DLC 2: Danse Macabre Announced

[Kalah]

<img src="/images/news/h6sandro.jpg" align=right vspace=5 hspace=5>Ubisoft have <a href="/http://might-and-magic.ubi.com/heroes-6 ... nounced</a> the release of another adventure pack. <i>Danse Macabre</i> as it's called, features another trip down Memory lane and the return of <b>Sandro</b>. It will be released about a month from now, on September 27th. A "Gold Edition" of the game will also be released - it will include the standard MMH6 game, both two Adventure Packs and a new map.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1345759841

[CloudRiderX]

Okay Limbic, let's get more than two maps in this campaign, okay? Or at least charge less than $10...

[hellegennes]

You can already scrap your second sentence. Take a look at the announcement.

[jeff]

So is this the new marketing strategy, make a couple of maps, add an'new' hero and collect $10. Does this mean no more expansions? Rather than buy the gold edition, you might as well wait and buy it after all ties to UcantPlay are cut.

[mr.hackcrag]

Sandro put on the H5 lich dress.

[Evernight]

On one hand, "Danse Macabre" is a cool name and a cooler song. On the other, the Gold Edition reeks of 3DO-style repackaging.

[hellegennes]

It would be cooler if this was an expansion pack and Paul Romero would create his own rendition of Saint-Saen's Danse Macabre.

[Blake]

Sandro and the enroth sucession wars map sound awesome but..



A gold edition now?? So does that mean no more DLC, no more patches, no addon packs, no new races or campaigns from this point onwards?? Previous heroes games had large addons often with new races released over the following 2 years and a final gold edition done then!



So after just under 1 year and a couple of tiny DLCs is this it for Heroes 6? Packing up the shop to make online games?

[Tress]

Seems ubi is getting as greedy as 3do with winds of war. Well WOW/TGS was bit harsher in terms of ripping people off, as campaings were much lower quality as original game(in this case we at least have voiced cinematic s etc).


Considering there is just 2 maps as in pirates, I would say that 5 euro would be fair price. On another note , they should stop scrubbing around and make decent add on with more races. 5 races in initial pack was low number, but it was accepted since more was promised later.

[hellegennes]

"Seems ubi is getting as greedy as 3do with winds of war".



Well, 3DO was going bankrupt so they needed to farm money. They were greedy, but that particular thing wasn't out of greed.

[Tress]

Well, 3DO was going bankrupt so they needed to farm money. They were greedy, but that particular thing wasn't out of greed

Actually it started way before WOW/TGS.
Basically you could see strong signs of decaying quality after Homm3 AB.
Anything after that was already with cut corners.
If we compare mm6 with mm7 we can see that eeven though game is superior, raw amount of content is much lower(less npc speeches, dungeons, locations). MM8 is even more evident in that department.
HOMM chronicles - no comments
MM9 - no comments.

And that is only for NWC side of 3DO story. We can also check what they did with other franchises like army man. Basically they were trying to milk all their brands with extremely cut corners even before their problems began. Fact that they bankrupted was pretty much outcome of that. Logically anyone must understand that game like mm9 will never be hit, even if it bears mm logo.

[GreatEmerald]

>A gold edition now?? So does that mean no more DLC, no more patches, no addon packs, no new races or campaigns from this point onwards?? Previous heroes games had large addons often with new races released over the following 2 years and a final gold edition done then!

Well, there could always be a "Platinum" edition.

[Avonu]

Seems ubi is getting as greedy as 3do with winds of war.

They were as greedy, as they were stupid. I am talking about 3DO business plan - release crappy games one per year, no matter if they need more time to produce or not and milk money from franchises by releasing various titles. And on first place, produce game console that won't sell and doesn't have any exclusive titles and later mentioned above plan to cover console costs.

Ubisoft fallows 3DO steps - they want to release many titles for one franchise, usually bugged and unfinished ones, produced while there are not enough resources (time, money, peoples) and now thinking, that F2P games are solution to their problems and blaming piracy for that.

F2Ps are not and never will, if you don't know, how to do it and Ubisoft showed us by Heroes Kingdoms and Settlers Online, that they are clueless about how Online games should work, how to encourage people to stay and play these games for longer and how to milk money from them without pissing customers.

Just like in old, good 3DO times.

[hellegennes]

At the time they released Heroes 4 and MM 9, they already had serious problems. These two games were released unfinished, just because the company needed money to stay afloat. MM7 was inferior to MM6 but in no way it was an attempt at milking. It just wasn't as great. It felt smaller because you only get to play one side at a time. If you actually put both evil and good parts together, you can see it's about as lengthy if not more. It was also easier, so that made it look shorter in duration.

[Tress]

At the time they released Heroes 4 and MM 9, they already had serious problems. These two games were released unfinished, just because the company needed money to stay afloat. MM7 was inferior to MM6 but in no way it was an attempt at milking. It just wasn't as great. It felt smaller because you only get to play one side at a time. If you actually put both evil and good parts together, you can see it's about as lengthy if not more. It was also easier, so that made it look shorter in duration.

Will agree that homm4/mm9 was in period that they were trying to keep themselves afloat. However previous titles like mm8 was already evident beginning of that, when game is less than polished. They also started to dish out chronicles way before obvious trouble in their financial department beagn During that time in fact, all gaming magazines reported that 3DO is doing great.

As for mm7 - it is my favorite mm part, but :
1) Light side/Dark side are 95% same. There is only handful of exclusive quests for story line. And handful for promotions(which some are same too).
In fact I was actually disappointing when I played dark side to find it so similar.

2) Ammount and size of dungeons is simply smaller, there is no way around that. As for above argument there is only 2 or 3 dungeons that were exclusive for dark/light quests (clankers lab, Setags tower, wine cellar)

3) Amount of text is MUCH lower in mm7. In mm6 every npc had tons of stuff to say regarding his proffesion or location they lived in. In mm7 this aspect is much dimer(in mm8 almost completely absent )

F2Ps are not and never will, if you don't know, how to do it and Ubisoft showed us by Heroes Kingdoms and Settlers Online, that they are clueless about how Online games should work, how to encourage people to stay and play these games for longer and how to milk money from them without pissing customers.

F2p model proved itself to be very strong for many online games that couldn't sustain themselves against wow, like LOTR, D&D online (and now SWOTR). Since I am not able to see cash flows on kingdoms or settlers , I cant judge if their move to raiders and online is bad from financial POV. Gennerally I doubt that UBI will go similar way as 3DO. Worst case scenario they might cut under performing franchises. (Like MM in fact, considering it's mostly PC exclusive anyway)

[Blake]

Well, there could always be a "Platinum" edition.

Yeah I'm pondered the same thing as I've seen plenty of other game series do that. Funnily enough most of the HoMM style games have eg. there was a gold of Disciples II but then they did the elf addon and did a platinum/ultimate edition. King's Boundy did a gold edition after Armoured princess but then did Crossroads and made a platinum edition (which I just purchased ). In the non HoMM style game world Gal Civ 2 and X3 come to mind as games that did a gold edition (which I friggin purchased & had to get rid of on ebay) and then did another addon resulting in a platinum/ultimate edition.



So hopefully the gold edition is just another money making attempt and there's more to come for an eventual platinum. I am worried. Heroes 6 left to rot without wizards is just.. like Disciples 3 left to rot without dwarves.. another distaster.
Edited on Fri, Aug 24 2012, 09:08 by Blake

[hellegennes]

Tress, I understand what you're saying about MM7, but what I'm saying is that in terms of work, for the team behind it, is not less than the work done on MM6. The amount of text maybe smaller for NPCs, but that's just random text that takes very little effort and time. Many dungeons are smaller, yes, but the overall design probably took more time than MM6. The skill system is more complicated, the choices that you make add to the design process, there are more quests, more monsters, more of everything. I still like MM6 better, but MM7 probably took the same amount of time to finish.
Edited on Fri, Aug 24 2012, 09:47 by hellegennes

[Pitsu]

I still like MM6 better, but MM7 probably took the same amount of time to finish.

I prefer MM7 over 6, but frankly MM6 development should have been longer by the time it takes to build an engine.

[Korbac]

"Over 10 hours of epic adventure"



Lol. Some Heroes 3 maps take like 10 hours to complete.

[hellegennes]

@Pitsu:



Yes, certainly. I meant excluding the work done to build the engine. Much of the code could also be similar or the same. What I meant was in terms of actual design, decisions and content creation. If you re-use part of your code and your engine, it doesn't mean that you are lazy or want to milk the customers. It may not be necessary to change a large part of them to create a different and equally fun and enjoyable game. You don't need to scrap your work and start from scratch for the sole purpose of not being called lazy.



I will agree though that they started to go downhill with MM8, but that game still contained a lot of novelties and changes. It also contained much more cutscenes. MM6 only had four (intro, 2 outros and the short video of the traitor disappearing from inside the high council's chamber). MM7 had 8 IIRC (intro, subintro, Harmondale, good arbiter, bad arbiter, Archie's exile, good ending, bad ending). MM8 had more than 10, again, if I remember correctly.