Fanstratics月报#8#2021-04

来源：https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter08，以下由Heavenk翻译。

• Fanstratics Faction #5: Krasadox.
• Fanstratics阵营5：Krasadox
• In the craggy, Arid desert, dwell the vulgar Krasadox. Unkind to the weak, their crass culture, like their environment, elevates the strong and debases the delicate. While most would consider them to be crude and barbaric, they consider confrontation to the purest form of respect and honesty. Nature is not cute. Nature is cruel and uncompromising. Why untie the knot, when you can hack through it? Why solve the puzzle box, when you can simply crush it? Krasadox believe in brutal efficiency. This faction will be familiar to anyone acquainted with HoMM3’s ‘Stronghold’. Representing the Krasadox is the Gnoll Spear Thrower, which can be viewed in the Fanstratics Gallery. This inclusion may surprise some, as the Gnoll was originally in HoMM3’s ‘Fortress’. When building the troop rosters for the various factions, relative themes were adjusted, and in the end... the Gnoll was a better fit with the Krasadox. So, a modification was made.
• 在崎岖干旱的大漠当中，居住着粗野的Krasadox一族。他们的文化就犹如沙漠环境一样对弱者极为苛刻，膜拜力量而鄙视柔弱。尽管大多数人认为他们粗鲁而野蛮，但他们自己却认为对抗才是最纯粹的尊敬与诚实的表现。自然并不可爱，自然残酷而强硬。既然能砍断绳结，又何苦费力去解开它；既然能摧毁魔盒，自然不比花时间去解谜。Krasadox一族信奉效率至上。这个派系会让人联想到英雄无敌3的据点族。Krasadox派系的代表是豺狼人投矛手，可以在Fanstratics Gallery看到设定图。这可能会让有些人震惊，毕竟英雄无敌3里豺狼人是要塞族的。当我们给各个派系组建军队时，相关的主题也发生了调整，因此最后，豺狼人会更适合Krasadox这个派系。

• Fanstratics Feature: Legendary ‘Boss’ Battles.
• Fanstratics特性：传奇的Boss战。
• In last month’s ‘feature highlight’, I described the Troop Rally Ability as an old idea which never made it past the conceptual stage. Legendary Boss Battles is another such idea... and another logical one. If you look at HoMM3, it is clear where I wanted to have these events, specifically the ‘creature banks’. Why were full boss battles not implemented in HoMM3? Time. We simply didn’t have the time. Like the Troop Rally Ability, it was a new feature and would require new programming and more unique art. So, I quickly discarded the idea, and instead settled for battles where the Hero’s Army was ‘surrounded’ by the Enemy Army (versus the typical Left against Right arrangement). Later, with the Armageddon’s Blade expansion, we implemented the four neutral dragons (Faerie, Rust, Crystal, and Azure), which were arguably the game’s first boss creatures. While these dragons were more powerful, they were not what I ultimately wanted. Almost 10 years later, I specifically remember playing ‘King’s Bounty: The Legend’, encountering the ‘giant turtle’, and thinking to myself, “Yep. There it is.” There were other such encounters in ‘King’s Bounty: The Legend’: a giant spider, a giant lizardman, a giant demon, a giant mech, etc. My favorite was the Kraken. Regardless, for Fanstratics, the plan is to have one ‘boss’ loosely associated with each of the nine Factions.
• 传奇的Boss战是Fanstratics的另一个特性。在英3里我们就有类似的想法，不过最后由于开发时间问题没能实现。后来调整成了一些特定地点的战斗，也就是英雄的部队开场就被敌军包围的战斗（比如龙城）。到了末日之刃里，我们又引入了四种中立龙族，它们就属于游戏中最初的boss生物。后来，“国王的恩赐：传奇”里出现的巨龟让我又想到这个问题。总而言之，在Fanstratics中，九大派系都会有一个Boss与它们松散的对应起来。

• It is very interesting to know if you are familiar with the gameplay and game mechanics of the subsequent games of Heroes of Might and Magic (IV — VII), and King’s Bounty Legends? Will you take ideas for the most successful game elements from there?
• Fanstratics会不会采用一些英雄无敌后续作品或是国王的恩赐系列作品中的一些游戏要素？
• Speaking of ‘King’s Bounty: The Legend’... While it is more difficult than ever before, due to the sheer quantity of games being published today, I do try to stay market informed. All of the HoMM’s, and HoMM related games, are typically on my radar, and if there is an idea or mechanic I find inspiring... yes... I try to incorporate it. I’d be a fool to ignore a good idea. Keep in mind, for all the people who love a unique element from a specific game, there are always others who hate it. Obviously, as a game designer, this results in a ‘no win’ situation. For myself, this leads to what I find so interesting about this question. It gets to the inherent conflict of any creative endeavor... audience expectations versus author aspirations. Game development is a production triathlon. It requires focused attention, one day after the next, over the course of years. If I’m not in love with the product I’m creating... my desire will evaporate and the production will falter. I must create the game I long to play. With this in mind, for Fanstratics, I have two general design guidelines. First... do I find ‘it’ inspiring (author)? Second... is ‘it’ in the spirit of the original HoMM games (audience)? If I believe the answer to both questions is ‘yes’... I work to integrate ‘it’ into the game (time and budget permitting).
• 废话了一大堆，不过核心就是有参照这些作品中他觉得有趣的地方，有优点不吸收不是傻么。

• In my humble opinion, you should definitely consider making the game cross platform. Many users are switching to Apple and Linux.
• 游戏有没有跨平台的打算，特别是iOS和Linux平台？
• HoMM3 was eventually ported to Linux, so a part of me wants to continue this tradition. Unity makes compiling the game for Linux relatively easy, Steam encourages developers to port their games to Linux, and there’s always Wine. It’s testing, with different distros, with different hardware configurations, where things become complicated. In the end, it’s a cost/benefit issue, with the ultimate question being, “Will we sell enough copies on Linux to reap the costs spent converting and testing the game?” All I can say is, “We will look into it.”
• 未来会考虑。归根结底这是个投入产出比的问题。

以下是Behemoth Cave的采访问答，共18问。

• Let's begin with a topic that always raises a lot of controversy among the community: The Heavenly Forge. Story about the futuristic town and the negative reaction of the Heroes’ fandom which lead to cancelation of the project is well known. The whole criticism was mainly based on materials for the press containing the pictures and information about infamous Naga Tanks, Zombies with chainsaws and Minotaurs with jetpacks. Was this really the actual, up-to-date vision on Heavenly Forge at the time?
• 关于天堂铸造厂的问题。当初E3上放出的铸造族信息，是当时实际准备推出的内容么？
• Yes. Everything now known, was planned, with some obvious exceptions (i.e. the Naga Tanks were not going to be partly nude).
• 是的，目前所有已知的信息都是当时计划推出的内容，只有部分有所调整，比如娜迦坦克当时并没打算设计成半裸的。

• Have you considered “mitigating the design”, “toning it down”?
• 当初有没有考虑过对铸造族进行适当的调整？
• We did go back-and-forth, to a minor degree, about how we might ‘adapt’ the concept, but after the controversy... we were basically unmotivated. We soured on the concept after the negative reaction and the subsequent rift with a portion of the fandom. In the end, it was easier, and more comfortable, to move onto the Conflux, which was waiting in the wings.
• 考虑过，也尝试过，不过最后发现最轻松的方式还是直接换成当时已经准备好的元素族。

• What other ideas for this faction came up among the Heroes 3 developers team?
• 当初英3制作组还有哪些打算推出的种族？
• Jennifer Bullard and the map making team proposed the idea of a Clockwork Town, but I shot it down. New World Computing’s (NWC) art staff was struggling with the Forge, and I had lost confidence in their ability to craft anything not fantasy related.
• Jennifer Bullard和地图制作组当时提议出一个齿轮族，不过我否决了这一建议。NWC的美术组当时正在发愁于铸造族的事情，我对于他们还有没有精力搞出另一个非奇幻相关种族实在没有信心。

• After all these years, can you shed some new light on the technology present in the world of M&M?
• 这么多年过去了，你对于魔法门世界中的科技要素有什么新的看法？
• When it comes to deep Might and Magic lore, Paul Rattner is really the best person to ask, but I will do my best. To start, I’m not sure what you mean by ‘new light’, as what is publicly known is relatively accurate. Regardless, from my understanding, at its most basic, the idea was simple. ‘Ancient’ high technology machines, typically hidden, could be accessed and manipulated to produce ‘magical’ events, via ‘physical and mental ritual’. This excluded high tech machines, such as the Heavenly Forge, which made magical artifacts via simple instruction.
• 我不是这块的行家，不过在我看来，内容其实很简单。远古神民的高科技机器早已隐藏在历史当中，如果能获得它们，则可以制造一些“魔法”事件，比如某些肉体或精神的仪式。这样可以排除像天堂铸造厂一类只需简单指令就可以生产魔法神器的高科技机械。

• Abandoning the idea of Forge also left an empty slot for a new town in expansion, the Armageddon’s Blade. In the end, Conflux made it into the game - a mix of elemental forces. How do you feel about this decision?
• 你对元素族替代铸造族的决定有什么看法？
• In the end, I was satisfied with how it transpired. In general, I like the Conflux town, but I do wish there had been more time to flesh it out.
• 最终我是认可这个决定的，而且我也喜欢元素族，只是希望能有更多的时间打磨一下。

• Have you considered any alternatives for the 9th faction? If so, can you name any of them?
• 你对第9种族有什么其他的设想么？
• As I mentioned, Jennifer Bullard and the map making team came up with the idea for a Clockwork Town, which I liked, but as I mentioned, I had strong doubts the NWC art staff could deliver. Personally, at the time, I didn’t have any further factions in reserve. This doesn’t mean more couldn’t be done, but the overall plan was two new towns (Forge and Conflux), followed by a pure map pack. In the end, it became two expansions: 1 new town (AB) and 1 pure map pack (SoD). Later, the Chronicles were added, which collectively could be considered a third expansion, but this was long after I left NWC.
• 就像刚才提到的，Jennifer Bullard他们提出了一个齿轮族的想法，我挺喜欢，但是我怀疑当时NWC有能力做出来。就我自己而言，并没有什么特定的想法。