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We’re collecting the new boat in San Diego – and, don’t expect it in Florida for 10 years or more. The world is a long ways around!
-Ken W
Hello Everyone. I just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone of the TSL July Event: http://www.tsl-game.com/chat/. Just Adventure + and Adventure Europe have also confirmed their attendance to the event! Remember, we will be releasing a whole lot of awesome goodies at the event. You do not want to miss it!!
Also, I would like to remind everybody that there is one week left on the TSL Present contest: http://www.tsl-game.com/contest/. Remember, you can submit as many entries as you like, so long as they are under 5MB and comply with the contest rules. The winner of the contest will be announced on July 30th as well.
Great letter and sketches. The sketches remind me of Dungeons & Dragons, where the Dungeon Master had to draw out the rooms and create the NPCs(Non-Player Characters). I would love to see more docs like these too!
And for those who wonder about another Sierra, unless VU can not afford to hold onto the company, I don’t see it comming back in name. I suggest collecting as many screen shots, sound files and scripts as you can. Collect anything that may translate to a remake on a future system. One may have to store CDs and hard copy pictures.
I would like to see a new developement group who has the ability to capture the fun and adventure of the Sierra games in their own games.
I am currently playing Battlefield 1942. The game is fun but it lacks in story and adventure. I have to create my own missions or goals even if the game says I lost because I didn’t go after the flags.
Good luck to TSL, I hope VU hasn’t taken the fun out of creating the next KQ.
Every time I read someone ‘rambling’ on about the old days of Sierra
and how there was a sense of ‘family’ there… I get a little sad.I, too, wanted to work for Sierra. I began developing games (all the
way down to maps and character dialog!!) when I was about 9 years old.
‘CityQuest’, ‘Sim-Theater’, and ‘SierraVenture’ (yeah, I know…) where
all the Sierra characters would come together in one world and you’d
switch between characters at certain sequences. Aaah, the years….Anyway, I did a presentation for my Technical Writing class about the
style of Sierra’s documentation. I came upon some really cool
discoveries in my research, such as Ken and Roberta always starting
their letters with ‘Dear Friends’ and the humble line, ‘The only catch:
you gotta tell us why you don’t like it. Otherwise we’ll never get
better. Send it back to us and we promise we’ll make things right’ in
the Sierra No-Risk Guarantee. Things like that show that there’s real
people behind the brand name. I think that’s a big part of the ‘Family’
feel. Seeing pictures of them in the catalogs and hearing about their
personal lives, especially in the 10th anniversary edition not only
brought us closer to the company, but closer to the people who made it.
Things like that build loyalty, and the fan base you see here and all
over the internet today.Will there ever be another company like Sierra? I don’t know, but
personally I think back to all the non-sierra games I’ve played back in
the dos days as well as the console games and I don’t find myself
wondering about what the founders of Mindscape, Software Toolworks,
Broderbund, High Tech Expressions or Nintendo are doing these days. In
fact, I couldn’t tell you their names. But I still think about Sierra
often enough to check the message boards. 🙂 Sort of a Sierra Family
Reunion, you could say…-Tom.
Hi Ken
Those are really cool design docs and idea sketches…I was wondering if you could upload somemore, particularly from the King’s Quest series. Thank you.Due to copyright laws, we will have to wait 75 years (?), until Sierra creations are public domain, and by that point…I doubt anyone will care. The only plausible solutions, given that VU has killed those franchises and Adventure Games.
1:Fan games
2:New Adventure GamesI know the website 😉 I’ve signed all GK4 petitions that I could find, I’ve send postcard and emails to VU, but still I don’t think we’ll ever see a new GK adventure game. Even if we see a new ‘old franchise’ game I don’t think it will be an adventure. Look what happened to LSL. The Sierra adventure days are over, just take a look at the new lineup. Even if they release the classic compilations, I don’t think we’ll see a new adventure game.
BTW, did you know that I haven’t bought a Sierra game since GK3 was released? I used to buy every new Sierra game that was released, but since GK3 was released I haven’t bought a single Sierra game…
But there’s a Gabriel Knight 4 Campaign going on and you are more than welcome to help out! We at the official Sierra boards created it hoping to get VU’s attention. The site can be found here:
I totally agree with you! Like most of you Sierra fans, I also wanted to work at Sierra and Sierra only. I’ve read many interviews of game designers, artists, musicians etc working for Sierra that were so glad to be working with a really creative and dedicated team. Ofcourse other companies also have an amazing team but I always got a special ‘Sierra’ feeling when playing Sierra games. I did get the same feeling playing other games (MI3, Reunion, Broken Sword, Toonstruck, Diablo, Megarace, FF7) but still…
I always liked the idea that when you bought a Sierra game, you automatically became part of the Sierra Family. You knew the games were designed by people who loved adventure games and you knew that there was a big community that loved the games as much as you did.
I remember Ken saying in one of the video’s of the KQ collection, that in the old days, the whole industry (yeah that was a long time ago), went camping or something and were throwing buckets of water at each other. These gaming pioneers had one goal and that was to create games and show people how great a game could be. Technically advanced and fun! After this, Ken says that the thing that only matters nowadays is grabbing a few points of marketshare.
Things have changed big time, it’s all about the money! I really can’t blame game developers, but I can blame them for the quality of recent games. Sierra will never again be the company that we loved, and I’ve made my peace with that, but I’m still hoping we’ll see Gabriel Knight 4 someday!
It’s a good thing we still have those good memories 😉
Now I’m rambling too!
To be honest, I don’t think thre will ever be another company like the old Sierra (for good or bad). Sierra became what it was more out of circumstance and location then any deliberate formula.
For one, Sierra was small to start. Everything happened in one place from the first inkling of a game design to the final loading of finished product onto a truck. All said, about 200 people that all worked in one place made the games happen from start to finish. That just doesn’t happen any more. Many modern games have 200 developers alone, and behind that, a vast corporate network that funds, manufactures, distributes and promotes the games -usually in far flung dissparate locations.
There is a certain magic that happens when all the hands that touch a product are crammed into one building. A lot of synergy gets built that way.
Couple that with the fact that we were all tucked up into a mountain valley, isolated from the rest of the world. To paraphrase Josh Mandel, we weren’t just working together, we were living together. After hours, by choice or not, you would run into your co-workers whether it was at the movies, a bar, a restaurant, the supermarket -the town was ungodly small!
To say the least, the Sierra of old managed by circumstance to concentrate and distill the talents and energy of a small number of people into those games.
Today, the closest you will find are the independent dev studios, which are btw, getting gobbled up left and right. But even the independents live and die by the decisions of the big publishers. With dev costs rising, and hits far and few between, its a tough environment to work in, let alone thrive.
Sadly, what I saw as a brave new world 15 years ago when I started, has seriously lagged in its evolution. Technically we have come a long way, but creatively I think we are mired. Fun, creativity and a sense of wonder can only come from devs free to follow their passion. Unfortunately, publishers have very narrow views on what constitutes potential success and you must stay on that path.
The one hope I had was that the internet and wide access to broadband would make it possible for independents to bypass the publisher and maybe bring back some of that garage dev spirit. It doesn’t seem to have worked that way -at least not yet.
At one time, Sierra defined the genre and therefore could afford to explore it’s potential. But even Sierra fell victim to the market and started churning out formulaic sequel after sequel and produced no new IP. What new IP did get developed, was usually killed in development -usually b/c no one in marketing ‘got it’.
but I ramble…..
Perhaps we can contact other Sierra artists to see if they managed to keep some themselves. It really saddens me to think all of this is forever gone. There were some lovely images from these games. It reminds me of when Richie Valens’s brother was digging through the garbage and taking all the discarded cartoon cels. I remember Sierra sold a few lithos from some games and I wish I had money to have bought them, but alas, I was only a teenager. Anyone know any way to contact other artists to find out the whereabouts of some more art or backups so we can possibly try and save whats left on this site or elsewhere through people like Brandon who is archiving the Sierra magazines? I was able to ask Andy Hoyos, but that’s as far as I was able to get. What about Bill Davis or Bill Skirvin??
Yes, Ken is right. I remember that whenever a major Sierra sequel came out, an upgrade was needed for your computer starting with soundcards, video cards (CGA>EGA>VGA>SVGA), and then memory. In those days, Sierra drove the industry and now it seems the industry has sort of plateaud. I’ve had the same computer since 2001 and I’m still able to play today’s games. It was an age of innovation, everything was new and uncharted. Perhaps that is why it seems such an important part of many people’s lives. I assume most were growing up as I was and the computer was extremely new. It was also new to the people making the games. We should be lucky to have shared in the magic of the years Sierra On-Line dominated and not bash Ken for leaving. He has a life to continue living and we should all be honored that he’s created this website for everyone to share their love for the company he and his wife built. They’ve accomplished much and though I wasn’t able to fulfill my dream of working for Sierra, perhaps a chance will come when another company comes along and follows the Sierra business model. They founded the company like a family and the fact that the owners who bought the company did not follow the successful model Ken had established is what ruined the company. I just want to thank you Ken for creating some awesome memories in my youth and giving me the inspiration to become an artist and create.
The TSL Interview with Adventure Island is now available here: http://www.adventure-island.nl/ . For more information, please go here: http://www.tsl-game.com/forum/index.php?topic=4589.0 .
Quote:
…rgjohnson@comcast.net, Rakeesh, 2006-07-18 03:04:04Why have a site if you ain’t doing anything about it?… Do something about what? The decline of the adventure game? The staleness in the game industry?At Sierra, I had all these ‘phrases’ that I lived by. Many of them are scattered throughout these message boards. Another one people used to get tired of hearing was ‘Customers vote at the box office’.
Ultimately, game companies build what customers buy. The same goes for films. If there was an adventure game that would sell one million copies, companies would build it.
Which I’m not sure they aren’t…
If you look at where I was trying to move the adventure game, it isn’t clear that we haven’t gone that direction.
My personal vision of the future involved multiplayer gaming. If I had continued to run Sierra, we would have been the ones leading the multiplayer game business. Are these adventure games? It depends on how you define an adventure game. Are you role playing? Are there puzzles? Is there a scenario?
It can be argued that adventure games haven’t died, they’ve just evolved in various directions. I remember the half-life guys trying to convince me that they had adventure game qualities.
Were I in the market today, I would not build ‘2d adventure games’ the way they used to look, because they wouldn’t sell very well. The #1 thing people want is to see something that surprises them. Another ‘Sierra’ expression — this time my brothers: A game has to have ‘wow’ value. If you didn’t say ‘wow’ when you heard about the game, and/or saw it — then it wasn’t going to sell.
So, where does that leave us…
To break-through, and ship a hit, you need something new. Is there something that captures what people liked about adventure games, but does something in a new way. The introduction of story and plot to action games, RPG games and multiplayer games has been done.
What is needed is kind of a fresh look at it.
I wish I had the time… but, I did 20 years in games. Now, I’m doing boating, and working on a book, and have talkspot.com going. I have no free time.
Besides, the budgets are huge these days. To do something new would take 10s of millions of dollars. That means a big company funding it, and big companies are research driven these days. If something seems new, it has a hard time getting funded.
Actually.. new things ARE coming. The market has a great way of reacting to boring products – they don’t sell. Innovative products break through. It’s really just a matter of time.
Sorry to ramble…
-Ken W
Actually, they were all scanned as hi-res (not sure what res) TGAs as part of their first step along the path to game asset. I recall those images being kept on tape backups, but again, what happened to those tapes , who knows. I would assume that like much of the rest of it, it’s in a Fresno landfill.
I want to cry. There were some beautiful paintings done on these games. Especially such pieces as Lord of the Dead from KQ6. I guess all of those nice paintings of the witches forest, Mordack’s Island, the two dragons, etc. are all erased from existence too. I wish I had a time machine. It’s a shame no one scanned them back them to preserve them digitally forever. One thing I do as an artist is keep everything, despite my lack of room. I hope someone out there is at least taking care of what Sierra art is left.
PHOENIX ONLINE STUDIOS – 07/15/2006 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The TSL team is ecstatic to announce our biggest PR Achievement to date!! TSL is going to be featured on Electric Playground ( http://www.elecplay.com/ ) and on the G4 Television Network ( http://www.g4tv.com/electricplayground/index.html ) on Monday, July 17, 2006 at 1:30PM EST and PST!! You don’t want to miss it!! For more information, please check out our website: http://www.tsl-game.com/ .
The TSL Team is excited to announce its 4th annual Major Event. This event will be a live chat with members of the TSL Development Team, specially invited members of the press, some surprise special guests, and you!! In fact, the following special guests have confirmed their attendance:
Peter Spear (author of the King’s Quest Companion)
GameSpy
GameStar.de
AdventureGamers
Quandary
Girlz Game Too
Split Infinity Radio
And more!!
You don’t want to miss this one-of-a-kind opportunity to discuss TSL with the team. Plus, the TSL Team is going to be releasing surprises and gifts to all our fans!! Be sure to join us on July 30th, 2006 from 4pm-7pm EST at http://www.tsl-game.com/chat/ . For more information, click here: http://www.tsl-game.com/chat/ .
Have a little extra creativity that you need to do something with? Or maybe you just love The Silver Lining and would count it a great honor to have your work and ideas featured in the game. Either way, the all new TSL Contest is what you need! There are still 2 weeks left to the contest. Be sure to check it out now at: http://www.tsl-game.com/contest/.
Donny J. Taylor
PR & Web Assistant
http://www.tsl-game.com
http://www.postudios.com
donny.taylor@postudios.comWow, cool thread. Can’t believe how much nicer the painting is than the game art itself, especially with the QFG1VGA Healer hut piece (though, music not art is my specialty field).
And, Marc- Bloody hell, how depressing. 🙂 You sound like me when I’m ranting about Sierra. I’d hate to think what you must think of Vivendi!
Regards,
– AlistairNow that I think about it , and have the advantage of a number of years of hindsight, it seemsto me that the lack of regard for that old art is pretty indicativve of what caused the Oakhurst studio to go into decline.
We lost sight of our heritage and our purpose. After senior management moved to Seattle, we had a succession of General Managers who never really understood what was special about that place. We lost our continuity with our past and lost our vision along the way. So no wonder that all that old art ceased to have any meaning to anyone in the place -it was old work from a byegone era. Most of the people working there by the mid 90’s never even played KQ, QFG, LSL, etc. It meant nothing to them. It didn’t help that adventure games went to into decline. But what I feel now was more germain, was that we didn’t know who we were as a studio anymore. We became a studio defined more by project than as a whole with a grand legacy.
Ken, I was fast to judge you on many an occasion (not to your face of course 🙂 ) But, I have to say, that when you were in Oakhurst, the place had spirit and a sense of mission and identity. Boy, I miss those days sometimes.
Marc
Hi!
I used to work for Sierra as an artist and was probably one of the last people to see many of those images alive.
Originally, under former Creative Director Bill Davis, they were archived and stored properly. After a while we got pinched for space and the storage locker was moved into a hallway, where it was continually in the way. At some point, someone decided to take all the art in there and move it to a self-storage unit in town (not the most friendly environment for a painting).
I went up there one day to do some research for another game (wanted to see the original images) and was apalled to find them in a cardboard box, being nibbled on by mice and getting moldy.
I am amazed at the price those BGs are going for but given how few may still be around, maybe it’s not such a surprise.
I have no idea what happened to all that artwork after the Oakhurst studio was shut down. I know a few artists may have some of the stuff. As far as i know, the Oakhurst facility was pretty well emptied out, I don’t believe any particular care was taken to preserve that old stuff.
NewRisingSun’s SCI
Patch Page, He also recommend that you still run the games in DOSBox. Almost all of the Sierra DOS games run very nicely in DOSBox. If you have not tried DOSBox lately, it has come a long way. You can even install Windows 3x in it for the Windows only games.I keep hearing about these ‘fixes’ done by NRS. What do these do and where can I get them? I thought for a time Gametap would be the savior by giving me the ability to play the old Sierra games with ease on my new computer, but alas, they still have not added any of the games that were CD, and the ones they do have are not the ‘Cd talkie’ versions. Not worth my time since those were my favorite versions!
I wish Vivendi would just release the damn old games working in XP! C’Mon HURRY UP!!! 🙂
