WARNING - The dreaded moment is here: Heroes 6 servers shutting down

Been wondering when this was gonna happen and how it was gonna go.. on jan 2024 Ubisoft will be shutting down the online features of Heroes 6.. effectively breaking most of the game, and knowing ubisoft there's probably no patch planned to fix it all unless the fanbase kicks up a huge fuss like what happened with M&M10. :/

https://www.celestialheavens.com/heroes-6-servers-will-be-shut-down-on-25th-jaunary-2024

https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/64NYEKbdiuRMqFE0YXvWCN/decommissioning-some-online-services-in-january

https://steamcommunity.com/app/48220/discussions/0/3874844033661721770/

Quote :

The same thing that happened to MMX:Legacy [but worse]
If you think that server decommission affect only multiplayer then you are wrong. Most functionalities are locked behind Online-only DRM:

- Conflux and Dynasty profile will no longer work. Bestiary with artworks and lore descriptions will be unavailable.
- Amount of heroes in skirmish will be limited to 2 per faction
- Dynasty weapons and pets will be no longer available - All swords and Staves will dissappear from the game. Option to level up then will dissappear. People who leveled all of them to level 5 will lost all progress
- Dynasty traits and slots for them will be disabled. Those are a starting conditions like additional resources at the beginning, reduced cost of building, bonus stats etc.
- Achievements will be disabled. For doing achievements you would receive point which are used for unlocking stuff in this game: heroes, weapons, pets, traits, slots, portraits, titles etc.
- Multiplayer will be no longer available - obvious
- You will loose your online saves. Game forces you to cloud saving and limited you to 10 saves. Local saves will available? No idea

Not happy! As someone who still hasn't finished the whole game and wants to play the Xeen DLC content this is not cool. If I recall those bonus DLCs were downloaded inside the game. And there's so much other stuff inside the game linked to online.. if they just switch off the servers the game will be stuffed and I fear we'll lose access to DLC after a fresh install.

Was just thinking.. the only potential positive out of all of this is that IF Ubisoft do get the message and patch Heroes 6 to work better be more featured in offline mode, then that would finally open the doors to the modding community to try and fix other remaining bugs (ie black screen, dark map, buggy dynasty weapons etc) and add more content like we're seeing in the awesome Heroes 5.5 and 7.5 fan projects.

Well it's been weeks since the cutoff and weirdly Ubisuck still haven't shut it down.. considering it went down a bunch of times before the deadline some people are wondering if Ubisoft did a test and realised just how stuffed the game is without it and are working on a patch. Also some players contacted Ubi support threatening legal action saying they're breaking EU law so some are wondering if that scared them into doing something too. However it's Ubisoft we're talking about here so it's also entirely possible that they care so little they just simply forgot to turn it off lol!!! sigh...

Wow.. looks like they actually patched the game and gave the fans what they wanted.. the online dynasty features (items & heroes etc), DLC and online saves now available offline via a huge patch that adds heaps of the server stuff to your install making it around 14.5GB apparently.

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/help/might-and-magic-heroes-6/gameplay/article/availability-of-online-features-in-heroes-of-might-and-magic-6/000106804

However this is ubisoft we're talking about here so of course celebrations were shortlived when people realised a whole bunch of new problems had arrived.. judging by the threads on Steam some people can't start the game anymore, people lost all their dynasty progression (that one was predictable), you can't transfer your hero progression through campaign anymore (always start at lvl1 making later missions much harder), and people have lost the ability to scroll around the map with the mouse. I wonder if they'll patch it some more! Oh and sadly I can't test the patch myself as I'm using an old version of Ubisoft Connect (as newer ones don't work on Win7) and that is refusing to update the game, I guess I could try reinstalling but I half suspect I'll lose the game altogether doing that! EDIT: Tried the reinstall, worked, now I've got the latest copy, sure enough everything is unlocked, it's as if I've completed the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/48220/discussions/

At least now it's content is definitely all in the offline version making it possible for heavier modding now! Maybe fans can fix some of its issues in the years to come..

.

I didn't expect Ubisoft to do anything to preserve this game, so a patch giving out all the content from DLCs, preorder bonuses etc. is more than welcome!
However, I am equally disappointed to hear that this patch may have done as much bad as good. They should definitely fix it for good, but that is probably too much to ask Ubisoft for.

Some good news.. modder RedTreant has already found a way to fix the issue with Heroes not transferring/carrying over/progressing between campaign missions and he's also fixed the issue with special heroes like Anastasia, Crag Hack and Sandro not being playable in their campaigns anymore. What a legend.. I was worried no one would be able to or want to fix this stuff anymore.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/additional-heroes/

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=47410&PID=1579438#focus
.