We All Love Sierra Games, Right? Well, what did you Hate?

[audiodane]

Actually, it'd be kind of neat to create a kind of fanmade patch for AGI games to ammend to all the parser inputs that people complained about over the years. It's certainly possible with AGI Studio/WinAGI.

+1, This would be pretty neat!

I loved the parser. Was it 100% easy? No, not all the time. But once you got the hang of Sierra games, and realized how "sentences" worked - the parser was, over all easy.

The typing parser is the main reason I believe I type as fast as I do. And the point and click, you didn't need to look on the screen for anything; you just could click where ever until something happened. To me, it took the "thinking" out of Sierra games.

For example in SQ3... right in the beginning, where the wires are dangling... One could have randomly clicked all over the screen and got points for clicking on it, rather than taking the time to notice it, and look at it, and get the wires, all by typing.

+1, I think the P&C made things "too easy" sometimes. Sometimes it was useful to just click around the screen though.

There was a dodge'em in SQ also... Was it SQ2? SQ1? One of those had it... I don't think it was SQ3.

Where you're going across the desert...

Yes, SQ1, the land skimmer to get to Ulence Flats.

..dane

[jujigatame]

Tawmis, to answer your questions:

Worst dead ends for me were the mouse in KQ5 and the Domovoi in QFG4. The KQ5 cat/mouse I think was just positively evil from the designers standpoint. The Domovoi issue (if you don't talk to him the first night he shows up at the inn, the game essentially becomes unbeatable) actually cost me more time but I don't blame the developers that much because I think they sincerely didn't expect anyone to just decide to ignore the Domovoi.

The copy protection schemes in the PQ series and the SQ series were both bad. I hate having to look up random little bits of information in some PDF, and of course it's impossible to get around in PQ1 and PQ3 without the maps in documentation as well.

The bugs in the QFG series were all over the place. In QFG1VGA I had some weird issues where the castle courtyard scene (where the weapons master is) would freeze up and be unpassable. In QFG3 I had problems not being admitted to the laibon hut, and the bridge combat segment seemed poorly implemented as well. In QFG4 there were several crash bugs and I also encountered a bug or dead-end when I was unable to discuss the sacrifice spell with Tanya even though I had already spoken to the gypsies about it. Of course there's also the annoying Quicktime issue that makes QFG5 a royal pain to play now. Basically every QFG seemed to have serious technical issues. I suspect this was because they were essentially developing an adventure game simultaneously with an RPG that featured random encounters, attribute/skill stats, HP and mana, combat, resting and time of day, and spellcasting. So they had a lot more on their plate than any of the other Sierra "quest" developers.

[MusicallyInspired]

Well remember, they didn't have PDFs back then. It was a paper manual in your hands. That's a lot faster and more intuitive than multi-tasking with Adobe Acrobat. It wasn't all that bad. King's Quest had some as well. The Cliffs of Logic in KQ6, and the magic symbols copy protection for the floppy version of KQ5 that would pop up in random places in the game.

[Tawmis]

In QFG1VGA I had some weird issues where the castle courtyard scene (where the weapons master is) would freeze up and be unpassable.

Ay, yes! I remember this one - I believe this was a speed bug issue?

Of course there's also the annoying Quicktime issue that makes QFG5 a royal pain to play now.

I may have the fix for you, ironically enough.

[Tawmis]

Well remember, they didn't have PDFs back then. It was a paper manual in your hands. That's a lot faster and more intuitive than multi-tasking with Adobe Acrobat. It wasn't all that bad. King's Quest had some as well. The Cliffs of Logic in KQ6, and the magic symbols copy protection for the floppy version of KQ5 that would pop up in random places in the game.

And the spellbook in KQ3. The KQ4 "what word in what paragraph of what sentence and what page" as well.

[Collector]

Hero's Quest/QfG1EGA and QfG2 didn't really have any issues to speak of and QfG1VGA only had a couple of issues that only appeared on later faster machines and the sword master was not necessary to finish the game. It was QfG 3 and 4 that had the most bugs. Even so, most, not all, of the bugs in QfG4 had been fixed by the time that the CD version of the game was released. Given the development cycle of the fifth game, it is amazing that does not have more.

But overall, you are right in that the programming of the games was more complex that the average SCI game. With added complexity comes added potential for bugs.

[Zapher]

thats a tough question, i did not "Hate" anything from sierra but what i disliked the most would have to be the wizard in KQ3, the Gobblins series and Sedric from KQ5 can just choke and die please

[jujigatame]

In QFG1VGA I had some weird issues where the castle courtyard scene (where the weapons master is) would freeze up and be unpassable.

Ay, yes! I remember this one - I believe this was a speed bug issue?

Yes I think it must have been speed related. It didn't show up on my DOSBox playthrough a year or two ago.

I remember encountering it when playing the VGA disk version that I had as a kid. I was able to beat the game on my old 486/33, but then when I tried replaying the game years later I had problems. When I'd go to the castle to get my reward after completing the bear/kobold quest, the game would do a sort of "soft freeze" when I'd get into the courtyard. I could still walk the character around the screen, but the game would not do a screen transition if I walked towards the castle entrance. In fact, I was able to walk the character all around the screen, including up into the sky. It was like the logic that determines where you can and can't walk on the screen had been turned off.

[Rath Darkblade]

I didn't like Cedric the Owl. But I don't think many people did, so I'm not particularly unusual there!

Irony being, I believe you're the first to mention it...

thats a tough question, i did not "Hate" anything from sierra but what i disliked the most would have to be the wizard in KQ3, the Gobblins series and Sedric from KQ5 can just choke and die please

I knew I wasn't the only one who disliked Cedric! Then again, I'd only played KQ4 and KQ5, and Cedric only shows up in the fifth game (and is incredibly annoying there - it's like having an annoying sibling looking over your shoulder and saying "Are you sure you want to do that?" AGH. GO AWAY).

- QfG1 VGA could freeze at the character selection screen (though QfG1 EGA was fine).

I don't remember that ever happening to me...!

This happened to me once or twice on faster machines. Oh, and ah yes - the sword master either froze or became far too fast.

- QfG3 was fairly buggy - it could CTD during the race against Yesufu. Also, why did you come here, friend of Rakeesh? Why did you come here, friend of Rakeesh? Why did you come here, friend of Rakeesh? Why did you come here, friend of Rakeesh? ad nauseum.

I don't think I ever experienced that one either.

The CTD during the race against Yesufu happened to me once or twice. I suddenly got kicked out and the error said "Oops, you did something we weren't expecting!" etc. I believe I was trying to help him out of that hole when - whoosh! - CTD.

The "Why did you come here, friend of Rakeesh?" error isn't really an error, just very annoying (but only happens on faster computers, not 486s or slower Pentiums). After having "purchased" Johari as a bride from the Laibon, I would attempt to leave, but the Laibon would keep interrupting and say "Why did you come here, friend of Rakeesh?" over and over and over, which paused the game and stopped me from leaving. This was particularly annoying if I was playing a Paladin, because every time he said it, I lost one Honor point. Ugh.

Of course, I know I need to use Mo'Slo or some similar program for such situations. But it's still annoying.

[Maxor127]

King's Quest 7 and Mask of Eternity are a couple that I hate. They were pretty disappointing. But my most hated are probably Police Quest 1 VGA remake and Police Quest 3. I hated the style of both games. It dumbed down the police work and the driving portions were horrible. Plus the games were pretty cheesy and were like crappy cop shows, which is the very thing the series was originally supposed to go against.

I liked Thexder even though it was way too difficult. I remember my brother won it once, but I'd usually die around the level where heat seeking missiles start chasing you. But it had great music (on the IIgs anyways), I didn't have a problem with the controls, and I thought the graphics were good for the time. Plus, I was still in my transforming robot phase back then.

[Tawmis]

King's Quest 7 and Mask of Eternity are a couple that I hate. They were pretty disappointing. But my most hated are probably Police Quest 1 VGA remake and Police Quest 3. I hated the style of both games. It dumbed down the police work and the driving portions were horrible. Plus the games were pretty cheesy and were like crappy cop shows, which is the very thing the series was originally supposed to go against.

I loved PQ3.