Dying community??

[Romanov77]

I joined this board when Homm4 was released, and if I remember well, there was far more activity on CH....more maps submitted, more stuff...is just an impression, or true?

I mean, the game has few little problems that will be fixed, and the gameplay is great...whats wrong??

[Kalah]

The editor has only recently been released, and people are finding out how to use it. We are getting maps for testing and submissions every day, so the map community is not dying, I'm sure.

[Angelspit]

The maps are coming, I can tell you that. It's just our maptesting policy that slowed down the initial rush. But other than that, yes it feels a bit quiet compared to the middle of the year, back when we had over 10,000 unique visits on a daily basis. I was hoping that Dark Messiah fans would join us, but I find it a bit hard to reach them. The FPS crowd is quite different from a strategy/RPG community.

Still, I love the community and I'll stick for a while no matter what.

[ThunderTitan]

Me and DL single-handedly managed to sabotage everyting. Duh...


You do realise that the ppl that are still here prob don't know good reasons why others would leave, don't you?

[DaemianLucifer]

I mean, the game has few little problems that will be fixed, and the gameplay is great...whats wrong??

Exactly that.The problems are plentyfull,not few,they are easy to fix,yet arent,the gameplay is not great,its slugish.Furthermore,even the game is modable,mod support is afwul(actually its non existant),the editor is not very user friendly(especially if you arent familiar with programing languages),the delay of patches,bad communication with the fans,high standards,the "OMG they are doing it again" attitude after the game was released unfinished,.......Thats just a short list of problems.Still,the game is being sold well because of its old fame,thus ubival really has no need to improve themselves in this field.Thus the game will die,and the community will become just diehard fans.

[Sir_Toejam]

do recall also that the map editor for H5 was NOT released along with the game initially.

this did two things:

1. many who initially played the game have now put it away, and there is some intertia involved in pulling it back out again for new maps.

2. there is a bit of a learning curve for the new editor, so that too slows down production of new content.

plus, h5 was a long time in coming to begin with.

all of these things combined would have a tendency to reduce the size of the community.

hard to say if it will ever be as large as it was during the peak production for h4.

er, just to parallel what others here have said.

[Kilop]

Exactly that.The problems are plentyfull,not few,they are easy to fix,yet arent,the gameplay is not great,its slugish.Furthermore,even the game is modable,mod support is afwul(actually its non existant),the editor is not very user friendly(especially if you arent familiar with programing languages),the delay of patches,bad communication with the fans,high standards,the "OMG they are doing it again" attitude after the game was released unfinished,.......Thats just a short list of problems.Still,the game is being sold well because of its old fame,thus ubival really has no need to improve themselves in this field.Thus the game will die,and the community will become just diehard fans.

Man, just try not to discourage other fans.
I for myself never came here before and i played H II III IV ... so just stay cool, the ship is not sinking

And to all , this game is great, it has not revealed all its potential yet, but for me it is H III made better!

flame on!

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

I joined this board when Homm4 was released, and if I remember well, there was far more activity on CH....more maps submitted, more stuff...is just an impression, or true?

I mean, the game has few little problems that will be fixed, and the gameplay is great...whats wrong??

The map editor has not really been out very long at all.

There are maps in community playtesting now and I am working on a "too big for you map." It is a single player map with all six positions playable by the player. I am approaching 1000 lines of scripting plus things that are done in the map properties instead of direct scripting. Over the next week unfortunately I won't have much time to complete the map, but I am already doing significant playtesting and will hopefully be able to wrap it up within a couple of weeks.

If you go to the mapmaking guild forum you will see that there has been a lot of discussions about scripting and various other things related to mapmaking. The HOMM5 editor has required us to learn a new computer language as well as specific functions for HOMM5. So we have all been experimenting, asking questions, and helping each other.

Just give it a little time and there will be lots of new maps rolling in I'm sure.

GOW

[ThunderTitan]

so just stay cool, the ship is not sinking

I think he likes the comfy feel of a forum full of regulars.

[Psychobabble]

These forums get as many posts as they ever have and the map community, while slowed down by the editor obviously, has hit the ground running. We're getting a very healthy number of submissions for an editor ~1mth old.

[mr.hackcrag]

These forums get as many posts as they ever have

Might just be more spammers...something I wouldn't know anything about of course.

[Paradox]

I can tell that CH and the ubi forums have gotten sort of slow recently, I think a lot of people have tried the editor, and its too hard for them, (in comparison to the H3 editor, H5 editor is madness..) so they just gave up and moved on to other games. (my forum is slowing too, used to be tons of posts every day about new mods people were making/had made... it just died one day, i guess all the worthwhile mods have been made :/ =/= in conjunction with people getting bored etc... how I see it anyway)

[BoardGuest808888]

I joined this board when Homm4 was released, and if I remember well, there was far more activity on CH....more maps submitted, more stuff...is just an impression, or true?

I mean, the game has few little problems that will be fixed, and the gameplay is great...whats wrong??

O o ... I just came recently and already have to read this about a dying forum ? Booo hooo.......

Man, just try not to discourage other fans.
I for myself never came here before and i played H II III IV ... etc

Oops...I'm discouraged...

The maps are coming, I can tell you that. It's just our maptesting policy that slowed down the initial rush. But other than that, yes it feels a bit quiet compared to the middle of the year, back when we had over 10,000 unique visits on a daily basis. I was hoping that Dark Messiah fans would join us, but I find it a bit hard to reach them. The FPS crowd is quite different from a strategy/RPG community.

Still, I love the community and I'll stick for a while no matter what.

Never worry, for every winter, there'd come spring.

It might look lethargic now, yet it might get excited later...(or even rushed). No matter, live goes on.

For me, it's still one o' the best

[addicted]

The HOMM5 editor has required us to learn a new computer language as well as specific functions for HOMM5.GOW

Exactly.... and this is why a lot of old map-makers 'won't' be making H-V maps!!!! That includes me.. I have no desire to learn programming and I personally think the map editor is too complicated to use and should also be more menu driven like the H-4 map editor is. I loved making maps but not with the way the H-V editor is right now so hopefully they will improve the editor to be more user friendly so more of us can use it! If not than I forsee less maps than in the pass, but this is my opinion.

[Caradoc]

One reason that interest may be lagging is the availability of other games with similar play. Character development and resource management are part of almost every fantasy game coming out now. And the support for modding and mapping in Heroes V is so inferior to what other companies offer, that it is very tempting to jump the fence.

The new maps will certainly help. The ones that come with the game are so unimaginative and so much alike that people get bored. I certainly did. I am so f-ing sick of a Town in every corner with Ore and Wood nearby and the other stuff a little farther out, each with some random monster sitting in front, and then some miscellaneous treasure scattered around with even more random monsters. And when you get to other corner, the castle fight is no fun since it was originally set up for a human to play. Never a surprise, never any text, never any big rewards.

[Paradox]

The new maps will certainly help. The ones that come with the game are so unimaginative and so much alike that people get bored. I certainly did. I am so f-ing sick of a Town in every corner with Ore and Wood nearby and the other stuff a little farther out, each with some random monster sitting in front, and then some miscellaneous treasure scattered around with even more random monsters. And when you get to other corner, the castle fight is no fun since it was originally set up for a human to play. Never a surprise, never any text, never any big rewards.

You just summed up the entire collective of maps that shipped with the game, I laughed out loud when I read that and how true it was =) When you reach the other side of the map, its also no fun because its almost symmetrical to your own side

I think a big problem with the game is still map size, it is hard to make such small maps with fitting so much content into them. Ive recently gone back to heroes 3 and began mapping for that again.... so fun, I love writing small shorts of text for the player (my little brother, hehe) to find, and expand on the maps story..

[Omega_Destroyer]

The weak scenarios certainly did not help my desire to play the game once I beat the campaigns. But I'll agree with those that feel this place has become a ghost town. It's understandable and tempoary, so I'm not too worried. It will liven up when Hammer of Fate comes out.

[Adicto]

Yes, the community is dying. The lack of maps, editor, and even a working multiplayer during months are the main reasons. Besides Nival is always changing things or adding new bugs, so we (the players) have the constant feeling of being playing a beta version instead of a finished product.

Anyway I believe that we are a bit tired of playing the same HoMM thing since more than a decade.

In my humble opinion this series must die, only then we will see the return of the originality and creativity. Simply too much tradition and "unremovable holy concepts" here... not good for progress and innovation.

[DaemianLucifer]

We had lots of creativity in HIV.Too bad those things were just scrapped like they never happened.

[Kilop]

yeah, like caravans, or... talents tree ... too bad