Sir Mullich's Preview

[protecyon]

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/399

[MuadDib]

Hey David, it was great to get a glance of you at the show. I indeed didnt recognize you - after a few hours on the E3 I stop looking at people's badges. I find it rude to intently look at someone's stomach to check how important he could be



Just a few words to explain in more details some points which remained unclear from David's preview. Even though I should total about 100 runs of this demo between the E3 and pre-E3 events, there are points that I forget or that do not get through I'm not sure this is the best place for that, but I couldnt find this preview copied in the forums.



First on the Heroes booth - it was planned to get a much more central location on Ubi's booth, and more impressive display. That was changed at the last minute, hopefully people got a good view of the project despite this stupid change.



About the town screen, as well as other screens (mostly the battle one), there were next to no interface on display - we dont want to show it at this stage. For instance, popups on buildings or items will be there, but not in this demo. Ressources for instance will be summed up in the adventure screen. Other things have yet to be streamlined, like the minimap, or the chest/level up windows. But we want players to spend less time in windows and interfaces.



Regarding cameras, especially on the battle screen, flybys and close-ups will happen the first few times you encounter something new, to get a better look, and then the default view will prevail. There will be an option to force these views off if you prefer (similar to the option to turn all animations off, in order to speed gameplay).



I think you were the only one until now to notice that animations transitions were yet to be implemented - that's indeed missing at this stage



Hopefully on the next encounter we'll have more time to discuss !



I'll probably write a more complete wrap of the E3, but that'll be later, after some holidays, and on the official site

[lord_crusader]

Cool, nice to see fabrice comment here and make clear some points I'm much happy now!!

[MuadDib]

The picture of the day is actually a starting human town, as seen from the adventure map It has to be compared to the developed human town from which the hero exits in the demo.

[Vitirr]

Good to read about the optional animations and camera close-ups. Looks very good this way. Nobody dislikes some eye candy but up to some point. I know I'll play hundreds of games in single and multiplayer and the in the 200th game you will be a bit fed up with close-ups .

[Sir Charles]

In David's comments you'll see he states that each army had 4 stacks of creatures in them....is this the maximum # of stacks in an army? Or is that simply the number choosen for the demo?



Also, with the battlefield changing sizes based on army size, is that going to drastically alter combat due to stack movement speeds, archer-range, etc?

[Crusard]

Another doubt that haunts me: What will the script capabilities for Heroes V? In H4 we saw a drastic change in scripting, but only affecting the adventure map. My guess for the bone dragon encounter is that it was scripted in the editor. So, what will we be able to create?

[Blake]

Thankyou very much for clearing up those important concerns in David's review. To know that the camera swoops are customizable and that there's still more interface coming (eg resource totals, unit stats and portraits etc) has just reassured this old school fan that there's one hell of a sequel coming. Oh and big thumbs up on the engine with its incredible map, battle, and city views mate! I'm the guy that bombarded you a year ago about bringing H5 to ‘life’ showing screens of Heroes 1, Warcraft, Age of Mythology, and even the ROTK movie (lol) as examples of what H5 could be and you’ve literally created what was in my mind! I don’t know if those suggestions assisted you in this or the more likely possibility that you were thinking the same ideas long before I suggested them but either way THANKYOU!



And I look forward to your E3 wrap on the official site. I think one will be required since unfortunately there are many 'wild' theories, interpretations, and questions running around in between the fans of what they've seen so far and a post like your one above in a prominent place will put an end to a lot of the ‘problems’.

[tetsumonkai]

Hey Fabrice.

I really like what ive seen of the game so far, however id like to hear what you have to say about the plans for the interface and the hero portraits.



Since the portrait of the hero in the demo looks kinda plain and dull i wonder if you have skipped the idea of cool mystical fantasy-like portraits..like those in heroes3 (moandor, solmyr, mirlanda & alamar for example)



Would love to hear back from you.

Thanks.

[lordrain]

Being a long time fan of the Heroes franchise (since Heroes I) I very much enjoy being able to follow a correspondance between two heavyweights within the HoMM developer community. I have been somewhat sceptical of what Heroes V would be like, since most of the screens haven't really projected the 'feel' of the previous games. However the videos posted on gamespot, as well as many screens here have changed my mind, and yet again I feel that tingeling feeling of expectation I had waiting for Heroes III! =)

I wish you all the best of luck, and look forward to hopefully the best installment of this great franchise!



Lord Rain

[Sermil]

In response to Crusard & scripting on the combat map: I went to see the demo too (first thing Wednesday morning, nat). I noticed that there was a little line of text like "Script running" and "Script stopped" at the top of the combat screen. (Fabrice stopped the script so he could discuss things that were happening, then let it run the next step.) So there was certain something in the game which thought it was 'scripting'.



Whether or not that was just a demo-hack or a possible real scripting system, I couldn't tell you, though.

[Sermil]

Otherwise, I don't really have much to add to David's review. I shared several of his concerns, like not being able to 'read' the town display easily, and especially that the combat map was too small which would throw the delicate balance between fast units, archers, and slow units off. I'm very glad to hear that the camera cuts and movements in combat were optional; I found them far too busy and fancy and distracting (but then, that's the nature of an E3 demo!)



I think the adventure map camera will be OK; you can mostly just leave it zoomed out. My one concern is that you can't zoom out far enough -- it seemed that even at maximum zoom, you couldn't see as much of the adventure map at one time as you could in H4 and H3.



Otherwise, the game feels very HeroesIII-ish. The level-up screen, for instance, seemed to show a primary skill "+1 Attack", which you had no choice on, and then a choice of 4 secondary skills (Advanced Logistics, Pathfinding, etc. -- all of them H3 skills.) The Gamespy preview said something about 2 skills and 2 attributes, but it looked like 4 skills to me.



Also, I asked about the magic system. If I remember correctly, there will be 6 schools of magic, but they will not be tied to particular towns. The heroes of certain towns will be more likely to get certain schools of magic, but the clear H4 association between a town and a magic school sounds like its gone. Again, very H3ish (which I think also had certain types of heroes tending to get certain schools of magic?). Unfortunate; I thought the town-based magic system was one of the best and least contriversial parts of H4.



One thing that was NOT in Heroes 3 -- I asked Fabrice what he meant by "heroes are more active on the battle field than in Heroes3". Well, besides having magic spells, heroes can use certain active skills. In particular, the human hero in the demo charges out and attacks one of the enemy units directly. Apparently, heroes from the various towns each get different active abilities; direct attack is just for human heroes. The hero is still not a full unit -- they don't have health, they can't get attacked, they just do some damage -- but at least might heroes will have something to do during combat.



On the whole, looked good but a bit overdone and busy, but E3 is not the place to show off the quiet and subtle aspects of a game. I also wish Fabrice and the crew at Nival the best of luck, because me and my kids are looking forward to playing!



-Ian

[Akul]

Has Sir Mullich ever made a review of H5? I would really liek to hear his opinion about it.