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Will Exile ever be carbonized?


Master of Reality

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Hello everybody, first post here.

 

To this day the Exile trilogy has remained one of my favorite video games of all time. So many fond memories have revolved around it, one being how especially enjoyable and sometimes therapeutic Escape From the Pit was for me when I was in 6th grade. However, I have now acquired a much more advanced high-end G4 laptop in which Mac OS 9 is no longer supported, and as we ascend further, Apple has decided to leave behind OS 9 ENTIRELY... No classic, no nothing. I, personally, am actually very upset over Apple's decision to do this, as this leaves oppurtunities to enjoy wonderful classics like Exile grow thinner as the world is now slowly leaving pastimes like Classic Macintosh in the dust. frown

 

Now I'm one who is often known to understand changes and sometimes evolve with the world, but this game is something that I simply can not leave behind. The Avernum series, Exile's 'upgrade', may be more polished and tweaked, but to me it still misses greatly on the charm that always seemed to be hanging over the original and fails to be as delivering and with a true bare-bones-atmosphere as Exile is in my opinion.

 

I know that the Avernum series is considered a 'remake' of the Exile series and is currently being focused on for carbonization, but given the advances that not just Apple but all of technology is taking, can't the old classic be carbonized? I don't want to sound like an impatient thorn, but I believe this masterpiece could use an update to OSX. Any possibilities?

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I feel your pain, M.o.R. Microsoft's decision to stop using MS-DOS in XP made me mourn the loss of all those classics (good thing I have another computer with WIN98!).

 

--------------------

VOTE FOR DINTIRADAN!

I promise to reduce the number of random encounters in Valorim, introduce an adventurer tax cut, and legalize skribbane!

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Quote:
Originally written by Dintiradan:
I feel your pain, M.o.R. Microsoft's decision to stop using MS-DOS in XP made me mourn the loss of all those classics (good thing I have another computer with WIN98!).
With enough finagling, you can get pretty much any old PC game to work in XP. Just make sure that all the .exe and .bat files are in Win 95 or 98 compatability mode.

EDIT: .com files don't need compatability mode. I was thinking of .bat
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Quote:
Originally written by Paneudaimonium:
Which is no longer supported by Intel Macs, so the fate of Exile hangs in the balance!

—Alorael, who actually has hopes for projects like Mac-on-Mac. Chip emulation is a little more work, but people would be willing to pay to keep playing the games of yesteryear.
I suppose in the absolute worst-case scenario, we could all just use or buy an old Mac for the Exile series. I mean, old 1st generation iMacs can be had for under $50 via eBay and some online surplus retailers.
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Quote:
Originally written by Every Man For Himself:
Quote:
Originally written by Brigand Warrior:
Thank goodness!

Say, I haven't been here in 2 years.
People...we have a VIP on ours hands.

Say hello to the maker of the "Xian Skull!" topic.
A legend at three posts? Wow. Someone has skills.

What exactly was the "Xian Skull" topic about, anyway? All I can infer and glean is that it was totally awesome, but no one seems to really be able to describe what made it so.
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Quote:
Originally written by Dintiradan:
I feel your pain, M.o.R. Microsoft's decision to stop using MS-DOS in XP made me mourn the loss of all those classics (good thing I have another computer with WIN98!).

--------------------
VOTE FOR DINTIRADAN!
I promise to reduce the number of random encounters in Valorim, introduce an adventurer tax cut, and legalize skribbane!
Oh goodness, PCs too? frown

By the way, am I the only one who actually likes the classic Macintosh theme better than Mac OS X? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a BIG fan of the old, but it's a lot more refreshing to me than this cheesy, over-exaggerated, bubbly, seemingly-diva-influenced aqua and platinum theme. :p It was rather shocking and interesting at first, but I'm really starting to hate it now. At least classic Macintosh's theme wasn't too exaggerated so that even if you didn't care for it, you didn't have to be annoyed by it. Does anyone here know what I'm saying?
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Quote:
Originally written by Master of Reality:
By the way, am I the only one who actually likes the classic Macintosh theme better than Mac OS X? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a BIG fan of the old, but it's a lot more refreshing to me than this cheesy, over-exaggerated, bubbly, seemingly-diva-influenced aqua and platinum theme. :p It was rather shocking and interesting at first, but I'm really starting to hate it now.
Funnily enough, I had almost exactly the opposite reaction to Aqua. It annoyed me at first, but over time I grew accustomed to it.

You can, of course, always get a different theme .

Oh, and

Quote:
Originally posted by Knotty:
What exactly was the "Xian Skull" topic about, anyway? All I can infer and glean is that it was totally awesome, but no one seems to really be able to describe what made it so.
Someone posted an innocent question about the Xian Skull. Lots of people gave false answers, endeavouring to make them as silly as possible. People built on each other's answers until the entire topic grew to be about a kind of bizarre alternate-universe version of Exile 3, with a bit of Nethergate and Geneforge mixed in.
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The Xian Skull was like a cooperative game of Mornington Crescent. It almost made sense.

 

If you don't understand what this means, you don't deserve to understand what this means. Understand?

 

—Alorael, who made the leap from OS 9 only recently. While OS X is undeniably superior, he too was surprised by the bells and whistles on what was once a much more utilitarian interface. He can't complain about it, but he wouldn't be terribly sad if it disappeared, either.

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These are Spiderweb's message boards. Unsurprisingly, Spiderweb is uninterested in aiding in the theft of its games. If you want to play Exile, register. If you register, you get the editor for free.

 

—Alorael, who can't even say that this post was related to the rest of the thread.

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It wasn't. yoeppy also can't spell and assumed everyone here was male. There are very few members I will disparage but yoeppy has become such a member. Since yoeppy doesn't mind stealing, stealing any chance of a good reputation won't bother yoeppy.

 

There are worse things to do on the first post but Dikiyoba can't think of anything, since double posting would be more than one post.

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  • 2 weeks later...

We neither confirm nor deny rumors that mods can ban people. We neither confirm nor deny rumors that they can't. We just emphasize the denying a little more for the former and the confirming a little more for the latter.

 

—Alorael, who can confirm that he wrote this post. Look for his signature of approval on all posts by Alorael.

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"Jeff has said that if support for Classic mode is ever completely dropped from newer Macs, he'll do what's necessary to update all his older games so they still run."

 

I did? I know I said this about the newer games (Avernum, Geneforge), but I don't remember making such a grim blanket promise about everything I ever did.

 

I won't be Carbonizing the Exile games. Sometimes, the old games just have to drift off into the past. (And the Exile games are over 8 years old now. OMG!)

 

Reworking that ancient code would be a real pain. My time is much better spent working on new games.

 

And if you are angry about this, I suggest blaming Apple. I didn't ask them to completely redo their OS architecture for the THIRD time since I started this business.

 

- Jeff Vogel

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Quote:
Originally written by Spidweb:
And if you are angry about this, I suggest blaming Apple. I didn't ask them to completely redo their OS architecture for the THIRD time since I started this business.
Not exactly; it's only three if you blur things a little. 68k to PPC was both a system change and a hardware change; OS 9 to OS X was only a system change; and the latest switch of PPC to Intel is only a hardware change. So it's not really three changes whether "redo their OS architecture" refers to system change or to hardware change. Either way it's only two.

To clarify:
Major system changes: 7.x to 8.x/9.x, and 9.x to 10.x
Hardware changes: 68k to PPC, PPC to Intel.
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I'd have to agree with Jeff. It's not a game developer's responsibility to rewrite and alter their pre-existing games so that they can run on new/improved OS's which come out years later. The ball is in the OS developer's court to update the OS so that it can run all pre-existing programs.

 

Sadly, Microsoft and Macintosh haven't taken this lesson to heart.

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Quote:
Originally written by Waylander:
The ball is in the OS developer's court to update the OS so that it can run all pre-existing programs.

Sadly, Microsoft and Macintosh haven't taken this lesson to heart.
Well, if I may play devil's advocate for a moment, why should they do so? How many sales would it gain hardware and OS developers to make compromises on other aspects of the product (schedule, budget or other features) just so that those few of us still using very old software can continue to do so?
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Thuryl:

Quote:

Well, if I may play devil's advocate for a moment, why should they do so? How many sales would it gain hardware and OS developers to make compromises on other aspects of the product (schedule, budget or other features) just so that those few of us still using very old software can continue to do so?

And what is the point of getting an 'updated' version of the OS, if you can no longer run programs which worked on the older version of the OS? How can you call that a valid update?

I'm not a Mac user, so I can't comment regarding the new Mac OS systems. But let me tell you, Windows XP is buggy and useless as ever before. Sure, it looks pretty, but since when did eye candy = compatability? And to add insult to injury, I can't run kick ass classics like 'Heretic', 'Mortal Kombat' and the Ultima series without an emulator (and even those emulators aren't flawless). And great games which could run in Win 95 and Win 98 can't run in the 'new and improved' WinXP.

 

I'm confused as to what 'compromises' the producers would have to make, given that their previous version of the OS could quite easily run the classics. Why shouldn't their updated OS versions be able to? There's nothing revolutionary involved in making certain programs run on your updated OS, which you were able to run on the older versions.

 

Quite simply, if you're going to make me pay $200+ for a operating system, don't give me buggy trash which can't run diddly squat. Give me something which can do EVERYTHING that the previous versions of that OS can do, and MORE.

 

Jeff should not be expected to alter his games to fit the ever changing OS's. The producers of the OS should ensure that their updated OS should be able to run programs which the previous versions of their OS were able to run. I don't think that's an unrealistic expectation.

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I would have to agree with Thuryl, and emphasize that software manufacturers disprove this "lesson." It makes no sense from a business perspective to spend a wheelbarrow of money creating a LCD product when history has proven that people will accept whatever it is you have to sell. Like Win98, WinSE. I'm sure like some Mac OS too. It is just how it is. Adapt or be left behind.

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Quote:
Originally written by Waylander:
I'm confused as to what 'compromises' the producers would have to make, given that their previous version of the OS could quite easily run the classics. Why shouldn't their updated OS versions be able to? There's nothing revolutionary involved in making certain programs run on your updated OS, which you were able to run on the older versions.
How much experience do you have with programming? Updating software isn't just a matter of adding new things on to the existing code -- if you try to manage updates that way, especially in a large company with hundreds of programmers and a significant employee turnover rate, your code quickly becomes buggy and impossible to maintain. A major update often involves completely rewriting large parts of the code, and it can't always be made to behave exactly the same way as it did before, especially since the people who wrote the original code may not be around any more to explain how it works.

Also, quite a few third-party programs exploit bugs, quirks or undocumented features in specific system software versions in order to do things more efficiently. In other words, they should never have worked in the first place, and by fixing the bugs in the old OS you stop some things that relied on the bugs from working in the new OS. This is particularly the case for very old programs, which often had to squeeze as much performance as possible out of their code even if it meant doing things in a way that didn't comply with officially supported procedures.

As an example: early versions of the Macintosh system software used 24-bit memory addressing, which basically meant that they assumed your computer had no more than 8 MB of RAM. As a result, many programs were also written which assumed that your computer had no more than 8 MB of RAM. At first, this was fine, since early computers did indeed have no more than 8 MB of RAM -- but eventually, newer computers supported more than that and newer applications needed more than that, and 32-bit addressing was invented. This allowed computers to make use of much more memory, but it also meant that some of the old applications that assumed you had no more than 8 MB of RAM didn't work any more. Being able to have more than 8 MB of RAM was pretty obviously a good thing, and was considered to outweigh the disadvantages of losing compatibility with some programs. At first, 24-bit addressing remained as an option to allow compatibility with older programs (at the cost of preventing you from accessing more than 8 MB of RAM), but eventually the system software itself came to require more than 8 MB of RAM to run, so the option of 24-bit addressing had to be dropped.

If you're worried about updating your OS, wait for a couple of friends to update and find out how it's worked for them. If you don't like the look of the new version, don't buy it. Nobody's forcing you to pay for updates.
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Quote:
Originally written by Spidweb:
I won't be Carbonizing the Exile games. Sometimes, the old games just have to drift off into the past. (And the Exile games are over 8 years old now. OMG!)

Reworking that ancient code would be a real pain. My time is much better spent working on new games.
In that case, you'll find that your sales of Exile games will drop through the floor in a couple of years. You won't be making any money off of them, because only a very small handful of people will have computers that run OS 9. And how soon before Windows follows suit? Already the Lyceum is getting questions about compatibility issues with the latest versions of Windows.

With that in mind, I have a suggestion: release the source for BoE. It would do you no harm, because you've rewritten the engines for your newer games so many times since then (a graphics rewrite for Nethergate, an couple of shifts for Avernum, a Carbonization for Avernum 3, an almost complete rewrite for Geneforge, and then another almost complete rewrite for Avernum 4) that the BoE engine doesn't even resemble the engine you're working with now. And you won't be making any money off of these games, because only a select few people will even be able to play them anymore.

It won't hurt you, and it will help us a lot. You did a great thing by releasing the source of the scenario editor for BoA. In the time since it's been out, the community has added a 3D editing mode, a way of previewing icon adjustment, a "realistic" mode that shows line of sight, and more. We could do the same and more for BoE, which we've been dying to get our hands on ever since we started noticing its peculiar bugs, bugs that were too obscure and difficult to track down for you to fix, but that we, the community, have the time and the motivation to fix. But the problem is that the most frustrating bugs in BoE aren't in the editor; they're in the application itself!

Jeff, in a little while, no one but the hardcore old-school gamers (people in this community) will be able to play Blades of Exile. It would be a great gesture to hand us over the game after we've made so many scenarios and done so much work on it. Giving us BoE would make the community happy, make your customers happy, and probably not cost you a dime.
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Quote:
I won't be Carbonizing the Exile games. Sometimes, the old games just have to drift off into the past. (And the Exile games are over 8 years old now. OMG!)
This may seem an idiotic response ,but why not have someone carbonize it for you that way your sales won't go down.Honestly Macs need the compatibily button us Windows users have.
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"With that in mind, I have a suggestion: release the source for BoE."

 

I've been considering something along these lines for a while, but I need to put some actual thought into how I want to approach it. Turning my games into freeware is, for obvious reasons, REALLY a last resort.

 

But I imagine, sometime in the forseeable future, something like this will happen to the Mac version. But it's sort of a "Only when it's completely abandonware" kind of step.

 

- Jeff Vogel

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I *really* hope that the Exile Trilogy gets carbonized.

 

I started playing on Exile III and became hooked so I played Exile II. Then I became hooked on that and played Exile I. I didn't care for Blades of Exile. I played Avernum III but it's just not the same.

 

It's exciting to see the continuation of the story line in Avernum 4.

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  • 1 month later...
Quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:
Quote:
Originally written by Waylander:
There's nothing revolutionary involved in making certain programs run on your updated OS, which you were able to run on the older versions.
How much experience do you have with programming? Updating software isn't just a matter of adding new things on to the existing code -- if you try to manage updates that way, especially in a large company with hundreds of programmers and a significant employee turnover rate, your code quickly becomes buggy and impossible to maintain. A major update often involves completely rewriting large parts of the code
I think what Waylander meant is that one dozen of "hundreds of programmers" could write a good emulator in a couple of days, so that it won't be an "adding new things on to the existing code" but adding a new thing to the completely rewritten code. I'm not sure for Mac OS, but WinXP (along with W2000) has a kind of one. Although it sucks, still some even some DOS oldies can run on WinXP.
As for Jeffs answer about "some old games" which "have to drift off into the past", I'd like to add, that it doesn't go with games we call "Classics of a genre". I remember good old Darklands by MicroProse, which caught me even before Exile I, and now they are gone because WinXP DOS-emulator doesn't support high memory enhancement. Good I have an opportunity to use an old Pentium I based PC with Win98 on it and still play that pre-Exile game.

PS. Sorry for making alive a dead thread smile
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