Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Okay, thanks a lot, I appreciate it. I’ve scanned some yearbooks to make into PDFs, etc. and I know they’re not exactly small, but I figured that once they’re run through the OCR mill, they shrink a lot so that would help.
Anyhow, thanks, I could really use those articles!
– Scott
Also, this will probably be it for a couple of weeks, I’m away on business most of next week, and have to spend the rest of this week preparing my presentations.
I’ve put up the remaining catalogs I own:
http://www.sierra-collector.com/games/catalogs.cfmThere are a couple more out there I want to get my hands on (or scans at least), and will be putting up a list at:
http://www.sierra-collector.com/games/wanted.cfmThe raw scans are HUGE, there’s no way they could be put online. Perhaps Brad, who is heading that project, will see this and drop you a line. If not, I know that I have at least a couple of the magazines that talk about The Realm – I think. If / when I get a chance, I’ll check them out and let you know any relevant info.
Good point, Maxor127. A sound option would be best, so that you can choose. And other things could be improved to make each game the ‘best version’ as you say. For example, like what NewRisingSun did with Space Quest IV. He created an entire new release that not only fixed bugs and timer problems but made improvements, such as using different things from the CD version and from the Disk version, picking what was done best in each release. As I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, VU should have hired him to create these releases.
I would if I knew what the sound card looks like.
It says the file version is 4.02.1031 in the system properties. I googled ‘4.02.1031 Ensoniq’ and one result came up. And that only result came up Page Cannot be Displayed. 🙁
Rip open the case, find the sound card, get some numbers off of it and google them!!!
I wish I could help.‘Sorry though – we’re not coming back, or at least not anytime soon.’
Aww! But I’m a week away from graduating college and I have a stack of
game developments I’ve been working on since 1992! What am I supposed
to do with no adventure game company to work for?!? 😉-Tom.
Ah, thanks. And was the Realm on TSN? I know that even in its alpha stage, it was a separate download. I’m trying to find out if it was on TSN, and if it was there first, or was added to it, or what. Also, was it always a pay system, or was it free at some point (maybe during the alpha)?
Quote:
…Schubert, Scott, 2006-04-24 11:47:24I’m wondering if anyone knows anything about when Sierra Online was going to bring The Realm to AOL…
…My recollection is that all of the discussions with AOL took place AFTER TSN/INN was sold to AT&T.
INN may have owned The Realm completely.
Here’s what happened:
1) Sierra founded TSN alone
2) In approx. 1995 we sold half to AT&T
3) The two companies feuded endlessly
4) We resolved it by selling all of TSN to AT&T, with a royalty agreement to Sierra on games we would produce
5) The press release you quote is confusing to me, in that at the time, I don’t believe Sierra had an ongoing economic interest in ‘The Realm’, although I guess we did — and I’ve forgotten it.-ken W
wow, great site so far. i cant wait to see the rest. i noticed something strange to me though. when looking at the hero quest video and the 1991 catalog, the fighting scenes shown are quite different from the versions i own. it looks like you actually control the characters movement and shield usage. does anyone know if that was the way it was originally designed, or is there a way to switch to that style of combat in all the versions. it just seems weird because the catalog shows pics of qg2, so why would they still be showing beta pics of qg1? if it was originally meant to play that way, i wonder why they changed it.
I’m trying to get more information on The Realm, which I believe came out of Alpha in 1996. I know there was an InterAction article about it but I don’t know which issue or anything. Can you please direct me as to where to go to get more information? I know you guys are working on a database-driven page of the magazines, but since many are scanned already, is it possible for people to go to a site now to look at the raw scans or anything? Thank you very much for your help.
While I agree that the complex sentence parser was sort of an achievement at the time, I don’t think it was that important, and certainly not influencial. I can’t think of a single mainstream game that came out in the last 15 years that used such a system, except for infocom games, which by the end were not really mainstream anymore. In fact, games that require simple text input are hardly ever seen, let alone the ability to type in full sentences.
I want to point out that I do like infocom games, and I’m not trying to bash them, but I just don’t think they were influencial or technoligicaly important. Early Sierra games were.
Sorry, I ment ‘Spacewars’.
Spacewars, 1st video game, developed by Steve Russell at MIT for the PDP-1.
IMG_3229.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpacewarThey’re supposedly working on XP compatible versions of some of the series. What I’d like to see are the actual best versions of the games. In my experience, the Apple IIgs versions of the AGI games are unparalleled due to the mouse interface and the Ensoniq sound. I’d like to see those games in the collections rather than the old DOS PC speaker versions. Or for those who are nostalgic for pc beeping, have an option to choose which sound you want. Or at the very least, I’d like to see unsupported emulatable disk images of different platform versions included along with what you’d expect.
I’m pretty sure Infocom created the complex sentence parser system, but I could be mistaken. It seems like a small thing, but text adventure games usually used a simple verb/noun system, but Infocom games allowed for elaborate commands to be used. So they had their own technical achievements.
I like Infocom games, especially the detective games like Witness and Suspect. And Return to Zork is one of my favorite games of all time. Yeah it had really cheesy acting, but it was amazing back then and it had an excellent story and good interface. I consider the opening movie to be one of the best ever in a game. It combines the familiar old text adventure style of Zork with the epicness of the new era of cd-rom gaming.
As for the Star Wars question. I never heard of Star Wars being the first game to have graphics, I’m sure that’s false because Pong predated it for one among lots of other games. Unless there’s some technical reason those aren’t considered ‘graphics.’
TRUE OR FALSE
‘Spacewars’ was the first game with graphics.
‘Mystery House’ was the first Adventure game with graphics.Ken,
What kind of book is Roberta writing? Fiction?
I assume you’re writing a follow-up of some kind to your last book, right?
BeyondZork (1987) had a color mapping system, but no true graphics.
Zork Zero was the first with graphics and they were 256 Color VGA.
Journey And Arthur followed in 1989 and they also had graphics. I believe Shogun did also, but have yet to play that one. Those were the last three text adventures released by Infocom.
Quote:
…rgjohnson@comcast.net, 2006-04-23 02:31:41Come back to us please!!!!!! (like either one of them is going to read this.)
…Actually… we do read all these.
Sorry though – we’re not coming back, or at least not anytime soon. Roberta has a book going, and I have a book going, and we also play a lot of golf and travel non-stop.
Once we settle down (whenever that will be) we’ll look at doing games.
-Ken W
start with me, i could email some old games to you.
I dont know what your connection is, but i could at least send you some of the less megabyte games. That includes Qg1, Kq3, PQ1, Sq1, all non Vga games.Sorry for the inconvenience, but I think I have spent enough money for you to hear me. You see, I had loved the Sierra games ever since I was a kid. My first was Quest for Glory 1. The only thing out at that time was Nintendo, and Atari (if you had a friend with one). Back then, a game where you could input your own choices was mindblowing. But out of the blue, Sierra came along. I was only 11. These games taught me how to type. These games taught me how to read at a college level. These games showed me Bach level music at an early age. So here I am, an 20 some year old rock star wannabe at 23. Your games gave inspartion.
I was lucky, my childhood friend had an Adlib card.
I begged my dad to install it, but we just didn’t have it. My dad worked with CPU’s when they first started using them in companies in 1974, or something like that.
So I went through all of YOUR old games on beeps and boops, hoping that the next boop would come out of our old 70′ stereo.
Finally! Christmas 93!!! My dad and mom saved up enough for the original Soundblaster Card. They hid it away in the same way the kid in ‘A Christmas Story’ finds his BB gun.
I was so excicted. Finally, i can have Adlib music with my favorite games (by this time it was only QG1, KQ4, SQ3)
But it didn’t work. The card was defective.
Two weeks later we received our new card.
It still didn’t work.
I shortly figured out it was the SET BLASTER command that was the problem!!! Although the first card was really defective, it didn’t even register in the I\O address.
At last the beeps and boops became, at the time, quality music.
I made that basement immaculate for anyone. It was the perfect Sierra game room. Mind you at this time, I was still 11. The broken calculator is was I called it, my CPU. It was an IBM 8086. But it still functioned with a early soundblaster card. Back then,CPU poor people didn’t use mice. I played ’em all with keyboard. I love these games.
As I posted before, please start a petition. Your fans would gladly pay.
