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01-31-2001, 04:45 PM

Hmm, Might and Magic, "Okay, we need you to kill that dragon over there.here's a thing called a blaster, let us explain how to use it...". If I want to play a game like that I play Quake or Doom or Duke Nukem etc. I don't like guns (the high velocity system shock is too effective to give any idea of fairness, when that wild bear rears up with seventeen arrows sticking out of him you know you're in trouble). Bows and arrows are much more fun.Let me point something out.The longer the length of the blade the wider the cut.The human body (a primary target for many weapons) has curved surfaces.Therefore a curved long blade (axes, scimitars, No Dachi's, Katana,Wakizashi etc) will not only make a longer but also a deeper cut. Also hafted weapons have a stun/ smash factor.This has often lead me to wonder why RPG writers give the biggest damage capabilities to straight bladed swords (broadswords, the historically non existant longsword (another name for a broadsword) etc) and ignore the physical aspects of things. (Actually it's because when nice Mr Gygax started writing the D&D and AD&D rules he seemed to like swords a lot giving them the highest damage to bias players towards them thus enabling a sword-o-centric style of play over the various billhooks, ruhnka's, nagitana's (is that naginata's?) that should be prefered.This also ignores the fact that in most nice architypal fantasy equitable historical societies (everyone likes to play with middle ages technology and a dark ages legal system, I like to play with dark ages technology as a challenging limit)only royalty where allowed to even touch sword.Other men had to make do with spears (more effective if used well),axes, clubs and staves.In medieval Japan a non Samurai seen bearing a sword had signed his own death warrant.)

So basically I don't like the Might and Magic stuff due to the chronic, theme destroying, twists. However for play style there not that bad (apart from the useless "Druid's Crown" Quest Object from MM8 that isn't a quest object, they just never got round to putting that quest in).MM8 is incomplete, the maps are half the size of MM6, the portraits inferior to those of MM7,there are only six maps and you can see black lines in the surfaces in caves where they didn't bother texturing all the walls.

01-31-2001, 04:45 PM	#5
Dwarf Guest Posts: n/a	Hmm, Might and Magic, "Okay, we need you to kill that dragon over there.here's a thing called a blaster, let us explain how to use it...". If I want to play a game like that I play Quake or Doom or Duke Nukem etc. I don't like guns (the high velocity system shock is too effective to give any idea of fairness, when that wild bear rears up with seventeen arrows sticking out of him you know you're in trouble). Bows and arrows are much more fun.Let me point something out.The longer the length of the blade the wider the cut.The human body (a primary target for many weapons) has curved surfaces.Therefore a curved long blade (axes, scimitars, No Dachi's, Katana,Wakizashi etc) will not only make a longer but also a deeper cut. Also hafted weapons have a stun/ smash factor.This has often lead me to wonder why RPG writers give the biggest damage capabilities to straight bladed swords (broadswords, the historically non existant longsword (another name for a broadsword) etc) and ignore the physical aspects of things. (Actually it's because when nice Mr Gygax started writing the D&D and AD&D rules he seemed to like swords a lot giving them the highest damage to bias players towards them thus enabling a sword-o-centric style of play over the various billhooks, ruhnka's, nagitana's (is that naginata's?) that should be prefered.This also ignores the fact that in most nice architypal fantasy equitable historical societies (everyone likes to play with middle ages technology and a dark ages legal system, I like to play with dark ages technology as a challenging limit)only royalty where allowed to even touch sword.Other men had to make do with spears (more effective if used well),axes, clubs and staves.In medieval Japan a non Samurai seen bearing a sword had signed his own death warrant.) So basically I don't like the Might and Magic stuff due to the chronic, theme destroying, twists. However for play style there not that bad (apart from the useless "Druid's Crown" Quest Object from MM8 that isn't a quest object, they just never got round to putting that quest in).MM8 is incomplete, the maps are half the size of MM6, the portraits inferior to those of MM7,there are only six maps and you can see black lines in the surfaces in caves where they didn't bother texturing all the walls.