This, in my opinion, is the sexiest group of portraits from the forthcoming Heroes MMORPG Heroes Online to be released so far. See all the other portraits and the full-size images on the Heroes Online Overview page. Pay special attention to the two slinky, sword-swinging elf maidens. RRRRrrrrrrrrr....

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Lunch by Chris Tiahrt was an entry in the Gloria competition at MapHaven that won the Clover Magic award. It is "the story of a Dragon who resents the absence of his sacrificial princess and sets out to right the situation." It is a small, single-player map for the Winds of War expansion that includes several close battles. The mapmaker says it can be completed in less than two hours.

In related news, Timeless Land is still in need of a tester. Please contact the mapmaker if you think you can complete his extra-large map. Vanadia's Freedom has been updated to version 1.1.
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Only five days left in January, and no announcement has been made.


Will Heroes V be announced this month?
Yes

19.13%
No

80.86%
Unique Votes: 115
You may remember that Heroic Corner started a rumor last month about Nival and Ubisoft officializing their partnership in January. The Celestial Heavens readers remained skeptical: the Yes option on the poll never had more than 30% of votes all month long. Meanwhile, all inquiries in the Nival forums remain unanswered.

Since the announcement isn't likely to happen on Friday, or during the week-end for that matter, there is only a little hope left for today and Monday. My team will be monitoring the news sites closely. Keep your fingers crossed.

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Electronic Arts likes to keep us on our toes - in a turnaround that would inspire any politician, EA stated in a quarterly conference call that "it wanted to keep all its options open regarding this investment and could buy more Ubisoft shares, possibly a controlling stake" although EA's finance Director Warren Jenson said that "If something happens, we expect it to be with the full cooperation of Ubisoft."

EA are now the largest shareholder in Ubisoft, owning a 19.9% stake, compared to the 17.5% owned by the founders, the Guillemot brothers.

Read more on Reuters.
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For those of you who are getting desperate about the status of Heroes V, especially in light of yesterday's news, here is a summary of the most recent messages from producer Fabrice Cambounet:
  • January 25th: "I said on CH that there will be no info before the official announcement"
  • August 17th: "Dont bother sending mails. The announcement will be done when we'll be ready for it. Then we'll resume discussions."
  • August 2nd: " I`m not on vacation, however I wont have time to answer before the announcement. That`s why Angelspit temporarily closed the questions thread."
  • June 15th: " The announcement date being pushed back is becoming a running joke even here, so I wont detail it anymore. It will come someday, hopefully. Just note that it doesnt affect the game development."
All quotes can be found in the Round Table forums, with the exception of today's quote which appeared on Heroic Corner. Keep the faith!
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A member of our forums, sxShopper, could not wait any longer and got in touch with the French and UK offices of Ubisoft. The replies he received were a bit questionable, to say the least:
  • "This game is announced in Fébruary, the 17th," said Amanda from Consumer Services. "This is the link for the site." The URL she provided points to the Settlers V Web site.
  • "Thank you for your e-mail", said Jacqui, UK's Support Manager. "Ubisoft are not planning to release a Heroes 5 title, I suggest you contact 3DO publishers for details on this issue."
We all know that 3DO filed for bankruptcy in May 2003. Despite this new "information", there is no need to be concerned about Heroes V's chances to appear in store someday. We can however wonder what's going on in the marketing department of Ubisoft. Even 3DO never seemed so confused about its own release schedule.
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The Heroes of Might and Magic V proposal by Marelt Ekiran is once again available on this site. The author explains that it "is the result of almost a year of posting on forums like Heroes Community, The Round Table, Guardians Grove and others. During this time, many of the ideas started to come together as an almost complete design for the new game." While we get closer to the announcement and the release of the real Heroes V, it's interesting to read what the fans want the game to be like. After all, discussions about Heroes VI have already started in the forums.
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The 'Might and Magic Tribute' development camp, the team of fans responsible for the freeware tribute to the M&M series, has been a little quiet recently. They've been far from idle though - Arturchix, one of the MMT Designers, has given us an update on the MMT forums and has included some juicy artwork and one of their latest tracks to listen to (MP3 format).

If you've not tried it yet, there's also a technical demo (released last year) in the download section of the MMT Website.
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IGN reports that Ubisoft revealed its Q3 financial results. Sales of $231 million were lower than last year, but the company's holiday titles performed well. Prince of Persia Warrior Within sold 1.9 million copies worldwide in one month, while Ghost Recon 2 sold 1.4 million copies in one week. Strategy gamers should note that The Settlers: Heritage of Kings sold 220,000 copies in five weeks in Germany. "Ubisoft is well on its way to meeting its fiscal-year objectives and can count on an excellent year in 2005/06," said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot.

Elsewhere, Yahoo Finance mentions that Guillemot is interested in acquiring Eidos. An Eidos bid could be a defense against an hostile takeover by Electronic Arts.
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  1. 2004 in PC Gaming
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