I thought of creating a thread where we can just chat, or communicate things not directly related to the project (or the game in general).
In my case, I just wanted to pass by and let you know that I’m going on a short holiday as of tomorrow, so I won’t be around until next Tuesday evening at the earliest. As it was a last minute thing, I’ve spent the last couple of evenings with bookings/planning/packing, so I didn’t manage to do any testing on 0.62. So more testing from me only as of next week.
Thanks! I had a great time (nice weather, met lots of old friends)
Well, I’ve been kinda busy catching up with my work last couple of days after my return from the short vacation. Yesterday I went to the movies, and today I’m invited to some party. But tomorrow I’ll make some time not only for some testing, but maybe also promote this site a bit on the Celestial Heavens forum (and maybe some other Heroes forums as well, which I haven’t visited in quite a while though :)).
I guess the reason why so few post in the English section is simply the fact that this place is not yet so known to the international community. There was a piece of news on Celestial Heavens about this project like half a year ago (and maybe on other Heroes community sites as well - I’m not sure). But mainly that was it.
There was a wave of ppl joining back then, but I guess some were put off by the fact that the game won’t even start on their PC, while others were put off by the fact that they expected a working beta, while the project was still in some sort of alpha stage. From one perspective many things were implemented, but from the perspective of some players’ expectations, almost nothing seemed to be working.
I myself came back then and was kinda put off by the fact that game wouldn’t start (I posted here the error). I returned only in August to check out how far the project was, and this time it worked. Also the features implemented in between make the game already quite enjoyable now - so I guess many visitors who were put off by the stage of the game some months ago, might actually return now.
I suspect many just forgot about it, that’s why I said a reminder on the international boards might help bringing back some of the users who just registered here, maybe posted a couple of times, and then disappeared.
Actually I heard about this project on Heroes Community board… however since then no one posted a comment. He have not many people skilled in H3 modding, most of new towns discussions here are just creatures showcase.
That’s right, I did not think about installing current VCMI for a moment
The truth is in order to attract people we have to give them something in reward. Let it be untrusted promises, but still.
I’m not sure what you mean by “untrusted promises”, but we shouldn’t promise sth that cannot be delivered.
At this stage I believe we need people who don’t only enjoy playing, but also enjoy testing. Personally it gives me some sort of satisfaction to work on such project. Maybe because when I will later play the game, I’ll be able to say “hey, this feature is working correctly because I reported it”. I know that if it wouldn’t have been me, someone else would have done it later, but if noone would actually help the devs with testing, it might take them 10 years i/o 1 to spot all issues which still need adjustments.
Let’s just hope that with each version the game will become enjoyable for more and more players. I saw it on myself: didn’t really enjoy testing 0.55, but as of 0.61 it has enough elements to keep me around exploring maps for up to a couple of hours, w/o getting bored or anything - enough time to spot a good number of bugs.
Yes, when the first public release was made (0.54) most of the major sites about HMM posted news about our project. During first for days after release we had about 1400 absolute unique visitors (according to the Google Analytics) and 86% of them came from the referring sites (mainly heroes.ag.ru, celestialheavens.com and acidcave.net). First two released versions have together over 3600 downloads.
Nowadays only Polish sites inform about new releases of VCMI, during last four days we had only 200 unique visitors. However they are much more active. And I’m more happy with quality than quantity
You’re right. Current releases are suitable for testing, not playing. Because of that we’re waiting with promoting VCMI until it is playable.
Man… I can’t believe my luck (or should I say bad luck?:)) - I played for like a couple of hours this evening. I tried a few maps, double checked all the old bugs that were reported so far, but found nothing new. Of course there are many functionalities still to be implemented… but I just didn’t run into any bug. I’m honestly frustrated. Either you guys released a pretty bug-free 0.62, or I’m just doing a bad job testing this evening.
If also tomorrow I’ll find no more bugs, I’ll just give a list of functionalities which should maybe be prioritized, so that I can further test other aspects of the game.
Hmm, Actually I’ve found several glitches. If a hero is wearing a necklace, it’s show on his head in hero window and (I’m not sure if this one was intruduced before or after 0.62) pics of hero’s secondary skills are wrongly assigned what probably could even crash the game.
Ragarding prioritized functionalities - yes, such list would be helpful for us. Especially now, when the newest, not released yet version of VCMI has implemented spellbook, but without spell effects - it would be good to know which spells do you consider most important. Furthermore, we have fixed so many minor things after 0.62 that we don’t know what exactly is to be fixed . So when new public development version is out I’d like to have listed all bugs and other minor problems even if it has been already reported. A public bug-reporting sevice would be a good idea…
I didn’t look for artefact or secondary skills issues, as I knew their functionalities are not yet implemented (only the icons). I more focused on already implemented funcionalities. But now that I see you’re busy with this, I’ll take them into account.
Sure. I’ll try to make such a list tonight. If not tonight, then you’ll have it on Saturday (tomorrow I’m off till after midnight).
I’m not sure I exactly understand what you mean here. I can go through all bugs reported so far in the English section, and give you 2 lists: fixed & not fixed. Or is sth else that you need?
Things are gettin’ pretty busy around at my job (not only because of the season - but we’re starting to feel the effects of this financial crisis in the US also at my bank), so I’ll prolly manage to find more time for testing only in the week-ends from now on. Or at least for the next couple of weeks, till things settle down a little bit.
I thought of letting you know that in the coming weeks I won’t be as active as usual. Next week-end I’m off for a conference, the one after only the Sunday is free; first 2 weeks of March I might have a bit of time, after which I go on a 15 days vacation. So, except for the first part of March, I’ll be pretty much off & busy for the next 6 weeks. As of April should be fine again though.
I’m off for a ski vacation now the coming week :), leaving tomorrow so i won’t able to test or answer to questions regarding my suggestion/bug reports. I’ll be back again in 8-9 days.
Hello again. I’m back from my 2 weeks trip to India (out of which 1 week in the Himalayas ). I still have some unpacking to do and catch up with some things (work and not only), but as of Friday I’ll be able to resume the VCMI testing.
Hi Guys, just want to give all the programmers n testers some encouragement. Really thanx for working on the project! Can’t wait to see the final product!
It’s not an easy job working on such a huge project. It must be very time consuming. May i ask how many hours do you guys work on this project everyday? Are all the programmers like Tow dragon & Tow etc working as software programmers in real life? How about testers like Zamolxis? U guys are unbelievable!!!
Sometimes we do nothing for a week or two, sometimes we code a few hours a day. I think an average person spends much more time on watching TV than we spend on creating VCMI.
I and Tow study Applied Computer Science. We don’t work at any company in real life.
Well, I’m going again on a 2 weeks holiday, so you probably won’t be seeing much of me before the beginning of next month (unless I’ll have free internet at the hotel and weather will be that bad to keep me inside most of the time)
Either you guys released a pretty bug-free 0.62, or I’m just doing a bad job testing this evening. 
). I still have some unpacking to do and catch up with some things (work and not only), but as of Friday I’ll be able to resume the VCMI testing. 