(SPOILER) Now that I finished the campaign

[Cortes]

I have to say that I am impressed with what they did but not impressed enough to overlook the problems. Do not get me wrong, they put a lot of work into this game and it paid off very well and I would love a second expansion but it does have its mistakes.
The reworks of the old features are wonderful and I love them, except the level cap of 20 what should be at least 30 in my opinion. But otherwise, be it that they got rid of the vehicles transporting resources or got you the line with 12 slots with the skills, it is all good. Bit sad to see some of the old units have gone but I do understand why and can honestly say that I like it.


Something I do not like at all however, is what they have done to the Dark Elves. The aesthetics and the units and all are wonderful -though I find them a bit too micro-heavy and think they need more workers- and I love insect-heavy Dark Elves but this is simply not what Dark Elves in Spellforce are supposed to be. I excepted something similar to the Dark Elves SP1, as it was more ore less the case with all playable races so far, but got something completely different with close to no connection to original Dark Elves. I like them on their own but they are simply not Spellforce Dark Elves. They are no Norcaine to me. Dwarfs have also gotten a lot of changes but I like them much more(partly because I disliked Dwarfs back in SP1 with no towers and almost no range or magic).


That brings me already to the next part, the lore and boy, I am getting a headache only thinking about it. Before I get closer into this, I should say that I am nowhere near of being a lore fanatic. Rather quite open minded to change lore as long as it goes within reason. Now to the races in general as they are now.
Humans? They are good and I love the return of the Griffins. Only needing a mage to ride them :D
Elves? Bit sad of being unable to make an all out female elven army without going next levels of technology. I think honestly that Ice Mages should be female as well.
Orcs? Good but Trolls are still part of them and that is bad but a minor mistake even in Spellforce 3. (Nothing that could not be handled by a second expansion I would say :D)
They gave the dwarfs Golems, Crossbows, Airships and a Emphasis on Fire? Sure, why not?
Dark Elves? Well, look what I read above.


The God of Light? Now, that is where the problems start. In Spellforce 3 I was like “okay, new time new enemy. It is 500 Years earlier so why not? Guess knowledge about him got simply lost during convocation”. But he returned in Soul Harvest and he was different. Main game he was the final boss, you literally defeated him in battle! And now you have to stop him before he enters the world because why? He cannot be defeated in battle or what? WHAT? Makes no sense to me since we already did exactly this, they should have chosen something else for this.
As I said, I am not near of being a lore fanatic but if you contradict yourself within your own game and I see this as a contradiction, than I have to criticise this.
Another point is the circle. Founded by the end of Spellforce 3, with some members still missing and we all know what happens 500 years later on. 500 years not 2 years. Isgrimm in prison, Raith a traitor with no memories and still no sign of the Archfire, the missing members or the runes apart from the one Isgrimm was using. I am missing connections to Spellforce 1 again.
The personal story of your character was good but it took a bit of the final surprise, the moment the orc talked about the treasure chamber the way he did.



Something I do miss is a soundtrack like Cenwen in Spellforce 1 Breath of Winter or Shadowsong in Spellforce 2. Both are wonderful.


As far as skills and abilities go, I will have more then one run to do before I write about this.


I think that finishes it for now. Thoughts?

EDIT:
Something I forgot to mention (because I forgot that I complained about it in Spellforce 3 lol) is that I LOVE that you can romance now. Especially Yria. YES!!!
And I like a lot that Evles got their Forester back.

[thorwyn2]

Could you explicate what you dislike about the dark elves? "they are simply not Spellforce Dark Elves" is somewhat vague^^
Regarding the story I agree, I wrote something very similar in my thread next door. There were not enough connections to the whole Convocation story. Something was just missing, which left me disappointed in the end.

[Cortes]

First, I base this mostly on what I see ingame, rather on the battlefield. There the Dark Elves (short DE) of Spellforce 1 were an all out melee army, not counting ranged magic, with almost everyone being able to do one spell or more. They enslaved a race which name escapes me and used them as workers, needed stone, moonsilver, food, iron and aria as their resources and their buildings were all mostly black and red.
They did NOT have archers, used animals or beasts like Spiders, Lizards or Basilisks, did use themselves as workers and were not in need of wood for anything.
And their giant spider had always something of a beautiful female, not this ugly thing.

Then we have still the entire lore of DE with their obsidian towers and so on which are nowhere to be seen in their city or the castes with Sinistra, Dracon in SP1 and the communes in SP3 but the changes on the battlefield are more greater.

Unless I forget something now this is it.

[Farlon]

About the Dark Elves, you're playing the Black Company. They are a mercenary company that separates themselves from the rest of the Dark Elves. Same for the enemy Dark Crescent, they are rogue sleeper terrorists and not an official Dark Elven army. And about the slaves, they are not seen in the game but Raith mentions that workers are used for lighter/important jobs like smithing, farming and all that and the harder jobs(some very heavy labour) are reserved for the slaves.
As for God of Light, he did not manage to completely enter the world, it was some weird form merged with Lacaine that we had to kill using the archfire (our shaper mom). Don't really see any contradictions there.
As for the circle: Isgrimm is let out of prison soon enough, his research and overall status of circle mage were too valuable to let him rot in prison or execute him. Just like in real life, there are cases in games of just sweeping your crimes under the rug if you're valuable enough or if your position in society is high. Raith is not part of the circle yet, he joins much later after discovering the City of Souls. The events of SH is what might lead him into researching said city.
Hope that explains a few things, there are lore mistakes but nothing you cannot explain by looking deeper into it and thinking about it for a little.

[Cortes]

I know very well that we are playing a mercenary company but this does not explain/excuse everything. The moment you get into the city and the city (besides being very beautiful) looking like its citizens taking notes from your company is the moment you realize they either ignored or did not know the lore. Raith mentions them? If this all they are worth, they might as well as not exist. One thing your company not having them, another not even seeing them in offical DE territory.
Sorry but the differences are just way too big for me.
As for the circle Isgrimm should have not even be a part of this in the first place. His addition was uneeded and unwanted and the Dwarf Priest/King would have been perfecty fine as enemy. But no, we got unnecessary drama and bad writing instead. Isgrimm should not have been part of this and him controlling someone through a rune should not have happened as well. Neither should have Raiths betrayal but his clean mind can be seen as punishment enough.
As for the God of Light, I admit that I forgot they merged.

[NeoX]

Found a solution to all these lore, factions and event breakers:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767892900

Who does agree?

[Farlon]

Originally posted by NeoX:

Found a solution to all these lore, factions and event breakers:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767892900

Who does agree?

Nortander timeline is also canon. And if we have to "find a solution to all these lore, factions and event breakers" the whole SF2 needs a different timeline, not just SF3.

[Cortes]

Originally posted by NeoX:

Found a solution to all these lore, factions and event breakers:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767892900

Who does agree?

I do but you had me already with the Pipe-Dream Timeline.

[lump0815]

On the "DE's in SP3"-part:

As for "too many spiders";
in SP1 - Necromancers, upon death, spawned a spider. Which was an exploitable way to exceed the army limit by far for DE's. (Due to the ressurrection-upgrade/once per day to them, mostly...).

In SP2, DE's were heavily "spiderized" already (strider caster, summoning spiders; titan).

While the "DE's used to have no archers"-complaint is somewhat correct - the spellcasters that provided ranged fire to DE's made up for that
(in others words, DE's weren't any more "melee-heavy" than the other factions at any given point. It's just that their ranged-department had more flavour to it).
Due to the heavily castrated spells-system in this current installment (although it was just as terrible in sp2 already), however, there's just no viable skill to fill the "pain"-gap (hero-skills "now" would be way to strong to be used by regular troops).

Summarizing, "i" don't share your PoV that DE's feel "wrong".

p.s.: i found to reintroduction of airborne units horrible. I'd rather have them on multiple heigths, way more mobile, attacking on a sweep, than simply having them managed just like ground units on a single other heigth level.



On the story-part, i neither see how Soul Harvest would forward the storyline at all:
It doesn't introduce many more circle mages
(assuming Kaiawu should be the "fluteplayer" in the later circle, judging by his unique trinket; "how" he appears in the storyline, however, "i" wouldn't convey even the slightest bit of responsibility to him...),
nor provides any hints towards the rune-wars, nor towards the convocation
(now, that's acceptable imho, seeing SP3 basically sheds some light on the later circle's background; rune wars, convocation should be topics to future installments).

Instead, it basically disqualifies Raith - who will be part of the circle later as "the Black" - by making him an amnestic betrayer; Zahaar, as another Norcaine circle mage, "could" have been introduced, but wasn't. Silverhand, Hokan Ashir are still missing as well. How Shar finally "evolves" to a part of the circle from being a mere sidekick character isn't cleared up either.

Overall, i found the Soul Harvest-campaign better-done than SP3's main campaign (which however was 1 of the worst storylines i've ever seen in a videogame tbh), yet hardly satisfying when it comes to tying up loose ends.

[Farlon]

Originally posted by lump0815:

in SP1 - Necromancers, upon death, spawned a spider. Which was an exploitable way to exceed the army limit by far for DE's. (Due to the ressurrection-upgrade/once per day to them, mostly...).

Just a small correction, it was the Warlock, not Necromancer that spawned a spider upon death.
And yeah, flying units are horrible, I was against them the second I learned about them but I guess they couldn't just throw that away.
As for Raith, these events might lead him into researching the City of Souls (which is what granted him the seat in the circle), and Silverhand was already present in base SF3.

[Herald]

Originally posted by Farlon:

Originally posted by NeoX:

Found a solution to all these lore, factions and event breakers:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1767892900

Who does agree?

Nortander timeline is also canon. And if we have to "find a solution to all these lore, factions and event breakers" the whole SF2 needs a different timeline, not just SF3.

Wait i can agree with faith in destiny and demon of the past( those games were unnecessary to Say the best) but shadow wars and dragon storm didn t change nothing to the lore. Or At least nothing important. The only thing was the shaper introduction in dragon storm but as we know the devs milked the hell out of shaper lore in sp 3 so yeah. Without shaper probably no sp 3

[NeoX]

Originally posted by Ragnar-Logan:

Originally posted by Farlon:

Nortander timeline is also canon. And if we have to "find a solution to all these lore, factions and event breakers" the whole SF2 needs a different timeline, not just SF3.

Wait i can agree with faith in destiny and demon of the past( those games were unnecessary to Say the best) but shadow wars and dragon storm didn t change nothing to the lore. Or At least nothing important. The only thing was the shaper introduction in dragon storm but as we know the devs milked the hell out of shaper lore in sp 3 so yeah. Without shaper probably no sp 3

SF3 can't be a prequell to SF1 since it breakes too much lore about the circle mages and it's timed events.

[lump0815]

Originally posted by NeoX:

...
SF3 can't be a prequell to SF1 since it breakes too much lore about the circle mages and it's timed events.

"Lore" of a video game is what is part of the game series; stuff made up by a 3rd party (namely novellists, fan fiction) does not belong to it.

Now, the grand scale timeline events outlined by the games-series is the war of the 6 races, the fall of the fial darg, the founding of the circle, it's corruption, the rune wars, the convocation.
(The whole malacay/shaikan-part is another (side-)storyline that has no direct connections to the circle and the events it was involved with other than also using EO as it's playground.)

The only canonical thing about the circle up to the timeline-point of SP3 (i.e., the founding/early days of the circle) is that there were 13 at the end (which is a point "we" have not yet reached).

[Rohen Tahir, Hokan Ashir, Uram the Red, Shar of the Isles, Raith the Black, Ianna the Singer, Isgrimm the Smith, Zahaar the Snake, Yria of the Light, Gor the Changer, Silverhand, Undergast the Weaver, the Fluteplayer]

Anything else, namely "how" they turned megalomaniac and ultimately suicidal (discovery of the archfire/finding of the phoenix stone/war between Hokan and Uram over said stone/the other circle mages joining in to the fray, making it an all-out "every man for himself"-brawl /all circle mages trying to perform rituals to enslave the elements during the convocation - which is something not even Aonir was able to -, leading to Eo's collapse /w only the godstone-marked bits of land remaining intact) is stuff that has not yet happened in SP3's time.

So no. Your claim is not correct. SP3 can very well be considered a prequel. It just doesn't do much for developing the story other than introducing characters.

[Herald]

Originally posted by lump0815:

On the "DE's in SP3"-part:

Instead, it basically disqualifies Raith - who will be part of the circle later as "the Black" - by making him an amnestic betrayer; Zahaar, as another Norcaine circle mage, "could" have been introduced, but wasn't. Silverhand, Hokan Ashir are still missing as well. How Shar finally "evolves" to a part of the circle from being a mere sidekick character isn't cleared up either.

.

Silverhand was already intoduced in sp3. as for now the only missing cirlce mages are hokan zahaar and the piper. although silverhand, raith and shar are not yet part of the circle

[NeoX]

Originally posted by lump0815:

Originally posted by NeoX:

...
SF3 can't be a prequell to SF1 since it breakes too much lore about the circle mages and it's timed events.

So no. Your claim is not correct. SP3 can very well be considered a prequel. It just doesn't do much for developing the story other than introducing characters.

No thats not true. Play SpellForce 1 again and you will see how exactly it is described how the circle is founded and where the circle mages come from /are decended of. It has nothing to do with SpellForce 3. The other many lore even design issues of the game not even counted.

The world-map we have in SpellForce 3 is even from the wrong time.

But i guess you can sweet-talk everything, right?

[Herald]

Originally posted by lump0815:

Originally posted by NeoX:

...
SF3 can't be a prequell to SF1 since it breakes too much lore about the circle mages and it's timed events.

Now, the grand scale timeline events outlined by the games-series is the war of the 6 races, the fall of the fial darg, the founding of the circle, it's corruption, the rune wars, the convocation.
(The whole malacay/shaikan-part is another (side-)storyline that has no direct connections to the circle and the events it was involved with other than also using EO as it's playground.)

Ok i can't understand all this hate for sp 2 (ecxept for faith in destiny and demon of the past, those games sucked). As for the canonicity. Why you consider it a "side" story line? just because you dont like it? So what, just because the clone wars sucked we dont consider it canon in star wars. Calling an important piece of lore "side" storyline just because you dont like it it is pretentious. You dont like sp 2? Fine by me. You think that is a bad game/story ? I am ok with that (for some aspects i can even agree). But saying that the sp2 lore is a "side" story just because of your opinion that is just stupid. Sp 2 is there and regardless of our personal opinion we have to deal with. We can t just ignore it or call it "side" storyline.