DEMO MAPS: "Necropolis vs Sylvan" &...

[karacha]

... "Necropolis vs Sylvan" & "Academy vs Dungeon."


Hi everyone, I'm new here. I don't know if this has been posted before or not, but you can now play other 4 factions as well. You will still use the old "Haven vs Inferno" map, and the towns will stay the same (because other towns are not coded into the demo, but some people from the official UBI forums, including Akrav, TheRider12, Sorapak, myself and others played around with Demo files and made these nice modifications. Haven and Inferno dwellings will produce Necro/Sylvan and Academy/Dungeon units instead.

If you're interested, go to

http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/ ... 095734/p/1

Have fun.

[BenchBreaker]

well done

[HodgePodge]

Welcome to the Round Table, karacha. BTW, in Heroes 5, the Preserve has been renamed to Sylvan. But as long as it still has Unicorns, what's in a name?

[karacha]

Welcome to the Round Table, karacha. BTW, in Heroes 5, the Preserve has been renamed to Sylvan. But as long as it still has Unicorns, what's in a name?

Ahhh... yes, true. I haven't played the Demo that much you know, so it will take some time to get used to all these changes. It is, indeed, Necropolis Vs Sylvan and Academy Vs Dungeon.

Of course, the fact that they coded all these things with "wrong" or "old" names doesn't help much. The reason why I said "Preserve," is simply because I was looking at the text files we modded, like this one:

<Item href="/MapObjects/Preserve/Heam

You can see the word "Preserve" there, and Heam is one of their Heroes.
I edited the original topic name, to avoid the confusion. Thank you for noticing that and for welcoming me to the forum.

I was a long time "lurker" here, for over a year, maybe even longer. So, I am actually familiar with most of the posters here, and with the famous "No Starforce" HodgePodge as well.

I was also very relieved when I've heard about HoMM V not having SF protection. My old computer died after few days of having the Beta version with SF. I don't have any proof SF actually did it, but better to be safe with some other protection than sorry, right?

[Nebs]

karacha, think you could do something with Duel heroes? Like changing them? :-)

There's a duel folder also in data.pak, with different presets of heroes. For example, current academy hero we have is AcademyPreset2.xdb. In folder there are three for each faction...think you might figure out how to 'enable' them for online game?

[Nebs]

akrav, and elfen_lied made some great work.

In short, all 18 players can be played with online, and all troops can be changed. More here:

http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/ ... 095734/p/3

[dragonn]

I can't belive how you people manoeuvre to see all the game features. Why mess with all this options, game system, while you will be able to play the game in it's full glory very soon. Have patience...

[DaemianLucifer]

If we had patience,we wouldnt download the demo in the first place

[karacha]

Why mess with all this options, game system, while you will be able to play the game in it's full glory very soon. Have patience...

The answer is simple: Why not? It's all made nicely into text files, which are relatively easy to edit. We wanted to play with all factions and heroes, see battle animations, analyze the strategy as much as possible; so we're doing just that.

It extends the life of the demo, and - as DaemianLucifer already said - if we had patience we wouldn't download the demo in the first place.

[karacha]

akrav, and elfen_lied made some great work.

In short, all 18 players can be played with online, and all troops can be changed. More here:

http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/ ... 095734/p/3

Great job!

[dragonn]

If we had patience,we wouldnt download the demo in the first place

You know that's not the point! Demo is one thing. You download it to try the game. Modding is another thing. You mod to get more of something which was not given to you in the first place...

PS: Do what you want, If it goes for me I can wait. If I played the demo too much, I've would got bored with the full game very soon (just kidding)

[karacha]

If we had patience,we wouldnt download the demo in the first place

You know that's not the point! Demo is one thing. You download it to try the game. Modding is another thing. You mod to get more of something which was not given to you in the first place...

PS: Do what you want, If it goes for me I can wait. If I played the demo too much, I've would got bored with the full game very soon (just kidding)

I think you're wrong. All those things - heroes and creatures ARE in the game, we simply unlocked them for that map, that's all. It's not illegal, there's absolutely no harm in doing this, and many people (myself included) were very happy to have more factions to play with, even if it's on one single map.

So, my position is this: If we can make people happy by doing something that's simple and perfectly legal (because text editing is the same thing as using the map editor - all those maps we'll create in the future will be compressed like that into text files, which you can further edit if you want) - why not do it? I like making people happy. Also, this might encourage more people to buy the game. Many players were bored after playing only those 2 factions in the demo. I know I was. After 2 days. This at least extended the life of the demo somewhat.

In conclusion - these are not really mods. Mods normally modify the game story, graphics, items, stats, depending on a game genre in a more significant way.
Take mods for Diablo, Elder Scroll Series, Half-Life for example: They create new stories, new character classes, they rebalance stats, they add completely new graphics and tiles, dialogs, etc.

What we did here is map editing using "text editor" instead of a "map editor." In fact, I would go further saying that editing these text files is in fact the same thing as using the editor, but without the pretty GUI.

Remember how game developers, or fans would place "Random City" in previous heroes games using the map editor, so the player can select any city from a menu and just play a "free exploration" game with or without special goals?

Well, that's exactly what we did here but in a more limited way, since they did not provide town graphics in order to save space (make the demo file much smaller).

[Eternor]

It's not illegal, there's

No, it is illegal, read the EULA for the demo.

[karacha]

...No, it is illegal, read the EULA for the demo.

I have read the same thing in every EULA, yet all those games have mods that are available for legal download. They might not be officially supported by the developer, but you can find them all over the place, with the same or very similar wording in the EULA.

Are the mods for HoMM 3&4 illegal?

Is modifying the code from an existing map in the map editor against the EULA?

Thank you.

[Gaidal Cain]

I have read the same thing in every EULA, yet all those games have mods that are available for legal download. They might not be officially supported by the developer, but you can find them all over the place, with the same or very similar wording in the EULA.

Are the mods for HoMM 3&4 illegal?

Technically? Yes, probably. Would Ubi ever sue the creators? Not unless they want the whole community turned against them...

[karacha]

I have read the same thing in every EULA, yet all those games have mods that are available for legal download. They might not be officially supported by the developer, but you can find them all over the place, with the same or very similar wording in the EULA.

Are the mods for HoMM 3&4 illegal?

Technically? Yes, probably. Would Ubi ever sue the creators? Not unless they want the whole community turned against them...

Feir enough. I respect that. So, to keep this discussion relatively short: if one thinks this is illegal and does not want to do it for whatever reasons - be it moral, or simply because they are afraid - please, do not do it.

Simple enough. No need to complicate the discussion here.

Me? I will continue to play my 6 factions on the same map, until the full game comes out. When it does, UBI will get my money for making a great product. I own all Heroes games, and since they decided not to bother with SF for HoMM V - I will buy Collector Edition as soon as I see it in the store.

[ThunderTitan]

Hmm... I remember reading somewhere that you can argue in court that the EULA isn't legaly binding because you only get to read/sign it after you already bought the game.

[DaemianLucifer]

Hmm... I remember reading somewhere that you can argue in court that the EULA isn't legaly binding because you only get to read/sign it after you already bought the game.

It just depends of the court and the lawyers. Anyone can be convicted for anything.

[ThunderTitan]

It just depends of the court and the lawyers.Anyone can be convicted for anything.

Unless ur Michael or OJ, and the trial takes place in California.

[DaemianLucifer]

It just depends of the court and the lawyers. Anyone can be convicted for anything.

Unless ur Michael or OJ, and the trial takes place in California.

Careful! You could be sued for slander because of remarks like those