Collector

Some of the later SCI games had cursor highlighting when hovering over a hotspot, like Lighthouse. KQ7's sparkled over hotspots.

Keep in mind that Boxer does not use a official build of DOSBox. The Boxer developer modifies DOSBox in was that can break compatibility and he has been pretty critical of the DOSBox devs, though some of those ruffled feathers may have been slightly soothed lately. His approach is to include all configurations and patches for all games. This is an insane idea. Do not go to VOGONS for any issues with any games that you are using Boxer.

Gotta agree with MI on the try again. Perhaps a compromise of offering all "Start Over", "Restore", "Retry" and "Quit" buttons on the death message would best suit a majority of people. This. We finally start getting what we have been wanting for more than a decade and all many can do is carp. :rolleyes:

I suspect that adults that whine about death scenes in games are just holding onto their childish reactions from when they were young. They also probably preferred LA games when they were young for the same reasons. I am not so sure how small that minority that does not like/want a try again button. It was yet one more reason that KQ7 was such a let down.

Thanks, I used to have a number of browsers installed to check for cross browser compatibility, but I no longer have Chrome installed and do not intend to any time soon. Works without issue on my FF 12. Google claims you need Chrome for all sorts of stuff that you simply do not.

Playing IA's SQ2VGA just a few months ago when it was released reminded me of what a huge part of the humor of the SQ games that comes from the many absurd death scenes. I know that I am not unique in purposely killing Roger over and over again just to find all of these crazy death scenes just for laughs. You can make a much better argument against dead ends than you can against death scenes. I find it strange that these kids have such a visceral reaction to death scenes in an adventure game, but can turn around and jump right into an FPS or RPG where death is even more likely and have no problem with it.

True. One thing about Adventure Gamers is that there are people of all ages there, from the 80s to teen. The kids tend to be less civil. The younger posters probably never even played any of the Space Quest games. I suspect that these are the ones that think that these pioneering developers should not be asking for money as they are obviously rich. :rolleyes:

I would request that anyone that responds to that thread to please do so respectfully. We don't want to get the 2 Guys tread locked. There were a lot of negative posts in Jane's and Al's Kickstarter threads, too. Some people just want to whine about everything.

I understand the nostalgia with wanting parser interface, but the games very much need to also appeal to new players to be successful enough for more games. Many new or younger players will hate the parser. If both are included, the game needs to have nothing that you cannot also do with the mouse. Perhaps if the parser was activated by something like an Easter Egg. Then again, it takes development resources/money to devise two interfaces over just one.

For comparison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XQbBxIHbHQ

I suspect that Sierra used existing games as templates and stripped out resources, often leaving some remaining. This would explain why you often find resources from other games mixed in the resource file. If Sierra had used a blank template, they would have had to constantly update it, as they were continually adding features as needed. They even stored the source of the engine with the game's source to be sure that they could track all of the needed changes to the SCI interpreter for that game.

There has been a lot of negative remarks about the various Kickstarter projects on a number of forums. Usually these are because of some odd misperceptions. Some have whined that these projects were stealing funding from new developers. Someone thought that Jane Jensen should not have here own company because she needs a boss to keep her from being lazy. Yet another accused Al and Josh of holding content hostage because they promised to use any extra funds over the Kickstarter goal to add extra content to the game. I suspect that some have become spoiled by the free fan games. I even read one post by someone that was outraged that the Double Fine game wasn't going to be free. There are a lot of entitled whiney little twits out there.

I would not expect the original 4 would want to reprise their rolls. RDA I suspect wants to stay mostly retired. A completely new Stargate series could be good, if they went back to what made SG1 and Atlantis work. SGU strayed from it enough that it just didn't work nearly as well and certainly did not feel like a Stargate. I think you nailed it with the observation that they tried to mimic the BSG remake. That approach falls flat for a Stargate. One of the things that made SG1 and Atlantis work was that it was not always about the Goa'uld, Ori and Wraith. There were plenty of shows that were of adventure, exploration and discovery without constant warfare. I do doubt that it would work to create another super enemy. The Goa'uld and the Ori were enough. In fact, I think that the Ori didn't work as well as the Goa'uld because the super villain idea had already played out. There are plenty of other ways to introduce antagonists to the narrative. How about having a series about establishing a permanent presence in the galaxy with outposts and colonies? The Aleutian Alliance could still be a thorn in Earth's side. They could run up against more empires/advanced civilizations for conflict.

I'm not going to hold my breath. Remakes, reboots, what have you, more often than not end up being piss poor attempts, just with more up to date special effects. I would really like to think that something good could come of it, but I have my reservations. I will, however, withhold my judgement until I see the end result.

Edit. (This forum has no delete button.)

"You made general!" "And you made king!"

Philosophically, I am favorable to the concept of abandonware. I don't think that IP should be held by any entity in perpetuity. All advances are built on top of what came before it. Authors, composers and other creators should be allowed to profit from their creations for a reasonable time, but it should fall into public domain after that time, especially if the IP holder is doing nothing but just sitting on it. Any arguments I made for people buying the games from the likes of GOG and Steam were practical arguments of prying licenses from Activision. That said, the first post was indicating displeasure at my installer's lack of support for abandonware copies of the games, so from my view point, it was more than just yet one more "ethics and legality" of abandonware rants. There are very specific reasons that I have not bent over backwards to add compatibility for abandonware. I don't try to prevent someone from using them with abandonware. If they just happen to work, fine. But while I am willing to add support for other official versions (if the user is able to work with me to do so,) I am not going to alter my scripts just for (how many variants?) abandonware.

Like "Disclosure", which set the stage for international involvement, which eventually gave rise to the IOA and resulted in Atlantis having an international team.

I know, but we are not the only ones that are reading this thread.

I didn't get into Enterprise when it was airing, but rediscovered it after it was gone. Too bad that it didn't get another season or two. TOS should be seen in order, too, but not as critically so as Voyager or DS9. The best episodes are the first two seasons. Here is a clip on the remastering: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdUJOL1Ummw

I gave Universe a try, but gave up on it. They strayed too far from what made SG1 and Atlantis work. I have come to the view that the franchise ended with Enemy at the Gate. If you are going to watch TOS, be sure to get the remastered version. The Blu-Ray has both versions.

It is not a matter of Activision being morally owed for the IP (screw them), but a matter of incentivizing Activision to release the rights to the developers for new games. Jane has asked Activision for rights to do a new GK game before and was offered it for outrageous terms. I would have to track it down again, (perhaps a post she made on her Pinkerton Road site) but I believe it was something like half a million in addition a big cut of the profits, too. She just told them good luck getting that. If Activision is not shown that adventures can make money, they will just continue to sit on the rights letting it gather dust for all they care. This is also why it is important for the 2 Guys and Jane's new games do well AND good sales numbers of the old games if we want them to give the go ahead for new SQ and GK games for reasonable terms. This is an argument for pragmatism, not one of morality.

Besides the fact that abandonwarez versions are illegal, the main reason that I do not support them with my installers is that these copies are often ripped, cracked and modified in ways that produce unpredictable results. Many is the time that people have gone to VOGONS for help with their game when all of the regulars there are unable to replicate the issue. This has more often than not turned out to be because their issue was unique to their abandonwarez version. Some issues can immediately ID that the copy is not legal, i.e. the buyer never showing in Gold Rush! and the crash when swimming to Genesta's Island in KQ4. Having the installers look for the original media is to avoid support problems not to police how people use them. As far as refusing to pay for games on GOG, it is true that the original developers who never owned the rights to begin with may not get any royalties, but the IP owners do get a percentage. If they never get any return on their IP, they will never release rights for new games unless they get a lot of money up front. Jane Jensen noted as much about Activision. They need to see that there can be money to be made, still.

I'm sure that the emphasis was more on "buy our new game" than to have people continue playing the same games over and over that they had already purchased. Not really suggesting that it was deliberate, but it does explain why Sierra often only provided save games as workarounds for old game speed bugs instead of developing proper patches. Pity, as that the source is now lost. It would probably be easier to develop patches that had fewer side effects than what NRS did.

It was a Sierra wide practice for a while. No series suffered more from it than QfG and all series had at least one speed bug. As I said, they did not expect people to continue playing the games long after initial release and as PC became much faster.