So, I decided to start with the series, and went for MM1. And I found a big problem... When I start the game, it asks me to press "Esc", then a screen that when ready, I should press "Enter"... And that is it. Pressing enter, reloads that same screen, and no other keys work, so I am stuck without being even able to start the game...
Just in case it was a quirk with DosBox, I went into the trouble of creating a PC XT VM, installing Dos 3,2 on it, creating two 360kb floppy disk images, transferring the game into them and then into tho XT hard disk, selecting the proper graphic set (tried both CGA and EGA)... And not, same problem. I can´t go pass the "Are you ready? then press enter" screen.

Normally to start a game you would have to press a number key for a town (in this case 1 for the starting town) to go to its inn, add party members with ctrl+corresponding letter, then press 'X' to exit the inn and start the game.

But you can't get to that point?

Exactly! My problem (with both DosBox and real DOS is that I can't reach the point where I can select characters/town, etc.

Basically, I get this screen:

[img]https://i.imgur.com/BZtxlE5.png[/img]

And after pressing "Esc", I get to this

[img]https://i.imgur.com/bcTDADB.png[/img]

Pressing "Enter" at this point, just refreshes this screen and makes this damn thing to appear again, the only way out is closing Dosbox, or in the case of real DOS, restarting the computer

Copy the file ROSTER.DTA from ./__support/save/ROSTER.DTA (or __support\save\ROSTER.DTA if you use Windows) to the main folder.

I had the same problem and I found out the solution compiling DOSBOX with debug mode enabled and checking thelog. I have yet to play the game so I don't know if other errors would occur, therefore I recommend you to compile a copy of DOSBOX with debug options for yourself.

In a quick tutorial

* download the DOSBOX source code (on sourseforge). You can use subversion to download a copy of the sources or go on the SVN tab in the DOSBOX project page and download a snapshot.
* you can follow the instructions contained in the sources under the README and INSTALL files.
* Once compiled you can start Might and Magic 1 by powershell, or by bash if you use Linux with the command
$ path/for/the/source/dosbox MM.EXE

The debug informations will replace the console and the actual game would be on a separate window.

Thank you for the help!

I eventually "solved" it by finding a hacked copy. I am actually using a compiled version of Dosbox-staging and seems to work fine with both solutions.

Still, I would like to do a bit of a rant for GOG, as I realised I had a couple of problems with some DOS games, like this one (and dos versions being replaced by "remakes" that only work on modern OS.) . For the broken DOS games it is a pain when going to abandonware sites where the dowload link has been removed and replaced with the broken GOG version (pe, Alone in the Dark 3).
Lucky this was a simple fix. btw, the first game is completely relentless!

I just ran into the same issue yesterday on my Linux machine (I installed the game via Lutris). Which I found weird because I also have MM1 installed on my Win10 machine (via GOG Galaxy) and it's running fine there.
After comparing the two installation directories I found that there was a file named ROSTER.DTA that was missing from the Linux installation. Creating the missing file in the game directory solved the issue for me.

So if you have the same issue, just create an empty file called ROSTER.DTA in your MM1 directory and you're good to go. The game will fill it with the data of your characters when you create them.

If anyone is still having that problem on linux. you can find the original ROSTER.DTA under __support/save/ROSTER.DTA. hope that helps.

I can make characters, I click 3 to go to town, there's nothing to do but go back a screen. I've copied the file, nothing changes. Could someone from GOG please actually install and run this and fix it?

If you make new characters they ALWAYS start out in town 1. So you must hit 1. Then it should list the characters you made. Hold control, then hit the letter in front of character to add to party, up to 6. Order added, is order in party.
Then hit x to leave "Inn" and enter the town with your selected party.

Later on, when you use an Inn at another of the towns, you will find your characters there instead of 1.

If you hit v to view characters before hitting the town # at start, it will list all characters, and after their name, but before their level it will show (#). That is the town they are in. You can't add characters from multiple towns to same party. All must be in the town you select to add.

Note: MM1 is setup to use DOSBox, but also the cloud_saves stuff GoG introduced in their Galaxy app. This can cause issues of the ROSTER.DTA file not being found, and when it tries to create one, it can't due to permissions, if installed in Program Files on windows systems. HIGHLY recommend to NOT, NEVER, EVER, EVER install games into Programs Files or other protected system folders. Make a c:\games, or use a second drive to install games to.

Or if using Galaxy, install outside of Program Files. OR once installed, go to settings, then Installing, updating, and change the "Game installation folder" setting to point to a c:\games or 2nd drive folder.

OH! I didn't see anything anywhere on the screen about holding the control key to select them. Thank you!