Tracking down missing resources

[iKarith]

I've realized a lot of the resources we have had over the years are beginning to suffer some bit rot. None of the links on the HeroScribe website that would lead to anything you can download work, for example. Many others are gone, or only exist on questionable archives. I'd like to begin collecting these.

One of the things that apparently exists out there is a 3 CD set of everything HeroQuest—this one's mentioned on the HeroScribe site. If this was ever a commercial product, I don't think I ever heard of it. Sounds like some pirate collection from the contents. Which means I don't think the person who created it would mind if it were updated with the best versions available of everything on it, right? The first page at least looks like it's possibly an early set of the reference material on this site to be honest.

Link to Steve's original page: https://www.heroscribe.org/baloban/Mycds.htm

The content of the page follows, attempting to preserve his formatting:

THE HEROQUEST & ADVANCED HEROQUEST CDS

All the cds are ready for you to print or play HeroQuest and Advanced HeroQuest.

The 3 Cd Set.
1st HeroQuest Cd
2nd Advanced HeroQuest Cd
3rd HeroQuest novels Cd


The HeroQuest Cd contains colour scans of all the Milton Bradley HeroQuest expansions.
Including all cards, Quest books, Floor tiles, and some boxes and miniatures.
Ready for you to print out. + Lots of HeroQuest computer games to play.

HEROQUEST CD CONTENTS
1/ HEROQUEST BASIC GAME
English version
English Advanced Quest Edition version
German version
American version

2/ WIZARDS OF MORCAR
English version
German version
Dutch version
Spanish version

3/ AGAINST THE OGRE HORDE
English version
Spanish version
German version

4/ KELLAR'S KEEP
English version
American version
Spanish version
German version

5/ RETURN OF THE WITCH LORD
English version
Spanish version
American version
German version

6/ DUNGEON DESIGN KIT
English version
Spanish version

7/ QUEST PACK FOR THE ELF
American version

8/ BARBARIAN QUEST PACK.
American version


ADVANCED HEROQUEST CD CONTENTS

THE ADVANCED HEROQUEST BY GAMES WORKSHOP CD HAS THE FOLLOWING QUESTS + RULE BOOK, TILES, BOXES & PIECES

1/ TERROR IN THE DARK.

• THE BOX
• THE TILES
• THE QUESTBOOK & RULES

2/ ADVANCED HEROQUEST PAINT SET

• THE BOX
• THE MINIATURES
• THE PAINTING GUIDE

3/ ALL THE QUESTS FROM THE WHITE DWARF MAGS

• THE TROLLSLAYER'S OATH
• RIVERS OF BLOOD
• THE CHANGING FACES OF TZEENTCH
• THE DARK BENEATH THE WORLD
• THE EYES OF CHAOS
• THE HALL OF DURRAG- DOLL
• THE PRIESTS OF PLEASURE
• THE QUEST FOR SONNEKLINGE
• THE QUEST FOR THE LICHEMASTER

4/ MIGHTY WARRIORS

• THE BOX
• CARDS
• DOORS
• INSTRUCTIONS
• TILES

5/ NEW QUESTS + MISC

6/ WARHAMMER QUEST

• ROLE PLAY BOOK
• NEW QUESTS
• TILES
• MISC STUFF

HEROQUEST NOVELS, MAGAZINES ETC CD CONTENTS

THE 3 HEROQUEST NOVELS BY DAVE MORRIS COMPLETE COVER TO COVER.

1/ THE FELLOSHIP OF FOUR.
Includes the HeroQuest adventure game. IN THE NIGHT SEASON.

2/ THE SCREAMING SPECTRE.
Includes the Solo Quest for the Wizard. RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.
Includes a Solitaire Adventure for a Wizard. BEYOND THE WORLD’S EDGE.

3/ THE TYRANT’S TOMB.
Includes a Solitaire Quest for a Barbarian. A GROWL OF THUNDER.
Includes the Solo Adventure for a Barbarian. THE TREASURE OF CHUNGOR KHAN.

FROM THE WHITE DWARF MAGAZINE
ADVANCED HQ AND HQ QUESTS. ISSUES 121,122,125,134,138,139,145,150&159
1/ HeroQuest Quest THE EYES OF CHAOS
2/ HeroQuest Quest THE HALL OF DURRAG-DOL
3/ Advanced HeroQuest Quest THE CHANGING FACES OF TZEENTCH
4/ Advanced HeroQuest Quest THE DARK BENEATH THE WORLD
5/ Advanced HeroQuest Quest THE EYES OF CHAOS
6/ Advanced HeroQuest Quest THE HALL OF DURRAG- DOLL
7/ Advanced HeroQuest Quest THE PRIESTS OF PLEASURE
8/ Advanced HeroQuest Quest THE QUEST FOR SONNEKLINGE
9/ Advanced HeroQuest Quest THE QUEST FOR THE LICHEMASTER
10/ Advanced HeroQuest Quest THE TROLLSLAYER'S OATH
12/ Advanced HeroQuest Quest RIVERS OF BLOOD

THE HEROQUEST COMIC. (THE MARVEL WINTER SPECIAL)
Includes the Quest Revenge of the weatherman.
Includes the Hazard pack.
Includes description of the HeroQuest world.
Includes painting guide.
Includes HeroQuest comic adventure.
Includes HeroQuest Product guide.

THE HEROQUEST STICKER ALBUM.
TWO VERSIONS ONE EMPTY AND ONE COMPLETE WITH STICKERS
Includes HeroQuest world map.
Includes HeroQuest stories

• The Gathering
• The Fire Mage
• The Stone Hunter
• The Bastions Of Chaos
• The Monster Gallery
• The Spirit Blade
• The Barrow of the Witch Lord

Includes 215 HeroQuest stickers. Only 40+ included

THE ADVENTURE UNLIMITED MAGAZINE #5 (63 PAGES)
Includes HeroQuest Quest INN OF CHAOS.
Page 4 Champions (Mayhem in the Morgue)
Page 14 Shadowrlin (Out for Blood)
Page 20 The three basics of Adventure Design
Page 24 Over The Edge (The ice Edge)
Page 28 Call Of Cthulhu (The Sultan’s Treasure)
Page 36 Castle Falkenstein (Wiles of the Wyrm)
Page 42 Pendragon (The Adventure of the Knight Sinister)
Page 44 Mage the Ascension (Winter)
Page 50 Adventure of Distinction
Page 52 Legions of steel (Dopplegangers)
Page 54 Warhammer 40,000 (Renegades)
Page 58 HeroQuest (Inn of Chaos)

Hero Quest Jigsaws Pictures only
Kellar’s Keep
Return Of The Witchlord
Against the Ogre hordes

HeroQuest computer games
1/ HeroQuest 1 Inc instructions PC Version
Emulators- Amstrad, Atari, Commodore, Spectrum.
2/ Return of the Witchlord Inc instructions PC Version
3/ HeroQuest 2 Inc instructions and Emulator.
4/ So You Want to Be a Hero
5/ Quest for Glory1
6/ Quest for Glory2
7/ Quest for Glory3
8/ Quest for Glory4
9/ HeroQuest games by others 2 versions

Other computer games
1/ Space Crucade
2/ conquest

HeroQuest computer programs By others.

• SCREEN SAVER
• DUNGEON DESIGN

(COMPUTER GAMES NOT TESTED)? I HAVEN’T HAD CHANCE TO PLAY THEM.

[iKarith]

Like I said, I think it's safe to say that Ye Olde Inn has everything from the first CD, if not in exactly the same format, it's here. Some of what's here is better obtained from Phoenix's site where he's recreated the quest books and the US manual.

http://heroquest.no-ip.com/advancedheroquest/index.html has some scans of the stuff from the second CD. It's explicitly missing White Dwarf #122's AHQ adventure, and the "complete package" is missing as well. Just those two, making White Dwarf #122 not there. Gotta say though I've only looked at his scan of the AHQ rulebook. It ain't great. I have AHQ and the AHQ Paint Set. I could bring these and my fiancée's parents have a flatbed scanner as well, so I think I can produce a higher quality scan of the rulebook and possibly scan the painting guide from the paint set if that could be better as well.

If someone else hasn't got the missing WD #122 file, it looks like I can buy it for $7 if need be and scan it myself. It'd be purely for archival purposes though I think since while I own AHQ, that game doesn't interest me as much. It isn't really HeroQuest. It's another game that could use the HQ pieces.

I haven't tried to download the computer games (http://heroquest.no-ip.com/#ComputerGames) yet, but I have to say that if these don't work … I know where to find them all.

What's that leave? The screensaver, the novels if someone actually wants to read those (The Old World thread has me interested in those…) The WHQ stuff, and comparing the actual contents of the CD to see if we have everything.

[StratosVX]

Quite a while ago, I started downloading everything I could find because I was noticing the websites disappearing. I know I have some of the stuff you mentioned, but I don't know what all I have. I had the foresight to download the material, but not to sort it. I still need to find time to do that. My HeroQuest folder is over 26GB in size, but I have no idea how many of those files are duplicates.

[iKarith]

On a UNIX system I'd suggest you open a terminal and …

Code: Select all

tree -a /path/to/awesomeness > ~/all-the-things.txt
# dammit why isn't tree installed by default?
sudo apt install tree
tree -a /path/to/awesomeness > ~/all-the-things.txt


…on Windows cmd.exe and…

Code: Select all

tree /f n:\path\to\awesomeness\on\less\awesome\os > %USERPROFILE%\all-the-things.txt
rem we're totally gonna ignore that the command is built-in on Windows


I haven't yet shoved everything into a single directory in a structured format that would lead me to identify dupes myself. I should really get on that.

[Kurgan]

I have heard of this but I think much of the content on the Inn website itself (or the forums) are of higher quality.

[iKarith]

The stuff in the forums is likely to be well-buried, though long-time folks here certainly may be able to find it without too much trouble. That's part of what I hope to do with this thread—make sure what's missing gets found, if it's already posted, or posted by someone who's got it if it hasn't been.

Something important to me is to give people credit as much as possible for their scans and work. A lot of these documents say they may only be hosted on certain sites (or specifically the person who did the work's own), to ensure that they get credit for their contribution, to ensure nobody tries to sell their work for a profit, and so that people will actually visit their website.

Today the websites are often in disrepair, some of the content has been lost, the eBay sellers clearly don't give a crap and there's not much to be done about them anyway, and … and what?

The elephant in the room is Copyright. Every scan, every copy, and every print of those copies, is a Copyright infringement, straight up. This is part of why not much can be done with the eBay sellers. They're using the community's stuff without permission! They don't need the community's permission though, they need Hasbro's. And possibly insofar as everything for the pre-reprint HQ uses names, places, and settings owned by Games Workshop, it probably also requires their permission. But not ours. And unless Hasbro and/or Games Workshop decide to get upset about it, they can continue to do it. If Hasbro/Games Workshop ever decide to slap them down, they can do so pretty hard. But we have no power.

What about for fan creations, cards, quests, etc? Welllll … Unless it's an entirely new deck of cards with entirely new artwork and no assets used whatsoever, then the creator MIGHT be said to own it. Unless they went and made it part of an extended HeroQuest game with HeroQuest all over the website and … all the stuff they obviously did. That could run into Trademark issues (not sure if or how that applies during the time that neither Games Workshop nor Hasbro owned the trademark—I have some background in IP law, but I'm not a lawyer, so I'd defer to one here) and it might even run into Copyright since the game and its mechanics itself are considered to have a Copyright. The K.C. Munchkin case seems apropos for video game historians.

Anyhow, if preservation of the game and the fan content is the goal (and it is mine), it seems that the best way to accomplish this is two archives which might be paired or not—one containing the best versions possible of official game content, the other containing as much fan content as possible, with as much organization as we can manage, with credit where known and links to the websites if they exist, seeing to it that the sites get archived too if they can be.

In some cases, the best versions of official things are recreations—I doubt many would argue that even a 300 DPI scan of the US Quest Book or Instruction Manual can beat Phoenix's meticulous recreations of the same. Yes, they're not the original manual. If you lost your copy of one of these and had to decide which to print, I can't imagine you'd print what amounts to a photocopy over an original document, even if the "original" might be different (far less different than the 2021 print will be!)

Actually, if I really had my way, we'd go the "recreated original" route wherever possible just because it'll cut down on file sizes.