Neues Entwickler-Q&A zu Heroes VI veröffentlicht!

@ Pit Lord 07 :

Ich hatte gestern tatsächlich daran gedacht, aber das Teil war mir dann doch zu lang, und irgendwie steht ja auch weder was Neues noch was Verbindliches drin...

Moin !

Hier ein brandneues "Q&A" von Heroic Corner: (Teil 1/2)

[quote]1. The situation about Black Hole’s departure was quite controversial. It’s great that we have Limbic to continue the improvement of Heroes VI, but the fans are still concerned whether or not the whole story will be repeated, or whether the development will get painfully longer. We would be glad to hear some assurance.
Limbic and Ubisoft have worked together on past projects and we always had a great relationship with them. We are glad of our current collaboration as well: Limbic had to get used to the code of the game and did it pretty quickly. The 1.3 & 1.4 patches released by Limbic proved their ability to build upon the existing features and improve the state of the game while expanding its scope.
But we need to keep in mind that they are a relatively small studio which is not geared up to produce full scale content, so our objectives remain reasonable, with a clear focus on quality and on-time delivery. For the moment everything is happening as planned, so no reason to get worried about anything.

2. We know that the devs from Limbic have a huge experience in game development, having worked on the Anno games and many others. But how familiar are they with MM Heroes games? What are their favorites?
Alexander Frey, Producer at Limbic on Heroes VI, is answering:

“Many of us (including me) have played MMH (which was HoMM back in the days) from the first part on back in 1995 and have never missed a part. I was instantly hooked on the slow-paced strategical gameplay, the tactical turn based combat system and the richness of the world. Overall the series is a reference title (to the question: “What are you playing?” or “What games do you like?”) and we consider it a great honor to be developing on this IP.
My personal favorite is the 3rd part (which was the last one that was fully 2D). I like that part the most, because it was the most epic and complex part of the series. Especially the community efforts were worth mentioning; they provided players with large amounts of new maps/campaigns. Some of them in epic proportions and superior quality. This part has been a true evergreen – we have played it at least for 5 or 6 years! Even now it is installed on my “not so powerful”-laptop and played occasionally when travelling (great game to kill travel-time).
The option to play in hot-seat was also much welcomed. I remember many relaxed matches with roomates/friends/girlfriends on rainy weekends (or during boring travels). Actually this is maybe also a thing to mention: this series has always been very female-friendly/gender neutral. I think I don’t know any other game that had so many fans amongst females. I even know a few “hardcore-non-players” who became addicted to Heroes.”

3. What do you think is the best feature you’ve done and the worst mistake? Which choices lead to failure and which had success?
One feature we’re especially satisfied with is the Area of Control system that really allows you to focus on your overall strategy and the most exciting parts of the game (siege battles for instance) rather than tedious micromanagement (endless re-capture of individual resource buildings with “mule” heroes).
Other features, such as the Reputation system, were cool on paper but not so interesting in the end. We wanted the Reputation to influence your heroes in every possible way: story (unique quests, dialogues and companions), gameplay (unique abilities), visual (unique appearance). As a result, the concept got diluted and less impactful. A more reasonable focus would have served the game better.
The skill system is probably our biggest disappointment. There’s really a huge gap between our original intention and the actual ingame implementation. We wanted specialized factions, distinctive heroes, cool and powerful abilities, and all that presented in an attractive, user-friendly package… Then came the negotiations, compromises, conflicting feedbacks, re-ordering of production priorities, and finally, the end result.
However, we feel that while not perfect, many of the new features of Heroes VI were necessary steps for the Heroes series. We really wanted to try and innovate in several areas. We may have pushed the limits of the game to undesirable areas, but we have learned valuable lessons in the process and we sincerely think that in a couple of years from now, when we look back at the “vanilla” Heroes VI, we will smile and whisper: “this is when it all started…”

4. Similarly, what are your thoughts about the Conflux? Where did it succeed and where did it fail? While the social side may have potential, fans are critical about the DRM component; any words on that?
There were two main reasons for the Conflux to be an important part of Heroes VI.
The first is that in 2011-2012, we are all connected. And Ubisoft as a whole is striding (if not leaping) into this connected space. The Heroes series could simply not just be left behind. We wanted the Might & Magic fans to be connected with each others, with ourselves, the developers and publishers of the game, and with the Might & Magic universe as a whole.
The second reason is that we wanted to bring to the fans something they had been requesting for years: a persistent reward for playing the game. Being able to carry over some kind of gameplay benefit from one campaign to another, from the single player game to the multiplayer, from the core game to its extensions, or even to its next installment.
This is also what the Conflux, with its Dynasty system, is all about.
But we agree that as of today, the Conflux has mostly been an interesting potential. We’re working hard to make it real, and as cool as its promise. And by “we”, we mean all the online teams at Ubisoft, not just the producers and developers of the Might & Magic games.

5. We’re happy to know that the townscreens are in development. It’s good to have interactivity and to finally see all the buildings, but will there be some additional environment effects (like weather) or animations for buildings to make the scene look lively?
At the release of Heroes VI (and even a bit before during the various Beta tests) we’ve got a lot of your feedback pointing out that a critical “must have” in a Heroes series is integration of beautiful, immersive and functional townscreens. Being a major ingame change, including creation of town art, rework of interface and balance of features/eye candy effects, it was one of our priorities to bring them to Heroes VI.
The work is nearing its end, so we would suggest you to keep a close eye on our official channels and community sites for more news.
While the town screens will be 2D (our benchmark are the Heroes III town screens), they will be animated. There will indeed be atmospheric and visual effects such as creatures flying, particles and other stuff that will add a touch of life to these grandiose vistas.

Gruß
Eicke

... und Teil 2/2 :

Zitat

6. Heroes VI is said to be the flagship of the series. Does it mean that the upcoming games will be closely tied to its story? And the ones who would like to see some different time periods (like after Heroes 5) should wait? Also, what period of Ashan history would the team members like to explore?
The upcoming titles of the Might & Magic series are all tied to Heroes VI, either because they take place in the same time period, or because the events they depict are linked to things that took place during H6. In a way, H6 opens the second big story arc of the Ashan universe (the Dark Messiah arc being the first).
There are many time periods in the history of Ashan that would be interesting to explore: the Shantiri era, the succession wars after the end of the Falcon line, the civil war in the Seven Cities... Maybe someday we’ll even be able to tell what happens after Dark Messiah.

7. Since the delay in delivering patch 1.3 crossed your previous patching plan, are you going to make a new one or you will be releasing the patch info when you’ll have complete confidence of what will be done and when?
Releasing new patches on existing tech with a new developer is always a challenge, and brings it own issues. So yes, it is true that our patch planning was a bit modified, but we plan on keeping improving and adding stuff for Heroes VI for the next few months.
This week we will communicate about the patch 1.5 (don’t miss this information on all of our official channels). As you’ll see, it’s a big one: it will bring balance changes, compatibility of on-line/off-line changes and more. We’ll give you the full list at the release of the patch. We will indeed make sure before announcement that we will be able to respect our engagement.

8. How far can you currently go in balance and when can we expect changes? Should we continue giving feedback or you already have a large list of things to think about?
We have completed the first balancing pass and we are quite satisfied with the results so far. We plan to make the modified .orc file available as a pre-release for eager players in the next few days, and the same modifications will see officially the light with patch 1.5, early July along with other improvements.
Of course, once patch 1.5 is released into the wild, we will keep a close eye on the players’ feedbacks and stand ready to return to the workbench.

9. So far we’ve heard the plans for balancing the core units, magic damage and healing. Do you have any ideas for elite and champion tiers yet? Their relatively low damage and high health values take their part in overall sluggish pace of battles and often lead to frustration. Statistically the champions don’t seem powerful like level 7 creatures, which may hinder player enjoyment of playing with a small but mighty squad (or the choice of such playstyle). Similarly, many of the creature abilities are considered lacking and could be amplified to further differentiate them and improve the combat experience. And, since every choice on the battlefield counts, could you improve the defense action so it could also be a meaningful choice sometimes and not just something that one usually presses when there’s nothing to do?
You will indulge us for a not-so straight answer but we plan to release this first balance patch and then think later on. Some of the changes you are talking about are quite important code and design wise, and we could not delve too deeply regarding some of them with the time and resources we have on our hands right now. But as said before, we keep a close eye on players’ feedback.

10. And the final one: anything else you would like to say to the fans?
Once more, we wish to thank our fans for their enduring dedication, support and understanding.
We’ve already said it several times, the Might & Magic fans are always at the heart of our discussions concerning Heroes VI. Now more than ever.
There’s not a single fan feedback that stays unnoticed by our team, and we sincerely hope that in the upcoming months we will demonstrate our own commitment to answer your wildest dreams… One at a time.

Alles anzeigen

Gruß Eicke

Moin !

Neues Q&A von ner polnischen Seite: (Teil 1 von 2)

Zitat

1/ Do you consider closing some of the series (for example: the turn-based M&M in favor of… something different? I really don't see you resigning from this franchise even if it's now in the state it is)?

There is no plan to definitely “close” any of the Might & Magic series, especially not the RPG. The RPG is the heart of Might & Magic, and we only need the good opportunity to bring it back to the forefront. This opportunity has simply not yet presented itself.

2/ What are the plans of M&M series development? Not only by adding new elements to the franchise (hack'n'slash, team RPG, other kind of strategy), but also by the plot development? Will the M&M series be reintroduced, but not as in form as Dark Messiah?

With Heroes VI, we started the second big story arc of the Ashan Might & Magic games. All games that are going to be released in the near future will tie to the arc in one way or another.

About the other question, we’re always on the lookout for opportunities to make a new M&M RPG. It is something we take very seriously and we don’t want to rush the decision. Obviously, a lot of questions need to be asked before we can start a RPG project. Nowadays, RPGs cost a lot of money, so we need to ask ourselves: do we make a “classic” M&M game, which would maybe appeal only to nostalgic gamers? Or do we make a new kind of RPG closer to today’s standards to reach a broader audience? Can we make both?

As you can guess, there’s no easy answer to these questions.

3/ Were you influenced by Magic: the Gathering while creating DoC?

Will be answered during the M&M Days

4/ If you plan something more related to the M&M franchise (games, REAL card-game, movies, comic book series etc.), could you reveal some of those plans or ideas to us?

The Might & Magic franchise will soon expand to other medias, notably books. We showed an excerpt of the Ashan Compendium book a while ago, so this is a project that will reach bookstores before the end of the year (if all goes well). We have other projects (like as you may already know the new M&M card game which is going to open for more countries) and other ideas, but it’s too soon to tell you more about it. Stick around, the coming month could be rich in announcements

5/ Have you ever considered the visual remakes of the HoMM 1-4 or M&M 1-9 games? (especially the M&M 1-5 and H3)

A remake of H3 is something we talk about once in a while. Maybe it will happen some day, although we believe it is better for the Heroes series to move forward and try new things, even if that means making mistakes some times, than to keep trying to replicate a game that already exists. It’s not as if Heroes III was not available anywhere anymore ☺

Alles anzeigen

... Teil 2 von 2 :

Zitat

6/ Heroes VI is about the events prior to those told us in HV. Why is that all the models of Heroes VI are more modern than those of Heroes V? I can't find any drastic event that would make a regression of the art of war, architecture or metallurgy for such a thing to take place.

Many things happened between H6 and H5: several Eclipses and Demon invasions, the fall of the Falcon Empire, civil wars… The resources also have changed. In H6, Dragonblood crystals are very common and allow more “magical” weapons and armours. By the time of H5, the dragon veins have mostly dried up, so people are using other resources (sulfur, mercury, gems and crystals). So of course things are a bit more “mundane” at the time of H5.
That being said, we don’t think the models of Heroes VI are more “modern” than the models of H5. The art direction is a bit different, and obviously the technology allows to display more details. In any case H6 is closer to the art style we had in mind for Ashan than H5 was.

7/ Amongst the diverse fantasy combinations, the one and only thing is generally the same: the people. They're always created in the mood of the medieval Eastern Europe. Would you accept the challenge and tried in the (possible) next Heroes installment to change the ambiance of the human faction?

It’s a tricky question because we have to deal with players’ expectations. When a player starts a fantasy game, he’ll want to find a “classic” faction with knights and clerics, things he can recognize and relate to. We’re already pushed the envelope a bit in H6 by making the Haven faction less “classic Middle Ages” but more “magical”, with also some inspiration from the Roman Empire. Making a totally different Human faction would probably bring more criticism from average players (“hey, where are my knights?”) than praise.

8/ Are you going to revisit the universe created by NWC?

Yes, if briefly ☺ Let's just say that the upcoming Pirates of the Savage Sea Adventure Pack still has a few surprises in store…

9/ Is Limbic up to the challenge of finishing the game and patch it enough to be fully playable? Which aspect of the game, except for an obvious bug patching, is now in the centre of interest, the top priority one? What changes (if any) can we expect in the forecoming patch?

Last week we could finally reveal what changes will come next and what are our priorities.

Basically, the patch 1.5 (release on July 12) will bring among other things some much-awaited items like new town screens and compatibility of on-line and off-line changes. Compatibility of on-line and off-line changes will mean that you’ll be able to create your saves while playing off-line. The next time you’ll start the game in online mode, during the boot-up of the game, all offline save games created in the previous offline session will be uploaded as online saves to the Ubisoft servers. So when you’ll open the Load Game menu, you will have access to both your online and offline save games. And the same will happen in the other way once you switch from online to offline, your online saves will be available in offline. So no need to maintain two separate parallel campaign progressions anymore.

You’ll still need to pay attention to Dynasty stuff though: it is not retroactive, so if you’ll go too far while playing off-line, once connected online you’ll not be able to activate Dynasty stuff meant as a reward. At the same time, Dynasty items that you’ve already unlocked will remain available on-line only.

We’ve also worked a lot on the game balance which will be included in the patch 1.5. After the release of the patch, we will monitor very closely forums, Facebook, Twitter in order to gather all of your feedback and see if more changes will be needed.

10/ Do you plan to release new artifacts? The fans point out that there is lack of non-dynastic and non-racial items.

New artifacts will indeed be added to the game. That being said, there are more generic artifacts in H6 than in any of the previous Heroes game.

There are no plans however to add non-Dynasty weapons.

11/ As for the neutral units - are you going to introduce more of them? Will they have their own dwellings?

Neutral dwellings are on their way. More neutral creatures is not feasible at the moment, although there are a lot of creatures we’d love to add as neutrals.

12/ What criteria have to be met to become a VIP-fan with an access to the closed forum?

The core members of the VIP fans are members of the community we have known and interacted with since the early days of H5. Little by little, new VIPs have been added – either because they were recommended by the other fans, or had contributed interesting things to Might & Magic or the community as a whole.

In any case we are always keeping an eye on the communities to find interesting new recruits, so who knows, if you contribute interesting stuff you might someday get an e-mail from us

13/ Are you going to organize any of the M&M fans' meeting, reunions etc? Do you have any plans about that?

As you already know, we are going to Warsaw next week where we will meet both the journalists and the community.

This event will cover many games of the M&M franchise. You can expect to get some exciting news to be revealed during this press tour.

On the other hand, we will organize our very first fanday in Poland where we will finally be able to meet Polish fans (we hope to talk to you and get your feedback live^^) and these lucky fans will get an exclusive hands-on of M&M games. VIP fans will be part of the event as well and I’m pretty sure you can expect them to share their feedback and feeling with you as well.

Looking forward to seeing you next week ;-)!

Alles anzeigen

Gruß Eicke

Moin !

Hier gibts das entsprechende VIDEO

Zitat

Heroes 6 : Exclusive community Q&A

Some fresh news from Heroes 6 team!

Warsaw, Exclusive Community Q&A

During the press tour Stephan Winter (Managing Director at Limbic Entertainment, developing studio based in Frankfurt, Germany) and Alexis De Becque (Heroes 6 Producer at Ubisoft) spent some time to answer community questions about Heroes 6 and its future. Check it out now!

1) "Where could Heroes VI be improved?"

Stephan: "We identified a couple of different topics we want to work on and we will work on those. First, we want to continue working on the balance of the game. Generally speaking, there are 2 parts if you are talking about balancing. One is using the existing mechanics and making the right changes to those existing mechanics. On top of that there is an overall approach for balancing, for instance making bigger differences between the factions and changing abilities and such. Right now and for the future weeks we are focusing on pack 1 (changing the existing balance and improving it). Hopefully, we will be working closely with the VIP community. You¢ll see some of the first results in the patch 1.5. There is going to be more. Hopefully, it is going to be the right way."

2) "Are you going to improve the skill & artifact screens?"

Stephan: "To give the very short answer, no. We had long discussions about different parts of the game where we consider that there is something we want to change and we can change. Finally the decision making was to townscreens. If we are talking about Heroes, everyone is thinking about townscreens. This was the big focus. It comes with the next patch 1.5 for everyone.

Beyond that point right now, no. Sorry for that. "

3) "Would it be possible to add unlocked hero followers (like Xana or Nebiros) to the starting hero pool?"

Alexis: "Yes, we are aware of this issue and we would like to take care of this. Right now we have been busy shipping the Adventure Pack, the townscreens, the patch 1.5. But we definitely want to try to take care of this issue later on".

4) "Will the duel mode be improved?"

Stephan: "We would love to improve but it is not on the priority list for the moment. We are still focusing on another topics. Same answer as before: never say never. But it is not going to happen in the near future."

5) "Are you going to make the map editor easier to use?"

Stephan: "Yes, we are going to improve the map editor. Yes, it is going to happen rather sooner that later because we absolutely want to have it there. We know from the other Heroes games how valuable a good map editor and a good community content creation can be. This is the guaranty for the game for a life time. We are absolutely aware of it. We need to be honest: it is huge! The map editor itself, the map tools are huge tools! They are very-very complexe, they are good tools, but they are not easy to use.

Nonetheless, we will improve it. We will try to support people who are dedicated in creating the maps. We want those community-made maps more than everyone else. But it is not going to be a miracle, like out of a sudden there is an easy click-click-click map editor or a campaign editor. This is not going to happen. But improving the map editor is very high on the list and we want to work even more with some of the community members to get their input on that and to take that step by step. That¢s the way we have to go.

In terms of time, the map editor is going to be improved in the next few weeks and months. In a perfect world we could constantly (from patch to patch) have dedicated changes to the map editor. This would be my perfect world. Let me take it from there!"

6) "Do you have a special message for the fans?"

Stephan: "We are gratefull and we are very happy to work on the project. I¢m speaking for the team and the guys who are currently in Frankfurt and they are trying to fix and polish all the stuff for the Adventure Pack. That¢s the first message: we enjoy it and it is important for us.

The second message is for communities: we are watching, we are probably not the super forum active guys discussing every little details, but I can ensure you that at least twice a week in the meetings we are discussing summaries of what¢s going on in the community, what is happening in the VIP forum. So, even if there is no big answers from our side, we are aware of your feedback and we learned a lot. There is even stuff we could not have done without community input. This is something we are very grateful."

Alexis: "We have spent a lot of time and resources working with Limbic for the past few months. Now we are trying to release everything in time and to show to the community our good faith, to prove that we are going to keep Heroes 6 to its promised glory instead of being an uncompleted potential. This is something we want to develop and we hope in the coming weeks to show it to everyone. Thank you!"

Alles anzeigen

Gruß

Eicke