Heroes Community - [Official Thread] HoMM 3: Horn of the Abyss (2024)

posted January 01, 2014 01:26 AM

bonus applied by Corribus on 01 Jan 2014.

Edited by nik312 at 23:17, 10 Feb 2020.

[Official Thread] HoMM 3: Horn of the Abyss - Announcements, Questions, Features

This is the official HC thread of the project. It contains most recent information. Information from non-official sources can be outdated (like plans on new towns or some outdated screenshots).

Introduction
So, what is Horn of the Abyss?
HotA is a global add-on for Heroes of might and magic III that extends (and fixes if needed) classical gameplay elements and adds some of its own. On a more conceptual level – HotA is an attempt to continue legendary series RoE-AB-SoD as close to the original as it could have been done by NWC team, if only they had more desire, resources or even understanding of their own game. We try to keep classical h3 spirit in every tiny detail from code nuances to overall gameplay. Be welcome to check if we’ve succeeded

So, is it official? Do you keep in contact with Heroes III developers?
Original developers, alas, no longer exist as a team and current franchise owners are not really interested in continuing old storyline. So, no, we are not that official.

Platform and installing
The whole modification is created by reverse-engineering Shadow of Death files. So, HotA is to be installed on top of clean Heroes III: SoD or Complete edition. We do not guarantee stable work on any “optimized builds” or with mods that can change original game files (except for HD mod, which is 100% compatible). The modification surely will not work on AB, RoE or WoG. No ERM (or other script language) support is available.

Current version available for download is 1.6.1
Download installer

Install to a folder with either clean SoD or Complete (plus optional HD mod) or older version of HotA.

Core features
A lot fixes and additions, check it out in an adapted list

- New fully playable town — Cove
- New war machine — Cannon. Available at Cove’s Blacksmith
- New artifacts and artifact sets
- New banks and conservatories
- New types of map objects
- New heroes
- New terrain for Conflux town — Highlands
- Towns change their appearance, depending on Fort level
- Map editor
- RMG template editor as well as extended RMG template format
- Support for bigger map sizes (Huge, XHuge and Giant)
- A lot of balance fixes (like finally nerfing the necromancers or making life easier for Tower and Inferno)
- A lot of RMG fixes (for example, removing all sea elements from non-sea random maps)
- A lot of graphical fixes (like, really a lot… original game had plenty of graphical bugs)

Support
If you want to help the project, then here you go

Links for official Hota-related threads
Critical bugreports
Slight correction suggestions
The offical thread for your wishes and suggestions

Screenshots

Official russian forum: http://forum.df2.ru/index.php?showforum=90

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posted January 01, 2014 01:47 AM

New version - amazing, but of course something had to crash sooner or later. New editor isn't working in English version. Here is crashlog file.
____________
Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave

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posted January 01, 2014 01:47 AM

Edited by yasmiel at 01:48, 01 Jan 2014.

Let me be the first to congratulate whole team on this release and thank once more for hard work that was put into this.

As we all know, keeping high quality standards is rarely a priority of independent mod teams, but this addon surely passes any test in that area.

Well done!

____________

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posted January 01, 2014 02:01 AM

Also, magogs' ability doesn't work properly - when I shoot normally, it still shoots with fireball, but when I click on the option of fireball, it shoots only one target.
____________
Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave

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posted January 01, 2014 02:10 AM

Oh yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! This is going to be be awesome. Thanks Hota team!!

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posted January 01, 2014 02:13 AM

Thanks!
I really want to see new cities [I mean advemture map with fort, citadel and castle] in-game...
...But first a nap.

Also good luck with other updates!

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posted January 01, 2014 08:44 AM

The best way to start new year 2014! It's already happy
____________
The future of Heroes 3 is here!

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posted January 01, 2014 10:50 AM

Edited by hippox89 at 10:52, 01 Jan 2014.

A huge congratulation on this impressive milestone that is the HotA 1.3 release so far ! Many people have been waiting years for this release, and now i's finally here for all to try out. Also, I'm very excited for what the future of HotA will bring.

A big 'thank you' and shutout to a great project !

Happy New Years !

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posted January 01, 2014 11:25 AM

Edited by Sav at 11:26, 01 Jan 2014.

Map editor may crash on some systems, we need to collect some more information.

Quote:Also, magogs' ability doesn't work properly - when I shoot normally, it still shoots with fireball, but when I click on the option of fireball, it shoots only one target.

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posted January 01, 2014 11:37 AM

Edited by artu at 11:39, 01 Jan 2014.

Thank you very much for this finally in English. Can you create a box.com link (which is free btw), with the current site, it takes about 6 hours to download 144 MB.

Also, where can we read how necromancy was nerfed, right now?

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posted January 01, 2014 11:43 AM

Edited by hippox89 at 11:45, 01 Jan 2014.

artu said:Thank you very much for this finally in English. Can you create a box.com link (which is free btw), with the current site, it takes about 6 hours to download 144 MB.

Also, where can we read how necromancy was nerfed, right now?

I second this, but the sendspace mirror was slightly faster for me, although, it still took 30 minutes for a small file.

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posted January 01, 2014 11:51 AM

Quote:Also, where can we read how necromancy was nerfed, right now?

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posted January 01, 2014 12:11 PM

Edited by hellburn at 12:21, 01 Jan 2014.

Reporting in.

Map Editor works perfectly for me. Win 7 64 bit, Heroes 3 - polish Gold Edition.

In game everything seems fine, no crashes, no bugs. Gonna play some more right now.

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posted January 01, 2014 12:27 PM

Edited by nik312 at 12:29, 01 Jan 2014.

artu said:Thank you very much for this finally in English. Can you create a box.com link (which is free btw), with the current site, it takes about 6 hours to download 144 MB.

Also, where can we read how necromancy was nerfed, right now?

Yandex.Disk as any free online space provider (as far as I know) sets a limit of downloads per day. After that limit is exceeded, the speed is reduced to 64 KB. So, it seems, the problem can be solved only by numerous mirrors.

Another mirror will be added in a few minutes

PS btw, who knows, whom should we ask to pin this topic and to close the outdated one?

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posted January 01, 2014 12:35 PM

Sav said: Magogs always shoot with fireball. But only central hex of fireball can hit immune to fire creatures.

Maybe I didn't explain that correctly... When I shoot normally, as I would in SoD, only one hex would be "marked" below cursor and yet it would work like fireball attack and hit several creatures. But when I used Fireball feature from unit's menu, it was completely opposite - several hexes were "marked" by cursor, like if it was a Fireball attack, but only unit in central hex was damaged.
____________
Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave

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posted January 01, 2014 12:37 PM

Edited by hippox89 at 12:38, 01 Jan 2014.

I'm pretty sure this must already be planned to implement at some point, but bundling 'HD mod' together with the HotA installer as an install option would be great for people that do not know about such things.

btw, the map editor works fine for me. English version (not gog). Windows 7 64-bit SP1.

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posted January 01, 2014 12:53 PM

Am so pumped to be able to play this! Appreciate all the hard work that has gone into making this happen. Many thanks.

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posted January 01, 2014 12:55 PM

Hobbit said:

Sav said: Magogs always shoot with fireball. But only central hex of fireball can hit immune to fire creatures.

Umm... I was fighting with Troglodytes.

Maybe I didn't explain that correctly... When I shoot normally, as I would in SoD, only one hex would be "marked" below cursor and yet it would work like fireball attack and hit several creatures. But when I used Fireball feature from unit's menu, it was completely opposite - several hexes were "marked" by cursor, like if it was a Fireball attack, but only unit in central hex was damaged.

Hm. That is strange. I've just checked - fireball hits all units both by G key and by button in the menu. Normal shooting acts like in SoD, as it should.

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posted January 01, 2014 12:59 PM

Edited by nik312 at 13:03, 01 Jan 2014.

PS. Another mirror is added

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posted January 01, 2014 01:01 PM

Quote:When I shoot normally, as I would in SoD, only one hex would be "marked" below cursor and yet it would work like fireball attack and hit several creatures.

Quote:But when I used Fireball feature from unit's menu, it was completely opposite - several hexes were "marked" by cursor, like if it was a Fireball attack, but only unit in central hex was damaged.

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