Additionally, a large assortment of hero characters made it through the portals and appear in Heroes 4. Old favorites like Sandro and Crag Hack and many of the H3 newcomers continue their careers on Axeoth.

Personally, I've always wondered about the decision to destroy the world of MM6/7/8. In the past (before MM6), NWC has had no problem with simply jumping ship from planet to planet whenever the current scenario was exhausted. Then again, that may have been just a plot device -- the early MMs were focused on tracking down the insane guardian Sheltem as he rampaged across the cosmos, so there was no need to sit in one spot for too long and develop a setting as complex as Enroth/Erathia/Jadame (someone should have really named that planet!).

Thinking on it now, it seems like blowing up the old world was a way for the creators to "start fresh" again (in the same sense as the old planet-hopping MMs) while still keeping some favorite elements from the developed setting. After all, you can't bring in familiar faces without explaining WHY they moved to Axeoth... erego, worldwide catastrophe.

It's really a pity, as a lot of us around here are noticeably attached to the MM6/7/8 (not to mention HoMM 1/2/3) setting. I'd be interested to know whether the decision to move to a new setting originated in NWC, or whether it was part of a 3DO mandate.