Heroes of Might and Magic V delay [Archive]

Mael Duin

01-30-2006, 17:51

http://eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62681

Less than a week after Ubisoft launched the beta test for forthcoming PC title Heroes of Might and Magic V, it's been announced that the game will no longer get a March release as planned.

According to US website GameSpot, the delay was not known about before the beta test kicked off. A new release date is expected to be announced later this week.

The news will no doubt please the HOMM fans who set up SaveHeroes.org - an online petition aimed at delaying the game's release.

Unfortunately the site appears to be down at the moment, but those who visited earlier will have been greeted with the message: "All of the undersigned wish to see Heroes of Might and Magic [V] as the title that reinvents the series, the title that brings glory back to the Heroes of Might and Magic name.

"All wish to see more releases in this new world that Ubisoft has created for Might and Magic. However, we also feel that, should you release the game on its currently scheduled release date, all of our dreams will be shattered."

The petition went on to encourage Ubisoft to delay the game: "Pushing back the release date even one month will provide many benefits, most of which will in turn equate to increased long-term profits for Ubisoft, and increased longevity for the Heroes series."

So, has Ubisoft heard the fans' pleas and taken the decision to delay the game accordingly? The publisher has yet to respond to requests for comment, but we'll keep you posted. [Call me a cynic but I doubt it... - Ed]

Is this game like Oblivion?

LegendaryArcturus

01-30-2006, 21:55

Here's how it work. You have to have Hero(es) because they are the only ones (except in Heroes of Might and Magic IV) who can move on the field screen. They can attack other mons, pick up resources, artifacts (equipments), scout the areas or capture the mines to have them gather resources automatically. The castle is like your main base that require resources to build mons or buildings to build mons for your armies. You can capture the neutral or enemy castles (or towns which can then be upgraded to castle for a fee). On each turn, your Hero(es) get movement points needed to move and you'll get resources automatically from mines and castles/towns that gather its own resources (mainly gold). Hero(es) can get experience points by killing mons directly in the battles with their own armies meaning they'll get stronger. You can end your turn anytime during your turn (except during the battles), so once your turn is over, it's your opponent's turn.

The series isn't perfectly balanced so far. The first game got 4 different type of castles you start with mainly. Knight while focusing on defense is super weak with its useless peasants but is somewhat more inexpensive and available. Barbarian focus on offense, but slightly better armies since Knight got its LV2 Archer at best while Barbarian got LV5 Trolls with regenerative abilities. Sorceress with focus on knowledge got flying creatures both at LV1 (weak) and LV6 (strong) and better archers in beginning but Sorceress don't really have much of offense or defense. Warlock are which I consider to be much more powerful since they got LV1 Archer better than other LV1 creatures, 3 flying creatures two of which are available in the beginning making them great against archers, Hydras for dealing with multiple enemies, Minotaur for offense and Dragon (LV6 flying creature) is the most powerful mon with immunity to magics. All of those castles were unbalanced with each other and the battles seriously needed lots of work with the flying creatures having the huge advantage from their flight ability.

2nd game is the expansion and a rehaul on the first game with two more types of castle (Wizards and Necromancer) as well as upgrade capabilities (Knight creatures can become so much stronger once they're upgraded). The battle system was retweaked for better with flying creatures no longer have major advantage, same creatures in an army can be splitted (that's why Warlock had the most advantage in the first game with capability to negate enemies' archers completely), and better magic system with each magic requiring mana points. Plus, each Hero can have secondary skills for variety and maps were much better designed (the first game got this map that allow you to have 3 castles against 1).

3rd game is the real rehaul with redesigned systems and stuff. There are 8 redesigned castles without much imbalance like in the first game although I found Fortress to be pretty weak since it's like while they're focused on defense, they didn't have much of a punch needed. Since the castles were redesigned, the armies were redesigned a bit too with their special abilities. The magic system was improved as well with different types of magic. What I really like the most about it is that it got really good campaigns in variety.

I didn't like the 4th game because while it was revolutionary, the flaws like the difficulty systems were much larger than ever and all types of castles weren't balanced with each other at all. Life is pretty powerful with its LV1 Crossbowman, the best LV1 creature with ability to shoot over long distances without penalty, giving you a huge advantage in the beginning. It got other pretty powerful creatures too and combined with Life Heroes, they can really last long and strong. The warrior type of Life Heroes focus bit more on tactics with defense (more speed, more offense, more defense and more morale/luck). Combine that with wizard type of Life Heroes (healing, resurrection, plenty of life in each creatures), the Life army is pretty powerful. Anyway, Heroes can enter the battles themselves and are much larger in variety (like stealth allowing the Stealth type Heroes to travel throughout the area capturing mines, resources without being detected) so the Heroes can focus more into Nobility (for the castles with their getting resources for free) or combat (for the Heroes to fight extremely well on their own). The armies are larger in variety too with each creature having their own special abilities. In overall, it isn't really much balanced since in order to have a really powerful Stealth-type Hero, you have to specialize in that Hero a lot, then that Hero still have limitations because of limited number of resources and stuff. For the same effort in that Hero, the combat-type Hero could be brought in with magic resistance (or immunity), defense, and offenses like archery and melee.

In overall, what I don't really like is the flawed difficulty system. The computer were generally unchallenging, but when I boosted up the difficulty in Heroes of Might and Magic 4, it ended up with the neutral armies being larger in size which have a huge negative effect when I just wanted the computers to be smarter. I didn't want to have less resources initially while computers can have lots more with ability to get extra resources automatically for free. Everything weren't balanced with each other too and it'd be much better if the Heroes can grow stronger on their own, and that magic is on par with might because no matter how powerful a mage is, that mage can be easily defeated by might (armies) and since Heroes can't get stronger on their own, armies can be built up easily.