The year of peak might and magic

I believe there is new one coming out closer to HOMM3, called Olden Era. https://unfrozen.studio/games/olden-era/

I did try Songs of Conquest, it was decent

I 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.

Love 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.

I 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.

World 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.

As 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.

One 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

I 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.

Me 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.

I 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.

This 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?

Forget AI. Get in here this is our thread.

I 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/

I 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?

Astrologers proclaim a week of HOMM3 appreciation posts.

HOMM3 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

Always 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.

One 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.

I 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.

"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?!