Might & Magic 8 on gog.com 6 $

DeepO said:

I think it´s the combination of open world and non-scaled enemies on one side and solid itemization and (most importantly) excellent character development system (in MM7 imo best in the series) on the other.
These together maintain strong sense of progression pretty much for the whole
duration of the campaign.
Arcomage is not to be underestimated either .

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Ack, Acromage sucks on win7....it slows down and lags and just nearly unplayable...but you do it to try and beat all the areas.

I see where you are going with this, I agree with it as well. I find it funny it is an rpg with a very simple story, and not much background. Yet it works. I wonder if something like this made today would work?

rune_74 said:

Question for you, since I'm playing this too and wondering why it is so fun to me as well. I have come to the conclusion because it has a lot of character and is a pretty simple sit down game. No complex plots, just gameplay. What do you think?

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For me, the fun comes from the constant incremental improvements to a wide variety of statistics affecting your party. I'm typing this on an iPad so I can explain in more detail later.

JDR13 said:

rune, you're playing M&M 7&8 at the same time?

I've got a question- regarding party order, someone was telling me that your middle 2 characters will hit more often with ranged atttacks than the party members on the ends…or do I have that backwards? Anyways.. does that happen in M&M 6-8, or was it just a certain one?

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I believe you're confoozed. There's a theory (I don't know if it was ever confirmed with the designers) that toons in slots 1 and 4 will be attacked more. That one matches my experience, so I tend to believe it. There's also a theory that slots 1 and 4 will be more successful with ranged attacks since they're "able to peek around corners". That one doesn't match my experience, but I wouldn't throw the theory out strictly on that.

Some gog thread for mm7 has some people saying it actually depends on the monster types, which apparently target some classes or races above others.

Nice discussion, I've been pondering the same thing lately: What makes M&M so damn FUN?

I played MM6 for a while after it was sold on GOG before getting pulled off into real-world stuff, and never got back to it. The MM7 came out, and I'm hooked even more-so now. The character progression improvements over 6 are just so...logical.

I think it's sheer genius to tie your character generation to NPC interaction. By making NPC's be your characters' trainers, this ties exploration, character advancement, and NPC dialog all together into an interesting and fun dynamic that makes NPCs a vital part of the game world (well, it's fun as long as you've got a webpage handy with all the different trainer locations .

Another thing that helps is that the tech limitiations of the day actually helps to streamline things.

For example, if I come into a new town and want to start exploring, do I really need to have a complete 3D-rendered view of every single house and abode? Just being able to click on any door and instantly jump into a conversation with the occupant gets me everything that I need, and makes it very quick.

I could see this working in any modern AAA game as well. How much would it add in Dragon Age if all the houses had doors that you could interact with, simply jumping you right into a conversation tree with an NPC, accompanied by a beautiful 2D illustration?

Of course, in the end, the constant and never-ending character progression to God-like status (yet with a challenge commensurate with that status) is what makes these games special. I'd love to see this winning formula applied to a modern engine...