Game to be decommissioned in 2024, community thread to update game Ubisoft!

[EntityofDesire]

Today they announced the servers for HoMMVI will be shut down Jan 25 2024 and unlike past HoMM games this one has a lot of features specifically tied to "conflux" or rather online servers.

decommissioned

For starters the game will not even launch unless you force it into offline mode by using command prompts (and the majority of people will never know or think to do this, they will simple click play and it won't start). The bigger issue is the game has a ton of solo player features locked to online mode including simply stuff as viewing the games bestiary and creature descriptions.

To more important stuff like creating a custom hero and giving them perks, weapons, ect - none of which will be available once the servers are down - including your save game since its all saved online without a local file.

The game either needs to see a massive update to move these single player features offline (hence not requiring a server - which honestly they never should have before) not to mention making it so the game doesn't require the servers to play in the first place.

As of right now decommissioning the servers basically makes the game unplayable.

Please address this ubisoft!

[SutraloV_Games]

Where did you get this information? Is this a verified source?

[Talana 💃]

I wonder if they are still going to sell those games - and if so , without warnings ? Probably.
In Steam store, there is only small warning sign about multiplaying not being an option after January 2024.
But the vanilla M&M VI without the in-game online upgrades , achievements and rewards, is a very limited game from what it`s supposed to be - and lots of the fun goes away !
It simply becomes a game you are unable to play if you are a completionist, and if you want some of the best/interesting items/weapons available.

[Talana 💃]

Originally posted by EntityofDesire:

Originally posted by Talana 💃:

I wonder if they are still going to sell those games - and if so , without warnings ? Probably.
In Steam store, there is only small warning sign about multiplaying not being an option after January 2024.
But the vanilla M&M VI without the in-game online upgrades , achievements and rewards, is a very limited game from what it`s supposed to be - and lots of the fun goes away !
It simply becomes a game you are unable to play if you are a completionist, and if you want some of the best/interesting items/weapons available.

I'm hoping the more noise we make, the better chance they'll be aware and update the game for a functional offline game like they did for Anno 2070. Many of these features are single player but hosted on separate servers (like tracking achievements which is just weird, instead of tracking them on ubisoft client itself). So if they patched dynasty into the game side and updated it to launch without trying to connect with servers most the issues will be solved.

But if they just unplug the servers, than the game won't even launch because it will be trying to connect before launching. There is a way to bypass it but it uses console MSDOS commands which the average consumer wont even know or try to use - and shouldn't have to when they buy a game.

I do assume they will keep selling it though, its a single player game and would be the VERY first HoMM game that became unplayable which would be horrible to lose. I personally really enjoy HoMMVI.

You are absolutely right in everything you say here.
I too hope they will keep selling the game - and it is a true delight to play when everything works !

[Noxbi 🌈]

I dunno. I have never logged in to the "conflux" thingy. I just dismiss the login box and play offline. I don't really care for leaderboards or anything

[KoT]

It was my last game from Ubisoft!
Hope the will go bankrupt soon...

[putty101]

Please Ubi have some intern take a few hours to allow us to locally save our dynasties. This is a fantastic game despite it's flaws, it would be a shame to see it go out without any care for it's fans.

[Crazy-AK47]

Originally posted by EntityofDesire:

I just hope people make some noise, and let ubisoft know to update the game before just turning it of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4
Ubisoft patching base game functionalities after shutdown? You've made me laugh so hard
Ubisoft will not do this, they don't care.
Anno 2070 got patched because developers had this possibility and actually cared about their own brand.
MMX Legacy they removed the game from the store for months to community fix the DRM problem within 2 weeks. The game couldn't be completed because of online-server-only DRM. Now they have excuse in Heroes 6 case. They will just say "Campaign is still playable, what's your problem?" in typical corporate manner poitning ot that blocking half of functionalities was intended and clear from beginning.
Online DRMs in Singleplayer games are pure evil and M&M brand is a perfect example of this

[Fede]

EntityofDesire. Thanks a lot for your efforts and info about what's going on with the game.

Definitely it sounds very bad to sell a product that can't be playable like before, it's a terrible image for the company and a terrible way of handling games. Hope they fix this so nothing gets lost. It would be a shame if the game lose many functionalities.

[Eagle21]

What a shame! A wonderful game is going to die. It has a lot of bugs but still remains a good game with lovely graffics and huge content. I hope ubisoft finds a solution to save the game even now.

[Nihiliste]

I loved this Heroes game, bought it in 2011 and now I learn they'll disable online on it ?
This game acted as anti-piracy and thus has a lot of content only available if you are logged in.
If they don't at least patch it, then that's a real shame and I won't purchase another Ubi game.

[Crazy-AK47]

Originally posted by EntityofDesire:

I've already gotten 4 different responses from various levels of ubisoft, 1 developer, 1 support, 1 producer and a larger thread with responses on their discord. All of who I've reached out to individually. So they are aware now and didn't seem to be before. where that goes I don't know, but I tried and making an effort.

Good to hear that but I don't trust Ubisoft anymore. I don't have any expectations, the bar is literally rolling on the ground.
I'll be suprised if they make an offline mode that preserves the most important mechanics and systems

My the worst offender ist that you can't run their olderr games on older systems (which could perfectly handle them) just because their useless DRM launcher only supports windows 10/11

[DrunkingGuan]

Anyway to make UBI revoke the decision? This is a online-based single player game! F UBI know?

[BlakesSanctum]

Not happy! As someone who still hasn't finished the whole game and wants to play the Xeen DLC content this is not cool. If I recall those bonus DLCs were downloaded inside the game. And there's so much other stuff inside the game linked to online.. if they just switch off the servers the game will be stuffed and I fear we'll lose access to DLC after a fresh install.

Originally posted by EntityofDesire:

I've already gotten 4 different responses from various levels of ubisoft, 1 developer, 1 support, 1 producer and a larger thread with responses on their discord. All of who I've reached out to individually. So they are aware now and didn't seem to be before. where that goes I don't know, but I tried and making an effort.

Woah how did you get over the wall and get that kind of access to Ubisoft staff? Cause the rest of us are just banging our heads against the useless "telling people to update their drivers will magically fix every single thing wrong with this game" Ubisoft support desk lol.

[BlakesSanctum]

Originally posted by EntityofDesire:

Twitter and linkedIn lol. Almost all devs are on it.

Heck and I'm NOT kidding I actually posted to AMD CEO when the Sims 3 & 4 mirror reflections stopped working due to drivers dropping support for them and not seeing a fix for 2 years. She actually "forwarded" my message to "relevant teams" and AMD fixed it.

Thats why its so important to try and reach out to anyone and everyone you can.

Jeez I could use someone like you on my 'getting Sid Meier's Civilization 1 & 2 back into stores on Steam & GoG' project (google it if curious). I just haven't been able to get over the wall at 2K Games.

Originally posted by EntityofDesire:

I'm really happy this thread is getting attention but we all need to reach out to ubisoft, its what the Anno community did and I believe we can do it to!

Even before seeing your reply I've already shared this thread with the Celestial Heavens, Heroes Community and forums of Enroth forum communities, and also 5 HoMM discord groups, a HoMM reddit group and a HoMM fb group. Hopefully that helps get the word out.

There's another thread here on this forum that lists everything.. although it doesn't mention DLC which is the one I'm worried about.

Originally posted by Crazy-AK47:

If you think that server decomssion affect only multiplayer then you are wrong. Most functionalities are locked behind Online-only DRM

- Conflux and Dynasty profile willno longer work. Bestiary with artworks and lore descriptions will be unavailable.
- Amount of heroes in skirmish will be limited to 2 per faction
- Dynasty weapons and pets will be no longer available - All swords and Staves will dissapear from the game. Option to level up then will dissapear. People who leveled all of them to level 5 will lost all progress
- Dynasty traits and slots for them will be disabled. Those are a starting conditions like addtional resources at the beginning, reduced cost of building, bonus stats etc.
- Achievements will be disabled. For doing achievments you would receive point which are used for unlocking stuff in this game: heroes, weapons, pets, traits, slots, portraits, titles etc.
- Multiplayer will be no longer available - obvious
- You will loose your online saves. Game forces you to cloud saving and limited you to 10 saves. Local saves will be available? No idea

[BlakesSanctum]

Was just thinking.. the only potential positive out of all of this is that IF Ubisoft do get the message and patch Heroes 6 to work better be more featured in offline mode, then that would finally open the doors to the modding community to try and fix other remaining bugs (ie black screen, dark map, buggy dynasty weapons etc) and add more content like we're seeing in the awesome Heroes 5.5 and 7.5 fan projects. But yeah.. that's a big IF.