What would you like to ask the developers of HoMM: Olden Era?

Dear Heroes, if you are looking forward to the new HoMM: Olden Era and want to ask the developers something, write in the comments by Sunday. I will then prepare and send everything on Monday and we will wait for the answers.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is the official prequel hailing back to the origins of the genre-defining, critically acclaimed series of turn-based strategy games. Traverse a vibrant and living fantasy world full of wonders and dangers, build magnificent capital cities, raise massive armies and clash in epic, highly tactical battles of heroes and mythical creatures.
Play solo with a new campaign, multiple single maps and limitless randomly generated scenarios, or engage in battle of wits and magic with other players — rivals or allies — in multiplayer mode. Explore the map solo or in multiplayer, triumph in iconic battles and establish peace on a continent where it was never an option.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era Key Features
- An epic single-player campaign set on the continent of Jadame, where rival factions must unite to face the demonic insectoid swarm known as the Hive.
- 3 multiplayer game modes: Classic (multiple heroes and map exploration), One-Hero mode (only one hero, and their death means defeat), Arena (quick battles with hero upgrades).
- 6 unique factions: Temple, Necropolis, Sylvan, Dungeon, Hive, and a mysterious sixth faction to be revealed later.
- New custom tools for the community: create your own Heroes of Might & Magic single maps and multiplayer templates (coming during Early Access).
- Matchmaking, ratings, and leaderboards for all modes.
About Unfrozen
Established in 2016 by industry veterans, Unfrozen comprises team members who have previously worked on popular games such as League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Disco Elysium, Pathologic 2, and Disciples 3.
Our first game, Iratus: Lord of the Dead, is widely recognised as the spiritual successor to Darkest Dungeon. It was released in April 2020 for PC and published by Daedalic Entertainment.
By 2024, Unfrozen has expanded to a team of 50 people and has representatives in Limassol, Cyprus; Tarragona, Spain; Guildford, England; Belgrade, Serbia and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
I’m curious what are they trying to achieve with this game.
Is it trying to appeal to the old school HoMM players who like the 2D graphics, because I can give them that – the 2D graphics certainly make the game more appealing and it’s easier to visually distinguish between objects you can interact with and ones you can’t, which the 3D games could not achieve. And also art style for such games in 2D tends to work and look better.
What I also want to know is why they chose this time period and place for the factions, as well as keeping most of the same factions from HoMM3?
Because in my opinion, it feels a bit like the game is a “fan remake” of HoMM3 rather than its own game.
One thing about the art style that concerns me is that factions like Necropolis, Inferno, Dungeon and Castle have the art style of a mobile game – Necropolis for example has that green neon light on everything, which for the last 10+ years has been coined for the “evil color of undead”, Dungeon has the purple neon, Inferno has the red neon “for demons” and Castle looks like a generic human fantasy town, but made super epic on steroids, but all of them look way too over-the-top.
In contrast, the HoMM 3 art style has very simplistic look for all factions – Necropolis looks dark and deserted, which makes it look unique in comparison with every undead faction released in the last 10+ years, Dungeon also looks dark and mysterious, Inferno also has a toned-down feeling, but everything in these faction, from units, heroes, architecture, complements each other pretty well.
The art style of this game for the evil factions does not translate to scary in my opinion. It looks like they’re saying “hey random 10 year old kid, look – scary skeletons and demons and look at their neon colors… betcha that will hold your 2 second attention span for 10 seconds…” The HoMM3 art style gave off the feeling that because everything looks so simplistic that it’s unpredictable and that’s where the scariness comes from – you never know what might lie there. I admit, when I was a kid, the Necropolis, Inferno and Dungeon factions really scared me, just listening to their music did that to me, so I always played Conflux, Tower and Rampart instead.
Finally, I want to know what features does this game have that are new and will set it apart from HoMM 3, which obviously will be compared A LOT to?
I want to clarify that I don’t have anything against the game and am interested to see how it goes, but I am skeptical about it my criticism is only objective, not because I have some negative bias against the game or not want it to succeed. I think even harsh criticism is needed sometimes when a game is in the making so it can become better where it needs to. I just can’t see what exactly it does different or better than HoMM 3 that will make me want to play it instead. Other than that, I wish good luck on the developers and their game, I am keeping an eye on it.
Two questions from me – a subjective one and a game design one.
1. If you were personally a hero on Enroth, what faction and hero class would you be? (Whether that’s in Enroth, Jadame, or Antagarich is up to you)
2. Throughout the series, the role of heroes themselves has changed. How distinct will each hero be from the others in their class? Do you expect gameplay to vary significantly based on the specific hero you pick as your main one, or will most of the variation come from choosing a playstyle/class/skills? I assume the aim is for a similar balance as Heroes III, where any hero was viable but some of them made certain strategies/playstyles easier?
Hello and thank you for this opportunity to make a suggestion, hopefully to enhance gameplay for a percentage of the map that is greatly overlooked or at least in my opinion not optumiezed and that’s the water. We could expanded ship to carry two heroes, put cannon on the ship so we could have sea warfare, different type of vessels travel different speeds. Purse’… Galleons can carry two heroes, travels slow but carrys eight cannons. A Brig carries one hero, travels faster and carries four cannons. A Viking ship traveles very quick, carry no armourment. A Submarine carries one hero, travels faster than a Galleon but not quite as quick as a Brig and has one facing cannon.