Dark Messiah of Might and Magic discussion thread

[igyman]

As the name states, anyone who's played, is playing, or plans to get this game, that is - anyone who has something to say about this game is welcome here. Share your impressions, opinions about the game here. Say what you think could happen in a sequel, if it is ever made, or what you think will be done in Heroes of M&M 5 to connect the stories of the two games. Say what you think were the best things about this game and what was the worst about it, etc.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions and to share mine.

[Jason Skywalker]

Well, i have this game on my game shelf, waiting for my PC to get a new CPU for me to play it. Him and NWN 2.

 

Anyway, this game looks promising. More promising than that crappy Heroes of Might & Magic V or whatever it was.

[Vaelastraz]

Played through it a few months ago.

 

First of all, if you think this is a RPG you will most likely be dissappointed.

 

This game focuses on combat - typical melee, stealth combat and magic. You can combinate these though (I played with sword fighting and magic).

 

What I liked:

 

The game is based on the HL² engine, which means that there is a great physic engine as well. Using your environment to defeat opponents is just so much fun, watching huge things collaps in a realistic way.. great!

 

The combat itself is stylish, cool slow motion finisher moves, nice weapon animations. The magic is highly creative imo, not the common "spell X for Y damage". You can frost the ground, which will make enemies fall, you can throw enemies around via telekinesis. You can freeze enemies, you can shrink them, you can convince them to fight for you.

 

Boss fights. At some stages in the game, you encounter powerful beings, which need some skill to defeat (or to escape.. escaping that worm was just great).

 

The villain. He, his voice and his abilities are portayed in a nice way.

 

The female NPC on your side. Sexy

 

The female Demon in your head. Sexy

 

What I didn't like:

 

Story is a bit uninteresting. Well the game is all about combat but still.

 

I can't play it again. I lack the motivation to do so.

 

You need a very good PC to enjoy the graphical power of the game.

 

In combat, you have to use power strikes annoyingly often.

 

All in all, a good game. I didn't regret buying it.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

I loved this game. The two things that bugged me were the ending (it lacked the kind of spectacular conclusion that I had expected for a good portion of the game), and the telekinesis spell, which I would have liked to have been more useful, perhaps even implemented like Force Push & Pull were implemented in JO and JA, where enemies could resist them, but they could still be used on them.

[igyman]

I agree with you completely. The ending wasn't so bad, in my opinion, but I did expect something more spectacular, or more terrifying, depending of the ending. Telekinesis could have indeed been more useful, it could have been used on enemies, but only with a filled adrenaline bar. The demon form ability was a nice touch, but again, wasn't something that was necessary to finish the game - it could have been made more useful.

Besides all this, great graphics and combat system and excellent voice acting (except for maybe Phenrig's voice actor. Hmmm, I always wondered what happened to Phenrig, since he didn't appear much.) along with a nice story make this game one of the best I've played recently.

[Acleacius]

Anyone know if it's possible to mod Dark Messiah to allow increasing the Total Stack count? I have been able to add totals over 20 so the stacking increase is at least physically possible. My intent is to be able to pick up the many potions being left behind, not out of needing more than 20 potions.

 

 

Thanks for any help.

 

 

Here's a list of modding tools and links in case anyone needs them in the future.

If you wish to modify Dark Messiah download the following programs...

 

GFC Scape.

VTFEdit.

VGF2TGA.

GIMP.

 

Also the FileFront Dark Messiah mod download site.

[Acleacius]

Two things that really bothered me about this game (besides the lack of RPGness) was constantly having to listen to Xana and the complete WhiteOut in the Night Vision/Wizard Eye.

 

I have found Xana's voice folder (mm_sound_lang.gcf/mm/sound/arkane/english/xana) and considering replacing many of them with Blank waves. Though, if I can find some sort of Script Call for Dialog, where it would be possible just to prevent her from speaking 90% of the time that might work better.

 

Secondly I have found what I believe is the settings for Wizard Eye, though unsure what settings I would need to make it more Light and Less Whiteout, any suggestions?

water_1 //Wizard Eye

{

// "Lightmap_Max_Add_LDR" "0.15"

// "Lightmap_Max_Add" "0.02" // ambient increase for lightmaps

// "Props_Max_Add" "0.15" // ambient increase for props

 

"Lightmap_Max_Add_LDR" "0.01"

"Lightmap_Max_Add" "0.002" // ambient increase for lightmaps

"Props_Max_Add" "0.01" // ambient increase for props

"effect_duration" "30"

"adrenaline_add" "0"

"cost" "0"

"effect" "30"

"recovery" "0"

"radius" "300"

"fearfactor" "300"

 

Thanks for any tips.

 

 

Edit: Interesting used the // CommentedOut Settings, they look MUCH better though still without any color.

 

Also seem to be able to edit the Weight Limitations on using Telekinesis to Move/Throw bigger objects.

[Acleacius]

There are many things I liked about Dark Messiah but the lack of RPG, On Rails story and bugs caused the game to suffer greatly. I just finished a couple of games and made some 5 mods that made the game much better, not perfect by any means.

 

Anyone remember the Flies bug, once it was activated as a sound file (fresh kills) it would go on and on, seemingly forever. There even seemed to be a bug using the Lightning Daggers that made Fly sounds, heh. This mod fixes this issue by adding a Blank sound file in it's place.

Kill the Flies

 

The Nightvison spell given for free at the beginning of the game and uses no Mana was excessively bright. It caused Whiteout of almost everything, especially near Light Sources or White Spider Webs. The Spell Wizard Eye is now mostly fixed, I say mostly because I was only able to remove about 90% of the Whiteout. Now you can actually see objects and floors with Almost Colors, the only Whiteout left are the Light Sources and Spider Webs but they have been reduced by about 70%.

Wizard Eye Fix

 

A fairly minor issue but still extremely annoying to a Stealth player was the Extremely LOUD sound effect of Crouch/Stealth/Sneaking on Metal. It was so loud as to be close to running sound level, now it's much better.

Crouch on Metal Sound Fix

 

There was never a Key Setting to allow Crouch Lock, so we Stealthy types were required to constantly hold down the key. Now if you don't mind typing "exec crouchlock" each time you play, you can have Crouch Lock.

Crouch Lock

 

This was a EXTREMELY necessary mod "Xana STFU" in case you don't remember how annoying she is, I won't recount it here as I would never wish to cause anyone that much pain and suffering even in a post. This mod doesn't take away any Story aspect of Xana, it just removes the Utterly Annoying comments like "Wonder if that bow we found could help here" or "hurry climb that ladder" or "the ghoul is getting away" or "this is a dead end". Xana has about 380 sound files, I removed 72 of them and I can't tell you what a Damn Relief it is, she still annoying but much more tolerable. The way I figure it is she needs to still have her attitude come through due to her Species. I couldn't see removing all the annoying parts, then she would come off as nice, which clearly isn't the intent of her character.

Xana STFU

 

Also Gamefront's Dark Messiah has several mods, though the site is closed now and I couldn't add mine to the site.

 

Good luck