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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted April 28, 2011 12:08 PM |
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Edited by Avirosb at 12:09, 28 Apr 2011.
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Quote:
"we tried to reduce management, especially micro-management. We want the player to feel like a commander in battle and not like some town builder"
This makes no sense. Town building, as well as arms racing has always been an integral part of warfare.
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Jabanoss
Promising
Legendary Hero
Property of Nightterror™
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posted April 28, 2011 12:11 PM |
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Let me ask you guys a question.
Really, how much animated were the old town screen?
Not much?
That's right, they at best only had some blinking light or bats flying in the background.
I think it's safe to assume that H6's towns will have as much or more animation then the previous ones. (but hey that's just me being positive. XD)
And yeah lucky_dwarf and War-overlord, you are not the only ones...
Hmm when I think about it the easiest solution for Ubihole would be to still have the town windows and then just make the rest of the map black. In that way, when you enter a town you will be under the illusion that you truly are in the city. 
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"You turn me on Jaba"
- Meroe
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted April 28, 2011 12:15 PM |
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Or that someone turned off the lights around you and is closing in for the kill  Your refuge is so small, you are so alone 
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Dark-Whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
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posted April 28, 2011 12:56 PM |
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As I said million times before town screens are all about atmosphere and immersion.
We could have perfectly efficient and fast right click menu on town in adventure map - that would be fastest, easiest and most comprehensive way to build your town and hire creatures.
No need for artwork, no need for music, no loading time just right click build or buy. Few seconds and its over, you can be on your way to fight glorious battles and explore uncharted places.
I guess then 95% of people would be enraged...
Why?
Because town screens are about your town, something you build from scratch with resources you earned through blood and battle. You watch your center of operations rise from hut to magnificent and intimidating castle.
That feeling when you enter your city, that flourishes under your rule cannot be replaced by pop up window. It just cant.
I think that everybody thought at least few times when they enter town: "Wow, this music is great, the opera, the atmosphere, look how good this art looks."
And computer art over the years can only get better so don't compare Heroes 3 town screens from 11 years ago or Heroes 4 from 9 years ago with something that can be made today in much higher resolution, with better effects and todays technology.
I have expected that new towns will be breathtaking, box art dominating marvel of modern gaming, instead I guess we will get "Gameplay faster then ever, with removed townscreens" line on the back of the box in which it will be shipped.
And another thing - that placeholder from Cologne GamesCom from August 2010 is same as "first ever town window" we saw yesterday. I don't like being treated like a fool.
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Davy
Known Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 01:00 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Can someone explain what are the MOTIVES of Ubisoft for having such an idiocy instead of traditional, animated town screens? 
I have my own theory for the motives, based on the official Ubihole interviews / responses we have witnessed in the last months.
One of the new directions they are giving the Heroes franchise seems to be the simplification of the strategy/RPG/management formula that has been the trademark of the game since its beginnings.
As Erwan LeBreton said in one of the interview clips himself , in Heroes 6 they are focussing on the strategy/RPG part of the ame and remove as much of the resource/kingdom management elements as possible. Or, to put it in his own words, "we tried to reduce management, especially micro-management. We want the player to feel like a commander in battle and not like some town builder"
Here are the main manifestations of this change as I see them:
a)less rare resources
b)less cat-and-mouse due to the area-of-control system
c)less tiers in town and simpler, toned-down towns in general
I perceive the new town screens to be a direct consequence of point c).
Smaller town windows means that towns automatically play a smaller role in the game and players shouldn't waste as much of their time on them as they did in previous installments of Heroes.
I have to disagree with c)
I think the towns will probably play a bigger role.
Why?Because there are now 4 unique buildings for each faction(and only two can be built).I am not sure,but I've read,that for example one of the necropolis makes your fallen creatures rerecruitable,giving you a really big bonus.
And less tiers doesn't make the game simplier,but it makes it more complicated(in a good way),since in earlier games you knew which unit was better than the other units,but now you have to decide yourself which would be better at which time for you....
All in all I can understand the people who are complaining about the town window,but I think,that many of you are overreacting,especially when someone says,that he doesn't want to buy the game anymore,because of this.
I mean seriously it is just an optical change and nothing important(and I say that even though I loved the town screens in the past games,I loved it to use the buildings to recruit my creatures in H3 and I don't like the town windows at all)....
I just hope that they will give use townscreens in an expansion.
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mancubus
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 01:47 PM |
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Quote:
And another thing - that placeholder from Cologne GamesCom from August 2010 is same as "first ever town window" we saw yesterday. I don't like being treated like a fool.
I noticed that too and would call attitude like that from Ubihole downright insulting.
Most of us already know that town screens aren't really "work in progress", but "work in regress" instead. And just about done they seem to be.
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The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
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posted April 28, 2011 02:18 PM |
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Since this is going straight to the devs, I'll try to be somewhat decent, but remember; If You had made acceptable Town Screens, this all wouldn't be happening!
Dear UbiHole,
Look, I simply do not understand why this is even happening. Why didn't You stick with full-screen Town Screens? In my humble opinion, in this case, the old "If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it!" proverb should have applied. You shook up the Heroes-formula quite a bit, and You definitely had the right to do so - after all, if You had left everything untouched, the end result would have been indistinguishable from the previous games, and therefore a catastrophe, since it would only be Homm x 2.0, and not a new installment. So, I'm still reserving judgment regarding most changes - they deserve to only be judged after I have had a chance to try them out in-game. BUT I'm unable to do so in the case of Town Screen-wannabes(Read: Town "Windows"), for I spent many a day literally marveling at their beauty in previous games( With the obvious exception of H4, but in that case, the company responsible for it was on the verge of bankruptcy, which at least makes the end result understandable). They really captured the look and feel of a magical city, they weren't just a necessary interface to gain various gameplay advantages, and it was always nice to see them slowly developing over time; they reflected your growing power, and they did an excellent job of it. Sometimes, when one was at the brink of losing the game, it was a comfort to just enter, and leave the thought of impending defeat behind, taking a last look at one's beautiful city.
Now, You intend to remove this aspect by making microscopic "Town Windows", which seem to be there only as a necessary evil, no longer the artistic representation of a lively metropolis, just a soulless interface, with a painting slapped onto it. I again ask You: Why? The only answer I was given states, that it was done in order to ensure a faster gameplay, claiming that the (almost nonexistent) delay when one switched from the adventure map to the Town Screen was unbearably huge for multiplayer. THIS IS HOMM WE'RE TALKING ABOUT, NOT GODDAMN STARCRAFT! It is TURN-BASED, not REAL-TIME! Minuscule delays(Which ae negligible on today's(or even yesterday's) computers, by the way) only affect the overall duration of the game, NOT the outcome, making this excuse seem more than weak. Multiplayer is a great part of HOMM, yes, but NOT THE ONLY PART! If multiplayers find the game too slow for their liking, they always have the option of finding something else to play, whereas decisions like these also affect single players, for whom the duration of the game is of no concern, and still they would have to put up with the disadvantages, while not having any discernible advantages to counterbalance them.
You could say, that technically it is no longer HOMM but MM:H6, but it is common knowledge that the name-change was for marketing purposes only, and for all intents and purposes this is still a part of the HOMM series.
If You really want us to worry about microseconds lost, go and make a real-time strategy instead. There is a distinct possibility however, that for some mysterious reason, You didn't want to tell us the real cause of this decision, in which case I dare You to go find an acceptable one, and present it.
Do You want to know how I feel about Town Screen wannabes? I feel they're the greatest blunder of 25 years of Might 'n' Magic, and for the moment at least, You have absolutely no valid arguments to hide behind! You will have found many excuses by now, but the fact remains, that You needlessly, unscrupulously and cruelly tortured and disfigured a hallmark of the series! And instead of trying frantically to repair your error while You still can, You do absolutely NOTHING. I'm sure the game will turn out fine, and I will buy it nonetheless, but I will never be able to completely forgive You for these abominations You call Town Windows, unless You admit they were a mistake, and work round the clock to correct them as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely:
The_Polyglot
P. S.: Congrats on the rest of the game, it really looks promising! Who knows, it might just turn out to be a legend to rival HOMM 3! It is most surprising that you satisfy almost all the demands of veterans, while still being able to add a new flavor to the franchise, and then You decide on Town Windows...
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Friend-shaped
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TwinMatrix
Hired Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 02:29 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Can someone explain what are the MOTIVES of Ubisoft for having such an idiocy instead of traditional, animated town screens?
I have my own theory for the motives, based on the official Ubihole interviews / responses we have witnessed in the last months.
One of the new directions they are giving the Heroes franchise seems to be the simplification of the strategy/RPG/management formula that has been the trademark of the game since its beginnings.
As Erwan LeBreton said in one of the interview clips himself , in Heroes 6 they are focussing on the strategy/RPG part of the ame and remove as much of the resource/kingdom management elements as possible. Or, to put it in his own words, "we tried to reduce management, especially micro-management. We want the player to feel like a commander in battle and not like some town builder"
Here are the main manifestations of this change as I see them:
a)less rare resources
b)less cat-and-mouse due to the area-of-control system
c)less tiers in town and simpler, toned-down towns in general
I perceive the new town screens to be a direct consequence of point c).
Smaller town windows means that towns automatically play a smaller role in the game and players shouldn't waste as much of their time on them as they did in previous installments of Heroes.
I have to disagree with c)
I think the towns will probably play a bigger role.
Why?Because there are now 4 unique buildings for each faction(and only two can be built).I am not sure,but I've read,that for example one of the necropolis makes your fallen creatures rerecruitable,giving you a really big bonus.
And less tiers doesn't make the game simplier,but it makes it more complicated(in a good way),since in earlier games you knew which unit was better than the other units,but now you have to decide yourself which would be better at which time for you....
All in all I can understand the people who are complaining about the town window,but I think,that many of you are overreacting,especially when someone says,that he doesn't want to buy the game anymore,because of this.
I mean seriously it is just an optical change and nothing important(and I say that even though I loved the town screens in the past games,I loved it to use the buildings to recruit my creatures in H3 and I don't like the town windows at all)....
I just hope that they will give use townscreens in an expansion.
Not important? Hahaha.
Yeah, I won't be buying the game if the town screens are bad. I'll still be trying/playing the game through a different method, though. I just won't be supporting Ubisoft financially for such screw ups. :')
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Wckey
Famous Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 02:51 PM |
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About Inferno Town Screen, it can be good or it can be bad.
I would like to see a video in 1080p of a Town Window fully built and animated before saying anything about it.
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Come back soon, Elvin!
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MadDoctor
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 04:24 PM |
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Quote:
About Inferno Town Screen, it can be good or it can be bad.
I would like to see a video in 1080p of a Town Window fully built and animated before saying anything about it.
Nooo, it can't be good! This picture is bad even for level 1 town without anything build in it! And I don't need a HD video, because this IS the real size of the thing...and what if it's "animated"? What exactly can be animated? Some cheap fire and smoke effects + ....I just don't see anything worth mentioning  Don't forget that we'll have only five town windows / screens in the vanilla game
1. Necropolis - acceptable at most...
2. Inferno - terrible
and judging from the pictures so far, the town windows resemble the map model of the castles, so the Haven one can turn to be also veeery uninspiring!
My message to the devs - TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY, GUYS! It can ruin the whole game! Put an effort into it and make something worth watching or else just make an option to turn this miserable windows completely off!
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Davy
Known Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 04:36 PM |
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Quote:
Not important? Hahaha.
Yeah, I won't be buying the game if the town screens are bad. I'll still be trying/playing the game through a different method, though. I just won't be supporting Ubisoft financially for such screw ups. :')
Yes for the gameplay itself it is not really important if you have town screens or town windows.
And this is getting ridiculous,I mean you are even saying you still want to have the game,but just decide,that you won't buy it,because of an aesthetic change.I mean you even say,that you still want to buy the game,so it can't be that you see everything from H6 as bad,which again means,that there are things you like,but where you just don't see the need to "support" Ubi for them,because they screwed one(not even for the gameplay important element)up.
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KingImp
Famous Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 04:44 PM |
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Quote:
The only answer I was given states, that it was done in order to ensure a faster gameplay, claiming that the (almost nonexistent) delay when one switched from the adventure map to the Town Screen was unbearably huge for multiplayer. THIS IS HOMM WE'RE TALKING ABOUT, NOT GODDAMN STARCRAFT! It is TURN-BASED, not REAL-TIME! Minuscule delays(Which ae negligible on today's(or even yesterday's) computers, by the way) only affect the overall duration of the game, NOT the outcome, making this excuse seem more than weak. Multiplayer is a great part of HOMM, yes, but NOT THE ONLY PART! If multiplayers find the game too slow for their liking, they always have the option of finding something else to play, whereas decisions like these also affect single players, for whom the duration of the game is of no concern, and still they would have to put up with the disadvantages, while not having any discernible advantages to counterbalance them.
This is my favorite part and the one I most have a problem with when they give their ridiculous reasons for the change.
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Lichking012
Known Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 04:47 PM |
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Honestly, I liked the picture just fine. It's a town that is barely developed, and has 2 maybe 3 buildings built. I'm fine with the design, I despise the interface. It's horrible. Is it REALLY that hard to have multiple sizes for the town screen? The game will support what 6 to 10 different resolutions? I really don't see how it can be that complicated to fit the screen to those resolutions. The UI looks awful. and it completely ruins the feel of the town window. Until this issue is resolved, either by making it a full screen or blacking out the background, and changing the absolutely unacceptable User Interface,consider this game removed from my list of games I will be purchasing.
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dark-whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
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posted April 28, 2011 04:52 PM |
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First we didn't believe that first "placeholders" were actual town screens.
"Positive" people said that we should wait because whole thing is work in progress and windows couldn't possibly be that bad. Now, eight months later, we see exactly same design and the story changes from those same people.
Now suddenly design isn't that bad and screens from previous heroes aren't that good. Interactivity and immersion, atmosphere - non important any more. Vast majority should just accept lesser solution and stay quiet because precious developer which makes immaculate game could get angry. LOL!
And whats next? We have to see animated version to truly see how bad it is? How uninteractive and flavorless they can be in 1080p?
And then some people cant understand basic stuff...
If something isn't gamebreaking it doesn't mean it isn't important. It is important for game and its legacy.
Why people keep complaining about Heroes V story? Its not important for gameplay. At all!!! And still Ubi has hired writers in attempt to rise story to higher level. That shows how unimportant things for gameplay are important for game itself.
Didn't you notice that nobody said that town windows are awesome idea? Range of its greatness goes from "I don't care" to "Its fine, because I don't care". It says a lot about it, doesen't it?
And at the end what I cant stand is after admitting that they know about town windows issue, they serve us same screen with different picture eight months later. That's arrogant and ignorant behavior combined.
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mytheroes
Famous Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 05:12 PM |
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Quote:
It's a town that is barely developed, and has 2 maybe 3 buildings built.
"Rank 4-4000 gold/day" is barely developed?
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mancubus
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 05:43 PM |
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Quote:
First we didn't believe that first "placeholders" were actual town screens.
"Positive" people said that we should wait because whole thing is work in progress and windows couldn't possibly be that bad. Now, eight months later, we see exactly same design and the story changes from those same people.
Now suddenly design isn't that bad and screens from previous heroes aren't that good. Interactivity and immersion, atmosphere - non important any more.
So true. The only thing that seemed to be changed was the picture: now Inferno instead of Necropolis.
Maybe Ubihole's next "solution" would be to provide us with town artwork that we could then print out and after that maybe fold the paper so we could have a 3D model sitting right next to our computer when Heroes 6 is being played (accordingly 2D version meaning no folding and 2.5D folding the facade and side walls)?
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Wckey
Famous Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 07:15 PM |
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Quote:
"Rank 4-4000 gold/day" is barely developed?
Quote:
3. Will there be townscreens?
There are town windows, and they work as follows:
- The town screen is actually a town window. It is designed to remain the same size whatever your screen resolution is, even if you use a 16:9 monitor.
- The town visuals will be animated and are what could be described as "2.5D".
- Each town has its own musical theme (as usual).
- The town visuals change when you build stuff (although in the current design, not all buildings appear). - Building and recruiting is done through the window interface, rather than clicking on the buildings directly.
Being positive isn't the same as waiting for the full thing before give an opinion.
When I say I don't care if it is a Town Window, I mean I don't care the size of the town. If H3 towns were Town Screens I wouldn't like them less.
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Come back soon, Elvin!
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dark-whisperer
Famous Hero
Darkness feels no mercy
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posted April 28, 2011 07:28 PM |
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I will quote myself from official forum:
Quote:
Yes, lets show us town window that didn't evolve a bit from august 2010, but zoom in so we don't see how small it is, place word current design in explanation and ofc stick "work in progress" sign so we can all feel warm and fuzzy inside.
The arrogance...
Few tricks to mask core of the problem. Zoom, words current and work in progress to try to divert our intention. And its so transparent that even child can see trough it.
The truth is that they didn't move for 8 months and that current design is current for looooooong time. They will never move unless we at least try to push them.
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infinitus
Supreme Hero
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posted April 28, 2011 08:59 PM |
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Quote:
They will never move unless we at least try to push them.
This topic is good illustration of how low is influence of community opinion on Ubihole, we can wright here 17 pages, vote for town screen at 80%, tons of arguments, etc ... And all this have no influence on Ubihole opinion. They will continue their plan - maximum profit with minimum finances ...
____________
Nothing's impossible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=loCSLJ6IodY
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SoilBurn
Known Hero
BurnsSoil
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posted April 28, 2011 09:41 PM |
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Edited by SoilBurn at 21:43, 28 Apr 2011.
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Few tricks to mask core of the problem. Zoom, words current and work in progress to try to divert our intention. And its so transparent that even child can see trough it.
The truth is that they didn't move for 8 months and that current design is current for looooooong time.
Lol, this is so obvious I didn't even feel the need to mention it in my post before.
The image shown yesterday is more than obviously cropped.
Nobody should be fooled by the shape of the picture and mistake it for a screenshot. It is not, just compare the size of hero/creatures icons vs. town pic size and then look again at the supposed "alpha version" Necro town window we know since months. They are one and the same (only this time the picture is one of a generic Inferno town)
Quote:
I have to disagree with c)
I think the towns will probably play a bigger role.
Why?Because there are now 4 unique buildings for each faction(and only two can be built).I am not sure,but I've read,that for example one of the necropolis makes your fallen creatures rerecruitable,giving you a really big bonus.
From your post I assume that you have missed some of the insider comments in the H6 iscussion thread. It is well known that the total amount of buildings available to build in each town is going to be less than in previous Heroes installments (e.g. no Mages Guil)
And what is so special about the 2/4 unique town buildings? Aren't those standard in every Heroes game? (each Heroes 5 town had at least 5, and you could build them all. Just check the info pages on the main site)
Quote:
This makes no sense. Town building, as well as arms racing has always been an integral part of warfare.
Tell me about it. Le Breton's statement makes no sense to me either.
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