30周年回顾 第四章 黄金时代

Chapter Four

"Golden Age"

On the fourteenth of June, 1996, gamers awoke to the online announcement that New World Computing was being acquired by 3DO. In an exchange for more than $13.5 million in securities and assumed debt, the manufacturer of the struggling 3DO gaming console was buying out the Might & Magic developer lock, stock, and barrel. Although it would come as a complete surprise to most gamers, it was a welcome relief to the creators of Heroes.

1996 年 6 月 14 日，玩家们醒来就从网上看到一则通告： NWC 公司已被 3DO 公司收购。3DO 这家处境艰难的电子游戏机制造商用超过 1350 万美元的证券及债务额度，一举收购了《魔法门》系列游戏的开发商—— NWC 整个公司。尽管这一消息对大多数玩家来说是个巨大的意外，但对于《英雄无敌1》的创作者们来说，却是一个令人欣慰的解脱。

Over the previous year, New World Computing had been struggling in an unfulfilling corporate marriage to NTN Communications, a company previously known only for making networked trivia games for bars and restaurants. The deal had been struck in the hopes that New World would gain much-needed capital to expand their distribution, while NTN picked up a catalog of games that had solid brand recognition, including Heroes of Might & Magic. "They were a public company and their investors were telling them 'You need gaming content validity,'" Caldwell said. "You make all these games, but you have no credibility. If you want your stock to go higher, you gotta buy a company that has credibility in the gaming sector." Unfortunately, soon after the deal was struck, NTN's stock values dropped disastrously, and both companies began to critically re-evaluate their relationship. "Two months after the deal, New World was worth a tenth of what we'd sold it for, but because of the terms of the agreement, we couldn't even sell the stock even if we wanted to. We were stuck." After months of disagreements, both parties began seeking avenues to formally dissolve the relationship, with NTN actively seeking to sell off New World Computing while Caneghem went shopping for a new owner. He would find a welcome buyer in gaming entrepreneur Trip Hawkins.

在过去的一年里， NWC 公司一直未能在与 NTN 通信公司的不成功联姻中盼得转机。NTN 通信公司此前以制作供酒吧和餐馆使用的联网问答游戏而闻名，双方达成这笔交易的初衷是希望 NWC 公司能获得急需的资金以扩大其分销渠道，而 NTN 则获得了包括《魔法门之英雄无敌》在内的、一系列具有良好品牌知名度的游戏产品。“他们是一家上市公司，其投资者告诫他们‘你们需要有游戏内容的可信度’。”考德威尔说。“你们制作了这么多游戏，但毫无可靠性可言。如果你们想让股票价格上涨，就必须收购一家在游戏领域有信誉的公司。”不幸的是，交易达成后不久，NTN 的股价急剧下跌，两家公司开始对他们的合作关系进行严格的重新评估。“交易达成两个月后， NWC 公司的持股价值仅为当初出售价格的十分之一，但由于协议条款的规定，即便我们有意出售这些股票，也无法进行操作。我们陷入了僵局。”经过数月的争论，双方开始寻求正式解除合作关系的途径，NTN 积极寻求出售 NWC 公司，而坎内根则在寻找新的买家。最终，他找到了一位颇受欢迎的买家——游戏业企业家特里普·霍金斯。

Hawkins was a legendary figure in the gaming industry, best known for having founded the game publishing goliath Electronic Arts in 1982 (among its many accomplishments, EA would publish Bard's Tale, a notable Might & Magic competitor designed and programmed by Michael Cranford). Nine years later, Hawkins would jump ship to found yet another company, 3DO, which had begun its existence as a video game console manufacturer in 1991, but would transition strictly into a game development company by the time Caneghem came knocking at the door.

霍金斯在游戏行业堪称传奇人物，他最为人所知的是在 1982 年创立了游戏发行巨头艺电。该公司的诸多成就中，也包括发行了《冰城传奇》，这是一款与《魔法门》系列齐名的竞品，其设计和编程工作由迈克尔·克兰福德负责。九年后，霍金斯转而建立了另一家公司—— 3DO，该公司 1991 年的初衷是成为一家游戏机制造商，但在坎内根找上门时，已完全转型为一家游戏开发公司。

"At 3DO, we needed more brands and game titles to grow, and I was a big fan of the pioneering work that Jon Van Caneghem had done with the Heroes of Might and Magic games. I'd always respected Jon and the brand legacy of Might and Magic," Hawkins said, explaining his eagerness to do business with Caneghem. Over the years they'd already had experience working with one another. "EA had helped New World Computing with promotion and distribution back in the '80s and '90s. We also published several of their games on the Sega Genesis format."

“对 3DO 公司来说，我们需要更多的品牌和游戏项目来实现发展，而我非常欣赏乔·万·坎内根在《魔法门之英雄无敌》等游戏方面所做出的开创性工作。我一直很尊重乔以及《魔法门》系列游戏的品牌传承。”霍金斯解释了自己渴望与坎内根开展业务的原因。多年来，他们已经有过合作的经验。“在 20 世纪 80-90 年代，艺电公司曾帮助过 NWC 公司开展了推广和分销业务。我们还在世嘉创世游戏机(MD)上出版了他们的多款游戏。”

The purchase of New World Computing from NTN Communications promised to bring in new resources and a highly valued license to publish on the Sony PlayStation gaming platform. For Caneghem, however, the new deal was about more than money. Work had already begun on the second installment of the Heroes franchise, but the sale to 3DO freed him to focus on what he loved most, working on the games themselves. "The sale really helped us to move forward. For the next few years, things were phenomenal at New World, and it was just a great period creatively. Because I wasn't having to worry about running the whole company anymore, I could do what I wanted, and I had my hands on everything. I think I drew most of the maps for Heroes II myself."

从 NTN 通信公司手中收购 NWC 公司这一举措，有望带来新的资源、以及一份在索尼 PS 游戏平台上的重要出版许可。然而，对坎内根而言，这笔新交易的意义远不止于金钱。《英雄无敌》系列的第二部作品已经启动开发，而被 3DO 公司收购让他能够专心于自己最热爱的事情——即游戏的开发工作。“这次出售确实帮助我们取得了进步。在接下来的几年里，NWC 工作室的发展非常出色，在创意方面也堪称辉煌。因为我不再需要操心整个公司的运营事宜，所以我可以随心所欲地去做自己想做的事，而且我能够掌控好一切。我记得，《英雄无敌2》的大部分地图都是我自己设计的。”

ABOVE: Concept art for the Dwarf, Centaur, Troll, and Dragon creatures in Heroes of Might and Magic II.

上图：《魔法门之英雄无敌2》中矮人、半人马、索尔巨人和龙等生物的概念图。

Caneghem's freedom to concentrate solely on the creative direction of New World was made possible not just by their acquisition by 3DO, but also thanks in part to a less friendly takeover at fellow development house, the Dreamer's Guild. Several key personnel, including its founding president Robert McNally and vice president Walter Hochbrueckner, found themselves abruptly ousted and in need of new opportunities. Following a lunchtime meet up, Mark Caldwell threw Hochbrueckner a lifeline. "Mark basically offered me a job right then and there to come aboard as a producer. I said yes immediately. I didn't even ask what the salary was. I just wanted to work with them so much because I knew about their environment and their attitude toward gamers. It was a love-at-first-sight kind of thing, and I thought I'd be a good fit with them."

坎内根能够全身心地专注于 NWC 的创意设计，并非全是得益于 3DO 对他们的收购，还有一部分是另一家开发公司——“梦想家工会”较不友好的被收购方式。公司的几位关键人员、包括其创始人罗伯特·麦克纳利总裁和沃尔特·霍布克内尔副总裁突然被解职，急需新的发展机会。在一次午餐聚会之后，马克·考德威尔向霍布克内尔伸出了援手。“马克当时当场就给了我一份工作邀请，让我以总监的身份加入。我立刻就答应了，甚至都没问薪水是多少。我就是非常想和他们合作，因为我了解他们的工作环境以及他们对玩家的态度。这是一种一见钟情的感觉，而且我觉得自己会非常适合他们。”

Hochbrueckner was a good pick for New World, and had a reputation for his ability to juggle several different things at once. At the height of the Dreamer's Guild's expansion, he'd been responsible for overseeing the production of nine different games while also serving as the director of QA and sitting on the Guild's finance committee. "It was a lot of work. In fact, it was too much work, and I was happy in many ways to leave that company simply because it was just getting to be too much."

霍布克内尔是 NWC 公司的合适人选，他以能够同时处理多项事务而闻名。在“梦想家工会”扩张的高峰期，他负责监督九款不同游戏的制作，同时还要担任质保部门的主管，并参与公司的财务委员会。他说：“工作量很大。实际上，工作量实在是太大了。从很多方面来说，我很高兴能离开那家公司，因为事情已经变得太过繁重了。”

On his first day at New World Computing, he was finally told what he'd been hired to do. It came as a bit of a shock. "I came walking in the door and they told me, ‘Oh, Walt, by the way, we're going to have you produce Heroes of Might & Magic II.' They'd evidently made a ton of money on the first one and were doing really well with it and they'd already started work on the sequel." Hochbrueckner was excited by the opportunity but admitted that he didn't really know anything about producing games. "They just handed me a copy of the first one and said, 'Here you go! Take a look at it, study it, do it!'"

在来到 NWC 公司的第一天，他终于得知自己被雇来做什么工作，这让他有些惊讶。“我走进公司大门，他们就对我说：‘哦，沃尔特，顺便说一下，我们要让你制作《魔法门之英雄无敌2》这款游戏。’他们显然从第一部游戏中赚了不少钱，这款游戏也做得非常成功，所以他们已经开始着手制作续集了。”霍布克内尔对这个机会感到兴奋，但他也承认自己对实际制作游戏并不内行。“他们只是递给我一份第一部游戏的安装盘，然后说：‘给你！看一看，好好研究下，去做吧！’”

Only a week later, Caneghem asked him if he wanted to do a magazine interview about the project, but Hochbrueckner demurred, saying that he was honored to be asked but he wasn't up to speed yet, and felt it would be in better hands with the Heroes' creator. It was the start of a great working relationship between the two. "We understood each other's jobs, so it made it easy for us to sit down as producers and figure out what we could do realistically. What is possible? What kind of graphics can we do in the time we have?"

仅仅一周之后，坎内根便问他是否愿意参加一次关于该项目的杂志访谈，但霍布克内尔却拒绝了，他表示自己很荣幸能被邀请参与，但目前还没有完全掌握情况，所以觉得交给《英雄无敌》的创作者会更好些。这标志着两人之间开始了一段良好的合作关系。“我们彼此了解对方的工作内容，所以便于我们作为制作人，坐下来讨论确定我们实际能够做些什么、哪些是可行的、在我们所限定的时间内，我们能制作出什么样的图形效果。”

The new producer's skills would win the admiration of his team very quickly, and he established an easy rapport with Julia Ulano, the art director who had established the look of Heroes I, who was returning with an even larger staff of artists. "She was wonderful. She did a great job weaving together the work of all the artists and making sure everything got done."

这位新主管的管理才能很快便赢得了团队成员的钦佩，并且他与艺术总监朱莉娅·乌拉诺也建立了良好的关系。她曾主导了《英雄无敌1》的风格设计，如今带领着一支规模更大的艺术家团队。“她非常了不起。她出色地将所有艺术家的作品融合在一起，并确保所有工作都能顺利完成。”

Phelan Sykes was one of the newest artists on Ulano's team and had recently come aboard New World with an entire development team imported from the East Coast. She remembers Ulano as a hardworking and devoted leader. "She would drive all the way out from Pasadena to Agoura Hills and make that drive in the wee hours of the morning to avoid traffic. She'd get there around five thirty or six in the morning, and then leave at two." By Southern California standards it was a long drive, and would have been monumentally worse if Ulano had attempted to travel during regular commuters' hours. Sykes chuckles at how it affected her schedule, and the peculiar way she'd get orders from her boss in the mornings. "When I would get in at eight thirty in the morning there would be these chains of Post-It notes—she would write on one, and then she would put another one below it, and another one, and another one, and I'd have these chains of them on my time sheet —because we did time sheets back then—and they'd say ‘Frame this, do that, frame this, do that.' So, I'd just sit and pixel punch following her instructions the whole day. Clicky, clicky, clicky, clicky."

菲兰·西克斯是乌拉诺团队中最新的成员之一，她最近加入了 NWC 公司，并且带来了开发商“东海岸”的整个开发团队。她记得乌拉诺是一位勤奋且尽职尽责的领导者。“她会从帕萨迪纳一路驱车前往阿古拉山，甚至会在凌晨时分驱车前往，以避免交通堵塞。她会在 5 点 40 或 6 点到达，然后再于 2 点离开。”以南加州的标准来看，这也是一段漫长的车程，而且乌拉诺要是按正常通勤时间上下班的话，情况要糟糕得多。西克斯轻声笑笑，感慨于这件事对她日程安排的影响，以及她早上从老板那里接收指令的那种奇特方式：“早上八点半我到公司后，就会看到一连串的便签纸。她会在一张纸上写上内容，然后在下面再贴一张，接着是另一张、再一张……我的工作表上就会堆满了这样的便签——对，那时候我们确实有工作表——上面会写着‘准备这个，做那个；准备这个，做那个’。所以，整日里我都会坐在那里，按照她的指示跟像素作斗争。咔哒、咔哒、咔哒、咔哒。”

Bryan Farina, who had recently been moved to Might & Magic VI as a designer, was a particularly big fan of the look that Julia Ulano and Bonnie Hemsath had established in Heroes I and Heroes II. "I really loved their art. The style was kind of an illustrated storybook style, and there was a charm to that. It's not wrapped up in super fifty-billion polygon, ambient occlusion, multi-shader, or whatever. The visuals and the color palette were beautiful, and they were using a wider color palette because they weren't trying to be realistic. And this is a thing in fantasy games. A lot of times when fantasy games try to look realistic it's brown, brown, brown, gray, gray, gray! And it looks like crap. It's so hard to do anything realistic that looks visually interesting when you're in fantasy, because it's stone and metal and dirt and wood. But Julia and Bonnie and the other artists were able to bring the characters to life, and they had really funny animations. It was pleasing to the eye to play those games. They felt like the illustrated books I used to read when I was a kid. Maybe that's just a mark of how old I am. I think of the old stories, and the pictures of fairies, and that old fantasy illustration style. It was more about it being colorful and interesting and sort of imagination provoking than realistic. It was very welcoming to play the game."

而布莱恩·法里纳刚刚被调来，担任《魔法门6》的设计师一职，他是朱莉娅·乌拉诺和邦妮·朗-亨萨特在《英雄无敌1》和《英雄无敌2》中所确立之风格的狂热粉丝：“我真的很喜欢她们的艺术风格。这种风格有点像插画故事书的风格，有一种独特的魅力。它并非充斥着五千亿超大规模多边形、环境光遮蔽、多重着色等等复杂元素，但视觉效果和色彩调性都很美，而且她们使用了更广泛的色调，因为她们并不准备做到完全写实。这是奇幻游戏中的常见现象。很多时候，当奇幻游戏试图做得看起来很逼真时，就会出现要么全是棕色、棕色，要么全是灰色、灰色的情况，简直糟糕透顶！在奇幻游戏中尝试做到视觉上有趣且逼真的东西是非常困难的，因为那是石头、金属、泥土和木材等等。但朱莉娅和邦妮以及其他艺术家却赋予了这些角色生命，它们有着非常有趣的动画效果。玩这些游戏令人赏心悦目。它们感觉就像我小时候读过的那些插画书，也许这只是因为我年纪大了的缘故。我会回想起那些古老的故事、那些关于仙子的图画、还有那种古老的奇幻插画风格。它更强调的是色彩丰富、趣味盎然、能激发想象力，而非追求写实。它非常适合用来玩这个游戏。

The philosophy behind the development of the second Heroes game would be propelled by two key ideas. The first was that it should double down on the key role-playing elements that had been introduced in the previous game. The second was that players should be given even more opportunities of choice. Paul Rattner recalled many long discussions with Caneghem on the subject. "Jon wanted to make certain that we eliminated anything that felt like it was an automatic choice, like things you would always do where we might be making players push a button without any decision-making behind it. Jon called those monkey features. A good example of a monkey feature would be like an armor spell that you cast on everyone in the party, but it didn't really impose any kind of cost to use it. It was just a button we made you push so you might do a little bit better. That's annoying to users. There always needs to be a cost that's forcing the player into making a strategic choice. So, in the previous example, like maybe I can cast armor or I do this other thing, but I can't do both. That's a decision. Maybe I could cast armor, or I could cast an offensive spell. The cost is time, you use a turn, but you've done something meaningful."

开发第二款《英雄无敌》游戏所秉持的理念将由两个核心观点所驱动。其一，应进一步强化前作中引入的那些关键的角色扮演元素。其二，要为玩家提供更多选择的机会。保罗·拉特纳回忆起与坎内根就此话题进行了多次深入的讨论：“乔想要确保我们剔除掉任何那种感觉可以自动决定的行为，即我们常做的那些、在某些情况下会让玩家直接按下按钮而无需进行任何决策的过程。乔将它们称为‘猴子式功能’。一个典型的‘猴子式功能’的例子就是，比如你要为队伍中的所有生物施加一个护甲法术，但使用这个法术并不会产生任何实际的成本。它只是我们让你按下一个按钮，这样你可能会打得稍微好一点。这会让用户感到厌烦，必须要有某种成本来迫使玩家做出战略性的选择。所以在之前的例子中，比如我可以施放护甲法术，或者我做另外一件事，但我不能同时做这两件事，这就是一个决策。也许我可以施放护甲法术，或者我可以施放一个攻击性法术。成本就是时间，你使用一个回合，但你做了有意义的事情。”

The first way in which the design team implemented this idea was to expand the players' choices when it came to their heroes. Two new classes—The Necromancer and the Wizard— would be introduced to round out tactical blind spots that they felt had not been well covered in Heroes I. The Necromancer would provide a well-rounded hero who was equally good at both physical and magical damage, while the Wizard would become the master of devastating long-range magical attacks—providing that he could survive long enough to reach higher levels.

设计团队实现这一理念的第一步是，在玩家选择英雄时为其提供更多选择。新增了两个职业——“亡灵法师”和“男巫”以弥补他们在《英雄无敌1》的战术盲点。亡灵法师是一位全面发展的英雄，他既能造成物理伤害，也能造成魔法伤害，表现均衡；而男巫则是毁灭性远程魔法攻击的高手——前提是他能坚持到更高等级。

The addition of fourteen secondary skills— Archery, Ballistics, Diplomacy, Eagle Eye, Estates, Leadership, Logistics, Luck, Mysticism, Navigation, Necromancy, Pathfinding, Scouting, and Wisdom— would allow players a modest degree of customization to how their characters developed, and how to they could differentiate heroes of the same class from one another if they so desired (so one Knight hero might focus on his Archery skill to lead an army of ranged fighters with superior aim, while a secondary Knight could be trained up in Pathfinding so that he could specialize in ferrying troops across challenging terrain in a rapid fashion).

游戏还新增了 14 项次要技能：箭术、弹道术、征兵术、鹰眼术、理财术、领导术、后勤术、幸运术、神秘术、领航术、召魂术、探路术、侦察术以及智慧术等技能将为玩家提供一定程度的角色发展自定义选项，使玩家能够根据自身意愿让同一职业的英雄们有所区别（比如，一名骑士英雄可能会专注于箭术技能，从而率领一支拥有更精准射术的远程战士组成的军队；而第二名骑士则可以通过强化探路术技能来专门用于快速运送部队穿越复杂地形）。

Another new RPG-like feature that was introduced allowed the player to buy upgrades for some structures in their towns. Most of these upgrades would allow higher level creatures to be recruited from the new buildings (though at a greater cost of resources), forcing players to choose whether they wanted more or better troops. Some town upgrades would instead allow for the town's castle fortifications to be improved, improving the chances of them being held against enemy sieges.

另外一项引入的类似角色扮演游戏的新功能允许玩家为他们城镇中的某些建筑购买升级服务。这些升级中的大部分都将使玩家能够从新建筑中招募到更高级别的生物（不过需要投入更多的资源），这迫使玩家决定是想要更多数量的兵力还是更优质的兵力。而一些城镇升级则会允许对城镇的城堡防御工事进行改进，从而提高其抵御敌方攻城作战的能力。

Possibly the most radical way in which Caneghem thought they could empower player choice was putting the keys to the kingdom in the player's hands. He wanted to release the same editors to the public that they were using internally to create maps. "I had always had the philosophy that when someone bought a game it was their game. Whatever they want to do with it, they can do it. They can hack it. They can make dragons cost a dollar. The point was for the players to have fun, so I wanted to give them a tool to change the game to suit their preferences. Maybe they want smaller maps, or they want bigger maps. Maybe they want to mess with the stats. That's what I was doing at New World, making it how I wanted to play it. I would tweak difficulty settings and test things. Can I beat it at this setting? Can I beat it at that setting? So it was a big challenge to me. I thought, why not open that up to everyone?"

或许坎内根认为能够最大程度地赋予玩家选择权的最激进方式，就是将王国之匙交到玩家手中。他希望将那些内部使用的地图编辑工具开放给公众使用。“我一直秉持这样的理念：当有人购买一款游戏时，那就是属于他们的游戏。无论他们想如何使用它，都可以自由操作。他们可以对其进行修改，可以将龙的售价定为一美元。关键在于让玩家能够获得乐趣，所以我希望为他们提供一个工具，以便他们根据自己的喜好来改变游戏。也许他们想要较小的地图，或者想要更大的地图。也许他们想调整一些数据。这就是我在 NWC 所做的，也就是按照我想要的方式来设计这款游戏。我会调整难度设置并进行测试。在这样的设置下我能通关吗？在那样的设置下我能通关吗？所以这在我看来是一个巨大的挑战。我想，为什么不把这个开放给所有人呢？”

Artist Phelan Sykes remarked on using the Heroes toolset for the first time, recalling how powerful and entertaining it was to use. "They needed help with the levels. They were laid out, but at the time the level designers were basically QA guys, so while everything worked from a mechanical point of view, they just looked absolutely ass. They asked me to pick up the level editor and see what I could do, and it was actually pretty decent. You would click on an item, and then you could stamp it down, pick another, stamp it down. I went to freaking town and was able to make everything look great because I could layer up all this stuff to create new things. It was pretty fun."

艺术家菲兰·西克斯回忆起首次使用《英雄无敌》编辑工具时，它是多么地强大和有趣。“他们需要在关卡设计方面得到帮助。关卡布局已经做好了，但当时关卡设计师基本上就是质保人员，所以尽管从机制角度来看一切运作正常，但这些关卡看起来简直糟糕透顶。他们让我拿起关卡编辑器看看我能做些什么，结果还真不错。你可以点击一个物品，然后就可以将其放下，再选择另一个物品，然后将其放下。我全力以赴，最终能够让一切看起来很棒，因为我能够层层叠加这些元素来创造新的东西。这真的很有趣。”

Bryan Farina was also a big fan of the tool and had been using variations on it since the beginning of the series. "In Heroes I, we had made a ton of maps, and then built the campaign out of that library we created. The maps that didn't end up as the campaign were the maps that ended up being the single shots. The campaign design for Heroes II was a little more organized, and they would come in and say, ‘Okay, here's the campaign we're gonna do. We're gonna have the good campaign one through eight, and evil's one through thirteen' or whatever it was. And then he'd divvy them up and say, 'You get good two, good seven, and evil three.' And then Paul Rattner might tell you details like, 'You're going to be fighting a Warlock and da, da, da.' And then you'd be off to make that work. And the toolset made that really easy for anybody to do."

布莱恩·法里纳也对这款工具十分喜爱，并且从系列游戏伊始就一直在使用其各种变体版本。“在《英雄无敌1》中，我们制作了大量的地图，然后基于我们创建的这个地图库构建了整个战役，有些最终没有成为战役内容则用作为单幅地图。《英雄无敌2》的战役设计则要更有条理一些，他们会进来说：“好的，这就是我们要做的战役。我们会设计出善良一方的战役一至八关、邪恶一方的战役一至十三关（或者其他类似的关数）。然后他们会把这些划分出来，并说，你负责善良的第二关、善良的第七关，邪恶的第三关。’接着保罗·拉特纳可能会告诉你一些细节，比如‘你要和一个巫师战斗，等等等等。’然后你就着手去实现这个设计。而这套工具集让任何人都能轻松完成这项工作。”

When the idea of releasing the tool for the public was taken to Caldwell, he took absolutely no convincing. "I was a big fan of the idea. The level editor was a masterpiece. We were already using it internally to develop the product, so why not ship it, let people design their own levels and games, and distribute them for other users to play? It was a genius move." For the most part he believes what was released to gamers was identical to what was used in-house, though a few minor changes were made, mostly to take out some "administrative functions" which might prove problematic to the game's stability.

当把该工具向公众开放的想法告知考德威尔时，他根本不需要进一步的说服工作。“我非常赞同这个想法，关卡编辑器堪称杰作。我们已经在内部使用它来开发产品，那为什么不将其推出，让玩家自行设计关卡和游戏，并分发给其他用户来玩呢？这是一个极具创意的举措。 ”在很大程度上，他认为向玩家发布的版本与内部使用的版本可以基本相同，只是做了些小改动，主要是删除了一些“管理功能”，因为这些功能可能会对游戏的稳定性造成问题。

In the end, the release of the editor would prove to be one of the most exciting additions to Heroes II. The fan site Celestial Heavens, previously devoted to walkthroughs, interviews, tutorials, and forums for all things Might & Magic, soon also became an important portal for exchanging tips on making Heroes maps, testing them, and distributing them to other players. Caneghem was astonished. Although he had expected players to enjoy making things for themselves, he hadn't foreseen how big a role the map editor would play in the longevity of the Heroes series. "The internet world was still growing, and people were beginning to seriously start sharing files. It became an absolute monster, just in terms of the multiplier that made that game ten times more impactful than it ever was on its own. All the player-created content helped keep the game alive forever."

最终，这款编辑器的发布被证明是《英雄无敌2》的众多新增内容中最令人兴奋的一项。此前专注于攻略指南、访谈、教程以及《魔法门》相关论坛的粉丝网站“Celestial Heavens”，很快也成为了交流制作《英雄无敌》地图技巧、测试地图并将其分发给其他玩家的重要平台。坎内根感到十分惊讶，尽管他原本预期玩家会乐于自己动手制作内容，但他未曾料到这款地图编辑器会在《英雄无敌》系列的长久发展过程中扮演如此重要的角色。“互联网世界仍在不断壮大，人们也开始真正地分享文件。它变成了一股绝对强大的力量，仅仅是靠这种乘数效应就使得这款游戏的影响力比其单独存在时要高出十倍。所有玩家创作的内容帮助这款游戏永远保持着活力。”

While most of the new features placed on the table for Heroes II were natural outgrowths or expansions of previous ideas, there was one concept that seemed to come entirely from left field. It would prove to be one of the most controversial decisions made during the production, and it would originate in the sound department, of all places.

虽然《英雄无敌2》中新增的大部分功能都是基于之前想法的自然延伸或拓展，但有一个概念似乎完全是凭空产生的。它后来被证明是整个制作过程中最具争议性的决策之一，而且它的起源竟然是在音乐部门。

ABOVE: Paul Romero (left) and Rob King (right) have been a soundtrack power duo since first teaming up to create the music for Heroes I.

上图：保罗·罗梅罗（左）和罗布·金（萝卜王）自首次合作为《英雄无敌1》创作音乐以来，便一直是一对出色的配乐搭档。

Rob King had joined the company in February of 1994 as a sound guy, cutting his teeth first on providing audio support for the numerous small developers that New World was publishing. "I was doing the sound for all the external guys 'cause all these little developers were like one dude in his house somewhere. They were usually a programmer. They'd be doing all this stuff, but they wouldn't be a sound guy, or a music guy, or an artist, so we would use whatever resources we had to flesh out the games we were publishing."

罗布·金于 1994 年 2 月加入 NWC 公司，担任音响师一职，最初的工作是为公司所发行的众多小型开发商游戏提供音频支持。“我为所有外部人员提供音响服务，因为这些小型开发商大多是一个人在家做的游戏。他们通常是程序员，他们会做很多工作，但他们既不是音响师，也不是音乐师，更不是艺术家，所以我会利用现有的资源来完善我们所发行的游戏。”

Initially King's biggest challenges at the company were dealing with limited data budgets. He had to squeeze as much audio quality as could be managed into the smallest possible file sizes, a task that constantly frustrated his audiophile sensibilities. “Every time I took something to the programmers they'd be asking me, 'How do you make it smaller? How do you make it smaller?' So, I was always trying to get everything down to eight-bit eleven, at least twenty-two." With a little technical wrangling on Mark Caldwell's part, however, King soon found that they had more room on the game disks for sound and music. "Adding MP3 audio was a big deal,” Caldwell explains. "We didn't have enough space on the disks to store WAV audio. And at this point it was really difficult to get different kinds of compression to work at a high quality. Then MP3 came along. It was a big challenge to get it working, but Heroes was the very first game to feature MP3 audio. Thanks to that, we could add much more music and at a higher quality."

起初，金在公司面临的最大挑战就是如何合理分配有限的数据空间。他必须将尽可能高的音频质量压缩进尽可能小的文件中，而这一任务却常常令他这位音频发烧友感到沮丧。“每次我把东西交给程序员时，他们都会问我：‘你怎样才能把文件做得更小？怎样才能把文件做得更小？’所以，我总是在试图把所有内容都压缩到 8 比特 11 千赫，最少 22 千赫。”不过，在马克·考德威尔的一些技术调整下，金很快发现游戏光盘上有了更多的空间来容纳声音和音乐。“添加 MP3 音频非常重要。”考德威尔解释道，“光盘上没有足够的空间来存储 WAV 音频。而且在这个时候，很难让各种不同的压缩方式在高质量下正常工作。后来 MP3 出现了，要让它正常运行是个巨大的挑战，但《英雄无敌》是第一款采用 MP3 音频的游戏。多亏了这一点，我们能够添加更多的音乐，并且以更高的质量进行播放。”

With his horizons greatly broadened for creating music, King was happy to explore new possibilities. "I come from writing pop music mostly. I wanted to score bigger arrangements, but I had limited experience with that. Then randomly, when we started working on Heroes, a girl I was dating took me to a party at her boss's place in the Castle Green in Pasadena. All these musicians were there, classical musicians, and there was food, and everyone was just playing music. So, I ended up in the kitchen where I meet this guy named Paul Romero." King would discover that Romero was a world-class pianist, had grown up as something of a prodigy, and had some limited experience in writing classical scores. King asked Romero if he would assist him with a few baroque ideas that he was working on.

由于在创作音乐方面的视野得到了极大的拓展，金很乐意去探索新的可能性。“原本我主要创作流行音乐，而我想要创作规模更大的作品，但我在这方面的经验有限。后来偶然间，当我们开始为《英雄无敌》无敌创作时，我正在交往的一个女孩带我去她在帕萨迪纳市格林堡的老板家参加派对。所有的音乐家都在那里，包括古典音乐家，当然还有食物，每个人都在演奏音乐。后来，我来到了厨房，在那里遇到了一个叫保罗·罗梅罗的人。”金发现罗梅罗是一位世界级的钢琴家，他自幼就是一位神童，并且在创作古典乐谱方面也有一定的经验。于是金请求罗梅罗帮他完成一些巴洛克风格的构想。

ABOVE: Kareen Meshagan was only seventeen years old when she sang mezzosoprano in the operatic themes of Heroes II. She returned later to provide vocalizations for Heroes IV and Heroes VII.

上图：卡琳·梅沙甘在 17 岁时就以女高音的演唱方式参与了《英雄无敌2》的歌剧主题曲创作。后来她再次回归，为《英雄无敌4》和《英雄无敌7》提供了唱段部分。

The magnificent Heroes I soundtrack would be the product of their first creative collaboration and was met with great success. When the time rolled around for King to begin work on Heroes II, he became intrigued by something that had never been done on the soundtrack of any computer game. "I got the idea I wanted to have opera singers in a video game. I thought this could be really cool, or it could go really badly. The key was that it would have to be something super melodic and beautiful, not just some gut-wrenching opera shit that would just drive someone to drink. I was very conscious that it had to be just right, or people were going to be 'What the fuck,' like this is crazy. But Paul Romero liked the idea, and he had a couple friends who were professional touring opera singers."

《英雄无敌1》的壮丽配乐是他们首次合作的成果，并取得了巨大成功。当金开始着手为《英雄无敌2》配乐时，他对游戏配乐中从未有过的某种创新产生了浓厚兴趣。“我有了这样一个想法，那就是要在游戏中加入歌剧演唱者。我觉得这可能会非常酷，也可能会搞得很砸。关键在于它必须是极具旋律性和美感的东西，而不能只是那种让人痛苦欲绝的歌剧内容，那种只会让人借酒消愁的东西。我非常清楚，它必须恰到好处，否则人们会说‘这到底是什么鬼玩意儿’，会觉得这太疯狂了。但保罗·罗梅罗很喜欢这个主意，而且他正好有几个朋友是职业的歌剧巡演歌手。”

King's idea was met with varying reactions by the rest of the Heroes team. Paul Rattner embraced it as weird but welcome experiment, and project producer Hochbrueckner was similarly supportive. "I thought about it and told Rob, 'You know what, I happen to be into classical music. I'm not that much into opera, but it could be interesting to try it.'" Hochbrueckner approved King's idea, but initially had to fight with 3DO to keep the opera in the game. "The execs at 3DO told me 'We don't want this in here. No one does. People who play games don't listen to opera. It's going to turn them off and they're not going to play it." Bryan Farina was another fan of its introduction. "I was just gushing. I've done some stuff with musical theory, and it was like, all of this stuff is there in each of the different towns, like the instrument selections and the key choices... it all makes sense, and it fits so well. I was like 'We have to do this!'" Caneghem remained dubious. "Jon always hated the opera,” King said. "He was like, ‘People are gonna hate this, man. You're crazy.' But I assured him that it was going to work, and asked him to just let me do it. He agreed only under the condition that we have an option where you can turn it off in the sound preferences. So I mixed all the music so you can mute the voices but still hear the music."

金的想法在《英雄无敌》团队的其他成员中引起了不同的反应。保罗·拉特纳将其视为一种奇特但有益的尝试，并且项目制作人霍布克内尔也表示支持。“我思考了一下，然后告诉罗布，你知道吗，我其实挺喜欢古典音乐的。我对歌剧并不是特别感兴趣，但尝试一下可能会很有趣。”霍布克内尔赞同了金的想法，但起初他不得不与 3DO 公司抗争，以确保能把歌剧元素保留到游戏中。“ 3DO 的高管跟我说：‘我们不想把歌剧放进去，没有人愿意。玩游戏的人不会听歌剧的，这会让他们失去兴趣，他们也不会再玩这个游戏了。’”布莱恩·法里纳也是引入歌剧的支持者。“我简直激动不已。我曾做过一些与音乐理论相关的工作，然后就觉得，每个城镇里都应该有这些元素，比如乐器的选择和调性的选择……一切都合情合理，而且会搭配得非常好。我当时就想‘我们必须这么做！’”而坎内根仍然持怀疑态度。“乔一直讨厌歌剧。”金道，“他说：‘人们肯定会讨厌这个，伙计。你疯了。’但我向他保证这会成功的，并请他让我去做这件事。他直到我们加了一个选项，让玩家能够在音效设置中将其关闭之后才同意了。所以我又进行了混音，这样你可以把歌声关掉，但仍能听到音乐。”

King and Romero's experiment would work very well, and was even met with critical acclaim. "All sorts of programs were putting the music on, and we got all these amazing reviews," Hochbrueckner said. "People thought the opera was fantastic, something really innovative for a computer game. I was really proud about giving Rob and Paul the go-ahead to try it."

金和罗梅罗的实验效果非常好，并且还获得了广泛的好评。“各种各样的节目都在播放这段音乐，我们收到了许多令人高兴的评价。”霍布克内尔说，“人们都认为这部歌剧非常出色，对于一款电脑游戏而言，这实在是具有开创性的创新之作。我非常自豪能够批准让罗布和保罗去尝试一下。”

While the development team pounded away on the mountain of new features for Heroes II, 3DO was eyeing the production schedule. New World assured their new owners that they could get everything done that was being proposed, but 3DO's management didn't believe it would be possible for Heroes II to ship by its intended date. Nonetheless, Walter Hochbrueckner stood by his assertions that they could do it and heroically forged ahead.

在开发团队致力于为《英雄无敌2》开发大量新功能的同时，3DO 公司也在关注着生产进度。 NWC 公司向他们的新东家保证，他们能够按规划完成所有的任务，但 3DO 公司的管理层并不认为《英雄无敌2》能够按照预定日期完成交付。无论如何，沃尔特·霍布克内尔还是坚持自己的观点，认为他们能够做到，并英勇地继续推进工作。

For the most part, production rolled on smoothly with few unexpected problems. As the completion deadline loomed closer however, a few elements began to run behind initial estimates, and 3DO once again reiterated their concerns. Rather than be daunted by their criticism, Hochbrueckner dug into the numbers. "We were under the gun for Heroes II, but Walter Hochbrueckner was actually a very good producer," Phelan Sykes said. "He literally had the work down to man hours. When it came down to the crunch, he calculated if we just did one extra hour a day for X number of weeks, we would complete it on time. And sure enough, we got it done."

总体而言，生产工作进展顺利，未出现太多意外问题。然而，随着完工期限的临近，一些环节开始超出最初的预期，3DO 再次表达了他们的担忧。霍布克内尔并未因这些批评而气馁，而是深入研究了相关数据。“我们在制作《英雄无敌2》时压力很大，但沃尔特·霍布克内尔实际上是一位非常出色的制作人。”菲兰·西克斯说，“他能把工作精确到工时。在关键时刻，他计算出如果我们每天多工作一小时，持续X周，就能按时完成。果然，我们做到了。”

With Heroes II complete and out the door to even bigger sales success than its predecessor, Hochbrueckner received an invitation to 3DO's annual holiday party in San Francisco but opted instead to take his wife on vacation. "I couldn’t tell her, 'I'm gonna cancel a trip to Italy after you not seeing me for the last year and a half.' I wasn't going to do that to her or to myself." Mark Caldwell would attend in his stead, and would receive a surprise award for the Heroes team.

《英雄无敌2》按时完成并成功发行，还取得了比前作更为出色的销售成绩。霍布克内尔因此收到了参加 3DO 在旧金山举办之年度假日派对的邀请，但他还是选择和妻子一起去旅游。“我不能告诉她‘虽然过去一年半你都没见过我，我还是得取消去意大利的旅行计划。’我不会那样对她，也不会那样对自己。”马克·考德威尔将代替他出席，并为《英雄无敌》团队获得一个惊喜奖项。

"We got the Flying Pig Award,” Caldwell explained. "It was this internal thing at 3DO that had started when Trip Hawkins was developing the original 3DO gaming console, before they went exclusively into software development. Trip would be telling the press 'Oh, it's gonna do this, it's gonna do that,' and the press would put out these articles responding, 'Yeah, when pigs fly.' So Trip took it up as a kind of internal mantra, right? We're gonna make pigs fly! It turned into the Flying Pig Award. If a 3DO team could do the impossible, you'd win the Flying Pig."

“我们获得了‘飞猪奖’。”考德威尔解释道，“这源于 3DO 公司内部的一个理念，始于特里普·霍金斯开发最初的 3DO 游戏机的时候，那时他们还未完全专注于软件开发。特里普会向媒体宣称‘嘿，它会做到这个，它会做到那个’，而媒体则会发表文章回应说‘哼，除非猪会飞’。于是特里普将其当作一种内部的口头禅，也就是‘我们要让猪飞起来！’这个理念逐渐演变成了‘飞猪奖’。如果3DO的团队能够完成不可能的任务，那么他们就能赢得‘飞猪奖’。”

Hochbrueckner would only learn about his win after returning from vacation. "Apparently Trip wasn't happy that I didn't show up because there he was complimenting me and telling everyone what a wonderful job I'd done. And I wasn't there."

霍布克内尔直到旅游归来后才得知自己获奖的消息。“显然，特里普并不高兴我没有出现，因为在会上他一直在夸赞我，并向所有人讲述我做得有多么出色。可我却不在场。”

In the moment of recounting winning the award, Hochbrueckner froze for a moment and stared wide-eyed into the Zoom call camera. "My gosh," he gasped. "I just realized it was just shortly after that that I was cut loose. I've never thought about that before."

在讲述自己获奖那一刻，霍布克内尔愣了一下，瞪大眼睛直视着视频通话的摄像头。“天哪。”他倒抽一口气说道，“我刚刚才意识到，我就在那之后被解雇了。我之前从未想过这一点。”

恩洛斯的背叛 - Betrayal at Enroth

"I remember talking with Phil Steinmeyer about the story for Heroes II, and he felt really strongly that he wanted a big betrayal as part of what I'd be writing," Paul Rattner recalled. At an important moment in the campaign, players would be given the option to switch their allegiances between Roland and Archibald, with interesting consequences for the gameplay. They would sacrifice certain advantages they had gained from their initial allegiance, but would gain some cool new bonuses, and betrayers had a slightly easier time winning than those who remained loyal. It became a way of getting around some of the more difficult maps.

“我记得曾和菲尔·斯坦梅耶讨论过《英雄无敌2》的故事，他非常坚定地表示，他希望我写的故事中能包含一场重大的背叛情节。”保罗·拉特纳回忆道。在战役中的一个重要时刻，玩家将能够选择改变自己的阵营归属，再度从罗兰德和阿基巴德中做出选择，这会给游戏玩法带来有趣的变化。他们会舍弃最初阵营所获得的一些优势，但会获得一些酷炫的新奖励。而且背叛者赢得游戏要比那些保持忠诚的玩家要稍简单一些，这成为了一种绕过一些较难地图的方法。

The expansion pack, Heroes of Might & Magic II: The Price of Loyalty, would follow up on this theme and be produced by external development house Cyberlore. It would introduce four new campaigns: "The Price of Loyalty," "Descendants,""The Wizard's Isle," and "The Voyage Home."

这款资料片名为《魔法门之英雄无敌2：忠诚的代价》，它将延续这一主题，并由外包开发公司赛博洛尔负责制作。该资料片将新增四个战役：《忠诚的代价》、《后裔》、《术士之岛》和《归家之旅》。

ABOVE: Concept art drawn from Cyberlore's 1996 proposal for The Price of Loyalty.

上图：赛博洛尔公司 1996 年提交的《忠诚的代价》概念图。