Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era - Обсуждение

And this, in my opinion, is a very apt observation. You can, of course, fantasize a lot within the framework of the game, but people clearly regularly make the mistake of empathy towards what they have imagined. Practice shows that even ordinary demons are played less willingly, possibly partly due to design, partly because associating yourself with such uncompromising villains isn't particularly interesting.

If you create something completely incomprehensible, evil-chaotic-disgusting, then no one will bother to understand it or play as it, just as people don't decorate their own homes with all sorts of half-rotten rags dredged up from the sea — it's the same thing.

A lover of evil-chaotic abominations bursts into the thread to explain how it looks from my couch, and why, despite all my love for evil-chaotic abominations, demons, and insectoids, I tend to agree with Arz — I don't want to play as these "demons."

First, I'll tell you why I love evil-chaotic abominations.
As a child, I was a very timid kid. Mentioning Barmaley or a Chupa Chups commercial could scare me brickless, not to mention illustrations of various fairy-tale monsters, even relatively harmless ones. And to this day, I haven't fully overcome this fear; I'm repelled by various physical injuries/surgical procedures and some examples of body horror mixed with the uncanny valley (one of which will be below). So when I see something dreadful, scary, and repulsive, but I'm not afraid of it — I feel good. I feel very brave and cool. And if it's not just plain blood-and-guts, but a well-designed and tasteful monster — it's pure delight.

Allow me to give a few examples.

Legions of the Damned — Disciples 2

This was the first time I stopped being afraid of scary monsters, so there's a whole spectrum of childhood emotions here. I'll just say that I adore the Disciples Legions, ready to fight and shed blood for their honor. An excellent example of great design and a magnificent atmosphere. But besides the design, the Legions hook you with their story. One of the few examples I can recall where demons are presented not as pure evil just because, well, they're such evil, villainous, wicked beasties because they can. Betresen, the most beautiful of angels, a powerful demiurge, was slandered out of envy, his creation (the world where the game takes place) was twisted and defiled, he wasn't given a chance to justify himself and was imprisoned in the abyss for something he didn't do. You know, after that, I'd also start churning out horrible monsters and ruining everyone's life. 100% understanding, Betresen. 0% condemnation. The same goes for Mortis, who sacrificed literally everything to resurrect her beloved, and he rejected her. And I also love Disciples' undead, and they are also creepy and nasty, just one "Sushiy" alone is worth it. But the aesthetic of fire and brimstone, horns and spikes, is somehow closer and more pleasant to me than rot and decay — a matter of taste here.

Tyranids — Warhammer

I think everything I say about Tyranids can also be applied to Zerg from StarCraft. It's just that in StarCraft, I know absolutely nothing; I only know the names of the factions and what Sarah Kerrigan looks like, while in Warhammer I know a little bit. Magnus did nothing wrong (but he probably should have), Erebus is a bad person, Hydra Dominatus, Imp is a corpse on the throne, blood for the blood god, 40000 is not a year but the number of books.
So, Tyranids are as beautiful as a fire or a flood. The merciless chthonic power of the elements, before which any means are powerless. A colossal, unimaginable armada devouring everything in its path. These aren't Space Marines clearing the galaxy for humanity. Not Chaos Gods reveling in chaos, emotions, and mortal suffering. Not Necrons going "Rise, we've dropped everything." Not even Orks with their desire for a good scrap. They're just bugs that want to eat. And you can't negotiate with them, you can't stop them. There are a lot of them, they keep coming and coming, destroying entire galaxies in their path. It's terrible, it's delightful, it's dizzying in scale and mesmerizing.
And the designs are good too. In some model kits, I see something demonic — leathery wings, fiery red colors, deadly spiked limbs like scythes. They aren't overburdened, they're concise, units are easily distinguishable, for each unit it's clear where the head is and where the tail is. And according to lore, the Tyranids create cults and corrupt other races into hybrids. Heh, they make for more successful insectoid demons than that abomination in the Elden Era.

The Works of H.P. Lovecraft

Well, we simply cannot do without the founding father and the "Be-all and End-all" of the cosmic horror world, without whom modern mass culture is unimaginable. Take everything I said about Tyranids, season it with a wall of epithets, and multiply it hundreds of thousands of times. Lovecraft's forte is otherness. His monsters, aliens, ancient civilizations, and forgotten gods are not evil, not cruel, and not cunning. They are simply different. They think in different categories, live different lives, different laws of the universe apply to them, and humanity is nothing more than bugs, an annoying hindrance, or a trifle to be ignored. We are simply unable to comprehend, realize, or imagine even a small fraction of what the creatures of his bestiary truly are. People in his works go insane in droves because the human mind was not designed to withstand the full scale of the universe. And that's why Lovecraft's works are steeped in mysteries, understatement, and many questions without answers. He only slightly lifts the veil of mystery over a much larger world than we can imagine, understand, or conceive, but we cannot go beyond the threshold because it is an alien world. I don't know about you, but I love mysteries and love traveling to unexplored worlds. The spirit of an explorer awakens in me. And it's no longer scary, but terrifyingly interesting.

Fallout 3 — Centaurs (warning, that very example of nasty body horror)

When I first saw THIS on the Nukapedia, I suddenly felt very sick and my hand reached for the "Uninstall Game" button. But I told myself — Kosh, enough, you're a grown woman, thirty years old, come on, are you really going to be scared of a bunch of polygons? What, even with tgm you'd be scared? They're more afraid of you than you are of them, so don't be a wuss, plasma rifle in your teeth and go forward, show them who's boss in the Capital Wasteland.
And somehow, you know, I didn't even need tgm; I managed without it. Yes, I went through Vault 87 with brightness maxed out and explored every location ten times over via tfc. Yes, I got into a couple of unpleasant situations where monsters respawned after loading a save and I found myself in the middle of a crowd of centaurs. And then, somehow, I got used to it. When I stumbled upon a location with centaurs in New Vegas, I was already happily running towards them shouting "Oh, my darlings, come here, I've missed you so much" (not forgetting to treat them to volleys from a plasma pistol). I even wanted to install a mod that adds them to Fallout 4. I classify centaurs as "They scare me, but I'm not scared; I'm cool." And they look great, you must agree. Yes, terrifyingly awesome, horrendously ugly. But they are memorable, the wretches. So memorable that you sleep with the lights on for a week afterwards 🤣

Unfortunately, I haven't played Dark Souls and its ilk — I'm sure my list would have grown by several entries. But I've already gotten carried away 😅

In short, I like various freaks because of their designs, aesthetics, and atmosphere, because of the emotional component and my personal quirks, because of the ideas they embody. Since I have a duckling syndrome and it all started with Disciples 2, by inertia I continue to love demons pretty much everywhere — and by the way, in Heroes 5, the demons had several cool design solutions, such as the succubi, archdevils, or nightmares (which themselves aren't great, but I've loved them since the fourth part). And I'm terribly upset that in 95% of cases, demons are just evil evil because they are such evil evil; cases in the spirit of Betresen's tragic story are not that many, and I rejoice when they appear. But you can play with the other extreme — incomprehensible alien beings that are not evil because they are evil; they simply don't care about us, they are at a different level of development and existence, thinking on different scales and categories. Especially since according to lore the Kreegans are xenos, which means the lore allows for some creativity and doing something out of the ordinary. If presented well, it will be mesmerizing and attractive. I understand this isn't for everyone, but it appeals to a significant enough portion of the audience to count on it.
But I highly doubt that in the Elden Era one should count on anything mesmerizing. Because the local demons already fail to inspire with their design. You don't feel anything global or incomprehensibly alien behind them. It's just a bunch of maximally generic red insectoid monsters. I would even have made peace if the demons were again portrayed as boogeyman-style evil, twirling their mustaches and tying heroes to train tracks, if they had made normal classic demons with a normal classic design. But no-oo-oo, mom, I want Tyranids, son, we have Tyranids at home. I adore demons, I adore monsters, and I'm most furious about this faction, about how poorly they made it.

However, they have a chance to redeem themselves if they make this guy the faction champion:

Since I mentioned Fallout.

P.S. I want to write in detail my Very Valuable Opinion on the faction lineups and the contents of the video, but that would again take me several hours to write a post and it's not a fact that I'll drop it today. I've already gotten carried away explaining about horrors.