Town Window instead Town Screen

[dark-whisperer]

Let me start by a quote from official FAQ thread on official forum. First question in thread and one that most people wanted to be clarified is:

Will there be any town screen?

And the answer is: YES, totally. In the demo shown in Colonia, they used a temporary screen. The final one is said to be in 2D, more like H3 and H4 and not as complex as the H5 ones. Erwan Le Breton, the game producer, said it himself:

Erwan Le Breton: There will be 2D animated town screen in the release version of the game

Later on Facebook Julien Pirou aka Marzhin ( http://www.facebook.com/note.p...e_id=153143868044919 ) said:

Town screen: there is still a town screen, or more accurately, a town window. Each town still have its own theme music and all. It is a 2D, animated town screen. The Haven town screen was part of the missing elements, that's why it was replaced by a mere screenshot for the demo.

You can see more info about a city on its 3D model on the adventure map (not just its town hall and if it has fortifications). You can learn a lot about your adversary's strategy just by observing how he developed his towns.

First part from FAQ thread is not correct as I have learned from Heroes Community forum. Even Marzhin's post isn't clear enough so majority of people were mislead to believe that there will be fullscreen town screens. To most of us never occurred that this first screenshot labeled as temporary isn't a placeholder and that town screens are going to be in window just like in demo in Colonia. One of the problems is that term Town Window was mentioned just one in Marzhin's interview and it was never said clearly that full screen town screens are not in the game anymore.

This is exactly what Cepheus said on HC forum:

Additionally this shouldn't even be news, because it was the very first thing Marzhin said about the game, way back, and it's been the same way in every single screenshot or video since.

and

At the moment the rumours are correct; there is a town window, and the town window will likely remain in the finished game as far as I can predict. There'll still be atmospheric, animated graphics and town themes (superior to H5's). The only difference is resolution. Personally I would prefer the town screens to hog the entire monitor as in the previous games, but the windows do make for faster play, theoretically. Only time (and playtesting) will tell which is the better solution.

What does this mean?

Town window in its current state has EXACTLY same dimensions as this http://www.drachenwald.net/gamescom/093.JPG screenshot.

Look at the official video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...ALN0&feature=related at 00:10 - thats town window.

Cepheus also made an H3 screenshot as an indication of how a Town Screen in H6 will be like: http://i192.photobucket.com/al.../Cepheus_03/H3HD.png

It means that we will get fixed size window for town screen instead fullscreen. In attempt to needlessly speed up game developers destroyed one of games main features.
Instead of beautiful 3D or 2D screen we will get flashlike, probably non interactive excuse for town screen.

Please post here your thoughts or go to the official site and post your comments so we can draw some attention of developers while is still not to late.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

It means that we will get fixed size window for town screen instead fullscreen. In attempt to needlessly speed up game developers destroyed one of games main features.
Instead of beautiful 3D or 2D screen we will get flashlike, probably non interactive excuse for town screen.

Since when does windowed = noninteractive? I think that is a very big leap.

[Mirez]

I don't see your concern, if anything they are going back to their roots. A fancy 3d townscreen like in heroes 5 looks nice but it added 0 depth to the game. I'd rather have the developers spend their time in something more useful.

[King Imp]

Before I repost what I said over on the official forums about this (for once there is actually a good discussion going on there) I just want to say I see both sides of the argument as they both make good points, but the skeptic in me naturally has me constantly leaning to one side over the other.

That said, they say that the town is going to be along the lines of what we had in H3 and H4, but right now things are not looking promising.

I'm not about to jump on the riot bandwagon like some have as I've seen from personal experience (H5) the change that can come from the Alpha and Beta versions to the final release version, but if what we have been shown is in fact what they plan on giving us, then it is clearly a bad step in the wrong direction for this series.

Enough with the "we have to speed up the game and turn it into an MMO" nonsense. Heroes is not about going fast and having lightning reflexes. It's about taking your time and strategizing. Stop trying to make this game something it's not by attempting to make it faster. If they are so worried about this slowing down performance, then try eliminating the tree animations as that is what truly bogged down people's systems, not the town screens.

And the reason why some of us are speaking up, some more than others, is because if you take a "sit back and wait" approach, then it will be too late to get anything done about it. I'm sure someone will say that we have no pull on the matter, but I have to respectfully disagree there. Back when Heroes 5 was in development, they planned on giving us a battlefield that was so small it was ridiculous to play on. They were doing so in the hopes of making the game faster (once again looking to make this series something it's not). Anyway, after a lot of complaining (mostly from me I might add) and a pretty convincing example I gave of Gating and summoning on this small battlefield that filled it so much there was no place to even move, they caved and changed it.

All I'm saying is while we don't know for certain what we are being given and how it will work until they decide to show and explain it to us, there is no harm in being concerned and skeptical based on numerous screenshots and insider information we have received.

[Tress]

Instead of beautiful 3D or 2D screen we will get flashlike, probably non interactive excuse for town screen.

Its not 3d but who said it's noniteractive, besides h5 version wasn't interactive either. It just sent you to global unit window.
Still they MUST retain full screen option, if they want make it optional to toggle between window/full screen, but full screen must remain at least as option.

[Neidhaart]

What? Town windows? Nonsense i say!

[Corlagon]

Dark Whisperer, I heard your concerns loudly enough over there, don't worry
I reposted most of the rants so far direct to the devs and will direct them here too.

[Darkström]

I don't mind the town screen being in a window, but I think it should be bigger, like twice the size or so.

[ThunderTitan]

It should at least show every building you built and preferably have some animations...

It not being full screen i guess i can live without, even if it just looks odd (try the Heroes3HD mod to see what i mean).

Being 2D is great, as long as it's painted and not just a picture of a 3D model...

[Metathron]

I too would be sorely disappointed if the town screen turned out to be some severely reduced pathetic excuse of an attempt to speed up the game. I would like to see a full screen town screen, not a window, with animated dwellings (like some in HoMM III and IV) and animated creatures in front of some of them at least (think the sprites in HoMM I). A full town screen contributes to game immersion, so please don't mess about with it needlessly.

[ThunderTitan]

Yeah, especially since you can just use the thing we saw in those screens and video as the equivalent to the kingdom overview from previous games...

You can even make it the first thing that pops up when clicking the town to make more people aware of it. Just give us a proper town view dammit.

[ecsunotos]

Vote for town screen ( as it used to be ). 3D style likes in HoMM V, with out rotational view.

[Infiltrator]

I too would be sorely disappointed if the town screen turned out to be some severely reduced pathetic excuse of an attempt to speed up the game. I would like to see a full screen town screen, not a window, with animated dwellings (like some in HoMM III and IV) and animated creatures in front of some of them at least (think the sprites in HoMM I). A full town screen contributes to game immersion, so please don't mess about with it needlessly.

I agree. Since they are probably doing multiple resolutions of the town window there is certainly a "master" high res art there. So just put it as an option to include that one as a full screen.

[ThunderTitan]

Did anyone ask about the state of the town screen in those dev interview threads?!

[Neidhaart]

Saying (if it happens) that using a window to speed up gameplay must be one of the most.. i don't know, it would be wrong, so wrong...

[Infiltrator]

Hai guise, I gut another great wai to speed gameplau.

Maek cyclop den kost 3 gold and 1.3 cristel.

[Avonu]

Saying (if it happens) that using a window to speed up gameplay must be one of the most.. i don't know, it would be wrong, so wrong...

Ubisoft has practice in saying bull^&%& - just look at their explanation about moon(s), eclipses, cerberus design, magic over might heroes strength and other crap... and later look at gameplays from HV.
I sometimes wonder if they played their own game, not to mention other HoMMs.

[ThunderTitan]

But it does speed up gameplay... not really because it's a window (which give the illusion that it's faster/easier to access) but because by the looks of it they simplified the build interface to just a couple of buttons on the bottom of the window.

[Neidhaart]

Minimizing the required clicks to build in an effort to reduce speed is still, to me, irrelevant since speed is not an issue. I think it just reduce the overall feeling for the building part. Usually you would like to look at your beautiful town you're building but with this it would become so trivial that you just click it away.

[ThunderTitan]

As we've seen before this time around it's all about making the game go faster... 20 min games are what one should shoot for to capture today's ADD audience.