I stand by what I said about proprietary software. Proprietary software is immoral, especially when it should be a contribution from the community to the community. Iām no fanatic indeed. If thereās no alternative, like now at the university, I use proprietary software like Opera. I apologize if my post sounded trollish.
I am an open source software developer for the KDE project so I think I know a thing or two about the free open source software model; and here I see a chance for the VCMI project to do something infinitely more for everybody than it ever could by keeping it closed source.
Remember, if NWC made it open source you wouldnāt be here struggling to remake the engine but maybe improving the game in ways we canāt even imagine.
From Wikipedia ( en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ā¦ =219607163 ):
We do not restrict use or private modification of VCMI nor restrict copying or publishing of modified versions (AFAIK ;]). Everything we restrict is access to code of VCMI (but itās not a very strict restriction, we havenāt refused access to code if somebody admits to have reasonable C++ skills). Since I donāt think VCMI is really a proprietary software. We would probably also restrict distribution of bad, barely modified binaries of VCMI but it seems to be a minor thing.
In what case? There are thousands of programmers who want to contribute only to open-source software and many of them will join VCMI once it gets open-source? Or maybe many C++ programmers visiting our site would significantly contribute to VCMI if only they knew that itās possible to get our code? And why they cannot simply ask us?
And why nobody wants to criticize creators of WoG who keep Heroes III formats closed when we just want to do same thing?
Iām not fanatic of closed-source programs. I just see good and bad sides of both policies, as probably does Tow. Itās our decision to be closed source and we know that many people would like to see VCMI open. They often seem to blindly belive in open-source and donāt see where are itās advantages.
If they had our policy of access to code we wouldnāt be struggilng either.
Hi, developers. Iāve just read about rewriting H3 engine and Iām very happy about it. But closed-source is making me upset 
Iām a linux (Ubuntu) user, so as I see, there wonāt be linux native version of this game? (
May be you could open sources? There many licences for that, why not?
When VCMI is playable, weāll release Linux builds of VCMI. I promise 
Itās not a big problem because we are using only cross-platform libraries.
For now itās not in our plans, since none of our developers uses Linux. Current releases are mainly for bug catching purposes and we wouldnāt be able to debug VCMI in search for the platform-dependant errors on Linux.
As for opening sources, weāre considering this. Itāll take time. Maybe weāll make some decisions before 0.7, maybe after. Importance of this issue is IMHO overrated.
When VCMI is playable, weāll release Linux builds of VCMI. I promise
Iām happy again.
Importance of this issue is IMHO overrated.
Well, I donāt think so. What could be if PB would open sources of Gothic game (many fans are asking for it, and the engine is very old)ā¦ some people are were disassembling the game and making useful tools for modmeakers, other creating dll-injections to add multiplayer there. And there are hearling about recreating Gothic engineā¦ If sources were open, all could be much easier.
There are many examples of ādeadā projects, which have fans, but some of them canāt play game, because it wonāt run on new systems or they now canāt pley games with old graphics.
And one more about opening sources. After youāll finish your engine, fans could create new graphics, music, sound and a new fully free and opensource game could be created. And not only one game could appearā¦ It could be a new life of heroes.
And also opensource game means, that some people could fix some bugs by themselfes and send you patches. It could be speed up development.
I can repeat after TowDragon - if PB had our policy of access to code, there would be no problem. Anyone who needs our sources and has a good idea what to do with them (and skills to realise it) can receive our help.
Well, somebody will receive them. But you must give it them by some license, which would allow him to do with source code described manipulations. For example, by russian laws, if there would be only āĀ©ā, then product cannāt be modified and redistrubuted. Only licence can allow it. The other way - is by giving exclusive rights on product. But it means that received side could close source and sell the product. The same result would be by refusing of any author rights (it would become National property).
Any other case is illegal. And if you have you own license, it would be legal only by the notaryās assurance. Iāll say again, itās only for Russian legislation. I donāt know what would be in other countries.
Anyway, I wish you all the best could be for such a game! 
Not at this stage maybe, but we should keep in mind that building in the center of the map. Maybe de developing team can add it as customizable object in the map editor, to be used later on for different mods.
While I understand why those were not chosen as final graphics (they are a bit cartoonish maybe), I feel that building in the center has a lot of potential.
As said - not now - but when we have a working game and weāll start working on adding new features, we could dig in some of these old NWC shots, for creatures & objects which were dropped, and see which of them could actually be used.
Hallo.
My name is antipaladin,the god incranted.
Iām a poor wog graphic artist (frankstienr mostlyā¦)
and i have an idea i want to share.
1.3ārd Upgrades for all towns. if its posible it would be great,your work is tramandous in this area,but not just silly upgrades,but related upgrades,i could make some,and we have tons of mm6-7-8 units to be used also as upgrades.
2.Specific Hanchmans. mildly like a commander,put hanchman no skillz or so,just specific for each factionā¦would also be cool
3.Changing heros, Adding,Recoloring and editing,Last i tried i was told that it is making the game crash. if so,let me know 
4:i might be sound silly,but i tottaly forgot how to replace def filesā¦Since i took a long pouse (8 mounths) and i need to remmberā¦
Via resedit2 doesnt workā¦
any offers?
5.im going to realignefactions in my mod.
if anyone is instested in details lemme know.
Anti.
IMHO putting the mod āNew Upgradesā in the Core is much better idea.
Not really, some of them (especially those from MM6) donāt have some parts of animation.
Wellā¦ I donāt know what that means, but it doesnāt sound goodā¦ so Iām sorry to hear it. 
[size=75]:p[/size]
Seriously now, I guess those are ideas to be discussed at a later stage. As I understand, at this point weāre only testing to help the programmers build the game with all its H3C functionalities. Only once thatās done, theyāll start with the mods (WoG mainly, but prolly other creative ideas - like the ones listed by you above - will be considered as well).
Hi antipaladin!
Youāll need to replace it in the .lod archive. It can be done quite easily with such programs as SimpleLod (attached to this post).
If you want to replace .def only for VCMI you can simply put it in the /Sprites subfolder (files there are treated as they were in the h3sprite.lod, overwriting original ones if thay have same name).
Your concepts will be possible to implement with script languages and modification system but itās distant future. Now, as Zamolxis wrote, weāre focused on recreating H3 features.
SimpleLod.7z (62.4 KB)
@Tow
First actualy replacing is not enought,simplelod is also not enought,what is needed is to change the exe. for that we needcoders: for 3rdf upgrade we can use pretty much,and thre is some needed making,but its okay,as i have a prime team.
Iāve also relised an alpha,but this alpha simply changes few untis,and necro commander as an eye candy,so i wont be blaimed to be doing nothing.
Also,i came to you asking if you have Town Tool,as i thought you did,from the screens of older VCMI.
also i was wonderingā¦why would you want h3 working in CMD?
only MM6,but i know a person who cann fix it and add the animes himself,and he did so,and it working.
We will implement in VCMI solutions that will allow replacing/adding creatures without modifying executable. One of our main goals is make game more mod-friendly.
We have tools showed on our screenshots but I donāt think that anyone else could make any use of them. Theyāre not for creating towns, they are useful for recreating.
This is a provisional solution making testing and debugging more convenient.
This is great news, as a few times I had the need of adding a certain feature or element in the game (for whatever reason: improve balance, or just my own gaming experience). But my technical knowledge is just not good enough to easily handle the modding possibilities the original H3 had.
just had a look at it and itās really promising. great work guys! i had lost any hope of further development for this old time favorite.
Iād really like to see the initiative thing implemented in heroes 3. i like the way it works in h5 and have been thinking about it for a long time before that but i didnāt have the knowledge to put it into a mod or script nor did i find anyone that could. do you think it may be possible with your executable?
Ohh my god. Iāve just read what heroes 5 does with combat. I didnāt play heroes 5 because of itās requirements, but now iāve read what is homm5 like. And it is very sympathic to me. Especially the square grids in batleground.
On the other side, this projectās main goal is to rewrite the homm3 engine. So if we want to put some things in it, it is only possible after the finish of this project IMHO. But Tow will give the final word. Anyway, i really want to see a heroes 5 with heroes 3 graphics
Actually newest development version of VCMI has stack queue similar to this implemented in Heroes 5, but the sequence of creatures is calculated in the same way as in Heroes III. We are not going to change it but weāll think about making it easily moddable. Unfortunately we havenāt even started writing mod support and we wonāt be doing it soon.
How about a checklist of what needs to be done to get at least H3Wog functionality? What is missing right now (canāt really try it, no idea where my homm cds are :()
Itād be still a very long list. I think we should make such list when VCMI is quite playable. ATM you cannot even save your game, win a scenario or try to play with others.