Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!pa.dec.com!bacchus!mwm From: mwm@pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: Re: Lemmings Message-ID: Date: 5 Mar 91 18:41:00 GMT References: <2370@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> Sender: news@pa.dec.com (News) Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 102 In-Reply-To: rwkay@cs.hw.ac.uk's message of 23 Feb 91 12:30:37 GMT [Dragging out some old stuff....] In article <2370@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> rwkay@cs.hw.ac.uk (R.W.Kay) writes: I have been reading the Lemmings talk with interest and I would like to offer my opinions. These are the opinions of DMA Design, & not Psygnosis. Remember we are developers, not publishers. Branding a game because it is PUBLISHED by a particular company, is akin to not buying records pressed by WEA or CBS!, i.e. taking no account of the performer. You're right - I don't not buy software because of the publisher. I don't buy it when it's not usable. You chose a publisher that has a track record of publishing unusuable game. Bad move, but not fatal. Not being OS friendly is fatal, though - and loses you a sale. We KNOW it does not stop the pirates. But you think we should give in? Just release unprotected disks? Let every Tom, Dick or Harry copy the disk with 'diskcopy df0: to df1:' Have you tried "giving in"? Do you know what the results are? The one case I know of (EAs Deluxe Paint), they lost so much in sales that they quit releasing the copy protected version. We have deadlines to meet, we have other versions to write. To make every version use full OS of all the machines we are using will take a lot of time. Every owner of every machine wants a game to make use of all the hardware they have. Where do we draw the line? Actually, I _don't_ want you games that make use of all the hardware I have. I want games that make use of all the hardware I'm willing to let them have. That happens to be more machine than you need (for deserving games, I can give up a meg of chip and meg of fast...). And you draw the line wherever you want - then don't complain when you draw it on the lazy side, and people like me categorically refuse to buy the game. Extra memory? Supported Extra drives? Supported Really? So why doesn't it use both drives that came in my A3000? HD installable, do you REALLY need it. You want your HD being filled with games? You sit down to play a game when you have time, or are in the mood. I play a game while compiles are running in the background; while a download is going one. _WITHOUT_ losing my editing environment or the database I've got loaded, or whatever. Especially when I'm doing it for a few minutes relaxation while working on a project. Lemmings would be perfect for this - it already has a pause button for when I want to go back to work, even. Lemmings does not NEED the benefits of an HD. You don't NEED to sell people like me a copy of the game, either. I use Amiga's all the time, if I want to play a game I can live with it taking 1 minute to load rather than 10 secs. Sure, I can live with that. What I can't live with is the time it takes to recreate the working environment you've gone out of your way to destroy. After saying all this though I have a proposition. We wrote Lemmings in a very modular way (I take offence to previous comments stating programmers who do not use the OS as 'brain dead', these people obviously have no idea of constructive criticsm and should should join rec.games.IQlessThan5) to the extent that we can have a HD intstallable version running in 2 weeks time. I have proposed, Psygnosis have agreed, that they will offer this version. It will require a minimum of 1 MEG of memory (though only 512K of chip RAM will suffice). Make it multitasking friendly, and I'll go buy a copy. Don't, and I'll wait until the pirated version that is hits the boards. If that never hits the boards, I'll never have a copy. (we MUST have some form of protection) And it's mathematically impossible for heavier-than-air vehicles to fly. We will never compromise on a game for the sake of HD users. I'll never compromise my work for the sake of a game. Lemmings is a fun game. I challenge anyone who buys it to point out any flaws or gripes that has put them off other games. Well, I didn't buy it, so I guess the challange doesn't apply to me. But even the bloody _demo_ version can't be run in a multitasking environment. That puts me off a game pretty damn quick. My Amiga is _not_ a game machine. It's a workstation I sometimes play games on. Requiring me to treat it like a game machine which has to be turned off to plug/unplug cartridges is unnaceptable. If I wanted something like that, I'd have bought a Nintendo.