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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted February 11, 2021 10:32 PM |
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I think he meant out of context for his mod, as he aims to satisfy an audience as large as possible, hence the attempt to try and stick to the "H3 feeling" and standards as much as possible. Although I can't speak for him, this is just how I see it after months of helping TUM a bit as well as following and playing the mod, which is, together with ACM, the "streamline" mod for ERA.
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Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?
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treth
Tavern Dweller
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posted February 11, 2021 11:04 PM |
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Salamandre said:
When will Hota try to match "modern standards"?
You see the irony.
There is not any irony in here. Let's compare HotA with base WoG/Era package. HotA at least has clear direction, each and every asset and change was created and put in game intently. Whether you like HotA or not, it was clearly meticulously crafted and well put together with design decisions in mind, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics. WoG on the other hand, after all these years, looks cobbled up together, disjointed and inconsistent. It is not a surprise HotA is considered a standard for casual player when they have to look at both fan addons and make choice to pick one, where one looks like it was made by professional game developer, and the other looks like what you get by downloading bunch of blind-picked mods for skyrim. The fact that you need to mod Era to get something you are able to look at in the first place is rather insulting, not even to the users, but to the platform itself.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 12, 2021 12:46 AM |
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You have obviously no clue what you are talking about. The Era scripting manual is one of the most completed modding manuals for any game, including the most recent ones. It has been "clearly meticulously crafted and well put together with modding decisions in mind", to quote you.
You keep insisting on details which are NOT by any meanings WoG's aims, as "assets", "aesthetics" and "direction". Era is a modding platform, it delivers a scripting language capable to modify almost any aspect in the game, it doesn't come with a "direction", none of modding platforms do.
What is the direction and the assets of Mod Buddy (Civilization) or Creation Kit (Skyrim), you tell us. Can they create or improve graphics? No, you have to use external graphic tools to get that, none of them connected or shipped with the platform.
When I said "the irony", I was implying I can also believe I am the hub of the world therefore my only standards matter, then bicker about Hota being a failure because I can't mod it. It is not its scope, as much as delivering nice assets and aesthetics was never WoG's one. This being said, if someone is enough skilled and motivated to create nice graphics as an addition, modders will happily use them for whatever mod they have in mind. Or maybe not. So far, I don't see Era modders rush themselves in a traffic jam for using Hota graphics, so that may give you some hints about what these guys prioritize or are interested in.
treth said:
The fact that you need to mod Era to get something you are able to look at in the first place is rather insulting, not even to the users, but to the platform itself.
I suggest you either do some research about what Era is (it's detailed description here) or you stop jabbering about because your phrase makes no sense whatsoever. What it says is "if you need to use a scripting language to mod something, it is rather insulting". You realize that is nonsense, right?
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Era II mods and utilities
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VMaiko
Known Hero
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posted February 12, 2021 01:08 AM |
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Salamandre, I say "out of context" when there is a hodgepodge of graphics that makes no sense, it's not the same to compare a map with a completely homogeneous environment than an assortment of graphics ripped from creatures and objects, for my part, my mod is based on a competition in which graphics and gameplay style are used similar to the native one.
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Djolaf
Hired Hero
mechanized madness
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posted February 12, 2021 03:56 AM |
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Edited by Djolaf at 04:05, 12 Feb 2021.
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treth said:
Salamandre said:
When will Hota try to match "modern standards"?
You see the irony.
There is not any irony in here. Let's compare HotA with base WoG/Era package. HotA at least has clear direction, each and every asset and change was created and put in game intently. Whether you like HotA or not, it was clearly meticulously crafted and well put together with design decisions in mind, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics. WoG on the other hand, after all these years, looks cobbled up together, disjointed and inconsistent. It is not a surprise HotA is considered a standard for casual player when they have to look at both fan addons and make choice to pick one, where one looks like it was made by professional game developer, and the other looks like what you get by downloading bunch of blind-picked mods for skyrim. The fact that you need to mod Era to get something you are able to look at in the first place is rather insulting, not even to the users, but to the platform itself.
It really only depends on YOU and what you are looking for. These are 2 very different things! WoG is a tool for mod-making, HotA is a fan-made expansion.
Do you just want to play a fun heroes 3 game? You can do that with regular H3, or HotA, or even the cursed upscale-airbrush edition. But, if you want to create mods, to experiment, to add stuff, no matter how it looks like, then you have WoG as your tool. It's like minecraft, you have blocks and you make stuff, make whatever you want!  It's not the most beautiful tool, but it's the best tool we have for the original H3, as we never had the source code and it was all reverse-engineered and cobbled together. There's also VCMI, if you want to make mods, but in my opinion and in my heart, it will never be like H3, because I like H3's RNG, predictable AI and all the tiny coding bits that make it unique.
You said it yourself, HotA would be a good choice for a casual player and you are very right! They just wanna have fun in a game and they can in HotA.
Also, HotA crew is closed and secretive, from what I know. They don't let any other people in and they don't share their techniques or source code, almost like a real game developer company. I guess they don't want anyone to ruin their expansion by modding and tarnish its name, maybe. You can't even make a bloody campaign in it! The only thing they share with us is their work in progress and in the end, their finished work.
I don't see a discussion here. You need to figure for yourself what you want. If you want to improve WoG, you can join and try to do it. I don't know what your ideas are. Do you want a "basic mod package" or do you want good graphics? All those can be made, but some work needs to be done to make it happen. You can even pay people to make it for you, if you want it so much 
Salamandre said:
There is no such thing as "out of context". Once you have the ability of scripting role playing environment, you need a database of objects emphasizing your story. A modder should not have his hands tied to Homm3 atmosphere, he must be able to imagine any universe he likes, then materialize it. It's a matter of individualism, not some ideology.
[url=http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=30484&PID=985630#focus]HERE[/url] is Homm3 editor used and modified to support a different background of ideas, does it look "out of context"?
It exactly suits to the context it is used for.
I feel like it's a shame it can't be a small scenario at least, it does look pretty cool, even though it's not really the heroes style. I felt something.
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Treth
Tavern Dweller
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posted February 12, 2021 04:10 AM |
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Edited by Treth at 04:37, 12 Feb 2021.
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Sure, there is scripts and endless possibilities, but why does it have to be bundled with a mess that you need to replace if you want to have enjoyable experience. My gripe with WoG, and by extent with Era since it uses WoG as its default and main mod, is that why does the platform has to come with pack of something nobody put any deeper thought into. I'm just dumbfounded by the fact that nobody seems to see it as a problem. Why WoG can't have any artistic decency on its own?
You can accuse me of focusing on petty details, that supposedly don't matter because my opinion isn't valid because I have a preference. But notice that it is the details that set masterpieces apart from everything else. By insulting i meant that this platform deserves better for its potential than to be frontloaded with ancient graphics that never belonged in the first place. Imagine getting hands on best possible tabletop rpg manual, that comes shipped with ugliest, cheapest plastic figures for players and monsters that you're supposed to throw away and use your hand crafted ones instead. That's what WoG feels like. It detracts from percieved value, user experience, and is in the end unnecessary.
And don't you even start on 'but there are games with modding tools but they don't come with their own graphics editor'. This statement doesn't get you any ground in the argument. It would if the only skyrim mods were using the same assets with different names, stats in different quests and locations and whatnot. However people do make their own, dedicated models, they do it despite no developer graphic tools. It just takes more ambition and effort to make a mod, addon, or even complete conversion of a game where every element was made with care and put in as important fragment of the whole, in contrast of suddenly tossing something with no plan of effort, but with 'eh, whatever' attitude. If there are new creatures and objects included in WoG, why do they have to work against the whole addon? Why keep stubbornly including them at all in that case, if all they do is scare of potential new users? Why not try packing this scripting platform together with something that would rather attract people instead? WoG on its own is a thing big enough that it should have matured by now, and delivered on all fronts it touches upon, or cut it where it wouldn't bother.
WoG is not just a modding platform, since it has units, artifacts, objects, campaigns, gameplay mechanics. It needs to solve its identity crisis by either by fixing all these features that 'kind of are there to make it an addon but don't treat that too seriously' or just scrap that whole idea.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 12, 2021 06:15 AM |
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Treth said:
why does it have to be bundled with a mess that you need to replace if you want to have enjoyable experience.
The creatures are optional, if one doesn't like them he just turns them off. They are one option among hundreds. Then you assume that everyone looks from same perspective as yours. No, people enjoy different things.
Now, to add a counter argument, if someone enjoys Heroes in its original form and mechanics - which was the main promise of Hota, where is the Off option for all the changes Hota forced upon, different effects of skills, buildings prerequisites, artifacts pattern? See, nothing is flawless.
Treth said:
My gripe with WoG, and by extent with Era since it uses WoG as its default and main mod, is that why does the platform has to come with pack of something nobody put any deeper thought into.
You just don't listen nor read. Thousands of testing hours were required a) to find addresses for each action in game, b) to build the manual and detail all the possibilities. What is a deeper thought for you, put some fancy graphics and to what purpose? They are already in the game, ready to use. What we lacked was action. The graphics WoG added in 2003 were sorta of generic graphics, to support the new coding horizons.
Sure, it would have been a bonus to have better creatures, but at that moment there is no way that such minor weakness should have stopped the development.
Treth said:
Why WoG can't have any artistic decency on its own?
The artistic dimension is given by modders, a coding language can't be "artistic". Is English language "artistic" by its own? No, is poets and writers who transcend it. There are some WoG mods and maps out there who have nothing to be ashamed for. Have you played any or just criticizing the whole thing using the 2002 graphics argument?
Treth said:
However people do make their own, dedicated models, they do it despite no developer graphic tools. It just takes more ambition and effort to make a mod, addon, or even complete conversion of a game where every element was made with care and put in as important fragment of the whole, in contrast of suddenly tossing something with no plan of effort, but with 'eh, whatever' attitude.
What an arrogant statement. Such mod wouldn't survive one day. People generally put in thousands of hours, to make everything work as expected, then hundreds of hours of tests, then deliver for free. Then you drop in from nowhere, accusing them of lack of ambition and laziness. Show us the path then !
Treth said:
If there are new creatures and objects included in WoG, why do they have to work against the whole addon?
They are as option, you click On or Off. If Off they don't show. Everything is optional in WoG, that seems fair to me. But as you are interested only in graphics, looks like WoG isn't at all your thing.
Treth said:
Why keep stubbornly including them at all in that case, if all they do is scare of potential new users?
You are trying there an argument from authority but without any factual evidence. Tons of people are enthusiasts and thankful about new mods coming out. In general Hota fans would circumvent WoG and that's normal. You ignore (seeing you joined in 2020) that this forum survived and grew to what is today thanks to WoG and all that during 15 long years.
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Era II mods and utilities
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RerryR
Promising
Supreme Hero
Researching Magic
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posted February 12, 2021 07:45 AM |
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Edited by RerryR at 08:30, 12 Feb 2021.
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treth said:
RerryR said:
[...] you cannot just come in a old WoG thread and say: "Well that ain't so pretty lul".
These graphics were made like 10 years ago and at that time nobody really cared how they looked, it was enough that we could create our own stuff and put it in the game.
treth said:
And in ten years time nobody looked back to reflect on that. Nobody involved in more or less official development of WoG or Era bothered to address outdated assets and concepts.
Really? Check the very first page of this thread. And from out of my head I can name several mods or people that made improvements to WoG assets. Now often these mods rest on some harddrive or are lost in databases, some are also used. Currently, the only way to make these new assets widely available is with a new installer like ERA or the preinstalled mod packages, like the gaming assembly (which has some new assets and was updated just yesterday). Of course it is always harder to distribute something new and better if you don't a central distributor who takes care of updates. If over the last years the actual WoG 3.58 development had continued things would be different now. The only thing expanded was the ERA platform and thus the possibilities for mod makers and whatever Berserker was up to at this movement.
Edit: It should also be noted that a lot of high-quality plugins were created like battle-queue, XXL-mod, battle-replay, bug fixes and more.
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Macron1
Supreme Hero
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posted February 12, 2021 07:59 AM |
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Lol, hota fanboy is attacking wog. Hota is an wooden toy nailed to the floor compared to the wog.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted February 12, 2021 11:46 AM |
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What HotA fanboy bro lol. No one here is what can be called a HotA fanboy tbh. If anything, both me and Treth just simply have high graphical standards (I also just gotta mention I did not bother reading past the first post on this page yet).
Edit: Technically, I suppose something as a full fledged fan expansion like HotA can be made using a modding platform.
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Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?
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VMaiko
Known Hero
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posted February 12, 2021 04:50 PM |
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Edited by VMaiko at 16:53, 12 Feb 2021.
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Macron1 said:
Lol, hota fanboy is attacking wog. Hota is an wooden toy nailed to the floor compared to the wog.
If WoG had quality and original graphic objects, true HotA fanboys would not repudiate the fact and say that HotA is better for the simple fact that WoG is a hodgepodge of graphics ripped from other games, I hate HotA fans for that very thing reason, I only see HotA players as normies and newbies players who have just discovered what Heroes 3 is and do not know the true history and depth of what WoG was.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 12, 2021 06:44 PM |
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted February 12, 2021 06:57 PM |
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Quote:
If WoG had quality and original graphic objects, true HotA fanboys would not repudiate the fact and say that HotA is better for the simple fact that WoG is a hodgepodge of graphics ripped from other games
This is fair.
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Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?
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treth
Tavern Dweller
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posted February 12, 2021 11:36 PM |
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Edited by treth at 23:43, 12 Feb 2021.
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Salamandre said:
The creatures are optional, if one doesn't like them he just turns them off. They are one option among hundreds. Then you assume that everyone looks from same perspective as yours. No, people enjoy different things.
Apparently game crashes on start when you try running it with WoG disabled. This means it is integral part of the platform. My criticism stands stronger than earlier, and even if it wasn't the case it's still valid. Why put an anachronistic mod into package the platform is shipped with. I thought such a mod should serve as example and advertisement.
And since WoG is integral part of Era, allow me to cite mod's description:
Quote:
HMMIII In the Wake of Gods (WoG) is an expansion pack to the Heroes of Might and Magic III Shadow of Death game.
Expansion pack, this phrase bears some responsibility to it, not only about internal consistency mind you, expansion pack is an extension of original content, at which WoG doesn't quite deliver, but we have covered this subject already.
So Era should either drop WoG to stop fooling people into thinking it's an expansion, or step up the game and commit to it properly, to be shipped with a mod that improves the experience.
Quote:
You just don't listen nor read. Thousands of testing hours were required a) to find addresses for each action in game, b) to build the manual and detail all the possibilities. What is a deeper thought for you, put some fancy graphics and to what purpose? They are already in the game, ready to use. What we lacked was action. The graphics WoG added in 2003 were sorta of generic graphics, to support the new coding horizons.
I have not made any comment about Era's scripting and documentation because I have no issues with them. I have personal issues with Era forcing everyone back into 2003 with shoving them WoG in the face, having them either accept it or go out of their way to find ways to replace it. It's been 18 years, and it is baffling that nobody addressed these elements witin the project in active development, nobody cared enough to address the issue of entire addon comprised of random elements, which you yourself have just admitted. That's what I was referring to with Best Tabletop RPG Guide with ugliest plastic models allegory.
Quote:
The artistic dimension is given by modders, a coding language can't be "artistic". Is English language "artistic" by its own?
Era comes pre-packed, and as it turned out, obligatory with WoG. WoG is an expansion pack by the very description and scope of that mod. Guilt by association if you will. I don't understand shipping a good platform with a mod in bad shape.
Quote:
What an arrogant statement. Such mod wouldn't survive one day. People generally put in thousands of hours, to make everything work as expected, then hundreds of hours of tests, then deliver for free. Then you drop in from nowhere, accusing them of lack of ambition and laziness.
They put so much time and effort into the platform, and then the mod it is shipped with makes it look like haphazard pile with its awkward appearances and no direction with what idea this addon is supposed to convey. Why adding it at all then?
Quote:
Show us the path then !
Don't turn a blind eye to something that's clearly not good. Either address it, or get rid of it if you can't be bothered to fix it. Let me touch upon intentionality again. What is exactly a purpose of having WoG pre-packaged with Era again? Whatever it is, it's not doing a great job in its current form.
VMaiko said:
I hate HotA fans for that very thing reason, I only see HotA players as normies and newbies players who have just discovered what Heroes 3 is and do not know the true history and depth of what WoG was.
WoG's history doesn't make it better just because it has one. The fact that WoG is stuck in its past only makes it worse. 18 years old assets that were cobbled up together to fill visual holes and no direction or purpose they serve when inserted in. It is a horrifying thought to consider that people are still going to protect things they themselves admit were badly put together to begin with.
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VMaiko
Known Hero
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posted February 13, 2021 12:06 AM |
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Edited by VMaiko at 00:24, 13 Feb 2021.
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Treth, WoG is a thing of the past, while ERA still uses WoG as a core, you can completely disable all WoG options, it doesn't include most of the typical scripts, and there you get a clean Heroes 3 SoD/Complete in case you haven't noticed. You will not notice that WoG will be there if you disable all the settings, ERA III was born in order to remove all WoG wastes so that the vanilla version remains intact. Now let's talking about mods, especially mods like mine that do their best to live up to the expectations of expansions like HotA without even having to add a new city. Third Upgrades Mod add plenty of all kinds of new content without replacing plus no new cities to show that ERA is helping mend WoG's ill-fated legacy.
If we only had potential help from 3D object designers for ERA, things would improve a lot.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 13, 2021 12:22 AM |
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treth said:
hat is exactly a purpose of having WoG pre-packaged with Era again?
Maybe because 100% of the maps made between 2003 and 2020 would not work without? But how would you know since all your analysis is made on the only graphics?
*********
We are all limited by our capacity of comprehension. What is visible comes first to eyes, while sometimes the immense potential underneath remains invisible unless we try, experiment, test, accept compromises and so on.
You criticize a minor problem almost nobody cares in the WoG community then rant about like the world prepares to an end, "WoG has an identity crisis", "terrifying", "fooling people" - that's just ridiculous.
None here is going to appreciate and listen such incessant jabber. And that is NOT because your point about graphics is wrong - we all agree they are not of good quality, but the way you express it - constantly denigrating and accusing others of amateurism, lack of depth, direction and vision.
That's not the way to be perceived as constructive.
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RerryR
Promising
Supreme Hero
Researching Magic
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posted February 13, 2021 09:21 AM |
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Edited by RerryR at 09:34, 13 Feb 2021.
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treth said:
Expansion pack, this phrase bears some responsibility to it, not only about internal consistency mind you, expansion pack is an extension of original content, at which WoG doesn't quite deliver, but we have covered this subject already.
treth you really pilling up a lot of bullsnow here that makes me question how much time you actually spend with the subject you are talking about.
The amount of content and possibilities added by WoG of that time justify the word expansion in every sense and you just not understanding the concept or not liking the content does not change that. Also WoG is not dependant on your judgment if it is good or not. WoG is played by thousands of people who regularly express their gratitude to the creators and active modders.
treth said:
So Era should either drop WoG to stop fooling people into thinking it's an expansion, or step up the game and commit to it properly, to be shipped with a mod that improves the experience.
As mentioned before you lack the technical understanding if you demand ERA to drop WoG. ERA III was a step in that direction and maybe Berserker will continue that way, but it still requires someone who sits down and spends a snowload of his personal time to make it all work, time that might be better spend otherwise by expanding the possibilities of ERA.
treth said:
It's been 18 years, and it is baffling that nobody addressed these elements witin the project in active development, nobody cared enough to address the issue of entire addon comprised of random elements, which you yourself have just admitted.
Why do you always repeat that nobody would address "problems" in WoG? I assume your source of information stops at the HotA Suggestion thread?
Did you ever take a look at the Chinese, Russian, Korean or Polish H3 forums?
A lot of full-scale modifications are available, all based on ERA/WoG. Merging the game in new ways, adding new content, new cities and new mechanics.
I personally spend probably 5k hours rewriting all WoG scripts, making it all work flawlessly together.
treth said:
That's what I was referring to with Best Tabletop RPG Guide with ugliest plastic models allegory....
18 years old assets that were cobbled up together to fill visual holes and no direction or purpose they serve when inserted in. It is a horrifying thought to consider that people are still going to protect things they themselves admit were badly put together to begin with.
Again you riding the graphic train as if there would be nothing else. Also I have to wonder which game version you played. WoG profits from the same new graphic filters provided by HD mod as HotA does, making the game look much better than it did 10 years ago.
If I run my game I see none of the elements you mention, the game looks better than it ever has. Where are all these ugly assets you are talking about? What if I told you I don't like the Wolf Raider picket HotA introduced. It looks ugly and disturbed the overall game atmosphere. Now what? Is my opinion of any relevance? Do I go in the HotA thread and start complaining about it for the next ten years. No, because I don't care.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted February 13, 2021 01:32 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 13:34, 13 Feb 2021.
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Lol are you guys serious?
What the hell is going on with gamers these days, people make stuff for free (mods) and everyone is like "this is retarted and that is retarted"...
Don't like the mod then just don't play it ffs, no point in writing a wall of text just to make a point you don't like sth and make it miserable for people who like it.
I don't like WoG so I don't play it. But you guys seem to forget it's something that kept the game alive for 10+ years. Not many games have these kind of advanced tools made entirely by the fansbase that can make people be creative and maybe even make them learn programming which is always good
Chill.
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Strigo
Hired Hero
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posted February 13, 2021 07:31 PM |
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Edited by Strigo at 19:34, 13 Feb 2021.
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RerryR said:
treth said:
It's been 18 years, and it is baffling that nobody addressed these elements witin the project in active development, nobody cared enough to address the issue of entire addon comprised of random elements, which you yourself have just admitted.
Why do you always repeat that nobody would address "problems" in WoG? I assume your source of information stops at the HotA Suggestion thread?
Did you ever take a look at the Chinese, Russian, Korean or Polish H3 forums?
A lot of full-scale modifications are available, all based on ERA/WoG. Merging the game in new ways, adding new content, new cities and new mechanics.
I personally spend probably 5k hours rewriting all WoG scripts, making it all work flawlessly together.
funny that you assume that about one of the best polish modders out there kekw
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RerryR
Promising
Supreme Hero
Researching Magic
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posted February 13, 2021 07:46 PM |
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Strigo said:
funny that you assume that about one of the best polish modders out there kekw
so the best polish modder comes to HC and picks on a 15 year old mod? kekw
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This thread is pages long: 
