News Supression Pact

[Kilfire]

This pact strikes me as being a bit premature. Ubi are a big company, you can't expect them to react as fast as the community does. It took them a few days to get from opening the beta to publishing the 2005Q3 report with HoMM5 omitted. There would've been no harm in giving them another 5 working days to make an official announcement on the release date.

[Gaidal Cain]

Tzar: 500? 150 000 is more like it. And if they expect news on the Ubi forums, they're in for a hell of a disappointment. The only news that are posted there are things like when the open beta starts etc. Reviews, information etc are found at other places, or are generally hard to dig out of the forums.

This pact strikes me as being a bit premature. Ubi are a big company, you can't expect them to react as fast as the community does. It took them a few days to get from opening the beta to publishing the 2005Q3 report with HoMM5 omitted.

I don't see the connection here? Care to enlighten me? And 5 days to prepare a forum posting by Fabrice saying "Don't worry, the game's targeted for a release way after march 31:st"? Please.

[Xsi]

"not to sound like an elitist but it seems like those bashing this idea the most have very few posts on this site. whether this means they are new to this site and this site only or if it means that they aren't frequent posters in the hommunity is yet to be revealed."



Sometimes its better to just say nothing, now you look like the other 100s of idiots, who thought they made a point by saying this sort of thing.



As to reveal the things you wonder on my account: I grew up with 1 and 2 and kb, I played 3 and 4 extensively and have been reading this site as long as I can remember (but not before I got a cable-connection)

[Lord_Haart]

IMO, this is a VERY bad idea. And not just because I'm going to miss reading the news.



Firstly, it uses negative (as opposed to positive) reinforcement. There are 2 ways to achieve our goal of a better quality release - either we can complain/strike/threaten/sook, or we can do the opposite - let Ubi-val know that if they release a top quality game, we'll do more than buy it - we'll advertise, post good reviews, stay loyal to the series etc.



Of course, our reaction will depend upon the quality of game released. But we can either threaten and shun Niv-soft about it, or we can engage in a constructive and positive dialogue with them, whereby we can convince them that with this game (and contrary to most other games), more fans will be lost from a poor release than from a late release. Or rather, to put it the way I'd advocate - more fans will be gained from a quality release than from an early release.



March is way past holidays anyway. They can hold off to June, and sell it as a mid-year break game.



Of course, there will be a delay in their response, the petition has only been out for 3 days, and it could take up to a week for Nival to negotiate a plan with Ubi about delaying the release (note that the delay is also a pain for employees - they're probably dying for a break, some of them may even have booked holidays post-march. Thsese things will take time to process. They don't need to feel betrayed by the community at the same time).



And to anyone who says that this kind of action (news suppression) is out of love for the series, remember when a few people felt so much "love" for Heroes 3 that they couldn't stand by and watch it get ruined with the addition of a certain "un-heroes" town? News suppression will make Nival and Ubi think pretty poorly of us. It's not like they haven't put 2-3 years of work into this already. They need to be approached maturely, not radically.

[Gaidal Cain]

March is way past holidays anyway. They can hold off to June, and sell it as a mid-year break game.

If you didn't know, March 31:st is the end of Ubisofts fiscal year- which might mean that they try to rush it out the dorr for some quick cash.

[Gaidal Cain]

March is way past holidays anyway. They can hold off to June, and sell it as a mid-year break game.

If you didn't know, March 31:st is the end of Ubisofts fiscal year- which might mean that they try to rush it out the dorr for some quick cash.

[Corribus]

@ Corribus
In this case applies to good old rule : all publicity is good publicity.

Tell that to the President. It's not a rule that I buy.

[Kilfire]

This pact strikes me as being a bit premature. Ubi are a big company, you can't expect them to react as fast as the community does. It took them a few days to get from opening the beta to publishing the 2005Q3 report with HoMM5 omitted. There would've been no harm in giving them another 5 working days to make an official announcement on the release date.

[DemonHunter]

I think that with this you're doing just wath you want to prevent

ubi is propably not going to give news (andif they did it, it was because it was planned to give it then)

+ All this trouble might off course let a part of the community drop of



and for what? because they put on the site that it will be released march 31 and they'll propably delay it again like they did before

I think it's just a date wich they would like most



I don't think they plan to do worse than 3do so I'm not really worried it being unfinnished

[tessraven]

Is it just me, or did the "HoMMunity" just go from over zealous to temper tantrum?

[Derek]

Props to you Angelspit, and for that matter the whole HOMMunity. I tried playing the main game again on the beta.

*Ugh*

Lets hope for some serious work for when the game is actually released.

[jeff]

This move of course is a two edged sword. I agree completely with the motives behind it. UBI has already backtracked on features thought to have been promised by saying we never confirmed that in an official announcement, while at the same time not denying either. At some point these types of wishy washy stands cease to create interest and only fuel concern, distrust and animosity, and to what end you have to ask? Unlike many here I have never trusted UBI, but felt they deserved a chance, and still do. First everyone all we have seen is a beta, there must be a lot of people trying to fix the known errors, and dumping too much criticism and too aggressive of a stand against a game based solely on a beta hardly encourages a company to have the large scale beta testing they are currently conducting. With that in mind much of the current firestorm is centered on a lot of UNCONFIRMED statements and interpretations of released information. I have stated in threads in the forum, much of this is not UBI’s fault, but only they can fix it. A simple statement saying the release is currently planned for…… but maybe delayed, and then all of this angst goes away. Yet, on this and the several features many of us are worried about continue to sail in a sea of uncertainty caused by UBI’s poor PR performance.



As I said this is a two edge sword, UBI may decide in future to ignore the participating sites and release information only through their on site. They have been trying to make this game in their image by such ridiculous decisions like not having any original heroes included. Hello, what is the first word in the game title, Heroes? How can you say you want to carry on the tradition, keeping all of us who have been here since Heroes 1, ok for some 2 and continue the tradition when the only similarities are creatures, spells and town types.



Rather lengthy, but I support this decision let’s hope that UBI realizes partial information can be and in this case is destructive.

[george137]

This is a bit rash dont you think. Sure the game could be a bit unbalanced when it first comes out but have you ever seen a game that was perfect from the release, especially stratagy games? Also keep in mind that it is an open beta the game is probably going to have some changes when it somes out. Sure we want to avoid what happened to Heroes IV but does that mean we have to "go on strike"? And how will we know if they delayed the game if we dont pay attention to the news =P?

[Symeon Star-Eyes]

Exactly how will witholding information on H5 from the fans help accomplish your goal?

The petition is fine, and a good way to send the message to Ubi. But this? I can't understand what good this will do.

If Ubi has decided to ignore the petition, what makes you think they'll change their minds when they see this?

And if Ubi has indeed seen the petition and decided to delay the game, then this boycott is completely redundant and uncalled for.

[Veldrynus]

@ Corribus
In this case applies to good old rule : all publicity is good publicity.

Tell that to the President. It's not a rule that I buy.

Here is a newsflash for you: there are some rules in the universe wich are not affected by the fact that 'buy' them or not.

Ok, I'll try to explain it to you. The potential new players who might buy the game, do not follow these happenings like we do, and they surely won't remember these events in detail, esp. around the time when the game is released (99% : march 2006). The only thing they might remember is the name of the game and the fact that the serie has many devoted fans who care about it. This is marketing.

[Arzang]

Sometimes its better to just say nothing, now you look like the other 100s of idiots, who thought they made a point by saying this sort of thing.

I was just making a point. a bunch of whiners (I have nothing against alternate opinions though) coming from nowhere to criticize.

the point was: new members of the hommunity show their faces when the community expresses concern about the game's current state. and what do the new members do? side with the company, not the community. THIS is what bothers me, not your homm history, not the amount of posts, not anything to that extent.

just that people show up to defend the company with, so far, lame arguments. and who are the other 100s of idiots? maybe you should go with your own notion of not saying anything.

..we'll do more than buy it - we'll advertise, post good reviews, stay loyal to the series etc.

valid. but would that really be as hard hitting?

But we can either threaten and shun Niv-soft about it, or we can engage in a constructive and positive dialogue with them

true. this pact in itself is just a supplement. we need other courses of action as well. like playing the game and giving feedback. which I expect those who are for this pact to do. it would be lame to be pro-suppression without having played the beta and without having good reasons.

News suppression will make Nival and Ubi think pretty poorly of us. It's not like they haven't put 2-3 years of work into this already. They need to be approached maturely, not radically.

you make it sound like the communities have an obligation to supply news. and the communities chose the way that was the most civilized and striking as possible. if a dialogue is started between nivsoft and the hommunity, like you said before, you can expect this pact to be lifted. if not then it's not the communities fault that ubival hasn't passed the ball back. you can't play socco by yourself.

This pact strikes me as being a bit premature. Ubi are a big company, you can't expect them to react as fast as the community does.

yet another lame argument. WHY do we have to wait for them to react? let's say that tomorrow they say something along the lines of: "we had already planned a summer release. we just didn't have the time to tell you blabla.". what will be the effect? nothing. this pact may have been a bit early, causing a day or two of news suppression but other than that nothing bad would've happened.

now say the situation is otherwise and the game IS slated for an early release; would you then say that this pact was in any way or how bad?

it's still better to be safe than sorry.

[King Imp]

With all due respect, you guys probably should have at least given them a week to respond to whether or not the game has been delayed.



Saveheroes.org was only opened on the 25th and the news that it might possibly be delayed came on Friday the 27th. Ummm, there is this little thing called the weekend guys. Give them a little bit of a break. They do have lives too.



By all means, if they didn't respond by next weekend, then I would say this method is valid, but to make this decision on a weekend only 2 days after an announcement is unfair.

[Corribus]

Ok, I'll try to explain it to you.

Ok I'll try to explain it to you. If Ford has to recall half a million SUVs because their fuel tanks explode during minor traffic accidents, that's called bad publicity.

[HodgePodge]

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As someone who has had her opinions & concerns completely ignored by UbiSoft/Nival since the beginning (most notably: caravans & SF) I personally don't think they care at all how the fans feel.

They're gonna do what they want and that is to make the most money milking the Heroes of Might & Magic name for all it's worth. And if releasing it by the end of their fiscal year makes them the biggest profit, then that's how they'll decide.

Supressing the H5 news probably wouldn't effect UbiSoft at all, because somehow, I don't think they even bother to take the time to read the forums, or care about petitions. Yeah, every now and again Fabrice pokes his head in and condescends to making a reply; but it is so seldom that one gets the feeling it is just to keep stringing us fans along.

UbiSoft/Nival has NEVER given me the same "warm-fuzzy" kind of feelings which I got from my relationship with 3do/NWC. I just don't think they (Ubi/Niv) care.

[jeff]

I enjoyed Heroes IV, but by most standards it was a disappointment and along with the failure of M&M 9, this franchise's future may well depend on a good showing by Heroes V. I do not believe either UBI's or our interests will be served by a rushed release, and sorry any publicity is not good publicity, more than one movie has failed at the box office because the publicity was bad. It’s called word of mouth and while it is not deserved there is a lot of bad word of mouth right now.