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Ken, would it be possible to do your tables by percentages instead of
by pixels? This would allow the best compatibility for the most people
running at different resolutions. I run at 1200×1600. At this
resolution your main table is too narrow and if I want to set the font
size higher, the text overlaps the cells.Percentages would also work in the other direction, too. Users with smaller
monitors and/or lower resolutions would not have to scroll sideways.It wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all if VU released the game commercially. It looks good enough where I’d buy it..
I posted my feelings by sending an e-mail to the address listed in the forum link above. Hopefully there will be a few good messages that get read through that address instead of all the VU bashing that was going on in that forum thread before the moderators closed it.
If you read the Phoenix Online thread, “Erpy” (who is from AGDI) has posted some very valid points. Vivendi likely has no intention of doing anything KQ-related, but they do have to protect their copyright if they ever want to in the future. Not that they’re likely to, but they have to protect that copyright. They wouldn’t waste their time with KQ9 when it first started – why bother, as many fan games don’t make it as far as KQ9 has. Now that KQ9 released a trailer, VU sees that they’re serious and sends them a C&D. The quality of KQ9 appears so good that if VU had any sense, they would officially license it. Project Director Cesar recently posted that “we are trying to negotiate with Vivendi” and we can only wish them the very best in that.
I have a bunch of those… but I’m not for sure which ones I may be missing. Here’s an update for you all. Brad and I have been very slow in getting this going, but Brad does have a programmer who is working on a huge and awesome database system for us that is going to make cataloguing and archiving ANYTHING Sierra related an easy and very organized thing to do. So once again, we thank all you dedicated folk for hanging out around here and putting up with us being so slow… and we ask that if you do have or find cool Sierra stuff, that you just keep holding onto it for us.
On a completely off-topic note, go see Serenity. It’s a cool movie.
I know this board has been a little sparse, but if anyone works their way over to the vivendi forums: http://forums.vugames.com/thread.jspa?threadID=6187&start=0&tstart=0 they can see how many people are really upset by this move. I am not an expert in the video game industry, but, if I had to imagine, and if BOTH Phoenix online and the fans bug Vivendi enough, something will be made out in the near future. I THINK, or I imagine, that Vivendi has some motivation behind doing this move, they may be planning something concerning the King’s Quest franchise. What do you all think? I know there is probably a bit of bitterness in all of us, but besides that, do you all think Vivendi has any motivation behind cancelling this after, what, three, four years of Phoenix’s announcement of this unofficial sequel?
Hmm, I just can’t seem to think that vivendi would do this “just because” – and it’s fairly obvious that many people are quite angry about Vivendi’s decision…I respect vivendi (to an extent) but their motivation still lingers in my mind…
So, what do you all think? Do they have any motivation behind this?
Thanks John,
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking for a while now on making my own adventure game.
Ever since i first discovered AGS. and have been playing around with it for a while.
I now feel comfortable enough with the engine to try and make my own adventure game.
So i figured however tempting it is to dive right in to the programming of the game I first needed a good srcipt.
the storyline is all written down. Includings backgrounds for each and every character in the game.
I’ve picked out a visual style i’d like to use in the game. So the basis is there.
Next step wil be fleshing out a complete detailed walkthrough of the game and design sketching of the backgrounds and the characters. The biggest question I still have is, will I draw the backgrounds, or wil I render them 3d.The reason why I asked you to check it, is that it still is possible that certain variables are not being set, the way I cracked it. However, I didn’t found it to be very likely. The way Gold Rush starts goes this way:
1. LOGIC 0: Main script in all AGI games, starts with going to LOGIC 129
2. LOGIC 129: Some sort of speed regulation routine
– If the game is restarted -> goto LOGIC 1 (begin screen)
– If the game is started -> goto LOGIC 125
3. LOGIC 125: Random selector choosing between 3 scripts: LOGIC 126, 127 & 128
4. LOGIC 126/127/128: Copy protection scripts (split up because of the size) about 30 questions each
– If good -> goto LOGIC 73 (intro sequence)
– If bad -> goto LOGIC 192 (string ’em up sequence)The way I cracked it, was patching LOGIC 129 so when started it would goto LOGIC 73 (intro sequence) instead of LOGIC 125. However, as you can see, 2 scripts that would normally be executed are being skipped.
It was really not that hard to crack, since the AGI system is pretty clear to me, so Gold Rush wasn’t unfamiliar to work with. I also made another crack, which would excute all scripts normally and would blink the copy-protection screen for 1 second or so before the intro, but I thought the other way was much nicer and wouldn’t make any difference. So I’ll try to patch it that way, perhaps it’ll improved. Furthermore, I’ll check what triggers those “random” deaths in the scripts in question. And the “No memory. Want 2255, have 2035”, certainly is bad, however I seem to recall that happend sometimes in the older cracked version too.
The “Restoring GRDIR to original state” just writes 2 bytes in the GRDIR file, which doesn’t affect uncracked versions since the bytes remain the same.
Finally, the questions are found encoded in the scripts, which are in their turn compressed and stored in the GRVOL.1 file. So no plain-text viewer would show them. But there are tools to do so, so I spared you the effort and added them in this thread.
Gold Rush copy-protection questionsOk, I tested your crack in the same place where debug mode caused too many random deaths in the old cracked copy. I played this journey scene 8 times, and I had a random death 4 times. One by cholera in the beginning of the journey, one by falling of the raft to the Texas river (that one is so weird!), and twice by cholera in a later part of the journey. Note that every time I die of cholera in the later part of the journey, wether in debug or not, I get the error message: “No memory. Want 2255, have 2035”. Perhaps you’ll know what that means.
I have to say I can’t tell for sure if these deaths are caused by debug mode or your crack, becuase they are, well, random. I also played the scene a few more times in debug mode and didn’t have too many deaths. But why did you ask me to check it in the first place? Is your crack influenced by debug mode in any way? What are the mechanics of the crack?By the way, did you just prepare this crack in the past few days following this conversation? That’s impressive, especially considering the fact that you don’t remember Gold Rush that well.
I noticed that your crack say: “Restoring GRDIR to original state” and only then “Removing protection”, I guess that refers to the old buggy crack, but I used your crack on an uncracked copy; is it supposed to work just as well on cracked and uncracked GRDIRs?How can I extract the questions from the game scripts? I used a hex editor on several files but didn’t find them. In which file are they? I always like having a good crack as well as the option to play an untouched copy, that’s why I want to make a complete codes and answers document, and if I have all the questions I’ll hopefully found someone with the manual who’d be willing to provide me with the answers. It shouldn’t be too hard since I already have a lot of the answers.
Hey Stefan,
I’m not a game developer, but I’m a big fan of adventure games and let me tell you that making a great game is like writing a book. The most important thing in a game, in my opinion, is the story. All else comes second. Write a game, like you would a good story and use that story as a basis for your adventure. I’ve noticed that a lot of Ken and Roberta’s games use names and concepts from thier own lives. Try drawing from your own experiences, such as trips you’ve been on, the area you live, friends with interesting personalities and see what you come up with.
The second part of your game of course is translating the story into the kind of game you want to end up with. Storyboards help you brainstorm and give you a general idea of how you want your characters to look, and/or act, though if your not the best artist, you might need to find a friend who is good at art or hire someone who’s experienced with creating illistrations.
As for creating the game itself, I can only guess at the options you might have. You could use a system that is already in use in other games or create your own engine from scratch. What I mean by ‘engine’ is basicly the mainframe, or the core that holds the whole game together, a certain format that some or maybe all your games would follow. You notice that a lot of the Kings Quest games followed a similar format, growing steadily more complex as they added more features with each new title.
This is mostly just from observation and I may not be completely accurate, but I hope it helps give you some ideas or generates some other thoughts from visitors.
Good luck with your game.
John
Quote:
“… (by Dave Kristula) Ken,I just finished reading a book called “Good Business” by a philosopher with a name I can’t spell or pronounce… …”
Professor Csikszentmihalyi’s surname is pronounced “chik-sent-mee-hi-ee”
Dave:
I’ve always had a personal objection to corporations “taking sides” on non-business issues.
This topic came up many times at management meetings, and I always had the same answer – “I’m willing to designate a percentage of corporate earnings for an employee-directed action committee”. In other words, there are many good causes out there, but I didn’t believe the company should decide which ones to fund. I was willing to contribute corporate funds to employees who wanted to take the time to study the options, but for reasons unknown to me, no committee was ever formed.
They say that corporate culture comes from the top, and I accept that I was probably the guilty party on this. Shipping great product was never easy. I really was 100% focused on things customers could see, and everything else I always considered a distraction.
-Ken W
PS Thank you for the kind words!
KQIX looked great. I’m sorry to hear the bad news :{ Why not ask/plead if Roberta can come up with a new game idea that no one has ownership of that could be made into a game? 🙂 Do I have to get rid of my sierra logo?
Visual C++ 6.0 will give you the Hexadecimal and text for each line of code if this helps. I was able to view object names for KQIII. Some of the Hex did not have letters as they are most likely opcodes.
Well, all they do is protect their property after all. As they have every right to do so Phoenix gotta live with it. And they do. But there’s one thing which bothers me quite a bit. It’s the time… why did Vivendi tell them to cancel the project after more than two years? Why not do it as soon as you hear from it? (And surely someone must have told the big ones and Vivendi that there’s that fan project!) That’s pretty sad… they dedicated several years of the lifes to that game and suddenly there’s “big whoop” and practically tries to wipe their harddrives.
Well, well… it all would have been too good 🙂 Hope they continue and do something else.
Thanks a lot for replying Roberta! I didn’t mind that it took a while at all, as I said many times I was not in a hurry 🙂
It’s really cool that we get a chance to get replies from our “game industry heroes” like this… stuff we would only be able to get through interviews in the past.
So thanks again and thanks a LOT for creating Phantasmagoria.. that game both intrigued and scrared the living shit out of me 😀Ken-
If you were currently the CEO of VU, would this move make sense to you? What motivations would a corporation have to stop the production of a fan game, especially one this close to completion that was this beloved by the gaming community? I guess I’m trying to understand their side of it. Any ideas?-Cory Weber
Wow! Interesting news.
I’m somewhat surprised, in that I didn’t think anyone even existed at Sierra anymore, and that the franchise was dead. Hopefully someone there is saying to themselves “perhaps we should have called AL Lowe before doing a Larry game” and will call Roberta.
But, I’ve sat by the phone all day, and it hasn’t rang yet.
-Ken W
Ken:
What do you think about Vivendi forcing the team to stop production on the fanbased game, KQIX? They have disappointed thousands of fans by doing this. Do you think Vivendi is planning to make a KQIX on their own? If so, has Roberta been contacted, or do you think she will be?
Well, I put up a patch at http://sierra.8bit.co.uk , under the “Various” section. Let me know if it also causes those random events.
Also, the questions are extractable from the game scripts. The answers, however, aren’t, since they are checked by ASCII value, so it would be pretty hard to get words out of those. You’d probably know that, but I thought it was worth to mention, since it’s a pretty clever way to protect a game.
Ok, now that seemed to set up my C: and D: drives.
A little bit of progress. My hope is building back.
However, a new problem has arrived.
Everything I type in d: gets me this response:
Can’t change to:
