Hi all -

I know that if you tip the bartender in a tavern he may gave clues. Now, normally he just says thank you which reads fine. But sometimes there is a beep and text appears and dissappears in less than a second and I'm back at the option menu. Is that a clue that I'm missing? I have the game at a considerable low speed that most messages read fine. Any help would be appreciated.

Use CTRL+F11 to reduce the speed of the game before tipping the bartender.

This is generally a bug with MM1, but you can work around it using [url=http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Might_and_Magic_Book_One:_The_Secret_of_the_Inner_Sanctum#The_game_text_appears_too_fast]this[/url].

Or just reducing the number of cycles in DOSBox, but this is a more permanent fix.

I second this fix. Reducing cycles in DOSBox makes the whole game slower, this fix slows down text only while the rest still runs at a nice speed.

Note that MM1 is the only game with this problem, MM2 and the later games do not have any text speed issues.

Thanks for all the replies. I slowed the game to 400 cycles and it was still way too fast. I'd love to download that patch, but it doesn't work. When I click on it I get an error message in my browser and Norton claims Suspicious executable image download was blocked. Even when disabling Norton I get the browser error. I use Firefox but Chrome doesn't open the page either. Can anyone confirm this problem and possibly repost the patch or explain how to apply it myself?

I just used the file posted here:

http://www.gog.com/forum/might_and_magic_series/mm1_read_this_if_you_think_the_text_appears_too_fast/post38

Just rename the file extension to .exe, put it in your game directory, and run it. Worked fine for me.

By the way, I also recommend setting the in-game delay to 9. I think you can only do this in combat. Just hit the "D" key and then "9" for the longest delay. If any messages are ever taking too long you can skip them by hitting the space bar. I think you have to set the in-game delay to 9 every time you play, unfortunately.

We're talking about the same file. I can't download it. I get the error messages. My browsers claim it doesn't connect with the page either because it doesn't exist or because of connection problems, and I get the Norton thing.

That's really weird; I just downloaded it without any problems. Did you get it from that GOG forum post I linked to? If you right-click on the attached image file ("mm_i_text_speed.jpg") and choose "save link as" you should be able to select a location to download it. My browser gave it a crazy filename full of letters and numbers by default, but I just typed in a different name, changed the extension to .exe, and changed the "save as type" to "all files" instead of "jpg". Worked fine, no virus warnings or anything.

What browser are you using? What OS?

It finally worked. I downloaded it on my old laptop which has windows XP installed. I have Win7 on my main pc and that seems to have been the problem (or that in combination with Norton, for my old laptop doesn't have Norton). Thanks for the help! I'm off to tip a bartender ;)

Glad you got it working! I'm running Win 7 though, so that alone isn't the problem. I'm sure it's some weird combination of things as you said.

Anyway, enjoy the game! If you continue with the series, the rest of them should all work at the proper speed without having to fiddle with things.

Great, thanks!

I had this problem when running MM1 in dosbox 0.73. I downloaded version 0.74, installed it, then copied the files to the dosbox folder in my might and magic I installation. Solved it for me. This was a while ago, though, and GOG may have altered the file in some way that makes this solution moot.

I don't think that v0.74 fully fixes the issue, actually, but it does improve it. I'm also not sure if GOG has updated the version that comes with the MMpack or not... they did update the installer to include the "talkie" version of World of Xeen so maybe they also updated DOSBox.