Biweekly News Digest - 22 April 18'
- by Pol
George Almond, Chief Concept Artist of Heroes of Might & Magic III. and IV. is looking for a new job, as full time game artist. And per chance you shouldn't miss an opportunity - ok, if you are a game developer, to hire him, of course - to see his portfolio from good old Might & Magic times on artstation.com.
I much hope to see his art again in some Fantasy or Cyber Punk game, now it's perfect period of time to make it happen.
You can follow the discussion here, thanks for the alert Marzhin!
What is written here?
If you are following "AI project for Heroes from Quantomas", you have a spark of hope that it may go public this year. Probably just for public testing. Nothing was promised but you can see that possibility between the lines.
This is a chance for Ubisoft, which shouldn't be missed. Just I would add, GoG would do that..
We are still awaiting continuation of "Interview with Tim Lang", there may be a bigger time delay, but all parts are already recorded, as confirmed by Super Goober here.
--Meanwhile I was writing this, the part two was released!--
In Poland there will be regular music festival "The Symphony of Heroes", where will be played three symphonic suites by NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra from Heroes II. - IV. by mere 80 musicians. Date to note in your calendar is 26.10.2018 15-17 hour. You can already reserve the tickets.
And one more return to the Poland, seems that Creature Quest is not the only with that concept, one man started "Heroless III. Comic Adventures". There's one strip yet. 
Fingers crossed to see more!
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Formally Biweekly News - 23 March 18'
- by Pol
There seems to be some resentment with current HoTA release 1.5.3 - as they removed some of random elements from the game. Which can be cool for MP but evidently it's upsetting for SP. This is, they changed Resistance. And it can now even prevent enemy hero from summoning. You can find the release here, compared to HoTA 1.5.2 this is a mainly bug fix release. Horn of the Abyss is Heroes III. fan AddOn.
Elemental Guardians - mobile game from Ubisoft, entered offical Beta testing phase. Anyone can register. Official release date is at May 31. It was a year ago when we first informed about it, so it undertake a long journey in the shadow of public eyes, the game is available for both platforms. Check all the latest news on their twitter.
Maybe that there is Kings Bounty II. on the horizont, 1C Company announced 4 new titles to be revealed on PAX EAST 2018, which runs April 5-8. PAX twitter again.
Ubisoft joined forces with Tencent and fend off the hostile take over by Vivendi. Tencent, that is China. A big player here. Official press release from Ubi follows here
We have a new contributor Karmakeld, welcome him aboard! Three times hooray!!! Or four, as he's Heroes IV map maker. :D
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New Object Package for H4
- by Karmakeld
I'm pleased to announce that I'm working on a new OBJECT PACKAGE for H4.
Thanks to H4 editing program ResHelper made by Namerutan, as well as modding breakthrough on fellow fansite, heroescommunity, it is no longer limited to members of the Equilibris to add new objects to Heroes 4.
With the help of fellow modder Radmutant69, I'm planning on adding a large number of new objects. (Radmutant69 is kindly helping me import alot of the mirrored animations as H4 objects, as well as mirroring entrances and fixing flag positions).
A prioritized wishlist were posted here 4(!) years ago, and we're working our way through that as a start.
- 1st Creature Dwellings - In general I decided not to mirror south facing object.
- 2nd Quest Huts.
- 3rd All One-Way portal entrances and exits.
- 4th All Two-Way portal entrances and exits.
- 5th Miscellanious (Magi Windows, Tavern, Blacksmith, Sanctuary, Hexis' Garrison).
- 6th Treasure buildings/creature banks.
- 7th Power Up's (EXCEPT moral/luck boosters, alters and stat gems).
- 8th Ship Wrecks, Derelict Ship, Gargoyle columns edit:(demonic trees).
Read more: New Object Package for H4
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Announcing Interview with Tim Lang
- by Super Goober
Hi there!
As a long-time fan of the Might and Magic games, I'm delighted to announce that there will be a very special interview coming up on January 20th with one of the main level designers of Might and Magic VI; none other than Tim Lang!
He and I have known each other since 2012-2013, while I was still on Lich Labs, the team responsible for Children of the Void. Well now, he's agreed to come and be part of an interview called Developer Secrets!
This interview will focus on Might and Magic 6 in particular, as I feel it's one of the most iconic and intriguing games in the franchise. There are many secrets that Tim knows about the game itself, why things changed the way they did, and stuff most people didn't even know was a thing. In the interview, we'll be covering:
- Some of the game's strange peculiarities and features
- The NWC dungeon accessible via Dragonsands.
- The beta trailer of Might and Magic 6 and a couple of pre-release screenshots
- The secret identity of the shopkeepers and playable characters
- Life behind the scenes as a developer
- Exploring the possibility of pre-release content we as a community have yet to discover
- Unveiling the mystery behind the infamous joke title "Super Goober"
Not only do I have a bunch of questions for Tim, but I'm more than certain you guys here at CH do as well. We'd love to answer some of the questions you may have about the game! I will go through the list and pick up to 10 of them and read them out to Tim and have him answer them for you. The interview, once finished, will be posted on my Youtube channel (Sibernethy).
Remember, the interview will be held on Jan 20th, so be sure to post your questions if you have any!
Thanks for reading. 
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Interview with Mike Winterbauer
- by Angelspit
There's an interview with Mike Winterbauer at Sega-16. The veteran artist is responsible for some iconic art of classic games of the 80s and 90s. He talks about his work for Might and Magic games:
Almost always I was given minimal information about the game I was supposed to do cover art for. One of the exceptions is the Might & Magic covers and the maps I did art work for, I was well-informed about the game and characters. Typically, I was handed screen shots and a synopsis of what the game was about. The games had a low-res quality about them, so the storyline and gameplay were integral to the success of the game. This enabled me to be very creative in coming up with a cool idea for the box cover.
The Might & Magic paintings I had a lot of time to paint. I worked on each of the pieces for well over a month, as there was plenty of time to paint each of them. They were all large paintings, being 30 by 40 inches on board, and I wanted each of them to be the very best I could make them. I hoped that the paintings would one day become valuable, and that is why I painted them larger, as larger collectible paintings can be highly sought after.You can see Mike's artwork on his Web site. His superb painting for the Land of Xeen map is certainly worth another look.
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The Call of Liriel
- by jeff
The Call of Liriel
is an Indie open world first-person party-based free movement RPG. It is being funded on Indiegogo.
They are using MaestroMod for images, the character's portraits, items and other 2D art. Their initial funding goal is $8000 by December 12th. Like a kickstarter those who donate will receive perks as a way of saying thank you. There are later funding goals all explained at the site linked above.
Link to campaign
>>> https://igg.me/at/the-call-of-liriel <<<
The team consists of Diego López Bugna - Game developer, Level designer, and Software engineer, he started programming on the commodore 128. Game developer since 2015. MM7 lover.
The second team member is Gabriel Perdomo - Level designer, 3d artist, and Jack of all trades man.
Crowdfunding trailer:
It is being discussed in the Might and Magic Forum in this thread, which you can see pinned down, as comments.
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Creature Quest Q&A - Final Round 2
- by Pol
Creature Quest - Q&A - Final Round 2
Thanks, that you have waited patiently, and we have it here for you. This is the second round of our Q&A with Creature Quest Team. On your questions answer John Van Caneghem, Heather Poon as CQ Art Director and Tracy Iwata as VFX Artist. This is the final round and you can find the previous part here. My thanks to whole CQ Team for their help, as for the great answers.
1. Avonu: IIRC JVC created MM1 alone. He said that he created King's Bounty with one additional code writer and one graphic artist and it took one year. Heroes 3 was created within 18 months with 30+ people. How long it took to create CQ and how many people were working on it?
JVC: "From start to beta 18 months and averaged 10 people, but we also used a lot of outsourcing especially for art."
Read more: Creature Quest Q&A - Final Round 2
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Dark Messiah Revisited 2017
- by Angelspit
Chris Thursten of PC Gamer took another look at Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, which was released more than 10 years ago already, back in the days when Ubisoft was trying to expand the scope of the Might and Magic franchise. Referring to the game as "a brilliant murder sim", he reminds us that the game is a spiritual sequel to the excellent Arx Fatalis, and some sort of blueprints to Arkane Studios' very successful Dishonored series. The game wasn't praised by critics or gamers originally, but at times it could be a lot of fun:
"As adventuring wizard’s apprentice Sareth, you kick men and orcs with bone-shattering force into spike traps and off rope bridges. You combine directional movement and mouse swings to lop limbs with your sword just so. You emit fireballs from your palm and watch as enemies, stumbling over the flaming corpses of their comrades, catch fire too and flail and fall."
But PC Gamer also notes that the game didn't age so well in other areas:
"Dark Messiah’s technology is no longer impressive and the world of Might and Magic is not interesting enough to account for the loss. Worse are its character designs, which support a plot that is as derivative as it is faintly embarrassing to re-encounter ten years on. As Sareth you’re a Chosen, somebody running errands for louche wizards, performed with the intensity of actors who don’t quite know how to feel about the fact that they could be doing panto instead."
So Dark Messiah is 11 years old, and before long Heroes III will celebrate its 20th aniversary. We are not getting any younger, are we?
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CQ - Kingdoms & DC 2.0 are here, what they do bring on the table?
- by Pol
This is that sort of patch, which is larger. So much, that it changes the game in several aspects and create a new flow, or balance, if you wish. With which effects, till this date, is still being discussed.
The patch 1.4, released five days ago, brought fixes, new "Kingdom Mode" and "Dungeon Challenge". See the full change log and videos on CQ news page. Let see a features excerpt:
Fixes
- Dot fusion is now possible, to upgrade your existing awakened creature to 4d you need 4d dupe and a heap of diamonds. It begins on 125 and continues to 350 and probably over. - Good option, although costy. In many cases just farming a new creature could be more viable. But for the rest, this is a life saver!
- If you were bored there are now three new Quests and it was added Emperor Difficulty.
Kingdom mode
- More resources were introduced and you get them like regular rewards now. But you can mine them or study scrolls in your Kingdom to receive a steady flow. Nice tips from Avonu are to be read here. There are also bonus buildings for you creatures available.
DC 2.0
- Instead of one dungeon, preferrabely with 5 waves, you have now five with 3 waves in Gold Tier and just three in Silver. By filling all of them you are getting bonuses, with last two being Boss wave stun and silence immunity.
- From what I see in my stats, both defense and offense, players are trying to get comfortable in the new setup but quite many are not yet here. Everybody is farming.
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