http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3153555
Once again they list an item on a site as evidence, but THIS time EB game stores is also listing it.
So next Monday maybe we might actually it, but afford me a little skepticism about this. We've been burned before.
At any rate, the King's Quest collection doesn't include Mask of Eternity? Hmm... Ya know they don't list any of the details of these collections. Odd. At any rate if this isn't the case, it begs the question as to why Sierra is being such a tease.
My opinion on this is the same as it's been in the whole time since they first showed up a long time ago: I'll believe it when I see it and not a minuite before. They're almost certainly vaporware.
I really hope this is true.
If hopes were fairies we'd all have green cheese.
You really need to actually provide a source for these things GR. You can't just post random pics. Are those fan-made or is Sierra finally going through with it's promise? Those pics don't say anything by themselves.
All you have to do is look at the properties and, hey!, they're from Amazon.
No KQVIII... hah, trying to write it out of history are they? :D (and if those are accurate it's not just "these are rereleases of the collections from the mid '90s'; the old SQ collection, I believe, only had games 1-5, with maybe a demo of 6 at most.)
If these actually are real though, I'll be very intrested to see how they did it -- did they port the DOS versions, Windows 3.1 versions, or both, for titles that had multipler versions (King's Quests V through VII and perhaps Space Quest 6)? Because the DOS versions are so much better... to repeat myself...
DOS:
-Full screen 320x240 (or so)
-VGA graphics
-soundblaster sound, general midi/roland/soundblaster music (MIDI is the best, and my SB DOS emulation drivers emulate a general midi card too, so I use that)
-large color cursors
Windows
-windowed mode only -- there is always a bar on the top of the screen.
-256 color setting required for most titles
-window only resizes so much -- must be in 640x480 screen resolution to have it be a nearly fullscreen display
-black and white cursors only (your normal Windows cursor, I think)
Oh, and the save files for both versions of the games are incompatible (and in all cases where there are multiple versions they came together, I believe -- for all CD versions at least.)
They will need DOS emulation for the early KQ and SQ games so they'll have to do that first, so hopefully they'll just go all the way and just include all of the DOS versions, with some emulator on top of them to get rid of soundcard configs, screen resolution issues (auto-resize the screen, directsound, etc), etc...
If these ever actually come out. I'm not convinced, darnit! :P
Your list of data for the Windows versions is not entirely accurate. The cursors are black and white, that is a downside, but on the upside they are high res and thus easier to use. They are not the windows cursors.
Further, there's that bar but in the port job I'm sure they can get rid of that, and it didnt' really cut off any of the game anyway (it just took up some of what was already a black part of the screen for the game icons).
Since it is in fact an XP port, I'm pretty sure they'll basically just fix all those issues with both versions. The only thing to wonder about is what the cursors will look like. I'd like small high res with the DOS version colors, but it's more likely they'll just stick with one or the other outright.
Mast of Eternity... yeah they seem to want to forget that example of why marketters shouldn't be the ones in charge of major business decisions. Still, that game needs an update too. At least that one can be updated with a patch easily enough, if they cared. It just needs to have certain glitches fixed in the scoring system, some glitches in how it works with XP, and finally just better support of directx so detecting "3DFX" is no longer required to use all the higher graphical functions of the game (right now I use a glide wrapper to trick the game when I run it).
Quote:Your list of data for the Windows versions is not entirely accurate. The cursors are black and white, that is a downside, but on the upside they are high res and thus easier to use. They are not the windows cursors.
Further, there's that bar but in the port job I'm sure they can get rid of that, and it didnt' really cut off any of the game anyway (it just took up some of what was already a black part of the screen for the game icons).
That's wrong. I have both version installed, so I checked. DOS KQV runs fullscreen -- the only black bar on the screen is the small on on the top where there menubar pops up. In the windows version, there are large black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, along with the small black area where the toolbar drops down and the blue bar on the top of the screen. Now, you are seeing the same scene; the Windows one just is using a higher resolution... but when the game was designed for the low resolution, it doesn't really help things to raise it. It looks best in its full-screen original resolution.
Oh, as for the cursors, while they are context-sensitive in both versions, the Windows ones have no character -- they are miniscule, first, but also they have none of the personality of the DOS cursors. For instance, the 'walking' cursor. In DOS, it's a mini-Graham, with the colors and all. In Windows, it's a just a little stick-figureesque thing. The eye? Similar, in Windows it's just a little Windows-style eye while in DOS it's much more interesting. Same goes for all the other cursors... they're shrunken, stripped down and not as good versions of the original DOS cursors. The DOS version of the game is just better. The main reason for that is definitely the fullscreen display that the Windows version can't emulate, but the cursors do play a role too... and the incompatible save files mean that once you've started with one you need to stick with it, so I chose the better version.
Quote:Mast of Eternity... yeah they seem to want to forget that example of why marketters shouldn't be the ones in charge of major business decisions. Still, that game needs an update too. At least that one can be updated with a patch easily enough, if they cared. It just needs to have certain glitches fixed in the scoring system, some glitches in how it works with XP, and finally just better support of directx so detecting "3DFX" is no longer required to use all the higher graphical functions of the game (right now I use a glide wrapper to trick the game when I run it).
I've tried to use Glide wrappers for a few games, one worked (for the Redguard demo), but the other one (for Pod) doesn't... I just get black textures ingame with one option, and a crash with the other one. Bah. :(
Well the collections really are out now. Took long enough.
Now it's time to find reasons to be upset about them! By that I mean, I'm waiting for reviews of the collections to tell me exactly what features are and are not included with the games. Are the instruction booklets complete or just quick "just do this when you reach this puzzle" affairs without any of the neat storyline stuff? Further, is this JUST the games, or will they toss in ALL that extra content they've been putting in these collections every previous itteration? I'm talking the interview movies, quiz games, that King's Quest checkers and backgammon thing, all manner of odd editorial pieces about various histories of the series, and so on (really a very fleshed out collection, the way it used to be done, back when games were tall as a mountain and twice as smart). Further, the last KQ collection also included 4 Apple II games and an Apple II emulator, as well as the two Laura Bow games and Mixed up Mother Goose (a very easy game for like the 5 years oldest of kids, but still a good "Early Childhood" game, a "mouse trainer" if you will).
Unfortunatly the only information I have is the quick blurbs on the collections at Sierra's site (no detailed listing of exactly what's there, just a basic description). The most I can say is it is very likely Mask of Eternity is not included. Beyond that, it would take a lot of work getting all that old extra content to work with XP perfectly. I can only hope all those delays were for adding the extra games from the last KQ collection. Doubtful though... That's why I'll just wait for the review.
There's also the possibility that at least the other games will later be included in some sort of "Sierra Others Compilation" along with the Gabriel Knight games, Quest for Camelot, and maybe Mask of Eternity. Beyond that, there's still the matter of them releasing the Quest for Glory compilation.
At the very least, now that instead of directly accessing the hardware, these games are using a driver layer like DirectX, they have much greater longevity in terms of "forwards compatibility". These should work into the future no matter what changes are made, so long as a directx translator or emulator is made for that system.
I've read all I can stand to read from that. Assuming that data is accurate, then I can sum up my opinion of these collections very simply.
Ugh.
I may not pick up the KQ collection (the others yes, because I only have Police Quest and Space Quest 1 from the long long ago, none of the sequels (I did play a demo of SQ6 once).
Apparently, all this time, the only thing they actually bothered to do was slap DOSbox onto a disk and run all the games from that. Did they even optimize a special build of DOSbox (since it is open source, which I guess would require the source code of their modifications to be released to the public domain) to overcome the shortcomings of using such a method? Hmm... That's the sad thing really. They didn't even take away KQ4's copyright protection (I guess the code is just SO old they probably don't even have the original source code for that game any more and that would require hex editing). This is compounded with the fact that they didn't put either Mask of Eternity in the KQ collection or the last of the "good" LSL games in that collection (I'm not even talking about the horrid 3D one, I'm talking the one from 1996 or so from what I've been reading).
Further, no details at all on the presence of any extras beyond the emulator and the instruction booklets on the disk. The only conclusion to reach until otherwise noted is that's because there IS nothing else on the disks.
And there's one other thing to add: instruction booklet on a disk is not a very useful option. It's one thing if they include all you need to know right inside the game, so that there's always a helpful context sensitive help option at your finger tips depeding on the menu you are in or a very detailed tutorial or massive in-game help menu with demos of how to do things (later Final Fantasy games for example did a really good job of not needing an instruction booklet). It's another if they didn't change a thing. Now I have to tab out of the game to read stuff. Well, no big deal in some cases. In the case of KQ3 and KQ6 though, that's not really a decent option. In these two games, important information like excerpts from a magic book of magic wizard powers and a guidebook to the land of the green isles are things I'll be holding in one hand as I solve puzzles with the other using said information and clues. Tabbing back and forth in real time, especially in the more time sensitive parts, well you can guess the results.
So what do we end up with? Well, I wonder what happened here? This took years to finally release after they first announced these compilations. What were they doing this whole time? What about just sticking the existing games, an instruction booklet, and DOSbox (as well as tiny apps to load DOSbox with the games) could have taken so long? Well, one possibility is that the team hired to do the port job simply couldn't figure out how to "crack" the old games, perhaps never having been given the original source code or the rest of the original assets, and after so long attempting to actually convert the original code, and with the threat of their project being cancelled and them being fired, they decided to please the big guys above them (who probably are just working there for the money and aren't gamers at all) by just doing a last minute slapping of DOSbox in there and calling it a project complete. Once they decided to emulate it all through DOSbox, the rest would be about as simple as a copy and paste job, and making the app that installed it all (which isn't a tough or long thing to do at all). This may just explain the absense of the LSL game, since maybe that last one was not also released with a dos version to begin with.
But I'm just blindly guessing at this point. I can only say that if it's all just DOSbox, I could have done that, and I did do that (as did others in this very forum), and it does beg the question of what took so long if this is all they bothered to do.
That said, as mediocre as these pathetic samplings are, I'll still get the ones I don't already have at least simply because I don't already have them, and if I don't like the dosbox emulation, I can always just run the default installer and go without dosbox.
A few notes... first, as far as I know all of Sierra's CD collections of adventure games have included the manuals on the disc, and not in paper form. Quest for Glory: Collection Series (and thus probably the rest of the '97/'98 'Collection Series' series -- SQ, KQ, etc) had the manuals as text files on the CD only. The manual just had an overview. That meant that all the manual art was gone...
Some collections from other companies have included paper manuals -- the two Lucasarts Archives collections I have include the manuals compiled into one large book (3-5 games per collection), and the Interplay 15th Anniversary Collection, a 6-CD, 15-game collection, included the collected full paper manuals for all of the games, compiled into one massive book (I guess that was cheaper than 15 separate ones...). Sierra was cheaper even back then though, so this doesn't surprise me at all... the only question is if it's just text files or if it's PDF scans. Either would work, but scans would be nicer.
Quote:Apparently, all this time, the only thing they actually bothered to do was slap DOSbox onto a disk and run all the games from that. Did they even optimize a special build of DOSbox (since it is open source, which I guess would require the source code of their modifications to be released to the public domain) to overcome the shortcomings of using such a method? Hmm... That's the sad thing really. They didn't even take away KQ4's copyright protection (I guess the code is just SO old they probably don't even have the original source code for that game any more and that would require hex editing). This is compounded with the fact that they didn't put either Mask of Eternity in the KQ collection or the last of the "good" LSL games in that collection (I'm not even talking about the horrid 3D one, I'm talking the one from 1996 or so from what I've been reading).
You answered the copy protection issue yourself: they'd have to completely reprogram parts of the games in order to remove those parts, so games which include copy protection in all of their versions can't have it removed without way more effort than is worth it for a simple collection like this. Oh, and while they are using DOSBox, it does have a launcher and stuff, so it's not like you have to deal with DOS... so there's a bit more effort there than just tossing the games and DOSBox on the disk. They also had to modify the game's install programs so that they'd install all of their files to the harddrive, something that in the CD games you could only do with some user modification (which is a nice option, but you should have the 5MB-install-with-CDs option there too if you want, but it seems to be missing...) -- it wasn't a selectable option in the installer or anywhere else.
Quote:Further, no details at all on the presence of any extras beyond the emulator and the instruction booklets on the disk. The only conclusion to reach until otherwise noted is that's because there IS nothing else on the disks.
A reasonable assumption -- these are bare-bones. So no bonus games like the KQ:CS pack had, no other extras, and if there was a QFG collection too, I bet it wouldn't come with the QFGV music CD that the CS collection did. Too bad, but what can you do...
Quote:I'm talking the interview movies, quiz games, that King's Quest checkers and backgammon thing, all manner of odd editorial pieces about various histories of the series, and so on (really a very fleshed out collection, the way it used to be done, back when games were tall as a mountain and twice as smart).
That's referencing the Roberta Williams Anthology thing, right? Because I don't think that King's Quest: Collection Series, or any previous compilations, had that stuff in them, though I could be proven wrong...
Quote:And there's one other thing to add: instruction booklet on a disk is not a very useful option. It's one thing if they include all you need to know right inside the game, so that there's always a helpful context sensitive help option at your finger tips depeding on the menu you are in or a very detailed tutorial or massive in-game help menu with demos of how to do things (later Final Fantasy games for example did a really good job of not needing an instruction booklet). It's another if they didn't change a thing. Now I have to tab out of the game to read stuff. Well, no big deal in some cases. In the case of KQ3 and KQ6 though, that's not really a decent option. In these two games, important information like excerpts from a magic book of magic wizard powers and a guidebook to the land of the green isles are things I'll be holding in one hand as I solve puzzles with the other using said information and clues. Tabbing back and forth in real time, especially in the more time sensitive parts, well you can guess the results.
None of the CD games have copy protection (for instance in QFGIV there is copy protection, but only in the floppy version -- it's removed from the CD one), to the best of my knowledge, and the early floppy games don't have it either, so I'd expect that this would only be an issue for a few titles, and perhaps they include that information in paper form too... maybe not, but either way, it's generally a one-time thing that shouldn't be too hard to deal with. After all, DOSBox does support alt-tab and windowing... this isn't some game where if you try to task-switch out of it to look at some text document it'll crash or something. :) (yeah, I have several games like that, it's a major pain...)
You are absolutely right that DOS games very frequently included lots of very important information in their manuals and that trying to play them without them is a really bad idea that will inevitably lead to great frusteration and that having to task-switch to read the things is a hassle, though, so I do agree... I just know that this stuff is normal for these collections, so either get some printer paper ready or task switch/window the things. It is feasible... not anywhere near as good, but feasible.
For most of these games though, the manuals just provide background information, not critical stuff you actually need to play. I have KQs 1, 5, and 7, and 5 and 7 came with manuals that you really didn't need to read at all to be able to play... the most useful thing from either game was the mini hint guide that came with 7 that helped you through the first few puzzles. :) 1 wasn't a boxed version, so it was just on the disk, but its manual use is equally unimportant... we're not talking about something like a Dragon Wars or Curse of the Azure Bonds where you need, at times, to read numbered paragraphs from one of the manuals at times, providing both a reduction in space (saving all that text in memory) and copy protection on top of the codewheel (in Curse of the Azure Bonds' case)... not to mention, well, codewheels. They did have codes and stuff in the manuals, but not full-fledged codewheels...
Space Quest V does require the manual for codes, though. If you recall, the codes for how to travel to other worlds are hidden in this article in the middle section of the manual... :)
Quote:But I'm just blindly guessing at this point. I can only say that if it's all just DOSbox, I could have done that, and I did do that (as did others in this very forum), and it does beg the question of what took so long if this is all they bothered to do.
I doubt that using DOSBox was some last-minuite thing. I don't know why this took so long, but there must have been some issues... that or it was kept on the very last of the back burners, maybe often with no staff, and that they just finished it now because of how little effort they'd been putting into it...
Quote:This may just explain the absense of the LSL game, since maybe that last one was not also released with a dos version to begin with.
Nope.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/leisur...e-for-sail
A Black Falcon Wrote:A few notes... first, as far as I know all of Sierra's CD collections of adventure games have included the manuals on the disc, and not in paper form. Quest for Glory: Collection Series (and thus probably the rest of the '97/'98 'Collection Series' series -- SQ, KQ, etc) had the manuals as text files on the CD only. The manual just had an overview. That meant that all the manual art was gone...
The King's Quest collections must be the exception then. They have released 3 KQ collections before this one, each more fantastical than the last. The first just had 1-6 (and was released just before KQ7 was released I believe) but it had most of those interviews and such as well as a preview video of KQ7. It came on two disks, with 1-5 on the first and 6 on the second (well 1-4 are such tiny games relative to anything on CD that that's no issue). The second KQ collection not only included 1-7 but also the two Laura Bow games and all of Roberta's Apple II adventures as well as an Apple II emulator (which was surprisingly good). Oh and Mixed Up Mother Goose was on there too. The third collection was basically the exact same one only renamed the Roberta Williams collection. Nothing really noteworthy there. I think one had a 5th Apple II game (The Dark Crystal) that the other didn't and that's why they ended up making the change. I don't have much info beyond that. At any rate, all 3 had rich full instruction booklets with the full text from the originals, well the full story text anyway.
Quote:You answered the copy protection issue yourself: they'd have to completely reprogram parts of the games in order to remove those parts, so games which include copy protection in all of their versions can't have it removed without way more effort than is worth it for a simple collection like this. Oh, and while they are using DOSBox, it does have a launcher and stuff, so it's not like you have to deal with DOS... so there's a bit more effort there than just tossing the games and DOSBox on the disk. They also had to modify the game's install programs so that they'd install all of their files to the harddrive, something that in the CD games you could only do with some user modification (which is a nice option, but you should have the 5MB-install-with-CDs option there too if you want, but it seems to be missing...) -- it wasn't a selectable option in the installer or anywhere else.
Firstly, they wouldn't have to "completely reprogram" it. They would just need to find the pointer that called for KQ4's keyword checker and remove it so the game just directly loads into the startup sequence. It would take searching for that hex code but it would be a simply "dummying" procedure once they found it. Besides that plenty of people online have already released a number of similar hacks for old games anyway. Further, I do not suggest they tamper with the KQ6 and KQ3 copyright protection. That was actually FUN and I wasn't even aware they had done that as copyright protection to begin with.
Secondly, I acknowledged that they had to program the game's installers. That's child's play though. Hardly something that would take such a long time to make. I mean a simple "put this file here and make this text file" program isn't what I could call "back breaking coding". Nope, I'm not buying that as an excuse.
Quote:A reasonable assumption -- these are bare-bones. So no bonus games like the KQ:CS pack had, no other extras, and if there was a QFG collection too, I bet it wouldn't come with the QFGV music CD that the CS collection did. Too bad, but what can you do...
Not buy the game. That's the way to send the message.
Quote:That's referencing the Roberta Williams Anthology thing, right? Because I don't think that King's Quest: Collection Series, or any previous compilations, had that stuff in them, though I could be proven wrong...
As for evidence, I found this fan site listing all the details one could want for all the collections just now. That should clear everything up for both of us.
http://www.sierraplanet.com/curiosities/...tions.html
(Side note: Some of those FMVs are kinda infomercially and have some fanboy targetted propaganda about PCs being "teh betters" because of "CD graphix", but hey no biggy and it makes a good historical thing.)
Okay, turns out that first collection I talked about up there had two versions itself, and I got the earlier version because I didn't get a demo of KQ7 in mine.
In the case of the second collection series, it seems that while the disks themselves contained more content (while dropping some), the booklet contained more while dropping certain excerpts from the original manuals. Annoying I suppose.
At any rate, if you see those lists you notice that as time went on they dropped a few things in later collections, but at the very least they completely demolished the current offering in terms of extras.
Quote:You are absolutely right that DOS games very frequently included lots of very important information in their manuals and that trying to play them without them is a really bad idea that will inevitably lead to great frusteration and that having to task-switch to read the things is a hassle, though, so I do agree... I just know that this stuff is normal for these collections, so either get some printer paper ready or task switch/window the things. It is feasible... not anywhere near as good, but feasible.
For most of these games though, the manuals just provide background information, not critical stuff you actually need to play. I have KQs 1, 5, and 7, and 5 and 7 came with manuals that you really didn't need to read at all to be able to play... the most useful thing from either game was the mini hint guide that came with 7 that helped you through the first few puzzles. :) 1 wasn't a boxed version, so it was just on the disk, but its manual use is equally unimportant... we're not talking about something like a Dragon Wars or Curse of the Azure Bonds where you need, at times, to read numbered paragraphs from one of the manuals at times, providing both a reduction in space (saving all that text in memory) and copy protection on top of the codewheel (in Curse of the Azure Bonds' case)... not to mention, well, codewheels. They did have codes and stuff in the manuals, but not full-fledged codewheels...
Space Quest V does require the manual for codes, though. If you recall, the codes for how to travel to other worlds are hidden in this article in the middle section of the manual... :)
Never played SQ5. I have SQ1 and PQ1.
Quote:I doubt that using DOSBox was some last-minuite thing. I don't know why this took so long, but there must have been some issues... that or it was kept on the very last of the back burners, maybe often with no staff, and that they just finished it now because of how little effort they'd been putting into it...
That's more likely, sad as that is.
Quote:Nope.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/leisur...e-for-sail
[/quote]
And with that, well now we know they just sort of slacked off and didn't really care. Wish they had put more effort into these collections... They could have been ultimate compilations. Problem is, with this release I don't see another release of these games coming for a long long time...
Quote:Problem is, with this release I don't see another release of these games coming for a long long time...
They care enough to actually re-release these games, but not enough to make these versions of the collections truly great... it is annoying, but still, the mere fact that they ARE re-releasing this stuff makes them better than most any other major PC game publisher out there, who mostly completely disavow all knowledge of everything they made more than a few years ago...
Quote:Never played SQ5. I have SQ1 and PQ1.
Never played any PQ games (unless the demos of SWAT 2 and SWAT 3 count, which actually they kind of do), and as for SQ I've only played 5 and the demo of 6. I said 'as you might remember' because I've discussed that manual before. It's quite funny and all... remember? You responded by talking about ... um, the "we have a cow a lovely cow" game...
Quote:The King's Quest collections must be the exception then. They have released 3 KQ collections before this one, each more fantastical than the last. The first just had 1-6 (and was released just before KQ7 was released I believe) but it had most of those interviews and such as well as a preview video of KQ7. It came on two disks, with 1-5 on the first and 6 on the second (well 1-4 are such tiny games relative to anything on CD that that's no issue). The second KQ collection not only included 1-7 but also the two Laura Bow games and all of Roberta's Apple II adventures as well as an Apple II emulator (which was surprisingly good). Oh and Mixed Up Mother Goose was on there too. The third collection was basically the exact same one only renamed the Roberta Williams collection. Nothing really noteworthy there. I think one had a 5th Apple II game (The Dark Crystal) that the other didn't and that's why they ended up making the change. I don't have much info beyond that. At any rate, all 3 had rich full instruction booklets with the full text from the originals, well the full story text anyway.
QFG Anthology was the first collection of QFG. Games one through four on a CD, with some form of manual that didn't contain the full texts of any of the manuals. Manuals on CD. QFG: Collection Series was the second. Disk 1 had the four games, disk 2 (in a separate jewelcase) the QFG V soundtrack and a demo of QFG V: Dragon Fire (unless the demo was on the main CD? Doesn't matter, it was there). The various manuals (each game had an adventurer's guide to the region and a game manual), in text-only form, were on the CD. The paper manual, as I said, just had basic information.
Special features? Hah! Unless you count the QFG V music CD (I guess that is one) and a bunch of savegames for use in the four games, and various icons you can use for the games in Windows, there are none.
Quote:Not buy the game. That's the way to send the message.
We're not going to get anything better anytime soon. It's this or go on EBay and buy the original versions.
Quote:Firstly, they wouldn't have to "completely reprogram" it. They would just need to find the pointer that called for KQ4's keyword checker and remove it so the game just directly loads into the startup sequence. It would take searching for that hex code but it would be a simply "dummying" procedure once they found it. Besides that plenty of people online have already released a number of similar hacks for old games anyway. Further, I do not suggest they tamper with the KQ6 and KQ3 copyright protection. That was actually FUN and I wasn't even aware they had done that as copyright protection to begin with.
Secondly, I acknowledged that they had to program the game's installers. That's child's play though. Hardly something that would take such a long time to make. I mean a simple "put this file here and make this text file" program isn't what I could call "back breaking coding". Nope, I'm not buying that as an excuse.
I didn't say that it explains the ridiculous amount of delays, but that I doubt that they were actually ever trying to reprogram the games in any way, whether it was to make them Windows-compatible or to remove copy protection...
Well as I said I'll be getting, at the very least, the PQ and SQ collections. It's just a shame they didn't make them the ultimate collections they could have been. Oh well.
Can't find these collections anywhere, though the clerks all say they have them "listed", whatever that means to me (I guess it means the store acknowledges the item's existance).
I decided to play KQ6 DOS version using DOSbox just to get a preview of what that'll be like and to confirm a few things. Ouch... Windows version is just plain better. The first thing I noticed was that while all the cursors had color, it was BRIGHT ORANGE on everything. I'd rather have black and white. Secondly, the cursors are in low res VGA. The problem with this is it becomes VERY hard to click the cursors on anything when they are the size of hams. The higher res windows versions are much better for this. Also, the windows cursors are just smaller, not losing any real details, which means they look decent too.
The biggest strike against this though is the close up animations when people talk. In the Windows version, they are in "Super VGA", really high res and in fact a lot of them are drawn a little differently and more detailed (most of them are standing at an angle), but in the DOS version, it's as low res and not as nice looking as the KQ5 ones.
Windows version wins. Much nicer looking and more usable cursors.
I ordered the Space Quest collection from Amazon, so I'll let you guys know what's like sometime next week.
I don't have KQ6, so I can't compare... just 5 and 7. And I greatly preferred both games' DOS versions, as I've said. :)
I also tried the KQ7 DOS version. The cursors are still black and white most of the time. Everything's high res, which was something they pretty much had to do, so no "downgrades". About the only thing I can say about it is there isn't a title bar, which is nice. As for music, I like using my latest sound card's midi functions to vastly improve the sound over the poor midi the games were originally designed for. I think the DOS versions could do this as well, though unfortunatly I can't seem to get that level of quality I normally expect out of the DOS versions of these KQ games.
KQ5, well, the cursor issue is still there. Admittedly the DOS versions are full color and have more "character", but it's just easier and more precise for me to use the high res cursors. At least there's no high res portraits to have lowered in that game.
All in all, the main reason I say this is because I'm pretty worried about the quality of KQ6 in that collection. I'm afraid if they just used the DOS version flat out, there's going to be a sigh of disappointment about it...
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopi...ard=932229
http://www.amazon.com/VIVAPE-72465-Kings...B000AYFPKG
Okay, these reviews and other informatives are very... upsetting.
They screwed up big time. They didn't even put in the original version of KQ1 (which is among the various Sierra games that work just fine in XP!), just the enhanced remake they made when they released KQ4. I like that remake, but where's the original?
Meanwhile, there are misleading advertisements on some websites that say this collection comes with way more than it should. And yes, it uses the DOS version of KQ6 meaning the visuals for the portraits are sucky and the cursors are massive and hard to target with. In fact, the DOSbox shell they stuck in there apparently doesn't do that good a job and still has all the issues it always had.
I have NO reason to get the KQ collection at this point. I have a superior collection already, DOSbox is free, and so are great frontends for it that already have sets of custom profiles for these very games.
I'm glad Sierra remembered one of it's past lives and decided to bring it back, but it's clear their current incarnation is an empty shell that doesn't really care about the games so much as the profits.
At least they are "out there"...
But this isn't the worst of it. Many seem to agree with me. Many will not buy these because they already have ones that work just as well (using the same emulator at least) and the reality is they actually wanted real ports with bug fixes and maybe even more special extras. The big time fans will probably ignore most of these collections except for ones they didn't get to play "back then", like me. What does this tell Vivendi? "We were right, no one is going to buy this anyway. Let's never ever do this again." Well yeah! What did you think was going to happen if you didn't put any effort into it?
Seriously, I'm pretty sure this didn't cost them anything beyond the materials and about a day or two of actual work from a handful of employees. I myself could have put together a better collection than this! This is better than nothing, but only that bare minimum amount which something can be considered "better".
Here's an interesting letter I saw over at spacequest.net...
Quote:February the 22nd, 1999 - Chainsaw Monday stabbed the limping Space Quest 7 project in the back
Then on February the 22th, 1999 (which is called 'Chainsaw Monday' by Scott Murphy) Space Quest 7 was finally axed. Sierra closed down its Oakhurst California facility, firing two-third of the employees there. Scott Murphy, who was an old timer at Sierra, also had to pack his bags as his contract had expired and was not renewed. The rest of the employees has been given an opportunity to relocate to other Sierra divisions like Belvue Washington. The Oakhurst facility was the roots of Sierra. It produced games like Leisure Suit Larry, King's Quest, Quest for Glory and of course Space Quest. This action of corporate consolidation was taken by the new owner, Havas, which bought Sierra from CUC Software. The following letter was written by the founder of Sierra, Ken Williams, in respond of Chainsaw Monday:
Dear former Sierra employees,
Roberta and I wish to express our deepest sympathies for the recent loss of your jobs. Hopefully, it will not be long before you resume work at Sierra in Seattle, or at some other company... in Oakhurst, or elsewhere. According to tradition, I'm supposed to say something uplifting and motivational to help everyone feel better. Unfortunately, I have failed at this task. There is really nothing good that can be said. This is a sad ending to Sierra's twenty-year operating history in Oakhurst, which at one time, represented over 550 Oakhurst-based employees. This story should have had a happy ending, but instead has had a long string of bad news concluding with the shutdown yesterday of all of Sierra's Oakhurst-based product development activities.
The problems began with the move of corporate to Seattle. The move to Seattle was mandated for several reasons, primarily due to the difficulty we were having recruiting senior management staff and software engineers. The relocation, although it was painful for Oakhurst, was instrumental in our tremendous growth from 1993 through 1996. I remain convinced that this relocation was the right decision for Sierra, and that we would not have prospered without it.
I can't say the same about either the sale of The ImagiNation Network (INN) in 1993, or the sale of Sierra itself in 1996. When Sierra started INN in 1991, it was a decade ahead of its time. After investing millions in INN, Sierra found that it did not have the financial resources to support INN's continued operations. In 1993, AT&T sought aggressively to acquire INN, promising to market the service and grow the company. Unfortunately, AT&T lost interest in INN and sold it to AOL, who to my great disappointment, shut INN down.
Sierra, as you know, was purchased by CUC International in 1996. Because CUC was offering to buy the company at a price roughly 90% higher than it was trading, the decision was out of management's hands. At the time of the purchase, we did believe that through consolidation with several Sierra competitors (Blizzard, Knowledge Adventure, Davidson and others), Sierra would become a much stronger company. We had good reason to believe that the acquisition would cause us to grow faster, not shrink. Unfortunately, CUC elected to transfer control of the company to Davidson, and shut down several groups at Sierra. Later, as we all know, CUC was merged with another company, HFS, to form the Cendant corporation, with roughly 12,000 employees. A few months after this merger it was discovered that someone, or possibly some group of people, within the former CUC organization had been fraudulently preparing financial statements. The actions of this handful of people, who shall hopefully get their due, caused the plunge in Cendant's stock price, and wiped out the net worth of many HFS and CUC employees, including many of you, as well as much of my own. Cendant was sued by its shareholders, CUC's former management team was terminated and the decision was made to sell the software business. It should surprise no one that morale suffered through all of this anarchy, and although I have not seen Sierra's financials for several years, my assumption is that the recent consolidation of operations is driven by a quest for restored profitability and stability. If this story were written as a book, the publisher might seek to classify it as "Fantasy", "Science Fiction" or even "Horror". It is much too outrageous to be true. But the bad news is that these events really did happen.
I console myself in the following way, and perhaps it will help you to cope with what has occurred. Let's imagine that a stranger had walked up to any of us, on the street, in 1979, and said: "Would you like to move to one of the greatest cities on earth? While you are there, you can play a key role in creating a company that just about everyone will know and respect. Your grandchildren will be amazed when they learn that you once worked there. You will be the envy of your peers, because they will know that your team created the largest collection of hits ever to come from one company. There will even be years when you will have played a role in over half the products on the industries top ten lists! You will be surrounded by incredibly intelligent, hard working people, who will work 20+ hours per day when it takes it to get the job done. And, you will have more fun than you ever thought possible. There's only one catch though. This will only last for twenty years." Even knowing it wouldn't last forever I would have followed that stranger anywhere. I'm disappointed that it didn't last forever, but, a 20 year ride on the greatest roller coaster on earth beats the heck out of life in the slow lane any day. Life may never be the same, but it also isn't over, and we all have some great memories we shall never forget. Good luck, and I miss you all.
Depressing... What is it about being in the stock market that prevents someone from refusing offers to buy them out? Is there some legal thing I'm not aware of? I can only say I'm glad that Blizzard hasn't gone this way, yet (though I would love to hear something, anything, about a non-WOW related project).
http://www.vintage-sierra.com/games.html
Is it so much to ask that ALL these games be fully ported in their best versions to a modern system with ALL bonus content EVARS?!
http://www.tawmis.com/collector/Games/Ki...KQ&XP.html
And now for the good news. All my old games, windows versions, I can play just fine on XP with a few notable things that just need to be done (batch files mainly). Wow... I'll be testing these methods shortly. With DOSBox for 1 and 4 SCI and windows itself doing just fine for 1-3 (AGI), and just using a few batch files to load 5-7, I honestly can't think of a reason to get these new games. Are you aware they didn't fix the speed bug that makes the fire cracker explode way too soon? Well, at any rate, that's the one issue with the Windows version of KQ7 I'll need to either work around or convince myself to go DOS version.
By the way, turns out the music sounding poor quality in KQ5 is just a result of limitations of the DOS version. That sucks. I guess I'll just go with the Windows version of that game too. If the audio doesn't sound that great in KQ7 I'll end up going Windows again with that one as well. Honestly the DOS versions have too many issues for me to prefer them. I can put up with a title bar, and there may be a way to get rid of that too.
Quote:What is it about being in the stock market that prevents someone from refusing offers to buy them out? Is there some legal thing I'm not aware of?
Any stockholder can sell their stock to anyone who wants to buy it. Buyouts can be stopped in one of two ways; either get together a majority of stockholders who don't want to sell or keep a majority of stock within the company [say, with the board of directors or the President/CEO].
If a majority of stock is held by people who have no vested interest in the company [i.e. stock traders] then there's nothing really to stop another company from purchasing a controlling share. They just have to through around enough money to convince people that selling will result in a higher yeild than holding on to their stock.
It's really that simple.
Quote:February the 22th, 1999 (which is called 'Chainsaw Monday' by Scott Murphy
I remember 'Black Monday' well, it was very sad... :( :(
... you just learned about this now? I mean, haven't I mentioned that stuff many times before, and even linked articles and stuff?
Quote:They screwed up big time. They didn't even put in the original version of KQ1 (which is among the various Sierra games that work just fine in XP!), just the enhanced remake they made when they released KQ4. I like that remake, but where's the original?
I actually don't have a big problem with this. While a collection that included every version of every game would obviously be best for collectors (who probably already own most of the games included anyway, else why would they care?), it makes a lot of sense that a standard collection would simply include one version of each game... either the best version or the easiest one to port, depending on how committed the team making the collection is. Though it does often end up being the latter of those, that isn't always a huge problem...
KQ1: So they included the remade version... so? Is the original one actually better in some way, or is that pure nostalgia speaking? Collections don't listen to that, or else, for instance, Super Mario Allstars would have had a "NES Graphics" mode...
But really, how often do collections include multiple versions of games? Very, very rarely... Sierra did for some of their 'Collection Series' titles in the late '90s, but that was the real Sierra, not Vivendi Universal Games' "Sierra" label... and besides, back then all versions were playable the same. Now, you'd have to port those Win3.1 games to XP to make them playable, right? I mean, do the Windows titles actually work in XP? With like how KQ5 requires 256 color 640x480 to even start in Windows, and with all the bugs with getting the sound working (yeah, it's even worse in DOS, but the Windows versions can be a pain too at times...)? And with those awful blue bars on the top of the screen all the time? No, DOS is better. And a LOT easier to make working in XP. :)
Quote:I also tried the KQ7 DOS version. The cursors are still black and white most of the time. Everything's high res, which was something they pretty much had to do, so no "downgrades". About the only thing I can say about it is there isn't a title bar, which is nice. As for music, I like using my latest sound card's midi functions to vastly improve the sound over the poor midi the games were originally designed for. I think the DOS versions could do this as well, though unfortunatly I can't seem to get that level of quality I normally expect out of the DOS versions of these KQ games.
KQ5, well, the cursor issue is still there. Admittedly the DOS versions are full color and have more "character", but it's just easier and more precise for me to use the high res cursors. At least there's no high res portraits to have lowered in that game.
KQ5-DOS may have huge cursors (and it does), but they look so much better than those awful Windows ones... instead of maybe too large, they're way, way too small, and as I said artistically are awful...
As for the music, KQ7-DOS definitely has MIDI, I was listening to it when I played the game... I don't think I noticed a difference between the music in Windows and DOS. Can't check it though, as the Windows one requires the CD (there is no file you can edit to make it look only at the HDD, unlike the DOS version -- another flaw with the Windows versions... -- KQ5 excepted, that one's Windows one does work off the HDD once modified. :)) and I don't have it here.
Quote:I have NO reason to get the KQ collection at this point. I have a superior collection already, DOSbox is free, and so are great frontends for it that already have sets of custom profiles for these very games.
I don't have KQs 2, 3, 4, or 6, SQs 1-4 or 6, or any of the Police Quest or LSL games, but I'm not sure if I'm getting any of these... KQ7 was mostly fun, but 5 was so annoying that I don't know if I'd actually like 6, and 2-4 are running in 1's engine, which is really basic... as for SQ (the other major one) 5 is great, and I'd like 6, so I'd consider that one... maybe. 5 is incredibly frusterating though... all Sierra adventure games are, really. That's why I'm not sure how many of them I actually want... :D
Great Rumbler Wrote:Any stockholder can sell their stock to anyone who wants to buy it. Buyouts can be stopped in one of two ways; either get together a majority of stockholders who don't want to sell or keep a majority of stock within the company [say, with the board of directors or the President/CEO].
If a majority of stock is held by people who have no vested interest in the company [i.e. stock traders] then there's nothing really to stop another company from purchasing a controlling share. They just have to through around enough money to convince people that selling will result in a higher yeild than holding on to their stock.
It's really that simple.
Why would any company in their right mind own anything less than 51% of their own stock? Isn't that a disaster waiting to happen?
A Black Falcon Wrote:I remember 'Black Monday' well, it was very sad... :( :(
... you just learned about this now? I mean, haven't I mentioned that stuff many times before, and even linked articles and stuff?
I knew about it but I never read this letter, which reveals a few of the finer details.
Quote:I actually don't have a big problem with this. While a collection that included every version of every game would obviously be best for collectors (who probably already own most of the games included anyway, else why would they care?), it makes a lot of sense that a standard collection would simply include one version of each game... either the best version or the easiest one to port, depending on how committed the team making the collection is. Though it does often end up being the latter of those, that isn't always a huge problem...
KQ1: So they included the remade version... so? Is the original one actually better in some way, or is that pure nostalgia speaking? Collections don't listen to that, or else, for instance, Super Mario Allstars would have had a "NES Graphics" mode...
There are two things you need to realize about the remade one. The first is they changed a lot of the puzzles, and replaced some of the puzzles with cinematic sequences. So yes, they are different in terms of gameplay too. Secondly, as all the collector's edition instruction booklets have mentioned, there was actually some outcry when they remade it compairing it to colorizing old movies (which I don't see a big problem with), so they decided to include both versions, the latest versions of both versions mind you :D. So yes, it would have been a good idea to include them. And, no, they would NOT need to port it. That game doesn't even need DOSbox. It'll run on EVERYTHING that's DOS with NO flaws, and all they needed to do was create a shortcut file, use an already existing supply of icons if they want, and the shortcut only needs one little modification in the form of full screen (and it actually doesn't really need that as it'll run in a window). KQ1, along with KQ2 and KQ3, are pretty much the most compatible games Sierra has ever made. They don't even do a disk check (not since the CD collections at least) and they just use the PC speaker for sound, I mean it's just plain compatible. And, since the game takes up less than a meg of space, there's no reason, at all, for them to not include it.
Quote:But really, how often do collections include multiple versions of games? Very, very rarely... Sierra did for some of their 'Collection Series' titles in the late '90s, but that was the real Sierra, not Vivendi Universal Games' "Sierra" label...
Good point. One I've brought up before. Metroid Zero Mission included the original Metroid, and all the previous KQ collections have included the first version of KQ1, but aside from that I can't really think of any that do that. They SHOULD though. When there's such a major upgrade that it's almost a new game (well, KQ1 isn't that much of an upgrade or change relative to some new remakes these days, it could have been fully mouse driven for example), including the older game should be a matter of course, especially when those old games are so small. Sword of Mana, for example, should have included Final Fantasy Adventure, at least as an unlockable. Since a GBA has a GBC processor in it, that should have been easily doable (though it may have caused issues with the DS). And, actually, I thought they should have included the original NES games in Mario All-Stars. Space concerns were still tight enough even during SNES times that including extra NES games would have been a problem though. No excuse today though, in the form of those Mario Advance games.
You are right about Sierra being a shell, and that today's Sierra wouldn't do that. In fact, THAT IS MY ENTIRE POINT, that they don't do that! Along with skimping out on Mask of Eternity and that one Leisure Suit Larry game... well it's annoying when they just do this boot out the door job...
Quote:and besides, back then all versions were playable the same. Now, you'd have to port those Win3.1 games to XP to make them playable, right? I mean, do the Windows titles actually work in XP? With like how KQ5 requires 256 color 640x480 to even start in Windows, and with all the bugs with getting the sound working (yeah, it's even worse in DOS, but the Windows versions can be a pain too at times...)? And with those awful blue bars on the top of the screen all the time? No, DOS is better. And a LOT easier to make working in XP. :)
KQ5-DOS may have huge cursors (and it does), but they look so much better than those awful Windows ones... instead of maybe too large, they're way, way too small, and as I said artistically are awful...
As for the music, KQ7-DOS definitely has MIDI, I was listening to it when I played the game... I don't think I noticed a difference between the music in Windows and DOS. Can't check it though, as the Windows one requires the CD (there is no file you can edit to make it look only at the HDD, unlike the DOS version -- another flaw with the Windows versions... -- KQ5 excepted, that one's Windows one does work off the HDD once modified. :)) and I don't have it here.
Those aweful blue bars... that's all you keep going on about. Are they that big a deal? Most programs do have those you know. While it would be nice to get rid of them, are they really that distracting? Just think of it as part of your moniter and put it out of your mind if that's the thing that's getting to you. And, yes, the Windows versions are very hard to get working these days (unless you just install Windows 3.x under DOSbox, but that would require a copy of that, which I happen to have in my big bin of old discarded floppy disks, though that is a very round about way of doing it). Sound usually works just fine in the Windows versions, if you can get the game itself to start at any rate. The problem with DOS games is the sound quality for the midi, at least in KQ5 and KQ6 (from what I've played) is pretty bad, at least compaired to what it could be.
The windows ones aren't that bad. They do the job just fine, and how can they be too small? Well, you do still use 800 x 600, so maybe that's the issue. If you run the game in a window they might be hard to see, but if you can see them, a small cursor in a point and click adventure game is a blessing. The issue for me is finding that "sweet spot" on the cursor, the active point. If it's too big, I'll just keep missing, and some of those cursors are so big they hide whatever it was I was trying to click on so I lose track of it. They do look a lot better though, that's true. As I said, I would prefer it if they just bumped up the resolution (shrinking the cursors) so there would be the best of both worlds, but if it's a choice between usability and aesthetics, well I've made my choice. So that leaves the music being worse. If you prize some nicer looking cursors and the lack of a blue bar over superior music (and in the case of KQ6, the cursors are the same just smaller (for the most part) and the character portraits are WAAAY better in Windows), then okay, but that's certainly not where my priorities lie...
KQ7 I might actually prefer in DOS. I can't see any issues with the DOS version of that, and as you said I can run it straight from the HD only in DOS. But, KQ5 and 6? For me the choice goes to Windows and it's a pretty clear cut one at that.
Quote:I don't have KQs 2, 3, 4, or 6, SQs 1-4 or 6, or any of the Police Quest or LSL games, but I'm not sure if I'm getting any of these... KQ7 was mostly fun, but 5 was so annoying that I don't know if I'd actually like 6, and 2-4 are running in 1's engine, which is really basic... as for SQ (the other major one) 5 is great, and I'd like 6, so I'd consider that one... maybe. 5 is incredibly frusterating though... all Sierra adventure games are, really. That's why I'm not sure how many of them I actually want... :D
5 and 6 are worlds apart. 5 had a number of illogical puzzles. I had fun but it was one of the worse games in the series. 6 however is my personal favorite in the series. If it's your impression of 5 that's keeping you away, think more of 7. You seemed to like that one. This one really is an amazing experience. All the puzzles are logical and have sufficient clues for you to figure them out. It's still hard, but you shouldn't have to resort to a guide if you are willing to stick it out. When you save your game, just make a new file each time (these days space should not be a concern for this game's save files) and you should be fine if you get stuck (which is rarer in this game, but still possible, they only actually got rid of the stuck issue in KQ7). And, unlike 5, there's actually real different ways to solve at least some of the puzzles (as opposed to, do I give the gold needle to this guy and the coin to this guy, or visa versa?), and potential for a split in the direction of the game depending on one critical decision you make as the final hour approaches. Plus, the voice acting is the best in the entire series by a huge margin.
Sierra today is just not up to the task of being kick-awesome and delivering the same quality they used to.
Quote:Why would any company in their right mind own anything less than 51% of their own stock? Isn't that a disaster waiting to happen?
Because it's never that simple. Maybe one of the major stockholders wants to cash out and so he puts his stock on the open market. Maybe the company is in some financial trouble and needs to pay off some of its debts. Maybe the company issued a bunch of stock to expand. There are a variety of reasons why a company might not own 50% of its own stock.
Financially secure companies, though, will generally buy back their stock from the open market from time to time.
That doesn't seem fair though, that a company can be "bought out" just by buying shares. Oh well, strange agreement considering most people who buy it won't ever actually control much of anything, if anything. Them being "obtained" like that was just evil. Isn't there a way to sell shares, or whatever (as silly a system as that is to begin with, like collector's edition pet rocks raising and lowering in value like the winds), that doesn't put the whole company in danger of a total buyout?
Quote:That doesn't seem fair though, that a company can be "bought out" just by buying shares.
That's the "price" you pay for getting "free" money.
Quote:Isn't there a way to sell shares, or whatever (as silly a system as that is to begin with, like collector's edition pet rocks raising and lowering in value like the winds), that doesn't put the whole company in danger of a total buyout?
Not sell more than 49% of your stock?
I suppose. Oh well, at any rate it was a disaster they didn't deserve. Vivendi eviscerated those guys, slowly.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.p...ost4325695
The reviews just keep pooring in! Not only are these bad "ports", you have to fix the games first! Not only that, there's worse news! Seems the original game installers are ABSENT! You have to do this stuff manually! This suggests the collection's disks don't even include the windows versions just "in the background" that you have to manually install, they aren't even present! I'm finding out the old collections for the other quest series happen to be far superior to these. I may just decide to look around for a used copy online instead of buying these sorry excuses! Ack!
If LucasArts finally releases collections of all their old games, I hope they go the extra mile. At least they don't seem a hollow shell and might actually care about their own past.
Most all companies do sell more than 50% of their stock though...
Quote:Good point. One I've brought up before. Metroid Zero Mission included the original Metroid, and all the previous KQ collections have included the first version of KQ1, but aside from that I can't really think of any that do that. They SHOULD though. When there's such a major upgrade that it's almost a new game (well, KQ1 isn't that much of an upgrade or change relative to some new remakes these days, it could have been fully mouse driven for example), including the older game should be a matter of course, especially when those old games are so small. Sword of Mana, for example, should have included Final Fantasy Adventure, at least as an unlockable. Since a GBA has a GBC processor in it, that should have been easily doable (though it may have caused issues with the DS). And, actually, I thought they should have included the original NES games in Mario All-Stars. Space concerns were still tight enough even during SNES times that including extra NES games would have been a problem though. No excuse today though, in the form of those Mario Advance games.
Those are mostly full-on remakes, something somewhat different from re-release collections... though Mario Allstars is something in between, since it has the original gameplay, just with new graphics... Metroid Zero Mission and Sword of Mana though aren't re-releases, they're remakes. I guess I can see why you'd include them in this group too though, as they are redos of older games... and yes, it'd be cool if each time someone remade an old game they included old games from the series in it, but while certainly not the rule, it does happen sometimes... it's much less common for collections of old games to include multiple versions of each game than for new games or remakes to include old ones in the series, I think -- like how Zero Mission does include Metroid, but Mario Advance doesn't includes the NES versions of those games... since it's an upgraded re-release, not a true new game, you're assumed to want the latest version, even if you don't. :)
Quote:You are right about Sierra being a shell, and that today's Sierra wouldn't do that. In fact, THAT IS MY ENTIRE POINT, that they don't do that! Along with skimping out on Mask of Eternity and that one Leisure Suit Larry game... well it's annoying when they just do this boot out the door job...
I think they were trying to save money on the extra couple of CDs those games would have required... :p
Quote:Those aweful blue bars... that's all you keep going on about. Are they that big a deal? Most programs do have those you know. While it would be nice to get rid of them, are they really that distracting? Just think of it as part of your moniter and put it out of your mind if that's the thing that's getting to you. And, yes, the Windows versions are very hard to get working these days (unless you just install Windows 3.x under DOSbox, but that would require a copy of that, which I happen to have in my big bin of old discarded floppy disks, though that is a very round about way of doing it). Sound usually works just fine in the Windows versions, if you can get the game itself to start at any rate. The problem with DOS games is the sound quality for the midi, at least in KQ5 and KQ6 (from what I've played) is pretty bad, at least compaired to what it could be.
The windows ones aren't that bad. They do the job just fine, and how can they be too small? Well, you do still use 800 x 600, so maybe that's the issue. If you run the game in a window they might be hard to see, but if you can see them, a small cursor in a point and click adventure game is a blessing. The issue for me is finding that "sweet spot" on the cursor, the active point. If it's too big, I'll just keep missing, and some of those cursors are so big they hide whatever it was I was trying to click on so I lose track of it. They do look a lot better though, that's true. As I said, I would prefer it if they just bumped up the resolution (shrinking the cursors) so there would be the best of both worlds, but if it's a choice between usability and aesthetics, well I've made my choice. So that leaves the music being worse. If you prize some nicer looking cursors and the lack of a blue bar over superior music (and in the case of KQ6, the cursors are the same just smaller (for the most part) and the character portraits are WAAAY better in Windows), then okay, but that's certainly not where my priorities lie...
KQ7 I might actually prefer in DOS. I can't see any issues with the DOS version of that, and as you said I can run it straight from the HD only in DOS. But, KQ5 and 6? For me the choice goes to Windows and it's a pretty clear cut one at that.
Not just blue bars, there's also the cursors and the size of the window (how I said how the DOS one are fullscreen, while the Windows ones have various things on the screen that in comparison greatly limit the amount of screen actually taken up by the game... (and no, it's not about resolution -- remember how these games either require or very strongly recommend a 640x480 desktop? Yeah. Not exactly 800x600 compatible. Having to switch the desktop resolution before playing each game (and then back afterwards) is a pain too...)
As for the music, as I said, I didn't notice a difference at all in either 5 or 7... maybe I can check that again with 5, but I didn't notice anything when playing it.
Quote:5 and 6 are worlds apart. 5 had a number of illogical puzzles. I had fun but it was one of the worse games in the series. 6 however is my personal favorite in the series. If it's your impression of 5 that's keeping you away, think more of 7. You seemed to like that one. This one really is an amazing experience. All the puzzles are logical and have sufficient clues for you to figure them out. It's still hard, but you shouldn't have to resort to a guide if you are willing to stick it out. When you save your game, just make a new file each time (these days space should not be a concern for this game's save files) and you should be fine if you get stuck (which is rarer in this game, but still possible, they only actually got rid of the stuck issue in KQ7). And, unlike 5, there's actually real different ways to solve at least some of the puzzles (as opposed to, do I give the gold needle to this guy and the coin to this guy, or visa versa?), and potential for a split in the direction of the game depending on one critical decision you make as the final hour approaches. Plus, the voice acting is the best in the entire series by a huge margin.
Sierra today is just not up to the task of being kick-awesome and delivering the same quality they used to.
If by "liked 7" you mean "the family got it at some point, and when I played the opening area, got frusterated and gave up early on in, and I don't think anyone else did much better, until a couple of years ago I went back to it and played through it with frequent reference to GameFAQs", then yes, I liked 7... ;)
Seriously, I liked the graphics, graphical design, and music, but the puzzles were very illogical a lot of the time and the "you die and restart from your save/from nearby" thing, while not as cruel as "I sure hope you saved recently before doing that thing that you'd never have guessed would kill you, ha ha!", is still really frusterating...
A Black Falcon Wrote:Those are mostly full-on remakes, something somewhat different from re-release collections... though Mario Allstars is something in between, since it has the original gameplay, just with new graphics... Metroid Zero Mission and Sword of Mana though aren't re-releases, they're remakes. I guess I can see why you'd include them in this group too though, as they are redos of older games... and yes, it'd be cool if each time someone remade an old game they included old games from the series in it, but while certainly not the rule, it does happen sometimes... it's much less common for collections of old games to include multiple versions of each game than for new games or remakes to include old ones in the series, I think -- like how Zero Mission does include Metroid, but Mario Advance doesn't includes the NES versions of those games... since it's an upgraded re-release, not a true new game, you're assumed to want the latest version, even if you don't. :)
Yeah, still the original is always nice, even if it's just "classic mode" gameplay. By the way, there actually is a small list of gameplay changes in SM All-Stars. The one thing I noticed first time through is that a block normally fairly hidden by the background art in SMB1 (intentionally) is now clear as day. Also, some of the artwork is a little missing. I love the remake's graphics, but in SMB3 I sort of miss the sky being filled with little stars and flowers when you fly high enough. The one other thing that comes to mind is that there's no way to beat SMB3 in All-Stars so that you can restart the game with a full set of P-Wings.
Quote:I think they were trying to save money on the extra couple of CDs those games would have required... :p
Yes, they are cheap too.
Quote:Not just blue bars, there's also the cursors and the size of the window (how I said how the DOS one are fullscreen, while the Windows ones have various things on the screen that in comparison greatly limit the amount of screen actually taken up by the game... (and no, it's not about resolution -- remember how these games either require or very strongly recommend a 640x480 desktop? Yeah. Not exactly 800x600 compatible. Having to switch the desktop resolution before playing each game (and then back afterwards) is a pain too...)
XP doesn't have that issue. You can assign a compatibilty profile to the game's shortcut that automatically converts down, starts the game, and then converts up when you are done playing. Doesn't do a "true" resolution drop that way though... a small problem they should resolve... also, resizing will resort the desktop icons which is annoying. What are "various things"? Aside from that bar, if you are in full screen mode, the rest of the screen should be filled with the game itself. Eh, I suppose for me it's worth it for the other advantages. Again, if they did a good job with these ports, they could basically just take the Windows version and slap in high res versions of KQ5's cursors as well as taking out those title bars.
Quote:As for the music, as I said, I didn't notice a difference at all in either 5 or 7... maybe I can check that again with 5, but I didn't notice anything when playing it.
I'll still experiment a little with the sound settings. I may just have the wrong item selected for music.
Quote:If by "liked 7" you mean "the family got it at some point, and when I played the opening area, got frusterated and gave up early on in, and I don't think anyone else did much better, until a couple of years ago I went back to it and played through it with frequent reference to GameFAQs", then yes, I liked 7... ;)
Seriously, I liked the graphics, graphical design, and music, but the puzzles were very illogical a lot of the time and the "you die and restart from your save/from nearby" thing, while not as cruel as "I sure hope you saved recently before doing that thing that you'd never have guessed would kill you, ha ha!", is still really frusterating...
Oh, I was under the impression you enjoyed it as opposed to forcing yourself to play it... oh well. Also, what's so frustrating about dying and instantly coming back? They give you clever hints and I actually like a little threat to my adventuring sometimes.
By the way, horror of horrors, they didn't include the first SWAT game with the Police Quest collection (in spite of it being in the last PQ collection), and they included the floppy disk version of Leisure Suit Larry 6 (so no voices for you!). So, no original versions of the first games of the series (and in the case of SQ1 at least, there really is a total overhaul using a point and click interface), no windows versions of the CD games in the series (and I've listed my complaints about that, there should be a choice and there was plenty of room on two CDs to include both versions, which I know because I have two previous collections to prove it), and two games included in previous collections are missing (LSL7 and PQ: SWAT) as well as ALL the extras.
I think it's no real surprise that Sierra didn't really make a big deal of these. They didn't want to call attention to themselves. /geek I sure hope those crazy online comic guys lampoon this hard! That'd show them!
Quote:I'll still experiment a little with the sound settings. I may just have the wrong item selected for music.
Actually, you're right, they're different. In DOS I have it set to Roland (the best option available, I think, unless it'd be possible to get MIDI if you try to copy in a DOS MIDI driver from some of the newer Sierra games and see if this game works with it... but with the setup as it is, DOS uses Roland as my SB card emulates it (which means each 'sound' is an insturment noise), while Windows uses the extended MIDI. They actually sound very different... not sure which is "better" though. It depends on what you want...
Note that the voice acting is completely identical in both versions -- staticy. :)
Quote:Yeah, still the original is always nice, even if it's just "classic mode" gameplay. By the way, there actually is a small list of gameplay changes in SM All-Stars. The one thing I noticed first time through is that a block normally fairly hidden by the background art in SMB1 (intentionally) is now clear as day. Also, some of the artwork is a little missing. I love the remake's graphics, but in SMB3 I sort of miss the sky being filled with little stars and flowers when you fly high enough. The one other thing that comes to mind is that there's no way to beat SMB3 in All-Stars so that you can restart the game with a full set of P-Wings.
Yeah, re-releases often do change a few things, which is one big reason (in addition to getting the original graphics) why people want to be able to play the older versions of games too... while often changes are for the better, they aren't always. It'd just get confusing if a collection included every version of a game though, when there have been a bunch of versions...
... actually, that'd be kind of cool. How about one for Super Mario Bros. -- NES, Mario Allstars version, Game Boy Color (SMB DX), Game Boy Advance (Classic NES)... but for the purposes of most collections, and the mass market, not considered necessary or really wanted at all, sadly. So while I'd love to see collectiosn truly include all versions of the games, I don't expect it, so it's not all that bad really that this Sierra collection does the same...
Quote:Yes, they are cheap too.
Is KQ8 one CD or two? Either way, both of those games are late titles, which means they'd need CDs to themselves for sure... save a few cents on every copy by leaving them out! :)
Quote:XP doesn't have that issue. You can assign a compatibilty profile to the game's shortcut that automatically converts down, starts the game, and then converts up when you are done playing. Doesn't do a "true" resolution drop that way though... a small problem they should resolve... also, resizing will resort the desktop icons which is annoying. What are "various things"? Aside from that bar, if you are in full screen mode, the rest of the screen should be filled with the game itself. Eh, I suppose for me it's worth it for the other advantages. Again, if they did a good job with these ports, they could basically just take the Windows version and slap in high res versions of KQ5's cursors as well as taking out those title bars.
What do you mean it doesn't do a true resolution drop? I thought that that's exactly what it does when you set it that way... so it just SCALES the game to your desktop resolution or something? Awful! Easier I know, but scaling... ick...
"various things": I said this earlier in the thread.
DOS: The only "limitation" on the screensize is the small black area on the top of the screen which the menubar drops down from.
Windows: In addition to that black space, there's the blue bar on top, the edge of the taskbar on the bottom (tiny I know, but a light line), the large (inch-wide plus) black bar on the top of the screen (above the dropdown area, and empty to make the game fit into a 640x480 resolution when the DOS one obviously uses a different screen ratio -- Windows is 640x480. DOS has the same width ratio -- 320 -- but the height is different. I think it's 320x200, which means that you need to have a 40-pixel black space on the top and bottom of the screen to fit the doubled image into a 640x480 window.), and the equally large black bar on the bottom of the screen, and the window borders that are on the screen around the edges.
Quote:Oh, I was under the impression you enjoyed it as opposed to forcing yourself to play it... oh well. Also, what's so frustrating about dying and instantly coming back? They give you clever hints and I actually like a little threat to my adventuring sometimes.
Quote:By the way, horror of horrors, they didn't include the first SWAT game with the Police Quest collection (in spite of it being in the last PQ collection),
Police Quest 5: SWAT... was that one an adventure game like the first four, or had that shifted it into other genres like the SWAT games since then have done (SWAT 2 being a top-down strategy game, and 3 and 4 being squad-based FPSes)?
http://www.mobygames.com/game/police-que...ion-series
Interesting... while descriptions do not call it an adventure game (more of an interactive movie/police simulator), it was in PQ:CS, so despite the genre change leaving it out this time is stupid.
Quote:and they included the floppy disk version of Leisure Suit Larry 6 (so no voices for you!).
Well, that means that I'm right about why they left out LSL7 and KQ8 then...
Quote:(and in the case of SQ1 at least, there really is a total overhaul using a point and click interface)
I assume that LSL1 also only includes the remake and not the original version then... but really, I greatly, greatly prefer the point-and-click versions to the text-input ones, so for me it doesn't mean much... some people hate the redone versions, though, so I'm sure they're annoyed. :)
Quote:I sure hope those crazy online comic guys lampoon this hard! That'd show them!
Sorry, won't happen. You need to be a pretty serious Sierra fan to have any idea about pretty much everything we've talked about in this thread, sadly...
Yeah... Also I liked that Sierra Hoyle card game collection they made years ago, with Graham as one of the characters in the line up. Funny little game, and my introduction to a number of card games when I was younger.
By "true resolution drop" I don't mean scaled so much as windowed in such a way that the screen is still full resolution but the window "fools" the game into thinking it's full screen. Further, from what you describe, the bar on bottom and so on, I'm pretty sure you weren't playing the games full screen (as full screen as they got anyway) because there shouldn't be a status bar or any other bars around the game at all. Oh well.
Some people prefer Sierra's updated original games, some don't. I myself like having both games at my disposal because I find the little quirks in the different versions fun in their own right.
Penny Arcade at least acknowledges the existance of the King's Quest series. They might do something... Eh maybe not. But, strike while the iron's hot. I'll make an email of it. Never actually tried contacting those guys because I didn't care to. But, THIS INJUSTICE CAN'T BE BORN! :D Eh forget it.
Quote:By "true resolution drop" I don't mean scaled so much as windowed in such a way that the screen is still full resolution but the window "fools" the game into thinking it's full screen. Further, from what you describe, the bar on bottom and so on, I'm pretty sure you weren't playing the games full screen (as full screen as they got anyway) because there shouldn't be a status bar or any other bars around the game at all. Oh well.
Huh? *checks* You're right, there are no side lines, but there definitely is a white line on the bottom the the screen... as I said, the taskbar isn't hidden behind this game, like is usual in windows... the rest of the stuff I described is exactly as it is seen in the game. Big black borders on top and bottom to fit it to a different picture ratio, little white/grey bar on bottom because it isn't true fullscreen so the taskbar isn't obscured, blue bar on the top of the screen...
Quote:I don't mean scaled so much as windowed in such a way that the screen is still full resolution but the window "fools" the game into thinking it's full screen.
This doesn't quite make sense... can you explain it better?
Quote:Some people prefer Sierra's updated original games, some don't. I myself like having both games at my disposal because I find the little quirks in the different versions fun in their own right.
I find text input games annoying and prefer to avoid them when I can...
Yeah, but if you're like me and cut your teeth on those games, and enjoyed them because that's where it all began, then you want them anyway.
Anyway, let me try again. What I mean is, normally you'd THINK you could just window a low resolution game right? Just smaller, but of course as we both know with games like KQ5, it demands that the resolution be fixed a certain way (I am shocked, SHOCKED, that the basic design of the graphical interface in XP can actually still be detected just fine, and accurately, by these old games). Well, in XP when you decide to go with the compatibility option to switch to low resolution, it doesn't actually fill the screen with the program that's running. It's still in the larger resolution, but the game itself doesn't realize this and thinks it's in the smaller resolution, so you do actually get a small window where the game takes place. There's some more trickery if you want the game in full screen as well as this compatibility option though. Either way, it's an automatic conversion both ways so I don't need to remember anything. The trick is, as that site above mentions, that the program is faster than Window's compatibility option, so you need to have the buffer of a .bat file. That way it'll do the resolution conversion while the batch file is running (a split second) and KQ5 will start.
Odd that the quantity of games doesn't seem to matter. Exactly 4 PQ games costs the same as 7 KQ games. Further, ironic that I have the choice to either pay for cheaply ported games or download a fully remade and perfectly functional game for free. If they can do the same job for KQ4 and then just do a full 3rd party port of the last 3, I'll be sitting pretty (the glide wrapper does all the work I need to get KQ8 running perfectly, though I don't play that one very often, or at all in the past few years).
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