The Demo thread

The new Heroes games produced by Ubisoft. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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Kalah
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The Demo thread

Unread postby Kalah » 13 Apr 2006, 20:39

Post your comments and impressions here. What's good? What's bad?

The demo (approx. 700 Mb) can be obtained from any of these locations:

3DGamers
Worthplaying
Filefront
Gamershell
Gamespot
Boomtown
Gamedaily
Xfire
Espace.ch
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Kareeah Indaga
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Unread postby Kareeah Indaga » 13 Apr 2006, 21:09

A note: Profile name appears to have a character limit. If it was in the Read-Me I missed it.

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Unread postby Campaigner » 13 Apr 2006, 21:14

1st post! hah! :D

I'm impressed by the A.I. I attacked the pack of Cavaliers at the beginning of the campaign. I targeted battledive at the end of an enemy Cavalier stacks destination only to learn that they stopped before that square....

Oh well, I replay the battle and this time I wait, and the Cavaliers go as far as they can.

As for graphics, I learned that I need a better graphics card since I can't use anti-aliasing at all! It becomes choppy as hell. Everything else is maxed though.

Now its back to the battle! :D

Edit: I hate it when someone sneaks in and steals the first post!
:mad:

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Unread postby Echo_ » 13 Apr 2006, 21:31

This is a sweet game. I havn't palyed the beta so it took my a some time (20 mins) to get used to the interface but I love it. The graphics are on low but you wouldn't know it by the looks of the game.

The music is very approriate and once you get used to the map you realize its better than the previous Homm games.

I especially like the griffin special. Both stacks went off the map and I was unable to attack for a few moves.

Questions: I conquered an outpost type thing (inferno) that says I can recruit creatures from it. Do I have to go back to the outpost or can I get those creatures in my castle?
Also, I'm palying hte single map. Can I recruit heroes? Because it looks as if my tavern is un buildable.
Last edited by Echo_ on 13 Apr 2006, 21:34, edited 1 time in total.

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Unread postby Toejam » 13 Apr 2006, 21:32

I tried to dwnld the demo but it's just not possible... 20 hour's (at 10kb/s and yes i have kabel) is a bit to much... :ill:
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Kalah
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Unread postby Kalah » 13 Apr 2006, 21:50

Try some of the other sites. Gamershell was the one I used, it's very fast.
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Unread postby Continuity » 13 Apr 2006, 23:02

I got it directly from Ubi's FTP: ftp://ftp.ubi.com/emea/homm5/demo/

Speed was okay, ~180 kb/s.

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Unread postby Toejam » 13 Apr 2006, 23:20

Kalah wrote:Try some of the other sites. Gamershell was the one I used, it's very fast.
Yep got it now too, 660kb/s, that's fast ;)

after playing for an hour i'm amazed, it's better than i ecspected (with all the bad beta news) i love it :)
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Unread postby Campaigner » 13 Apr 2006, 23:28

One fallacy with campaigns...their scripted in such a way that you can lose even if you play good....went on the offensive and lost my army against Agrael....then a Demon Lord with a ****load of troops comes to my capitol and destroys me....Heroic difficulty is challenging indeed!

Have you people seen the swarm of Skeleton Archers on the Haven campaign map? Didn't even THINK about attacking them :O

Time to try for a final time. This time I'll try defending instead.

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Unread postby Wildbear » 13 Apr 2006, 23:49

Well, played a little. I tried the human campaign scenario and the single player map. A few weeks of the first one and finished the second one.

On the technical side...
It looks very good and the sound ambiance is very nice, I didn't experience any bug and everything was smooth and fluid.
I think the screen is a bit confusing most of the time. The town screen is about useless and the only way to find a building is to use the icons of the interface. The combat screen is ok as long as there aren't many creatures on the battlefield, but after summoning all reinforcements with the inferno troups it's a real mess and hard to tell who's turn it is. The map screen lacks readability as some elements look to be hidden in the environment (especially mines and resources, as well as some small creatures and artifacts hardly noticeable). Finally, the interface is not as good as the previous ones to me, there's little info on the screen and everything is in sub screens and popups. It looks like a gaming console interface to me.
I noticed one annoying thing about the horse cursor, it's hot spot is on the top-left when it was centered in previous heroes, it's the same with the creature group when you try to move it.

Now on the gameplay...
I find the maps so boring that it's hard to tell. There are a few things I'm sure about however. First of all, I hate the retaliation system, it's all about fast creatures once again, needless to develop anymore, it's been discussed a thousand times. I really don't like the "one upgrade for all" thing, but there's no point developping it again. I hate to have to visit the external dwellings each week. One good thing however is the summoning spell of the inferno hero that allows to get the creatures from the castle.
The game is such a mess it's hard to tell about the balance. Some creatures were ridiculously resistant when some others never managed to get passed the first turn during the biggest battles (especially the devils, there only interest was for me to try the raise dead spell).

Finally, a few words about the single player map. It's probably the worst kind of map ever. The strategy is limited to "run and hit", the kind of map I would never play twice.

I can't say I'm deceived, I didn't expect anything. I'll probably give it another try later, but I wasn't impressed a bit on this first time.
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Unread postby Echo_ » 14 Apr 2006, 02:20

Beat the single map by banishing my opponent. He was much stronger than I but I "Hit and Ran" my way to victory. At the end of 7 days it just simply said You've Won. Kind of low key on the celebration but I enjoyed my first HoMM5 experience.

Oh btw, don't worry about my two questions above I figured it out :D

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Unread postby Caradoc » 14 Apr 2006, 02:25

The user interface takes some getting used to, but so far so good.

Does anyone have a chart showing the build progressions? I seem to have some level 1 and level 3 armies but no level 2.

And is there an in-game description of monster stats and abilities? It's a pain to alt-tab out all the time.
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Unread postby Salisa » 14 Apr 2006, 02:43

Can someone please tell me how to get my creatures to gate?
the gate button is highlighted I use it I get a gating statement in the chat but they skip their turn

I'm afraid I find the music substandard to earlier HoMM games
I'd like to see a totally free camera not one with limited angle viewing
I read the readme the combat has no hot key for gating
The menu in town is still very poorly done compared to older ver's of HoMM
sigh and harder to use because of it!

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Unread postby chaynhanh » 14 Apr 2006, 05:30

My 1st impression after 1 hour playing the infenro map.

PLUS:
-Nice graphic, even on my poor radeon8500LE I could manage to run on 1280x1024 with almost max detailes. No bug I have found so far. It's really a good news for ppl who have weak graphic card like me.
-Music is ok.
-Ground on adventure map looks cool, but somehow messy. It was hard for me to tell what is useful and what is not, but guess I need more time to get used to.
-Battlefield. I must say I like it very much. Clear, relatively big enough with square grid.
-Perspective. It's a big plus for me on both adventure map and battlefield, makes things visible and easier to calculate.

MINUS:
-Now, I must say, this is a 3D version of HOMM3, from magic system (how to learn them and get them in your town), building system in town to heroes and combat system. I'm just dissapointed after so many disscusions about what to keep and developt from H2-3 and H4, they just made it like it is now. Good for all H3 diehard fan, but bad for me.
-Can someone telll me, where is the WAIT button in combat?
-When I right click on the ground on adventure map, I don't get any info about the type of terrain and how it effects the movement of my army. Is it missing or just unavailable now in demo???
-Where is the exact number of movement left of my army? Together with the above point, there were very useful in H4 for microplaying a map. Why throw them off?
-And last, it's small thing but not less important. In H4, when I jump in to a fight, I can decide exactly the place where I want it to happen. Means, if the monster is 4 steps away from me, and within 3 I have to fight him, I can chosse the exact move for the battle. It's important when the ground differs or the monster is defending a bridge i.e, it can effect the morale, combat movement and sometime the result of the fight. Why throw it away?

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Unread postby Llefser » 14 Apr 2006, 06:35

I have one big issue with the demo so far: once I beat Agrael in the Haven campaign, the game crashes. Has anyone else had this problem?

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Unread postby Personoic » 14 Apr 2006, 07:15

Looks nice and ran somewhat smoothly on a GeForce 6600 with a gig of ram on 1024x768 with med settings. They used a crappy font though.[/quote]

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Unread postby Aspiriins » 14 Apr 2006, 07:28

chaynhanh wrote:Can someone telll me, where is the WAIT button in combat?
camoon, what's wrong with You - guys?
You still call yourself "fans', even if You don't know, that in HoMM5 there is NO "WAIT" button.
Wildbear wrote:I hate to have to visit the external dwellings each week
Yeah? And in which part You shouldn't do that? Just wake up and enjoy the game, not complain about things, which were in game since HoMM1.
Caradoc wrote:And is there an in-game description of monster stats and abilities? It's a pain to alt-tab out all the time.
So, You are so smart to use "alt-tab", but can't press a right mouse button to get the info about the monsters in game? Shame on You!

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Unread postby Aspiriins » 14 Apr 2006, 07:42

ok...let's not blame those l**ers, and start to make my own coclusion about the demo:

* gems again was in blue color (not in multi color, what it should be) - especially in town building schedule;
* something was wrong with imps. When it is 1, then it could hit like 100-1000 imps. I mean - 1 imp could kill 3 ANY units in stack - starting from skeletons till crusaders;
* for better army investigation, I would recommend to invent the way, how from Stack View get instantly to Unit View (with double mouse click)

SUGGESTION - in battle it could be nice to invent not only "flee" and/or "surrender", but also "Load" and "Quit" (like in HoMM IV)

// everything else was just perfect:
* dl speed = 400kb/s;
* game on very high quality;
* with anti-aliasing an so on...;
* the game never crashes and never experienced any glithces or bugs;
* music was good, meybe a little annoying only in Haven Castle and area around it;
* cut-screen was awesome - good inventions to HoMM world;
* battle tactics and strategy is just awesome - it will teach You, how to be smart ;)
* and bla bla bla - I LIKE IT!!!!

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Unread postby Gaidal Cain » 14 Apr 2006, 08:13

Aspiriins wrote:
Wildbear wrote:I hate to have to visit the external dwellings each week
Yeah? And in which part You shouldn't do that? Just wake up and enjoy the game, not complain about things, which were in game since HoMM1.
H4: due to caravans. H2: due to accumulatiing growth. H1: no idea, suspect similar to H2. And there's no need to be scornful at people who might not have been following the development quite as feverishly as you seem to take pride in having done...
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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 14 Apr 2006, 08:23

I also hate visiting external dwelings. Caravans = greatest improvement in H4. And just because it's been like that from the start doesn't mean I shouldn't complain about it.
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