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Posted by ThE_HyDrA at 07:01, 31 Dec 2005:
Uncertainty About 'Create a Town in Heroes V' Contest

Comments from Nival Interactive's Dmitry Estrin on Nival's Russian Forum Topic indicate that it is unlikely English submissions will be accepted. This is most unfortunate as the English speaking members of various online HoMM communities received the news of the contest with much enthusiasm and some had already begun working on their contest submissions.

This once again triggers the debate about whether Nival is favouring Russian fans over the rest. Here are some comments from the forums: "While I agree that it was shortsighted of Nival to make this announcement only in Russian, I think it is a good sign that they care enough to host multiple contests to promote this game" (Polaris). "What: is 90 percent of all Heroes players Russian or something, hmmm I guess not" (Fael569).

The contest is being conducted in association with the Russian magazine, Gamemania, perhaps being the cause of the language restriction. Certainly, the fans would appreciate if a parallel contest were to be conducted for non-Russian participants. We have contacted Nival to clarify whether there will be any way to make submissions in English - we'll keep you posted.

You can comment at: Heroes Community and Ubi Forums.

Posted by Valeriy at 06:38, 29 Dec 2005:
Search 200,000 Posts of Heroes Community!

I have just completed developing the Heroes Community Search Function which allows you to search the entire HC datase of 200,000 posts. Heroes Community is the web's largest international HOMM messageboard which accumulated many great posts during the last five years. There are rare tactics from the web's best HOMM online players, plenty of humour and philosophical discussion, and discussion of HOMM wishes.

It happens to be perfect timing with the contest ThE_HyDrA has just announced because Heroes Community has many posts with great town ideas. You can sneak plenty of inspiration for your winning entry. Try this HC search query (shortened version for modem users here).

Coming back to the HC search function, it features many advanced options, such as search operators (partial, phrase, AND, NOT or a combination), sorting by posts, threads and quality post bonuses, username and date filters, search term highlighting and more. It took me around 30 hours to make and I'm proud of the result. Post your comments about it here. I plan to integrate HC Search into this page and other sections of Age of Heroes. Also, Google has now listed most of about 500 Age of Heroes pages and offers an excellent Age of Heroes site search, which can also be accessed via the HC Search page.

Posted by ThE_HyDrA at 05:18, 29 Dec 2005:
'Create your own Town in Heroes V' Contest

Nival Interactive, in conjunction with a Russian Gaming Magazine, Gamemania, have opened another contest to fans of the Heroes series. Instead of creating a masterpiece of modern art in the Heroes V vein, contestants are now being given the challenge of designing their own town for Heroes V! The town should be original, and Nival are emphasising that you check and re-check your submissions - as they will be judged by the game designers themselves!

The deadline for the contest is February 28, 2006, so you have plenty of time. The winners will be announced in the fourth 'Gamemania' magazine of 2006 and 1st place will receive a Pocket PC, along with a Heroes V backpack and a flag with the winning town's symbol on it. Read the complete rules, in English, here, or in Russian, here.

It is a worldwide contest, but it is unknown whether Nival will accept English entries - although being global is a good sign.

Posted by Valeriy at 11:45, 28 Dec 2005:
Lazer Goblins, Chainsaw Zombies, Naga Tanks!

Elemental Conflux was not the original town intended for Heroes 3: Armageddon's Blade Expansion. The original town was called The Forge. It was to feature goblins with guns, zombies with chainsaws, humans with flamethrowers, ogres with rocket launchers, minotaurs with jet packs, naga tanks and a fully mechanical top level unit. If you find that hard to swallow, you are not the only one. NWC decided against implementing the Forge after a huge uproar in the online community. One of the NWC team members even received a death threat.

You can read the full story of the Forge town and see the official artwork (including town screenshot, machine gun goblin artwork and naga tank sketch) on our Forge Town page. But this news entry is not just about the past, it's about the Future. Zielevitz, Heroes Community WOG forum moderator, has been working on recreating a playable version of the Forge town for the last several months, drawing most of the unit animations himself and getting some help from team mates. He says:

I think that "The Forge" will be a great castle, the graphics will be of a very high quality. It will be almost like the Forge NWC intended, as accurate as we could reproduce it from the available artwork. Most building graphics and units animations are already made. We'll keep you updated.

The Forge Town Project website is hosted right here at Age of Heroes. Zielevitz has joined the WOG team and most of the information has been supressed prior to release, however we do have a couple of images to show you: naga tank concept and battlefield concept. You can talk about the Forge Town Project in this thread.

On a side note, if you are interested in running a website related to HOMM and would like become a part of our team, your site can be integrated into Age of Heroes, Heroes Community and the HC Menu, gaining a much greater exposure. Contact me if you wish to discuss this further.

Posted by Valeriy at 05:22, 25 Dec 2005:
Merry Christmas!

On behalf of our AOH and HC team, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and some good presents

Posted by Valeriy at 22:02, 24 Dec 2005:
Heroes 4 Card and Tile Game Review

ThE_HyDrA has completed his review of the Heroes 4 Card and Tile Game. The review offers a good summary of the game for people who are curious but don't have time to read the manual. There's also a couple of enlargeable images of a H4 CTG mini-game in progress.

Posted by Valeriy at 22:49, 23 Dec 2005:
Updates at Heroes Community

Over 400 new avatar images have been uploaded to Heroes Community today: Heroes from HOMM1 and HOMM4, plus HOMM4 Creatures. HC now has about 1100 avatars to choose from. The new avatars are categorised, and the registration/profile pages now feature an alphabetical avatars list with a full-size preview for easy selection. You can also view the shuffled list of avatars here.

Heroes Community Messenger has a new random message suject feature and you can now use HC BB Code in HCM messages just like in normal posts, enabling you to use links, images, smilies, and the BB Code's new feature: red, green and blue text colours.

Posted by ThE_HyDrA at 08:56, 23 Dec 2005:
Heroes V: Various Updates

The Games Arena Interview can now be found under our News and Interviews section. This was made possible thanks to unreal_az for the translation and permission.

With the unveiling of the new Official Site come 2 new screenshots and a banner for each of the alignments. The other two less familiar screenshots were discovered by Paladin in the Heroes IV Complete Version, and have been in the Other Screenshots Gallery for a couple of months. The two new screenshots are up in the Official Screenshots Gallery. The .gif banners are located at the bottom of this directory.

Posted by Valeriy at 20:43, 22 Dec 2005:
Official Heroes 5 Web Site Update

The official Heroes 5 web site has been updated. Currently it features a new fancy interface with a list of features, plus screenshot, artwork and video galleries. It seems that we will soon be treated to some new wallpapers and screensavers. The galleries have been improved for faster loading, but the site itself is a nightmare for dialup users.

http://www.mightandmagic.com/HeroesV

Posted by ThE_HyDrA at 11:58, 22 Dec 2005:
Heroes V: A Busy Week of Interviews

Ubisoft and Nival have been busy this week, conducting two interviews with Romanian Gaming Magazine Games Arena and Heroic Corner respectively.

You can read a translated version Fabrice Cambounet's interview with Games Arena here. The Heroic Corner interivew can be found in our News and Interviews Section. One of the main revelations to surface from the interview is that there will be no Orcs in Heroes of Might and Magic V!