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Yeah, back in the day, the flame wars were epic, unlike now.

I agree. We're getting older, and we're improving our thinking and communication skills (this isn't a joke, it's serious).

This time, they went about it more cleverly, subtly and gradually. So as not to accidentally cause a sudden gag reflex, but rather to arouse interest.

Of course, the experience of TE/VT was studied and analyzed. And the idea that flame wars and aggressive marketing are unproductive was realized and voiced.

Even so? Where else will people play it online? Where is the main online platform, not just for testing?

That's a good question, I've thought about it a lot and continue to think about it.

The main idea is that players who grew up on modern online games generally do not accept the way games and tournaments are organized in Heroes. Modern games are based on the concept of "download and play," where the interface is as simple and automated as possible.

Therefore, the thought that to participate in a tournament, you need to register on some forum, sign up in a topic, wait a week or two for the draw, agree with your opponent on ICQ, play in several rounds with saves, then write a report in a post on the forum... and before that, install Heroes, HD mod, HWRules, Hamachi, achieve non-conflicting interaction between them... create a room in Hamachi, enter the opponent's IP... and so on every restart...

That is, in Heroes, even before the player encounters the gameplay, he encounters a bunch of technical and organizational difficulties, which are likely to cause the reaction "what kind of medieval crap is this, my mom and dad played online games like this, I'd better go play Dota."

If these problems can be solved, at least partially, then the influx of players will increase significantly, and it will not go to the forum (this is an outdated form of online communication), but directly to the server, maybe with an intermediate stop in social networks.

In fact, the combination of an online lobby + a group in VK/FB is what I see as the target platform.

Also, with a well-implemented solution, it will be possible to attract many foreign players, who are currently deterred by the language barrier. If the game is automated to the point that the player only needs to click the "I want to play as Jeb" button, and the program does everything else (finds an opponent, connects, sets settings, accepts the result and updates the rating after the game), then the language barrier will essentially disappear.

Plus, the balance of castles/heroes/artifacts needs to be adjusted as much as possible. By the standards of modern online games, the balance of Heroes is as prehistoric as the interface.

How to do all this within the framework of SoD - I have no idea. The balance cannot be changed even a little, there are no teams of programmers/designers who are willing to improve SoD for free, the community is quite conservative, etc. In HotA, however, such an opportunity exists at least in theory, so the choice is obvious.

//all of the above is my personal opinion, not the official position of the team//