The Damage is Already Done

The game Might & Magic: Heroes VII, developed by Limbic Entertainment.

How enthusiastic are you?

I will preorder, even if it is $99
5
6%
I will preorder without paying a premium
4
5%
I will buy when it comes out, but I have not marked the day on my calendar
19
25%
I will wait for reviews and bug fixes before I buy
22
29%
I don't mind waiting a year for it to be discounted (OP's vote)
13
17%
Highly unlikely to buy, but if I get it for Christmas I will play it
9
12%
Absolutely nothing produced by Ubisoft!
5
6%
 
Total votes: 77

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Sligneris
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Unread postby Sligneris » 02 Apr 2015, 00:44

BB Shockwave wrote:Then we can ask JVC to kickstart a proper HOMM game. :) He must still be out there somewhere, no?
He is still probably around somewhere, probably even less interested in the franchise than Ubisoft is. Why do you ask? :)

Really, given how old pre-Ubi games are, I'd expect most people advocating them to be 20+ adults, but many of them approach this franchise with such childish naivety... :disagree:
BB Shockwave wrote:Also, as for the "damage already done" part, check the new Behemoth. All I can see is... this.
Heroes VII's behemoth actually looks way better than any behemoth in the franchise...? Really, what is it with you people. :|

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Unread postby Panda Tar » 02 Apr 2015, 02:28

Sligneris wrote:Really, what is it with you people. :|
That's a two way question.
"There’s nothing to fear but fear itself and maybe some mild to moderate jellification of bones." Cave Johnson, Portal 2. :panda:

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Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 02 Apr 2015, 07:40

Panda Tar wrote:I have AoW 3, although it didn't catch me too much.
Considering that AoW 2 was my fav strat. game, I was surprised that AoW3 didn't catch on to me that much too. Maybe old age has changed me and the type of games I play now.

As for the behemoth, H3 is better looking, but H7 is adequate and the important thing is that she's back where she belongs and will massacre everything in sight (unless they make her badly.)

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Unread postby Sligneris » 02 Apr 2015, 11:50

Panda Tar wrote:
Sligneris wrote:Really, what is it with you people. :|
That's a two way question.
Not in case of Behemoth, really... Out of all the things old fans might complain about, this one is the last one I'd expect and actually the least valid. :|

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Unread postby Panda Tar » 02 Apr 2015, 13:22

Again, point of view and matter of liking priorities, details. I also prefer the oldest models. But I won't question your position.
"There’s nothing to fear but fear itself and maybe some mild to moderate jellification of bones." Cave Johnson, Portal 2. :panda:

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Unread postby Panda Tar » 03 Apr 2015, 06:00

This is my proposal to stop people from being people. Fusion of both worlds, and placing Erwan in the game, so you can either choose the path of Good (disposing of him) or Evil (letting him reign). :proudirule:

:shh:
I mean, er, Good and Evil are a matter or perspective. Quite flexible! :x

[img]http://i57.tinypic.com/5xrb6w.jpg[/img]
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Unread postby Sligneris » 03 Apr 2015, 10:45

I'm not saying it's a bad idea altogether, but for me, the concept portrayed by this map kinda made me cringe...

Panda Tar wrote:Good (disposing of him)
This is kinda funny. How is it 'good' to 'dispose of someone'? Frankly, it sounds like something that a mafia would be doing. :D
Last edited by Sligneris on 04 Apr 2015, 00:17, edited 4 times in total.

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Unread postby Galaad » 03 Apr 2015, 12:19

Image
Last edited by Galaad on 04 Apr 2015, 10:05, edited 1 time in total.

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Unread postby Danny » 03 Apr 2015, 17:03

BB Shockwave wrote:
Also, as for the "damage already done" part, check the new Behemoth. All I can see is... this.

Image
EPIC!

Unfortunately Stronghold is little more than Heroes 3 homage now, all the "new" units reference that game. Seems so many fans wished for Fortress to come back, they integrated some of their units into it.

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Unread postby Dalai » 03 Apr 2015, 19:01

Sligneris wrote:Dalai, I admit I do have a few specific people in mind when I mentioned poisoning the fanbase, but don't worry, you're not one of them - I mean people who start making "crusades" - you on the other hand, state a negative opinion and while I might disagree with it, at least it's not as toxic as statements from some other people get.
Thank you, it is fair assessment.
Sligneris wrote:Call me clueless, but I never know how to interpret what people mean by 'getting things right', or about the way you might define some teams more shallow and less passionate than others. This kind of advice is hard to interpret in the first place, let alone to go along with it. :)
It's not easy to describe in one sentence.

When you learn geometry, for example, you start with 5 basic statements and then build up the whole beautiful building of science from them. If you change just one of them - the resulting building will be totally different. Classic, or Euclidean geometry, can be used for city development, but can not be used for space orbit stuff, and Elliptic, or Riemannian geometry - vice versa. But these guys take basic assumptions from different geometries and, having no faintest clue about consequences, try to achieve some goals, which are not even worth achieving.

Not sure if it makes my idea any clearer. But as I said, some of previous decisions, like removing resources and converting towns, are clear signs of very wrong people in important places. And there are hundreds of more subtle ones.

Here is another approach. In almost all old interview there were questions: "Gold or Experience?" and "Titan or Black Dragon?" If modern team had at least a little clue about the game, they would know exactly why those questions a VERY important. But they don't. And these questions stopped being asked.
Sligneris wrote:I mean, we've even got Marzhin, who was originally a fan himself, involved in Heroes 7 development - when you take that into consideration, I'm not sure what other teams you'd see gathered... You can't just bring in random fans with no experience in game development.
Marzhin is just a map designer, no offense. I am talking about game design. And even being a map designer, knowing how important map editor is, we still don't see anything to work with in that regard. For me it is a clear sign of very limited influence Marzhin has there.

As for another team - I said, that most probably, Ubi has no spare team, and that is why no real changes will be made, and H7 will be less buggy (thanks to Limbic) but still very mediocre game (thanks to Ubi).

As for some potential external team - again, I said earlier, they would be better off to work on their own game.
Sligneris wrote:That's the problem, at least from my maybe a bit ignorant perspective - most fans don't give answers, they just say that your answer was wrong. Most things they say then, is mostly something about simply going back... which they actually did with the HD remake and it still didn't prove worthwhile.
May be you started paying attention too late. Fans were willing to give all their (our) knowledge, passion and experience, even long after Ubi told them to **** off. But eventually they (we) realized, that dialog does not work with Ubi. That's when I stopped caring and formed my very negative forecast for the games to come. So far my forecast was 100% reliable - 2 failures of 2 attempts. H7 will be just marginally better, because of less bugs.
Groovy wrote:That's what I fear as well - that the conclusion will be that there's just no market left for this kind of game, rather than that the games on offer are sub par.
My hope that eventually it will convince someone bold that the market is there, and there is no one to defend it, as obviously, Ubi is not even trying.
BB Shockwave wrote:So yeah, let this Asha-travesty die. Then we can ask JVC to kickstart a proper HOMM game. :) He must still be out there somewhere, no?
CEO at Startup in Stealth. Whatever that means :)
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Unread postby Panda Tar » 03 Apr 2015, 23:29

Sligneris wrote: This is kinda funny. How is it 'good' to 'dispose of someone'? Frankly, it sounds like something that a mafia would be doing.
Good that I wrote this as well! ;)
I mean, er, Good and Evil are a matter or perspective. Quite flexible! :x
"There’s nothing to fear but fear itself and maybe some mild to moderate jellification of bones." Cave Johnson, Portal 2. :panda:

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Unread postby Galaad » 04 Apr 2015, 09:23

Dalai wrote:Let Ubisoft make M&M:H a monument of their impotence, I don't care. :disagree:
I do. They own the rights, they manipulate people through their blog, they tell us to f*ck off, THEY should sell the rights and be the ones doing their own game, instead of polluting what once was a brilliant franchise by usurping its name.

And regarding h5, play TotE with unnoficial patch 3.1 + Quantomas AI mod, the game has great mechanics, I even think is the game which had the best skill system in the series, thanks Nival. The universe on the other hand (visuals, lore, atmosphere...) is what ruined it to me, thanks Ubisoft.

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Unread postby Dalai » 04 Apr 2015, 12:06

Galaad wrote:I do. They own the rights, they manipulate people through their blog, they tell us to f*ck off, THEY should sell the rights and be the ones doing their own game, instead of polluting what once was a brilliant franchise by usurping its name.
You have every right to be angry with Ubi, I understand that. But as you said, they already polluted the once great franchise. They got the right to do so when they payed money for it. Sad, but legally correct. Now would it be fair if they received their money back? I don't think so.
Galaad wrote:And regarding h5, play TotE with unnoficial patch 3.1 + Quantomas AI mod, the game has great mechanics, I even think is the game which had the best skill system in the series, thanks Nival. The universe on the other hand (visuals, lore, atmosphere...) is what ruined it to me, thanks Ubisoft.
I am glad for you that you find it enjoyable. I don't want to argue about merits of different versions. If I did - I would go to the corresponding thread in H5 subforum. But from game design point of view (in my opinion) H5 is a monster.

Removing turns from TURN (!!!) based strategy game is an unspeakable atrocity. So huge that even developers themselves, as limited as they are, acknowledged it and removed in the next installment. Perverted scale, turning STRATEGY game into SANDBOX walk, appeared in H5 and has no plans for disappearing so far. Caravans, skill wheel - I can go on for hours, but you can just go back several years to forums and read it. It all has been said many times.

There is a good reason why skill system from H5 did not find it's place in H6. There is even better reason why H6 system will die.


It is very interesting for me to watch "innovations" that appear in one game and not in the next. Fans spend days to convince developers how stupid those innovations are, developers ignore them and doom their creation. In the next installment developers themselves say the exact same arguments why it was stupid and will not continue. What smart person can model in his mind, Ubi developers need several million dollars budget and several hundred thousand players to test.

Do you remember the Nival's idea about army leaving fading traces that can be read by scouts? Hilariously stupid, but they were serious about it. Luckily, something prevented them from implementing it. Budget cuts, most probably.
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Unread postby Sligneris » 04 Apr 2015, 12:53

Galaad wrote:I do. They own the rights, they manipulate people through their blog, they tell us to f*ck off, THEY should sell the rights and be the ones doing their own game, instead of polluting what once was a brilliant franchise by usurping its name.
Ubisoft 'usurped' Might & Magic's name with NWC's blessing. Did Ubisoft force NWC to sell the rights to them? No, they did not. NWC handed it out to them, took their money and stopped bothering with it. This is as far as the original team's 'love for the franchise' goes.

There's no 'pollution' to speak of - you just dislike their creations. I'm not sure why it's so hard for you to realize that you do not speak of any absolutes, but only of your own opinion...

Basically, Zombi_Wizard already explained it on HC.

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Unread postby Galaad » 04 Apr 2015, 17:56

Thanks for your replies, Dalai.

I mostly single-play, and as for the only multi I played were hotseats, I didn't know about them removing turns (?), lol

Back to the Ubisoft topic, it is Open Dev now, so, Idk man.

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Unread postby Dalai » 04 Apr 2015, 19:07

Galaad wrote:I mostly single-play, and as for the only multi I played were hotseats, I didn't know about them removing turns (?), lol
Can you tell during a fight, which turn is it? When your "angels" made 5 moves and your "dwarfs" - only 2?

Initiative based system is NOT turn based. It's some horrid aberration. From game design point of view, first of all.

Oh, and I did not mention this completely unnecessary and very poorly done switch from 2D to 3D. Another horrible decision and implementation.
Sligneris wrote:Ubisoft 'usurped' Might & Magic's name with NWC's blessing.
With proverbial gun at their head B-)
Sligneris wrote:Did Ubisoft force NWC to sell the rights to them? No, they did not.
No, Ubisoft just caught the moment of weakness. Good for them, investors must be pleased.
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Unread postby Panda Tar » 04 Apr 2015, 20:28

Galaad wrote: I mostly single-play, and as for the only multi I played were hotseats, I didn't know about them removing turns (?), lol
That's what he (Dalai) said, initiative system is not for this game, it breaks its main design and proposal of being turn-based, breaks the balance. In H4, the morale system gave you, bluntly speaking, initiative WITHIN a turn, which was rather nice, besides, morale was affected by battle outcomes, killing or getting killed, which made much sense and improved the battling experience rather nicely.

I like initiative system in RPGs, during battles, or in games like Final Fantasy Tactics, which was, imho, so nice. For Heroes, it was pretty much screwed up.
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Unread postby Galaad » 05 Apr 2015, 00:39

Can you tell during a fight, which turn is it?
I hid the bar to avoid having that info =P

Seriously though, thanks for the post and Panda too, I never saw it that way.
Oh, and I did not mention this completely unnecessary and very poorly done switch from 2D to 3D. Another horrible decision and implementation.
I think 3D graphics with a gameplay restricted to a 2D plane would have been the way to go.

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Unread postby Pitsu » 05 Apr 2015, 05:52

I would say there are 2 principal errors that Ubi has made. One is the typical "not enought time". As with 3DO's HoMM4 - it is fine to play around with revolutionary ideas, but if you lack time to implement them correctly, you cause damage. Big budget and smart developers are just tools that can reduce blind "trial and error" methods in new feature testing and therefore save a lot of development time. While this error is kind of inevitable and plagues all games, the second mistake is more UBI specific. In my opinion, Ubi is too stuck with story. NWC put their games to different planets, did not bother to explain every monster's background and sometimes got contradictions between stories of different games. Their aim was to make a game fun to play even if you know the story by heart or do not care about it. UBI, on the other had, seems set story as top priority. Some attention goes also to balance between factions, but replayability (good AI, editors and RMG, adventure map interactable objects) are somewhere in the bottom of the list of priorities.

Galaad wrote:
Oh, and I did not mention this completely unnecessary and very poorly done switch from 2D to 3D. Another horrible decision and implementation.
I think 3D graphics with a gameplay restricted to a 2D plane would have been the way to go.
If it is 3D then it could be 3D throughout. The way I see it is not literally 2D vs 3d, but virtual reality (3D) vs symbolism (2D). Look at your desktop, you see a 2D image covered with icons. Each icon is designed to represent its meaning in the best way, and the only thing in common is the size. Now imagine that instead of this ordinary desktop you have 3D scenery and what previously were icons are now somehow melted into that virtual scenery. I am sure such desktop can be done and it probably would be cool to look at, but I'd bet that most people would still prefer the more functional 2D layout.

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Unread postby Darkström » 05 Apr 2015, 15:45

Pitsu wrote:In my opinion, Ubi is too stuck with story. NWC put their games to different planets, did not bother to explain every monster's background and sometimes got contradictions between stories of different games. Their aim was to make a game fun to play even if you know the story by heart or do not care about it. UBI, on the other had, seems set story as top priority. Some attention goes also to balance between factions, but replayability (good AI, editors and RMG, adventure map interactable objects) are somewhere in the bottom of the list of priorities.
I agree. What bothers me most is how the story restricts and impedes faction design. That's why necromancers must have spider heraldry in every game, and centaurs are horned antilopes because they must fit with a desert orc design.
If it is 3D then it could be 3D throughout. The way I see it is not literally 2D vs 3d, but virtual reality (3D) vs symbolism (2D). Look at your desktop, you see a 2D image covered with icons. Each icon is designed to represent its meaning in the best way, and the only thing in common is the size. Now imagine that instead of this ordinary desktop you have 3D scenery and what previously were icons are now somehow melted into that virtual scenery. I am sure such desktop can be done and it probably would be cool to look at, but I'd bet that most people would still prefer the more functional 2D layout.
I don't really like the 3D adventure maps. In previous games, the adventure map was very abstract, like an actual map; your hero was a symbol for a giant army marching around the world and nothing had to be for scale. Now the adventure maps are designed like beautiful landscapes with lots of decorative details, and everything is scaled to fit the hero model. The abstractness, and with it the strategic overview, is lost.[/i][/quote]


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