Pricewatch!

Originally Posted by joxer

One thing, patch 1.3 planned to be out last week is not released yet. Official explanation? On the forum is stated this "it can't be released now as some network issues have been reported". Since we're talking about Ubisoft, no surprise there.

While the source has not been verified, this might be of interest, regarding the issue
(Scroll down a bit, to the first long post)

Originally Posted by Fnord
While the source has not been verified, this might be of interest, regarding the issue
(Scroll down a bit, to the first long post)

I take the freedom to quote it here from there :

quote:
Hi Guys. Several months have passed since the release of Heroes 6, and because there are so many questions from you regarding BH which UBI seemingly ignores, I feel it's time that I give you some information.

I worked for Black Hole during the whole H6 development. For us, it was a dream project as we were real fans of the Heroes series, having played it since the original King's Bounty on Commodore 64. And I can tell you it was the UBI producers who didn't keep their deadlines, and that was what led to a total failure of the whole development. Back in 2008, during the contract negotiation process, UBI business decision makers didn't want to hear about making it into the contract that in case of any UBI delays there would be any penalty for UBI. This was a stupid decision of a business development boss (she said "UBI would never be late with any deliverables"…. HAHAHA). And that led to an awkward situation where the whole development got snowed up… but the UBI producers kept telling Black Hole that "no worries, guys, there would be more time and budget, just do what we say". It was then that one faction, Academy had been removed from the content list, as well as many other things. And then, at half of the development, Romain suddenly quit, Erwan was removed from the project - he was "elevated" to the position of Might and Magic Brand Director, which meant his direct involvement in the development was over -, and BH was left there with the blame. Just an example, the final story script - which was UBI responsibility - was delivered to BH after 27 months… while originally there was 24 months for the whole development. No comment.

As for BH commitment, BH used up all its 6 months reserves just to be able to finish the project… this was more than 1 million Euros!!! And they (we) did this knowing it would never be payed back, as royalty would only be paid after 2M Heroes sold at full price. We all knew 2M copies would never be sold (neither at full price nor at reduced price), still we wanted to finish the project. During the last 10 months, our full team worked 24/7, without any chance for compensation… and because of this, we didn't have any resources to find other projects and make sure BH would survive after the release of Heroes 6. In the meantime, our new UBI producers kept telling that "the BH team is not working during the nights and weekends, and is not committed to the project at all…". I can only say, just ask any of the BH team members of their commitment…

As for the many bugs: Heroes 6 is a gigantic project, with 1.5-2 million lines in the source code. This is bigger than most RPGs. Such a project can only be finished with good quality if there are several years and a huge budget (i.e. Blizzard games), or if there is a strict design lock date after 7-9 months of the start of development… in case of Heroes, the UBI guys were adding new ideas and were changing existing features during the whole development, even at the last months, so it was simply impossible to make a stable game for release. Just see what they are now doing with patch 1.3 (BH is not involved in that at all btw.). They cannot release a simple patch with a few smaller fixes in time, they are already in a 2-3 weeks delay. This is because the code is extremely complex, and UBI does not have the team to overview it and make it work in time, even if the Limbic guys are really great (and no, they are not involved in the Heroes development from the project start, they joined like 20 months later).

Some examples of what BH added to the game at their own cost, just to make the game better:
- Town screen (we hate the current version, but it is still better then the "let's make a screen shot from the adventure map 3D town and use it as a town screen" that UBI wanted - we could have made a much better one, but didn't have money and time).
- Additional ingame cutscenes (I know cutscenes are not great, but again, we received the story after 27 months… we only had a couple months to make the cutscenes from scratch, and a very limited budget - and I think that the overall visual quality of the game proves to anyone that we could have made really great cutscenes if we had had the time and budget).
- 300 unique Combat Maps (there were 20 in the contract)
- 3D animated Main Menu (UBI wanted a simple still image)
- Additional NPCs
- Campaign Overview Map (Campaign Window)
- and many more……..

And what were the UBI decisions:
- Less resources
- No fullscreen town screens
- Only five factions (as a consequence of the continuous delays of UBI deliverables)
- Creature pool
- and many more such "great" changes………

This project cost Black Hole its existence… while UBI is making profit on Heroes 6.

And just some more thoughts: UBI EMEA were working with four 3rd party developers during the Heroes development:
- Capibara - They made the really good (and financially successful) Clash of Heroes. The are not working with UBI anymore.
- Eugene Systems - They made R.U.S.E. They are not working with UBI anymore.
- Black Hole - They made Heroes 6. They are not working with UBI anymore.
- Techland - They made a 47% game for UBI (Call of Juarez: The Cartel - http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/ca…rez-the-cartel) - They are still working with UBI EMEA on a big project.
We heard the UBI guys blame those developers (and Nival) many times… I guess BH was blamed the same way to those developers.

It is always the developer who is responsible…

Just some food for thought…. Thanks guys for reading.

From the tone of that, it sounds like Black Hole had it's priorities a little screwed up. Focusing on a lot of visual improvements rather than bug fixing and gameplay improvements, just saying…

Interesting read, if the guy is really Black Hole (former) employee.
Look, I'm not saying Ubisoft is an utter disaster as I'm currently playing their The Settlers Online beta, but if they continue with their behavior, ppl will start to deliberatley ignore their games.
If ppl refused to buy the jewel Anachronox just because Romero/Ion Storm screwed up with Daikatana, it could soon happen again, but this time with some Ubisoft's game.
And if Black Hole exists no more, that's really a shame.

Originally Posted by paubo
All the Gothics are on sale on steam. Entire Bundle is $12.49. Probably not the best price ever for each. I know Arcania was $4.00 at christmas.
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/12075/

I didn't even know that Steam carried the Gothic games. That is an insane price for that bundle.

GreenMan Gaming has all the Mount & Blade titles for 75% off.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I didn't even know that Steam carried the Gothic games. That is an insane price for that bundle.

GreenMan Gaming has all the Mount & Blade titles for 75% off.

I know I grabbed the ArcaniA expansion for ~$2.50 around Christmas … I now have all of them on different places.

Reminds me I need to replay Risen before the sequel, but enjoying Legend of Grimrock right now .,..

Originally Posted by joxer
Interesting read, if the guy is really Black Hole (former) employee.
Look, I'm not saying Ubisoft is an utter disaster as I'm currently playing their The Settlers Online beta, but if they continue with their behavior, ppl will start to deliberatley ignore their games.
If ppl refused to buy the jewel Anachronox just because Romero/Ion Storm screwed up with Daikatana, it could soon happen again, but this time with some Ubisoft's game.
And if Black Hole exists no more, that's really a shame.

I'm already on full boycott mode on Ubisoft, because of their DRM, but I bought HoMM6 just because I had to (except for HoMM1 which I never played, and HoMM4 that royally sucked, I've enjoyed all the other ones). And HoMM6 is not bad at all really, except for all the bugs.

Originally Posted by paubo
All the Gothics are on sale on steam. Entire Bundle is $12.49. Probably not the best price ever for each. I know Arcania was $4.00 at christmas.
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/12075/


ArcaniA – Gothic 4
-75% $19.99
$4.99

ArcaniA: Fall of Setarrif
-75% $14.99
$3.74

Gothic 1
No Individual
or Buy Gothic Universe Edition
Includes 3 items: Gothic® 3, Gothic II: Gold Edition, Gothic 1
$4.99

Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods Enhanced Edition
-75% $9.99
$2.49

Gothic II: Gold Edition
-75% $9.99
$2.49

Gothic® 3
-75% $9.99
$2.49

I forgot to include that this is 24 hours only. There is little more than 2 hours left.

hey..my thread got stickied!

If anyone is interested in Diablo III (personally, not sure if I am), you can use promo code EMCNFJC22 to pre-order from Newegg $10 off.

Does Newegg offer a download option? If they don't, they really should, I bet it would boost their sales considerably.



-Carn

New Indie royale. This one contains:
Unstoppable Gorg
Depths of Peril
Tobe's Vertical Adventure
Inferno+
Slydris
Ballistic

And if someone is interested into KoA:Reckoning, next 31 hours (till thursday) it's 33% off on Steam.

Existing two DLC are also with the lowered price, which means you can buy the core game for 33.49€ or the game plus 3 DLC (yes three, the third one is included although not yet released) for 46.89€.

Like in my previous post I have to add why it doesn't look so tempting. KoA has a widely known sidequest gamestopper bug (if you use any type of aoe damage in poison 5 enemies quest) and it's not fixed/patched yet. You'll say it's not really a gamestopper as it removes only quicktravel from the game so you can still play only you'll have to walk from one side of the huge map to another. Still it's a disgrace - instead of working on it's patch to solve at least this issue (and I've seen it reported numerous times on the official forum - as I didn't play this game nor own it), they're moneymilking with different DLC.

Mount&Blade/Warband complete including the new Napoleonic war for $7.50 on Steam, Weekend sale.

Mount and Blade Collection 75% sale on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/8029/

It is also worth noting that they have updated Warband a couple of days ago. I have played only Warband myself and it is in my opinion the best video game that I have played to date. Along with multitude of features this game presents, it is the only game that I have seen where the world around you is alive and does not depend on you, and yet you have the option of changing it - a masterpiece in my view.

Thanks, Spoon. It's been too long since I've bought something more to add to the unplayed pile.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Thanks, Spoon. It's been too long since I've bought something more to add to the unplayed pile.

You're welcome. I have recently been too weak to resist such offers with these low prices - I need to stop checking on Steam!

It's a game unto itself, as someone else here has said.

I need to stop picking games that take months to play (like Skyrim, and X3) if I am ever to catch up.

BTW, not sure if this is the right place, but The Old Republic is free to play this weekend.

http://www.swtor.com/weekendpass

Originally Posted by SpoonFULL
I have played only Warband myself and it is in my opinion the best video game that I have played to date. Along with multitude of features this game presents, it is the only game that I have seen where the world around you is alive and does not depend on you, and yet you have the option of changing it - a masterpiece in my view.

That's some hefty praise.

I've never played Warband, and I only played an early beta of the original M&B years ago. What games would you compare them to in terms of role-playing or gameplay in general?