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| Thread: A prespective from the Ubisoft generation |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted August 16, 2011 10:19 AM |
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Quote:
More than a few people don't like playing RTSs, even M&M, and so aren't going to be aware of the origins. Just because M&M and HoM&M are in the same universe, doesn't mean they have the same audience.
They are not just in the same universe, the share the same lore. The events in Might & Magic VI - VIII take place on the same planet as the events in Heroes I - III and certain characters appear in both games. You don't just ignore that if you want consistency. Otherwise you are a very bad story-teller.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted August 16, 2011 12:47 PM |
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Quote:
They are not just in the same universe, the share the same lore. The events in Might & Magic VI - VIII take place on the same planet as the events in Heroes I - III and certain characters appear in both games. You don't just ignore that if you want consistency. Otherwise you are a very bad story-teller.
Customers aren't story-tellers, they're story-readers. The onus was on NWC/3DO to introduce the sci-fi elements in a gradual way, which thet didn't do.
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Nelgirith
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted August 16, 2011 12:57 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
They are not just in the same universe, the share the same lore. The events in Might & Magic VI - VIII take place on the same planet as the events in Heroes I - III and certain characters appear in both games. You don't just ignore that if you want consistency. Otherwise you are a very bad story-teller.
Customers aren't story-tellers, they're story-readers. The onus was on NWC/3DO to introduce the sci-fi elements in a gradual way, which thet didn't do.
I agree. You can't expect from people who have discovered the saga only with H1/H2/H3 to know something NWC never told them. If NWC wanted to add sci-fi elements, they should have done it from the beginning or they should have been more explicit about it - though I'm not sure H1 would have known the same success with cyber-zombies and naga-tanks.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 16, 2011 01:24 PM |
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Not at all - actually they could have done whatever they wanted, and especially within the frame of an EXPANSION.
In fact, an expansion would have been IDEALLY SUITED for this, ESPECIALLY WITH TWO OF THEM PLANNED. Just an episode, a sideline of the main stream.
Perfectly okay.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted August 16, 2011 01:32 PM |
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Or not so perfectly in the end. You're still at it? Jesus.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted August 16, 2011 01:32 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 13:42, 16 Aug 2011.
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The Forge's only real mistake is the lack of subtlety, i.e. the partial deviation from the sci-fi aspects of the lore. The technology is very crude and has little to do with what is seen in the M&M games. Looks more like steampunk tech than something can expect to see from the "offsprings" of a hyper-advanced civilization. Other than that - there is NO lore mistake. Only the those who consider themselves "Heroes only" fans think of this as a mistake but let's make a logical chain, shall we?
Might and Magic: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum appears in 1986. The story of the entire universe begins with it.
Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest appears in 1995 and is very poor lore-wise. Until this point there are 5 games from the Might and Magic series and the story is well-developed, if overly-centred around 2 characters.
Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars appears in 1996 and is the first Heroes game with some relatively detailed story.
Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven appears in 1998 and begins the primary story-line of the M&M AND the Heroes series with the Kreegan landing on Enroth. Now, no you can isolate the first 5 M&M games as if they never happened because they all took place on different "worlds" and their stories could remain totally unrelated to the new stuff, no matter that they are in the same universe, but now this is no longer possible. The Kreegans arrive via space-ships, you find a bloody super-computer during the adventure, as well as grounded colonization vessel, blasters, guardian machines and whatnot. None of these screams "Look at me! I'm XXX century tech wonder!" from the beginning but you find them, so even if you don't know that the planet was once colonized from space and the now primitive natives once belonged to a highly advanced society, now you know it.
Heroes of Might and Magic III: Restoration of Erathia comes in 1999, that is after Might and Magic VI. Some major events mentioned in Heroes are directly linked to M&M VI - the abduction of Kind Roland for example. The story just continues, it does not start from a scratch. And from this point on just develops.
Now, try to be someone who writes and adds new layers to a story for fourteen freakin' years. Would you suddenly forget everything you've written so far or stop developing it? Why the hell should you do it? There are other games where the fantasy and the sci-fi co-exist quite well (Wizardry, anyone?) and nobody complains, even more, people like it. So now, out of a sudden, you have to stop following the same track because a few hundred people (at most) expressed their loud negative opinion about it which can be correctly translated as "We didn't bother researching the lore but that is your fault!". And please remember that apart from that there were Heroes fans who were also aware of the background which M&M created. Why should they be less significant? I doubt many of them had or have any issues with the (never finished) Forge or the whole sci-fi thing.
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mike80d
Famous Hero
Map Maker
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posted August 16, 2011 01:50 PM |
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I'd be game for the Forge if it were more inline with the Dwarves from Kings Bounty. They had Cannoneers, rudamentary mechanical bots, and different trinket types.
Technology within the M&M world can be done well, but it'd be easy to mess up too.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 16, 2011 02:21 PM |
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But the Forge isn't about introducing "new technology", it's about the fusion of "technology" with living beings. Obviously, there are some prerequsites neceessary: after all, Captain Hook fits that description as well, so you might say, it's about sufficiently threatening technology which needs a certain degree of miniaturization. A Cannon might be impractical to fuse with anything below the size of a Behemoth or Dragon.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted August 16, 2011 02:28 PM |
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Yeah, it didn't look great.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted August 16, 2011 03:26 PM |
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Quote:
Now, try to be someone who writes and adds new layers to a story for fourteen freakin' years. Would you suddenly forget everything you've written so far or stop developing it? Why the hell should you do it? There are other games where the fantasy and the sci-fi co-exist quite well (Wizardry, anyone?) and nobody complains, even more, people like it. So now, out of a sudden, you have to stop following the same track because a few hundred people (at most) expressed their loud negative opinion about it which can be correctly translated as "We didn't bother researching the lore but that is your fault!". And please remember that apart from that there were Heroes fans who were also aware of the background which M&M created. Why should they be less significant? I doubt many of them had or have any issues with the (never finished) Forge or the whole sci-fi thing.
I think that's a completely unfair generalization of the group of people who didn't like the Forge.
I never cared for the Forge concept, and I've played every Might and Magic game to the end. I think the sci-fi element works quite nicely in the RPGs. I don't think it would have in the TBS translations. I always viewed it as an unwelcome anachronism is a fantasy-based strategy game.
Though M&M and HOM&M both belong to the same game universe and share story elements, they still are very different sorts of games. Generally speaking, I think it's unreasonable to conclude that what works in one would automatically work in the other, just by virtue of the fact that they share some similar characters and place names.
Well that's just one guy's opinion - mine. Thankfully you have WoG so you can mod the game to your heart's content. For my part, I'll never install any mod that equips orcs with machine guns, because it just doesn't capture my interest, and I'll never buy an official HOMM game that does it either, and for the same reason. What works in or appeared in MM RPGs has nothing to do with it as far as I'm concerned.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted August 16, 2011 03:37 PM |
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Quote:
I'll never install any mod that equips orcs with machine guns, because it just doesn't capture my interest, and I'll never buy an official HOMM game that does it either, and for the same reason.
I think you go quite fast there. You are the best placed to know that some modifications look natural to the game, when the story, arguments and graphics behind are solid. While it is difficult to mix science fictions graphics with regular, one may create a full mod where only one of aspects is present. Backed with a great story and well done design, it could provide a great gaming experience.
After all, one could also say "I will never play or buy a mod where a castle walls are destroyed by a bomb placed under, because that's catapult role" and doing it by other means has no interest
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Era II mods and utilities
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 16, 2011 03:58 PM |
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There are far too many people who see a "Fantasy World" as something closed, as a world, firmly set in some context.
However, each Fantasy World is a FANTASTIC world, first and foremost, which means that everything can happen. Really everything. That there IS NO firmly set context.
If I'm honest, I think that those people are doing the fantastic aspect of it no justice. For example, they argue that "technology" will be superior to conventional weapons like swords and crossbows, and having them there would be unrealistic.
But that's just because they imagine the Middle Ages on one hand and the Iraq War on the other and try to mix those, like they would play Civilization - but that's of course a very limited view. Fantasy doesn't mean we are living in a historical medieval world. It is, after all a FANTASTIC world with MAGIC, and the efficiency of "modern" weapons may simply be reduced. They may work differently. In fact they may work in any desired way. Remember, if Magic is supposed to work, the laws of nature must work in a way we don't understand.
That leaves aesthetics - and, yep, the Forge would have been ugly and "unfitting" - which is of course deliberately so. As I said so often: FINALLY someone came up with something REALLY evil, and lo and behold, suddenly it was TOO evil.
The Forge would have been an episode. Somehow like the Alien coming down on a fairy world. Something that doesn't look cute, not in the least.
A very interesting question would have been - how would the music theme of the Forge have sounded?
Anyway, I think I'm sick of people who know what fits and what not - as if that was an interesting or even relevant question. It would assume something like an underlying order AND that it would be somewhat better to keep to that order. I wouldn't know about such a thing.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted August 16, 2011 04:03 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 16:03, 16 Aug 2011.
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@Salamandre
Except there's historical precedent for mining under a castle to take down the walls, with or without black powder. More to the point, I think you'll agree there's a conceptual difference between black powder, which existed in our Middle Ages, and laser guns or cyborgs. One requires a little suspension of disbelief. The other stretches the bounds of credibility past the point of breaking.
I take your point, but for me negative feelings about the forge concept go beyond the quality of implementation.
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Warmonger
Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
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posted August 16, 2011 04:05 PM |
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And from "perspective of Ubisoft generation" you derived Cepheus' law.
Calm down, when Forge comes out, everyone will be able to play it. Or not play it. Luckily, there will be at least two version to choose from, but I'm hoping for the third
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The future of Heroes 3 is here!
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted August 16, 2011 04:09 PM |
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Quote:
FINALLY someone came up with something REALLY evil, and lo and behold, suddenly it was TOO evil.
Err, what?
What's alignment have to do with anything?
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted August 16, 2011 04:14 PM |
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Depends of your imagination. In game graphics can be interpreted in various ways. For me, if I was new to the game, I would say that archimages and evil eyes use laser technology when shooting because it looks like a laser, and the sound too. Aside the weird name which could disturb, as machine gun goblins, the visual effect will not be much more different than an evil eye shot.
Same for RPG. Some enjoy role playing in Heroes, many others will just say that such thing has not its place inside. But if one plays the game and reads attentively the messages of various objects, he will never be able to say again that Heroes has nothing from RPG. They are there, and completely independent from game mechanics, also they try to suggest that there is a life and possibly a hidden character beyond each object and special event.
"You come upon a battle where a Paladin has been mortally wounded by a group of Zombies. He asks you to take his sword and finish what he started. As you pick it up, it begins to hum, and then everything becomes a blur. The Zombies lie dead, the sword dripping with blood. You strap it to your belt."
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Era II mods and utilities
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted August 16, 2011 04:40 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 16:46, 16 Aug 2011.
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I think that's a completely unfair generalization of the group of people who didn't like the Forge.
I never cared for the Forge concept, and I've played every Might and Magic game to the end. I think the sci-fi element works quite nicely in the RPGs. I don't think it would have in the TBS translations. I always viewed it as an unwelcome anachronism is a fantasy-based strategy game.
Though M&M and HOM&M both belong to the same game universe and share story elements, they still are very different sorts of games. Generally speaking, I think it's unreasonable to conclude that what works in one would automatically work in the other, just by virtue of the fact that they share some similar characters and place names.
Well that's just one guy's opinion - mine. Thankfully you have WoG so you can mod the game to your heart's content. For my part, I'll never install any mod that equips orcs with machine guns, because it just doesn't capture my interest, and I'll never buy an official HOMM game that does it either, and for the same reason. What works in or appeared in MM RPGs has nothing to do with it as far as I'm concerned.
Whether you like it or not has nothing to do with the fact that it is 100% legitimate addition to the Might and Magic universe which includes Heroes as well. I simply don't understand this reasoning. It is not like NWC introduced a something shockingly new with absolutely no background or reference in any previous game from the same lore. What they did is to finally bring together two series which had ONE major storyline all the time. That's it! The end! Just because some people didn't know (more than) half of this story doesn't mean that it didn't exist or it was saved for some overly-dedicated fans and kept away from the masses. You don't like RPGs? That's fine. You don't care about the Might and Magic games? Cool as well. But when you start accusing the Forge of being "alien" to the Heroes games, you do so from the position of the ignorance. Taste has nothing to do with this.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted August 16, 2011 04:55 PM |
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Taste has everything to do with it when you're only voicing your opinion/personal point of view.
Big deal, can't change history, etc, etc.
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Warmonger
Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
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posted August 16, 2011 04:59 PM |
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Zenofex. The mere fact that you can make up a story doesn't mean it will be good and everyone will like it. That's the case here.
People don't like Forge appearing in H3 and they forced NWC to abadon it. So simple.
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The future of Heroes 3 is here!
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 16, 2011 05:00 PM |
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Quote:
Except there's historical precedent for mining under a castle to take down the walls, with or without black powder. More to the point, I think you'll agree there's a conceptual difference between black powder, which existed in our Middle Ages, and laser guns or cyborgs. One requires a little suspension of disbelief. The other stretches the bounds of credibility past the point of breaking.
Which is wrong logic and therefore not so. If you describe a fantastic world with "alien" laws of nature (magic??), just because SOMETHING in this world reminds of a certain known something, just because there is a similarity, it doesn't mean that the similarity can't end at ANY moment or that everything would have to be like it has been in the similar part of real existing Earth.
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