Why HIV is better or equal to HIII

[Taro]

There are two kind of players who don't like h4:

1) First don't like h4 because it is not "better h3".

2) Second don't like h4 because it is unfinished game.

I was a first type from the start, but now I'm the second one. I like both h3 and h4, but I think h3 is OBJECTIVELY better because fans like it more. Numbers show that. But I'm sure finished h4 would be much better.

And btw - I create my own mod. Don't want to say everything, but I can tell that human player will have zero resources on every level so it will make game harder. But I test it for now.

[Anonymous]

I like both h3 and h4, but I think h3 is OBJECTIVELY better because fans like it more. Numbers show that. But I'm sure finished h4 would be much better.

Sorry I don't buy that logic. Even NWC was tired of the H-3 gameplay, which is my guess why they dumped it. Fan acceptance of the Chronicles was tepid at best; with some complaining of 3DO milking the fans for money. H-IV was not dealt a fair hand with the release before it was done. After chronicles I was done with the H3 gameplay style; I cannot even bring myself to load H-3 on my computer anymore. This also partly explains my lack of enthusiasm with H-5,6,and 7.

[Salamandre]

Well, H3 indeed has more fans because it is still developed, modded, there are new features or variants every month or so. Not all worth to mention, but they prove one thing: the interest is still very high. Because modding takes a lot of work.

And we can not compare H3 from today to H3 from 15 y ago. With Wog, Hota, then HD mod with 100+ templates as option, it is light years away.

[Taro]

jeff - this is simple logic. Better game is the one which is more liked. That's all.

And no, NWC was not tired of H3. H4 is different because it was designed by Gus Smedstad, not Jon van Caneghem (even if he signed under the game). I belive that FINISHED H4 would be better than H3 at least for me. But we are talking about UNFINISHED H4, with bad adventure AI, bad balance etc.

[Karmakeld]

What about the editor? I believe that the H4 editor leaves you with more options. Just think of the complexities of some of the fan made maps/campaigns. Could those have been made in H3?
Now H4 is also still being modded, however perhaps not in the same scale as H3, but can you compare Equlibris to WOG?
Anyway is any opinion not colored by preference? I mean how objective are the arguments?
Without knowing for sure, I would assume Britney Spears has more followers on twitter than Alice Cooper, but does that mean that she's a better artist?

[Khalbrae]

I've come to realize Heroes 4 has a very, very unfortunate abbreviation.

Edit: On the plus side I can now claim with all honesty that UPlay gave me HIV.

[Karmakeld]

I've known that for some time
U should know, always wear protection when Using Uplay

Supposedly they discarded the idea of an expansion named either Age of the Inquisitions Dominant Sovereign or Age of the Ice Demons Sovereign.
HIV - AIDS

[Taro]

Karmakeld, bad comparison. Because game is made for fans to get money. On the other hand, what is good art is hard to define.

[Karmakeld]

Perhaps is was a bad comparison, but I agree defining good art is hard.
How do you define a good game? Or the better of these two?
I miss some arguments that compare H3 to H4, rather than the number of fans still playing each game being the answer.
Basically it's all a matter of taste and preference.
Having followed discussions about H5-H7 there are several things fans seem to expect in order to consider it a good heroes game and many opinions about
Art design (portraits/creatures)
Creature types and factions
Graphical/game design
Town Screens
Campaigns (stories/number of maps/campaigns)
Map editor
AI
Skill wheel
Music
Combat map
Etc. etc.

Hopefully all new editions contain some kind of development, and some ideas will work better than others.
I can understand that some feel that H4 lacks a better AI and might feel 'unfinished', but the editor gives plenty of options to improve AI and adjust difficulty.[/u][/quote]

[jeff]

So this thread has come to point I feared when I saw it first appear. It always ends in opinion; sorry Taro but your arguments are not new. It does not make them right or wrong. Nothing anybody has said in the 10+ years that this argument has continued has changed many peoples' minds. H-3 was great in its day but for me it outlived itself and I no longer enjoy it. H-IV's editor has allowed the creation of campaigns that the H-3 editor can only dream about. It has been these maps made by skilled fans that has kept the heroes franchise alive for me, and why H-5 and 6 has almost killed the franchise. Limbic has a chance to correct this; but if it stays with the H3 gameplay style; then engaging storytelling will be virtually impossible.

[iLiVeInAbOx05]

Perhaps is was a bad comparison, but I agree defining good art is hard.

Actually Karmakeld, your comparison was perfect. How popular a game is doesn't necessarily mean it's a good game.

I'll use Starcraft again as an example (I'll focus specifically on the multiplayer aspect). A lot more people play Starcraft 2 than still play Starcraft 1 / Brood War. Does that mean Starcraft 2 is a better game?

As far as the multiplayer goes, I stopped playing Starcraft 2 because the gameplay was so dumbed down from the first installment that it just wasn't fun. The game basically plays itself, all the team player maps were changed to "shared bases" style, and it just isn't fun.

All of those things cater to the less skilled player, which are significantly more numerous than skilled players, and thus, Starcraft 2 is much more popular than Starcraft 1 / Brood Wars.

So, Karmakeld's argument about popularity holds very well.

[Salamandre]

jeff

It doesn't have anything with style, but how customizable is actually the game and what it allows at this moment where we talk. I think you didn't play much some of the wog/era campaigns, but I played H4 campaigns and scenario and I can tell you, in the perspective of story telling, customization, role playing, scripts, everything, HoMM3 is now at light years from H4. And it improves every day.

So, yes, at the date of its release, H4 editor was a certain progress, but right now is definitely outdated, being a component of a static game with a very restricted access to its core language. And this is not an opinion, is a fact. We can compare step by step what you can do in H4 and what I can do in H3 if you want, then we will be fixed.

Is not a competition between fans (me, you, anyone), but just a fair analyze of what both games NOW can do.

I also agree that popularity doesn't always mean quality. However H3 popularity was mainly due to easy and fluent access, easy interface, easy combat view, excellent random generator, all was very intuitive. We know that H4 is not perfect, some areas are lacking seriously the basics, as AI codes or map generator. And this is important when we talk how long a game can survive.

[Taro]

I prefer H4 a little bit more than H3. BUT we try to find most objective argument, which game is better. And I don't see any better argument like popularity in that case.

I even say that complexity and simplicity are not important. Because important is the feeling of LIKING THE GAME. A feeling, no matter what gave that. And say what you want, but H3 won the test of time. And even if H3 is more liked which means it is better, I still prefer H4.

Like someone said before, only H4 needs that kinds of topic. Do you know what that mean?

Salamndre, I disagree with your opinion about editor. I think you don't know what you are talking about. Even wog editor is weaker. But please, prove me I'm wrong. I have open mind.

[Salamandre]

Taro, wog has access to game memory, is the language manipulating and game. Means you do whatever you want (granted you know how to code things).

What is an editor? Is a tool allowing you to set in game actions, quests, armies, storyline, events and so on. Why would I need an editor in H3 when I can do all this and thousands more directly in game code while using a safe platform?

[GreatEmerald]

It doesn't have anything with style, but how customizable is actually the game and what it allows at this moment where we talk. I think you didn't play much some of the wog/era campaigns, but I played H4 campaigns and scenario and I can tell you, in the perspective of story telling, customization, role playing, scripts, everything, HoMM3 is now at light years from H4. And it improves every day.

So, yes, at the date of its release, H4 editor was a certain progress, but right now is definitely outdated, being a component of a static game with a very restricted access to its core language. And this is not an opinion, is a fact. We can compare step by step what you can do in H4 and what I can do in H3 if you want, then we will be fixed.

Is not a competition between fans (me, you, anyone), but just a fair analyze of what both games NOW can do..

That's like saying Super Mario World is better than New Super Mario Bros., because it's a lot more popular and it's much easier to create levels for it. In a sense, that's true. But why that's the case? Because at the time there was more interest in modding the older games, so more thinking went into achieving that. So the result is that by the time the newer games came out, despite all their innovations, they were largely ignored, and features not even backported for the most part. So that's a shame, and not really fair to the newer game.

Now imagine HoMM4 was released before HoMM3. The tables would be turned...

[Salamandre]

Personally I think H4 is okay as a game, I already specified that.

As Heroes game, seeing how H2 developed into H3, I was expecting something absolutely opposite to what H4 is, I mean even more visible battle fields with big big squares so we can spend hours to calculate angles, speed and tricks, more visible and simple map, not the fungus H4 it came with, faster movement, more skills, more towns, even a more perfect interface and so on.

Well, they chose the break the process of "updating" Heroes, they did something else, some people like it and I see no problems with that, but you can't deny the dense community H2 and H3 had remained unimpressed by H4 and continued to play H3. To everyone its taste, but my point is that H3 got upgraded every year since then, and as it is now I sincerely believe is up to take any game out, from customization perspective. Including the rich Civilization and Skyrim (ok, that's the only two I played).

[Karmakeld]

>pressing like to Jeff's comment and to Iliveinabox's<
Iliveinabox you really got my point. I was about to make another compare between classical music and pop music. Obviously it's not necessarily the case that the more complex song/game is the better one, and as I haven't tried WOG, I won't discuss whether it has a more complex editor than H4.
I tried to reply H3 as I never got to finish the main story nor play any of the expansions, but the game and graphics just felt too outdated for me to play. (being squashed by an enemy with large amounts of green/gold dragons had little to do with it.. ).
I still have good memories about alot of old games, but some have just feels outdated. Would anyone return to good ol' GTA1?

[jeff]

Salamandre I am not a programmer, so I will accept your comments of modding, to me it doesn't matter much as I mainly use Equilibris for the facetool.

Perhaps I wasn't clear and I grow weary of yet another 3 v 4 discussion; but here goes. Does H3 allow more than 1 hero in an army; ah no. Therefore storytelling is reduced to 'the last time so and so were together'; where in H-IV I can place conditionals when 2 heroes meet or travel together the story progresses in a unique way. I will grant you that isn't strategy but it enhances the entire experience. Then different combinations of encounters can trigger different quest events.

I know this is spitting in the wind, but I just no longer like the H3 gameplay/combat style. I haven't since H-IV came out. This does not mean H3 is a bad game; it was great, but it is no longer for me.

[Salamandre]

jeff

Seriously...having two or 100 heroes traveling together is a symbol, a metaphor if you need it for story telling. That you, in H4, have two real heroes John and Jim on battlefield, or me in H3, have only 2 commanders named John and Jim on battlefield, where is the difference? Yes, a hero can travel without any army in H3 then in combat show this hero representation, within a commander graphics. And can have more than one, up to 21 which is the stack limit in H3.

We can make them talk between battle turns, drink, laugh, play poker, anything.

Erm language allows modifying every parameter in H3. This mean no limits to what you imagine as story.

[GreatEmerald]

Well, they chose the break the process of "updating" Heroes, they did something else, some people like it and I see no problems with that, but you can't deny the dense community H2 and H3 had remained unimpressed by H4 and continued to play H3.

Incremental updates are a viable idea too, sure. But it should be approached differently. I know hindsight and all that, but right now we have things like Unreal Tournament 4 where the plan is to release the game and have it be a "rolling release", as in there will never be any more games in the series after this, because any updates can be achieved by changing the current one. And that's very logical, you keep all (or at least most of) the backwards compatibility and whatnot, while still allowing things to evolve through addons.

Erm language allows modifying every parameter in H3. This mean no limits to what you imagine as story.

It's also one of the most terrible languages I have ever seen