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SoilBurn
Known Hero
BurnsSoil
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posted September 26, 2016 11:42 AM |
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Edited by SoilBurn at 11:45, 26 Sep 2016.
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ChrisD1 said:
Momo said:
As a lover of fantasy narrative, I call mediocrity when I see it. And when it is so blatant, yes, it bothers me that people stubbornly refuse to admit it.
You're a lover of fantasy narrative, not the high supreme judge of that. If some people like it, let them be. Did anyone else get in your face for liking pasta with ketchup( random example)?
Taste is taste.
Don't even try mate. If someone thinks their taste is "objective" and that their criteria for judging something should apply universally for everyone, then there is no purpose talking to them, they will never accept different opinions as valid.
See also the following two recent examples from this thread on how large taste gaps can be:
frosty said:
IMO, the perfect way was implemented in H4: timed events + placed events with just written text.
This is a niche taste but it is of course a valid one. Many people would rather prefer cutscenes, animated dialogues, or whatever story telling method that is a bit more interactive than reading text.
Should I maybe now go tell frosty: "Hey, dude it is blatant that your preferred way of getting a story told is too simple for modern day technology". Nope, I would never do that. It is his damn choice how he likes his stories and not my business.
Next example:
borsuk said:
HOMM1 was a playful, whimsical fantasy strategy game chock-full of fantastic creatures. No pretense of coherence.
The further away from it, the more faction, character and story obsessession. Away from strategy and towards top-down RPG. I call that degradation.
I cannot even start fathoming why one would ever like a group of random, unrelated mythical creatures slapped together and called a faction in a strategy game. For me a faction needs to have coherence and fit together somehow, I need to be able to imagine those units together in a town/army whatever. Moreover, the story is an integral part of the game for me, and it needs to go hand-in-hand with the factions.
But hey, to each their own. If b0rsuk likes something different, I'm happy for him. I do not need to force my tastes down his throat (or even worse: mock them as it very often happens in this thread) just because I don't agree.
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ChrisD1
Supreme Hero
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posted September 26, 2016 11:55 AM |
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Elvin said:
He is not wrong though. There are things I like that I consider objectively bad. Ashan writing is bad whether one likes it or not 
Pelvin come on one here is a movie critic and even they are subjective to a deegree. There is no objectivity in that matter. On the gameplay field though no one can say that a bug is subjective.
Again taste is taste.
No one is glorifying ashan, some people just state they like it. But everyone else glorifies enroth and act like it's holy bible or smth.
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted September 26, 2016 12:00 PM |
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SoilBurn said:
Don't even try mate. If someone thinks their taste is "objective" and that their criteria for judging something should apply universally for everyone, then there is no purpose talking to them, they will never accept different opinions as valid.
thinking that spiders + necro = bad -> subjective
One-dimensional characters, shallow story arc, lackluster dialogue -> objective
If everyone and their dog has a biography doesn't mean that the lore is good nor fleshed out. I could go on and write a well comprehensive analysis of why Ashan is mediocre from an objective standpoint, ignoring details that could be even considered remotely subjective. But you have proven rather unable to engage in a discussion, willfully ignoring to address counter-arguments, failing to provide coherent arguments to back up your claims and using logical fallacies.
But I give you a chance to redeem yourself and prove that Ashan isn't objectively that bad. As a complex character is the staple of a good story, please name me one negative trait of Duke Ivan that would reject his classification as a "Mary Sue" archetype.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted September 26, 2016 12:03 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 12:03, 26 Sep 2016.
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Chris, are you denying that Ashan storytelling ranges from mediocre to bad or are you just playing the devil's advocate?
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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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SoilBurn
Known Hero
BurnsSoil
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posted September 26, 2016 12:46 PM |
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Edited by SoilBurn at 12:49, 26 Sep 2016.
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LizardWarrior said:
But you have proven rather unable to engage in a discussion, willfully ignoring to address counter-arguments, failing to provide coherent arguments to back up your claims and using logical fallacies.
But I give you a chance to redeem yourself and prove that Ashan isn't objectively that bad. As a complex character is the staple of a good story, please name me one negative trait of Duke Ivan that would reject his classification as a "Mary Sue" archetype.
That's quite a high horse you are riding there. I couldn't care less if you like my argumentation or if you would "give me a chance to redeem myself".
I never spoke about "fleshed out/deep lore" in Ashan (quite on the contrary, read my posts) and I never praised Ashan for having multi-dimensional characters. Those are all issues that do not interest me the slightest. So it is you who is failing to read my posts, and not the other way around.
I said I like the Ashan setting as a framework for the games because it is "fleshed out visually and from a storytelling perspective". This means that there are a lot of stories, not a few good ones. Now if those stories are deep enough for you or not, I do not really care. I personally like, however, that there are a lot of details that make the setting feel alive and coherent, and that the stories told in-game in the last few HoMM titles were (in most cases) vivid and engaging, especially in H7.
I mentioned enough examples in previous posts about what I especially like in H7 from a story perspective, if you are so interested in them you can go dig them up.
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted September 26, 2016 03:15 PM |
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SoilBurn said:
That's quite a high horse you are riding there. I couldn't care less if you like my argumentation or if you would "give me a chance to redeem myself".
I will climb down when you do. I'm not the one that won't even bother to read what others say and just dismiss them. It's a forum for discussions, so why do you participate if you don't like your opinion to be challenged?
SoilBurn said:
I never spoke about "fleshed out/deep lore" in Ashan (quite on the contrary, read my posts) and I never praised Ashan for having multi-dimensional characters. Those are all issues that do not interest me the slightest. So it is you who is failing to read my posts, and not the other way around.
So, they are very subjective, the very same thing you accuse others of doing. And I read your previous posts and others already addressed them, I see no point in doing the same thing, it's not like this whole thread is the same thing over and over again. But if you personally don't care about the depth of the story that doesn't mean that Ashan isn't a mediocre world.
SoilBurn said:
I said I like the Ashan setting as a framework for the games because it is "fleshed out visually and from a storytelling perspective".
As I said before, even if you write down a lot of details it won't account for fleshing the world out. What they are doing is just putting out a lot of story-lines that come to no conclusion, they constantly play out a non-chronological line with them, jumping from narrative to narrative without actually finishing it (i.e: Dark Messiah is left hanging in the air, sequel to a prequel which is a prequel to h5).
SoilBurn said:
This means that there are a lot of stories, not a few good ones. Now if those stories are deep enough for you or not, I do not really care. I personally like, however, that there are a lot of details that make the setting feel alive and coherent, and that the stories told in-game in the last few HoMM titles were (in most cases) vivid and engaging, especially in H7.
Therefore it's a blank state, you can create more stories from any kind of universe, even more so from the old one, because you don't have only one continent, but a whole universe, so the possibilities are endless. I personally disagree that any heroes game made under UBI actually delivers an interesting story, maybe with the exception of Danse Macabre but I'm biased to name it because of Sandro, h5 has a rehased, but weaker, h3 Armageddon blade plot, h6 presents a cliched haven-centric sibling story, that simply washes away the identity of other factions, while h7 is a rather generic war story which is again terribly haven-centric.
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SoilBurn
Known Hero
BurnsSoil
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posted September 26, 2016 04:45 PM |
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LizardWarrior said:
I'm not the one that won't even bother to read what others say and just dismiss them. It's a forum for discussions, so why do you participate if you don't like your opinion to be challenged?
I really would like to know who's opinion I "dismissed" and did not bother reading 
Like I said, I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions and preferences, so this is something I would not do actively. If the opinion is voiced in an inappropriate manner, I will call that person out of course. But I would not dismiss it.
LizardWarrior said:
But if you personally don't care about the depth of the story that doesn't mean that Ashan isn't a mediocre world.
It also doesn't mean it is. It depends on what you are looking for in a strategy game. Others are in it for the story depth, I am mostly immersed by the setting, the visuals, the music and the storytelling (how the story is transmitted).
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BurntPhoenix
Hired Hero
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posted September 26, 2016 06:42 PM |
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I totally get (and agree) that Homm truly shined when pure strategy made up its essence and that its function as a template or launch pad for 'filling in the fantasy story blanks' was a hallmark of it. But, I'm still going to hold the campaign and cinematic portions of the early games in as high regard I do as the strategical and fill-in-the-blank functions.
To me, the complete heroes experience is all about equally cherishing all those--- the campaigns and storytelling (basically, the fantasy narratives provided to us in a game that also promotes user-imagined stories) ought to not be made secondary.
Even before H4 came along and really upped the ante with the character-centric storytelling, I always thought the campaign and scenario narratives of H2 and H3 were hugely important to the heroes experience. Specially regarding H2 with Pol expansion included--- man, those campaigns are classic and timeless! The beautiful rendering of rather simple cutscenes, the narration and the suitable voices providing such, the humor, the different choices hinting at non-linearity, etc. It was a truly unique next-level kind of rewarding I have not come across in any other game, save maybe a fantasy final title or Zelda title or two. (I heard the game Dues Ex might be like this too?)
(Gaming is all about rewards for your efforts)
I'd argue that the nature of those earlier campaigns and their presentation fit perfectly with the aforesaid essence of the game as fantasy launch pad--- they provide tools for the imagination and your own interpretations, they mostly show as opposed to purely telling, they don't spill all the beans and risk bloating the lore with tedious detail. (We all know Ashan betrayed this, obviously...).
I commented on this since it seemed some had devalued the campaign portions of the earlier games. I was surprised by that.
Was it because the campaigns were one-off things? (I don't know, after I put off replaying them for years and playing other games, the campaigns are still magical upon revisiting them). Maybe with some innovations introduced to the campaigning, specifically ones that allow more user choice and freedom (and thus more non-linearity), then maybe the view on campaigns could be freshened up here).
But with Ashan (aka aSHAM) that won't matter. I'm open-minded, and could have accepted the complete abandonment of NWC lore had Ubi replaced it with something inspiring. The art direction and setting are such turn-offs that make others not care an ounce about the storytelling.
SoilBurn said:
borsuk said:
HOMM1 was a playful, whimsical fantasy strategy game chock-full of fantastic creatures. No pretense of coherence.
The further away from it, the more faction, character and story obsessession. Away from strategy and towards top-down RPG. I call that degradation.
I cannot even start fathoming why one would ever like a group of random, unrelated mythical creatures slapped together and called a faction in a strategy game. For me a faction needs to have coherence and fit together somehow
Is it not plain to see most, if not all, of the earlier iterations of heroes factions actually do have common threads within them?
On topic, look at heroes 1:
Knight- too obvious; all fit perfectly with fantasy medievalism, armed humans in a world of monsters
Warlock- chimeric, hybrid creatures; a lot of half-this and half-that, or a great mix into one being; basically living 'experiments'. Added bonus of many originating from the classic mythology of antiquity, mostly Greek.
Sorceress- *mostly* classic fantasy creatures attributed to fairy tale/ woodland folklore somehow
Barbarian- OK, I admit this one is somewhat a reach...but there's some rudimentary attempt to establish a tribal relation amongst the creatures which later found better rendering in heroes 2
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Momo
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted September 26, 2016 08:25 PM |
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Edited by Momo at 20:33, 26 Sep 2016.
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SoilBurn said:
Don't even try mate. If someone thinks their taste is "objective"
and that their criteria for judging something should apply universally for everyone, then there is no purpose talking to them, they will never accept different opinions as valid.
ChrisD1 said:
No one is glorifying ashan, some people just state they like it. But everyone else glorifies enroth and act like it's holy bible or smth.
Look guys, I'm trying not to make this personal, but you are really making it hard to me. This is sheer unadulterated intellectual dishonesty.
I said about twice or thrice, but here I say it again. I didn't grow up with Enroth. I have no nostalgia for Enroth. I have no emotional attachment to Enroth. I have no reason at all to defend, glorify or exalt it. I didn't know the old lore before the new one, actually the opposite. I didn't find Ashan unenjoayble, nor I think Ashan is the cause for the series decline. Visually speaking, I liked Ashan very much. I'd be sad to see Ashan scrapped and I doubt it would be the reason for a renaissance of the series.
Actually on some aspects (wizards as a manipulative technocracy; researches on undeath as a different view of humanity's improvement; barbarians as rebels for freedom) I think the old lore did just rough sketches of ideas, whereas Ashan hit the spot much better and in a sense caught the themes only alluded by the old lore and elevated them.
I. AM. NOT. AN. ASHAN. HATER.
I just find that globally comparing the two narrative works on the lore, one is more original, identifiable, characterized and (therefore) artistically valid than the other, which comes across as unoriginal, conformist, bland and (therefore) cheap. And no - these aren't tastes.
You are just throwing mud at me, trying to destroy the credibility of my reasoning by painting me as an old, nostalgic fan with a narrow vision and intentionally ignoring that I already answered to that. Many times over.
"HA! Therefore one should be forced to agree with you to be found reasonable?"
Of course not.
A valid counter-argument could for instance be something among these lines: "You think Ashan is cheap because it flows with the successful trends of our time (=Warcraft, high fantasy, enphasis on elves and dragons) but if you put Enroth into context, then it also went along with what was trendy at that time (= D&D, archeo-fantasy, sci-fi/fantasy crossbreeds, etc etc) and therefore would fall under your accusation itself, if judged when it came out". I disagree with the above reasoning but it just is an example of how you could be on a totally different side and still be to-the-point.
Or one could take inspiration from b0rsuk's post and say: "You say that being subtle and diluited was a trait of the old lore, but HOMM isn't Dark Souls and never was! The truth is that the old lore mattered little and was actually unrelevant in the context of a single game, so much that HOMM2 was actually quite random". Once again I wouldn't agree, but it would still be a fitting rebuttal.
What you're subtly doing, instead, is saying that since you have the right to have your taste, I have no right to make a reasoning. You're saying that your taste has the right to override my logic and refusing to address that logic by (subtly, again) insulting me.
I'll answer no further to this attitude of yours. Just know that if you are looking for someone mocking the other and throwing ad-hominems, you should get yourself a mirror.
I am quick at typing, I like to discuss videogames to chill out after work, and I enjoy debating a lot -as you guessed- but this is the last time I waste my efforts to address your personal attacks. Keep on with it or not, be the judges of yourselves.
ChrisD1 said:
You're a lover of fantasy narrative, not the high supreme judge of that. If some people like it, let them be. Did anyone else get in your face for liking pasta with ketchup( random example)?
Taste is taste.
I am really happy that you chose that as an example, because being -as you perhaps noticed, or not, by my previous posts- an italian guy working in a fusion-cuisine restaurant, I can really make that analogy work.
You see, one may like or even adore pasta with ketchup. Nobody is in the position to contest his/her taste. Pasta with ketchup, however, is historically born in italo-american cooking as a cheap replacement for the classic italian tomato sauce that everyone here in Italy uses to season their pasta (which is referred to as "Marinara Sauce" in american cooking books), in case you cannot get the fresh ingredients or you simply are unable to cook it. Which means it is just a vilified, cheap, lazy alternative to Spaghetti Al Pomodoro or whatever you like. It is objectively that, it is how and why it came to be. It is a fact, well known in the history of cooking, that every chef can tell you is a (relative) truth of common sense.
I like pasta with ketchup more than classic italian pasta 'cause I just do====> a statement of taste, undisputable and even hard to discuss.
I like pasta with ketchup more than classic italian pasta 'cause I hate mint and anise====> a statement of taste, but also a reasoned opinion because you're giving motivations; I can answer to this because classic italian pasta doesn't have mint and anise, thus your taste is valid, but your opinion is wrong.
Pasta with ketchup is an evolved version of Spaghetti Al Pomodoro proposed by italian chefs who liked ketchup better =====> a technical statement about cuisine that can be historically verified and found as objectively false.
If you don't understand the difference, or SoilBurn doesn't understand the difference, or the Kaiohsin King of all Kaioh doesn't understand the difference, that still matters nothing at all.
Enroth was a creative effort that took years to develop its own identity, Ashan is a cookie-cutter fantasy world that (as it is) has very little to say in itself. Technical statement. You can challenge it of course - if you have points to make. "You don't respect my tastes!" Isn't a point, is only a victimist lament.
frostymuaddib said:
I would add to that that the way they tell the story is not the best either, imo.
True, and it bordered on terrible in HOMM5, but to be fair HOMM3 wasn't exactly a masterpiece of storytelling either, it just took advantage from the fact that at the time not many videogames (RPG excluded) seriously tried at narrative. HOMM4 had a much better plot, and arguably the best characters, but the way it is proposed to modern storytelling in videogame it would come off as crude and unelegant. I understand that you like it, and I liked it too, just as I liked the written tales that you get in the JRPG Lost Odyssey, but it still isn't that much of an effort to today's standard.
But still, I'm talking of lore/setting rather than plot/story.
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 26, 2016 09:34 PM |
bonus applied by Brukernavn on 26 Sep 2016. |
Edited by b0rsuk at 17:17, 27 Sep 2016.
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SoilBurn said:
I cannot even start fathoming why one would ever like a group of random, unrelated mythical creatures slapped together and called a faction in a strategy game.
It's simple.
1. It has fantastic creatures and spells, hence fantasy
2. First 3 HOMM games were undeniably strategy games. The game was about how to conquer your opponents and win battles, not how to progress to the next border guard or locked gate.
Hey, guess what ? I like both. I like more serious (sometimes called "low fantasy" or "dark fantasy") worlds, and more whimsical worlds. Both have their charm when done right. Broken Sword by Poul Anderson, Song of Ice and Fire are good examples or well made serious fantasy. Spellsinger, Discworld are good examples or whimsical fantasy, although I would argue Discworld is hardly a fantasy setting, it has countless very thinly disguised references to modern times. Books of Robert Sheckley read very much like sci-fi version of Terry Pratchett, but even more creative. Sheckley is interesting because he proves whimsical sci-fi is possible.
For the same reason I can enjoy DooM1,2 which are awesome arcade FPS games not bested to this day even by games like Painkiller, Hard Reset. I can also enjoy the story-heavy branch started by Half-Life... if story is done right.. Story in Half-Life is interesting, but DooM II has intriguing, unconstrained levels designed only to challenge you and be varied. They would completely ruin HL.
In a nutshell - fewer constraints let a creative person do wonderful things. Original HOMM towns had a loose theme, an excuse to collect as many classic fantasy creatures as possible. Many people who like fantasy and mythology were delighted. Towns like Knight(Heroes1), Necropolis(Heroes2), Inferno(Heroes3) introduced a starkly different approach to towns: "find a theme and invent creatures to fit it.
That's why many creatures that originated in such towns don't feel as interesting or magical. They have no connection with the vast treasure of mystery and fantasy that is human folklore. HOMM was played by people around the world, and many people were very happy to see "their local" creatures featured prominently in the serries. The fact HOMM was especially popular in Russia, Poland and Eastern Europe in general supports this theory. Folklore is better preserved in those countries (For example Russia with its vast spaces, forests and swamps was resistant to christianization).
H3 Fortress is an example of a theme town done right. Instead of making up creatures to fit a theme, various creatures were collected to fit a theme. Basilisks, Hydras, Lizardmen very much fit a swamp. Serpent Flies also fit, but they're invented. The fact they live in a tree hole is awesome. Gorgons, Wyverns have no swamp connection as far as folklore, but they're given a matching coat of paint.
H3 Inferno is an example of a theme town done wrong. They're basically all variations of "demon", except Cerberus. They should've done more to at least gather more awesome demons from around the world.
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Classic HOMM - towns with a loose theme, collections of fantastic creatures. Towns are called Knight, Warlock, Sorceress, Barbarian.
Late HOMM - towns with creatures fitting a theme, often invented to fit the theme. Towns are called Fortress, Preserve, Sylvan, Tower, Castle etc.
The logical progression ? Name towns after individual heroes, storyline protagonists ! Let's break with the strategy tyranny! New towns are called: Ivan, Fahada, Imani, Zenda, Wysloth, Vayaron. How stream-lined, potential buyers will have less trouble associating protagonists with their armies.
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For me a true (spiritual) sequel to Heroes of Might and Magic should follow these guidelines:
- design centered around single scenarios
- strategy first
- towns as loose collections of creatures
Not a full list. But I feel these points have been completely forgotten. For me they're a major part of why M&M:H doesn't feel like HOMM(e).
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Ashan vs Enroth is a red herring. It's a false dichotomy. The alternative to Ashan doesn't have to be another fantasy world. OF COURSE Ashan is more fleshed out than the world Heroes of Might and Magic de facto took place in. So what ? Does it make the game better ? First HOMM games had barely any story, just a setting, a theme to support armies of fantastic creatures and spell-powered smackdown. And the more developed story of HOMM3 was still forgettable! I remember the scenarios that gave me trouble, like Siege of Steadwick, or the campaign scenario where I started with 3 Necro towns and Nimbus. It was one of the first where I had to shift my usual strategy and attack as soon as possible. I remember the first time I heard voices of Medusae in Heroes2. I remember windmills, the pickaxes near mines, the atmosphere. I remember abusing enemy AI with Blind spell, surviving long sieges with hydras, the music of Fortress, Inferno, Necropolis, snow in Heroes2, grass in HOMM2 and HOMM3, underground in HOMM4...
Reaching out to M&M universe in an attempt to defend classic HOMM is deception. Enroth/M&M was barely there in first HOMM games! It wasn't important to HOMM, to its players, to the success of first HOMM games. In part because it was a time before the Internet and before wikis. You were either a fan of cRPG games, or you weren't. I wasn't at the time - mostly my English wasn't good enough. Meanwhile the way vampires, liches, gargoyles or paladins were drawn, their animation and sounds had universal appeal.
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yogi
Promising
Famous Hero
of picnics
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posted September 26, 2016 09:54 PM |
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b0rsuks post is qp worthy imo
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SoilBurn
Known Hero
BurnsSoil
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posted September 27, 2016 10:40 AM |
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Edited by SoilBurn at 10:45, 27 Sep 2016.
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b0rsuk said:
H3 Fortress is an example of a theme town done right. Instead of making up creatures to fit a theme, various creatures were collected to fit a theme. Basilisks, Hydras, Lizardmen very much fit a swamp. Serpent Flies also fit, but they're invented. The fact they live in a tree hole is awesome. Gorgons, Wyverns have no swamp connection as far as folklore, but they're given a matching coat of paint.
Hehe. This is a "town done right"? According to my book it is a town gone completely wrong
Let me break that down for you:
You have 2 semi-intelligent creatures (Lizardmen, Gnoll) and 5 wild/mythical beasts fighting next to each other in an army. How do they do this and what keeps them together? Who is organizing those beasts, taming them and making them fight along each other? Should I assume that this "Hero" person is able to achieve such an impossible feat? This is not an army, it's a zoo - and it doesn't make any sense at all.
And even if I assume that the above army composition might be somehow miraculously possible (I don't), then I still have to somehow come to terms with the fact that this zoo of units lives together in the same "Fortress" in a Swamp somewhere? This notion is simply absurd and above all immersion-breaking. We are talking here about random mythical (mostly non-intelligent) beings, that are largely unrelated to each other from a social/co-operation perspective (for some of them you could make a stretch but - as a whole - not).
The same applies to H4 towns of course, H1/2/3 are not the only perpetrators of this. When I look at H4 Necro (combination of Demons and Undead, yeah right) or H4 Chaos (humans, harpies, nightmares, efreets and black dragons! Yay!) all I see is a beast encyclopedia, not a coherent, immersive town. And don't get me wrong, I still love that game. It just feels too random from a unit perspective.
Moving on to H5, Ubi did one good thing (among many not so good ones) and that was to rationalize the towns a bit. Now there is in all cases one main intelligent faction (or many in the case of Stronghold) leading the beasts and at least trying to create the impression that a diverse army/town composition can be logically viable. But then you might say: "And how do you tame Black Dragons as a Dark Elf? Why is a Dark Elf more able than a Lizardman to do this?". The answer is simple and lies in the well-explained setting. In the Ashan games all these little things (that would be otherwise nonsensical) are explained, either in the Scenarios themselves, or in accompanying material (Ashan compendium) or related games. This does not mean that you cannot create your own stories based on this faction. Quite on the contrary, this is as open as it ever was. I can create a Scenario based on H7 Sylvan exactly as well as I would with H3 Rampart (actually better, the town makes sense as a whole now due to the setting it is placed in). Now if you like the stories that Ubi decided to tell in this new setting or not, that is a completely different question.
Do I also get a QP now?
(I don't want one and I don't think such a post deserves one. The question is meant in a rhetorical way)
b0rsuk said:
Classic HOMM - towns with a loose theme, collections of fantastic creatures. Towns are called Knight, Warlock, Sorceress, Barbarian.
Late HOMM - towns with creatures fitting a theme, often invented to fit the theme. Towns are called Fortress, Preserve, Sylvan, Tower, Castle etc.
The logical progression ? Name towns after individual heroes, storyline protagonists ! Let's break with the strategy tyranny! New towns are called: Ivan, Fahada, Imani, Zenda, Wysloth, Vayaron. How stream-lined, potential buyers will have less trouble associating protagonists with their armies.
This is a logical fallacy and I am surprised you are getting rewarded for writing something irrational like this. How is that even a progression? A "loose theme" or a "specific theme", are both themes. A hero is not a theme.
The heroes of the H7 campaigns have nothing to do with the towns themselves, they are just the "stars" of the main story, exactly like Queen Catherine or Tawni Balfour was.
If you wanted your analogy to make any sense at all, you could have shown how the themes might get even more specific, e.g. having "Elf town" or "Human town" instead of Sylvan and Haven (not that this would be a good thing, I am just using it as an example).
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 27, 2016 11:09 AM |
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SoilBurn said:
You have 2 semi-intelligent creatures (Lizardmen, Gnoll)
Actually, they are intelligent, not semi so, because there are Gnoll and Lizard(wo)man heroes (as well as Minotaurs and Troglodytes for Dungeon, for example, and we are talking FANTASY here, so there is nothing wrong with fielding creatures or beasts - it's just FUN.
They do not need to convince anyone this could be REAL, because it doesn't have to, in order to be fun and entertaining on one hand, and tactically and strategically challenging on the other. That'xs the whole point. The point is NOT to assume this was "all real" "somewhere", "possible" (in some sort of strange universe) or "logical" considering how things work in non-fantasy, non-magical, so-called reality.
It's not a SIMULATION game.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted September 27, 2016 11:12 AM |
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Edited by Galaad at 11:26, 27 Sep 2016.
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As I already said multiple times, this clash of taste for the same game on so many aspects just shows how much there is two different games here, Heroes of Might and Magic from JVC and NWC on one side and Heroes of Ashan and Erwin's continuation (zombie) reboot on the other. I prefer theme-based towns by a large margin and for me the more mystery the better, and I love H3 Fortress, and that's life, discussing tastes is just pointless, but maybe there's nothing else we can speak about one year after the release of h7.
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It's not a SIMULATION game.
Well put. 
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted September 27, 2016 11:24 AM |
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SoilBurn said:
You have 2 semi-intelligent creatures (Lizardmen, Gnoll) and 5 wild/mythical beasts fighting next to each other in an army. How do they do this and what keeps them together? Who is organizing those beasts, taming them and making them fight along each other?
You missed the part about beastmaster heroes. Was your immersion broken when you first played H1-H2 or did that happen post Ashan?
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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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verriker
Honorable
Legendary Hero
We don't need another 'eroes
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posted September 27, 2016 12:51 PM |
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@SoilsBurn
SoilsBurn said:
I won't even touch that with a 10 ft pole. If you have a problem with the fact that I disagree with your views, attacking me is not the way to go about it. Neither is twisting facts so that they fit your purposes.
The only thing that really happened is that verriker made a crude analogy that implied Ashan is slapstick comedy. Regardless, of how he meant it, it was crude, ill-placed and -worded. That's it.
SoilsBurn said:
spiteful rant about stuff that never happened
SoilsBurn said:
Don't even try mate. If someone thinks their taste is "objective" and that their criteria for judging something should apply universally for everyone, then there is no purpose talking to them, they will never accept different opinions as valid.
SoilsBurn said:
Like I said, I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions and preferences, so this is something I would not do actively. If the opinion is voiced in an inappropriate manner, I will call that person out of course. But I would not dismiss it.
SoilsBurn said:
*dismisses Momo's extensive response*
I put it to you that your posting here says more about your sincerity, attitude and capacity to debate than any reply I can possibly offer lol
SoilsBurn said:
You have 2 semi-intelligent creatures (Lizardmen, Gnoll) and 5 wild/mythical beasts fighting next to each other in an army. How do they do this and what keeps them together? Who is organizing those beasts, taming them and making them fight along each other? Should I assume that this "Hero" person is able to achieve such an impossible feat? This is not an army, it's a zoo - and it doesn't make any sense at all.
And even if I assume that the above army composition might be somehow miraculously possible (I don't), then I still have to somehow come to terms with the fact that this zoo of units lives together in the same "Fortress" in a Swamp somewhere? This notion is simply absurd and above all immersion-breaking. We are talking here about random mythical (mostly non-intelligent) beings, that are largely unrelated to each other from a social/co-operation perspective (for some of them you could make a stretch but - as a whole - not).
The same applies to H4 towns of course, H1/2/3 are not the only perpetrators of this. When I look at H4 Necro (combination of Demons and Undead, yeah right) or H4 Chaos (humans, harpies, nightmares, efreets and black dragons! Yay!) all I see is a beast encyclopedia, not a coherent, immersive town. And don't get me wrong, I still love that game. It just feels too random from a unit perspective.
Moving on to H5, Ubi did one good thing (among many not so good ones) and that was to rationalize the towns a bit. Now there is in all cases one main intelligent faction (or many in the case of Stronghold) leading the beasts and at least trying to create the impression that a diverse army/town composition can be logically viable. But then you might say: "And how do you tame Black Dragons as a Dark Elf? Why is a Dark Elf more able than a Lizardman to do this?". The answer is simple and lies in the well-explained setting. In the Ashan games all these little things (that would be otherwise nonsensical) are explained, either in the Scenarios themselves, or in accompanying material (Ashan compendium) or related games. This does not mean that you cannot create your own stories based on this faction. Quite on the contrary, this is as open as it ever was. I can create a Scenario based on H7 Sylvan exactly as well as I would with H3 Rampart (actually better, the town makes sense as a whole now due to the setting it is placed in). Now if you like the stories that Ubi decided to tell in this new setting or not, that is a completely different question.
I cannot understand the argumentation here as far as a comparison to the NWC approach mate, you are presenting aspects common to both settings as novel introductions in Ashan lol
first of all, as mentioned, the Lizardmen and Gnolls of Enroth are as intelligent as anyone else, they were certainly intelligent enough to kick the crap out of the more technologically advanced Erathia, I see no reason to brand them semi-intelligent, in the world that view would probably be considered a bit racist (a good example of a semi-intelligent being in the Might and Magic franchise is Queen Isabel) lol
secondly, I don't see any meaningful difference as far as logic between the random zoos of NWC Tatalian Fortress and AvLee Rampart and Erwin's Egg Chall Dungeon or Irolland Sylvan, they are all lineups stitched together by a rough theme and post-rationalized later in the specific fiction (Tatalia - swamp zoo led by Lizardmen, Gnolls and some Humans, AvLee - forest zoo led by Elves and some Dwarves/Humans, Egg Chall - underground zoo led by Dark Elves/Minotaurs and some Humans, Irolland - forest zoo led by Elves and some Humans) lol
the same applies to all towns of Enroth, Axeoth and Ashan, they are all either fully or partially a bunch of creatures arbitrarily mixed together, the Hydra in Tatalia is tamed by the Beastmasters in Tatalia there because its habitat is the swamp because they said so, same as they said so that the Hydra lives in caves is tamed by Dark Elves in Erwin's world, it just was placed there by Team Erwin and that's the way it is,
now we can write on and on endlessly some flavour text about how the Hydra came to be in Ashan, that Malassa birthed it in the cave etc etc, but this doesn't lend some divine or special scientifically-provable theory to justify why a Hydra should logically belong in a cave, it's subjective fiction local to the setting and the real-world mythology behind Hydras doesn't discriminate, one could easily have written that Shalassa birthed it in the swamp and wouldn't be more or less wrong or illogical lol
there isn't this great disjointed mess on one side and a better conceived world structure on the other, the only difference, is Erwin tended to rely more on racism and religious fundamentalism as a factor (e.g. Elves and their god vs Dwarves and their god vs Genies and their atheism vs Naga and their god, rather than Elves-Dwarves coalition vs Genies-Naga coalition), and Erwin felt it more necessary than NWC did to compile his often overwritten explanations in his various Ashan Bibles, rather than just fold out the history of the factions in the products and the stories lol
in a previous post you have said "I have played enough games in both universes" to fully understand the lore, thus I am under the impression you should be well aware the history of Tatalia and the Mudlanders is no less sufficiently explored or fleshed out than all the Egg-Challs and anything else Erwin concocted in Heroes 5,
please consider to replay the Heroes Chronicles and reread the lore and background literature of Heroes 3, this will offer you the answer to who the Beastmasters are and what they mastered the beasts cheers mate lol
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted September 27, 2016 03:28 PM |
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verriker said:
(a good example of a semi-intelligent being in the Might and Magic franchise is Queen Isabel)
Hahaha  This is so true
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Datapack
Famous Hero
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posted September 27, 2016 04:14 PM |
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SoilBurn said:
Hehe. This is a "town done right"? According to my book it is a town gone completely wrong
Let me break that down for you:
You have 2 semi-intelligent creatures (Lizardmen, Gnoll) and 5 wild/mythical beasts fighting next to each other in an army. How do they do this and what keeps them together? Who is organizing those beasts, taming them and making them fight along each other? Should I assume that this "Hero" person is able to achieve such an impossible feat? This is not an army, it's a zoo - and it doesn't make any sense at all.
Welcome to Might and Maigc, the glory that was before Ubisoft mutilated the series.
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SoilBurn
Known Hero
BurnsSoil
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posted September 27, 2016 05:35 PM |
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Elvin said:
You missed the part about beastmaster heroes. Was your immersion broken when you first played H1-H2 or did that happen post Ashan?
You don't need a beastmaster hero, you need an omega-level mutant to manage so many beasts at the same time.
As I have stated before, I started playing in the H3 era. And I enjoyed playing every Heroes game so far.
Looking back, however, my favorite HoMM game story-wise is H4 and my setting of preference Ashan, especially as depicted in H6 and H7 (H5 is a good game but visually not acc. to my tastes. Same applies to H3, but back then, there wasn't that much to choose from so it did not bother me as long as the game itself was enjoyable).
verriker said:
I put it to you that your posting here says more about your sincerity, attitude and capacity to debate than any reply I can possibly offer lol.
My sincerity is being questioned now. Whatever. Cheers mate lol
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 27, 2016 06:06 PM |
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Edited by b0rsuk at 18:54, 27 Sep 2016.
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SoilBurn said:
Hehe. This is a "town done right"? According to my book it is a town gone completely wrong
Let me break that down for you:
You have 2 semi-intelligent creatures (Lizardmen, Gnoll) and 5 wild/mythical beasts fighting next to each other in an army. How do they do this and what keeps them together? Who is organizing those beasts, taming them and making them fight along each other? Should I assume that this "Hero" person is able to achieve such an impossible feat? This is not an army, it's a zoo - and it doesn't make any sense at all.
I agree ! If you insist on realism, it makes no sense. I can go on! What does a herd of 80 unicorns eat ??? I'm sure the answer is somewhere to be found in My Little Pony. Why is an undead army not utterly destroyed in 2 weeks by maggots ? What do dendroids eat ? What about hydrae, phoenixes, djinni, sprites ? How does a hero instantly learn about their feeding habits when you transfer a stack between heroes ?
You can ask these questions, but it's not possible to answer them without tearing HOMM apart. Like it or not, those quite nonsensical collections of colorful creatures are the core of classic HOMM. And what people liked about classic HOMM. There are countless other fantasy worlds which attempt to be quasi-realistic, notably Warhammer and its clone Warcraft. Even Middle-Earth appears realistic compared to a typical HOMM scenario. These worlds have been copied to death, if you want a warhammer/ME clone you know where to find them. HOMM was quite unique because it was not like them.
To wrap it up I think HOMM shouldn't try to answer these questions, because ignoring them made HOMM possible.
And HOMM game engine made many quite generic fantasy stories possible. People made Tolkien-inspired maps for example. The result was typically poor because you can't change how powerful a hobbit is relative to a troll. But it was much easier when there weren't green spiders everywhere. If you weren't a fan of Catherine Ironheart and her boobplate, it wasn't a big deal because campaign story was inobtrusive and easy to ignore. It didn't bleed into single scenarios.
The situation is similar to that of LEGO. In the past, LEGO sets were only lightly themed if at all. Kids were encouraged to build anything with them. Modern LEGOs have many very specific figurines and pieces made with famous licenses (Star Wars, ninjago, batman, angry birds, minecraft, hobbit... sets like this dominate the first page). Hard to make your own story when you start with batman pieces. The more defined they are, the less room for imagination.
By the way, if lands of necromancers are barren and devoid of life, why spiders ? Spiders are predators. What do they eat ? Forget it, giant spiders make no sense. There is a reason there are no large insects anymore: because you can't just scale a creature upwards and have it still work at larger size. Biology of B-movie monsters
A housecat is built quite differently than a tiger.
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This is a logical fallacy and I am surprised you are getting rewarded for writing something irrational like this. How is that even a progression? A "loose theme" or a "specific theme", are both themes. A hero is not a theme.
The heroes of the H7 campaigns have nothing to do with the towns themselves, they are just the "stars" of the main story, exactly like Queen Catherine or Tawni Balfour was.
If you wanted your analogy to make any sense at all, you could have shown how the themes might get even more specific, e.g. having "Elf town" or "Human town" instead of Sylvan and Haven (not that this would be a good thing, I am just using it as an example).
But Ubi Heroes games insist on forcing stories down your throat, and those stories are about Zenda, Wysloth, Vayaron etc. Not about towns, factions, not to mention creatures. About individuals. Following Ubi's logic, such towns are perfectly possible.
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This MEGA THREAD is pages long: 
