10 questions faq made in paris-

[Znork]

Oh, cmon!

Our dear Marzhin is always close to Ervan on every second photo shared. And he is a mapmaker with experience. He reads all we type here and knows exactly how badly we feel about it.

They have couple dozens VIP fans - did they tell Ubi nothing about map-editor? Was there some VIP-conspiracy to prevent Ubi from making good map-editor? Is that what you believe?

Do you really believe that Ubi want's to do it right, Marzhin wants to tell the producer how it's done, Marzhin has access to both producer and all our ideas, and they still can not do it? For some mysterious but very important reason?

Be realistic. Something else is here. I think that Ubi doesn't want to do do a real campaign editor. I am sure they still don't understand neither game nor fan base, or they would never do H6 the way they did it. May be they think that a game with long lifespan is financially bad decision. May be something else, equally stupid. Like 3D-online-DRM: holy trinity mantra. Easy-stupid-shiny.

You can send them all the lists, summaries, petitions, etc. you want, the result will be the same: polite ignore.

H4 had absolutely the best map editor in whole series. Ubi really needs our ideas? They should finally install at least one copy of H4 in their whole office and check map-editor.

If they ever do something worth mentioning map-editor-wise, I will probably reach for my own to-do list for H4 editor. It's long, and it's tightly packed with real mapmaker experience. Right now it's discussing CERN experiments with apes.

If they really decided to read something fans think, after just several years - give them a link to this post.

P.S. And yes, if I lose my bet - I'd rather lose my money to jeff, then pay it to Ubi for their gamelike-almost-product. I already saved some money on H5 and MMH6

As now has been stated the map editor was never fhinhised du to the crunsh at the end. The answer given about the map editor is that in the next montehs they are now gona take a siruslook at it.

So my point beeing if for som strange reason the people at limbic flat out lied and not goan do anyting withe the map editor the next motnehs. Do you belive that?

My point beeing that now is the time for fans of the map editor to speak out. Marzhinn ill asume will be a very important in the prosses that is gona happen.

So either cry about spilt milk or look forward. they now promised to improve the mapeditor, that is why youll lose youre bet. Right now all feedback on the mapeditor is important.

And again all this beeing said this dose not mean the mapeditor will be workabel in the end. That is a diffrant bet.

[Pitsu]

And again all this beeing said this dose not mean the mapeditor will be workabel in the end. That is a diffrant bet.

It may be a different bet, but it is the only thing that matters. They have promised many things that they could not deliver. It does not matter how seriously they take our suggestions if there are no improvements. You may blame "crunsh" (Grinch?), but I'd agree with Jeff and Dalai that at least part the problem is their inability to understand, conscious ignore or wrong definition of what is what for a Homm game. It may be the best time to say something, but if the audience is proven to misinterpret your words, it may be even wiser to remain silent.

[WarpDarkMatter]

The problem is, the spilt milk is perfectly good reason to cry in this context.
The reality is that the number of fans making use of the map editor will always be lower than those playing the game casually.

When you release a great, user-friendly map editor with a game straight out of the gate, like with Heros 3, you're offsetting this to the best of your ability, and guranteeing that the maximum number of players will be dabbling in maps. On the other hand, if you release a complete train-wreck of an editor with no manual and not much support, you're just shooting yourself in the head. completely scaring away everyone who wants to make maps. Even in the unlikely event that the Heros 6 editor becomes as good or better than the Heros 3 one, do you honestly think all those potential map makers are going to start flocking back? It's attempting at damage control at best.

At least with Heros 5, where the editor was delayed for months, some people were interested because there was a chance it'd be worth the wait (It wasn't). I guarantee you far fewer people care to see what happens with the Heros 6 editor. The promise that it will be fixed over a year after release is ineffective. because most of people have already moved on to do something less morbid. As supposed VIP fan, (unless bribed or in total denial) you should see that already. Hate to say it, may be the time and money invested here is simply a waste and would be better held back for Heros 7 (?) or something else.

Re: wondering about flat out lies. There were plenty of nice promises from the good people at Black Hole and those amounted to nothing in the end. So playing that card is null and void.

[jeff]

Znork as you can see in these posts there is a lot of bad blood; all justly earned by UBI’s poor performance. Simply put trust in UBI has been lost, and it won’t be given back based on promises. They have made one misstep after another. Who are these VIP members (I don’t want their identities), what was their qualifications. I suspect most were fans of H-5, and this alone doomed their input. If it had been balanced by an equal number of those who were not fans; then that would be different. They needed to have a balanced input and more importantly a willingness to listen. The editor is a perfect example where they have done neither. H-5 from a commercial point is probably dead now (that is not to say it was unprofitable, that’s a different issue), with a poor editor the group of mapmakers is smaller and the type of maps are far too similar. WarpDarkMatter talks of the H-3 editor, but the H-IV editor was far superior to it, and Equilibris has improved that. So paraphasing Dalai give Limbic the URL to this thread and challenge them to read and heed. Promises from UBI currently mean nothing only action will restore any level of trust. If they can’t figure out what the Heroes fan base want; then plead with them to sell it.

[Kalah]

Who are these VIP members (I don’t want their identities), what was their qualifications. I suspect most were fans of H-5, and this alone doomed their input. If it had been balanced by an equal number of those who were not fans; then that would be different.

Without revealing identities, I can tell you that a lot of them were indeed very critical towards how things were done in H5 ... so that was not the problem.

I completely agree that the BH developers absolutely underestimated the importance of a good map editor, despite advise. As I have written in several editorials (also our Q&A), editors are essential elements for community activity - we are in agreement here. Although UbiLimb have understood this by now, changing the code and improving the editor is probably very difficult - hence the delay.

[Znork]

ill just say that right now limbic said they will work on the mapeditor. what the result of that work will be i dont know. this are facts nothing to withr trust or not. you have the option or not to say somthing about the map editor now. so right now you dont have muche to loose to come withe youre ids.

to what kala said we are under a exstrimly strickt nda. so we cant realy defend ouer selfs.

but its safe to say im not very happy how it turned out. and bh did not realy get map editor.

[WarpDarkMatter]

really respect your view jeff, but i would personally disagree a bit. Mainly for very small nitpick interfacing reasons. In Heros 4 editor, the help file is split away from the program, in H-3 you hit F1 and there it is. Placing every single tree or branch in H-4 is tedious, in H-3 you have larger clusters and working copy paste. H-4 event boxes offer more, but H-3 'cuts to the chase' with stuff like add gold, add creatures ect. simplicity is a virtue. H-3 also has RMG and the full option to adjust the hero pool, H-4 has none of this. More importantly I simply find Heros 3 the better and more beautiful game and its editor has the more engaging interface, just a better experience to use it.

(IMO) that editor is absolutely airtight and idiotproof. It's so easy and fun to use even my four year old child has enjoyed turning out some simple stuff. H-4 has its different advantages sure. But there can be no no debate that both the programs are light years ahead of either of these things produced by UBI.

In longer term, I do hope UBI just stops creating this series or puts it on hold because it is basically making me miserable to see what they churn out now and then giving a few VIP dudes free trips so they can make lame excuses for them. (no offense) Like Star Wars, even something that was once really great like Heros can be dragged down when there's too much crap associated with the name.

[Anonymous]

Without revealing identities, I can tell you that a lot of them were indeed very critical towards how things were done in H5 ... so that was not the problem.

I completely agree that the BH developers absolutely underestimated the importance of a good map editor, despite advise. As I have written in several editorials (also our Q&A), editors are essential elements for community activity - we are in agreement here. Although UbiLimb have understood this by now, changing the code and improving the editor is probably very difficult - hence the delay.

It seems they did listen a little with the game itself, but it is unfortunate that UBI continued to not listen about the editor. It probably will take a while to fix the code, but they do not deserve any goodwill on the matter until after a good product is delivered. I am not convinced their idea of a good editor matches mine or others.

[Kalah]

True enough; you don't even have to play the game to notice. The lack of user made maps is proof enough that the editor is bad.

[jeff]

really respect your view jeff, but i would personally disagree a bit. Mainly for very small nitpick interfacing reasons. In Heros 4 editor, the help file is split away from the program, in H-3 you hit F1 and there it is.

What you can't click on the help tab.

Placing every single tree or branch in H-4 is tedious, in H-3 you have larger clusters and working copy paste.

You must not have used the H-IV editor much as copy and paste is easy and the creation of obstacle brushes makes landscaping much easier than H-3. There were a few abilities in H-3 like setting the aggression level of neutral stacks, but overall the H-IV editor was superior in almost every way.

H-3 also has RMG and the full option to adjust the hero pool, H-4 has none of this.

Again you have not heard of the h4util program with its RMG, not as good as H-3 but it allows you to picturize the landscape quickly and easily. Besides the RMG is a separate issue from the editor. As far as customizing the Hero pool you need to be more specific, as the Heroes tab allows you to set which heroes you want present or excluded if you wish. You can also customize their histories and with the equilibris facetool you can modify their portraits.

More importantly I simply find Heros 3 the better and more beautiful game

Your opinion not mine, but I am not reopening that debate.

(IMO) that editor is absolutely airtight and idiotproof. It's so easy and fun to use even my four year old child has enjoyed turning out some simple stuff.

I tried it and found it too limiting and nowhere near as easy as H-4, but it did lead to my using the H-IV editor.

But there can be no no debate that both the programs are light years ahead of either of these things produced by UBI.

On this there is no doubt.

[Dalai]

As now has been stated the map editor was never fhinhised du to the crunsh at the end. The answer given about the map editor is that in the next montehs they are now gona take a siruslook at it.

The fact, that they worked on map-editor in the end of development cycle tells us a lot. Map editor is one of the most important factors of any heroes game success. Does anyone have any doubts that at least 90% of VIP-fans know that and told that to Ubi? I don't. But besides being so important as it is, map editor is a tool for developers. It's their own instrument. And they neglected it's development even though it made their own lives harder. Could it be more stupid?

Tell those guys, that the perfect time to take a serious look at the editor was 3 years ago.

So my point beeing if for som strange reason the people at limbic flat out lied and not goan do anyting withe the map editor the next motnehs. Do you belive that?

As I said, they ignored all advice, all external ideas, all VIP fans and not-so-vip-fans feedback. They ignored the common sense. And they got their train-wrack. Our expectations are so low, that we perceive a thing as simple as town screen as a breakthrough

They all had to be fired long time ago. So naturally they are ready to grasp at straws now.

My point beeing that now is the time for fans of the map editor to speak out. Marzhinn ill asume will be a very important in the prosses that is gona happen.

You don't build a roof before you build walls. If you are stupid enough to do just that - building a wall next to your roof solves nothing.

They never listened before. They just can not listen. If they could - it would be a very different story.

So either cry about spilt milk or look forward. they now promised to improve the mapeditor, that is why youll lose youre bet. Right now all feedback on the mapeditor is important.

Ok, here is my feedback.

Ervan! Install H4 and look at the editor. That's what real thing is. When you prove you can do at least 25% of that (which you can't) - then you'll probably get ideas from community how to further improve it.

And again all this beeing said this dose not mean the mapeditor will be workabel in the end. That is a diffrant bet.

That's a different bet that I would win too

[Znork]

dalai frirst of all erwan dosent have anyting to do withe the map editor that is alex. secon limbic has not done anyting to the map editor. You are confusing who is doing what.

third the h4 mapeditor point has been brought to the atention of the people makeing the game.

The bigest problem is the amount graphics in the new game, there in leays the problem withe ease of use for the h6 map editor.

And a very good point for the next game make shure the maps can be made easy by fans.

[Dalai]

dalai frirst of all erwan dosent have anyting to do withe the map editor that is alex. secon limbic has not done anyting to the map editor. You are confusing who is doing what.

No, it's you who confuse things. There is always a guy in charge. And he is responsible. I don't care how he delegates his authority, I don't care if he does all the work himself or just comes once a quarter - he bears ultimate responsibility. It's not only making faces on youtube videos, as he is about to discover.

third the h4 mapeditor point has been brought to the attention of the people makeing the game.

I can bet it didn't happen today for the first time. And not even this year. But no one cares. They always "know better". Sure shortcut to failure.

The idea of making a good editor is worthless. The perception and action is valuable. And here we have a zero balance.

The bigest problem is the amount graphics in the new game, there in leays the problem withe ease of use for the h6 map editor.

Yeah, too little objects and graphics is another problem, but it's completely separate from map-editor.

And a very good point for the next game make shure the maps can be made easy by fans.

That "discovery" is like 15 years old, I'm afraid. Obviously Ubisoft prefers to rediscover the obvious in hard and costly way.

[Znork]

dalai frirst of all erwan dosent have anyting to do withe the map editor that is alex. secon limbic has not done anyting to the map editor. You are confusing who is doing what.

No, it's you who confuse things. There is always a guy in charge. And he is responsible. I don't care how he delegates his authority, I don't care if he does all the work himself or just comes once a quarter - he bears ultimate responsibility. It's not only making faces on youtube videos, as he is about to discover.

Erwan is now promoted and has nothing to wihte the making off anyting on the game. The person who is ultimate resposibelety for the game is called yves guilmont his the ceo of ubi.

[Dalai]

Erwan is now promoted and has nothing to wihte the making off anyting on the game. The person who is ultimate resposibelety for the game is called yves guilmont his the ceo of ubi.

Frankly, I don't care about his name, his sex, his skin color, his age and religion. I said: "There is always a guy in charge. And he is responsible." Replace one name with another in my feedback, and the rest remains equally valid.

I don't care if they keep they same people on same positions for many years or rotate them every week. I don't care if some guy with rare knowledge quits, gets reassigned or downshifts to become a farmer. It is all irrelevant.

I know from one of previous interviews about the guy responsible for balance. He failed miserably, but I don't care about his name. His name is Ubisoft problem. His failure is Ubisoft problem.

They pick wrong people who know nothing and couldn't care less about the game. But if they hope to say something like "That was Bob's fault, we fired him, and now it's gonna be great, because we hired Jim" - sorry, it's not going to work. We pay to Ubisoft, and Ubisoft is responsible.

[Lord Draxx]

Big named publishers are notoriously bad for being completely corporate and detached from their audience. They are buisnessmen, not gamers.

They will always think they know how to manipulate the ignorant masses in better ways than simply giving them what they want. They are in -that- separate of a world. They are locusts that will find an IP and suck it dry and move on--passing the blame and dissolving smaller companies along the way. Black Isle. Westwood. Dead. Casualties to the unscrupulous corporate world. I abhor the disrespect for art and the mindless worship of the dollar. Unfortunately, art does not pay the bills.

Old-School gamers generally have no place in this equation because EVERYONE is the target audience. The old adage is right. When everyone plays, we all lose. Every call of duty playing 'bro' out there is these days. Being highly commercial we've basically traded the developer's creative control for the publisher's high budget blockbuster approach that is all too aware of ESRB and hitting the broadest audience possible. If you take EA and set it beside Ubisoft, Ubi becomes the lesser evil by quite a wide margin.

Fight the power rant aside, I can't really say that this Black Hole's screw up or Ubi's screw up. I'm not as informed as I could be. I'm inclined to believe it's a little of column A and a little of column B, and that what we are sitting on is a lot of potential.

It appears the Limbic is doing a pretty good job. Those town screens look great and that's addressing one of the biggest gripes right? I mean, that's an aesthetic nitpick (a major one mind you) that could have been put on the back burner for awhile. But it wasn't. And the inclusion is certainly no small undertaking. That is a show of good will.

That's the direction we want this game to move in. The direction of community input being paramount! This appears to me that it's more than simply throwing us a bone.

If I'm not mistaken they are working with Black Hole's creation; someone else's code. That is not an easy transition to make. Coding is usually pretty poorly documented -especially- when it passes hands like this. Bare this in mind, and they are making great steps towards the unrealized potential of this game.

We have the right to be bitter and wary. But, in the face of things looking up, I'm going to keep a positive attitude! It appears that they will be working with us one step at a time. That's what I see! I could be wrong though. Time will tell!

[Groovy]

I don't understand. Does Ubisoft blame you for not buying it? If not, then why do you say "Fix it produce what I want and I will buy it"? They didn't force you to buy it. Even more so, since they don't force you to buy their games, they have no obligation to provide you with anything. It's their right altogether to even stop producing any title. It's their property, not yours. It's their right. You may be entitled to sadness but anything else is selfish.

I decided to comment on this because I find it disconcerting. I’ll use an analogy to explain why.

Say that a wealthy organisation purchases a large tract of farmland and decides to leave it fallow. No crops are grown, no food is produced, and people starve. Or the organisation does its best to grow crops and produce food, but lacks competence to do so, and people starve. One could argue that the organisation is well within its rights to do what it wants with its own property, even if it is incompetent or its intentions malevolent. I disagree. I think they have an obligation to use the resources in their possession to serve the public good.

Of course, the stakes in the gaming industry are much lower than in my analogy. Nor am I suggesting that Ubisoft is guilty of malevolent intentions or incompetence. I just wanted to point out that the principle “they own it, they can do with it what they wish” is problematic.

[Chrambo]

All right, I'd really like to throw my two cents in here, as I really appreciate the discussion that Jeff started on the map editor. That being said, I am completely the opposite: while I did play HOMM III and V, I did not get into IV and never used the editor. HOWEVER, I have heavily used the HOMM VI editor and I enjoy it far more than the game, so I would be greatly dissapointed to see wild changes made simply because it's not as *intuitive* as that of number IV. Have you even used the editor? I find that it would be hard to comment on it if you have never before used it.

First of all what I think they got right: It is far easier to place and move objects in this game than in number V. That with pathing checks makes it easy to create pretty maps that work well, as the game proved (regardless of gameplay, the Haven campaign was spectacular just for the visuals). As it is, if you want "intuitive" unit placement you can kinda create a brush (not so sure what you mean by this). It is possible to randomize things and place them in groups, making it easy to create large bodies of terrain features. Turn on snap and I believe you have all the functionality of the previous installments and then more (because you can fine-tune things so easily. I have always wanted waterfalls in a HOMM game!).

Most of the new changes were incorporated well. I mean that it is easy to paint areas and such. The ability to choose music/combat arena/pathing costs is excellent and allows way more creativity than has been previously seen.

Square visibility is a very powerful tool, it's good to see it incorporated.

Lighting, sound placement and all of that is quite intuitive, once you're used to the new interface.

What I think could use improvement:
1. Each tile should be given a default combat terrain. This means that a new user doesn't have that "huh?" experience before they realize that they have control over the combat arena.
2. I would also create default creature sizes, so that it automatically generates stack values. This, again, would simply be more user friendly.
3. Perhaps this is just me, but I can't figure out how to disable the default lighting. I find it leaves a shadow which looks funny underground. Perhaps, add a simple way to do this?
4. *IMPORTANT* Expand the help files, perhaps with a few step-by-step example tutorials (the one for HOMM V was very good). I find it is much more engaging to create something with a purpose and it makes learning the tricks that much easier. Come to think of it, I may write one as I work on my next map. Would there be any interest in this?
5. Add a way to alter volume of point sounds. The sounds make the environment that much more immersive, it's unfortunate that the blaring music drowns it out.
6. Allow editing of water planes (colour, wave size, etc. Just like normal water). This would make transitions under bridges seamless.
7. I would really like to be able to import custom content. Most of what I can think of right now is hero portraits, music, and such.
8. There should be some sort of generic object which we (mapmaker) can alter. This allows, through creative uses of the scripts) to create custom objects. Let us set names, tooltips, and descriptions of these objects. It would be nice to do the same for heroes (set hero appearance, portrait, description, etc. Right now we are too limited in our choices).
9. Scripting. This is the most complex part of the editor, definitely the least intuitive. It is not impossible, but very difficult to figure out. I kinda miss the lua, as it seemed so much more open.
10. The cutscene editor needs more explanation. Right now I really don't know anything about it (and can't figure much out by way of experimentation. Heck, I can't even close the cutscene window).

To finalize, I disagree that the reason not many maps have been made is that the editor is *bad*. To me that sounds like a bit of a cop out, as the issue is more time than anything else. I think it is because it is both difficult and complex. Ubisoft has not dealt well with Heroes VI (at all), so not many have stuck around to play with the editor. If you want to make a good map you need to a) know what you're doing b) spend a good deal of time doing it. Thankfully, point b has been around since the beginning, so hopefully as changes are made by limbic and others pick up the editor we'll see many more maps.

I have a few on the way. Jeff, I'd recommend the game just for the editor, I was surprised how much fun it was.