right. Higher numbers are quicker. PLAY OPTIONS SELECT ENVIRONMENT: This allows you to choose from one of 4 environments to play in. Well it used to! I've removed all but the Woodland environment, as the other three didn't have much time spent on them and they looked quite poor as a result. -------------------------------------------------- CONTROLS At the moment there are no options to change the key bindings. This will be implemented in the future. The following key controls are available: Move Forward: Up arrow Move Back: Down arrow Turn Left: Left arrow Turn Right: Right arrow Select/Talk/Attack: Left Mouse Look up: Page Down Look down: Delete Centre view: End Toggle Torch Light: L Toggle Map Display: M Rest until dawn: R Toggle Tech Info: F1 Screenshot: F12 Quit Demo: Esc Toggle Rain F4 (experimental) -------------------------------------------------- MISSING FEATURES & KNOWN ISSUES Please remember that this is a tech demo and not a finished game. As a result there are a number of features that are not implemented yet or that do not function correctly. The following features have still to be implemented and are planned to appear in future releases: - Full GUI, Inventory screen, Map screen, journal, spellbook etc. - Combat system - both turnbased and realtime. - Character development & skill system. - NPCs and monsters that animate, move about attack etc. - Improve lighting system to allow sprites, terrain and dungeons to be lit properly. - Improved dialog system that allows users to pick conversation topics, in a similar fashion to MMIX. - Particle System for spell effects, missile combat and weather effects. - Improved Physics system - at the moment you are pretty well glued to the terrain when outside. Need to properly implement gravity to allow flying, swimming, jumping, missile combat, throwing of items etc. - Proper weather system so that we can have rain, snow, fog etc. - Implement code for 2D locations such as shops, taverns, temples, stables etc. - Create level editor and other editing tools to allow a full game to be produced and (possibly) custom levels to be created. Phew! As you can see - still a very long way to go! The following are known issues that will be addressed in future releases: Q: The demo runs very slowly yet my PC exceeds the minimum spec comfortably? A: If you are using a Nvidia graphics card there is a problem with Detonator drivers numbered from 41.09 to 44.03(both inclusive). These drivers have errors with DirectDraw handling which can result in extreme slowdown. It is recommended you reinstall version 30.82 or earlier drivers until Nvidia fix this problem. If this does not help, or you are not using an Nvidia graphics card then try reducing the colour depth to 16-bit and setting the graphics quality to lowest setting. If nothing seems to be helping please contact the author (see FEEDBACK below). Q: Why does the lighting on 2D sprites look strange? A: At the moment 2D sprites (NPCs, monsters, plants etc.) are not lit correctly at night when using the torchlight. I've not discovered the reason for this yet. This will be fixed when I convert the sprites to be custom built quad meshes (the trees are quad meshes - lighting works ok for them). Q: Why do the sprites appear completely black? A: I've experienced this problem when testing on a machine with a Voodoo 3 gfx card. Turning off the DX lighting seemed to solve it, unfortunately I've not had time to implement an option to do this. If it's happening to you please email me and i'll see what I can do. Q: Why doesn't the music play properly / at all? A: To keep the size of the download small(ish) I've used Midi sound files instead of some of the more popular types (mp3 etc.). Midi sound files are notoriously unreliable with some sound cards. No fix at present other than to disable the music. Q: Why have you done feature X this way or why is feature Y missing? etc. A: Remember this is just a tech demo to let people see the KIND of things that are possible. Nothing has to look or act the way it does. It can all be changed should any development start in earnest. -------------------------------------------------- FEEDBACK The most important reason for releasing this demo is to generate feedback from the fans as to whether this project is worth progressing. I would be very grateful to receive feedback of any kind - both good and bad. Is this a great idea, am I wasting my time? Let me know! I also wish to receive as much feedback as possible about the performance of the demo on different PCs. How well does it run and how good does it look on your machine? Does it even run at all? Please let me know. For performance feedback it is vital you let me know what processor you have, graphics card, memory, version of DirectX and graphics card drivers you are using. I welcome any comments or suggestions you may have. The author can be contacted at: sirfelgar@mmt.34sp.com -------------------------------------------------- CREDITS The MMT demo was designed, coded, tested and distributed by Sir Felgar. Many thanks to the following people for additional code that was used in this demo: - Mike Keith for his single surface mesh code. - Seth Jeffery for his text handling routines. - Warren Skaalrud for his RGB conversion code. - Jonathan Nguyen for his rain code. - Lee Page for his DataPak routines. Special thanks to all the incredible artists past and present at 3DO & New World Computing who produced a lot of the artwork and sound effects used in this demo. The remaining graphics and sound effects in this demo were created by Sir Felgar or were freely obtained from the internet. Thanks to Mark Sibly, author of the wonderful RAD programming language Blitz3D. Powerful, flexible and above all else stable - what more could you want! Special thanks to Ogre from www.3dhangout.com who created a number of the excellent 3D models used in this demo. The remaining models were created by Sir Felgar or downloaded freely from the web. Thanks to Bjorn Lynne who wrote the music that was used in this demo. This was downloaded from his excellent site, www.lynnemusic.com Thanks to the makers of the following software which was used to create this demo: Blitz3D, Paint Shop Pro 7, Milkshape, Anim8or, Total Terrain, Maplet, Decorator, DataPak, Heightland, MM7View, UnLOD & UPX. Special thanks to Romi & Bruce for their incredible patience during the development of this software. ...and finally...special thanks to all those loyal Might & Magic fans especially at TELPs Tavern and the 3DO Community. This is for you. ;-) -------------------------------------------------- COPYRIGHT NOTICE This software is NOT produced by, endorsed by, connected with, supported by or even authorised by 3DO or New World Computing in any way. This software is only intended to be a tech demo to illustrate to the M&M community the possibility of producing a fan-made Might & Magic tribute game. Much of the media used in this demo is copyright of 3DO / NWC and is used for illustrative purposes only. Might & Magic & New World Computing are registered trademarks of the 3DO corporation. -------------------------------------------------- LICENSE AGREEMENT NO FANCY LICENCE AGREEMENTS HERE I'M AFRAID. YOU ARE HEREBY LICENSED TO DOWNLOAD THIS SOFTWARE AND RUN IT ON YOUR PC! THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY KIND OF WARRANTY EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. PLEASE NOTE - I'VE TESTED CAREFULLY TO MAKE SURE THIS DOWNLOAD IS VIRUS FREE AND THAT THE SOFTWARE IS ERROR FREE. HOWEVER INSTALLATION OR USE IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK AND I CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE THAT MAY OCCUR. --------------------------------------------------