Might & Magic Heroes VI

Preview from Cav - Thursday, 18 August 2011 @ 4:47pm

August the 8th was meant to be the day I was to post this and tell you that you had exactly one month to read through my First Impressions article. It was then for you to decide whether or not you would pre-order yourself a copy of Might & Magic: Heroes VI… or the extremely sexy looking Collector’s Edition.

But, alas, that day passed… with a reason. I can now tell you that you have even longer to make your mind up.

Last week I received the latest Ubisoft Release Date list. That list has shown me that will be at least two months to wait until we get our hands on Heroes VI, as October 13th, 2011 is now the projected release date. Although I am really disappointed (the wife and kids, too, as they thought they had Father’s Day catered for!), it certainly won’t stop me telling you my thoughts on what the Closed Beta for Might & Magic: Heroes VI has brought to the table.

C'mon Horsey! Let's jump this cavern!

Now what kind of review would this be without a comparison to a previous title in the series? I love HoM&M3. It holds a very place in my game-loving heart and I still play it to this very day, but 4 and 5 never really that impressed me that much….. I don’t know why. Something just didn’t click with me. But something has clicked with me in the game with the shuffled name. Might and Magic: Heroes VI, as it shall now be known, has made some great progress, which differs it from its predecessors. I feel that it has combined the best bits from 3, 4 and 5 and rolled them into one. The Closed Beta shows great promise, with many improvements in several facets of the game, but alas there are one or two spots where things just seem to be lacking. One big difference is that Campaigns may be played on or offline. Of course online play will have its advantages, with rewards being offered to those who connect to the Heroes ‘Conflux’. When you log in in with your (Ubisoft) Uplay account and complete campaigns, you may earn extra content.

Those who have never played any of the previous games in the series should be able to pick this one up with only a slight learning curve to deal with, as Heroes employs basic RTS and farming elements that we have all seen many times over. I love what they have done with the races/factions available this time around. In previous games in this series, the factions were all pretty much the same, standard thing, but this is a whole new ball game. It would seem that a large concentration of time and effort has gone into making each on them as unique as possible, even down to the catapults used then attacking an enemy castle. Each of them truly represents their race.

The Beta only shows three mining elements, wood, ore and crystal, as opposed to six in previous games. Unlike the other games in the series, you cannot simply steal mines and resources from other players. If a mine is owned, you must claim the owner’s castle to release the resource for capture. Players will also be required to collect Barrack type buildings (external to their townships) to bolster their army numbers each week.

Previous Heroes games have very little focus on improving the abilities of your characters, other than improving your stats through artefacts. There has been a massive change here. Now you needed to earn points and assign them as you see fit. You need to choose carefully as there are numerous ways you can better yourself. Spells are not acquired through a Mage Tower anymore, but bought with points or attached to artefacts. Attributes like logistics, path-finding and luck are no longer offered through experience gained in battles and from chests. These, too, are accrued through Ability points. This being said, I feel that it is now much more challenging to build much needed traits for your character and I am not quite sure if I welcome this change with open arms, but it will really make you take note of how you spend these points.

I feel that one of the greatest improvements that Heroes VI has made is the ability to convert a captured castle to be one of your own class, thus leaving out the wish-wash of races in your heroes army that you would normally be faced with, after acquiring a castle different to your own. In previous titles the Necromancer race had an advantage where they could convert soldiers from any army to become skeletons.

Constant upgrades have been made to the Beta while I have played it, but sometimes when you fix one thing you break another. After one sizeable update, creatures were actually able to pass through obstacles on the battlefield. This was disappointing, but these problems are what Beta sessions are all about.

Of all the little hiccups I have found in HoMM6, there is one that annoys me more than any other. Those familiar with the game will be disappointed in the lack of interaction a township now has. In previous games, players could click on various parts of the town, be they barracks for troops, your marketplace for trading resources or tavern for recruiting. Now to access these areas all you do is click a button. Some may call that refining, but I am not a fan of it.

Multiplayer ‘Hot Seat’ games seem to be on par with the past series, but I struggled to do basic things, like enter a name in. I don’t wanna be known as ‘Burgundy Player’. Hopefully this changes when the game is released, I can’t see why not. There was only one map to play upon, but being an extra-large map (normally there are small, medium, large and extra-large to choose from) it gave you plenty of time to get a feel for things. It’s also good to watch another player play through their turn as you may pick up things that you didn’t know about.

Awesome catapult

The online Beta has actually halted at this point in time and is set to restart tomorrow, the 16th of August, complete with extra multiplayer maps and a host of other goodies. It appears that the creators, Black Hole, have taken heed to what Beta players are saying and have given themselves extra time to rectify our gripes – Good work Ubisoft/Black Hole! Doing exactly what should be done with the results of a Closed Beta! Keep your eye on the thread for this article, as I may fill it with little titbits of information from the second session. I am really looking forward to the final product and hope that the AG community can get together for a few games. If you want to learn more check, out the Might & Magic Heroes IV homepage . You can also see what the next phase of the Beta has in store for me too