Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws
Darksun 2 (SSI) was an excellent RPG with the exception that it was virtually unfinishable due to the huge amount of bugs it had. SSI later released a patch but some of the bugs remained (having your best weapons occasionally vanish can be the most frustrating thing on a RPG), so IIRC they officially canceled support for the game, on the grounds that it had too many bugs to patch. Later on there were other flawed games, like Shogo, that could not be finished unless you had downloaded and installed the 21Mb patch! The most serious case IMHO was Ubisoft's Pool of Radiance 2. The game couldn't be uninstalled because if you attempted to, it'd delete your windows partition! :O Many users found this bug the hard way. -- Pedro R. Quaresma Salvador Caetano IMVT Div. Sistemas de Informação / Systems and Information Division Administração e Desenvolvimento Lotus Notes / Lotus Notes Administration and Development [EMAIL PROTECTED] // +351 22 7867000 (ext. 3492) Toyota Prius '01, Verdi Steel, 37K km. Para: [EMAIL PROTECTED] A/C: Ref: cc: Assunto: Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws Chris Newman [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04-12-2003 15:23 Solicita-se resposta a swcollect Mines of Titan by Westwood / Infocom from 1989 comes to mind. The game plot involves travelling to cities on the surface of Titan. The key city, Procesnium, was expected to be discovered and entered via an underground network. However, if you find the city on the surface of the planet and attempt to enter it the game freezes and throws up strange graphics chunks in the display window. At the time I assumed I had a bad copy, or played it on an incompatable machine (Tandy), etc. I went back to this game, on and off, for years but was hit with the same problem. I found out only recently that the problem is a coding bug. Drove me nuts! I spent many hours playing that game only to give up completely frustrated. - Original Message - From: Dan Chisarick [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:13 AM Subject: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws Just wondering if anyone has any good stories of an older game they were playing that was somehow unbeatable due to a coding flaw, or just downright not fun for design reasons. I've been looking for an original 'Doriath' for years. I stumbled on this site, and my free time being what it is these days, say what the hell and just read the walkthrough. The game is unbeatable! That's not in the good sense: http://members.shaw.ca/Doriath/Walkthru.htm If you read the walkthrough and then follow the links at the bottom, you never get an acknowledgment from the game that you've won. There's a link to an interview w/the developers that explains you've essentially won once you make it to a certain room. Its sad to see a game never being polished because of artificial deadlines (like that never happens anymore) or even more frighteningly, running out of memory/disk space. Second to this are games that take hours to beat, give you one life, have no save feature, and you can put the game in an unwinable state and not realize it. Console games (at least earlier ones) seem particular guilty of such offenses. Thrown in certain Mindscape games (Spell of Destruction and Fairlight I think fell into this hole, at least partially). Third would have to be needless player frustration: Jumping puzzles, tedious movement puzzles (Sierra 3D games are notorious for this), and I'd have to throw in my entering the words of Truth, Love and Courage in the wrong order after spending 2.5 hours getting to the bottom of a certain 8-level dungeon to get the Codex of Infinite Wisdom just to be kicked back to the surface. Augh! (Its corveramo , no veramocor :) Last, and somewhat humorously, ever type in a game in Basic or assembly from a magazine, and it didn't work? Seems the feature title ALWAYS had some little typo in it that would require you to buy next month's issue to resolve? :) With DVD-ROM titles, cheat codes, strategy guides, and every game either being Real Time Strategy or 3D shooter, endings are very well defined :) How else would they sell level add-on packs? -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ToyotaShopping - A sua Loja Toyota Online http://www.toyota.pt
Re: [SWCollect] Repairing floppies (long)
C.E. Forman stated: Is it okay to rewrite a collectible disk? I personally would say yes, but the last time I was in Europe one of my German collector friends insisted no, that would devalue it in his mind. He even went so far as to say he'd prefer a non-functional but unrewritten disk to a rewrite that worked perfectly. Anybody else have feelings on this? Well, I'm one of those nasty open the shrinkwrap guys, so a rewritten disk wouldn't bother me, as long as it was the same code. Obviously you don't want a pirated version on an original disk. That means no converting booters to regular MS-DOS, too. I'm sure that's exactly what you meant, but I thought I should state the obvious. 8) -- Lee K. Seitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] [Fwd: Re: 5.25 disks?]
On Dec 3, 2003, at 7:07 PM, Dan Chisarick wrote: [Snip] http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/jul02/ 0724palladiumwp.asp Anyway, I remember reading about how hard the emulator guys were working on emulating brutal encryption on certain standup arcade titles. That seemed effective. My guess is, if a console had 100% encrypted content on their distribution media, and all decryption was done on-chip (no decrypted data ever went over the pins on the chips), that would be pretty effective :) I'm waiting for some form of online activation system for consoles myself (for non-networked games). The problem is, trying to match wits with someone with detailed knowledge of a system and trying to keep you out is fun. Sometimes more fun than the game they're protecting. Hmm. I need to think through this. I wonder if the NSA would freak if there wasn't a backdoor. -- Edward Franks -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws
On Dec 4, 2003, at 8:13 AM, Dan Chisarick wrote: [Snip] Third would have to be needless player frustration: Jumping puzzles, tedious movement puzzles (Sierra 3D games are notorious for this), and I'd have to throw in my entering the words of Truth, Love and Courage in the wrong order after spending 2.5 hours getting to the bottom of a certain 8-level dungeon to get the Codex of Infinite Wisdom just to be kicked back to the surface. Augh! (Its corveramo , no veramocor :) I always hated the Final Fantasy games for having save points (how damn stupid) and the invisible encounters. Gee, my life doesn't run according to when I can save a game, nor do I always want to fight every battle. :sigh: I still haven't finished one yet. Last, and somewhat humorously, ever type in a game in Basic or assembly from a magazine, and it didn't work? Seems the feature title ALWAYS had some little typo in it that would require you to buy next month's issue to resolve? :) You mean, besides the typos *I* introduced? ;-) Oh for the days of typing in code from a poorly done magazine copy of a faint line-printer copy of a program... -- Edward Franks -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] [Fwd: Re: 5.25 disks?]
Edward Franks wrote: Hmm. I need to think through this. I wonder if the NSA would freak if there wasn't a backdoor. I think the RIAA would freak if there *was* a back door ;-) So-called back doors are more trouble than their worth. It means that anyone to figures it out can get into anything. There are far less back doors in security hardware/software than you think. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Repairing floppies (long)
Dan Chisarick wrote: - Would you fix a damaged box (say with a magic marker or even meticulous work with paper and adhesive) and regain its value? Even if the materials were from another original box? If you mean literally cutting and pasting, no. But it is very common to make a complete package with items from different incomplete packages. - For the 'still in original shrink' fans, is a perfect game that's reshrunk still as valuable? Even if it was reshrunk w/the identical wrap and identical machine? It is impossible to re-shrink a game with identical wrap and machine, so this question is moot. - If Richard Garriot had original disks, original labels, (ok, just original everything) and pieced together another dozen original Akalbeth's, are they as valuable as the first set? (Discount the fact that additional copies devalue the existing ones as there are now more of them.) No, because the item is valuable because of it's original age and publishing run. Anything he releases nowadays should be considered a reprint/repress, and treated accordingly. It may be difficult to determine which items were reprints and which weren't, but that doesn't mean the reprints should carry the same value. Value is primarily determined by how hard something is to get. Garriot's reprints would have a high value, since there would be only 12, but they shouldn't have as high a value as the original ones. - If you piece a truly rare game together from multiple copies (manual from here, lid from there, disk from somewhere else, etc.) is it as good as a complete set from the factory? (This is a tough one.) It's not tough at all -- it's indistinguishable from a complete factory set if you use materials from other factory sets. I'd say yes, it is as good. Games enjoy a particular virtue in that their data is digital and can be copied exactly 'till the end of time (to a point, but that's another story about nibble counts and the like). So even if you made an exact copy of the game, using the same data on the same media, has it retained its original value? Since it is indistinguishable from the original item, yes. My opinion: Nope, even though the disk will eventually fade into chaos. Always do your data restoration projects on copies. That way you can have your cake and eat it too. Since a rewritten disk is indistinguishable from a factory-perfect one, why do you have this opinion? Who could tell? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws
Edward Franks wrote: I always hated the Final Fantasy games for having save points (how This is much more a technical (and cost) limitation of the time, rather than bad design. Same goes for any old console game where you save by writing down passcodes (the game didn't have any non-volatile RAM, so the passcode is actually an encoded representation of where you are in the game, how many lives you have left, what you're carrying, etc.). Legend of Zelda was the first console game I can remember that had non-volatile RAM in it (as long as the little battery had juice :) You can still find many pages on the web that illustrate how to open your cart without destroying it to replace the battery.) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws
Dan Chisarick wrote: Just wondering if anyone has any good stories of an older game they were playing that was somehow unbeatable due to a coding flaw, or just downright not fun for design reasons. Any game that I get STUCK in is downright not fun. :-) I started playing Hack 3.x in 1986 and only finally finished it in 2000 -- 14 years later. To date, that game remains the one game I truly stuck it out for until the bitter end. I never consulted online walkthroughs, read all the cookie fortunes (for which several were obvious red herrings), etc. A friend beat it in college and I ended up calling him for a tip, but I still consider that in the vein of playing it properly (we had played it together in college until he could afford his own computer). Tass Times in Tonetown was begun by me on a PC in 1986, continued on an Apple II GS in 1987, and finally finished on the DOS re-release (Interplay 10th anniversary version) in 1997. I couldn't get past the eyeball/ear guys protecting the entrance to Snarl's place. After expressing my frustration online, some kind soul took pity on me in 1997 and wrote me personally a walkthough to the game. And speaking of ironic/unbeatable games (see earlier message), Tass Times in Tonetown has a bittersweet ending as well. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
[SWCollect] Turbo Lister drawbacks?
Has anyone found any drawbacks using ebay's Turbo Lister? It was free, so I thought I'd give it a shot, but I don't want to use it if it's going to foul things up. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] [Fwd: Re: 5.25 disks?]
Jim Leonard stated: It certainly worked for the Atari Jaguar. Emulators and homebrew games were impossible until somebody cleverly broke the encryption using jaglink'd development systems running a brute-force technique. It took almost 9 months, if memory serves. (Ironically, the Jaguar rights were released to the public shortly thereafter :) Perhaps my memory is faulty, but the way I remember it, Hasbro announced that the Jaguar was an open console (meaning anyone could develop games for it), but didn't have (or didn't know where to find) the encryption algorithm. This made their statement practically meaningless at the time. I also seem to recall 4-Play's web page up with a countdown to when the brute force method would be done. And when the time was up, they still hadn't made an announcement. -- Lee K. Seitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Humans are unpredictable
Jim Leonard stated: I intentionally posted an item for auction on ebay that I was convinced nobody would want. Guess what? With three days left on my auctions, it's the only one with a bid! I am still laughing. (See http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItemsuserid=theoldskoolpc for details) I think you've just witnessed the power of low minimum bids. -- Lee K. Seitz [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Humans are unpredictable
Lee K. Seitz wrote: I intentionally posted an item for auction on ebay that I was convinced nobody would want. Guess what? With three days left on my auctions, it's the only one with a bid! I am still laughing. (See http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItemsuserid=theoldskoolpc for details) I think you've just witnessed the power of low minimum bids. I guess I have. :) I swear I thought I would never get rid of that thing. I just now accepted a Buy It Now for a $20 item to be shipped to Israel -- he wants the player only in a flat rate envelope. I think he's crazy (damage), but for $25 I'm not going to worry about it too much. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] [Fwd: Re: 5.25 disks?]
Lee K. Seitz wrote: I also seem to recall 4-Play's web page up with a countdown to when the brute force method would be done. And when the time was up, they still hadn't made an announcement. They hadn't updated the page -- several homebrew Jaguar games do indeed exist (check Songbird Productions for a few) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Turbo Lister drawbacks?
I swear by it. There are a few minor UI things I would change, but it's trivial. It's a huge timesaver, for me anyway. My ads tend to be big and it's a hassle listing a second copy of an item after the original item disapears from ebay's database. All your ads stay in the database making uploading a snap. The only gripe I have is that you can't do a global search and replace for every ad in the database, for example, when I switched all of my game auctions from Priority Mail to Media Mail as the method stated in the ad. However, you can use Passkey Pro (I think that's the name of it) to find the password to open the Turbo Lister database directly (it's an encrypted Access file) and use MS-Access to make global changes. - Original Message - From: Jim Leonard [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:26 PM Subject: [SWCollect] Turbo Lister drawbacks? Has anyone found any drawbacks using ebay's Turbo Lister? It was free, so I thought I'd give it a shot, but I don't want to use it if it's going to foul things up. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
RE: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws
One of my all-time favorites, Ultima Underworld, had a fatal flaw. I'm guessing it was hardware specific and not on everyone's PC. After spending a couple of weeks with the game, some items from my inventory floated out of my backpack and into the air...with no way to retrieve them and no way to win at that point. I called up tech support and they said there were other similar problems reported (although specifics varied). They sent me a patch, and then played the game to completion. (After restarting) Hugh -Original Message- From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 11:36 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws Chris Newman wrote: Mines of Titan by Westwood / Infocom from 1989 comes to mind. The game plot involves travelling to cities on the surface of Titan. The key city, Procesnium, was expected to be discovered and entered via an underground network. However, if you find the city on the surface of the planet and attempt to enter it the game freezes and throws up strange graphics chunks in the display window. At the time I assumed I had a bad copy, or played it on an incompatable machine (Tandy), etc. I went back to this game, on and off, for years but was hit with the same problem. I found out only recently that the problem is a coding bug. From Usenet: Because of an obvious yet uncorrected bug, the game will crash and burn every time you enter Proscenium the normal way from the overland map. Instead, you are required to go through a lengthy lava vents dungeon to enter the city. Then the game will give you some text that will leave you wondering why the hell the bug wasn't corrected--it would've been so easy, given the plot twist revealed in the text. With this knowledge, you should go back and try to finish the game; it's a great game. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws
That reminds me about The Immortal on the PC. *Twice* I played it to the dragon, twice the @#(%@(#*% thing froze on me on that board. I swear I love the mood of that game (simple as it was). I called support and they said It shouldn't do that. Never got to the end. It'd probably take me an hour to do so, so I should probably try again some day. On Dec 4, 2003, at 11:26 PM, Hugh Falk wrote: One of my all-time favorites, Ultima Underworld, had a fatal flaw. I'm guessing it was hardware specific and not on everyone's PC. After spending a couple of weeks with the game, some items from my inventory floated out of my backpack and into the air...with no way to retrieve them and no way to win at that point. I called up tech support and they said there were other similar problems reported (although specifics varied). They sent me a patch, and then played the game to completion. (After restarting) Hugh -Original Message- From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 11:36 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws Chris Newman wrote: Mines of Titan by Westwood / Infocom from 1989 comes to mind. The game plot involves travelling to cities on the surface of Titan. The key city, Procesnium, was expected to be discovered and entered via an underground network. However, if you find the city on the surface of the planet and attempt to enter it the game freezes and throws up strange graphics chunks in the display window. At the time I assumed I had a bad copy, or played it on an incompatable machine (Tandy), etc. I went back to this game, on and off, for years but was hit with the same problem. I found out only recently that the problem is a coding bug. From Usenet: Because of an obvious yet uncorrected bug, the game will crash and burn every time you enter Proscenium the normal way from the overland map. Instead, you are required to go through a lengthy lava vents dungeon to enter the city. Then the game will give you some text that will leave you wondering why the hell the bug wasn't corrected--it would've been so easy, given the plot twist revealed in the text. With this knowledge, you should go back and try to finish the game; it's a great game. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws
One word: Darklands. On Dec 4, 2003, at 10:26 AM, Pedro Quaresma wrote: Darksun 2 (SSI) was an excellent RPG with the exception that it was virtually unfinishable due to the huge amount of bugs it had. SSI later released a patch but some of the bugs remained (having your best weapons occasionally vanish can be the most frustrating thing on a RPG), so IIRC they officially canceled support for the game, on the grounds that it had too many bugs to patch. Later on there were other flawed games, like Shogo, that could not be finished unless you had downloaded and installed the 21Mb patch! The most serious case IMHO was Ubisoft's Pool of Radiance 2. The game couldn't be uninstalled because if you attempted to, it'd delete your windows partition! :O Many users found this bug the hard way. -- Pedro R. Quaresma Salvador Caetano IMVT Div. Sistemas de Informação / Systems and Information Division Administração e Desenvolvimento Lotus Notes / Lotus Notes Administration and Development [EMAIL PROTECTED] // +351 22 7867000 (ext. 3492) Toyota Prius '01, Verdi Steel, 37K km. x-tad-smaller /x-tad-smallerx-tad-smallerPara: [EMAIL PROTECTED]>/x-tad-smallerx-tad-smallerA/C: /x-tad-smallerx-tad-smallerRef: /x-tad-smallerx-tad-smallercc: /x-tad-smallerx-tad-smallerAssunto: Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws/x-tad-smallerx-tad-smallerChris Newman [EMAIL PROTECTED]>/x-tad-smallerx-tad-smaller04-12-2003 15:23/x-tad-smallerx-tad-smallerSolicita-se resposta a swcollect/x-tad-smallerMines of Titan by Westwood / Infocom from 1989 comes to mind. The game plot involves travelling to cities on the surface of Titan. The key city, Procesnium, was expected to be discovered and entered via an underground network. However, if you find the city on the surface of the planet and attempt to enter it the game freezes and throws up strange graphics chunks in the display window. At the time I assumed I had a bad copy, or played it on an incompatable machine (Tandy), etc. I went back to this game, on and off, for years but was hit with the same problem. I found out only recently that the problem is a coding bug. Drove me nuts! I spent many hours playing that game only to give up completely frustrated. - Original Message - From: Dan Chisarick [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:13 AM Subject: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws > Just wondering if anyone has any good stories of an older game they > were playing that was somehow unbeatable due to a coding flaw, or just > downright not fun for design reasons. I've been looking for an > original 'Doriath' for years. I stumbled on this site, and my free > time being what it is these days, say what the hell and just read the > walkthrough. The game is unbeatable! That's not in the good sense: > > http://members.shaw.ca/Doriath/Walkthru.htm > > If you read the walkthrough and then follow the links at the bottom, > you never get an acknowledgment from the game that you've won. There's > a link to an interview w/the developers that explains you've > essentially won once you make it to a certain room. Its sad to see a > game never being polished because of artificial deadlines (like that > never happens anymore) or even more frighteningly, running out of > memory/disk space. > > Second to this are games that take hours to beat, give you one life, > have no save feature, and you can put the game in an unwinable state > and not realize it. Console games (at least earlier ones) seem > particular guilty of such offenses. Thrown in certain Mindscape games > (Spell of Destruction and Fairlight I think fell into this hole, at > least partially). > > Third would have to be needless player frustration: Jumping puzzles, > tedious movement puzzles (Sierra 3D games are notorious for this), and > I'd have to throw in my entering the words of Truth, Love and Courage > in the wrong order after spending 2.5 hours getting to the bottom of a > certain 8-level dungeon to get the Codex of Infinite Wisdom just to be > kicked back to the surface. Augh! (Its corveramo , no veramocor > :) > > Last, and somewhat humorously, ever type in a game in Basic or assembly > from a magazine, and it didn't work? Seems the feature title ALWAYS > had some little typo in it that would require you to buy next month's > issue to resolve? :) > > With DVD-ROM titles, cheat codes, strategy guides, and every game > either being Real Time Strategy or 3D shooter, endings are very well > defined :) How else would they sell level add-on packs? > > > -- > This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to > the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' > Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ >
RE: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws
What was wrong with Darklands.I dont remember having a problem. Hugh -Original Message- From: Dan Chisarick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:07 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws One word: Darklands. On Dec 4, 2003, at 10:26 AM, Pedro Quaresma wrote: Darksun 2 (SSI) was an excellent RPG with the exception that it was virtually unfinishable due to the huge amount of bugs it had. SSI later released a patch but some of the bugs remained (having your best weapons occasionally vanish can be the most frustrating thing on a RPG), so IIRC they officially canceled support for the game, on the grounds that it had too many bugs to patch. Later on there were other flawed games, like Shogo, that could not be finished unless you had downloaded and installed the 21Mb patch! The most serious case IMHO was Ubisoft's Pool of Radiance 2. The game couldn't be uninstalled because if you attempted to, it'd delete your windows partition! :O Many users found this bug the hard way. -- Pedro R. Quaresma Salvador Caetano IMVT Div. Sistemas de Informação / Systems and Information Division Administração e Desenvolvimento Lotus Notes / Lotus Notes Administration and Development [EMAIL PROTECTED] // +351 22 7867000 (ext. 3492) Toyota Prius '01, Verdi Steel, 37K km. Para: [EMAIL PROTECTED] A/C: Ref: cc: Assunto: Re: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws Chris Newman [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04-12-2003 15:23 Solicita-se resposta a swcollect Mines of Titan by Westwood / Infocom from 1989 comes to mind. The game plot involves travelling to cities on the surface of Titan. The key city, Procesnium, was expected to be discovered and entered via an underground network. However, if you find the city on the surface of the planet and attempt to enter it the game freezes and throws up strange graphics chunks in the display window. At the time I assumed I had a bad copy, or played it on an incompatable machine (Tandy), etc. I went back to this game, on and off, for years but was hit with the same problem. I found out only recently that the problem is a coding bug. Drove me nuts! I spent many hours playing that game only to give up completely frustrated. - Original Message - From: Dan Chisarick [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:13 AM Subject: [SWCollect] Vintage games w/fatal flaws Just wondering if anyone has any good stories of an older game they were playing that was somehow unbeatable due to a coding flaw, or just downright not fun for design reasons. I've been looking for an original 'Doriath' for years. I stumbled on this site, and my free time being what it is these days, say what the hell and just read the walkthrough. The game is unbeatable! That's not in the good sense: http://members.shaw.ca/Doriath/Walkthru.htm If you read the walkthrough and then follow the links at the bottom, you never get an acknowledgment from the game that you've won. There's a link to an interview w/the developers that explains you've essentially won once you make it to a certain room. Its sad to see a game never being polished because of artificial deadlines (like that never happens anymore) or even more frighteningly, running out of memory/disk space. Second to this are games that take hours to beat, give you one life, have no save feature, and you can put the game in an unwinable state and not realize it. Console games (at least earlier ones) seem particular guilty of such offenses. Thrown in certain Mindscape games (Spell of Destruction and Fairlight I think fell into this hole, at least partially). Third would have to be needless player frustration: Jumping puzzles, tedious movement puzzles (Sierra 3D games are notorious for this), and I'd have to throw in my entering the words of Truth, Love and Courage in the wrong order after spending 2.5 hours getting to the bottom of a certain 8-level dungeon to get the Codex of Infinite Wisdom just to be kicked back to the surface. Augh! (Its corveramo , no veramocor :) Last, and somewhat humorously, ever type in a game in Basic or assembly from a magazine, and it didn't work? Seems the feature title ALWAYS had some little typo in it that would require you to buy next month's issue to resolve? :) With DVD-ROM titles, cheat codes, strategy guides, and every game either being Real Time Strategy or 3D shooter, endings are very well defined :) How else would they sell level add-on packs? -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
