can Heroes even survive?

[cjlee]

As many people on this forum know, I hate HOMM VI and have abandoned the game. None of my relatives who played older versions of Heroes is interested in Heroes 6. Except for a couple of friends, everyone else has turned his back on Heroes. I still visit this website. (I do play older versions of Heroes, and besides Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm isn’t out yet so I have no game to play.)

I really panned this game in several articles last year. But I’m not crowing that my predictions came true. Instead, I am starting to get alarmed.
Ubishit has done such an incredibly bad job, it is increasingly likely that Heroes VII will not appear. So much damage has been done that I’m surprised people even make the effort to try logging on. What’s this stuff on the main page about ‘spamming the login button’ in a desperate hope to log on? What's that Black Screen problem?

How can any gaming community, no matter how fanatical, tolerate this indefinitely?

Don't we keep losing players as problems persist?

Do we even have half as large a Heroes VI community as we had for Heroes III?

I know they managed to sell Pirates reasonably well. But many people had been suckered in for Heroes VI vanilla already, so they could have just decided to buy a $10 expansion because they were hoping it would fix all the problems the vanilla game had. My impression so far has been that $10 is really too much to pay for what is essentially DLC.

All things considered, is there enough goodwill left to sell a Heroes VII for $50 two years down the line? Or is this game doomed?
I played Warcraft III actively for six years, and it was extremely user friendly throughout. Multiplayer gaming server technology is well tested by now. How come Ubisoft has so many problems Blizzard doesn’t suffer from?

I really don’t, don’t, don’t want to read about any more problems with Heroes VI on the forum. But these still keep showing up. Furthermore, these are objective problems like Servers Down, not subjective ones like Town Screens. Objective problems affect all fans and have nothing to do with whether you like a type of artwork or not. And Ubisoft seems incapable of solving them…

[jeff]

This is a good question; as I have decided not to buy it until a user friendly campaign editor (discussed elsewhere here at CH) is created, and they release a version that has the online content included, YPLAY is an unnecessary intrusion into the game. Has H-6 even sold enough to justify an H-7?

[tomberland]

I do understand your point of view. And HoMM6 is not the perfect game we were all looking forward.

However in my case, by luck, I've been starting to play it from patch 1.4 and 1.5.

ANd my feeling is that this game (fixed with these patches) is not that bad!
The strength of the factions are now somehow balanced, there are screenplays for the cities, and the servers of Ubisoft have not failed since then.

I just wanted to share this 'less critical" point of view (with different circumstances though)

[jeff]

I just wanted to share this 'less critical" point of view (with different circumstances though)

You are certainly entitled to that opinion and I believe several others share it as well. For me H-5 ultimately failed because of the editor and H-6 did not adequately address that issue.

[Kalah]

What I think is happening - much to my personal regret - is a change in the composition of the fan base. I'm not worried about the series; as long as Ubisoft are running the show, with their huge resources and marketing abilities, the game will sell. Just not to the old fans. Instead, it will sell the Heroes games to new and short-term fans.

The old fan base is dwindling. Sadly, this most likely spells the end of Communities like this one. The official forum will be what the new players find when searching for support, and the independent forums will diminish in strength as more and more of the "dedicated" ("hard-core"?) fans stop following the franchise with their modding, mapmaking and free debate.

The Community is you. The game goes on. But it may do so without us.

[jeff]

The game goes on. But it may do so without us.

That is my fear as well, and does UBI really care as long as the new fans continue to shell out their money. It is a business model that works, unfortunately.

[cjlee]

Gamers everywhere are getting older. Increasingly we have people like me, who could play Command and Conquer on the hardest difficulty when young but who have slowed in recent years.

Me and most of my friends used to play RTS games on the highest difficulty. It was the default for us. BUt in recent years, most of us can no longer play on Hardest or even Hard.

Age's really catching up. Reflexes slow. We just don't have the Click per Minute rate anymore.

TUrn based strategy has no such problem. That's why Heroes of might and magic was able to garner old and retired fans even 10 years ago when it was rare for retirees and old people to play computer games.

Equally, I have heard of 6 and 7 year old HOMM fans. The game is ok for small children who lack the reflexes to manage a fast-paced RTS.

I also have a disabled friend who plays HOMM. He can't play any RTS because he lacks the physical ability.

To dumb down HOMM and target only console players is ridiculous. It's ignoring a large market that will only get larger as populations age.

As things stand, I will buy any Turn Based Strategy produced by Blizzard. I will wait a long, long time before buying any Turn Based Strategy produced by Ubisoft because I want them to iron out all bugs first.

Selling beta quality games to console players who don't know any better. Just how can Ubisoft expect this to be a successful business model?

[jeff]

Age's really catching up. Reflexes slow. We just don't have the Click per Minute rate anymore.

Turn based strategy has no such problem. ?

This is way I never liked RT any game. I always felt it was a programmers easy way out. You adjust game difficulty by the speed of the game clock. TB the designer has to judge opponent difficulty as the player achieves higher levels. Like you I am no longer interested in run and gun survival type games; my reactions have slowed too much. The only RT games I ever got into were games like Starflight where there was a limit in how long you had to save the universe. I did play the Wing Commander and Privateers but can't anymore.

Selling beta quality games to console players who don't know any better. Just how can Ubisoft expect this to be a successful business model?

Unfortunately it seems to be working for UBIsoft; just a guess perhaps the younger gamers have never seen a game released in a well-polished state; so they don't know how it could be. Certainly not all of the old games were polished on release, but 3 or more patches was very unusual especially before the internet allowed easy updating, and they had to mail you a disk. It was too expensive not to release a good product.

[Kristo]

I think Kalah's right about this, sadly. If Ubisoft keeps making a decent return on their investment, Heroes games will continue. They probably won't be making the games we veterans want to play. To borrow a Unix aphorism, if you want Heroes 3, you know where to find it.

On a positive note, "to all things comes a beginning." This is a tremendous opportunity for someone else to earn our business with a game in the Heroes style. I think the success of the King's Bounty franchise is proof that such a market exists. It won't be the same MM universe, but it just needs to be good enough to capture our imagination (and dollars) like NWC did before. At the rate Ubisoft is going, that's becoming easier and easier by the day.

[klaymen]

I really panned this game in several articles last year. But I’m not crowing that my predictions came true. Instead, I am starting to get alarmed.
Ubishit has done such an incredibly bad job, it is increasingly likely that Heroes VII will not appear.

Heroes VII you say? There are any Heroes games after IV?

Don't we keep losing players as problems persist?

Ubisoft cares not about players, but about those whom they can fool into buying their games.

[val-gaav]

word from on old time guy like me :

After starting the demo of HVI (about year ago) I played it for 4 turns and left the game as it was obviouslly unfinished. Now after 1.5 patch with my friend we played 3 hot seats games. I know it might be not much but from the looks of it I like the game and it seems more balanced then previous heroes games in some aspects. Balance is important for me but aside from that this game has this heroes feel and it is fun to play so far.

From the state of the game 1.5 is what 1.0 should have been.

[Ed Robinson]

I haven't bought VI. I really have no interest in playing through an on-line server for a number of reasons. Most notably is the reliability of connectivity or complete unavailability of service. I live in a rural area where about 10% of the residents enjoy hi-speed access. I do because we are fortunate to have a cable connection, this however does not mean we don't routinely loose connections due to storms taking lines down.

I'm sure that there is an upside for the company to have a captive audience on their servers, but their service may not have bogged down if more players were playing off line.

We also don't have many free wi-fi connections available. We have not a single chain restaurant or donut shop in our town. I still play the old M&M games and the Heroes games up to V.

If I am shelling out money for a game, I want it on my hard drive, to load or uninstall at will and not be relying on a company that could disappear tomorrow, rendering my investment useless.

[Kalah]

I live in a rural area where about 10% of the residents enjoy hi-speed access.

CH is an international site and my experience with our users is that this is in fact more widespread than Ubi seem to realize.

[Naki]

I really panned this game in several articles last year. But I’m not crowing that my predictions came true. Instead, I am starting to get alarmed.
**** has done such an incredibly bad job, it is increasingly likely that Heroes VII will not appear.

Heroes VII you say? There are any Heroes games after IV?

Don't we keep losing players as problems persist?

Ubisoft cares not about players, but about those whom they can fool into buying their games.

Yes! Heroes V AND VI are both great, regardless of the horrible amount of bugs in VI. Of course, this is my opinion, it seems you disagree.

[Naki]

word from on old time guy like me :

After starting the demo of HV (about year ago) I played it for 4 turns and left the game as it was obviouslly unfinished. Now after 1.5 patch with my friend we played 3 hot seats games. I know it might be not much but from the looks of it I like the game and it seems more balanced then previous heroes games in some aspects. Balance is important for me but aside from that this game has this heroes feel and it is fun to play so far.

From the state of the game 1.5 is what 1.0 should have been.

Best Heroes V version is 3.x (i.e ToE expansion + all updates).

[mr.hackcrag]

I think he meant to type H6 instead of H5.

[Naki]

I think he meant to type H6 instead of H5.

* He (Ed Robinson) said he did not buy HVI yet. Or do you mean val-gaav? Maybe it is a typo indeed.

* There never was and never will be a Heroes 5 and 6!
It is V and VI - with Roman numerals. Roman numerals >>> Arabic digits!!

[klaymen]

* There never was and never will be a Heroes 5 and 6!
It is V and VI - with Roman numerals. Roman numerals >>> Arabic digits!!

You Digit nazi!

[jeff]

I intentionally use 5 and 6 in most of my posts because I have been unimpressed with either. NWC made Heroes, UBI makes ?????

[val-gaav]

Best Heroes V version is 3.x (i.e ToE expansion + all updates).

Oh ... sorry a typo indeed... I meant heroes VI .

As for ToE I don't think it was the best addon. Towns both barb and dwarves were unbalanced and overpowered, so I would prefer to play this game patched but without addons.

On that note I hope in HVI they will not make the same mistake as in previous games and add unbalanced towns in addons. If that's the case I would prefer to have no extra towns at all.