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The year of peak might and magic
- artemonster 1y agoAstrologers proclaim a week of HOMM3 appreciation posts.
- vunderba 1y agoWhat I wouldn't give for a new Heroes of Might and Magic game with the pixel art style of HOMM2 and the gameplay mechanics of HOMM3...
- tdrgabi 1y agoNot exactly what you asked for but https://store.steampowered.com/app/867210/Songs_of_Conquest/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/867210/Songs_of_Conquest/ is somewhat close. I played the campaign and it scratched the itch
- selimthegrim 1y agoThe SsethTzeentach review is something else
- vanderZwan 1y agoAren't there mods out there for HOMM3 to make it look like HOMM2? edit: found one called "The Succession Wars" https://heroes3wog.net/the-succession-wars/ https://heroes3wog.net/the-succession-wars/
- northhnbesthn 1y agoForget AI. Get in here this is our thread.
- jaza 1y agoAmen!
- GeekyBear 1y agoI keep a Windows 2000 virtual machine with no network access around just to occasionally play HOMM 3. There aren't many games from that era that are as infinitely replayable. Command and Conquer: Yuri's Revenge and Starcraft come to mind.
- Mars008 1y ago> I keep a Windows 2000 virtual machine with no network access around just to occasionally play HOMM 3. according to wiki there should be an easier way: Platform(s) Windows, Macintosh, Linux (PowerPC/x86), iOS, Android Release March 3, 1999
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoI would be quite surprised if a modern Linux could run the original binary without gymnastics. Windows is the only OS which prioritizes backwards compatibility.
- GeekyBear 1y agoThe game isn't stable under modern versions of Windows.
- morsch 1y agoYou're probably right about the native version, but the Windows version works fine: https://www.protondb.com/app/297000?device=pc https://www.protondb.com/app/297000?device=pc
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoHeh. Which is why the only stable Linux ABI is Win32.
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- asboans 1y agoI keep seeing might and magic related content, despite never having played it, or even having heard of it until recently! But in the last few months I have been getting the odd YouTube recommendation, or see the occasional Reddit (and now HN) thread. Why?
- egypturnash 1y agoPossibly it is the Baader-Meinhof Effect. Possibly this is a game you will love playing and should check it out. Whether by emulating an ancient DOS machine or by picking up one of the eleven games in the series available on Steam. (https://store.steampowered.com/sale/might-magic/ https://store.steampowered.com/sale/might-magic/) If it is the latter case then I am sure some enthusiastic fans of this series will reply to this comment or yours with detailed opinions on which option is the best :)
- shadowpho 1y agoThey’ve been increasing in popularity on twitch recently
- ferguess_k 1y agoAs a side (but arguably related) topic: Is there any webpage or book or any media that analyzes the technical aspects of a game? Take HOMM3 as an example -- what are the most difficult technical problems and how did the developers solve them? What are the algorithms that run aspects of the game (e.g. how is path-finding implemented? How is AI implemented?)? What is the architecture of the engine? Does it have a scripting engine and if so how is it implemented? I like post-mortems but mostly are given by designers, directors, not programmers -- and even by programmers they did not go very deep like "John Carmack" type deep. The "Black books" by Fabien came into mind but these are few and far between.
- nottorp 1y agoI don't think anything in the Might and Magic series was ever a serious technological advancement on par with id software's early work. They're some of the greatest games ever made, but it's the design, not the code. Come to think of it, same thing goes for most games that make the greatest game lists.
- pennomi 1y agoThat being said there are a couple technological marvels out there (maybe just not on greatest game lists). Teardown, for instance, has an unfathomable number of voxels that make everything in the world simulated.
- ferguess_k 1y agoI don't disagree, but usually there are some interesting technical problems, e.g. for Starcraft: https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-starcraft https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-...
- hcs 1y agoWarren Robinett wrote an interesting one on Atari VCS Adventure http://www.warrenrobinett.com/inventing_adventure/ http://www.warrenrobinett.com/inventing_adventure/ It doesn't go super deep, he had a more technical book in the works but I haven't heard any updates about it for a while: http://www.warrenrobinett.com/ecv/annotated_adventure_toc/index.html http://www.warrenrobinett.com/ecv/annotated_adventure_toc/in...
- rikthevik 1y agoLove to see some Might and Magic articles. Earlier this year I found a boxed copy of Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen on Marketplace. Everything is in the box and it's all pristine. It goes very nicely with my boxed copy of Might and Magic III that I bought (used!) to play on my first computer, my 386. I think I'm going to get these maps framed.
- incanus77 1y agoI played the shit out of HOMM3. I bought it, though, only after sneaking plays in between customers while working at Radio Shack. We had some ~300MHz Compaq machines that Radio Shack had recently partnered with to sell and on slow days, it was a good way to pass the time.
- wtf242 1y agoOne of my favorite games of all time. It's so simple yet can be so complex. You can legit spend 8+ hours playing the first couple levels easily.
- dekhn 1y agoI remember, as a kid, seeing the first ad for M&M in a computer journal I read. At the time I was happy playing Ultima and it looked like it was going to be a better ultima, and ordered it. Waiting for the floppy disk to arrive seemed like an eternity and at some point I literally dreamed I was playing the game. The game itself, I barely remember- it wasn't that great, kind of like ultima and wizardry but didn't really improve on either of them significantly.
- ModernMech 1y ago"By the seventh go-round, this was no longer quite the shock it once was, but series tradition must be served." To be fair, MM7 was the first time for some of us, and it was quite a shock. What do you mean all the points I put into might and magic are now moot, as the only endgame weapons worth using are blasters?!
- TrackerFF 1y agoMe and my friends had really been playing M&M 6&7 in 98/99, such fond memories. We had really high hopes for Ultima 9 - which came out in 99, as it looked so much more modern than the M&M games...nope, a total turd. Think I still have the box somewhere in the attic though, that was probably the most impressive thing about the game. M&M8 which came out the year after, was good enough though. That's around the time I stopped playing the M&M series.
- pavlov 1y agoUltima IX was so bad that I stopped playing computer games entirely. 3D worlds just never worked for me. All the story immersion and imagination that I’d loved in the games of my childhood seemed to be gone. (I never cared for Doom either, and then all games somehow became Doom.) The next time I bought a high-end 3D game was over 15 years later. That was Fallout 4. I played 30 minutes and then never returned to it. Uncanny valley graphics and boring first person action — nothing like the original Fallouts 1 and 2 of my memories. I guess I’ll have to try another AAA PC game in 2030 just to stick to the schedule.
- electroglyph 1y agowhen you try again in 2030, make sure to get Baldur's Gate 3
- autoexec 1y agoOne thing I loved about HOMM 3 was that even with just one computer you could take turns and get a game going with friends. Not many games offered that unless they were based on board games
- mrgordon 1y agoHotseat was more common back then I think with turn-based games
- inasio 1y agoHOMM3 is a perfect game. I've gotten people hooked on it in the 2020's. I still have an original CD of the linux port, a lot of nostalgia there
- DarkNova6 1y agoAlways happy to share MM nostalgia. The RPG titles had a big impact on me but they seemed too niche without people to share it with.
- wyldfire 1y agoThis title would be clearer if the case were reflected in the title. And significantly clearer still if the name of the game was shown with quotes. What's HN's beef with quotes in the title about? Is it so prone to misuse that we have to lose out on legitimate uses?
- ranprieur 1y agoI agree with the author: Heroes II is my favorite of the series, just for the innocent vibe. Also, Heroes IV is underrated. It got bad reviews because it came out buggy, but the bugs were fixed in updates, and of all the HOMM games, it has the best soundtrack.
- hakunin 1y ago100% agree, esp. on the soundtrack. I thought I was going crazy when in Witcher 3's Skellige island it started playing the soundtrack from HOMM4. (See Track 14 here: https://youtu.be/F9sG0r_9f4M?t=4400 https://youtu.be/F9sG0r_9f4M?t=4400).
- nurettin 1y ago> the best soundtrack. Really hard to say, homm3 soundtrack was a true masterpiece.
- IG_Semmelweiss 1y agoI don't know. HoMM2 has some incredible tracks too. And that's despite taking some risks with opera music.
- nurettin 1y agoAnd I fully agree with that! I still listen to HOMM2,3,4 for mood altering. Oh and AOE1,2 and SC1,2
- randomNumber7 1y agoHeroes IV has a bad design. Your hero can be attacked, so you are forced to pick the warrior class to not get oneshot. You can only have 2 classes and one slot is kinda fixed.
- aulisius 1y agoI remember coming across HoMM around 2008, but the published game was nowhere available near where I lived, so I ended up playing a web based clone[0]. Been playing it for around 17 years, and it is still quite fun. [0] https://www.lordswm.com/ https://www.lordswm.com/
- lr4444lr 1y agoWorld of Xeen was an enchanting experience. The interlocking quests in an open exploration world with a party of characters you could custom select with different attribute strengths, the large spells and weapons compendium, and the music just all came together in a way that no other RPG before or since engrossed me.
- nine_k 1y agoI don't even play the game. But I value very highly the artwork, the music, the sounds, the whole atmosphere. The endless autumn forests, the castles, the fairy dragons—they all rightfully belong to a museum of baroque art. A game can be a work of art in itself; HoMM III definitely is.
- yurimo 1y agoI believe there is new one coming out closer to HOMM3, called Olden Era. https://unfrozen.studio/games/olden-era/ https://unfrozen.studio/games/olden-era/ I did try Songs of Conquest, it was decent
- pjmlp 1y agoI played many of those games, lots of amusing hours around them.
- mrgordon 1y agoMy favorite game of all time. I still have the CD-ROM even though I don't have any CD-ROM drives :)
- ramses0 1y agoJust gotta throw some shine to "Battle for Wesnoth" - https://www.wesnoth.org/ https://www.wesnoth.org/ Not exactly the same, but a well-deserving open source cousin. Turn based, strategy, lightweight RPG (a-la X-Com with unit leveling, unit permadeath, campaigns, multiplayer, etc)