fanstratics gnollspearthorwer

 

 

Hey, All.
Hope each of you is doing relatively well, and welcome to Fanstratics Newsletter #4 (December 2020).

Greetings those of you finding your way here from...

acidcave.net

A quick subscriber update...

Last Newsletter: ~1950.
This Newsletter: ~2300.

 

This month's Troop concept sketch is the Gnoll Spear Thrower.  For those of you who find art production interesting, Justin showcased his rendering the Gnoll via this Twitch stream.

‘Thank you’ to everyone who wrote, especially the well wishers.  If you have any questions or comments, regarding Fanstratics (FST) or Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (HoMM3), feel free to send them along, and I’ll try to answer them in future newsletters (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).  Please keep in mind, it may take at least 7 days before I reply.

This month, I have five initial questions, four of which were asked by the community for ‘The Silent’.  Following those, is part two of the lengthy interview I did with Tavern of Might and Magic.

 

In other news, earlier this month, I fell ill.  At the local clinic, a test for strep throat proved negative, but two days later, a test for COVID returned positive.  In my case, hospitalization was not required, but I’ve experienced all the symptoms to varying degrees.  Persistent fatigue has been the worst, and as of this writing... it continues.  For me, November hasn’t been a productive month.  Hopefully, by the next Newsletter, I’ll be past it.

 

Lastly... an unfortunate report.  On November 7th, the founder and leader of HotA, Docent Picolan passed away.  After all these years, I feel an inherent debt of gratitude to the HotA team for helping keep HoMM3 in the public eye, and while I never met Docent, I believe we would have had much to discuss.  To Docent’s family, friends, and the HotA team, please accept my heartfelt sympathies.

 

Until next time.

Greg

Fanstratics Game Director & Designer

 

*****

 

(Questions, Answers & Comments)

 

 

Fanstratics Faction #1: Allegiant.

 

This first faction should be unsurprising to most.  They are the Allegiant; loyal, faithful, and steadfast in

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"Wryn Pendragon the Umbramancer" (WPU) was cancelled and on its shoulders was created a new one, "The Shadows over Ashan", Heroes VII Community DLC.

https://wpu.worldofheroes.cz/tsoaEN.html

Shadows Over Ashan (TSoA) is a so-called "global modification", meaning that it works like any official DLC. It will add new things to the original game, specifically a new nation/town and units which you can play in both single player and multiplayer maps on one PC (hot seat).
The original Wryn Pendragon: Umbramancer (WPU) project was canceled, but its strong foundations gave rise to this DLC. Except for campaigns and a script-based systems, everything has been preserved.

What is new?

  • Whole new Xel town (ancient alien race)
  • 18 New Xel units
  • 4 New neutral units
  • 4 New Xel heroes
  • New Xel faction skill Mutagenesis
  • 1 Legendary artifact
  • 3 Old-new spells: Bless, Curse, Animate Dead

Thanks WPU Team for your effort! victory

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Two "old" Ubisoft games are coming to an end.

 

First is Might & Magic Heroes Online (MMHO), which last day will be at 30.12.2020. The game claimed to be classical heroes strategy game and you were playing it in web browser.

Might & Magic Elemental Guardians (MMEG), which is mobile game,will be limited from active development but it will continue with a base support. Currently with not known end date, promising to continue further.

But with a note of reallocating staff  to a new project. Nowhere is written that it will be M&M though. And most likely, that this will be a mobile game again.

TheEndofMMHO MMEGoutoffocus

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Great News for Heroes IV!

This mod allows you to play Heroes of Might & Magic IV on 16:9, 16:10 screens. It is built on HoMM IV GL Wrapper, package is already included.. (If you wish to follow GL Wrappers, you  can do that directly in Verokster's GIT)

Supported are: HoMM IV: v3.0, The Gathering Storm v3.0, Winds of War v3.0, Complete (GOG)

Equilibris is not and you will need to wait for EquilibrisHD 3.6, which is still in development by Max.

"Playing in windowed mode on current monitors! ;)"

BTW the GL Wrappers are worthy of check, they do support from H2 to H4. That's good to know, even if we have H3HD mod, which is superior

How to use:
Press F4 to get to windowed mode. In top menu pick up:

"Mod" -> "Resolution Mod" -> "Aspect Ratio"

 

Restart the game, go to settings menu and select your resolution.

Aspect Ratio08 settings


Installation:
Make a copy of your game folder outside of Program Files, extract the mod to the game root, launch the game.

Download, scroll to the end to get it.

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In memory of Docent Picolan - A Hero of Might and Magic

Today, the Heroes of Might and Magic-community received tragic news.
Docent Picolan, leader of the well-known Heroes of Might and Magic III project "Horn of the Abyss" passed away on November 7th, 2020.

Docent

Docent Picolan - Image from Horn of the Abyss Facebook

These are the words of the Horn of the Abyss crew:

"Dear friends,

We have suffered a grievous loss. On November 7, 2020, the founder and leader of the Horn of the Abyss project, wonderful artist and composer known to the wide HoMM community as Docent Picolan, died tragically. It would be no exaggeration to call HotA his brainchild, as it was he who created most visual and fundamental concepts that laid the foundation of the project, and his unquenchable enthusiasm had been our driving force through all 13 years of development. Not only was Docent the project manager; he was also responsible for a huge amount of graphical assets. He also kept in touch with the community, wrote music, and simply led by example, helping everyone stay invested and interested in our work.

It will take some time before we come to terms with this loss and figure out how to continue our work without him. Nevertheless, HotA Crew promises that the development of the project will continue. The Factory which Docent had been devoting all his energy to for the last three years will be completed and released in loving memory of our friend and colleague.

HotA Crew"

We want to extend our deepest condolences to the HoTA-crew, Docent's friends and family. We also want to express our gratitude for the many creations of Docent Picolan. While he may no longer be amongst us, he will live on through his many works of creativity. 

"May tender memories soften your grief"

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This time a lil belated, as it went lost in my mail. But very interesting cause of the first part of the Q&A from Tavern of Might and Magic and some other insights, as always. Please subcribe here, to show Greg your interest. ;)

 

 

straits feral vampireHey, All.

Hope each of you is doing relatively well, and welcome to Fanstratics Newsletter #3 (November 2020).

Greetings those of you finding your way here from...
dtf.ru
lavapotion.com

A quick subscriber update...
Last Newsletter: ~1150.
This Newsletter: ~1950.

This month's Troop concept sketch is the Feral Vampire.

‘Thank you’ to everyone who wrote, especially the well wishers.  If you have any questions or comments, regarding Fanstratics (FST) or Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (HoMM3), feel free to send them along, and I’ll try to answer them in future newsletters (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).  Please keep in mind, it may take at least 7 days before I reply.

Moving forward, I’m splitting the Newsletter in two.  Section 1 will dedicate 5 to 10 questions to Fanstratics news and general fan inquires.  Section 2 will dedicate to 10 to 15 questions to written interviews I am in the process of doing, or have done, with different websites.

Some of these interviews are very long, and will transpire over a couple Newsletters.  To start, I will begin posting questions from a very lengthy interview I did with Tavern of Might and Magic.  Hopefully, you will find it interesting.

Until next time.

Greg
Fanstratics Game Director & Designer

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So, time and date is set for our interview with LavaPotion and it will happen this Tuesday! This one will be very special as it will be the very first interview we do "eye-to-eye". I will be interviewing Carl Toftfelt who is the lead designer for the game Songs of Conquest.

We want your questions to be featured in this interview!
Simply write the question(s) as a comment on this article and I will do my best to get an answer for you.

Songs of Conquest

 

Now, I also want to make a statement regarding the last interview I posted and the discussion about Horn of he Abyss' Factory Town. 
I love Horn of the Abyss, really, I do. Their contribution not only to making sure the Heroes of Might and Magic III game as a whole stays alive. Also, for many years leading the way for the modding community in terms of quality work.

I have decided to delete the part of the interview where I discuss the Factory Faction with Michael Wolf. Why, you may ask? Well, I may have went a little to hard on it and it was a bit uncalled for.
I still have a lot of question-marks about the faction, but I am working on actually clearing those out and hopefully, the Horn of the Abyss team will be kind enough to do a interview about this topic as well.

I hope you can all forgive me for being a bit blunt and overly critic on the subject during the interview. Even if you don't forgive me, I still want to apologize.

Mad Max

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Part 2 Michael Wolf (Level Designer) on Heroes of Might and Magic 3 The Forge, HoTA and more.

So, after staying up until 4 AM editing this video, it is finally ready for your viewing!

Since, like I mentioned, I stayed up until 4 AM editing, I'm sort of praying to Sandro there's no weird video glitches or editing mistakes in there. If there is, make sure you let me know!

What did you think of Part 2? Which part was your favorite?

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Hey again everyone!
It's me HeroOfPunk... Oh wait, actually. PoL was nice enough to make my wish come true, I am officially MadMax instead of HeroOfPunk, a name that has been with me since I was 15 and had a 40 cm Mohawk.
Oh well, on with some more interesting news!

 

My math exam is finally over, which means I will now have time to finalize the edits of Part 2 of the interview with Michael Wolf, a legendary Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Level Designer!
ICYMI, here's the first part of the interview:

Part 2 is coming, THIS WEEK! 

But wait, THERE'S MORE! I really do believe it is tolerated to use the good old Caps Lock in this case. Because, next up for a interview is LavaPotion, just in case you may have missed them, they are masterminds behind the Heroes of Might and Magic inspired game Songs of Conquest. You can check out their first reveal trailer in the video below!

 

So, that's all the good news, right? Well not really.
To end this all around positive article, I wanted to end with some of the stats that we have accumulated through our 3 interview videos released so far.
Subscribers: 96 (So close to 100!)
Most viewed video: Interview with Michael Wolf, 1145 views
Most commented video: Interview with Tim Lang on Aeolwyn's Legacy (Watch here!)
Likes in total on our videos: 162
Dislikes on our videos: ZERO, ZIP, NONE! That's pretty damn insane? (Please don't go disliking our videos to mess with our pride)

So, that only leaves one thing.

What questions do you want us to ask LavaPotion about Songs of Conquest? Most likely, this interview will be held eye to eye as the developers and I happen to orginiate from the very same little small swedish city.

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  1. ERA3 Released!
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