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(re: SQ1 VGA Copy Protection Etc) Speed related issues in SQ1 are now fixed by a patch that actually fixes the original game code:
Link: http://www.geocities.com/belzorash(http://www.geocities.com/belzorash) The original Space Quest game manuals can be found at:
Link: http://www.spacequest.net(http://www.spacequest.net) (re: Police Quest/Swat Collection for sale on ebay) I was able to find that info online or thru some people on here I think. I can’t remember. I dont have them on my computer anymore otherwise i’d give them with the games. I just wanted to try and get them out there in some way, because I have to sell them or give them away.
(re: Freddy Pharkus Free Download) Emily, I’ve edited your posts to make the links active. The edit source thing is not perfect yet because as you suggest, the formatting for the message can get screwed up. There used to be a command [link] or something like that, but I’m not sure that it’s active anymore. You can add a link at the bottom of your message, after you post the message, it gives you the choice to add a link. I’m sure you knew that though, and wanted to embed it. I’d suggest we get an option that automatically converts a URL to a link, which many other message boards have such a feature.
Thanks for the links. Yeah, FreddyPharkas.com must have had their info. wrong, and since revised it.
Brandon ~ admin / dev team ~
(re: Freddy Pharkus Free Download) It’s on this thread: http://forums.adventuregamers.com/showthread.php?t=3829
Josh’s post is #25.
Here is an earlier thread on the same subject: http://forums.adventuregamers.com/showthread.php?&t=538
It appears that the Freddy Pharkas site may have originally stated that the rights reverted to Al, which he later refuted, so that statement was removed.
-emily
ps how can I embed links on this site? I’m able to use html tags for the links but doing so screws up the formatting of the paragraphs and adding paragraph tags doesn’t work. I know this is a question for Ken but I feel like this info has been presented somewhere before, I just can’t find it. *grump*
(re: Freddy Pharkus Free Download) Yeah, neither Andrew or Al say that on their websites. Maybe at some time there was mis-information on one of their sites that was since removed. If anyone knows a site that says this still, let us know. Andrew’s site states:
“Al Lowe has stated that he’d rather people play the game than have it disappear. But, of course, he doesn’t own the rights to the game, Sierra does. Or did. Now VUGames does.”
Have a link to Josh’s post Emily? I looked but didn’t see it.
(re: Freddy Pharkus Free Download) I’m not sure where that rumor got started. Josh posted on AdventureGamers last week that Sierra still does own the rights to Freddy Pharkas. *shrug*
-emily
(re: Police Quest/Swat Collection for sale on ebay)
Not to burst anyone’s bubble who would be interested in purchasing this, but you can’t play the 2nd Police Quest without the copy protection information in the manual that origionally came with the game.
(re: Interaction Magazine Archive UPDATE!)
How is this project getting along? It’s been a while since an update.
(re: re: Old Games @ Goodwill / EB)
From my understanding Hellfire is indeed extremely rare. Though this perception could have more to do with my geographical location than anything else. 🙂 I’ve only ever seen one copy in my entire life though, and this was years ago.
(re: Old Games @ Goodwill / EB)
As an employee of EB Games I can say that most people just bring their stuff to make so quick cash. They really don’t care what they get for them. My company really rips people off for PC games and most other games in general. I got the whole Money Island collection (Curse of, Escape from, and Madness) for about $11 and sold them for $30 on eBay. The games we don’t take, people just leave there to be thrown away, so I take them to places like CD/Game exchange that has great finds. I found the Diablo Hellfire expansion just this week which is from my understanding hard to get.
(re: Sierra is gone) I think it was Codemasters (a UK-based gaming company). Don’t know how it evolved.
Vincent.
(re: Freddy Pharkus Free Download) Yup, this has been mentioned before.
I’m still not clear about that rights reversion thing – maybe someone who has legal expertise could enlighten us. But I have a feeling that the FreddyPharkas.com folks might not have their story quite straight. Freddy Pharkas copyrights and trademarks are all still registered to Sierra, I looked them up, I don’t know how they would just revert like that. I keep meaning to check on this, I’ll have to ask Al about that the next time I talk with him.
Regardless, it is a cool site, it’s great that the game is available there, and I’ve been meaning to get those guys a bit of extra content for their website / CDs for a while now, so I guess I should get in touch with them again too.
Brandon ~ SierraGamers.com admin team ~
(re: Sierra is gone) What ever happend to the game development company that moved in after Sierra left it’s origonal location?
I’m not as up on my Sierra history as I really should be, but wasn’t it a phone company that moved into the original Oakhurst facility? I know that Ken has posted about this somewhere here… maybe someone can dig that up… which reminds me of that FAQ us admins were supposed to make… hey, Brad, any plans this weekend? 😉
Brandon ~ SierraGamers.com admin team ~
(re: Gold Rush) Anybody knows what did happen to the site?
They don’t answer on e-mails/on-line forms…(re: Sierra is gone) Sierra is gone since Ken Williams sold the company. I would assume that’s about the same time as the staff of Sierra stop having fun creating games, and it show on the products that came on the market after that moment. I believe Ken Williams is indeed a great man, a great motivator, and most important a great leader. I guess the true dream of all the true Sierra fan would be that Ken come to Vivendi, make an offer for the old Sierra which Vivendi drove to the pits and have Sierra reach the heavens again just to show Vivendi what does true management and having feelings does mean in a company.
I believe that simple doesnt mean failure. A small company with only a small creating staff and a good leader who know how to motivate people the way Ken did can give some really amazing products at the end. Sierra told us that.
(re: Sierra Quests on the Mobiles Link) Thanks, Brandon!
We were contacting Sierra/VUG trying to sell them this idea. We were ready to get all the work including the development, repainting the UI and making control improvements (for example to switch from the text commands to more “point’n’click” or “get closer’n’do” type of the interface). Unfortunately they were not interested.(re: What did Sierra do first?) > Kings Quest 5 was the first VGA game in the industry.
Not true as well. For example, Mean Streets by Access Software (now Microsoft) featured full 256-color VGA graphics, as well as real actors and digitized voices, sounds and musics coming out of the standard PC speaker, in 1989!
Many other games were making some use of VGA ealier, but most of the time in only 16 colors (with palette).
Vincent.
(re: What did Sierra do first?)
> Mystery House- First Computer Game with graphics
Of course, this is not the first computer game with graphics. For example, Akalabeth (prequel to Ultima) was created in 1979, and released a few months before Mystery House.
But Mystery House was indeed the first *adventure* game with graphics.
> KQ1- First 3D game
Not at all here. I think King’s Quest was the first *adventure* game where you can move the character on screens that are often called 2.5D. The graphics use front-back 2D objects priorities to show the characters in front or behind things, but it is still 2D. I’m not sure, but I also think King’s Quest was the first adventure game with animation and sound.
Games in 3D are a lot older. For example, Flight Simulator used a true (although very simple) 3D engine.
King’s Quest was the first “3D Animated Adventure Game”, which is basically an adventure game using the AGI or SCI engine.
> KQ4- First game to use speakers,
I suppose you mean sound cards. If this is “better sound than the PC speaker, using a dedicated sound chip”, then there has been plenty of games using complex multi-channel musics and sounds before. All Commodore 64 games for example. Laserdisc games (Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace, …) had pretty rich sound as well, back in 1983, because it was simply CD-quality pre-recorded sound.
On the PC, when using a PCjr/Tandy 1000, Sierra games all used 3-voice sounds and musics (plus noise channel) since King’s Quest in 1984.
If you mean an add-on sound card for IBM PC-compatible computers, then there has also been earlier games. For example, MobyGames.com lists Airball as making use of the CMS Game Blaster sound card. Both the game and the sound card were released in 1987, before the Adlib sound card was released.
Still, King’s Quest IV is definitely the first Sierra game to support PC add-on sound cards, and it is also possible that it was the first game to support some of them, or at least so many of them.
> first game with a female protagonist
With a leading female protagonist, maybe (at least in an adventure game), but “Maniac Mansion” and “Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders” from Lucasfilm Games both featured female protagonists in 1987. In Zak, you take control of Zak, the main protagonist (male) and 3 other female protagonists, alternatively.
> KQ5- First game to have voices
Probably first game to have so many fully pre-recorded voices.
But some games have featured voices since the early 80’s, and some games (for example Mortville Manor, Maupiti Island and I think Explora) have featured synthesized voices throughout the whole game at least as early as 1988, and sometimes in 3 languages! (French, English, German)> and first on CD-ROM
See my other post on the subject:
http://www.sierragamers.com/BBSDisplayMsg.asp?msgId=48090 Of course, I may be wrong for a number of points developed here, so please correct me if you have better information or knowledge.
Vincent.
(re: Sierra is gone)
You are right sierra needs good management. What ever happend to the game development company that moved in after Sierra left it’s origonal location?
(re: The Good Times . . .) I still have our first computer and moste of the games.
A custome built PC.
386 25MHZ
8MB ram upgraded from 4MB
sound blaster 16bit
1MB ram upgraded from 512KB
5 1/2 floppy
5 1/14 floppy
14in monitor
50MB hard drive
the 1540MB hard drive crashedDos 5.2, 6.2.1
Win 3.1, 3.11Kings Quest 5
Conquest of the Long Bow
A few more as well(re: What did Sierra do first?)
Kings Quest 5 was the first VGA game in the industry. Mystery House was the first game ever to use graphics.
(re: Jones in the Fast Lane & Dr. Brain) Even if they are just the CDs, there are always people out there looking to get a copy, even if it’s just a copy so they can play them. The collector’s of course are going to hold out for the original boxes, but, it’s probably worth it to list them, for the reason above. Anyway, it’s cool of you to mention it here first. Hopefully you’ll find a buyer here and if not, you can always post them to eBay. If you do sell them here or decide to post them on eBay, make another mention here in this thread so that in the future, someone browsing the forum will know they’re no longer available.
Brandon ~ SierraGamers.com admin team ~
(re: Sierra Quests on the Mobiles Link)
I have to admit it’s pretty interesting. It’s just like the project for Sierra AGI games on Gameboy Advance, in a way. I bought a GBASP mostly so I could try that out. Anyway, didn’t I hear somewhere that Sierra is actually interested in marketing games to cell phones? While, on the other hand, ultimately they weren’t interested in the GBA stuff. Anyway, I will make a link in the link listing to your website.
(re: What did Sierra do first?) I think, basically, yes, though I’m sure there are some qualifications for some of these. One of the history buffs will have to answer that one. I haven’t got all that stuff in my head right now.
Brandon ~ SierraGamers.com admin team ~
