G0ldiel
Exactly 20 years ago — May 19, 2006 — the official premiere of the legendary Heroes of Might and Magic V took place in the CIS.
You can have different attitudes toward this installment, but it's worth admitting that these are still the same old Heroes, and it's probably the best Heroes game in 3D format, as well as the most alive part of the forum.
The game went through a real production hell and a real battle with the publisher Ubisoft, and despite everything, it is a powerful hit of nostalgia and the era of 2000s games.
In honor of this big anniversary in our RU community, I decided to mark it in a special way.
I single-handedly took on an extremely large task: to completely refresh the quality of the original game interface without globally changing the structure itself, that is, to improve quality while preserving the UI concept.
The project was given the name Legacy Classic.
Legacy — this is a fact of heritage: players kept the game alive with mods, created a mass of content, and deserved to see one more global comfortable mod.
Classic — this is the vector of preserving the spirit of classic style and the original.
Since the amount of work for one person is simply colossal, the modification will be released in stages, in the form of large patches.
Nival's archives have plenty of everything — chaos, unnecessary files, errors, and connections of one element to several places, etc.
And today, on the anniversary day in the CIS, I am glad to present you information about the first patch.
🛠️LARGE-SCALE UPSCALE:
Almost the entire core UI has been upscaled to new pixel sizes, with the same style as in 2006.
Some small elements have been finished or redrawn from scratch, some have been replaced with new ones that visually fit the design solution.
Buttons, backgrounds, tooltips, rendering elements for all sections in all modes (including campaigns) and options have been updated, as well as all main working interface categories.
Hero and town portraits, various interface icons have been increased in size. Some interface elements have gained a new visual that fits the design, because some originals looked bad when enlarged. This usually concerned small elements. I tried to preserve the original elements, so mostly successful upscaling and sometimes forced replacements that look organic.
A group of old Nival visual errors has been fixed.
Minor display fixes, including my own.
High-resolution hero and neutral skirts added + Collectors Edition skirt.
Fixed the position of menu scrolls in some categories.
Improved texture coordination after upscales.
New, absolutely canonical faction emblems above buildings.
Added a background around the stained glass when searching for Asha's tear.
Adjusted the excessive yellowness of the interface.
Launcher backgrounds created from scratch based on images from the internet and in-game screenshots.
Changed the interface scroll sound to a more pleasant one with less tail, which slightly changed the frequency.
Aimed at modern monitors, but also works on older ones; the difference will vary but remain noticeable compared to the original.
Other minor visual fixes.
⚜️A NEW ROUND OF MODDING
The value of this release is not only in the updated picture, but also in the technical foundation. The assembled file structure opens the way for further development: now we can make edits, redraw individual elements, and experiment with high-definition visuals, which can be increased even further if paths for additional game optimization open up.
We have received an excellent foundation with great possibilities.
🔎SIDE BY SIDE SCREENSHOT COMPARISON:
⚙️Technical comments
📜REQUIREMENTS:
HoMM V Tribes of the East 3.1
LAA Patch
All Campaings Remastered
💬RECOMMENDATIONS:
I strongly recommend installing TotE 3.1 fixes by Moonstar into DATA. The modification fixes many broken text positionings, the texts themselves, and other errors of the original game. You will definitely see Nival's flaws without this mod.
🧱STABILITY:
The mod is stabilized and does not cause freezes or crashes.
The only places where FPS drops are the Kingdom mode / global hiring from a number of castles, and as I found out in the end, this happens even without the mod.
The very manipulation of unit icons leads to an FPS decrease when there are many of them, but this does not create a big problem in these scenes.
👀COMPATIBILITY:
The modification is not compatible with those that do the same job. Texture sizes were increased, scales in files were rewritten, so a conflict is inevitable.
But adaptations are possible by working with these very files, comparing and disabling a line of files, for example when it comes to an alternative battle UI.
I didn't touch the construction icons at all; they look fine in my opinion.
⚡⚙️INSTALLATION:
Download LEGACY CLASSIC 1.0. Put the archive into the data folder.
Put the "For Launcher" folder into the game folder. From it you can copy the desired splasha2.bmp into the game folder if you wish.
The "All Campaings Remastered" mod is adapted for this modification. You need to remove from the UserMods folder All_сampaignsR_.h5u and put LEGACY_PATCHED_All_campaignsR_.h5u into UserMods.
Nothing has been touched in the mod except files related to the interface (+ a couple of changes and HD campaign icons that I posted separately. The other All Campaings Remastered modules remain in place as usual.
⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️ Google Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rKDDlmHoXxH2FPXDLSwka_aPX_WGfZoc/view?usp=sharing⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️
Patch 2.0 plans (year 27)
Thematic pictures in interaction menus on the global map (bartender, rumors, escape, sphinx, tree of knowledge, victory/defeat, scales, etc.)
Switchable interface tabs (pages): tavern, hiring, hero menu
Buttons in command roses (the roses themselves are done in 1.0)
Cursors
Artifacts
ATB battle log viewing (possibly)
Buff and debuff icons in battle when viewing creatures (rage/soldier's luck/poisoned/stunned/weakened, etc.)
Campaign loading screens in real HD state; we'll consider the possibility
Scrollbar sliders that are part of large scroll textures and were not a separate element (there is one drawn by hand)
Cosmetic fixes of improved elements.
Discuss with other modders the possibility of implementing an HD font, the specifics of fonts in H5
Remove the "mods" item from the main menu
Stained glass shards for all 8 factions — maybe.
1. Spell icons — a very large job. They look acceptable, especially the higher your resolution.
2. Ability icons — the same. I don't know if I'll take this on.
THANKS:
Mооnst@r for help and information at the beginning of the journey and for the scroll materials of UpdatedInterfaceTextures and the extended battle log (I fixed minor Nival flaws and added them to the project)
His explanations at the start allowed me to begin working on the project, where absorbing the material later made it possible to do a lot of work.
And also for other minor fixes, helping forum members, and contributing to the community as a whole.
Rommy for the huge work on the updated version of the campaign merge pack and fixing various shortcomings.
The build contains minor fixes made by other forum members. Some things I did myself and later came across similar ones on the forum; some of the small things already created by people were included. A number of such micro-decisions were added even before the clear start of work on the mod; these are usually not obvious big changes when considered individually, and unfortunately a list of absolutely every fix cannot be provided. So thanks to everyone whose traces can be noticed here — no offense.
