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(re: re: Browsing in multiple windows)
I have also had problems in the past where
I browsed to another page in a new browser window while typing a message in the original window, and when i posted the message it appended to the thread i’d browsed to in the second window, rather than to the thread i’d been posting to originally.I posted a bug report about that a few months ago (before you redesigned the pages) — so it’s not a new bug.
-emily
(re: re: re: Does anyone have a Mac???) ken — i just tried the site on mac OS X version 10.2.6, using IE 5.2, and the menu on the left renders fine. -emily
——————
Thanks! – Ken(re: re: re: re: re: If it were me…) Here’s a funny story (actually it’s a story that really irritated me):
Last year, I met with the guy running Sierra to see if I could do anything to help (a guy who has already come and gone). He mentioned that prior to his arrival, the people above him had commissioned a research group, for a huge pile of money, to study why Sierra was failing.
During the 18+ years I ran the place we consistently grew and were profitable. Since then, I really have no idea how they’ve performed – but it’s fairly obvious if you go into a software store that they’ve lost market share.
So… what did the research say? It said they should try to “go back” to the Sierra that existed before – including bringing back some of the old series. I never actually saw the report. But, that is how it was summarized to me.
Here’s the part that bugs me. If it were me doing the report, and the company had been profitable for 18 years, then lost money for 7 years. And, if I were charging someone huge money for the report: I would call the guy who ran it profitably and ask his opinion. How they were able to turn in a thick research report and never call me I can’t understand.
I know this makes me look petty, and ego-istic. Yes – my feelings were hurt. But, all that said – it just seems obvious to me they should have at least asked – even if they ignored everything I said.
Oh well…
-Ken W(re: re: re: re: If it were me…) You should get back in the buiness! I think it would be awesome if you and Roberta started again at Sierra! That company goes through CEO’s like no one’s business, and it would be great if you got the job again. When you were the head of the company, Sierra was always successful, but after you stepped down, the company kinda took a nosedive in industry position and a bit in profits, I think. It’s obvious that when the company was in its prime, you were incharge. You would think someone at Sierra would put two and two together and give you call.
Just out curiousity, if Sierra did call you, and wanted you to come back as CEO, a consultant, or something , would you take the position? You seem like your on the fence about whether or not you want to get back in ‘biz, and maybe all it would take is a final push :).
But anyway, I do really hope someday you get back in the business someday. I’d kill for more variety at Sierra than just FPS and RTS. I’d also trust you to handle older Sierra properties than just some guy looking for profits. I’m sure you wouldn’t rape any of the older series, but instead return them to their former glory.(re: re: re: If it were me…) Random thought I had: I hear Vivendi Universal Games is for sale… 🙂
I’ve thought a few times about whether or not I would ever get back into the business. With my old company for sale, it’s pretty tempting. Roberta and I have spent some late nights talking about it. But, we always finish the discussion with the same answer: no.
Maybe someday that will change, but not in the near future. I do hope that somebody buys it, that wants to do great things – and, that whoever the new CEO is they cals me so that I can pitch in a few ideas on how to restore the company to its prior leadership position. Roberta and I really do think of Sierra as our child, and no one wants to see their child fail. One of my governing philosophies at Sierra was that I wanted to build a company that would still be there for future generations. Every decision at Sierra was about trying to build a company that could grow and survive for 100’s of years. Unfortunately, after the company was sold, the new owners focused so much on short-term results, they lost sight of the long-term. It’s a very sad situation.
Oh well…
-Ken W(re: re: Does anyone have a Mac???) I’ve seen the menu rendering problem on the Mac before. I’m not sure how to fix it – but, have some ideas. I’ll get to it this weekend, and email you to try it on a few different browsers. There is also a related problem on many other browsers where the menu doesn’t draw if you resize the screen.
It’s times like this when I miss the Sierra days the most, where I had 700 engineers and a huge QA department. Now all I’ve got is one lazy programmer (me) working with a geographically dispersed QA department (you)!
-Ken W(re: re: If it were me…) “If I were running Sierra today…”
Random thought I had: I hear Vivendi Universal Games is for sale… 🙂
– Mike Belisle(re: Does anyone have a Mac???) I notice this is 3 months after you asked the question, but yes, I do have a Mac running Mac OS X. Unfortunately, of the 3 browsers I have (Internet Explorer 5.2.3, Safari 1.0, and Camino .7), the site only works in Camino (Which is odd since Internet Explorer usually takes care of sites written for Internet Explorer and Safari works a lot better than Camino). In Internet Explorer and Safari, the menu on the left fails to render. I remember coming to the site thinking “I have to be missing something….”
As a sidenote/suggestion/reinforcement, this has been one of my main complaints with many templates currently available online. They have a tendency to work just fine in Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows, but are either marginally browseable or impossible using anything else. So, I appreciate the consideration. I’m a huge fan of writing straight simple HTML code, so I’ll make my standard plug for
Link: W3C Standards(http://www.w3.org)
. Since you’re developing a web-based application, I’m not quite sure how you could integrate standards into it, but it’s something to keep in mind. For a quick background of HTML standards, see “
Link: How to achieve standards….(http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/Web-Quality)
” The thing I like about them is that I know that the websites I make (which took a lot longer than the ten minutes it’ll take your users) will work in any browser. Of course, 95% of the web I browse works fine for me in Safari. The 5% that doesn’t is infrequent enough that I usually say “Oh well, I didn’t really need to go to that site anyway.” – Mike Belisle(re: re: If it were me…) Great links!
I actually haven’t played any games in a LONG time. I know I should, but I’ve been busy coding on this – and, I have a one-track mind. I will pass along your message to Chris (my son) – but, my guess is that he isn’t thinking any other thought except Star Wars right now.
-Ken W(re: Browsing in multiple windows) I made some changes today … maybe I introduced a bug. Argh. I’ll do some testing and see if I can get it to repeat.
I DID find that I introduced a bug into deleting messages. That has been fixed (I hope)
Let me know if you find a way to repeat the problem you had (hint: turn off autonotification while you are testing – otherwise LOTS of people will get emails).
Thanks! Ken WPS Also, thank you for the tip on the problem with testing messages with no description. I’ll get that fixed tomorrow morning.
(re: If it were me…) This isn’t quite Star Wars Galaxies, but Clan Lord is perhaps one of the most interesting on-line games out there. I think this humorous flyer sums it up best. The community on the game is just awesome. Maybe more importantly, the involvement from the game’s creaters is very high, even though it’s more of a MMMORPG (Moderately Massive Multiplayer…). It’s a classic. I’m a college student who can’t afford on-line games, but I look back on when I played the beta 4 years ago and smile. Just smile.
One of the things Clan Lord shows is that you don’t need five million dollars to make a game where the essesence of it is revolutionary. I’m on a quest (more of impatiently waiting and trying to figure out just what it would entail) for a “new” game – a game with something that I haven’t seen or played before. For example, I’m very excited to see what Bill Roper and the other 3 who left Blizzard North will do with their new company.
To continue with my train of thought, I’m fully expecting that if a new game does materialize (which it most certainly already has but has not yet been found by me), it’ll happen by a smaller company, and will probably never reach the masses due to the fact that it’s so easy to buy big budget games. That’s part of what was lost when the mainstream game industry switched from little guys to giants. Then again, the small game industry before the giants took over was just about as large (probably smaller even) as the small game industry today.
To me, I have huge amount of respect for the little fantastic games, and they stay closer to my heart than the mainstream games do. Another example of a great game that had an original idea with a small or nonexistant budget is AirBurst. The game play is simple yet original, the graphics are attractive, but the experience is revolutionary (so was the price of $5). Yet another example are most of the games made by Ambrosia Software. I consider it an asset to a company when I, just another customer, can chat up the president via a conversation. When the company gets huge, that’s usually not possible.
These games may never reach the height of popularity or bring in as much money as say, Everquest, Unreal Tournament, or Star Wars Galaxies. But to the people they do reach (like me) they create memories. That’s a certain part of their charm. I can always show them to somebody who hasn’t played them before. For me, they fulfill that which is lacking in today’s mainstream game.
– Mike Belisle
p.s. Yes, all of these are Mac links. One thing I like about the Mac is that the developers who are content with just reaching the Mac market have a habit of just making great products. When some of my favorite companies – Bungie, for example – have hit the big time on Windows, the charm has gone away. I think it’s largely due to the need to now satisfy 10s of millions of gamers instead of to satisfy a million. That charm is further deteriorated when supporting the Mac starts being percieved within the company as a liability instead of an asset. To continue with Bungie, their old series Marathon had charm and spunk. It was original and it was a trendsetter. Halo however, is good, but it has neither charm nor spunk. If you don’t have a Mac anymore, I apologize for all the Mac links… Ambrosia has had some of their games ported. I’d highly recommend Escape Velocity: Nova (a series which has a format that is also ripe for the online world).
p.p.s: This post also doesn’t deal specifically with Sierra. But I feel the message of it embodies something that existed at some point in Sierra’s history.(re: Movie Ideas for Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers) Hey, this is great. I don’t have time to read everything right now, but I am impressed. The actors you picked seem like good choices to me. I’ll read your script when I’m in RLC next week.
(re: re: menu pic from old sierra website)
I ended up spending most of my free time browsing Sierra’s BBS. Didn’t have internet access where I lived. 🙂 I remember racking up some huge phone bills calling that bbs.. aghh… the good old days. 🙂
(re: re: If it were me…) Emily:
I’m working on the code now that updates messages. I’ve not seen what you’re reporting before – so, I’m not sure if I fixed it or not.
Your question about why I think Space Quest would make a good massively multiplayer game is a good one.
Roberta was watching Chris play Star Wars Galaxies last night and made the comment that she would like to do something similar in a Kings Quest-style world. I suppose any theme could work – although I still like Space Quest better than Kings Quest.
My thinking (off the top of my head):
A science fiction game can have things like teleporters, for rapid movement
Kings Quest should be family oriented, and not have fighting (although Roberta and Sierra disagreed on this point) – for a massively multiplayer game, I think people would want to fight sometimes .. a sprinkling of fighting fits Space Quest more so than Kings Quest
Massively Multiplayer games are kind of “geeky” at this point in time – I’m not sure they are mainstream. They are something males 25-45 play, not people my age, kids, or even most females (yes – I know this is a sexist comment – but, I believe stats would prove my point). The demographics of a Space Quest would match this audience better than Kings Quest’s demographics (which were very balanced across age groups and sexes).
-Ken W(re: If it were me…)
Ken, that’s an interesting comment. I remember you saying before that even if you had retained control of Sierra, you may have moved the company away from adventure games anyway. If you were running Sierra now, and planned to make a SQ MMORPG (did I get the acronym right?!), would you see it as an adventure game? Or more as a way to attract the market that Lucasarts has already developed with the Star Wars games, since it’s also a space theme?
In other words, what is it about Space Quest that would make it a better “massively multiplayer” game than King’s Quest or Quest for Glory? (I’m not suggesting that one of the other franchises would be better, just wondering why you mentioned Space Quest.) Do you have any opinions on what the Myst people are trying to do with URU?
I’m just curious — I’ve never played an MMORPG (although I am tempted to try The Sims Online) so I don’t really know what they’re all about. Guess I’m wondering about what “might have been” if you still controlled Sierra in today’s market…
-emily
ps I just tried to update this post, and was given the opportunity to update your post instead. It’s working now and i’m not sure I could replicate the problem. After writing my post, I clicked the “Click here to see your message” link, and then might have clicked “Previous post” to re-read your post, before clicking back to mine. Then when I clicked Update, the text of your post about Star Wars Galaxies appeared in the edit box…
(If it were me…) If I were running Sierra today, I’d be tempted to do a online massively multiplayer game based on Space Quest.
Chris, my son, is playing Star Wars Galaxies, and is addicted. I’ve been watching him play .. a very cool product. If something like that were done, with a good sense of humor – it could be a awesome product.
That said, the development cost for a game of that sort has to be in the $5 million plus category. You would need a LOT of subscribers to make it pay out. So, it’s easy for me to speak, but I’d have to really think about the potential market.(re: re: Rumor Is…) I can where your coming from, but I have to disagree. While Sierra isn’t what it use to be, they’re still a good company. I enjoy many of their new games, even if they aren’t adventure. Sierra is the business of making money, that why they haven’t been producing adventure games, since the genre wasn’t that profitable. If the adventure genre did become profitable again, you can bet Sierra would be right there, producing adventure games. And adventure games are becoming profitable again. Action games are a dime a dozen nowadays, and a new genre (or an older one) is going to resurface due to a resurgence in interest. More and more adventure games are actually making money (look at Syberia and The Longest Journey, they both sold very well), and as a result, more and more adventure games are being put into production. At this year’s E3, there were more than a dozen adventure games on display (tripled what it usually is), and a good chunk of them looked good. Dreamcatcher is starting to gain some momentum in the industry, and Lucasarts is making a comeback with Full Throttle II and Same & Max: Freelance Police. Sierra most likely knows they’re sitting on a goldmine of adventure properties, just waiting to come back. If this new Leisure Suit Larry is an adventure game, it’s most to likely to test the waters, to see if an adventure game can make a profit. If the new LSL does well, you can bet Sierra will bring out more properties.
As for adventure collections, I don’t see why Sierra won’t produce new ones in the near future. If they go to Ebay, they’ll see that adventure collections fetch a pretty price. This shows there’s a demand for them. The production of a new collection wouldn’t be that much, the games are already produced. All it would need are updated system requirements, maybe an emulator that can reproduce the specs of earlier computers (to fix speed and sound problems).(re: Rumor Is…)
It was long-known that a new SQ game was in the works and then cancelled. I’d bet there’s more interest in SQ than in LSL, certainly SQ is potentially more marketable. I don’t think anything Sierra does is going to revive those old game series and adventure gaming. The best thing they could do is re-release their classic series in bundled packages… but they won’t do that because then they’d have to tech support them, and they wouldn’t want to do that, nor would they want to go to the trouble of making the games compatible for new systems. Furthermore they wouldn’t sell unless Sierra did a nice job of packaging them together and that would cost too much money too.
(re: re: re: The History of this website?) Hi Tawmis. Good to see you again.
Hehe, you should know by now that Jouke likes to take things easy. 🙂(re: re: re: Rumor Is a New LSL Is In Development, But I Have a Question….) Hey all! I got some great news (and some bad news)!! I got an email back from Sierra (guess I had the address right all along) and the email confirmed a new Leisure Suit Larry is in development!! He said there wasn’t any other information he could give at the time, so he didn’t (he didn’t say whether or not it was a adventure game, but I hope it is). He also mentioned Space Quest (this is the bad news). He said a new SQ was being looked at, but was shelved due to low interest. While that’s bad for Space Quest, I’m still happy about a new LSL. If the game does well, it may lead to more adventure games from Sierra, like maybe a new King’s Quest, Police Quest, Quest for Glory, Gabriel Knight, and Space Quest. Anyway, here’s the message he sent and the one I sent.
{
As for the Quest games, Space Quest was being looked at, but got put on
the shelf as tests showed there wasn’t much interest. I do know the LSL
is in development, but don’t have much more info at this time than that.Michael Bowman
Manager Online Support
Vivendi UniversalPlease include all previous messages when replying.
—–Original Message—–
From: Nathaniel Basque [mailto:iamonecrazymofototheextreme@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 3:04 PM
To:presscontact@sierra.com
Subject: New Adventure Games?Hi there! I’ve been hearing some recent rumblings that Sierra is working on a new Leisure Suit Larry game. I know this goes against the whole “since it’s not announced, don’t talk about it” policy that’s been carried so many times before, but is it possible for you to give some confirmation that a new LSL game is in development? I’ve been a fan since the early days, and a new game in the series would really make my day! If the game is in production, I hope it stays true to the series’ roots as an adventure game
and I hope Al Lowe (the creator of LSL) can be involved somehow! Even if a new LSL game isn’t in development, I would like to throw my support behind a new Larry game. Same goes for King’s Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, Gabriel Knight, and Police Quest. I believe all these series deserve another sequel (and many more sequels to come!) as they represent some of the best the adventure genre has to offer. The adventure genre is starting to make a comeback (due to the high number of recently announced adventure games, even from Lucasarts!) and I hope Sierra begins to contribute new adventure games to the market, as they use too.Thanks for your time,
Nate(re: re: Rumor Is a New LSL Is In Development, But I Have a Question….) Yeah, I heard that Space Quest rumor too. Apparaently it’s been cancelled (AGAIN). But that may not be a bad thing. Apparaently they wanted to add some action elements to the design, which by Space Quest’s nature, they shouldn’t have. But oh well! Hopefully in a few years, when the adventure genre gains a little more steam, a new ADVENTURE Space Quest VII will come. And I dunno about a new LSL being bad if Al Lowe isn’t onboard. He does embody all LSL is, but 6 games is enough reference material, and sometimes change is a good thing.
But, does anyone have a new email address I can use to email Sierra? Like I said, I used
Link:presscontact@sierra.com (mailto:presscontact@sierra.com)
, but I don’t know if it worked. If anyone has another one, please share!Thanks
(re: Rumor Is a New LSL Is In Development, But I Have a Question….)
Well there was also a huge rumor just recently about a new Space Quest also… and several things that even seemed to suggest it… the only thing that bugs me if there is a new LSL… is that Al will not be on the team… then it’s not LSL… just another knock off with the LSL title… Al is LSL…(re: menu pic from old sierra website)
could just be that i don’t remember.
one of the first things i did online was go onto a phantasmagoria chat to express my dissatisfaction with the ending… but no one else there actually wanted to chat about phantasmagoria. 🙂
i thought it was the official sierra site but i could be wrong. in any case, this was neat to see.
🙂 emily
(Manhunter Memories) Hi there!
Ok, so at least a few people think it’s a good idea! Any other manhunter fans out there?
At any rate, I’m going to go for it, and get a Manhunter site up and running. It may take a while, but hopefully it’ll be pretty cool!
I’ve got a good idea of what i want to do with the site, but anyone’s suggestions are more than welcome. You can post here or email me at
Link: banjo_oz@hotmail.com(mailto:banjo_oz@hotmail.com)
if you’ve got something you’d like to send me or just want to chat about the idea.
Cheers,
Banjo
P.S. I’ve attached my ‘first draft’ of the montage image I made for the home page (just to show I’m not just blowin’ smoke here in my intentions)!so it doesn’t take up too much space) of the first image I’ve made for a Manhunter website.
