M&M: Heroes VI - Demo Released

I'm in the beta, but didn't spend more than 10 minutes on it. Seemed pretty run-of-the-mill to me, but I didn't like what they've done to the Town Screen. It did seem like they've improved the 3D engine and the maps seem bigger and more varied.

But the series lost its charm with HoMM 5 - and I don't think the NWC style can be replicated just like that, and it doesn't seem to be the goal either.

To me, half of the HoMM franchise was its charm - and that means that no matter how great HoMM 6 will be, it will only ever be half a HoMM game to me.

It might be a decent enough strategy game in its own right, but I'd prefer if they just called it something else.
 
I played the demo yesterday night.
I didn't have time for it, but will do today.

It looks like a very good copy of King's Bounty.
Didn't play that game, actually I didn't want to buy it since reviews stated that some "battles" are unbelievably easy and some impossible to win. Dunno if that was true and if it's changed over time (with patches and an add-on), but I still won't buy it unless someone says that the difference between two consecutive challenges is not extreme.

What I didn't like at all was his over-use of east-european and slavic names …
Hey, I actually like that! :)
To be honest, I never cared about ingame names… In any game. As long as the most ugliest creature in the game is not named like in western books and movies - Igor. ;)

Edit : I own but haven't installed HOMM 5 so far … and I greatly fear right now that this might be no different regarding the "reboot" …
Unlike many fans of HoMM3, I actually loved it's 5th incarnation. To me it was a great game, and I must also add that first add-on sucked, but second add-on was awsome. What I didn't like in HoMM5 was bad AI (on normal setting). It wasn't like nonexisting AI, but a 5year old kid would beat that AI. All you needed to do is to prepare and kill opponent's hero of highest level and PC was doomed - he spammed endlessly low level heroes with a small army instead of investing money into boosting the army of only one hero. etc etc I could add more, but overall AI was bad.
If that matters I really hope AI is improved in HoMM6. No, I don't care for multiplayer. :)
 
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Didn't play that game, actually I didn't want to buy it since reviews stated that some "battles" are unbelievably easy and some impossible to win. Dunno if that was true and if it's changed over time (with patches and an add-on), but I still won't buy it unless someone says that the difference between two consecutive challenges is not extreme.

It becomes considerable harder when you reach the Dwarves - apart from that there are still battles which you most definitively should avoid for later levels …
But the area of the demons was really hard. It was there when I "paused" the game.


Hey, I actually like that! :)
To be honest, I never cared about ingame names… In any game. As long as the most ugliest creature in the game is not named like in western books and movies - Igor. ;)

I don't have nothing against this in general - but I have something against "over-use" of it.

Personally, I'd prefer names mixed from all sides of the world to be mixed in - but not so much focus on certain areas.

But I must also say that I don't remember the names in particular of HOMM 1-3 anymore, which I had played.


The most famous "Igor" - by the way - is the one from the Terry Pratchett books, I guess … ;)
 
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Yeah I don't think either HoMM 5 or 6 really captured the charm of 2 or 3. They don't even seem to try all that much. Doesn't make them bad games, just different.

In terms of atmopshere, it's pretty similar to HoMM5, which was a complete reboot over previous HoMM games and which has built up a fair amount of story sinc ethen. I actually found the HoMM 6 story to be a bit easier to relate to and to contain less confusing names and poorly explained mythology.

Homm 6 does significantly change several gameplay mechanics which have been long standing for all the previous 5 HoMM games. Not sure if that's good or not yet, but it does shake things up.
 
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In terms of atmopshere, it's pretty similar to HoMM5, which was a complete reboot over previous HoMM games and which has built up a fair amount of story sinc ethen.

Okay, thanks, then I won't play it.

I don't like reboots that much, to be frankly.
 
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Okay, thanks, then I won't play it.

I don't like reboots that much, to be frankly.

Fair enough, although in many ways every HoMM game was kind of a reboot. There was never any kind of consistent story or world between them. Just a couple of names that were repeated occasionally.
 
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Well, in my mind , at least, they formed to one grand, great story … although I didn't know the details … :biggrin: ;)
 
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Didn't play that game, actually I didn't want to buy it since reviews stated that some "battles" are unbelievably easy and some impossible to win. Dunno if that was true and if it's changed over time (with patches and an add-on), but I still won't buy it unless someone says that the difference between two consecutive challenges is not extreme.
You didnt play one of the best games ever because some battles are easy and some are hard??? Doesnt that happen in every game? In Heroes you'll have heaps of enemies you can't fight yet due to your army strength. I thought it was great that on the first map you had fights ranging from easy to impossible.

I played the game 9 times in a row, I have not done that with any other game (although I have completed MM2 probably 30 times). Once I started playing, H5 didnt get another run on my PC.

Do yourself a favour and get it. GOG has it for $10. Cheap at half the price.

Go here and get spamms' mods too

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=11156
 
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The demo has one interesting thing : Online connection. It's called "Conflux", and it appears in-game like so-called "Conflux orbs" (which actually look like tiny black holes to me), and they only work, if you are online, somehow (haven't tried it yet, since my gaming PC is offline per default). These orbs are said to "give" the player "words of wisdom" or so ...

Another online thing is the possibility to do savegames online ... Haven't tried it yet as well ...

There seems to be more online-gimmicks (a small button in the top right corner, for example), but i haven't tried them out.
 
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For the record, I played against the AI in a skirmish map with the AI difficulty set to normal and I lost. Not sure if it's a fluke, but I'm pretty used to wiping the floor with the AI in HoMM.

If GothicGoddess says this too I'll be worried :)
 
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Well, I downloaded it and have spent about ten minutes with it so far, just to get a look. I have to say I'm very impressed with the overall crispness and fluidity of the interface. The game's graphics are very nice, and it does indeed retain the faerie-tale feel of the previous HoMM games. I certainly prefer the look and feel to HoMM V thus far, though again, I'm not very far in. I played one quick battle, and there are some nice touches that the previous games didn't have. I'm truthfully looking forward to giving it some more play time.
 
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I have heros3 on this new computer and have been playing it since finishing the witcher2 it was on sale on GOG for 5bucks lol...brought me back when a buddy of mine would play it for hours and hours...
I haven't played any of the other since so I was happy when I played the demo...
It is a heros game...
 
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If GothicGoddess says this too I'll be worried :)

Actually looking over the description of the skirmish map, it appears that some of the AI players started with an advantage. So that may explain my defeat. Still at the very least the AI was solid, which is more then can be said for several HoMM versions.
 
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Okay, thanks, then I won't play it.

I don't like reboots that much, to be frankly.
Please at least start it. I really never understood why ppl got so negative about HoMM5. It's not a masterpiece like The Witcher (both), ofc, but it's fun. ;)

You didnt play one of the best games ever because some battles are easy and some are hard??? Doesnt that happen in every game?
Maybe I didn't explain it right. I didn't buy the game because reviews said that battles go like this - you walk through one without a scratch and next one is so hard that you cannot win it then next one is childs play again just to get to the fourth one that's even harder than the second one then again you get rediculously easy one... easy/hard/easy/hard... man. I don't want to play a game like that. Filling the game with "casual" and "nightmare" battles on the same run is not something I want.
And yes, it happens in all games some battles are easy and some hard, but it's not like, well, in-out or on-off type of activity. A dischord. Cacophony. If reviews were right, ofc. I can't say they told the truth.


In any case I started the "prologue" and finished one mission. For some reason the game started on me on mission 2 and not on mission 1? What to say. I'll need to play mission 1 from level 1 now. Man...
Anyway mission 2 (normal mode) was not utterly easy and AI is not bad - unlike HoMM5 here the enemy won't just spam heroes with small armies and send them around but will first beef up the hero and then send it out. Some things in the battle I didn't quite catch, I guess those will be explained in mission 1 I somehow skipped. Graphics looks awsome, sounds too, music is nice and some of it is copied from previous versions (but is now a bit different). Also I didn't catch the scheme of recruiting, if I recruit units in one town, there are no more of them in other towns? Dunno... Some skills look awsome and some not so useable (at least in the prologue faction). The best skill I found is tutor one - teaching other heros your XP! So when I got to level 9, all my side heros came to my main character and instantly got level 8. Awsome!
The idea of keeping a map area closed till you solve a quest is nice, at least now I knew I don't need several heros to circle around.
In any case I had fun and can't wait to play some more. And will probably buy the game just base on this one mission, but...
I'll return with more impressions after I nail the mission 1 and the noncampaign map.
 
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What I noticed throughout this play was that there not only slavic nmes, but also german-sounding names as well ... I must say that I'm not too fond of mixing real-life names with an fantasy universe ... (The only exception of this rule, where I can go past it, is the Divinity universe. It's so diverse and so weird I just can accept it).

And you know how I am : I just asked myself suddenly why they didn't use Aztec names instead (of those slavic names) ?

It still doesn't feel very good for my taste.
 
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Viking names are generally used a lot in fantasy settings, for example Harald, Olav, Eirik, Haakon etc. Such names are used in Norway even today, so I hardly mind - I feel such names fit certain fantasy cultures (barbarians and so on).
 
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"Risen : The Vikings Arrive !" ;)
 
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Re: King's Bounty ~ I never read any reviews that said the battles were imbalanced. I played it right through and loved it. It is true however that many different battles are open at the same time, so you could choose to go back and fight an easy battle, then run and get slaughtered by a superior force. It's not incredibly linear. All of which I would say is a big plus.

Alrik makes it sound like HOMM6 is a clone of KB, but I highly doubt it. What about the ludicrous quests? Marrying enchanted frogs and zombies? Fighting battles inside powerful artifacts against bizarre opponents? KB introduced a ton of weird and wonderful new ideas which fit very well. Hard to imagine HOMM capturing much of that.
 
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And you know how I am : I just asked myself suddenly why they didn't use Aztec names instead (of those slavic names) ?

I was under the impression that a lot of the creators of HoMM 5-6 were slavic. Really any name is going to have some cultural influence.

If you play with the sanctuary faction you'll notice a lot of Japanese names and cultural references. Not sure about the other factions.
 
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I'm kind of curious how this game is so overly Slavic. Are you fighting hoards of Vodyanoi lead by Baba Yaga or something? :p
 
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