Looking for some very old Heroes2 maps from astralwizard.com

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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pooiyx
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Looking for some very old Heroes2 maps from astralwizard.com

Unread postby pooiyx » 26 Dec 2008, 12:46

Hi. I used to play Heroes 2 from around 1996 to 1998 (when I was 12 to 14 years old). During this time I visited a website called astralwizard.com frequently (I also visited that site for a while after Heroes 3 came out but I can't remember for how long). Unfortunately, the site seems gone now. I wanted to download some maps which I used to play from that site . These maps were very good and had very good stories which I want to read/experience again. I have the Heroes of Might & Magic Complete Edition from earlier this year so I can play old Heroes games again.

I'll provide some more details below regarding what I remember about astralwizard.com and the Heroes 2 maps from there which I want to play again. This is all from my memory (and it's been 10 years or more already) so I may not be 100% accurate. Anyway, here is what I recall:



- The site was run by someone called Astral Wizard (AW) and his real name was Phil McCrum.


- One prominent contributor to that site was called Quebec Dragon (QD) and his real name was Sebastian Patenaude (I don't remember the exact spelling).


- A very good Heroes 2 mapmaker who contributed maps to that site was called Timothy Duncan. In fact, I'm looking specifically for 2 (or more) maps which he created which I will describe below.


- AW/astralwizard.com held regular mapmaking contests. One such contest had a theme which required mapmakers to make a map based on 1 type of unit/creature. I think the runner-up for this particular competition was a map called "Roc round the clock" which featured rocs.

The (very clear) winner of that competition was a map called "Nosferatu" (made by Timothy Duncan) which featured vampires. This was one of the best Heroes 2 maps to me and had some revolutionary features in terms of storytelling for a Heroes 2 map such as 2 different story choices/paths you can take and events telling you to alt+tab to read text files which came with the map (Heroes 2 "Events" were nowhere near as powerful as Heroes 3 Events so this was quite an innovative step to get more text/story into a map).


- Some time later, Timothy Duncan collaborated with some other contributors to astralwizard.com (such as QD) to make a campaign (consisting of several maps) which was a sort of tribute to AW. I also thought this campaign was one of the best I've played for Heroes 2.

I can't remember the name of the campaign, but I think the story started off with the player playing a main character called Elara, and she was serving a queen in a certain kingdom. Some enemies came to torture and kill the queen and Elara had to run away. The player also controlled another hero called Jarod who was Elara's companion in the campaign. He also had one of his hands chopped off by the enemies who took over the kingdom. (btw I may not have remembered the names of these 2 characters 100% correctly)

I remember there was a map (or maybe more than 1 map) in this campaign where there were (usually funny) references to the contributors to astralwizard.com, the mapmakers and other significant people in the community. One such reference I can remember is a character (may not be a playable hero from what I recall) called "Filthy McCrum" which was a reference to AW.

There was also a map in this campaign called "Metallurnia" (or something like that). This map used to crash on older computers (such as the one I had at that time), so a "Metallurnia Wimpy version" was made as an alternative map for those who didn't have good enough computers.


Well that's all I can recall (for now at least). So in short, I'm looking for a Heroes 2 map called Nosferatu made by Timothy Duncan. I'm also looking for a campaign (several maps) made by him in collaboration with other mapmakers. All of these were found on astralwizard.com about 10 years (and more) ago.

I would greatly appreciate it if anyone can help me in any way. Thanks.

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Vlaad II
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Unread postby Vlaad II » 26 Dec 2008, 19:31

Cartographer - maps and mapmaking

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pooiyx
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Unread postby pooiyx » 26 Dec 2008, 21:39

Thanks Vlaad!


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