Utiferus
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Quote of the day. Well done, a very accurate characterization. That is exactly how it is - I spoke about this on the Nival forum. The larger the battlefield, the more tactical maneuvers are possible on it; this was proven back in the era of Alexander the Great, and I frankly do not understand the talk about some new tactical concept on a miniature field, because the uniqueness of each battle depends on the number of possible maneuvers and strategies, and not on a carefully thought-out scheme for delivering fast units to the enemy's rear or the banal use of area magic... rare ugliness... IDIOTISM!!! They decided to speed up the Gameplay by speeding up the combat mode - THE MOST IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF THE GAME!!! For example, I want new tactics and new combat systems to develop with experience, because if I win battles day after day using the same system, then what is the point of the game itself??? The flexibility of possible tactical moves depends on the space for imagination, which in our case is the size of the battlefield. We need strategic games primarily for mental development formed by experience multiplied by the variety of Gameplay. If there is only experience, there is no personal growth to speak of, and the game then becomes not a turn-based strategy, but a turn-based action game.
So far, I see degradation in the genre of turn-based strategies - just as in everything else that surrounds us. We are in an era of global POP-CULTURIZATION of the planet's population, evidenced by sacrificing quality for convenience and fashion. This applies to music, where modern "musicians" create entire albums using four chords, and photography - where the most important part of the camera is no longer the lens or build quality, but the screen size or megapixel count or even COLOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now any dim-witted blonde can press the shutter button without scratching her expensive pedicure on her left foot and get a (censored — Thorenlawar) "photo," which she will post on a dating site as a work of art. All this is called the ERA OF POP, and unfortunately, games have also fallen under this current... now they serve players "realism," which logically does not fit with the term "game" at all, polished graphics, and MAINLY: SO THAT IT IS NOT HARD TO MASTER!!!!!!!! In other words, MASS-MARKET is now in fashion.
....sorry if I've gone on....it's just been weighing on me......something just burst out of me....probably because I am disappointed....
I hope that the developers will come to their senses and REMEMBER what kind of game was entrusted to them.
Guys, what is the argument even about - this is just Heroes 3 in new packaging; it seems Nival didn't bother themselves much. But! In terms of graphics - complete degradation, it's like some kind of kindergarten! If before both adults and children played Heroes, now it seems only children will. And this is after the magnificent landscapes of Heroes 4 - now we have pathetic identical mathematical trees and primitive terrain ala mid-90s real-time. I get aesthetic pleasure from creating maps for Heroes 4 and even 3, but here Nival overconfidently took that joy away from me.
Furthermore, the artists who created the units are certainly well done, capable guys, but explain to me, what force flattened your characters so much? This is something from the life of the seabed, crabs and other arthropods in hypertrophied armor. Moreover, the units in battle turned out expressionless; it's hard to tell who is who at first. You have to use deduction (and after that, try telling me that battles aren't intellectual). And why such banal ideas? Is this a lack of ideas or ignorance of analogues?
Inside, the castles turned out interesting in their own way, but after Disciples this is very weak; also, there could have been more branches and stages of development - construction always made strategy more interesting.
But here we see simply Heroes 3, a game that, I should note, is heavily outdated.
The game interface is uninteresting and poor even compared to games by Russian developers, and again, it strongly reeks of the mid-90s. In my opinion, there was no need to reshuffle the panels; the old layout was quite convenient.
And this flying camera in battles - it only slows down the fight and irritates with unwanted changes in view. And these cheap magic special effects that have been seen a hundred times in other cheap games!
I harbor no ill will toward Nival, but I want to note: guys, you made a game for children "Demiurges," but that doesn't mean you should now pump out its clones under various names. And I don't understand why you think you'll make more money by repeating other people's or your own ideas? What has been made under the name Heroes 5 is just an alternative version of Heroes 3, and not the best one at that. They lack the spirit of Heroes, their charm, intrigue, beauty, legend; only the engine remains, and a considerably outdated one.
In response to those who say that fans of Heroes 4 don't like Nival: I love both Heroes 4 and Heroes 3, and I played Demiurges, although I didn't appreciate it, but I harbor no ill will toward Nival. But I do harbor ill will toward domestic developers who whip up any old ..., advertise it widely, and get profits because we ... buy it and throw it on the shelf, because even if it is s..., it's still a waste of money.
I fear it will be the same with this parody of Heroes.
Dear Fizik, I indeed did not play the beta, but I played the notorious supposedly stolen alpha, and the numerous screenshots from the beta posted on this forum give a great idea of the game. Specifically regarding the graphics, which outraged me. And specifically that nothing has substantially changed. And, I think, will not change, despite what the sweet-voiced sirens from Nival want to convince us of. Because to fix it, they would have to remake the game from scratch, which, naturally, a developer will not do. You want concrete examples? I'm afraid I have too many, and you won't have the patience to read them. Here are some: the elf and skeleton (sorry, I don't know their names) are blatantly ripped off from Disciples; girls in leather panties and bras (a masochist's dream) - this is just a typical cliché of second-rate games; they shouldn't have chased full 3D for the game, it ruined the map, and thus deprived the game of beauty - after all, most of the time the player looks at the map, and one doesn't even want to look at this monstrosity; Heroes in their development strove for baroque style, manifested in enriching the interface, characters, map, and castle panels and controls with BEAUTIFUL details, but here we see, so to speak, a rollback to poster graphics: simplicity at the expense of aesthetics; finally, many images are ripped from Heroes 3, but transformed into cartoonish-bloated proportions and a simplified drawing style.
In general, dear Fizik, you try to seem simply fair, but in reality, great bias is felt in your statements. Are you by any chance from Nival?
And have you even played Heroes 3-4 not for familiarity, but out of love? (no offense). I fear that when you do play, you won't be demanding concrete examples.
And I am not crazy enough to download other people's mistakes from the web by the gigabyte.
Both I and many of my fellow fans - we expected even more treats in graphics from 5, more development branches and buildings in castles, more castles, more units, more objects on the map, even more beautiful maps, but we got a turn-based Spell Force with elements of Demiurges on the Heroes 3 engine. In my opinion, this is enough for the project to be a failure.
Respectfully, Animik.
Who said that housewives like Heroes 5? I know at least several who are passionately playing 3 and 4, whom 5 did not interest and even caused rejection. It seems to me that in this regard, failure for 5 is guaranteed 100%, considering that women are generally hard to interest in computer games. It seems to me that here the phrase "Not recommended for children under 12" should be changed to "Recommended for children under 12." Because that's roughly their level of models - these infantile bloated skeletons with glowing eyes, bodybuilders with faces like comic book Supermen, dead things, demons, half-naked long-legged beauties wrapped in straps, knights in bloated armor; the only thing missing are cyborgs and transformers (I almost proposed a new race).
I don't understand why dear Fizik constantly harps on about the failure of HoMM-4? God grant that Nival's creations sell for as many years and in such volumes. I'm not even talking about 3, which still sells steadily to this day, and even 1 and 2 can easily be found for sale. This is an unprecedented case in the history of computer games. Personally, I consider 4 successful in its own way. True, the heroes' faces faded and the intelligence dulled, but the beauty of the map justified all the minor miscalculations. The cliffs alone were worth it, and there are simply a huge number of tree varieties. Moreover, everything is drawn with great imagination and very picturesquely. The developers' mistake here was rather commercial - they couldn't direct all the profits from these mega-sales into their own pocket. As for the prices of expansions, I note that creating a solid beautiful map is a difficult and lengthy process, and it is much easier for the user to pay a certain amount and start playing than to make 20 maps themselves.
I, like Katrine, started with 3, accepted 4 with interest, and now take turns playing one then the other when some get tiring. Recently I got acquainted with 1 and 2 - laughed my head off at how funny the characters are in their own naivety. I truly dove into the era of weak machines. The maps, of course, are simplest. But despite all this, the game turned out very soulful. I would have played it with pleasure if there weren't later versions.
In contrast to this magnificence, 5 made an impression as some kind of commercially-calculated hack job, where ideas were plucked from many currently existing games. Because of this, the game turned out faceless, somehow castrated - after all, everything best was amputated from Heroes, supposedly for their own salvation (as someone wrote earlier). In reality, by all appearances, it was so they could be more easily fit into the not-so-large mind of a game designer, or project manager, or some other developer. And what were the words, like: "Heroes, this diamond, were given to Nival as the best." And what do we see? In my opinion, the best way out for Nival is to change the structure of castles beyond recognition and release the game under another name - it will be a mediocre turn-based strategy, at least something new on the market of turn-based strategies. And start making Heroes from scratch.
Fizik's statement that visually there is no better strategy than Heroes 5 sounds naive. Dear Fizik, you urgently need to broaden your horizons. And as for the trendy features without which the game supposedly won't be accepted by the new generation: first, who are these trendy features for? It seems only for the developers, for whom this is a great basis for loud advertising claims; second, today's kids are playing 3 with passion, and there, I note, is no zoom, camera, 3D, or DirectX 9.c.
And this is not just my opinion; a dozen or two of my fellow fans would easily sign under my statement, which is why I speak with such confidence.
Katrine, you are not alone in your opposition to Nival, I agree with you almost entirely; for such deeds, Nival deserves eternal shame and our contempt. Amen.
GvozD, I do not share your faith in a kind Nival; it doesn't happen that the beta differs greatly (and even more so fundamentally) from the final version. And it's unlikely Nival will decide to be the first such "hemorrhoid" by fundamentally reworking the beta. I think the outcome is already predetermined <flame and unargued statements> Anyway, Nival likely doesn't care; many fans of the series who bought into the name and didn't bother visiting this forum will buy the game, and Nival will indeed get its modest income. But it won't add respect to Nival.
And shifting the blame to Ubi won't help here - Ubi have established themselves with solid games. And Ubi is likely rushing the release of the game because the graphics are already outdated and mediocre from the start (contrary to the panegyrics Nival sings to itself), and in a year it will be complete trash.
Just listen to this song about the low polygon count: they simplified their own lives and present it as a brilliant find! As a result, we have square trees and hexagonal spears. Well, for 1998, not bad!
In my ears sounds the funeral knell for Heroes.