Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

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Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby {CH}ArticleBot » 01 Sep 2020, 08:18

We have news everyone!

Greg Fulton's Fanstratics, which he describes as a spiritual successor to the well-renowned Heroes of Might and Magic III just sent out the first newsletter ( you can subscribe by clicking here ) featuring all new concept art and some interesting news!

We currently have confirmation of the following:
  • Tile based, square grid adventure map
  • Townscape will be full-screen and feature interactive structures
  • Hex-grid full screen battle system.
  • Game is built 3D, but will be presented as 2D
  • Game is built for PC, "no mobile F2P shenanigans"
  • Creatures, factions etc will be familiar, but not ripped off
  • There will be a Map Editor
  • Paul Anthony Romero and Rob King MAY be doing music/soundtrack
  • David Mullich is also a potential candidate for future partnership
Fulton states in his newsletter:
"Nevertheless, moving forward, my goal is to publish every month.  At the very least, I expect to showcase 1 new Troop concept sketch, but I assume there will be new and updated information (design details, production progress, occasional screenshots, community Q&A, etc.)."

Greg Fulton makes sure that he understands that the word "Spiritual Successor" has been tossed around quite a lot, especially with a game like Heroes of Might and Magic 3, but makes sure that he isn't using it for marketing, but as a "game directive".


"Hopefully, as Two Point Hospital is to Theme Hospital... Fanstratics will be to HoMM3."


  • Fulton states;
    "For the past 20 years, the HoMM community has been clamoring for a true sequel to HoMM3.  With Fanstratics, my goal is to give them what they want... and more.  Anyone with any knowledge concerning video game development, knows the opportunities for failure are far greater than the chances for success... but I am hopeful."
Fulton also seem to push that he wants to keep the communication with the community strong, which is something, at least I, do appreciate A LOT!

Many people have discussed and expressed their dislike of the name Fanstratics, but it will stay, as per Fulton's newsletter.
"All I ask is, please keep an open mind, and give it a chance.  You never know, it might grow on you.  If not, don’t let it prevent you from potentially enjoying the final game.  Besides, it’s only a matter of time before a nickname is coined.  I’m already calling it ‘Strats’."

"Anything I can do to help?

As of this writing, the Newsletter has over 700 subscribers.  Not bad for an ‘accidental announcement’, but for a successful crowd funding effort, I estimate we will need at least 50,000 subscribers.  Why?  My research shows, around 20% of Newsletter subscribers (10,000) will convert into paying backers.  With some mainstream publicity, I expect an additional 5,000 ‘non-newsletter’ backers.  This turns into 15,000 supporters, which puts us within reach of my low end budget approximations."



You can read the full Newsletter HERE

Image
The Hammersmith

What are your thoughts on this?
I sure hope that the hammersmith will be mightier than the HoMM III Dwarves, which sure looks like it's the case!

Anyone else feeling the hype?!
Read full article...
Last edited by Pol on 01 Sep 2020, 09:49, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Pol » 01 Sep 2020, 11:30

He's right about followers. Good remark. You need to build the base of expectation and just portion of them will support your game right away.


Hopefully it will be also modding friendly. Map Editor, Campaign Editor and Modding friendly. What engine?

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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 03 Sep 2020, 01:27

I was hoping dwarves would go extinct. :(

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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby JSE » 03 Sep 2020, 05:06

As we are not likely to see a "true" successor to Heroes 3 and 4 using the official license, this project is our best hope. Greg Fulton did a great job with Heroes 3, it's *one* of the best games ever made -- so this might actually work out. :)

Even though Greg defends the name choice, I still think it should be changed. It's probably hard to come up with a good game title in this day and age, but "Fanstratics" just doesn't sound attractive at all. Something as unoriginal and generic as "Fantasy Lords" would have a better ring to it. ;)

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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Panda Tar » 03 Sep 2020, 23:10

Or they could create an unrelated name, like Zargonath: and then adds a subtitle Defenders of the Ultimate Fluffy Fantasy. Not exactly like that, of course. :lol:

I do hope though, as I might have expressed in Heroes Community, that this game does not look that much like Heroes 3. I dunno how to explain, but it needs a reboot. :drama: Heroes 3 and 5 are claimed to be the best of their time, but I see they are also being heavily modded, so I wonder how best that could be, if they're being massively modded. :rolleyes: In a sense, a great game is great on its own, whilst modding is a bonus. Of course, these days being able to add modded assets is a thing, but I do hope that it doesn't get like H7 which seems to be only playable through modding. ;|

Still, too early to speculate. I wish the best. :wave:
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby JSE » 04 Sep 2020, 01:47

In terms of art style, I *do* hope that Fanstratics will look quite a bit like Heroes 3. Elmorian fantasy was and still is the way to go. The art of the Ubi era has shown us in a painfully clear way what comic book, manga, and heavy Warcraft influences can lead to.

Even the 5th edition of D&D -- the quintessential fantasy game -- has thankfully returned to a more Elmorian style (after the modernistic excursions of 3rd and 4th edition).

The time of giant shoulder pads, Final Fantasy-style weapons, unfunctional armor, and weird embellishments on nearly every body part is hopefully over... ;)

With regard to gameplay, I agree with you that Fanstratics should not just try to imitate but to originate as well. It should definitely not be just a modern remake of Heroes 3. But if it plays like a partly innovative, partly traditional, Heroes game, that would be fantastic. After all, that's what we've all been waiting for for so many years now. :)

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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Panda Tar » 04 Sep 2020, 02:49

Oh, yes, I meant 'look' by overall things, not specificaly the looks of it. I do feel like H5 started to fall down and make things look bulky, exaggerated and mainstream with its time. I liked H2's style the most. :) H3 was 'too realistic' for my taste. :D H4 was terrible! :( Except for the maps; units and heroes and townscreens were stuff of legend, the ugly kind of legend. :lol: The bulldog black dragon, that cross-eyed medusa, that ghost ... *little spasms* But H2 and H4 were the games I played the most, so there's that.
The time of giant shoulder pads, Final Fantasy-style weapons, unfunctional armor, and weird embellishments on nearly every body part is hopefully over...
I hope you're right. I am doing one of those Heroes proposals (to kill time, as usual) and gathering some random artwork here and there, and there are tons of unfunctional stuff! :shh: Swords that I doubt would even cut because they have so many flourishing colorful pieces of another something, armors that the wearer would simply die without being able to get out of it to drink water, huge tit-bouncing female characters, which seems not to be worried with fighting but on how they look before they are beaten to death. I always liked FF arts back in the day, mostly. Until FFIX, it was ok, characters were wonderful, no need to clutter their bodies. :proudirule: After that ... something happened. Remember Lulu from FFX? 200 belts just to compensate the lack of fabric to finish her robe. :| Characters with half shorts, half shirts, half blouses and stuff, then a lot of tingling and gleaming and dangling stuff everywhere, 477 pockets (why, oh, why). And the thing stuck later. Regular people from these games look very familiar too. Bosses are always something spacey, multi-winged, alien-like. Monsters and creatures and airships and steampunk towns, they all look familiar. If I was much younger, I would love all this. :rolleyes: But what most aggrieves me are the richness of characters going downhill as their clothing gets expensive.

Anyway, be waiting for more newsletters then! :-D
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby JSE » 05 Sep 2020, 05:49

I also like the "storybook" art style of Heroes 2 very much. It was original and independent and was a great match for the gameplay and overall design.

But I can understand the decision of the Heroes 3 leads to go for a more established and typical fantasy art style. It made the series interesting for people who might have found the previous style too "child-friendly". It was still very colorful, though, and the influence of the artists from the first two games could still be seen.

I agree that Heroes 4 didn't look good. I don't mind the creatures so much -- some of them even look really nice --, but most of the landscape, many structures, and the town screens had weird color choices and an overall "surreal" aspect to them. The towns barely looked like towns but more like strange art projects. I still prefer the Heroes 4 look to the one of Heroes 5, though, which seemed like a mix of French comic book and Warhammer aesthetics. It had a completely different tone and didn't feel like Heroes at all.

JRPG aesthetics might be nice for the games they were originally created for. They don't work for M&M at all.

What I don't mind is a little "kitsch" in fantasy art. M&M sure has a lot of it -- so has the art of the great fantasy masters like Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Boris Vallejo, or Keith Parkinson. Part of it is the colorfulness that M&M is known for as well as some of the designs of weapons, armor, and clothing. Overall functionality was always there, if I remember correctly. In all *oiginal* M&M games weapons usually had relatively realistic proportions, and armor usually seemed to offer reasonable protection without being to bulky to move around in. Yeah, true, there were amazons with chain mail bikinis... :) For me, that was part of another influence, namely the tongue-in-cheek humor that was quite typical for M&M.

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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Blake » 17 Sep 2020, 06:16

JSE wrote:In terms of art style, I *do* hope that Fanstratics will look quite a bit like Heroes 3. Elmorian fantasy was and still is the way to go. The art of the Ubi era has shown us in a painfully clear way what comic book, manga, and heavy Warcraft influences can lead to.
Agreed! After all these years of silly Warcraft Warhammer wannabe art styles I'm keen for a return to a more Heroes 3 style. King's Bounty appears to be veering away from all that stuff to something more realistic too which of course has got some complaints but I like it!

I'm one of those weird people who actually really liked the Heroes 4 graphics. Also was never a huge huge fan of Heroes 2's graphics, didn't hate it either but just didn't like it as much as others. I loved 1, 3 and 4's styles.

Gotta say I'm really not a fan of this game's name too. If they really want to meet those marketing $$$ goals then they should think of something better. People can be pretty shallow & fickle meaning some won't even click on a link to a crowdfund if they think the name is stupid lol.
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Panda Tar » 17 Sep 2020, 21:46

Graphics in 4 were ok, just the design of some creatures looked terrible. :D

I just hope that they don't start creating units with boobs, boobs everywhere. Era of Chaos overdid that. Liches ... Ghosts ... the undead worried with maternal instincts. I was half-expecting seeing a multi-boobed hydra.
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Blake » 18 Sep 2020, 05:31

Urgh yeah Boob factions.. Dungeon faction in Heroes 5 really pissed me off back in the day, those half naked chicks with whips filled slots that could have had awesome creatures in them. Little did I know that was just the beginning of Ubi's love for that sort of thing.
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby BB Shockwave » 19 Sep 2020, 00:36

Hope we see more, too little so far to tell what this will be like and whenever - if ever - it will be ready. I wonder if it will be a kickstarter game.

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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Panda Tar » 01 Oct 2020, 10:25

We got a second newsletter now, elven archer as an eye-candy art and some answered questions regarding the game per se (plus some trivia).

I am not sure if I post it here or if there'll be another topic for that? :) Or neither one to make people subscribe and read by themselves. :lol:
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Blake » 05 Oct 2020, 11:33

Yeah the latest newsletter included links to all these HoMM communities I didn't even know about lol.

Also he's finally starting to buckle on that horrible name and will be doing a poll.
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Panda Tar » 05 Oct 2020, 12:54

I was sort of getting used to that name already. HOHOHOHO :lol:
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby LordGraa » 05 Oct 2020, 13:40

Blake wrote:Also he's finally starting to buckle on that horrible name and will be doing a poll...
...once the game becomes a top ten crowd funded video game (at least $3,142,808 to reach). So I doubt the name will ever change :D

But I hate it too! It OK for 5year kiddo who is making his own game on paper for friends but not for a veteran like Greg.
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Re: Fanstratics - A first Newsletter!

Unread postby Panda Tar » 05 Oct 2020, 14:14

Let's just hope that it won't become something like "The Enigma of the Riddle", "Deadly Death" or "Quest of the Enchanted Realm", things of that ilk. :D
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