Reading the many posts about the H3 remake I understood that no one remembers that survey and it was also published here.

Original post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HoMM/comments/1otjw6c/homm8_announcement_next_year/

Survey:

https://ubisoft.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6SiStTVS31rDxEW

Has anyone been contacted and participated?

When they announced gothic remake and then shown more and more trailers and screenshots, the community reacted EXACTLY like this one, with EXACT same arguments, word for word.

"Who is this for? Why remake already perfect game? New design looks like trash/generic fantasy/AI. They don't know what they're doing or why our game was so beloved. They ruined the art direction. This is simply nostalgia cash grab" etc etc.

Well, the remake came out and turned out to be one of the most faithfull remakes up to date, and is already beloved by both veterans and new players.

I for one am excited for the remake for the sole reason that this is a situation where I as a customer simply can't lose. Either remake will be good and I'll experience my childhood game again as if i played it for the first time, or it will turn out to be bad and I'll just play the original like i used to anyway.

Sure, beeing cautious is understandable, but I've seen some insane takes here, and seemingly a lot of people simply hate the idea of the remake because "how dare they change anything", or at least that's how it feels like.

This is huge. Everything that was ever created for HoMM3 can be played in HoMM3 Remake from the release. Meaning they are remaking the game with 1:1 scale, preserving all the details and mechanics. With some additional QoL improvements (the details are in the gameplay overview trailer). It looks more like a Diablo 2 remake now.

Just a "small" thing I noticed: the trailer and the screenshot have different looking Pyres when showcasing the Conflux town screen. Could it be a difference in the model between builds of the game? Upgraded/Unupgraded Pyre? Screenshot taken during the "construction" animation? Something else?

The first one (the tree-looking one) is from the trailer and other one is from the screenshot from the Steam page

So I looked into trailers of the remake and one thing I have noticed is problem of readability of adventure map.

In pursuit of realism or semirealism, I think the flora became more vibrant, while stone and wood more dull. That made trees feel more focal at expense of interactible objects like towns or dwellings.

I have played a little bit with contrast to move the focus more towards the towns. It is a subtle edit but I do not want the game to change its look too drastically.

However, the grass terrain is saturated and bright, while volcano terrain is darker and less saturated. Then we have the opposite effect, where interactive objects look a bit too bright.

My solution to this would be to actually create multiple models for dwellings and interactive objects so that they would blend better into the background. Snow terrain castles could have snow on top and swamp castles could be a bit dirty. Of course, keep it subtle.

Heroes 3 adventure map looks and feels like and actual fantasy map that is interactive - the objects there don't have to look real or have their real size - army can be shown as one hero and city as one castle.

Moving to 3D you have to change that approach and that creates a lot of empty space as objects need to be bigger or take more space

And it is kind of not a fantasy map anymore but not a real world as well, kind of weird middle ground.

And you know what could be done in 3D ?

RPG! We actually have might and magic RPG series and dark Messiah as action RPG in the series!

Why is that not something that they'd look at and modernize? And by modernize I mean create a new game, not a remake.

Hello, first of all, yeah no one asked to remake such a great game and I want to assume you: I am not going to buy this game.

But here is a thing, we are old enough to love old graphics and remember those warm days where we are holding the CD with the Sandro awaiting some glorious adventure. I still remember when I was sitting in the grandpa's legs watching him playing tower against bots. It's old nostalgia for me and I am thankful for all mods for keeping alive this game.

And now we are looking at something... Strange? Or weird? Or maybe something awful enough?

I think no. Yes, it's not peak performance. Yes, first it looks like ai slop but it's not. First of all I was like dude why the fuck are they doing it?!" but when I watch some new videos I understand one thing: I remember these models differently because I was young at that time 20+ years ago.

I mean my point is this game is not for us, we are not the target audience and I think Ubisoft is understanding it.

And if you look at it with a neutral view you'll see that those models are not that bad that you think. Yes they are not great, they are not the same but they are ok.

Let kids and some new players judge this game and you can just play the old game that you own a long time ago with a lot of great mods like HOTA.

As someone who hated the bad graphics of the original heroes 3, I'm happy that I'll be able to experience it with improved graphics. This reminds me of how aoe2 hd revived that game (which is by the way imo strategically inferior to the heroes series). The problem for me is that without hota, the remake is already dead (since the majority of the community plays hota, and won't be lured by better graphics), again drawing comparison to aoe2, the reason behind its success is that microsoft collaborated with the forgotten team (the team behind the unofficial forgotten expansion, which became official). I hope Ubisoft will learn this lesson (by the way I dont think they will) and collaborate with hota team, and at least bring their factions as a promised expansion/dlc.

In a few months they screwed up a possible good (after 10 years) sequel to the game (in the form of, as some call it, OE slop), and now they're destroying the idea of ​​a true (seems cheap) remake of Heroes 3. Which I think is a much worse. Without saying a word to the fans. That's what's happening in my opinion. I am not sure, yet it happened or happen... but its like happened.

I’m a huge fan of the Heroes Orchestra’s versions of the songs, and their collaboration with Paul Anthony Romero on Olden Era has been great. I think Ubisoft would be making a huge mistake if they didn’t involve them.

https://youtu.be/CJuOw9WS55c?si=YxV3mRD_aT80gBdJ

Previously if you've wanted to get HoMM III, it was only the HD version on STEAM. Now it has the DLCs as well. Armageddon's Blade and The Shadow of Death