30周年回顾 第五章 更高标准

Chapter Five

"Setting the High Bar"

On the twentieth anniversary of its release in 2019, lead designer Greg Fulton noted his astonishment while watching a Twitch stream for Heroes of Might & Magic III. "Just last week, I saw over 12,500 people, largely Russian, watching HoMM3 multiplayer games on Twitch," Fulton recounted in a GoodGame.ru interview. "It absolutely blows me away, when a twenty-year-old game I designed creeps into the modern Twitch Top Twenty. I knew HoMM had Russian fans, but I had no idea the base was so large, so dedicated, and so passionate."

在 2019 年《魔法门之英雄无敌3》发行 20 周年之际，首席设计师格雷格·富尔顿在观看该游戏的 Twitch 直播时，表示自己感到十分惊讶。“就在上周，我看到超过 12500 人（主要是俄罗斯人）在 Twitch 上观看《魔法门之英雄无敌3》的多人游戏。”富尔顿在接受 GoodGame.ru 的采访时这样说道，“一款我设计了 20 年的游戏竟然能进入现代 Twitch 直播的前 20 名，这简直让我震惊不已。我知道《英雄无敌》有俄罗斯粉丝，但我没想到这个粉丝群体会如此庞大、如此忠实、如此热情。”

Five years after Fulton's comments, the Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete Edition is listed as the top-selling game of all time on GOG.com, a major online retailer specializing in classic games. KilgOre_TrOut, the screen name for one of GOG.com's official Twitch streamers, wasn't at all surprised by its popularity. "The HoMM games are massively addictive, and the hours just fly by. I think the key to its ongoing success and popularity is how it's a deep, detailed strategy game hidden in the guise of a very basic-looking fantasy RPG." Whether measured by critical acclaim, YouTube videos, blog posts, fan-site reviews, or sales figures, HoMM3 is widely considered to be the mark against which all other iterations of the game are judged. Few players can pinpoint the key element that drew them in, but it seems to have integrated all the right ingredients of its predecessors into a landmark game. Among its creators, however, almost everyone credits its success to the phenomenal chemistry of its team.

在富尔顿发表上述言论五年后，《魔法门之英雄无敌3完全版》在 GOG.com （优秀老游戏，波兰一家专注于经典游戏的大型在线零售商）上被列为有史以来最畅销的游戏。GOG 的官方 Twitch 主播之一 Kilg0re_Tr0ut 并未对这款游戏的受欢迎程度感到惊讶：“《魔法门之英雄无敌》系列游戏极具吸引力，玩家会沉迷其中，时间仿佛飞逝而过。我认为其持续成功和广受欢迎的关键在于它是一款深邃、细致的战略游戏，却以一种非常简易的奇幻角色扮演游戏的形式呈现出来。”无论是从评论认可度、YouTube 视频、博客文章、粉丝网站评论还是销售数据来看，《魔法门之英雄无 3》都被广泛认为是衡量其他版本迭代的标准。很少有玩家能够指出这款游戏吸引他们的关键元素所在，但似乎它将前作的所有优秀元素都整合进了这款具有里程碑意义的作品中。然而，在其开发者当中，几乎所有人都将游戏的成功归功于团队之间非凡的默契配合。

Other than Jon Van Caneghem, there's no other person more frequently associated with the pre-Ubisoft era of the Heroes of Might & Magic franchise than director David Mullich. Two years before he'd be tapped to lead the third game in the series, he first bumped into Caneghem when they were placed on a panel together for the 1994 Game Developer's Conference. "The panel was called ‘Art and Craft of Game Design,' and it was organized by Margot Comstock," Mullich recalled. "We had a pretty incredible lineup of people with us including Sid Meier, Don Daglow, and Jordan Mechner." The two hit it off well during the panel. "After it was over, JVC said, 'You know, we ought to work together one day.'"

除了乔·万·坎内根之外，没有哪个人比总监大卫·穆里奇更频繁地被与前育碧时代的《魔法门之英雄无敌》联系在一起。在被委任领导该系列的第三部游戏之前，他曾在 1994 年的游戏开发者大会上与乔·万·坎内根一同参加一个小组讨论。“这个小组讨论的主题是‘游戏设计的艺术与技巧’，是由玛戈特·康斯托克（游戏杂志《软谈》主编，2022 年逝世）组织的。”穆利奇回忆道，“我们当时邀请了众多杰出人物参加，包括席德·梅尔、唐·道格劳和乔丹·麦其纳。”在小组讨论期间，两人相处得非常融洽。“讨论结束后，乔·万·坎内根说，你知道吗，我们以后应该一起合作。”

A few years later, Mullich would learn that his employer, Cyberdreams, was closing down. Notifying his network of colleagues that he was soon going to be in the market for a new job, he was contacted by John Krause, a friend at New World who told Mullich they were on the hunt for a new director. Caneghem and general manager Mark Caldwell quickly called Mullich in for an interview. Like his predecessor Hochbrueckner, he was sent home with the most recent version of Heroes and asked to return with his ideas on how he'd choose to improve it. It was a tough assignment. "It was one of the most fun games I'd ever played, and that scared me. Like 'Damn, there's no place for me to go!' It was considered one of the greatest turn-based strategy games of its time." After giving it a little more consideration, he realized there actually was room for improvement. "The graphics were about five years behind the time. At the very least, I could bring them up to date, and make sure they were state of the art." Caldwell and Caneghem agreed with his assessment and admitted they'd been dissatisfied with the art direction the Heroes games had been taking, but they'd not had the heart to dismiss Julia Ulano from the position. They told Mullich once he assumed the role, that would be his first responsibility, but there was one more hurdle he'd have to clear before they could hire him. There was a phone call he'd have to take first.

几年后，穆里奇得知他的雇主“赛博梦境”公司即将倒闭。他通知了自己所在的整个团队，告知他们自己即将寻找一份新工作。随后，约翰·克劳斯（一位在 NWC 工作的朋友）联系了穆里奇，告诉他说他们正在寻找一位新的主管。坎内根和总经理马克·考德威尔迅速邀请穆里奇前来参加面试。和他的前任霍布克内尔一样，穆里奇被要求带着最新版的《英雄无敌》回家，并带上自己对于如何改进这款游戏的想法回来。这是一项艰巨的任务。“那是我玩过的最有趣游戏之一，这让我感到害怕。就像‘该死的，我没有上升空间了！’它被认为是那个时代最伟大的回合制策略游戏之一。”在进一步考虑之后，他意识到其实确实还有改进的空间。“游戏画面落后于当时的时间大约有五年。至少我可以让它们跟上时代，确保它们达到最先进的水平。”考德威尔和坎内根同意了他的评估，并承认他们对《英雄无敌》系列游戏所采取的艺术方向感到不满，但他们并没有勇气解雇朱莉娅·乌拉诺。他们告诉穆里奇，一旦他承担起这个角色，这将是他的第一项职责。但在此之前，他们还有一个障碍得让他克服：他得先接一个电话。

In the past few years, it had become the habit of 3DO's founder Trip Hawkins to personally interview every key hire in every division, even though it was unlikely that Hawkins would ever directly interact with any project directors at New World. Heroes, however, was a special title because—as it was becoming increasingly clear—the series was becoming the top moneymaker for the developer. The pressure was on for Mullich to do well, but his concerns ran deeper than simply impressing upon Hawkins that he was capable of doing the job. Ten years earlier, Mullich had owned a company called Electric Transit that had published games through the Electronic Arts affiliated label publisher program. Unfortunately, due to miscommunication and overestimates of sales by EA, Electric Transit had been left with over ten thousand unshipped units being held in an EA warehouse and a factory bill that would drive Mullich's company out of business. Fortunately, Hawkins either had forgotten about their shared history, or chose to ignore it, and their interview call went ahead as scheduled.

在过去几年里，3DO 的创始人特里普·霍金斯养成了一个习惯，即亲自与每个部门的关键员工进行面谈，尽管霍金斯不太可能直接与 NWC 公司的任何项目负责人进行接触，但《英雄无敌》的这个职位却是个特殊角色，因为情况越来越明显，这个系列正成为该公司的主要盈利来源。因此，穆里奇面临着巨大的压力，但他所在意的远不止向霍金斯证明自己有能力胜任这份工作。十年前，穆里奇拥有一家名为“电通运输”的公司，该公司通过电子艺界旗下的标志性出版商计划发行游戏。不幸的是，由于沟通不畅以及电子艺界对销量的高估，电通运输公司有超过一万盒未发货的游戏留在了电子艺界的一间仓库里，并且还有一张会导致穆里奇公司破产的工厂账单。幸运的是，霍金斯要么是忘记了他们之间的过往关系，要么是选择不予理会，他们的面试安排照常进行。

"It was the longest phone interview I've ever had," Mullich said of his talk with Hawkins. "I think he asked me four questions during the entire interview. For the rest of the time, he talked about himself. This goes on for like an hour and a half." To make things more stressful, Mullich was at home alone with his baby when the child began to cry and needed to be attended to. As Hawkins continued to talk, the baby's cries went longer and longer, forcing Mullich into a distressing dilemma. "I'm thinking, I can't leave. This person I'm talking to is probably the most powerful person in the game industry right now, and I can't just hang up on him." Ultimately Mullich found the strength to beg off the call. "I guess he was happy with whatever little I said. I still got the job."

“这是我所经历过最长的电话面试了，”穆里奇谈到与霍金斯的交谈时说道，“整个面试过程中，他只问我了四个问题。其余时间里，他都在谈论他自己。这样的对话持续了大约一个半小时。”让事情变得更紧张的是，当时穆里奇独自一人在家，还带着他的孩子。孩子开始哭闹，需要得到照顾，而霍金斯还在继续讲话，孩子的哭声也越来越长，这让穆里奇陷入了痛苦的两难境地。“我心想，‘我不能离开。我正在交谈的这个人可能是目前游戏行业里最有权势的人，我不能就这么挂掉他的电话。’”最终，穆利奇还是鼓起勇气打断了电话。“我想他对我所说的那点内容应该是满意的。我还是得到了那份工作。”

The day that Mullich reported in to start work on Heroes III was also the first day for lead designer Greg Fulton. Armed with a yellow legal pad filled with ideas, Fulton and Mullich quickly established that they were on the same wavelength. Both had come in armed with reference books pooled from early editions of Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer, the reference materials which would inform Heroes' new grittier look. "At the time, extreme sports were very popular," Mullich said. "My concept going in was that I wanted extreme fantasy. I wanted it to be much darker and grittier like what was in Warhammer and less of the candy-colored characters that they had."

穆里奇正式开始负责《英雄无敌3》的制作那天，也是首席设计师格雷格·富尔顿的入职首日。富尔顿手里拿着一本黄色的便签本，上面写满了想法。穆里奇和他很快就发现彼此的想法不谋而合。两人都带着从早期《龙与地下城》和《战锤》系列中收集来的参考书来到这里，这些参考资料将为《英雄无敌》的这部作品带来更粗犷的风格。“当时，极限运动非常流行。”穆里奇说，“我最初的想法是想要一种极限奇幻风格。我希望它更黑暗、更粗犷，就像《战锤》中的风格，而不是他们所拥有的那种一身糖果色的角色。”

During this first confab between the two, they would be interrupted by a person introducing themselves as the lead programmer. Mullich and Fulton were both reticent to name the individual, but Fulton simply dubbed the interloper with the moniker of "Wario." Unlike the newcomers, Wario had been with New World for a while, and he projected an attitude that he was the guardian of the game. It would be the start of a contentious—but thankfully brief relationship with Fulton and Mullich on one side and Wario on the other.

在这两人首次的交谈中，他们被一位自称是首席程序员的人打断。穆里奇和富尔顿都不愿透露这人的姓名，但富尔顿将这位闯入者简称为“瓦里奥”。与新来的这些人不同，瓦里奥已经在 NWC 工作了一段时间，他表现出一副自己是游戏守护者的姿态。这将是一段充满争吵的关系（但幸运的是很短暂），一边是富尔顿和穆里奇，另一边则是瓦里奥。

Later the same day, a meeting was called during which several New World Computing leads were pulled in to discuss general issues at the company. While heading for the conference room, Fulton noted the approach of one of the more interesting attendees. "I heard clopping coming down the hallway. It was a young woman, wearing Rollerblades indoors," Fulton recounts. "She was small, short—somewhere between five feet one inch and five feet four inches—with long hair, wearing burgundy leggings and black Rollerblades." Although Fulton didn't yet know the identity of the skater, she would soon play a critical role in the evolution of Heroes.

当天晚些时候，公司召开了一个会议，会上邀请了几位 NWC 公司的高层人员参与讨论公司的总体事宜。在前往会议室的路上，富尔顿注意到了一位颇为有趣的与会者到来。“我听到走廊里传来哒哒的步伐。是一位年轻女士，居然在室内穿着轮滑鞋。”富尔顿描述道，“她身材娇小——大概在 155 厘米到 162 厘米之间，头发很长，穿着酒红色的紧身裤和黑色的轮滑鞋。”尽管富尔顿当时还不知道这位轮滑者的身份，但她很快就会在《英雄无敌》项目的发展中发挥关键作用。

Mullich would get down to the business of finding a new art lead for the project shortly thereafter. "JVC had told me to just go through the art department and pick a new art director. On the first day I started talking to each person in the art department one by one." Adam McCarthy, a character artist who had been hired late in the development of Heroes II, explained that a lot of the problems with the dated look of the previous games were rooted in the quickly-evolving technology. "Julia Ulano hired me. I absolutely loved her. She was fantastic. I owed her a lot because she helped get me situated in a leading role at the company. But the games industry was moving from a 2D to a 3D world, and a lot of that old-school art direction experience she had simply didn't work with a full 3D production pipeline."

此后不久，穆里奇便着手寻找该项目新的艺术负责人。“乔告诉我只需走访一下美术部门，挑选一位新的艺术总监。于是我第一天上班时就逐一与美术部门的每个人交谈。”《英雄无敌2》开发后期才被聘用的角色设计师亚当·麦卡锡解释说，前作画面过时的诸多问题都源于技术的快速变革。“朱莉娅·乌拉诺雇用了我，我非常喜欢她。她非常出色，我欠她很多，因为她帮助我在公司里占据了主导角色。但游戏行业正从 2D 转向 3D 世界，而且很多她以往那种传统的艺术指导经验并不适用于完整的 3D 制作流程。”

As Mullich continued his interviews, he was disappointed by many of the things he was hearing from other artists. "They were all telling me the same thing. It was real easy working at New World. You could kick back, not do your work, and take it easy until the last two weeks of the project. Then you really have to actually do something." None of these were attitudes that Mullich wanted to hear from a prospective new art lead, but the young woman in Rollerblades—whose name he had learned was Phelan Sykes—impressed him with both her skills and her drive. "Phelan told me that everyone here could be working much harder and that they could be doing much better work. I thought, Great, I've got my art director."

在穆里奇继续进行访谈的过程中，他对于从其他艺术家那里听到的一些言论感到十分失望。“他们都在跟我讲同样的事情。在 NWC 工作真是太轻松了。你可以放松下来，不进行创作，尽情享受生活，直到项目的最后两周才需要开始工作。那时你才真正得投入实际行动。”这些都不是穆里奇希望从未来的新艺术总监那里听到的态度，但那个穿着轮滑鞋的年轻女子——他得知她的名字叫菲兰·西克斯——凭借她的技能和干劲给他留下了深刻的印象。“菲兰告诉我，这里的每个人都可以更努力地工作，都能做出更好的作品。我想，太好了，我有了我的艺术总监了。”

While Mullich had enormous faith that the straight-shooting young woman could deliver the look he wanted, Phelan Sykes admits that her battlefield promotion was sometimes tough on her. "It was kind of good and bad. I think it was a good experience. But it was challenging for somebody that's a doer. When you're leading a bunch of other artists, you're spending a lot more time managing things that are not doing. I was still pretty young at the time, and it would turn out to be a little much."

虽然穆里奇坚信这位直言不讳的年轻女士能够满足他的要求，但菲兰·西克斯承认，她的这种迅速晋升有时对她来说颇为艰难。“这既有好处也有坏处。我觉得这是一次不错的经历。但对于那种注重实干的人来说，这确实是个挑战。当你要领导一群其他艺术家时，你得花更多的时间去管理那些没有人做的事情。当时我还很年轻，而结果证明那有点太难了。”

In the time between the development of Heroes II and Heroes III, Sykes had been helping out with the cinematics team of Might & Magic VI and otherwise developing her 3D art skills. "I'd taught myself to use Alias, but I wasn't going to be able to talk New World into paying $60,000 for another SGI workstation. In the meantime, 3D Studio Max had come out for Windows NT, and Mark Caldwell got hold of one of the very first copies of it. He was a schmoozer and would get people to send him video cards and other techy shit all the time. So, he dumps this copy of Max on my desk and said, ‘Here, give it a look.’"

在开发《英雄无敌2》及《英雄无敌3》期间，西克斯一直在为《魔法门6》的影像制作团队提供协助，并同时提升自己的 3D 绘制技巧。“我自学了 Alias 软件的使用，但我无法说服 NWC 公司再花 6 万美元购买一台 SGI 的工作站。与此同时，适配 Windows NT 的软件 3D Studio Max 也已经问世了，而马克·考德威尔拿到了一份这种程序的首发版。他是个善于交际的人，总是能让人把显卡和其他技术类的东西寄给他。所以，他把这张碟片放在我的办公桌上，并说道，‘来吧，我们瞧瞧这个。’”

Sykes quickly learned the software, and only two weeks later she presented something to Caneghem and Caldwell. "I did a little interstitial cutscene, like one of the little things we did in Might & Magic with animated flames in a fireplace and a library and characters. JVC and Mark were absolutely blown away by it, and I said, 'Yeah, this was easy. So much easier than Power Animator.'"

西克斯很快就掌握了这套软件，仅仅两周之后，她就向坎内根和考德威尔展示了一段作品。“我制作了一个简短的过渡场景，就像我们在《魔法门》游戏中所做的那种带有燃烧火焰的壁炉、图书馆场景以及角色的画面。乔和马克对此简直惊叹不已，而我说‘没错，这太简单了，比用Alias要简单得多。’”

The presentation was not only a terrific showcase of Sykes's skills, but it had also demonstrated that the new 3D software was powerful and inexpensive enough to be used for more than just the production of cinematics. Transitioning the art staff to use the new tool was as much about shifting mindsets as it was about learning new skills, and Phelan had been ideally suited to help with the migration. "I helped teach everybody how to do some of this stuff so that we could generate all of the props and the widgets, the doodads, the boxes, and the treasure chest—all the stuff, plus all the cutscenes. Tracy Iwata was very good when she got the hang of it, very fast."

这次展示不仅充分展现了西克斯的高超技艺，而且还证明了这款新3D软件功能强大且成本低廉，不仅可用于制作电影场景，还能用于其他多种用途。引导艺术团队成员使用新工具，不仅需要他们学习新技能，更重要的是要改变他们的思维方式。而菲兰恰好具备帮助完成这一改变的理想能力。“我帮助大家学习了一些相关操作，以便我们能够制作出所有的道具、小部件、小玩意、盒子和宝箱——所有这些东西，还有所有的过场动画。特蕾西·伊瓦塔掌握起来非常快，表现也非常出色。”

Mullich busied himself with reshaping the art department while Fulton focused on the design side of things. Upon his arrival he'd been provided with a list of "community suggestions" drawn from the Astral Wizard fan website, a clearing house at the time for all things Might & Magic or Heroes related. For his first few days, he combed through these community suggestions and continued to work on his own list of ideas that he intended to run by Caneghem. At a scheduled midweek design meeting with JVC, however, he was a little annoyed to find both Wario and Mullich had been invited. Fulton felt the meeting should have been exclusively between him and Caneghem.

穆里奇忙于重新规划美术部门，而富尔顿则专注于设计方面的工作。他到达后，得到了一份“社区建议”清单，这份清单是从“星界巫师”粉丝网站上收集而来的，当时该网站是汇集所有与《魔法门》或《英雄无敌》相关内容的平台。在最初的几天里，他仔细研究了这些社区建议，并继续整理自己准备提交给坎内根的创意清单。然而，在一周中安排好的一场设计会议上，他有点生气地发现瓦里奥和穆里奇都被邀请了。富尔顿觉得这次会议本应只限于他和坎内根之间进行。

"As a general rule, I think ‘design meetings' involving more than two people are a very bad idea," Fulton said. "In any communal creative endeavor, there's only room for one vision of the final product. When you have too many cooks in the kitchen, conflicting egos and agendas create confusion, disharmony, and a mediocre result. In game development, typically, the singular person shouldering the burden of the 'game vision’ is either the lead game designer or the game director."

富尔顿表示：“一般来说，我认为召集三人及三人以上的‘设计会议’是非常不好的做法。在任何集体创作活动中，最终产品的愿景只有一个。当厨房里有太多人同时参与时，相互冲突的个人想法和目标就会造成混乱、不和谐，并导致成果平平。在游戏开发中，通常负责‘游戏愿景’这一重任的要么是首席游戏设计师，要么是游戏总监。”

The meeting began with a presentation by Wario of requested features pulled from Astral Wizard. The game should have an 800 by 600 pixel resolution. Specific heroes from Heroes of Might & Magic II should be preserved, like Sandro the Necromancer, Halon the Wizard, Lord Haart, Crag Hack the Barbarian, Gem the Druid, Yog the Barbarian, and Alamar the Warlock. More factions should be added. All troops should be upgradable. Town Garrisons should be able to seat a Hero. Better network and internet support needed to be provided.

会议开始时，瓦里奥介绍了从“星界巫师”网站提取的用户需求功能：这款游戏应具有 800×600 像素的分辨率；《魔法门之英雄无敌2》中的特定英雄应予以保留，比如亡灵巫师山德鲁、术士海伦、罗德-哈特、野蛮人肯洛-哈格、德鲁伊珍妮、野蛮人约克、以及妖术师艾玛，还应添加更多的派系；所有部队都应具备升级功能；城镇要塞应能够容纳一名英雄；以及需要提供更优质的网络和互联网支持。

Slowly, Fulton became discomfited by watching how Wario interacted with Caneghem. On almost every point, the lead programmer was challenging—or even outright ignoring—all of the decisions made by New World's legendary founder. "This whole scene was suddenly very odd, and something about our emerging team dynamic was very wrong. Jon was being bullied on almost every issue regarding the game, and Wario was acting like he was in charge of the project." Mullich was similarly dismayed, recalling, "He hated everything we were doing. I don't think there was one idea that we'd brought in that he liked."

渐渐地，富尔顿开始对瓦里奥与坎内根的互动方式感到不安。这位首席程序员几乎在每一个方面，都在质疑——甚至完全无视这名 NWC 传奇创始人所做出的所有决策。“整个场面突然变得非常奇怪，而且我们正在形成的团队氛围也出现了很大问题。乔在关于游戏的几乎每一个问题上都受到打压，而瓦里奥却表现得好像他是项目负责人一样。”穆里奇同样感到沮丧，他回忆道：“他讨厌我们所做的每一件事。我觉得我们提出的每一个想法他都不喜欢。”

After reviewing the proposed ideas that had been placed on the table for Heroes III, it didn't take Mullich long to realize that they were short on the programmers they were going to need. Once again, New World found new talent at the still-fading Dreamer's Guild and brought aboard coders John Bolton and David Richey, both of whom had done some work for Mullich in the past while he was at Cyberdreams.

在仔细研究了台面上对《英雄无敌3》中提出的各项意见建议之后，穆里奇很快就意识到他们缺乏实现这么多构想所需的程序员。而 NWC 公司再次从日渐衰落的“梦想家工会”中找到了新的人才，邀请了程序员约翰·博尔顿和大卫·里切伊加入团队——这两人过去曾在穆里奇任职于“赛博梦境”公司（也是“梦想家工会”的发行商）期间为他做过一些工作。

ABOVE: Several key staffers for Heroes III assembled in this undated photo. BACK ROW: Rebecca Riel (artist), David Mullich (director), Scott White (artist). MIDDLE ROW: Jobn E. Gibson IV (artist), Phelan Sykes (art director) and Brian Scott Kemper (artist). BOTTOM ROW: Steve Jasper (artist), Greg Fulton (lead designer), Louis Henderson (artist), Steve Wasaff (artist), Tracy Iwata (artist), Jeff Bigman (artist), April Lee (artist).

上图:《英雄无敌3》的一些主创人员未注明日期的合影照片。后排:丽贝卡·里尔(美术)、大卫·穆里奇(总监)、斯科特·怀特(美术)。中排:约翰·E·吉布森四世(美术)、菲兰·西克斯(艺术总监)和布莱恩·斯科特·肯珀(美术)。前排:史蒂夫·贾斯珀(美术)、格雷格·富尔顿(首席设计师)、路易斯·亨德森(美术)、斯特维·瓦萨夫(美术)、特蕾西·伊瓦塔(美术)、杰夫·比格曼(美术)、艾普莉尔·李(美术)。

In the days that followed, Fulton worked diligently to flesh out the ideas that had been agreed upon in the initial design meeting while also trying to add more ideas of his own to the list. He tried to find design documentation from Heroes II but discovered that the traditional New World way of doing things had entailed a significant degree of flying by the seat of their pants. Aside from a few spreadsheets, there was almost nothing on paper to explain the intent of his predecessors. Likewise, despite a stated plan to intertwine the narratives of Might & Magic and Heroes together, there were no encyclopedias of lore from which he could draw. If he had questions about the story, he'd either need to ask Might & Magic's writer Paul Rattner, or he'd have to dig through innumerable internet forums filled with details supplied by diligent fans.

在接下来的日子里，富尔顿勤奋地进一步完善最初设计会议上达成一致的构想，同时也在努力为这份清单增添更多自己的想法。他试图去查找《英雄无敌2》的设计资料，但却发现 NWC 的传统行事方式意味着他们很多时候都是凭直觉行事，缺乏一定的规划和准备。除了几份电子表格之外，几乎没有任何书面资料能够解释其前辈们的意图。同样地，尽管有将《魔法门》和《英雄无敌》的故事线融合在一起的明确计划，但他也没有能够借鉴的详尽背景资料。如果他对故事内容有疑问，他要么得向《魔法门》的写手保罗·拉特纳请教，要么就得在充斥着无数由热心粉丝提供之详细信息的网络论坛中费力搜寻答案。

Fulton would call one of his first meetings to discuss his Photoshopped mockup for the new Heroes III Adventure Screen. Mullich would arrive and introduce Sykes as the new art director, and Wario would be in attendance as well. As Fulton began to walk everyone through the various new proposed features, Wario would become increasingly aggressive about the design, eventually raising his voice to a shout in reaction to Fulton's choice to include a quest log. "A quest log?! This isn't Might & Magic! This is a strategy game!"

富尔顿召集了一次初步会议，来讨论他为全新《英雄无敌3》设计并绘制的冒险界面。穆里奇会到场并介绍西克斯担任新的艺术总监，瓦里奥也会出席。当富尔顿开始向大家介绍各种新的功能建议时，瓦里奥对这些设计变得愈发强硬，最终因富尔顿决定加入任务日志这一内容而情绪激动，甚至提高了嗓门，大喊道：“任务日志？！这不是《魔法门》！这是一款策略游戏！”

Fulton's proposed inclusion of the quest log along with other elements like underground maps was completely in line with Caneghem's stated intent to include more role-playing elements in Heroes. The success of the Heroes II expansion The Price of Loyalty had a significant impact on Caneghem's thinking in this regard. "Cyberlore took Heroes and made it much more of an RPG. They made the game deeper with very RPG-like scenarios and a deep story and a more linear campaign and everything else. It made me realize that we were missing half our potential audience with Heroes. That was the turning point. We knew we needed to make it appeal to RPG players as much as we did to strategy gamers."

富尔顿关于任务日志以及其他诸如地下地图等元素的提议，完全符合坎内根所明确表达的、要在《英雄无敌》中加入更多角色扮演元素的意图。《英雄无敌2》的资料片《忠诚的代价》取得了巨大成功，这对坎内根的想法产生了重大影响。“赛博洛尔对《英雄无敌》这款游戏进行了改造，使其更具角色扮演的元素。他们通过非常类似角色扮演的场景、丰富的故事、更线性的战役等等方面，让这款游戏变得更加深入。这让我意识到，我们错失了一半《英雄无敌》的潜在用户群体。这就是那个转折点。我们认识到，我们必须让这款游戏既能吸引策略游戏玩家，又能吸引角色扮演游戏玩家。”

Despite Fulton being in the right and fully authorized to make whatever design choices he wished, Wario's disrespect deeply upset Fulton. Immediately he went to Caneghem's office to get clarification about whose opinion he was required to heed on design decisions. Both Caneghem and Caldwell quickly assured their new designer that Caneghem (and possibly Caldwell) were the only people that Fulton had to answer to. Mullich likewise agreed that he'd stay out of future design meetings.

尽管富尔顿完全有权做出任何他想要的设计决定，但瓦里奥的不尊重行为还是深深触怒了富尔顿。于是他立即前往坎内根的办公室，要求对方解释在设计决策方面他究竟应该听从谁的意见。坎内根和考德威尔迅速向这位新设计师保证，富尔顿只需要向坎内根（可能还有考德威尔）汇报。穆里奇也表示自己不会再参加未来的设计会议了。

Fulton's direct interactions with Wario would be relatively limited thereafter. When other members of the team asked to meet with Wario about pressing issues, they were increasingly put off until some future unknown date when he would have more time to address whatever their needs were. Programmers John Bolton and David Richey found themselves twiddling their thumbs for long stretches of time while waiting for direction from their departmental leader. "Whenever John and David would go to him with questions, he wouldn't answer," Mullich said. "In fact, he'd locked himself in his office."

此后，富尔顿与瓦里奥的直接接触会变得相对有限。当团队中的其他成员需要与瓦里奥就紧急问题进行会面时，后者也往往会拖延到某个未知的日期“有空”满足他们的需求时。程序员约翰·博尔顿和大卫·里切伊发现自己得长时间无所事事地等待部门领导的指示。“每当约翰和大卫去找他询问问题时，他都从不回答。”穆里奇说，“事实上，他还把自己锁在了办公室里。”

Eventually, the Wario crisis came to a head. On an afternoon of hushed conversations and closed-door meetings, Wario was at last shown the proverbial door. "I'd been given a junior programmer, a very junior programmer," Mullich recalled about the dismissal. "I'd been told this person was a lead, but he had a lot of problems working with other people. And again, he hated everything we wanted to do. He told me that we were destroying the game, that we were destroying the franchise. Heroes of Might & Magic II was his favorite game, and everything we wanted to put in the game would destroy it and it was breaking his heart."

最终，瓦里奥事件达到了高潮。在一个下午，经过一些轻声交谈和闭门会议，瓦里奥终于被逐出了公司。“我还不如找一个非常初级的程序员。”穆利奇回忆起解雇事件时说道，“有人告诉我这个人是主管，但他与他人合作时存在很多问题。而且，他还对我们要做的事情非常反感。他告诉我，我们正在毁掉这款游戏，正在毁掉这个系列。《魔法门之英雄无敌2》是他最喜欢的游戏，而我们想要在游戏中加入的一切都会毁掉它，这让他心碎不已。”

While the deposed former lead programmer had been an undiplomatic team member, his dismissal had been rooted in his inability to make head or tail of the code left behind by Phil Steinmeyer, the programmer who had coded everything in Heroes II. "When they did Heroes I, everything was written in the programming language of C++," explains John Bolton, the man who would take over the role of lead programmer. "When Phil stepped in to do Heroes II, he evidently didn't know C++ so he really messed up the code base, and we were forced to fix it for Heroes III. To make matters worse, Steinmeyer had failed to leave comments in his code, making it incredibly difficult for other programmers to understand what he'd done. It would require a great deal of work for Bolton and Richey to untangle the mess he'd left behind.

虽然这位被解职的前首席程序员在团队中表现不够得体，但他被解职的根本原因却是他看不明白《英雄无敌2》的编程负责人菲尔·斯坦梅耶留下的代码。“在制作《英雄无敌1》时，所有内容都是用 C++ 编程语言编写的。”顶替首席程序员职务的约翰·博尔顿解释，“当菲尔接手制作《英雄无敌2》时，显然他并不懂 C++，所以他把代码编写得一团糟，为了《英雄无敌3》，我们不得不对其进行修复工作。”更糟糕的是，斯坦迈耶在代码中没有留下注释，这使得其他程序员很难理解他所做的工作。博尔顿和里切伊需要付出大量努力来清理他留下的混乱局面。

As relieved as Fulton was not to have to deal with Wario anymore, his fellow team members were enthused to have John Bolton taking the programmatic reins. Mullich was already a fan, having worked with him before. Sykes was also very complementary about her former peer on the Heroes III team. "John Bolton was a super nice guy," she said. "From the get-go he had a lot of clarity about what was going to be possible and what was not."

富尔顿很高兴再也不用和瓦里奥打交道了，而他手下的团队成员则很高兴能有约翰·博尔顿来负责这个项目。穆里奇早就对他很欣赏，因为之前他们曾共事过。西克斯也对她在《英雄无敌3》团队中的这位前辈赞不绝口。“约翰·博尔顿是个非常友善的人.”她说，“从一开始他就很清楚哪些事情可行，哪些事情不可行。”

With his core team finally on the same page, Mullich concentrated his attention once again on reforming the art department. He wanted to make sure there was a consistent vision for the art and didn't want decisions to be made arbitrarily or purely on a single person's preferences. "I created a review team. It was myself, Phelan, and Rebecca Riel. So the three of us went over every piece of artwork. The rule was a piece of artwork could only be revised if two of us rejected it. As long as two of us approved it, it was good to go, no matter how much the third disliked it."

在他的核心团队终于达成一致之后，穆里奇再次将注意力集中在美术部门的改革上。他希望确保美术工作有一个统一的愿景，并且不希望决策是随意做出的，或者仅仅基于某一个人的个人喜好。“我组建了一个审查小组，成员包括我自己、菲兰和丽贝卡·里尔。于是，我们三人仔细审查了每一件美术作品。规则是，只有当我们三人中有两人反对它时，这件作品才能被修改。只要我们三人中有两人认可它，它就可以加进游戏，不管第三个人有多不喜欢它。”

Riel is complementary about Mullich and his management, saying, "He could call anyone into his office and speak directly to them without anyone feeling threatened or worried about the outcome of speaking frankly to him. He could bring out the best in people and make them want to give their best. And what with the prima donnas on our team, that was not an easy task at times. He always played to people's strengths and made them feel valued. But even his excellent people skills had their limits with our unruly band of misfits. Some people were so caught up in owning their art that he would run into rubber walls while attempting to fine-tune and get changes made without much wailing and gnashing of teeth—which could easily result in mediocre results."

里尔对穆里奇及其管理方式持肯定态度，她说道：“他可以叫任何人到他的办公室里，直接与他们交流，而没有人会感到受到威胁，或者担心坦诚地与他交流后会有什么后果。他能够激发员工的最大潜能，让他们愿意全力以赴。而由于我们团队中有几位个性很强的成员，有时这并非一件容易的事情。他总是会利用员工的长处，并让他们感到自己受到重视。但即便他有着出色的沟通技巧，对于我们这群难以管教的怪咖来说，他的这些技巧也有其局限性。一些人过于着迷于自己创作的艺术作品，以至于他在试图进行微调和做出修改时，会碰上软钉子——他们并不会表现出太多的抱怨和愤怒，但这样很容易就会得到平庸的结果。”

Adam McCarthy had his own ambitions for improving things in the art department, particularly when it came to hastening along the adoption of 3D art production. He'd come aboard toward the end of Heroes II but had felt initially hampered by the staffing situation when he'd first arrived. "There were a lot of inexperienced animators, and I remember pushing them to be more dynamic for posing. If you look at some of the characters of Heroes II, like the archer's motion to shoot, was really simple and not very impressive. I wanted the characters to really stretch the body out and really move those arms and legs to create intricate silhouettes. But that kind of shit was hand-drawn 2D sprites. I mean, it was possible, but at the time so much boiled down to doing tricks to keep game memory down and to make sure we didn't impact the game performance too much. We'd cut these corners, take a character's body but only the arms because that was the only thing that needed to move. We had to make sure the sprite sheets stayed as small as possible. But with 3D it was easier to get more dynamism out of the characters, so I pushed for these heroic, Marvel-style poses. If you look at Heroes IV versus Heroes III, that's kind of one of the biggest art improvements you'll see.

亚当·麦卡锡对于改善美术部门的情况有着自己的规划，尤其是在加快3D作品制作进程方面。他在《英雄无敌2》制作临近尾声时加入团队，但初来乍到时曾因人员配备问题而感到有些受阻。“当时那里有很多缺乏经验的动画师，我记得当时我督促他们在姿势设计上要更具活力。如果你看看《英雄无敌2》中一些角色的动作，比如弓箭手射箭时的动作，其实非常简陋，而且并不引人注目。我希望角色能够真正地伸展身体，真正地移动手臂和腿部，形成复杂的轮廓，但用手绘的二维角色模型来做这样的事情实在很难。我的意思是，这是有可能做到的，但在当时，大部分内容都要缩减，以想办法减少游戏内存占用，并确保不会对游戏性能造成太大影响。我们会做一些妥协，比如只对角色的四肢进行动画处理，因为那是唯一必须移动的部分。我们还必须确保角色的子图像尽可能小。但使用 3D 技术可以更容易地使角色身上展现出更多的动态感，所以我极力要求采用这些英雄式的、漫威风格的姿势。如果你对比一下《英雄无敌2》和《英雄无敌3》，这可能是你能看到的最大的美术改进之一。”

In attempting to push his coworkers along, McCarthy also found that fostering more collaboration between artists greatly improved the look of the game. "When I came in, a lot of the character artists were kind of working in silos. Everyone had different ways of modeling their characters, and it resulted in everything looking incohesive. A good example was like in 3D Studio Max, the program we modeled everything in. You had materials for cloth and metal, all the possible things that a character's clothes could be made of, but the artists weren't sharing those material libraries. Every artist was creating their own. So, if you stood up five characters next to each other, the gold color on their uniforms would be a little bit different for every character. That can be okay sometimes, but the differences were too large, so I tried to push the rest of the character artists to share those materials so that things would look more cohesive."

在试图推动同事们共同进步的过程中，麦卡锡还发现，促进艺术家们之间更多的协作能够极大地提升游戏的整体效果。“我刚加入的时候，很多角色设计师都是各自为政的。每个人都有自己独特的角色建模方式，结果导致所有东西看起来都格格不入。比如在我们使用的 3D Studio Max 软件，我们所有的建模工作都是在这个软件里完成的。里面有用于布料和金属的材质，所有可能构成角色服装的材料类型都有，但美术们并没有共享这些材质库，每个人都在自行创建自己的库。所以，如果你把五个角色并排放在一起，他们衣服上的金色色调都会各自略有不同。这种情况有时是可以接受的，但差异之处太多了，所以我试着推动其他角色设计师共享这些材质，这样整体效果就会更连贯了。”

Direct collaboration between artists and team members outside of their group was generally limited. Most inter-departmental communication flowed through the art director, but there was one artist that Sykes said enjoyed a special line of connection to John Van Caneghem. “Scott White was a super easygoing guy. Whenever JVC needed user interface stuff, Scott did all that. He was kind of like JVC's right hand on the art side of things," Sykes said. “He was also a really big gamer. Multiple nights during the week a lot of people would stay in the office and play Risk or all these more involved RPG strategy types of games, and he was right in with that group. He was always around.”

艺术家们与其他团队成员之间的直接合作通常较为有限。大多数部门间的交流都是通过艺术总监来进行的，但西克斯却说有一名艺术家很乐于与乔·万·坎内根建立特殊的联系。“斯科特·怀特是个非常随和的人。每当乔·万·坎内根需要用户界面方面的内容时，斯科特都会全权负责。他有点像是乔在艺术方面的得力助手。”西克斯说道，“他还是一位非常热爱游戏的人。每周有好几晚，会有很多人在办公室里玩《大战略》或者其他那些偏角色扮演类策略游戏，而他总是和他们在一起。他总是会出现在那里。”

In addition to handling all of the interface work, White was also responsible for creating the artwork for many iconic towns including Castle and Tower. Sykes would design a few herself, with her favorite appearing on the back of the Heroes III game box. “I took Japanese in college, and Japanese culture is kind of a favorite thing of mine. So it's a little bit odd to have it called Rampart Town, but it was fun to design and have the freedom to do that, to take something I was interested in and channel it into something that became bigger. That was pretty cool.”

除了负责处理所有的界面工作外，怀特还负责为许多具有标志性的城镇（包括城堡和塔楼）创作艺术图。西克斯自己也会设计一些，她最喜欢的作品出现在《英雄无敌3》游戏盒的背面。“我在大学时学过日语，日本文化对我来说是相当喜欢的东西。所以叫它‘壁垒城镇’有点奇怪，但设计它并拥有这样的自由感觉很有趣，能够将自己感兴趣的东西转化为更宏大的作品，那真是太酷了。”

Before the design of Heroes III even formally began, the decision had been made that the narratives of Heroes and Might & Magic should be more heavily intertwined. A few character and location names from Heroes I and Heroes II had found their way into the lore of Might & Magic VI, but Heroes III would represent the first time that a storyline initiated in the RPG would be continued into the strategy game.

在《英雄无敌3》的设计正式开始之前，就已经做出了这样的决定：《英雄无敌》和《魔法门》的故事情节应当更加紧密地相互关联。《英雄无敌1》和《英雄无敌2》中的几个角色和地点名称已经融入到了《魔法门6》的背景设定中，但《英雄无敌3》将是首次将一个角色扮演游戏中的故事情节延续到策略游戏里。

Fulton's first meeting with lore master Paul Rattner—who had previously managed the stories for both franchises—was intended to establish the best path forward. "You could do something with Queen Catherine," Rattner suggested to Fulton. "She's Roland's wife. She's on a ship, on her way back home to visit her father. I haven't done anything on her story, so it'd be wide open, and you wouldn't have to worry about what I'm doing on Might & Magic. Just keep me in a loop so we don't end up painting ourselves into a corner."

富尔顿与传闻大师保罗·拉特纳的首次会议，旨在确定最佳的发展方向。此前，保罗就负责了这两个系列的故事管理工作。“你可以考虑一下凯瑟琳女王的故事。”拉特纳向富尔顿提议道，“她是罗兰德的妻子。她正乘坐船只，前往家乡探望她的父亲。我还没有为她的故事做任何工作，所以这个故事的创作空间很大，你也不必担心我在《魔法门》系列中的故事安排。只需让我了解最新情况，以免我们让对方陷入窘境。”

Catherine's presence in Heroes III is significant because she both extends the Might & Magic VI storyline and continues the tale of the Ironfists that started in the very first Heroes game. More than that, because of the circumstances of the plot, she is cast in a very similar role to her husband Roland, forced into a battle to reclaim and restore lands that have been seized and are being corrupted by evil forces. The righteousness of her cause is central to the story, and the introduction of a magical grail that can change the lands of those who possess it (and allow for the construction of special structures) establishes some classic Arthurian themes in Heroes III.

凯瑟琳在《英雄无敌3》中的出现意义重大，因为她不仅延续了《魔法门6》的故事情节，还延续了始于第一部《英雄无敌》游戏的“铁拳”家故事。不仅如此，由于剧情的设置，她所扮演的角色与她的丈夫罗兰德极为相似，都被迫投身于一场战役中，以夺回并恢复被邪恶势力侵占且受到腐蚀的领土。她的正义事业是故事的核心，而引入了一件能够改变拥有者的土地（并允许建造特殊建筑）的神奇圣杯，就确立了《英雄无敌3》中经典的亚瑟王主题。

Unlike in Heroes II, where the concepts of good and evil were merely symbolic, they are embodied in Heroes III with the introduction of actual angels and demons on the battlefield, raising the stakes of the conflict to a more metaphysical level. Artist Adam McCarthy particularly enjoyed the chance to model these larger-than-life heroes and creatures of myth. "I'm like the total metalhead dude, so I was super into the darker factions where they had demons and things that I could sink my teeth into. At the same time, I really enjoyed doing the angelic characters as well. The archangel was one of my favorite characters because he had this big majestic chest plate of armor with big feathered wings. That was a really cool character."

与《英雄无敌2》仅具象征意义的善恶概念不同，在《英雄无敌3》中，善恶的概念得以具体化，战场之上出现了真正的天使和恶魔，将冲突的激烈程度提升到了更具哲学意味的层面。艺术家亚当·麦卡锡尤其享受塑造这些超凡脱俗的英雄和神话生物的机会：“我就像个十足的金属迷，所以我特别喜欢那些黑暗阵营，他们有恶魔之类的东西，让我能够深入其中。同时，我也很喜欢塑造天使类的角色。大天使是我最喜欢的单位之一，因为他有着威严的巨大胸甲和羽毛的巨大翅膀。那真是一个非常酷的角色。”

While Fulton was busy focusing on the systems for the game, he turned to the QA department to find a map builder who could help him with the game's prose. He directed anyone who might be interested in the job to write a short story so that he could evaluate their skills. Jennifer Bullard would have the winning story. "I submitted something I'd just whipped up. Not long after, Greg came over to my desk and asked me 'Did you write this?' I said, 'Yeah.' 'Did you write the Greece maps, too?' And, again, I'm like 'Yeah.' He walked out and that was the entire interaction. I found out later he just liked my style of writing. I was meticulous enough to make sure I gave him something that was written professionally. It was clean, it was neat, and I made sure to go through and read it out loud. He figured I was detail-oriented enough that I could handle everything that needed to be done for the maps." Bullard would be appointed as Fulton's assistant designer.

而富尔顿正全神贯注于游戏系统的设计工作之中，他向质保部门求助，寻找一位地图设计师来协助他完善游戏的描述部分。他指示让所有对这份工作感兴趣的人撰写一篇短篇故事，以便他评估他们的能力。詹妮弗·布劳德的故事获了奖。“我提交了一篇刚刚草就的东西。没过多久，格雷格来到我的办公桌前，问我‘这是你写的吗？’我说‘是的’。‘那个希腊地图也是你做的吗？’他又问。我再次回答‘是的’。他走开了，这就是整个面试过程。后来我才知道，他只是喜欢我的写作风格。我足够细致，确保给他的是一篇专业的文本。它简洁、利落，我还特意逐字逐句地大声朗读了一遍。他认为我足够注重细节，能够胜任所有与地图相关的准备工作。”布劳德被任命为富尔顿的助理设计师。

In addition to her writing duties, Bullard would also be placed in charge of ensuring that the maps being built by others were handed in on time. "I was also supporting the delivery of art assets into the game. So yeah, my job was tactical, making sure everyone got their stuff done, and that specific objects got in. I also built some of the levels, but I handed over the main storyline maps to some of the other folks on the team because I was the newest person, and I was suddenly their lead. I didn't think that would go over too well, so I figured the best way to appease everyone was to pair people up to the maps that they really wanted to do."

除了写作工作之外，布劳德还负责确保其他人所绘制的地图能够按时提交。“我还负责协助将美术素材发送到游戏中。所以没错，我的工作是战术性的，就是要确保每个人都完成自己的任务，并且特定的元素能够顺利放入游戏。我还构建了一些关卡，但我把主要的剧情地图交给了团队中的其他成员，因为我是最新的成员，突然间成了他们的负责人。我觉得这可能不会太受欢迎，所以我认为最好的办法是将他们分配到他们真正想做的地图上。”

The team were all highly motivated to try and achieve the goals of the production, but the demands from 3DO were beginning to impact everyone. "Mark Caldwell wanted to be done in twelve months," Mullich said. "John Bolton and I went over the schedule together and we thought, there's no way we can do this in less than fourteen months. So I had a meeting with Mark, and Mark said, 'I want it done in twelve months.' I said, 'We can't do it, we can only do in fourteen.' He said, 'No, it's got to be done in twelve.' We tell him it can only be done in fourteen. He goes, I'll make a deal with you. We'll do it in twelve months."

团队成员都满怀热情地努力去实现产出目标，但 3DO 的要求开始对每个人产生影响。“马克·考德威尔希望在 12 个月内完成任务。”穆里奇道，“我和约翰·博尔顿一起仔细研究了时间表，我们觉得，以我们目前的进度，不可能在少于 14 个月的时间内完成。于是我和马克开了个会，马克说：‘我希望能在 12 个月内完成。’我说：‘我们做不到，最多只能在 14 个月内完成。’他却说：‘不行，必须在 12 个月内完成。’我们跟他说只可能在 14 个月内完成。他说：‘那咱们就达成个协议吧。我们就在 12 个月内完成。’”

Mullich was under tremendous pressure to deliver, not just from Caldwell or 3DO, but also from the expectant fans. "The scary thing about doing a sequel was that the previous game had been so well balanced. It had terrific engagement. There was real danger that we might only make things worse. The fact that we had more towns and upgrades, and every single creature was upgradable, that alone increased its complexity more than twofold, maybe even threefold. We needed to make sure we took the time to do everything right."

穆里奇面临着巨大的交付压力，这不仅来自考德威尔或 3DO 公司，还来自满怀期待的玩家们。“制作续作的可怕之处在于，前作的游戏平衡性已经做得非常出色。它具有极高的吸引力。存在着一种真正的危险，那就是我们可能会把事情搞得更糟。我们拥有更多的城镇和升级选项，而且每一个生物都可以升级，这本身就让游戏的复杂性增加了两倍甚至三倍。我们必须确保花足够的时间把每一件事都做好。”

Sykes sympathetically recalled everything that Mullich had to do keep things on track. "He really wanted this thing to go big, but it meant a lot of overtime for everyone. Like the kind of overtime that was way beyond Walter Hochbrueckner's one-extra-hour-a-day-and-we'll-be-good-guys. It was late nights almost every night. I would go and do my karate classes, then come back and work at the office because everybody was working late. I mean I'm a workaholic, so I don't remember feeling pressured, but in retrospect I do remember it took more to get it over the line.

西克斯满怀同情地讲述了穆里奇为确保事情顺利进行所付出的一切努力。“他真的非常渴望把它做得规模宏大，但这意味着每个人都要加班很多时间。那种加班的程度远远超出了沃尔特·霍布克内尔所说的‘伙计们，每天多工作一小时，我们就能按时完成’。几乎每晚都是熬夜工作。我会去上空手道课，然后回办公室继续工作，因为大家都工作得很晚。我的确是个工作狂，所以我不记得当时感到有压力，但回过头来看，我确实记得要赶上进度需要付出更多的努力。

And every night he'd be there. He's there. He's there, and he's literally nitpicking tiny little things. Like I would render out something and do a light compression pass, and then he would go through frame by frame and try and like get rid of more pixels to make it smaller and smaller. Did that need to be done? I don't know. But he was dedicated to the project. Sacrifices were made."

而且每晚他都会在那里。他就在那里，他还在那里，而且他真的会仔细检查一些非常小的细节。比如我完成了一些工作，然后进行一次轻度的压缩处理，然后他会逐帧查看，并试图去除更多的像素，让文件变得越来越小。有必要这样做吗？我不知道。但他全身心投入到了项目中，做出了诸多牺牲。”

In addition to the scheduling pressure from above, Mullich recalled that there were few major hiccups during production. Greg Fulton met regularly with Jon Van Caneghem to get approvals on his designs, but was largely left alone to do whatever he wanted. Lead programmer Bolton shrugged his shoulders at questions about production problems, but volunteered that he struggled quite a bit with implementing one of the spells. "Chain Lightning ended up being really vexing. As designed, the bolt was supposed to go from character to character, but I just could not get it to work that way, so the version we shipped has it coming down from the sky instead. It was exhausting." Another programming issue that cropped up was the byproduct of an attempt to improve the map editor. "Gus Smedstad came up with a really brilliant idea to use diagrams to generate the map for the map editor. Before, it was kind of random. You'd place random junk on the map and kind of fix it all up. But Gus came up with a clever and innovative idea of putting spots on the map randomly and then generating the noise diagrams so you could build walls and terrain around them to create separate zones. It was a great idea, and it fixed a lot of problems in the editor, but the fixes also caused problems in the game because things suddenly weren't rendering properly. So we had to fix it in game."

穆里奇记得除了来自上级的进度安排压力之外，在生产过程中几乎没有出现过重大问题。格雷格·富尔顿会定期与乔·万·坎内根会面，以获得对他的设计的批准，但基本上他可以随心所欲地做自己想做的事。首席程序员博尔顿对于有关生产问题的提问只会耸耸肩，但他主动表示在实现其中一个法术时遇到了很大的困难。“连锁闪电最终变得非常棘手。按照设计，闪电应该从一个角色传导到另一个角色，但我就是无法让它按照那样运行，所以我们发布的版本是它从天上落下。这真是让人精疲力竭。”另一个突然冒头的程序问题是尝试改进地图编辑器的副产品。“古斯·斯梅德斯塔德提出了一个非常棒的想法，即利用图表来帮地图编辑器生成地图。在此之前，地图的生成方式相当随意。你会在地图上随意放置一些杂乱的东西，然后进行一番整理。但古斯提出了一个巧妙且创新的想法，即在地图上随机放置点位，然后生成噪点图表，这样你就可以围绕这些点位构建墙壁和地形，从而划分出不同的区域。这是一个很棒的主意，它解决了编辑器中的许多问题，但这些修正也给游戏带来了问题，因为突然之间某些元素的渲染就不再正常了。所以我们必须在游戏中进行修正。”

In another case of someone having to clean up after one's juniors, Fulton found himself being unexpectedly summoned to Caneghem's office one afternoon to explain an insanely impossible-to-defeat scenario. Upon Fulton's examination of the troublesome map, he was perplexed by what was going on. "On game Day 10, this hero shows up, mows down the monster at the checkpoint, then marches right to my town and kills me," Caneghem explained to his befuddled lead designer. On examination, it was discovered that the enemy hero was turning up with Tier 7 Behemoths, something which should have been impossible at that point in the game.

还有一次，有人需要为下属的失误负责的情况出现了。富尔顿在一天下午意外地被召到坎内根的办公室，去解释一个极其不可能通关的关卡。富尔顿查看了那张引起麻烦的地图后，对其中的问题感到茫然。坎内根向这位困惑的首席设计师解释道：“在游戏的第 10 天，这个英雄出现了，消灭了检查点处的怪物，然后径直冲到我的城镇并将我杀死。”经过排查，发现敌方英雄竟然带着几只7级的比蒙出现，而在游戏的这个阶段，这种情况本是不可能发生的。

After checking in with map supervisor Chris Vanover about the person responsible for the overpowered scenario, Fulton discovered that mapmaker Dave Botan had been the architect behind the digital slaughterhouse. Upon locating Botan, Fulton (gently) read him the riot act. Botan reportedly suppressed a smile and replied that the map was intended to be hard at the beginning. Fulton said his reply was, "The goal is to make the game fun for the player, not to [censor] them in the [censored]." It was a prank that was characteristic of Botan's unique personality, but he would become beloved for his support of the fan community of mapmakers on the Celestial Heavens website. Likely his experience with his overpowered map inspired his advice to newcomers. "Make a map you know you'll have fun playing, write a great story with interesting events (this doesn't necessarily mean complicated, most of my events were simple), and don't hide resources and artifacts behind trees or mountains. Pathways should always be clear and wide unless you want it to be a choke point guarded by a monster or gate, and last but not least: play-balance, play-balance!"

在与地图主管克里斯·范沃尔就这张过难关卡的责任人进行沟通后，富尔顿发现地图绘制者戴夫·波坦才是这个数字版屠宰场的建造师。在找到波坦后，富尔顿（温和地）对他进行了训斥。据称波坦他强忍住笑意，回答说这张地图一开始就是设计得比较难的。富尔顿说他的回答是：“我们的目标是让玩家在游戏中感到乐趣，而不是■他们的■■。”这是波坦独特个性的典型表现，但他因对粉丝社区“Celestial Heavens”地图制作者们的支持而深受喜爱。很可能是他对过难地图的体验启发了他对新手的建议：“制作一张你确信自己会玩得很开心的地图，编写一个伟大的故事，加上有趣的事件（这并不一定意味着复杂，我的大多数事件都很简单），不要把资源和物品藏在树或山后面。路径应该始终清晰宽阔，除非你想让它成为被怪物或门封锁的死胡同，最后但同样重要的是：要进行游戏平衡，进行游戏平衡，进行游戏平衡！”

For Caneghem, the key to Heroes was about the balance and the numbers. "We spent more time really developing III, and we vastly improved how we tied the strategy and the maps together. It was another level. With Heroes II, I did the numbers for all the characters just off the cuff, and I wasn't very scientific with the math. Oh, four hundred seems good, let's put that. It plays, it works. With III, I really went much deeper for all the characters, and how they balance their costs and times and movements, and I went much deeper with that."

对于坎内根来说，《英雄无敌》的关键在于平衡性和数值。“我们真的花了更多的时间来精心打磨第三作，并且大幅改进了将策略与地图相结合的方式。这又是一个全新的层次。在《英雄无敌2》中，我只是大致地凭感觉为所有角色设定数值，对于数学计算也没有很严谨。‘哦，四百似乎不错，那就定下来吧。’它运行顺畅，效果良好。而在《英雄无敌3》中，我真的对所有角色进行了更深入的研究，包括如何平衡它们的成本、顺序和移动力，这方面我下了更多的功夫。”

Fulton remembered "balance" to be a long and progressive slog. "Initially, just to keep QA working, I gave John Bolton temporary numbers for all the creatures. When I went to JVC with those numbers, he wanted to start again from scratch. So, using the white board in his office for two or three days each week for eight to ten weeks, Jon and I debated the relative strengths of the factions and their troops. Each week, I would then confirm our assumptions by putting our numbers through a 'Battle Simulator' I had built in Microsoft Excel. It took a long time, and I remember how much Jon really liked playing with the numbers."

富尔顿记得“平衡”是一个漫长而艰难的推进过程。“起初，我给约翰·博尔顿提供了所有生物的临时数据，仅仅是为了让质保有事可做。可当我把这些数据带去给乔看时，他却想从头来过。于是，我们每周要在乔办公室的白板上讨论两天，持续了八到十周，探讨了各个派系及其兵力的相对优势。每周结束后，我都会通过我用微软Excel打造的“战斗模拟器”来验证我们的假设。这花费了很长时间，我依然记得乔有多么喜欢把玩这些数据。”

Caldwell considers Heroes III to be one of the most balanced games ever developed at New World. "Everybody had been playing the previous two Heroes games and we kind of knew what the game was all about, and we had some new creatures that were being introduced, like Titans. As we were developing Heroes III, everybody had a different strategy, but you'd see them migrate. 'Oh, okay, Jon's muted the Dragons so now the Titans are powerful.' So, everyone would go and use Titans. 'Oh, Jon muted the Titans. Now the Peasants are too powerful when they turn into Ghosts, right?' And there was always this transitioning phase as Jon would make changes to the numbers. We'd run a new version of the game and everybody would play, play, play, play. Everybody agrees it's all Dragon. Oh, it's all Titans. And we would all huddle, then one day we're like, Oh, wait! I think it's this, and I think it's that and you think it's this, and everybody had a different opinion. And that's when we realized it's very well balanced, because no, I can come in with Titans and two Ghosts and take out your twenty Dragons. So people could have these crazy ideas about what they would need in their stacks and how to attack and stuff, and that just showed we had the balance right. And I think that's what really made Heroes III awesome is that the balancing was just right. And I'm not saying we waited till the balance was right. It just became part of our development."

考德威尔认为《英雄无敌3》是 NWC 公司开发过的最平衡的游戏之一。“此前的两部《英雄无敌》游戏大家都已经玩过了，所以我们对游戏的玩法大致有所了解，而且我们还引入了一些新的生物，比如泰坦。在我们开发《英雄无敌3》时，每个人都有些不同的策略，你还会看到他们的策略发生转移。‘哦，好的，乔把龙类给削弱了，所以现在泰坦变得强大了。’于是，大家都去使用泰坦。‘哦，乔又把泰坦削弱了。现在最强的是把农民转化成幽灵，对吧？’而且在乔不断调整数值的过程中，总会有一个过渡阶段。我们会推出新的游戏版本，然后大家都会玩个不停。大家都认为这是龙的天下、是泰坦的天下。就这样，我们都聚在一起，然后终有一天我们就好像说‘哦，等等！我觉得是这样’，‘我觉得是那样，而你觉得是这样’，每个人都有不同的看法。这时我们就意识到它的平衡性非常好，因为‘不是的，我完全可以带上泰坦和两个幽灵，消灭你们的二十只龙’。所以人们对于自己的阵容需要什么、如何进攻等问题都有些疯狂的想法，而这也表明我们的平衡设置是正确的。我认为正是这种恰到好处的平衡性让《英雄无敌3》如此出色。而且我并没有说我们坐等平衡完成，它也是我们开发过程中的重要部分。”

In the last three weeks of development, as the long hours of development grew even longer and everyone worked to polish Heroes III to perfection, one of the most valued New World assets at last reached his breaking point.

在开发的最后三周里，由于开发时间越来越长，每个人都在努力将《英雄无敌3》打磨至完美状态， NWC 公司最宝贵的资产之一终于达到了其极限。

"I vaguely remember grinding away at my desk with my office door open," Greg Fulton recalled. "I remember sitting there and wondering if I was smelling smoke." A moment later, as Fulton became certain that he was smelling something, Fulton saw an employee dart into and out of the offices of Benjamin Bent, the New World Computing Office Manager and the part-time producer of Vegas Games 2000. "Down the hall, I heard an additional, brief conversation, after which I saw Ben calmly returning to his office," Fulton continued. "I caught Ben's attention and he took a detour to my doorway."

“我依稀记得当时我坐在办公桌前埋头苦干，办公室的门开着。”格雷格·富尔顿回忆道，“我记得自己坐在那里，心里想着是不是闻到了烟味。”过了一会儿，当富尔顿确信自己确实闻到了什么气味时，他看到一名员工匆匆地进了本杰明·本特—— NWC 公司的办公室主任，同时也兼职《维加斯圣手2000》项目负责人的办公室。“我听到走廊那头进行了简短的对话，之后看到本杰明平静地回到了他的办公室。”富尔顿继续说道，“我引起了本杰明的注意，他拐到了我的门口这里。”

"What's going on?" Fulton asked.

“怎么回事？”富尔顿问道。

Ben rolled his eyes. "The Coke machine caught fire."

本翻了翻白眼：“可乐机着火了。”

"It caught fire?"

“着火了？”

"It looks like opening and closing the machine sheared some electrical wires and they caught fire." Ben shook his head. "This idiot tester just stood there with a soda can in one hand, pointing at the fire."

“看起来打开和关闭机器的时候把一些电线扯断了，电线着火了。”本摇了摇头，“这个愚蠢的测试员只是手里拿着一罐汽水傻站在那里，还指着火势呢。”

"Do we have a fire extinguisher?"

“我们有灭火器吗？”

"Yeah, but I just unplugged the machine."

“是的，但我刚刚把机器的电源插头拔掉了。”

"So, we have warm Cokes now?"

“那么，我们现在有温可乐了？”

Ben chuckled, "We will. Get 'em while they're cold."

本轻声笑了起来：“会有的。趁它们还冰去拿点吧。”

Fulton grew philosophical in conclusion. "I remember this event rather well for a couple of reasons. First, its absurdity fit within the general absurdity of game development. Second, in many ways, it was an apt analogy for game development... something goes wrong, someone panics, someone else calmly solves the problem, and work continues. In game development, the Coke machine is always catching fire."

富尔顿在总结时变得颇为达观：“我对这件事记得相当清楚，原因有二。首先，它的荒诞之处与游戏开发的整体荒诞性相契合；其次，在很多方面，它恰好能作为游戏开发的一个恰当类比……出现了问题，有人惊慌失措，也有人冷静地解决问题，然后工作继续进行。在游戏开发中，总有可乐机会着火。”

At last the production of Heroes III drew to a close after fourteen months, exactly as David Mullich had predicted to Mark Caldwell, despite his General Manager's insistence to the contrary. Mullich flashed a big smile to the Zoom camera. "It was a big success and I was very happy with our work. Mission accomplished."

最终，《英雄无敌3》的制作在14个月后圆满结束，正如大卫·穆里奇对马克·考德威尔所预测的那样，不过这位总经理坚决反对这一观点。穆里奇对着镜头露出一个大大的笑容：“这是一次巨大的成功，我对我们的工作非常满意。任务完成了。”

向姆拉克爵士致敬 - To Sir Mullich, With Love

The demands of Mullich's position did not allow for him to be far away from New World or gone for very long, but the arrival of a new child finally forced him to take some much-deserved time off. When he eventually returned, he would discover that his entire office had been filled with balloons. As he good-naturedly absorbed the welcome-back prank from his officemates, he was told that the staff had something to show him.

由于穆里奇的职位要求，他无法长时间远离 NWC 公司，也无法长时间外出，但新添孩子的诞生最终迫使他需要抽出一些应得的休息时间。当他最终归来时，发现自己的整个办公室都被气球装饰得满满当当。当他温和地接受同事们为欢迎他归来而作的装饰时，员工们告诉他，有东西要给他看。

"They brought me over to a computer monitor and they showed me a new Hero that they'd made: Sir Mullich." The character had been created using a photo of their beloved director when he'd posed as a villager for Might & Magic VI. "Apparently there was some place where the player would go on a quest, and the townspeople do thumbs up or thumbs down. It was all done digitally so I wore a costume, a Renaissance Faire outfit that I think belonged to Bonnie Long-Hemsath's husband, Greg." His team members had then taken his face from the Might & Magic photograph and used it to create his new Heroes persona as Sir Mullich.

“他们把我带到一台电脑显示器前，给我展示了一个他们新制作的英雄：姆拉克爵士。”这个角色是根据他们敬爱的总监在《魔法门6》中扮演村民时的照片创作出来的。“据说游戏中会有这样一个情节，玩家要踏上一段冒险之旅，而当地居民会做出赞许或反对的动作。那都是通过数字技术完成的，所以我穿了一套服装，那估计是邦妮·朗-亨萨特的丈夫格雷格想像出的服装，是那种在文艺复兴节上穿的服装。”那时，他的团队成员从《魔法门》的照片中提取了他的面部特征，并利用这些特征为姆拉克爵士这个新角色创建了形象。

"They put a real funny description of his powers or ability in. Something like, 'Engages in spasmodic responses that he mistakenly thinks will spur his team into action.' I laughed and told them that they could put it in the game." So he made his debut in the Heroes III expansion pack, Armageddon's Blade. Little did he realize at the time that his character would become part of Heroes lore. "To this day I will see fan art of Sir Mullich, and he continues to be used as a character in other games that Ubisoft made in the series."

“他们还加入了一段有关他能力的非常有趣的描述。大概是‘他会做出一些间歇性的反应，并误以为这些反应能够激励他的团队投入行动。’我笑着告诉他们，可以将它加入游戏中。”于是他在《英雄无敌3》的资料片《末日之刃》中首次登场。当时他根本没想到，自己的角色会成为《英雄无敌》系列传说的一部分。“直到今天，我还会看到关于姆拉克爵士的粉丝画作，而且他在育碧制作的该系列其他游戏中仍会被提及。”

ABOVE: Mullich strikes a pose as a Renaissance peasant for his first appearance as a towns-person in Might & Magic VI.

上图：穆里奇扮成文艺复兴时期农民摆了个造型，那是他在《魔法门6》中首次以镇民身份登场时的形象。