FirePaladin
A Day of Reckoning developer.
H3gg Interview[edit | hide | hide all]
Greetings heroes, I am Mihai, also known as FirePaladin, and today I will answer a little Q&A about the Day of Reckoning expansion for Heroes of Might and Magic III. So for those who don't know about it, the Day of Reckoning is a faithful full-fledged fan-made expansion for the Heroes of Might and Magic III game. Anyway, let's begin.
1. Can you tell us something about the three towns featured in DoR? Was the inclusion of a town of each alignment intentional?
Well, the inclusion of one town of each alignment was actually a coincidence. At first only the Forge and the Palace were the towns planned to appear in DoR, but later on we caught with another project and we ended up developing Grotto as well. So in the end it's more of a convenient coincidence that we have one town for each alignment. Otherwise as far as each town is concerned, the Palace is a snow town of winterland, Vikings, and Norse creatures. It features motifs of astrology, of runes, of time distortion (because of Vori), of the select few Chinese elements which are also present in Vori such as the Azure Dragon. Anyways so, these are present gameplay-wise in the Initiative skill. The Jarl, the Might class of the Palace town, start with this new Initiative skill. It functions similarly to Tactics, in the sense that, before the battle begins, you select one creature and that creature for the first round of combat will have a higher initiative than any other creature in the combat, like it gets a bonus to its initiative. The Magic hero class of the Palace, the Oracle, instead only has very high odds of learning this Initiative skill, which is generally a trend in Heroes of Might and Magic III. As far as the town buildings are concerned, there is the Astrologer, which is a returning building from Heroes of Might and Magic V, and there is also the Market of Time which, every once in a while, allows you to purchase very high value artifacts and resources at a very good price.
Moving on, the Grotto is the town of magical Dark Elves and Gnomes. They reside in enchanted caverns full of magical mushrooms, crystals, vegetation, you know, abundance of life, as opposed to the cold caverns of the Dungeon. So as most of us and most of you know from popular media and D&D, and other fantasy games and movies, the Dark Elves are proficient at magic. And so the Might class of Grotto, the Warden, begins with the Vitality skill, because of this life that thrives in this cavern, you know this magical life that thrives, they get this Vitality skill, which basically increases the health of their own creatures. Sort of a more anti-magic focused form of Armor as it increases HP and not [reduce] the damage taken from creatures. Again, as with any other hero in Heroes of Might and Magic III, the Magic class merely has very high odds of learning the skill that the Might heroes start with. So the Sorcerer has very high odds of learning Vitality. But the Sorcerer also enjoys a boost from an in-town building. This building basically increases the spell power for all of your heroes, similar to the Necromancy booster in Necropolis.
Lastly the Forge town. Well, this town, I must make it clear, is an on/off addition, so before you begin a map, you can choose whether to start with it or not. You tick or untick a box, and that decides whether you'll get the town or not in that map. Anyways so, the Forge in Day of Reckoning intends to bring back the original and true vision of Gregory Fulton and the other members of New World Computing, so grungy evil dirty sci-fi town with Mad Max, Warhammer 40,000, and Metropolis themes. So, as we talked with people at New World Computing, we learned that the E3 Forge screenshots in 1999 was actually pretty far away from the intended vision for the developers. It was cold and a bit too dystopian, just not evil, dirty, loud, you know? Like Warhammer and Mad Max and so on. So yeah, the Day of Reckoning actually complies the actual vision of the New World Computing developers.
Otherwise, gameplay-wise, the Forge has a War Machine focus. They have the brand-new Coilgun war machine that can be bought at the basic Blacksmith, and the blacksmith actually has an upgrade in the Forge town, currently we are testing which Forge war machine should be recruitable at the upgraded blacksmith. There's the ammo cart version for the Forge and there's the Howitzer, and another war machine, the equivalent to the First Aid Tent. Otherwise Forge heroes generally have very high odds of learning either Artillery or Ballistics, and there are some heroes that start with them. But yeah, that skill has also been boosted in Day of Reckoning.
2. We know that the Palace represents Vori and the Forge, Deyja after Kastore took over in another timeline. What about Grotto?
For those who have played Heroes Chronicles, you may have stumbled upon a piece that says that the elves used to guard the World Tree, which brings life from the underground to the surface of Enroth. Well, in the Day of Reckoning, we explore civil war between the elves in the underground, who are guarding the World Tree, and who eventually became the Dark Elves, and the Wood Elves on the surface. So yes, that's Grotto's place in the lore. They are the Dark Elves who guarded the World Tree. Eventually, they lose the war and are exiled to Jadame, which you explore in Might and Magic VIII.
3. Will there be new artifacts and spells? Will new spells not make magic heroes too strong?
Well, as far as artifacts are concerned, in the original game, there is basically one artifact set for each town. Of course there are also sometimes artifacts tied to skills, like Resistance or Archery, we'll ignore those for now, because they are a little complicated. So in the original game Restoration of Erathia, without the Conflux, there is an artifact set, not a combination artifact, an artifact set for each town. Well in the Day of Reckoning, we will provide an artifact set, and very likely a combo artifact, for each town, including old ones and new ones.
As far as spells are concerned, in general we believe in a buff kind of balance, like bringing new content, rather than nerfing, so there will be, in general, the new water and fire spells will be stronger than the new air and earth spells. And there are some very nice surprises in water and fire schools of magic, which synergizes quite nicely with certain towns and their odds of rolling certain spells and certain magic schools and so on.
Otherwise as far as magic classes becoming too strong, well, that's accounted for, there are also buffs for might classes that are significant, and there are also special map locations that combat that.
4. What kind of adventure map object will we see in the Day of Reckoning? Will there be new banks?
So, there will certainly be flaggable stat and skill boosters in the Day of Reckoning. Some of which you have already seen. There will be new shrines for each school of magic, and for functions of magic, like destructive adventure map spells, buffing spells, curses and so on. Otherwise as far as banks go, yes, there will be new banks and there are various ideas for them, ranging from banks that will reward creatures and banks that will reward other things, including mana. So yes, there are plans to add banks and there are already several banks in the Day of Reckoning.
And beyond banks, there are also new adventure map locations, such as outposts and certain special objects which we'll learn more about later, which allow for a faster expansion of the map without relying that much on banks. Yes, map makers and template makers will be free to ban or customize the odds of generating certain buildings, banks, and the likes. So yeah we believe in customizability and flexibility.
5. Some interesting features and visuals are shown in the teaser video. What can you say about them?
Well that's one of Day of Reckoning's unique points, its state-of-the-art features made by a professional. It brings light, new water shaders, and much, much more to Heroes of Might and Magic III, but for now I'd like to keep it under wrap as we polish those features and bring it to a really presentable state that will leave you amazed. You know, something really satisfying.