What was the Forge incident?

[Jolly Joker]

It makes no sense to discuss whether you should like or dislike the Forge or not or even why. Obviously some people like things and some not. Not every Homm-player likes all towns. Some definitely dislike a few. In that particular respect the Forge is - or have been - no different from all the other towns.

But if you start with things like, this and that has no place in MY BELOVED game, in MY BELOVED music, in MY BELOVED series, there is no telling where it begins and where it ends, and all of a sudden there might be nothing left, so the designers and publishers have to draw a line somwhere - which they didn't in this case.

[Mirez]

handguns n chainsaws would totally kill the entire game
thank god conflux came in their place

I mean, I know some people have really bad out of the homm world idea's (out of space town/warcraft 3 town) but this really is one of the worst, I mean chainsaws.... dude...

[Avonu]

handguns n chainsaws would totally kill the entire game

handgun vs. beam from mage's staff
chainsaw vs. behemoth's claws
jetpack vs. fly/teleportation
rocket launcher vs. Magog's fireball

All this "futuristic" weapons already are in heroes - mage firing from his staff beam of light. And what is lasergun - "stick firing sun beam".
And what is more dangerous - chainsaw or behemoth's claws? So, technically Forge's weapons probably didn't imbalance homm series.

Besides - how can you be sure, that introduce of Forge will "kill the entire game"? Did you played it to know how it worked? Or only that are your speculations?
If you played then OK but if not, how you can judge game? And I sure that you didn't played Forge.

[difool]

I haven't played a RPG since the Bard's Tale 2; I guess I have high expectations for something which calls itself "Role-playing" which to me isn't stat twiggling and endless monster bashing. In a weak moment I did buy Titan Quest, partly because I knew a buddy of mine would like it, playing coop, and partly because it has very few RP pretensions, but am 75% through it and am now bored silly.

The Heroes series however appealed to me because it took RPG type mythological characters and creatures and put them into a strategy game. Since I was weaned on the likes of 3rd Reich and Panzer Blitz (and yes some D & D-with real role-playing) it was a natural. I almost exclusively play strategy maps in HOMM, avoiding linear "story/RPG" maps like the plague, BTW. After getting intimately familiar with the Heroes universe, I assumed that it was based on a traditional fantasy milieu. Thus the Forge came as a very rude shock.

Imagine reading Tolkien, reaching the climactic battle on the Pellenor Fields, only to have Sauron show up with a company of Tiger tanks, to get an idea of how people like myself and Hodge Podge would have reacted to the Forge. Now assume that JRR, in his voluminous notes for what would become the Silmarillion, had previously established that technology was the real basis of Middle Earth, that would have been marginally acceptable, but nowhere in either The Hobbit or LOTR were such things ever mentioned, and few knew about what was in the Sil until it was released 30-40 years after the other books.* That's pretty much the analogous situation here; NWC needed to have a "tech" town right from the start in KB (I got hooked with H2 10 years ago).

The "Only a few rabid fans hated it" is a red herring because only the rabid fans ever knew about it. The marketplace would have been the real test; would have been interesting to see the reaction.

[*Yes I know Tolkien railed against technology and that that was one subtext in his writings, but not to a ridiculous extent. I also can appreciate "science fantasy" when done right.]

[Corlagon]

Imagine reading Tolkien, reaching the climactic battle on the Pellenor Fields, only to have Sauron show up with a company of Tiger tanks, to get an idea of how people like myself and Hodge Podge would have reacted to the Forge. Now assume that JRR, in his voluminous notes for what would become the Silmarillion, had previously established that technology was the real basis of Middle Earth, that would have been marginally acceptable, but nowhere in either The Hobbit or LOTR were such things ever mentioned, and few knew about what was in the Sil until it was released 30-40 years after the other books.* That's pretty much the analogous situation here; NWC needed to have a "tech" town right from the start in KB (I got hooked with H2 10 years ago).

I guess a more apt analogy would be to imagine the Tiger Tanks in some other location at the same time, since the sci-fi was all present and accounted for in Might and Magic 6 through 8, which were released when Heroes III came along and set in the very same world. No thirty-year gap, but clear and apparent sci-fi. It's not like they made any huge secret of the fact, you just had to be aware of the storyline and history, and besides the Forge and its specific units were only going to appear in specific campaign scenarios, so you could quite easily pretend it never existed if you wanted to.

There's a bigger history at work here. Back before the decision was made to merge the Might and Magic and the Heroes of Might and Magic universes together, NWC had an author, Geary Gravel, working on a trilogy of books entitled 'The Dreamwright', 'The Shadowsmith' and 'The Worldcrafters'. They were set in a seperate world from the Heroes games, and the original plan was to continue the series from number 6 onward following the events detailed within. So, originally, there was to be no sci-fi connection between the worlds (that I can determine). This explains why they didn't include science fiction towns in the first installments. They had no plans nor reason to do so.

For whatever reason, NWC decided not to feature Gravel's works in their games and instead went ahead and merged the two games together. In either case, we would have ended up with a good story anyway, so there's not much to worry about except the actual gameplay, which wasn't affected except in the campaigns.

Anyway... haven't we done all of this before? There's not much left to be said that hasn't been said already, and arguing about the town isn't going to change anything. Of course it's interesting to have a nice debate, I appreciate that, but still, as Yasmiel once said...

"At its core, Might and Magic is about advanced civilizations who have descended into barbarism. If you disagree, your reasoning is emotional, not logical. "

[HodgePodge]

Conflux may "fit" more, but you have to admit that the design is unoriginal. …

So what's your point? I still love the Conflux Town in spite of its flaws. I love the Creatures, I love its Heroes, I love the Magic University & I love the Grail Sturcture!

handguns n chainsaws would totally kill the entire game

… All this "futuristic" weapons already are in heroes - mage firing from his staff beam of light. And what is lasergun - "stick firing sun beam".
And what is more dangerous - chainsaw or behemoth's claws? So, technically Forge's weapons probably didn't imbalance homm series.

Besides - how can you be sure, that introduce of Forge will "kill the entire game"? Did you played it to know how it worked? Or only that are your speculations? …

It's not about whether or not 'futuristic' weapons would "kill the entire game", it about spoiling the Fantasy Genre with the presence of Sci-Fi elements.

The Fabulous Conflux

[Kareeah Indaga]

It's not about whether or not 'futuristic' weapons would "kill the entire game", it about spoiling the Fantasy Genre with the presence of Sci-Fi elements.

Or rather, spoiling a science fiction-fantasy cross by cutting out its cybernetic heart.

I started this series from Heroes as well, and I had no problems whatsoever when I first discovered the sci-fi aspect. For me, it was an awesome, unexpected plot twist. 'Wow, laser weapons! Cool!' Far more surprising and interesting than, say, discovering that Sareth was the Dark Messiah...

(And kindly dump the all-bold text HodgePodge. It's painful to read.)

[Alamar]

I started the series with M&M3 so I never had a problem with mechanical constructs per se.

On the other hand the art that was released with the Minotaurs in Jet Packs, Naga Tanks, Something with a Zombie, etc. just seemed a little too over the top for HoMM.

It may have been good but the execution was really bungled.

[Corribus]

OMG not another revived Forge discussion. Please, no. Can't we just get over this already?

[Omega_Destroyer]

Never!

[Jolly Joker]

I could puke if I read something like "this and that would spoil the whole genre of". As if there was something like a "purity" to be kept. A "genre" wouldn't even exist if someone hadn't "spoiled" something.
Art doesn't work with laws like Thou Shalt Not Do This And That!

The biggest spoilers of the fantasy genre is fantasy itself because no other genre produces so much unoriginal, ridiculous, fascist, racist, chauvinist, silly and simply dumb stuff.

Back to the Forge.

All of this is IRRELEVANT for what happened with the forge. Did Rock Music change its attitude because "concerned parents" started to organize "burn rock records" happenings? Nope. People are supposed to have different ideas of what is good, and consequently they like different things. Consequently there ARE lots of different things. If you don't like them, avoid them. But don't start wars to change them. There is no excuse for death threats and this kind of stuff.

[Avonu]

It's not about whether or not 'futuristic' weapons would "kill the entire game", it about spoiling the Fantasy Genre with the presence of Sci-Fi elements.

So, you never watched He-man, played Wizardry or Albion or read Thorgal comics?

I too started series with HoMM1 and my first MM game was MM7. And blasters was a nice surprise - after all this "fantasy" world was more interesting then "common" D&D (or another game/book/film) setting/clone.

[Kareeah Indaga]

OMG not another revived Forge discussion. Please, no. Can't we just get over this already?

No!

Forge Town 4 3v3r!!!eleven!

[Meandor]

The biggest spoilers of the fantasy genre is fantasy itself because no other genre produces so much unoriginal, ridiculous, fascist, racist, chauvinist, silly and simply dumb stuff.

Word. Problem with fantasy genre is that everything is same in each game and look what happens when developers try to introduce something new:
Forge town by NWC- death threats
Big dwarfs by Nival- wtf? those aren`t dwarfs.

[Humakt]

Word. Problem with fantasy genre is that everything is same in each game and look what happens when developers try to introduce something new:
Forge town by NWC- death threats
Big dwarfs by Nival- wtf? those aren`t dwarfs.

Well is it wonder when there are so many wars and cruelty when people get fumed up of such pathetic matters. People who send death threats should be searched out by police and made to pay the fine for their stupid actions.

There wouldn't be problems like these if there weren't sequels.

[Azhren]

No tech? How about the spyglass\telescope? You need highly accurate measurements to shape the lens.

Also quite a few fantasy worlds have tech in some form.

Plus what the difference between "tech in fantasy" and "fantasy in tech"?

Azhren

[ThunderTitan]

Did Rock Music change its attitude because "concerned parents" started to organize "burn rock records" happenings?

That's only because old people don't matter... grandpa. Now Disco, that one got dumped when they started burning records, because young whippersnappers did it... and they had a steam roller.

[theLuckyDragon]

Plus what the difference between "tech in fantasy" and "fantasy in tech"?

Arthur C. Clarke has something to say about that

IMO, the Sci-Fi background is what sets apart the HoMM universe from other fantasy universes. It makes it stand out somehow, and I like the idea (even though I've never played MM games, so I've never had direct contact with those elements).

[Darmani]

No tech? How about the spyglass\telescope? You need highly accurate measurements to shape the lens.

As unpowered non-machines though, these fit pretty unconspicuously into a fantasy world. Zelda: Wind Waker had a telescope, for example.

Additionally, since fantasy usually takes place not in a Stone Age with no technology whatsoever, but in a medieval period with magic, telescopes, a Renaissance/Enlightenment invention, aren't too far away from trebuchets and other advanced catapults in having a place. Despite being a very pure fantasy world, at least one civilization in Forgotten Realms has cannons, just as the Arabs did during the late Middle Ages.

Also quite a few fantasy worlds have tech in some form.

If they have blasters, readers usually are warned before hand. HoMM players weren't.

Plus what the difference between "tech in fantasy" and "fantasy in tech"?

The main, omnipresent background of the action. Star Wars is the latter because you are always surrounded with droids and starships. The Books of Swords are the former, since almost everything around is fantasy, but with the "Old-world magic called technology" around as a reminder of the setting in the far future.

M&M you could put an argument for. HoMM, however, would definitely have been tech in fantasy, and unknown to be so.

Yeah, it's not like the backstory had any interplanetary portals, or passing from a red sun to a yellow one (Morglin was so an ancient Kryptonian), differences in gravity and humidity...

Unfortunately, that's nowhere near enough to establish it as science fiction. Dragonlance is definitely a pure fantasy world, but characters therein have made repeated references to the existence of other planets and their potential conquest (primarily in the Legends trilogy, IIRC). Later in the series, much of Ansalon, the main continent featured in Dragonlance, was subjected to the rule of "alien dragons" brought in by a certain deity.

[Meandor]

If they have blasters, readers usually are warned before hand. HoMM players weren't.

They weren`t? Then how the hell they found out about forge in the first place?