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(re: Whoa whoa WHOA!!!) A bit unrelated, but, something that I would love to have/collect if someone ever did manage to resurrect this stuff would be classic Space Quest action figures. That would be awesome, all the characters/aliens/robots from the classic Space Quest games.
Oh yeah… I would love to have Space Quest action figures, from Roger with his mop and Spike accessories to Quirk with removable toupee to Beatrice Wankmeister (she’s just pretty) to Sludge Vohaul (he’s just evil). Serious action figure potential for sure.
(re: Finding the Way Home – Sierra-related article) A great read and a nice account of how the Sierra of old is represented on the web nowadays by fans and former makers alike. There’s more out there, of course, sites like
Link: http://www.scottmurphy.com/(http://www.scottmurphy.com/)
(extremely stylish for a work [not] in progress page! đ or
Link: http://www.howtobeahero.com/about.html(http://www.howtobeahero.com/about.html)
(Lori Cole is among the people behind this QFG related online community – honestly I haven’t quite figured out what it’s all about) – but I suppose you’ve got to stop somewhere! đAnyway, Thank you for this interesting feature! đ
(re: Whoa whoa WHOA!!!) Seeing as James Bond was worth 1-1.5 billion US$ in Sony’s recent acquisition of MGM, I’d say something like IP of Sierra’s old franchises would be pretty miniscule, as their earning potential is nothing compared to that of James Bond.
A bit unrelated, but, something that I would love to have/collect if someone ever did manage to resurrect this stuff would be classic Space Quest action figures. That would be awesome, all the characters/aliens/robots from the classic Space Quest games.
(re: Whoa whoa WHOA!!!) Somewhere there has to be some rich guy who loved Sierra games as a kid, and then got really weathy off the dot-com explosion in 99. Someone who has just enough nostalgia combined with money to buy back the Sierra name and the rights to the original games. It’s not a solution, but it’s a starting point for whatever is to come of the new “game development team” starting here.
It’s ridiculous to say that there is no more value left in Kings Quest, Space Quest, QFG, etc… everyone knows that groups of hard-core fans are working every second of their free time to create fan-sequels! That’s madness! That’s the people stepping up and telling the world that if they don’t get what they want, they’re going to make it themselves! And then there are the groups remaking the old games from scratch on AGS and offering them for free! No other games have that kind of dedication. Do they have an overdeveloped sense of nostalgia? Yes. George Lucas made a lot of money off nostalgia with the Star Wars prequels, and weren’t even very good.
Plus imagine the publicity opportunities for the “Rebirth of Sierra” – a phoenix rising from the ashes of corporate destruction! I agree there are a lot of people that would work for dirt cheap to have a Sierra business card– the old sierra on-line that is. There is a strong desire in the hearts of young programmers to make memorable adventure games and work for a company that cares and respects them and their customers.
Where are you nostalgic rich guy? Help us out!
(re: display bug in Safari / Mac OSX)
Not for me, it’s not.
IE does seem to be working now but I’m having the same problem in Safari that I was yesterday.
-emily
(re: Gabriel Knight, Phantasmagoria etc. Backup on DVD? ) Thanks for the quick reply!
I’m primaly not a Windows User (I’m using Linux), but on this way it will be as easy as in Windows. So i will give it a try (rewriteable, so I don’t waste my DVDs ;-)= ).
I will report on success or mistake, but maybe there will be a [dressier?] way.
A second Question: does anybody already tried to convert the Video-Files (Gabriel Knight II, Phantasmagoria I+II) in an AVI-Format to make a whole movie? I’ved read about many tools for playing these Files (like ffmpeg, vmd-play etc.).
And a last note: I’m growing up with Sierra, Origin and Lucas Arts, and the first two had best sound in games i’ved ever heard. All three was outstanding in making games (Sierra and Lucas Arts in Adventures and Origin in Space and Roleplaying). So I’m very sad about closing of my favorite Game-Companies :’-(=
(re: Whoa whoa WHOA!!!) How much do you reckon would one have to pay to acquire the Sierra name and full slate of intellectual properties? I mean, it’s all been driven into the ground so much these last five years, by now you could probably acquire the above for pocket money (relatively speaking, of course). And with the losses being what they are, I’m not sure VU would hold out very long if a prospective buyer suddenly came knocking.
Of course, fans wouldn’t accept you if you didn’t also get all the old names involved – the Williamses, the Coles, Al Lowe, Jim Walls, the Two Guys from Andromeda, etc. Otherwise you might as well be making big-budget fangames with an eye on ripping off other peoples’ hard work.
(re: Whoa whoa WHOA!!!) Do you know what that is? Its bad Karma – they have screwed over so many people, employees, gamers, development houses etc, and now its all falling to bits. I for one am glad that this is happening – a little bit of sweet retribution for destroying things that used to be so great and so loved. Lets hope next year they can push their annual debt over the 200 million Euro mark!
Hopefully they sell off the rights to the Sierra IP to someone who is going to make use of them.
(re: Gabriel Knight, Phantasmagoria etc. Backup on DVD? ) I backed up all my recently purchased Sierra CD’s recently and did similar stuff by putting Kings Quest V, Space Quest IV, Larry 1 onto one CD – which in total was only like 3-400 megs.
I simply created a folder KQ5, SQ4, LSL1 and copied each of the CD’s contents into the appropriate folder.
This works fine for me because when I install the games I don’t use the Sierra install programs and simply copy the contents of those folders to the harddrive.
If you want to use the install programs still you could potentially temporarily map a drive to one of the folders and run the installer from that ‘virtual’ drive. I haven’t tried this but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.
To do this, simply go to your Windows File Explorer, and select ‘Map Network Drive’ from the tools menu. Map a drive (e.g. X:) to D:\GK1 (assuming D: is your DVD drive and the Gabriel Knight 1 folder on the DVD is named GK1).
Then in the File Explorer, go down to drive X: and double click the installer program and if all goes well it should run fine. For games that still access the CD drives while you are playing them, you may also need to edit a config file that gets put on your harddrive by the installer. They usually have an entry that states the place of your CD drive or audio files etc. You might have to edit that file and change it to be X:.
Let me know if this works. For games like GK1 I copy the audio files to the hard drive when I install it so I never need to run it with a CD.(re: List of Sierra hint books?) Don’t know about complete, but I’m trying to list all of those too at my site:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/psychic/_eng_collecting_sierra_hintbooks.html
Corrections, addings, etc. are welcome.
I’m planning to include the newer hint books at some point. And will also include small pics of them all (and there are already some bigger scans of the ones in my collection).
(re: Whoa whoa WHOA!!!) Speaking of Vivendi Universal….
Press Release:
VU Games posts major first half loss
Rob Fahey 11:46 14/09/2004The financial performance of Vivendi Universal Games continued to decline through the first half of 2004, according to the latest figures released by its giant parent company, with losses of 156 million Euro recorded for the period.
That loss is a major decline in performance over the 52 million Euro loss recorded in the same period of 2003, although some 90 million Euro of it can be accounted for by restructuring costs incurred by the division’s turnaround plan.
Those costs came from a variety of measures, including the cancellation and hence write-offs of certain projects in development and the reduction of the division’s headcount in North America by around 40 per cent.
This new turnaround plan, which is largely focused on reducing VU Games’ operating costs, was put in place when a new management team was appointed in January, and sweeping changes have been made to the company since then.
However, Vivendi Universal has given no guidance about when its games division might return to profitability. The parent company itself continues to struggle to climb out of debt – reducing its net debt from 11.6 billion Euro at the end of 2003 to 6.4 billion Euro at the end of June, while group operating income was also seen to rise 30 per cent on a comparable basis during the first half.
(re: display bug in Safari / Mac OSX) Ken/emily:
The site is now working on Safari on the OS X and it’s not crashing on IE either. Thanks Ken! Now I can check new messages while I’m in class..*evil grins* đ
(re: site crashing IE on mac)
FYI, I am still having this problem, with OSX and IE, as is another member (Julie).
-emily
(re: display bug in Safari / Mac OSX)
Julie – so glad to hear it’s not just me! When Ken said it worked for him at Kinko’s I thought maybe there was just something wrong with my computer. But you and I seem to be having the exact same problems with Safari and IE on OSX.
-emily
(re: display bug in Safari / Mac OSX) Hi Julie:
I exchanged emails with Emily offline. I don’t know of anything I changed in the last week with respect to the navigation system. I tested some code changes I made on Safari (at a Kinkos) just last week, and all was fine.
I’ll work on this tomorrow morning – and, Emily has agreed to try it again tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got some ideas on ways to solve the problem.
-Ken W
(re: display bug in Safari / Mac OSX)
emily, the same thing is happening on the mac computers here where I am while using Safari. (OS X) I tried using IE (even though it’s full of bugs!), and it just crashes to the desktop. I haven’t tried Netscape or anything else.. maybe other web browsers will work. As for my PC, the site is working fine.
(re: Wouldnât it be nice ifâŚ) The best indicator I have had of how awful todays games are is when I get my friends together who stopped playing games around 95 when 3D saturated everything. I sit them in front of stuff like GTA, Metal Gear Solid 2, Halo, Super Mario Sunshine.
And they think its a pile of rubbish – too complicated, too much to learn, too many tutorial levels to get through, too many over complicated controls, too many meaningless cut-scenes.
But if I sit them in front of my MAME emulator machine with X-Arcade joystick board or ZSNES emulator running on it they just absolutely love it. They can pick up a game in 5 minutes, it doesn’t take 2 hours to learn how to play.(re: Mixed Up Mother Goose)
Depends what version you want, there are four versions I think.
If you want the CD versions you can get new copies of the Deluxe version on eBay for a couple of bucks. I bought the Deluxe version this year off eBay and it works fine on XP.
The AGI and SCI versions are harder to find – your best bet is to try and find them on so called ‘abandonware’ sites or file sharing networks.
(re: Wouldnât it be nice ifâŚ) Hi Dave,
IMHO you are 100% on track, dude đ
I only think that games must not try to be a means for reality escapism by inundating you with senseless fantasy, but rather teaching you (without preaching) by a creative, entertaining, etc. plot, the graphics, sound, etc. only of secondary importance. In other words, I think that fantasy must be carefully controlled to serve a meaningful purpose or the plot would suffer.Best regards,
VeskoDave Kristula WROTE:
You got me thinking, too… When Toy Story (movie) came out, the whole movie industry did not say “This is the future.” We still use humans. When the first 3D games came out, the whole industry changed to that way… it wasn’t really until Flash came about that people really started to care about 2D passionately.
Movies had close to a century of history so it wasn’t changed significantly, but computer games had around a quarter century, and yet everything went one way. Yet anime and cartoon tv shows seem to be a lot more popular than 3D tv shows.
Why is there a different standard for games than other forms of entertainment? Why do we like romance, drama, action, adventure in movies and tv shows, but only realism in computer games? The biggest argument I hear is “It’s more real.” Honestly, there’s enough “real” out there in the real world, I don’t need a computer to tell me. I want to be entertained and have a chance to escape reality!
(re: King’s Quest Radio Play Trailer?)
Sorry to reply over ½ a year later. However, it seems like a great idea. And I would like to hear this Radio Play Trailer. Thanks!
(re: Problems with KQ V —-> Dark Forest)
I recall being eaten by the venus flytrap things, and a spider web-slinging onto Graham’s head once. I think that I wasn’t ready to go into the forest. Or I got around it, by using a different path to navigate around the forest.
However, it hasn’t happened to me since I’ve beat the game.
(re: Random Encounters on KQ games)
I think that it’s possible to use the Debug mode on KQ4 to give the Brooch to another character besides Ego, after it’s night time. I’ve never tried it though.
(re: Wouldnât it be nice ifâŚ)
>>
Adventure gaming isnât dead. The whole industry has shifted to the âRock-em sock-em Robotsâ run run run, shoot shoot shoot. But let me ask you, in 10 years do you think people will be pulling those games off of their shelves and giving them another go like Classic Sierra games have been know to do? In 10 years they wonât even have them. They would have been thrown away years before. But I look at my shelves upon shelves of every Sierra Game ever made. And notice a lapse. Hum. Not one new one since the company was sold?!?!?!
<< You got me thinking, too… When Toy Story (movie) came out, the whole movie industry did not say “This is the future.” We still use humans. When the first 3D games came out, the whole industry changed to that way… it wasn’t really until Flash came about that people really started to care about 2D passionately. Movies had close to a century of history so it wasn’t changed significantly, but computer games had around a quarter century, and yet everything went one way. Yet anime and cartoon tv shows seem to be a lot more popular than 3D tv shows. Why is there a different standard for games than other forms of entertainment? Why do we like romance, drama, action, adventure in movies and tv shows, but only realism in computer games? The biggest argument I hear is “It’s more real.” Honestly, there’s enough “real” out there in the real world, I don’t need a computer to tell me. I want to be entertained and have a chance to escape reality!
