No I will not.

Apparently you forgot when I gave you mod status two years ago, you submitted your runs without someone reviewing them prior. I said this is not appropriate for a moderator to do as it is an abuse of power; you are not the only one competing for best time(s) for this game; you bypass others who have to wait for approval.

You said nothing years ago when I gave my reasoning, as I gave you twice chance with mod privileges. You may have mod status for another game, but you give me no reason to trust you now.

So I recently found about subcategories, so I went and edited the leaderboards to incorporate a new category: Cheater%.

Now HoMM II speedruns can use cheat codes; just be sure to label your run as 'Cheater%: Cheats Allowed' in its dropdown box when you submit it.

Any concerns about this, the rules regarding Cheater%, or such, please leave a comment below.

Uh, reminder for anyone reading this to reset your password on this site. Some security issues arose, as well as it seems they rolled back the site a couple days ago. Some forum posts seems to be gone now.

On topic, I was informed by @MiklMaar about an easier method of adding variables to all runs. Didn't see that button before, then I did, then the site/accounts got hacked, so I had to wait after the rollback. 8- All current runs posted are sub-categorized as 'HD+: Yes' and the leaderboards are now separated. After the eventual retiming of runs, some runs may change their HD+ category if they are found not using any HD+ features.

Now that I know variables and categories are a thing, I'll go make similar split categories in the other Heroes games as well. Oh, would anyone like a Cheater% category here as well?

I was stuck thinking on how to go about this, especially on if I had to go through every run and re-time them all. Ugh.

I am against clearing the entire leaderboards; not only would it be unfair to the other runners, it would also look bad to a passerby that possibly finds their run on YouTube/Twitch, but not on here.

So, even though it's ridiculous to have 20+ categories, that would be the better way to organize everything. What I can do to keep the categories to a minimum is have runners request a 'new' category when necessary. After this, all that's left to do is create a sticky post (should've done that so long ago, apologies) with the updated rules, and it'll be where you can request a new category for the leaderboards.

Sorry for replying fairly late; problems at home.

I assumed everyone started their timer at the campaign menu, but I do remember some players starting their runs on the first map instead. So sigh I'll have to re-time runs based on that, when a runner clicks the first dialogue box until to the last dialogue box.

I'm not saying to ban the HD mod in anyway, but it is one of the only mods I know that pretty much requires for use it to speedrun, so some discretion needed. By all means use it. I'm in favor of a making a subset of rules when using the HD mod. If a feature can be turned off and affects RNG manipulation, turn it off/don't use it at all during a run. So for example, don't have the HD+ box checked before starting the game/don't use 'Replay Battle'; don't use the Tavern Invite Hero feature; those sort of things. The honor system is far easier to manage that way too.

But if and when a feature of the HD Mod can't be turned off? Well, it'll be up for debate when that time comes.

Please bring up anything I have missed as the HD/HD+ mod adds a lot, like one tweak for CPU usage.

I'll set up a Sticky Post later about what's agreed of the HD Mod.

For modern systems, it is necessary to use the HD Mod in order to easily record gameplay. As I've found out, the original game, as well as Heroes Chronicles, does not exit fullscreen to windowed without changing the color bitrate of the system. It is a hassle enough to record and make sure the video isn't corrupted, so let's use the HD Mod on that basis alone.

An issue for me as a moderator is how to judge a run when I have no idea of knowing what a player's settings are outside of the game. This stems from the issue of what should and shouldn't be allowed when using the HD Mod. As I see it, if a feature wasn't originally programmed in the vanilla game, a speedrun should not be accepted if it uses an outside feature. I think of using a GameShark on N64 games like this; it's useful for practice, but not what the game is originally.

So that leads to a big can of worms of trying to decide what's acceptable and not. The HD Mod provides a lot of quality of life features that make playing smoother, but there's bits that adjust/bypass some RNG elements and some that, to my knowledge, can't be disabled.

The Tavern Invite I believe shouldn't be enabled; not only it's not in the vanilla game, it cuts RNG out of saving and loading when many other speedruns have to deal with it, especially without the use of a 3rd-party mod. Troop management in castles: the HD Mod allows ease of recruiting by clicking on creatures' portraits and mass-recruiting on the castle portrait in the lower left window instead of clicking on the individual buildings. As much as I love this feature, it's not in the vanilla game DX. But I don't know if this can be disabled, so if it can't, how should a speedrun be judged?

I was wondering why games I am a moderator for weren't sending me emails.

All set.

Updated.

I can always add those levels back later if someone requests it, but for now I'll remove them to make the Level Leaderboard easier to read.

All set.

If you have a map you'd like to submit for the Level Leaderboard and it's not there, please post here so I may update the settings.

Also, if you could keep it to the default maps, i.e. not custom maps or from the Internet/maps that did not come with the base games, I'd appreciate it (as well as not have to check if something has changed on a custom map).

It's a standard map from the Expansion game. It's more of a joke to put it here due to the unfair difficulty of the map. You're facing five (OP) AI opponents and you lose if you lose your main hero.

Found an image from Google Search of the start: http://imgur.com/trZK3M5

One reason might be due to how it loads off the hard drive. I used an HDD for my run and it takes a couple of map loads to clear most lag; on an SSD the lags are barely noticeable. This game is over 20 years old so there will be some issues when playing on modern systems.

I use the DOSbox version sold by GOG.com. It's the closest to actual DOS while being able to use recording software. Unless anyone would rather record from a(n) (emulated) Windows 98 or such, I can't think of a reason not to use DOSbox for official runs (bar any HoMM II HD remake from Ubisoft DX).

For my set-up, I just cropped the game's taskbar when recording and edited the DOSbox config so frame drops are at a minimal.

If you find timing a video game ridiculous, then you miss the main point of speedrunning. If you mean trying to time Heroes III rather than base off of 'in-game time', then I will try to compromise. If we based this game on in-game days, there would be players who would tie by endgame with videos of differing times. Using a timer ranks player's skills in relation to where they are in the same level.

That being said, I could opt to add in the in-game timer for runs and edit the rules to compensate, like this category in Rayman: http://www.speedrun.com/rayman_1#Any_Damageless. But I should not make this decision myself. If other players don't mind, I'll add it in, but you still need a timer like everyone else in order to count as a speedrun.

Does anyone else's game stutter when it's set in windowed mode and run smooth in full-screen? I'm only able to capture screen-region while streaming, unless I used another program to record, so it's an issue for me. I wouldn't want to try to speedrun this as is, nor with the Equilibrium mod as that changes the AI significantly.

Just missing. Added.

In the last week, I tried to route the Price of Loyalty campaign. It was fine until the last two scenarios. Put it this way: the Roland campaign takes about ~200 days; this took me 309, and half of that was for those two. Between the necessary scenarios and difficulty spike towards the end, I'm thinking this might be a 3-4+ hour speedrun.

You can skip playing 3 out of the 8 scenarios, but you will be severely handicapped for endgame. Having the artifacts and free Elves make for a consistent route and should save more time than building troops.

As for difficulty, most maps are rush the AI and are fairly straightforward. Except the last two. I would say #7 is worse than #8. #7 requires the AI doesn't open all the gates (terrible map design), then either building troops or getting Dimension Door. #8 is easier with the use of Town Portal, but goes to hell if Red gets Dimension Door. Most likely they do as they have 5 castles. And about 1000 of each undead troop. Joy.

I might stream this sometime by the end of next week, as it'll be Spring Break for me soon.