Fabrice Cambounet Q&A

[Angelspit]

There is a Q&A with Heroes producer Fabrice Cambounet at the new "sfidanzized" <b>heroes-fr.com</b>. The <a href="/http://www.heroes-fr.com/e107_plugins/f ... ">original article</a> is in French, but an <a href="/http://www.heroes-fr.com/e107_plugins/f ... 2">English translation</a> is provided. Here is what Fabrice had to say on the patching situation (after 1.6, 2.2 and 3.1):



<i>"The current patch plan is not finished yet. In the now traditional Heroes 5 way, the initial planning has been considerably delayed (about three months). On the bright side, it also allows us to better include fan feedback, since the community rose some issues that we didn't plan to address at first. We still have a few patches to release before we reassess the situation. (...) the support plan for balance and debug is supposed to last beyond 2008 if necessary. The adding features part depends on the end of the patch plan."</i>



And on the new Heroes Complete package:



<i>"The Complete Edition has been entirely carried by our marketing manager, and I use the occasion to publicly thank him for his investment in making the project successful. This special edition indeed allowed to move forward with the art book, which I despaired to see become a reality. I wrote the general layout two years ago already, during a sleepless night in an overheated hotel in centre Moscow. It was initially planned for a coordinated release with Heroes 5, then with Hammers of Fate. The third try has finally succeeded, and the result is highly worth the wait. I really hope the fans will like it!"</i>

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1199970281

[Wurtzel]

I found his comments regarding the editor somewhat disappointing... Hopefully HOMM6 (if it gets going) will have a more user friendly editor.
Edited on Thu, Jan 10 2008, 08:24 by Wurtzel

[King Imp]

I'm sorry, but I gotta say this about the map editor answer.



Fabrice: "I didn't receive much feedback from the community on the topic at this time."



No offense, but that's bull! People have been screaming that the editor was crap and that it needed tons of work from the very beginning.



This is just another case of they don't know how to make it any better, so they'll just move on.

[JessieLC]

Forget HOMM VI what about getting HOMM Complete to the US Market?????????If it s so great we would like to have a say!!!!!!!!!!

[HodgePodge]

Even before I read any of the replies to Fabrice's comments, I was thinking: But did they fix the editor? Obvioulsy, every other fan feels the same way.

Fabrice … Fix the @$^%&* Editor!

[Angelspit]

Fabrice: "I didn't receive much feedback from the community on the topic at this time."

Maybe that's a translation error and by "retour" Fabrice meant "product returns" instead of feedback. Send your game boxes back to Ubisoft with a post-it with "Awful Editor" written on it.

Just being a geeky translator here.

[Sir Charles]

Actually, the complaints here about the editor are very general. He had some dialog with numerous community leaders a few months back and was asking for SPECIFIC feedback on how to improve or change the editor. The feedback was VERY limited. In general it was mostly things along the lines of "it's not very user friendly", "it lags very badly" without any linking computer specs to determine the fault if any.



My suggestion is for the multiple communities out there to generate SPECIFIC lists of what they would remove, add or alter from the current editor so it can be implemented into the H6 editor. Putting in a ton of man-hours at this late in the game for H5 just isn't a good use of their time and effort IMO.



IMO the main problem with the H5 editor stems from the fact that they started with the actual game designing editor and then began removing, adding & changing features of THAT to create the in game editor. Making it user friendly and some of the other sweeping changes that fans clamor for would simply require a complete re-working of it from the bottom up. I simply don't see that happening without any income being generated from it in the foreseeable future. They're better off focusing on balance fixes and such for H5 and then looking towards H6.

[PhoenixReborn]

@ Sir Charles if you look here:

http://www.celestialheavens.com/forums/ ... php?t=7359

You'll find some very concrete suggestions in GOW's final post. Some of it is logical and some of it is ease of use stuff.

That's a recent list, Vlaad at Heroes Community made a long list when the original editor came out.

[Sir Charles]

I just read through that thread PR and I noticed the statement that you'll forward it to me so I can send it to Ubisoft. I kinda laughed at that one. First off, this is the first I've ever seen this thread. But then again, I've only been in the mapmaking forum once before. But also you should notice that I said that FC chatted with community leaders asking for feedback. Not once was this thread (or the Heroes Community thread) mentioned. I'm not even sure that FC is aware that it exists. That being said, there are still several things on these lists that would entail a LOT of work to incorporate. Sure, there are a few things that should be quick to fix and they "might" get addressed if FC is made aware of them. But as I said (and as he said quite plainly) it's probably much too late in the game to spend an extensive amount of time on something that isn't going to generate income OR become improved immensely. To get it to the stage that fans want it in would require a complete re-working of it or a scrapping of it and starting a new one. I just don't see that happening.

[PhoenixReborn]

I just read through that thread PR and I noticed the statement that you'll forward it to me so I can send it to Ubisoft. I kinda laughed at that one.

It's true I did not follow through there...there wasn't much enthusiasm for creating the list at first and neither did the original source about them updating the editor seem too reliable.

I had planned to ask sfidanza translate it into french for ubi.

As you say it is too late now, but my point is that there certainly were good suggestions right from the start.

I doubt that AS trawls the mapmaking forum either.

[Akul]

Sir Charles... once again I totally agree with what you have told. There is nothing more to add.

[Sir Charles]

That was one of the biggest problems with that "chat". None of us were mapmakers really. We'd all messed around with it some (a few more than others) but he was asking the wrong group IMO. It's water under the bridge now but hopefully it'll make things run smoother with H6.

[jeff]

Can we expect improvements in the map editor accessibility and usability?

Sadly no. We have currently no plan to update the map editor. This might be reassessed at some time, but I didn't receive much feedback from the community on the topic at this time.

He is either a moron which we assume he's not, or he is completely out of touch with the community, meaning he himself has never bothered to check. As far as I know CH never had a thread requesting input about specific changes. Regardless none of that is an excuse. Before H-5 was released they asked for community input, CH had a map editor thread, but it was never submitted, as I recall it was because UBI said no more input. Of course the other possibility is the community in general doesn't care about having a broad range of maps being created by fans. This to would be a bad omen for the future. For me it is too late, having discussed this with JJ in another thread it is now obvious H-V is not setup for my type of maps regardless of the editor. Which sadly moves me closer to an inevitable retirement from gaming.

[Elvin]

Regardless of the editor issue the rest is as good as we could get them. Allied maps and continued patching counts.

[Toejam]

homm complete is great, even if i allready own all the Heroes games i still had to have it, a t-shirt,poster, tarrot cards, a BIG artbook ... and all for the price of 1 and a half game i love it

[Angelspit]

I doubt that AS trawls the mapmaking forum either.

I do, but I was hoping the developers would notice it by themselves (it doesn't take that long to retrieve info on fan forums, I do it all the time). And I was afraid such a thread would not make such a difference after all, sorry to say.

[Muszka]

It would be really that hard for those developers to have one man in plus, who would keep in touch with fans and who would take care of the "feedback" issues? Though I don't know for the PC game developing market how it works, but I can see in the other marketings branches, that companies invest tons of money just in the evaluation of the market(e.g. cigarettes)
After all, they would have bigger sales, and what is an employe's playment compared to that?

[Pitsu]

He had some dialog with numerous community leaders a few months back and was asking for SPECIFIC feedback on how to improve or change the editor. ....
Not once was this thread (or the Heroes Community thread) mentioned.

That was one of the biggest problems with that "chat". None of us were mapmakers really

And that makes one wonder whether the "community leaders" are worth such title or how the heck are the people chosen with whom Fabrice communicates. If a map editor question is asked, and no-one among "community leaders" bothers to look at the mapmaking forums of two major international forums, then you deserve a little electric shock to wake up. BTW, what has happened to Ururam-Tururam, he was a leader of Polish community and a mapmaker?

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

He had some dialog with numerous community leaders a few months back and was asking for SPECIFIC feedback on how to improve or change the editor. ....
Not once was this thread (or the Heroes Community thread) mentioned.

That was one of the biggest problems with that "chat". None of us were mapmakers really

And that makes one wonder whether the "community leaders" are worth such title or how the heck are the people chosen with whom Fabrice communicates. If a map editor question is asked, and no-one among "community leaders" bothers to look at the mapmaking forums of two major international forums, then you deserve a little electric shock to wake up. BTW, what has happened to Ururam-Tururam, he was a leader of Polish community and a mapmaker?

Yeah, as far as I know the mapmaking forum here is the most active English forum dedicated to mapmaking.

Unfortunately UT didn't like HOMM5 much and posted on his website he wasn't going to make any maps for it although he left an out saying when the expansion came out (and 2 have) he might. But I haven't seen where he has posted anywhere in a long time.

Click here to go to his website.


UT is one of my favorite mapmakers so I hope he decides to make some. I hope the greats Charlie Watkins and Tim Duncan decide to do so to and both of them are still around here so there is hope yet.

GOW

[Moragauth]

If he wants to know what fans would like to see, he should visit the official HV forum.