I'm sure there are plent of other HOMM fans here to get excited about the heroes 6.

It has a new developer too. It will be set 400 years before Heroes of Might and Magic 5.

Linky

 

Thanks Skykes for bringing this up!

Why it has to be called "Might and Magic Heroes 6" as opposed to "Heroes of Might and Magic 6" is a mystery. Perhaps because it's part-developed through a different company, I suppose.

Either way, if it plays like the other Heroes games, I'm sure that I will enjoy it as well. Now I just need a new computer to be able to make use of the even greater detailing on the units and environments. Big maps always get that slowdown with all the flags waving, units shifting, and things like that in general.
Well, I want a new one for Diablo 3 regardless, so we'll see.

 

The screenshots looks nice - both those of the scenery and combat. Unit designs looks a lot better too.

As for the story - I stopped paying attention since the very first mission in the first campaign in HoMM 5. Watching the cutscenes in that game was pure torture. Then again the HoMM story line has been completely fucked up since HoMM 3, so it's not like I missed much. I still miss Crag Hack and Sandro, though.

Regardless, I'm going to need a new computer for this game. Damn.

It might be because it's a new developer and they want to distance themselves from the old one or maybe they just thought the old one sounded stupid. Who knows. But wasn't "Might and Magic Heroes" the name of a RPG spin-off series or was that just named "Might and Magic"?

 

Hmmm, I don't think I really brought myself to do the campaign in 4 or 5 either. Just a lot of the pre-made and randomly-generated maps for the most part.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure the RPG series was simply "Might and Magic #". I can't honestly say I looked into it, but I've seen advertisements for "Might and Magic 3" and so on before.
My only sort of complaint is that, in my opinion of course, "Might and Magic Heroes" simply doesn't have as good of a flow/sound as "Heroes of Might and Magic" does.

 

Might and Magic was the RPG series based in the same world as HoMM.

Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes was a turn based strategy/puzzle game on the DS. It was pretty fun, one of the best games I've played on the DS.

I'm under the impression that Might and Magic Heroes 6 will be a more RPG focused TBS. I don't know what that entails exactly, but I did like what they did with skill trees in HoMM5, so as long as they take inspiration from that and 3, it should be a pretty stand up game.

 

Got a beta key, just finished installing this. If my computer actually manages to run it then I shall post back later with what I think. Probably not allowed to do that, but fuckit.

 

I spent so much fucking time playing Heroes 2 and 3 with my older brother as a kid, hell first time I played Heroes 2 I couldn't even fully read yet. (My brother taught me to read just to play this game and MTG)

My brother and I both have moderately good computers now, so I hope to play some online games of Heroes 6 with him.

 

I want to love this game but I'm rather wary. I loved Heroes 3 and the chronicle expansion pact things but just a few weeks ago I picked up Heroes 5 during the Steam sale for like $5 and I couldn't stand it, and it was suppose to be the most "true to Heroes 3" one on the market at that time. It had like 5 different towns and a pathetic storyline with characters solely based on a few stereotypes or cliches.

For example the arrogant young king who is good in heart but slightly retarded and the strong warrior Queen who breaks away from her royal trappings to lead armies and save the realm.

While distancing themselves from the pre-Ubisoft series they also seem to be removing the parts I liked.

Oh well, I'm still excited, I always liked the gameplay of the Heroes series and would love to see it make a comeback.

 

Only thing that kept me playing 5 for as long as I did was the cities - they were utterly beautiful and watching them grow bigger and more complicated as I built more stuff kept me hooked until I'd done one playthrough with each city type. The story was, in a word, puerile.

 

Played it on minimum settings. It's alright. Still have a lot of work to do, especially with clicking buttons, if you click directly on it(buy unit, choose ability etc) it does nothing, you have to click directly on the line around it, awkward as fuck.

 

What is the game like compared to both HoMM 5 and 3, respectively?

 

Aww, I didn't get a beta key. (although I would have to use my roommate's computer to even run it)

Either way, I'm eager to find out something beyond what can be found on the site. I shall honor your 'daring', in releasing information.

Also, is the 'click on the line', actually clicking on the border, exactly as strange as that sounds, or more an issue of the game's specific cursor's actual selection point being at odds with the visual?

 

Nothing to do with cursor. The clickable area is a tiny line around the border of each box you can click on.

 

Hate to derail a bit, but has anyone else played the old Might and Magic games? Specifically, Might and Magic 6 and 7, since they were really the only good ones? I just finished a playthrough of 7, so yeah. Gotta say, they might not have aged that well, but the shit they did with what they had was pretty fuckin' impressive.

I mean, Might and Magic 6 wasn't the /first/ open world sandbox RPG, and honestly wasn't even that big, but I certainly enjoyed it a lot more than Daggerfall. Granted-- and I'm likely to piss some people off by saying this-- Daggerfall was a bland, buggy, entirely randomly generated piece of dogshit, so that's not saying much.

Y'know-- to further derail-- it really is kind of sad that what I'd consider the first decent open world sandbox RPG came out thirteen years ago...

...and frankly, they've not really improved much, on average. Shit, Morrowind was the peak of the genre.

(Granted, the same thing happened with TRPGs-- The first Final Fantasy Tactics and Front Mission 3 were the peak of that genre. Coincidentally enough, they came out around the same time. God damnit, why can't more people like slow paced, thoughtful shit in their video games?)

 

Fast paced 10 hour campaign is all that counts for a game these days.

I still have M&M6-9 on my computer.

 

To this day, M&M 6: The Mandate of Heaven remains in my Top 3 RPGs of all time, along with BG II and Diablo I. It was magnificent. I still remember the humongous, impossible dungeons; Tomb of Varn alone took something like 25 hours to clean.

The best thing about it was definitely the mobs though. At level 120, I still had problems with Titans (straight up fucked your shit), Gold Dragons (made your items worthless) and Beholders (most fucking annoying enemy of all games I've ever played).

Good times.

It's a damn shame no recent RPG has come close to it, in depth, difficulty & duration.

 

[This turned out to be longer than I thought it would be when I started...]

I most definitely agree. I haven't played it lately, but I derived great enjoyment from playing online matches of Age of Wonders 2 and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, where one of the house rules was essentially "Reserve at least two to three hours to play."
That was for the common four to six player matches, let alone eight player games. With another house rule of three minute(and later two minute) simultaneous turns, with the exception of player vs. player battles, but not player vs. NPC, pausing the clock.

Offline, a single game on larger maps, could easily take from five to seven hours, if played straight. Reminds me of one particularly rough back and forth game of Settlers 3 I once played, that took a grand total of nine hours on one fine weekend day. (of course, that game is rather slow, and exacerbating that by playing on one of the largest maps...)

Heck, matches on Homeworld could be deceptively long too.

While I can recognize that many people simply don't have time to do more than a few fifteen to thirty minute matches of whatever game suits their fancy, it is still quite disappointing to not really have the longer, more involved, games being produced much anymore.
About the only one is the Civilization series, and quite honestly, while enjoyable... I often find it difficult to bring myself to play through that more than a few times, due to it's inherent setup which generally makes one play through of the game, relatively similar to another. While you can go off from a core strategy in some ways, things like the tech tree almost demand that you follow it one tier at a time, with minor deviations. Mind, I have not played the latest version, but they have all pretty much been like this.


For better or for worse(often considered 'for worse' to those that have been playing games for a while), turn based strategy and in general more thought-intensive games have become a smaller share of the video game player's market. The so-called 'catering to the casuals' concept. A fair majority of games nowadays can easily be played in the aforementioned fifteen to thirty minute gaming sessions.

While I approve of aspects of this in the core concept of getting more people into gaming, to get gaming more widespread appeal, this has also had the negative side effect of making said games the far majority of games produced nowadays. Eh, anyway, there are both positive and negative aspects to short, 'pick up and play', games.

There are certainly times that I've left a system on, simply because after an hour or more, I was in the middle of a dungeon, but had to leave to go somewhere, and couldn't simply find another save point five minutes in front or behind me. I personally think that RPG's lose some of their sense of 'grand adventure', when you can stop and save every five to ten minutes. I will admit that going two or three hours without one, like many older RPG's, can be frustrating at times though.


Well, I'm getting carried away, but yeah, long story short: "While not always, I generally like longer, strategic games, to short and quick games."
Those 'long' games, can frequently have decisive fast-paced moments, or even simply be a buildup to constant back and forth action.


Also, to be on topic: "That seems rather strange, about the selection situation, Skykes."

 

I'd take a video but that is almost definitely breaking the terms of beta. There is more function with your hero levelling up now. You choose which spells to unlock, kinda neat.

 

Final Fantasy Tactics

swoon

I STILL play that game, and mod it, FFT 1.3 by Final Fantasy Hacktics is glorious.