To be honest, I didn't want to get involved because I knew how this whole endeavor would end :) I had already gone through this back in the day on Heroesportal :) But Tolyan (Forrest) decided to make an attempt to improve the world of heroes anyway.
I want to show the backstory of how this thread was created:
http://www.forum.heroes.by/viewtopic.php?t=551&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60It all started with this (briefly, in case anyone is too lazy to check the link :) ): one of our players simply found your resource via a search engine, read a few threads, and posted about it in the "Humor" section :) Then Forrest wrote (without even visiting your resource or talking to anyone yet), saying he was amazed that there were so many HoMM fans that we didn't even know about, and very active ones at that. Then Papik picked up the idea, along the lines of: how can this be? So many players and no connection at all; he said we need to fix this and try to establish contact with them. After that, Forrest registered on your resource and wrote a bit on HoMM theory. Post by post, then a conversation with Ta Ko and an attempt to start a friendship between the resources (which is why this thread was opened). If you read our players at the link, it is clearly obvious that no one intends to be pushy, pull anyone anywhere, or force anyone to play a different version of the game.
I've been playing TE for about a year now. I must admit that I was probably the loudest in shouting, "leave me alone with your TE, I'm perfectly fine with SoD" :D I didn't understand why there was a need to remake the game or change anything in it if everything was already wonderful. At the time, I believed we had a strong resource; I read "by", saw that the level of play was indeed higher, and thought, why do I need them? They're "fathers" playing TE over there, and I'll just quietly play SoD because I like it.
One fine day, on Heroesportal (where I played before heroes.by), Forrest returned (he played there before I even thought about the game online). At the start of my career, I read everything possible and impossible to somehow raise my level (when I first joined Heroesportal, I thought I played very well, but in my first game I was torn apart like a rag :) ). I read the portal's archives and knew that Forrest played decently. I modestly knocked on his ICQ and asked if he could help pull our resource up a bit?
We started talking, and word by word, Forrest suggested I play TE. I resisted a bit, then thought, what difference does it make, I'll check it out. We played a game, and again, I was destroyed (Tolyan still reminds me of that game), and this was when I was already a tournament organizer for Heroes III and was considered far from the weakest player.
I decided to look at the saves to see what this player had done to tear me to pieces. I copy the saves into the games folder (after a game, I move all saves to a separate folder, I keep all games), I launch it, and something is wrong. Funny thing is, I simply forgot that we played TE, not SoD; I didn't feel the difference at all. Moreover, when I played the next match in SoD, I tried to separate the units of one by pressing ctrl+click (in TE this combination separates units of one) and immediately didn't understand why nothing was happening. In other words, in just one game, I got so used to it that I started pressing it in SoD out of habit :D
I continued playing SoD on Heroesportal and played TE with Forrest every now and then. With every game in TE, the desire to play SoD decreased and decreased. Then I began to realize that it is simply impossible to implement the game possibilities provided by TE in SoD.
Then Tolyan convinced me to sign up for a cup on heroes.by. I must admit, I resisted for a long time. How is this possible? I am a member of the online guild, a tournament organizer, and I'm going to play on another resource? What example will I set for other players? (It happened to be a time of online collapse on Heroesportal; everyone who played here before created their own exclusively online resource (heroes.by) and left the portal. I, however, joined the portal when everything for online was starting from scratch)
After a fairly short stay on "by", I realized that my home resource (Heroesportal) was so weak that I hadn't even suspected it.
I want to emphasize that NOT A SINGLE player started playing TE immediately; everyone started with SoD. All my attempts on the portal to explain that we play poorly and don't even understand how much so were unsuccessful. Either I spoke unclearly, or they didn't want to understand me. Phrases like these were heard:
"Well, if you like TE so much, go to your heroes.by and play there"
"Everything is fine as it is, why are you exaggerating?"
"You're only writing this to show what a super player you are" (although I never considered myself such and still don't)
And I couldn't understand? How can this be? I lost so much here, tried so hard for this resource, and they tell me – "you're writing all this just to show off." I sincerely wanted to improve the resource, wanted to raise the level of play, but it didn't work out.
Now I play on Heroes.by and don't regret for a second that I played TE with Forrest. In SoD now, you could beat me with a stick – I won't play.
Why did I write this tirade? Don't think that someone is showing off, that someone wants to impose their ideas or show that we are strong and you are bots. No, of course not. I wrote so much in the hope that a person who doesn't care about anything, just wants to laugh at someone and show what a great player they are, won't just sit there bashing the keyboard. I sincerely hope that our players will not be perceived as "super fathers"; believe me,
we want nothing more and nothing less – to replenish the world of heroes with strong players and to learn something ourselves.