Fanstratics: A HoMM 3 Spiritual Successor

[luj1]

The planned factions:

• Allegiant - Castle
  
• Boggish - Fortress
  
• Chimerans - Conflux, though Fulton says it's largely a new faction
  
• Infernals - Inferno
  
• Krasadox - Stronghold
  
• Necrotics - Necropolis
  
• Stoutbluds - Dwarves/Tower elements
  
• Thornwood - Rampart/Wood Elves
  
• Zubhewen - Goblins, trolls/Dungeon elements

It has to be a 1:1 clone really?

Shameful lack of originality

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

We've been over this already. If you do not believe in the project, you are free to hold that idea. As for me, I am losing nothing by being optimistic about it.
Either I get a game at the end of it, or I don't. The last thing I will do is send the creator ill-will or any extra stress just because I'm mad he has an ambition.

Get a load of this non-cynic here. Are you even bitter bro?

Thanks for allowing me the freedom to hold my opinion though. Your kindness and generosity are legend.
But when a creator sends out a document announcing their idea and looking for feedback, it's not ill-will to give it to them. If the game launches with the name "Fanstratics", even if its the best game ever, it will fail miserably.

In reality the HoMM3 nostalgia angle is already a pitch to a very small group of people, so any additional friction to sales will be a problem.

 

[Casual Hero]

That's a valid take on it, though I still cannot fully agree with it.
I didn't mean to sound accusatory in my reply.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

That's a valid take on it, though I still cannot fully agree with it.
I didn't mean to sound accusatory in my reply.

Hah, I didn't mean to come across so aggressively. It's hard to shift gears between different conversations and I brought the energy from the "Fallout 2 sucks" thread.

 

[Blake00]

Newsletter 14 is out.. ironically the difficulty of coming up with new names for things is a running topic in this newsletter. There's a rather amusing piracy story too.

https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter14

.

 

[Archibald]

Well, there is this radical idea: stop giving new names to old shit. I really doubt that you'd get into problems for using Necropolis instead of Necrotics or whatever the fuck he called them.

 

[MajorMace]

It has to be a 1:1 clone really?

The single most important question to ask here.

I believe the answer is yes, unfortunately.
You need to realise how much of a steaming pile of utter shit the HoMM3 hardcore fandom truly is. These people are soulless zombies chasing something they'll never get back in their life. They roam the realm looking for their lost paradise, shunning literally anybody who doesn't oblige to their lunacy.
With this in mind, yes, the game needs to be a carbon copy of HoMM3. Because, you see, their faith is based almost entirely on the realisation that HoMM3 is unsurpassed and any attempt at changing the formula is, to put it simply, an heresy punishable by (social) death. They are the true last boss of gatekeeping, the Dark Souls of retarded fanboyism, the ultimate step on the staircase to insanity.
Their modus operandi is always the same : does someone try to scratch the HoMM3 legacy ? If no, go to sleep. If yes, harass them. Harass them until they understand that their project isn't a carbon copy of HoMM3 and therefore flawed. If it happens to be a carbon copy, just ignore it because HoMM3 already exists and there's literally 0 reason to jump ship.

I really, for the life of me, will never understand these spastic fellows. They don't seem to understand the utter stupidity of their gatekeeping even. But utlimately, if you don't make a carbon copy, you'll get shit on.

Now picture this : you work on a game that only a handful of slavic peasants will pay attention to, and the only form of support they can give you is if you actually just remake HoMM3 pretty much exactly as it was, because the slightest difference will be condemned by their wise council of autists. Why would you not indulge in their madness, actually make a carbon copy, cash in and fuck off ?

 

[Black_Willow]

Oh yes, my favourite fantasy things: Boggish, Stoutbluds and Zubhewen, how Fanstratic!

 

[Casual Hero]

You guys are no fun.

 

[Black_Willow]

You guys are no funstratic.

fixed

 

[Caim]

You guys are no fun.

Welcome to the Codex.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

So I told my wife about this game, specifically the genre and name. She figured it out immediately (The fantasy strategy tactics thing). That surprised me, but maybe that means the name isn't quite as terrible as I thought?

It'll still be a soulless cash grab but maybe people will 'get' what the name is about.

 

[Casual Hero]

There is a lot of risk here for it to be a "soulless cash grab".
I'm following the development because I think the exact opposite. There is an extremely high chance of failure, but the dev actually cares about creating it, so I'm going to be optimistic until the end.

If this were a cheap entry outsourced to a third party dev and published by Ubisoft (LIKE A CERTAIN HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC 7), then I would call it a cash grab.
As it stands, this is not looking to grab very much cash at all.

 

[BING XI LAO]

HoMM3 is overrated, with worse strategic gameplay than Age of Wonders and worse tactical gameplay than Eador.

If Fanstratics doesn't adopt various things like dropping the retarded infinite unit stacking, implementing unit upkeep costs, being able to move units around without heroes, and a miscellany of mechanics either original or copied from other games, then it's pointless.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Homm3 also, after more than two decades, remains a popular game even when judged against modern metrics (although credit to HD and HotA for having an impact here). Thus, making an actual spiritual successor to it (think homm5 with decent art style and production values) obviously makes sense, and a lot of it.

That said, this won't even reach the bullshot stage that shit like That which always derps did.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Has this remake mentioned implementing fog of war?

 

[octavius]

FoW would be an easy incline. But I guess lack of it in the HoMM games is tied to other things, like the limits of "entities" you can move and lack of mechanics like building (or even "owning") watchtowers. So to implement FoW I guess the game would need to be more like AoW, or it would be too much of a frustration for weaker players.

Anyway, Fanstratics is a brilliant name compared to something like Divine Divinity. My reaction when I used to see that game in the shops:

Spoiler

 

[Archibald]

No, fog of war wasn't mentioned.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

HoMM3 is overrated, with worse strategic gameplay than Age of Wonders and worse tactical gameplay than Eador.

If Fanstratics doesn't adopt various things like dropping the retarded infinite unit stacking, implementing unit upkeep costs, being able to move units around without heroes, and a miscellany of mechanics either original or copied from other games, then it's pointless.

Totally, they should just copy HoMM4, as it was such a beloved success...

Do you not get what a "spiritual successor" is? If you think HoMM3 is bad, then obviously, fucking obviously, you're not going to like anything that's intended to recreate the experience.

Fanstratics is still a bad name though.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Fog of war is a bad fit for homm because it doesn't gel with the formula, as shown by homm4. Homm maps are thick with stacks guarding resources, passages, mines and shit and pathfinding gets confused all the time. It would also make all the already irritating and potentially match ruining crap like suicide nuking ten times worse.

 

[BING XI LAO]

So HoMM has to miss out on a basic feature because then its other design failures would become even more problematic? Sounds about right.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

That's one way of looking at it, homm is a simplistic game that's easy to learn but hard to master and fog of war just doesn't work with it. How do you imagine early creep with fow? Games would become completely random.

 

[BING XI LAO]

How do you imagine early creep with fow? Games would become completely random.

How so? Fog of War wouldn't prevent you seeing all the stuff that's close to your towns and cities.

 

[hello friend]

A spiritual successor to HOMM4 with art design on par with HOMM3 and some polish would be a better move. 4 improves on 3 in almost every way but is fuck ugly, has a dogshit AI, and lacks a random map generator.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

How so? Fog of War wouldn't prevent you seeing all the stuff that's close to your towns and cities.

On smaller maps (which are usually played in multi), commiting yourself to something that might have been cleared by someone else would be quite gamechanging.

A spiritual successor to HOMM4 with art design on par with HOMM3 and some polish would be a better move.

Yeah, right.