a flower in hell on 22/7/2008 at 01:44
I'd be happy giving them my money on a single basis:
Works with modern operating systems.
I can get old games cheap on eBay and in used gaming stores like Vintage Stock. That's not a problem. The problem is making the damn things work in Windows XP. I don't want to have to maintain a circa 1993 486 machine running DOS v6.22 just to play legacy titles.
ignatios on 22/7/2008 at 03:00
I don't want to be a bee in your bonnet, but they're only packaging and distributing them so they work properly. They don't have access to the source code, so they're not actually fixing the incompatibilities. They're testing the hell out of each game, but there's still an excellent chance that certain games won't work for certain people.
Just so you know.
The_Raven on 22/7/2008 at 03:13
Quote Posted by a flower in hell
I don't want to have to maintain a circa 1993 486 machine running DOS v6.22 just to play legacy titles.
Funny, I actually set one of those up earlier in the summer; however, that was mostly from the fact that my main machine is too old for dosbox to emulate Wing Commander Privateer at full speed. The real kicker was the fact that my old MS-DOS 6.22 installation diskettes had been infected with the junkie virus. For an exercise in redundancy, I dual booted the machine with FreeDOS. :p
The really sad part is that Wing Commander 2 is
still a little on the fast side.
<HR>
Quote Posted by ignatios
They don't have access to the source code, so they're not actually fixing the incompatibilities.
They've mentioned in the interviews that they do in fact have access to the actual source code for some of the games.
Quote:
Each game sports full compatibility with Windows XP and Vista, and does not require any sort of online activation. To eliminate compatibility issues, the team has source code access to most games and will be creating custom installers for each title.
Source:
(
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53535) Shacknews
Shadowcat on 22/7/2008 at 07:36
Quote Posted by The_Raven
They've mentioned in the interviews that they do in fact have access to the actual source code for some of the games.
Sadly, that was a misunderstanding by their marketing bod:
Quote:
RPS: To what extent will games be re-coded to work with XP and Vista? Or will you just not carry a game if it requires a lot of work on that front? I can't help but think of Terror From The Deep on Steam, where the official line is that the time and cost and making it play nice with Vista was deemed not worth it....
AO: We don't have access to the games' source code, so we can't really re-code them. We work hard to make sure all the games run on Windows XP and Vista - that's both 32-bit and 64-bit systems - and we try to optimize them at the installation stage so that the game install works for each user configuration. If we happen on a game that doesn't work, we'll see what we can do; I hope that we never have to make that decision. All of the games we have right now work on our test systems.
Quote:
ANy previous mentions of source-code access were merely my misunderstanding — I try to be as technically minded as I can be, but ultimate the difference between access to “masters” and “source code” eluded me until yesterday.
(
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/07/12/good-old-games-give-good-old-answers/#comment-67809) Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Mortal Monkey on 22/7/2008 at 09:36
Quote Posted by Koki
Of course they do. License is worth something. But once they sell the license,
that's it. They are not getting a dime.
In other words, you are now obliged to buy one of each title from GOG, since GOG has already paid the publisher on your behalf.
The_Raven on 22/7/2008 at 13:51
That's a bit of a bummer about the source code; however, that also probably means that the games will be more compatible with fan made enhancements and non-XP/Vista machines, excluding the custom installer.
EvaUnit02 on 22/7/2008 at 14:05
Quote Posted by mothra
I'm interested into how much time they'll spend for their installer and/or patches made for the games. will they make all my SS2 problems go away on XP ? will they include fan-patches as an option as well ? multiplayer map packs ?
With SS2 you won't have to worry, since EA will probably tell them to get stuffed. :nono:
Bjossi on 22/7/2008 at 14:09
A SS2 that works great on modern systems would be fantastic, unfortunately it's too good to be true I think. :erg:
mothra on 22/7/2008 at 14:48
I would be willing to shelf out extra cash for a solid an reliable emulator or VM like scumm and be done with those stupid graphic errors/cd checks and XP hassles about graphic-driver versions and dual core.
a flower in hell on 23/7/2008 at 00:37
@The_Raven:
Please, please tell me how you got WC: Privateer working in DOSBox.
I spent many of my formative years blasting Kilrathi into dust. I would love to play it again.