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I am sure he was thanking them in reference to the fact that they were the founders of Sierra.
Ken was CEO and Executive Produced most of the products.
And Roberta did many other things in addition to writing the King’s Quest series and many other games.
Did Roberta have an offical company title? Other than Game Designer?
So i guess you are the one who told me to watch my language? If it were not for sierra, i would not have even known how to type those foul words that you find so repulsive. Should I accept Vivendi, no!!! You want to create a great adventure game, contact me. I have many ideas. The first step is to get a mouse released for XBOX, PS2, and GAMECUBE. The next step is to get a keyboard released for the same. If you want some good ‘SIERRA INSPIRED ADVENTURE’ times, we should work together. There is no good adventure, the only good is where you think for yourself. I have them all, and they bore me. Hell, they were released over ten years ago!!! Over twenty with KQ1 and Black Cauldron! All of the serious fans would put up decent money on a decent petition! I don’t want another KQ8. That was horrible. It was like a half-assed atempt on playstation. That game sucked. I was hoping for something good, and all i got was a crappy rendition of tomb raider, crappily, i might add.No story, no good characters, and crappy 3D graphics. I want to start a whole new genre where you actually have to use the keyboard. YES!, type that is! Is it so far fetched really?
That’s what they were back in the 80’s. And they were harder than hell. We should combine today’s graphics with the processors that can support them. Just like the early days, Ken and Roberta. I wrote a letter to both of you when I was 12. I’m sorry for swearing on your little site, but I am mad. I have spent alot of money in my lifetime on Sierra Games. I am not an obsessed fan. I finally got my Pentium 1 to support all of the AGI and SCI games to work in perfect order, in XP, with full Soundblaster and Adlib support!!!! I call it my Sierra computer.
Adventure games died, when sierra went south. The last great game was Quest for Glory 5, Dragonfire, and i hope you were there when it did.Even if not, we are still here. Like the fans of a broken up metal band. we wait for the return. I know it’s not gonna happen, even if Mannannan wishes it, but I have to try. I must try. The skull is in the cogs. The hair is in the cookie. The rose was pushed under the door. The witch was in the pot. We all want a superb adventure game, be it PC. Many thanks, Roberta, for your games, please, one last game……………..it’s not too late buddy. There are plenty out there with your skills that can conjure up some razzle dazzle root beer.
because they were all cut off or fired, Sierra under Ken and R. went out of business around 1997 or 98.
Well, at least it’s official that you didn’t rip your employees off. Sorry for swearing on your site.
THE ONLY THING THEY SPIT OUT WAS THE KING’S QUESTS. Do not confuse the others. They were all written by separate parties. Quest for Glory was written by the Coles. Leisure Suit was written by Al lowe. Space Quest was written by the guy that got FIRED from sierra back in the 90’s. Get your writers straight!!!
So why don’t all these people who wanted to work for Sierra back before
they could, get together now and form some kind of website or forum to
post messages and get together and form a game company?Oh wait…… 😉
-Tom.
yeah. i’m about to finish my degree in computer science and i have always said that sierra, larry and al lowe in particular, influenced me the most in that decision. i only wish i was older so i would have had the chance to work at sierra. at least we were able to be a part of that time.
Vivendi is as much Sierra Onlineas the Current incarnation of Paramount/Viacom is Gene Roddenberry!!
Roberta is writing Non-Fiction? Can’t wait to see it…
Would it have anything to do with Phantasmagoria having it’s production delayed because the design team was glued to TV watching The OJ Simpson Trial?
We did, though very briefly. Wiki is cool, but ultimately there are so many features we want that just wouldn’t be done justice by using Wiki. I’ll admit that the TSA project is kind of in limbo right now. Such projects take a lot of coordination and volunteer time and real life often gets in the way. It’s always great to see new fan sites pop up, such as Steve’s Sierra-Collector.com, as they provide great content while we’re quietly doing our work. You could set up your own fan site if you wanted, or a Wiki site. I’m sure there must be a Sierra Wiki out there. We just haven’t wanted to put up anything that we could just create quickly, though. TSA deserves to be the ultimate site and we have a lot in plan for it.
There must be so many Sierra fans who had the dream of working at Sierra, or maybe even another company, who had the dream of designing their own adventure games, or being an artist, or a programmer, or whatever. All those companies are gone… but adventures still are not. There’s still companies out there releasing games that, while they’re not totally adventures, are very adventure-ful. And there are new companies starting as well. Such as Himalaya. Never mind communities like the AGS community, which produces some wonderful amateur adventures. So I think there is still hope for the future of adventure games, and people who loved them and want to be a part of making them – well, if that’s still a real dream for you, you should follow it!
Both Roberta and I are working on books.
Roberta’s is non-fiction, and still a couple of years away.
My book is fictional, although based around an extrapolation of factual events. I don’t want to say anything about it yet, because it’s still at least a year or two away, but it’s meant to be a mainstream novel. It has nothing to do with boats, and plenty to do with cool new technology. Hopefully everyone will like it when I finally complete it.
Writing books isn’t nearly as fun as writing games. Both Roberta and I would enjoy working on a game, but it’s more important for us to do new things. We like going places we haven’t been and taking on new challenges. We wrote games for 20 years, and now its time for something new. Besides, it would be impossible for us to ‘sit still’ the 3+ years required to work on a game. The nice thing about working on a book is that you can do it from anywhere in the world.
-Ken W
If you do not want Ken’s book you could read about the journey on trawlerweb.com .
That being said, I thought their travels were very cool. If you like Sierra adventure games then reading about another adventure is not much different. You just have to use your imagination. If you can’t trawlerweb has pictures.we dont want a book about your lives, if we wanted a story like tht, we would ask our mom’s and dad’s. Thanks for the thought though.
Wiki software would be perfect for this project, have you considered using it?
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
– Jesse
Vivendia will never be Sierra and games made with the Sierra brand will never be on the same level. Many of the old great companies are dead and gone. Sierra, SSI, Microprose, now Interplay, and so many others. The companies of the 80s and 90s created a whole new industry.
It must be weird being thought of as pioneers, but that’s what they were. I still love the old games I grew up playing and I still play them and I collect them and learn emulators in hopes of preserving them. Games today really aren’t the same. Yeah, some good games will come out but very few that you’ll want to play over and over and that will have the same emotional impact. I think the last game I played that I thought was absolutely amazing was Zelda – Ocarina of Time. I wish I could break into the game industry. I’m confident that I could design a great game, and I get frustrated seeing games get created that I’ve had in my head for the last 15 years. I’ve all but given up on that dream though. That kind of died when Sierra died.I grew up playing these games and they had an enormous impact on my life. My first game ever was Frogger when I was 6. A friend brought over the Black Cauldron and I thought it was amazing. When my dad brought an Apple IIgs home for work around 1987, he brought home King’s Quest II.
Back then, I was too young to know about game companies or game engines or anything, but I saw King’s Quest was like Black Cauldron and equally enjoyable and I looked at the catalog that came with the game and saw a whole collection of games. I read the catalog over and over,
dreaming of the different games and wanting each one.I played King’s Quest I-III, Space Quest I and II, and Police Quest. The games had a tremendous impact on me. I could play them over and over and over again and I still play them today. I liked each of the Quest series for different reasons. Police Quest was my favorite. The whole city of Lytton felt real and it was a place I wanted to live in. I explored it again and again, trying to pull people over in different spots to see each scene. The graphics for the early AGI games were amazing for the time and they conveyed great depth and detail with the sprites and colors they had.
King’s Quest III was another personal favorite. It was a huge step forward from the previous games. Suddenly you were a prisoner, and you felt like a prisoner and there was great tension as you tried to sneak around without the wizard knowing. The whole game was a masterpiece and it ended nicely with a return to familiar Daventry. Through that time, I had King’s Quest I, II, III, and IV, Space Quest I and II, the Black Cauldron, Police Quest, Thexder, and Mixed-up Mother Goose. Like many people, these games taught me how to read, write, spell, and type at an advanced level. My dream was to one day move to California and work for Sierra, but time wasn’t on my side.
Unfortunately, Sierra stopped supporting the IIgs and I was stuck looking at the 1988 and 1989 catalogs and all the games I couldn’t play. But I didn’t let that stop me. My dad had a beast of a laptop. It was almost the size of a computer tower, weighed a ton and had a tiny blue and gray screen. But the early SCI games worked on it. And by using my Commodore 64’s video-in port, I could connect the laptop to the monitor and play in black and white. It was enough for me and worth it. I played Quest for Glory and Conquest of Camelot in black and white with PC speaker sound.
During the 90s, my dad brought home a Macintosh. One day, I got something in the mail which was offering a two for one deal on Sierra Macintosh games if you buy direct. I bought King’s Quest V and Space Quest IV and I was introduced to the VGA icon inferface of the next generation of Sierra games. I was blown away by the graphics and sound. The clicking and icons took a while to get used to, and I still prefer the parser inferface just because I like having the freedom to say things I know I shouldn’t or do things that I know I’m not supposed to do. With my Mac Sierra games, I also got my first InterAction magazine which I still have and I can’t wait for some PDF scans of them. I made sure I got every issue from then on. And I steadily built up a Mac collection of Sierra games.
My most extreme moment of Sierra obsession was probably when I waited excitedly for Quest for Glory IV to be released for the Mac. Unfortunately, it was canceled. I was crushed. I didn’t have a PC that could play it. So, I got a DOS compatibility card for my Mac and it played QFG4 like a charm.
There’s so many things I want to say, but so much of it has probably already been said. I’m a huge vintage gaming fan and especially a Sierra fan. It has always been my favorite company and these have always been my favorite games. There have been ups and downs and frustrations, but I consider my experience to be unique since I played on the unpopular systems, and I’m sure that through the AGI years, I received the best Sierra experience.
Thank you for making so many great games. I extend my thanks to you, and everyone who worked to make these games possible.
What were the last names of Paul and Robert from the Game Dive? I’d like to try to find their archive files. Thanks!
I wish you luck finding that audio. Talkspot didn’t make it as a company, and when it failed, the servers were ‘sold off’ by the bank.
I was long gone at that point and don’t know if anyone saved backups of the old shows.
With a little luck, they did, and the files will turn up someday – or, someone recorded the show from at home.
-Ken W
do you mean Text-based SCI? (1988-1990)?
I’m sure KQ5 and the first generation Icon based SCI were released for Mac
Awesome site. I still have those catalogs and I’ve been trying to take care of them. I was planning on one day scanning them myself. I used to read the catalogs all the time and look at all the games I wish I had. It was the InterAction magazine before there was one.
I don’t think KQ4 was released for Mac for some odd reason. In fact, I don’t think any SCI games were released for Mac, although there was an AGI version of KQ4 for the IIgs.
One thing I noticed in the 1991 catalog, King’s Quest 4 marked as available for the Macintosh, was this actually ever released?
http://www.sierra-collector.com/games/catalogs/9/4.cfmIt was listed as ‘coming soon…’ for most of the 10th anniversary catalogs
http://www.sierra-collector.com/games/catalogs/5/24.cfm
http://www.sierra-collector.com/games/catalogs/6/1.cfm
http://www.sierra-collector.com/games/catalogs/7/1.cfm
http://www.sierra-collector.com/games/catalogs/8/2.cfmSpace Quest III was, but it looks like Police Quest II, and Larry II were not.
