This is one of the reasons why GOG is so awesome. I prefer the original music, so this is great.

My Mistake, thanks for pointing that out :D

I do understand that - which is why this idea has always been a bit 'pie in the sky'. When I used to play the original game, obviously I understood that's how it worked, because I used to make a choice about which CD to have in the drive: original or expansion.

But to be fair, what I'm suggesting is *not* impossible; it's merely very difficult. Clearly the game is aware of whether it's playing an original map or an expansion map, so there'd need to be new code patched it to make it pick a different "CD track", in effect, if the player were entering an expansion town rather than an original town. (Recall, the Necromancer town does in fact differ slightly in the expansion, as it gains the ability to build a new structure.)

Indeed, the whole Heroes II engine has been rewritten (though I haven't seen anything new from that project in a while; briefly, for example, it led to the appearance of a couple of iPad versions of Heroes II, but they didn't last long and are no longer available). So this, in theory, is something that could at least be added to the rewritten game, if that ever gets finished.

As it stands, though, I'm sure it'd be possible to patch this feature into the original game, but it'd be a pretty challenging task for some expert or other!

Are you referring to fheroes2?
http://sourceforge.net/projects/fheroes2/

I love you guys! Thank you for this! :D

Not long ago I was kinda puzzled when I tried to play me my favourite track (Necromancer castle) only to find out that it's not the same.

You guys are awesome! Thank you so much!

Given that the source code for the original game is not available, no, it's not possible by any normal means. Even if it was, it wouldn't be economically feasible anyway.

If a suitable engine replacement was available, then yes, that might be made to do it, but the original game? No.

That's the one, yes.

Interestingly, the Heroes III engine has also been rewritten in a similar way, with a new project that supports original and expansion maps and the maps for the third-party expansion, WoG – plus extra features like high-resolution screen sizes etc.

http://forum.vcmi.eu/
http://forum.vcmi.eu/portal.php

Can I just be clear that I was expressing something I'd like to see in an ideal world, not asking anyone to do it or wondering about its practical feasibility or whatever. This wasn't supposed to start an argument about what is or is not possible; I was just mentioning a feature that, in an ideal world, would be nice.

Having said that, a few things are worth pointing out:

1. Both Heroes II and Heroes III engines *have* been rewritten by third parties, with support for new features etc; see my post just above for links to each. Clearly, with the new Heroes II engine, this would indeed be possible.

2. I actually disagree that the feature couldn't be patched back into the original game. Anything can be done, given the necessary time, effort and expertise. In support of this I'd like to point out that the original Heroes III WoG team produced the WoG expansion by reverse-engineering the Heroes III binary. They had no access to the source. By some pretty virtuosic hacking they managed to vastly expand the feature of the existing game, add new creatures, add major and minor new gameplay elements, adjust the AI to cope with the changes and generally do incredible things. So to say that adding a little patch like the one I'm suggesting to the original Heroes II game code is impossible clearly isn't the case. Was it economically viable to do this project? Of course not! They did it for love, not money. But they did indeed do it, and it's one of the most impressive pieces of hacking ever seen, as it completely transforms the game.

So obviously what I'm suggesting *could* be done. But the chances that it will be done are essentially zero.

Hehe, I enjoy a good discussion, and I certainly don't think any less of you for having a different opinion. If I come off as antagonistic, I apologize. That is not my intention.

That said, what you are describing is not "by normal means". I knew what you described is possible. Something similar was used to make the KeeperFX engine for Dungeon Keeper. I didn't actually know about the HoMM3 thing though. But neither change can be said to have been made "by normal means". Those are definitely not the usual ways to go about software development.

Still, technically, we're both right. It is possible, and it would be a nice feature to have, even if it is not doable by normal software development techniques, or economically feasible.

:-) Fine, no worries. I was just a bit concerned that we were getting into a pointless argument about nothing.

Did I ever say it was?! ;-) It was you who used that phrase!

I'm probably at the older end of people here, which means that I grew up with computers in the 80s, I remember the 'good old games' from first time round, and to ME hacking means starting with a binary and pulling it apart to see how it works! E.g. One of the things I did in my youth was to hack the original Spectrum version of Jet-Set Willy in order to work out how the in-game bleepy music routine worked, and thus replace the music with another tune. (Hardly the world's greatest claim to fame, but it's all my own!)

So I'm full of admiration for the guys who started with the release version of Heroes III and hacked it about until WoG was the final outcome. An incredible piece of work, in my book. And, I mean, that really is taking hacking to a mad extreme... but hats off to the people who did it.

With the sort of wares we find here on GOG, though, that kind of approach (i.e. hacking the binary) will sometimes be the only way of achieving something like this. That isn't to say I expect anyone to do it, or that it'd make economic sense or have any other claim to rationality! I'd merely, simply, like to see it happen! :-) And actually, it probably wouldn't be that big a job for the kind of person who's written some of the other Heroes hacks, so if such a person is reading...

We are indeed agreed, then! Aren't many of the best things in life rather like this, though? (Worth doing for their own sake, rather than for the money.)

I'm not that familiar with the HOMM series yet, what is the difference in the town music patched and unpatched? Any youtube vids someone could point me to?

How can I determine which HoMM 2 soundtrack is used?

Ah, much thanks, now I just have to decide which I prefer, though I didn't grow up playing this series so I don't really have a strong connection to either.