Is development for HoMM 6 finished?

[konfeta]

Dyeing the steam sale at the moment, a bit skeptical of the "Complete Edition."

Is Shades of Darkness the last DLC/X-Pack/Whatever? Or is there more coming down the road?

[Kalah]

There's no official word from Ubisoft, but we haven't heard of any new stuff coming. This silence indicates that the "complete" edition is indeed the final release. I'll see if I can get a confirmation.

[GMnemonic]

Ubisoft is really dumb for not putting in academy and sylvan factions.

Everybody really everybody wants em in

[cjlee]

for all my rants, I did hope they would sack somebody or decide to change their approach. we might actually get a fresh start with Heroes VII, although I'm not holding my breath.

In fact, Ubisoft's Zerg spamming strategy strongly suggests we have a good chance of getting Heroes VII in under a year!

Knowing how Blizzard works, Starcraft 2's next expansion won't be before 2016. So I'll need a new game (am too old and slow to compete with teenagers in real time strategy)

Now that Ubisoft has decided Heroes VI is complete, they've probably burrowed into their dens to plot an assault on consumer pockets again. They're good at releasing something every few months; I wonder if Heroes VII can be produced anytime before 2014 Christmas.

There's no official word from Ubisoft, but we haven't heard of any new stuff coming. This silence indicates that the "complete" edition is indeed the final release. I'll see if I can get a confirmation.

[Coldy]

I certainly hope they are done with Heroes 6.....
Fingers crossed for the next one, maybe it will be better.

[Dalai]

I certainly hope they are done with Heroes 6.....
Fingers crossed for the next one, maybe it will be better.

After H5 I was sure that next installment would be better. I thought there was no way to make it worse. Ubi proved me wrong. Now I think that chance for H7 to be better than H6 is 50/50. But even if it will be better, there is a very high probability that it will be only marginally better, as they are obviously not going to replace the entire team. I don't keep fingers crossed.

[Kalah]

for all my rants, I did hope they would sack somebody or decide to change their approach.

There's good news there ... as you know, Ubi were far from happy with the quality of the work done by Black Hole Entertainment and they were indeed dismissed from the project.

We also know that the producers have learned (sounds like a cliché, I know) valuable lessons, the product of which we can already see with the development of MMX. I am thinking here especially of deciding the scope of a game early, as well as communicating with the fans.

I hope this development continues into the production of later games.

[Dalai]

as you know, Ubi were far from happy with the quality of the work done by Black Hole Entertainment and they were indeed dismissed from the project.

I strongly doubt Blackhole had any room for own initiative worth mentioning. I am sure Ubi controlled every step of production. It is possible, Blackhole were not the best in what they did, but the blame is still on those in Ubi who controlled them. On those who said "This is our product, it meets our highest standards. We will put a Ubisoft quality stamp on it and ship to our valued customers". And those people most probable will remain in charge.

We also know that the producers have learned (sounds like a cliché, I know) valuable lessons

Yes, just like with H5. Much good did it bring.

[Kalah]

News:

OK, I now have it confirmed that there are no further editions of H6 planned.
That means, then, that the complete edition really is complete and can be bought without fear of losing out on added material later.

No word on patches yet, but I know that Ubi are reading the bug reports and I hope that they will at least fix the game breaking bugs.

[cjlee]

awwwwwrite!

Now they will get to work producing H7. Finally!

[Pol]

awwwwwrite!

Now they will get to work producing H7. Finally!

MMoH7, I'm sure!

[konfeta]

Well, I would have to wait 'till the Winter sale at this point.

The game's worth playing through once with the campaigns at least?

[Pol]

Campaigns are good (On my scale I would grade them like 6 from 10), not much longevity and challenge in the game though.

The price is doing a lot, I paid around 50€, just for the base game. Which is high price, now, I may safely say that it was quite too much for how it all ended. 15.99$ would sound more apt.

[Kalah]

The game is worth playing if you just want to run through it, but it's just not worth full price. When the price is dumped to 50% or less, for instance in the Christmas sales, then you could pick it up - to complete your collection, if nothing else.

[Sir_Toejam]

for all my rants, I did hope they would sack somebody or decide to change their approach.

There's good news there ... as you know, Ubi were far from happy with the quality of the work done by Black Hole Entertainment and they were indeed dismissed from the project.

We also know that the producers have learned (sounds like a cliché, I know) valuable lessons, the product of which we can already see with the development of MMX. I am thinking here especially of deciding the scope of a game early, as well as communicating with the fans.

I hope this development continues into the production of later games.

there was a post from a BH developer who said that the reason H6 got delayed so badly, and had so many bugs, was because of delays on deliverables by Ubisoft. Frankly, having dealt with them myself, I rather lean towards believing that strongly.

Ubi is only second to EA on the list of horrendous software publishers.

I'm just about to finish the last campaign (inferno). bugs aside, I found the game quite beautiful, and enjoyed the animations and unit design.

campaign maps were mostly dull affairs strategically though. some are exciting in the first and second months, but you eventually end up steamrolling everything for the most part. Could have used more non-town maps; more adventure style maps. there are only a couple.

combat map needs to be larger to add more tactical variety. most battles have engagement happening immediately, with no turns to move units into cover etc (advance tactics sometimes lets you place a unit into cover directly, but it's really not what I mean). the battlefield should be about 50% longer and 30% wider than it is currently.

most bugs as of 2.1.1 have workarounds, if you know about them, so check the forums if you plan to start playing. One thing I will tell here, is:

-unequip any staff with a magic school affinity before you either save your game, or end your turn. otherwise, when you reload/start a new turn, it will SUBTRACT 5 points from your effective magic power for every day you leave it equipped. This is hidden; you won't see it in your stats sheet when you look at your magic power, but you WILL see it in how much damage your magic troops do, and how much damage your spells do (also affects summoning!). ruined two characters like that, and had to restart an entire campaign to fix it

the only other really irritating bug is the black screen on town/battle, and that can be fixed by reverting to older drivers (if you use nvidia).

Overall, I found version 2.1.1 to be playable, and have enjoyed myself quite a bit playing the campaigns over the last few weeks. It's worth the sale price.

[wimfrits]

combat map needs to be larger to add more tactical variety.

In my experience, a larger difference between unit movement and combat map size rapidly shifts attention to ranged and fast hit-and-run units. Thus the theoretically increased tactical variety quickly becomes dumbed down in practice. I think the H5 and H6 sizes are just about right.

[MattII]

So you increase movement speed and/or decrease the long-range power of archers.

[wimfrits]

Sure. Give all creatures +1 movement for each row or column added.

..I think that will only have a small effect on tactical variety and a larger effect on unit movement time

[MattII]

+1 or +2 for every two rows added. As for tactical variety, on a flat field, probably not a lot, but it allows you to add in some much bigger obstacles without compromising free-access too much.

[Xdarkon]

Wait what? a new Heroes games? Oh yisss, finally a game I can wait for and will run on my not so good computer