Staff reduction at Nival

[Pol]

Damn, any more and you'll convince me that there are devs that care out there.

Go visit some (of 3do) art and don't suspect me.

[Darmani]

"... dark elves with reptiles...



Frankly the Orcs are the only ones without some glaring WH influence."



Considering that, IIRC, the H5 Dungeon was inspired by Menzoberranzan, it is reasonable to assume that the dark elves on lizards was primarily inspired by the lizard riders of Menzoberranzan.

[ThunderTitan]

I'm unsure of the timeline of the dark elfs in the 2 games (which reptile rider came first), but the main point was about WH of M&M, and it still fits even if it's closer to the D&D equivalent.

Plus, the Druchii have Hydras in their armies.

[Daystar]

oh my goddess, why aren't you people complaining about how Heroes coppied off all those games with Knights in them?!?

[Alamar]

@Sauron: IC what you're talking about now.



From a pure gameplay perspective I do admit that I like a lot of what H5 has to offer. Even though I'm a vocal-enough critic I don't have any real problems with the basic gameplay as you've outlined.

[Daystar]

Hey Celestial Heavens runners: Do you know there is a new Tribes of the East video, uploaded Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay8sCPieecw



Courtesy of me via HC via Hcentrum.

[Sir Charles]

*sigh* More "dump Nival" rants? Do all of you really want to go back to the basics again. Have a new developer have to go through all the bumps and bruises of the learning process of making a heroes game...again? Nival already went through their struggles. They've improved. They continue to improve. H5 was a tough nut to crack for ANY developer. There were simply too many different opinions to try to please. Now that they've got their own handprint on the game, let's see where they run with it with H6.



I certainly don't want to see this no-name developer that's making this KB game taking over for H6...this would be a HUGE vote of NO for that suggestion.

[Humakt]

I have to second Sir Charles. Experience does count when designing sequels for games and Nival should have access to considerable amount of feedback (propably mainly Russian).

I just wish they had made better editor and got rid of idiotic no scripts in mp rule.

[ywhtptgtfo]

I'd say we should wait for TotE to come out before imposing any further judgements on Nival. After all, we have yet to see whether or not they have learned from past mistakes.

[Akira]

It seems that the info in that Russian developer's post does not correspond with what you guys have written here. How come?



UPD. Hmm... I guess I got it...
Edited on Tue, Jul 17 2007, 08:53 by Akira

[ThunderTitan]

>oh my goddess, why aren't you people complaining about how Heroes coppied off all those games with Knights in them?!?<

Why don't we indeed:
http://us.games-workshop.com/games/warh ... st1_lg.jpg

https://www.celestialheavens.com/heroes ... priest.jpg

And none of you seem to get it that this was about showing that it's already Warhammer of M&M, so that's no reason to discount Blizzard.

[Moragauth]

Fine - it makes no difference to me. So long as Ashan remains relatively unaltered.
Edited on Tue, Jul 17 2007, 09:04 by Moragauth

[Alamar]

@Sir Charles: While my posts make it clear that we shouldn't "rejoice" at Nival's problems right now I do want to interject an opinion.



Specifically why do you and many other people think that it is "hard" to make a HoMM5 compared to any other strategy game?



The way I see it the only "hard" [impossible] part is trying to unite an otherwise fractured fan base.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------



As far as Blizzard, Bioware, etc. taking over development of a HoMM series that would never happen. These guy like to create their own stuff. They'd virtually never agree to handle something that is "farmed out from UBI".



I'm not even sure if you could easily talk a developer that's in the next tier down to take the project for the $ that I suspect UBI is willing to budget for the project.
Edited on Tue, Jul 17 2007, 10:11 by Alamar

[ThunderTitan]

@M
Don't worry, i'm sure they can let it stew in it's own mediocrity just fine.

@Alamar
Obviously a HoMM game takes alot more hamster running on a wheel to power the tubes juice to make then any other because the hamsters must take turns. Now that Nival has gotten used to hamster replacement handling they're the most qualified to make them rodents run well... as long as the hamsters don't die or something.

[Corribus]

@Sir Charles.

Best advice I've seen in this thread yet.

[ThunderTitan]

Best advice I've seen in this thread yet.

Yes, because making a good game is impossible without fan input... which they so listened too.

[Corribus]

Taking "fan input" into consideration for creating H5 was useful only to a certain degree. The very reason why H5 was, as SC stated, such a hard project to take on was because the fans were - and are - very divided over what they wanted for the next game. You can blame 3DO for that division, btw. In some senses, they were doomed to fail in the eyes of SOME fraction of the population. So they went with what made the most business sense. Switching developers for no reason at this point would be foolhardy, because continuity counts for something.

[Sir Charles]

@ Alamar



In general, it's not "that" hard making a TBS strategy game. But this wasn't JUST a TBS strategy game. It was a sequel that the designers had no experience in working on any of the previous versions. It was a sequel that followed up the near destruction of the franchise with 2 poor products. It was a sequel that was attempting to appease a TOTALLY fragmented fan base while at the same time lure in NEW fans to the game. No, definitely NOT an easy task. And no matter WHAT kind of game they put out, they were going to get raked over the coals by one faction of the fan base or another.



As for all these comments about different developers....give me a break. There's no chance in the world that Ubisoft would fund a budget large enough to hire a team in the price range as what you guys are listing. Get realistic. The PC market doesn't generate enough revenue to grant large budgets anymore. And that goes double for TBS strategy games. Blizzard. Bioware. LMAO.

[ThunderTitan]

pls, all sequels are in danger of that.

And the most business sense is to not cut out half the content the 2nd previous game had, not include any interface feature H4 had just because it failed...

[Corribus]

See my Discourses articles from several years ago for a discussion of why it made perfect business sense. My opinion has not changed. The fact that they made 2 expansions to H5 AND people are still playing the game supports my original contention. There *will* be H6. If they had made poor business decisions that would be impossible.