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(re: re: re: re: re: re: Sierra video promos) Wow! What a great link! (
Link: http://www.queststudios.com(http://www.queststudios.com)
) A VERY well done site.
Yes it is! There’s hours worth of surfing material there. Tom is about as big a Sierra fan as they come, and his knowledge of Sierra music is awesome! This site has been online for 8 years, and is the ultimate source for Sierra music. If you have the time, why not send him a few kind words!? He’s already got great endorsements from Sierra legends like Al Lowe, Robert Holmes, Mark Seibert and many others.
I must also say that he’s a great composer himself. He has arranged and written the music for the two unofficial King’s Quest remakes, and his score for the KQ2 remake is right up there with the best of the stuff from the original Sierra games. He would have made a great addition to the Sierra music staff in those days. 🙂(re: Sierra video promos)
I remember the hype about getting that song on the air!
I had the mac version of KQ6, which didn’t include the vocals (just the background music). I still loved the theme. (I was an adolescent girl… every time that love theme came on it made me swoon… especially when Cassima and Alexander are talking to each other through the chink in the wall!)
Anyway, that summer I bought the Sierra Soundtrack CD so I could hear the song with the vocals. I still have it…
I think it’s too bad that songs from games aren’t more widely played. Even the soundtracks can be hard to get. For years I was hunting for the GK Mysteries pack so I could get the soundtrack (even though I already had both games) — finally got my hands on it earlier this year. I know of a few other games that have come out with soundtracks, but they all seem hard to find… not readily available as I would expect. But maybe I’m just not looking hard enough…
-emily
(re: re: re: re: re: Sierra video promos)
Wow! What a great link! (
Link: http://www.queststudios.com(http://www.queststudios.com)
) A VERY well done site.
I listened to the music to “Girl in a Tower” from KQ6, and it brought back some fun memories.
My apologies if I’ve already told this story, but:
I was always trying to find ways to “hype” our products through conventional media. I thought of Sierra as being part of the broader “Entertainment Industry”, not as just a computer game company.
Anyway…
I had the idea to try to get airplay for the Girl in the Tower – to see if I could get it to start showing up on radio bestseller charts. My vision was that if we could start getting momentum behind the game music on radio, then I could start a new category at music stores, for game music. In Japan, you see game soundtracks all the time in music stores. Why not in the US? We spent a lot of money on top composers.
So…
We put into the initial boxes of Kings Quest 6 a flyer with the “dial in” request line numbers for the radio stations in major cities, and told people that if they agreed with us (that Girl in the Tower was a great song) they should call their radio station and request the song. We also mailed to all these same stations a copy of the CD.
We sold around 400,000 copies of Kings Quest 6 the first week. Imagine 400,000 people calling radio stations at the same time to request the same song. Some played it – but, most just got angry and called me, or had their lawyers call me. We jammed the phone lines. Radio stations threatened to sue me. I don’t remember what crime they alledged that I committed, but in my opinion, the radio stations were the the criminals for ignoring their customers – something I believe no business should ever do.
Oh well… I was younger then – and, the song WAS great.
-Ken W(re: re: re: re: Sierra video promos) Brad, if you do all of these things, you will have my eternal gratitude! And more importantly, some of my money for a copy of that DVD. I’d be prepared to pay whatever it would cost. Just don’t get any ideas now… 😉
If it would be possible to add that Smithsonian video to the bunch that would be great! It is possible to obtain copies for just an administrative cost. You could probably even get a broadcast-quality version without timestamps for this project.
And if you’re looking for rare Sierra material, ask Tom Lewandowski at
Link: http://www.queststudios.com(http://www.queststudios.com)
He has lots of stuff in pristine condition and would probably love to help out. I am also sure that this would pay off in the end. I’ll do the best I can to encourage you and tell as many people as possible to buy a copy if it gets made!(re: re: re: Sierra video promos)
Hello all,
Please PLEASE make this a cross platform format like quicktime or MPEG4. DO NOT convert it into some obscure Windows only format like WMV or whatever they are using now. Realplayer is, in my view, not going to cut it either. I hope you’ll consider before you releasing it! Thanks.
Is there anyone of you who DO have all the Interactions? Those seem almost impossible to get. I’ve been looking for about two years now, and I’ve only found a few. It’ll be very cool if someone could scan them.
(re: re: re: re: Building Old Computers For Sierra Gaming)
Have you guys seen my “Custom Build Space Quets Computer” article on my website? It’s located here:
http://www.spacequest.net/misc/customsqpc.shtml
Here’s a picture of the working version: http://www.spacequest.net/rotzooi/sqcomputermooi.jpg
Pretty cool, ey?
Frans van Hofwegen
SpaceQuest.Net(re: re: Little mistake in Sq6) I got past that part using a slowdown utility called Turbo. I set it to 40% and I got by fine.
(re: re: re: Building Old Computers For Sierra Gaming)
Download the GoSierra utility. It fixes all sound problems by patching the sound drivers in sierra games.
(re: re: re: Sierra video promos) Stephen,
The promo is 14 minutes long. I am using MPEG1 compression. Roughly 320×240 size. File size is 89Megs. I’ll experiment with some of the streaming formats, as well as the newer MPEG formats. Just did a quick MPEG1 to start for everyone.
Ken, I am all for putting this video on a CD to provide for everyone – I know that d/ling large files again and again can get costly traffic wise. What I would LOVE to be able to do is to take the other videos you have, along with this one, and make a fully authored DVD set that has all of them on there. If you have some of the original tapes from then (3/4 Umatic, Beta, etc etc) I can make great looking MPEG2 DVD’s with a fully authored menu, as well as work on a custom intro and even an animated full motion menu, I’ll even throw it at it’s highest quality for you on a Digibeta tape. I own and have access to tons of video equipment and edit systems – it’s my day job doing multimedia design, and video editing/production – so I am set up for it.
Having a archived DVD set would rock, and I would provide it to anyone who wanted it at cost. We could also add music tracks, excerpts from the games (other than what is shown in the promo videos), concept art, (old photos that you said you have and just received), Box scans, history info, etc etc. Heck, (and I am not joking) I’ll personally gather my video crew and fly out to do a professional on camera interview with ya, and tote around your old stomping grounds while we all relive the 80’s, and throw that on the DVD as well.
Anyway.. the possibilities are virtually endless – all I know is that I want to preserve Sierra (as many on this board are wanting as well), and am willing to do just about anything. Just let me know. I think the videos are a great start!
-Brad(re: re: re: re: re: Sierra video promos)
maybe a solution would be uploading that video to emule, dont you think?
(Clue to Jack D Williams) Do you have Tanya’s doll ? without it you cannot develop a conversation and mention the staff.
(re: KQ6 intro movie (mac) – SUCCESS!) Just edited the original post about the mac movie, and added a new zip file that should work on PCs (at least, it works on mine). I’m posting this response so the thread will be displayed as a new message…
🙂 emily(re: re: re: Sierra video promos) well, i was being a little dramatic. i’ve done the overnight thing. downloaded tierra’s KQ2 remake and digital music pack that way.
i guess i should have phrased it differently, i.e. “i don’t WANNA download 80 megs!”
but of course, for sierra promos i’d do it anyway…
🙂 emily(re: Building Old Computers For Sierra Gaming) have you tried the GoSierra patch? It fixes that “unable to initialize audio” bug in some games. I have used it on my old machine (same processor of yours) to get sound running for games like PQ1 (the VGA remake).
I’m too lazy to look up the URL right now, it’s linked elsewhere on this site, or you can download it from the Quest Studios site…
-emily
ps the sounds in SQ5 *are* priceless…(re: re: The Realm) Thanks for the reply. The Realm is still up. If memory serves me right I believe it was purchased when Codemasters opened there site in Oakhurst.
I know it was just sold by Codemasters to a group of loyal fans. The new company is called Noresman games.
Anyway, thanks again for the site. I worked at TSN many moons ago as a Beta tester, I eventually moved over to Technical Support. I left INN shortly after it was sold to AT&T.
Thanks for the memories!
– B(re: The Realm) Great question!!!
I had completely forgotten The Realm. Strange – it was one of the greatest things we ever did.
The Realm was designed by David Slaybeck, who was also the lead programmer on the project. My recollection is that half way through development Dave had some sort of medical problem (a brain tumor?) and had to leave the project for a while – and that this caused a lot of confusion and delays with the project.
TSN (later renamed to the Imagination Network) was sold first to AT&T, and then to AOL. I think that after the sale, AT&T made the decision to reprogram The Realm, and that the rewrite never shipped.
-Ken W(re: re: Sierra video promos)
Brad, how long is the mpeg file? 80mb’s for an mpeg doesn’t sound long (at dvd quality). Can you do Windows Media 9? It looks good at low bitrates.
(re: re: Sierra video promos)
emily, use a program like gozilla or getright. I use the older version of gozilla because i like it better then the new one. You can get it @ http://www.oldversion.com
The largest file i’ve downloaded with Gozilla on my 56k dialup is about 300mb. Took a couple nights, but i got it. 🙂
(re: re: Sierra video promos) Emily,
No way to handle that on dial-up? An average-quality dial up is 10 mb/hour. Run it for a whole night and you’ve got the file.
At a certain time I’ve used my dialup as broadband, downloading gigabytes of stuff with the right software and dialers 🙂
But I downloaded really useful stuff this way (programming SDKs, etc) so I didn’t run out of patience. As for the music fans, etc. the approach is truly unusable.
Regards,
Vesko(re: re: re: re: Sierra video promos) Brad:
Sorry .. you can’t upload the 80 megabytes here — tooooooo big .. it would hurt my costs to run this site too much.
What about:
Burn CDs with it (and, other stuff) .. and charge people $5 via paypal .. and, you’ll mail it to them. You can promote it here (I’ll find a prominent place) .. and after your costs you’ll make $4 / CD.
If you don’t spend too much on blank CDs you should be able to earn enough for lunch at McDonalds.
-Ken W
PS I was serious .. it might be worth trying… I think the person digitizing the old Interactions should do the same thing…(re: Little mistake in Sq6)
The part about the DNA analysis is a speed issue. If you disable your CPU cache and play that scene you should be able to get through. At least that’s worked for me on all the speed sensitive issues I’ve had with the old games on a new system.
(re: re: Building Old Computers For Sierra Gaming)
It was funny to read this post. I was just putting together a Sierra game system just yesterday. It’s one of those ideas I have been toying with for a long time. Plus I was cleaning out a lot of extra parts I have around here, becasue I seem to always accumulate parts and systems when I fix computers for people. The system I put together is a Gateway 166 mhz mmx processor. I wished it was slower. I can play most of the Sierra games without error but some like Space Quest 5 I get an error which i’ve seen so many times because of speed. It still plays but because of the unable to initialize audio hardware error is there I don’t get the full affect on sounds. Like when Roger sits in the captains chair! The cool thing to do is get a Sound Blaster sound card and update the sound drivers and run the general midi drivers for the older games. It is so much cooler that way! I’m going to start posting in here more often!
