Voting for Vampires!

[Erwinner]

This is merely due to graphical tools used in the process. Once the lamasu 3D skeleton is ready, it makes sense to reuse it if another or modified texture is applied. But in H2 creatures are hand made so it is impossible to reuse anything, must draw them again, probably by different artist too.

nah not really, nothing stopped them from pasting the creature sprites of Heroes 1 into Heroes 2, sitting back and calling it a day, making only the Wizard and Necro creatures lol

I think this riot over reused assets makes no sense, seeing how Might&Magic games share everything. There are way more important aspects IMO.

fair enough, like I mentioned it's just my subjective opinion and the opinion of others,
new game, new creature art, new money lol

[Galaad]

Behold the Mighty Moos graphical artist Kobaltmaster made for the world of Ashan, probably can't fit the lore.

[mr.hackcrag]

http://www.spriters-resource.com/resour ... /41239.png

You gotta love that purple chest hair. And that's not a palette swap at all.

[Groovy]

But there is nothing to learn from a game, nothing which could have an impact on your life, change your way of seeing things, change your real priorities. The lore, the fantasy behind, is just a quick higgledy-piggledy fantasy, which artificially tries to convince is real, but seriously, does it really succeed?

That whole post was pretty depressing for me to read, considering that I’m busy making a game for the purpose of using its mechanics and its lore to communicate a message. Hopefully I can change your mind.

[Salamandre]

Scenarios or minigames made by dedicated fans are often of high quality indeed. When you do something for free and you are not squeezed by time constraints, you have a chance to reach the end of your goal. See maps by Timothy Pulver/Duncan (Corribus) for Heroes II-III, campaigns by Hans, or even the extraordinary H3 map "Vengeance is mine", which is, beside a perfect game play and balance, a lyrical poem dedicated to time paradox, full of philosophical conflicts generated by the two main heroes, the present and the past.

But games from industry are just dumb and simplistic. Sandro is a bad guy, Crag Hack is money driven, Gem is haunted by her psycho visions. Hopefully the game is excellent because if it was only for the story...

[Galaad]

That whole post was pretty depressing for me to read, considering that I’m busy making a game for the purpose of using its mechanics and its lore to communicate a message. Hopefully I can change your mind.

As you may have noticed I've been trying to explain him what he misses but I refuse to think he didn't understand so I will just consider he trolls now.

[Dalai]

... lol

... lol

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... lol

May be my question is a bit offtopic here, but are really LAUGHING OUT LOUD as you write every line of your replies? That's a little disconcerting

[Galaad]

@Dalai: Maybe this can clarify your concerns.

[Erwinner]

May be my question is a bit offtopic here, but are really LAUGHING OUT LOUD as you write every line of your replies? That's a little disconcerting

you bet I am, imagine a gibbering lunatic whom Ubisoft have driven insane at the other end hue hue hue

[hellegennes]

nah not really, nothing stopped them from pasting the creature sprites of Heroes 1 into Heroes 2, sitting back and calling it a day, making only the Wizard and Necro creatures lo



Something DID stop them from copy-pasting creatures. Basically, three things stopped them when talking about H2: art direction, size and framerate. Artifacts and portraits were unaffected by those three things, hence the reuse of old graphics. In H3 the creatures are not hand-drawn, they are all 3D models turned to 2D sprites. Thus they could not copy-paste there either, but they DID use the same models for the MM games. No one complained about it.

[Erwinner]

Something DID stop them from copy-pasting creatures. Basically, three things stopped them when talking about H2: art direction, size and framerate. Artifacts and portraits were unaffected by those three things, hence the reuse of old graphics. In H3 the creatures are not hand-drawn, they are all 3D models turned to 2D sprites. Thus they could not copy-paste there either, but they DID use the same models for the MM games. No one complained about it.

art direction is arbitrary (as you said, it didn't change much in other respects), size is irrelevant because the H1 creatures are actually bigger, and they didn't have to improve the framerate just as Ubisoft doesn't have to create a more advanced model lol

if you read my posts I already acknowledged that MM 6-8 reused some of the creatures of Heroes 3, note that my beef is with Heroes 7 sponging creatures from Heroes 6, I have not said a word of complaint about MM10 being nothing but reused Heroes 6 and Dark Messiah creatures lol

[hellegennes]

Nothing is irrelevant. The art direction affects everything regarding graphical representation (notice how H6 and H7 have the same art direction); the colour pallete, the number of colours (which changed between those two games), how cute or serious the art will look like, and much more.



Size changes a lot of things. Bigger sprites cannot be converted to smaller ones and work the same way. In theory it may sound unimportant, but in practice a lot of things would look out of place.



The frame rate however is the most important aspect. What do you mean "they didn't have to improve it"? The standards were rapidly changing back in the day and newer technology allowed both the designers to improve the framerate and the gamers to play the game without problems. Making more fluent animations was a logical step forward.

[Erwinner]

hellegennes, you're changing goalposts around, I'm saying your three points lack substance because none of them are factors to stop NWC from copy-pasting the creatures as you said lol

they could have done it, even I myself could do it using Project Ironfist, but as you said it would turn out to be inferior

new creatures in Heroes were once the standard, now they've become a luxury apparently, which is the matter of contention lol

[hellegennes]

What are you talking about? Heroes and H2 had THE same creatures, They didn't copy-paste them because the end result would be out of place, but they did repaint them almost the same way. If they were using 3D models, they would possibly reuse some of them, as they appear alike. Take the wolf for example or the druid.



If they chose to copy-paste the creatures, they would have to go with the same resolution, same quality of graphics, same framerate, same art style, same detail depth, same colouring scheme. That would make the game feel like an expansion rather than a new game and it would actually be a restriction for the developers. Choosing to repaint the creatures was a choice that HELPED them.



You're comparing this to reusing tha same skeleton for the lamasu. This is neither here nor there. It makes sense to use the same skeleton for a creature you are reintroducing, since the level of detail, colouring, art style, etc can now change simply by changing the model parameters and its skin. You want to present a new concept for the creature? That's fine. You want to simply reuse the model and change its appearance only slightly? That's fine by me.



What your complain alludes to, as I see it, is the supposed fact that the developers are spending less time and effort to create H7 than, say, NWC did while developing H3. But that's completely wrong. H3 was much less of a bother for NWC, since most of the code, gameplay elements and game mechanics where transferred directly from H2. Therefore, if you're complaining that your "top dollar" should be paying for "top work", then your complaint is misguided; the H7 developers bother much more than the H3 developers ever did.

[mr.hackcrag]

People are passionate about vampires.

[Panda Tar]

People are passionate about vampires.

[mr.hackcrag]

[parcaleste]

Next step is, indeed, to put a sunglasses on them. Ashan is a shiny place, after all.

[Dalai]

@Dalai: Maybe this can clarify your concerns.

Yep, thanks!

you bet I am, imagine a gibbering lunatic whom Ubisoft have driven insane at the other end hue hue hue

The only reply without "lol". Oh, the irony!

Next step is, indeed, to put a sunglasses on them. Ashan is a shiny place, after all.

Black closed motorcycle helmets and tight leather suits. You are a shame to Hollywood!

[Panda Tar]

you bet I am, imagine a gibbering lunatic whom Ubisoft have driven insane at the other end hue hue hue

The only reply without "lol". Oh, the irony!

But 'hue, hue, hue' is there. Brazilians are very familiar with it. It's a provoking sort of 'lol', so, I think there was no evolution there, hohohoho.