🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello, fellow flight-sim fans!

In <38mkg2$2...@acmex.gatech.edu> gt6...@prism.gatech.edu (John) writes:

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

Are we, John? :)

>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.

We dedicated Origin fans know this. Note that while Origin abandoned the 
Apple II series completely after U5 (they didn't even bother with U6 on 
the IIGS like they promised to), they still pulled a pretty good U6 on C64.

>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."

Exactly what did Origin consider as the "low-end" system? What does she 
consider as the "low-end" system now? What does the general public 
consider as the reasonable "low-end" system right now on the market?

>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).

Uh John, if you think we Origin fans didn't realize the limitation of the 
old Apple II and C64, you are wrong. Many of us fully supported Origin's 
move on her design platform from Apple to the IBM one. After all, Origin 
had supported the IIs with five Ultimas and numerous other titles; 
plaster on Ultima VI for C64. It's apparent it was time to move on when 
Ultima V was shipped on five double-sided 5.25 disks and still using 
6-colour hi-res graphics.

>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).

WC and SS on the good old Apple II and DOOM on the original IBM PC?
<laugh>
That would be silly of course! On the other hand, WC on 286/16, SS on 
486/33, and DOOM on 386/33 for optimal performance are just fine with 
us. We gamers are not against progress in the entertainment software 
industry, in fact we support it whole-heartedly. We just don't like the 
way Origin jumps from one extreme to the other and forces us to shell 
out money to upgrade our computers every single year, only to play dud 
games like SC, PS, and U8.

>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.

Ah I see you agree with me about Origin's constant technological 
leap-frog policy. Like you pointed out above, Origin drags the entire 
industry with her, which in turn drag us along.

BTW, a 486DX/33 doesn't cut it anymore these days. 486DX2/66 VLB is 
Origin's current standard format and she is already looking at DX4/100 
and Pentium for her future titles.

>(not just to run games tho.. )

No, of course not. :) You will use that DX4 or Pentium for word 
processing, spreadsheet, CADs, and Chicago...

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