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| Thread: Heroes III: Day of Reckoning Announce Teaser |  This thread is pages long: 1 ... 10 11 12 13 14 ... 20 21 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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KovenNordsiard
Tavern Dweller
First Technomancer
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posted July 13, 2023 11:37 AM |
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I'm glad that work is progressing and that the project will eventually come out, and I'm more than sure it will be great. That we will all love it, and we will show it to our children and grandchildren as a successor to the classic Heroes.
I wish the developers all the best, that the inspiration is never lost, that there is always strength and desire to create, more patience, because only a true Jedi can become a master, and that they enjoy their work!
And to us, the fans, more patience too. Factory almost waited, and now we will wait for DoR.
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planetavril
Famous Hero
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posted July 13, 2023 06:19 PM |
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted July 14, 2023 11:09 AM |
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Excellent 
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Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted September 10, 2023 08:28 PM |
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fiorin said:
FirePaladin said:
Just the usual 
There isn't much new to really announce or show for now, at least not without spoiling too much. Even for the past month, I've been working on either town screen, nitpicking details or developing yet-unannounced content. Same goes for other team members, most of whom probably don't even have a Heroes Community account. =p
But yeah, despite the silence in here, there is progress every day. I too am very eager to show substantial things, but everything must be done properly and at the right moment.
FirePaladin, lets do a questions/answers spoilerless.
From the lineup, which is your favorite creature? Without revealing, why is that? Is too out of the curve?
In a scale of Inferno to Necropolis, how strong are those cold elves?
(I really like inferno as much necro)
The other town screen you have been working, the theme would be evil, good or neutral?
Wait, I just noticed, aren't those ice mountains some recolored and rescaled desert mountains?
Well, I don't really mind anyways... but an interesting tidbit
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Never changing = never improving
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Ancientdruids
Famous Hero
(Andruids for short)
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posted September 10, 2023 09:01 PM |
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They might bear some resemblance and orange desert mountains might have been used as a reference for def shapes, but I can safely bet my last pair of shorts that they are original renders.
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pellish
Famous Hero
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posted October 11, 2023 12:44 PM |
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Edited by pellish at 12:45, 11 Oct 2023.
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Found on Acidcave. Thought they'd be worth posting here:
Apparently the town screen is actually cut off and extends further to the right, which is unfortunately not shown on this picture.
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FirePaladin
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted October 11, 2023 01:47 PM |
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That is indeed the case. Originally, the images sent for the magazine also featured two more heroes, as well as most of the lineup's portraits (albeit too zoomed in, thing which I fixed after), but oh well. I can also say that the magazine has two more images (as well as a background), all of them being quite relevant - one of them is less flashy, but is full of hints (can't say I have seen anyone spot them yet, online).
I can also, for those who don't speak Polish, state that only a WIP, non-fully-built town screen is shown (dwellings only up to T5 are built, MG is at MG2 and so on). Some of the buildings you see there have also been polished further, especially the Capitol.
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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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Star_mage
Hired Hero
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posted October 11, 2023 03:26 PM |
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Either way, if it s legit, this looks perfect. It awakened a warm feeling of fantasy and christmas in me.
This town screen really captures a medieval image with cozy homes.
The Crystal/Frozen palace, the elven bridges, the carnivalesque elements, the crystals, the snowed in pine trees, and the snowman - is he sitting in front of the Tavern?
No wonder Adelaide overspent time in this place!
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FdgK
Known Hero
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posted October 13, 2023 04:18 PM |
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Would it be possible to see the images in their original quality like you sent them to the magazine (including the ones not shown in the post above)?
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gnollking
Supreme Hero
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posted October 13, 2023 11:00 PM |
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FirePaladin
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted October 14, 2023 02:29 PM |
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@Star_mage
Thank you!
@FdgK
Quite possibly yes. Although only at least a week from now, it would be rude to so quickly render the CDA issue's info no longer exclusive to a full extent (it was one of its main selling points).
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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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FdgK
Known Hero
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posted October 14, 2023 04:58 PM |
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I can understand your reasoning and I think that a bit of patience is not asked too much. Take your time and release it whenever you feel comfortable with it.
Thanks for your work, guys!
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FirePaladin
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted October 17, 2023 02:13 PM |
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Greetings, everyone! I hope you are all well! I have finally gotten around to writing a major DoR update. Despite their rarity, actual progress is steady and constant, and, as the readers of CDA might know, Palace is but one of the major features of the mod (this last sentence is mainly meant for those who read only the updates).
The White Tiger and Sabertooth
The level 3 creature in the Norse and winterland inspired Palace town, the auspicious White Tiger is a legendary creature dwelling in the caverns strewn all over the island of Vori. Strong, intelligent and agile, these beasts are hunters to be afraid of. It is no wonder that they are Vori's heraldic beast, a detail which also reflects the feline imagery found in real world heraldry.
Gameplay-wise, it is a very straightforward creature. Featured in both HoMM4 and HoMM7, White Tigers have always had a preemptive attack. That is, when targeted by an enemy, they retaliate before the enemy's attack. In DoR, we have decided to reuse this ability due to its simplicity, which is in line with other HoMM3 abilities, its thematic, which hints at the creature's feline agility and caution, as well as for consistency between game titles. For example, golems have always taken less damage from spells, whereas the sprites have always had an unrequited attack.
White Tiger. Idle and attack frames, 200% resolution.
Its upgrade, the Sabertooth, has slightly better stats, but the main difference lies in its improved ability: not only does it retaliate before the enemy's attack, but also once more, after it. Thus, the ability doubles down on its feline traits.
Balance-wise, with stats comparable to those of the Griffin, but lacking its ability to fly - it is essentially a version of it that is slightly harder to get rid of in melee due to its more offensive retaliation(s), but easier to do so through ranged attacks, due to its inability to fly and reach the ranged creatures.
The White Tiger in action.
The Palace town relies heavily on viking, Norse, winterland as well as snow-associated East Asian (predominantly Chinese) tropes. Its lineup, rather than being gradually created, was, for the most part, final once work was started on the faction and its overall identity found. That is also the case with the White Tiger.
When choosing the lower-tier beastly creature for the Palace town, we had, from the get-go, already decided on the White Tiger. Other creatures, such as the Wolf, Bear and Owlbear can all be associated with Palace motifs, or have been brought up in design conversations, but none of them was fit enough for the town.
The first one, the Wolf, was easy to rule out as an independent creature: while it is highly evocative of viking and Norse tropes, it is already present in Stronghold, where it also has a rider, as do most, if not all "regular" animals. Giving it a different spin, such as making it ghostly or feral goes against H3's very tropey, straightforward and overlap-avoiding design philosophy.
The Owlbear is a DnD classic. Featured ever since the renowned tabletop game's editions, it is a low-to-mid tier monster, with the body of a bear and the giant head of an owl. However, its strong association with deep, green forests and its protective side made it unfit, as did its lack of a stronger connection to the faction.
The Bear, despite being able to be associated with snowy climates and not being present elsewhere in H3, was also not good enough, for reasons including, but not limited to: the necessity of a mount, mythological connections, lore and game continuity.
Why the White Tiger? While it is a good candidate even just on the surface, being a white-furred beast associated with cold climates, there is also plenty of reasoning underneath it, for which I will have to explain a few things.
First of all, Rampart, the other town featuring an elf creature, also features East Asian motifs, mostly in its architecture. They are easily visible in the Mage Guild, Capitol and even a scrapped Torii Gate:
Rampart render by Phelan Sykes.
Not only, but its T7 creatures, the Green Dragon and Gold Dragon, take slight visual cues from the more good-aligned Asian dragons, with their "beard", feathery spikes and slightly more serpentine body and face.
Gold Dragon by Tracy Iwata.
In Heroes Chronicles: Sword of Frost, we visit a badly represented Vori, with Rampart towns as a stand-in for Vori's populace. Despite that, there is still important information to gather in that campaign. One of them is the fact that the mighty Azure Dragons are essentially native to Vori. Mythologically, the Azure Dragon is one of the Four Guardians/Symbols/Gods of Chinese mythos, together with the Vermilion Bird (Firebird/Phoenix), Black Tortoise (which, in the MM world, could easily be associated with the Dragon Turtle) and the White Tiger (but as a divine, legendary beast). This, tied in with the aforementioned Asian flavor in the associated Rampart town, makes it obvious that Palace should feature, to some extent, hints of Chinese culture, thus strenghtening the White Tiger's place.
For those of you who have played other HoMM titles as well, you might be aware that creatures happen to be shuffled to different factions, between games. Centaurs, Griffins, Gargoyles, Phoenix are all perfect examples of that. In order to illustrate a certain point, allow me to go on a little tangent, and analyze the "elven" factions (which are somewhat tied to Palace for several reasons, among which the Norse-inspired Vori elves, as well as the Asian tropes, as explained above). In HoMM1 and HoMM2, the nature/elven faction, often called Sorceress, is a mix of H3's Conflux and Rampart. Sprites, Dwarves, Elves, Druids, Unicorns and Phoenixes all inhabit the Sorceress town. In H3, the town is basically split into Rampart and Conflux: Rampart keeps the natural side of it, while Conflux borrows the remainders, as well as its more magical side (the pre-H3 Phoenixes were even explicitly immune to "elemental" magic).
HoMM2 Sorceress town's creature lineup.
In H4, however, both Rampart and Conflux combine into one single faction again, the Preserve. It is still very evocative of its earliest iterations, but it borrows Castle's Griffins, Stronghold's Wolves and adds one new creature, the White Tiger. This creates a precedent of elves paired up with White Tigers, and reusing the White Tiger in a fitting faction, like Palace, also strengthens the continuity between games.
The White Tiger in HoMM4, by Joe McGuffin.
Presented with all these arguments, the inclusion of the White Tiger was basically a no-brainer. It fits the cold climate, the little Chinese flair of Vori, and is already associated with elves in the world of Might and Magic.
The Vori flag present above is prone to changes.
Press the image for full resolution.
The upgrade of the White Tiger is the Sabertooth. While we could have instead just made the basic version a regular tiger, or simply give more fur to the upgrade as well as slightly greater fangs, that would have been boring, and, in the case of the first option, would have not fit the town's color palette and also bring an overly exotic theme that is out of place in this faction. As such, we have taken a look at the lore of MM, as well as relevant media, and concluded that fitting them with armor and making them "fantastic" beasts all the way through by making them Sabertooth tigers was the most obvious course of action.
Press the image for full resolution.
In HoMM4's Preserve campaign, second map, Elwin, the player-controlled protagonist, has the mission of forging an alliance between Aranorn (the Nature kingdom) and the White Tigers. There, he is surprised by a White Tiger, who, surprisingly, is sentient, capable of speech and even honorable. Lore-wise, this makes the White Tigers one of the very few "civilized" beasts. Obviously, they might want to protect themselves with armor.
Elwin meeting a White Tiger in the "Elwin and Shaera" map.
Not only that, but the sentient bears in the well-known "His Dark Materials" series are also known to wear armor, and this has been a major inspiration for the upgrade.
An armored bear from "His Dark Materials".
Lastly, the creature's visuals. There is little to discuss here. The creature was straightforward, and one of the first Palace creatures to be made. The basic version, a simple White Tiger, while the upgrade a Sabertooth with interlocking armor. No sketch was needed for this particular creature. Down below you can check the creature evolution chart, as well as a turnaround video of the creature.
Press on the image in order to view it at full resolution!
White Tiger Turnaround Video
Sabertooth Turnaround Video
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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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LordInsane
Known Hero
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posted October 17, 2023 03:17 PM |
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Hm, I wonder what that non-tiger quadruped in the second "in action" image is. I'm drawing a blank on inspiration, but whatever it is it looks earth-associated, at least in the context of what seems to be the upgrade (the base unit could perhaps have been robotic).
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E1ChuRich
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 17, 2023 03:27 PM |
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Thanks for all the great work! Tiger looks amazing and fits the theme perfectly! It's
so nice that you also respect the lore and want your town/creatures to fit.
My hope is that we will also see lore friendly Forge town in the future!
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BrandochDaha
Hired Hero
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posted October 17, 2023 03:40 PM |
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Thank you for the update, the tiger looks amazing!
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted October 17, 2023 04:00 PM |
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Amazing news, I love the White Tiger in H4 and I wished for a long time that it was available as a unit in the previous Heroes games.
DoR is looking great. Congratulations to the team.
Many thanks for the update!
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Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
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Star_mage
Hired Hero
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posted October 17, 2023 06:54 PM |
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Let me have some fun...
First of all, I absolutely love everything about this faction.
You are really working with great care on this project.
I like how you presented your train of thoughts when you decided the concept of the White Tiger and how you took into consideration the other HoMM installments.
Personally, I like how the Sabertooth Tiger is based on the extinct Smilidion creature, but I think you actually took the name from the Warcraft universe. 'Sabertooth' is such a good name (VS Smilodon, lol) that you simply cannot think of another better name, so it is understandable. Plus, maybe Grove will get the Sabertooth Panthers, haha, another connection.
I like how you considered the asian elements for the Vori, since they are the ancestors of the Wood Elves (Rampart) who have chinese architecture. It only makes sense that the Vori would have them too.
-> this thing, right here, is how I know that the project is in good hands.
About the line up. We have the following:
Level 1 - light blue clothed, red haired viking? (with axe and shield) which replaces the santa inspired humanoid?
LeveL 2 - Yuki Onna
Level 3 - White Tiger/Sabertooth
Level 4 - Snow Elf/High Elf
Level 5 - Probably the Yeti
Level 6 - the Valkyrie in the Chariot? Sick creature
Level 7 - the 'non-tiger quadruped in the second "in action" image' (said by LordInsane above)?
Now, I have a few hypotheses about this creature, but all are inconclusive since I have no idea what this creature is.
At first, I thought that this might be an Ice Demon, from HoMM 4, since you like to draw inspiration from other installments, and it does look kind of icy, but when looking closer, it looks like it is made of stone rather than ice, or maybe metal. It looks like a mineral either way. And those yellow colorings give me the impression that it might be associated with Light Magic. Could they be some sort of Light Elementals? Since the Vori and the AvLee elves are considered light elves? (as opposed to dark elves)
From wiki:
'Together with the Renegades (or Wood Elves), they were regarded as the light elves.'
Also, from wiki:
'Vori is well known for its eldenbrie cheese, which is made by frost giant cheese masters.'
- we know that the frost giants are a thing in Vori. Have you thought about alternative creatures? There are mods that implement them (dryads, werewolves, etc). Would you consider them as an alternative creature?
What about the Commander?
What about the faction name? (Castle, Tower, Rampart, etc.)
Also, I keep saying about Adelaide living there, but I totally forgot about Alagar. It would be nice to (at least) mention them in the campaign. A story/legend about them, maybe.
I like the cosmetic element, the flag. Will it be used in-game? Will there be an in-game text that contains the flag (next to the text)? It would be a shame if not. I know that the Erathian flag also does not appear in-game.
Now, the game icon, which I suppose that is what it is, the two clashing swords, the Armageddon's Blade and the Sword of Frost, and the name Day of Reckoning. Does this mean that the story will be a reinterpretation of the Sword of Frost Chronicle, maybe from the perspective from the Vori elves?
Sadly, the ending of the story is already spoiled - we know it. The best thing to do here is to provde as many details as possible up until the ending. To fill in the story with as many puzzle pieces as possible, with familiar information, revealing long lost secrets of the past, clearing up information...or finding a way to continue the story on Erathia after the Armageddon.
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gnollking
Supreme Hero
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posted October 17, 2023 07:48 PM |
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FdgK
Known Hero
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posted October 17, 2023 08:02 PM |
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Edited by FdgK at 20:03, 17 Oct 2023.
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Star_mage said:
Level 1 - light blue clothed, red haired viking? (with axe and shield) which replaces the santa inspired humanoid?
In regards to that point, I might be wrong but it seems to me that in the first of the two photos from the Polish gaming magazine we can see one of the vikings close to the upper-right corner who stands behind a dead body of one of the Nisse gnomes. So I don't think that the viking replaced them. Especially, since FirePaladin mentioned that the lineup was pretty clear from the get go and that there were no major changes made since then.
Maybe it's a new neutral unit.
Edit: Great work, by the way. The tiger looks very nice and fits right in.
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