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[humorguy]

But my point is take away most of the classics, like X-Com, that bring people here and you may have a problem. I am sure the later VGA games here are downloaded a lot more than the CGA games. And I didn't just mention G.O.G. - I said that maybe the X-Com's going on STEAM was because of G.O.G.'s very positive word of mouth and that could mean more games that are remembered with now go on sale. Even older ones.

I am just saying that with the X-Com's on STEAM and G.O.G. you can see things are changing, and that those changes may have an impact on AW sites.

And all it takes is a slightly stronger virtual PC with built in Win98 - which is bound to come along eventually, and with the likelihood of one day having DOSBox built into DOS games so it's 'invisible' and configured specifically for that game so it's install and play on XP (maybe what G.O.G. are doing?!) and you could practically sell them in shops for $2.99 in a CD sleeve!

Times they are a changing.

[Eagle of Fire]

Time are not changing. We had the exact same discussion a few years ago.

Thing is, they are doing what we really want. What do we really want? We want to save the memory of those old gems which, in many aspects, are way better than the new crappy games they dish out regularly now.

By selling the game again, they keep that game alive. It's spirit, it's vision, it's playability, it's greatness.

Mission accomplished. And we'll always be here to watch things run over until they tire of it and stop selling the game again.

[Blood-Pigggy]

Yeah, when you buy Doom on Steam and realize it's incredibly difficult to play any custom WADs that prospect quickly goes out the window. And no fan patches can be used for Jagged Alliance 2, which means you get the broken financing that plagued the Gold release.

To be frank, Steam is a shoddy piece of shit in regards to older games, all they do is slap some form of compatibility on it and make it nearly impossible to alter the source material, therefore they're selling broken products that the community had fixed years before without the possibility of manually applying any fan patches.

Steam may help indie gamers, but as far as old games are concerned, dropping them into a vice grip with no possibility of editing them or fiddling with the configurations is unbelievable. These games were not playable for me until I could mess around in config files, play my own custom WADs, or be able to find someone's convenient file that fixes many problems.

It's the worst way to present older games, GoG might do a better job of it, but so far Steam is just grabbing anything it can get and giving it a shoddy release.

[humorguy]

Bloody-Piggy: from your post to STEAM's ears. Couldn't agree more!

Only time will tell how things change. With STEAM and G.O.G. and DOSBox and Virtual PC there may well be another clampdown on AW, as publishers think about publishing all their old product to earn extra cash, and their first step will be to come after AW Sites.

I say all this, by the way, with no axe to grind. As I am a hobbyist, no a past-timer when it comes to PC games. I still have my X-Com's (all of 'em!), I still have my Ultima Undergrounds and Ultima VII's and Pirates and Civilization II (the best!) and Command and Conquer and Fallout 1 and 2 and all the Looking Glass games every released, etc, etc. So I won;t really need G.O.G. that often. Think the forums could be interesteing though. Where I do need AW sites is where patches are difficult to get, so for example, I have the original boxed Darklands by Microporse which is version 1.0 of course, and very buggy. The version available on AW sites is 7.0 with about 5 patches included. This has meant that in my Darkland box I now also have a burnt CD with the 7.0 version on it and that's the version I play.

This is why what Bllod-Piggy said was so important. If nort handled correctly these games will go 'undergoriund' and will be downloaded illegealy again, so that patches and mods can be applied!

Someone needs to start getting all the demo's that were made that had gameplay or no-interactive scrolling, because I think there will be a demand for those in this new world of retro gaming! I know I have the two demo's from Terra Nova: Task Force Centauri, that between them have four new missions not in the original game!

Only time will tell, but with the X-Com series on STEAM and G.O.G. starting up at the end of September, things may never be quite the same again!

[Tomekk]

Well, most of the games i saw on G.O.G, very not very old nor abadonware.
But i get your point that companies will start selling old games again for extra $$$, but most of the games on Abadonware sites are very old/bad/unfit for today's market, so not all of the games will be sold again.

[Blood-Pigggy]

The hell people.
Have you learned of this thing called context in the English language? I said that I despise Steam's releases, I said nothing about them releasing the games themselves, just the way they release them.

As it stands, it's not alright to sell incompatible or unfinished products as they were sold when they were released once again. Which is why I said GoG might be better, they're adding compatibility to the games that they sell.

We don't know anything about their installers or the way they store the games on your PC, so I can't say anything of the level of alteration that could be accomplished to a game, but the fact is that Steam releases shitty products that have been locked in their last known form with no hope of being able to fix these products with third party applications since Steam is far too strict with people altering the games they sell.

As far as Steam goes, when you play on Steam there is only the Steam community, there isn't a "JA2 Community" or "Doom Community" since those communities are known for fiddling with their games, if things keep going as they are we'll only be able to use the tools Steam releases and anything else will be either impossible or incredibly difficult to alter.

Like it or not, the majority of "good" games that would soon be outdated because of their faults are corrected by the community into something great.

I could never appreciate Fallout 2 until after Killap's patch, and the same goes for a game like Arcanum that was practically broken at release.
Some of the games on Steam (I have mentioned JA2 as a big example) won't allow you to modify the game, so you're stuck with the bugged version that has no hope of ever being fixed.

If companies want to pick up these games and bleed them from us then they'll first have to make sure that they aren't shoving bullshit down people's throat as a quick buck, I was massively irritated by their JA2 release and it's disappointing to learn that they feel it's ok to remove the third party fix element from the mix.

[bobson]

I never tried to work with Steam, so fr me there is no comment.

GOG - it can be good. The polish company which develops this project always gives some stuff to people on their CD's. Not so long ago I've bouth a Fallout Saga - there are not only games. They gave mods, solutions, FAQ's, arts and movies from all of the games. Best thing is - it wasn't a collector's edition, just a simple DVD in a box even without printed manual for about 5-7 euro (I do not know how euro-PLN is currently stocked).

I believe that they will do what they said - not only games, but also bonuses!

Probably I won't buy anything from them. I'm not into on-line distribution. I like my boxes and CD's. When i download something it is on my HDD, but that is not the same as having the game on my shelve... If I can't touch it - it's not there :amused:

[TheChosen]

Originally Posted by humorguy

But my point is take away most of the classics, like X-Com, that bring people here and you may have a problem. I am sure the later VGA games here are downloaded a lot more than the CGA games. And I didn't just mention G.O.G. - I said that maybe the X-Com's going on STEAM was because of G.O.G.'s very positive word of mouth and that could mean more games that are remembered with now go on sale. Even older ones.

I am just saying that with the X-Com's on STEAM and G.O.G. you can see things are changing, and that those changes may have an impact on AW sites.

And all it takes is a slightly stronger virtual PC with built in Win98 - which is bound to come along eventually, and with the likelihood of one day having DOSBox built into DOS games so it's 'invisible' and configured specifically for that game so it's install and play on XP (maybe what G.O.G. are doing?!) and you could practically sell them in shops for $2.99 in a CD sleeve!

Times they are a changing.

This isnt a popularity contest. This is abandonwareis'm. Like Eagle said, the main mission of the site is to store old games. If someone else starts selling those games, good. Our job is half-done then.

Sure. People do come here because we have game-x here, maybe even as downloadable. However, billions of online users means billions of different x's, so we aint gonna die or vain anytime soon.

And as years go by, we get even more stuff that nobody dont care to even sell anymore.