Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - Horn of the Abyss
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All I have to add is that in order to further expand your pleasure from playing HOMM 3, you should try VCMI Project -http://forum.vcmi.eu/portal.php
However, the part about crashes seems a bit strange. Did you experience any crashes on the latest version? If so, all crashes are to be reported in this thread (http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=39912) with a crashlog (from HotA_logs) attached and preferrably with some description of a situation, that lead to crash. Let's make the game even better together
Looking forward to read some reviews though.
Right now I'm in the next to the last campiagn in Restoration of Erathia, on "Song for the Father".
I figure I've got at least a week of play left before I finally finish up, maybe a bit longer. Then, I'm wanting to replay Armageddon's Blade for the continued story of Queen Catherine and Roland Ironfist in it, which will also be a new story to me, since I played it so many years ago that I don't remember a thing about it detail-wise. Elven sharpshooters? Sudden appearance of conflux towns and elementalists? Trying to get the Blade before it can destroy the world? (And having HoMM IV make the entire mission a failure and destroying Enroth in one fell intro movie?) That's about all I remember.
Then I've still got all the Chronicles stories I could replay. All I remember from that is that each Chronicle campaign focused on one hero type, and added all manner of new colors of dragons, like fairy dragons and azure dragons. That, and that all the maps were extremely hard.
And then, now there's this new fan-made pirate cove campaign available. Wow, that's a lot of HoMM 3! And I'm also wanting to replay HoMM V. At least I'm aware of the new fan-made expansion now, and I will probably try it eventually, but I'm just not sure when.
Thank you for promoting it and making sure all of us HoMM fans know about it.
So, Shandyr, what do you think of the Cove town? My brother (who I find to be rather nit-picky at times) tried HotA a bit and he came to the conclusion that he didn't really like it. His main reason for this is that he thinks they re-balanced (and nerfed) a lot of the original content while introducing a new town that was in his opinion incredibly OP. I must admit that the Cove does seem to be rather... strong... but I am not sure I would go to that extreme quite yet.
I have tried and given up a number of times though^^
I've known about this expansion for awhile now, I haven't gotten around to trying it yet though.
There may be some spoilers to follow , depending on what you consider a spoiler...
[spoiler=Thoughts on aesthetic changes]
There were a lot of changes made to the aesthetics of the game. They obviously put a lot of effort into this area and it shows. I will only cover several of the changes here. There are now new backdrops for the scenario choosing screen, each themed after one of the towns. The only town to not get a backdrop themed after it was the cove oddly enough. The only thing I don't like about these backdrops is that I can't see the whole thing because the menu is always in the way covering at least half of it. The appearance of the towns on the adventure map was redone. They now look different depending on what stage of fortifications they have (i.e. none, fort, citadel, or castle). The shots of several ranged attacking creatures now have an added animation that plays over the spites of their targets when the shot hits. My favorite change was to the Implosion spell. At long last, the animation of Implosion actually looks like an implosion and not like you are casting Diarrhea on your enemies. All of these changes and the additions made by the new content shows both the incredible attention to detail and how hard they worked on this mod. Everything looks nice and it all blends well with the original content.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Thoughts on gameplay rebalancing changes]
(note: I have never really played this game with other humans, so take what I say here with a grain of salt.)
I have some mixed feelings about this. I like some of what they did here but I am not sure all of it was for the best. I liked how they lowered the phoenix growth rate a bit... The phoenixes may have been weak for a level 7 creature, but I don't think double growth made sense... The ghost dragons are almost as weak (possibly weaker even) and they have an ordinary growth rate. What I didn't really like was the massive nerf to necromancy. Necromancy seems rather weak now without artifacts or numerous necropolis towns to give boosts to your skill. I suppose some thought necromancy was OP? I am not sure... Maybe it was, but I don't think it needed that much of a nerf. Most of the time you don't even raise enough to cover your losses from a battle, let alone bolster your troops. This doesn't make much sense to me but I suppose it could be worse.[/spoiler]
[Spoiler=Thoughts on the cove town]
It is a very neat town overall and works quite well with the rest of the game for the most part. The creatures are quite nice overall. Almost all of them have some sort of neat special ability which gives them a niche to fill. The nymphs and oceanids can teleport a fair distance which is kinda neat. The crew mates and seamen are the most unimpressive unit IMO as they are slow and somewhat weak and lack any unique ability to make up for this. The most unique creature in the town has to be the pirates, corsairs, and sea dogs. That's right, there are TWO upgrades to this unit. They are one of the more powerful creatures in the cove town with each upgrade providing an additional special ability. They start off with a ranged ability and no melee penalty as pirates, then gain no retaliation as corsairs, and then gain accurate shot, an ability which functions like the mighty gorgon's death stare, but slightly weaker and at a range, as sea dogs. I am a bit concerned that the sea dogs may be somewhat OP, but I still like them. The stormbirds and ayssids are the fast fliers of the town. The Ayssids have an ability which allows them to strike twice, similar to a crusader, provided they kill at least one creature in the stack in their first attack. The sea witches and sorceresses are the second ranged attackers of the town. Their ranged attacks also cast harmful spells on their targets, starting with weakness and then disrupting ray if the target is already weakened. The nix and nix warriors are the slow and strong tanks of the town. Their ability ignores a certain percentage of the opponent's attack stat, much like the behemoths ignore their opponents defense stat. This makes them very tough to kill by just about everything except spells. They are somewhat slow compared to the rest of the creatures in the town and usually don't get to act much. The highest level creatures in the town are the sea serpents and haspids. They are both poisonous (like a wyvern monarch) and the haspids also have an ability that makes them do a percentage of bonus damage based on how much damage their stack has taken. The town also features a new war machine: the cannon. The cannon is basically like a ballista that can also attack town walls. It also seems to be a bit more powerful than (and twice as expensive as) a ballista. The cove town is practically the only place you can get a cannon which makes it a unique feature of the town. The cove can also build several other unique buildings such as the grotto and the thieves' guild. The grotto is basically an alter of sacrifice that is in a town, allowing you to sacrifice artifacts and/or creatures for experience. The thieves' guild improves the information you get from the thieves' guild in the tavern. This town can also build a shipyard. The grail structure has the unique bonus of making all terrain native to cove creatures (both allies and enemies). Overall the town fits well with the other 9 while also bringing its own unique flair. My only concern is that the town may be a touch too strong and too unique, but I am not sure if this is the case or not.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Thoughts on new adventure map objects, new artifacts, and other stuff]
Most of the new adventure map objects that were added are banks of some sort where you get rewards for fighting the guards. There were many new water objects added as well, such as shrines of magic, taverns, seer's huts, and even a water monolith two-way. The water monolith is a very good option for water traveling since whirlpools have the annoying side effect of killing some of your troops. Another nice addition is that there are now shrines of magic that can teach level 4 spells. Likely added to facilitate the larger map sizes, there are now many more monoliths (both one-way and two-way) as well as several new subterranean gate models. Mostly for aesthetic reasons, there are now many snow covered versions of objects which look better in snowy terrain.
There are several new artifacts that were added to the game, including four new combination artifacts. Now there are artifacts that lower morale or luck for your opponent which is a very nice feature. The new combination artifacts are, for the most part, not as potent as the original ones from SoD, but can still be quite powerful in the right hands. Most of these were things that I thought should have been a set (and things I tried to combine when I first got SoD). The Diplomat's Cloak, made from the Ambassador's Sash, Statesman's Medal, and the Diplomat's Ring, gives you the ability to retreat or surrender when defending a town under siege and when fighting neutral armies (although there seems to currently be a bug with the latter) and multiplies your army strength by 3 for the thieve's guild and neutral armies. Not the most powerful artifact out there but it does make just about all neutral armies flee from you. The Golden Goose, made up of the Endless Purse of Gold, Endless Bag of Gold, and Endless Sack of Gold, is the counterpart to the Cornucopia. It provides your kingdom with an additional 4750 gold per day on top of what its components give you for a total of 9000 gold each day. Simple enough. The Ironfist of the Ogre, made from the Crown of the Supreme Magi, Ogre's Club of Havoc, Targ of the Rampaging Ogre, and the Tunic of the Cyclops King, is similar to the Armor of the Damned. It casts Haste, Bloodlust, Fireshield, and Counterstrike on all your units at the beginning of combat. The Pendant of Reflection, made from the Garniture of Interference, Surcoat of Counterpoise, and the Boots of Polarity, gives an additional 20% bonus to magic resistance of all your troops for a total of 45% magic resistance with its components. The artifacts were always one of my favorite parts of the game and the additions to this area have impressed me quite a bit.
I usually tend to prefer large maps so the larger map sizes seems like a nice touch. The larger maps are actually quite staggering in size though, and I have yet to try one out since they are so big. There are also very few scenarios available in the much bigger map sizes that come pre-loaded with the mod. I suppose that there is a place I could download more scenarios though.
One thing I have noticed about this mod is that it was obviously translated into English. This is a new experience to me since I have not really played a game that had noticeable issues with the translation before now, so I am not really sure what to say. There are quite a few moments where I have to stop and think about the meaning of certain things or where I get the feeling the meaning has been lost in translation. The worst that this does for me, however, is simply break the immersion a bit, which I can live with. Overall I am actually quite impressed with the translation as I get the feeling it could have been much, much worse.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=conclusion]
Overall this is a very impressive mod and I like it very much. It is now my preferred way to play Heroes 3 and it will likely remain as such for a long time. I would highly recommend it for just about anyone who likes the game.[/spoiler]
I haven't played Heroes in quite a while actually... but that spell research change made me rather interested. I just have to transfer it to this computer.
Orb of Inhibition and Recanter's Cloak were banned to promote the use of magic in online play, where these artifacts were already often off limits before. In hardcore online play, running into a warrior hero wielding one of these trinkets as a squishy mage is not a challenge, it's game over, which is actually not much fun for both sides
I've been playing Hota non stop for a long time for now. And I can easily say Shandaxx's descriptions are so accurate. I won't go into detail as it's been described here perfectly, but in short I can say it's an amazing project. I even forgot that I've been playing Hota. It feels like a very comprehensive official expansion to Heroes 3. I can easily say it is a much better expansion than Shadow of Death itself.
With the balance changes that Hota brought, the factions are much more balanced now. Maybe Castle could still use a little bit nerf, and Inferno could still use a little bit more help. But not too important. But I'm not playing online, so I am not the best person to comment about the balance. However, the new faction, Cove, was really overpowered. I'm glad they introduced some nerfs to Cove. It might still be a bit overpowered even after these nerfs, but I'll need to try and see.
Now that we know Hota is still in active development, I guess I can start expecting another new faction in the future. That is what I'm really looking forward to. Considering the awesome job Hota team have done creating Cove faction, I'm sure that another faction would be amazing. Though I can imagine it would involve a lot more hard work. What do you guys think? Is it reasonable to expect another faction in the far future maybe?