Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven

The sixth installment of the Might and Magic series, this game had been released after a five-year gap and is the first in the series to use an all new graphics engine with full 3D.

Prerelease Info Unused GraphicsCorpses, skulls, beer steins and more! Unused Map Events & PlacesUnused and partially removed events, houses and interesting places. Unused & Deleted DungeonsMeh, still no legendary Loretta Flaise's treasury! Unused NPCs Texts & Development Strings"The demons are to the west, near the coast, not in my throne room!"

Thievery#

Thievery is a skill supposedly intended to work in a way it does in Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor - to steal items and gold from NPCs and shops. The skill can be added to a character.

0x00908fb0

(1 byte) is the address for the first character's thievery skill. Setting it to a positive value will add it to the character.

Unused Sounds#

To do: Look for more sounds

Unused Items#

Name	Graphic in equipment	Graphic on adventure map	Comment
Leather Pouch			A small leather pouch. Probably additional place in equipment for storing items.
Rose			The top of a perfect, long stemmed rose. It seems curiously fresh, as though plucked moments ago.
Shovel			A shovel. It has at least two purposes: digging a statue in the Temple of the Wolf, and digging a Pirate's treasure in Bootleg Bay.
Lock pick			A simple lock pick. In the Temple's of the Snake scripts there are these strings - looks like lock pick was at least needed to accomplish some missions. str[5] = "You easily defeat the lock." str[7] = "You are unable to pick the lock."
Rope			Coiled rope of sturdy quality.
Tooth			A large canine tooth from the mouth of some huge beast. Werewolf's (?) tooth that could be collected from the body and sold. Sy Roth in Free Heaven despairingly awaits brave hero who will collect teeth for him, but noone ever coped with this mission.
Apple		(the same as in equipment)	A perfect, shiny red apple. When picking fruits from the trees, players packs are filled directly, however preliminary player would receive an apple.
Map			A map made from stretched hides and vellum. Might uncover undiscovered parts of the map?
Name of Message	(graphic used for existing generic message scroll)	(graphic used for existing generic scroll)	A message scroll. To read this message, pick the scroll up and left-click over the character picture in the inventory screen.
Pouch of Bat Guano	(the same as leather pouch)	(the same as leather pouch)	Quest Item: This pouch is filled with smelly bat guano.
Fire Amulet	(graphic used for existing generic amulet)	(graphic used for existing generic amulet)	Quest Item: Set in gold etched with ancient runes, the ruby heart of this amulet glows faintly. It's probably connected with this string from NPCText.txt: 401 I will only speak to the Chosen Ones; those that bring the symbol of fire. Should never see this
Dark Containment	(graphic used for existing generic level 4 scroll)	(graphic used for existing generic scroll)	Quest Item: Dark Containment
Rat Tail			Rat Tail that could be collected from the body and sold to an assigned NPC? No entry in ITEMS.txt
Dragon Horn			No entry in ITEMS.txt. This variant of Horn of Ros can be seen on an unused M&M6 intro. It falls from the Ros the Dragon that was hit by the meteor (Kreegan's spaceship?) during The Night of the Shooting Stars.
Torch OFF/ON			Would give an effect of the Torch Light spell? No entry in ITEMS.txt

Wooden Flute#

The item Wooden Flute doesn't have any use in-game. This led to fans speculating about secret uses of the item, and a few fans formed a guild in celebration of the item. The guild, as well as one active fan who had passed away, Lord Brinne, are name-dropped in Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer. The flute in that game has the secret use of allowing players to enter the NWC dungeon in that game.

Trumpet#

The Horn of Ros adventure map graphic is a lot different from it's equipment graphic - it's a trumpet. It was probably another quest item, that was scrapped from the game.

Unused Quests#

Bat Guano Quest#

There are only a few remnants of this quest. The Pouch of Bat Guano was mentioned above. In npctext.txt there are three cells containing this information:

Removed Bat Guano Message

Quests.txt also has a short note pointing a row with cancelled mission:

bat guano quest

Decompiled D02 map scripts contain these unused lines:

Guano Rock
This Rock is covered in bat guano
You harvest the guano and put it in your pouch
You pick up some guano, but have nowhere to put it.

Decompiled GLOBAL scripts inform that questgiver was Barrad Unter who would give our heroes a Leather Pouch for collecting a bat guano. But what's that all about? What were our heroes supposed to do? The answer can be found in the Abandoned Temple in New Sorpigal. There are a few rocks in one of the Temple's caverns. After clicking on them, white squares appear on a minimap. Yes, you've just intended to scratch the bat guano off the stone...

After completing the quest, adventurers would receive such entry in their "awards" tab:

"Gave Bat Guano to Barad"

Alternative Lair of the Wolf Quests#

Once again Quests.txt reveals a lot of interesting information (D17 is Lair of the Wolf dungeon name, D15 - Icewind Keep):

D17, given when party is turned into Werewolves.
D17, given when party buries torture victims.
D17, given when party buries more torture victims.
D17, given when party digs up tiger statue quest item.
D17, Given when Paladin Ghost tells party where Tiger Statue is.
D17, Used when QB 18 corpses buried.
D17, Used when QB 19 corpses buried.
D15, Given to find merchants White pearl

What was changed?

1. Removed quest for buring massacred corpses (unused shovel purpose?)
2. Tiger statue is not a part of Twillen quest (place five animals statuettes across Enroth) and can be dug up (unused shovel purpose?). Ghost of Balthasar is called "Paladin Ghost".
3. White Pearl isn't used for destroying a wolf altar, a part of separate mission in D15 - Icewind Keep.
4. Party would be turned into Werewolves. There is this short text placeholder in the Lair of the Wolf scripts, it probably would appear on the day of transition:

str[7] = "After 7 days."

NPCtext.txt is another place with unused pieces of text, suggesting the possibility of being a werewolf was very close to come true:

Blackshire has been plagued by werewolves lately.  These caves must be where the werewolves are coming from!  However, I will need help destroying them.  You're welcome to any of the treasure we find.  I'm only concerned with destroying them once and for all!

You see, I am a werewolf and soon you will be one too!

There are also strings connected with burring corpses mission in Lair of the Wolf scripts:

str[12] = "The Werewolves butchered us.  Will you avenge us - so our souls may rest in peace?"
str[13] = "Reply?"
str[14] = "Yes"
str[15] = "Y"

In the game files one can find empty poles and a noose, identical to the ones with massacred bodies that can be found in the Lair of the Wolf and other dungeons.

This event shows that primarily in place where White Pearl is hidden, once there was a tiger statue buried (the developers were too lazy to change adnotation on finding the second artifact):

event 56
  0:  Cmp  {"QBits", Value = 20,   jump = 2}         -- 20 D17, given when party digs up tiger statue quest item.
  1:  Cmp  {"QBits", Value = 142,   jump = 3}         -- NPC
  2:  Exit  {}

  3:  Add  {"HourIs", Value = 900}
  4:  StatusText  {Str = 5}         -- "You find a Pearl."
  5:  Add  {"Inventory", Value = 459}         -- "Pearl of Purity"
  6:  Set  {"QBits", Value = 20}         -- 20 D17, given when party digs up tiger statue quest item.
end

Dark Containment Quest#

Not only a scroll of Dark Containment was forgotten to be remove, Quests.txt contains this short information on the quest:

Dark Containment quest taken by Archibald in Library

scroll of dark containment

It's very likely that preliminary Ritual of the Void was called Dark Containment, but to the late stages of development there was no agreement on how does the mission shoud look like. NPCtopic.txt contains this string:

What should we do with the Archibald statue and the release method?

Retrieving Dead from Abandoned Temple#

From Quests.txt (D02 - Abandoned Temple):

D02, is given when you get all the dead guys

From Abandoned Temple scripts:

str[9] = "Cage"
str[10] = "You open the cage and remove the bones."

In northern part of the dungeon there is a room with some cages - they give the player weak items, but it seems that they were meant to be used in an unused quest.

Missions cut on early stage of development#

D19, Given to find White witches crown

T7, given when you find the smoking gun

CD2, given when you get the knowledge to become a lich

D16, Given when characters find the Eagle Statuette

D20, given when 1st artifact chest opened
D20, given when 2nd artifact chest opened

Destroy the Altar of Evil in the Temple of Baa and return with the Chime of Harmony

Inaccessible Tiles#

All these tiles are non-interactable, they were probably used for testing purposes.

Developer Credits#

New World Computing (NWC) Dungeon#

To do: Go more into detail on the characters and names that can be found in the NWC dungeon.

There is a hidden dungeon named New World Computing (the company who developed the game) which contains hallways and rooms that appear to resemble the offices of the company at the time. There are characters, friendly and hostile, that are named after the developers. The dungeon can be accessed by following these steps from a newly started game:

• Go to the west side of the bank and click on the wall to get a Fly scroll.
• At the north end of the Buccaneer's Lair, use the scroll to fly up to the roof and click on the wall up there. You will be taken to Dragonsand.
• Run forward and click on the obelisk and get 20 stats added permanently for each character.
• The left wall can now be clicked on, which will send you to the NWC dungeon.

The dungeon can be looted for unlimited money (until it caps at 10,000 gold), unlimited food and bottles and various other items. There is a well which grants +256 to all stats temporarily. To leave, you must exit the dungeon and click on a specific wall outside the structure.

Watch on YouTube

(Source: http://www.mightandmagicworld.de/mm6/NWC.shtml)