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Derf's Might And Magic 8 Party Maker
Copyright April 2000
by Fred Chlanda
WARNING: This is a beta program and may not work as expected. In addition, I have not played all the way through with a modified party so there may be unexpected problems.
Introduction
This program will allow you to make up a party of adventurers of your own choosing for MM8. You can put a dragon in your party right from the start, even as the party leader! Roll up from 1-4 characters and substitute them for the pre-generated ones. If you want a party of five Knights you can do that too. DMM8PM is a WIN9x program and has no special requirements. A good place to install the program by unzipping the archive is in the MM8 Saves directory but the files can be put anywhere.
I do not recommend using this program the first time through MM8. The game was designed to be played with the characters you find along the way and that is probably the best way to play. Also, the combat portion of the game was pretty easy and putting a dragon in the party at the start of the game probably makes it even easier. On the other hand, the characters that you replace will start at 0 experience instead of with 10000 like the early pre-generated characters.
How the Program Works
DMM8PM takes the main character that you have generated out of a saved game and uses that character to replace one of four different pre-generated characters, either Fredrick Talimere, Devlin Arcanus, Simon Templar or Elsbeth Lamentia. I have also include a pseudo-saved game file from which you can load a dragon as either your main character or one of the other party members. It probably is also possible to take a main character out of one of your saves from an advanced position in the game and put it in as a starting character, but I can't see much point to that. You probably will not get credit for completing quests a second time.
How To Make a Party
We will assume a party of five characters with the following composition:
Derf a Knight (Leader)
Sandi a Cleric
Head Butt a Minotaur
Magico a Necromancer
Flame a Dragon
1. If you have old saves, I suggest zipping them and deleting or renaming the old Saves directory and making a new directory called Saves to start.
2. Unzip the DMM8PM archive in the Saves directory.
3. Start MM8. Start 3 new games and generate the Cleric, Minotaur, and Necromancer. (If you are going to use a fifth character who is not a dragon, generate this character also.) As soon as the character starts, save the game with an appropriate name e.g. "Sandi a Cleric".
4. Generate your leader (Derf the Knight) and begin the game. Save the game just in case.
5. You can complete the game by making the substitution immediately but it is easier to do a few things first because Frederick Talimere has one of the Power Stones. Go to the Clan Leaders Hall. Talk to Dadeross and get his Power Stone. Go to Talimere's house (by the eastern pond). Talk to him and get him to join. Take his power stone and give it to your Leader! Then Go to the Adventurer's Inn and Hire Arcanus and Elsbeth.
6. Save the game twice. Once as "New Party" and then as "New Party 2". (New Party 2 is a backup just in case.)
7. Window MM8 (F4) or Exit it.
8. Start DMM8PM from Run on the Start menu or by double clicking on DMM8PM.exe in Explorer.
9. If you have installed DMM8PM in the Saves directory, you will see a list of your saves, "Sandi a Cleric" etc in the box on the right. If the save names are not there, click the Read button and navigate to the MM8 Saves directory and open any file there. The list will fill with the save game names.
10. Click on "New Party" in the Source Files list. Then click the Load button. "Editing: New Party" should appear above the Load button. You are going to modify this file which is why you made a backup.
11. Click on the save game for the first character you want to substitute e.g. "Sandi a Cleric". Chose the character you want to replace in the Replace radio group by clicking on the name e.g "Fredrick". (Do not use the Main button!) Click the Transfer button.
12. Repeat step 11 for the other characters you want to replace using a different Source file and replacing different characters.
13. Click Save.
14. Go back to the game. Load "New Party". Your new characters should be in the party, except for the Simon substitute who will join you when you meet him. (The name and picture will not change until he is in your party.)
15. Play the game and enjoy!
How to Be a DRAGON!
If you want to play with a dragon for a leader, you can substitute for the Leader of your party by choosing "Flame the Dragon" from the Source Files and Main in the Replace box then Transfer and Save. You should do this first, before getting the Power Stones then play with the dragon until you have gotten the Power Stones. If you have unzipped DMM8PM somewhere other than the Saves directory you will need to copy the file save099.dod to the MM8 Saves directory. DO NOT TRY TO LOAD THIS FILE INTO MM8. It has been stripped of most of the needed data so that it will compress to a small size. I have not put in a provision for renaming the characters but it should be pretty easy for you to do this by using a hex editor on the save099.dod file. The name is at 4CE1Ah.
About DMM8PM
I like to play with a standard set of characters (except for Derf, not the bozos in the example). I have been doing this for about 20 years and have gotten kind of attached to them. Games that don't let me do this are never completely satisfying. DMM8PM is my answer to not having to use pre-generated characters for MM8.
If you played MM7 and did not try my program DMM7CE which allows you to play custom character classes you may want to give that program a try. Because of changes in the data files it would not be easy to adapt this to MM8 so I don't think that will happen.
I am interested in writing add-on programs for Computer Role Playing and Wargames. You can find these programs at:
Derf's Program Page and Fred's Program Page
If you have problems, find bugs, want to send me money or just say hello, you can reach me via the above pages or at chlanda@hotmail.com
Fred Chlanda
April 3, 2000