An AAA publisher doing Early Access?

[Zaxx]

Seriously, Ubisoft: if you don't want to spend a dime on developing Might & Magic games then just sell the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ IP. I hear Caneghem would love to have it back at this point.

[76561198335792098]

Hey Zaxx,

Sorry you feel that way, but that's definitely not the case. Creating a game in Early Access doesn't mean that it's funded purely by the players, and the decision to go into the program is nothing to do with monetary gain.

The decision to go with an Early Access model is to provide you guys with an opportunity to develop the game along with us. If you take a look at our recent updates, you'll see that we've done just that, making updates and implementing features that have been requested by our community. Being Early Access, we can work our community's ideas into the game before the game is fully released, which allows us to change core aspects of the game as we go along.

Again, apologies to hear that it's not your cup of tea, but I assure you we're working hard on fostering our Early Access community and implementing the features that they want to see.

Best regards,

Jimothy.

[Zaxx]

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it so I'll hold my judgment... just actually finish the game and don't do what Sony did with H1Z1, please, because honestly this looks like a fun title so I might pick it up when it's out of EA.

[76561198335792098]

No worries, happy to help where I can! If there's any other questions about the project, please do drop a message :)

Cheers for the kind words, too! We haven't got a set date for the full release yet, but it'll definitely be coming once we feel the game is ready.

Have a great day,

Jimothy.

[Antalyan]

Although this game's not a kind of genre I prefer (that's why I don't appear here much often), I hope you're going to finish it, which involves no major bugs in the game.

What Ubisoft has done to Might & Magic fans with H6 and H7 is absolutely unacceptable and although your team which have very few in common with them, I'm still quite worried that "early access" is just another way how to say "hey, we won't guarantee we will ever finish this game".

I wish you to be able to start getting our belief slowly back.

Also in my opinion, the best way to do that would be to restore H7 development with your team to finally provide the game which is playable without gamebreaking bugs (as it would show the fans are important for you) ...

[76561198335792098]

Cheers for the feedback Antalyan, and I can assure you we will aim to provide the best experience for our players, and the game will definitely be fully released.

As mentioned above, Early Access doesn't mean that we'll take the game for granted. It means that we're developing the game along with the community, which we've proven through our constant updates and changes based on player feedback.

I appreciate your concerns, but the team working on Showdown is completely different to any of the other games, and is only focused on this title.

Regards,

Jimothy.

[Zaxx]

Originally posted by Antalyan:

Also in my opinion, the best way to do that would be to restore H7 development

Just my 2 cents (and also offtopic but what the hell) but honestly the faster we forget about that game the better. From what I've seen from the game (played around 15 hours of it... I could install the English version btw., I'll update my thread on the H7 boards with the info on how when I get around to it) it's the core of Heroes 3 again with some ideas taken from 5 and 6: it looks generic, the art design feels totally identical to H6 and the gameplay is just slow as hell. I have no idea why but Heroes 7 just messes up the pacing of Heroes so much that the gameplay actually becomes boring.

Personally I really hope that if and when Heroes 8 comes out I'll finally get the game I always wanted: "Heroes 4 or Heroes 6" done right. I don't want more clones of Heroes 3, that game is like lighting in a bottle, it's timeless and something that just can't be reproduced, instead I'd love to see something that feels fresh. There are a lot of concepcts I loved in Heroes 4 and 6 but they just weren't fleshed out enough because to put it simply those titles were never really finished. For example I thoroughly enjoyed the concept of less resource types + towns having an area of influence on controlled mines because it was a nice way to streamline and speed up the gameplay while also offering new principles in tactics... but they also somehow managed to slow down the progression of heroes so the whole thing just didn't gel at the end.

[lich0]

I think this game fits quite nicely with the Early Access concept. This isn’t some AAA title, but rather a small project. Both the devs and gamers can benefit from working together. Codemasters did this with Dirt Rally and it turned out pretty good.

Originally posted by Antalyan:

What Ubisoft has done to Might & Magic fans with H6 and H7 is absolutely unacceptable

It's sad and dissaponting really. Such a legendary franchise and Ubisoft wasted it. I wish the guys behind the classic HoMM would get back together and made a spiritual successor through crowdfunding.

[Zaxx]

Originally posted by lich0:

It's sad and dissaponting really. Such a legendary franchise and Ubisoft wasted it.

That's kinda true not only for Heroes but for all things Might and Magic sadly. Basically Heroes 5 and Dark Messiah are the two good games in Ubi's M&M portfolio, the rest is bad or mediocre and most of those games don't even feel finished. With M&M X: Legacy they somehow even managed to create a game that looks like it was made in 2003 and still runs like crap. :D

This track record is the reason why it's especially ironic to see a M&M title in early access. Hell, Heroes 7 was never in early access yet even there they released a better main menu screen and better campaign "cutscenes" post-launch in a patch. Heroes 6 received TOWN SCREENS in a patch and now Ubi expects that fans of the franchise (you know, people who tend to remember all the bad things) will buy a game that is in early access? :D

Ubisoft just can't do Might & Magic even when the jackpot is right there and they'd just have to reach out to get it. Best example: Heroes 3 HD Edition. "Oh, hey guys, here's your favourite Heroes game ever... it's back... again... but we lost the source code to the expansions and we left the UI as it was back in 1999 so apart from the graphical update it's absolutely useless! Buy it, it's fun!" Hell, even that could have been remedied if they did something extra for the remaster, for example a new campaign that fits into the lore of the old games and features fan favourite characters but nope, making a few new maps and writing a few pages of storyline was too much work. Of all the terrible developers even freakin' Gearbox managed to develop a new episode for Duke Nukem 3D when they re-released that game for the 100th time and damn, it was a joy to play + nobody is complainig because Duke it out in DC and Life's a Beach were not included.