Patch 1.4 was released today, as announced on the official site. To install it, you need to connect to the game as was earlier practice, there is (sadly) no single file available for download. Steam players are encouraged to stay tuned for the patch to be released for them as well.
The contents of the patch are as follows:
- Added the Custom Map Exchange feature, allowing players to download missing maps in the lobby, from the host.
- Added the Archipelago map, previously available only during the Christmas event, in Skirmish mode (solo and multiplayer).
- Added features in the map editor:
* Help Files: Added tutorials in the Map Editor.
*Initial Map Setup: Set a trigger to set up the initial structure allowing to save a map right after creation.
* Unified Object Behavior: Implemented unified behavior for all affected objects (e.g.: object selection, scaling, rotation handling, etc.).
* Mini map: Removed the non-functional mini map from the Map Editor.
For patch 1.5, they will focus on balancing the game, tweaking unit stats, creature growth, spells etc. The only way to know if these tweaks are successful, is obviously to play the game after release of the patch.
The second part of Maciek's Heroes V quiz is entitled "Brittle birds". Let's see if you can solve it or come up with different solutions.
- Jhora wakes up with a terrible headache. Her town is in ruin and she doesn't know what happened last night. Her knowledge is a very low 4. And she is level 40. She thinks: "Hey, that town over there has an Altar of Wishes, perhaps I've been there last night?"
- Bad news: There is over a million Phoenixes blocking the way to that other town. And Jhora has only a single Peasant in her army. You think it can't get any worse? Well.. Instant Travel and Puppet Master spells are banned.
- Good news: Jhora has one thousand Spellpower. She doesn't know why, her knowledge is too low. She also has all the 2% skills in case you want any of them.
- Also: There is a lot of unguarded gold lying on the floor and a Memory Mentor nearby so that you have somewhere to spend it. There is nothing built in your starting town except a Village Hall and you can build nothing more in there. You should capture the enemy town on day 1, because there is a castle and some creature generators built (but the garrison is empty on day 1).
The first completed user-made map for Heroes VI has been posted on Celestial Heavens: Grimstalk Beach by fatespinner is an extra large map with no underground, designed for single- or multiplayer.
As you may recall, we reported our readiness to host maps six months (!) ago, yet for all this time, not a single Heroes VI map has been submitted. Of course, we always say that we want quality maps and not just any maps, but the lack of Community activity and a user-friendly editor are blamed for the lack of submissions.
Still, I'd like to remind you all that we host hundreds of maps for various Heroes games ... and that we are keen to add to the collection. When you have had your latest creation tested and ready for publication, send it to us.
M&M ComDev Irina Kassina has added this on her Soundcloud - it is the music heard on the CGI Intro of Heroes VI, composed by Tom Salta, a theme entitled ...
Our resident quizmaster Maciek has put together a new quiz, this time for Heroes V. The first question is entitled "Chopping trees".
A level one Demon Lord has been told to chop down 999 trees. It seems to have someting to do with Deleb and her experiments to improve Ballistas.
Bad news: The only trees nearby are hiding in a fortified castle.
Good news: There is some snow on the way there! What helpful object could possibly hide beneath? Open this map in the map editor and put one object in the snowy area. It should help you take the castle.
- Your hero's starting Magic Insight has been switched to Arcane Training. She has also traded her starting army for 5 unupgraded Liches (whoever traded with her must really like Succubuses).
- Starting spells: Teleport, Fire Trap and Raise Dead.
- The starting artifact (if you choose it) is always the Tunic of Carved Flesh.
- Your town has all unupgraded dweelings plus a level 1 mage guild (Slow, Haste, Stone Spikes) built. The only other enabled building is mage guild 2 (Decay, Arcane Crystal, Regeneration).
- There's also an unguarded Hill Fort and a Magic Well nearby.
Celestial Heavens have a tradition for submitting questions to producers and developers from time to time; here is one we held with Heroes V producer Fabrice Cambounet back in 2006 and for something more recent, head over to this page to read our Q&A with Heroes VI lead level designer Julien "Marzhin" Pirou from just over a year ago.
This time around, however, the backdrop is different. It was all very exciting when Heroes VI was in its production stages, but today, the Might & Magic Community is in crisis. This time around, then, our Q&A is more important than ever.
Celestial Heavens is an independent site built by and for the Community. We feel that it is our responsibility to ask the hard questions and make an effort towards getting the producers and developers to answer them. So ... here we go. Our contact person at Ubisoft this time is M&M Community Developer Irina Kassina.
A while back, during one of Maciek's quizzes, Univanger apparently misheard the rules and filled up an Heroes IV battlefield completely, coming up with this cool result.
We were wondering what would happen if all those creatures started to fight it out, so Dalai played it out while recording the video you can see below.
Since we have not yet received the answers to our Q&A, I thought we could discuss something else while we wait. I was adding two and two together the other day (hard work, I tell ya), combining the following two facts:
1. The "hardcore" Might and Magic fans have a clear favourite amongst the Heroes games: Heroes III. In fact, they have on numerous occasions urged developers to bring back some of the features from this game. Some have been.
2. A short while ago, an announcement was made that one of the best RPGs in history, Baldur's Gate, will be enhanced - essentially and quite simply recreated as the same game with better graphics.
So I'm thinking: why not do the same thing here? Make Heroes III Enhanced?
After the release of patch 1.3, how do you think the game plays right now? Vote in our current poll to rate the current state pf Heroes VI.
And please, be honest. Don't vote if you never played the game at all or don't plan to: please vote if you have tested the game now and have an opinion.
Apparently, Ubisoft are gearing up for a new free online game; their Facebook page (and Twitter) shows a new picture with the caption "Might & Magic: Duel of Champions. The online card game".
There is no news on exactly when this game will be released, but an official site has been set up, containing basic introductory info to how to play:
Might & Magic Duel of Champions is the free online card game set in the fantastic Might & Magic universe. Choose a hero and build his army with Unit, Spell and Fortune cards to defeat your opponents in epic card battles. Experience the time-tested factions of the Might & Magic universe in a completely new format. Discover a wealth of beautifully illustrated game cards, featuring all the well-known characters, spells and heroes from the Might & Magic series of games. The site also contains this video:
It would thus appear that the previous speculation about the registering of a "Duel of Champions" domain were correct. Perhaps, then, the speculations about Raiders are true also?
As the new programming team have released this round's patches in single files instead of forcing us to use the in-game updater like the old team did, it is now possible to download them away from your gaming PC. It is also possible to create torrents for those who have unstable web connections, enabling easier download of the some 50 MB patch files.
As you may perceive, I'm a big fan of torrents. This is exactly the kind of thing they should be used for: sharing big files with a vast number of users, assisting research, business and political openness - sadly also opening the door for illegal file sharing in the process. So here's what I propose: Do you use torrents? Why not help the Community of fellow fans and share these files, so that we can all get the game updated with ease? Download the language version you want and seed it!
Elvin has posted a Q&A at the Heroes Community with questions about the patches, simultaneous turns, dynasty weapons, the map editor, town screens and game contents.
To summarize, the answers are mostly saying that the game will be improved upon, that this will take time ... and that when it comes to the things the fans want, they'll see what they can do.
We have our own exclusive Q&A coming up next week, so stay tuned.
Ubisoft will make their annual E3 game announcements on Monday June 4th, according to GameInformer. That puts them 3rd out of the gate, right after Microsoft and Electronic Arts, just before Sony.
There is a post on the official forum saying that patch 1.3 will be live tonight.
It also confirms what some have suspected already: Black Hole Entertainment are no longer working with Heroes VI. The German company Limbic Entertainment have taken over.
The Clash of Heroes success story continues. After several plaudits including a Golden Joystick nomination and the 1st place in Gamasutra's top 5 downloadable console games, this little winner from Capybara games is now among the 5 finalists in the "Best downloadable game" category by The Canadian Videogame Awards.
I have been meaning to replay Dark Messiah of Might and Magic for quite a while. I still have the game installed in Steam, as a trophy of the work I did as a tester and, let's face it, as a promoter of some sort (reading my beta preview again reminds me of the huge expectations we had for that game) back in 2006. Nearly six years later, I decided to pick up the Xbox 360 version of the game, curious to revisit the world of Ashan from a first-person perspective, and perhaps to unlocks a series of achievements. I was planning to take that opportunity to write a review, but then I came across a fellow Xbox gamer review on a community site. I'm reprinting it here with permission from the author, XxSpazemxX:
"Adding a subtitle hasn't improved Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. This tardy Xbox 360 port of the first-person action RPG that premiered on the PC in late 2006 remains solidly third-rate even with the word "Elements" strangely appended to the original name. Arkane Studios and Ubisoft may have taken well beyond a year to presumably spit-shine everything for the game's console debut, but the mind-numbingly repetitive combat, bland story, and awkward level design haven't been changed much at all. Only revamped multiplayer modes of play offer anything new, and they're pretty weak and offset by control and visual issues that make this 360 version of the game much worse than its PC predecessor."
This week-end, Good old Games have a 50% sale on all the Might & Magic games (RPG, Heroes and spin-offs). Go here to see the individual games on offer.
GOG also now offers Heroes V + the 2 add-ons in a 6.7GB d/l for $20:
MattCaspermeyer has made a mod for King's Bounty: The Legend, centering around creating offspring from H3 into the world of Ashan:
"What if you and the various wives in King's Bounty: The Legend created the Heroes of Might and Magic 3? That is the premise of a new mod that I'm working on that I'm classing more as a micro / mini expansion pack for King's Bounty: The Legend."
We remember the speculation of Might and Magic Raiders, caused by Ubsoft's registering of a new domain. This time around, according to fusible.com, Ubi have registered new domain names centering around the name "Duel of Champions".
Like Angelspit last June, I guess we should ask what this is about: "Another first-person action game for the PC? A Heroes VI expansion? Another console title? Or maybe a real-time strategy game?" Perhaps something that eventually comes to nothing. We'll see.
The official page reports that for the coming expansions, one of the most controversial moves NWC ever made has been brought back to life by the current developer team. The Forge, a faction composed of fantasy/sci-fi creatures with "modern" weaponry, is due to make its return into the series.
"Eagerly awaited by the fans of Might & Magic since the days of Heroes III, the Forge has finally found its way back into Heroes! The discovery of a crashed spaceship on Ashan leads to a fierce battle to control and exploit the technological wonders of this mysterious starfaring race. Out of the cosmic ashes, a new Faction is born, the ultimate merge between Magic and Tech: THE FORGE!
Meet the first four creatures of this new Faction: the gun-slinging Grunt, the flame-throwing Pyro, the jet-packing Jump Soldier and the missile-shooting Tank. The world of Might & Magic will never be the same again!"
Artwork of some of the planned creatures is also posted on the page; they are the "Grunt", "Jump soldier", "Pyro" and the "Tank". Click on the images to see larger versions.
We are not just getting retro maps from H3 lovers these days, there is some evidence to suggest that the map editor of Heroes V is also in use.
"The Rise of the Banshee Queen" is a small map for Tribes of the East, all put up and ready to play. Created by Arxur, this little map should be nice to play for some quick Friday evening fun.
"Key to Dominion", also for TotE, is a test map currently in version 0.91 and available for willing testers right away. Built by map maker Ninakoru, it is an extra large epic map which is likely to ensure hours of fun for H5 fans - but only if you help testing it. Let's go!
I am told that after lot of hard work, the devs are going to release patch 1.3 next week after doing a proper quality check. The patch contents are as follows:
Online features:
Auto-matchmaking: let the game find an opponent for you.
Invite Friends: you’ll be able to invite players from your friends list directly in-game.
Official Map Tags: highlight official maps released by Ubisoft and the others in the map selection screen.
Bugs fixed: Abilities/Gameplay/Campaign:
Sanctuary - The "Challenge" ability has no functionality.
Sanctuary - The "Trail of Clouds" will completely stop the movement of enemy units that attempt to cross its area of effect.
Menu - The tooltips of the Reputation Abilities do not indicate the proper school which they belong to.
Campaign -The primary quest "The Choice” will not complete when the user upgrades his reputation after visiting an Arena.
Campaign - The hero cannot interact with a Dragon Nexus near the town of Nar-Heresh.
Campaign – In multiplayer, the resources spawn outside the island on Tree of Plenty map.
Campaign - The user cannot select any hero for the Epilogue campaign after previously visiting the other campaign tabs.
The Unyelding trait the user receives for finishing the Sanctuary campaign does not work.
The Barbarian Hero trait the user receives for the Wormchopper achievement does not work as stated in the description.
Create Hero panel's class specific ability name is not localized.
Multiplayer:
The player that is attacked during a Multiplayer session by another player can't complete any Combat Achievements during that battle.
During Siege, one of the player remains on the map if the other player exit the session.
If the user is defeated by not completing the condition to re/capture a town or fort in 7 days - he will receive achievements completed by the AI.
There is no confirmation dialog when kicking another player from the lobby.
Some of multiplayer map name is displayed to English.
A previously saved session cannot be finished after being reloaded, if not all the players rejoin the saved game.
The user that does not join a loaded game will still have his assets in the game.
The client remains on infinite loading screen if he joins any Multiplayer server after he lost his internet connection.
Conflux:
The user cannot buy the newly unlocked items from the Altar of Wishes when reaching a new Dynasty rank, until he advances one more Dynasty level.
The information provided when using "Compare" is incomplete.
The Online Profile displayed is the one of the previous selected friend, if changing the tab to Online Profile after choosing Compare achievements option from the Friends list.
The Player statistics transfer from one player to another after using the "Compare" and "Details" .
When selecting the "View online profile" option for a friend from the friends list, the achievements list shown remains the one of the user.
The confirmation message received when trying to remove an active widget is not localized.
The user cannot see the details and compare the achievements with the other in "leaderboards" and "friends".
After losing the connection to Conflux servers on the transition to the Main Menu, a debug text error is displayed and the Main Menu background disappears.
The user is unable to load any save while in game, after reconnecting to the Internet.
Various:
None of the artifacts present in the Artifact Merchant menu has a description.
Our current poll deals with the most important issues/problems with Heroes VI. In short, we think that there are so many things that needs mending that the developers have had to set up a long list of things to do. Problem is, with such a long list, what to do first?
The three things that the fans have screamed about most loudly are the lack of traditional town screens, a well-functioning map editor and game balance. As of yet the poll is pretty close, so use this chance to add some numbers to the Community's opinions.
What should be improved first? The poll is on the left-hand side of the screen.
Patch 1.4 was released today, as announced on the 
The first completed user-made map for Heroes VI has been posted on Celestial Heavens: 
Celestial Heavens have a tradition for submitting questions to producers and developers from time to time; 
As the new programming team have released this round's patches in single files instead of forcing us to use the in-game updater like the old team did, it is now possible to download them away from your gaming PC. It is also possible to create torrents for those who have unstable web connections, enabling easier download of the some 50 MB patch files.
Ubisoft will make their annual E3 game announcements on Monday June 4th, according to 
