H6 Shades of Darkness

[Variol]

Does the expansion require the original game in order to run? I can't find any info on it.

[Konfuzius]

nope, it's stand alone (I'm using it as stand alone as well btw.).

[Variol]

Thanks,
Does it contain everything from the original game as well?

[Avonu]

It should have everything besides campaigns/maps and maybe some Conflux stuff (dynasty weapons)... but I am not sure about that.
It has all factions for sure.

[Variol]

I downloaded the demo yesterday; all 4.2 gigs of it (sheesh).

It's a pretty good game though. I would say it has the steepest learning curve so far. There are a lot of choices for leveling Heroes.

The "gold" edition is on for $19.99 at gamersgate.

[Variol]

After about a day worth of playing, I'd say the game is too much the same as 5. I'm bored during the first map. I guess I'll save the $20.

[Konfuzius]

Well, it's pretty much the original game plus Dungeon.

If you like Dungeon, I think it is a great game, but if you don't like it, you can pretty much ignore it.

I loved the way Dungeon plays and I think it is the most fleshed out faction in the game overall. I found Blood Magic to be the most rewarding way to play Dungeon.

You have an extremely fragile army, but with Shadow Implosion, Stalkers, Faceless and Dragon's Breath you have some very serious magic firepower.

Stealthing your units also allows for many interesting tactics and boosts your magic power even further. Imo, there is a bit too much purple involved, but that's nothing some texture modding cannot get rid of xD

Oh yeah, the combo of (Mass) agony + stalkers + Shadow Implosion is just amazing. .

Edit: Oh yeah, it does get more difficult in the second dungeon campaign, but that's mainly due to the time limit.

[Variol]

Thanks Konfuzius

Does anyone know if the demo has been patched? A lot of the keys stop working after a while and I have to shut the game down and restart.

[Variol]

Is there a game developer that can tell why a "demo" which has 1 scenario and 1 map of a campaign has to be 7 gigs?

H6 did little to to impress me. And I know 7 will be the same from what I have seen.

[Tress]

Probably because that scenario contains most of textures and assets (music / factions / units etc ) which no matter how many maps we have in final product will be reused anyway making each next map just small fraction of core asset size.
Second reason would probably because most people nowdays have good internet connection and 7 GB is more easy to get than 100 MB 15 years ago.

[Variol]

That's true Tress, but it think it's the fact that companies are just writing lousy software, because they know that download speeds have increased and storage is dirt cheap. The game does even look as good as H5 to me and it's what, 3 times bigger?

[Tress]

Since bulk of it is texture/model quality, then it's logical to be 3x size. Of course quality increase is not linear to polygon/resolution size.
general idea is visible here.
http://i.imgur.com/aFKEttJ.jpg
And if you put model from homm5 and 6 near each you will see serious quality increase. Thing is just relatively small quality increase costs lot more than gain. Same is with video files, do you see that big difference between 720p and 1080 p , sure there is on large monitors but its nowhere near visible as for lower reses, while size increase is just incomparable.
Bottom line is that size in general have no much to do with straightness of coders hands, bulk of it is graphical/sound assets which are compressed as good as they can be. (Unless there are "garbage" files like some games used to have in order to fill 1 dvd and look respectable as some other titles that actually filled that dvd/4-6 cd's)