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| Thread: The Lore Going Forward. Compromise ideas. | |
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted February 22, 2020 08:42 PM |
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The Lore Going Forward. Compromise ideas.
I've been thinking about getting back to my proposal thread I started about 2 years ago where I give my ideal factions/heroes/creatures but a question that I've always struggled with is the 3DO universe vs Ashan. I understand most of the 'old guard' despises Ashan and I totally understand the reasoning why. In the direction, they took H6's lore the universe is almost entirely dependant on the will of the dragon gods with no further, nuance or room for variation, which in a lot of ways ruined many factions, especially Necropolis and Dungeon. As someone who was only 5 years old when Heroes 5 came out though, and someone who played mostly Heroes 5 growing, I have a sort of attachment to that version of Ashan that was vague enough that it could have been taken in a much more interesting direction. I really enjoy Raelag's character, for instance, and I'm greatly saddened that the poor management of H6 and H7 meant we never got to finish his story. I want to know more about Kha-Beleth and Kiril's long struggle for power against each other, I want to know how Aidan could fit into the story of the Dark Messiah and what Isabel will do after stepping down from the throne. These are characters that I grew up loving before I was able to think critically enough to see the obvious flaws with the world, and characters I feel like deserve better than they got.
That said, I have since played the campaigns of the 3DO games and have a certain affection for that world and its characters as well, especially Tarnum, Lysander, and Gauldoth. I don't know very much about the lore, but I play quite a bit of HoTA and enjoyed h4's campaigns very much. I like the Fortress and Conflux factions a lot, neither of which could exist in Ashan, given the restrictive direction its lore was taken. While the dungeon I grew up with contained the Dark Elves and Faceless, I also like the idea of dungeon going back to its roots and giving the former their own "dark sylvan" faction. I despise the spiderfication of Necropolis as much as any hardcore 3DO fan. So I came up with a few ideas and I'm wondering if people think its a good compromise or if it would just make the whole situation worse.
The first idea, merge the 2 universes. Unless there's something I missed, there's nothing stopping a plot twist where the dragon gods of ashan are just extremely powerful elementals who have acted as gods to the denizens of Ashan, which would be just another planet like Enroth or Axeoth. Have some campaigns taking place on Axeoth and some on Ashan and have the climax of the story be where the 2 worlds cross paths in some form. Whether this would end on a new 4th planet that the residents of both Axeoth and Ashan wound up, or with the characters from one leaving their planet and going to the other, I think there are many creative ways this could be done, especially considering we know Ashan's Sandro will be back to destroy Ashan and as of Dark Messiah a demon apocalypse is about to happen. Discrepancies in the faction's lineups could be done by having alternate units like in 4 and 7, which IMO is something that should come back regardless.
Idea #2 idea involves rebooting Ashan and developing its lore in a much less restrictive way that leaves more room for innovation and retconning things from the old universe into Ashan in a clean and satisfying way. I'm not sure I know what that would look like exactly, I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts.
Idea #3 involves the Heroes games going back to the old universe and continuing/rebooting Ashan's stories in more spin-off content like books, Clash of Heroes, Dark Messiah, and the Might and Magic RPGs.
This is just me spitballing. I think if the series is going to be continued in any meaningful way the Ashan/3DO universe conflict needs to be addressed in a way that satisfies fans of both. People often don't consider that now there are players like me that grew up with Ashan in the same way veterans grew up with H2 and 3 and for the series to meet its true potential both groups need to be relatively on board with the direction the game is taking. Try to keep things civil I'm just looking to have a discussion about my favorite game.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted February 22, 2020 11:25 PM |
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Rimgrabber said:
That said, I have since played the campaigns of the 3DO games and have a certain affection for that world and its characters as well, especially Tarnum, Lysander, and Gauldoth. I don't know very much about the lore, but I play quite a bit of HoTA and enjoyed h4's campaigns very much.
verriker said:
if you want to go through the story arcs of the MM games you can play through MM1-5 or MM6-8 (or both if you have time on the hands as there are some overlap) lol
for Heroes realistically you can read the Heroes 1 manual for the "plot" of Heroes 1 (like some early 90s games they put the story in the manual instead of in the actual game) then dive through Heroes 2 for the follow-up,
from there MM6-8, Heroes 3, plus Heroes Chronicles all take place in the same common world, so you can play through these and enjoy some fun crossover and context, albeit like I said many are accessible or self-contained
then you must go to Heroes 4 to get some open-ended closure on everything, MM9 you can practically skip and just watch a single YouTube video of one minor quest as that is the only meaningful link it has to the rest of the story, everything else in it waste of time lol
also if you want to understand MM7 in particular you should play (or Youtube) the earlier MM games cheers lol
P.S. if you want someone to actually explain or summarise parts of the story or such then just throw a message, job in telecommunications can get very boring cheers lol
Thread
Also, general lore thread with a lot of goodies
Hope you like 
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Alon
Known Hero
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posted February 23, 2020 02:48 AM |
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In general, my take on lore is that it should depend on what story you want to tell.
To be a bit more specific: when you tell an epic story about the world changing, you're telling all the fanfic writers, your story doesn't matter. (Does anyone fanfic Dragonlance? Or Starcraft?) It's fine in a standalone story, but if the point is to make a moddable fan game, then you want to let many people tell different stories, and this means you have to be more sandboxy and have a vast world with many little kingdoms and no panglossian metaplot; The Battle for Wesnoth is a good example of this approach. H3 was great at this, and then 3DO/NWC decided to destroy the world and then it sucked.
Also, I may be carrying realism too far, but the scale in H3 at least really doesn't scream anything epic to me. Late game battles have hundreds of fighters per side, maybe low thousands? That's a normal medieval European battle, not even the most epic medieval (Agincourt was 9,000 vs. 15,000), let alone LotR (Pelennor Fields is ~10,000 vs. 150,000). So it's consistent with a non-epic story in which the events of a campaign change a kingdom, not the world.
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zydar
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 23, 2020 02:31 PM |
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For me, going back to the old universe
The lore of old HOMM&MM universe is simple,straighforward, many unexplained
but this is the true strength that make HOMM&MM great game in his own way
The new lore its decent, more detail, just like other RPG/fantasy based game,
but i think not for HOMM & MM universe game
because cannot release the full potential of HOMM game mechanic, atmosphere, addiction, spiritual, uniqueness
Everything is dragon, and dragon..... D&D
basically just 1 faction, dragon
so better put in spin-off or other RPG/stretegy title
What make HOMM3 is great is hight replayability, diverse factions, diverse monsters, diverse heroes
thats why HOta is best mod in terms of lore and mechanic
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted February 24, 2020 12:04 AM |
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There are two lores, original and ashan and they are irreconciliable.
I would go back to the old world simpoly because I coudn't even get in the story of ashan... the generic human kingdom. the dragons. The excessive pseudo christian imagery... no thanks.
At least in H3 demons have chinese architecture and are actually genetically modified bio-organic aliens from outer space (?)
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Never changing = never improving
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Alon
Known Hero
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posted February 24, 2020 08:42 PM |
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Where are you getting Chinese architecture in the H3 Inferno?
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted February 27, 2020 01:23 AM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 01:26, 27 Feb 2020.
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this sector mainly:
plus uppr part looks like the garrisons in the great wall:
https://www.crystalinks.com/chinawalljinshang.jpg
***
Anyways another thing why they (both lores) can't be joined:
Ashan heroes wanted to play nostalgia by "remaking" the existing NWC heroes with new stories...
so... two sandros... etc. Copying part of the stories but not being the same.
Not easy to explain that, and would just add confusion to everything.
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Never changing = never improving
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Baronus
Legendary Hero
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posted February 27, 2020 10:27 AM |
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In Inferno you have Kremlin too. So its like Moscow by night!
Yes both lores are very incompatibile. Ancients and their worlds and in second hand dragon mysticsm! I dont see any points to join.
Its bad that Ubi products has name MM. They should have their own brand. Better is join Ashan and Antagirach. Destruction between HIII and HIV was very stupid. In fact it was MM destruction.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted February 29, 2020 02:29 PM |
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Edited by Galaad at 14:30, 29 Feb 2020.
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Quote:
Destruction between HIII and HIV was very stupid. In fact it was MM destruction.
But HV revived it. Bad art, bad 3d, bad lore, but good gameplay. Imo HVI was an even bigger destruction, and HVII the final nail in the coffin for being HVI 2.0
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted February 29, 2020 03:46 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 15:56, 29 Feb 2020.
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Easiest way would be to 'soft-reboot' Ashan by having Sandro succeed. No need to have a full-scale convergence but each universe having access to the other would shake things up a lot. But last I checked, ubi is not willing to hire a decent writer so it's all irrelevant.
One thing is for certain, as long as Ashan exists we'll have stupid things like the striders, nightmares as dark unicorn rejects, vampires as reverse lich addicts, overdecoration syndrome, spideropolis or one wyvern for every element. I honestly don't want any of that crap, I want pop culture or interesting mythological creatures. Global mythology has a wealth of interesting creatures without ubi giving us their kewl, half-cooked creations. Or their silly explanations like eagle + lion + magic node = griffin!!! Screw that.
Move on to a new universe or soft-reboot. Going back won't help with ubi at the helm.
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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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Roman2211
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 29, 2020 04:53 PM |
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NimoStar said:
plus uppr part looks like the garrisons in the great wall
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted February 29, 2020 05:05 PM |
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Elvin said:
ubi is not willing to hire a decent writer so it's all irrelevant.
They had Marzhin who at least has knowledge of the original universe, but as long as they stick with Ashan it will always suck. Plus he got hypnotized 
Anyway talking about Ubi is pointless, we've seen time and again they don't even *want* to have a clue about anything.
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted February 29, 2020 08:35 PM |
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Original universe had great lore, and many possibilites. I'm particulary sad that we got no continuation of H4 story, except with Legends of the Ancients.
As for Ashan, I see a way to make it as bit better, but with ignoring H6 and H7, and changing a lot of bull stuff like wizards creating every creature, for example. I still work on some campaigns for H5 (that will use Q's AI, and one day MMH5.5), that will hopefully be released one day, that aim to be played more like H3 campaigns, less like H5, that are continuation of the H5 story, with some necessary retcons
However, I'm 100% certain that Ashan can't reach the glory of the old lore.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted March 07, 2020 01:09 AM |
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Elvin said:
Easiest way would be to 'soft-reboot' Ashan by having Sandro succeed. No need to have a full-scale convergence but each universe having access to the other would shake things up a lot. But last I checked, ubi is not willing to hire a decent writer so it's all irrelevant.
This is more or less the type of thing I had in mind. Let's hope they hire a decent writer if they ever try to start up the series again
frostymuaddib said:
As for Ashan, I see a way to make it as bit better, but with ignoring H6 and H7, and changing a lot of bull stuff like wizards creating every creature, for example. I still work on some campaigns for H5 (that will use Q's AI, and one day MMH5.5), that will hopefully be released one day, that aim to be played more like H3 campaigns, less like H5, that are continuation of the H5 story, with some necessary retcons .
This sounds amazing. Is there anywhere I can follow this project? I've been trying off and on to do a similar thing by making a novelization of H5, with some added story arcs and like you said necessary retcons. I think I have a few chapters posted on here somewhere but I've since scrapped all the ones I published.
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frostymuaddib
Promising
Supreme Hero
育碧是白痴
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posted March 10, 2020 05:36 PM |
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Rimgrabber said:
This sounds amazing. Is there anywhere I can follow this project? I've been trying off and on to do a similar thing by making a novelization of H5, with some added story arcs and like you said necessary retcons. I think I have a few chapters posted on here somewhere but I've since scrapped all the ones I published.
It is really work in progress, regarding the story. As for campaigns, I've completed first versions of campaigns for Inferno, Academy, Necropolis and Fortress. But they are still unpolished, a lot of work is needed. As for story, I have overall story for each of the planned campaigns. However, everything will need polishing, before I post something here. Hopefully, that will happen in a couple of months.
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