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I believe that this project has been brought up here, before. I think that there is a fair bit of interest in it, but I’m afraid that it won’t be of much more than a passing interest until people can actually use it.
I’ve been posting information about this project over at http://www.fauxinn.com for a while now. Sadly there isn’t much of a readership left over there, and the forum has been mostly taken over by spam-bots. I stumbled across this site when I was doing some reading about the history of TSN/INN and I thought the readers here would definitely be interested.
The project I am working on is an emulated INN server. Using the original client software running in DOSBox, the network messages are forwarded via internet protocol to the emulated server that I am creating. At this point I am able to log myself in to the server, enter a waiting room in the Clubhouse, and chat with the other (virtual) people in the waiting room.
I have been putting videos up on YouTube showing the progress that I am making with the server. You can check those out here and here. Currently the people in the waiting room are just emulated for testing of the network messaging protocol, but hopefully soon they will be real.
I’d really like to hear any thoughts or questions about the project.
– Ben
It would be awesome to reconnect with some people from Sierra, but it would be up to the masses for the forum/scheduling…
Weren’t these going to be re-released as PDF files?
I would love that… mostly because I ended up being in one of the issues! (They used me dressed up as Leisure Suit Larry!) LOL
For me, it’s simple.
I am a collector by heart. When there’s something I enjoy, I collect it to have it. Something to always be able to look back at and remember something. For example, when THE HOBBIT was read to me (and the rest of the 4th grade class I was in) – it left a huge impact on me. It was the single moment that said to me, “This is what you want to do. You want to write.” So I went and got THE HOBBIT as well as LORD OF THE RINGS, and spent two years reading THE HOBBIT from cover to cover, back to back, side to side. I have since collected maps to Middle Earth and random assortment of books relating to it. Next impact was STAR WARS. Now I have the role playing books – even though I haven’t gamed in forever. But the books have all kinds of additional knowledge.
Then, Leisure Suit Larry walked across the screen of my best friend’s father’s computer. He showed us how he could walk around things and do different things. He let us play it, as well as King’s Quest 1 (EGA – although I swear the version he had was CGA, and only four colors… But I can’t find any record of such a KQ1 game – anyway). I immediately went out and bought SQ1 and LSL1 and then found KQ1. These were incredible to me. A game that I could walk around, and the stories were fantastic (for me back then). So now I have a shrine of SIERRA games from the classic days.
Why?
Because I can look at them and smile – and remember the countless hours my friend Shawn and I would be sitting there – refusing to call the hint line – but pounding our heads against the wall trying to figure out something in one of these games.
I do it because these games give me memories.
Memories where I smile and chuckle to myself.
I do it because these games opened another door for me, to yet another way, another world to express myself. 🙂
Okay, I was thinking LSL7 was Windows only. I don’t know why the collections were delayed a year. It left me hoping they were actually doing something significant with them. I was hoping for midi sound for the AGI games or Apple IIgs samples, I doubt they even included MT-32 sound emulation. I could’ve seriously given the same results they gave with about a half hour of work.
LSL7 work perfectly in DOSBox. The collections were very poorly done with what seems to be arbitrary decisions by people that know very little about AGI or SCI games or even DOSBox. The games used in the collections comes from a hodgepodge of sources. KQ6 came from the 2nd collection while KQ7 came from the 2nd stand alone version, which came with no DOS interpreter, so no DOSBox. This makes the game uncompletable on modern machines (firecracker speed bug) In the end there was no reason for the collections to have been done so poorly.
I have created patches for all four collections that allow the games to be run with the latest version of DOSBox and fixes a number of issues that many were having with the games. The King’s Quest collection also upgrades KQ7 to version 2, which can be run in DOSBox. Links to these patches can be found on VU’s message board.
Very nice indeed, and lots of info! The full link is http://www.game-nostalgia.com
Perhaps something to add to the Cool Sierra links.Nope, I didn’t know that. That sucks. I’m glad to know he was as disappointed with the new Sierra collections as I was. Although I can sort of understand WHY they didn’t include LSL7 (they couldn’t emulate it through DosBox and therefore couldn’t guarantee its XP compatibility), there’s no excuse for them to not include the original AGI game. Personally, I don’t think there’s any excuse for them not to include every game in the series plus more. Why not include Freddy Pharkas? They could’ve easily padded the collections with lesser Sierra titles, kind of like what Sierra did with the previous King’s Quest Collection by including Mixed-Up Mother Goose Deluxe and the Laura Bow games. Instead these collections give you substantially less than what was available 7 years ago. I can think of a dozen ways the games could’ve been enhanced.
If you search around these forums, you’ll see that we’ve answered this a few times.
Generally, we support the fan fiction, and have seen some great work. Our only concern is that we’ve seen people put in a lot of work, of commercial quality, and yet they can never really do anything with their creation when it is finished. When you are using someone else’s copyrighted material, your ability to distribute your product is limited.
-Ken W
Out of curiousity, Ken/Roberta:
How do you feel, in general, about some of teh fanfiction that your games have inspired? I actually have a relevant question about it, but as it’s my first post, I’m just trying to figure out what the game designers in general think of the fans who couldn’t let the story go, and it got into their imaginations and kept growing.
Hey Chris and Ken,
Chris: thanks for posting that information about Forbes, I read the news on CNN recently and am glad to know that that whole case is finally finished. Funny that, 10 years ago, that had a big impact on Sierra, interesting….
Ken: Those letters are really interesting. Too bad you haven’t heard back from them, but, then again, they have their ways of working. On a brighter note!! Vivendi Universal Games has sort of “reverse merged” their name into Sierra. In other words, though Vivendi itself has not really changed, the “Sierra” name, logo, and the “Half Dome” Yosemite cliff are more-than-ever prevelant in all games VU is now churning out. In addition, “Sierra Entertainment” as a name, now oversees quite a few other game studios. These game studios plus Blizzard (which is famous enough not to be put under the Sierra umbrella) make up, pretty much VU games. I’m happy about that!
Here are the current studios under the Sierra Entertainment name: Massive, Radical, Swordfish, and High Moon
I’d be interested in hearing everyone’s opinions. Does anyone else have any new news concerning this?
See this page for help with setting up KQ7 in DOSBox.
mmmk. Thank you for your help. Cuz I was to the point I wanted to kill my comp cuz I was sick of being blown up.
SaraThen you don’t need to patch it. All you need to do is play the DOS version in DOSBox.
I don’t know which version it is. All I have is the 3 cds. And that can be a bad thing. All I know is that I have had this game for a long time. And it is the collection series. If that helps.
SaraWhat version do you have? I have made patches for v1.4 and 1.51 to upgrade to version 2, which has a DOS interpreter to play it in DOSBox. This can slow the game down to what was expected when the game was first created.
So anything new going on with the project? I can’t wait to read the Holiday 1993 issue again.
Also wasn’t there a sample posted a couple of years ago? Where is that now?
Unfortunately, with the number of changes happening with Talkspot over time, I suspect some of the files posted early in this site’s beginnings may have been re-shuffled in various updates and thus lost… or, when people post things on their own servers instead of here, if they take it down then it’s gone. Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy way to go through everything and manage it, as if it was a straight FTP or regular message board system. Now offhand I haven’t seen content go missing, but if you do find anything that should be re-arranged, or a link that doesn’t work, just let me know and I’ll be glad to fix it.
Quote:
This may already be here on this site somewhere, but here it is again:
a scan of a page from one of the King’s Quest Collection sets, with the
KQ4 solutions.Speaking of which, most of the attachments that have been posted are no longer available. When are the files and images that have already been uploaded to this
site be available again? I know that there has been a lot of emphasis
has been placed on the interaction project, but even if the final
layout of the museum ends up being very different, can’t we have access
to the other files that have been uploaded? I have contributed a number
of things here and would like to see them available. Maybe a temporary
“museum”?This may already be here on this site somewhere, but here it is again: a scan of a page from one of the King’s Quest Collection sets, with the KQ4 solutions.
After a long time away, I’m working on my site and collection again. (new job, took a while to balance work/life again)
Update on my hunt for EGA games
Thanks to EBay I now have physical copies of:
King’s Quest 5 EGA
Space Quest 1 remake EGA
Space Quest 4 EGA
Leisure Suit Larry 5 EGA
Leisure Suit Larry 1 remake EGA
Castle of Dr. Brain EGABinary of:
Rise of the Dragon EGA
Heart of China EGA
Jones in the Fast Lane
Willy Beamish
Conquest of the Longbow
Mixed-up Fairy TalesStill missing
Hoyle’s Book of Games Vol. 3.
Eco Quest 1 (unconfirmed to even exist)I’m not to the point where I’m collecting old boxed versions of the games, but I still have my old game boxes. I wish I took better care of them. They’re all worn now and some are missing things. But I do preserve my favorite Sierra games and play them often through emulation. And I’d love to have high quality scans of the boxes. I’m still looking forward to the InterAction magazine scans. I collected those and read them to the point where they’d fall apart from so much use.
