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| Thread: Limbic is gone - what will happen now? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted October 09, 2016 10:18 PM |
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I can only describe the future of M&M franchise with a classical childrens rhyme:
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted October 09, 2016 10:20 PM |
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Publications writing these news in a favorable light for Ubisoft are either French based or donated a little money. I bet no more than 200 $.
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bitmaid
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 10, 2016 04:05 AM |
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I don't frequent this forum. I only come when I'm interested in discussions sparked by relevant events. I'm not familiar with the forum personalities let alone follow what they said. It's pretty childish, both the act of "regurgitation" and the assumption that I do it.
Now, a simple Google search will tell you that
1. Vivendi is a "Mass media company", and not a dedicated games developer/publisher/hybrid. VIDEOGAMES is NOT their legacy. Don't think they have a bunch of artists and programmers making the titles you mentioned, the only thing they pitched in was money.
+"On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from owner Vivendi for $5.83 billion, dropping the shareholder from a 63% stake to 11.8% by the end of the deal in September."
Oh Blizzard loved Vivendi so much that they bought their shares back to let Vivendi have less control, right?
2. Venturebeat, PC Gamer, Ars Technica, Business Insider etc. all described Vivendi's buying shares in various games companies as hostile takeover. And it's just that, a mega-conglomerate tapping into a highly profitable market. They aren't looking to make great games, they are looking to make games that make money. Sure enough they will toss Heroes aside for doing so bad financially.
3. Finally it will give you Vivendi Games, and you can see for yourself that without borrowing names from its acquisition such as Gameloft, the games that are truly made by Vivendi itself are without exception, s-h-i-t.
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bitmaid
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 10, 2016 04:14 AM |
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Kayna said:
MMO? MMORPG? Ubisoft MMORPG? Ubisoft never dared dip their toes in the MMO genre. They're too scared of the workload and stability required to pull a MMO.
Might and Magic: Heroes Online. Made by Ubisoft, been live since 2014 and F2P no less. I've played it. It was okay.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 10, 2016 10:38 AM |
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NimoStar said:
I am not satying VBlack Hole and Limbic were competent enough programmers, etc. to make full, working Heroes games.
I am saying, precisely because they WERE NOT, it is unreasonable to expect from them something above their own capacities.
Could they have ever delivered a bug-free Heroes games? No, it was beyond their scope.
(Shortening the quote for readability.)
I think, you are barking at the wrong tree; if you fault Ubisoft for hiring the wrong developer, you'd also had to praise them for restarting the franchise with Nival (handing THEM the laurels, not Nival), which seems somewhat absurd.
Considering that Black Hole
a) did a Warcraft rip-off as their first game;
b) a Warmmer title as their second game
and considering M&M team's obsession with both, Black Hole would have seemed a good pick in every regard. That they would have to hire and outsource, was a matter of course - I just pointed out that BLACK HOLE (not Ubisoft) hired and outsourced, that is, picked talent, and THAT doesn't have seem to work out well - but the reason for that may well have been the fact that, as I tried to point out, BH didn't seem to cope well with the organisational needs a project of this maginitude demands, if it's not to end in chaos (I gave an example with the documentation for their engine).
Another fairy tale is, that Ubisoft (the M&M team) would be responsible for design decisions that were bad for the game. Example: reduction of resources to only 3 plus gold instead of 6.
As I've tried to explain numerous times, you'll be hard-pressed to find a general design decision that is outright bad, no matter what (although there are some), but this is a typical case where THE DESIGNER screwed up:
The decision to reduce the resources (or generally change the resource system) is actually a good one, and the reduction as such isn't "bad" - it should only lead to an analysis of what that means for the game (by the designer). The resources were there from the beginning, and it makes sense to review it.
If the developer had done their job, they would have realized that losing 3 resource types would
a) lose 3 strategically important map objects
b) make the Marketplace somewhat obsolete (as you need everything you get)
c) reduce the general amount of resources needed (especially with the decision to drop Magic Guilds and simplify towns).
Clearly that meant change on a more fundamental level, especially in map design, and this would have warranted design concepts.
A very simple thing would have been to advise the level designers to involve DOUBLE the amount of mines for standard layout (that is, have 2 mines of each resource in the nearer and farer vicinity of a starting town), and to adjust building costs (example: Tavern (Hall of Heroes) cost 8 Wood + 2 Ore now).
Considering that there was still b), the Marketplace, you might have gone from there to make mines more terrain dependent (from the layout). For example, you might have a mountain range with 3 Ore pits, but only a small stretch of Wood with 1 Sawmill, making Marketplace operations necessary.
There would also have been a chance to have different KINDS of the same resource spenders. There might be Ore Pits giving 2 Ore and Ore shafts giving 4. There might be Gold mines giving 100 Gold, but also "Digging sites" for 500 Gold or for only a specific amount before they run out.
Which is to say, confronted with design demands, they'd have had to analyse the situation and make the necessary changes to incorporate the demands in a reasonable way; they didn't, though.
Sure, Ubisoft is responsible for picking the devs they did pick, and indeed they picked 2 studios not really up to the up, but on the other hand, everyone starts small - you don't know beforehand, if something will grow with the task or not, until you try, and there will always be the risk of a flop, no matter who's involved and how much it costs. H6 DID have a good budget (and I would blame Ubisoft for wrong fund allocation more than anything else) - STILL, the designers clearly underperformed, and that shouldn't be forgotten.
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dredknight
Honorable
Supreme Hero
disrupting the moding industry
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posted October 10, 2016 01:16 PM |
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After taking a glimpse at this thread again.
Long story short - It doesn't matter who is to blame people want blood and Ubi is the one to deliver it. After all we are a community based on a medieval game where you slaughter you enemies.
Democracy and hospitality are foreign words here... 
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Join our official discord channel | NCF Utility Beta
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verriker
Honorable
Legendary Hero
We don't need another 'eroes
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posted October 10, 2016 01:44 PM |
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@bitmaid
I fully support Vivendi's hostile takeover lol
probably the bottom line of my rebuttal is that either way, even should there be no gain, nothing of value was lost lol
I just refer you to my previous post again to be honest with you mate,
like I established, one way or the other, Vivendi's involvement practically guarantees a more clear and positive outcome for Heroes fans than Ubisoft will offer, that's what concerns us lol
if worried about Ass Creed or whatever, that's a matter for another forum, but again of the two of them Ubisoft are the only ones running games into the ground at the moment, they if anyone aren't looking to make great games and only profit instead dude, they are all about profit, they will destroy the value of those IP themselves a lot sooner and surer than Vivendi can lol
anyone who actually believes silly hysteria that Vivendi want to purchase Ubisoft with a malicious intent of destroying it, thus screwing themselves, rather than attempting to make it succeed and profit from it, well it's as reckless and immature as presuming the same thing of Ubisoft when they purchased Heroes lol
even though they did destroy it, that wasn't inevitable and nobody can know that in advance, shouldn't pretend to lol
"JollyJoker said:
I think, you are barking at the wrong tree; if you fault Ubisoft for hiring the wrong developer, you'd also had to praise them for restarting the franchise with Nival (handing THEM the laurels, not Nival), which seems somewhat absurd.
I don't see anything absurd in that mate, all I see in that is fairness lol
fair play and all credit to them for choosing Nival and Capybara, they chose those two competent developers, who made two good games lol
boo urns to them for ruining that momentum by bringing in Black Hole and Limbic to make dreadful sequels, which killed the series lol
distinguish the tiny philosophical semantics of what is responsibility vs what is blame all we want, Ubisoft screwed up there lol
what, am I supposed to just say **** Ubisoft and all their developers in a blanket statement, how would that be reasonable lol
Nival had a bit of prestige in the genre, while these studios were blatantly poor choices to any rational observer, I mean they are C and D list outfits at best which never even developed a TBS game in their lives, and one wants to hand Heroes to them? better to cancel that game lol
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 10, 2016 02:12 PM |
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Yes, Ubisoft screwed up - but not because they picked the developers they did. Not everyone would say, that H4 was a good example for how a Heroes game should look, and still it was made by the same developer (although minus a few people).
There is also a lot Nival screwed up - it's not like H5 is great in every respect - and that's what you can say about H3 as well. Balanced skills?
So you might say, while H3 does have a couple of downsides, the overall game is rather enjoyable (and people come up with H3 always because of this conclusion, H3 HAD flaws, but STILL was so enjoyable, can it be so difficult, to iron out the flaws and keep the rest to make a game even more enjoyable).
And that's clearly the elusive thing. To create a game that is more than the sum of its parts.
Generally, I would say the problem IS the whole production process: having a publisher owning the license who hires SOME (ANY) developer to do a game, instead of make something like a public request to proposals, open for all developers to come up with a design concept for the next game. "Let's make a new Heroes game. How about a best-of?", isn't the right way to do it, obviously.
So the developers ARE to blame. They MAY be C or D outfits, which would probably mean the game would always suffer from bugs and bad optimization - but they are not forbidden to come up with a consistent game design, that has nothing to do with it. After all, they are not designing a new wheel, they have a lot material they can refer to.
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verriker
Honorable
Legendary Hero
We don't need another 'eroes
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posted October 10, 2016 02:27 PM |
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Edited by verriker at 14:28, 10 Oct 2016.
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never mind I have found out exactly who is to blame lol
Xavier said:
I'm lead game designer on Heroes VII so you cab basically blame me for almost everything.
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted October 10, 2016 02:30 PM |
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bitmaid said:
Kayna said:
MMO? MMORPG? Ubisoft MMORPG? Ubisoft never dared dip their toes in the MMO genre. They're too scared of the workload and stability required to pull a MMO.
Might and Magic: Heroes Online. Made by Ubisoft, been live since 2014 and F2P no less. I've played it. It was okay.
That web browser "MMO" game? lol.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 10, 2016 02:56 PM |
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verriker said:
never mind I have found out exactly who is to blame lol
Xavier said:
I'm lead game designer on Heroes VII so you cab basically blame me for almost everything.
It would seem so.
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bitmaid
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 10, 2016 06:08 PM |
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Kayna said:
bitmaid said:
Kayna said:
MMO? MMORPG? Ubisoft MMORPG? Ubisoft never dared dip their toes in the MMO genre. They're too scared of the workload and stability required to pull a MMO.
Might and Magic: Heroes Online. Made by Ubisoft, been live since 2014 and F2P no less. I've played it. It was okay.
That web browser "MMO" game? lol.
Yes, that MMO with loads of people on each server (at least when I played). Most spin-offs can only afford stuff like this. But you know a "browser" game w/o client doesn't necessarily imply graphics are compromised let alone game mechanics, right? Combat-wise it's no worse than H7, but that's setting the bar low. Point is, if it's MMO it's MMO, categorically.
@verriker, my point is, concerning Heroes, that Vivendi won't (bother to) keep it alive. Of course they aren't going to hurt themselves by purposefully publishing snowty games. Heroes has got to be one of the weakest performing games in Ubi's portfolio. If they look at the games track record they'll see the sales and popularity plummeting over the last few years. Why keep alive something that's doomed to die? Ubisoft on the other hand might never stop beating the dead horse. I don't know which is worse.
Even if it's going to keep making Heroes games, like Ubisoft, Vivendi will likely hire an outside studio. You may hope they pick a better studio but all is up in the air.
Not sure what's going to save the franchise now. I think if they are to keep the nostalgia, it's important to have people who worked on it for the next game (if any), but how likely is that now that they are disbanded/all over the place? Do you guys think the game will benefit from a whole new vision? Or perhaps it's better off dead?
Also not sure if the fans will receive dignified treatment in the future. Will they let us know what's happening or keep us in the dark and make out of the blue "announcement" like this one again?
*Questions, questions, all in due time...*
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Kayna
Supreme Hero
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posted October 10, 2016 06:22 PM |
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bitmaid said:
Yes, that MMO with loads of people on each server (at least when I played). Most spin-offs can only afford stuff like this.
If Age of Conan can pull a real MMO with serious server and a real big world, then Ubisoft "could". They just don't have the balls to put in what's required for a real mmo. Exactly what I was saying.
bitmaid said:
Point is, if it's MMO it's MMO, categorically.
Oh yeah, sure, argue semantics without looking at the finer details. This Ubisoft "MMO" is the kind of "mmo" you see advertised for free on top on this forum. They're web browser "mmos" made by 5 students in a basement for 3 months. Come on bro. Look closer.
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Aionb
Known Hero
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posted October 10, 2016 10:21 PM |
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Edited by Aionb at 22:22, 10 Oct 2016.
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Good news, everybody, here is the answer to the original question:
magnomagus said:
Since several months I feel no urgency anymore to achieve my dream heroes game, since I feel I have already achieved that goal. ... maybe I will pickup again later to make extra content such as maps, campaigns or optional features.
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olorin
Adventuring Hero
tophatchild.blogspot.com
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posted October 10, 2016 10:32 PM |
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Aionb said:
Good news, everybody, here is the answer to the original question:
magnomagus said:
Since several months I feel no urgency anymore to achieve my dream heroes game, since I feel I have already achieved that goal. ... maybe I will pickup again later to make extra content such as maps, campaigns or optional features.
That's exactly my point: Vivendi magic tricks? Nah. Modders are the next Heroes of Might and Magic generation:
Heroes 5.5
Heroes 3 Horn of the Abyss
Heroes 3 The Succession Wars (my fav!)
Heroes 4 HD
Heroes 7 Ashan to the Trashcan
(etc.)
Everything else is a deceptive mirage, in my humble opinion.
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Top Hat Child dixit: http://tophatchild.blogspot.com.es/
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 10, 2016 10:37 PM |
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Pretty much  If anything those games are improved by people who know what they're doing.
Wait, H3 succession wars?  Is that H2 campaign converted to H3?
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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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olorin
Adventuring Hero
tophatchild.blogspot.com
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posted October 10, 2016 10:41 PM |
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Elvin said:
Wait, H3 succession wars? Is that H2 campaign converted to H3?
It's my dream come true, no less: http://www.moddb.com/mods/h3sw
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Top Hat Child dixit: http://tophatchild.blogspot.com.es/
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 10, 2016 10:46 PM |
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H2 is love 
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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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Gryphs
Supreme Hero
The Clever Title
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posted October 10, 2016 10:52 PM |
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H2 is life.
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"Don't resist the force. Redirect it. Water over rock."-blizzardboy
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yogi
Promising
Famous Hero
of picnics
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posted October 11, 2016 01:24 AM |
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