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