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| Thread: About Black Hole Entertainment ... |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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avalon00x
Bad-mannered
Known Hero
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posted December 15, 2011 02:58 PM |
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Both Ubisoft and Black Hole fail. There's no need to defend one over the other. The reason we can sling a shot at Black Hole and not Ubisoft, is that they're easier to get rid of.
Truly, I would love to see Ubisoft selling the rights of Heroes to someone else. But I don't see that happening. It's more possible though that they may hire a new dev company to do the next installments, more competent this time.
as xecutioner said tho Ubisoft has made some of the biggest and best games since lets say 1998 the games they deliver are solid. besides there poor customer support i dont see how you can claim they fail.
edit: ooh if black hole was founded in 2001 by 9 people its no wonder these patches take ages.
edit: 7 not 9.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted December 15, 2011 03:01 PM |
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We are still talking about Heroes, are we?
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted December 15, 2011 03:06 PM |
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Edited by Avirosb at 15:07, 15 Dec 2011.
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Quote:
edit: ooh if black hole was founded in 2001 by 9 people its no wonder these patches take ages.
Ten years ago? There's no way they could possibly have hired more people since then!
Or are you suggesting that they may have a slight communication problem on their hands?
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avalon00x
Bad-mannered
Known Hero
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posted December 15, 2011 03:22 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
edit: ooh if black hole was founded in 2001 by 9 people its no wonder these patches take ages.
Ten years ago? There's no way they could possibly have hired more people since then!
Or are you suggesting that they may have a slight communication problem on their hands?
I fear your sarcasm is misplaced. as
1: all 3 games they launched dont strike me as perticulair populair. (not including h6)
2: they have 6 open job positions available probably with the money they made out of heroes VI it is clear that they are looking to expand
3: when developing takes so long it only shows that you dont have alot of people to work with or that you are aiming for top quality.
4: have you taken a look at their website? it sais that They are currently working on Might and Magic Heroes VI wich is due to be released in march! i am sure that is the prime example of a large company!
5: even if they doubled in number. that is still a relatively low number and lets say half of them are programmers then you still have programmers in different branches who exel at different things.
this leads me to conclude that it is no wonder patches take so damn long. and next time try to place your sarcasm better.
also this makes me fairly certain that the mayority of the problem lies with Black hole and not ubisoft.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted December 15, 2011 03:29 PM |
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Edited by Avirosb at 15:35, 15 Dec 2011.
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I wasn't being sarcastic really, more like annoyed at your baseless accusation (which still doesn't hold much merit in my eyes).
1. Popularity does not equal quality.
2. So what?
3. And perhaps there *is* a communication problem between Ubi and B-Hole.
4. Ubisoft's official Heroes site had blunders too. This is hardly unique.
5. Small development teams are not unusal.
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x-ecutionner
Known Hero
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posted December 15, 2011 03:33 PM |
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also this makes me fairly certain that the majority of the problem lies with Black hole and not ubisoft.
Thanks for "support" here (not that's Heroes 6 related, oh wait  ).
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zaio-baio
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted December 15, 2011 03:46 PM |
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Small budget + rushed deadline - > Bugs creator. ( Ubi)
No black dragons - > Ubi
Seeing that the game sux, but pretending that there is no such thing -> Ubi
Bh also shares small amount imo, BUT With Homm V ( Ubi + Nival) i thought its all Nivals fault, now we have Ubi + BH - its Blackholes fault ? Im not so sure anymore.
Anyways what really bugs me is their attitude, it seems they really think that 50% of us are hardcore fans ( say 100% nerds, that are going to buy the game anyway, cuz they have nothing better to do ) and the other 50% - 10 to 14 years old kids, that are going to buy everything shiny.... And this is why im angry with ubi, you cant threat me like an idiot and expect that im going to give you my money.
About the No Black Dragons thingy - im referring to the atmosphere of the game, no Black dragon in homm game is like no Ryu in Street fighter game ...
Also - I never liked the whole concept of some human arches ( xbows ) being able to ONE-SHOT-KILL full stacks of Archangels, Titans and all types of dragons ... It makes no sense even for a video game.
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moonlith
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
If all else fails, use Fiyah!
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posted December 15, 2011 03:47 PM |
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Edited by moonlith at 15:50, 15 Dec 2011.
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Black Hole is responsible for the majority of gamedesign choices and consequently the poor choices that have been made.
Ubisoft is responsible for setting the deadline and interfering in design choices that are aimed at milking money and providing nuisances posing as anti-piracy protection.
I don't see why you would want to call one better than the other.
Quote:
Besides, H6 got mostly good reviews, didn't it?
And you honestly think Ubisoft is not the kind of company who would bribe Gamereviewers to provide good reviews?
Gamereviews mean squat these days. I see countless of pathetic and poorly designed games with obvious flaws being praised and given surreal high reviews. Not surprisingly generally the games that have big name companies behind them.
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted December 15, 2011 03:59 PM |
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And you honestly think Ubisoft is not the kind of company who would bribe Gamereviewers to provide good reviews?
No?
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Gamereviews mean squat these days.
Agreed.
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moonlith
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
If all else fails, use Fiyah!
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posted December 15, 2011 04:01 PM |
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And you honestly think Ubisoft is not the kind of company who would bribe Gamereviewers to provide good reviews?
No?
Then by all accounts HoMM VI is clearly an amazing game because all the reviews say so, no?
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Avirosb
Promising
Legendary Hero
No longer on vacation
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posted December 15, 2011 04:08 PM |
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Edited by Avirosb at 16:09, 15 Dec 2011.
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Then by all accounts HoMM VI is clearly an amazing game because all the reviews say so, no?
By all means, no.
That post was merely a counter-fallacy against those who use Black Hole's past review scores to exemplify why they are bad developers.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted December 15, 2011 04:45 PM |
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Black Hole .. meh the same company that did mark of chaos = warhammer tabletop online. I really had high hopes for that game but it failed miserably  No wonder h6 has so many bugs.
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avalon00x
Bad-mannered
Known Hero
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posted December 15, 2011 05:06 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Both Ubisoft and Black Hole fail. There's no need to defend one over the other. The reason we can sling a shot at Black Hole and not Ubisoft, is that they're easier to get rid of.
Truly, I would love to see Ubisoft selling the rights of Heroes to someone else. But I don't see that happening. It's more possible though that they may hire a new dev company to do the next installments, more competent this time.
And again we agree.
If only JVC could get back into the Might&Magic universe... but I think it's just a dream.
Seriously though, If UBI could sell the rights to THQ - which worked with alot of Relic titles (Company of Heroes, Dawn of war serie), I would be snowing happy.
THQ making m & m games would be so awesome 
makes you wonder what Homm 40k would look like.
eventho Thq made some screw-ups aswell with Dow 40k-2.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted December 15, 2011 05:19 PM |
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Black Hole is responsible for the majority of gamedesign choices and consequently the poor choices that have been made.
Ehm, actually I'm pretty sure that UbiSoft is responsible for all the gamedesign choices - after all, the whole design team is UbiSoft people, if I'm not completely missinformed.
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What will happen now?
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Aosaw
Promising
Famous Hero
Author of Nonreal Fiction
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posted December 16, 2011 04:28 AM |
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As I understand it (from a software/development perspective), Ubisoft created the artistic and business requirements for Black Hole to follow - they said, "The game needs to have this and this and this, now make it". That's more or less standard procedure between publisher and developer, if my own company is any indication.
So it could be that Ubisoft had some really great ideas about what they wanted to happen with the game, and Black Hole couldn't pull it off.
Or it could be that Ubisoft had some really bad ideas about what they wanted to happen with the game, and Black Hole did the best they could.
Honestly, unless you can see the conversations that took place behind closed doors, and the business requirements created by Ubisoft, there's not much use arguing over who screwed it up worse.
I would say Black Hole is responsible for bugs being in the game, and probably for the town screens looking the way they do. I would say that Ubisoft is responsible for the reduction in resources, creature tiers, areas of control (and all of the things that implies), and the change from Town Screen to Town Window.
Honestly, if Ubisoft had developed the game in-house, we'd probably have ended up with a much better product overall - just as if Black Hole had developed the entire thing themselves it would have turned out better. The problem is less with one or the other, but rather with miscommunication between the two, arbitrary or overly optimistic deadlines, and incomplete information regarding the needs of the game.
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SKPRIMUS
Promising
Supreme Hero
The One and the Prime
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posted December 16, 2011 05:55 AM |
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Edited by SKPRIMUS at 07:08, 16 Dec 2011.
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I agree,
- the overall concept direction by Ubisoft (includes probably no randomness & conflux/achievements stuff)
- main detailed design proposals & implementation by Black Hole [there's someone called Boci who's in charge of design + gameplay reference is here ] which should be typically reviewed by Ubi for approval. I'm pretty sure Black Hole has to come up with the main skill system design etc & I don't think they are just coders.
I can blame both. However:
- conflux/DRM/uplay/achievements/widgets stuff being first priority
- graphics being high priority
- over-ambitious desires (unit synergies/interactions/abilities are even more than H5 & removing almost all randoms)
can leave a bitter aftermath if other areas of the game does not have suitable effort/attention dedicated to it.
Just because the graphics did ok doesn't necessarily mean that those graphics-related subcontractors excelled. It could also mean they got the money/resources/time to do what they needed at the expense of other parts of the game.
If one can't do everything, one makes it seem like everything is done & work on it later.
I was sure I read somewhere or heard a video saying Ubi did not agree with Nival's proposal to build on H5 to make H6. Who knows how much effort was used/wasted in that phase.
And then I read anecdotally that the initial proposal for H6 skill system (after Nival) was not well received & a re-design had to be done.
like I said before, it's perplexing many blamed Nival in H5 & many blame Ubi in H6. Anyway, aiming for 3 markets of "casual" + "RPG/adventure" + "deep strategy (with AI)" does not really mix well with tight schedules for first release.
Only now can I really wonder how NWC did H4 with even less
Later edit: imho, the best chance for H6 to be the best would be if Quantomas' company was hired or subcontracted.
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Hope defeats despair - "a blatant clue"
too many idiots in VW
"to lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose"
bashing orcus 
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x-ecutionner
Known Hero
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posted December 16, 2011 07:57 AM |
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Quote:
Honestly, if Ubisoft had developed the game in-house, we'd probably have ended up with a much better product overall - just as if Black Hole had developed the entire thing themselves it would have turned out better. The problem is less with one or the other, but rather with miscommunication between the two, arbitrary or overly optimistic deadlines, and incomplete information regarding the needs of the game.
NO.
If Ubi made the game alone, it would have been a good game, or even an epic game.
If Black Hole made it alone, I'm pretty sure It would have sucked. No offense but... You don't give such a big project to such a small structure which can't even code / program.
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 16, 2011 08:22 AM |
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now it feels like you are just QQing about them
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted December 16, 2011 10:16 AM |
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If Ubi made the game alone, it would have been a good game, or even an epic game.
Ubisoft have proven multiple times that their knowledge about HoMM is very, VERY limited (and I'm being polite here), that's why they don't make the game themselves. If they do, there are strong indications that it will be much more messed up than it is now.
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Dave_Jame
Promising
Legendary Hero
I'm Faceless, not Brainless.
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posted December 16, 2011 10:49 AM |
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..a re-design had to be done.
like I said before, it's perplexing many blamed Nival in H5 & many blame Ubi in H6. Anyway, aiming for 3 markets of "casual" + "RPG/adventure" + "deep strategy (with AI)" does not really mix well with tight schedules for first release.
Only now can I really wonder how NWC did H4 with even less
And now you hit the nail on the head
What is the problem of "new" heroes games? They are different then H1-3. H2 was dricetly made out of H1, H3 had been made from a large part from H2.
And now we have the problem of "Reinventing" the game.
H4 was an attempt to renew the game. For me this attempt has faild. I, unlike you, do not wonder how NWC did the game, it is very bad IMHO (just do not like that game)
But H5? Even based highly on H3 it was still a new program, made from scrap, and by this, bugs are sure to appear.
H6 had been redesigned again. And as before the presence of bugs could not be avoided.
The reason why H3 was so fast to make, and still had almost no bugs, or balance issues was, that it was based on two simpler games and did not add so many new mechanics. (Say what you want, the core mechanics were still the same)
As long as the game will be reinvented over and over, there will be bugs in the initial release, just because the solid bases that has been made by the games before has not been used.
Nival wanted to build on the bases of H5, Ubisoft din not want this.
So now BH has a to stand up and face the same balancing and bug fixing phase as Nival did with H5 and NWC with H4. And it is up to them to succeed in this challenge.
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I'm just a Mirror of your self.
We see, we look, we gather, we store, we teach.
We are many, and you can be one of us.
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