🚀 go-pugleaf

Bill Clinton <ttp0581> writes:

>> >>    "What?! You *need* a 386 for it to be playable? That's ridiculous!
>> >> They're abandoning a substantial part of the market. They don't understand
>> >> economics - they're going to go bankrupt for sure!"
>> 
>> >Actually, I think it was Ultima 7 that actually forced you to use a 386 
>> >and everyone thought Origin would go bankrupt on. If I recall, you could 
>> >play WC on a 286. Other than that, you're absolutely right in saying 
>> >Origin has been pushing the gameing platform to the limits. Then again, 
>> >games have always been the most computer demanding programs (aside from CAD).
>> 
>> Hi, Origin and ex-Origin fans!
>> 
>> I think it was Strike Commander that really started the controversy...


>Strike Commander started the controversy over 486 upgrade from 386. 
>U7 started the whole thing with upgrading from 286 to 386 since you 
>needed the expanded memory capabilities not available to 286's. Strike 
>Commander CAN run on a 386, just it is really slow.


Nope, you're all wrong.  The controversy started before that.

Originally, Richard Garriot did *ALL* of his game development on
and for the Apple II.  Back in 1988 he realized that while he really
really wanted to remain loyal to the Apple II community, it was
keeping him from developing his games any further.  I think his last
Ultima game developed with an Apple II had something like a 127
tile limit (ie. no pseudo-animation of cycling tiles to make torches
look like they're burning, really limited water moving effects, not
enough memory to do things like dusk and dawn, etc), and his first
IBM PC developed game had something like 1000.

At Dragon Con in 88 he gave a talk about the future of Origin
games, and basically said "Instead of developing games for the low
end user, and making everyone with a better system deal with the least
common denominator, we've decided that we will develop for the high
end system that has stereo sound, great graphics, speed and disk space.
If you have a low end system, you'll still be able to play, but you'll
lose some detail, sound, and features depending on how far down the
list of capabilities your system has."

I pretty much agree with him.  If you're going to develop your game, you
should definitely take advantage of as many system features as you can,
and not develop for the lowest common denominator.  Technology moves on,
and people move with it.  That means games have to do so too.  And along
the way,  you stay as backward compatable as the software will reasonably
allow (without becomming unplayable, etc).

Afterall, where would Origin games be if Wing Commander and System Shock
were both designed, implimented, and capable of running on an Apple II?
I think their business would be in much more jeopardy in that case..because
their games would all suck (Not to say that the simple games, like
loadrunner, etc, aren't fun.. that's just not the part of the game market
we're talking about).  In a sense, ID Games did the same thing.  Can you
imagine how pitiful Doom's game play would be if it was backward compatable
to anyone who still only has a PC with 1 or 2 5.25" floppy drives, 256k,
and a CGA monitor? (don't laugh, there are still people out there who
have them, and who do just fine with that system for what they use it for).

You could make the case that they've gone from one extreme to the other.
That may be so, but I think they keep the rest of the game industry on
their toes by doing so.  And I definitely like it.  Maybe I'll change
my mind when a 486dx33 with fast bus speeds becomes 'too slow and
featureless' to run Origin games.  But I don't see that happening for a
while.  And I'm already hoping to upgrade by the middle of next year.


(not just to run games tho.. )

John

-- 
John "Kzin" Rudd   gt6...@prism.gatech.edu       (ex-...@cc.gatech.edu)
                   Ascii Mail only (no Nextmail)  (ex-...@ucscb.ucsc.edu)
========Intel: Putting the backward in backward compatable.===============