The Three Rules of Nival

[Mytical]

Yes Nival and Ubi made the game, and it is their game. However, this misses the point. It is also the fans game. Let me explain this. Without fans Ubi/Nival will not make a profit, and making said game would be a moot point. We all can agree on this I believe. Now since they made the game for fans (for profit sure, but without fans there is no profit) then we can say it is the fan's game. Otherwise why make it at all? Now that we have concluded that it is also the fan's game lets go a bit farther. Not listening to the fans is a sure way of killing the series and/or profits (since it is one and the same for a company). Let us take another example and go from there.

Ok you have restaurant A. A makes great food, has great menus, amazing decorations and is a decent place all arround. Now the service in A is poor (we are doing full serve restaurants here not fast food mind you). Now B on the other hand has decent food, decent menus, and ok decorations. They; however, have amazing service. At restaurant A, they don't listen to their customers complaints and it takes a long time before things are handled if there is a problem. Restaurant B they listen to their customers, and resolve problems quickly and efficiantly. Who do you think will win out in the end?

Even taking out the personal thing and going with fast food. You have a fast food that changes with their customers taste (even McDonalds is going the health food way because it is a 'fad' now), and you have one that serves the same thing regardless. Who will win out in that? Listen to your customers, treat them right, and you will come out ahead every time. Ignore them and do things 'your own way' and eventually the only one using your product is you....

Is it Ubi's/Nival's right to make it however they wish. Absolutely. Will it serve them in the long run? Very doubtful.

[azzy]

and one tip to kind of stay on topic:
nowadays our CPUs are so busy calculating the grafics
that there are not enough free resourses left
to support a desent AI

Completelly wrong.The memory of a graphics card is used only for graphics rendering.Boost it to couple of gigs and leave your RAM at 256 MBs and youll never manage to run heroes.Same goes the other way round.

sorry to blow your theory but for the calculations for a game not only the GPU (video card processor) is used, most of the geometry calculations are still done by the CPU (central processing unit or simply processor)

this is why you wont be able to play heroes even if you have some 2ghz video with 1Gb of ram on it and a slow 1ghz CPU

3d games are so resorse-consuming that they squeeze the best of your system
i dont think you believe the 256Mb on your video are enough to store all the textures or the 500Mhz of the GPU are enough to carry all the calculations with irregular numbers...

[innokenti]

I felt I should add my bits and bobs here.

I've been a fan of Heroes since II and have been a fan of Nival since Rage of Mages (or Allods as it is in Russia). Right.

HeroesV is flawed. It is a good game, but flawed. I enjoyed it when I first played it soon after release, because it was new, fresh and included innovations.

Yet the longer I played (i.e. into the second and third campaign) the dimmer and duller it got. The HIII aspects that were slow and dull started coming up where it was just a slow building slog. The story made me cringe, and the way it was told even further. The way it was done in 3 and 4 and... well, even 2, really worked and Heroes IV brought you wonderfully-written stories in a simple but compelling way. I am not being nostalgic, I am merely saying that it worked, that method worked, it may have been bold to try something new (a la modern practice) but they simply didn't manage it, for whatever reason.
Then you have bugs, minor problems, essentially slow play and cut corners. I'm sure all the various problems have been mentioned before.

So I stopped playing it having gotten all the enjoyment I could out of it (and there still was plenty!).

So why did it all go down that road? Considering Nival's previous record with games, all of which I have enjoyed greatly - for their gameplay, atmosphere and presentation. What went wrong?

Possibilities:

Nival's changed, not the same people at the helm or in the back seats. Having been bought up are being pushed down the path of commercialism.

Ubisoft have adopted a crap system whereby there are two developers working on the same project. A small controlling Ubisoft team which dictates what must be done, and the Nival team which slavishly works for it.

Both.


and I've run out of time so I'll add more later.

[mr.dna]

and one tip to kind of stay on topic:
nowadays our CPUs are so busy calculating the grafics
that there are not enough free resourses left
to support a desent AI

Completelly wrong.The memory of a graphics card is used only for graphics rendering.Boost it to couple of gigs and leave your RAM at 256 MBs and youll never manage to run heroes.Same goes the other way round.

sorry to blow your theory but for the calculations for a game not only the GPU (video card processor) is used, most of the geometry calculations are still done by the CPU (central processing unit or simply processor)

this is why you wont be able to play heroes even if you have some 2ghz video with 1Gb of ram on it and a slow 1ghz CPU

3d games are so resorse-consuming that they squeeze the best of your system
i dont think you believe the 256Mb on your video are enough to store all the textures or the 500Mhz of the GPU are enough to carry all the calculations with irregular numbers...

The CPU is indeed needed for both AI and 3D, and it's obvious that the engine is not well optimized since the graphics sometimes pauses during AI turns. This is luckily not the case for 3D shooters. I really doubt that H5 graphics are very taxing for the CPU, or rather with a good optimization of the engine it shouldn't tax the CPU. The textures sued in H5 are not very high res. and should easily fit into 256mb video memory. Personally I would have liked a better support for dual core CPU's, which would improve AI turns.
Basically for H5, if the framerates are low and moving seem sluggish it's probably because of insufficient GPU power, while long AI turns are connected with insufficient CPU speed. Low amount of system memory degrade both framerates and AI turns as it requires more access to the harddrive slowing everything down.

[Jolly Joker]

Yes Nival and Ubi made the game, and it is their game. However, this misses the point. It is also the fans game. Let me explain this. Without fans Ubi/Nival will not make a profit, and making said game would be a moot point. We all can agree on this I believe. Now since they made the game for fans (for profit sure, but without fans there is no profit) then we can say it is the fan's game. Otherwise why make it at all? Now that we have concluded that it is also the fan's game lets go a bit farther. Not listening to the fans is a sure way of killing the series and/or profits (since it is one and the same for a company). Let us take another example and go from there.

I cannot follow your logic. Ubi will make a profit when the game is good. Ubi won't when the game sucks. Whether the fans approve of the game or not is completely irrelevant because the "fans" are not big in numbers. You don't have half a million people posting on web boards, playing online and so on. So they simply have to sell the game as often as possible and Ubi WILL make a profit, IF the game is good, but all fans disapprove.
To make it clearer, let's just say they'd made it an RTS game. Most fans would have disapproved for sure - however, if the game had been really good and the critics had loved it, it would have sold like hell and no matter what (and gained new fans in the process).
Listening to what the fans say ALWAYS runs the danger of doing something far outside the mainstream which MAY result in success, but MAY just as well result in some minority game.
Neither is Ubival owing the fans nor are the fans owing Ubival (for reviving the series).
Apart from that "the fans" are not united and opinions on how the game should be differ.

[ThunderTitan]

I cannot follow your logic. Ubi will make a profit when the game is good. Ubi won't when the game sucks.

I so wish that was true. You're also ignoring when the game is mediocre.

[Jolly Joker]

I think, a mediocre game is a game that, eventually, sucks: The customer buys a game, sees it's mediocre and loses interest after a relatively short time, let's say a couple of weeks. Will those customers buy the expansion? The only yes comes, when the customer sees the potential for greatness - maybe fulfilled in the expansion (which is wishful thinking anyway). If it's still mediocre after the first expansion, only the die-hard fans will buy the 2nd expansion which won't nearly be enough.

Fans or not, sales are not lying. You may say that the initial game was sold on expectations, but if the game is mediocre for the majority of players even the first expansion will sell considerably less - fans or not. The game is on the shelves now for too long a time to change something in the opinion of the people.

There is another point here. I think, many fans are whining on a very high level. I think, many take for granted that the game should be excellent and are disappointed that it is merely very good. They play a month (and have a heck of a time, basically) and then start an uproar because, for example, text boxes are missing (which isn't the case, strictly spoken: you can actually add as much text as you like, you just have to "link" it with a primary or secondary victory condition; many people will have missed a lot because they never clicked on victory conditions;).

[Mytical]

Ok will restate this and see if I can clear it up, if not don't worry about it, because I sure won't.

Fans=Customers. Not just those that post on boards or whatnot. You buy the game because you like or think you will like the game. Usually you base this either word of mouth (from the 'die hard fans' if it is an established game), or because it is the same type of game that you normally like. (regardless of if that is RTS, TBS, Shooter, whatever). Without customers (ie fans) the product makes no profit regardless. So a game is more for the customer (again fan) then for the producer. So to say it is Ubi/Nival's game is only part of the equation. If they did not want to get the HoMM fan based, they would not have called it HoMM 5. Simple enough? They could of called it My kingdom strategy edition (or something else) if it was not trying to get the HoMM fanbase. Can't see how that is debatable, since it is HoMM 5 (and not Ubi's Conquest : Strategy game) that means it is for the Heroes of Might and Magic fans, and those who have heard about it from them. So not listening to the customer (fan) will only ensure one thing. Loss of future profits. Don't know how I can make this any clearer, so I will end with this post. Hope that makes it as clear as mud.

[ThunderTitan]

I think, a mediocre game is a game that, eventually, sucks: The customer buys a game, sees it's mediocre and loses interest after a relatively short time, let's say a couple of weeks. Will those customers buy the expansion?

Maybe, depending on what it offers (an extra faction might prove interesting for a few weeks). And let's recall that TBS's aren't exactly plentyfull atm, so even a mediocre one should have a good market.

There is another point here. I think, many fans are whining on a very high level. I think, many take for granted that the game should be excellent and are disappointed that it is merely very good.

[Elvin]

...Jeez I can't believe this.

[Adicto]

Fans are just like normal players but more exaggerated with their opinions, so we can know more or less the general point of view of the people.

There is, of course, a taliban group in every fan community, people who makes the baby Jesus cry; hard fought by holy crusaders like JJ, but I think we are clever enough to translate the exaggerated whining into a clearer rational opinions.

Oh, and there are exaggerated people in both sides, not just whiners and more whiners.

[Jolly Joker]

No, I can't believe it either.
I don't know any person, at least no sane person, that will hang around for nearly 7 months (not counting the time before the game release), and constantly lament about a game that in their opinion suck. Even if it's mediocre, there are so many great games to go back or new to, why bother? Plain and simple: game sucks or is mediocre at best: put it in the dustbin or to ebay or whatever the heck and turn to another one. Maybe come back when a complete version is available or news about a sequel are there. But hang around all those months? Come on.
So it's either some people are decidedly not sane here OR (and I prefer to assume this next one) they find the game good, but let's say lacking in some areas. But basically at least so good that they hope it will get very good at least with patches and expansions.

[DaemianLucifer]

As opposed to that, I think that WoG, after a very good start, meanwhile has slaughtered the game completely by overblowing it. I had gone back to playing the original H 3 before H 5 because WoG was unbearably cluttered.

Ah,but WoG has the best thing in the world that should be implemented in every game:Plethora of options.You can turn on/off whatever you want,and thats the best part of it.

Civilization, which was mentioned here, is a completely different case. The game has always been the same, and first and foremost you have to bow before the skill of the designers to sell people basically the same game for fifteen or so years. The game is REFINED, but the basic design keeps the same. It is no wonder they turn to the fans for ideas, it's mainly a question of detail.
With HoMM 5 it's a completely different case. Nival did a complete redesign and they did well. They are still changing things, and it's their right to do so. It's their game, not the fans' game. They are patching, they are balancing, they are refining.

Say what?Thats so not true!CIV is so much more different than CIII that HV is from HIII.And CIV did do what nival constantly says they did(but they actually didnt do)with HV:it evolved.And it evolved brilliantly.

sorry to blow your theory but for the calculations for a game not only the GPU (video card processor) is used, most of the geometry calculations are still done by the CPU (central processing unit or simply processor)

Did I mention CPU there?No I did not.CPU is used for everything,of course.Its the heart of the computer.But you can boost your RAM to space if you want,you wont see any graphical improvement.And you can boost your graphics card to no matter what number,you wont see a quicker AI or load times.

I cannot follow your logic. Ubi will make a profit when the game is good. Ubi won't when the game sucks.

I know its hard,Im trying to forget them as well,but EA does exist,and you have to deal with it.

No, I can't believe it either.
.
.
.
But basically at least so good that they hope it will get very good at least with patches and expansions.

The later is acurate,yes.But not only through patching but with future sequels as well.

[Jolly Joker]

As opposed to that, I think that WoG, after a very good start, meanwhile has slaughtered the game completely by overblowing it. I had gone back to playing the original H 3 before H 5 because WoG was unbearably cluttered.

Ah,but WoG has the best thing in the world that should be implemented in every game:Plethora of options.You can turn on/off whatever you want,and thats the best part of it.

I think that illustrates best what's wrong with the fans: Three pages of options may be a good thing for the long-time fan but they suck like hell for any newbie with the game. Before you can turn things on or off you have to know what the effect of those is. WoG has six option pages with over 200 options which is nice for the hard-core fans, but gibberish for any non-fan. It furthermore isn't that good for mp-playing.

[nosfe]

i couldn't stand wog either; it had a lot of options, true, but with most of them were enabled(as it comes when you install it) made the map/hero screen/everything very cluttered. I wanted to play heroes3 and what did i get with wog? heroes 5000 Not good for mp? its horrible

I've played Heroes 1-5 and i like them all; my main problem with h5 was the campaign with its weak story(i love great stories in games, legacy of kain games anyone? ). Sure it has it's flaws but i could get over them(like the missing wait button, as i like to play heroes laid back and not use the keyboard most of the time, well, thats in single player)

if it were one thing that i'd want from nival it would be to have a few people that would keep them in touch with the communities desires/wishes. I'm sure that it would make a lot of users much more happy if there were a couple of people that would respond to the pleas/whines/wishes of the community; and not just users, by working with the community they would get a better understanding of the wants and needs of the fans of the game and if they would manage to accomplish most of them i'm pretty sure that the reviewers would also notice those changes and give the game a higher score witch would mean higher sales. All it would take to make something like this would be to have ~4 people that would keep in touch with the communities, i'm sure that it would make for a better game for us and more profit for them
but this is just wishful thinking

[Caradoc]

One of the great things about previous Heroes editors was that they were designed for users. The Heroes IV scripting system, buggy as it was, made it possible to create far better maps than we will ever see with Heroes V. Somebody decided that message boxes meant more text to translate and that this was a cost to be avoided. Idiot.

I don't understand what you mean about message boxes. Is it an editor thing or an in-game thing? And what does that have to do with translating?

Message boxes enable the mapmaker to insert narration or dialog into the layout of the map. This allows for descriptions of locations or opponents, for conversations with NPCs or other heroes, and for delivery of hints and warnings.

There is a primitive message system available in the editor, but it is not nearly as useful as what we had before.

The maps that come with the game do not have much text, because it would have to be translated for each language edition. Thus messaging was not an important feature for the developers -- they were looking after their own interests, not ours.

[Adicto]

No, I can't believe it either.
I don't know any person, at least no sane person, that will hang around for nearly 7 months (not counting the time before the game release), and constantly lament about a game that in their opinion suck. Even if it's mediocre, there are so many great games to go back or new to, why bother? Plain and simple: game sucks or is mediocre at best: put it in the dustbin or to ebay or whatever the heck and turn to another one. Maybe come back when a complete version is available or news about a sequel are there. But hang around all those months? Come on.
So it's either some people are decidedly not sane here OR (and I prefer to assume this next one) they find the game good, but let's say lacking in some areas. But basically at least so good that they hope it will get very good at least with patches and expansions.

Well, I think you don't understand why those "insane" whiners are whining since the beta test, or even what are they whining about. It is really simple: The incompetence of Nival.

If you have to read the same posts filled with the same complaints made by the same people, it is because Nival still adding bugs or critical changes with every patch, like a beta test.

Why some players are whining since the prehistory without signs of stopping someday? Maybe because they want another developers for the next HoMM, or maybe because they simply want to see Nival in bankruptcy for constantly ruining a great game.

[Caradoc]

Sorry to post twice in a row, but I wanted to make a comment about Graphics cards. I won't go into the details, but what we have seen over the years is more and more offloading of functionality from the CPU to the GPU.

Designers have always had to wrestle with the issue of whether it is more efficient to let the CPU handle some of the compute-intensive steps. The problem is how to incorporate the CPU into the graphics pipeline and this has driven bus and memory design.

The good news is that we are starting to see a new generation of graphics cards that practically remove the CPU from the picture. The cards are pricey, but include specialized processing units that can take over for the CPU. The bad news is that they need a new version of ActiveX to take advantage of the new architecture. And the even worse news is that this means a new version of Windows.

[admira99]

err.. we are talking about Nival, right? so why it is evolved into... Graphic Cards and HW stuf??

Aw, I can't put my finger off on this kind of discussion. Let me start:

I mostly agree with DaemianLucifer the most annoying things about heroes V is the bug, well my experience with "Collect 20 bone dragons" results that I repeat the scenario for amazingly 4 times, until I find what's wrong about it which is a bug. First impression is important, yes I must completely agree with that. The bugs, the voice act, there are enough reason for me to burn the Nival's office. IF ONLY I can't see the improvement (let's say: unique skills and abilities, initiative turn) I would have trashed the game after experiencing the bugs.

Fortunately, after few patches (which is not in the very professional release), I must say the games improved, well, I like heroes games. Unlike others, I will give Heroes V or to be specific, Nival a few chances and see how the game will improve in the next expansion(s).

[Elvin]

@Adicto
You are actually trying to sway JJ? Believe me that's not humanly possible,many have tried!