Order of categories, and other complains
2 years ago
Iceland

Guys,

First time I'm here and I'm curious on the next things:

  1. Why ROE, AB and SOD are the same game? These are the different games. As Warcraft 3: ROC and TFT. Maybe I will make some AB or SOD runs and request a new game.
  2. Why "Full game" categories (all campaigns at once) are on the first page? As a new user, I've found this webpage, and I see that Heroes 3 have no runs at all (on the frontpage). If noone runs this, please remove these categories or move them to the end.
  3. What does "No HD+" means? I know that "HD+" it's Baratorch's HD mod.
  4. For God's sake, remove this sliding background. This looks awful.

Cheers!

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Massachusetts, USA

Restoration of Erathia, Armageddon's Blade, and Shadow of Death are separate campaigns of Heroes of Might and Magic III, have their own maps w/ their own objectives, and therefore are their own speedrunning categories.

The discussion for categorizing (No) HD+ can be found here: https://www.speedrun.com/hommiii/thread/ot1a4 Essentially, runs are separated based on the features the HD+ option provides.

Due to the website's changes over the past couple of months, the layout of this game's leaderboards have changed, of which I did not notice until now. All of the category tabs used to be displayed outright; there weren't the left/right arrow buttons to scroll to the hidden ones. Category tabs used to display '(empty)' if there were no runs, which would direct users to the other tabs where the main runs were.

I did not implement the leaderboard's current theme, nor did I notice since I have disabled custom themes in my settings. I have made adjustments to the theme now.

Alukret likes this
Iceland

Hi Adam,

Thanks for your reply! Yes, the website design changed recently, but I'm in love of speedrunning since I've found Speed Demos Archive website long ago, and want a data to look good here.

I've read HD+ discussion, thanks for a link. HD+ is an absolutely amazing thing I ever seen in game modding and disallowing its features is a crime. I don't know if you allowed UI.InviteHero or not in result, but as for me it should be legal. Though I agree that HD+ and vanilla is an absolutely different games. Unfortunately, vanilla is sucks and I see no reason to play it.

Regarding ROE, AB and SOD: For me it's a totally different games, because they have not only an additional map/campaign packs, they also have some balance changes, AB and SOD have one more fraction, SOD introduced set artifacts (such as AOTD) and many other artifacts changes. They was even created in different years. Every expansion has 7 campaigns from 3 to 8 missions each and if we will have a cumulative level leaderboard it will contains about 90 individual levels which is too much for one game. Is there any problems to manage 3 games instead of 1? I'd like to help.

Also suggestion: I think "in-game days" category is a very good idea and should be as an option in the list where "HD+", "No HD+" and "vanilla". Though I don't understand why "in-game days" category contains info about time. It should have only info about months, weeks and days spent.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention: players can speedrun not only campaigns and campaign maps, but also a single scenarios (about 30 for each expansion). This is an argument to dividing game into 3 games.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Massachusetts, USA

We have the individual levels of the campaigns under Level Leaderboards, which is under the dropdown menu. We manage the many scenarios the game offers this way. If one isn't there, ask for it in the forum under the stickied thread here: https://www.speedrun.com/hommiii/thread/v9mw2

Runners mainly use the GOG release of Heroes of Might and Magic III: Complete, which updates to the Shadow of Death expansion. As far as I'm aware, there isn't a way to play the previous expansions under their original releases unless you had the original discs. In this case, I just ask if there is a run from the original disc of that expansion just to ask me to make a new category for it.

We have agreed to use the HD mod for speedruns mainly because of technical limitiations of the original game (recording mainly). In this case, we consider enhancements provided by the mod like UI.InviteHero to be submitted under HD+, and for such to be turned off when submitted for No HD+.

We have In-Game Days as a separate leaderboards, listed in the stickied thread, found here: https://www.speedrun.com/hommiii_in_game_days

Mazowieckie, Poland

RoE, AB and SoD refer to campaigns rather than diferent versions. Although I don't see any advantages to play RoE and AB (campaigns are "stuck" internally in those versions anyway), playing SoD would be beneficial in some cases (archangels didn't cost gems back then). I have "Złota Edycja" copy, which is basically Sod with 1 hotfix - 3.1 (Complete is 3.2), but I don't use it because unlike the complete version it has some cinematics missing.

Iceland

Yes, but we speedrun campaigns and campaign maps, and they are refer to different expansion packs (because they are stucked in RoE and AB and its balance). For me information will be a little more structured, instead of just putting everything related to HOMM3 game in one thread. Even campaign list will be inconvenient, because there are 20 campaigns in total. It's hard to even remember each name and from what expansion it is.

@NieMaTakiegoDrugiego: Just watched your "Long Live the Queen" speedrun. Is there any way to "invite" DD to GM ? Or just a lot of tries ? I thought about playing first with map generation to check 5th level spell in towns, and then load game and run it as a speedrun. But not sure this will work. The same thing with Utopias content is you need Air book or Angel Wings.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Mazowieckie, Poland

I don't understand wdym by "with map generation", but I can tell you there is no way to invite DD to mage guild. 16% chance every time your run gets through first level.

The only thing you can do is invite a hero to tavern if you need one. Sometimes it's too slow, so you're better off just rolling until you get him lol.