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| Thread: ICTC III: The Clockwork |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Tobius
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 24, 2008 03:36 PM |
bonus applied by kookastar on 30 Apr 2008. |
Edited by Tobius at 14:52, 13 Apr 2008.
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ICTC III: The Clockwork
Note: Work in Progress!This faction is settled in the 'old' Might & Magic universe and not in Ashan. However, I hope you'll like it. I want to thank Little Imp, Gumpy old man,Mentat, and Alaric for their help with this faction. I'm not sure if this will be completed in time, but hope dies last. The pictures were taken from different websites. Credits go to their respective creators.
Also Known As: The Mages, The Engineers
Associated Colours: Rust, Red, and Black
Worship: The people of the Clockwork do not believe in a omniscient God, they rather worship their mechanical achievements.
Core Philosophy: "Progress means Future. Technology is our tool, grafted with Magic our Power."
Country/Kingdom: Republic of Praz
Capital City: Clockwork City
Key Symbols: The Clockwork, The mechanical Heart
Faction Alignment: Neutral (by tendency Good, though eyed suspiciously by the older races)
Rival Factions: Hævoc and Elves
Friendly Factions: Empire (as they share their interest in technology)
Travel/Mount: Airship, Steam Wagon
Home Terrain: Snow
Magic Skill-Tree
Might Skill-Tree
I could not complete everything, but almost everything! 
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bixie
Promising
Legendary Hero
my common sense is tingling!
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posted February 24, 2008 05:37 PM |
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This indeed looks promising, keep up the good work!
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Love, Laugh, Learn, Live.
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actionjack
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted February 24, 2008 06:19 PM |
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hmm.. does that mean I cann't put up my Gnome faction now?
But great pics
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Lord_of_Chaos
Known Hero
Chaotic Entity
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posted February 25, 2008 03:18 AM |
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I love this idea, it's awesome. But I say limit the technology to steam engines and such, otherwise it wouldnt fit well with the rest.
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My artwork Here
Wii friend code: 5851-5127-4914-1820
Brawl friend code: 0173-0991-0556
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Snatch
Promising
Known Hero
Proud Kappa
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posted February 25, 2008 04:05 PM |
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Quote:
hmm.. does that mean I cann't put up my Gnome faction now?
But great pics
You can put up whatever faction you like. Many other factions are already similar to each other (pirates, ogres,...).
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Tobius
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 25, 2008 04:26 PM |
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Edited by Tobius at 16:28, 25 Feb 2008.
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Thanks for your commendations folks, but it's not me alone who stands behind this project. At the moment there's not much content, however, I hope to fix it a little bit till weekend. Until then I don't have the time to do so.
@ actionjack
I'm kinda sorry, but I didn't know that you planned a similar faction. However, would it really be such a good idea to put up it now? Well, I doubt it, but it's your faction, thus feel free to do what you want to do..
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Cepheus
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Far-flung Keeper
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posted February 25, 2008 05:06 PM |
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Which world does this faction involve? Axeoth?
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"Those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it." —Proverb, Might and Magic VIII
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Tobius
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 25, 2008 05:18 PM |
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Edited by Tobius at 17:21, 25 Feb 2008.
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I think you'll see different 'worlds' within the background of this faction, but the concrete planet of The Clockwork - well, that's not definite yet, sorry. As I already said: after the weekend there'll be much more content about it...
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Wulfstan8182
Famous Hero
, eh?
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posted February 28, 2008 01:03 AM |
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lol, everyone is going with medieval tech this ICTC, even this guy and me!
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Tobius
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 22, 2008 03:23 AM |
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Hey folks,
at last the penny dropped and I managed to finish the background of the Clockwork - but that is just one fourth of the entire work. Well, there are three topics to go and three days left, I hope I can finish the whole project in time.
OK, any feedback would be appreciated!
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted March 25, 2008 01:05 AM |
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Do you think kooka will let you upload the proofread text?
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Tobius
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 25, 2008 01:10 AM |
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OMG
I see it is 4 minutes after midnight regarding the clocks here in the forum!  I think my clock at home is slow! 
Please kooka, these 4 minutes are ok, aren't they?
@ Gnoll
First, I hope the 4 minutes are not too bad. Second, I would appreciate it, if I could upload the proofread text, but I doubt ... she seems too be some kind of harsh. But - hope dies last...
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Tobius
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 25, 2008 02:18 AM |
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Edited by Tobius at 14:53, 13 Apr 2008.
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Edited after the contest.
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Mytical
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
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posted March 25, 2008 09:16 AM |
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Since I am not a fan of 'technology' in the homm world I will not be judging this one. However I will say that despite me not liking the idea, the town is great 
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Message received.
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Momo
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted March 26, 2008 10:41 AM |
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Edited by Momo at 10:50, 01 Apr 2008.
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My review of this faction:
Cohesiveness: 10/10 everything makes sense here. A bunch of mechas, mages and gremlins: it works fine. It generates another problem, but this is explained in the mark below.
Imagination: 14/15 great basic idea, introducing steam-punk to HoMM. I love steam-punk, and steam technology would feel much more cohesive with the game than hi-tech (the latter would have lead to a failure a la "Forge Town"). Then for some reason you decided to swallow part of the Academy lineup (Gremlin, Golem, Mage). WHY? This makes everything feel like a steam-punk remake of Academy. You even hard a perfect race to inhabit the Clockwork, who could give you everything you needed flavor-wise: the Gnomes. Why did you had to damage your creativity mark this way? You still get a good mark, I love steam punk to the point that I'd even inflict again "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" or "Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow" to myself (but a lot better would be re watching "Howl's Moving Castle" or "Spirited Away").
Back story: 8/10 Zounds of words about what happened until the Reckoning. While a good backstory definitely exists, and definitely ties well to the world of Colony, it fails to put the focus on the important facts (the story of the Clockwork, not the story of the universe) and overloads the reader with unneeded informations.
Battle facets: 8/10 There is an admirable and truly creative work on the developement of the creatures, the idea of making researches going in this or that direction to enhance your creatures is fascinating; so is your lineup of creatures, interestingly depicted. There isn't the same care, sadly, into imagining how these units would have to be exploited in combat, tactically speaking. Decribing strenght and weaknesses is however a huge step forward in comparison to most other works around. Saldy, however, some traits are still downright overpowered (5 defense towers??!?!?!).
Discretionary: 5/5 I love the theme and see a lot of effort into it, but I also see too many material that wasn't even remotely necessary. (Incidentally, where did you find the picture of the second golem? I think I already saw that but can't remember where).
Overall: 45/50
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Golemcrafter
Promising
Famous Hero
Unlimited Fantasy Master
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posted March 26, 2008 11:28 AM |
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My Rate about The Clockwork
Cohesiveness: 10/10 points (Excellent, but I think there are too many mechanical creatures. But since this is a town that is based on artificer things, I won't give you no point less.)
Imagination/creativity/originality/wow factor: 14/15 points ("Academy problems")
Back Story: 8/10 points (For me, it's way to complicated and it is hard to understand, but it is good, that you have brought the storyline of HOMM 3.)
Battle Facets: 8/10 points (There are some abilities, that gives the creatures a huge protection, which is good fur us who play with this fraction, but bad for the enemy, which can hardly cause damage from them. The "Mechanical" ability is already very strong, but good enough.)
Discretionary: 5/5 (The result speaks for itself!)
Overall: 45/50 points
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Momo
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted March 27, 2008 12:55 AM |
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Edited by Momo at 01:10, 27 Mar 2008.
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Some clarifications.
1. as a general rule of thumb, if you disagree with the marks you get, don't use a PM. Defending your faction or clarifying things is something that you should, in your own interest, do before everyone's eyes. For example, if I think Golem is stupidly broken and you don't, it's better for you if everyone who thinks the same as me reads your defense.
2. Tobius asks why is final mark is 43 if the sum of the marks is 41. Simple, it's my bad. You were supposed to get 14 for creativity and 8 for battle facets, so this is why 2 points were missing.
3. Tobius asks if the presence of Mage, Golem and Gremlin is enough to get less than 15/15 in creativity. Yes, because if you combine the fact that that most of your creatures are variation of the same theme (steam-punk mechas) and the others that aren't are incidentally from another town, this should affect the creativity marks somehow, and even more so when the trademark strategy of your faction (shooting the more you can and then tanking as the enemy approaches) happens to recall dangerously the other town in question.
4. Tobius asks where did I get the false impression that one could have 5 defense towers. I get the impression from the building "Side towers" whose effect is described as "Adds two side towers to the castle": 3 + 2 = 5. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the thing, but however it's not important. It was just an example of how, with enough researching, your faction can have just too many options and bonuses.
GrumpyOldMan answers: "it seems so because you haven't seen everything else in our Heroes 6." This sounds interesting (especially so after the hints he gave) but can't be accepted as a factor to judge a faction. If the faction is part of a Heroes 6, you should post the entire work elsewhere and then submit the town separately to the contest, referring this in the entry (incidentally, this is what I did). Not doing so gives people not enough means to judge fairly and forces you (and it did) to post things that aren't referenced to the faction in particular but to the whole hypothetical Heroes 6.
5. Finally, Tobius asks if the backstory really deserves no more than 7, given that there is an extensive background on the Clockwork. In my opinion, yes, and that's why: you must respect the readers, their time, and their effort.
I'm trying to review every faction, and this already takes too much time if must be managed along with two jobs, a family, a girlfriend and some other business; the fact that I needed almost two hours to rate just one single faction (this one) is an affordable sacrifice, but not so when I've expended a substantial amount of this time reading a flood of informations that weren't in any way needed or required to judge your creativity. Even in the fear that someone didn't know the whole HoMM background, you could have done WAY better than that by posting a link for everyone who wanted to read it (sparing the time of those who didn't) and getting a 10/10 mark this way.
I know that it may sound weird to hear that you would have got a better mark if you posted LESS work than you actually did, but consider this: if you go to a restaurant and ask for the menu of pizzas, would you be happy if they wasted an hour of your time reading you the whole menu? And if even more time was wasted to explain you how they cook each dish? Yes, they did more work for you than you asked an payed for, but nonetheless this didn't do any good to the service and, in fact, made it worse.
Incidentally, the same form of disrespect to the readers is shown in posting an essential part of your work 4 minutes after the maximum time is expired. Given the quality and depth of what you posted, it wasn't certainly conceived last-minute and, in fact, was probably already finished at least hours before, and it's necessary to judge the quality of the work. Thus, why waiting the last minute to post? Why leaving a work incomplete until the last minute available to do so?
It all seems to scream "if you want to see my work you will play by my rules" but remember, you aren't doing people a favor by making them see your work, even if it happens to be one of the best in the contest. So you should make the work of a judge easier, and not harder.
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Snatch
Promising
Known Hero
Proud Kappa
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posted March 27, 2008 03:13 AM |
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Quote:
Given the quality and depth of what you posted, it wasn't certainly conceived last-minute and, in fact, was probably already finished at least hours before, and it's necessary to judge the quality of the work.
I can say to you that it was a last minute run. The conception of an entire new Heroes 6 gameplay was done in German forum Drachenwald in German weeks before but selecting a particular faction and giving it shape for this contest was a thing of few days before the first deadline. The days and the evening before the second deadline was a collection of all relevant aspects and their translation into English with Tobius bringing it to shape for presentation. In last minute. If you need a proof there is a topic with a discussion done on that evening in Drachenwald.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 27, 2008 05:09 PM |
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Cohesiveness: 10/10 what can I say?
Imagination/creativity/originality/wow factor: 14/15 impressive
Back Story: 8/10 because of the whole unrelated part
Battle Facets: 8/10 interesting system, but I see no explanations of the secondary skills and talents, and some creatures may have been better (the mantis is a 2nd upgrade and his only ability is flyer??)
Discretionary: 5/5 awesome work
Overall: 45/50
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Snatch
Promising
Known Hero
Proud Kappa
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posted March 30, 2008 05:14 PM |
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Edited by Snatch at 17:20, 30 Mar 2008.
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Cohesiveness: 10/10 (all fits very well whereas a time machine has a little aftertaste of being the standard option if nothing else comes to mind, but on the other hand it really is the last option to be cohesive with the reckoning, creature line-up is solid and adequate)
Imagination: 15/15 (very much effort, very much innovation without loosing a familiar feeling, steam-punk-athmosphere is delivered well)
Back story: 10/10 (very much effort here too, but a bit overdone, nevertheless you expand on the Heroes Universe and the world of Heroes 3 is my favourite)
Battle facets: 9/10 (creative, has some variety and follows the theme, some edges remain, but that is inevitable in a concept without the chance of a practical balancing, almost perfect)
Discretionary: 4/5 (I love steam-punk, I love gnomes/gremlins and you put lots of effort and new ideas in here and while I like most of them some are not really my taste)
48/50
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