Slashdot Mirror
Ultima Revived
Sierpinski writes: "Wired.com has an article about a group of people who are trying to bring back some of the classic (older) games. I don't know what a lot of you gamers are into now... personally I'm into Max Payne and the like, but I still remember those old favorites. Thought some of you slashdotters would like to know." We've mentioned one of these games already, but I see The Bard's Tale is coming back from the dead too.
How about bringing back Master of Magic or X-Com with updated graphics? There are so many *other* games I would rather see get remade. I could care less about either of the two game smentioned in the articles...
_______
I just wish I could c:\format Internet
Cool mmorpg.
Space combat simulator.
It was released a month ago with NONE of the problems associated with the other games.
jumpgate.3do.com
planetjumpgate.net
If you're into MUDs, MOOs, or just wanna relive BBS days, I run a web based game of LORD.
:)
It's powered by linux, dosemu, and perl. Gotta love open source software
some are still on old BBSs waiting for players, and I still enjoy a fast game of DooM or Heretic over the network
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
From the Wired article:
Such is the case for The Bard's Tale and Ultima, two classic games from the 1980s that fans are recreating with a modern look and feel.
A lot of the fun was the old-fashioned "tile-game" approach. Updating the games will almost be like a different game entirely.
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
Wait a second, wait a second...
Why don't they bring back Smurfs, the Atari 2600 game?
It consisted of about 5 scenes that you got put into randomly, and sometimes they moved faster..
Damn, that's quality gaming..
rm -rf
All the Ultima crew did was talk to Richard Garriot (aka Lord British) and he OK'd it... as long as they don't profit from it.
Unfortunately, Origin holds the rights to the games, don't they? No clearance from EA for The Bard's Tale means that they'll at least have to change the names of the games, the people and places. Still, an interesting enough idea.
Oh well. As long as they're updating old games, howsabout Wasteland and the good ol' SSI RPGs?
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
how about a niftier version of wasteland?
... the last one that i REALLY likes was Torment...
i wish we could get better thought out RPG's
... hi bingo
I brought back Ladder, a Donkey Kong like game that was played on old CPM machines. Graphics are way too new for my taste, let alone 3D graphics.
How about reviving the Zork series? No graphics, text only...
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
Thats not asking for too much, is it?
This is the worst sig ever.
as most know they are updating wolfenstein... I like what I see, but it just isnt wolfenstein anymore
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
By far the most creative and original game I've ever played. I recently tried to ressurect my old Apple II just to play it, and even tried an Atari ST emulator to no avail. My hat is off to the remenants of FTL games and the original designers.
;)
If someone wants to ressurect Sundog, they've got my vote.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
I think what appeals to me about these updates is the reduction in associated stress. These chaps wouldn't be half as popular if they tried to recreate the 'fun' of loading from tape, LensLock security, broken keyboard membranes/joysticks, etc etc?
A disgruntled Spectrum user. Bring back YS. And Crash.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
"Old man yells at systemd"
Slashdot ran the part about Ultima on Sep 19, here: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/19/124422 1&mode=nested
Check out the comments that were made back then.
I think we need to keep the "old" games going so our kids and their kids will have something to look back on and say "that's where games used to be." I'd personally like to see an open source version of Tank Wars, remember that old ATARI game? There were like 100 different possible games and I remember playing them for hours... of course that was back when video games were something the adults did after dinner, they wouldn't let the kids play because we beat them too badly. Anyway, kudos to whoever is doing this, and EA: kiss my ass! (referring to the following)
Trouble is, rights for the games are held by one of the biggest companies in the industry, Electronic Arts, which isn't too happy about grassroots revivals.
~ now you know
i wish they could revive the star control franchise, but start from #2 and ignore #3. I loved that game. i recently restored an old 486 and installed dos on it just to play it. nearly 10 years later people are still playing the game.now if only i can find a copy of xcom, and the first MOO...
ML
"EA owns the rights to Ultima and all of its characters, and in this case, no permission was requested or granted," said Jeff Brown, an Electronic Arts spokesman. "As for Richard Garriott's approval, that's like getting permission from Toto to remake The Wizard of Oz."
Richard Garriott was a minor character with no lines in Ultima? I think that L. Frank Baum (were he still alive) might be a better example. It would still not be legal, since MGM owns the movie rights, but comparing Garriott to Toto is bizarre...
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
"EA owns the rights to Ultima and all of its characters, and in this case, no permission was requested or granted," said Jeff Brown, an Electronic Arts spokesman. "As for Richard Garriott's approval, that's like getting permission from Toto to remake The Wizard of Oz."
Nice quote. What's the deal with publishers these days being hostile to everyone including developers? Look at Bioware and Interplay.
StarFlight contained a HUGE static universe (i.e., every time you play, all the systems are the same). While a lot of people like random maps nowadays, StarFlight worked really well because the universe was so large and rich that each game is almost guaranteed to be different. It had all the essential elements for a fun space strategy game: exploration, mining, colonization, alien interaction, intrigue. You can find artifacts with odd or incomplete messages, but sometimes would find some coordinates. It was fun jotting down all these coordinates and clues and exploring from there. Sometimes it would end up being a series of messages detailing the next location, sometimes they just ended (or so it seemed). And let's not forget the eerie feeling of finding a blue-green planet, slowly realizing that the shapes of the continents look familiar (it's Earth!).
I have a huge pile of notes saved up from my first StarFlight game. Only problem is that it's on 5.25" floppies. I found a copy of it online, but then I realized how archaic the savegame system is. It saves your game state into the game executable. If you don't exit the game properly, or get stuck between a rock and a hard place, your main game executable is history. This is the main reason why I haven't played StarFlight that much in the past couple of years. It's a major pain in the butt to contend with.
Now I'm eagerly awaiting StarFlight III. It's a "volunteer" project, and they've got two of the original StarFlight programmers consulting for the game.
HUNT THE WuMPuS!
From the article: "EA owns the rights to Ultima and all of its characters, and in this case, no permission was requested or granted," said Jeff Brown, an Electronic Arts spokesman. "As for Richard Garriott's approval, that's like getting permission from Toto to remake The Wizard of Oz." I'm not sure I understand this remark. Didn't Garriott sort of, you know, CREATE Ultima? ::searches core for memories of his old NES so many years ago:: I'm pretty sure that's what the credits said. Perhaps I was mistaken.
Or was Mr. Brown implying that Toto did indeed write the script to the Wizard Of Oz, and should be blamed for all the plot wholes and shoddy songs therein? ::scratches his head and sings Existential Blues to anyone near enough to be tortured by it::
We can face anything... except for bunnies.
I remember saving my allowance up for weeks to buy The Bard's Tale.
.. it totally revamped how the industry thought about games.
.. regardless of the spaceships.
.. and buy genetic enhancements for them like stingers, or lobster claws (more damage) or photosynthysis .. (they regained energy via the sun)
.. with a lOT of environmental factors.
Everyone here may be like 'what is that Crap' but all the old-school game geeks will remember that when BT came out
its as much a classic as Ultima I
I want to know why no company ever remade a network version of Mail Order Monsters (another EA game for the c64) you got to fight monsnters, save up $$
that could be a nice FSP online now
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
I am constantly amazed by how much games have changed, but the habits behind a good game have yet to change. I played games way into the night with old Atari games, and I still do it now with PC games. My rating system for games has always been how long do I play it into the night. If I lose all track of time, its a good one.
I currently play strategy/tactics games, and Dune: Emperor is my current late night sleep-destroyer. At least now I'm only killing my sleep rather my GPA like I did in college.
Bringing back old games is a trend I've seen with more and more platforms. Gauntlet has come back to PS2 as Gauntlet: Dark Legacy. Wolfenstein 3D will be back some time next year, and Civ III will come as well. Look how the Dune series has gone, from the almost role-playing "Dune" to its current incarnation. If a game was good enough to be remembered fondly, or at least spark a few sequel games, it will probably come back eventually. I've seen the same trend with toys and food. Toys and food go out of style, but then they come back 10 years later based on the idea that new folks are around who think the old is quite new. Also, the persons who have nostaligic memories for these items will buy them as well.
If there is one Microprose game I'd love to see come back, it would be Darklands. But, it never spawned a sequel and only a few people seemed to have liked it, so I doubt it will.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
I go to Slashdot, I see a story at the top about Apple's new supposed PDA, the "iWalk" and link to SpyMac.com. I hit back, then reload 3 or 4 times to make sure, and the story is gone! Ultima is the top story now. This is damn weird.
rooooar
There was a story on top of this one about the new Apple iWalk device ... where did it go?
...are the only games you will see ported to Linux, excepting Warehouse Engine.. sorry, Quake Engine.. games.
So, I guess this is likely to give Linux users a woody.
Let's keep games on gaming platforms (Windows)!
I figured a free game based on Ultima I and given new 3d life.....then I saw what the sys recs were......DirectX 8!!! you would think that since it is a free game, they would want to use a platform independant set of Libs like Loki....then perhaps, they could port the game to many diffrent platforms since Ultima fans exist everywhere. I guess even non-comercial hobbiests can sell out ;-)
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
selling daggers was the way to make $$ :P
.. you were Mercanaries right? I remember playing it late into the night .. and anoying the CRAP out of everyone with that tinny music it endlessly repeated.
that game was cool
it seemed to me to be the first 'realistic' adventuring game (as in you needed supplies and everything had value)
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Personally, I'm anticipating the release of The Last Ninja 4. oooh...
I've been looking for the longest time for an online game of BRE.... anyone?
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
Like I keep sayiing.... go back and play the original adventure game.
Old games that people still want to play but companies no longer sell and support often end up being traded as abandonware, often requiring emulators to avoid compatibility issues.
By giving or selling the license to smaller independent "bargain" developers, the game can be kept alive and updated to run on new computers.
Of course, updating the game's graphics and gameplay in "revivals" like these would be possible as well.
"EA owns the rights to Ultima and all of its characters, and in this case, no permission was requested or granted," said Jeff Brown, an Electronic Arts spokesman. "As for Richard Garriott's approval, that's like getting permission from Toto to remake The Wizard of Oz."
I don't recall Toto having been the creative force behind The Wizard of Oz, but perhaps I'm missing something. Or perhaps this guy is just using an obnoxious simile.
joedoe
Who's with me? I'd love to see M.U.L.E. brought back from the dead. What a great FUN game.
Unfortunately, I predict most of these attempts to re-create old games will be FOXed as soon as they get off the ground.
I use to love the good old adventure games, Leisure Suit, Police Quest, Tex Murphy
I grew up on ultima.. I actually one ultima I,2, and 3.. Loved exploring all the levels and caves and towns...
Its nice to have retro games redone when there redone right. Ambrosia software had a game calles
Because if MAME and hooking up my old intellivision has taught me anything the games of the past were great but the graphics stank..
(back in my day humans were shown on screen with 6 rectangles and one color, none of this namby pamby 3d vector shaded triangle stuff.. and We LIKED it...)
Old games can be found on abandonware sites and most still run on "modern" OSs(at least shufflepuck does
Studio 3 (former System 3) is working on Last Ninja 4 since 1999! It will be released for XBox and probably also PS2 and Windoze. They have been working VERY hard on research and they have been active in Last Ninja-fan-mailinglists. The Last Ninja-series is IMHO the best games ever released on any platform, together with Monkey Island 1+2 (Disclaimer: You may think otherwise) Check this page for more info (and screenshots):
http://lastninja.lemon64.com/ln4.htm
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
slashdot needs a limit on reply depth
Anyone remember the game Mimi and the Mites? One of the greats, in my opinion - unfortunately it was never really very popular.
A google search will reveal that the demo of it is quite easy to find - however, it's absolutely *impossible* to get the full version. The company has long since vanished and I've been unable to locate a full version of this game anywhere. Anyone familiar with this game? Got any spare copies lying around?
I remember long hours infront of my fathers computer while playing F29 Retaliator (F29?).
:)
Those old games had a certain feeling that just does'nt exist anymore. I'll rather listen to some beeps from my PC-speaker that those new all-to-commercial intros.
BTW - Does anyone know where I can get hold of a copy of retaliator nowdays?
I liked the Ultima games, played II, IV, VII, VIII, and tried to play IX, but it was sooo buggy! But, does the world need to rehash Ultima I, Bard's Tale, Wolfenstein? Wouldn't these efforts be better directed at creating new, original games, and not recycling old, been there done that plots?
Reminds me of Hollywood dredging up Planet of the Apes, Flintstones, Lost in Space, and any other old movie/TV show that someone has found a way to wring a few more dollars from.
Focus on new and original, rather than rehashes of the past.
I've been on a big X-Com kick recently.
I learned more about squad-based tactics from playing this game, then I did in the four years I was in the Marine Corps.
You never forget the first time you have your squad set to rush an alien ship, only to have a sectiod step out, drop a granade and walk back into the ship.
If you were to remake an Ultima game, why pick I?
Wouldn't most people choose IV?
The PC Gamer article linked to on their site says that the boys at Paradox wouldn't mind redoing all the games. Interesting resume...
to download an infocom interpreter for your favorite platform with all the infocom games.
Sometimes I play Zork 1 at work, and since the idea of a text mode game is so alien to all my coworkers nobody notices that I'm not working.
Is this seriously the path to go, i mean have people completely lost their ability to be creative? How about throwing us something new, instead of the same ol same ol.
The big reason a lot of these old, quality games are not being reproduced and retooled for newer platforms, (Win32, GTK, etc...) is because they are still under copyright. Many of them (Like the old Ultima games) are owned by companies who never sold them and never really plan to.
The answer to this is limiting duration of copyright on software. I mean, how much can you sell a game for even 3 years after its initial release? The last time I went to Walmart, they had a consolodated 'Starcraft' package for 19.95, but the Starcraft CD was in the bargin bin for 4.95. How about after five years? Seven? If software copyrights just simply expired after seven years with no chance of renewal, the companies who owned those games would have extracted all the revenue they could from them, and then the pulic would profit by getting older, quality games (and preferrable their source code) into the public domain.
Mind you, I think that copyright is wrong to begin with, but if there is a good compromise to be found, don't you think it would be something like this?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
First of all, before the inspiration leaves me, someone ought to make a 3-D version of Archon. Heck, if you wanted to really jazz it up, you could go to a semi-FPS mode (like Max Payne) when your pieces were fighting -- you could use terrain to hide from the opposition and even out some of those mismatches. Plus, it would be great to see your wizard missing a basilisk with a fireball and accidentally torching a tree... Of course, it's another Electronic Arts game, so I can imagine the enthusiastic support the project would get.
That temporary fantasy aside, though, I'm not sure how much I support remaking classic games. I will always remember playing Archon against my sister on the PCjr for hours -- she got the joystick, and I got the keyboard, in an attempt to level the playing field -- with the crappy chirpy sound and the ugly CGA graphics. That was the game, and it was great despite all of that. The same goes for Bard's Tale, Lode Runner, Thexder, King's Quest, and all the other games that I remember from my youth -- the games are fixed in a personal and technological context that I can't remove.
Classic games, like classic movies, books, music, or any other kind of art, have both a timeless relevance and a historical context. The former explains why they have earned the appellation of "classic" -- they continue to find an audience. However, the latter is just as important, and it's inseparable from the other half. Can you imagine someone trying to rewrite The Catcher In The Rye because the language is dated, and Holden Caulfield doesn't sound like the kids these days? Or remaking Romeo and Juliet with guns and rock music? (Oops -- too late on that last one.)
I would like my kids (someday, when I have kids) to play the games that I played as a kid, both because they were fun, and also to get a sense of history. I don't want them thinking that technology started at a 1.4 GHz Athlon and went up from there -- I wish I could start them off with a TRS-80 Model I. I think that emulation projects are wonderful work, and wish that game publishers would legitimize abandonware and old ROM sets for the standup arcade games. But remakes, as impressive as they may be, will always leave me a little cold.
"she says i'm lousy conversation. as if that's supposed to help."
Another group doing remakes which specialises in ZX Spectrum titles is Retrospec. Their website is www.retrospec.co.uk
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
From a purely legal standpoint, that may be.true. But how do they get off comparing permission from the world's creator to permission from the main character's "little dog"? I mean, they have permission of the guy who made the damn game. Why should they need more?
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
Quote (emphasis mine):
No, that's like getting permission from L. Frank Baum to remake The Wizard of Oz. You know, the guy who originally thought it up.
These are fans paying tribute to something they like. AFAIK, they're not looking for profit in it. If only the U.S. media conglomerates were like Japanese anime producers, where fan-created derivative works are not only welcomed but encouraged...
Appearently, this is similar to a group of slashdot posters who are trying to bring back some of the classic (older) Slashdot Articles.
I guess if it's here twice, it's a really good thing...
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
Everybody knows, NetHack is the best. :)
After actually reading the article, I notice a few things in passing.
One of the companies demanded contact from the developers because, in some way, shape, or form the game resembled one of "theirs". A passing resemblance is enough to trigger a lawyer.
The companies seemed to think that a non-profit independent venture using some of "their" ideas is under their purvue -- ie, no Fair Use for anyone. No parody or tribute allowed.
These companies did not create these franchises (mostly) -- they didn't design them, or write the code, or even have the original developers on hand. They just bought the "property". Lord British was referred to as "Toto" to their lordly Frank Baum.
Kicker: they have refused to do anything with these "properties" for years. Even though fans begged them to. There was not enough profit, and they let them lie fallow.
That is an ample demostration of why current copyright and IP is a perversion of what Jefferson et al created copyright for -- to encourage the creation of new art for the good of all, not to only profit the holder of the mark. By converting "Bard's Tale" and other games to the status of paperclip inventory on a shelf, the art it engendered lies dead, hostage to greed for property.
As for my opinion, if the mark holders are letting it lie in an intellectual property grave, a non-profit knock-off is an expression of democratic disapproval. The PROPER course of action for these IP holders is to hire these people and release the new games, and sheepishly admit that they should have done it long ago.
what about Universe? That was a GREAT game. I remember that it came on a whopping(at the time) 6 or 8 double sided floppies,and the huge binder/manual.
Unfortunately I never got to play 2 or 3. They just didn't look like the same kind of game that the first was.
Did anyone actually manage to finish the Bard's Tale ? I played it for what seems an insane amount of time & I have no idea how close I got to the end. Even after hacking the characters for infinite hit points and enabling multiple diamond armours on every character the game seemed to never end. I remember getting through most of the castle & then teleporting somewhere but then it's just a blur....
cjm
Those old games were great, no question, at least for their time. I can certainly understand how some people are tired of where games have been headed (toward pseudo-realism), and want to play something else. But is remaking those old games really the direction to go in? It's like a director saying "I think movies have gotten too glitzy, so I'm only going to do remakes of great films from the 1950s." That's a cop out. Surely there is somewhere else to go to advance the creation of games? If you don't like modern-style games, then take things in your own direction.
Starflight. Starflight was simply THE space adventure game of its time... not that there were many besides it. What Starflight meant to me, and many many others, was a universe of exploration, discovery, and adventure. I spent countless hours in between classes (i was in fifth grade then) playing the game, and it never failed to captivate me for hours on end. And now, with technologies and projects like Mojoworld (read the Slashdot article at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/10/055625 6&mode=thread) which could store a planetary model in 90k or less, there's a lot that could be done to not only revive but ultimately remake the game.
Given that, and the capacity of 2 or 3 CD-ROMs, and it's possible to cram universes upon universes, hundreds of alien races, artifacts, missions, you name it, into one game that will surely rock and immerse us in a universe unlike any before. Not only that, we could open up new possibilities like multiplayer (imagine forming your own fleet of starships with other players)... the possibilities are almost endless.
Legacy Of The Ancients. Updated, but not too updated. That would be nice. Not like, say, the updated Battlezone with too much junk to be fun.
If they want to show off their mad programming skills, why don't they leave the graverobbing alone and write something NEW.
"Information wants to be paid"
The Bard's Legacy site has some neat screen shots & such, but at this time it isn't clear what platform it runs on. Details are a little sketchy, but it looks like a noble effort.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
Hey, it's not only old video games that run into the ol' "this hasn't been sold by anyone for years, yet it's still illegal to distribute it yourself" problem. I frequent a (pencil, paper and dice) RPG board where someone was carrying on and threatening to call the FBI because some folks were distributing Star Frontiers in PDF form. Star Frontiers is an old RPG that hasn't been in print for over a decade, and the company that owns the rights to it is currently selling the Star Wars RPG, so it's unlikely they're going to decide to revive Star Frontiers anytime soon.
... that's just wrong.
Also, there's a certain cult classic series of sci-fi novels that I wanted to buy (I've forgotten the name now) but since they're long out of print, my only option is to buy them from some collectors for a few hundred dollars.
It's ridiculous. This isn't what copyrights were intended for. Protecting someone's right to make money off their own creative property is one thing. Locking something away because the owner is a corporation that has other intellectual property it wants to focus on exploiting
-- dR.fuZZo
The guy who came up with the whole idea is the little pet doggie huh?!
And so who's the wizard--or better yet who could we compare to the screen writers, directors and producers of a film? Oh, ok, how about Electronic Arts, the publisher, ie middleman ?!!
What a bunch of B.S.
Just my opinion, but I'd love to see remakes of Pirates! (Pirates Gold, which was a lovely pile of toss, doesn't count) and Stunts (pc racing game).
:)
Pirates! just had a fantastically simple interface for a game with as much open-ended play as it had. And Stunts had a great track editor (especially for the time, around '89 or '90 IIRC).
I know this is getting off-topic, but has anyone besides me ever imagined Pirates! in an online, persistant world (MMORPG, like Everquest)? Man, if you could just figure out a good time scaling for ocean travel, that game might just rock.
My sigs always suck.
EA's never been good to the fan community.
They release quite frankly the worst Ultima ever and feel their intellectual property is being compromised by people wanting to enjoy what Ultima was.
EA has taken over sooo many game companies it's stupid, something to watch out for.
But maybe I'm just bitter cause Ultima9 was such a crap game.
It's turtles all the way down.
I loved that game, and was ecstatic when I found a COCO2b emulator and a ROM of the game recently. Although I'd love to see a new version of it come out with enhanced graphics, part of its eternal charm is in its simplicity.
Fortunately, since the copyright laws hadn't been extended to ridiculous lengths, you don't need Toto's, or anyone's, permission to distribute or rewrite L. F. Baum's Oz stories, as they started going into the public domain in the 1950's.
Go check out Nuklear Lord, a kick ass game of Legend of the Red Dragon running under Linux on DOSemu with a cool Perl BBS gateway. You can also telnet to port 31337 on that server to play.
Why bother.
"As for Richard Garriott's approval, that's like getting permission from Toto to remake The Wizard of Oz."
Granted, Rosanna and Africa were pretty good tunes, but not Oz material.
I wonder if Richard Gariott will get even for that remark. On one hand, he has lots of swords. On the other hand, he wears fruity frilly shirts.
Unfortunately it's saddled with such a linear storyline that once you're through it, it's not much fun anymore. This one's a definite renter if anything is; you can easily play it out in a weekend.
While IP laws are intended to protect the holder, there is a good arguement for changes to protect the consumers interests.
Wherever a significant consumer group is NOT being served by an IP holder there should be a legal process by which the IP defaults AWAY from the holder following a period of non-exploitation.
Scenario: Publisher X withdraws GameX from the market, and stops supporting players. A player registers this fact with a register for a small fee (call it $30, just to stop the jokers, to make sure it matters). Following a period, perhaps 2 years, if the company has made no significant moves to make the IP available to the paying public it defaults out to the public domain. Simple.
Company X will argue that it could be working on the new version during those 2 years and this sucks. But, any decent games company will continue to support its user base while the new game is coming along - drip feeding us patches, upgrade packs, new terrains.
Similarly, any other software that starts to die could be openned up after a couple of years of non-exploitation or when the company went bust. Doesn't mean they have to release the code - just that they cant sue your arse if you copy them / take inspiration.
I spent quite a bit of time reverse engineering the maps of Macintosh Bard's Tale while at the same time writing a disassembler just to assist in the process.
I had far too much spare time in those days!
YS! Hurrah! Quick google turned up the Your Sinclair Rock and Roll Years - great website!
You can go through all the back issues online!
Did anyone else not buy the issue of YS that had a semi naked chick on the front.
I've still got a stack of these in the loft! I should eBay them!
... can be found here. Although it seems to be down right now...
Ah the memories....
;-) I actually had pages of notes on the savegame files and could practically create a new character in a hex editor.
I have so many fond memories of The Bards Tale, the first game I learned to hack
I was also a huge fan of the Starcon and Starflight series, but have never been able to get ahold of a copy of Starcontrol 3. I've only seen it available on mac format, which is really frustrating.
As for the Ultima games, my favorite would be Ultima VI, the last of the pure tile games. It was the first, and still on of very few, games that I have played where you can interact with just about anything. I loved pushing cannons around and firing at whatever I could find. It was also fun carying around a few powder kegs and an invisibility ring for a good old fashioned dragon hunt... I had so many notes for that game, with maps of nearly every dungeon and town. Thank god for extra large graph paper...
One of my favorite games, though, I can't even remember the title of. I played that one so much that I didn't have to refer to the manual for the copy protection. It was a space exploration type game, where your homebase was a triangular formation of starbases. Outside this safe area you had pirate, insect, and robot ships that would attack as you went on misions. One of my favorite aspects is that you could board their ships and tow them back for salvage. I wish I could remember the name, I'd love a chance to play it again.
Looks like I've got some web searching to do...
-Space for rent
I started playing it again on my MacOSX box after years of letting it sit. Probably one of the best RPGs ever made, IMHO. Who needs flashy graphics? Not me!
There is already the BTCS which can make new games in the Bards Tale vein quite fine. A graphical update of it is all that is really neccisary, would hacking in some new graphics really be all that hard? 256colors is really enough for an RPG anyways (See: Fallout1/2) and the construction set itself is very simple to manipulate and play around with, and as I recall new spells can even be created (!!!)
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
... is that they either did something nobody else was doing at the time, or they did it better than everybody else. In other words, they were damn cool when they were current. The problem is, playing modernized versions of classic games often is about the same as hanging around your old high school at the age of 30 - you know you had good times there 14 years ago, but you can't for the life of you figure out WTF is going on now.
Every now and then a remake of a classic (be it a game, movie or TV show) does the legacy justice, but far too often the remake fails miserably because modernization destroys everything that made it a classic. Anybody remember Return to Zork? They decided to update the venerable series by making a graphical adventure that was fun for the 5 minutes it took to realize that whatever it said on the box, this most certainly was not Zork.
I'm not saying these projects are doomed to failure, I'm just saying that anybody modernizing a classic needs to be very careful about evaluating new features in the context of the original game. If the original had an isometric view, for God's sake don't remake it into a first person viewpoint just to demonstrate that you too can license a 3D engine. Keep the remakes true to the spirit of the original, and maybe we'll see something of note come of it.
if anything, asking EA for permission to remake Ultima 1 is like asking MGM for permission to reissue the print Wizard of Oz
I've always been a strategy nut(Civ II, MOO, MOM, Command HQ, et al.), and it seems that I'm the only person here that remembers my favorite past developer - QQP!!
:)
Their early and mid games (not their late ones) had poor to so-so graphics, horrible sound, and bad manuals - but were so damn FUN and addicting! They made it up with excellent game concepty design, simple yet deep unit interactions, and EXCELLENT AI. Unfortunatley, they hit the tail end of the era where a couple guys in a garage could make and sell a great game - eventually graphics and publishers with big $$$ came into play, QQP was handed to a few crappy publishers and they basically produced a bunch of drek (The Pure Wargame, Battles in Time) before going out of business somewhere around 94-95.
My favorites are: The Lost Admiral, The Perfect General I and II(one of my favorite games of all time), The Grandest Fleet (although it looked better than The Lost Admiral, I think the former is more "pure" and a bit more fun), and Conquered Kingdoms (crappier graphics than Warlords II-which was also a great game-but more strategic depth).
They also published several great games by other developers (esp. Holistic Gaming - makers of Noble Armada, Fading Suns, etc.) These games included The Merchant Price (which was later re-made and marketed by Holistic to Microprose to become Machiavelli: The Prince), and Battles of Destiny - an Empire Deluxe remake with more unit types. Both of these games were quite good (especially Merchant Prince).
Apparently one of the original Lost Admiral/Gradest Fleet developers is privately working on a sequel - The Lost Admiral II. Development is going slowly, but I'll still be interested when it gets there.
I think that strategy people don't give enough props any more to Empire and Empire Deluxe - without whom the whole Civilzation, MOM type empire games would never have started! I mean, who REALLY needs all that culture, and diplomacy anyways?? Give me a copy of Empire Deluxe and I'll just worry about having enough Transports and Battleships
Finally, I would like to mention one of my all-time favorite games, and perhaps the most under-rated Maxis game - Robotsport. Robosport is a squad-based tactical game (a bit toungue-in-cheek) where you controlled a squad of robots armed with different weapons. You told each robot where to go and what to do (scan, fire, etc.) for certain periods of time (seconds) each round, which lasted anywhere from 15-40s. After you ordered all of your robots to do stuff, other players would do the same - then all robot actions would be generated SIMULTANEOUSLY - and the results would be generated as a "movie" that players could watch. This encouraged players to think ahead, and predict their opponents actions, and to make flexible tactical plans - something I really think is lacking in both "real-time" strategy games, as well as "I go - You go" pure turn-based games.
Anyways - I just wanted to expound abouy my "unsung heroes" of the CG world, and see if anyone else here remembers these guys too! I have some current plans to try to make updates of Robosport and Empire Deluxe to Linux using SDL and possibly the Python wrapper for SDL - PyGame, but all I have are some graphics and terrain stuff - no real code as yet.
Sincerely,
Kevin Christie
Program in Neuroscience
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
kwchrist@uiuc.edu
Actually, I'd kill to see nettrek updated with just cooler graphics and say a 3D (rather than 2D) playing perspective, maybe a better communicating system.
Best team game I ever played.
I can't *believe* how much time I used to waste playing it (on a modem vs. guys with T1 lines no less)
I finished all 3, I dimmly remember how the 2nd one ended, the 3rd took so long to finish that I'll probably never forget it.
I'm assuming you're refering to the 3rd one, as the others I found more or less easy, though not by today's game standards.
In the end, your party members become Gods. By the time you get to the final battle you've got so much power that's it's pretty trivial unless you're unlucky enough to get hit with attacks that kill instantly.
But damn. Some of those riddles were pretty tough.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I think it would be really cool if somebody remade the old game "stunts" (also called 4d racing when microprose did it...) and stuck in decent multiplayer. I think that if somebody made a game like that, then the racing game market might go flat. :)
:D
Personally, I'm working on a game which is inspired by the old SNES RPGs, especially Chronotrigger. A lot of things taken for granted in those RPGs are quite hard to code (such as a SEVERAL towns, each with 50 NPCs, who all say something different AT LEAST TWICE, and room for plot twists too...It takes a really good system to keep track of all this
whether it ever gets finished is another thing...
It's been a long time.
A similar project is Exult, which is a rewrite of the Ultima 7/Serpent Isle engine. EA may not mind this one su much, however, since it still requires the original U7/SI data files to run.
Not ONE person has mentioned Archon! Possibly the greatest board game/action video game crossover ever. Too bad I don't have an emulator to play it on.
For Starcon 3 you might want to check the disco bins. I got mine from a disco bin at an Office Depot of all things for like $5.99. That said it was no where near the game Starcon 2 was. Although I did like the new ships in versus mode.
It's also worth checking out some abandonware sites, one of them may have it for download.
Best place to start looking for abandonware, that I've found, is the Abandonware ring. Maybe you'll find starcon 3. But I would say it is skipable.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Has anyone seen a new, graphically updated version of Frontier:Elite II? That game was the bees knees, baby. It was like only 600k on the Amiga but had a HUGE detailed polygone universe. It would be cool if someone stepped up to the plate and came out with the next version of that game; with an actual plot and different ways to explore the universe (like first person shooter inside space stations or something). Or heck, even a net game like that would be pretty sweet.
fucking goddamn goolash eating ip holders. when the gotterdamerung fuxking developer isn't to be confusking humpwell concerned when making a game. well go eat a pile of crap.
seriously. you abandon the goddamn fanbase and expect to get paid by someone giving you an honor anyway? fuck off.
moreover, remind me to spit in your general dircection at every opportunity.
Following a recent /. article, I've reinstalled and started playing FreeCiv.
-no broken link
http://www.frontier.co.uk
Elite 4 is in development at the moment.
I think it's highly amusing that they didn't bother securing permission from the copyright owner before starting their project.
I never finished Ultima I. I got to the endgame with Mondain and kept "killing" him, he kept turning into a pile of dust, and then into a bat, and then back into human form, over and over again.
max
The bottom line is that this wouldn't be happening if Electronic Arts hadn't run Ultima into the ground.
It's been nearly ten years since the last good Ultimas came out (U7, and Underworld 2). Since then we've gotten the half-hearted Ultima 8, an un-Ultima Ultima Online, a vastly flawed Ultima 9, and an ambitious but canned Ultima Online 2 (cancelled a week before beta testing was to begin).
The only current choice from EA for ultima right now is to play Ultima Online, which has traditionally been comepletely void of "Ultimaness". This could change, but it's still a four year old game on it's last legs.
Alternatively you could play Ultima 7 via Exult on Linux or Windows.
Or you could wait a bit for remakes like the article mentions, if EA ever lets them see the light of day.
But don't expect any new Ultima from EA. I hear things aren't going well for them as it is.
That's sort of a strange thing to ask...
I'd agree that some cutscenes are unnessessary (like the cutscenes from the original Blood -- what a waste of a CD!), but in a well designed game, they are the difference between a mediocre game with a crappy story and a masterpiece. Even in a crappy game they can make a huge difference. SiN wouldn't have been much fun without the cutscenes and story...
It's been a long time.
I find it interesting people are considering revamping the older games to work on the newer platforms. There are a couple of groups (most notably in comp.sys.apple2) who are trying to preserve the old games from being lost.
Unfortunately for those people the game companies, who have not had an original idea since Doom, are hostile to the notion of allowing 20 year old games into the public arena or to be preserved on CD. Many of these games are being lost as we speak due to deterioration of the floppies they originally came on. Of course many of the game disks were simply "reused".
Furthermore, most of these companies, including EA, deny their past and publicaly deny they ever made games for anything other than the PC or Mac. Try talking to them about their old Apple// games and you'll get a blank stare before getting thrown out of the office.
Given this hostility toward preserving their own past, is it any wonder there is hostility toward a re-release of their old titles...
Try this site: http://www.xyzzynews.com/
-WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
I rather doubt Richard wrote the NES version - Apple 2 version, sure. But he would have designed the game and partly written the original version.
Mind you they both use variants of the same chip, the ever lovely 6502, like the C64 did.
Star Control 2 is another all-time great computer game, and it too has a community trying to bring the game back (it never died in my opinion). These guys are making a sequal to the Star Control 2 universe... the game that Star Control should have been. There is also Freeciv, an open source Civilization clone. Anyway, the early Ultimas are classics, but I had to throw in a link about Star Con revival efforts. Its slightly on topic ;-)
Was released by Nintendo as Super Mario Bros 2/Mario All Stars/Mario Advance in 1988, 1993 and 2001.
So some games companies know the value of re-releasing good games.
Someone might well decide to release Elite on GBA for example, and I'm sure David Braben and Andy Bell(?) deserve a cut of that.
The Paris Copyright convention mumble mumble...
making clones of Pacman and asteroids... and then over the years we learned more about gameplay and design and created new stuff...
Have a look at "http://www.origin.ea.com/ultima/uc/". I have a copy, and they did a pretty good job getting everything to run on modern PCs. I don't think they're selling it any more, but it's unfair to claim EA don't care about Ultima at all.
1) Let's see, first off the game is too fucking
easy. I think I solved it in about 10 hours. LAME.
2) The narration is an exercise in complete faggotry. Every single spoken sentence is something like, "I quietly stepped into the room like I was wearing shoes made of feathers. Johnny was standing at the bar, holding a can of suds. The can was sweating like a runner after a long track meet." Definitely an exercise in complete and moronic simile. DUMB.
3) Max Payne's voice doesn't even match his likeness. The guy's likeness looks like some skinny little grunge dude. LAME.
4) The fights are stupid. Its too easy to kill everyone. Bullet-time is LAME. The bad guys have a STUPID AI. You also can drop and dive-roll constantly without getting tired. VERY dumb. Akin to bunny-hoppers in Half-Life. But with bullet-time you can kill everyone very easily, it seems.
5) There is only one ending. Predictable and stupid.
6) Pattern of play is this: 1) Move to next group of guys to kill, 2) Kill guys, 3) Save game. If you die, restore game and do it again.
7) NO interaction with the characters at all. Again, lame.
Well... I'll stop. The game sucks ass. Especially compared to others in its own genre. Deus Ex, Half-Life, NOLF are REAL examples of what this game should have strived to be better than.
All that said, the graphics were the best part. Very good graphics.
But the rest sucks.
If you think this game rocks, then you haven't played Deus Ex, NOLF, or the like. Go play a real game.
Baum's books were written from ~1900 - 1917. As copywrite used to last only 56 years, they passed into the public domain starting in the 1950's.
But the movie will probably stay copywrited forever, since Congress keeps extending the term.
Several of us have been working on another Ultima remake, Exult, for nearly three years. But my ultimate goal is to end up with a game engine and tools for making new games in the same style.
I think that it's a good idea as long as you don't get too carried away...I think that 3d ruined a lot of the old video game franchises like lode runner, frogger, etc...they may be new and fun but it just doesn't seem the same. I personally would like to see people develop more 2d games, just so I could get a good side-scroller fix. :-) When 3d first came out, the models looked like they were folded out of origami, and are only just now starting to look realistic. Imagine what 2d would be like if it had been developed all that time...
A group plans on utilizing the soon to be released siegelet engine for Dungeon Siege to remake "Ultima V: Lazarus."
Blah Blah Blah
I just finished playing through Martian Dreams. It's great having a 486 for the classic stuff. Origin made some great stuff in its day. Too bad those days are over :(
We'll just have to hope that Richard Garriott can revive the magic with his new company.
An as for the Wizard of Oz remark, I think he's more like the writer, director, and probably both the good witches (He was two kings on two continents, remember?).
Some of the old games are great. If they weren't the emulation pseudo-market on the net would be dead. There's one game I've been looking for, for ages. Its called Death Strike (me thinkz). Its a simple game where you play a barbarian which duels with another barbarian. The cool thing is you can do a move which decapitates your opponent. A green goblin thingy then drags the headless body away with the head being kicked off the single screen.
It simple but it'll take the stress out of a day filled with office politics.
Since this got shot down as a story post, I'll let you all know:
Wizardry 8 has finally gotten a release data: November 16. For those of us who have been waiting since c. 1993, this is great news. It is also great for those who long for the days of "Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord" (which came out in 1981, I think).
Anyway, for those looking for a classic feel with modern graphics and such, check this out.
Old-fashioned Ultima-style games with a more modern interface and look-&-feel are being produced right now! Check out Spiderweb Software. The games are all shareware -- crippleware, actually -- that let you get through about 1/3 of the way through play before you're forced to register to continue. But at $25, it's not all that painful to register.
And the brethren went away edified.
On the current PC Gamer, they review the top 10 freeware games, and they mention that Zork I, II and III are available for free. Check out this URL: http://www.activision.com/games/zgi/atrium/library
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