The Damage is Already Done

[Galaad]

The damage is going further, it was not enough of them to offer us horrid art-style, now they frankenstein our beloved heroes from the past as well.

Behold Ashan-Edric (makes me want to puke) and Tyris now has a strabism lol

https://mmh7.ubi.com/en/blog/post/view/haven-s-hall-of-heroes

How far will they go ...

[Panda Tar]

Actually, those eyes are the lovely thing about her - not perfect, you see. As I see it, everyone seems to be part of the same family.

[Tress]

The damage is going further, it was not enough of them to offer us horrid art-style, now they frankenstein our beloved heroes from the past as well.

Behold Ashan-Edric (makes me want to puke) and Tyris now has a strabism lol

https://mmh7.ubi.com/en/blog/post/view/haven-s-hall-of-heroes

How far will they go ...

Actually H3 Portrait was reason I never picked Edrick. Here could argue that his skin is too smooth , but its not game of thrones where everyone looks like they wake up in trash heap. In universe where armor design is fancy rather than practical, It;s not a problem.

Eye positioning on Tyris is just nitpicking, besides I am not really sure they are that much dis focused to even warrant an argument.

As for Kryztoff - Deathstroke is that you ? (yea i know other eye but still)

[ThunderTitan]

I got H6 at a discount on steam... played a bit, until Uplay started to not work... tried reinstalling once...

Yeah, sorry Ubi, at this rate its easier to just pirate it.

[Tress]

I got H6 at a discount on steam... played a bit, until Uplay started to not work... tried reinstalling once...

Yeah, sorry Ubi, at this rate its easier to just pirate it.

I wonder If I am only one who never had any problems with UPLAY.
I didnt play h6 at launch when most mess was present , but considering ever present complaints, I cant imagine I am that lucky to simply happen to avoid it.

[BB Shockwave]

What is this "RMG" people are talking about? Never heard that acronym.

I never understood why Ubi had to make this new, and frankly, totally staple-boring-Warcraft-like Ashan world. They bought the rights, and Heroes IV already destroyed Erathia, they could have picked up in the new world and could have imported whatever they liked from the old world. Instead, they choose the cliche mediocrity path - divinding Rampart into the elf and dwarf towns (the latter being probably the most boring town in HOMM ever, all units looking pretty much the same), inserting the (by that time, thanks to Drizzt and Warcraft's Night Elves, incredibly cliche) Dark Elves into the story as the new Dungeon... And of course, inventing the (also cliche) dragon gods backstory - which they later used in HOMMVI to stupidly remove dragons as actual units from the game.
The combat also got simplified, with the incredibly small battlefield and the square system replacing hexes, I found the new combat too fast and having less room for strategy. The skill wheel was good idea on paper, but it had a fatal flaw - random skills and no in-game info about what sort of skill combinations unlock what special skills meant you just stumbled blind and could ruin your hero build easily.
As for the storyline, it was so painfully Warcraft-copied, it hurt. I mean, arrogant humans find their own shining knight king resurrected as an undead? Arthas, anyone? And the whole demon campaign made me laugh, here we have this Agreael guy just randomly fall in love with Isabel and switch sides at random - why am I not surprised that the ONLY demon hero who is not a real demon himself, just an armored humanoid, would become a good guy?

[Kalah]

What is this "RMG" people are talking about? Never heard that acronym.

Random Map Generator.

It's basically just a simple tool to generate generic maps quickly, rather than playing the same maps included in the game over and over. Naturally, user-made maps are usually better, but those take longer to make. It is considered especially important to include an RMG in the first release, since user-made maps increase in numbers over time.

[BB Shockwave]

Ah thanks.

Well, Age of Wonders 3 has it, so it's not something that cannot be done in modern games. Hope they make it happen. If not, they better add a lot of scenarios to compensate.

[Panda Tar]

Making a decent map editor (and the game which shouldn't suck so much) might be advisable. People will pour some time into making nice maps, as they usually do. But I cannot ward off the feeling that H7 is not going to be very successful, no matter what.

[magritte2]

I'll wait and see how people react to it. But I have a feeling it's going to face a tough market. They've frittered away the value of the brand, making the fans of the 3DO games hesitant to buy again, and I don't know how easy it will be attract new ones.

Honestly, I was beginning to wonder whether I was simply bored with the basic game mechanics after so many years of ploay...but then I started playing King's Bounty and picked up HOMM3 gold on gog recently and they're just more fun than HOMM V & VI.

[Galaad]

I'll wait and see how people react to it. But I have a feeling it's going to face a tough market. They've frittered away the value of the brand, making the fans of the 3DO games hesitant to buy again, and I don't know how easy it will be attract new ones.

They aim to conquer fans of Blizzard. Fans of NWC need to take part in the votings lol

Current votings are for Lich and Vampire designs. End of the vote: March 29th, 23:59 CET.

[Neidhaart]

Are you the same Galaad as on the officual blogs? =)

[Panda Tar]

Yep, that's him. I had to fetch him to do my bidding around here.

[Galaad]

Are you the same Galaad as on the officual blogs? =)

Yes it's me =P
Galaad was already taken for Uplay username so I made a contraction with Galehaut, the good friend of Lancelot. ;-)

[cjlee]

I'll wait and see how people react to it. But I have a feeling it's going to face a tough market. They've frittered away the value of the brand, making the fans of the 3DO games hesitant to buy again, and I don't know how easy it will be attract new ones.

They aim to conquer fans of Blizzard. Fans of NWC need to take part in the votings lol

Current votings are for Lich and Vampire designs. End of the vote: March 29th, 23:59 CET.

Blizzard has produced different products with different appeals.

But they were all underlain by one thing for which Blizzard is well known: quality. We all know they don't release trash every few months hoping to make a few dollars off the latest (bugged) 'expansion' set of a few maps. We know they will rather spend years and countless tests and get fan input from hundreds of thousands of playtesters in different parts of the world, and spend tons of money, to get the best possible product in the market so that your precious time and dollars are perfectly spent.

I did not pay for Warcraft 1 and Starcraft 1. I paid for every single other expansion and installment. And in some cases several times (eg 3x starcaft 2 and 3x warcraft 3) because I was THAT enthusiastic and believed they were worth buying as gifts.

I did not pay for Heroes 1. I paid for everything else until Heroes 5, and also bought multiple copies as gifts (eg 4x Heroes 3) because I supported the company and the franchise and believed they were worth buying as gifts.

When it came to H6...

I got it free because my cousin got it and couldn't play it. I won't even recommend it for download even if Ubisoft waived copyright. It's that bad. There are better free TBS games. Such as Chess and Poker. I also play Hearts occasionally.


There is no way Ubisoft can ever attract Blizzard fans with their level of quality control.

[Galaad]

There is no way Ubisoft can ever attract Blizzard fans with their level of quality control.

Well I agree. Starcraft II in example definitely was what Starcraft fans were waiting for.

Ps. I invite you to read this thread.

[Panda Tar]

Someone did broke cabir's toy on the council blog now. Thing is crashing all the time.

[cjlee]

There is no way Ubisoft can ever attract Blizzard fans with their level of quality control.

Well I agree. Starcraft II in example definitely was what Starcraft fans were waiting for.

Ps. I invite you to read this thread.

thanks Galaad; not surprising to me since I played WC3 a lot and am familiar with their designs.

It's not that their design is a big rip off of other people's work. That's for the lawyers to settle. It is that the quality control is just not there. It doesn't matter whether it looks exactly like Warcraft 3, down to names like Arthas and Nerzhul. if game is crammed full of bugs and is practically unplayable most of the time and Ubisoft likes to apply patches only during public holidays therefore screwing up everyone's ideal game time - Blizzard fans will turn away. Because in their minds, WC3 is associated with quality.

As for U Bi Soft, I associate it with... impotence. They can't get anything right.

[cjlee]

Someone did broke cabir's toy on the council blog now. Thing is crashing all the time.

I am not worried that something crashes a lot at alpha stage. But Ubisoft is not exactly committed to sorting these things out before they start selling. That's why I am not going to buy until after all bugs have been identified and fixed. Whoever preorders a Ubisoft product is basically acting as a guinea pig for them.

Let me say this out loud. Everyone knows I hate Ubisoft. But far from criticizing or arguing with people who want to preorder H7 or buy it the day it is released, I welcome and encourage you guys to go forward. I am not being sarcastic. We need as many committed fans as possible to do beta testing after the game is released. Ubisoft isn't going to do any real beta testing, so the 6 month period after 'Gone Gold' is basically beta testing. The more of you guys, the better. By the time I buy 1-2 years later, I will probably get a discount and all the bugs worked out and nicely packaged in a single patch.

[Dalai]

It's not that their design is a big rip off of other people's work. That's for the lawyers to settle. It is that the quality control is just not there. It doesn't matter whether it looks exactly like Warcraft 3, down to names like Arthas and Nerzhul. if game is crammed full of bugs and is practically unplayable most of the time and Ubisoft likes to apply patches only during public holidays therefore screwing up everyone's ideal game time - Blizzard fans will turn away. Because in their minds, WC3 is associated with quality.

As for U Bi Soft, I associate it with... impotence. They can't get anything right.

I rarely post in this topic, because you basically nailed it. Just can sign your posts as my own.

In this case though I think there is a twist. It's all my own guesses, not hard facts. And my forecast in the end.

With H5 Ubi went with the cheapest offer on the table. They expected to make a great game with tiny budget and maximize their profit from milking old franchise. But usually you get what you pay for, so they got a lot of poorly written code close to impossible to manage, and very costly to fix. With H5 our enthusiasm was high, Nival did not collapse, and most probably it was a financial win for Ubi. Ubi took it as a positive sign, did not learn any lessons, and naturally they did the same with H6. Again, they chose some cheap developer, but in this case the developer went bankrupt. With not so high fans' enthusiasm, no developer to fix bugs and clear pattern of user dissatisfaction, they were forced to open their pockets much wider and invite Limbic.

Limbic is a German developer, and they are high quality, so they must cost several times more then Ubi is used to pay. And even they did not manage to do anything substantial to save H6 - so bad was the code.

But with H7 Limbic is the developer from the very beginning. I played other Limbic games, like Anno 2070, and I must admit - they are very good. That does not mean that H7 will be a good game - Ubi obviously has a major say in game design and graphical design, and they suck at it royally. But it does suggest that the number and severity of bugs in version 1.0 will drop significantly compared to H5 and H6.