October 10, 2007
Robert Jordan (Jim Rigney) ~ 1948-2007
Sadly, I just found out earlier today that back on September 16th, Robert Jordan passed away. The best selling author of the Wheel of Time series finally succumbed to his long battle with Amyloidosis and died peacefully in his South Carolina home. He was half-way finished with his final volume of the Wheel of Time series (A Memory of Light). And while many Might and Magic fans may not know who this author was...this was done for me and me alone. I felt a need to pass along some kind of tribute for this author who has touched my life so deeply. He will be sorely missed and his works will remain to be cherished deeply by this saddened genie.
Sir Charles
October 4, 2007
As many of you may know,
there's been a bit of an on-going debate on the official
forums concerning the use of Artificer. It was proposed that
Artificer can't be used to any significant amount in the early stages of
the game while others argued otherwise. To assist in answering the
questions of the topic, it's been proposed that we all start a map from
a static save-game so there are not any discrepancies from
map-to-map. The goal is to play in a style that puts Artificer in
play early in the map while not sacrificing your town's growth and
development. Can it be successful or not and what strategies can
you devise to enhance the development of the Academy. We've chosen
Subterranean Treasures on Heroic. This should be played using the
Hammers of Fate ORIGINAL version of the game (JJ suggested I
change it to the original so everyone can play). I've chosen a Yellow starting position
with a random hero and a random artifact (although at JJ's urging I did
reload a few times to make sure that Havez or Galib weren't starting
heroes or day 1 tavern heroes). The other 3 factions are
completely left at random. Players can download the save-game file
from HERE, and can post their play-by-play in
the appropriate forum
thread. Good luck and happy gaming!
Sir Charles
November 3, 2006
Ubisoft released a trailer yesterday for the upcoming Heroes 5 expansion pack Hammers of Fate. I've managed to pick out a few juicy tidbits from that video. Here are a few goodies to whet your appetite.
Entrance sequence to a Fortress town:
An actual VISIBLE caravan on the move from one town to another: (yes, I know...poor quality, but what'd you expect from screen captures. *grin*)
Sir Charles
September 3, 2006
After some detailed translation from numerous Russian websites and magazine articles, iwinbutton from the official forums, managed to glean quite a bit of valuable information about the upcoming expansion pack. Please, keep in mind that none of this information has been confirmed yet from Ubisoft. Nival confirmations are tenuous at best. You can see the updated information on the Dwarven faction Fortress page. I'll update the other expansion pages soon with the updated info.
Sir Charles
August 30, 2006
Here's a bit of a summation on what we're guessing about the new Dwarven faction up to now. Please note that the unit names/order and town name is all unconfirmed and info is gathered from the official forums and not an official SOURCE.
(Dwarven factions' Fortress page) (Renegade Haven units & Neutrals page) (External Buildings page)
Also, the Russian fan-site Heroic Corner got access to some exclusive screenshots from the new expansion. You can see them all (30+) on the Screenshot page.
Sir Charles
While leaks abound, Fabrice today officially announced the upcoming Expansion pack for Heroes 5 titled Hammers of Fate. Here's what he had to say....
Hi all
Today we announce an add-on for H5 - it should be released before the end of the year !
The major element of this addon will of course be a new race for the game : the dwarves, and their own runic magic. The dwarven clans will be pushed unwillingly into the wars ravaging Ashan, and will fight for survival !
You will also get one half more content from H5 : 15 campaign missions, new solo and new MP maps, new buildings, artefacts, neutrals, etc.
In terms of features we'll add the much-awaited random map generator and simultaneous turn for MP. We'll also pack the caravans in the addon due to popular demand
The patch program is still underway, we are in the final tweaks of the patch 1.3 with the map editor.
The addon will carry an improved version of the map editor, which will also be delivered for free online. It will also include all patches released at the time.
Be careful about leaked information, what is not announced officially is at best not yet approved, and at worst already cancelled or replaced
He also teased us with a rather nice screenshot. Enjoy. :O)
The official site (US portal) posted this info earlier today as well. (please remember that the US site has been rather notorious in posting false or misleading information, so take this with a grain of salt)....
SAN FRANCISCO – August 30th, 2006 – Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced the release of Heroes of Might & Magic® V: Hammers of Fate, an add-on for the critically acclaimed turn-based strategy game. Developed by Nival Interactive, the add-on will be available in November 2006.
The add-on includes the following key features:
- New faction: Introducing the brand-new Dwarves faction, made up of heroic warriors and rune magic adepts who stalk Ashan’s deepest mountains and most hostile regions.
- A brand-new adventure: Featuring 15 new missions, new heroes, and improved cut-scenes, the new campaign will lead players even deeper into the dramatic events that began with Heroes of Might and Magic® V.
- Extended game experience: Includes a wealth of new spells and abilities, 5 new single-player maps, 10 new multiplayer maps, new buildings, new artifacts, and new neutral creatures, Heroes of Might and Magic® V: Hammers of Fate gives players the tools to develop new tactics, and further their game experience both online and offline.
- Improved mechanics and gameplay: Thanks to new features such as Caravans and a random map generator, players will enjoy unlimited replayability and an even smoother gameplay experience. In addition, the simultaneous turn feature will speed up online games.
Overall, this looks to be a quite promising expansion pack. I know I for one am thoroughly looking forward to it. *grin*
And yet some more tidbits. The French portal of the official site posted some more screenshots. Here ya go!
Sir Charles
August 6, 2006
I was going over some of the info on the site and I realized that I'd forgotten to add 6 wallpapers. The 6 faction puzzle-maps are now available for downloading from the H5 Wallpapers page.
Surprisingly enough, I've actually started going back to fill in some missing information from the h5 pages. I'll update the news page as things are added. Of course nearly all of this info is already available on other sites (who have MUCH more free time than I apparently do), but I *do* want to get everything updated. So bear with me while I finalize this rather tedious process. :O)
For those of you who weren't aware of some of the small glitches or idiosyncrasies with Heroes 5, here's a couple I certainly got a kick out of. {image 1} {image 2}
Sir Charles
July 20, 2006
Wow, news on the lamp for 2 consecutive days!?! :O) It's about freakin' time right? *grin* So on with the news.
Patch 1.2 was released today. In order to install it you must be currently up-to-date first. Meaning you should've already installed patch 1.1 first. You can find all the patches here. Have fun!
Sir Charles
July 19, 2006
I know, I know. It's been getting longer and longer between site updates. I apologize. But what can I say, I've been spending nearly all of my free time playing this HORRIBLY addictive game. The guys at Ubisoft and Nival should be ashamed of themselves. My wife and daughters hardly recognize me anymore. *grin* Seriously though...back to business. :O)
Patch 1.2 is scheduled to be released tomorrow. In it will be the long awaited MP fix as well as numerous other additions, improvements and fixes. Once I get the download link, I'll post it here. We should also be seeing the Map Editor and the third patch soon as well (soon as in several weeks...a month or so).
Today I actually managed to do a little bit of web work. I started the faction strategies section for Heroes 5. The first in the series is the Academy faction strategy guide. I have to thank the folks over at Celestial Heavens for prompting me to get off my butt and actually contribute something. I got lured into a discussion about their Necro guide...and that got the juices flowing. :O) Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and get some use out of it. If you come across any typos or errors or even omissions, please...send me an e-mail so we can get it up-to-date. And as always...Happy Gaming!
Sir Charles
June 6, 2006
This will be a quick update to the news page. It's pretty hectic here due to work lately, so on with the update. :O)
Ubisoft released the first patch today. There are numerous download sites, although most are rather cumbersome and you get stuck with alot of unwanted trash. *sigh* So I'll add the patch here to the Lamp so you can download it without any hassles. You can download the patch here.
Sir Charles
May 27, 2006
It's been a rather hectic week for this Genie, so I've fallen a bit behind in some updates I've been wanting to do. But here's something I definitely wanted to bring to the fans' attention. For all the previous Heroes and M&M RPG releases I've purchase the strategy guide that Prima Games makes. While many don't find these guide useful, I have (especially the H3 guide). They usually contain in-game formulas, more detailed statistical numbers for spells, skills, heroes, experience and many other facets that help me answer fan's questions about the game. They're pretty handy references. That is until the Heroes 5 edition. I strongly urge you NOT to purchase this worthless piece of rubbish. Let me summarize the contents of this "Strategy Guide".
Section 1: Faction Histories and some brief descriptions of the Elemental Dragon Patriarchs. This information can be found ANYWHERE on the web.
Section 2: Factions and Fanatics: This gives some of the faction details such as capital cities, philosophies, associated colors, and notable heroes. The campaign heroes are also listed here with their starting stats & bios. Some brief descriptions of the non-playable characters from the campaigns are also here. Very limited usefulness here.
Section 3: Ashan Survival Guide: This is basically the game manual regurgitated. It does contain the "week of" bonuses which is quite handy. This is normally the section that goes into much further detail of the inner workings of the game that the regular manual skips over. But there is none of that here. No detailed statistical workings for the effects of Luck/Morale, no stats for how Attack/Defense modifiers affect damage dealt, no stats for the penalties of ranged combat, no movement allowance charts, no town resource cost comparisons, no stats of any kind. HUGE let down in my opinion.
Section 4: Creature Compendium: This is where they go into detail for each individual unit. However, they're still using the Beta-test versions for each and every unit. They've got old stats, old abilities and old costs. However, the author DOES add in his own personal tips on how to best use these units. I'll let you judge how useful they are: "Wraiths have no corporeal form, so as they move across the battlefield, seeking out a target, enemy creatures have great difficulty getting in solid hits against them." I wonder if he even played the game. *sigh* Sorry to say, this section is completely worthless. I'm personally considering making paper airplanes out of each and every page. This section also has a full listing of all the creature abilities. Even the Crystal Dragon. *rolls eyes* Even this section is incorrect...numerous times.
Section 5: Heroic Upgrades: Here are hero stats and skills...in "detail" (if you want to call it "detail"). The author does state what heroes have which primary/secondary stat attributes, but he neglects to add any numbers to back anything up. Percentages would be nice here. But no. Next are the basic Skills. Again, he's using the Beta information. "Way of the Land"? I don't recall THAT skill. Oh, wait. It's sub-skills are Pathfinding, Scouting & Navigation. Good thing I have a clue on how this game is ACTUALLY designed. A new player to this game would be totally lost. Again, no stats, numbers or percentages of any kind...for ANY skills. This section also lists all the individual heroes and their specialties. This small section is actually quite nice. I haven't checked the accuracy of the names yet though. Considering his current track-record...I'm not going to hold my breath on the accuracy portion. But if accurate, it's quite useful. 1 point for the author....with an asterisk. Next in this section is the Spell list, cost and descriptions. What can I say...this is TOTALLY disappointing. No formulas at all for the spells. You want to know how much damage a lightning bolt will deal out? Roll some dice or flip a coin because that's about as much info as you'll get from this book. Nada. :-(
Section 6: Artifacts. +1 point for the author. Full list and accurate. Even includes the descriptions that the full-game is missing. For this genie, this is the only section from the whole book that I'll be using. And it's a whole 7 pages long. Sad.
Section 7: Town building. Here is a full listing of all the town buildings (common and unique) with their use and costs. The author also added some tips on town building order. However he's quite stingy on the suggestions. Very little "strategy" listed here. And of course, he's using beta information so some of the building costs are incorrect. *sigh*
Section 8: Adv. map locations. Decent section. But to be honest, there's not much he could do with this section. Just list the places and what they do.
Section 9: Campaign Walkthrus: Okay, he's done a decent job here. With screenshots and maps this is quite useful for players who are having trouble with the campaigns.
Section 10: Single-player Walkthrus: Again, not horrible. I don't think he's using very good tactics on most of these walkthrus, but that's just my opinion. Unfortunately, with both these and the campaign map screenshots...the images are so blurry it's very difficult to make out what path to take and where things are. But still, it's a useful section for some.
Section 11: Multiplayer tips: *sigh* This section is...well...a joke. Old Beta info coupled with tips for features not included in the game.
Hopefully, that makes it pretty clear on whether you should fork over the 20 bucks or so for the walkthrus and the artifact list. How about this, I'll make an artifact list you can print out...and then I'll do some detailed walkthrus for the campaigns and you spend your 20 dollars on the expansion pack? Deal? :O) Seriously folks...don't get suckered into buying this rag. It's not worth the paper it's printed on. I've sent Prima Games an e-mail (or two) letting them know about the shoddy work the author did on this...whether anything will come of it or not...only time will tell. But in response from them, all I got was a auto-generated message saying "Thank you for contacting Random House Customer Service. We do appreciate your views and interest, and have passed your thoughts along to the appropriate division." Yeah, that's the last time I'll hear from them. Sad...just sad.
Sir Charles
May 14, 2006
This past week has been very trying for this genie. Having to deal with the constant stream of questions about Heroes 5 from people who've downloaded the stolen/pirated version of the game. In my mind, these people don't deserve the time of day, but that's just me. But to answer some of the questions that the "true" fans have about Heroes 5, Fabrice popped onto the Celestial Heavens Round Table forums today and posted some clarifications. Here's what he had to say:
Hi everyone
I see many people wondering and complaining about the content of the game. These discussions happen on most forums I visit, but not to the level of what happens here at CH. I couldnt care less for what pirates think, but when long time members of the community join the threads, it means a clarification is needed.
As a note, I find it interesting to see that people who get the game for free, illegally, still get on to complain - perhaps they're french ?
Anyway, here are some details on what will be released this week (and the next for the US), and what will be released later. Most if not all of these infos were already given through Q&As.
H5 will consist of :
- A campaign of 6 chapters with 5 missions each. Each chapter is centered on one race, in this order : haven, inferno, necropolis, dungeon, sylvan, academy.
- 6 single scenario maps, plus 3 more in the limited/collector edition
- 10 multiplayer maps
- 18 preset heroes for the duel mode
In the couple of months following the release, we'll offer updates containing notably :
- 10 more multiplayer maps
- the map editor
Of course these updates will squeeze unforeseen bugs and improve the balance, but besides this and what i listed, we are planning more content, although i wont detail it now.
In the first addon, a lot of features will be added, notably a random map generator. I cant give more specifics on this addon yet, but the time to disclose more info is not far away.
Now, I'll try to adress some subjects of discussions I've read these days.
There arent enough maps !
All in all its close to 60 maps that will be playable. H3 and H4 offered about 70. That's indeed more, but I think we spent enough time on all these maps to guarantee their quality. The 10 initial MP maps for instance, have been through the beta test for most of them. The other maps did not go through it, and they have been reserved for an update after the release, to get more time to polish them.
Why doesnt the game include the map editor/rmg/... ?
This is a choice that we made, and this choice is, what does matter for the initial release ? I think an editor is critical for a game longevity, but not for the release. So we can take a bit more time to finish it. Same about the rmg, this is not something that most players will boot right after install. We concentrated on creating a world and a story, and that is played through the campaign, and the single scenarios, which are all closely linked with the world events (well, except one :p).
The performance drops a lot !
The game has been tested on all common configurations and almost all graphic cards, and the results were outstanding, much better than i anticipated. Nival did a great job at tweaking performance in the last few weeks. However, there is one particular case where you can see a framerate drop, its when you lower the camera down to the ground level, and pan to see the whole map on the screen. In this case, logically, you get to display a huge amount of objects, and the framerate will drop. But this is clearly not designed as a playable view, it is there only for screenshots.
The AI is bad !
Well, one thing's for sure, is that we didnt communicate enough on this point. It was developed late in the process, thats the main reason. The AI has been done and tuned with the help of Steve Fawkner, and the result is quite good. Its a pretty efficient attacker. Any flaw that is discovered after release will of course be corrected through an update.
In the scenario or campaign maps, the AI is strictly guided, as these maps are about a story. So the AI has great limitations to what it can or cannot do. This is not the place where you can judge it.
The missions are too difficult !
This is one point i recently answered to i think. Judging from the demo feedback and also from reviewers, an easy setting was missing. It will be added in the first update.
To conclude, I suppose it is normal that fans get anxious right before the game release, and even more so when pirates feed their own (often misinformed) opinion into the fray. The feedback we've had from the journalists is great so far, and I hope you will agree on that when you get to try the game for real !
Hopefully, this will ease some of the worries that many fans have had while eagerly awaiting this great game. Until next time...Happy Gaming (with the DEMO)!
Sir Charles
May 7, 2006
After a very lengthy discussion on the official forums in regards to the "competitiveness" of the Necropolis faction (seen here), the topic turned to the cost of the units and the cost of the dwellings. So to put things in perspective, I've put together this handy little chart comparing all the resource demands for all the factions. Necro is quite a bargain as you can plainly see. :O)
Sir Charles
May 4, 2006
A few weeks ago, I erroneously reported that the Limited Edition version of Heroes 5 would include the Creature Stat Card. I've since found out that isn't the case. Fabrice, the Heroes 5 producer, was kind enough to inform us that the various versions will contain the following:
Regular
Version: Basic version which is available
world-wide. It comes in 5 languages FR/GE/IT/SP/UK, and each
version contains a hard-copy manual
Limited Edition (USA only):
The Regular Version plus 3 additional single-player maps, a special hero
aura (nothing confirmed on the nature of this), Heroes V official
soundtrack, Full versions of Heroes 3 and Heroes 4 (re-mastered for
Windows XP; expansion packs NOT
included).
Collector Edition (Europe
only): Originally called the "deluxe" version, the
Collector Edition contains the Regular Version plus 3 additional
single-player maps, a special hero aura (nothing confirmed on the nature
of this), Creature
Stat Card, Collectors Art Book, Map of the World of Ashan, and Full version of Heroes 2
(re-mastered for Windows XP; expansion pack NOT included).
Super Collector Edition (Internet only w/ limited quantities available): The Collector Edition, plus it comes in a numbered collectors box, and comes with a numbered certificate of authenticity, a coin purse and collectors coin (if lucky enough to find the GOLDEN coin, you'll also win a brand new PC)
Fabrice also mentioned the fact that in the future, we will see a nearly complete version available that will contain all 5 Full Versions of Heroes (not including the Expansion packs). There is no current time-table on the release of this future version however.
In addition to these 4 official versions, there are also several country-specific versions available. Very few details are available about all of these at the moment. Sites advertising these country-oriented collectors editions have been fairly sporadic in keeping data on the net. A bit of searching may be required. But a Polish, Chinese, Asian, Russian & East-European versions are supposedly out there.
For the Heroes fans out there who won't get access to the Creature Stat Card, I'm personally planning on designing a downloadable version that you can print out yourself. I know I sure don't want to be without one. :O)
Sir Charles
May 3, 2006
Several updates to the Lamp today. Firstly, I've added the Heroes V biographies for the Haven heroes and the Inferno Heroes. Next, Zamolxis has added all the full-sized images for all the Sylvan Troops. Just click on the thumbnails for the full-sized images. Lastly, I added a new Heroes V page under the downloads section. Heroes V Wallpapers.
That's it for now, but within the next week I hope to have all the troop pages finalized as well as some strategy pages. Until next time...happy gaming! :O)
Sir Charles
April 22, 2006
I added yet another new page to the Heroes V section today. All the creature abilities are now listed. I'm also finally working on updating all the Heroes 5 creature stats and the creature Comparison Chart page. And one other small bit of house keeping...I've pushed all the old news entries onto the Archived pages at the bottom of this page. Oh, and I also fixed Zamolxis' technical error. :O)
Sir Charles
April 20, 2006
And another good news: The game's official release is now confirmed for the 2nd half of May! :O) Here are some release dates:
Germany: May 18th, 2006
United Kingdom: May 19th, 2006
United States: May 23rd, 2006
Zamolxis
Heroes 5 has GONE GOLD! For those who don't know what that means, it means that they've finished with all of the coding and polishing and it's been sent to production. :O)
Another bit of news for the day, the Official Heroes V site has posted the remaining Necropolis Heroes. You can find the images and bios on the H5 Necro Heroes page.
We've also added a new page for Heroes 5: Weekly Triggers. This is the list of the results of a "week of..." in H5. Thanks to Jolly-Joker for digging this material out and to Drachenwald's MysticPhoenix for pointing this out to us.
Sir Charles
April 16, 2006
Well, as if you didn't already know...the Heroes V Demo is official out. The reason for the delay in posting the news is quite simple. I've been busy PLAYING it. :O)
Also of note is a very nicely done game-play video over at Gamespot (it's the official video #2...the one on top). Fabrice is narrating it again, but this time they really do a nice job of showcasing the really nice features of the game. Be sure to check out the death sequence for the Vampire. NICE. :O)
Sir Charles
April 12, 2006
A few news items for you today. First off is going to come as rather good news to many out there. Ubisoft has officially stated that they have decided to NOT use the Starforce protection software on Heroes V. As to what they WILL be using, that's unknown at this point in time.
Secondly, the Official H5 site posted the remaining Dungeon Heroes on the US mirror. You can see all the Dungeon Heroes here.
One last thing. I'm not sure how I overlooked posting this, but Zamolxis was kind enough to point it out. Ubisoft will be releasing the Demo TOMORROW! Keep your eyes on the official site for more information. And thanks Zam for the reminder.
Sir Charles
April 11, 2006
Today, I'm pleased to present a review by Oakwarrior of a special preview version of Heroes V that was presented to a select group of fans. This is NOT from the Open Beta, but rather from a nearly finished version of the game. So without any further ado....
Introduction
The newest of the series, Heroes of Might and Magic V, is soon hitting store shelves all over the world. A select few were given a near-complete "preview" version of the game, so that it could be introduced by the previewers to the fans. Now, enough of the intro, and on with the game! I do warn you though, this is quite long.
The Game
The game itself handles very well on mediocre computers, so you don't need an enormous 20000$ rig to run the game fortunately. The feel of the game is appealing to me, it really gives the certain feeling that I'm really running this kingdom with my heroes bravely serving it (with my orders though). Also, the graphics are amazing. It's truly awesome to lead an epic siege with your noble knights against the vile demons, or ordering your hero around the beautiful landscapes to collect various resources. Now that the game is 3D, visuals are better. But I'd have to say that the new "darker universe" style they promised us isn't very dark right now, it almost feels a bit cartoony. Now, off to the battlefield!
Combat
Ah, combat... Yes... Now that the game is 3D, you can see the fighting from every angle you could possible imagine. You can see your units in their full 3D glory. The new combat system is, well, new, and it takes some time and practice to understand it completely, but it's pretty simple: Units now have Initiative, this shows the interval when the unit makes it's moves, and they're shown on the ATB bar. Higher initiative is always better. The other parts are pretty much the same, traditional Heroes style. The Heroes can't die, but they can actively participate in combat, either by attacking units, using their special abilities, or by casting spells. The wait function now makes your waiting unit's turn to be skipped, and pushed back in the ATB bar, but not a full round. In my opinion, this creates new strategies the player can use, and I like this system. The Haste and Slow spells now increase and decrease initiative respectively, though I would have liked Speed manipulation better. Oh well. Also, the Bless and Curse spells (with different names of course) don't take the damage to the maximum/minimum. And the Mass spells are once again Mass spells, unlike in Open Beta where they were more like Area Effect buff which I wasn't so fond of, but now we can all breathe lightly
Management
Well, this is pretty straightforward and simple. You have a town (an enormous and beautiful one, mind you). It accumulates gold for you, you can recruit your creatures from there, improve it to get more gold from it, get new and improved creatures, and war machines. Just like in the others of the series. The main change in the war machine department, is that you have a town, and then it has a "primary" war machine, which you can buy cheaply at the Blacksmith, and the other 2 war machines cost more than your primary one. But still, you couldn't do that in previous HoMM's! The Town Build Interface has undergone a major change, now you can see your town while selecting a building which to build, and you can switch between 2 modes: The Full mode and the Simple mode. The Full mode shows every building in the Interface, while the Simple mode shows you the buildings you can build in your town at the given moment. I myself found this system quite intuitive. And, well, the Heroes are like the Heroes before, you use them to take resources, capture mines, defeat creatures and eventually your enemies, nothing you haven't heard before in the previous HoMM games.
Storyline
We have a new world, and a new storyline, and it's excellent and intriguing. There are a lot of twists and turns in the campaigns' stories, and they're really worth playing. The story gets more interesting every scenario you play through. Also, the first campaign is mainly the tutorial for the game, but it's very important story-wise.
Music and Sounds
Rob King and Paul Romero have done it again! The music we had in the preview version was excellent, hats off
The sounds were still under construction in the version we had, so I won't comment them, but I can say that they were different from the sounds we had in Open Beta.
Multiplayer
We have the traditional multiplayer maps, then we have the option to turn on Ghost mode for those, and we have the Duel mode. Ghost mode gives you control of a ghost while your enemy is busy doing their turn. It's very good when you have opponents who like to think a lot, so you won't get bored. It also kind of forces you to act quicker, so the enemy ghost can't do much harm when you do your turn. The Ghost has various abilities that you can use to do bad things against your opponent. The Duel Mode on the other hand, gives you the opportunity to jump straight into battle, skipping the management and hero-improving. This is a feature which I love. It also adds opportunities for tournaments and such. The Duel mode offers you pre-made Heroes with different armies for each faction. There are 3 Hero presets for each of the 6 factions, so you'll be pretty occupied dueling each other when you get the game.
Saving HeroesPersonally, I don't know what would have happened if H5 wasn't delayed by the fans' request. If the Open Beta was released, it would have been a failure. But, thankfully, the voice of the people was heard, and you will get a great game when it comes out in May.
Conclusion
Looking at the previous games of the series (which I've been playing since I was 6, in the year 1997), this one will definitely live up to the series. There are some downsides, like the small(er) number of spells and factions, but this time it's Quality over Quantity, so I'm not that bothered over the lack of those. All in all, this game shows tremendous potential, and it very well could be the Game of the Year, but that's still the future. I hope you are as exited as me for this game.
Oakwarrior
As usual, a job well done from the young sapling. :O) We will most likely be posting some additional screenshots from the Preview version later today. Keep your eyes on the Lamp for further updates.
Sir Charles
As promised...a few more screenshots. :O) Thanks to Zamolxis for the captures.
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Sir Charles
April 5, 2006
A new website opened up today. Heroesmini.com. While I've registered...I'm still working out the details of how to play. So far it looks fairly intriguing. Take a few minutes and check it out. (thanks Angelspit for the heads-up).
Sir Charles
The Official Heroes 5 site published 2 new Hero Biographies today on the German version of the site. I've added these two Academy Heroes and also a temporary German translation ~edit~ English bios now available. I'll replace that once they post the Bio's on the US/UK sites. You can see the new Heroes on the Wizards page.
Sir Charles
Also, the UK version of the Official site just posted this nice tidbit....
Ubisoft to release Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe Edition
Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced plans to release at launch a Deluxe Edition for Heroes of Might and Magic V.
This special and limited edition contains the original game, unique in-game content including three additional single scenario maps and a unique Hero “Aura”, a printed map of Ashan, sixteen page artbook by Heroic Fantasy artist Olivier Ledroit, a faction document summarizing all creatures’ skills and Heroes of Might and Magic II complete game.
Developed by a seasoned team at Nival Interactive (Blitzkrieg, Silent Storm, Etherlords), Heroes of Might and Magic V is scheduled on PC for May 2006.<--Click on thumbnail for LARGE detailed photo.
We've also got what appears to be a complete re-design of the Sylvan troops, the Treant and the Ancient Treant. What do YOU think about the new version?
A few of the other details picked out from that large image....
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| Artbook Cover | Faction Book Cover | Academy Pages | Haven Pages | Sylvan Pages | CD Artwork |
Sir Charles
April 4, 2006
The Official Heroes 5 site published 8 screen captures from the in-game Video Cutscenes. These are the animated sequences that take place before/during/after the campaign scenarios. You can view them all on the Heroes 5 Screenshot page.
Sir Charles
News Archives
2006
2005
July ~ Aug. ~ Sept. ~ Oct. ~ Nov. ~ Dec.