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| Thread: How are all the games connected? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Cepheus
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Far-flung Keeper
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posted January 31, 2011 09:37 PM |
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Edited by Cepheus at 21:38, 31 Jan 2011.
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Some prefer calling the planet Colony (I can't pinpoint the origin of that, but i know Cepheus prefers that name, and he is pretty much the encyclopedia of M&M.).
Many thanks for the word of praise, but: not any more I don't.  To sum it up: the name Colony (Composite Orbital Learning Opportunity Network Yielder) was proposed by Ribannah, the leader of the Might and Magic Tribute fan-project, to Tim Lang, Might and Magic IX's lead game designer. He accepted it. It was never given as such in any official games, but for a long time I assumed it was made up by Tim since he was helping the Tribute team. Once I found out that those fans had invented it, I stopped considering it "canon" and now I call the planet "Enroth" again... as I should 
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"Those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it." —Proverb, Might and Magic VIII
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted January 31, 2011 10:01 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 22:04, 31 Jan 2011.
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Man, you want it all and you want it now. That's not how it works with whatever long series you want. You can find pretty good summaries of the old games' stories on-line, heck there is a Might & Magic wiki out there too - go check it out, it has most of the basics you need. If you don't want to browse and insist that all should be served to you on a silver plate, then you are not interested in the lore that much, end of story. And since when people are so eager to disregard something just because they don't know its background? You and kodial are exaggerating this to the point of absurdity.
You defended the Forge and the other supposedly sci-fi elements of the HoMM series based on 'context', but it's a context that's opaque to anyone who's only played HoMM because those elements aren't obviously there, which is why Forge raised such an uproar in the the first place. If the sci-fi bits are important then they need to be either obvious in the initial release, or explained in the provided lore, where 'provided' means 'comes with the CD', neither of which was done in the HoMM series.
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MrDragon
Supreme Hero
Eats people with Ketchup
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posted January 31, 2011 10:17 PM |
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*takes out a pack of sausegas, sticks them on a pointy phrase and starts roasting them on the kindling flames*
First ones are in, people already acusing each other left and right!
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vicheron
Known Hero
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posted February 01, 2011 04:53 AM |
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Edited by vicheron at 05:19, 01 Feb 2011.
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@Vicheron
I could go on and post the harpy artworks from many other sources and games, only to show you how differently each design is in detail, except for the H3 and AD&D 2e ones. Same goes for Basilisk. Just because these creatures existed in mythology, it doesn't mean that 3DO should copy them just as they see them in TSR's manuals.
What differences in detail are you talking about? What specifically does H3's harpies and basilisk share with D&D's harpies and basilisks that are different than all other conceptions of the creatures?
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Same goes for the architecture of the lizardmen. So having both in Warhammer and H3, bluescaled finned lizardmen who live in Aztecan style pyramids, wasn't an intentional copy? Is that what you're saying.
Except the Fortress faction only had one lizardman unit. It wasn't a lizardman faction. It was a swamp faction with South American architecture that had a bunch of reptilian creatures.
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And I'll be damned if TSR based the Gnolls on Cynocephali, but anyway, it's no excuse, since 3DO not only copied the design, but also called them Gnolls.
They copied the name, the design was basically a Cynocephali in Roman armor and guess what? TSR didn't come up with the idea:
http://www.mythfolklore.net/medieval_latin/images/aug_civ/cegelkoy.jpg
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As for the Orcs, don't start me there. Tolkien's orcs weren't pig-faced. They were not even green. First TSR comes up with the pig-faced Orcs, then 3DO copies that design. Then TSR reboots their 'worlds' with the new edition, and creates green Orcs. And 3DO without any kind of rebooting or reason, copy their new design and paint their Orcs green too. I say it's a copy.
Tolkien's orcs were described as being squat, wide, having flat noses, slanted eyes, and wide gaping mouths full of fangs.
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In the end of it all, 3DO copied more creatures from D&D (and Warhammer) than Nival did from Warhammer. So don't blame Nival for a trend started by 3DO.
Right, because this:
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes1/creatures/orc.gif
and this:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/alumni_orc.jpg
have more in common than this:
http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes5/pictures/dungeon/2.jpg
and this:
http://www.gamezone.com/images/gamezone/29/0/66/s29066_pc_606.jpg
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Now let me give you one very good example of what I think of NWC's and Ubisoft's stories. NWC's is like watching a movie that's been superbly directed and acted but the whole plot don't make sense. Ubisoft's on the other hand, is just one of the same, but the story is simple and coherent.
Except NWC's story does make sense. You haven't even mentioned what specific part was confusing. All you've mentioned are vague complaints about worlds being destroyed and characters with the same names. So what? That happens in Star Wars and Transformers too, do those franchises confuse you too? If you just tell people what confused you then people can explain things to you.
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Now wether how many or few different characters with the same were there and how many worlds have been changed, destroyed or otherwise, it doesn't matter. What matters is that to me and probably many others, 3DO gave us the impression that they did not know what they were doing.
How did they give you the impression that they didn't know what they were doing? NWC worked on the Might and Magic franchise for 14 years before they decided to introduce the Forge. Every Might and Magic game improved in quality, as did every Heroes game. If they didn't know what they were doing then how did the quality of every game improve up until 3DO ran into financial troubles?
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It is dissonance only for the people who don't like it, but this boils down to personal tastes.
And the outcry suggested that the personal taste of a lot of the fans oh HoMM3 was against the Forge
According to an interview with Greg Fulton, NWC got about 100 hate mails complaining about the Forge, including the infamous death threat.
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or continuing the the "old universe's" story, would have hurt them
... because? I've read this several times already, but I have yet to see a single argument to back it up.
Didn't I explain it? Let me quote myself:
"For a newcomer, the series loose their charm immediately when he just can't connect to their short lived worlds and stories. They feel lost and since its hard to get into it then they don't care either."
Wether they were short lived or not, it doesn't matter. But it's a fact that they're old games that new players will ignore even if they knew they ever existed. If they can't connect with the world, they won't become fans. If they won't become fans, they won't be sure customers. This is not the only criteria but it's one of them.
Myself included.
Why did I drop H4? Mostly because of the gameplay but the story did not help either. Since the whole story evolved alternately between HoMM and MM, I was too tired of it, to try to figure out what happened between H3 and H4. I felt they messed up, and wished Axeoth did not exist. It was very easy for me to quit it and not buy the expansions.
On the contrary, one of the main reasons I picked up the series again with H5, was because the old world was scrapped. Well, that and the race based factions.
What was confusing about Heroes 4? You didn't need to know what happened between Heroes 3 and 4. All you needed to know was that the old world blew up and the campaigns were about refugees from the old world.
It was a fresh start. The old world only serves as a backdrop like the War of the Elves and Sauron and the War of the Last Alliance in Lord of the Rings.
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted February 01, 2011 09:03 AM |
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Edited by kodial79 at 09:26, 01 Feb 2011.
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H5 was a fresh start. H4 was a recycle, an excuse to fix the mess of the story so far, and as expected, they made it even worse. That's what I saw, and I didn't like it one bit. If 3DO's writers had any sense in them, they would have said that no one survived from the H3 world, and absolutely nothing carried over to the new world, and make a true fresh start. They could even keep their Martians, Kreegans, whatever and have them visit the new world later for the first time. But the way they made it, it became an abomination in my eyes, which I couldn't even bear to look at. I had no sympathy for it and for any of its heroes, I felt no connection and no interest at all. And couple that with its god-awful gameplay, it made me turn my back to the series for a long time, until H5 was released.
My grief doesn't lie so much with what was going on in H4 since I did not care to find out. But at what happened in H3 till then. There everything was confusing unless you were following both M&M and HoMM series. And as I've been struggling to make some sense out of it, there comes H4 and says "and then, the world was destroyed." and I was thinking to myself, is this some kind of joke? To me it felt like they just could not find another way out of the mess they created. And I don't care if you say that since they were forced to not include the Forge, they had no better alternative. The Forge was their mistake too!
By the way, two swords clash and a planet goes boom, seriously people, you accuse H5 story of being poorly written, which it is but then you like plot devices such as this? I call you biased.
When I will have more time I will post images of harpies and basilisks from other sources. The general concept is the same in everyone of them but in detail, H3 were copied after the ones of TSR's AD&D 2e MM. Wether Gnolls were mythical creatures with another name or not, it doesn't matter. I bet that 3DO didn't even know that as they did not even know about the more famous Gorgon, and they just copied TSR's Gnoll. Also wether, it was one lizardman or not in warhammer, it doesn't matter too. What matters is that they copied their design from them. So we have Orcs, Beholders, Gnolls, Lizardmen, Harpies, Basilisks, Gorgons, being copied from other games. And only 3 dark elven units from H5 copied from warhammer. Who's the bigger copycat then?
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted February 01, 2011 12:00 PM |
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H4 doesn't really make sense unless you've played or read about 'Chronicles', which achieved limited distribution (I don't think I saw them more than once), and in any case, if we're going by the wikipedia descriptions, the campaigns are pretty corny.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted February 01, 2011 02:18 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 14:34, 01 Feb 2011.
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You defended the Forge and the other supposedly sci-fi elements of the HoMM series based on 'context', but it's a context that's opaque to anyone who's only played HoMM because those elements aren't obviously there, which is why Forge raised such an uproar in the the first place. If the sci-fi bits are important then they need to be either obvious in the initial release, or explained in the provided lore, where 'provided' means 'comes with the CD', neither of which was done in the HoMM series.
Why? Because some people might get shocked and send death threats to the devs just because they didn't bother noticing the fact that Heroes of Might and Magic is actually a branch of the Might and Magic series into the TBS genre? Sorry, this is pure laziness for me. I agree that it would have been better if NWC had put some effort into introducing at least some of the sci-fi bits in the first two Heroes games, but I don't think someone can blame them for their logic that if two games share part of the title, it's rather obvious that they might share part of the story as well (or the whole story). Take this example - I haven't played Dark Messiah and I have absolutely no intention to do it - now following your logic I should whine if it appears that there is some important character or element introduced there who seriously affects the Ashan lore, but this character or element is missing or only vaguely described in Heroes V/VI. Imagine I sent an e-mail to Ubisoft complaining about this "shocking discovery". I don't think that they'll even bother with replies and that's 100% proper treatment for such complaints in my not so humble opinion. Some things just make no bloody sense.
@kodial, you've admitted numerous times that you haven't played Heroes IV enough to learn to story, yet you are already an expert on the matter. Same applies to other games with the M&M title. How do you expect to be taken seriously when you are speaking from the position of a frustrated ignorant? People usually laugh at such "arguments". LOL? OK, we all got the part that you don't like the marriage between sci-fi and fantasy and we'll survive it, but next time when you intend to talk about "mess" and such, kindly stop typing - you are only showing how little you actually know.
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vicheron
Known Hero
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posted February 01, 2011 02:34 PM |
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H5 was a fresh start. H4 was a recycle, an excuse to fix the mess of the story so far, and as expected, they made it even worse. That's what I saw, and I didn't like it one bit. If 3DO's writers had any sense in them, they would have said that no one survived from the H3 world, and absolutely nothing carried over to the new world, and make a true fresh start. They could even keep their Martians, Kreegans, whatever and have them visit the new world later for the first time. But the way they made it, it became an abomination in my eyes, which I couldn't even bear to look at. I had no sympathy for it and for any of its heroes, I felt no connection and no interest at all. And couple that with its god-awful gameplay, it made me turn my back to the series for a long time, until H5 was released.
Did you even play the game? It did not require any knowledge of the previous games. It referenced past events but only to create a backdrop in the same way that Lord of the Rings or just about any other fantasy story references mythic events in the past. The campaigns themselves did not require you to have any knowledge of those past events.
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My grief doesn't lie so much with what was going on in H4 since I did not care to find out. But at what happened in H3 till then. There everything was confusing unless you were following both M&M and HoMM series. And as I've been struggling to make some sense out of it, there comes H4 and says "and then, the world was destroyed." and I was thinking to myself, is this some kind of joke? To me it felt like they just could not find another way out of the mess they created. And I don't care if you say that since they were forced to not include the Forge, they had no better alternative. The Forge was their mistake too!
Except it wasn't confusing at all. You can play and understand Heroes 3's story without knowing anything about M&M or even the previous Heroes games.
What part in Heroes 3 confused you?
The game starts when King Gryphonheart of Erathia gets assassinated. The rival kingdoms of Eofol and Nighon take this opportunity to invade Erathia. Princess, now Queen, Catherine Gryphonheart returns from a wedding in another kingdom to defend Erathia against the invaders. She rallies the support of old allies AvLee and Bracada. Together, they push Eofol and Nighon out of Erathia. However, while this war was being waged, the Necromancers of Deyja had been secretly gathering strength and raising dead soldiers for its armies. Deyja takes this opportunity to raise King Gryphonheart as a Lich to lead its armies against Erathia. Unfortunately for the Necromancers, King Gryphonheart grows too powerful and takes over. The disgruntled Necromancers join forces with Erathia and together they defeat King Gryphonheart.
None of this requires any knowledge of any of the previous games. The story is all explained in the game. You just have to read the text boxes.
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By the way, two swords clash and a planet goes boom, seriously people, you accuse H5 story of being poorly written, which it is but then you like plot devices such as this? I call you biased.
Death Star fires laser and planet goes boom.
Ring gets thrown in volcano, Giant Evil Eye goes boom.
Genesis device goes boom, new planet is created.
Seriously, how could anyone use such a plot device?
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When I will have more time I will post images of harpies and basilisks from other sources. The general concept is the same in everyone of them but in detail, H3 were copied after the ones of TSR's AD&D 2e MM. Wether Gnolls were mythical creatures with another name or not, it doesn't matter. I bet that 3DO didn't even know that as they did not even know about the more famous Gorgon, and they just copied TSR's Gnoll. Also wether, it was one lizardman or not in warhammer, it doesn't matter too. What matters is that they copied their design from them. So we have Orcs, Beholders, Gnolls, Lizardmen, Harpies, Basilisks, Gorgons, being copied from other games. And only 3 dark elven units from H5 copied from warhammer. Who's the bigger copycat then?
You do know that Heroes 5 based the artistic style of the Sylvans, Havens, Dwarves, and Necropolis on Warhammer too don't you?
They had to change the Inquisitor and the Treant because they were basically photocopied from Warhammer.
Also, even if NWC copied TSR, they at least made some changes to the designs so it wasn't an complete rip off like Heroes 5 did to Warhammer.
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H4 doesn't really make sense unless you've played or read about 'Chronicles', which achieved limited distribution (I don't think I saw them more than once), and in any case, if we're going by the wikipedia descriptions, the campaigns are pretty corny.
Except the stories in Heroes 4 did not require you to have any knowledge of Chronicles. They tell you all you need to know in the campaigns.
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted February 01, 2011 02:49 PM |
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@Zenofex
So what you're saying is that I am not entitled to know the whole story if I don't wanna go through playing the old M&M RPG's?
@Vicheron
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Did you even play the game? It did not require any knowledge of the previous games. It referenced past events but only to create a backdrop in the same way that Lord of the Rings or just about any other fantasy story references mythic events in the past. The campaigns themselves did not require you to have any knowledge of those past events.
Like I said, I was disenchanted by the turn of events and the mess of the story, and partly for that reason, I could not continue playing it. I know that the new stories had little to do with the old, I just was not interested anymore.
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The game starts when King Gryphonheart of Erathia gets assassinated. The rival kingdoms of Eofol and Nighon take this opportunity to invade Erathia. Princess, now Queen, Catherine Gryphonheart returns from a wedding in another kingdom to defend Erathia against the invaders. She rallies the support of old allies AvLee and Bracada. Together, they push Eofol and Nighon out of Erathia. However, while this war was being waged, the Necromancers of Deyja had been secretly gathering strength and raising dead soldiers for its armies. Deyja takes this opportunity to raise King Gryphonheart as a Lich to lead its armies against Erathia. Unfortunately for the Necromancers, King Gryphonheart grows too powerful and takes over. The disgruntled Necromancers join forces with Erathia and together they defeat King Gryphonheart.
That's just the RoE campaign. So far, so good. But when you try to see the bigger picture or what happens from that point and on, and all these side stories such as with Mutare, for example, that's where someone like me who only played HoMM starts getting lost and eventually loose interest.
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Death Star fires laser and planet goes boom.
Ring gets thrown in volcano, Giant Evil Eye goes boom.
Genesis device goes boom, new planet is created.
Seriously, how could anyone use such a plot device?
They're all pretty much different than two swords clashing to bring forth the destruction of the planet. But if they're not, then NWC's story is just as generic as Ubi's. Cause I can just say it's one of the same again, as you showed me with these examples.
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You do know that Heroes 5 based the artistic style of the Sylvans, Havens, Dwarves, and Necropolis on Warhammer too don't you?
They had to change the Inquisitor and the Treant because they were basically photocopied from Warhammer.
Also, even if NWC copied TSR, they at least made some changes to the designs so it wasn't an complete rip off like Heroes 5 did to Warhammer.
And Nival changed the Treant and Priest, so? For the rest, it's your turn to show me proof. If it turns out you're right, I will admit I'm wrong.
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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 February 01, 2011 03:19 PM |
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And Nival changed the Treant and Priest, so? For the rest, it's your turn to show me proof. If it turns out you're right, I will admit I'm wrong.
H5 did indeed use direct Warhammer ripoffs for a lot of the creature designs. I have that on pretty strong authority from Nival. Don't know whether they or Ubi were to blame, but it's true (Liches, Dark Elves, Wardancers, Vampires, Inquisitors...). One of the more egregious development shortcomings H6 is genuinely trying to repair.
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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 February 01, 2011 03:59 PM |
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And Nival changed the Treant and Priest, so? For the rest, it's your turn to show me proof. If it turns out you're right, I will admit I'm wrong.
H5 did indeed use direct Warhammer ripoffs for a lot of the creature designs. I have that on pretty strong authority from Nival. Don't know whether they or Ubi were to blame, but it's true (Liches, Dark Elves, Wardancers, Vampires, Inquisitors...). One of the more egregious development shortcomings H6 is genuinely trying to repair.
If you say that Nival admitted to it, then they did. This sucks but still cannot be used as an excuse to say that one doesn't like Nival ripping off from Warhammer, when 3DO was doing the same from TSR. Wether it is to lesser or greater extent, it doesn't as much as the fact that both of them were ripping off from other games.
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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 February 01, 2011 04:24 PM |
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Edited by Cepheus at 16:26, 01 Feb 2011.
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It's quite true to say H3 its fair share of plagiarism too, from Frazetta and D&D specifically. The Lizardmen, Gorgons and Beholders are highly conspicuous. It did arguably have some context though, because the designs weren't very highly stylised as Warhammer is, and MM started life as a D&D clone with a sci-fi twist anyway. I'd say fewer would've complained if H5 were full of D&D knockoffs.
On the argument that the plot got confusing due to copious backstory - I would say the opposite. NWC pretty much bent over backwards to ensure that each new game was fully accessible to newcomers, hence the constant change of setting. Heroes II was actually the first game in the entire series to take place on the same landscape as its prequel. What do you need to know to begin playing H2? The old king died and his sons want the throne. What do you need to know to play MM7? There's a scavenger hunt and a castle is the prize, get going. What do you need to know to play H4? An unspeakable cataclysm blew up a world and the few survivors are trying to make a fresh start in a new land. If you want the backstory, the previous games are there, but they just make the story richer, not significantly more or less understandable or accessible. The only example of some confusing missing details for a HoMM-only player came in Armageddon's Blade, where we suddenly learn that Roland is now free and King Xenofex is now dead - these events happened in MM7 (but they're actually covered in the AB manual...  ). And, admittedly, not a lot of people played the Chronicles, so the Reckoning seemed to come out of nowhere and was jarring. Armageddon's Blade did very clearly set it up, though. Tim Lang said it was decided as early as Armageddon's Blade to blow up Enroth, not necessarily because Greg Fulton quit or the story became messy, but because it helped refocus the story on the "bigger picture" with the Ancients and Kreegans... unfortunately that got cut short somewhat when 3DO imploded. Although I think Axeoth was to be the permanent setting from then on, MM has never been a series to linger on one world.
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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 February 01, 2011 04:55 PM |
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It's quite true to say H3 its fair share of plagiarism too, from Frazetta and D&D specifically. The Lizardmen, Gorgons and Beholders are highly conspicuous. It did arguably have some context though, because the designs weren't very highly stylised as Warhammer is, and MM started life as a D&D clone with a sci-fi twist anyway. I'd say fewer would've complained if H5 were full of D&D knockoffs.
On the argument that the plot got confusing due to copious backstory - I would say the opposite. NWC pretty much bent over backwards to ensure that each new game was fully accessible to newcomers, hence the constant change of setting. Heroes II was actually the first game in the entire series to take place on the same landscape as its prequel. What do you need to know to begin playing H2? The old king died and his sons want the throne. What do you need to know to play MM7? There's a scavenger hunt and a castle is the prize, get going. What do you need to know to play H4? An unspeakable cataclysm blew up a world and the few survivors are trying to make a fresh start in a new land. If you want the backstory, the previous games are there, but they just make the story richer, not significantly more or less understandable or accessible. The only example of some confusing missing details for a HoMM-only player came in Armageddon's Blade, where we suddenly learn that Roland is now free and King Xenofex is now dead - these events happened in MM7 (but they're actually covered in the AB manual... ). And, admittedly, not a lot of people played the Chronicles, so the Reckoning seemed to come out of nowhere and was jarring. Armageddon's Blade did very clearly set it up, though. Tim Lang said it was decided as early as Armageddon's Blade to blow up Enroth, not necessarily because Greg Fulton quit or the story became messy, but because it helped refocus the story on the "bigger picture" with the Ancients and Kreegans... unfortunately that got cut short somewhat when 3DO imploded. Although I think Axeoth was to be the permanent setting from then on, MM has never been a series to linger on one world.
You really know your stuff. Yes, like I noted before in RoE everything was good and easy to understand. Then came AB, and a rookie player like me, lost it. Admittedly, I had not read the manual. Or, well, not thoroughly. So if it was explained there, it's my fault. Playing through the various campaigns of the whole expansion, it felt like I was being transferred here and there in the times and lands of the world, without being given a chance to connect the dots. Ofcourse, as you can understand from some point on, I stopped caring about it, reached the conclusion that it doesn't worth my time to figure out what's what.
The way you put it though, why did they do the Reckoning, makes me think I'm right. To refocus on the bigger picture sounds like they messed up and needed to start over, so they brought about a world's end to get it all clear again. Not to blame them on that since the Forge was rejected by the fans, but I still consider this to be their fault.
They had a few good fans who knew what's what in the entire M&M franchise, like you. But the majority of their fans, were like me. People who didn't have a clue that around a corner a Naga Tank and a Minotaur with a Jetpack were lying to ambush their favorite Fantasy Setting. Ofcourse, we rejected it.
Well, I say "we", although I got on the Heroes wagon when Complete was released and the story with the Forge was already over. But if I had been a fan before that, I would be among those asking 3DO to not include the Forge, ofcourse.
If the Forge had been included, when I would get my copy of Heroes III Complete and saw it in the game, then I would not be here now. I would have never become a fan of the game. And probably many others too. That means to say, there was a fanbase in MM already, but it grew very larger with H3. This would not have happened if the Forge would make it.
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted February 01, 2011 05:45 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 17:51, 01 Feb 2011.
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@Zenofex
So what you're saying is that I am not entitled to know the whole story if I don't wanna go through playing the old M&M RPG's?
What I'm saying is that you don't know the whole story, actually you don't know even one quarter of it, yet you generously throw "mess", "they screwed up" and stuff around like a seasoned expert. I don't really care why you don't know it as long as you restrain yourself from passing judgement about something which actually requires the said knowledge. However, you are so eager to express your frustration about the fact that you know very little that you pretend to know it all. Here's where people start telling you that you should RTFM first and then speak, but so far you won't listen.
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To refocus on the bigger picture sounds like they messed up and needed to start over, so they brought about a world's end to get it all clear again.
No, they messed up nothing. The Kreegans and the Ancients are the constant background of the Might and Magic series, Heroes included, so everything else is just an episode which enriches the story, but is not fundamental for it. Your reaction would be the same if you've played Might & Magic I-V and right after them - Might & Magic VI - "WTF, who are these Kreegans, so far it's been all about two androids created by the Ancients and experimental space vehicles. Man, this story sucks! No, I don't want to wait until the end of the game, I figured it all already - NWC messed up and are using these Kreegans as an excuse. I'm certain that they knew that they'll mess up at the end of Might & Magic V and that's why they destroyed Corak and Sheltem, the snows..." What you fail to understand is that the lore of the series is not written for people who don't like long and complex stories with multiple sub-scenarios inside the main scenario. This is like blaming Frank Hurbert that the Dune saga is more than 2000 pages long, has too many characters and exotic words in the text.
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted February 01, 2011 06:22 PM |
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I do like long and complex stories as much as any other, and I've also read Herbert's Dune series (save for the last one, as I got rather disheartened knowing that the story would never end), and quite enjoyed them too.
What I don't like is being offered an incomplete piece of a storyline without knowing where to head to next, to find out what's before and after and in between the story. That's what I mean by mess. And I will keep saying it's a mess cause that's the truth, as well. Some of the campaigns concluded in M&M, others in Chronicles (Which I didn't even know of their existence for quite some time), and you go figure!
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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 February 01, 2011 06:44 PM |
bonus applied by Maurice on 08 Jul 2019. |
Edited by Cepheus at 19:55, 01 Feb 2011.
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"New World Computing messed up" is certainly an accurate and a fair statement. You could insist that JVC messed up from the very start by trying to put blasters in a game with elves and goblins, and that's that. You could say NWC messed up by introducing the Forge, which they themselves admitted. You could say they messed up by showing respect to all that premature fan demand, and I would agree there. But I would say they messed up in 1996 by choosing 3DO as publisher. (JVC chose them in the hope of creating Might and Magic Online due to the success of Meridian 59, but CEO Trip Hawkins was rather more concerned with self-aggrandisement, instant profits and time-wasting crap like Portal Runner than strong gaming, preferring to pay out on crappy egotistical marketing and PS2 development instead of actual development budgets and quality dev time. He eventually enforced ungodly nine-month product development cycles, which resulted in things like MM9. You can get a taste of this moron's mentality here. The valiance and ability of NWC's devs were all that kept Heroes IV from being released as an inevitable trainwreck, and instead it was shipped as a debatable and worthy yet derivative piece of the series. The game was a minor miracle under those development conditions. That's why, even with all my opinions on H5's Ashan, I will be quick to shoot down anybody claiming that Ubisoft are dogs and 3DO should be "brought back". Perhaps the H6 marketing budget has been neglected in lieu of funding the development, and I would not be swift to damn that decision, given the series history.)
It's a dead-horse argument anyway, but did the majority of NWC's fans reject the Forge? Well, underestimating the situation would be a mistake since it indirectly resulted in Greg Fulton's resignation and a proposed "boycott" from the Astral Wizard fansite. I think rejecting the Forge was an idiotic thing to do, but I agree that the town was jarring and out-of-place in Heroes up to that date (not in Might and Magic, but in Heroes). It was the first attempt to refocus the series and return to its roots, it got canned and I guess we'll never see it again officially. That resulted in a major limitation on storytelling in the series - no sci-fi allowed - and indeed there was no sci-fi to be seen in the games after Might and Magic VIII. But you (Kodial) said that the majority of fans did/would reject the Forge, and I would say you are mistaken. As Fulton said, ~100 angry letters represent less than 1% of the fanbase, and many fans embraced the faction or at least respected and trusted NWC to deliver. Additionally, none of the whining fans had tried the Forge in action or played the campaign, thus their complaints were inherently misinformed or biased. They could not see the full picture from where they were standing. I say above that the incident indirectly resulted in Fulton quitting because here is a post-Forge interview with him. He does not seem too pissed off and agrees that the Forge was way too sudden, but does not fully give up on introducing sci-fi into Heroes. In this article he says he respects the fan reaction and simply wants to make a game people enjoy. The Forge incident hadn't ruined everything (yet). According to David Mullich (H3, H4 director) it was actually 3DO's refusal to take that one idiot fan's death threat more seriously that led Greg to quit, not the general reaction to the Forge. I would say that that fan and 3DO are at fault here, not NWC or the fanbase. If you think about it, the fan reaction led NWC to work under increased pressure, which led to AB shipping faster, which may have led to Trip stroking his chin and saying "hmm, if they can develop at that kind of increased pace just to satisfy their fans, maybe they'll be able to work twice as quickly if I force them to. Make some calls. Let's pull Heroes IV forward a few years". I don't know. But I think people make a big deal out of the Forge when in fact, in itself, it wasn't that apocalyptic a controversy for the series. 3DO are to blame for ruining NWC and Heroes IV.
Was Heroes IV's storyline a big mess or a screwup? On a subjective level, you could love it or hate it and that would be fine. On the objective levels, as far as the consistency or quality of writing or accessibility go: no, it wasn't. It remained true to HoMM and true to MM, successfully continuing the Ancients VS Kreegans story without even directly mentioning the Ancients. There's no fresher start than a new world... except a new universe, of course.   Anyway, you can't really argue that it was inherently confusing or inaccessible, aside from the abrupt intro cutscene. So you can't say H4's storyline totally sucked in an objective way. Now, Heroes V's storyline sucked in an objective way for the following objective flaws: level design inconsistent with the world map, level design inconsistent with the story, bugs, typos, Khengi, the use of some plotlines which had already been done in this series back in H3, poorly-thought-out character motivations, did I mention Khengi, cheesy voice acting. Tribes of the East improved on a lot of these problems, Heroes VI might even be able to address them all. We'll see.
Was it a mistake to use the destruction of the Enroth setting instead of the Forge to help refocus the series? Was that necessary? Well let's try an example. When H5 came out, Jeff Spock and Richard Dansky promised in this dev diary that in a future episode, when Asha awakens, it will "make things very interesting". Right now, I want to know what's going to happen. But let's say that, hypothetically, in three years we receive an Ashan game with a really great story but no mention at all of the Dragon Gods. There is no reference to Asha and it seems that the old promise has been forgotten. Would you be a bit disappointed that the cosmology of the setting has been neglected? What about Asha? Will you be a bit annoyed that the story has diverged from the point it was building up to - that being, what's going to happen when Asha wakes up? You might not want to blow up Ashan to get back to the point, but you'll probably want to hear about the missing Dragon Gods again in a future game, and when the writers remember what they said, they may decide it will take a cataclysm or something for that to happen seamlessly and realistically. The general feeling is comparable to what happened with H5. The Ancients VS Kreegans storyline was really heating up in Might and Magic 8, Heroes IV set up a great opportunity for a climax to come, a new game gets announced and people are excited, then all of a sudden in 2006 it transpires that there are no Ancients or Kreegans in Might and Magic any more. That storyline remains completely unresolved, and we never learn who the Ancients were or what they've been up to. You could say it wasn't Ubi's responsibility to deal with that or you could say Ubi would have handled it badly, and I guess that's acceptable, but still you may be able to understand that it's quite frustrating to see a good, strong storyline thrown in the bin without fair resolution or even a mention in this new revamp. Ask Firefly fans.
What a lot of old chat. Anyway, as I said, there is no point in whining about which universe is better. We have Ashan now, it's not going anywhere, it could (and should) even be compelling with Heroes VI, and we need to work within its parameters. I think it is a reasonable position to be in and I think the resolution I mentioned is still possible.
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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 February 01, 2011 07:24 PM |
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Thanks for taking the troubles to write such a lenghty reply to me. It's a very interesting read and I was really ignorant of this inner war in 3DO's ranks. I have to tell you though, I've read that it was the majority of fans who rejected the Forge here.
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3ab/forgetown.shtml
Unless I misunderstood something, isn't that what it says? "As I stated before, the typical majority of heroes fans had opposed the Forge, were outraged with it, and some even took drastic action."
I didn't know they are planning for Ashan to wake up at some point and change everything in the world. But umm, now that you say this, I think it can still happen. H6 is a prequel to H5 so it don't count, in DM Sareth chooses to release the Demons and as we see in Heroes Kingdoms (or was it Clash of Heroes? You know what? Ubi does the same mistakes all over again!), the Demons are unleashed and take the world by storm. So one could argue that in H7, Asha could wake up and kick their ass once and for all.
My only argument in defense of Ashan, is that was less chaotic. More simple and coherent, like I said. Other than that, I did say myself alot of times, that it was poorly written. It's just more tolerable, that's all. Anyway, I always saw the similar plotlines to H3 as a tribute to that game but the voice acting did suck very bad!
By the way, what's wrong with Khengi?
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted February 01, 2011 09:26 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 22:41, 01 Feb 2011.
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Why? Because some people might get shocked and send death threats to the devs just because they didn't bother noticing the fact that Heroes of Might and Magic is actually a branch of the Might and Magic series into the TBS genre? Sorry, this is pure laziness for me. I agree that it would have been better if NWC had put some effort into introducing at least some of the sci-fi bits in the first two Heroes games, but I don't think someone can blame them for their logic that if two games share part of the title, it's rather obvious that they might share part of the story as well (or the whole story).
Pure Laziness? So you're saying that people should own every title in another series just for one expansion in this series to make sense. If anything, the lack of previous hints/explanation explanation is laziness on NWC/3DO's part. Now quit with the rich-boy, elitist attitude, and accept that the developers, being only human, can make mistakes.
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Take this example - I haven't played Dark Messiah and I have absolutely no intention to do it - now following your logic I should whine if it appears that there is some important character or element introduced there who seriously affects the Ashan lore, but this character or element is missing or only vaguely described in Heroes V/VI.
Okay, firstly, if you're not going to play it then why do you even care? Secondly, if it's vaguely described its alright, it's when it's not described at all, or even hinted at that issues arise.
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yasmiel
Supreme Hero
Former Chessmaster
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posted February 01, 2011 09:41 PM |
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Edited by yasmiel at 21:45, 01 Feb 2011.
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Ashan gets destroyed by Kreegans in Might and Magic 10. Turns out dragons were just ancient's pets here.
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Cepheus
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Far-flung Keeper
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posted February 01, 2011 09:43 PM |
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Edited by Cepheus at 21:46, 01 Feb 2011.
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Unless I misunderstood something, isn't that what it says?
Yes it does. It's also nothing more than a second-hand account, much like mine (), and is strongly biased in favour of the fans. According to Greg, though:
"No. Total, the number of emails we received asking to remove the Forge were less than 100. I doubt 3DO received much more. As a series, Heroes has sold over 750,000 copies world wide. I would be surprised if more than 5% of the audience would have 'boycotted' the product. However, I still felt 5% was too high."
He does admit that there "wasn't enough" pro-Forge activity, but it did in fact have some support, and again I stress that nobody gave it a chance.
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I think it can still happen
Certainly it will happen, or at least I hope so. Who knows, it may even occur in H6. My example was just hypothetical.
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what's wrong with Khengi?
HAVE NO HONOR
@MattII:
And indeed events between the MM games have always been at least vaguely described in their sequels, H4 inclusive - let me know if you found an exception - so doesn't your argument fall flat on its face to an extent...?
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"Those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it." —Proverb, Might and Magic VIII
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