Will Exile ever be carbonized?
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| Author | Topic: Will Exile ever be carbonized? |
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Master
Member # 4614
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written Thursday, February 9 2006 15:01
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Mods are the police; admins are the judges. -------------------- -ben4808 Posts: 3360 | Registered: Friday, June 25 2004 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Thursday, February 9 2006 15:31
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I can also spread the vicious rumor that Stareye is fond of smiting. Indeed, engaging in smitage is one of his favorite activities, as long as the level of smititude is equal to the degree of the crime. EDIT: For the record, we're taking over discussion from this thread. [ Thursday, February 09, 2006 15:32: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Thursday, February 9 2006 16:00
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Next time someone demands free registration codes multiple times, let's tell them that the registration code is youareamoron or something along those lines and see how long it takes them to figure it out. Dikiyoba. Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Master
Member # 4614
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written Thursday, February 9 2006 19:55
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Unless you're lucky, he'll try it, it won't work, and he'll ask again. You can always just tell him to start typing sequential numbers in. -------------------- -ben4808 Posts: 3360 | Registered: Friday, June 25 2004 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6489
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written Friday, February 10 2006 01:09
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There is a chance, however small, that someone could fake a registration by entering random or sequential numbers (More likely with sequential if you keep at it, but if you do, you have no life). -------------------- "You're drinking liquor because you're thirsty? How nasty is your freaking water?" —Lazarus Spiderweb Chat Room Avernum RP • Summaries • OoC • Roster Shadow Vale - My site, home of the Spiderweb Chat Database, BoA Scenario Database, & the A1 Quest List, among other things. Posts: 1556 | Registered: Sunday, November 20 2005 08:00 |
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Master
Member # 4614
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written Friday, February 10 2006 09:05
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However, by the time they got done with that, they'd wonder why they couldn't just spare $25 in the first place. -------------------- -ben4808 Posts: 3360 | Registered: Friday, June 25 2004 07:00 |
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Board Administrator
Member # 1
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written Saturday, February 11 2006 13:49
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"Jeff has said that if support for Classic mode is ever completely dropped from newer Macs, he'll do what's necessary to update all his older games so they still run." I did? I know I said this about the newer games (Avernum, Geneforge), but I don't remember making such a grim blanket promise about everything I ever did. I won't be Carbonizing the Exile games. Sometimes, the old games just have to drift off into the past. (And the Exile games are over 8 years old now. OMG!) Reworking that ancient code would be a real pain. My time is much better spent working on new games. And if you are angry about this, I suggest blaming Apple. I didn't ask them to completely redo their OS architecture for the THIRD time since I started this business. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 3040
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written Saturday, February 11 2006 14:01
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quote:Not exactly; it's only three if you blur things a little. 68k to PPC was both a system change and a hardware change; OS 9 to OS X was only a system change; and the latest switch of PPC to Intel is only a hardware change. So it's not really three changes whether "redo their OS architecture" refers to system change or to hardware change. Either way it's only two. To clarify: Major system changes: 7.x to 8.x/9.x, and 9.x to 10.x Hardware changes: 68k to PPC, PPC to Intel. -------------------- 5.0.1.0.0.0.0.1.0... Posts: 508 | Registered: Thursday, May 29 2003 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 6787
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written Saturday, February 11 2006 16:22
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I never liked macs in the first place. I find them... to be frank, plastic boxes of crap. No offence to mac lovers. -------------------- "I come for the chugga... but I stay for the wiggy wugga."-Cheerleader Posts: 35 | Registered: Saturday, February 11 2006 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, February 11 2006 17:59
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And I've always found PCs to be plastic boxes of crap. But we can agree to disagree! —Alorael, who would like it very much if a Mac-vs-PC debate did not happen here. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 2245
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written Saturday, February 11 2006 23:46
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I'd have to agree with Jeff. It's not a game developer's responsibility to rewrite and alter their pre-existing games so that they can run on new/improved OS's which come out years later. The ball is in the OS developer's court to update the OS so that it can run all pre-existing programs. Sadly, Microsoft and Macintosh haven't taken this lesson to heart. -------------------- VIVE LA TAKERS! VIVE LA REBELLION! VIVE LA GHALDRING! Posts: 522 | Registered: Friday, November 15 2002 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Sunday, February 12 2006 00:01
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quote:Well, if I may play devil's advocate for a moment, why should they do so? How many sales would it gain hardware and OS developers to make compromises on other aspects of the product (schedule, budget or other features) just so that those few of us still using very old software can continue to do so? [ Sunday, February 12, 2006 00:02: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 2245
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written Sunday, February 12 2006 00:23
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Thuryl: quote:And what is the point of getting an 'updated' version of the OS, if you can no longer run programs which worked on the older version of the OS? How can you call that a valid update? I'm not a Mac user, so I can't comment regarding the new Mac OS systems. But let me tell you, Windows XP is buggy and useless as ever before. Sure, it looks pretty, but since when did eye candy = compatability? And to add insult to injury, I can't run kick ass classics like 'Heretic', 'Mortal Kombat' and the Ultima series without an emulator (and even those emulators aren't flawless). And great games which could run in Win 95 and Win 98 can't run in the 'new and improved' WinXP. I'm confused as to what 'compromises' the producers would have to make, given that their previous version of the OS could quite easily run the classics. Why shouldn't their updated OS versions be able to? There's nothing revolutionary involved in making certain programs run on your updated OS, which you were able to run on the older versions. Quite simply, if you're going to make me pay $200+ for a operating system, don't give me buggy trash which can't run diddly squat. Give me something which can do EVERYTHING that the previous versions of that OS can do, and MORE. Jeff should not be expected to alter his games to fit the ever changing OS's. The producers of the OS should ensure that their updated OS should be able to run programs which the previous versions of their OS were able to run. I don't think that's an unrealistic expectation. -------------------- VIVE LA TAKERS! VIVE LA REBELLION! VIVE LA GHALDRING! Posts: 522 | Registered: Friday, November 15 2002 08:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
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written Sunday, February 12 2006 00:24
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I would have to agree with Thuryl, and emphasize that software manufacturers disprove this "lesson." It makes no sense from a business perspective to spend a wheelbarrow of money creating a LCD product when history has proven that people will accept whatever it is you have to sell. Like Win98, WinSE. I'm sure like some Mac OS too. It is just how it is. Adapt or be left behind. -------------------- quote: Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Sunday, February 12 2006 00:31
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quote:How much experience do you have with programming? Updating software isn't just a matter of adding new things on to the existing code -- if you try to manage updates that way, especially in a large company with hundreds of programmers and a significant employee turnover rate, your code quickly becomes buggy and impossible to maintain. A major update often involves completely rewriting large parts of the code, and it can't always be made to behave exactly the same way as it did before, especially since the people who wrote the original code may not be around any more to explain how it works. Also, quite a few third-party programs exploit bugs, quirks or undocumented features in specific system software versions in order to do things more efficiently. In other words, they should never have worked in the first place, and by fixing the bugs in the old OS you stop some things that relied on the bugs from working in the new OS. This is particularly the case for very old programs, which often had to squeeze as much performance as possible out of their code even if it meant doing things in a way that didn't comply with officially supported procedures. As an example: early versions of the Macintosh system software used 24-bit memory addressing, which basically meant that they assumed your computer had no more than 8 MB of RAM. As a result, many programs were also written which assumed that your computer had no more than 8 MB of RAM. At first, this was fine, since early computers did indeed have no more than 8 MB of RAM -- but eventually, newer computers supported more than that and newer applications needed more than that, and 32-bit addressing was invented. This allowed computers to make use of much more memory, but it also meant that some of the old applications that assumed you had no more than 8 MB of RAM didn't work any more. Being able to have more than 8 MB of RAM was pretty obviously a good thing, and was considered to outweigh the disadvantages of losing compatibility with some programs. At first, 24-bit addressing remained as an option to allow compatibility with older programs (at the cost of preventing you from accessing more than 8 MB of RAM), but eventually the system software itself came to require more than 8 MB of RAM to run, so the option of 24-bit addressing had to be dropped. If you're worried about updating your OS, wait for a couple of friends to update and find out how it's worked for them. If you don't like the look of the new version, don't buy it. Nobody's forcing you to pay for updates. [ Sunday, February 12, 2006 00:50: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
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written Sunday, February 12 2006 07:41
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quote:In that case, you'll find that your sales of Exile games will drop through the floor in a couple of years. You won't be making any money off of them, because only a very small handful of people will have computers that run OS 9. And how soon before Windows follows suit? Already the Lyceum is getting questions about compatibility issues with the latest versions of Windows. With that in mind, I have a suggestion: release the source for BoE. It would do you no harm, because you've rewritten the engines for your newer games so many times since then (a graphics rewrite for Nethergate, an couple of shifts for Avernum, a Carbonization for Avernum 3, an almost complete rewrite for Geneforge, and then another almost complete rewrite for Avernum 4) that the BoE engine doesn't even resemble the engine you're working with now. And you won't be making any money off of these games, because only a select few people will even be able to play them anymore. It won't hurt you, and it will help us a lot. You did a great thing by releasing the source of the scenario editor for BoA. In the time since it's been out, the community has added a 3D editing mode, a way of previewing icon adjustment, a "realistic" mode that shows line of sight, and more. We could do the same and more for BoE, which we've been dying to get our hands on ever since we started noticing its peculiar bugs, bugs that were too obscure and difficult to track down for you to fix, but that we, the community, have the time and the motivation to fix. But the problem is that the most frustrating bugs in BoE aren't in the editor; they're in the application itself! Jeff, in a little while, no one but the hardcore old-school gamers (people in this community) will be able to play Blades of Exile. It would be a great gesture to hand us over the game after we've made so many scenarios and done so much work on it. Giving us BoE would make the community happy, make your customers happy, and probably not cost you a dime. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5991
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written Sunday, February 12 2006 12:56
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quote:This may seem an idiotic response ,but why not have someone carbonize it for you that way your sales won't go down.Honestly Macs need the compatibily button us Windows users have. [ Tuesday, February 14, 2006 16:01: Message edited by: Hades ] -------------------- George Bush is a Nazi - Eric Cartmen I'm not as think you stoned I am Visit the RIFQ Forums Posts: 462 | Registered: Tuesday, June 21 2005 07:00 |
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Board Administrator
Member # 1
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written Sunday, February 12 2006 15:37
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"With that in mind, I have a suggestion: release the source for BoE." I've been considering something along these lines for a while, but I need to put some actual thought into how I want to approach it. Turning my games into freeware is, for obvious reasons, REALLY a last resort. But I imagine, sometime in the forseeable future, something like this will happen to the Mac version. But it's sort of a "Only when it's completely abandonware" kind of step. - Jeff Vogel -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Sunday, February 12 2006 16:35
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It's great that you're at least willing to consider it; I'm sure that there are many people in the community who would greatly appreciate it. Thank you. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Post Navel Trauma ^_^
Member # 67
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written Monday, February 13 2006 09:27
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I suspect that it will be possible to run the Windows versions of Exile games on an Intel Mac using Wine. It's certainly what I'm hoping, as my next computer will be one such. -------------------- Barcoorah: I even did it to a big dorset ram. desperance.net - Don't follow this link Posts: 1798 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 6796
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 12:34
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I *really* hope that the Exile Trilogy gets carbonized. I started playing on Exile III and became hooked so I played Exile II. Then I became hooked on that and played Exile I. I didn't care for Blades of Exile. I played Avernum III but it's just not the same. It's exciting to see the continuation of the story line in Avernum 4. Posts: 8 | Registered: Tuesday, February 14 2006 08:00 |
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Master
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 17:58
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I imagine people are still buying BoE in dwindling numbers. -------------------- -ben4808 Posts: 3360 | Registered: Friday, June 25 2004 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6489
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written Tuesday, February 14 2006 22:45
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I just bought it a few weeks ago. Of course, I'm a PC-user, so the absence of carbonizations means very little to me. [ Tuesday, February 14, 2006 22:46: Message edited by: Tyranicus ] -------------------- "You're drinking liquor because you're thirsty? How nasty is your freaking water?" —Lazarus Spiderweb Chat Room Avernum RP • Summaries • OoC • Roster Shadow Vale - My site, home of the Spiderweb Chat Database, BoA Scenario Database, & the A1 Quest List, among other things. Posts: 1556 | Registered: Sunday, November 20 2005 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 6908
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written Wednesday, April 5 2006 20:42
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quote:I think what Waylander meant is that one dozen of "hundreds of programmers" could write a good emulator in a couple of days, so that it won't be an "adding new things on to the existing code" but adding a new thing to the completely rewritten code. I'm not sure for Mac OS, but WinXP (along with W2000) has a kind of one. Although it sucks, still some even some DOS oldies can run on WinXP. As for Jeffs answer about "some old games" which "have to drift off into the past", I'd like to add, that it doesn't go with games we call "Classics of a genre". I remember good old Darklands by MicroProse, which caught me even before Exile I, and now they are gone because WinXP DOS-emulator doesn't support high memory enhancement. Good I have an opportunity to use an old Pentium I based PC with Win98 on it and still play that pre-Exile game. PS. Sorry for making alive a dead thread :) -------------------- 9 masks sing in a choir: Gnome Dwarf Slith Giant Troll Troglo Human Nephil Vahnatai "If the mask under mask to SE of mask to the left of mask and to the right of me is the mask below the mask to the right of mask to the right of mask below me is the same, then who am I?" radix: +2 nicothodes: +1 salmon:+1 Posts: 203 | Registered: Tuesday, March 14 2006 08:00 |
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