Wayne locked the cellar and his room as fast as lightning and ran back to the net cafe. This time, Amy and Jaina had also taken their seats. Along with himself and Tess, there were exactly eight people—the maximum number of factions supported in a single match of Heroes of Might and Magic III.
The people in the room watched him enter with expectant eyes, waiting for the words they knew were coming.
"Guys! The new game is here! It supports up to eight players in a single match!"
Next, he faced a barrage of questions.
"Miller, is the new game better for physical classes or casters?"
"Can we learn magic in this game by watching movies?"
"Is the new game more fun than Monster Hunter?"
Everyone spoke at once, and Wayne couldn't keep up. Finally, he simply said, "Stop asking! Just play it with me and you'll find out!"
So, the seven of them followed Wayne, put on their goggles, and selected Heroes of Might and Magic III at the login interface.
Looking at the title, Hicks said with some disdain, "Quite the bold name. 'Heroes' and 'Invincible'? If you're truly invincible, where's the challenge?"
Wayne chuckled and said to him through the game channel, "You're a genius, aren't you? You're right—the heroes in this game really are invincible."
After the massive "3DO" logo floated by, the cinematic began.
Wayne clearly remembered when he first played Heroes III as a kid; he had clicked his mouse frantically during the opening, only to realize later that the cinematic was unskippable the first time you launched the game after installation.
In the animation, a war flag bearing a red lion fluttered atop a warship. Except for Wayne and Tess, the other six people were astonished. Why did the red lion pattern on the flag look so much like the lion of the Kingdom of Stormwind? Did this game contain elements of reality?
Of course, like Monster Hunter G, this version of Heroes III had its graphics replaced with hyper-realistic virtual reality scenes. It was no longer the ancient, primitive 3D "wooden puppet" effect.
After the lookout on the ship's crow's nest blew the horn, Queen Catherine of Erathia stepped out of the command cabin.
The Queen's armor used very little fabric, and her figure was exceptionally striking, causing the four men from Westbrook Garrison to widen their eyes instantly.
However, an even more surprising scene followed. After Queen Catherine and a squad of heavily armored human soldiers took a landing craft to the shore, they crossed a hill and arrived at a fortress that had just experienced a massive battle.
Lying on the ground, alongside the corpses of human soldiers, was the body of a Minotaur holding a two-handed axe!
Everyone present knew that Tauren were a core faction of the Horde. Their capital, Thunder Bluff, was on another continent called "Kalimdor," not far from the Alliance city of Theramore.
Everyone felt a secret sense of wonder: Is this... really just a game?
Next was a flashback of the battle, pushing their shock to a climax:
A red-eyed Minotaur, after hacking down a heavily armored human warrior, was crushed by the fist of a moving Stone Golem;
A Medusa, whose hair was entirely made of venomous snakes, fought a human Archmage who looked strikingly like Marlin, turning him into a stone statue with her petrifying gaze;
A multi-armed Naga with the lower body of a snake was pecked to death by a swarm of Harpies diving from above;
Tauren, Human Archmages, Nagas that looked exactly like the ones on the west coast of Westfall, and Harpies identical to the ones roaming around the Night Elves' home in Teldrassil—these images made everyone almost forget they were entering a game world. It felt like watching a historical reconstruction of a real war!
But the most jaw-dropping moment was yet to come. Suddenly, an incredibly massive foot stepped down, instantly crushing the Harpies eating the corpses into meat paste. As the camera panned up, it revealed a Titan giant dozens of meters tall!
Before the Titan could lift its foot, a Black Dragon descended from the sky, pounced on it, and incinerated the giant into charcoal with a blast of roaring dragon flame.
A Black Dragon... another Black Dragon!
With that final, all-consuming aura, who else could it be but that!
After the flashback ended, a Gryphon flew in. Queen Catherine picked up the war flag from the ground—only half of it remained after the dragon's fire—and mounted the Gryphon. She flew back to her army and held the flag, now bearing the image of a Gryphon, high for her soldiers to see. This marked the official start of the war to reclaim fallen Erathia!
The cinematic ended, and the game entered the selection interface. Only when the buttons appeared did the group snap back to reality and realize this was indeed a game.
Wayne had them choose the "Tutorial" missions first to familiarize themselves with the basic elements. Naturally, he also used this to see what was different in the virtual reality version.
First were the visuals. It was no longer the original god's-eye view but had changed to a first-person perspective. However, players could still zoom out their vision to inspect everything within range, such as scattered resources, mines, and neutral monsters.
Second was combat. Every battle still transported the player to a separate battlefield, but the player's perspective remained first-person. The soldiers under their command stood at starting positions according to the player's formation, looking like real beings. Of course, the iconic numbers representing quantity were still at each unit's feet.
But the combat process was no longer just a simple "fly over and hack." Whether attacking or counter-attacking, the movements showed strong impact and realistic offensive and defensive animations.
Finally, there was the timing. In single-player mode, time still passed like the original, with the player and computer taking turns.
However, in multiplayer mode, the time for each turn passed simultaneously.
This meant all factions started their actions at the beginning of a turn at the same time. Once all factions exhausted their movement points and finished building, recruiting, and other actions, the turn ended, and the next one began.
It was no longer the turn-based system of the original, where one person playing meant everyone else had to wait idly for a long time.
This change placed new demands on the speed of decision-making and execution. Players could no longer stop to think for a long time before taking action.
Aside from this, since this was the base version of Heroes III, the game only had the original eight races. There was no Conflux town, and no "Combination Artifacts" formed by combining specific treasures.
For Wayne, the simple tutorial mode was cleared in the blink of an eye after he dug up a Grail and built a miracle building.
However, he didn't stay idle after clearing it. He kept hearing calls for help in the game's voice channel.
Wayne: "Prioritize upgrading the Capitol, or you'll just be waiting day after day for gold. There aren't many mines on the tutorial map."
Verdan: "Miller, which units are strong?"
Wayne: "Generally, higher-tier units are stronger individually, but not always. You have to combine them reasonably to make them effective."
Hudson: "What's the difference between the heroes in the tavern?"
Wayne: "Check their detailed information. Everyone has a specialty."
Amy: "Wayne, how do I cast spells?"
Wayne: "You need to build a Mage Guild in town and have your hero enter it to learn spells. Remember to buy a Spellbook, or you won't be able to cast anything."
While everyone else asked about techniques and operations, Tess alone sent Wayne a furious private message. As a net cafe employee, she had private messaging privileges:
"Boss! Why is there a guy in the game named Lord Archibald? He's clearly a villain!"
Wayne was stunned: "Wait, you noticed that?"
In the lore of Heroes of Might and Magic, Archibald was the secondary antagonist of the "Succession Wars."
Tess said angrily, "Why isn't Archibald a King here?!"
Wayne understood instantly. In Azeroth, "Archibald" was the name of the first King of Gilneas—Tess's ancestor.
Wayne smiled to himself...
He thought about how not only the monsters and races were so similar, but even the names of historical figures overlapped...
Talk about a coincidence; it really was just that coincidental.