Might & Magic IX Hands-off Preview!

Now here's something to lick one's chops on - a tasty hands off preview (but well done) from ToTheGame.com of 3DO's (read: New World Computing's) RPG that's soon to come, Might & Magic IX. Included in the preview are a few better pictures than the ones recently released at the same site. Dig this:

The magic-system’s all new. As we all remember with tears in our PC's, there used to be 8 schools with 12 spells each. Those days are definitely gone, there's now a flexible system where all the useless spells have no place (an example was create food, that's not a spell, it's a profession or a fate !). The spell system is more spell based instead of school based. There will still be four spell schools (Light, Dark, Elemental and Spirit), but a spellcaster will need skill in two of those to cast a spell, and for the most powerful skills, he’ll need skills in three of them. Different levels of skill in schools cause differing effects in the same spell. The flexibility allows to add more useful spells while keeping the not so useful spells to a minimum.