Obsolete retorts and other beta weirdness

[Tiltowait]

Someone put this video on the wiki and I was surprised to see it had a couple of retorts I had never seen before. This was evidently a beta version of MoM.

Far Seer
Omniscient
Special Race

In a later video, clearly labeled v1.0, these retorts are missing and have been replaced with the ones we know so well. In one of the screenshots, the starting city has a viewable area of 3 instead of 2, which is my guess as to what Far Seer does. Cool retort. It seems the entire exploring/viewing algorithm was smashed at some point hence Scouting never working correctly, so maybe that's why they removed Far Seer. I could see myself taking this in a game, at 1 pick it seems fun once in a while. Omniscient, I've no idea. Maybe grants Earth Lore or Awareness or those other map spells? Special Race is obviously what became the Myrran retort. Charismatic is missing, my guess is that Famous was deemed great but cost too much gold to use properly?

Stone Skin (Research cost 60) and Holy Armor (Research cost 130) both provide a +3 bonus to defense. Interesting, Magic the Gathering did the same thing I believe, offering identical powers in different colors but at different costs reflecting the differences in that color's philosophy.

Resist Elements works against Sorcery but lacks defense against magical ranged attacks.

Gnolls are depicted as building a Maritime Guild.

Gunther the Barbarian is 12 attack and 14 HP to start! And there is no "by five" separation of the rows of icons, making them hard to count.

[Seravy]

Far Seer is in the slot for Chaneller. Since it allows ignoring distance penalties for casting, my guess is it's the same ability - without the maintenance reduction which was added when the cost was bumped to 2 picks.

I still need to find a download for 1.0, I've only found 1.1 and 1.2 but those no longer contained the obsolete spells I was looking for. Whirlwind, Mind Twist, Aura Blaze, I wonder what those did. I remember using whirlwind when the game was new - it was one of the best sorcery spells - but don't remember the effect.

[Tiltowait]

Does v1.01 count? I've been trying to find v1.00 for ages but never been able to do so. You know about the playable demo as well? Dated 08-07-94 it's the earliest code we have. The game states "at the time of the demo's creation we were just entering beta testing."

[Seravy]

Unfortunately 1.01 doesn't seem to have those spells anymore. I did see the demo, if that is the thing with only 2 wizards.

[Tiltowait]

Unfortunately 1.01 doesn't seem to have those spells anymore. I did see the demo, if that is the thing with only 2 wizards.

Yeah that's the demo. Maybe the spells are buried in there somewhere? It's the only thing we have so early in development.

[grazzy]

How does one tell what version you have if the loading save screen doesnt say anything?

[Tiltowait]

Try looking at the dates of MAGIC.EXE.

[grazzy]

298992 Dec 24 1996 magic.exe

Also posted a video of that version I have, looks like 1.01, as no whirlwind or the other things were looking for.

I may have a cdr of way back when of my hdd contents, which may have mom. But I dont seen to recall whirlwind, etc, so I doubt if I ever had a 1.00, but I'll look

[Tiltowait]

How about the readme.txt that is in the same directory? It should say something about the version.

[grazzy]

readme.txt doesnt say anything.

And in my backups I have the original install files (aka MPSLABS.00*) and it installs the same version I just played.

the md5sum of my files do not match 1.01, so I really have no clue what version mine is. http://pastebin.com/RKjmEhrJ is the pastebin of the files.