10 questions you would want to ask the dev team! | Forums

[znork]

Somtiem i get face time withe the devs som of you dont like this. But her is yore change to get the realt toughe questions asked.

My questions are gona somthing like this
Do you guys understnad that realsing a buggy game to early is realy a bad ide?
When are you gona understand that always online is shure way to piss of youre custemors?
My crag Hack can beet youre crag hack silly!

So ples give me som feedback what would you like me to ask. dont use bad language, and try be as well founded as posibel. If at all posibel try be constructive.

if you have many good questions it might end up in q and a that has been done from time to time.

[KingImp]

I don't expect to see any real answers because all they ever do is deflect when it has something to do with an answer that makes them look bad, but I'll play along and just say "told ya so" when they don't answer squat.

1a) Is there a reason why they took out the feature of us being able to choose any hero we wanted from the vast list available when starting a game? This feature has only been in every Heroes game to date and to expect us to "create" multiple heroes just to play as them is ludicrous.
1b) Are there plans to remedy this issue and make it the way it should have been from the start?

2a) Have the expansions been started by Black Hole yet since they hinted that it was planned on Academy being part of the original game or is this something that needs to be started from scratch?
2b) If it's the former, what is the timetable on a potential expansion release? If it's the latter, are we even going to get any expansions and if so who will be doing them? From what we've heard, this Limbic company is pretty small and not quite equipped to handle such a project.

3) Do you not realize how badly you have turned off the majority of long time Heroes fans by charging an exorbitant amount for this DLC when you haven't even proven you can properly fix this broken game first? Saying the 1.5 Patch will fix a lot of problems is all well and good, but until you actually prove you can without messing something else up in the process, it's hard to trust you. And you expect us to give you more money when there is no trust? How about giving us this DLC for free as a sign of good will for releasing a product that in essence was no better than a Beta?

4) Are there any plans of simplifying the map editor at all? Right now, I equate this thing as needing a Masters degree in Architecture and Mathmatics just to understand it. If you haven't noticed, there are hardly any fan made maps out there and that's because this thing is so complicated that even with the manual, it's nearly impossible to figure out. I thought the Heroes 5 map editor was difficult, but that thing is a child's toy compared to this one.

[Kola85HUN]

Just to make it clear to everybody! There is a letter circulating on the internet. It is deleted from most of the websites, thanks to are beloved UBI. But I'm not scared to post it. I hope it will help you to get your answers. It was written by "Derpson". He was working for Black Hole during the development. Here it is :

Hey guys. Several months have passed since the release of Heroes 6, and because there are so many questions from you regarding BH which UBI seemingly ignores, I feel it's time that I give you some information.

I worked for Black Hole during the whole H6 development. For us, it was a dream project as we were real fans of the Heroes series, having played it since the original King's Bounty on Commodore 64. And I can tell you it was the UBI producers who didn't keep their deadlines, and that was what led to a total failure of the whole development. Back in 2008, during the contract negotiation process, UBI business decision makers didn't want to hear about making it into the contract that in case of any UBI delays there would be any penalty for UBI. This was a stupid decision of a business development boss (she said "UBI would never be late with any deliverables".... HAHAHA). And that led to an awkward situation where the whole development got snowed up... but the UBI producers kept telling Black Hole that "no worries, guys, there would be more time and budget, just do what we say". It was then that one faction, Academy had been removed from the content list, as well as many other things. And then, at half of the development, Romain suddenly quit, Erwan was removed from the project - he was "elevated" to the position of Might and Magic Brand Director, which meant his direct involvement in the development was over -, and BH was left there with the blame. Just an example, the final story script - which was UBI responsibility - was delivered to BH after 27 months... while originally there was 24 months for the whole development. No comment.

As for BH commitment, BH used up all its 6 months reserves just to be able to finish the project... this was more than 1 million Euros!!! And they (we) did this knowing it would never be payed back, as royalty would only be paid after 2M Heroes sold at full price. We all knew 2M copies would never be sold (neither at full price nor at reduced price), still we wanted to finish the project. During the last 10 months, our full team worked 24/7, without any chance for compensation... and because of this, we didn't have any resources to find other projects and make sure BH would survive after the release of Heroes 6. In the meantime, our new UBI producers kept telling that "the BH team is not working during the nights and weekends, and is not committed to the project at all...". I can only say, just ask any of the BH team members of their commitment...

As for the many bugs: Heroes 6 is a gigantic project, with 1.5-2 million lines in the source code. This is bigger than most RPGs. Such a project can only be finished with good quality if there are several years and a huge budget (i.e. Blizzard games), or if there is a strict design lock date after 7-9 months of the start of development... in case of Heroes, the UBI guys were adding new ideas and were changing existing features during the whole development, even at the last months, so it was simply impossible to make a stable game for release. Just see what they are now doing with patch 1.3 (BH is not involved in that at all btw.). They cannot release a simple patch with a few smaller fixes in time, they are already in a 2-3 weeks delay. This is because the code is extremely complex, and UBI does not have the team to overview it and make it work in time, even if the Limbic guys are really great (and no, they are not involved in the Heroes development from the project start, they joined like 20 months later).

Some examples of what BH added to the game at their own cost, just to make the game better:
- Town screen (we hate the current version, but it is still better then the "let's make a screen shot from the adventure map 3D town and use it as a town screen" that UBI wanted - we could have made a much better one, but didn't have money and time).
- Additional ingame cutscenes (I know cutscenes are not great, but again, we received the story after 27 months... we only had a couple months to make the cutscenes from scratch, and a very limited budget - and I think that the overall visual quality of the game proves to anyone that we could have made really great cutscenes if we had had the time and budget).
- 300 unique Combat Maps (there were 20 in the contract)
- 3D animated Main Menu (UBI wanted a simple still image)
- Additional NPCs
- Campaign Overview Map (Campaign Window)
- and many more........


And what were the UBI decisions:
- Less resources
- No fullscreen town screens
- Only five factions (as a consequence of the continuous delays of UBI deliverables)
- Creature pool
- and many more such "great" changes.........


This project cost Black Hole its existence... while UBI is making profit on Heroes 6.

And just some more thoughts: UBI EMEA were working with four 3rd party developers during the Heroes development:
- Capibara - They made the really good (and financially successful) Clash of Heroes. They are not working with UBI anymore.
- Eugene Systems - They made R.U.S.E. They are not working with UBI anymore.
- Black Hole - They made Heroes 6. They are not working with UBI anymore.
- Techland - They made a 47% game for UBI (Call of Juarez: The Cartel - http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/ca...rez-the-cartel) - They are still working with UBI EMEA on a big project.
We heard the UBI guys blame those developers (and Nival) many times... I guess BH was blamed the same way to those developers.

It is always the developer who is responsible...

Just some food for thought.... Thanks guys for reading."

[Fyrestorme]

1. why did you decide to go with only 5 factions and eliminate 2 of the classic and (arguably) most-loved factions of the heroes franchise in h6? (warlock, wizard)

2. what was the primary motivator to make weapon artifacts tie directly into the dynasty system

3. if you were going to make another heroes game in the future, what types of things did you learn from h6 that you would apply to it?

4. have you ever thought about just plucking the best aspects of the previous heroes games and combining them to make another heroes game?

5. regarding the current heroes spinoff game being worked on at Ubi (duel of champions) - do you have any insight as to why the beta is only for French?

6. what kind of future do you see for the heroes franchise - if any?

7. has there been any discussion of just leaving the heroes universe entirely and designing a totally new turn-based strategy title in the fantasy style from the ground up?

8. what kind of project would you like to work on next?

9. which of these 2 do you think is more important for a game to be enjoyable: perfect game balance, or interesting game mechanics/ideas ?

10. what has been the typical development process/approach/model and project life cycle while working at Ubi?

[znork]

I don't expect to see any real answers because all they ever do is deflect when it has something to do with an answer that makes them look bad, but I'll play along and just say "told ya so" when they don't answer squat.

1a) Is there a reason why they took out the feature of us being able to choose any hero we wanted from the vast list available when starting a game? This feature has only been in every Heroes game to date and to expect us to "create" multiple heroes just to play as them is ludicrous.
1b) Are there plans to remedy this issue and make it the way it should have been from the start?

Well i dont expect real answers myself but ill try to get them.

could you plz try to refrase the first question becuse i did not understand it. it might be just me.

edit about this letter we have read it discused it and talked about it what is youre question?

the reason it got removed was that the auter himslef removed it. and yes i knwo who it is. it has been talked about before. re qouting this im my question thread is just stupid. I wish the person who wrothe the text well and wishe for his sucsess. but plz ask questions dont post old leters about bh her.

[KingImp]

1a) Is there a reason why they took out the feature of us being able to choose any hero we wanted from the vast list available when starting a game? This feature has only been in every Heroes game to date and to expect us to "create" multiple heroes just to play as them is ludicrous.
1b) Are there plans to remedy this issue and make it the way it should have been from the start?

could you plz try to refrase the first question becuse i did not understand it. it might be just me.

You know how in every Heroes game to date (besides this one), when starting a game you choose your faction and then it gives you a list of EVERY hero in that faction to choose from?
That is what I'm taking about. Now there are only 1 or 2 heroes available to play every time you start a new game and if you want more you are forced to create them yourself.

Why isn't it the way it's always been and do they plan on changing it back?

[Lasharus]

You know how in every Heroes game to date (besides this one), when starting a game you choose your faction and then it gives you a list of EVERY hero in that faction to choose from?
That is what I'm taking about. Now there are only 1 or 2 heroes available to play every time you start a new game and if you want more you are forced to create them yourself.

Why isn't it the way it's always been and do they plan on changing it back?

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they allow you to choose from Heroes III onwards? Heroes II only let you pick your faction, same in I. Still, it's been a staple of the series since heroes could have specialisations. And Heroes IV also didn't let you pick.

Still, since specialisations exist, you should be enabled to choose, this is definitely true, and I agree that it's definitely a good thing, but it's not as much of a staple of the series as it's stated.

[Gabryelxxx]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they allow you to choose from Heroes III onwards? Heroes II only let you pick your faction, same in I. Still, it's been a staple of the series since heroes could have specialisations. And Heroes IV also didn't let you pick.

Still, since specialisations exist, you should be enabled to choose, this is definitely true, and I agree that it's definitely a good thing, but it's not as much of a staple of the series as it's stated.

Actualy, you could pick your hero in every HoMM game. In HoMM 1 and 2 you dont pick your castle, you pick the "Hero", they're not called Tower, Necropolis, etc, they are called Knight, Wizard, Necromancer, etc. HoMM 4 did not have it because HoMM 4 did not have proper heroes, in HoMM 4, you could customize everything about the heroes and the classes were iffy since they changed based on specialization. Might be one of the reasons they do not allow you to pick in HoMM 6 aswel.

[znork]

@kingimp question understood and will be asked

plz keep the questions comming the more i have the bether it is. And ill realy try to pushe ubi to the wall.

[Gabryelxxx]

1 Why was it decided to "dumb down" the game by linking mines and dwellings to forts and take out mage guilds from the game giving everyone access to every spell ?

2 Will we ever get the PROMISED option to unlink everything from forts ?

3 Why was it decided to go with this bland and boring skill tree full of useless skills instead of smaller ones that would contain some faction specific skills aswell and maby make more sense ?

4 Will you ever remove conflux as a DRM and let us use everything in both online and offline mode ?

5 Will you ever add normal weapons to the game ? Not everyone likes the OP Dynasty weapons, i for one would like to see normal ones back, not to mention that taking the old ones out took alot of diversity away from the game.

6 Are we ever going to get the free DLC with the Academy faction that Black Hole promised back during the beta ?