Author: Liso1 June 9, 2022 0 Comments

Fanstratics Troop: Vulturian Scavenger.

Amongst the Krasadox, Vulturians are frequently looked upon with distain. Despite their vital role on the battlefield, their ‘light’ nature and cowardly ‘bleed tactics’, make them dissimilar. Add to this, their ability to scavenge Energy from both Allied and Enemy corpses, and you have a Battlefield efficient Troop who benefits from indirect conflict.

Originally, a different ‘bird-like’ Troop was planned for this month. When Justin emailed his first rough, in my opinion, I thought it looked less like the target Troop, and more like the Vulturian. So, I asked Justin to ignore the original plan, and push the concept toward the Vulturian. When the second rough was delivered, I was expecting an ‘adjustment’ to the original rough, but Justin sent an entirely new… but spot on concept. It made me smile.

Fanstratics – Update #21 – Zombie Gravedigger and Kickstarter campaign

Fanstratics Question: How many heroes will there be for each faction?

I expect the number will be the similar to HoMM3, with each faction having at least 16 Heroes.

Fanstratics Question: Will the Necrotics have a Death Rider?

Yes and no. For FST, the Necrotics do have a horse mounted ‘knight’ troop, but it’s not the literal Black Knight / Dread Knight from HoMM3. It’s something… else.

HoMM3 Question: I was wondering what you think of Ubisoft’s decision to make that “HD” edition of Heroes III. It’s so weird because that HD mod which was available for free and made it possible to Play the original game in 4K (or any resolution) was around for years before then. I just remember seeing that video from Ubisoft of an artist who painstakingly painted over every single sprite to make it “HD”. And I thought…yeah… were they trying to cash in on nostalgia or why did they decide to put it out there? It’s subpar to the original in every way from what I understand.

This is pure speculation on my part, but I suspect, behind the scenes, HoMM3 was continuing to sell well, as evidenced by its presence on GOG. As I write this, it is #1 on their all-time bestsellers list, competing with Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher 3.

As with a lot of ‘remasters’, there is a new and pre-existing audience who continues to play the original, but doing so requires jumping through a number of technical hoops. In most ‘remasters’, the goal is to overhaul the graphics, eliminate any technical hurdles, and target new platforms.

Emphasis on the third point… ‘target new platforms’.

In my personal opinion, while HoMM3 HD was positioned as a ‘remaster’, I suspect it was really an ‘enhanced’ port made for the Apple iPad. This would go a long way to explaining Ubisoft’s approach; keep costs low, set a new price point ($15), don’t take any creative risks, and target the HoMM3 fans with Apple iPads.

Ultimately the PC HoMM3 community, for the most part, didn’t need the HD edition, but truthfully… I doubt they were the target audience. They were merely ‘bonus sales’.

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