H7 Review Categories

The game Might & Magic: Heroes VII, developed by Limbic Entertainment.
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cjlee
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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby cjlee » 30 Nov 2015, 02:15

Karmakeld wrote:@erwinner the problem with 'skipping' past the campaign review is when it comes to rating innovation. Surely the campaigns will include scripted events that's innovative compared to older Heroes games, and you won't find these innovations, in unscripted maps, hence you'd miss the progress. Ofcourse one might be able to cover this via eviewing the editor, but again, we don't know if there are ingame scripted events that aren't availble for players in the editor, e.g. such as dams being broken down, and water flooding out. And in my optic, not taking these matter in consideration, would be unfair for the future map-makers, who would want to know what innovative possibilities H7 has to offer compared to older versions. As gourley4p writes, the map making community is a big part of what keeps Heroes games alive, long after release.
SIgh.

I used to think that having active map events like destroying map objects and water flooding out of a dam was a great game changer. This was one of my biggest reasons for wanting to buy H7 once it was fully patched.

Now you say that this might not be available to ordinary mapmakers? In other words, that the map editor doesn't have an easy way for you Kalah to find out?

It's not good if something needs serious scripting to put into action. Most mapmakers aren't going to do this. Would Jeff want to write 50 lines of code to get a tree to fall?

If the Limbic guys were smart about making a user friendly map editor, they should just have every single placeable object come with a default tickable box in its properties menu "can be destroyed". (Just like most objects used to have things like "can be owned by Computer Player" "can be picked up by Computer Player" "Event Triggered by Players Tan Green Pink" etc) . Then the effects of the destruction could be automated - eg water automatically flowing downhill and loose sand or rocks automatically falling.

This would allow gamers to destroy witch huts that they want to keep from the enemy (if mapmaker allows), cut down trees to reach a hidden obstacle (if mapmaker allows), demolish a fort or castle, etc.

Reactive map objects was already available for Command and Conquer Generals 15 years ago, where you can destroy dams and flood valleys. :canthear: :disagree: :tired:

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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Erwinner » 30 Nov 2015, 09:22

Karmakeld wrote:@erwinner the problem with 'skipping' past the campaign review is when it comes to rating innovation. Surely the campaigns will include scripted events that's innovative compared to older Heroes games, and you won't find these innovations, in unscripted maps, hence you'd miss the progress. Ofcourse one might be able to cover this via eviewing the editor, but again, we don't know if there are ingame scripted events that aren't availble for players in the editor, e.g. such as dams being broken down, and water flooding out. And in my optic, not taking these matter in consideration, would be unfair for the future map-makers, who would want to know what innovative possibilities H7 has to offer compared to older versions. As gourley4p writes, the map making community is a big part of what keeps Heroes games alive, long after release.
if you want to review the new and innovative things you can do in the editor, why would you go into the campaign to look for things you may or may not be able to do in the editor when you can just go into the editor, that makes very little sense lol

at best the campaign works as an obligatory "here's one I did earlier" free sample from Ubisoft to get a general sense of the game, but a review focusing on how good the official campaign is isn't a review of the actual game, it's a review of a campaign, and a terrible campaign means nothing if the mechanics and the editor are excellent, but a fantastic campaign with a lame editor and crappy mechanics will equal a bad game lol

none of Ubisoft's Heroes campaigns have pushed the scripting engine of those games anyway, lol

what would be useful information for you and me, would be to understand what the scripting language is in the editor, how user friendly is it to script, what arguments and variables are there, can the game and engine be modded and manipulated, what is the ruleset of the game, can we access the game rulesets and data, which parts are hardcoded, etc, but it is of no help to mapmakers and modders to be told anecdotally that Ubisoft has included a mission where you can build a bridge and knock it down lol

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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Galaad » 30 Nov 2015, 11:25

Ubi-Nox wrote: However, the tool also has some limitations and you won’t be able to break all the “rules of the game” and ultimately it will still be a Heroes game.
I don't think they provided a Heroes game, and they made sure we won't be able to save the day.
They claim they give modding support while their stupid design is hardcoded.

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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby cjlee » 30 Nov 2015, 12:17

Galaad wrote:
Ubi-Nox wrote: However, the tool also has some limitations and you won’t be able to break all the “rules of the game” and ultimately it will still be a Heroes game.
I don't think they provided a Heroes game, and they made sure we won't be able to save the day.
They claim they give modding support while their stupid design is hardcoded.
I suspect that in a few years, the community would just have to band together on some crowdsource funding site, get some money, pay Ubisoft for the franchise, and develop Heroes 8 ourselves.

We will never get a game that can satisfy more than a small minority of fans from Ubisoft.

Fortunately by the time Heroes 8 is due, Ubisoft will have so damaged the value of this franchise that it won't be worth much. Maybe $50k will be enough to pay off Ubisoft.

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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Galaad » 30 Nov 2015, 12:40

cjlee wrote:I suspect that in a few years, the community would just have to band together on some crowdsource funding site, get some money, pay Ubisoft for the franchise, and develop Heroes 8 ourselves.
If that ever happens we will have to track down Ashanites. :D

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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Pol » 16 Dec 2015, 11:55

@cjlee
It's easier to create MM like game on kickstarter.

@Kalah
& modding support? Playability, AI and modding. As we support mods, modding would be pretty important aspect.
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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Kalah » 16 Dec 2015, 22:36

I'm not a modder so I can offer nothing there, but we know that there is at least one mod out there already, the buff editor.
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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Karmakeld » 28 Dec 2015, 23:26

Cjlee wrote
I used to think that having active map events like destroying map objects and water flooding out of a dam was a great game changer. This was one of my biggest reasons for wanting to buy H7 once it was fully patched.

Now you say that this might not be available to ordinary mapmakers? In other words, that the map editor doesn't have an easy way for you Kalah to find out?
(I posted an answer long ago, but due to the reply bug, I didn't bother repost untill now).
I wrote that we don't know if that's the case. Not that it is :). I haven't tried the editor, but as a map maker I would be most curious to find out if there are certain campaign 'scriptings' that aren't available in the editor. I've seen events in some if the H6 campaigns, which seemed doubtful that map makers could reproduce similar events, and I would find that somewhat of a sad limitation. So far I've read that one of the latest patches contained several editor scripts which I would've expected to be present to begin with.
Much like Cjlee don't feel like he has the time to spend hours on a buggy game, only to find himself having to start all over after the next patch, from a map makers point of view, I would start on projects/stories if I was uncertain whether some ideas could be scripted or not.
Erwinner, I'm inclined to suggest that your point about going directly to the editor to find out what's possible, is just as pointless, as you suggest it is looking at the campaigns to see what can be done. It's called looking for inspiration. One can spend quite many hours testing wheter an idea is actually possible, but you might be surprised how many ideas can sprout from ideas seen in existing maps/campaigns. No need to invent the deep plate over again, you know.
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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Erwinner » 28 Dec 2015, 23:46

Karmakeld wrote:Erwinner, I'm inclined to suggest that your point about going directly to the editor to find out what's possible, is just as pointless, as you suggest it is looking at the campaigns to see what can be done. It's called looking for inspiration. One can spend quite many hours testing wheter an idea is actually possible, but you might be surprised how many ideas can sprout from ideas seen in existing maps/campaigns. No need to invent the deep plate over again, you know.
sorry man, this follow up is far too late for me to even really remember what we were talking about lol

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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Karmakeld » 29 Dec 2015, 17:30

Ha, I wonder if that'll work in real life as well, then I'll finally know how to win a discussion with my girlfriend.. ;)
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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Galaad » 30 Dec 2015, 02:57

We all know how to end discussion with girlfriend :D

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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Kalah » 31 Dec 2015, 22:03

My review is complete. I spent quite a long time on this, so I hope you like it. If you feel there's something missing, please make your contribution in the comments section. :)
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Re: H7 Review Categories

Unread postby Kalah » 01 Jan 2016, 21:01

Since the review is now published, I'll close off this one. If you have comments to make on the actual review, you can post them there.

Oh and please don't post lots of "why didn't you talk about the...?" questions; if you feel there is something missing from the review, you can add it in a comment - that's the point of the comments section. :)
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