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| Thread: An Artistic Issue |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted April 29, 2007 10:11 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 22:12, 29 Apr 2007.
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An Artistic Issue
A few words before you read this thread. This is not meant to put the blame on someone but for me to express some things that have come to my attention. I would be interested in seeing how you feel about it but please refrain from flaming even if you feel it is justified,
thank you! 
With the introduction of the new instalment of the heroes of might and magic series I'm sure we all felt a change. I am not talking about the graphics or gameplay-something more intangible yet every bit as important. H5 lacks the finesse and eye for detail that the previous titles had.
Nival has not shown that spark of creativity that was easily distinctive in the other games either being in a fulfilling text recounting the recent events or advancing the plot, the message written on an artifact or visiting a leprechaun and I cannot think of many maps that have an interesting quest to boast.
Sure I may have seen a few in the single maps but these are more like mini campaigns and even so there is little to present in terms of storyline or actual questing. Especially in HoF most of these maps show two units staying in one place and we just hear the dialogue in the initial and ending cutscene with the Giovanni mission as an atonement of sorts. Another small detail concerning the cutscenes: They did not bother to hire the same voice overs from the original game-the time I heard of lord Caldwell's voice I cringed...In the Zehir campaign you will see two familiar secondary characters that are completely different with their new voice actors and while it is of little importance it ruins the feeling for me.
The texts were a source of good english and were compelling to read, something that made me want to play the campaigns in H3 and H4 and actually enjoy the time I spent on them. They had a certain quality that diminished with the use of cutscenes. No intriguing dialogues, more like childish most of the time followed by senseless shiny animations to make up for the static screen- yes the heroes shown will almost never move and when they do you feel sorry to have watched the spectacle. Remember Wulfstan walking? They tried to show a poetic manner with Findan yet they failed. There is no poetry there but an unrelated string of thoughts brought together that does not even sound nice.
Also there have been some messy parts in the game as shown through the developing process and the map editor. The map editor simply is not fun to use and not as easy to navigate either. They had a problem with giving decent names in the units something I cannot yet understand. Let's take the nightmare. In a short time it was changed about three times: Hell stallion->nightmare, nightmare->frightful nightmare and hell charger->nightmare  Just a short time before the release they re-skinned the treant and the cleric in a worse version of themselves as most of the fans will agree. Most probably because they were obvious references to lotr and warhammer. In the HoF original release there were some dwarven structures that were not working for some reason so the obvious way to fix it was to remove them alltogether in the 2.1 patch 
You may counter that it was ubi that caused this with lack of interest/supervision, giving unreasonable deadlines but that is beside the point. Nival simply lacks staff with an artist's sensitivity and way of thought and should have tried to see things more consistently, not leave loopholes in various parts. Again I am not pointing a finger, I am just sad to see that happen because it could have been so much more. Also a voicing of my thoughts for something that was on the edge of my mind yet I could not exactly understand what it was.
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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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ZombieLord
Promising
Famous Hero
that wants your brainz...
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posted April 29, 2007 10:18 PM |
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About the voices and cut-scenes: I don't enjoy campaigns much but I agree the cut-scenes suck, just like in SpellForce (in SF, it was the same: different actors for the same character, silly animations, AND bad accent (which this one at least doesn't have))
EDIT: hmm.. sorry if it's confusing, but my 'cut-scenes' are the dialogues, and the 'real' cut-scenes (for example, with Agrael battling Veyer) are movies for me So I was referring to the dialogues above
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The map editor simply is not fun to use and not as easy to navigate either.
I agree completely.
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They had a problem with giving decent names in the units something I cannot yet understand
Most of them are fine IMO, though some are really bad.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted April 29, 2007 10:27 PM |
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True, most are fine-I was commenting more on their not being able to find a good name and stick with it during the development.
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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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Plexus22
Known Hero
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posted April 30, 2007 06:41 AM |
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Yes I agree with most of what you said Elvin. The campeigns were so awful I couldnt wait to finish them and the storyline and animations were so cheesy I was embarrased to whatch them. The lack of quality that went into the storyline and animations left me with no interrest whatsoever in the characters and history of this new HoMM world. And to top it off they added some pointless display of spell casting or some little dance at the end of each scene that just amplified the cheesiness of it all
It was also very obvious that no creativity was put into the actual structure of the campeigns. I noticed that almost every map was filled with pointless space and one could wander around on them endlessly yet accomplish nothing along the lines of completing the mission. Its like each mission was composed of a stupidly simple objective placed onto a mediocre map filled with random locations and all kinds of filler stuff to keep you busy but that really has no significance in completing the mission. So you would spend 3 months running around the map pointlessly collecting artifacts and gold only to find at the end that your hero was already powerful enough to complete the mission at the start and all the troops you ammassed was just overkill. After playing mission after mission after mission like that and seeing the same pointless element to all of them I just had no enthusiasm or motivation to really explore or take interrest in anything on the map which killed the campeign experience for me. The only reason I played all the campeigns all the way through was to learn the respective factions and to have that sense of accomplishement and completion in the game I purchased. For me if the mission holds no challenge I feel no point in playing it.
However, I think the game has a lot to offer in online play which is really all I wanted to do with it from the start.
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emilsn
Legendary Hero
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posted April 30, 2007 07:40 AM |
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They needed between 6 months to a year more... If they had that this game would have rocked even more then HoMM3 ,, But no they didn't they tried: Patches!! That is a bad way to solve things
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Don't walk behind me; I may not
lead. Don't walk in front of me;
I may not follow. Just walk
beside me and be my friend.
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pomo
Famous Hero
The lone peasant
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posted April 30, 2007 08:10 AM |
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I haven't played the campaigns or really any of the single player maps, so I can't comment too much about that.
The map editor though, I don't really have any problem using. It's kinda frustrating at the start until you get the hang of it but fine after that. The only thing I would really like is the ability to customise the object groups so I'm not continually flicking through between 'grass objects' and 'dirt objects', or so I can put all the stat boosters in one place, not just scattered through all terrain objects etc.
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Sanyu
Known Hero
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posted April 30, 2007 08:11 AM |
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No offence everyone, but, why do you all play campaigns at all? In my entire course of playing games, I've never played their campaigns at all. Be it Red Alert 2, Tiberium Sun, Warcraft 3, Heroes series whatever, they are all quite lame.
Anyway, I agree that the map editor is very lousy. For one, the angle of view restricts you from placing structures/creatures easily especially towards the centre of the map.
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pomo
Famous Hero
The lone peasant
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posted April 30, 2007 08:31 AM |
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Quote:
Anyway, I agree that the map editor is very lousy. For one, the angle of view restricts you from placing structures/creatures easily especially towards the centre of the map.
Um, you could always rotate it. 
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted April 30, 2007 10:18 AM |
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Edited by Elvin at 10:21, 30 Apr 2007.
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However, I think the game has a lot to offer in online play which is really all I wanted to do with it from the start.
That is correct, the game was more focused on multiplayer but it is exactly for this that they should have eliminated the imbalances as well as the stability. Right now there are few problems and it can be a very enjoyable experience. When you play online you don't care about the interface implementation or the absense of texts or whatever as you are more focused on winning and trying to avoid mistakes but it still feels wrong to me.
@Sanyu
Then you have lost one of the most important parts of the series's experience. And I am talking mostly about H3(AB, SoD) and the original H4. Heck even H2 was fun to play.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Sanyu
Known Hero
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posted April 30, 2007 10:53 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Anyway, I agree that the map editor is very lousy. For one, the angle of view restricts you from placing structures/creatures easily especially towards the centre of the map.
Um, you could always rotate it.
I don't know how to describe here but it seems always too far no matter how you rotate...
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radar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Castle/Haven player
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posted April 30, 2007 10:56 AM |
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Quote:
Especially in HoF most of these maps show two units staying in one place and we just hear the dialogue in the initial
Yes. I agree. And those standard animations disappointed me. When somebody is talking 'with expressions' we can see a hero with spellcasting animation or something 
Yet another thing about their creativity are some creatures. Blade dancer, wtf is this?  Have you seen it in previous HoMM? And Pao Kai now, because it is in Dark Messiah?
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Plexus22
Known Hero
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posted May 01, 2007 02:28 AM |
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No offence everyone, but, why do you all play campaigns at all? In my entire course of playing games, I've never played their campaigns at all. Be it Red Alert 2, Tiberium Sun, Warcraft 3, Heroes series whatever, they are all quite lame.
Anyway, I agree that the map editor is very lousy. For one, the angle of view restricts you from placing structures/creatures easily especially towards the centre of the map.
I actually enjoyed the campeigns in Heroes 3. They were much better thought out and offered a challenge. Also Heroes 3 had much better single player experience than Heroes V does because the AI was much better and could actually challenge you on difficult settings. I had a lot of fun with Heroes 3 in single player and played virtually every map that came with the game before I ever went online with it. But ultimately I enjoyed online play even more than single player games which is why I had my sights set on online play with Heroes V right from the start.
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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted May 01, 2007 02:39 AM |
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I miss the underlying sense of humor of many of the HoMM 2 and 3 scenarios. 5 is, in a way, too serious for me.
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emilsn
Legendary Hero
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posted May 01, 2007 09:29 PM |
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Quote:
Yet another thing about their creativity are some creatures. Blade dancer, wtf is this? Have you seen it in previous HoMM? And Pao Kai now, because it is in Dark Messiah?
Errr`? You don't like that they Renew HoMM? Make the game a bit more interresting? Instead of making HoMM 1,2,3,4 remaked version. I Think its great with new creatures and good old ones...
And Pao Kai is yes from Dark messiah , but Dark messiah is the future story of HoMM 5 ! So we kind of need them for a storyline.. (not a big part, though)
____________
Don't walk behind me; I may not
lead. Don't walk in front of me;
I may not follow. Just walk
beside me and be my friend.
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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted May 01, 2007 09:47 PM |
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Don't like that they totally kill the old storyline. It's called a sequel for a reason. Old story and characters were much better.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted May 01, 2007 09:52 PM |
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I find them much better as well and I was sad to see them go but I did not like Axeoth much and Antagarich was destroyed...In any case we are drifting away from the subject. A sequel does not have to have a connection to the original anyway.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
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posted May 02, 2007 02:28 AM |
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Axeoth was H4, right? I liked Erathia and Enroth, but they were destroyed in H4, I believe? So it doesn't matter, they're dead anyways. I actually like much of the new units' appearances, I just don't like several of them. Most of these are in Academy.
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william
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
LummoxLewis
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posted May 02, 2007 05:08 AM |
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Heck even H2 was fun to play.
H2 is the best one in the entire series.
The campaigns were good and fun to play, and I just enjoyed playing it more then I did playing the other ones.
____________
~Ticking away the moments that
make up a dull day, Fritter and
waste the hours in an off-hand
way~
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PhoenixReborn
Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
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posted May 02, 2007 05:57 AM |
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Quote:
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Heck even H2 was fun to play.
H2 is the best one in the entire series.
The campaigns were good and fun to play, and I just enjoyed playing it more then I did playing the other ones.
It's tough to disagree. In fact I played a map last night. Spell casters. ***'n phoenixes. I liked it when creatures joined you in the campaigns.
Also, the art style was superb, I much prefer it to 3 and 4.
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Bask in the light of my glorious shining unicorn.
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pomo
Famous Hero
The lone peasant
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posted May 02, 2007 06:06 AM |
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I don't know how to describe here but it seems always too far no matter how you rotate...
Well, just in case you're interested in making maps - you just hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse, same way as in game. You can zoom with the mouse wheel, and scroll with the arrow keys.
Just another note, the graphical settings that you have in game also apply in the editor, so if you set 'no eye candies' then you won't be able to see any of them in the editor, although you can still place them. I must admit that it's quite retarded that you can't change that in the editor without going into the game.
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