This is a repost of the old Round Table thread. The posts below are what I and others believe to be important and interesting posts in the history of the Round Table. The original purpose of this post was to give the newer crop of members a snapshot of some of the great discussions that we've had around here and to provide a good snapshot of the boards over the past few years. Now it's also something of a memorial to the old Round Table boards.
Long Live the Round Table!
Game Development
These posts deal with important moments affecting the development of the heroes series, especially the actions and fate of 3DO.
Major Layoffs at NWC - An post detailing extremely important event in the history of the game. This was perhaps the start of the long, downward, spiral of NWC/3DO.
3DO Up For Sale - A blow by blow description of the fall of 3DO. Also contains some great inside information from a good number of former NWC staff. A must-read topic.
Ubisoft to buy Heroes V - The first Forumplanet reactions to something which will shape the future of the game for a long time into the future (hopefully!).
Behind the Curtain: Saving NWC - Something of a post-mortem of how the NWC/3DO partnership treated the game and its fans. Contains a massive argument between Jolly Joker and Corribus.
Gameplay Discussion
Strategies, arguments, gripes, insights and just general, good discussion about the game (mainly H4).
Best Side of H IV - A nice topic about fans favourite parts of H4.
[Poll] Heroes on the battlefield? - A somewhat old topic on an important topic that is still being discussed today.
Gameplay Questions for Gus - Gus Smestad (lead designer and lead programmer for H4) frankly and expansively answers specific questions on some of the basic and not-so-basic gameplay mechanics.
A.I. methodology question - Gus explains one of the basic AI decision processes of the game: how it chooses its target on the tactical battlefield.
Tactics vs Exploits - is "making sense" important? - Possibly the most jaw-droppingly huge and intense discussion these boards have seen, the discussion between PeteusMax and Djive in particular needs to be seen to be believed!
RE: *Controlled* Bug/Bad Feature List - An excellent and fairly well updated list of many of bugs found and fixed in the game. Apparently the developers used this to identify things which needed to be fixed in patches.
Why the he** are Resources Included at All in HOMM4? - There's a lot of discussion about what signature features of the HOMM series should be included in H5 at the moment, this older topic discusses the necessity of the different resources, and how they should be used in the game if they are included.
The most powerful spell of them all - A long and occasionally philosophical discussion of the nature of spells in H4.
Creature Analysis Wanted - A CH feature that was never quite implemented, this forum topic still contains some worthwhile individual creature strategies.
Did ya'll know that... - A great discussion of the little things in the game many players would never otherwise know about.
How to Slay a Black Dragon - A nice little discussion of a problem many of us encounter.
Mapmaking Tips
Essentially a best-of of mapmaking guild topics, these posts deal with map-making and analysis.
Fuel imagination: your most inventing script - A discussion which pushes the limits of creativity and the H4 scripting system.
What makes a good campaign? - Story? Length? Challenge? Quests? Combat? The important components of something which occupies a lot of our playing time is discussed here.
Script library, part 1 and part 2 - A good resource for map-makers looking to understand the mechanics of the scripting system and to help them implement complicated scripts.
Custom Map Reviews - The topic that spawned my map-reviewing "career" and the reviews section of CH. It also contains responses to my reviews by map-makers ranging from positive to positively hateful. (Note: The first post used to contain all the reviews, but they are now in the proper review section).
Heroes IV Mapmaking Tutorial - A good guide crash course to H4 map-making.
Mapmaking Tricks - Good ideas for map-makers of all seniority.
Off Topic/Oddities
Off topic discussion or interesting snippets of info.
The people on this board and their everyday doings: - You gotta hand it to Kalah, a great idea, well implemented and the only thread in which a forum member could poke fun at the others without fear of reprisals. The thread went on for 169 pages, contained more than 2.500 replies and a total of 178 articles.
Hunting and Fishing With Crag - Gothrak is a genius and this is certainly one of his best. Be sure to check out his archived articles on CH.
Geneaology of creatures - This semi-on topic discussion of the "real world" origin of H4 creatures branched off into an odd and lengthy discussion of the arcane. Interesting reading.
I was listening to some MP3's... - Just listen to the linked file
Rage of Carrots - It didn't quite make 2000 replies before being closed, but at 1950 this is still the largest collection of random spam to inhabit these boards. And those who played Wimfrit's campaign found that the madness actually had a point!!
Special thanks to Kalah, GhostWriter, Ethric, Angelspit and Wimfrits for helping to compile this list.
