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| Thread: Retirement from H4 Modding and the (non) future of ULTIMATE | |
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted January 23, 2024 08:01 PM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 20:16, 23 Jan 2024.
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Retirement from H4 Modding and the (non) future of ULTIMATE
Written January 22, 2024
Due to a toxic environment and constant unwarranted attacks I announce my retirement from H4 modding.
What was once a vibrant community of good people such as Baronus, Karmakeld, Radmutant69, and even Ghost. Yes, this was once a vibrant community of open development and mutual help, and people that made graphics and hex discoveries just for fun and for anyone to use, in public, and without asking for anything. I took joy in partaking in this endeavor. It has now been overrun by a toxic slime, whereas the nice people of old are mostly gone, these poisonous rabble has taken over, and demand being the feudal lords of everyone while not even contributing to public development. On the contrary as they have shown they prefer to destroy™©® rather than to create.
* Guild logic: Some of these envious people are indignant, I tell you, because H4 ULTIMATE doesn't include any actual "programming" and is done wholly by hex edit and resource replacement. How would they, allmighty programmers, be outdone by some scrub! Well, Equilibris was also done wholly by hex, but since they are Russians and don't participate directly in the English-speaking community...
In any case, I have modded over ten games, including games not publicly modded in their gameplay attributes before (like MechCommander 1). This means I have intuitive understanding of gameplay features, file structure and game resources in a wide variety of formats. Yes, I am not a programmer by trade, so what? All of this gatekeeping is against the community and the players. I use what works and have a paradigm based on game design and not "coding skillz".
** Yes, the invasion of "programmers" destroyed the game, and the modding scene. Its useless (and even counterproductive) to be a "1337 h4xx0r" if you are a terrible human being. These people are toxic without measure even to the point of mass reporting and deleting other people's files, including from three years ago, creating fake accounts, and so forth. I don't have the energy to deal with that, even while having a community that supports my modding.
* Even then, specaking of technical expertise, I could actually use H4Zero's stuff (although I wouldn't have the expertise to make it in the first place, modifying it was easy enough) - but didn't want it in its current form. I told bruckner as much. He asked h4zero for a non-equilibris version, and as he refused, this validates everything I have written in the other thread about there not being such a "technical gap" with h4em for example - just a voluntary design decision from me. Even though some people begged for equilibris stuff and bleh, it was never my vision, this came up several times in the discord and my response was always the same.
** Actually, my true trade is being a professional philosopher. I do have some qualms about Heroes of Might and Magic game de3sign based on that. The map gameplay is basically, exterminate wandering creatures and take their treasure. The game map starts living and complex, and while you advance if becomes dll, empty and dead. All you left in your wake is ransacked structures, dead local natives, fauna extinction and exploiting resource mines. Very colonialist if you pardon my expression. The game is more mercantilist than medieval despite the aesthetic fantasy medieval trappings.
*** But anyhow, I enjoyed the combination of TBS and RPG of Heroes and Might and Magic IV. It was an unique combination that no other game I know tackles (closest would be Heroes of Annihilated Empires or WC3, but those are RTS/RPG, and I don't really like WC3's glacial pace and barely-damaging attacks).
**** The scripting capabilities of H4 are wide, one of the best scripting systems along Starcraft (I and II) and the aforementioned WC3. This allows wide narrative potential.
***** H4 landscaping can be beautiful, and due to being based in 2D is not resource intensive, up to a point you can place as much landscape density as you like. With my graphical settings the previously annoying game colors and light are no longer such an eyesore.
* Double standards: I was accused of "staling code" which I hadn't even done, yet when the accuser has finally got to admit he reused, incorporated and reverse engineered all equilibris 355 mechanics and features, then that's all fine and dandy.
Iliveinabox accused me of "ripping off sprites from other games". Yes I did, it was my idea in public to do it after all, and I promoted others to do the same, which they did, so what?
Equilibris objects released since like 2004 (a generation ago) are done the same way, they are ripped off either from H4 combat objects or from other games.
Furthermore, as he hurls this ridiculous "accusation" he uses and includes for "his" (ripped off from h3 chronicles) campaign the object pack which is done from ripped sprites of other games (by Karkamekld, Mirage and Radmutant69 too), including my own!
Furthermore, in the latest releases of H4 Ultimate I did isometric original buildings myself down to light/contrast settings, perspective fixing and pixel editing, being one of the first to create 100% original buildings. Recognition? Zero.
** Also all of the creature portraits and spell icons were done by scratch including pixel by pixel editing, these are hundreds of changes, new artifacts, and so on. Do you sabotagers have any idea of it? Of course not, you haven't even done a single icon, or map object, ever.
* I also made hundreds of brushes for anyone to use in mapmaking, each one utilizing potentially dozens of different objects, some of them with over ten layers in order to paint and entire playable map with different ecosystems.
* Greatest Mod was released in 2016, nearly 8 years ago. By this point there hadn't been a public release of H4 mods in over a decade. And iliveinabox and albyx didn't even form part of the community. And as far as I remember it doesn't even have maps. Yet they still dare to say I built my mods on "uncredited stealing", specifically of "their" stuff. They woudn't even have ever made anything without me reviving H4 modding. Well, actually albyx just adds random unbalanced gameplay features and iliveinabox is yet to mod anything himself (he didn't even landscape or place objects at all in """his""" claimed maps, just copy-pasted NWC pre-written text), but no matter, they "have" """""intellectual property""""".
* Yes, enough of it to try to destroy what I make and leave thousands of people without the ability to download and play. Much demand respect, very morally right, wow.
* Ah yes, there is also the accusation that because I added a donation link I am doing it "for the money". Others asked me multiple times to add this donation links! For nearly 7 years prior, my H4 mods have been published for free without *ANY* donation links or way to donate at all! And that's only in this game, my first mods for other games are from 12 years ago! And yet, I only got 11 euros minus fees and taxes (*nobility obliges, there was another 25 eur minus fees donation to my paypal, but since I use that for all kind of projects, and the person never contacted me, I don't know what was it for). Not like I have any more lucrative deals than less than a full euro per year of modding work! Not only do I live exclusively with that, but I have also profited immensely and became rich! Clearly, I have never done it out of love of the game or because I want to see more people playing an underappreciated and then-unfinished gem. No, clearly, this was all for the money, of course, what else would it be!
In fact, I became so rich that with some 0.75 EUR I bought a full mansion, with 0.50 EUR I bought a yacht, than for 0.33 EUR paid some models and will be now retiring with my 0.80 EUR Ferrari.
So, you won't be seeing any of me around H4 modding for an indeterminate period, probably ever. I still would like to make a VCMI town for Heroes III at last, but who knows. That wouldn't be HOMMIV modding, anyways.
I wish the best of luck to anyone that can read that actually contributed to the community, to anyone that enjoyed my maps and mods or that was able to use my game editing discoveries. I also thank to all the people that actually made H4 modding better before others came to wreck it. It was a wild ride.
As for the mod:
Since brucknerhun back-stabbed me for personal sympathy by saying that this unwarranted act of digital terrorism by iliveinabox, deleting half a dozen downloads across three years, dozens of comments by other people, changelogs, information about releases, bugfixing and troubleshooting information, contact information from fans, and so on, was all *my* fault, and other further things which are patently untrue (see ULTIMATE release thread for evidence here, and my replies)... not only is H4 Ultimate development suspended, but there is also no curator. If there is ever a worthy curator, a public apology from iliveinabox for destroying everything that wasn't his out of miserably small pettiness, and other conditions, I will consider uploading v10.
I have taken down myself all ULTIMATE uploads as protest, even the beta ones from 2021. Since all ULTIMATE versions contain my art, gameplay code, and text/story assets from my custom maps and campaigns (none of which is true about chronicles for ilive), I forbid anyone to reupload any of them.
This is sad because all I ever actually cared for was to improve the game for people, others made this all about politicking, bickering, insults, personal attacks, pettiness, and so forth. This is so much so, that I can no longer enjoy playing H4 after this, much less modding it. That perhaps, is my greatest regret about this all. It was relaxing to sit down and make some maps, plot a storyline, this about the balance progression, how to keep the game interesting, the combination of creature abilities, the synergies of abilities and spells, and so on.
I do have to scrap v10 which was completely plotted and would have included the much awaited sound changes, more objects, a unique appearance for the Hierophant dwelling, a full overhaul for sea objects with greater variety while keeping true to the default graphical style, blacksmiths with extra objects including expensive ones above Item level, and so much more.
Probably, I will also have to take a break from HC forums in general for the sake of my own well-being and not get exposed to the toxicity, although I used to participate in other games as well.
So, goodbye micro virtual world (and badbye to those that deserve it). May out paths never cross again in these circumstances, and may you find personal growth or die, whichever happens first.
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Jagulars
Tavern Dweller
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posted January 23, 2024 09:21 PM |
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No... This is dire news. The community needs your activity.
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unknown_dark_g
Hired Hero
heroes galopping in his heart
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posted January 24, 2024 10:57 AM |
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Whoa, what happened? Never thought there's so much beef going on in the H4 community. To me all modders seemed nice and always respected me and my texture packs. I did get criticism, not hate, because I wanted criticism and it was always said in a well-manered tone, both by Nimostar, Iliveinaboy and the other modders. I often critiqued other mods, but I never made it a personal attack and to me it never seemed, that someone ever took my words as a personal attack. I never expected toxicity to exist here. But why? How did it start here, with how few modders are taking part in this scene, everyone seemed so eager to get more modders in, rather then remove modders here. Why did this all happen.
Also were admins involved? I know the moderation of this server does not condone hate, so I never expected something like this to happen.
I would like to know who's even involved in this and what the reason is, for people lashing out at each other. I know Nimostar already explained his side of the story, but now I wanna know, why was so much hate sent to one of the few modders this community has?
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If death is worse then life then birth is is of all deeds the darkest. If life is inevitable then what is the purpose of the preverse?
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baronus
Legendary Hero
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posted January 24, 2024 01:38 PM |
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Edited by baronus at 13:39, 24 Jan 2024.
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I'm in shock! What happened?! Our community was very good. Probably the best in MM. We shouldn't fight over who provides better content, we should just enjoy each new mod. Taking one from the other is obvious, just like Ripping from other games. Of course, you can correct someone and give them comments, but don't destroy them! Voluntary contributions also do not raise any doubts. They encourage you to work.
All mods should be integrated into one platform so that you can simply switch from one to another using the launcher. They all must be compatible.
Of course, rest because it's always good, but don't disappear. All doubts must be clarified and there should be agreement. I don't see any other good solution. There are no people here making billions or trying to steal anything. We all like the MM world. There's nothing else keeping us here. So there is no competition for benefits. The benefit of one, i.e. The mod is a win-win for everyone. So there is nothing to even fight for.
Pace pace pace!
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iliveinabox05
Honorable
Famous Hero
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posted January 24, 2024 01:38 PM |
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unknown_dark_g said:
Whoa, what happened? Never thought there's so much beef going on in the H4 community.
baronus said:
I'm in shock! What happened?!
Hi unknown and baronus. For anyone wanting the full story, start reading here. Everything posted in this thread here has already been proven false, thus why we didn't respond to it.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted January 24, 2024 03:46 PM |
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Hi! We are adults, so we give forgive to all, and we forget snow pussy.. Thus we find better pussy.. 
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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baronus
Legendary Hero
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posted January 24, 2024 06:51 PM |
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Edited by baronus at 18:53, 24 Jan 2024.
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baronus
OK. I have read and understand the problem. Nimo succumbed to temptation, but don't call him mean or a thief. Because it causes big wounds and may mean permanent anger. I know it was irritating and you could get angry. I understand everything. Yet you are many and he is one. And your rights have been restored so there is no longer any reason to be angry. There is no point in dwelling on this any further and it leads nowhere. I don't think there is a threat of a repeat.
This is human nature, anyone can succumb to temptation and you need to be very careful.
It really hurts you when someone makes a better mod than you. That's why I haven't published my 2015 mod until now, so as not to cause jealousy :-))) In 2015, it had no competition... Now we've moved on and I'm glad and jealous! That's what I wanted, for H4 to be reborn from oblivion.
You see how difficult it is.
We need to give ourselves time, so I think Nimo calming down for a while is good. Time heals wounds. There are not many of us and the loss of every person who can do something is a huge gap in the world of Axeoth, which now has great development prospects. And finally we can have our own platform to expand the game! Excellent!
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Karmakeld
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted January 28, 2024 01:55 PM |
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NimoStar said:
Written January 22, 2024
Due to a toxic environment and constant unwarranted attacks I announce my retirement from H4 modding.
What was once a vibrant community of good people such as Baronus, Karmakeld, Radmutant69, and even Ghost. Yes, this was once a vibrant community of open development and mutual help, and people that made graphics and hex discoveries just for fun and for anyone to use, in public, and without asking for anything.
I would like to question this remark - not asking for anything, as I feel this simple line sums up quite well, what the issue is really about. I agree, from my own point of view and what I hope and have experienced over the years, that the main purpose of this community, is to help eachother. Wheter that has been in scripting, modding, beating a certain map or whatever as well as sharing a mutual enjoyment for the game we all enjoy.
I think you're quite wrong stating that everyone contributed 'withou asking for anything'. True, ppl. might have never asked for a payment for their work, but a 'thanks for sharing, great work, interesting discovery' etc is exactly what we all need and desire to keep us motivated to help make progress or continue to help eachother. We wanna feel that we contribute with something, otherwise ppl. leave. The same goes for giving credit. When Equilibris team asked for help extending the town screens for the HD mod, I found I might be able to contribute. I volunteered, but the least I expect is a' thank you for the work' and being credited somewhere in the mod, for the work I performed. I dont believe anyone in this forum is careless as to wheter they get credit or not, or as Unknown wrote, atleast some kind of feedback. We all want our work to mean something to someone, why else should we continue?
And Nimo is certainly no exception. In most of his posts where he shared any kind of modding info, he litterally asked the community to thank him. Nimo has missed no oppertunity to tell the community of his importance for the modding progress made in recent years, so I found it odd, that you write that no one ever asked for anything.
I have followed many of NimoStars finding and guides over the years, with great interest both on my own behalf and for that of the community, but the issue here, is the fact that while Nimostar consistently has been asking for credit for his work, he failed or (perhaps willingly) decided not to do so, towards the work of others, which he used in his greatest mod.
If the overall intention was to gather as much H4 material in one big bundle, that be various mods, maps, new objects, new graphics of various kinds to help spark renewed interest in the game, I could acknowledge that as something that would be good for the community, providing that all relevant contributers were properly credited and asked for permission to use their work, where possible.
But that is not the case here. The issue isnt, that most of these providers or creators no longer are active and thus couldn't be asked, quite the contrary. Nimo knows most of the ppl are active and I know he even has their e-mails or other ways of reaching out to these people and ask for their permission to include their work in his bundle - the ultimate mod. But rather he gathered it all up, including a bunch of fan made map and campaigns available on fan sites, which for obvious reasons were never balanced or intended for his mod, and released it all, without giving proper credit. THAT is the essence of this, and that is why NimoStar is in bad standing with alot of community members. And in the case of in-active member, the least you can do, is give credit to those whose work you included. I see you gave credit to Verok, Equi355 and H4Zero, but were is the credit to all the others, whos work was included in the latest version of the Ultimate Mod?
Personally I have had acknowledged NimoStars contribution to this community for years, but it saddens me to learn that he apparently dont show the same respect towards me and my contributions as he not only failed to credit my work, which he used in his mod, but also decided suddenly take my object package hostage, in his dispute with other community members.
So again I find it odd you give me credit for being one of the good and welcoming guys, and yet you find it okay to treat me bad by not giving me credit and drag my work into your dispute with others.
I dont see how that doesnt contribute to escalating just that exact toxic enviroment you call out others for creating.
You expect an appology while refusing to give one to others, for the wrongdoing done to them. Sadly, your own behaviour is no better than what you accuse others off. You quite simply refuse to clean up the mess you made yourself, and instead you expect others to appologize for it, now wheres the love, respect and simply decent behavior for the community in that?
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evildustructor
Known Hero
Pizza Man dominos pizza yummy
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posted January 29, 2024 03:04 AM |
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Come on, "unwarranted" attacks?  reverse engineering end goals is absolutely not the same as copy pasting or plagiarizing without context, stuff was missing credit and you doubled down on not correcting it sorry man. at least some notice of it would do wonders esp in a tight knit community for such an old game
no need to stir the drama even further let it go 
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Blake00
Known Hero
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posted January 29, 2024 07:14 AM |
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Edited by Blake00 at 07:16, 29 Jan 2024.
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sigh... oh Nimo.. mate, what have you done.. : (
You're obviously a proud man and it'll take a while to cool off.. but hopefully when you return you'll have a different perspective on all this as you've clearly upset a lot of people who respected and trusted you.
I lack the artistic & programming talent to really do much stuff myself so a lot of my Civ and Doom mods uses collated content created by others, my Civ2 preservation work collects and releases a huge amount of content created by others who in many cases are long gone from the communities. So no matter what I always ask permission when I can and heavily credit people in my documentation and release posts to protect myself from moments like this. Most won't care and some will even thank you, but some won't like it at all, so you gotta give credit where it's due even when the person is long gone.
You have a right to be angry about how some have conducted themselves towards you after the event but that doesn't mean you can ignore the event that started it (not crediting people for their work in your project). If you don't show them the respect they deserve they won't show it to you..
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Blake's Sanctum - Heroes of Might & Magic: fan page containing pictures, vids, info, similar games & fan projects!
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baronus
Legendary Hero
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posted February 01, 2024 11:02 AM |
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This situation showed us the problem. And we should do something about it other than erasing Nimo.
He is a victim of himself. He completely destroyed his position, which was high.
After all, his work was very large. Unfortunately, narcissism, and thus pride, was also revealed. And this fall showed that a lot had accumulated.
But here he has to get rid of it himself and we won't do it for him. It only harms him. Because what benefit did he gain from this self-aggrandizement? Well, we see... It destroyed him. So he convinced himself that it was not good.
However, it is very difficult to get rid of something like this. Therefore, you cannot press violently as it will only make it worse. Of course, I'm not saying to pretend that nothing happened, just to be understanding. It's about getting out of it, not getting rid of it. I think he now understands what was wrong and that he really lost a lot because of it. So there is no point in stubbornly sticking to what is harmful.
I guess it just takes time because such changes take years...
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vulcancolak
Famous Hero
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posted February 18, 2024 10:00 PM |
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I do not know much about you but. I hope this decision makes you happier. It looks sad from here. Heroes 4 players are few and modders are very few. It would be a huge loss to lose modder like you.
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dD_ShockTroop
Hired Hero
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posted March 01, 2024 09:50 AM |
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Coming back to the H4 forums after a long time can be a jarring experience. I remember my shock years ago as it went from being basically dead to there suddenly being multiple mod creators who were actually making new things. And now I've returned to what seems to be a post-nuclear interpersonal conflict, with none of the context for how it came to be.
H4 Ultimate was admittedly never my absolute favourite version of H4, but it had ideas and a design direction that was different from everything else available, and that made it interesting and appealing to me. I've got zero clue what happened here, but regardless of the cause of this drama, H4 Ultimate will be missed.
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Karmakeld
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted March 03, 2024 05:18 PM |
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dD_ShockTroop said:
Coming back to the H4 forums after a long time can be a jarring experience. I remember my shock years ago as it went from being basically dead to there suddenly being multiple mod creators who were actually making new things. And now I've returned to what seems to be a post-nuclear interpersonal conflict, with none of the context for how it came to be.
H4 Ultimate was admittedly never my absolute favourite version of H4, but it had ideas and a design direction that was different from everything else available, and that made it interesting and appealing to me. I've got zero clue what happened here, but regardless of the cause of this drama, H4 Ultimate will be missed.
The reason was posted by iLiVeInAbOx05 in an earlier post, also I feel I put some words on it in my post above, but you can read more in-depth about what lead to this here
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BrucknerHun
Hired Hero
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posted September 02, 2024 03:08 PM |
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Hi Nemo!
It's been a long time since we talked, a very long time..I thought it was time to talk again, after half a year! I don't know where to start…
I'm really sorry about what happened to you, us and the mod itself. Maybe if I had acted in time, and asked the others why it was reported, and maybe the matter would have been resolved with a simple conversation. And it wouldn't have gone this far, but who knows? If I went back in time now, I would do it differently! But anyway what's what happened, it has happened. And I think it is time to look to the future!
What is H4? Yes it's a controversial game, but it was my favourite of all the Heroes. I remember when I played it with my dad, it was almost one of my first video games, along with Sacred 2 and Heroes 5! I was always hooked on the fact that you could go with the heroes, fight, die. Of almost all Heroes, this one has the best magic system, and the most spells. Not to mention the game music, which impresses even H3 fans!
Believe it or not, the H4 Ultimate was, and still is, one of my favourites! I remember when you announced it, I was very excited and happy, because there wasn't really a big mod for H4, apart from Equi! The remastered campaigns, the new looks, creatures, abilities, rebalancing and spells all amazed me! These past 3 years have been a great time for me and I looked forward to the new things and new ideas with every update!
You have missed a lot since then! Our H4 Ultimate server has reached over 652 members and surprisingly a kind member gave us a nitro-boost, so I could upload all the server emoji (H4 might units are back!) Also BasicNoobiltiy (YT H4 guy) has started his own discord server and an initiative to port H4 to a new engine (from sratch)! Finally, a new Heroes game called Heroes of might and magic: Olden Era was also announced at Gamescom!
I'm very sorry for banning you from the server I never meant it as a permanent ban...it was more just to give everyone a chance to calm down.. But please forgive me!
I say let's bury the war axe, put aside our differences and be at peace. I see a bright future ahead for Heroes and H4 modding, and everyone deserves a second chance! And I'll give it to you, starting by unbaning you from the server! Feel free to come back if you like. I completely understand your statement, and I accept that you have retired the H4 modding!
But the mod is very important to me, I don't want it to get lost in the ether and forgotten. So let's talk about it and come back to us!!
So you can connect back here! https://discord.com/invite/RKXU23p6bb
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted September 02, 2024 03:16 PM |
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Did you hear, NimoStar? Welcome back.. Thanks to everyone
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted September 22, 2024 08:46 PM |
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NimoStar? This funny thread..
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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