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| Thread: Heroes III community phenomen | |
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batoonike
Known Hero
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posted January 07, 2010 10:09 PM |
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Heroes III community phenomen
I am more-or-less making computergames with a few friends(nothin special yet) and I am trying to figure out how can this community possibly exist as it does  Given my obsevations, Heroes III games are like:
1) Extremely long (2 to 10 hours)
2) Very hard to find suitable opponents
3) Very old game (Its 2010 now!)
4) 95% of the time in multiplayer games you dont even have contact with your opponent (in closed maps). Thus you are really playing singleplayer with 1 main battle at the end.
5) Quite uncomfortable in-game chat. (no history, cant see in towns etc).
6) Really very little players playing this.
7) Absolutely no official lobby for meeting players.
8) Takes quite a long time to reach any reasonable skill for multiplayer games
9) No replays possibility really. (load and save is quite far from a real replay)
10) This community is rather hard to find.
Given all these problems, it is quite a mystery how can there be a great community like this one.
In contrast, some other popular oldschool games:
AgeOfEmpires 2: old, yet shorter games, seemingly more players and lots of contact with your opponent during the whole game + real replays.
Warcraft III: short games, excellent opponent finding system Bnet, 100 000+ players online any time of day + real replays.
Battle For Wesnoth (wesnoth.org): easy to learn, still 2x shorter games than Homm, great official lobby + replays
Chess: old classic, short games usually, very easy to find opponents and playing places.
I mean Homm III is a great game and this community as well. But the great question is: what makes this strange community of people playing this horribly time-consuming game work? All opinions welcome! You are potentially helping us to develop great games in the future 
Thank you!
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Shares
Supreme Hero
I am. Thusly I am.
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posted January 07, 2010 10:28 PM |
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Maybe because you usually meet the game with friends. I doubt a lot people found heroes by themselves, except HoMM I, II and V. First and second built up the fanbase and V got puplicity in the 00's, which is hard for this game. Shortly, it's a somewhat social game. People played warcraft III without ever playing WC1 or WC2, and got it without having a friend telling them how great it was.
Also, when talking about RTS's there's allways a new one. Tons of 'em are produced every year. HoMM is a game in a quite small genre.
Thirdly, it's a medium nerd. HoMM is a kinda nerdy game, but chess has such a big nerdstamp that a lot of people don't want to try it. WC3 is a "popular" game. Meeting a guy who tells you he likes warcraft doesn't tell you anything. Meeting a chess player kinda does. It's also medium brain. Any one can play WC3, it's more about experience than brains, chess is more about brains than experience.
Simply put, it takes a special kind of person to play HoMM, and it's a very precise game. The right ammount of popularity and experience/brain quota. This gives a small group of special people.
And yes, off course I'm generalizing!
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StickyFingaz
Hired Hero
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posted January 08, 2010 12:33 AM |
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Some off-topic
I have played Heroes3 and Age of Empires 2 since i had inetrnet on my computer via hamachi a lot. As i want to be best in any competition, i had a choise - what game i prefer to learn finally? I learnt all tactics in AoE2 so last thing i had to develop is my micro. And i understood that 90% of difference between me and pro players is micro. Micro developing takes a lot of time and it's boring, so i decide to learn Heroes3 and now i play only this game.
Now it's more easily to learn Heroes3 pro playing. In russian community Heroesworld.ru we have a lot of playing demo's made by very good players, so everybody can download it and learn from it. Also, almost everyday our players makes on-line translations via program Mikogo, there are some articles there about playing and you can ask all questions you have to our pro players on forum or in private talk. So learning isn't problem.
Real problem is that Heroes3 made not for on-line playing, but for single and campains. Tournament Edition version solve some problems. Asm is developing World Tournament version, it can solve most of them.
About time of average games. Yes, it's veeery long game with few action. A lot of players don't want to play 4-8 hours. So not much gamers plays this game now, but most of them played it for fun (this is really legend game in Russia). So no big competitions with large money prizes. So there is no reason to become pro player in Heroes3.
[url=http://forum.heroesworld.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=15255&d=1256546941]This is templates[/url] in which you will have a lot of battles in game begining.
So you start game with 4 starting positions and starting respauns divides only by 1 respaun. Few battles with computer and more battles with opponents, end of game mostly on 116-127 in first template.
A lot of action. Size - L+U for first template and XL+U for second template. A lot of money for building in all towns.
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batoonike
Known Hero
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posted January 08, 2010 01:10 AM |
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Its good to see that theres still serious Heroes III going around! Yet the question is, why is this game such a legend? Was it first? Has it something to do with the fact that its so hard to understand everyting in the game? (the manual is very foggy about many aspects of the game)
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Shares
Supreme Hero
I am. Thusly I am.
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posted January 08, 2010 01:21 AM |
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Nah, rarely the first one to do something breaks through. It's about being early, and doing the stuff no else have done, but exactly the same thing. WoW for example was by far not the first MMORPG, but it was early among the big ones. HoMM wasn't first, but they were early, and it's propably the best in it's genre from that time, but that's discussable.
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SAG
Promising
Supreme Hero
WCL owner
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posted January 08, 2010 10:59 AM |
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Quote:
1) Extremely long (2 to 10 hours)
can be shorter in future (with sim-turns)
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2) Very hard to find suitable opponents
pretty easy at GameRanger.
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3) Very old game (Its 2010 now!)
so what? still graphics is better than many "modern" 3D games
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4) 95% of the time in multiplayer games you dont even have contact with your opponent (in closed maps). Thus you are really playing singleplayer with 1 main battle at the end.
depends on template. on 8mm6, 2sm4d3 and some others contact can be permanent
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5) Quite uncomfortable in-game chat. (no history, cant see in towns etc).
can be improved in TE version
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6) Really very little players playing this.
a lot more than in homm4 and homm5...
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7) Absolutely no official lobby for meeting players.
so what?
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8) Takes quite a long time to reach any reasonable skill for multiplayer games
depends on player. If player wanna learn this game, he can do it quickly
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9) No replays possibility really. (load and save is quite far from a real replay)
i'm working on real replays (for TE version)
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10) This community is rather hard to find.
so what?
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I play HoMM3 at www.heroes-
III.com
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batoonike
Known Hero
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posted January 08, 2010 11:31 AM |
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SAG I was thinking, that a game with such big problems THEORETICLY couldnt possibly have a good online community, but it does. So Im trying to figure out wheres the hook, so maybe I can apply it to some games I might create later on. When you come to think of having a game with online community, these are the things you would normally like to have with the game. Seems there has to be more.
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liophy
Famous Hero
Bulgarian
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posted January 08, 2010 12:35 PM |
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Edited by liophy at 13:36, 08 Jan 2010.
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Hey SAG, you mentioned the sim turns. Is the project alive?
I was maybe the biggest fan, but seems like ASM is not working anymore. I asked a question in his forum, but no answer for months.
We found a lot of bugs in the sim turns and if someone is reviving the project i will be glad to give feedback.
Right now the quantity of the bugs is too much to make it playable. But if the main ones are fixed, it will be great.
About replays - if you are working on it, i will be glad to test this aswell.
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I play Heroes 3 Online at: www.heroes-III.com
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SAG
Promising
Supreme Hero
WCL owner
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posted January 08, 2010 12:38 PM |
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sim-turns currently postponed. ASM is busy with some work, perhaps he will find the time to finish the work
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I play HoMM3 at www.heroes-
III.com
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Augas
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 18, 2011 02:45 PM |
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Quote:
sim-turns currently postponed. ASM is busy with some work, perhaps he will find the time to finish the work
Hi Sag i've been wondering whether sth worked out with sim-turns system
I find it very difficult to play more frequently cause the game lasts too long.
Do u have any good news? or know where i can find it? It has been more than a year. I hope sth has changed.
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denbal87
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 19, 2011 10:30 PM |
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Omg I was thinking the same thing the other day. I just started playing the game again and then found this community. I was wondering about the same thing: How is it HOMM3 communities are still active? I started playing it again cuz I used to play it with friends when I was a teenager, so the game reminds me of that time. Also I absolutely love the music in this one. It's very very nice.
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Coconut
Hired Hero
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posted April 21, 2011 07:50 PM |
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Edited by Coconut at 19:56, 21 Apr 2011.
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I don't want to sound cocky but the answer is so simple: The game is good.
Basically nothing else matters. Heroes III is good, and so you come back to it and have a browse at the forums.
Multiplayer limitations don't matter. Look at Eschalon: no online play, no editor, so no new content, and still a lively community.
Heroes III community is also larger than this site would suggest. On Drachenwald, the German Heroes site, someone asked a few weeks ago whether people were still playing Heroes III and he got 50 replies in a few weeks; everybody said 'Nein'. Heheh, kidding of course, no they're still playing!
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MacMasterMC
Known Hero
Resurrected Loreweaver
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posted May 13, 2011 03:10 PM |
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It is really quite simple.
Good games last forever.
They stick with you. Years later you can remember how much fun they were, and if they were REALLY good about it, you will remember a favorite cutscene, or particular sequence of events or something like that.
It is different for everyone, but ignoring target audiences, (which is a bit too detailed for me to want to delve into with this post) this is something that can be slightly to wildly different for everyone.
One of my favorite games of all time, up there with Final Fantasy 6, Chronotrigger, Portal, and countless other really awesome and fun games, is a rather unknown game called Earthbound. One thing it does, aside from its silly and somewhat cartoonish graphics, is it fools you. You think you are playing just a game, but then it takes you from one path to another in what seems almost random, but as you go you start to see the design. It actually pulls you into the game, and I am not going to give spoilers. This is the kind of game that will seriously and honestly make you shed tears if your heart is not simply a stone dead rock.
How does it do that you ask?
Any good creative work has to at some point stop focusing on its message and simply tell the story. It is far too easy to get in the way of the story TRYING to tell it. Sometimes you have to get out of the way, and let the story tell itself.
This is an awareness. It is not something you can just learn, you have to want to be able to see this viewpoint.
I can recommend how to see it, if what I have said doesn't make much sense, or if you don't fully see and understand what I have shared.
Play through the full story of Earthbound.
Complete even just a full, single ending, from the start, of the game Chronotrigger.
Play the Prince of Persia Sands of time, Warrior Within, and the Two Thrones. If you don't plan to play all three, Then just play the first one (and know that as cool as the story is by the end of the game, it is literally so much better once you complete the third game).
Go play through the full game of Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past.
Link's Awakening on the gameboy, the original one, can do it was well.
There are a number of games out there that tell the story successfully and don't get in the way. They are getting few and far between anymore. I have most of the Final Fantasy games up through 9 if I remember right, but too often the mechanics or gameplay, as innovative as they are, still get in the way. Chrono Cross comes closer to its gameplay not interfering more than most of the Final Fantasy series, with 6 as a possible contender for a less interfering combat system. (All the characters have different special skills, and nearly all are incorporated into the story. That is quite a feat, in and of itself.)
The reason so many new games don't succeed? Mechanics takes a front seat, graphics in shotgun. The story is usually stretched around those, and that is why it tends not to fit as well.
If you understand what I have said so far, you will realize the stretching doesn't have to be continuity errors (though the most obvious ones are) and that regardless of how it is stretched, games anymore are made to be good to play and see. Not necessarily to enjoy the story.
Isn't that the point at which games stop being fun, and are just another form of exercise, instead of enjoyment? As in, you play, can wear yourself out with the experience, and after you wonder what else you can do. The games I mentioned above, after I complete them, I think for a bit.
Any good story will do that.
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...a shimmer in the woods, with
an expectant feel to the air...
...a figure takes shape...
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Lineran
Hired Hero
Zapping people...
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posted June 25, 2011 06:18 PM |
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Edited by Lineran at 18:45, 25 Jun 2011.
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I am a 15 year old right now and I play this game because it is totally different from the other strategy games out there nowadays. I started playing it again after a year long break and I just love the difficulty of the game, makes you think about every move you make.
EDIT: Mac I just read your post and yes the story really makes the game, I have played and finished Chrono Trigger, the story is epic, it is the same with Chrono Cross and any other RPG on PS1, because the developers did not focus that much on graphics, they thought about story and gameplay, and I think that music plays a really big part in the games too, some tunes really make you want to play a game again. Talking about Heroes III, the graphics were top notch for its time, the story is magnificent, and the gameplay... you got to get into it to understand. And I forgot the music, almost every theme is a masterpiece. To make things shorter: Graphics do not make the game.
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"If history is to change, let it change. If the world is to be destroyed, so be it. If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh." - Magus
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Fester
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 25, 2011 10:45 PM |
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I have a hard time seeing how this game can have simultaneous turns. For example : how can blue attack a reds hero if its position on the map hasīnt yet been set?
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batoonike
Known Hero
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posted July 02, 2011 02:13 AM |
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"the story is magnificent"
Funny I always thought the story was horrible The gameplay and music more than compensate for it though.
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Lineran
Hired Hero
Zapping people...
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posted July 02, 2011 11:37 PM |
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Quote:
"the story is magnificent"
Funny I always thought the story was horrible The gameplay and music more than compensate for it though.
Heh, and we are from the same country.
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pdesbois
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 09, 2011 05:03 AM |
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Edited by pdesbois at 05:04, 09 Jul 2011.
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Quote:
"the story is magnificent"
Funny I always thought the story was horrible The gameplay and music more than compensate for it though.
My thoughts exactly. I seldom play campaigns, and what I love most is the ability to change a map to my preferences.
But the music is something special in HOMM, even more so H3. I actually started having interest in games because of H1 music, and all t he fantasy-medieval turn-base stuff.
My bro has HOMM V and, honestly, I prefer H3 - even the graphs. When I first saw the Behemoth (and then his upgrade ) I was in awe. Add to that the excellent work that the WOG-people have been doing and a great / loyal community is not hard to understand.
I really only wish I were more tech-savvy, because with all excelletn explanations by modders, moderators and administrators here, I still can accomplish very little in terms of customising.
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Lineran
Hired Hero
Zapping people...
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posted July 09, 2011 10:42 AM |
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Edited by Lineran at 10:44, 09 Jul 2011.
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I seldom play campaigns
I have played many RPGs on PS1 and I guess I like to play campaigns because of the them.
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