Heroes Chronicles compatibility problems and question

[Richard Hallas]

Hi all,

After a while trying, I've managed to obtain all four of the long-discontinued Heroes Chronicles packs (US versions) and have installed them under Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2, and they seem to work fine.

Having installed these, I've also downloaded the two free Chronicles, World Tree and Fiery Moon, from Celestial Heavens, and they installed just fine on my system.

To my frustration, though, these two downloaded free chapters refuse to launch now that they're installed. The screen blanks and then I get a Windows crash-report window rather than the expected 3D0 intro video. I can get no further.

Does anyone have an idea about how to get them working, please?

Also, in another thread, I saw a reference to a Part 7 Chronicle called the Final Chapters, which apparently was commercial. I haven't heard of this before; can anyone tell me anything about it, please? Was it really a fifth boxed release from 3D0? And what did it contain? Was it another pack to follow on after the free campaigns, or did it perhaps bring all the previous Chronicles together into one installation (maybe with an extra final set of scenarios)?

Any info would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.

By the way... is it actually possible to get the Heroes Chronicles maps working in either a standard version of Heroes III or maybe WoG? If WoG, say, could play these maps, it would be a lot handier than having to have six or seven Chronicles installations.

[Mitzah]

Well, I dunno about your technical problems, but as far as I know, HC The final chapters contains two chronicles: Revolt of the Beastmasters and The Swrd of Frost (which is the final one).

[Ya5MieL]

Heroes Chronicles Final chapters brings two last chapters in chronicles story:

EP7: Revolt of the beastmaster
EP8: Sword of frost

they were released by 3do separately in europe and as "final chapters" in usa.

EP8 story was a base for heroes 4 story, since it describes how kilgor got the sword of frost and what would happen if the two swords meet so overall i think that episode is best of all 8.

and you dont need all instalations, games can share same data folder if you install them on same place (i have all 8 instalations working in one folder)

[berntie]

EP7: Revolt of the beastmaster
EP8: Sword of frost

they were released by 3do separately in europe and as "final chapters" in usa.

Err, no. At least, the German version is also called "The Final Chapters" and comes with both, Revolt of the Beastmasters and The Sword of Frost.

[Richard Hallas]

First of all, thanks for the tips about the Final Chapters. I've managed to get hold of a copy, have installed it, and it works fine. I'm pleased to find that you can also launch these last two chapters without having the CD in the drive (unlike the first four), which is good.

Back to my problems with Fiery Moon and World Tree, though...

I suspect that the crashes I'm seeing are related to the first-run testing that the games perform. If you remember, the first time you launch one of these games, there's a twirling world graphic and a couple of 'TESTING' words that spin in the corners of the screen, and after that it goes through to the 3D0/NWC stuff and the intro video. I'm reminded of this because I've just installed the Final Chapters.

The crashes I get with WT/FM are right at the start, before the 'testing' screen. I reckon that if I could get past this initial part, the games would work fine. Given that the testing only happens on the first run, presumably a preference file gets written somewhere to say that the game has passed for future launches.

Anyone know where that preference file is? If someone could email me a copy of it, so that I could install it and see if it makes my problem go away, it'd be *really* helpful...

By the way, this is on a new, clean installation of Windows XP SP2 with all the MS updates and the latest DirectX. I don't think there's anything 'fancy' about my system that would make the game fail for me and not for anyone else. Am I really alone in suffering from this problem?

Final point: I tried all the 'compatibility mode' tweaks that Windows provides, but none of them helped.

[mrPassenger]

Hi,
I just installed these last night, and had the same problem.
However, all I needed to do was put the CD from one of the first 4 games in the drive, and it worked fine. Hope that helps you.

A secondary question for anyone reading, I just finished Chronicles:Clash of the Dragons last night. I didn't bother assembling the whole 'dragon' artifact because I was done the game before I had found all the peices.
Can anyone satisfy my curiosity and tell me what the artifact does?, and what happens when you bring all 8 peices (or so) to the Seer?

Thanks,
-Dale

[Richard Hallas]

I just installed these last night, and had the same problem.
However, all I needed to do was put the CD from one of the first 4 games in the drive, and it worked fine. Hope that helps you.

<fx>Slaps self around head repeatedly with wet fish</fx>

Now, why on earth didn't it occur to me to try that? I tried everything else I could think of...

I guess it was a combination of the fact that (a) the other games complain that the CD isn't present rather than crashing, and (b) I'd assumed that the installer would check to see whether you'd got enough of the other Chronicles to allow you to install these two, rather than checking for a CD for one of the previous games.

Anyway, putting the CD in the drive does indeed allow the games to launch and work just fine. Thanks ever so much for the feedback. At last I've got a full, working set!