A Public Offer to the Celestial Heavens MM Community

[Big Daddy Jim]

Loyal fans continue to hope and wait for the defining announcement that a new Might and Magic game is under development and due to be release on a specific date. I personally doubt that this will occur, but if it does, I doubt that the game will be worthy of the Might and Magic legacy.

So – do the players/fans have any ‘real’ hope of playing new and unique Might and Magic games? I believe that the answer is ‘yes’. This answer is based upon what I call the ‘modding process’.

I have noted that this site provides a fine library of ‘modding’ support for the ‘Heroes’ games, and has produced some outstanding game modifications in this ‘universe’. I have also noted the total absence of ‘modding’ information in the Might and Magic ‘universe’. And with good reason. Might and Magic is an ‘event-driven’ game that is primarily implemented using a custom, unique ‘event language’ that has, to date, remained a mystery to the ‘modding’ community. If one could just ‘unlock the mysteries’ of this language, an entire series of new Might and Magic game mods could be produced to ‘feed’ the endless hunger of the loyal and hopeful Might and Magic players.

So, to those who have the drive, intelligence, commitment, and desire to produce original, custom, unique Might and Magic ‘mods’ using the MM6, MM7, and/or MM8 game engines, I present the following proposal.

I am in the mid-stages of designing/developing a tutorial/course entitled “An Inductive Approach to Might and Magic Game Modification” to be conducted as a ‘self-study, correspondence’ venture. The intent of the course is to provide its ‘graduates’ with the tools and knowledge-based experience needed to produce a unique MM game mod using the event language of MM7. The inductive approach in this tutorial consists of a series of ‘guided’ assignments that each participant must complete before ‘moving on’ to the next section. Each section will come with a brief .PDF file that provides details and additional information on the current tasks. To assist the participants in the learning process, a modified MM7 game will be issued that has reprogrammed about 30% of the ‘original’ event sequences to produce a heavily modified MM7 play sequence while still maintaining a recognizable resemblance to the original MM7 game. As the course assignments progress, the new event sequences in the modified MM7 game will be identified, parsed, commented, and analyzed by each participant, and then ‘mimicked’, changed, and/or modified in a custom game that each participant will be developing throughout the course. Projected course completion time is about seven months. This course does require that each completed assignment be returned to me and validated before the next course section is issued.

Please note that this course is not for the curiosity seeker, the casual wannabe, or those who ‘just want the answers’ without ‘paying their dues’. This course is only for those who are willing to ‘sweat blood’ to find the answers for themselves. This is only for the dedicated, motivated, and committed individual who not only desires to learn the event language and ‘discover’ the file/game structure, but also desires to provide the MM community with new and ‘intriguing’ Might and Magic game modifications.

Due to the intense interaction required between participants and myself, I can only accept two individuals at-a-time to take this course.

If there is sufficient interest in this project from the members of this site, I’ll post additional information and an abbreviated topical outline of the course on-or-around Dec 15. The projected ‘release date’ for this course is 12 Jan 2008.

If this post is inappropriate for this forum, my apologies. The moderators can remove the post at-will.

Big Daddy Jim

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Hey, great idea. You have my support.

[accabear]

An excellent idea that I think all of us should really support. No real reason not to. I we should create a list of individuals willing to take this 'course' and prioritize them according to their available time, commitment and previous experience.

[asterix15]

Ofcourse You have my support

[Corlagon]

What Accabear said.

[jeff]

Can you list the ‘prerequisites' for this course’? I do not mean the dedication part, but what minimum programming skills and what programming programs do the ‘students’ need to have access to. As I teach I will not have any time to devote to this type of project until next summer; I may consider it then depending on these prerequisites and length of commitment. I took a couple of Pascal courses including graduate level courses, but not C++. A coworker teaches that at the high school I teach at and would be willing to help me with the differences, but my strengths tend toward story creation and not line by line programming, which is primarily why I have shunned the H-V editor.

[motter28218]

Hey BDJ you know the Otter's got your back on this one. for the rest of you that are interested in getting started you can E-mail me, I'm pretty good with mm8leveleditor (even tho it's called mm8 it can mod both 6 and 7 as well) and with hex editing which are pretty much gonna be mandatory tools for any of you interested in modding, but I'm definitely just a humble student of BDJ, he's the man. Heh heh, had to throw that in there Big Daddy. Looking forward to this.

motter28218@yahoo.com
mm8leveleditor can be found at sourceforge.net

[Big Daddy Jim]

Can you list the ‘prerequisites' for this course’? I do not mean the dedication part, but what minimum programming skills and what programming programs do the ‘students’ need to have access to. As I teach I will not have any time to devote to this type of project until next summer; I may consider it then depending on these prerequisites and length of commitment. I took a couple of Pascal courses including graduate level courses, but not C++. A coworker teaches that at the high school I teach at and would be willing to help me with the differences, but my strengths tend toward story creation and not line by line programming, which is primarily why I have shunned the H-V editor.

Jeff,

That’s a reasonable question. I had planned to include this info in the Dec 15 post, but I’ll give you a ‘preview’ of the ‘skill-set’ prereqs now.

The ideal candidate would have 2-5 years of machine-level or assembly language programming experience, a couple of years experience in a higher-order language (“C”, Paschal, VB/VBA, “C++”, et al), some database management skills, and an understanding of emulation software and language-interpreter programs. To which I reply;

“Dream on, Moosebreath. It ain’t gonna happen”.

The ‘givens’ of this course are that each participant owns a PC, has basic computer skills, Internet access, a valid email address, and ownership of the Might and Magic 7 game. Other than that, here are the two additional skill-set requirements.

Each participant must have a ‘second nature’, identify on-site, working knowledge of Binary, Hex, and Decimal number systems. This ‘working knowledge’ includes;

(1) the ability to ‘freely’ move/convert between Hex <--> Decimal <--> Binary,
(2) an intuitive understanding of the data-byte ‘order’ (sequence) in which data quantities (numbers) are store in file systems, and
(3) the ability to locate, recognize, identify, extract, modify and parse (with assistance) specific Hex number sequences in ‘raw’ (binary) data files using a Hex editor.

Each participant must have a specific (and natural) problem-solving ‘mind-set’. This mind-set emphasizes a problem-solving process that is ‘binary’ (logical) in-nature. It manifests in the ability to break down desired ‘goals’ into their component parts, sequence each part into a logical flow, and implement the flow to achieve the goal. In this course, ‘goal achievement’ is accomplished using a unique programming language.

The following text is an excerpt ‘task-solution’ from Lesson Four. The task-assignment is to take ‘Margaret the Mentor’ on Emerald Island, change her name to Alexis, dismiss her from the party, move her into the Tavern, and have her rejoin the party upon request. This excerpt may help to illustrate the ‘type’ of process required to accomplish a given goal. At the least, it does illustrate the type of activity that each participant will be performing throughout this course.

NPC Control Solution (GloEvts 27 & 42)

082A0000 1E 35000000 Show NPCtext 0x35
0A2A0001 11E8 0003000000 Remove NPC 03 from Party
0A2A0002 1210 0011000000 Set QBit 0x11
0D2A0003 27 0300 0000021B000000 Change NPC#3 Topic2 to GloEvt0x1B
0C2A0004 28 0300 00006B000000 Move NPC#3 to location 0x6B


081B0000 1E 27000000 Show NPCtext 0x27
0A1B0001 1110 0011000000 Delete QBit 0x11
0A1B0002 12E8 0003000000 Add NPC 03 to Party
0D1B0003 27 0300 0000022B000000 Change NPC#3 Topic2 to GloEvt0x2B


A complete list of the ‘tools’ required for this course will be included in the Dec 15 post, together with an abbreviated topical outline.

Regards,

BDJ …

[Big Daddy Jim]

Might and Magic Game Modification
An Inductive Approach

Description. This course presents an inductive ‘turorial’ to Might and Magic game modification using the MM7 Rev 4 Mod as a guide to programming the ‘event language’ of the Might and Magic games. This inductive approach consists of a series of ‘guided’ assignments that each participant must complete before ‘moving on’ to the next section. Each section will come with a brief .PDF file that provides details and additional information on the current tasks. To assist the participants in the learning process, a modified MM7 game (MM7 Rev 4 Mod) will be issued that has reprogrammed about 30% of the ‘original’ event sequences to produce a heavily modified MM7 play sequence while still maintaining a recognizable resemblance to the original MM7 game. Most assignments and tasks will be ‘keyed’ to the significant game modification in the MM7 Rev4 Mod. As the course assignments progress, the new event sequences in the modified MM7 game will be identified, parsed, commented, and analyzed by each participant, and then ‘mimicked’, changed, and/or modified in a custom game that each participant will be developing throughout the course. Projected course completion time is about seven months. This course does require that each completed assignment be returned and validated before the next course section is issued.

Prerequisites. The ‘givens’ of this course are that each participant owns a PC, has basic computer skills, Internet access, a valid email address, and ownership of the Might and Magic 7 game. In addition to ‘the givens’, the three additional requirements are;

Each participant must have a ‘second nature’, identify on-site, working knowledge of Binary, Hex, and Decimal number systems. This ‘working knowledge’ includes;

(1) the ability to ‘freely’ move/convert between Hex <--> Decimal <--> Binary,
(2) an intuitive understanding of the data-byte ‘order’ (sequence) in which data quantities (numbers) are store in file systems, and
(3) the ability to locate, recognize, identify, extract, modify and parse (with assistance) specific Hex number sequences in ‘raw’ (binary) data files using a Hex editor.

Each participant must have a specific (and natural) problem-solving ‘mind-set’. This mind-set emphasizes a problem-solving process that is ‘binary’ (logical) in-nature. It manifests in the ability to break down desired ‘goals’ into their component parts, sequence each part into a logical flow, and implement the flow to achieve the goal. In this course, ‘goal achievement’ is accomplished using a unique programming language.

Finally, each participant must have access to a Hex Editor (Hex Workshop 4.2 is preferred), a copy of the MM8LevelEditor3.47, a saved game editor (MM7che.exe prederred), and access to Microsoft Word.

Tentative Outline (abbreviated)

Lesson 1 Getting Started. Parsing the Events Part 1 (20+ hours)

Lesson 2 Parsing the events Part 2 - Identifying Context (5-10 hours)

Lesson 3 Parsing the Events Part 3 – Identifying Context concluded (5-10 hours)

Lesson 4 Introduction to the MM7 Rev4 Mod. Welcome to Emerald Island! – An Inductive Approach to Event Analysis, Validation, and Debug (15 hours)

Lesson 5 On to Harmondale – What’s new … and How? (10 hours)

Lesson 6 The Courier Guild, Festival’s End, and Multi-part Quests (20 hours)

Lesson 7 Reprogramming the Barrow – Think BIG, Think FAST, and Think FACING (20 hours)

Lesson 8 The Disaster of returning to Emerald Island (5 hours)

Lesson 9 Troglodytes, Chest Items, and Sprite Control (5 hours)

Lesson 10 The Gatekeeper’s Woe, the Book of UnMakings, and restoring the Town Portal Spell (10 hours)

Lesson 11 The panoply, the Hero/Black Knight Promo, and the ‘Modder’s Delight’ (10 hours)

Lesson 12 Obtaining the Watcher’s Rings: “Thou shalt nots” and “Thou cannots”; Item restrictions (10 hours)

Lesson 13 Thief Advancement and ‘Combinational’ Programming. A lesson on conditional evaluation and game probabilities.

Lesson 13 Program Assignment: Dual-class Character Promo and the Gauntlet (20 hours)

Lesson 14 Map Reprogramming Part 1 – “The Factory” (10 hours)

Lesson 15 Map Reprogramming Part 2 – Erathia and Avlee; Map Respawn and Map Reload Compared and Contrasted. Map control based upon time, seasons, quests, alignments, items, NPCs and party-level (20 hours)

Lesson 16 Bit Pushing: A survey of File Structures, Game Limitations, and 16-bit/32-bit game ‘engines’. Intro to Advanced Topics (5 hours)

Lesson 17-25 Advanced topics

[Alan06]

nice idea

[GrayFace]

Cool!
I'm in. I do have needed skills: good programming skills, reverse engeneering and file formats studying experience, but the problem is that I don't have much free time.

[Big Daddy Jim]

Cool!
I'm in. I do have needed skills: good programming skills, reverse engeneering and file formats studying experience, but the problem is that I don't have much free time.

GrayFace,

Perhaps we should 'chat' off-line about this. I am somewhat concerned about your available time and the time requirements to complete the asignments.

Please contact me at the following email address;

bigdaddyjim7777@yahoo.com

I already have one confirmed participant. If both of us think that this will 'work out', that will complete the participants and the 'enrolment' opportunity will be **closed** until (perhaps) a 'next time'.

If anyone else would like to be placed on 'stand-by', I must know no-later-than 17Dec2007 so that I can 'arrange' my 'real world' job assignments. Please contact me on this post.

Regards,

BDJ ...

[sherwin_p]

Wow, I'm impressed. I truely hope some mods come out from this. I wish I had some free time as I believe I fit the requirements, Computer Science degree working in the software field, although it's been awhile since I programmed in assembly or have had to do conversions.

I actually tried to recreate a M&M similiar game in my spare time but not much came of it besides a pathetic 3d engine. Without a team its really difficult to create something comparable, in any decent amount of time.

I still play both M&M 6/7 with different parties/speed games(haven't finished one of these yet). Hoping someone would make a game similiar to these...already played the Wizardries as well. In any case, if I do get some spare time, I'll definately look you up. GOOD LUCK, I'll be checking back here!

[Big Daddy Jim]

I truely hope some mods come out from this.

Sherwin,

The offering of this tutorial is/was for the express purpose of providing this community with the knowlege and experience to do more than just 'wish' for the 'perfect' MM game, but to be able to 'realize' their 'dreams' for a new and 'perfect' MM game by directing and producing the 'mod of all mods' in the MM realm.

Unfortunately, I only have one 'taker', but that's ok. I do fully understand the time and commitment required to learn this language, because I've "been there'. I've spend a good deal of both time and effort in 'reverse engineering' the event language and then learning **how** to apply it to produce 'meaningful' events, sequences, quests and the-like. It's not for eveyone. And besides, most MM players **do** have a real life that they must attend to.

I admit that the 'course' is not only time consuming, but difficult as well. The problem is that this is not simply a "programming" course where you learn a language. It is actually an "applications" course where, in addition to the language, each participant must learn how and where to use the language for maximum effect. And trust me on this .... it's easy to 'mis-use' this language and completely "bomb out' game play.

Anywise, I doubt that I'll be offering this a second time. But my hope is that the single participant will be willing and able to generate a mod or two worthy of the MM legacy. Only time will tell.


Besides, I may be 'jointly authoring' an entirely new MM game based on the MM8 engine with another established 'modder'. We'll see how that works out.

Regards,

BDJ ...

[sherwin_p]

Besides, I may be 'jointly authoring' an entirely new MM game based on the MM8 engine with another established 'modder'.

So are you saying you have the ability to use the ACTUAL MM8 engine to create a completely new game? I actually really like the engine used in MM6-8. My question is how, without the actual source? Or are you able to just remodify the game with say a blank template, the game engine.

Also can you post your lessons on the internet somewhere in case I feel like ingesting some knowledge. Maybe some more people can play around with it and possibly make something out of it.

Thanks,
Sherwin

[Big Daddy Jim]

Besides, I may be 'jointly authoring' an entirely new MM game based on the MM8 engine with another established 'modder'.

So are you saying you have the ability to use the ACTUAL MM8 engine to create a completely new game? I actually really like the engine used in MM6-8. My question is how, without the actual source? Or are you able to just remodify the game with say a blank template, the game engine.

Also can you post your lessons on the internet somewhere in case I feel like ingesting some knowledge. Maybe some more people can play around with it and possibly make something out of it.

Thanks,
Sherwin

Sherwin,

The simple answers are "Yes" and "No".

Built into the MM engine is an interpreter. It 'interprets' the event langauge that controls the game. The event sequences, which use the event langauge, are stored in the 'ancillary' files in the DATA folder. If one knows the event langauge and has the ability to assign events to map areas, sprites, graphics and other 2D and 3D features, he has the ability to generate a completely unique MM game using the existent series of game engines. I have that ability.

And no, this course will not be posted on the internet nor will it become available in the public domain. After my one 'student' completes the course, the course will die a natural death.

BDJ ....

[Lord13]

Good luck to you and your nice try, i find the whole
idea great. I don't have the skill to take part to this
so I just wish u luck and w8 for your news

[DaveO]

I find it quite disconcerting that only one person has decided to invest their time in this. If I was not so bogged down in other things, I'd be curious as far as the planned work and how the time investment would be managed. I've done enough hex editing in different games to know my way around, but I don't think I'd be what BDJ is looking for on a project of this magnitude. I'd really like to see more than one person volunteer on this. The peril of putting 'all of your eggs in one basket' can't be emphasized enough.

[jeff]

I find it quite disconcerting that only one person has decided to invest their time in this. If I was not so bogged down in other things, I'd be curious as far as the planned work and how the time investment would be managed.

I think you answered your concern, time. Most of the people that meet his requirements either want to spend what free time they have doing something else or they just don't have enough free time. This is the biggest problem all fan based initiatives face, Equilibris, TELP's 1.4 patch and MMT are just some examples of projects that are either stalled or progressing very slowly. We as fans frequently have unrealistic expectations on their timelines, when all we really should feel is gratitude for what they have done and without any criticisms, hope for more. In this I hope this project works out, an unrealistic hope of mine would be they ultimately create some type of editor that’s user friendly enough that fans could create new versions using the MM8 engine. I am not talking about an editor that does map creation, but one that would allow us to place treasure, artifacts and creatures, and one that would allow us to change text and change quests’ requirements and location along with differing victory conditions. One that changes cities, buildings and terrain features could come much later. As I stated earlier I am more story creator than programmer.

[accabear]

Yeah most fan based projects generally start off in earnest but end up bogging down as the interest begins to die down and when lots of effort and time is required. More effort than available enthusiasm can be a real dampener. I have seen this on countless games and I can only hope this little project goes well.