Octopus Overlords

I wish the rest of the world would stop calling soccer "football". It makes it tough to find a "real football" game.

dbt1949 wrote: Wed May 02, 2018 7:07 pm It makes it tough to find a "real football" game.

That's mostly because they don't exist. The few that do are pretty much crap. I hate EA for taking Madden off of PC since they have the football monopoly right now. I'm not about to buy an Xbox just for Madden.

This made me feel old: the indie gaming class of 2008. Audiosurf is a decade old? Jesus.

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... Slitherine is offering Beta Test Access to a "Civ-Like" (my word, not theirs) ... "a turn-based 4X strategy game set in the ancient world coming in Q3 of this year. (their words)

NDA required

<--- 1min trailer

Used to love this stuff but now that Im old they are just too in depth and slow for me to enjoy. Id really love a new Centurion Defender of Rome. A simple one just like it was then. Not some "Buy your soldiers their own sandals" type thing.

Greenman Gaming now lets you link your STeam account and offers some stuff to do that. But has anyone done it and what are the downsides other than less privacy?

Daehawk wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 12:21 pm Greenman Gaming now lets you link your STeam account and offers some stuff to do that. But has anyone done it and what are the downsides other than less privacy?

I bought Tropico 5 from Greenman (of whom I'd never heard before). They gave me a Steam activation code. It worked. That probably doesn't answer your question, apart from showing a functional relationship.

Daehawk wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 12:21 pm Greenman Gaming now lets you link your STeam account and offers some stuff to do that. But has anyone done it and what are the downsides other than less privacy?

I've had it set that way for quite a while, it's just uses your Steam account information that is set on Public, like games owned, time played, that sort of thing. There's a page on your Green Man Gaming account that will show the information for games on Steam that you got through GMG. No biggie.

jztemple2 wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 4:43 pm

Daehawk wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 12:21 pm Greenman Gaming now lets you link your STeam account and offers some stuff to do that. But has anyone done it and what are the downsides other than less privacy?

I've had it set that way for quite a while, it's just uses your Steam account information that is set on Public, like games owned, time played, that sort of thing. There's a page on your Green Man Gaming account that will show the information for games on Steam that you got through GMG. No biggie.

Me too but it stopped working as they've noted. And mine still isn't working yet after making things Public... GMG still says "Sit tight and wait until we fetch your gameplay data - it shouldn't take long!". Umm, okay. Still waiting.

Same thing is true for me of GOG Connect.

Steam just recently changed their behind-the-scenes privacy settings and broke gazillions of sites that used Steam data before.

I don't have a lot of storage in my house for things I don't immediately need. Five boxes in the kids' closet, three in mine, and that includes Christmas decorations. Of the five or so boxes left, I just realized that one consists only of strategy guides, and another is nothing but PC game manuals.

The time may have come.

I wouldn't beat yourself up over it - Christmas decorations are overrated anyway.

Blackhawk wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 12:31 pm
The time may have come.

I still have Amiga stuff ..

I want you to stop and imagine how many boxes of PC game boxes I have.

I threw my boxes away five or six years ago, along with all of my jewel cases. I kept them around in case someone wanted to trade. That, of course, was before Steam killed the trading forum. Initially I just took all of the cardboard inserts out and folded them flat, but eventually I tossed them. I ended up keeping two or three that had special meaning.

My huge collection of PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, and other assorted gaming magazines went a year or two ago.

I'll probably do the same with the manuals and guides. I'll keep those that I wrote or worked with people who wrote, a few that hold meaning, and a few that had really good content beyond just the game mechanics (Fallout comes to mind.) I'd guess maybe 20 out of hundreds will qualify. The rest will go.

But it hurts.

Next? All the spare PC parts I've got stashed. Three of the boxes are just parts. I mean, I'm sure I'll need all 30 IDE cables, half a dozen CD-ROM drives, a couple of dial-up modems, old video cards with defective fans, a dozen mouse pads, extra keys for keyboards I don't own, and everything else.

I wonder if the CH stick, throttle, and pedals I have in there are worth anything?

Interesting, CH says all three (Fighterstick, Pro Throttle, Pro Pedals) work with Windows 10, and new would run about $360 total on Amazon. Ebay seems like $150-200 for the three. I've never sold anything on ebay, though, and am very hesitant to start.

I have one small shelf of Sierra games that I worked on -- the old-style big boxes with full manuals. Most of them probably wouldn't install or run anymore, but I can't part with them.

Kraken wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 10:12 pm I have one small shelf of Sierra games that I worked on -- the old-style big boxes with full manuals. Most of them probably wouldn't install or run anymore, but I can't part with them.

You worked for Sierra? Did you ever work with Steve Beiler?

I've got a couple of those shelves too, with games like Alpha Centauri and Falcon 4.0. Also a smaller shelf with the "new" smaller sized boxes for items like all the Civ 4 games and expansions, SWAT 4 and The Movies. I think the first small box game I got was Sid Meier's Sim Golf. And one shelf with the Jane's flight sims; their spiral bound manuals are awesome.

Sadly, I traded away all my pre-PC gaming board games; I still wish I had my copy of Campaign for North Africa, just to look at it

Not related to PC games, but my mom sold my X-Wing in a yard sale because the batteries corroded. *sigh* You can never go back.

Always meant to ask if he knew Metaljesusrocks or Drunkenmasterpaul from Sierra

For one summer I worked at Spectrum HoloByte, which was, for a little while, MicroProse, as a QA grunt. I think my name was in Flight of the Intruder (in the supplement only) and Stunt Driver manual.

Liked both companies but even back then I couldn't figure why Microprose was bought by SH. I always thought Microprose was the much bigger company. I guess because of the games I had a skewed view.

Funny how when I was young I never thought companies and stores I knew and loved and were around since before I could remember would maybe be gone one day. its happened so many times now.

The story basically went like this:

MicroProse made some money from Civ and other sims, and they expanded into areas they never should have and generated little returns. They jumped into arcade machines and spend $$$$ creating an adventure game engine. They also went public. When the two expansions did not pan out, they went into a big cash crunch, and apparently Wild Bill Stealey was personal friends with Gilman Louie, and Gilman Louie apparently worked out some deal to buy MicroProse and did a merger, and basically took over the MicroProse name. The problem is MicroProse is based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Spectrum HoloByte is based in Alameda, California. The two never really meshed.

I guess we don't have a dedicated thread for Lords of the Fallen? I picked this up on super sale a few weeks ago and managed to try it last night. I should have done more homework as I didn't see "If you like Dark Souls..." as part of the commentary. I don't mind a challenge, but the controls seem super slow. I'm playing with an Xbox controller (FWIW) and my dude feels like he's carrying around 100lbs of sand. Yeah, he's wearing full plate armor (so I guess that makes sense), but then why am I'm diving into somersaults around a bad guy? I'm going to restart with the nimble thief-like character and see if that helps. I think I'm just really spoiled and want combat to be like The Witcher. Or maybe I just like things a bit more action-y and less technical where I need to time something within .023 seconds for it to be effective.

It does look beautiful, so that's at least something.

jztemple2 wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 10:45 pm

Kraken wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 10:12 pm I have one small shelf of Sierra games that I worked on -- the old-style big boxes with full manuals. Most of them probably wouldn't install or run anymore, but I can't part with them.

You worked for Sierra? Did you ever work with Steve Beiler?

I worked for Impressions Games, a small studio (usually 30-40 people) under Sierra, which was ultimately ruined by a series of corporate overlords. Impressions specialized in citybuilders and historical strategy games, so we were doomed when Sierra announced that it was only going to make AAA titles going forward.

Ya that really worked out well for them.

Front Page Sierra Sports NFL Football Pro '99 getting recalled certainly didn't help the Sierra brand.

Daehawk wrote: Mon May 07, 2018 10:51 am Ya that really worked out well for them.

The corporate people were not interested in making small profits with small budgets. They swung for the fences...and missed. But what really killed Sierra was corporate economics (and having three owners in as many years). Even big successes weren't big enough to interest the likes of Vivendi -- just not enough ROI.

Impressions reformed and went independent as Tilted Mill after some time (I worked for them for a year, too), but that died when they couldn't secure enough financing and their only release flopped.

I think the company that bought Sierra got into some major hot water of accounting fraud.

Didn't Children of the Nile do well? I enjoyed it.

Side note: I still miss Dynamix

Ah, Dynamix. I remember playing their first game, Stellar 7. The original Apple II version, mind you. I also have the remake and the sequel, but Nova 9 is way-too-puzzle-y for me.

Daehawk wrote: Mon May 07, 2018 12:29 pm
Didn't Children of the Nile do well? I enjoyed it.

Not well enough to keep the company afloat or lure new investors. Game studios burn a lot of money between releases, so each release has to not only recoup its own development cost plus an attractive profit for investors, but also contribute to developing the next game. And employees expect bonuses after working 60-80 hour weeks for months at a time. If you've got 25 people averaging $75k per year with (at least) a year between revenue infusions...well, you gotta sell a lot of games, and not at bargain prices.

It's funny, but on my trip to California in 2013, we had a sidetrip to Yosemite which took us by Oakhurst. Now, for anyone who knows their Sierra history, for a large part of their time, their offices were in Oakhurst. You know the Sierra building the Two Guys from Andromeda visit in Space Quest 3? Yeah, that one. So, when we drove by, I instantly recognized the place and was immediately hit with a wave of nostalgia. It was intense and hard to really describe to anyone who wasn't into gaming, but for someone who had spent so much time with their games it was just really neat to be in that same area. It was bittersweet too, as now the offices are held by a medical clinic.

Can imagine. Ive looked some of my favorite companies up on Google Earth. I think the one that hits me hardest is Origin's old building. SO much greatness was created there for it to not be Origin now. Also the old id Software sites...the lake house...the first office...heck even where they all worked when they met. Cool stuff.

family vacation to California in 1990 involved taking the Sierra Online HQ tour in Coarsegold, at us children's insistence. i saw Ken Williams but didn't recognize anyone else. they started the tour with the promo video of the new games, which was disappointing because we had already gotten that particular VHS tape from the Sierra newsletter and watched it numerous times. the tour itself was interesting - i remember seeing Zeliard production art before the game came out. anyways, at the end we had a choice of getting shirts for everyone, or a game - my brother and i quickly agreed on getting Hero Quest (before it was renamed Quest for Glory) because you could play it with different character classes. it arrived in the mail at our house a couple weeks later - we played that one a LOT.

Ya think it was Milton Bradley that made a game with the name and made Sierra change theirs.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/05/08/ ... 570c000c1d

EA has made 5.1 billion in revenue. My hope for them to die and go away is further off than ever.

Daehawk wrote: Tue May 08, 2018 6:29 pm http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/05/08/ ... 570c000c1d

EA has made 5.1 billion in revenue. My hope for them to die and go away is further off than ever.

And now, a personal message from the head of Electronic Arts...

I would not be surprised