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[kmonster]

I've read about this bug in one walkthrough, but I've never experienced it and never heard about it from elsewhere. It's not important for the game, you only miss a hint for an unimportant sidequest and quatloo coins.
I think the newer MM3 versions don't have this bug (and no copy protection which needs to be cracked either).


@azraelck: As for the thief/ninja decision: In my first game I had a human robber (only 5 thieving points more than a dwarf ninja) in the party and the only time she had problems with opening locks was in the halls of insanity, although I didn't keep any items which raised thievery. A short visit at a certain fountain solved those fast. When I replayed with a dwarven ninja I didn't have problems opening chests either, maybe I have a different playing style. I agree that a robber is easier for beginners, especially at the early parts of the game.

The druid/ranger is for casting natural spells and the druid can do this better. He gets twice as many spellpoints and levels half a level faster. The difference in melee attack power is low, one extra attack every 6 levels instead of every 7 levels. Usually you have 3 characters better than the ranger in melee, a barbarian, robber/ninja and someone who can wear all equipment in your party, so additional melee power isn't really needed. When you meet monsters your barbarian can hardly scratch it's usually time to reload and fight elsewhere, but if you want to force your way through them you need as many spell points as you can get, the sorcerer and cleric don't have many left once all the "power shields" and other buffs are cast.
It's like you wrote a matter of playing style, if you use beacons and teleport and visit a shrine for refreshing your spellpoints regulary it's different than if you only use resting for this.

In my first party I only had 3 half-caster in the party and I got along very well with travelling to the shrines and magical items, in a later game I wanted to play without this and took 3 full and an half caster, worked also fine. There are so many ways to combine a balanced party and it's impossible to say which is the best one to play through the game.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(kmonster @ Jul 9 2007, 12:28 PM) [snapback]298615[/snapback]</div>

While Might&Magic 6 and 7 are great games on their own, MM3 is one of the best CRPGs ever made and the best I ever played.
[/b]

One of the Best RPG's ever made?!? I wouldn't go that far. Although I loved MM3 back in the day, it doesn't even come close to being as good as the Baldur's Gate and Fallout series. Those two RPG series are in a class of their own.

[kmonster]

I remember when I was halfway through Baldur's Gate I got so bored that I switched to to MM7 and it felt so much more fun. :brain:
The BG series reminded me on Command&Conquer, with the advantadge (which imho made the games so successful) that you had lots of mini battles,but less complex without the building part and real-time pressure since you could pause the game to assign commands anytime.
The plot (dark, self-centered, pseudo-religious) was different from standard rpg plots, but not not very well written and grew more and more illogical from part to part.
Storywise there were worlds between the mainstream BG games and Planescape:Torment which uses the same game engine.

[azraelck]

True, but I've never had a Robber who couldn't open a chest. Ninjas, always had issues with them; from M&M2 on. Possibly a difference in playing style, or just dumb luck on my part. In any case, a party of 6 Knights is winnable if you know what your doing; so 1 attack here or a dozen spells points there won't make a difference. The main issue I have with Druids is that they really have only one necessary spell (that isn't all that necessary in the long run), which makes it hard for me to want one when a Ranger can cast that spell and shoot a bow.

As far as the bug, the copy I have has it as well. I have a backup of the original disks (which have long since went the way of the Dodo and the Edsel), and I never could complete that quest. It's been on enough computers.

There was also one spot it would always lock up on me back in the 386-days; but that may have been the computer. I haven't noticed it on any other computer that I can recall.

Finally, the last bug I can recall is that you could not shoot from water onto land; the arrows would hit a "wall". However, you could shoot across water and hit enemies that way; it's probably not a bug but a design feature to keep players from just swimming out and slaughtering everything with ease using bows without any risk to themselves.

[_r.u.s.s.]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(kmonster @ Jul 13 2007, 02:01 PM) [snapback]299244[/snapback]</div>

The BG series reminded me on Command&Conquer, with the advantadge ..
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NO way in any hell

[kmonster]

Is it so hard to imagine ?
Most of the time in BG you lead your units (aka party members) through the "fog of war" until you spot an enemy unit (aka monster), then you have all your units attack this enemy unit together.
There are of course differences, in C&C you have to do other things like building units simultaneously without being able to interrupt the game for assigning commands, enemy units in the fog of war don't just stand still while an adjacent unit is attacked, and it takes hours to win a battle.
There are of course other things to do in BG, like talking or shopping, but the exploration of unknown areas and killing the monsters there is the biggest part.

[_r.u.s.s.]

command and conquer is a strategy, about building ammount of units and strategicaly move them trhough the map to defeat the enemy.

baldurs gate is about character developement and micro, exploring the world and complete your quests to go on in story line.

the simmilarity in 'fog of war' is just cause of the perspective its played from. you could say 'command and conquere is same as doom, just from first person..'

[azraelck]

The difference is that BG added the tactical elements on top of the CRPG goodness. It is similar in many respects, only because the combat was made to be more tactical than the usual fare at that point; which was mostly turn based with a number of real time games like Dungeon Hack or Ultima Underworld etc... Beyond those two basic styles; I can't recall any other deviances.

BG does resemble some RTS games because of that, but it's mostly superficial; as there's a LOT more to BG than just fighting; even if it's still a hack and slash game.

Of course, that tactical element was ruined for me when I had a kobold walk through a front liner fighter that should have been blocking the doorway to claw at Imoen. :P It wasn't exactly perfect. I don't remember if BG2 had phase-capable kobolds dashing through party members to get at their targets.

[_r.u.s.s.]

bg didnt take anything from c&c seriously :P the simmilarity with fog of war and stuff is coincidence. it all comes from dungeons&dragons paper game and took its rules. by the way we are offtopic

[kmonster]

You misunderstood me. I didn't compare the hidden in-game rules, I compared how you play those games. The things I did very often in the BG games, clicking on "units" called "Minsc","Viconia","Jaheira", ... to command them to shoot at an enemy "unit" like "hobgoblin archer" just reminded me on the clicking on my tank units to attack an enemy tank unit in C&C.
BG2 has the D&D license, but the gameplay is different from the paper game, the old goldbox games and the "temple of elemental evil" are much closer.
I think BG wouldn't have been the same without the C&C series which were maybe were the most-sold games while BG was developed. It's not a bad thing to do some things like in successful older games, like a point and click interface and having units say something when you click onto them.

But you're right, we're getting off topic. The forum of a great game like MM3 doesn't deserve to be filled with comments about other games.

Back to Might and Magic 3:
According to another forum the bug with the brothers' quest is only on old versions, not in the newer ones.
The version on the CD with part 1-5, SoX and a windows installer (was bundled with my MM6 CD) doesn't have it for example (or any other bugs I know of), it even has the copy protection removed.