Impressions from the Might and Magic fanday in Warsaw

[arturchix]

Hey, guys! I was one of those lucky to be invited to the Might and Magic fanday in Warsaw, Poland. I did learn couple of interesting things during my visit, perhaps some of them already known from elsewhere but anyway interesting:

• As the Heroes VI producer and Might and Magic creative director Erwan Le Breton explained, the new Might and Magic universe has three cycles – Chaos, Order and Void. First hints about the Void cycle were already in Heroes VI and now we will see more of it.

• In September will be released “The Ashan Compendium” – a book which will describe the world of Ashan in detail. There’s no news so far whether Ubi plans to publish any other M&M books.

• If it wasn’t clearly stated before, the old M&M characters (i.e. Crag Hack) that wind up in Ashan, aren’t necessary the same guys – more like a tribute to the old legacy.

• As you may already know, Ubisoft announced a new card game in the M&M universe - Duel of Champions. It isn’t exactly like Arcomage – you don’t build towers and walls anymore but you try to destroy the enemy leader and bypass his defenders by lots of cards. It’s really fun. One duel lasts approximately 10 minutes, and right now the game is in closed beta stage in Poland. If anyone is interested, I have 10+ keys up for grabs, just contact me via PM. The best thing about Duel of Champions is that it will be cross-platform and basically that’s why the game will have an install client and not being developed as a browser game.

• Clash of Heroes soon will be available on iPad and iPhone. I tried to play it on iPad, was quite easy and addictive though some of the in-game buttons are hard to access.

• Limbic has two guys working on the map editor to make it more user-friendly but it takes time. Julien aka Marzhin has submitted to them a big list of necessary fixes and tweaks, but some of them can’t be done that quick.

• There are a couple more M&M projects being developed or at least in the planning. You will hear more about it at this year’s Gamescom.


Couple of remarks from Erwan le Breton about Heroes VI:

• The skill system in H6 felt too complicated and difficult to overview. It’s a shame because on paper it looked very well.

• The campaign maps perhaps are too big – in future Ubi could concentrate on smaller maps with more events but produce more of them.

• The game interface didn’t work out. Town and skill screens, too small text boxes – all of that has been noted. If there’s going to be a new Heroes game, the magic should feel more “magic”, more specifically relating to the spellbook. Magic guilds could possibly return, and no more mixing skills with spells.

• The reputation system didn’t exactly work out as intended though it was a great idea.

• If there would be a new Heroes game, one thing that would remain for sure is the engine. Area control also proved to be as a good innovation to the Heroes series, and Ubi felt the resource reduction was an OK choice.

• According to Erwan, Heroes VI is a commercial success otherwise there would be no other ongoing M&M projects right now, including the M&M fandays.

• Erwan gave a subtle hint that Heroes VI is not necessarily the last of Heroes. Apart from the Crag Hack DLC there are possible plans for a lot more, which you can probably guess…

[Znork]

wathch out for duals of champions that is a realy fun littel game.

[Torur]

Looks like a nice event. The book sounds interesting and I'm am most likely going to try out DoC. Lets hope they can fix HVI and move on to better days for the M&M franchise.

[Dalai]

Short summary:
Nothing "innovative" worked out, but if you don't give us more money - we will kill the series. And we managed to gather audience young enough not to ask us awkward questions. Success all around.

[XEL II]

and move on to better days for the M&M franchise.

But the time machine hasn't yet been invented, without it they can't go back in time

[Ell1e]

That last picture... Someone should point out to Michael that holding a sword likes that might give off some... wrong impressions...

[Angelspit]

Actually, that's what they meant from the start.

[Avonu]

Here is short summary from this event. Just a note - it is how I remember, not necessary how it was introduced. And sorry for grama mistakes.

First Ubisoft showed vidoe with 25th MM Anniversary (which was posted already on YT, FB and so long ago). Next Erwan Le Breton started short briefing about Ashan history. So if you are not interested, skip this part:

On the beginning there was Void. Magic elements gathered and crystalized creating Cosmic Egg. From this egg hatched two dragon slibbing: Asha, Dragon of Order, and Urgash, Dragon of Chaos. Asha wanted to bring order to chaos and created Ashan. But as it was difficult task, she created six Elemental Dragons to help her:
1. She first created Malassa, Dragon of Darkness, who created sky, night and darkness.
2. Next was Elrath, Dragon of Light, who created sun and stars.
3. Next was Arkath, Dragon of Fire, who created spheres of fire which would become Ashan and plantes.
4. Next was Sylanna, Dragon of Eaarth, who created earth, mountains and planets surface.
5. Next was Salassa, Dragon of Water, who created oceans, rivers, water, rain, etc.
6. The last was Ylath, Dragon of Air, who create air.

All of these Elelemtal Dragons created races to help them in their tasks.


When Urgash returned from journey into Void, he was angry on Asha, because she gave form for something, which he think should not have form and should evolve. He create Demons to undo what Asha did and the Wars of Creation started. Dragons and moratl races fought on Ashans, dragon blood splitted on Asahn creating dragon veins of air, fire, chaos, etc. In the end Urgash was chained to Ashan core and Asha and Elemental Dragons disapeared from planet.


There was also information about Seventh Dragon - he or she (as Erwan didn't want to tell ) created Sheogh, a prison in Ashan core and another dimention as well, from his/her immortal soul and imprisoned there Demons. When the Bloodmoon Eclipses came, walls of Sheogh are weaken and Demons can escape it. No one know, what causes Bloodmoon Eclipse.

That the most interesting information from Erwan's tale and I am sure, he quoted them from Ashan Compendium which should be available in September.

Erwan also said that previous Ubisoft games were in Dark Messiah Cycle and from HVI and next games we have Void Cycle.

He said and showed few pannels from MM comics, which will be available in France for now. It would focus on Pavel and Cate Griffins adventures few years before HVI. There are plans for MM books too.


Next part was about Pirates of the Savage Sea. I think you all know by now most of what was said, so here is only short summary:

- new boss - Thunderbird - which has Phoenix model but has different colours, avatar or different light effects - it looks diffrent then Phoenix, so no more situation like whith Inferno bosses, where they have exactly the same model as town units,
- Thunderbird's pet - I don't rememeber details but it should be something similar to King's Bounty pet, maybe minus abilities.
- new 10 heroes - Crag Hack (specialization: +1 crystal/week), Falagar, Agar, Ragnar, Ranalou and rest,
- new dynasty weapon and 6 new artifacts in pirate set,
- 3 new dynasty abilities and 6 new achievements,
- new building, where you can recruit neutrals - Elemental Conflux
- VARN map.


Next part was about Duel of Champions showed by David Sourwine and Emile Gauthier from Ubisoft Canada. They showed duel between PC user and IPad user.


That wa the end of official part. Who wanted, could try Duel of Champions or Pirates of Savage Sea, others could ask developers some questions. Here are answers for few of thems. Just a note: I don't remember full answers (because they answered with details and full explanations) and I am not sure if I understood them all corectly, so be forbearing for these answers. Questions were ask in small circle by few people and the answering persons were: Erwan Le Breton, Julien Pirou, Alexis de Becque and/or Aurelien Gournay from Ubisoft Marketing and Stephan Winter - CEO of Limbic.

- About additional content from collector editions of HVI (Heart of Nightmares map, weapons, heroes) - they will be added (for free IIRC) eventually as it's Ubisoft policy to give them after some time.
- Abut town specializations - they wanted to add them but something went wrong and they hope it will appear in game eventually.
- About why Nagas didn't appear in HV althrough their models were in game - someone accidently deleted game files and that is why we have Dwarves. And why their are not in HV lore - they had civil war and it "didn't go as planned", so they retreated to oceans and underwater cities abandoning their islands.
- About what we viit next in the future after Thallan (HV and HVI continent) - they don't have plans for that, not even map of all Ashan yet, but in far future we probably could see far east, other lands or even planets.
- About expansion pack and which faction we will see - as you already may know, quote about 2 factions per expansions were both mistranslation and too optimism for a person who answered that question "is not longer with us". So there will be 1 expansion with 1 faction (Erwan said that hints are in epilogue ) and if this sell well, then maybe, maybe another one will be done.
- About why sci-fi elements were cut from current lore - there were many reasons but besides them, sci-fi was selling well in '90 but not now.
- About Heroes Chronicles and/or HoMM 3 re-release - first ones have not enough consumers and for second one, Ubisoft prefer to create something new then gives money in remakes (or something like that).
- About H3 code (WoG and other mods) - they are not even sure if they have H3 game code but they will see if they can find it and ask for releasing it to modders.
- About game balance - current they focus only on battlefield balance, other balance changes (like towns, growth, buildings - Altar of Eternal Servitude from Necropolis for example, etc.) will be done later.
- About MM RPG - Ubisoft is not a company who produce these kind of games but as far as I know Marzhin, he will push on them to create one.
- About resources - Erwan said they could add blood crystals of fire, air, chaos, etc. but they think present system work quiet well. I think it was Erwan who is responsible for this feature and even if he knows this is not good solution, he will defend it for all costs.
- About HVI failures - skill system is one, reputation is another. They know they needto fix them.
- There were questions about Confux, Widgets, patching, modding of HVI but I don't remember answers right now.

Erwan asked about Black Hole and post of one of their employee on HC forum said that they worked with Black Hole very well but things get broken somewhere else - between Ubisoft and Black Hole marketing departaments. Also Erwan said that post was private opinion one of them and the rest of Black Hole team didn't agree with post author, so you know now, why original post was edited.


Stephan Winter from time to time noted some questions or suggestions in his IPad (most of questions about mechanics), so there is a hope, some of them will appears in furture.

And that's all for now.