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| Thread: Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era – Official Reveal Trailer |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 ... 10 20 ... 23 24 25 26 27 · «PREV |
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted May 25, 2025 04:06 AM |
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Honestly I think you would be hard pressed to describe any of the factions as we've seen them as "good." Not that a town's mechanical alignment has ever had much to do with their in-lore morality. The wizards were slavers on both Antagarich and Ashan but were considered "good" in both. It was particularly terrible on Ashan where Haven was depicted as a ruthless opressive theocracy and Academy was responsible for slavery and genocide but were considered "good" while the dark elves and orcs that just want to be left alone and the necromancers who were guardians of the balance were "evil." It was like they were trying to introduce "moral ambiguity" or whatever but what they actually did was make the good guys evil and the bad guys good.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted May 25, 2025 12:57 PM |
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Edited by MattII at 10:08, 26 May 2025.
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Rimgrabber said:
Honestly I think you would be hard pressed to describe any of the factions as we've seen them as "good." Not that a town's mechanical alignment has ever had much to do with their in-lore morality. The wizards were slavers on both Antagarich and Ashan but were considered "good" in both. It was particularly terrible on Ashan where Haven was depicted as a ruthless opressive theocracy and Academy was responsible for slavery and genocide but were considered "good" while the dark elves and orcs that just want to be left alone and the necromancers who were guardians of the balance were "evil." It was like they were trying to introduce "moral ambiguity" or whatever but what they actually did was make the good guys evil and the bad guys good.
Yeah, necromancers have to potential to be a real morally grey faction. I mean, you think about it, a necromantic army can be entirely composed of the dead, so no-one is being forced to risk their life against their will, which could be seen as 'good' (or at least benevolent) in a way. Also, a necromancer might take pretty good care of his living underlings, as they'll end up becoming undead one day, and a zombie or skeleton who's missing an arm isn't going to be very much use.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted May 25, 2025 06:01 PM |
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That's one of the many aspects of Ashan that I feel were conceptually good but terribly implimented. Necromancers as the good guys isn't really something that I've seen anywhere else and it was refreshing to see them as priests guarding the cycle of life and death instead of mustache twirling power hungry villains. Not that being a power hungry villain neccessarily means you need need to be devoid of depth of course, I think NWC did a good job with characters like Archibald and Haart, but I would be interested to see a more sympathetic Necropolis again.
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 25, 2025 06:05 PM |
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Rimgrabber said:
That's one of the many aspects of Ashan that I feel were conceptually good but terribly implimented. Necromancers as the good guys isn't really something that I've seen anywhere else and it was refreshing to see them as priests guarding the cycle of life and death instead of mustache twirling power hungry villains. Not that being a power hungry villain neccessarily means you need need to be devoid of depth of course, I think NWC did a good job with characters like Archibald and Haart, but I would be interested to see a more sympathetic Necropolis again.
I would like that too.
Gauldoth Half-Dead is my favourite character in all of HoMM. 
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Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
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MurlocAggroB
Known Hero
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posted May 25, 2025 06:52 PM |
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That's why I think Necropolis and Temple might be neutral. In MM8, both the Necromancers' Guild and the Temple of the Sun were equally bad but neither were outright evil. It would also fit with the two being mutually-exclusive factions. Plus, there's that devlog that shows the narrator having a measured interview with a necromancer.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted May 26, 2025 04:05 AM |
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I forgot about Gauldoth. I haven't played heroes 4 in years. Yeah he was a fantastic character.
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Pollo2002
Famous Hero
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posted May 26, 2025 06:59 PM |
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Rimgrabber said:
That's one of the many aspects of Ashan that I feel were conceptually good but terribly implimented. Necromancers as the good guys isn't really something that I've seen anywhere else and it was refreshing to see them as priests guarding the cycle of life and death instead of mustache twirling power hungry villains. Not that being a power hungry villain neccessarily means you need need to be devoid of depth of course, I think NWC did a good job with characters like Archibald and Haart, but I would be interested to see a more sympathetic Necropolis again.
To be fair is reasonable if you didn't see it before but even in DnD good necros exist. But there are plenty of video games, anime and books with morally good necromancers. A popular recent example is the main character of solo leveling anime
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Gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
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posted May 27, 2025 03:46 PM |
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I feel like it's not just what you do with the dead and what their goals are, but also how/ from whom the undead are made. For example: A lot of the "evil" alignment of necromancy comes from enslaving the souls of the dead, forcefully binding them to corpses, and animating the result, which is most of the non-vampire/ lich undead in most of the HoMM games. With those methods, it's hard to argue them higher than neutral alignment, even with the most noble of motivations.
If the body doesn't require a soul, though (and it's just death energies animating a corpse), then... the necromancer is basically just making flesh-robot minions. Given the presence of ghosts/ wraiths in each Necropolis lineup, it's hard to argue that the HoMM undead can fit this archetype, but in games/ settings where this is the case, then necromancy is presented in a much more neutral manner. There might be other side effects (like the undead having a radiation-like effect on living things, leaking death energies into the world and rendering fields wasted and barren, etc), but the lack of enslavement makes it much easier to argue that the actions of the necromancer can be truly good or evil purely on how they use their undead minions.
Meanwhile, if undeath comes about as a reward for a lifetime of service (such as the new role of Sibsig zombies in the latest Magic the Gathering Tarkir set), or it's a continuation of duty for warriors/ servants who wished to continue beyond death, then things become much less morally complicated. Especially if that service is more voluntary instead of being magically compelled. But this kind of undead doesn't really play well in a HoMM style game, since this is more of a "rare reward/ act of will that keeps the body animated after death" kinda thing, and can't really make a whole faction without a lot of hand-waving and plot contrivances.
Given the Necromancy skill is still a thing that functions by raising hit points from things you kill in Olden Era, we're clearly still working on either the involuntary soul enslavement or flesh puppet form of undeath, which fits with what we had back in H3. The necromancers revealed thus far seem to be more antagonistic than they are noble as well, so if I had to give them a classification, then...
"Good" factions: Temple, Dungeon (they seem to be a force of order and social cohesion, which is normally more good-coded in HoMM games)
"Neutral" factions: Sylvan (being more elemental forces, this version of Sylvan likely won't be too good or evil, mix of order and chaos among their heroes too. Could be argued up to good, though, so there's a balance of 3 good, 3 evil.)
"Evil" factions: Hive, Necropolis, "unknown" faction (unless these turn out to be Vori elves that are tapping into old gods of balance, the Cthulu/ Mountains of Madness theming to them is too blatant to be anything approaching good. Lovecraftian old gods are never the good guys. Even Yog-Sothoth, the least blatantly evil one, is at best neutral in the grand scheme of things... and still not good for anyone, should it be conjured into the world.)
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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weilan
Known Hero
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posted May 30, 2025 07:11 PM |
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Edited by weilan at 19:15, 30 May 2025.
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Gnomes2169 said:
If the body doesn't require a soul, though (and it's just death energies animating a corpse), then... the necromancer is basically just making flesh-robot minions. Given the presence of ghosts/ wraiths in each Necropolis lineup, it's hard to argue that the HoMM undead can fit this archetype, but in games/ settings where this is the case, then necromancy is presented in a much more neutral manner. There might be other side effects (like the undead having a radiation-like effect on living things, leaking death energies into the world and rendering fields wasted and barren, etc), but the lack of enslavement makes it much easier to argue that the actions of the necromancer can be truly good or evil purely on how they use their undead minions.
Meanwhile, if undeath comes about as a reward for a lifetime of service (such as the new role of Sibsig zombies in the latest Magic the Gathering Tarkir set), or it's a continuation of duty for warriors/ servants who wished to continue beyond death, then things become much less morally complicated. Especially if that service is more voluntary instead of being magically compelled. But this kind of undead doesn't really play well in a HoMM style game, since this is more of a "rare reward/ act of will that keeps the body animated after death" kinda thing, and can't really make a whole faction without a lot of hand-waving and plot contrivances.
Given the Necromancy skill is still a thing that functions by raising hit points from things you kill in Olden Era, we're clearly still working on either the involuntary soul enslavement or flesh puppet form of undeath, which fits with what we had back in H3. The necromancers revealed thus far seem to be more antagonistic than they are noble as well, so if I had to give them a classification, then...
This reminds me a bit about the Barony of Loth from Songs of Conquest where they are reaising undead because they want to achieve their "former glory" when their country was strong and prosperous.
It's not good or neutral, but at least it doesn't fall into the category of HoMM3 Necropolis where they are outcast sorcerers who want to achieve immortality and immense power at any cost, even if it means killing innocents and turning the lush forest around them into a barren, dead wasteland.
I never saw an undead faction as good. There are some exceptions, like the Forsaken in Warcraft, who are something like unfortunate casualties who still have their will and want to serve Sylvanas, although her goals are far from righteous. Then there are those in Warcraft who became undead and keep their will and still want to serve the side of good.
One last example is the character Brook from One Piece who ate a devil fruit that allows him to have much greater control of his soul. He didn't know of its abilities and implications at the time, but what happened is he was killed, but his soul did not go where all souls go, but instead he still lingered in the world of the living and was looking for his body. Unfortunately for him, by the time he found his body (years later), his body had decomposed and only his skeleton remained, he went back into his body, but his appearance would scare off anyone and he became lonely for human company. Only when the protagonist of the story Luffy found him and was the first person who said he looked "cool" and wanted him to join his crew that things change for Brook.
Other than those few examples, I don't see undead as good or neutral and I don't think the developers of Olden Era have intentions of depicting them as something other than evil necromancers who raise the dead in order to achieve power and immortality and are at odds with other factions who are against their practices. So I can't find any way to justify such a faction and I'm not even trying to, for me when I see such people/creatures, I automatically treat them as evil.
Gnomes2169 said:
I feel like it's not just what you do with the dead and what their goals are, but also how/ from whom the undead are made. For example: A lot of the "evil" alignment of necromancy comes from enslaving the souls of the dead, forcefully binding them to corpses, and animating the result, which is most of the non-vampire/ lich undead in most of the HoMM games. With those methods, it's hard to argue them higher than neutral alignment, even with the most noble of motivations.
If the body doesn't require a soul, though (and it's just death energies animating a corpse), then... the necromancer is basically just making flesh-robot minions. Given the presence of ghosts/ wraiths in each Necropolis lineup, it's hard to argue that the HoMM undead can fit this archetype, but in games/ settings where this is the case, then necromancy is presented in a much more neutral manner. There might be other side effects (like the undead having a radiation-like effect on living things, leaking death energies into the world and rendering fields wasted and barren, etc), but the lack of enslavement makes it much easier to argue that the actions of the necromancer can be truly good or evil purely on how they use their undead minions.
Meanwhile, if undeath comes about as a reward for a lifetime of service (such as the new role of Sibsig zombies in the latest Magic the Gathering Tarkir set), or it's a continuation of duty for warriors/ servants who wished to continue beyond death, then things become much less morally complicated. Especially if that service is more voluntary instead of being magically compelled. But this kind of undead doesn't really play well in a HoMM style game, since this is more of a "rare reward/ act of will that keeps the body animated after death" kinda thing, and can't really make a whole faction without a lot of hand-waving and plot contrivances.
Given the Necromancy skill is still a thing that functions by raising hit points from things you kill in Olden Era, we're clearly still working on either the involuntary soul enslavement or flesh puppet form of undeath, which fits with what we had back in H3. The necromancers revealed thus far seem to be more antagonistic than they are noble as well, so if I had to give them a classification, then...
"Good" factions: Temple, Dungeon (they seem to be a force of order and social cohesion, which is normally more good-coded in HoMM games)
"Neutral" factions: Sylvan (being more elemental forces, this version of Sylvan likely won't be too good or evil, mix of order and chaos among their heroes too. Could be argued up to good, though, so there's a balance of 3 good, 3 evil.)
"Evil" factions: Hive, Necropolis, "unknown" faction (unless these turn out to be Vori elves that are tapping into old gods of balance, the Cthulu/ Mountains of Madness theming to them is too blatant to be anything approaching good. Lovecraftian old gods are never the good guys. Even Yog-Sothoth, the least blatantly evil one, is at best neutral in the grand scheme of things... and still not good for anyone, should it be conjured into the world.)
I read your post after writing my reply above and it got me thinking about the Necromancers in the Diablo games - they are depicted as good people who try to protect the balance between the living and the dead and the minions they raise are either golems or skeletons. From how it's depicted in Diablo 2, you have to kill demons to raise them, so it's more or less justified, but there comes the hidden meanings of the game where your character is referred by all the NPCs as Nephalim, meaning you don't play as humans and that the monsters you fight are actually metaphoric depictions of humans, essentially you are killing innocent humans in the game.
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MurlocAggroB
Known Hero
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posted May 30, 2025 09:11 PM |
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weilan said:
Other than those few examples, I don't see undead as good or neutral and I don't think the developers of Olden Era have intentions of depicting them as something other than evil necromancers who raise the dead in order to achieve power and immortality and are at odds with other factions who are against their practices. So I can't find any way to justify such a faction and I'm not even trying to, for me when I see such people/creatures, I automatically treat them as evil.
The Necromancers in Might and Magic VIII are one of a handful of mutually-exclusive factions that you can ally with, with them being opposite to the Temple of the Sun. That's why I put those factions in as neutral.
weilan said:
I read your post after writing my reply above and it got me thinking about the Necromancers in the Diablo games - they are depicted as good people who try to protect the balance between the living and the dead and the minions they raise are either golems or skeletons. From how it's depicted in Diablo 2, you have to kill demons to raise them, so it's more or less justified, but there comes the hidden meanings of the game where your character is referred by all the NPCs as Nephalim, meaning you don't play as humans and that the monsters you fight are actually metaphoric depictions of humans, essentially you are killing innocent humans in the game.
You don't play as Nephalim in Diablo II, only in Diablo III. In Diablo lore, the Nephalim were the precursors of humanity, but were too powerful. Inarius and Lilith used the Worldstone to tamper with the Nephalim, severely weakening them until they became humans. After the Worldstone was destroyed at the end of Diablo II, Nephalim started being born again. Then Diablo IV ignored all of that because it was real dumb and ruined the Gothic horror aesthetic.
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Weilan
Known Hero
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posted May 30, 2025 11:12 PM |
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Edited by Weilan at 20:42, 02 Jun 2025.
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MurlocAggroB said:
You don't play as Nephalim in Diablo II, only in Diablo III. In Diablo lore, the Nephalim were the precursors of humanity, but were too powerful. Inarius and Lilith used the Worldstone to tamper with the Nephalim, severely weakening them until they became humans. After the Worldstone was destroyed at the end of Diablo II, Nephalim started being born again. Then Diablo IV ignored all of that because it was real dumb and ruined the Gothic horror aesthetic.
Everyone in Sanctuary is a Nephalem, especially the characers in Diablo 2.
MurlocAggroB said:
You don't play as Nephalim in Diablo II, only in Diablo III. In Diablo lore, the Nephalim were the precursors of humanity, but were too powerful. Inarius and Lilith used the Worldstone to tamper with the Nephalim, severely weakening them until they became humans. After the Worldstone was destroyed at the end of Diablo II, Nephalim started being born again. Then Diablo IV ignored all of that because it was real dumb and ruined the Gothic horror aesthetic.
The characters in Diablo 2 are Nephilim.
https://youtu.be/cNxO8CqV3GY?si=yCwrwOTWCNecBrAM
The Ancient Ones
Everything is in the text and is hinted all the time and mainly by talking to angels.
https://youtu.be/2a4fWkc3XEk?si=JO5mBMFbmM3iRrqC
It is never a secret that everyone in Diablo are Nephim.
Another issue is that people do not know what in this and that it is a cross between fallen angels and people. If anything, maybe Decard Cain is a man but I don't think so. This is the reason why the playable characters can cast magic, humans can't cast magic.
The strongest in Diablo environment is The Light, which is left by the Masons to remind you, but it is put in the background.
https://youtu.be/Ywgtquy0u5M
Tyrael is a great politician. Just listen to what he says, it's right at the end of Diablo 2. And here he speaks about "humanity" but, even he doesn't know what will happen when the World Stone is destroyed.
Like a politican, these angles spread propaganda to your caharacter all the time, what are angels doing in hell? If people had Biblical knowledge, they would know that these angels are in fact fallen angels. Names are created by Biblical meaning, subtly under the pretext that you will save life, that the Nephilim are "The Ancents" that they were good. Very complicated and confusing stuff.
https://i.ibb.co/MynqJYKv/image.png
https://i.ibb.co/HL9SZcKX/image.png
https://i.ibb.co/xqgm13fR/image.png
And here how the Masons make fun of things. "For your success!" And this is such a deep verse in the text. This is the battle of every person who has within him, with all the evil that is in the world, and no one can lead this battle with someone else and they tell you that you lead it alone, but this is a lie. And this is how the most popular things come to be, usually related to some truth and with a small thin lie. And because it sounds close to the truth, people blur the lines like that. I admit whoever has made the game has involved a lot of thought and is very likely to have dealt with things that God tells us not to mess with.
And the enemies you fight in Diablo 2 as a Nephilim are actually grotesque and metaphorical depictions of humans. Essentially the game makes you kill humans.
But enough about Diablo lore as this isn't the place. I just wanted to clear up any confusion.
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Zibelthiurd
Tavern Dweller
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posted June 01, 2025 09:52 PM |
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Hello guys,
As the most divisive factor of the new HoMM, we need to see what's your opinion on the art style of Olden Era - do you like it or not?
You can vote with Yes or No in the poll below:
https://poll-maker.com/poll5505344x0482FdFb-163
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted June 02, 2025 12:20 PM |
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H8OE is coming in summer 2025.. A good idea, when Windows 11..
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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weilan
Known Hero
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posted June 02, 2025 09:45 PM |
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Zibelthiurd said:
Hello guys,
As the most divisive factor of the new HoMM, we need to see what's your opinion on the art style of Olden Era - do you like it or not?
You can vote with Yes or No in the poll below:
https://poll-maker.com/poll5505344x0482FdFb-163
I'm afraid I don't like it. I even tried playing the Playtest and not only it ran horribly with poor performance, but it was hard to navigate through the game.
I tested the game on a laptop with Linux Mint, i7-13620H, 16GB DDR5 and M2 NvME SSD and the game was using 4GB in the System Monitor, but in Resources, the Memory usage was close to 16GB, which is insane. I was barely playing the game.
The other issue was that due to the art style and graphics, I was having a hard time seeing on the map where to go and what to do. Even clicking and moving on the map felt confusing and difficult. I could see an object on the map like a Treasure Chest or Gold and would click on it and the feedback of the game whether I designated a destination or not was so vague. In other cases I could see an object slightly covered by something like a tree or a mountain and I had a very hard time clicking on it properly, sometimes I had to use 3-4 clicks before getting it right.
Also the art style made 99% of objects completely unrecognizable. The only ones I knew were Redwood Observarory, for the rest I had to hover over to see what they are and whether I should approach them at all.
Another problem with the UI is that hovering over many things doesn't provide a tooltip. I couldn't even find out what the game's resources are called when hovering over them on the UI.
A lot of options didn't work like adjusting animation and game speed.
I managed to spend some 5-10 minutes trying to play the game before I eventually gave up.
If they plan to release the game in Q2 2025, I don't think it's at all ready for release. It feels like an early alpha proof of concept than an almost finished game.
I feel like the art style and the overall experience is just not good and the way the game plays is as if it's fighting against you. Although I admit I saw some really interesting ideas how you have sub-skills to your secondary skills that made leveling up interesting, other than that I don't think the game is good enough. It will not beat HoMM3 and in fact it's not even close to it. It's going to be a mediocre release at best, or a miserable failure at worst. For me, it will not attract me to play it over HoMM3 even if they gave me a free copy, it just feels like a massive disappointment that isn't worth the time at all.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted June 03, 2025 12:30 AM |
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weilan said:
I tested the game on a laptop with Linux Mint[...] A lot of options didn't work like adjusting animation and game speed. [...] It feels like an early alpha proof of concept than an almost finished game.
I get the love for Linux, it’s brilliant in so many ways. But testing a game that doesn’t officially support it and then being surprised by issues is a bit like bringing a unicycle to a motorway and wondering why the ride’s bumpy. As much as I admire the effort, Linux still isn’t quite the go-to for gaming.
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