Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
(re: MT-32 ROM)
Some of you guys might remember this better than I would, but what was the big difference between AdLib and Roland cards? And why did Roland stop making cards? The only chance I ever got to see a different computer than my parent’s was at the local Radio Shack Computer Center in the mall, and most of those never had sound cards. Of course, this was a place where one of the managers actually told a customer to turn the 3.5″ disk over, and she could use the other side…hence “Double Sided disks”. Super-yikes. ^_^
(re: Larry 8 update – Ken, any opinons?)
Thanks. At some point, when it’s not going to jeopardize anyone or anything (like after the game is released), I’d love to hear what else you have to say about this. But I understand not wanting to say those things right now.
If this game isn’t going to be what I want it to be, at least I have the new Jane Jensen game to look forward to!
🙂 emily
(re: re: re: Larry 8 update – Ken, any opinons?) I’ve been struggling NOT to comment….
Al is in the process of negotiating his involvement in this game, and I worry that if I say anything, and it’s the wrong thing, it could mess up his deal — which would be bad for EVERYONE …so, I’m trying to stay completely out of it.
I will say this..
Al Lowe was a key ingredient in the success of the Leisure-Suit Larry series. It may be possible to build a great game without Al, but I wouldn’t personally try it.
I’m superstitious…
I believe that if someone’s last game was a hit, their next game will be a hit. I believe that if someone ships a turkey, and has really good excuses — their next game will be a turkey, but, they’ll have really good excuses. The single biggest predictor of future success is past success.
Al and I worked together for over 15 years, on many projects. During that time, he consistently produced products that sold above their sales forecasts, and came in below their projected cost. I personally would not have the courage to undertake a Leisure-Suit Larry game without Al’s involvement.
Perhaps there is a way to build a great game without Al — but, call me superstitious: I wouldn’t want to try it. I’d go with the proven track record. If I want to gamble, I go to Vegas .
Hopefully Sierra will see it the same way, and will give Al not just input, but the real ability to build them a winner (meaning the power to make changes, if changes need making).
-Ken W(re: re: Larry 8 update – Ken, any opinons?)
Since Ken hasn’t chimed in and I’m impatient, I’ll say what I was going to say.
In reading this article, there was a very noticeable absence of any type of story. To me (and to a lot of other people), the story is the most important part of an adventure game. The fact that they started with a Sims idea (there’s no story in the Sims!), then scrapped that for a bunch of mini-games, is very daunting to me. All we’re hearing about is the mini-games… what’s the actual GAME about? Something tells me there is no unifying game. If there were, we would have heard a little bit about what that would be about. And, it would have been a big part of the initial conversations… “Let’s make a game about X where Y happens so we can end up with Z” vs. “Let’s make a game where people talk.”
Or to be more specific, “Let’s make a game where Alexander goes looking for Cassima, who’s been locked in a tower by the evil vizier, and saves her so they can get married” vs. “Let’s make a game where Alexander talks.”
It may be a fun game, but I don’t see what it has to do with Larry. They didn’t even want Larry to be the protagonist initially, and then they decided to have him (for some unclear reason) but also decided the game would be set in college, so they changed the protagonist to Larry’s nephew. Okay… why not just come up with a NEW character? To me this stinks of them capitalizing on an old franchise for the sole purpose of selling games… which leaves me feeling very unhappy with Sierra (although it’s not too different from what I’ve come to expect from them).
I think “getting Al involved” is a token on their part. The game seems too far in development for him to have any impact. I’d love to know his reaction to this article…
-emily
(re: Larry 8 update – Ken, any opinons?)
Actually, this latest designer diary has reinstated my confidence in the game. I totally agree on the point they make concerning the boring standard dialogue tree. Especially LSL7 managed to bore me pretty quickly with continuously exhausting the dialogue tree. This new system is bound to make it a little more interesting.
I’m still not entirely sure on how to feel about the many mini games though. Still, LSL often had a mini game or two.
(re: re: re: re: New Layout – Today Only) Wascal:
Sorry for the short timing on the last layout change. I left the Christmas layout active for several weeks, but the most recent layout had a bug in it, so I pulled it offline almost immediately. Too bad — it was definitely worth seeing.
The ad agency that is doing the layouts is doing great work. Currently they have about 15 layouts that are nearly done, and I’ve commissioned them to do 50 overall. Once they are done, I’ll start cycling them through here.
I’ve been waiting for my newest version of the software to be uploaded, that was was two days from completion two weeks ago, and now only has three days to go. Argh…
After I upload the new version, and give it a few days to stabilize, I’ll be announcing a contest which will give visitors to this site a way to win prizes while helping me put together some demos of my software (at least those who want to participate). I don’t want to say any more than this for now — but, hopefully within a week or do I’ll have something fun for the more creative people here to do.
-Ken W(Re: Questions from Hawaii) My answers are embedded — prefaced by ***
-Ken W
From: Sierra On-Line Fan Site [mailto:sierragamers@talkspot.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 8:00 PM
To:
Link:sierragamers@talkspot.com (mailto:sierragamers@talkspot.com)Subject: RE: join (somebody is on mushrooms)
Hehe,
I knew someone was on mushrooms. Well at least we’re getting some list activity.
So I should start taking advantage of the opportunities of this list and ask you some questions. What made you want to this?
*** Do what? Start Sierra? Roberta and I were kids at the time, with romantic notions of living in a log cabin in the woods. It had more to do with leaving Los Angeles, and moving to the mountains, than with making money. Sierra was started as a way of moving to the boondocks, where there were no computer jobs.
How did you and Roberta meet
*** in high school. Roberta was dating a friend of mine.
and how long where you together when you had the idea lets make a game together.
*** We were married, and I was working as a programmer. Roberta had the idea to do our first game (Mystery House) after seeing a text adventure game on a mainframe computer I was working on. She talked me into programming an adventure game with graphics. She did the design and the art. I did all the code.
What were those early days like? (I know you’re sick of this question, but I’d really like to know)
*** We had no idea the company was going to be big — to us it seemed like the fulfillment of a dream. Our goal had been to find something that would allow me to quit my job in Los Angeles and buy a small log cabin in the woods. When I quit, I thought that we were going to just retire to the woods, and write computer games. I remember us specifically saying that our goal was to someday make $10,000 per year. I think we did that our second month.
I’m still learning. Being from Hawaii myself one thing I see is the Hawaiian language being lost along with the beauty of the culture as Walmart, Starbucks, and Home Depot move in to mainstream us into another resort community. I hate it.
Having a Hawaiian game would be wonderful. One of the things that Sierra did for me as a child through its text adventure games is it gave me excellent verbal and written communications skill and good vocabulary and spelling.
I’m in the midst of designing a scripting engine and parsing system similar to Sierra’s. I’m tempted to create it with AGS but I want the challenge of doing it myself from scratch. I’m doing it in Hawaiian with basic vocabulary like the text commands in Sierra’s early games. This is both a intellectual challenge and a wonderful opportunity which is putting me in touch with my native culture and its original and mostly lost language. Even if I failed in it I would learn much in the process about my culture. Though I am determined to succeed.
*** Cool! Lucas did one game which used a non-conventional parser (Loom) — they tried using music as a mode of communication. What you’re discussing could be interesting.
I got into this because I wanted to make games. It seems along the way I realized I could make a much bigger contribution. I will enjoy all of my endeavors and opportunities.
*** Games are best when the person building the game is passionate about what they are doing. If it becomes a job, the game will not be good.
I’m trying to pull in from Hawaiian legends and stories much in the same way as Roberta pulled from Fairy Tales. But have my own line of character development and plot that links in this things to bring the culture into it.
I visited Oakhurst this Christmas and boy was it a trip. I hadn’t been there for almost seven years. It is gorgeous, peaceful, and quiet. It has a good feeling about it. And Yosemite is breathtakingly gorgeous and driving up there in the snow was an experience I will never forget. I even learned that chains/cables don’t go on the back tire. After 40 minutes of trying to get them off I got them on the front tires and I was good to go. HAHAHA!!
Running in snow meadows with my girlfriend, having a beer with a snowman…it was a good trip.
So do you still live up there? I don’t see why you would want to leave (other than the cold and the lack of much of anything up there) but it’s almost perfect otherwise. And It was the most beautiful new thing I can say I’ve ever remember being up in Yosemite in the snow.
*** No – we had to leave the area in order to keep growing the company. We’ve thought about going back, but that would feel like we were moving backwards. We always like to do new things, rather than doing something we’ve done before – no matter how good it was.
So my questions I guess are:
Do you still live in Oakhurst or are you in warmer weather now?
*** Currently, we primarily live in Mexico. It’s normally warm here, but not today … it feels like Seattle! (which is where we usually live when not here in Mexico)
What problems do you see with the game industry today?
*** I’ve been out of the game industry for seven years — I don’t know much about it now. My sense is that not much has changed, which is the #1 problem. The industry should reinvent itself to keep things interesting. I don’t think it is doing that.
What are you perceived solutions?
*** Some problems solve themselves. Someone out there is working on something innovative as I type this. I don’t know who they are, or what it is — but, it will surprise us, and give the industry a new sense of direction. It’s been too stagnant too long. Someone needs to shake up the business.
What made you want to start?
*** My quest for a programming job I could do from where I wanted to live. For Roberta though, it was a chance for her to do something creative. She felt like she was born to do adventure games, and really misses doing them.
How did you and Roberta meet and how long where you together when you had the idea lets make a game together.
*** Already answered
What were those early days like?
*** Already answered
Would you like a website so you don’t have to answer this question so much? I’d do it for free.
*** I have a website!!!! You must have found it, or, I wouldn’t be reading this email!
Project management in Game Development – will you ever write a book?
*** Me? Write a book? Nah…. Well … maybe. I’ve thought about it. Maybe someday.
I think you’re one of the best out there. Put me down for 10 copies if you do. I remember someone asking you this before and you said no – that writing books is just not something you do – so you don’t need to answer this question…I’m just trying to kick you into doing it because I want to read it and learn from you…so ignore me I’m a rude ass 😛
*** Grin!
I hope there are nothing but smiles on your face in these retirement days. What are some of the joys/pains of not being in the game industry today?
*** I miss being part of the action. I miss feeling like I’m making a d
***CONTINUED***ifference. Retirement is tough. You feel like you’re just putting in time. On the other hand, we’re traveling a lot, and I’m playing a lot of golf – plus, I spend a lot of time writing code, which I love. Running Sierra, I never had time to write code. For me, coding is like solving an adventure game. I love the feeling of chasing a tough bug.
*** The early days of Sierra were my favorite, and what I miss most. Towards the end, we had nearly 1,000 employees. Game teams were starting to have 50 to 100 people working on them. Modern games aren’t solo efforts. It takes a team, and once you start having a team, bureaucracy creeps in. I like what I’m doing on my website. I have no pressure to ship anything by a certain date. I work on it when I want, and don’t when I don’t want. If I make progress, I feel good — and, if I don’t, I work harder. There’s no budget, and no revenue projection. It’s just hacking for hackings sake. And, more importantly, I’m confident I’ll come up with something new. It’s just getting started, and pioneering is a little like making sausage (not much fun to watch). Currently, it’s not obvious I’m doing anything that will be interesting, but I’m only in the first 1% of the project. Stay tuned.
Any advice to someone who looks up to you for all these things for the game industry today. One day I would like to be in project management position getting people to work better together and teams to be more effective and make it still a enjoyable and rewarding experience for everyone.
*** Most people aren’t willing to make the commitment to succeed. The secret is: work harder than those around you. It sounds silly, but it’s true. Skip watching tv, wake up early (and work or study) and then go to bed late (after working and studying some more). I’m famous for studying everything I do, to look for ways to use my own time more effectively. The book Hackers makes Sierra sound like a fun place, which it was in the early days — but, that fun almost put us out of business. Towards the end, I had come to understand that Sierra was in a competitive industry and that we would only survive by working harder than our competitors. We certainly had our flaws, but generally, I think we won, while others failed, simply because we worked our butts off.
*** The last part of your question is: “…and make it still a enjoyable and rewarding experience for everyone.” I always complain about expressions such as this. I really tried to focus everyone on building great product, and working harder than our competitors. Enjoyable experiences are something best saved for your family, after you leave work. I tried to send a message to employees that if fun was their goal, they should have plenty of it — but, only after the workday finishes. Sierra’s focus should always be on things that “move the ball forward” rather than distractions. Because of this clear setting of priorities, we won award after award — and, had more fun than anyone. Ultimately, job satisfaction comes from doing great work and succeeding – not from company picnics or small talk at the water cooler. It’s just semantics, but this is an issue I assign great importance to. I had a reputation for being rude, or more accurately stated: brusque. To me, I wasn’t rude, I was just succinct. My goal was to always “cut to the chase, get the facts, and make a decision.” Small talk was best left to those who weren’t out to build a great company. My focus was always on customers, and making sure that we were giving them good value for their money. I always believe that if you take care of customers, they will take care of you. If you start thinking about yourself first, then customers forget you. My needs, and my employees’ needs, were always secondary to our customers needs. Focus on customers above all else.
You stepped out of the boundaries with the release of Kings Quest 4 with a female protagonist. Looking at games today what do see for games that are about culture, richness, and adventure pushing the envelope in new creative ways…rather than finding 60 ways to kill someone with a steroid induced whatever. I don’t really know specifically what I’m asking it’s really a feeling and I’m sure you understand what I mean. I guess there have always been good and bad games but we really don’t remember all the bad games. But I believe Sierra games stood for something good and not for money. You guys cared about the quality and what it would bring to the values you all had, it is evident in the games which I played.
*** The company was partially a reflection of Roberta and I. Neither of us liked shootem-up games, so we didn’t really publish them. We did some games, like Aces over Europe, that did have shooting, but I considered these sims more than just action games. The same with early games like Thexder — I didn’t really put these into the same category with games like Doom. I remember feeling like I was selling out when I made the decision to publish Half-Life, but it was a VERY special looking game, and I liked that it was pioneering the merger of story-telling with an action game format.
Did you have a good Christmas/Holiday season?
*** Absolutely!
*** PS Great questions!
Me Ke Aloha,
KalaniLink:kalani@secureshops.net (mailto:kalani@secureshops.net)
(re: re: re: New Layout – Today Only) Ken, I thought about this before when you had champagne bubbles or something on your opening page (around New Year’s, I think), but I didn’t say anything. Now, however, that you’ve had another web site design change that I missed seeing I would like to ask you if you can leave up new site designs for two or three days before you change them back to the regular pages instead of leaving them up for only one day. The reason I ask is because I have missed seeing both of those temporary designs due to having to work overtime at my job and not being able to read my email on the days I work late, which just happened to be the days that you posted messages about the changes for us to look at. By the time I read the messages the day after they were posted the site had already been changed back from the temporary pages. I love to look at web site designs and what other people do with their sites, and I would like to see changes that you do also, temporary though they may be. So, is there any way you can leave the new pages up for more than one day after you fix the problem with this newest design and with any other temporary pages you put up in the future so that I and others with the same problem will have time to see what everyone else gets to see?
(re: Larry 8 update – Ken, any opinons?)
“Magna Cum Laude will pass the torch to his nephew, Larry Lovage”
Sounds like the mistake Kings Quest 8 made 🙁
It looks almost certain that Al lowe will get on board, so thats a good thing.
I’ll buy this game wheather it is good or bad because I want to support Al lowe and the adventure game comeback.
I just wish they would evolve the graphics and leave the plot alone.
(re: Larry 8 update – Ken, any opinons?)
Al Lowe has also just updated his website with Larry 8 news.
http://www.allowe.com/Larry/8news.htm (at the end)
If he gets involved, I have faith that the game will include all of the true Larry elements that we’ve come to know and love.
(re: re: re: Questions about Space Quest’s origin) Ken, Your statement about the little 3 or 4 room demo, actually triggered a thought that I had been meaning to ask you, and some of my other Sierra contacts about.
Are there in existance these little demo / proof of concept “games” lying around anywhere. Those would be pretty cool to play around with. Concepts both for game ideas themself (ones that made it to market, and those that didn’t) and also concepts as they relate to technology rather than a specific game.. like the first AGI interpreter test, or SCI tests.
I figured the programmers must have had a bunch of test files laying around – wether or not they were saved who knows, or maybe those files didn’t exist, and all the “testing” of ideas occured in the development of the game itself, and was never really separate.
Maybe you can remember.
-Brad(re: LSL movie)
I think the possibility of a LSL movie all depends on how successful the upcoming LSL game is. It would have to be a huge record breaking hit.
Adventure games pretty much died out because they failed to evolve. A movie could bring it all back to the mainstream.
(re: Running older games)
You need a file called mouse.com in your DOS directory. You may already have that file on your computer, take a look. If you do, you need to edit your autoexec file (use Notepad) — add this line:
C:\DOS\MOUSE.COM
I think (but am not sure) you could also get it working by typing ‘run MOUSE.COM’ from a DOS prompt.
If you don’t already have mouse.com in your DOS file, you can find it online, or I can upload it here later (I had to do this on my own computer).
-emily
(re: LSL movie)
doobi gal looks exactly like larry. maby we cant see it in that photo but its unbelievable how they look alike. its all there: the eyes, the smile, the head, the nose. believe me, there are photos which it looks like larry character was based on him. i met him about 2-3 monthes ago, and i realized that his face are the most weird face i have ever seen. he is short, his head is huge, and i even havent started to talk about the nose.
he is the perfect larry look alike ever.
here is a photo of us together with an inflatable love doll:-)
doobi gal and me(re: re: Running older games)
Hi emily,
Thank you, I´ve tried rebooting the cmputer on DOS mode and it worked, now i just don´t have the mouse driver. Do you know how can i install the mouse driver on DOS.
(re: re: Questions about Space Quest’s origin) I did no more, nor less, on Space Quest, than on the other games. Well … actually, at the very beginning I did do some programming on some games, but I don’t remember ever doing any actual programming on Space Quest.
The Executive Producer title didn’t really mean anything. I forget if it was me, or someone else, who made it up. At some point, I think we stopped using it, because it was annoying to the teams, who were the ones doing all the real work on the games. It was never a really big issue, but I could tell that they didn’t like seeing someones name on the project who didn’t really work as part of the team.
My involvement was critical, but only indirectly so. I was the one who decided if a game got made, who would make it, how much money would be spent on developing the game, and how much would be spent to promote the game. Based on my understanding of Hollywood, this is not inconsistent with what a producer on a film might do.
I also played a role in defining the technology for products, and in monitoring the projects during development. Sierra had a seperate technology group, from the games groups. The technology group built the code that wasn’t game specific (mostly AGI, SCI and various animation tools) so that the programming groups that were assigned to a project could focus all their energy on making the game great, and not worry about what platform the game would run on. Once a project went into development (usually 1 to 2 years), I would meet with the team every 90 days to do a project review, and give them ideas for how to make the game better, or, more often, how to keep the project on time and on budget.
My recollection on Space Quest is that all of the credit for its origin goes to Scott Murphy and Mark Crow. They came to me with the idea, and I remember not being overwhelmed by it at first – but approving them some time to build a short demo of the game so that I could better see what they had in mind. I loved their demo!!! Once I actually saw the simple 3 or 4 room adventure they built, I immediately approved the project, and they pretty much took it from there.
Space Quest, Leisure-Suit Larry and Phantasmagoria I were my favorite games of all time!
-Ken W(re: Questions about Space Quest’s origin)
On MobyGames.com (where it’s always easy to check this type of info quickly – I don’t know if it’s 100% accurate though), Ken Williams is credited with programming on the first Space Quest game and he was the executive producer of Space Quest 4, Space Quest 1 VGA and Space Quest 5. Maybe Ken can share his memories of his first meetings with Mark & Scott, their later proposal to him for the Space Quest game, anything he remembers from programming the first Space Quest game and “just what does an executive producer do?” for the later Space Quest games.
(re: Sierra games changed my life!)
I guess I owe a lot to Sierra games, Ken and Roberta Williams, Al Lowe, and those two loveable guys from Andromeda (I swear, I can never keep their names straight. 🙁 ).
In 1984 (maybe 85), my parents got a brand new computer…A Tandy 1000 SX. It was a considerable leap up from our Co-Co II, or so my parents said…I was 4. Still, they had planned on getting several games for the computer: some adventure game, a helicopter attack game, an olympic sports game, and a football game. Me, being the football nut I was back then, didn’t pay any attention to the rest of the list. Every single day, I ran downstairs to the computer room to see if the games had arrived. Usually, I ended up disappointed. Finally, one day I went down stairs to see this man, walking around a field. “Is this the football game?” I asked. Sadly, my parents explained to me it was a game called “King’s Quest.” I don’t know whether I determined right then or maybe later, but I knew from this game, I wanted to get into programming.
Course, now that I am, I need to re-evaluate my gratitude statement. Thanks for headaches, lost sleep, and the many lumps and bruises on my head from repeated bashings into my desk. XD
(KQ 4 AGI)
Ciao,
I’m an old Sierra fan and I’d love to complete my collection of AGI games with KQ4 in the AGI version, which seems unfindable. I can swop for a clean and great condition KQ4 high resolution.
Let me know if anybody can help.
Thanks !
Giovanni(re: re: Confused: Where should I post general topics?)
Heh, by off topic I did’nt mean chitchat about the weather. I know stuff like that would add to the confusion. What I really meant is can we post about other recent adventure games like “Runaway” or would you all prefer to have every thing specifically sierra related?
(re: Confused: Where should I post general topics?) Open discussion, as it says in the thread, is where emails go that you can email to the board. You can post from the board in here too though. Then, the messages (eventually may) get sorted out into other areas whenever one of the admins have some time.
“All other Sierra chat” is for anything really. But I’ve been trying to sort it out into other areas, since most of it does belong elsewhere. It’s a bunch of leftovers from a re-arrangement of this site that happened some time ago.
So really go ahead and post in either of these areas. You can always find your post by using the “New Messages” feature in case we move your post to a different area.
If you want to talk about the gaming industry, if it relates to Sierra you can put it into one of the areas in the “Games Chat” menu. If it doesn’t relate to a specific Sierra game, you can put it under “Sierra Chat” / “Computer History.”
There is no off-topic area. There is no reason to have particularly off-topic discussions here. You can go to any other message board / chat room if you just want to chat about anything.
