Wog & Heroes III HD

[skeeta]

Will wog work with the new Heroes Of Might & Magic III HD version.

[Pol]

Will wog work with the new Heroes Of Might & Magic III HD version.

Sure never, WoG require at least H3 Armageddon Blade. And HD version is diminutive, consisting only and exclusively from Restoration of Erathia HD.

But, on the other hand, the new graphics will probably make its own way to nowaday WoG iterations.

[Yurian Stonebow]

(Enter Sarcasm)

It can all be summarized thus:

Heroes 3 HD Edition by Ubisoft works with.... Heroes 3 HD Edition by Ubisoft.

WoG equals a lot of "well-drawn" level 8 monsters with mish-mash of a palette work thrown into the mix that works fine with....Oh well, WoG! This Heroes 3 Fan Add-On is aimed at players who are
A) Mostly Russians playing amongst themselves and cursing "unwanted foreign intervention into the Holy Mother Russian way of "Heroic gaming"
B) For all the other players as long as they do not say a bad word about Russia, next WoG release(s)' neverending postponement or criticise the unwanted side effect of "fabulous" ERM scripts confusing and dumbing-down of the Heroes 3 AI

(Exit Sarcasm)

I wouldn't recommend the Heroes III HD Edition to anyone, seriously.
WoG on the other hand can be enjoyed if one is suitably open-minded and bears with the Bear of the East which dominates the said Add-On's fan culture. I know that it is not 2006 anymore and I certainly wish a better future for the WoG Project, if not for anything else, out of solidarity as a fellow Heroes III fan and strategist.

Cheers,


Yurian Stonebow

[Salamandre]

Even if Slava (ZVS) is russian, the wog team was international, and Timothy Pulver (Fnord) is american. 90% of wog scripts and ideas are Timothy Pulver's , so i don't know where you get your russian bears facts.

Up to today, wog is a living proof of outstanding potential and quality creative and selfless fans from all cultures and nations can come with when cooperating for the greater good.

Then it was designed as a tool, a hammer allowing you to build safe basement for your future house, the graphics being only an advertising to the new data and an example on how to script them. Basically WoG is Heroes III alphabet or translator, if you want, giving direct access and control to memory and allowing to understand its mechanics. In the last 3 years, the Era team worked on the mods feature and now wog totally changed its structure and displays as mod (120 as today). Those mods have various ranges, confined in 9 categories (which aren't updated anymore at CH because there is no demand or feedback), going from vanilla game bug fixes to total conversion.

Wog today

Needless to say, mods fixing SoD bugs and allow safe game play are in no way adding any graphics or scripts to the vanilla game play. Interface mods are now proposing new buttons to go past repetitive or tedious actions, as buying all creatures at once, upgrade all of them at once, switch armies/artifacts between heroes in one click, and so on. Most of those mods are my work, because before everything, I am a vanilla passionated player and was such frustrated to often give up on some vanilla map because "week of" placing a creature in my path or bugged level up drowning my hero experience into negative. Right now I am working on a mod allowing to localize seer huts in a given map, then display all their quests in a single dialog, so the player does not spend anymore hours to scroll maps. So if you believe being wog coder means wake up in the morning with the brilliant idea of creating a dinosaur with 27 legs, you can't be more wrong. This is serious work and research.

As for wog scripts "dumbing and confusing AI" as you say, there are none. Some options offer cheating, others offer better AI, up to you to check or uncheck the ones suiting your taste and challenge.

I accept the criticism about wog, when is intelligently done, because I am personally interested into making it better and by this, improve the gameplay experience of others fans as myself. But I really get tired of people who never tried it or followed its progress then keep bickering or mocking about, giving same old and shortsighted argument about "bad drawn 8th level monsters". Those monsters are one option between 1000 options, 100% removable and optional. They are computer data, new coded variables, the creature pool data expanded. You don't like them, insert your personal graphics to replace, the code is ready to receive new data. You don't have your graphics? Then untick their option, 8th level will not appear in your game. Voilà.

Also it amazes me how unfair -or bad documented- can be the skeptics, quibbling over and over about bad graphics and their mishmash but never mentioning, for example, Bastion town for wog 3.59 which has same quality and gorgeous atmosphere as original towns.

And what's with this anti-russian propaganda, awkwardly hidden under the "this is sarcasm, it's me, Yurian, cheers!"? One can't be serious, to write such non sense in a gaming forum...btw, I am not russian.

[Yurian Stonebow]

Hello Salamandre, my non-Russian* friend.

Here's my reply. And here's hoping that you'll kindly take so time to read the contents of my post carefully and "between the lines", as my posts quite often hide within them double meanings. Thank You.

Even if Slava (ZVS) is russian, the wog team was international, and Timothy Pulver (Fnord) is american. 90% of wog scripts and ideas are Timothy Pulver's , so i don't know where you get your russian bears facts.

Slava Salnikov was, is and probably remains Russian, nothing to disagree here. Timothy Pulver on the other hand is United Statesian, or American as they prefer to call themselves. Yes, I couldn't resist referring to Pablo Neruda's famous criticism of the United States of America: they proudly call themselves "Americans", while calling other nations and inhabitants of the said large double Continent of the Western Hemisphere "Americans" doesn't fit into their world view. Neruda continued by saying that the United States isn't even the largest state on (North) America. These are all facts and the irony seen there within is just delicious, is it not? I will try discuss my use of the Russian Bear metaphor "facts" elsewhere in this post.

Up to today, wog is a living proof of outstanding potential and quality creative and selfless fans from all cultures and nations can come with when cooperating for the greater good.

So WoG is the place for creative and selfless people from around the world to come in and use co-operation for the greater good. Nothing to argue here. The world certainly is in dire need of these happy get-togethers' to promote harmony amongst the nations.

Then it was designed as a tool, a hammer allowing you to build safe basement for your future house, the graphics being only an advertising to the new data and an example on how to script them. Basically WoG is Heroes III alphabet or translator, if you want, giving direct access and control to memory and allowing to understand its mechanics. In the last 3 years, the Era team worked on the mods feature and now wog totally changed its structure and displays as mod (120 as today). Those mods have various ranges, confined in 9 categories (which aren't updated anymore at CH because there is no demand or feedback), going from vanilla game bug fixes to total conversion.

Yes, the WoG is a tool that can either build, as in the list of positive & far reaching changes you assigned to this mod in the description above or it can Break as in the example given by me in the post before yours. "...the unwanted side effect of "fabulous" ERM scripts confusing and dumbing-down of the Heroes 3 AI." The ERM scripting sometimes succeeds Astonishingly well in its dealing with and guiding of the Heroes III AI. Sometimes the results, as I remember seeing back in 2006 were not that convincing. If my memory serves me right it took numerous checkings and rechecking of the scripts to iron out some game threatening bugs. But it's been almost a decade since that, so please don't judge me too hard.

Wog today

Needless to say, mods fixing SoD bugs and allow safe game play are in no way adding any graphics or scripts to the vanilla game play. Interface mods are now proposing new buttons to go past repetitive or tedious actions, as buying all creatures at once, upgrade all of them at once, switch armies/artifacts between heroes in one click, and so on. Most of those mods are my work, because before everything, I am a vanilla passionated player and was such frustrated to often give up on some vanilla map because "week of" placing a creature in my path or bugged level up drowning my hero experience into negative. Right now I am working on a mod allowing to localize seer huts in a given map, then display all their quests in a single dialog, so the player does not spend anymore hours to scroll maps. So if you believe being wog coder means wake up in the morning with the brilliant idea of creating a dinosaur with 27 legs, you can't be more wrong. This is serious work and research."

There's no need to pat me on the head and say be a nice boy Yurian, go read this page here which seems to be something you don't know a thing about. I do know my good bits about the progression of WoG since 2006 when I quite actively searched information about the Project in various boards and places around the web, including the site where it said something like "Hello Hero. I am You. Yes, you but not now but in some other time and place." (You remember the site, I presume?)

I too am "a vanilla passionated player", as you put it, and like you I wasn't happy with the bugs that NWC left alone back in 2000 when the last patch to the Shadow of Death expansion/standalone, version 3.2 was published.

And also, Salamandre, there's no need to get upset by your perceived idea of me somehow Not valuing your many services to the Heroes fandom at large. I know you as a brilliant coder who works with passion to do and expand his stuff, never ceasing to produce nothing but the best. It is indeed, as you put it, with "serious work and research" that you work.
Nothing to argue here, only to agree with you in what you said.

I remember the time when you worked with the Stargate Atlantis project of yours, and it did strike me as being the work of a genious. And moreover, if I failed to have witnessed the progression of WoG since 2006 (as you previously implied), then how can it be that I was aware of your project, followed you working on it, and gave you words of encouragement as you moved along? (Sorry for this long sentence and me mutilating English language as I move on. My native language, Finnish, is well-known for its love of long and tedious sentences that may come off a bit funny when translated to English and trying to keep the original structure and meaning intact)

I accept the, when is intelligently done, because I am personally interested into making it better and by this, improve the gameplay experience of others fans as myself. But I really get tired of people who never tried it or followed its progress then keep bickering or mocking about, giving same old and shortsighted argument about "bad drawn 8th level monsters". Those monsters are one option between 1000 options, 100% removable and optional. They are computer data, new coded variables, the creature pool data expanded. You don't like them, insert your personal graphics to replace, the code is ready to receive new data. You don't have your graphics? Then untick their option, 8th level will not appear in your game. Voilà.

Are you implying here that my criticism about WoG was not done intelligently? I used poetic license and humour (both dry and oh-so-witty) to engage in criticism. It is with serious look on my face that I can assure you that understanding humour is a sign of higher level of intelligence.

Now, we're returning to the way me, your very same gentle Yurian as always, witnessed WoG in the year 2006 and earlier. Back then I surely wasn't pleased with the dull-looking "new" unit models they used for the basis of the newly introduced level 8 monsters. Mixing previously existing in-game graphics to mish-mash and mix freely in order to create new content didn't impress me much in 2006, the year this criticism of mine stems from. Have I changed since then, and has WoG? In both cases I think so. I lost my hair and gained 10kg more weight. I can only hope that WoG has matured with more grace.

Be it as it may, don't forget that my perception of the flying Ghost Behemoths and the like and my disapproval of them was first introduced by a younger version of myself who with a less diplomatic tongue didn't hesitate to judge what he saw. "Oh and, not only drawn in such high quality, these units are balanced so well and fit in with Heroes III un-erringly", was what I though back then. Like the creatures from H3:AB, the almost now a decade younger Yurian Stonebow let his acids out.

Also it amazes me how unfair -or bad documented- can be the skeptics, quibbling over and over about bad graphics and their mishmash but never mentioning, for example, Bastion town for wog 3.59 which has same quality and gorgeous atmosphere as original towns.

Although I readily admit the fact that I remain a sceptic of WoG, I could still happily shake hands with you and sit down to dine & discuss things like it was the most natural thing in the world. My criticism isn't aimed at Salamandre, the hard working honest coder who has already produced quite a many scripts and additional content for the "average Joe" WoG players to enjoy. I do not take shots at the artist (="person") but at flaws within the wider picture of the "canvas" or the "house" that is in the process of being built in a constantly changing world where co-operation may be sorely hoped for, but poorly implemented.

I am aware of the concept for the new Egyptian themed Bastion town. I recall seeing some screenshots with Russian (once again Yurian has to mention the word "Russia", is he that Anti-Russian indeed? Shame on him) text on it already many many years ago. Both it and the much-awaited WoG 3.59 itself were ever so often announced to have been delayed, and eventually my interest in the project faded away, or should I say more fittingly, was buried in the sand.

And what's with this anti-russian propaganda, awkwardly hidden under the "this is sarcasm, it's me, Yurian, cheers!"? One can't be serious, to write such non sense in a gaming forum...btw, I am not russian.

You accuse me of producing anti-Russian propaganda while I merely used Sarcasm (of which I warned folks back in the very beginning of my post, right?) to humorously mix facts with opinion. Of course I wasn't being serious and of course it was nonsense that I wrote. But you missed the post's original spirit and intent: to mix humour and sarcasm to address flaws in the Heroes 3 HD Edition by Ubisoft (where you did not place your critisism on me for laughing at Ubi's shortcomings) and my personal troubled relationship with WoG and some of the active fandom of it way back in 2006. (This is where I hit sour note with you it seems) Why that year you might ask. It represents the high peak of my interest in WoG and the eventual disappointment that followed.


All in all, summa summarum. I let Lynn Anderson to have the final word on this. "I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden."


Anyways. Wbr, cheers and with solidarity,

Yurian






*

btw, I am not russian.

I take your word for it, although I can't see what this has to do with anything as I never said a thing about you being a Russian or not