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Hello,
One of the links on the Cool Sierra Links page needs to be updated:
The ‘King’s Quest 9 (Akril)’ link should have its address changed to http://kq9.sq7.org, and it should be moved from the Fan Games category to the ‘Other fan sites’ category.Thanks!
Around here you can hardly find a CRT in the stores, anymore. I guess this is a matter of anecdotal evidence for both of us. But the fact is that the font size was set to “x-small”, the smallest size. Size needs to be set for the middle ground, not only one extreme. If people running the lowest resolution find the it too big they can their font size down, just the same as those running at a higher resolution can set it up.
On a side note, I just stumbled on this, Care With Font Size, on the w3.org site while validating a page of mine.
collector, while i agree with you that it is a cop out to design a site to one specific resolution, i still dont think very many people use more than 800×600. i do IT work for the entire district of farmers insurance in my city and have never found anyone using more than the XP and Vistas default 800×600 resolution, other than people with notebooks and lcd monitors, which around here is like 1% of the total people. that might be different in other areas of the country though, i dont know, even our best buy and circuit city stores barely cary any lcd monitors.
the fact is that you still have to support 800×600 at least, and in rare cases you need to support 640×480 and ‘text-only’ browsers, so we cant make the fonts too big either or those people will suffer the exact opposite problems.
Quite a bit better. The fonts are still smaller than i would like, but are more legible than before.
Wow! Fonts are so much better! I just put it up yesterday as a suggestion… thanks for the quick turnaround.
It seems there isn’t a lot of control over most aspects of the forums as well as other aspects of a Talkspot site. I understand that a new version of Talkspot is on the way with many improvements. I’ve switched over to a completely blank layout which should, at least for now, make the forums easier to use.
Sorry, I was under the impression that you did the AGDI site. I was only referring to the font size, not the general design. I realize that this is Ken’s hobby, but a lot of times I wish that the forums here were just plain old PHP based boards. Easy to read, Easy to navigate. Easy to track all of the treads that you are following.
LOL collector, it’s funny you should mention that site as an example (did you mean the SITE, or the FORUM?) – it’s not a great site, but the font sizes are OK as you say – and it DOES have an 800×600 disclaimer LOL. Then again it’s a much older site by now, a ‘look-only’ site, and a fixed-size site. I never designed it… I just tried to pretty up the existing design. These days, if you want to do a fixed site, you do it in flash so that all of the content sizes to fit the resolution.
You’re right in the points you mention as far as something such as a forum goes. We’ll see if we can change the width of these tables.
The font size you have on the AGDI site looks just fine, Brandon. Again, the narrow tables could easily be fixed by setting them to percents instead of pixels. This could make it display better, regardless of the resolution. Why must there be a sea of olive green on either side of the narrow table. Why not set the table width to, say 90 or 95%? I’m using a page with a drop shadow effect on my site, too. It is set to 95% and works well with a wide range of resolutions:
Running at 1024×768 on a somewhat smaller monitor, I don’t find the fonts too small. Although I usually like smaller font sizes. Then again, in some browsers, you can just adjust the font size. But, on the other hand, making the font larger also makes it look even worse in the narrow tables. This was one of the things I was hoping you’d be able to figure out around here, JT, either building your own template or finding out how to adjust Ken’s templates so that you can change the way the forums look… anyway, I suspect we’ve been missing each other on Yahoo, so I’ll shoot you an email when I get a chance.
It was very kind of you to look into that for me. But I have another concern… I’m wanting to use the concept of KQVII’s Etheria. I mean that I want to use it as it appears, a land in the sky. The dragonnets are there and so are the Winds. But the Winds are not the same. I’m using real Greek Mythology for the contents. But is using Etheria as the land in the sky and Oberon and Titania alright as well? I know that they cannot get a copyright on Oberon and Titania, for they’ve been in Shakespearian works and mythology.
Am I correct in this statement?
I apologize to everyone if I seem needy and a fountain of endless questions. I’m just trying to get my facts straight.
I’m running1400x1050 on my 20″, but I think that you are way off on your estimate on the number of people running at 800×600. I work on a lot of various people’s computers and almost never encounter a resolution that low. After all, that is the lowest resolution that XP easily lets you set. Big monitors are cheap, now and 800×600 looks really clunky on anything larger than a 14″ monitor.
All of this moot, anyway. A good webmaster will take into account that not all will be using the same resolution and design his site to accommodate a wide variety of resolutions and browsers. It is a cop out to design for one resolution and one browser and then proudly announce “Best viewed at 800×600 in Internet Explorer 6.”
The solution is easy, though. Do not use fixed pixel sized tables and columns. Looking at the CSS file it specifies the font size of the messages as “x-small”. This does not work out in too many cases. This designation is usually used for disclaimers and copyright info at the bottom of a page, not the content. It is better to set font size by points or even pixels. After all, the default font size for most word processors is 12 pt. 10 pt is not an unreasonable request for the content.
Quote:
…nico, r., 2007-03-24 00:34:40When did you and Roberta’s like of boating start?
Was it something you were always interested in,
or something that only came about after you retired?
….Roberta and I have been boaters every since we were first married (Approx. 35 years ago), starting with little ski boats, and growing over the years to the 68 foot boat we now have on order. We crossed the Atlantic on our 62′ Nordhavn in 2004 and plan to circumnavigate our 68′ boat. I have both a 100 ton masters license and a European yachting license.
-Ken W
what resolution do you run at? i have mine at 1360×768 and it looks just fine. keep in mind that the majority of people still run 800×600;
This is the way it’s been ever since it has had this design, and no, it is not a Mac problem, it is this way on my PCs, too. Also, the way that the tables are fixed width causes it to be just a narrow strip down the middle forces you to have to do a lot more scrolling. It is one of the reasons that I don’t post here often, anymore. My guess is that Ken must have his resolution set very low, but it doesn’t make very comfortable for most people.
If it makes you feel any more comfortable about using the name ‘Etheria’, it is also the name of the planet that She-Ra lives on in the ‘Masters of the Universe’ line. My assumption is that if that has been copyrighted, then it is owned by Mattel.
A quick check of the US govt Trademark Database shows that there are no live Trademarks for Etheria. Which is good for you. Trademarks are generally harder to get around than copyrights. Copyrights tend to be context based. If there is no troll king and evil fairies in your Etheria.. or a girl who transforms when she holds aloft a magic sword then you’re pretty much set. Its just a name afterall and there are only so many letters that you can work with.
I’m not a lawyer so if you’re really worried you might want to check with one. But this is how I understand the laws to work.
Awesome.
Unfortunately, I’ve only seen Sierra art on eBay, and sold by a greedy guy who literally said (when I asked him) that he only cared about getting the highest bid price, not Sierra archving.
Though I did hear from some Sierra artist who said he’d found artwork in a garbage bin outside the company when he left.
What’s the current status Brandon? Nice to see you BTW.
– Alistair
Um, I agree 100% with the quote, and given what Ken has said, I’m sure he agrees in part..
I think it’s a fallacy to say ‘it’s not a very good article’ simply because it has bad things to say about Sierra- if the shoe fits, wear it. Plus, it’s not ssaying these things about old SIerra, but of Sierra as it has become- a brand name. hence the metaphor ‘a living death’, which I think that fits Sierra as it is today perfectly- alive in the sense of existing as a brand name company, but dead in the same sense- it may be a brand name, but it’s wholly owned by a parent company and doesn’t produce the old kinds of games. Hence, it’s alive, but for all intents and purposes dead, i.e. a living death.
Regards,
– AlistairI just wanted to post and say, congrats to JT. 🙂
Also, I 100% agree with the sentiments of Ken Williams, well said Ken. Really well said.
Two points on what Ken said:
[quote]Some of this is already being done, and some of it doesn’t merit being done. Because this is all “charity” work, with no potential for income, the only reason for doing something is because it seems fun to do. Thus, I guess the answer is that the person doing the work should decide what they think is cool and fun, and that they are passionate about – and do that. If it feels like work, don’t do it. If you are having fun do more of it, and if you aren’t, do something else…[/quote]
I call this ‘the endless dilemma of whether I continue Sierra Music Central or not’. 😉But at the end of the day, silly rants/questions like the one I made to/at Ken earlier in this year is the minority of how I feel (as is indifference for that matter)- overwhelmingly I still feel passionate about Sierra games and their music, and Ken and Roberta’s legacy, despite what idiotic stuff I say from time to time.
I also find your comments on making money out of Sierra’s legacy (through SierraGamers) interesting- I get the feeling despite your words you DO have some ideas, somewhere in that genius steel trap of a mind. 🙂
[quote]
- Try to think of interesting things to post from time to time on the message boards, to facilitate discussion and keep people involved and talking.
- Try to think of interesting lists to put on the site[/quote]
As someone who runs a Sierra site and also runs 2 Sierra message boards (as well as frequenting almost all of them), I want to warn JT Harkey that it’s really not that easy. Hardest thing I always come up with is- what if people simply aren’t interested and don’t reply- you can’t make people participate. Still not sure what the answer is. Are you interested in being a creative consultant for Sierra sites, Ken? 😉[quote]
- Links to interesting sierra-related sites
- Links to sites of ex-Sierra people
- Links to the most “interesting” threads on the message board
- Links to sites for games that people who liked Sierra’s games might like
- Links to sites where sierra’s older games can be downloaded
- Links to the handiest message board threads telling how to run old games on modern computers[/quote]
Very, very cool. I really like these ideas!Once again, it’s super (god I sound corny) to see you take such an interest, Ken. I’m totally inspired! I hope you continue your deep level of interest in Sierra, although you again differ from this with the words ‘I’m not much of a nostalgic man’. I’ll be honest, I don’t think that’s exactly true. You don’t have much Sierra nostalgia, or don’t care for it?
Anyway, I’m all for the SierraGamers revamp, sounds wonderful (the forums are near-dead let’s be honest). Keep things rolling guys.
Regards,
– AlistairP.S. What IS the InterAction Mag project status?
When did you and Roberta’s like of boating start?
Was it something you were always interested in,
or something that only came about after you retired?EDIT: I clicked the link provided by Ken, and that is a really awesome, really beautiful boat! I used to live in New Jersey with my parents when I was little…We had a small fishing boat type of craft, like a dinghy, but I always dreamed of having a boat like that.
Roberta and I have a new boat arriving, that we’ve been waiting on for nearly three years ( http://www.nordhavn68.com )
Once it arrives, we’ll be starting a circumnavigation, which will keep us busy for at least three to ten years. At the same time, Roberta is working on a historic novel, and I’ve got Talkspot.
So…
As you can imagine, we’re swamped for now.
-Ken W
Replying to Ken, I think you and her definately should consider it.
The market is stagnant now, it needs some fresh air and I think that Roberta’s vision and your williness to innovate and push boundaries could do the industry a lot of good.In some ways Roberta’s documents are fairly similar to Al’s, so if you haven’t seen Al’s, you should definitely check them out. Al’s are interesting because they contain a lot of prose. Roberta’s contain a lot of description. Basically, for each room in the game, Roberta has described what will happen if you interact with any of the different objects or characters on screen. For a complex game like KQ6, for a scene such as the branching path on the Island of the Crown with Cassima’s bird, since there are a number of times you have to go into that screen and interact with the bird, each of those interactions are all described in the same section of the document, that screen. The document goes through all the screens in the game to describe what each one is, and everything that must happen in that screen. And, when you get into the later games such as Phantasmagoria, they get even more complicated, because of all the planning that has to go into designing the game in a very specific way because everything will need to be filmed and then work smoothly in-game.
I can understand Roberta not wanting to post her whole documents. I’d love a digital copy for the master archive I’ve been working on for posterity, but I do have some photocopies of small portions of Roberta’s documents. Perhaps with Roberta’s permission, I could put up a couple of pages to at least provide an example, which would be especially interesting in contrast to what Al has posted on his site, to see how different designers work.
I’ll ask her again. I haven’t asked her for a few years.. but, the last I asked, she still didn’t want to. I’m not sure why. I think she still thinks we might do a game again some year, and that they contain all her “trade secrets.”
I think the odds that either her or I will ever do another game are REALLY tiny.
-Ken W
