Heroes of Might & Magic III: Horn of the Abyss

[Midas]

Not only in star trek, in Toy Story, Buzz said "I've set my laser from stun...to kill"

[Qurqirish Dragon]

H3 dread knights

You meant H3 gorgons, right?

Right. I think I was thinking of the dread knight equivalent in H5, which has the "death strike" ability - chance to halve the stack.

[Midas]

Anyone Watched Toy Story, ANYONE?

I wish, I just wish somebody resurrected Forge...Just as a For-Fun Add-on

[gerardoletal]

I remember when they said this will be downloadable on may/april i think. What a joke!!

[Deadguy118]

I remember when they said this will be downloadable on may/april i think. What a joke!!

It's a fan-made project. The developers have real lives and such, which is why they take so long.

[ketchua]

Any updates? I don't expect the game to be out in a while, but still, some news from the team, once a month, would be pretty nice.

[m0sh]

well i think its not even close to being finished...

i just hope people are still making maps for WOG 3.58 and not waiting for this...

[bonecollector]

Its really a pitty that this awesome project _seems_ to be handled so stepchildish. Even a post about some minor updates like small changes in Graphics etc. would keep the fans attuned. It gives ppl the feeling "hey theres still progress and someone cares about it" But atm with this silence it feels a bit abandon-like. Anyway- hope resposnibles have now/soonish more time again for it. Really <3 this game

[Salamandre]

It is not abandoned but looking for the best quality. It is extremely hard and long to create sprites and town from scratch. You need professionals graphists for that, and of course most of the time they are busy with real life. So when they are busy, the mod is delaying. And it is natural a perfectionist team as HOTA does not want to release not 100% finished graphics. Lets take an example:

You want to marry a top model but you weight 200 pounds. You start losing pounds: will you send a nude photo of you every 5 days to your love, or you will hide until you lose all the weight thus looking good?

[GreatEmerald]

I agree with bonecollector. IMO, if you create a project and start working on it, you should use the regular software release cycle - first create Alphas for you only, then Beta, then Beta 2, etc. Then when it seems to be OK, just needs bug tracking and polish, release Release Candidate, RC2 etc. and only then release the final. Logs about the progress being done are also helpful, since it not only shows fans that the project is being worked on, but also provides them with an option to suggest things. There's nothing bad in releasing early versions - if the player doesn't like them, he shouldn't be using them at all, since it's clearly labelled as a beta.
I also always keep everything I do opensource, so if anyone wants to continue what I've done, they can do that freely, doesn't matter if I'm still working on the project or not. And that does work - for example, I've got the third development team member for my Unreal Engine 2 project just by leaving things opensource. He got some good assets for the project, jumped it, reminded me of things I should continue working on, and so the progress now continues.

[bonecollector]

I doesnt even need to release software. Just as GreatEmerald said, post changelogs - just keep the (illusion:P) up, that someone is working on it and that there IS progress. Nothing is more wrong/dangeours then capsuling and keeping silence. We as fans are patient and we dont need early versions do play around - we just want the progress feeling, and that can be obtained with quite some cheap effords mho.


@ salamandre : regarding ur topmodel analogy, let me tell u that this will never work - speaking in ur words: ur model wont stay tuned and will get another guy. Generally perfectionism like that is not real-life capable.

Perfectionists usually miss the point where to stop it and thers often a chance that they cant lift their own expectations and then (the project) collapses until they start to think in smaller steps. - there should be objective ppl who decide qualitylevels for each component and when stuff is reasonable good enough for release. At least find a good compromise. Too much pressure usually kills quality (esp when commecial issues are involved), but a bit pressure may help to bring things forward.

[Salamandre]

My guess is that they don't care about what fans think. When a established company release a game, it has to combine it with a good publicity to reach good sales. Here there is no money involved. The team worked on breaking the hardcode of exe. and apparently they succeeded at it. Now this is a big step, and not how many fans/lurkers are happy or not.

The fact that we are happy or we play it does not affect the quality at all. There are also other personal conjectures which explain HoTA team behavior. Actually they are in "competition" with the Core WoG team and other several teams working on new towns. The quality is high and it could explain why no screen is out yet unless 100% done. If they release a beta, the others will pick the code and criticize the quality. All must be hidden.

[ByteBandit]

I love H3. I love WoG. But I am one of these people who continue playing the games as they are without worrying about when a new release will come out or not. I have seen many teams come and go. And the only real thing you can believe in is when it's actually released.
Now, I'm not slamming the HoTA team (If it exists anymore) about what they are doing. But the bottom line for me is, unless it's on my computer, and I'm playing it, it does'nt exist or ever did. I don't rely on promises. I rely on seeing it in action.
This really goes out to how ever many teams there are out there. Stop promising and start releasing.

[Salamandre]

OK boss!

[ByteBandit]

[Yurian Stonebow]

With the current speed of development going on, it's gonna be a one mighty Abyss for the Horns...

[Variol]

I don't click in here often, but I play H3 WoG pretty gerularly. I've been playing H5 the last few, since my new PC runs it so well. I hardly played it on my old one, since it did not run that well on it.

Anyway,
I must agree. I went back to the first post and noticed that this started in May 2005! I'd say the "poop or get off the pot" holds true here.

If it does come out, will it be stand alone, or an add on to H3 original?

[Salamandre]

Will be a miracle, that is!

Nope, started in may 2008 and was planned to take one year.

[ByteBandit]

If it does come out, will it be stand alone, or an add on to H3 original?

It will be an Add On to WoG. If it.........??

[Salamandre]

To say the truth, I don't know what it will be. Russians have a problem with their ego and dream a lot, so they said in the first link it will be independent Add-on with no reference to WoG. Of course they forgot to notice us that they use WoG engine and the options will be selected through WoG interface. They told WoG commanders are bad done and HoTA will redone them entirely. Last week they told they will not be commanders because it is a "wise" decision. What will they say next week? Wait and see.