Hello!

I recently purchased the Might and Magic 6-Pack Limited Edition, since it was on-sale. I'm very happy with my purchase, since I haven't owned proper, clean versions of the MS-DOS games since I had the Ultimate Might and Magic Archives. However, much like that archive… I noticed a "problem" with this archive.

There's no way to install Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen or Might and Magic: Darkside of Xeen as completely separate games.

Back-in-the-day, I bought these games brand new, in-box. I installed them from the… five-to-seven floppy disks, each, I think it was? (Edit: Try six-to-eight diskettes, me.) And, I remember the Darkside of Xeen installer politely asking me if I wanted to merge the two games together to make World of Xeen – which I did right away. What I didn't realize, though, was that I was robbing myself of two completely unique experiences.
As interesting as World of Xeen is… it feels like the combined game aspect was tossed in as a last-minute addition. There aren't very many situations in either game where it hints at events on the other side and the "crossover" events and dungeons are extremely limited. (I can think of one dungeon and about two events that have you hopping back-and-forth, not counting the endgame.) Furthermore, Darkside of Xeen was intended for a slightly-higher-leveled party (which starts at Level 5, instead of 1), so if a brand new party that's fresh out of Vertigo makes that hop through the pyramid… they'll probably run into trouble, if not get killed outright.

One can just as easily play through Clouds of Xeen, then go to the Darkside after being grossly-overleveled. One could even complete Darkside before Clouds, after beefing up a little. The fun of World of Xeen is that one can do a quest chain in one world, then hop over to the other, and change things up. But, I honestly think that it would be awesome if the installer had the individual versions of the games, in case someone wants to experience the original versions, complete with title screens and version-exclusive quirks.

Just some food-for-thought from a looong-time fan looking for more.

As a general rule, GOG staff do not read game specific forums. If you want this changed, you should request it in a venue that GOG reads, such as their support mailbox. Though realistically, they will probably not change this; it's surprisingly hard to get them to implement even basic good ideas.

You can play Clouds or Darkside separately -- instructions @ https://www.gog.com/forum/might_and_magic_series/world_of_xeen_only_no_separate_installs_for_ivv/post3

Yes. I know that I can play Clouds by pirating the Clouds EXE/DAT files. But, if I'd wanted to do that, I would have.

I just want there to be an option in the installer for the individual games. I don't think that's unreasonable. But, it seems that I'm barking up the wrong tree, according to advowson. So…

Well, I tried and I failed. Lesson learned: never try. :3

For what it's worth, decisions like this are probably not up to GOG. The 6-game pack that GOG are selling comes from Ubisoft, and GOG have limited ability to change it; I believe it was actually a physical release at one time. GOG was able to add both the "talkie" and non-"talkie" versions of Xeen, but my guess is this is because Ubisoft had them on hand. I don't think MM4 and MM5 are sold separately anywhere anymore, so it may be tricky to get them from Ubisoft for inclusion in the pack.

I've actually been impressed with what GOG have been able to offer over the years, given the legal wrangling needed to get many games re-released. And there have been several cases where a game that's been available for a long time suddenly got a cool update like the one you are suggesting, so maybe we'll see individual MM4 and MM5 in the future!