MIGHT & MAGIC IX

RPG by New World Computing/3DO


Tips to get you started by Lu Richardson
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This is a huge game with none of the immediacy of the previous products in 
this series.  You'll feel lost from the very start:  meeting lots and lots 
of people with peculiar names won't help at all.  Getting lots and lots of 
side quests, without really knowing where to go, will add to your feeling 
of isolation.  Finally, the absurd method of handling weapons/items will 
make you want to give up straightaway.  

Although the format of all the games in the series has been preserved 
(i.e., walk about talking to folks and getting quests, fight around to get 
experience, get trained up, then go for the quests, and so on), somehow the 
environment in which you move is too elaborate and simply too big.  The 
maps don't help and you can't mark them so that you know where things are.

Perhaps you need a hand to get you going.  I played with the preset group 
of characters - make sure they all learn the "Bow" skill.


RAVENSFORD

This is a min-tutorial intended to help you learn how to handle yourself.  
First of all, look at your team and make sure you equip them with whatever 
weapons they are carrying.  Read the scrolls your characters will pick up 
off the tables.  Look about you.  Interact with things.  Get out and about. 
 Look at the map to try to find out where you are.  Talk to people.  There 
is a shop where you can buy some decent weapons if you have the money.  
Above all, have a bash at the training center.  Swim, climb, jump... and 
get a scroll at the top.

When you feel you are ready to go, leave town (N) and fight some nasties.  
Learn about combat:  walk backwards as you fire your ranged weapons thus 
avoiding injury.  Once you've killed the enemy, always look at the ground 
to see if there are little bags of money to collect.

Find the boat (press SPACE in front of it).  This takes you to the...


ISLE OF ASHES

Again, just a simple exercise to get you used to things.  It would seem you 
are shipwrecked.  Consulting the map, head N along the bridge and in the NW 
you will meet Forad, who will suggest you meet Yrsa the Troll.  Again, look 
at the map and head for the only building in sight, apart from the castle 
(don't bother with it).  

Enter the cottage and Yrsa will tell you what you need to do.  When you ask 
how to leave the island she will ask you to go through a passage opposite 
her cottage and kill some beasties.  Do so:  fight till you hear no more 
noise.  Collect the bags of money on the ground.  Come back to her and she 
will tell you to go to Forad.  When you do, let him join you.  He will 
mention a door.  Go with him to Yrsa and ask about the door and she will 
give you the means of opening it.  Go back to where you met Forad and 
follow the bridge S, fighting all the way, till you get to the door.  Go 
through and turn right to spot a chest which contains some items.  Next, 
click on the book and watch.   You'll find yourself at some docks.  You 
might as well advance and enter...


STURMFORD

Keep to your left and look at the map so that you know where you are.  The 
first place you'll come to is the Inn.  Go inside and talk to everybody, 
getting a couple of quests.  Leave and move along to the next house, 
inhabited by Ludwig Van who wants you to go into Beet Hoven (yes, I know, 
like the composer, isn't it pathetic?) and get his manuscript.  Inside this 
house, go to the back room where the beets are stored and find the grate on 
the floor.  Open it and manoeuvre yourself down the stairs.  In the sewer, 
go forward and down the well.  At the bottom, swim up and climb onto the 
ruins.

Again, keep left and fight various nasties, collecting the bags they drop. 
 Explore around.  You'll find various rooms with sarcophagi - press SPACE 
in front of them and you will get either a nice surprise or a nasty one, 
but be ready for the worst.  You'll find a chamber with a little bridge and 
an urn at the end - break the urn and get its contents.  In a room full of 
jars, make sure you don't leave through the N door.  In a room in which 
there is a sarcophagus surrounded by water, wade to it and find a chest.  
And so on.

Eventually, you will drop into the sewers again and it's just a matter of 
walking around till you find the manuscript caught in a grate, in a dead 
end corridor towards the centre of the map.  Walk around some more till you 
find stairs up (in my case, two lots) and come up to the surface.  Since 
there are several exits, you could pop up anywhere in town - make sure you 
go back to Ludwig to get your reward.  Leave his house and keep left, talk 
to people, enter houses and shops, etc.

The map is divided into two halves, so you might like to stay in the 
Northern part first to make sure you've visited everybody and have been 
everywhere.

It is important that you meet the mayor in the townhall (two flights of 
stairs up; here you will meet someone suspicious, too) and also that you 
find the town's leader in the large palace in the centre of the map.

When you've finished the top half of town go to the Southern part.  Do the 
same thing.  In the extreme SE you will find someone to train you.  OK, if 
you've been all around and feel fit and able, leave the town through the N 
gate and start exploring around using the map to guide yourself.

Good luck!