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| Thread: Ultimate Necropolis |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted December 27, 2010 02:30 PM |
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You didn't even play it and it's already your favorite?
I was talking about the line-up and the designs...
You people do know that the Ghouls of the Arabic legends weren't even undead, right? Mythological Ghouls were another kind of Djiin, associated with death.
I'm not sure when the trend to present Ghouls as Undead started. But it probably is not D&D this time, it could date as far back as the Gothic Romantic Writers and Poets in the late 19th Century.
So, my opinion is, all is good with Ghouls being Undead. And what's more, they're even more fitting than anything else to be in the ranks of the Cult of the Spider Goddess, considering that the Cult has its roots based on the Academy faction which has a kind of "1001 Arabian Nights" flavor to it.
Same goes with the Lamassu. Ok, I have to say the bad first: I consider the Lamassu to be one of the most important mythological creatures of the Mesopotamian legends. To the people of those regions, the Lamassu was the equivalent of a Dragon or even an Angel. It was divine being if you will, a Celestial.
I believe the designers and devs did a great injustice to this creature, to introduce it to the series as an unfortunate, failed experiment which turned out to be good only as an Undead.
But even so, you can't ignore the fact that it is another Mesopotamian creature in their ranks, and I think that for the same reason as the Ghoul, it is very fitting. I just wish that these Undead Lamassus weren't the only ones that exist in Ashan, and there are normal, living Lamassus as well.
Also, like I said in other posts it seems that the Lamassu's appearance is more of a modern Manticore and Sphinx mix, than that of an actual Lamassu. Anyway, to me these are minor issues, and the creature looks great all the same.
About the Fate Spinner... Whoever says that it's not an original creature and was taken from D&D's Driders or whatever else, ought to be castrated! The Fate Spinner in my eyes, is one of the few original creatures that the entire Might and Magic franchise ever had. It is born directly from the lore of Ashan and all of you Ashan lore haters got absolutely nothing to compare it with.
The Fate Spinner owes its existence and design on Asha as the Spider Goddess. The Spider Goddess is a play on the pure, unadulterated fear that connects creepy with spooky things. Creepy being the Spiders and other such vermin, spooky being the ghosts and generally the Undead. I mean to say, that this must have been the driving force for the story writers to represent the deity revered by the Necromancers as a Spider.
If Asha would have been a Bat Goddess for example, (which could be fitting as well, only more obvious so that's why it was avoided), then the equivalent would have been a hybrid between this morbid female and a bat. With that in mind, there's no basis on anyone to accuse the Fate Spinner as an non original creature. It is IMHO, the most original and non random creature they ever came up with.
So having the Ghoul and this mishappened Undead version of the Lamassu along with the Fate Spinner in the same ranks of a Necromantic cult which has close ties with an Arcane cult inspired by the Mesopotamian legends; makes for my favorite Necropolis of the entire series of Heroes and Might and Magic.
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moonlith
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
If all else fails, use Fiyah!
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posted December 27, 2010 02:34 PM |
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Edited by moonlith at 14:43, 27 Dec 2010.
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I don't really CARE if it's Zombies or Ghouls that take up #2 in Necropolis' lineup Since in both cases it's a relatively weak undead melee walker. Ghouls aren't even what my grief is about.
My grief is mainly spat at Inferno which stuffs in at least 3 retarded looking random creatures while those spots COULD have been taken by more recognizable and fun creatures, such as Imps, Nightmares or Efreet. Instead we get the load of nonsense elite crap you see today.
I don't even have so much of a problem with Necropolis, aside the horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE designs of the units (Which seems to have been influenced by the "CAN'T ADD ENOUGH RANDOM SPIKES!" mentality, the same childish mentality that infected Inferno). The only issue I have with Necro is that there's no Bone Dragon, Death Knight, or Wraith. Any of those would have been good. Granted, Fate Weaver isn't so bad, but a new randomly designed being as Necro's champ, replacing more classical options? Just doesn't sit well with me. And again, GOD, the fricking design... I should ask if they want to hire my 6 year old nephew, he'd be perfect for their company.
And yeah I was talking about -that- Necronaut. The one that looks just like a Bone Dragon, yet lacks its limbs and wings and therefor seems to be cooler?
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The Fate Spinner in my eyes, is one of the few original creatures that the entire Might and Magic franchise ever had. It is born directly from the lore of Ashan and all of you Ashan lore haters got absolutely nothing to compare it with.
Aside the fact Ashan lore sucks ass.
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With that in mind, there's no basis on anyone to accuse the Fate Spinner as an non original creature. It is IMHO, the most original and non random creature they ever came up with.
It still looks like a drider.
Originality is pretty overrated these days since most has already been done. If you go original nowadays, you pass into the absurd that nobody gives two cents about. Such as the entire Inferno Elite lineup.
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Jabanoss
Promising
Legendary Hero
Property of Nightterror™
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posted December 27, 2010 02:57 PM |
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I for one agree completely with LizardWarrior, If the franchise should have had the Aquiz-Horror Aquiz in 3 game it would become a classic unit. And from the sound if it I'm already disappointed that they didn't include it 
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My grief is mainly spat at Inferno which stuffs in at least 3 retarded looking random creatures while those spots COULD have been taken by more recognizable and fun creatures, such as Imps, Nightmares or Efreet. Instead we get the load of nonsense elite crap you see today.
Haha It' feels like I'm reading the comments of Nightterrors clone 
Otherwise Ghouls are awesome, just play Dark Messiah and you'll find out. There you can also see the difference between a zombie and a ghoul.
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"You turn me on Jaba"
- Meroe
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted December 27, 2010 03:08 PM |
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Aside the fact Ashan lore sucks ass.
Says you. I like it better than the silliness of spacecraft driving adventurers and characters called 'Resurrectra', chattering skeletons and zombies with opinions of their own, warlock minotaurs, demon looking aliens, talking big fat behemoths who acted as spies and scouts, genies on snowy mountain tops and dwarves who could charm unicorns.
Why, if we had left 3DO to their own devices, they would have created the Forge for Christ's sake! That would be the Epitome of Silliness!
Ashan lore might not have anything special to it, but at least it wasn't freaking stupid.
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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moonlith
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
If all else fails, use Fiyah!
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posted December 27, 2010 04:13 PM |
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Why, if we had left 3DO to their own devices, they would have created the Forge for Christ's sake! That would be the Epitome of Silliness!
THERE I would agree with you. Had that happened, it would have made H3's story almost as silly as H5's.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted December 27, 2010 04:37 PM |
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Handsome Vampires FTW! 
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What will happen now?
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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted December 27, 2010 04:41 PM |
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Aside the fact Ashan lore sucks ass.
Says you. I like it better than the silliness of spacecraft driving adventurers and characters called 'Resurrectra', chattering skeletons and zombies with opinions of their own, warlock minotaurs, demon looking aliens, talking big fat behemoths who acted as spies and scouts, genies on snowy mountain tops and dwarves who could charm unicorns.
Why, if we had left 3DO to their own devices, they would have created the Forge for Christ's sake! That would be the Epitome of Silliness!
Ashan lore might not have anything special to it, but at least it wasn't freaking stupid.
Original scifi/fantasy blend > generic high fantasy, IMO.
There's nothing wrong with Ashan's story, but it's very bland high fantasy at the moment, and if the old M&M world was anything, it certainly wasn't bland high fantasy. Here's hoping Black Hole can fix that.
Also, what's the problem with demonic aliens and genies on mountaintops, or dwarves who could charm unicorns, or minotaur warlocks for that matter? The demonic aliens in particular I really liked, as it was a much cooler explanation for demons than "they are EVIL!!!" But none of those things strike me as unreasonable, they merely don't go with established fantasy stereotypes, which is the whole point, no?
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They can take my swamp, they can take my town, but they will never take my FREEDOM!
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted December 27, 2010 04:55 PM |
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Quote:
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Aside the fact Ashan lore sucks ass.
Says you. I like it better than the silliness of spacecraft driving adventurers and characters called 'Resurrectra', chattering skeletons and zombies with opinions of their own, warlock minotaurs, demon looking aliens, talking big fat behemoths who acted as spies and scouts, genies on snowy mountain tops and dwarves who could charm unicorns.
Why, if we had left 3DO to their own devices, they would have created the Forge for Christ's sake! That would be the Epitome of Silliness!
Ashan lore might not have anything special to it, but at least it wasn't freaking stupid.
Original scifi/fantasy blend > generic high fantasy, IMO.
There's nothing wrong with Ashan's story, but it's very bland high fantasy at the moment, and if the old M&M world was anything, it certainly wasn't bland high fantasy. Here's hoping Black Hole can fix that.
Also, what's the problem with demonic aliens and genies on mountaintops, or dwarves who could charm unicorns, for that matter? The demonic aliens in particular I really liked, as it was a much cooler explanation for demons than "they are EVIL!!!"
Ah, we talked about it before in the official forums, how original this sci-fi/high fantasy mix is. And I thought I did prove back then that it is not as original as you may think; having been used in D&D's first edition before M&M. With so many things that the M&M franchise took from D&D, who's to say that they don't owe their sci-fi elements to them as well. And it's not just D&D but if you take into account pulp fantasy novels and other such books from writers such as Moorcock, Clark Ashton Smith and Edgar Rice Burrows, you'll see that blending sci-fi with high fantasy is nothing new or original.
And uh, might be just me, but I think they're giving the Demons a LaVeyan twist for H6. Which means, they won't be necesserily evil this time.
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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Cepheus
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Far-flung Keeper
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posted December 27, 2010 05:41 PM |
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Edited by Cepheus at 17:42, 27 Dec 2010.
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Well, really, it's not just a mindless "blending", it's a polarisation. The old universe was superficially high fantasy with a sci-fi backdrop. It's easy to call a concept silly based on superficiality (the supervillain is a cyborg? omgwtfbbq what were they smoking?), but the execution was always much stronger than that.
The cancelled Forge was the only extreme example of a game shoving the sci-fi right into your face from the beginning; the rest of the series featured buildup. A lot of people either liked it or hated it (see this thread), but at far as videogaming goes, it is definitively an attribute sourced to Might and Magic, not the Pirates on Venus or Kane of Old Mars novels - though I know that some of Andre Norton's and Jack Vance's works directly inspired some of the series, and the premise of Shannara is somewhat similar to the backstory of Enroth.
Two lizards conveniently conjuring up an entire series of anthropomorphic races out of the ether isn't much less wacky on the surface
As for D&D, I guess you refer to Blackmoor? There are spaceships and Star Trek references, sure, but beyond that there aren't many parallels.
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"Those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it." —Proverb, Might and Magic VIII
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 27, 2010 05:57 PM |
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if you are going to make sci-fi in a fantasy universe then I do not think you should make like star wars-looking spaceships but more like a flying fortress or something - a mix between fantasy and sci-fi
like in WoW, there are spaceships but they are described as "dimensional fortressess" and a lot of people actually hated that and the entire draenei race in that game (they have some sci-fi elements I guess, with their crystal technology etc but they are the most alienish race in that universe)
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted December 27, 2010 06:06 PM |
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Well, really, it's not just a mindless "blending", it's a polarisation. The old universe was superficially high fantasy with a sci-fi backdrop. It's easy to call a concept silly based on superficiality (the supervillain is a cyborg? omgwtfbbq what were they smoking?), but the execution was always much stronger than that.
The cancelled Forge was the only extreme example of a game shoving the sci-fi right into your face from the beginning; the rest of the series featured buildup. A lot of people either liked it or hated it (see this thread), but at far as videogaming goes, it is definitively an attribute sourced to Might and Magic, not the Pirates on Venus or Kane of Old Mars novels - though I know that some of Andre Norton's and Jack Vance's works directly inspired some of the series, and the premise of Shannara is somewhat similar to the backstory of Enroth.
Two lizards conveniently conjuring up an entire series of anthropomorphic races out of the ether isn't much less wacky on the surface
As for D&D, I guess you refer to Blackmoor? There are spaceships and Star Trek references, sure, but beyond that there aren't many parallels.
I do agree that Ashan lore as of yet is nothing special. Mediocre and banal to say at best. However it's standard like this, at least in my opinion when compared to the pre-Ubisoft games. The best but also the worst stories lie with the older games.
Now I ask you this, how good did the first M&M games fare in terms of lore and depth of world-crafting? I haven't played so I wouldn't know but let me assume and say that there were nothing much to speak of. The lore of these series must have gotten so deep only with each installment and spin-off adding to it.
So I think it should be fair to give a benefit of the doubt to the new world too. Perhaps it needs a couple more games to mature up. Perhaps even better, it's going to connect with the old worlds.
Yes, I was referring to Blackmoor, it wasn't exactly similar but it was there: High Fantasy and Sci-Fi together. A alien spacecraft crashed into a world of elves and dwarves.
Anyway, I'm not calling the sci-fi/fantasy mix 'mindless'. It's not to my taste, and silly though it may get through times (I still giggle when I imagine Crag Hack inside a spacecraft in the earlier games), it's well written.
I might call it stupid when H3 fanboys go into a nerdrage and say "Ashan lore sucks ass". And I really think it's stupid to be honest, but still quite enjoyable if that makes sense.
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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blizz
Known Hero
of temper grace
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posted December 27, 2010 06:30 PM |
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Off topic!!! Cant you people just start a new thread about this?
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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted December 27, 2010 06:36 PM |
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At least in my estimation, no matter how unoriginal the scifi/fantasy mix is, it's still leaps and bounds ahead of generic high fantasy in terms of originality. But, as said, a matter for another thread.
I'm also interested as to how much storybuilding the original M&M games had, as it seems a mistake to assume that they did not contain much of note.
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They can take my swamp, they can take my town, but they will never take my FREEDOM!
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Cepheus
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Far-flung Keeper
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posted December 27, 2010 06:48 PM |
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Edited by Cepheus at 18:49, 27 Dec 2010.
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Now I ask you this, how good did the first M&M games fare in terms of lore and depth of world-crafting? I haven't played so I wouldn't know but let me assume and say that there were nothing much to speak of. The lore of these series must have gotten so deep only with each installment and spin-off adding to it.
Not really. Here is the backstory to Might and Magic II (second game in series, 1988):
http://www.celestialheavens.com/viewpage.php?id=542
and Might and Magic III (fourth game in series, 1991):
http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/docs.php?id=1091
Some of the outro briefings from Might and Magic III and IV:
http://www.celestialheavens.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3904&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
Despite this, I still agree. I don't think the Ashan lore sucks ass, but I certainly did before playing Dark Messiah, with just Heroes V as a reference. After DM I still considered it wildly cliched, but with some level of potential. With H6 I'm assured that this potential will manifest and the story will be way, way stronger than either previous game, so I'm just remaining moderate and reserving judgment until I see it.
I think it could be a great setting - it just hasn't been one so far, which is egregious for many fans since the Ancients backstory has always been a uniting element throughout the series, and it was a shame to throw it in the bin for something which seemed creatively inferior.
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Off topic!!! Cant you people just start a new thread about this?
Errr... well... aha! Here's a shot from the original Might and Magic necropolis town (MM5)!
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"Those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it." —Proverb, Might and Magic VIII
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted December 27, 2010 07:20 PM |
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Ok, I stand corrected. Certainly there was a lot of backstory even in the earliest installments. Partly this must have been because back then, they could not rely so much on visuals to give depth to a game, and text was a safer bet. But even so, it's very well written.
I haven't played any M&M games, though I saw a friend of mine playing once and the sci-fi elements made me not wanna try it. During the times that Might and Magic was popular, I was playing Eye of the Beholder and Ultima. I was more of a fan of the Heroes of Might and Magic series and always intentionally ignoring the sci-fi backrgound that wasn't apparent in the Heroes. I was more interested in the events of Enroth and Erathia than the whole cosmos around them.
Anyway, that's my last post on this. Off topic discussion is over. Just make sure no one calls Ashan Lore is sucking ass again, or I may start arguing all over again.
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted December 27, 2010 09:09 PM |
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Can't make any promises, I call it as I see it.
Heroes VI does look to be much stronger story-wise, thankfully.
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They can take my swamp, they can take my town, but they will never take my FREEDOM!
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted February 07, 2011 07:41 PM |
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guys,you don't want to disscut about necropolis anymore?
[insert<stuff_for_critic>]
[/insert]
Using my h3 modder skills I made this.
I remeber nightterror said she want homm 3,5,so this is good?
So,there skeletons aren't the weakest anymore,are top core creatures.Lich and mummy,I hadn't inspiration.I like bone dragons,but I want also another champion creature,so I put a similar and cooler creature instead,undead wyrm.
Critics please!
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evinin
Supreme Hero
Servant of Asha
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posted February 07, 2011 08:23 PM |
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Edited by evinin at 20:24, 07 Feb 2011.
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Well, for me, the HOMM6 Necro is truly the best (and Ultimate).
And also all the other Necro ideas (IMO) just started to look alike (all of them). Nothing that new.
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DarkLord
Supreme Hero
Fear me..
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posted February 07, 2011 08:40 PM |
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Necropolis are one of my favourites, if not the favourite.. And i am happy that they actually are in Heroes6 (unlike Sylvan and Academy), also i am pleased by what i see in terms of design and creatures! also a big thank you for Dev's for not including stupid Mummy, and making skeleton look dangerous, rather than silly how it was..
I miss the Death Knight though, but will cope with that!!!
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted February 07, 2011 08:54 PM |
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Necropolis are one of my favourites, if not the favourite.. And i am happy that they actually are in Heroes6 (unlike Sylvan and Academy), also i am pleased by what i see in terms of design and creatures! also a big thank you for Dev's for not including stupid Mummy, and making skeleton look dangerous, rather than silly how it was..
I miss the Death Knight though, but will cope with that!!!
Death Knight will probably be the Might Hero for Necropolis. I think that fits him better than just being a unit.
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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