f13.net

So, who got it to install?

Mine tells me my C:\ drive is full even though it has about double the amount of space necessray to unpack.

How cool is that?

Are you sure the demo doesn't have StarForce? They could be pulling a "Spellforce 2" where the demo has StarForce but the release version does not.

Neg. I got it installed. No Starforce.

And it is awesome. I just had to free up about 1 gig on my C drive. Archaic installation programs do nothing but anger me. Bad thing is, the Limited Edition (with the XP Friendly 3 & 4) is not available for preorder.

I'm waiting to see what they do with GRAW. If that also doesn't have StarForce I'll end my boycott of Ubisoft products.

GRAW = ?

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6147655.html

No SF4 in GRAW most likely, Ubisoft finally kicked their bad habit of Starforce.

Now if they would only do a Beyond Good & Evil 2.

That quote is presumably the translated version from the French Community Manager (notice how the rep isn't named) -- not the most senior person they could have talking about their future copy protection strategy. The only real "official" statement I've heard is from the HoMM producer and he was only replying to the HoMM StarForce question and not about any of their other games.

HoMaM 3&4 work fine in XP.

And it's HoMaM, or HMM, not HoMM. If the "o" counts, so does the "a".

HOOOOOMAAAAAMMM!!!!

I think the '80s hurt your brain.

GRAW will be as big as HoMM. If they dropped it for one and not the other that would be stupid. I'm pretty sure they're done with StarForce. They've done no good and the people within their company who speak with the public are complete rejects. I'm sure the lawsuit is the end of StarForce being a problem.

I hope they rerelease older StarFucked games.

Starforce sez:
and:
Because Ubi probably isn't a big account or anything.

Their other big account is Codemasters. The reason for their continued existance evades me to this day.

So, lets get down to the nitty gritty:

Is the Demo infected? The retail version?

And, as always, is it worth it? How does it compare to Heroes IV

Nothing is fucking infected! It's better than IV. It's more like III.

Woooo. You won me. I'll download it later tonight.

I never played HoMM. What would it be comparable to?

Errrr. That's why people are so excited about it. It's not really like anything. If I HAD to compare it to something, I'd compare it to the Orc campaign from Warcraft III but with some crazy empire building that's completely removed from your normal Civ/SMAC types.

erm, so an RTS at it's core?   :|

The Orc campaign was a meld between Diablo and urhhhh a Warcraft III setting. Other than each general having an army, there isn't really any RTS elements.

The genre is TBS. Although Heroes is more of a genre itself. I guess you could compare it to CIV, but kind of an Age of Emipres kind of CIV with Dragons and stuff. But not really. You should really fix that and play HOMM 3 (mind you not 4) for a week to get a feel. HOMM 3 is generally considered the height of the series, with HOMM 4 being one big disappointment. At least here :)

It's most similar to some of those old games like Age of Wonder, Disciples, the old Warlords games (before they were RTS), etc.

There is a city-building part where you produce troops, then move them around the map and fight other armies. It's a type of game I like but I've never gotten into the HOMM series.

So neither version has Starforce?

Also, I've only played 3, and loved it...so if it's more of that, cool. Unstoppable undead armies FTW.

I shudder in anticipation.

WTF is the HoMM V demo trying to send a cookie back to ubi.com? MFers!

Seemed to me it just wanted to register the demo. What do you think it's sending, your blood type? These demos are spread across the internet. Gotta be honest, I find no harm in UBISoft wanting to collect non-invasive stats on a download (of a free object no less, the demo). And why do I assume it's non-invasive? Because someone would call them on it and the internet moronsphere would assault them with big words. Lots of big words.

Well fortunately it looks like it only tries to send it once and I didn't bother to try to capture it the first time so I don't know what it was trying to send.

Moving on to the game itself, WTF is the UI so crappy? And what's up with the jerky scrolling? Is anybody else having that problem?

First thing I do in every game is go into settings and tweak them until the mouse moves smoothly and at the assigned sensitivity. The HoMMV title screen has enough shit going on that you should be able to gauge any issues before even starting. On that note, the series is NOT known for having a great UI. In fact, I've hated nearly all of the UIs in each game. Heh.

I like the game, there's enough new stuff to call it a new version and at the same time it's enough like III, so I don't have to learn everything again. And the graphics are pretty. But can someone please tell me why I can't build a tavern on the only non-campaign map they have. That shit is ridiculous. And the whole 3d town thing... I don't like it. Yes, I am aware i can click on buttons to do shit about 5 times faster and easier than III. But I'm stupid that way I want to click my buildings.

Anyways, I'm not playing the demo anymore - I don't like heroes campaigns and I shared my thoughts on the only available map. When is it comming out anyway?

ps: I either managed to spell Ridiculous right for the first time in my life or the spell checker is broken. I'm betting on the second :P

May 23rd is the current release date. That might change if they have trouble coming up with a suitable replacement to StarForce (current rumor has them switching to SecuROM).

Linky plz?

http://www.mightandmagic.com/us/

I'm dl'ing the demo now, if you want I'll capture the exchange when it registers and send it to you.

Sure if it's not too much trouble.

Check your PM.

It only sends one short data packet (243 bytes) but they SSL encrypt it first.

Still, you get asked "Do you want to help UBI make better games?" to get you to agree to send them data and then it asks you to register and then even though you told them twice to FOAD they still co-opt your network for whatever purpose they want.

At best it's an asshole thing to do.

edit:  So not entirely herpes free.  It's still got an ugly coldsore on it's lip.

Okay I played the demo, seemed fairly decent. I hope there's super large maps with tons of shit to control, love those. I hope there's going to be more than just the 3 factions they have on their homepage, or I won't even consider this a complete game.

No doubt there will be some super large maps. And three factions really is more than enough considering the amount of shit that goes on.

When you quit it says how many factions there will be in the retail version. "Master 6 factions and more than 80 creatures... blahblah".

I just want to lan up with my old heroes 3 buddies and play a "quick XL with underground". Those were the times... :P

6 factions sounds fabulous, sounds like just about the amount they had in the previous games. I don't think 3 would be enough, there's not much more going on in this game than there were in the previous games. There's usually a bunch of expansions coming to these as well, and no doubt will this game also see some expansion love. I think the game will sell pretty decent, the demo is getting a lot of attention.

MFers. Now I wish I knew x86 assembly so I could debug what those MFers are doing.

The multiplayer of the demo is pretty limited, but you do get the option to see each faction. The downside is that your only choice is what faction. You get a pre-built hero and army to play with, and you'll find out pretty quickly that it's not balanced. It's the "Duel" gametype which is simply a head-to-head combat, there's no city building or land exploration.

I think it's way too early to say the game in general isn't balanced, but it seems much more plausible that these pre-assembled armies aren't particularly balanced. I've been given the impression that in retail, you have a set number of "points" to work with and you can then spend these points to come up with your own combination of units, hero, and spells.

Just give me an undead-faction hero with good Necromancy skills.

Oh, and Vampires. I love me some Vampies.

He who gets the teleport spell wins.

I try to forget there was a HoMaM IV.

I hope I can build one of my favorite armies: tons of golems backing up a high-level spellcaster. Tanks to soak damage while I AoE and lvl4 debuff the hell out of the enemy.

HoMaM has always been one of my favorite games, I hope the opera music returns.

I can only find IV around to buy. No luck with III.

Of course, I could always just download the demo of V and try it for myself. But that would involve installing and getting around to playing the thing. Easier to just buy the good games, in a way. Play them "later". So many games, so little time.

It's like the old Warlords games, only not as fun. I never liked HoMaM much, played multiplayer hotseat through the first 3 editions. It just never clicked for me.

There's a reason 3 and 4 are bundled with the special edition of HoMMV. The original releases probably won't run on modern machines.

Except they will. I've got every game in the series, and I've played III and IV on XP (even though IV is dead to me). I think I've mentioned this before...

Don't buy HoMaM IV. While not a completely wretched game, it's not of the quality of I-III. I liked Etherlords (and Nival in general), so I have hope for V.

I love the map in HOMM 2 where there's a truckload of black dragons in the middle. Build a decent sized army and max out diplomacy then engage. After you're done in there it's god mode  :-P

Was Etherlords the one that was kind of like Magic: TG? If so I remember the demo was pretty neat.

I have the Complete version of III, and it runs fine. Don't know if that qualifies as an "original release."

So once again, no Starforce on this baby? I could Really use an updated version of my lovely HeroesIII.

The demo won't run on my boot camped mac mini. Get the main screen, but it crashes after the loading screen for the campaign. I bet it's a 3d problem, though the main screen 3d displayed fine. Maybe VRAM related.

Have to admit I'm kinda glad it won't run. Should get the macbook pro in next week, should try it on that.

Not surprising given how gimpy the Intel GMA950 "GPU" is.

Edit: fixed typo

Great for 2d!

:|

(It's just my work machine, not meant for gaming. Figured I'd give it a shot, since Eve ran great on our miniDells)

At least it supports Core Image for all those wizbang Aqua/Quartz effects which the Radeon 9200 in the PowerPC Mini didn't.

The demo holds much promise.  The things I really liked about HoMM3 (fun maps to explore, interesting combinations of units/abilities/spells in turn based/grid combat, and the slow progression of new heroes into unstopable forces) are there, with improvements.  The map is sufficiently upgraded visually to match the six or eight years it has been since HoMM3 came out, but retains enough of the style elements of the HoMM3 maps to invite nostalgia.  The combat has some nice improvements, like damage predictions on mouseovers, and, I believe, units no longer move in a fixed sequence -- higher initiative means being able to take more turns, or somat.  The hero abilities look to have been given a nice redo; for example, I didn't see Logiistics or Pathfinding, which were so overpowered you were a moron not to take them when they became available.

The interface in the city and menus does lag for me, even after I did some graphic options adjustment, but seems good out in the map or in combat.

Yes, the GIANT GIANT GIANT cities kind of bother me. I'm the type of guy that would rather click on districts than iconic buttons. It's just more immersive for me. Trying to find all the districts in Dis was a monstrous pain in the ass.

They're both still there alright.

Yup the custom map is unfinishable on higher difficulties without expert logistics due to the retartedness that is 1 Town = 1 Hero.

Bah, I can't have multiple heroes early in the game anymore? W T F?

I use to have heroes for the sole purpose of ferrying my new units along in a chain up to my main guys.

The custom game has the tavern disabled.

Is the adventrue map spell on that mission selected from a pool?  I was able to use the Summon monster ability to ferry each weeks batch from Dis, while I spent my time topside farming the renewbale hotspots like the windmill and various towers. I haven't tried another game to see. I'm sold on this, and will wait for release to pick it back up.

One thing about IV that was decent was the ability to have units move independent of heroes. Of course, that also led to some lame gameplay aspects, too...but at least it solved the "Taxi Hero" thing.

I'm not even bothering with the demo, Nival+HoMaM=SkyBuy.

I read somewhere that there is a 1 town, 1 hero rule. I thought it was here, obviously not. I don't might be mistaken. I just ran like a crazy person and when I finally engaged the other guy I was back at least 2 weeks on his unit count. But I owned him due to my awesomness.

2 heroes may contribute to a towns defense.

Gold!

I am joyus.

Soo....is there a way to get me my units every week, or no?

Not being able to get my units would suck....a lot.

There's a spell for summoning units from a town to a hero if that's what you mean.

So, I don't even need multiple heroes, and it's Starforce free?

Excellent.