Heroes 5 isn't a true Heroes of Might & Magic game.

[smith-b-d]

I agree with the original poster that you cannot just buy a title & slap it on a game to make it true to the originals. HOWEVER, i would much rather them call it Heroes 5 rather than have five different games all with different names.

It keeps community centralized & lets you know where its heading... lets you know that the original developers had no intention with continuing on with the series & that they have given permission for another developer to take over.
Otherwise it would be dead for good, no one could develop another similar game without the fear of getting their ass sued off.

[Pitsu]

H5 has some colour of what i call a "true" HoMM, but nevertheless I have refused to buy HoF and most likely won't buy TotE either. I simply cannot enjoy the game enough to love it. Too much storyless RPG with tactical battles than a strategy game. Possibly Ubi's patching, communication etc. policies are still the main reasons to piss me off.

Too much small bugs and "features" - especially hard navigating in undengrounds, long turns, idiot (or rather not existing) AI (like casting implosion on: round 1. own first aid tent; round 2. own unit; round 3. enemy unit), endless changing in "balance" (but they can't fix something minor like colour of border gate in campaign or other staffs), too few maps (and don't anyone tell me about community maps - they are goods, but creating lots of good maps (or adding fans maps) is also developers task - see H1-4 for example), new features from patches not working with existing features (week of..., crashing afer attacking summoned units) and waitng months for repearing intoduced bugs (check wiki for dates of patches - especially for 1.41 patch).

Yes, and i like how a mapmaker needs to update his/her map for each patch. I surely are too lazy for that, thus in later patches the map I did for 1.0 is unplayable due to scripts being outdated and half of map decorations disabled by official patch...

[okrane]

@Pitsu

Well, the story is up to the mapmaker. I think there are a lot of maps there with a better story than the campaigns.

My problem lies in the fact that even after 5 installments of the game, that way to tell these stories is with large chunks of text, as the cinematics are only for the original campaigns.

[Pitsu]

My problem lies in the fact that even after 5 installments of the game, that way to tell these stories is with large chunks of text, as the cinematics are only for the original campaigns.

Unless the cinematics are on the level that can broadcast feelings and internal doubts and dilemmas of characters, they are not comparable with textboxes. A cinematic here of there for spicing up is great. But H5 story sucks as much as it does due relaying too much on cinematics, which simply lack the details necessary for deeper story.

[okrane]

True enough.... although monologues can reveal introspections same as well...
Anyway, I can't think up of an optimal solution but reading tons of text gets boring after a while...

[Blake]

Arrgh.. As an old active member of the previous round table and the 3DO and Ubisoft Heroes forums I was pretty much done discussing all aspects of Heroes games and have been content to simply lurk the forums for the last few years (excpet for the occasional replies to news posts on the main site) but reading this thread has annoyed me enough to come out of posting retirement and put in my 2 cents…

Let's just say that I was anti-Ubisoft LONG before all this 3DO going bankrupt happened. The chance of me buying anything from Ubi-**** is NIL.

You’ve just admitted to a personal vendetta against Ubisoft eliminating all weight behind your initial post and argument against Heroes 5. If Heroes 5 had been the best game on the planet you would have hated it anyway! Not that you would have been able to properly judge it since you don’t buy ubisoft products anyway lol!!! You’ve started a thread about hating a game you haven’t even bloody purchased due your personal hatred of your local 'arrogant' Ubisoft employees that has now led to half this community getting into an argument about Heroes 5. Ridiculous..

On the contrary, it’s done more damage than H4 ever will. H4 might have divided the fanbase but HV has shattered it.

lol I had to laugh at that comment. Thanks to H4 it’s a bloody miracle we’re all even here talking about H5. Its lack of sales sent 3DO to the grave and NWC with it. H5 has had good sales and brought in a whole new generation of fans boosting our numbers again and has almost guaranteed a sequel.

Heroes 4 was a fine game and I did enjoy it but as I played it I found myself reminded of Disciples and Age of Wonders and not the previous Heroes games. H3 is my favourite of the series and therefore is my benchmark for sequels. H5 is far from perfect and does not beat H3 in my opinion, but geez Ubisoft/Nival’s H5 a better sequel to H3 then 3DO/NWC’s H4 will ever be.

People can complain about the shortcomings of Heroes 5 which they’re of course entitled to, and I’m not going to argue with those opinions since while I enjoyed the game I’m not blind to its shortcomings either. But I will argue against all this foolish talk of Ubisoft killing HoMM. 3DO (almost) killed the series (just ask all the ex-NWC employees, I can still remember all their angry posts all those years ago), and Ubisoft has saved it by being the only company who were willing to dish out the $$ to buy the rights from 3DO and then make a TBS sequel in this wonderful new gaming world of endless fast passed mindless consol inspired 3D beat-em ups.

[smith-b-d]

Anyway, I can't think up of an optimal solution but reading tons of text gets boring after a while...

Text never gets boring if its well written & presented, the missions in game need far more dialog than what is currently there... which is usually none.

[Elvin]

I so much agree with that. If you are bored it means you don't really care about the story and you just want eye candy.

[Metal Wolf]

Blake -

Really liked your post, very well written. Totally agree with you.

[Pitsu]

But I will argue against all this foolish talk of Ubisoft killing HoMM. 3DO (almost) killed the series (just ask all the ex-NWC employees, I can still remember all their angry posts all those years ago), ...

Killing a game depends so much on what one loves in game and what defines the game for him/her. For those who additionally to HoMM are fans of MM games the universe and story matters a lot. And I hope you do not deny that Ubi exactly killed the universe of ancients and sci-fi and replaced it with dragon gods. There would be same type of killing issues if Starcraft 2 would not have any reference to Kerrigan or Zeratul or Xel'naga.

lol I had to laugh at that comment. Thanks to H4 it’s a bloody miracle we’re all even here talking about H5. Its lack of sales sent 3DO to the grave and NWC with it.

Just mentioning that 3DO was in deep troubles before H4 and H4 sales wasn't a decisive coin.

[PhoenixReborn]

No team makes "The best game possible".

*chough*SC2*chough*

But i guess that's why Blizz games sell around 3 million and others are a great success if they sell 300.000. That and actually supporting the game for 10 years.

Well when they make a Heroes game (since overwhelmingly that's what people seem to want, Blizzard making heroes) or even a Turn Based Strategy I might buy a Blizzard game.

H5 has had good sales and brought in a whole new generation of fans boosting our numbers again and has almost guaranteed a sequel.

That's an interesting statement. I personally don't know anyone who has the game that wasn't already a fan of the series. But obviously that's a small sample size. But I think gamespot fan reviews are pretty indicative that most people have played a heroes game before.

[smith-b-d]

That's an interesting statement. I personally don't know anyone who has the game that wasn't already a fan of the series. But obviously that's a small sample size. But I think gamespot fan reviews are pretty indicative that most people have played a heroes game before.

I wasn't. H5 is the first for me... i saw a video of it & it looked interesting so i bought it.

& blizzard is overrated.

[arturchix]

That's an interesting statement. I personally don't know anyone who has the game that wasn't already a fan of the series. But obviously that's a small sample size. But I think gamespot fan reviews are pretty indicative that most people have played a heroes game before.

FC has stated that Heroes V with HoF already has sold more copies than Heroes III + both addons together, not even counting the Heroes V sales in Eastern Europe that are sold for lower price. Taking this in account the statement that Heroes fanbase is increasing is logical.

[Gaidal Cain]

Killing a game depends so much on what one loves in game and what defines the game for him/her. For those who additionally to HoMM are fans of MM games the universe and story matters a lot. And I hope you do not deny that Ubi exactly killed the universe of ancients and sci-fi and replaced it with dragon gods. There would be same type of killing issues if Starcraft 2 would not have any reference to Kerrigan or Zeratul or Xel'naga.

I still can't see how it's Ubival who has done the killing in this case: they might have placed the last nail in the coffin/reanimated the corpse/ resurrected the series (depending on your POV), but I fail to see how they are responsible for 3DO and thus NWC going the way of the dodo.

[Corribus]

Names shouldn't be BOUGHT. A name is a reputation, something you built for yourself through hard work and earned recognition.

Two brief thoughts:

(1) Judge a game on its own merits, not on what name it carries. The name is just a marketing tool. If they had made HoMM5 a real-time sports game, and it was one of the most awesome games ever created - who cares what name it was given? If it's a great game, I'll play it. If it's not, I won't. The point being, Ubisfot/Nival could have made the exact same game, and called it something else, and it would have been the exact game that we know as HoMMV. If I had bought it, I would have enjoyed it just as much. Slapping "Might and Magic" on it is just a way to get people to buy it, and its success or failure has no impact whatsoever on anything that previous games in the franchise accomplished or did not accomplish, so I don't really get what the big deal is one way or another. This is the way that most industries work these days, and you act like Ubisoft is the only company in the history of the universe to capitalize on the name-recognition power of an existing brand-name.

(2) You seem to forget that the 3DO/NWC team - JVC included - almost killed Might and Magic's reputation long before Ubisoft came along.

[Kareeah Indaga]

Unless the cinematics are on the level that can broadcast feelings and internal doubts and dilemmas of characters, they are not comparable with textboxes. A cinematic here of there for spicing up is great. But H5 story sucks as much as it does due relaying too much on cinematics, which simply lack the details necessary for deeper story.

Cinema:

‘Oh, your Royal Mayonnaise-ness, you have to build a mage guild! Elrath compels you!’

Next cinema:

‘Yay me! I built a mage guild! Now I can learn magic!’

Next cinema:

‘Oh dearie me, the bridge is out. I guess we’ll have to go desecrate a tomb and fight some undead to get the magic boots (that may or may not end up in my inventory thanks to the bugs) so we can cross the river. Oh look, a tank!’

…second what Pitsu said.

If it wasn’t bad enough that they made the first campaign a tutorial, they had to put up a distracting and poor quality cinematic filled with lots of random spellcasting every time a main character so much as ties their shoes.

Let's just say that I was anti-Ubisoft LONG before all this 3DO going bankrupt happened. The chance of me buying anything from Ubi-**** is NIL.

You’ve just admitted to a personal vendetta against Ubisoft eliminating all weight behind your initial post and argument against Heroes 5.

So? JJ works for Ubisoft, does that invalidate all his pro-Heroes V comments? What about the people that love/hate the game beyond all reason, they certainly aren’t unbiased! In short: it’s an internet forum, don’t stress about it.

that has now led to half this community getting into an argument about Heroes 5. Ridiculous..

Someone would have started it eventually anyway; there’s too much bitterness about the game for it to stick to side comments forever.

Thanks to H4 it’s a bloody miracle we’re all even here talking about H5. Its lack of sales sent 3DO to the grave and NWC with it.

3DO brought itself down, H4 just happened to go down with it. Remember, 3DO didn’t JUST have the Might and Magic brand to work with. IIRC they also had Army Men and a baseball game, and probably others I don’t know about.

[OliverFA]

Obviously different developers value "building the best game possible" differently.

On one end of the spectrum you have teams that are in it ONLY for the $ and don't care about anything past profits for the next 5 years or so.

On the other end of the spectrum there are teams that are happy to delay, refine, polish, delay again, etc. and will only release a game when they are happy with the game. Their primary goal is to make a GREAT game and then hope that they are rewarded for it so they can do it again.

Now which end of the spectrum do you think that UBI is close to?

NOTE: There's nothing wrong with being a traditional business.

I think that you are 100% right, Alamar.

If we could see the internal UBI documentation, and with this information evaluate HoMMV according to UBI objectives, we probably would conclude that it has been a success. Probably, the objective was to make a good (even very good) game, but not a superior, top one.

Regarding of the final result, games such as Civilization IV, Europa Universalis III or Galactic Civilizations II wanted to be not only very good games, but true masterpieces. Heroes V never wanted to be a masterpiece. Just a good game.

Those different goals make for different decissions during the game development and also after the release. Such as Heroes V not being compatible with panoramic screens, which are the type of screens that most laptops have nowadays :-(

[Elvin]

It would really be something if they aimed for masterpiece with H6. I remember I was bugged at first that apart from the numerous bugs the game had so much potential that it could but never reached. Let's hope the sales for TotE will be good to make them at least consider the possibility.

[theLuckyDragon]

Just to keep on whining about the story & co., the campaign names are sooo uninspired. Only 3 titles in the campaign (here including campaign names and map names) don't start with "The". And these three exceptions are all

Code: Select all

[character name]'s [abstract noun]

Just had to get that off my chest

[Corribus]

On one end of the spectrum you have teams that are in it ONLY for the $ and don't care about anything past profits for the next 5 years or so.

On the other end of the spectrum there are teams that are happy to delay, refine, polish, delay again, etc. and will only release a game when they are happy with the game. Their primary goal is to make a GREAT game and then hope that they are rewarded for it so they can do it again.

This is not quite correct. ALL businesses are in it for the money. Sure, on a local level, there might be employees - or even executives - in the business because they enjoy the artistic side of game creation, but any serious developer is in it for the money first and foremost. The spectrum, as you identify it, involves differing strategies towards that goal. Some companies seem to employ a blitzkrieg sort of strategy, where they buy enough brand-names (from previous games or movie and TV tie-ins) and put enough games out there as quickly as possible (or at least, according to strict deadlines) in order to make good sales, primarily among casual, younger, or less hard-core, gamers who are less likely to read reviews, visit fan sites, etc. Sometimes - nay, frequently - this strategy necessitates a sacrifice in game quality. On the other hand, there is no doubt that some companies put more time and effort into making sure their games are as polished as possible, often delaying if necessary before publishing, relying on the fact that gamers are going to be more likely to buy their games if the developer has a reputation for consistent high quality. This can easily be misinterpreted by the outsider as meaning that the developer/publisher has a more honorable (at least in the eyes of the gamer) primary goal of making a "great game" or "a work of art", some lofty aspiration that goes beyond pure, cold business. But I would argue that such companies, like all of them, are only out to make a profit and differ just in what they believe is the best way to go about this. Such companies certainly don't care about YOU any more than any other company, and they absolutely do not care about PROFIT any less. They may care about the quality of their PRODUCT more, but this is only because of the demographic they may be going after and also because they believe the best business strategy is to create a solid reputation based on perfection rather than swamping the market with mediocre - but plentiful in quantity - products that may appeal to less discerning masses.

The point is that you are making the erronious assumption that game companies that consistently employ flexible deadlines and put lots of supposed TLC into their products have more of an emotional attachment to their products and hence less of a drive to make money than companies that seem to put out lots of fluff at opportune times (christmas, movie releases, etc.). But that's just not the case. They are just different means to the same end. Now, you could certainly argue that companies that subscribe to the former philosophy put out better games on average, and certainly are more likely to attract more quality-conscious and critical gamers, but, from a business standpoint, both philosophies can work pretty well.

Now, maybe you feel Ubisoft is a company that believes in the "mass fluff" approach. I think it's a subjective argument in any case but, knowing what I know about the H5 development process (no I can't elaborate), I think it's unfair to place Ubisoft in that corner of the arena at least with respect to H5. Regardless, it's silly to try to criticize a game developer (and Ubisoft in particular) for trying to make money, because that's what ALL companies are about. And furthermore, if you disapprove of Ubisoft's way of doing that, then by all means don't buy their products. That's the beauty of the free market system.