Which game to play <tell me what you would do!>?

[Zamolxis]

Or you will look at the models, icons and additions, think "oh my gosh, who designed this?!" and uninstall it. At least that was my case. It's not a bad mod, but why, oh why did they have to replace the nice icons for skills with their own?!

Is that why you uninstalled WoG?

j/k - to be honest, I asked myself the same question for about 2 seconds; but then I moved on and enjoyed the great parts of the mod (new creatures, artifacts, no more crappy skills etc).

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@Yskonyn: My advise is to try each of them for about a week. And at the end of each week try to force yourself to switch to another one. If you'll manage to do that for 5 weeks, you'll be able to tell which one you like most. If one of them will get you hooked so much that you won't feel like giving the others a try yet - even better. It means you discovered a game you really love. So until you'll get bored of it, no need to even check if one of the others is better or not.

In spite of what was said above, I believe each of the 5 has its originality. They all have their fans, which proves each of them appeals to (slightly) different tastes. Those who say X was just a (better/worse) copy of Y, didn't play both of them enough to remember the big differences. As Qurqirish Dragon said, H1 had a totally different magic system then all the others, so it's not like you can so easily jump to H2; and for a H3 fan, no way is H5 just a 3D remake with a better skill system (for me the amount of improvements is insignificant as compared to the amount of good things in H3 that got lost...). But that's all just a matter of taste and you'll have to try them all to see what you like best.

[Salamandre]

Emerald, this is so plain wrong...WoG is so versatile, so unlimited, so...everything you need. What's wrong with its creatures?



It seems you are way out of date and running away from progress :

[theLuckyDragon]

He didn't say creatures, he said skill icons.

[Salamandre]

No skill icons were replaced, or maybe I am blind. What icons?

[GreatEmerald]

Salamandre, the creatures that I had in that WoG version were only pallete swaps of all 7th level creatures and some others.
And I'm talking about primary skill icons, not secondary.
And overall WoG feels far from HoMM3. It does have nice additions, and a good configuration tool, but the stock HoMM3 is still good enough.

I remember a battle against an enemy that had a strong emissary, with an artifact that heals all of its HP each turn. That was a pain, even with all my troops gathered around it, I couldn't hit him enough to kill it in 1 turn. The only option was to run away from a unit that doesn't even have an attack... Although after like 20 rounds I got lucky and it went down. Creature skills and expreiance are very wrong, some creatures get skills that they shouldn't ever have...

[Salamandre]

I still don't see what icons were changed. primary skills icons (attack, def, mana and knowledge) are the same. I have both versions and can't see any difference.

WoG is a tool for custom maps, it is an engine. If you put a F1 engine on a boat, the boat will drown. Try some custom maps or mods to see its potential.

There is no artefact who heals all HP between turns. I think you faced an enemy commander which had the ability to heal 50 HP/turn. It is a commander ability, not big deal. And commanders are mostly not used in custom maps. I rarely see this option, because good mapmakers know that commanders are either too strong or too weak. They can't be balanced.

For the creatures, WoG engine allows the mapmakers to easy introduce new creatures, so the initial ones were only an example. See icons/creatures above for the actual quality.

[GreatEmerald]

Oh, that's cool. May give the new version a try then. The screenshots on this site look promising.
And the icons are changed, at least in the version I had. The Attack was changed to an axe instead of two crossed swords, Power to an orb instead of an open book with particles and I don't remember what the rest were. Also the Defend button in the game was changed from a shield to sword, arrow and a smaller shield.

[Zamolxis]

I still don't see what icons were changed. primary skills icons (attack, def, mana and knowledge) are the same. I have both versions and can't see any difference.

Do you have a version of H3 in a folder where WoG was never installed? I'm asking because I have the feeling WoG overwrites some original H3 files, which may be the reason why you see the same icons in H3. I'm also pretty sure it's WoG that came with new Primary Skill icons. If it was NWC, then it must have been in one of their very last patches or H3Complete, as I remember playing for years with different icons than what we have now in WoG (not that it bothers me).

@GreatEmerald: my guess is that they changed the graphics of the Defend button, because it was given extra r-click functionality (choice between melee, range & cast attacks).

[Salamandre]

Zamolxis, you were right, thanks for the info. HoMM complete icons are overwrite.

[GreatEmerald]

I have H3Complete and the icons are the same as in RoE. It's WoG that overwrites them.
And that's interesting, never thought there was such an option. Guess that's the same as the button you get in HoMM4 (what about harpies, though?)

By the way, that gives me an idea... Maybe it's possible to get the icons back to normal by rewriting the .lod file with the one on the original CD? Or using a tool to reimport them? Not sure if WoG adds anything new, or just overwrites those files...

[Salamandre]

Well, if those 4 icons disturb you so much, yes you can rewrite them. After all, the thousand options WoG introduces are not worth changing 4 icons

[GreatEmerald]

The question is, why would they overwrite them in the first place There's absolutely nothing wrong with the original versions, they look even better.

[Salamandre]

Well, it is subjective. WoG is an addon so I guess they changed because they "could". To be honest, I never noticed that change. Also if you have resedit exe you can extract them from the original and install via update.exe into WoG, so you can admire old icons every day.

[Shyranis]

I just wish WoG Worked for people who never got Shadows of Death.

[Vlaad II]

So you don't have combo arties?

[EvilNed]

As Qurqirish Dragon said, H1 had a totally different magic system then all the others, so it's not like you can so easily jump to H2; and for a H3 fan, no way is H5 just a 3D remake with a better skill system (for me the amount of improvements is insignificant as compared to the amount of good things in H3 that got lost...).

Well... Agree to disagree. I can easily move from H1 to H2 (and did so!) without even consulting the manual or tutorial. I did the same for H3 when it came, because the games were so alike.

I've played all the game very, very much, as have we all. But I treat H3 as a souped up H2, with some added features. And in H1-H2 is very apparent, because all creatures are exactly the same, except some got upgrades. But the tiers and levels? All exactly the same. So it's just a remake.

With H3, they took the basic concept and then changed very little. But added more. They changed the magic system and added more skills and heroes. Maybe enough not to call it a true remake, but hey. The fact is that all games except H4 are basicly the same game.

[Salamandre]

HoMM2 and 3 are great games. Potentially.

HoMM2 was advantaging the magic (if you had a warlock, you could dispatch anyone with lightning bolt), HoMM3 is advantaging the might (take a beastmaster or a barbarian and magic heros will be crushed to nothing).

Now, if only...we could restore a true balance between them, by restraining magic heros from bodybuilding or plate armor concepts (offense/armorer) and restraining mights from learning mass spells concepts, well, then we would have a great game. And perfect.

So far, a skilled player will choose basically one of the 5-6 better mights and use 3-4 spells out from 67. Every game. This tells a lot on the game flaws.