Heroes of Might and Magic games

[m7600]

Since there's several fans of Heroes of Might and Magic here, I thought I'd start a thread for discussing anything related to this series of games. I'll start by mentioning VCMI, which is an open source engine for HOMM3. Of course, you'll need to own the original game in order to use VCMI, since it needs the game's data to run. But one of the cool things about VCMI is that you can run a lot of mods on it, for example all of the mods that incorporate new towns. Here's a few screenshots of the Abyss Town, which has an aquatic theme.

And yeah, I was too lazy to open up an image editing program to trim the screenshots : P

 

[Xzarloxara]

Cool! I have enjoyed several HOMM games, but none more so than Heroes 3. For Heroes 3, I use the Horn of the Abyss mod, a fan made mod that adds some content and fixes bugs while still being quite faithful to the original game. I sometimes play Heroes 3 with @Antimatter, and we have a lot of fun.

 

[m7600]

Now that I have more free time, I'm working on a mod for Heroes 3, to be used with VCMI. It's just another town. Right now it's in the very early stages, I have a lot to do. I'm using the Abyss Town as a template, and I'm modifying it to make a deep-sea town. Here's what the background looks like in the game, with just a Village Hall:

And here's what it's supposed to look like with a few more buildings. I haven't added these to the game yet:

I made the background and the buildings from scratch in Blender. For the units, the humanoids would be deep-sea merfolk. And for the creatures, maybe anglerfish that can walk on land, and flying jellyfish from the depths. Or something like that. It made more sense in my head before I typed it!

 

[Antimatter]

That's so cool! You are modding the game that I first played so many years ago! The concept reminds me of The Abyss movie by James Cameron--the look of these buildings is both deep-sea and alien.

 

[m7600]

Making some progress (I hope!). Here's the model for the castle:

And here's how it looks like in the game. I think it has some problems. It's too monochromatic, and it doesn't have enough contrast. I'll have to fix that.

 

[m7600]

Working on the town screen. Still have a lot to do, but I'm slowly getting there (again, I hope!)

 

[Xzarloxara]

The mod I mentioned earlier in this thread, Horn of the Abyss, just received a long awaited update! This includes the new Factory town and a new campaign among other things. I was pleasantly surprised by this news, and I am thoroughly enjoying the update so far! I highly recommend checking it out! It can be found here.

 

[m7600]

I've been playing the new version of HotA for the past few days. The new Factory town is pretty cool, it's a mix of Old West and Steampunk.

 

[Skatan]

That looks very cool! Does it feels it blends into the game setting though?

 

[m7600]

Personally, I would have toned down the Old West elements and I would have emphasized the Steampunk elements more.

That being said, I think does blend quite well into the game's setting. It already had technological things in the Tower town, like the Golem factory for example, and the Airship (grail structure). So it's not like technology is unheard of in the world of Erathia.

 

[Antimatter]

It actually does, and quite well. The reason is that the original M&M setting always involved technology. The new Factory town is well-made, and feels at home, even while it was impossible to imagine just 1 month ago. Community developers of the Factory faction used a lot of materials provided by original HoMM 3 developers, including David Mullich.

You can read more if you use Google Translate of this article:

Дождались: как ощущается «Фабрика» — новый замок в «Героях 3»

31 декабря команда HotA Crew выпустила ожидаемое многими обновление Horn of the Abyss 1.7.0 для «Героев 3». В нем авторы добавили новый замок — ...

www.cybersport.ru

 

[Antimatter]

What an honour for everyone on the HotA team. The Cove town is now official, at least, in the tabletop HoMM.

Cove Expansion - Announcement of Ubisoft x Archon Studio x HOTA Crew Cooperation

We're delighted to announce that we will be creating the Cove expansion in close cooperation, not only with the licensor but also with the HOTA Crew, and basing...

archon-studio.com

 

[Antimatter]

Songs of Conquest - Farewell Early Access! - Steam News

Two productive years are soon behind us...

store.steampowered.com

I've been impressed by Songs of Conquest as a homage to HoMM games, and this message explains just how much the game evolved over its Early Access. I think randomized maps and the modding community can keep the game alive for many years to come.

 

[Antimatter]

The HotA team has announced a new upcoming town - Bulwark, inspired by HoMM 5 dwarves.

They also released a big patch for the HotA with lots of improvements.

E.g. Eagle Eye now gives the hero a 40/50/60% chance to learn each opponent's 1-3/4/5 level spell before starting a combat and when a spell is cast in battle. Allows the player to view 1-3/4/5 level spells in the opponent's spellbook in combat. If both heroes have Eagle Eye, it is mutually blocked (similar to Tactics)

The patch notes: https://download.h3hota.com/upd/changelogs/eng.txt

 

[Antimatter]

Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era got a new trailer. Early Access will be starting relatively soon this year.

 

[Antimatter]

The game hasn't even launched in Early Access yet, but the dev team has already introduced changes based on the feedback they had received. They redesigned the Temple town screen and the adventure model, and redid the Angels model to match the world of Enroth better. They have added colour profiles and accessibility options to make it easier to see units on the battlefield and the adventure map.

If you don't want to watch the whole video, skip to 1:10 to listen to some of the game music at least, it's so peaceful.