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| Thread: Lore: Ideal universe |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Alon
Known Hero
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posted July 06, 2020 01:09 AM |
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MattII said:
Alon said:
The broader challenge is weaving multiple factions' stories well; H3, for example, just tells a castle story and to some extent a necropolis story.
There's side campaigns for the other factions too though. Also, unlike in Heroes 5, Heroes 3 isn't about everybody dog-piling Inferno, but different factions having their own goals.
Fortress, stronghold, inferno, and dungeon get 1.5 missions each, and tower is never in focus. I guess rampart gets to be in the spotlight in Seeds of Discontent but that's a mini-campaign.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted July 06, 2020 06:35 AM |
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Plus across all the expansions (including chronicles) Stronghold got like 6 or 7 campaigns while Conlux got 2 that they had to share with Castle/Rampart/Inferno and Tower. Tower itself got like 2-2.5, Fortress got 2, Inferno iirc never got its own, just a few missions here and there. Chronicles, AB, and SoD have lots of cool stand-alone stories but let's be honest the campaigns weren't that great in terms of complexity. I feel like H4 was the only one to properly pull off a good balance between storytelling and faction representation, although I only played the vanilla campaigns and never finished the Asylum one so I could be wrong.
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Jiriki9
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
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posted July 06, 2020 10:32 AM |
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H4 does have nice campaigns, though iirc, they are not THAT woven together, are they?
However, H4 and H5 are very linear in the storytelling, which I find a bit sad in comparison to H2 and H3.
H2, especially, shouldn't be overlooked in terms of campaign building imo, for a couple of reasons:
1. it manages to have 1 campaign that is one coherent story, but it does NOT focus on 1 faction in that campaign.
2. I LOVED the campaign structure. IIRC (it's been a while) there were choices between two possible scenarios, there were optional missions and of course there was the option to change sides mid-campaign.
Of course it also has its weaker sides, partially coming from the H2-System as well: Less storytelling, little variety in missions, heroes are not taken over(I think?!), and probably more.
H3 on the other hand, introduced the campaign MAP and that was a feature I personally LOVED and found very sad it did not return so far (or did it in 6 or 7?). Because the map made it much more visual for me what was going on. The campaigns felt more like ... well, real CAMPAIGNS in sense of a war campaign, instead of just...stories.
So, imo, a campaign structure that draws on H2 and H3, combined with a good story, would be great.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 06, 2020 11:01 AM |
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Alon said:
MattII said:
Alon said:
The broader challenge is weaving multiple factions' stories well; H3, for example, just tells a castle story and to some extent a necropolis story.
There's side campaigns for the other factions too though. Also, unlike in Heroes 5, Heroes 3 isn't about everybody dog-piling Inferno, but different factions having their own goals.
Fortress, stronghold, inferno, and dungeon get 1.5 missions each, and tower is never in focus. I guess rampart gets to be in the spotlight in Seeds of Discontent but that's a mini-campaign.
Nevertheless, it's made clear that each faction has its own agenda. Hells, in Armageddon's Blade the other campaigns don't have any bearing whatsoever on the 'main' narrative.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted July 06, 2020 08:26 PM |
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I chalk a lot of that up to them scrapping Forge last minute though. I imagine they would have more tied together if they didn't have to rewrite everything. And yeah they brought back the maps in H6 and H7.
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AnkVaati
Famous Hero
Nighonese National Front
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posted July 06, 2020 10:51 PM |
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Axeoth, obviously. We need a continuation of the H4 saga.
Obviously, Terry Ray and Jennifer Bullard gotta be bought back for the job. Same for Jon van Caneghem.
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Ank's Old School (kinda) H8 proposal <- best thing evvah, trust me
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Baronus
Legendary Hero
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posted July 07, 2020 12:10 AM |
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HIV have really great storytelling of campaigns as Heroes Chronicles. Terry Ray is the same value as JVC Romero King Ivata etc. I dont imagine MM without these names.
HIV has very bad AI and gameplay is primitive as KB. HI has more more more inteligent AI. I play now at 200% and I have big troubles!!! Againist AI! After 17 years of playing! HIII AI is worst than HI-II. So in this case best heroes are HI-II.
Next problem is that campaigns are often hard linear. From A to Z. It must be changed. Best non linear target is defeat all oponnents. In this case if you have 7 enemies you can realise target as you want. Capture town, defeat hero, find artifact. Always it will be rather linear. It must be eg 7 artifacts and best solution is if its combo artifact so you can do it as you want. Cant be linear road from artifact 1 to 7.
But its lore topic! Terry Ray lore development was fantastic! We want more!
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 07, 2020 11:09 AM |
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Non-linear campaigns are pretty hard to code for, since you have to create each map individually.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted July 07, 2020 11:11 AM |
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Well, yeah, but you can reuse later maps, or even have the same map for more routes, depending on how it's scripted.
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Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 07, 2020 12:15 PM |
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That means having a map for every possible area worth fighting over. That would be a lot of work.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted July 07, 2020 12:19 PM |
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Wait, what do you mean, are worth fighting over? You can make a map to contain more areas, and you can choose other routes even while playing the map itself.
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Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 07, 2020 12:28 PM |
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Modifying a map is still a lot of work. An open play campaign system would require dozens of maps, while a more linear campaign would require relatively few. Furthermore, the campaign is a narrative, so a linear progression (or one with only a few choices) makes sense from that perspective.
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Alon
Known Hero
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posted July 07, 2020 05:09 PM |
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C&C and Red Alert are linear but offer you a choice of maps, and that's fine. And Starcraft 2 (mostly) makes you play the same maps, but you have a choice over what order to play them in and you'll have different armies with different upgrades depending on the order.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 07, 2020 11:55 PM |
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Still not sandbox play though, is it?
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Alon
Known Hero
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posted July 08, 2020 02:51 AM |
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Definitely not sandbox. I guess Civ is kind of sandbox-y, in the sense that instead of a campaign the main single-player mode is one big map?
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 08, 2020 04:30 AM |
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Anyway, making maps for C&C or Starcraft is different to making them for Heroes.
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Fangovich
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 09, 2020 11:23 PM |
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Time for me to play Urgash's advocate here. I like Ashan universe a lot and I would be happy if they continued with it - or at least if they gave it a proper ending, since lots of stories are still open and in need of closure.
Though if there were to be a new universe, I would give it a less high-fantasy feel and more of a magical-medieval-fantasy feel. I wasn't that big of a fan of the creationist approach of how Asha almighty created everything and dragon gods were... well, gods. I like to think of religion as something that connects people and since the plurality of religions is a thing ultimately divides people against each other.
The new universe could be more mature as well. Ashan had some grim moments, but especially H5 felt a lot like a fairy tale. Luckily H6 and H7 gave it more real lifelike feel.
I like politics a lot, so I would be pretty happy if the story focused on faction division and wars, with a group of central characters whom we use to see the world and things happening there.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 10, 2020 04:10 AM |
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The big difference between Ashan and the previous universes is the creation myth thing though. Remove that, and it's no longer Ashan.
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Dj
Promising
Supreme Hero
Always loyal to HC
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posted July 10, 2020 04:44 PM |
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I really liked Ashan's cosmology actually. The dragons have a meaning in the world and some of the dragon gods look breath taking: Elrath, Ylath (dem cloudy wings <3 ) and Sylanna.
I dont see why people hate them.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted July 10, 2020 11:19 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 23:23, 10 Jul 2020.
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I think because the lack of effort they put in meant that what could have been an awesome creation story ended up being both childishly silly, and also rather boring.
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