So, its April already, and April aint early 2008... I wonder when theyll make any news or release date. -.-

Yaiden,

I hope you will help me to clear up a thing or two about the game.

Will there be realms? If so, how large will they be?

Also, there could easily be realms for people with different ratings, and perhaps different realms entirely for paying users, to keep the playing field balanced.

It sounds like there will be an overhaul of the leveling-scheme for heroes.

I was wondering: Will heroes stats (knowledge, spell power, attack, defense) progress in the same manner as in heroes V? How will these stats affect combat/town development?

Will there be abilities, racial skills, and racial abilities?

Will different heroes have different specials?

Will some towns be styled after a certain type of play?

How will heroes level up?

When will heroes be able to expand skills/abilities?

I like the level system in heroes V. I find that a hero has effectively formed by tenth level, and is achieved by 20th or 25.

Will there be an end to the game? Will it be continuous, or will players merely conquer a sizeable portion, or an entire region, and then be forced to start again?

Hope to hear a response soon,

-Uke Olo [This way for Madmen only] [Entrance not for Everyone!]

quote:

Originally posted by ADEI7T:
So, its April already, and April aint early 2008... I wonder when theyll make any news or release date. -.-

Since this is such an ambitious project that Ubi doesn't want to screw up, we can probably expect a delay for both beta and the game release. I'm all for it as long as they make the game perfect and bugfree.

Some questions from an old beta tester of UBI's Shadowbane (wow that was a long time ago).

1) With other players kindoms around your own, what happens if/when some of the players simply stop playing. Would this not give an unfair dis/advantage to someone? If all the kingdoms around me turn into ghost-towns, this would not be very fun. Sure I might max out with 10 cities easier/faster, but I'm playing to play with/against others.

2) This might be something being worked out in beta, but are you currently thinking 1 in-game day can be run every real-world day (that being the 10-15 minutes of play time per day that was eluded to in one of the facts).

3) Are you afraid that people will reverse engineer the static combat equations? Since there is no randomness in the equation, someone could run their combat scenerios through the equations before choosing the order of creatures, thus maximizing their ability / limit their loss with no concern of strategy, simply the plugging in of values to the combat equation to figure out the order.

4) With my understanding of the current combat system, there doesn't seem to be any room for those 'special' abilities some creatures have, since it's simply this stack vs this stack, here is the winner type thing. Things like the Demons gate ability, or the Angels resurrection ability, just don't seem to have a place in the combat system shown in the screen shots and talked about thus far. Are there creature special abilities that we can trigger?

5) Can you give us the flavor of what a profession is? I know specifics will change, but are you thinking that Magic User would be a single profession, or are each school of magic (Dark, Destruction, Light, Summoning, etc) be their own profession, thus limiting (not a bad thing) the number of magic schools and introduce choices to the play?

Looking forward to playing, and possibly play testing. You can look up my ID and see how effective of a beta tester I was for Shadowbane (all those years ago) .

Will Opera be supported?

OK!

Hi all,

I'm back to give you an update about the project. Actually, we wanted to reach a point in the beta version where you will be able to really enjoy the game and give us your feedback so we could fine tune some elements of the game; hence the delay.
(It also allows us to test and define our strategy to face you all when your will enter the Beta )

"Will I be able to reinforce my armies during a siege on any given city?"

Yes, you will be able to send reinforcement troops to assist your army during a siege. Indeed, when you choose to siege another player you will be constantly attacked by his new troops being produced from within the city, or from Allies coming to the rescue! If he has another city, he could organise a counterattack to break your siege and force you to retreat, so the need for reinforcements is strategically great.
Sieging another player is a long term task, requiring time and troops. That's what it takes to conquer your enemies' cities.


"When will the game end? Will there be a final goal?"

Many of you asked this question but I can't tell you right now. We have to keep some (good) surprises


"If you have an army in your castle, enemies need to destroy that army (hero) to pillage, right?"

Yes, if your enemy wants to pillage your region he will have to face your army to succeed. That's why it could be very useful to keep some heroes patrolling your cities. But you manage your strategy and you can choose to let them take some of your resources if you want to avoid assaults from powerful players, or have better plans for your heroes.


"Is every move you make a little fight or do you get the choice of fighting neutral creatures?"

You can move in your region map without fighting but your objective is to pacify your region by freeing your mines and killing all the creatures hidden in your kingdom's forests.
When your hero is travelling on the world map, from one city to another for instance, he doesn't have to fight to reach his destination.


"How will heroes level up? When will heroes be able to expand their skills/abilities?"

Each action brings experience to your heroes: fighting NPCs, improve a mine, build a region building, scout your neighbours, etc.

Once you have enough experience, you level up

Level up increases your main attributes depending on your training (13 available): a warmaster will gain a lot of points in attack and defence while a fanatic sorcerer will increase attack and magic values.

Level up also gives you skill points. These skill points will allow you to buy a maximum of 3 careers per hero from 13 different careers like warrior, barbarian, merchant, priest etc...

Each career grants access to a specific list of skills (from 3 to 5 depending on the career). The first time you pick a skill it will cost you 1 XP point and if you want to improve it you will have to spend more XP points. For instance, improve a skill from level 1 to level 2 will cost you 2 XP points. Maximum level is level 3.

The maximum level being 40, each hero will have only 40 points to spend, tough choices ahead!


"Will there be any sort of communication between the developers and the players during the beta?"

That's already what we're trying to do. We really want to share information with the community, and it's my role to give you some news directly from our Dev Team. During the beta, it will be really important for us to pay attention to what you think or how you feel about the game. The purpose of the beta test is not only for detecting and reporting bugs but also to establish a real exchange between the beta testers and the Dev Team; we're currently thinking about how to do that.


See you soon,


Yaiden

ok thanks for the info

how far are you/the programmers now in the beta version? can you give us an estimate on when beta will be able to start?

quote:

Originally posted by Yaiden:
(It also allows us to test and define our strategy to face you all when your will enter the Beta )

I really like this part of new info. I hope it means what I think

Thanks Yaiden for your response.

I want to ask a more direct question:

Will the total power of a town's units always equal the power of another town's units?

Will some towns have an advantage in early play, and some an advantage in late play?

Thanks,

-Uke Olo

Thanks for the update, Yaiden. Take all the time you guys need if it makes this a better game. I'll be here when you're all ready.

Thanks alot for the update. Hope to face you online Yaiden

Will be the Safari supported ( Safari on iPhone ) ?

Can you choose to begin near a player who have played hommkingdoms for 2 months (for example) or have to begin the two players at the same time to be near?

When you loose a heroe, did he go to a enemy's prison or you can buy again in the tavern?

Ok there is a delay.. but there is no estimation for the beta starting date ?
Late 2008 I guess.

Although the post is informative, I am a little bit disappointed that there was no info about the date, which probably means, not soon enough.