Astro Hacker News - A Brief History of Sierra Online (2017)

Borealid |next [-]

Games in this style have had a recent-ish revival with titles like A Tale of Two Kingdoms and Heroine's Quest. A Tale of Two Kingdoms is what King's Quest V would have been, had it been made in the modern-ish day.

Anything by Wadjet Eye Games is pretty choice as well.

There was a period where there just weren't any good adventure games getting made, but now there are nostalgic pixel-art style titles galore and many of them choose the IMO solid path of focusing on writing quality over realistic polish.

glimshe |root |parent [-]

I have mixed feelings about the genre. I was there in the 80s at their peak. I loved the games but in hindsight I never really had a lot of fun because they were too difficult without hints. The only exception for me was the Quest for Glory series, which I beat legitimately back in the day.

hmm37 |root |parent [-]

A lot of the modern games are a hell of a lot more logical in their puzzles. I've played several of the Wadjet games, and the story lines have been always interesting, and I have been able to solve them without hints. They aren't like the old Sierra games where they wanted you to call a 1-800 hint hotline to make more money.

1potato |next |previous [-]

My favorite game company ever. Seeing the original King's Quest running on a Tandy 1000 was a huge, huge moment for me as a little kid.

The first Gabriel Knight was my favorite Sierra game, but there are lots of great ones. The Colonel's Bequest, Quest for Glory II, Conquests of the Longbow...

Agentlien |next |previous [-]

Growing up in the nineties Sierra was everywhere and I played a lot of their games. Still, whenever I hear of them the first thing I think of is Half-Life. Which is especially funny considering how the lawsuit between Valve and Sierra/Vivendi contributed to the end of Sierra.

For anyone interested it's detailed from Valve's point of view in the Half-Life 2 documentary:

https://youtu.be/YCjNT9qGjh4

Terr_ |next |previous [-]

With respect to the "online" part of Sierra Online, I particularly remember "The Realm" [0] as ~1996 beta.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Realm_Online

fiforpg |next |previous [-]

Interesting, the article does not mention they were the publisher for Impressions Games, known for their fantastic city builder series including Caesar and Pharaoh.

samplatt |root |parent [-]

They barely added Half-Life as a footnote, arguably one of the most important games of all time. I've always wondered just how much (if any) input they had for HL.

Aeroi |next |previous [-]

>Ahh! Life-giving water! Nectar of the Gods!

kings quest 5 was so good.

vunderba |root |parent |next [-]

KQ 5/6 are two of my favorite games of all time. To this day, whenever I come across a snake while hiking, I immediately channel my inner Cedric to the annoyance of every other person in my group.

samplatt |root |parent [-]

My etched-in-stone, oft-repeated line is Alexanders 'EGADS, is that cold!' And a whole bunch more.

vunderba |root |parent [-]

Haha. I get a lot of mileage out of "Hands off the goods" (the bookworm from kq6), well and that and "Dying for a drink?" from KQ5.

Too many notable quotables!

samplatt |root |parent |next |previous [-]

KQ5 was my first, but I still prefer KQ6. It feels less basic-gamey and more romantic (in both senses of the word) without compromising the silliness.

Both are right square in my nostalgia-zone, so it's hard to tell just how biased I am ^_^

bzzzt |root |parent [-]

While I liked them both when they came out, what they did with plot in 6 and 7 feel a bit cringy to me now.

I really admired KQ1 for showing what a graphical adventure could be and KQ3 for having a true plot, multiple locations and a bit of character development.

bzzzt |root |parent |previous [-]

King's query 5 was impressive. But not a good game at all. Too many annoying puzzles (missed throwing the boot at the cat chasing the rat is instant walking dead scenario, exploring the desert requires you to die). Of course at the time everybody was drooling over the VGA graphics and Sound Blaster music.

I wished Sierra wouldn't have had this stupid inward looking culture and took a few hints from LucasArts in the day.

jamesfinlayson |next |previous [-]

> In June 2000, Havas was merged with other companies into Vivendi Universal, which unfortunately led to more restructuring and lay-offs.

This makes a bit more sense - I think I remember Gunman Chronicles having Havas listed as the publisher which always confused me as I was sure it was Sierra or Vivendi on the box.

wardial |next |previous [-]

Quest for Glory? Anyone? I love that game.

catskull |root |parent |next [-]

QFG 1 VGA is one of my favorite games. The fan remake of 2 is good too. 3 fell off for me, and 4 is awesome with the voice acting and setting.

We don’t have to talk about 5.

hmm37 |root |parent [-]

I really wished someone would make a demake of QFG5 in a pixel vga form.

slater |root |parent |previous [-]

Umm excuuuuuuse you, it's called Hero's Quest! /s

wardial |root |parent [-]

Yes! The EGA version!

sethev |next |previous [-]

It's fascinating to me that they had a presence in Oakhurst for such a long time (up until the late 90s). I met a couple of people who worked there - one who had a side gig selling homemade salsa at flea markets and building custom PCs. It would have been an awesome job back in the day.

bigfatkitten |next |previous [-]

Leisure Suit Larry asked various trivia questions on startup in an attempt to verify that you were an adult. Really helped hone ten-year-old me’s research skills.

marttt |root |parent [-]

I learned English by playing LSL and Police Quest. A fairly common scenario in Post-Soviet countries during the 1990s.

I used to be a journalist, and (back when Google was still a superb, heavy-duty search engine) managed to actually find Al Lowe's phone number from the interwebs. So, incredibly, I got to interview him for a gaming-related issue of the (mainstream) newspaper I worked for in my country. He recalled a former Soviet computer consultant confessing in the 1990s, "Every hard drive I've seen had a 'LARRY' folder available". Obviously, all these were pirate copies. Same here -- everybody in my Post-Soviet country had this game. I think I "got" it from a friend, putting it on my first-ever 3 1/2 inch diskette.

Al Lowe's games shaped my grasp of English grammar, but also general sense of language, dialogue writing and -- in particular -- sense of humor! The Sierra games (not only Larry, but, IIRC, Police Quest also) had wonderful, multi-layered humor and IMO meticulous emphasis on conveying "spoken" language, "the way people actually speak". The irony and soft humor towards overly-consumerist society (in the US) was something I only understood years later (e.g. I think in Larry 1, there was a Las Vegas style "instant-wedding chapel" with a blinking advertisement "Over 1 Billion Served" or something).

I really think I owe Al Lowe a fair bit culturally and language-wise, even though, uh, he never received a nickel from me. Thank you, Al Lowe!

glimshe |root |parent [-]

I can relate to everything you said. And I knew you come from the old days the second I read the word "diskette". :)

jaybrendansmith |previous [-]

Loved Betrayal at Krondor. Always a fan of Sierra.