SierraVault November update

[Andy Roark]

Just wanted to post a quick note over here to let everyone know that I've finished the November SierraVault update I've been promising for at least two months now.

There are lots of cool things in the update but there are a few highlights:

Rein is an avid Sierra collector who seems to have all the right games... you know, the ones I don't have. He's always great with the contributions but this time around he put in several rare games from the Sierra Discovery series including one that was signed (on the inner box) by the development team. Please give him lots of praise so he continues to send these submissions into SierraVault. The best stuff I'll be putting up from this point on is probably going to come from him.... No pressure or anything!

C_Guy is another contributor (and SierraVault intern) that has a real soft spot for Impressions strategy games. In this update he has covered a lot of ground in the later Impressions offerings. My house has turned into a U.S. shipping location for his EBay purchases which I scan and then ship onto him in Canada so look for this trend to continue. He buys, I scan, you get the benefits.

I've also added a "Sierra & Us" contribution to the page. I encourage all of you to write up a brief "my Sierra" history. I'm hosting these as a way of hopefully getting our feedback to the great developers who made the games we love. Submit them to me at andy@sierravault.com and I'll get them posted. Please just be sure to let me know what name you want it posted under.

The update log on Sierra Forums is at:

http://www.sierraforums.com/viewtopic.p ... p=235#p235

The links aren't standing out (at least on my screen) but each "page" update has a direct link to it at the bottom of the section.

Enjoy!

Andy

[Almirena]

Exciting news, Andy - thanks for keeping us informed!

And on the links side, I'll edit the CSS to create more prominent links.

[abyss]

Wow great site but it may be annoying but my only complaint is that most of the hoyle games don't have a year on them and they aren't in chronical order. Hoyle classic card games was the fourth hoyle game if that helps a little. It was also the last hoyle game to have characters from other sierra games and like all 3 of the hoyle games with characters from other sierra games Larry just looked so out of place in the game.
I'm very surprised escape from mount drash was there. Even the zx spectrum version of bc tires is listed.

[Andy Roark]

Abyss,

Thanks for the feedback. SierraVault is still very much in progress - no question there.

As for the Hoyle page I can tell you I decided to cut bait. The first three to four games in the Hoyle series were solid offerings and there's a good argument that each of the later incarnations (Casino, Board Games, Classic Games) were good "original" games as well. Ideally I would like to one day have the Hoyle page show each of those games with some basic treatment (box covers, manuals, disk scans, etc). Beyond that, however, Sierra was just milking that series. Hoyle Casino became Hoyle Blackjack, Hoyle Bridge, Hoyle Euchere, Hoyle, Hoyle, Hoyle. Each of the real games got sliced, diced, repackaged and rereleased each year - as if something basic had changed in the world of Bridge between 1998 and 1999 or if somehow Blackjack wasn't included in the Casino series. In the end I really got to feel like Sierra was taking a "screw our fans" approach with the Hoyle series and for the most part the box purchased would contain nothing more than a cardboard inner box and a CD in a single white sleeve.

I've given the games as much attention on SierraVault as Sierra gave the consumers in shoveling those games out year after year in various packages. As you might be able to pick up from my tone, I wasn't real impressed with Sierra over the Hoyle series.

I'll swing back around to that Hoyle page again one day and get it touched up a little bit but for now I'm much more concerned about getting stuff like the Ultima games and the other early Sierra classic stuff archived and documented. Stay tuned.