The Art of Heroes 3

[Dracomancer]

I never said that HoMM4 is a bad game - really, I play it a lot myself - but the new ideas could have been implemented in a better way if 3DO just had the time and money required.

[Oakley]

@Oakley:
Art is not subjective. Everyone has his own tastes.

That's right but they could still make it better somehow... Did Heroes 4 sold well like Heroes 3? I guess people care a lot about the gameplay, less care about the art...

[Muszka]

Yuy eyecandies....

Here are some spell icons from H4 I haven't seen before. Does anybody know what's with the images from row 11/column 1 and row 10/column 5?

I think the 11/1 is Banish, and 10/5 is Animate Dead or Call Death, but not sure. I could not figure the row 1 column 5. It seems like Zeal from Diablo 2 (something, like cat reflex).

by the way where have you found the Tesla Coil grail?

[Dracomancer]

I wonder why these weren't used in the final game.


Edit: Can any of you read what that scroll says? I think it starts with "He was..." Maybe I should e-mail Brian Kemper about it?


Edit 2: I think we all can learn something new from this..



Edit 3: I think this one speaks for itself...

[ThunderTitan]

Why does that elf ave feline feet?!

and dammit, that's still the best Phoenix around... (H2's only looses coz it was more like a firehawk then a phoenix)

Kind of hard to understand why they started work on HoMM5 when the financial situation was so bad for HoMM4 that it lowered the quality of the game.

Well 3DO was the one going out of business... maybe NWC hoped someone would buy them with the game instead of just the license...

[BAD23ro]

Nice Phoenix

[Dracomancer]

Well 3DO was the one going out of business... maybe NWC hoped someone would buy them with the game instead of just the license...

Sadly, that didn't happen. Imagine what we would have had if it did: No cheesy storyline in HoMM5, and Might and Magic rising from its ashes with a tenth installment, instead of an overly violent DMoMM.

[Tobius]

(...) maybe NWC hoped someone would buy them with the game instead of just the license...

I would have laid down my life for this! NWC would have made a fantastic Heroes V with a bigger budget - at least concerning art. However, Nival is at the wheel now, but I nourish hope that Heroes VI will get a new developer team with better skills.

[Akul]

It ain't Nival's fault for all problems H5 has gone until TotE. When teams from all over Europe work together on something, it is bound for problems to happen.

Also, Nival DID make a good game (I consider TotE to be better then H3 in every possible aspect) and Ubisoft won't put such preasure on theme now that they know that HoMM ain't dead. Nival also probably got experience while working on H5 and (hopefully) they won't do stupid things again... so often.

Anyway, we have gone WAY off-topic. This topic is about old art, not about Nival and NWC.

[theLuckyDragon]

by the way where have you found the Tesla Coil grail?

On Phelan Skyes' website.
http://www.phelansykes.com/Heroes3x/TeslaCoil.jpg

[Dracomancer]

I think I've seen that one before, on the Forge town project's website.

[Artas1984]

Wait, Heroes 3 released in 1999, why written 1997 in that artist's page?

[Pol]

Yay, that is correct.

This game is much older than it seems. The information when the game was released and when it was created (or first build was assembled) are two different things. After all h3 started soon after h2...

[Artas1984]

Ye, they had made Heores 3 in 1997, and waited for what?..

Anyway, nice thread, clearly shows how H4 animation and graphics sux.

Think about it:

Heroes 2 came out with quite nice graphics, compared ti horible looking Heroes 1 they did had proportions and the colors this time looked like it was draw with pencils. Icons and monsters looked though a little like "framed for a chess game" rather than realistic it was made stylish and not disturbing.

After a year Heroes 3 came out with huge improvements almost in everything and this time the graphics looked even more realistic than before, meaning the icons and monsters were "released" from their unnatural frames and life was "breathed" in them, so now they looked not like chess figures, but like real objects/subjects.

5 years of polishing Heores 3, making addons and only in 2002 Heroes 5 came and what the hell was that.. They simply overdobbed it.

[Metathron]

My opinion is diametric to yours: I prefer the style of IV to III by leaps and bounds -- even if some of the creatures were shoddily made -- and actually think that the art of III is the dullest of the five games. I also adore the HoMM I graphics, they're gorgeous in a quirky sort of way.

So the only thing that this thread clearly shows is that evaluating art is subjective.

[Artas1984]

Can't blame for custom likes, some people prefer "shining plastelin" design in Heroes 4 compared to likes of Heores 2 and Heores 3, but the term "shining plastelin" fits to Heroes 4 nomater the likes

[gravyluvr]

I always found HOMM1 and HOMM2 graphics to be incredible when I was playing. I think I was too used to the graphics when HOMM3 came out so I never considered that version much different from HOMM2 and when I did notice the differenct I found myself yearning for something closer to HOMM2.

HOMM1 was a straight out of a fairy tale. The purple dragon, the blue hydra, the genies, the trolls, the paralyzing cyclops. I actually loved the simplistic playability of that game.

Heroes II always had my favorite artwork and music in the game as well.

[cuc]

Louis Henderson's website appears to be down.
Would anyone please upload his pictures? I'd really like to see that alternate H3 Dungeon art.

[Pol]

Yes, his site is up and down like on the seasaw. So I wouldn't be throwing hat out. It may not be a definitive for infinitive.










--Robert Luis Henderson

[cuc]

Thanks a lot!