Your questions about the game *** answers from beta testers *** | Forums

[TsuChi]

Hi

My nick is TsuChi, and I am here to answer all your unanswered questions

Since the game went into public beta (in France) and there is no NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement)

I can reveal all good and bad things about the game, all sad and happy stories that happened during our beta tests.

I am beta tester of this game. I was invited to test it more than a year ago. Since then I participated in three server restarts. So I can say I am quite experienced
(there are other players much better than me – maybe they will come to this forum and make it finally alive)

My idea behind this topic is to give you all the info you were waiting for far too long.

But firstly I want to amuse you by quoting one of the beta testers

TWiks
I’ve been thinking and I believe it’s something like this:

We are all lab mice in a French bakery, tasked with testing a new delicious cake to be sold all over the world. But the baker only feeds the mice with small breadcrumbs from the cake and the mice never get to see the actual cake or hear about the recipe.
The mice feed on the crumbs in hope of what is to come in the future, and ask the baker with squeaky voices:
When will you tell us about the cake?
And the baker answers (with French accent):
Not now, I’m working on the crust on the French cake right now, but sometime soon little mice.
And occasionally the mouse named TsuChi says:
Monsieur baker! Your recipe is flawed, the consistency is not balanced. As you can see here on my diagram there is a 32.6% likelihood that those who want to eat the cake defensively will have a 50%+6%magic, equal to a total 56% advantage over those who prefer to eat the cake aggressively.
Then the baker usually replies with something like (still with French accent):
Well then, I’ll just add some more flour.
As TsuChi exclaims:
No, It’s not the proportion that's the problem! You’re simply using the wrong ingredient!
Which sparks an exchange of many ideas and several suggestions from the mice. To which the baker responds with several days of mysterious absence and complete silence, until finally some new crumbs are served and the process starts over.

Many mice have starved to death and left the lab community, the questions outnumber the answers.
Will the baker ever explain the recipe to the mice? Is TsuChi right about the ingredients? Why is there suddenly so much focus on the French cakes? What will happen to the final cake when it's launched in the end? Only time (or maybe Tylem) will tell…

Tylem is dev team member, we don’t know what happened to Yaiden.

So ask questions!

I will try to answer you with details, if of course have time for it.

Please remember that this is my point of view at the game. I might be wrong about many things. So I encourage you to try the game (if it will finally go public worldwide) and make your own opinion about it.

TsuChi


/edit
read it before asking questions
(links to swf presentations)
http://www.speedyshare.com/269968951.html
http://www.speedyshare.com/128214344.html
http://www.speedyshare.com/528742577.html
unzip the downloaded file and run .htm file

[mojsarn]

nice to hear from you, heres a question, will all faction be available, want dwarwes

[TsuChi]

In beta there are only: Necropolis, Inferno, Haven, Academy factions

Devs told us that some other factions will be added after the game will be released - after a season or two

[Ceas197]

Thank TsuChi. we expect you from long time


1. What are the benefits strengths of the factions?

2. Can you tell us a history of what you playing as a story? Please. We make an image of the game seen through your eyes.

3. you know vague when the game will came for us all? Why so much delay?

4. What are the flaws of the game? But his qualities? Your point of view please.

Thank you again. Good bless you

[mtkyebra]

Originally posted by mojsarn:
nice to hear from you, heres a question, will all faction be available, want dwarwes

On the game there is a video that explains the story of the world, and there you can't see reference to Orcs, neither dark elves, but you can see reference to dwarfs, elves and nagas, as a hint (link on hommv hidden content) to hommVI.

The problem of that video is that becomes viewable so late in the game that only people who persist playing the game and form big alliances can see it on the actual game version.

Hey, players answering, so do real interesting questions. We can say what developers can't.
Call me Elder


1. What are the benefits strengths of the factions?
Some difference on power of units haven>dungeon>necropolis>academy

Some difference on probabilities to access to magic heroes and the different magic each faction have.

2. Can you tell us a history of what you playing as a story? Please. We make an image of the game seen through your eyes.
You wouldn't note it on game, but there is a story that "justifies" the game. Isn't related to previous stories.
An image (when starting game)


3. you know vague when the game will came for us all? Why so much delay?
Read my last posts (search on my profile), I said on November (if they wait for the 3rd tech beta to end) as the soonest moment. You will find other hints . This round probably will end on a month or few more so expect end of November.
It's supposed players actually playing tech beta 3 are going to participate on open beta (based on disappeared Yaiden words). We are near 200 brave players that persist playing a stressing compressed server for experimenting with us (and on part as vengeance because some required more action).

4. What are the flaws of the game? But his qualities? Your point of view please.
If you like webmmos you will love this one, the fact that you can attack, counter, INTERRUPT and seeing with your eyes what happens on the game is really good and innovative (for me or my experience).

You can be on game lot of hours, and you must if you want to do great things. And not be only one more player. That's why now we are only 200+ from the ¿800? on the start.

On the beginning the game will seem very good, but on powerful battles you will note that combat have to be improved to obtain a more interesting game. And not making impossible to beat top players unless you are a top, and maybe neither, because the interruptions

Thats all for now

[TsuChi]

1. What are the benefits strengths of the factions?

Each faction have its own way of dealing with numerous aspects of the game. Mainly as mtkyebra said it is visible with power of units you can produce, and magic factions you are allowed to play.

Game strategy guide
Each race is binded to 2 magic schools.
Haven magic towers will study light and dark magic, Academy will learn summoning and light magic, Necropolis has access to summoning and dark magic, and finally, Infernos will learn destruction and dark magic.
magic school has its own taste. Light magic is especially good to bosst the efficiency of large armies. Dark magic is useful to weaken enemy heroes and troops. Destructive magic is all about pure destruction. Finally, summoning magic is very good to eradicate monsters without endangering your troops.

But the game allows to conquer enemy towns and they are not transformed to your race. So you can start as Academy player and then in the middle of the game when you are strong enough you can conquer some cities from another factions and have heroes/units/spells from that faction. This have benefits and drawbacks – but in my opinion it is good to have 2 factions , one produce strong units, and another gives you heroes that can cast devastating spells (inferno). I now play as Haven player but trained inferno mage hero to cast Implosion spell – the most dangerous spell of all – that can wipe out up to 50% of any enemy stack (not whole army) – such a spell can really turn the battle from lost to a win (personally I think it is unbalanced but … )


2. Can you tell us a history of what you playing as a story? Please. We make an image of the game seen through your eyes.

You begin with one city, hero and small army. Your first task is to develop the city as fast as you can and fight NPC to gain experience for your heroes (it levels them up) You also get some resources from defeated NPC that helps you with developing your town. When you reach certain threshold (there are 3 separate threshold – domination/wealth/honor) you can try to settle another town or conquer it (first cities are settled bcs it is very hard to conquer) .

Players organize into small alliances, first fights begin. Players try to pillage other players but it is very risky and can cost you more than you can gain. The weaker player you attack the easier task you have but also the fewer resources you can get from pillage.
Then when alliance is strong and have a wish battle with other alliance the war begins. It is time consuming, brings no effect for a long time, people just run with their armies, and the war transforms to “ play cat and mouse”. In a long term it is demotivating.

So alliances sign a peace treaty and develop peacefully till the end game is triggered. Each player can search for “Tears of Asha”. There are 3 ways to find them, Honor path – building a portal and by fighting with powerful elements, Domination path – decrypting an obelisk which reveals the place where it is buried, Wealth path – by building an Oven and synthesize it with massive amounts of resources.

Then you get a Tear and can build a Grail building – currently (it might change) your alliance need 10 grails to win a game. Enemy alliances should try to “steal the tear” by attacking cities which have grail building. It is very hard task bcs of one element of the game that makes it close to impossible – “halts” – we have a saying here “you halt you die” So in theory big battles should be triggered by alliances which want to prevent the leading alliance from winning but it is so hard task that each alliance concentrate to building their own grails and almost no battles are done to “steal the tear”. And even if you manage it (by coordinated attacks of 10-15 players) enemy alliance in that time will build another grail and your effort will be worthless.

In theory all looks great but the game is not played by players as devs imagined. So we have a nice, good game, even outstanding one. But it could be legendary and beyond anyone dream, if few things were different. – if you know how little this game needs to be greatest of all, and see that devs do little to change that and keeps their original design at all cost, it makes you sad.


3. you know vague when the game will came for us all? Why so much delay?

I don’t know, but I expect that our International tech beta will end in one month. So after that it is possible they will start open beta for everyone.
Why delay? Maybe bcs at first technical beta there were many bugs, or maybe players were unhappy by game rules and devs tried to do sth about it and it took a year to change some things (sadly not all and not the most important – in my opinion)

4. What are the flaws of the game? But his qualities? Your point of view please.

This question is simple but answer is very very hard.
I consider this game as the best web game I ever played. Its scope is far more greater than I seen in its competitors. All seem nice at first , but when you go deeper and deeper into the mechanics you discover that many things in this game prevents players to enjoy fully. Many things could be done a lot better, and such things were suggested by players (including me) some were implemented and some not even answered by devs.

In my opinion the battle system makes a game unplayable in a long run – you will find it yourselves when you “halt” or “siege” or try to “steal a tear”, when the war will last a month and no side gained advantage and no cities were captured – it is frustrating. This subject was discussed many times and lengthy tomes were written about it. But only few things have changed.

The game is very good for those players who want peacefully develop their towns, fight NPC, and at the end win a game by building “Grails” - all this may happen without a single PvP interaction.

Those who like PvP and battles have a hard task bcs game rules are constructed in a such way that makes it very very hard to battle with other player (if his power is close to equal with you) and very easy when you overpower enemy. In the end one logical choice is to fight the week and slaughter them – for some players it is fine , for others it is 0% pleasure (this include me)

Game is good, and will charm you when you play it the first time, but don’t expect it the second time when you will learn and become experienced.

[Ceas197]

Thanks guys. you give us what we implore for much time a little attention, a little information, a little consideration

[mtkyebra]

That red circles are labels, that ¿leader? amry chief, merchant cief and scout chief can put on the squares to indicate things and only the members from your alliance can see them.

White marks are to separate your cities from the others and the Celeste marks are the cities with grail building.

Each alliance have a random colour (¿determined by the original colour of the leader?) but them tend to copy colour of the members or alliances around [I hope it will be changed to just the contrary] so that makes difficult to see your area. That area (kingdom) have effects that will remember you to zergs of Starcraft: no movement penalties, cheapier to settle a city, power of your alliance,... and is determined by your buildings (few) and your army (most).

You see on that image the squares very nasty, Tsuchi, if you use paint or whatever, save images as PNG in place of JPG similar size but much better result

Originally posted by Ceas197:
Thanks guys. you give us what we implore for much time a little attention, a little information, a little consideration

Your welcome, we know it but we can't help on that until now, I linked here the twomain spanish comunities hope them also add some question for everybody.
As I hinted on other topics we felt the same from developers. Bugs are sloooowly corrected, changes suggested are omitted (like unbalance from magic, everybody who has chosen factions that give the high magic and the low magic admit it) and suggestions some are unread, some "have to be talked" and some will be implemented for release, second or third round, when it can be too late.

As TsuChi said, the problem is that ubi want to release the game as soon as possible but they didn't use enough resources to do a great job on "few" time. They have preferred to use few people and delay implementations to a year or more after the release and "use the game" as a not-end beta test for new features.

We all hope seeing a new version with some changes before end of round, but will not change the mechanics of the game, only will correct actual problems.

[sad_dragon]

Hi.

Can you explain the battle system a little more? I still can only vaguely imagine what it is like...

How dynamic is it? So when you attack an enemy, what do you see/do? From Yaidens post i understand the you have to arrange the troops somehow before battle. If thats right, what if you arrange youre troops, start the battle and immediately see that you screwed it up. Is there a way to correct your error? What can you do during the battle?
If theres is something you can do, how fast do you need to act?
If a player goes offline, does his hero disappear from the map?

Ok, thats enough for now...But i got more!

[azureone]

Edit: Didn't see previous post, it wasn't there when I was writing mine.


Hi have a questions to you guys:

How exactly do the battles look like? Are they automatic, like quick combat in Heroes games, or can you influence the battle by giving orders to your army (like hold, wait, attack etc.) or casting spels.

What happends to your army when it's been attack and your not on the computer ?

Do units have their special abilities f.e. nightmare's fear attack, and are there caster units that can throw spells?