Unfair Hostility to Heroes 5 and Nival >.<

[tekeeee]

Be happy that soon there willl be new chance for Heroes after they finish last expansion, besides anything would've been better then EA games

Sh*t is still sh*t, even if it's not the worst sh*t.

That's what I'm also talking about sometimes, and I don't understand people replying to me with: "be happy it's not worse". This mentality will lead us to having Game developers getting rich by producing bad games - which people buy because "others are worse" - which will implicitly lead to larger and larger numbers of frustrated gamers, spending half of their time modding (or browsing the net for mods, begging programmers on forums to fix this or that), instead of just enjoying.

50 bucks is just too much for the half-finnished products they are throwing today on the market. If we buy them as they are, we just encourage them to go on like this.

Which is why I said that I downloaded it, I didn't support no publisher so I didn't want people to get the wrong idea that I was complaining about money
By the way please do not bother quoting anything I said up there haha it took me like 20 minutes to research and is really irrelevant and stupid like who cares seriuosly?

But an important thing to note is that all games have been cracked so protection is pointless, only publishers demand it, and besides downloading actually doesn't affect sales, becuase I would not have bought any game in a long time becuase I still love the old ones

[Silence]

Which is why I said that I downloaded it, I didn't support no publisher so I didn't want people to get the wrong idea that I was complaining about money

Soh, you pirated the game and then come here to tell the people who actually paid for it, that our complains are not justified?

By the way please do not bother quoting..

Quoting as long as can, since the piracy theme smells for post deletions or topic lock

EDIT. To come back to some previous posts. I agree with claims that actually Ubi has more responsibility on heroes quality than Nival.

[Starbatron]

Now that everyone has finally vented their biases and frustrations, merited by nationality or not, can we finally turn to discussing what is worth discussing? Regardless of what the "causes" are, nationality of the publisher, the publisher aside from the nationality, whatever, what is sure is that the publishers released an inferior product and deserve to be bashed (gently, so that they learn from their mistakes) for doing so. Certainly the relations between Nival and even Ubi have been less than pleasant, which certainly some fans are justified in pointing out, and that being the case, certainly that is a poor decision, whether it is Nival, a Russian company, an American company, or any company. These issues and mistakes are worthy of being bashed and rightly so. Why continue a senseless debate about what caused this company or that company to act this way or release a game this way? Can we now move on to discussing how they are remedying the situation and if that is adequate to make the game worth while? Or perhaps discussing the game itself rather than the publisher?

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

But an important thing to note is that all games have been cracked so protection is pointless, only publishers demand it, and besides downloading actually doesn't affect sales, becuase I would not have bought any game in a long time becuase I still love the old ones

Stealing the game instead of buying it does affect sales of that particular product and the development of future games in the series/expansions. If you like the game/series buy the game instead of stealing it.

I really can find no justification for anyone stealing a game.

GOW

[Alamar]

Now that everyone has finally vented their biases and frustrations, merited by nationality or not, can we finally turn to discussing what is worth discussing? Regardless of what the "causes" are, nationality of the publisher, the publisher aside from the nationality, whatever, what is sure is that the publishers released an inferior product and deserve to be bashed (gently, so that they learn from their mistakes) for doing so. Certainly the relations between Nival and even Ubi have been less than pleasant, which certainly some fans are justified in pointing out, and that being the case, certainly that is a poor decision, whether it is Nival, a Russian company, an American company, or any company. These issues and mistakes are worthy of being bashed and rightly so. Why continue a senseless debate about what caused this company or that company to act this way or release a game this way? Can we now move on to discussing how they are remedying the situation and if that is adequate to make the game worth while? Or perhaps discussing the game itself rather than the publisher?

Oh no ... someone is trying to use logic. This thread better be locked in a hurry

[asandir]

and here I thought that I and a couple of others had already listed the salient points as to why the game isn't rated higher? I can't really say it in another way

not sure why this became an east vs west thing though .... is it a pissing contest? who's history is the least blameless? the most rightous? what a ridiculous concept

[Mytical]

Indeed, individuals should not recieve blame or 'glory' for what their country may have done in the past. The average individual in a country has nothing to do with world wide events or politics. To put it plainly as I can, it has nothing to do with Ubi/Nival being russian. Put out a bad product, and you should reap what you have sown. Pure and simple. Lets take medicine for example. Lets say a company, from any country, creates a paticular medicine. Then they dilute it, test it for a little while, but while awaiting the results, ship it out to be used by the public. Everybody and their brother would be up in arms about that. Especially if the product caused problems. New things are good, and new ideas are needed, but they should not be rushed out just to make a quick buck. HoMM 5 was the Oxycotin of games. It looked like a good idea, the testing they did seemed to indicate it was ok, but once out ... well the results were less then spectacular. Anybody remember the backlash to the drug companies over Oxycotin? While HoMM 5 is nowhere near as dangerous as Oxy, I think similar backlash should have came about. It is not a terrible game, it is a bleh game. 4 out of 10 is being a bit generous to be honest. Especially when it could have been a 9 or 10 out of 10.

Now it has gotten a bit better over time, but still lacks a lot. Like a user friendly map maker. A more flexible rmg. Better balance...and a few other things. Currently I would give it more like a 6 out of 10, still bad for a HoMM title.

[Silence]

Why continue a senseless debate about what caused this company or that company to act this way or release a game this way?

Isn't the knowledge about the cause necessary for finding a cure?

Can we now move on to discussing how they are remedying the situation and if that is adequate to make the game worth while?

In my opinion the best way to remedy would be to get the people who decide deadlines and finances to actually love the game. As long as the CEO, marketing and whatever office bosses are happy with the results, the games will be shipped in half-backed form. Maybe that these people do not see currently any need for a "remedy" at all. Nival and Fabrice's team, who are the actual people on the projects, may see the need or not. Due to lack of an open and active discussion between fans and developers I cannot tell their thoughs. Maybe Ubi marketing office also censoring them in the lines of how much they can communicate with the fans. Maybe the developers really would like to do it somehow different - spend more time on patches and concentrate on the next expansion later when patches are finished, but the deadlines mess their schedules badly up.

OK now to the question itself: how they are remedying the situation and if that is adequate to make the game worth while?

From the patches and expansion plans it looks like the developers are willing to improve things. Unfortunately, the saying that "we gave our best but it turned out crap as always" holds true. Patches introducing new bugs (some like enought were very easy to fix) indicates that something is wrong in the patching/"remedy" process. The constant delays is another thing. The owners of standard game only have been waiting what 5 months for a new patch? That time is long enough for completely forgetting the game. Thus while the intentions of the developers are good, IMHO their strategy for practical realisation it is rather bad. I better do not estimate whether it all makes the game worth or not as one cannot even be sure that all existing features will stay until the end of the patching...

[ThunderTitan]

who's history is the least blameless? the most rightous?

The one that never had any power is always the least blamable of course.


And we're complaining so at least we feel like we're doing something...

[Starbatron]

Why continue a senseless debate about what caused this company or that company to act this way or release a game this way?

Isn't the knowledge about the cause necessary for finding a cure?

Can we now move on to discussing how they are remedying the situation and if that is adequate to make the game worth while?

In my opinion the best way to remedy would be to get the people who decide deadlines and finances to actually love the game. As long as the CEO, marketing and whatever office bosses are happy with the results, the games will be shipped in half-backed form. Maybe that these people do not see currently any need for a "remedy" at all. Nival and Fabrice's team, who are the actual people on the projects, may see the need or not. Due to lack of an open and active discussion between fans and developers I cannot tell their thoughs. Maybe Ubi marketing office also censoring them in the lines of how much they can communicate with the fans. Maybe the developers really would like to do it somehow different - spend more time on patches and concentrate on the next expansion later when patches are finished, but the deadlines mess their schedules badly up.

OK now to the question itself: how they are remedying the situation and if that is adequate to make the game worth while?

From the patches and expansion plans it looks like the developers are willing to improve things. Unfortunately, the saying that "we gave our best but it turned out crap as always" holds true. Patches introducing new bugs (some like enought were very easy to fix) indicates that something is wrong in the patching/"remedy" process. The constant delays is another thing. The owners of standard game only have been waiting what 5 months for a new patch? That time is long enough for completely forgetting the game. Thus while the intentions of the developers are good, IMHO their strategy for practical realisation it is rather bad. I better do not estimate whether it all makes the game worth or not as one cannot even be sure that all existing features will stay until the end of the patching...

I certainly agree with your assessment of the CEO, marketing, and financers needing to care about the game in order for it to receive the time and development it deserves. However, what this debate had turned into was not producing any useful knowledge about the causes but had turned into a mud slinging contest over political and national "causes" or rather I should say, supposed causes. Such topics only encourage arguments that go in circles and distract from establishing what mistakes were made and how they are being remedied. I, for one, agree that the remedies, while they have the potential to fix the problems (most of which shouldn't exist), the handling of them isn't effective, and will likely only help the most die hard fans willing to wait the five months or more between some patches that may fix the problem but may also create more problems. I am truly not sure if this particular installment of the game is worth the trouble... Let us just hope there is a sixth installment and that they either handle it better or pass it to a company that will.

[tekeeee]

No this topic was supposed ot be about Bias people had before the game when it was announced Russian developer would create it, people refused to buy it because they did not want to support "Ex-Commies"
Now that game is released and for sometime now it is clear that Bias is not the reason to hate this game.
The Point of this thread *was* to discuss this bias lol becuase people still hate it and now they say they have proof becuase of how bad the game turend out

So that is why I am eagerly forgetting Heroes 5, very excited about Expansion though becuasue it is *LAST* expansion! SO Nival has new chance with a successful game Heroes 5!
I don't care how much you old veterans hate the game it is still very successful they will make a sequel becuase well, it is heroes, unless something goes Down at Ubi or there is unlikely shower of bananas in Russia.

What makes you think I am Russian?
By quoting me I meant not quoting any of my America tirades hah!
I have alot more and it is really not relevant

[asandir]

No this topic was supposed ot be about Bias people had before the game when it was announced Russian developer would create it, people refused to buy it because they did not want to support "Ex-Commies"

I musta been away that day

[Silence]

No this topic was supposed ot be about Bias people had before the game when it was announced Russian developer would create it, people refused to buy it because they did not want to support "Ex-Commies"

I musta been away that day

Me too. The people who were to boycott the game did it because of the game itself (or initially the Starforce copy-protection). Once you are pissed off due to destruction of the old world, the huge amount of dragons, high system requirements or whatever, it is pleasurable to find any other kind of justifications for your boycott, including developers nationality. I do not remember and do not believe either that the politics was the *main* reason of crititism for anyone.

[Mytical]

Let he who's nation is without fault cast the first stone. Sorry, somewhere in any nation's pass is something less then pleasant. Common people should not be held responsible for what a nation does. Most of us mind our own business and just go about the task of living our own lives. Now to be specific I am mostly Native American. So I could have a beef with the English, Spanish, ect ect, but I don't. I don't blame somebody for something their great grandfather or whatever might have done.
Wars come and go, for reasons that seemed important at the time. People do stupid things for reasons they think are important at the time.
Hatred comes and goes, for reasons we think are important but are most likely not.
No nation is blameless, so don't even go there. The important thing is not what nationality you are or what country you live in. The important thing is we are all the same underneith. So go ahead, rant on other nations, hate if you feel like it, put your own country on a pedestal if it makes you feel better. In the end all that does is make your life a sad thing. Live, love, be happy. That is the best revenge. And it makes your life much more fulfilling in the end. That is just my 2c worth.

[asandir]

I think that mighta been a dollars worth actually

good call

[Starbatron]

Well put mytical!! And I agree...whenever did "most people" refuse to buy the game because of bias against nationality? I never remember hearing that... And the topic subject is "unfair hostility against HoMM V and Nival" not bias. They are not one and the same.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

I would be suprised if anyone refused to buy HOMM5 because it was developed by a Russian company. I doubt that most people know what company develops a game beyond seeing the logo pop up before the game begins.

Although I like HOMM5 and think it is a good game there have been legitimate issues raised about certain aspects of the game and the way that Nival/Ubi handled certain things. Those are the gripes that folks have, not where the company that developed or published the game is located.

GOW

[jeff]

First off most in the west are probably more likely to be annoyed with the French than the Russians.

Secondly, the hostility towards Nival is misdirected. I voiced concern over UBI’s poor track record with two games I had loved in the past. They messed up the gold box series rebirth releasing a very buggy and flawed POR 2. Then they quickly followed up almost killing the Warlords series with releasing the disappointing Warlords IV.

Now many in the community ran to UBI’s defense saying they were only the publisher and did not own the rights to those games. Therefore they would take better care of the Might and Magic name since they owned that. Well you can’t have it both ways. If Nival delivers a bad product that goes into production, don’t blame them, they don’t own it. It is for UBI and UBI alone to ensure their product is the best possible, afterall they own it. If it was not ready they should have stepped in and made it right or hired another company to develop it. Though one would hope pride would stimulate a subcontractor to provide only the best quality work, that doesn’t always happen. It is then the contractor’s responsibility to fix it, and sadly (but based on past history not unexpected) UBI did not step in.

This game is not horrible and I will probably buy the last add-on now that Fabrice mentioned it is not to be priced like a new game. The biggest problem it has is an editor that is so user unfriendly that people who could make maps with the H-IV editor and were able to develop scripts that helped compensate for its AI and other shortcomings, are disenfranchised by the H-V torture device.

[tekeeee]

heh i tried warlords 4 but i quickly got bored, its graphics were ugly and it ran so slow` it should not take 30 seconds to get through a TUrn,
So i supose Warlords 4 is comparable to Heroes 5

Did anyone here try Age of Wonders? very good game but no sequel is planned unfortunately

[Starbatron]

I blame them equally. First, Ubi for not allowing the developer more time, or insisting more time is spent on debugging and sending out a finished product, and Nival for sending out for publication an inferior product (yes, with great potential, but I don't award stars for potential )