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Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 2:49 pm
by audiodane
Okay awesome people .. I come to you for help!
Is there a list somewhere that simply has a list of all in-game locations and a brief description? I'm thinking a page that lists either by game or alphabetical things like Daventry (KQ), Arcada (SQ), etc, each with a brief description, possibly a screenshot (such as obscure locations that may only show up for one or two screens in the entire Sierra catalog) ... I've thought about creating a wiki page just for that, but don't know (a) if it already exists, or (b) host my own simple wiki on my wordpress site or new page on an existing Sierra wiki site??
Also, I would only know a handful of items (specifically SQ and KQ locations), and would need TONS of help from others to fill in the rest ...
thoughts?
..dane
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 5:53 pm
by Collector
Good to see you back! The KQ Companion has had such things for the KQ world. There may be such for SQ, but I am not sure. As to Sierra Wikis there are a number, but most of them leave something to be desired for various reasons. The owner of them is by someone with the handle of "Baggins". They have a number if mistakes. He once claimed that the fallen knight in the land of the dead was named "Scheherazade" because of the poem Alexander finds on the knight. He refused to correct it after it was pointed out that it was a reference to 1,001 Arabian Nights because he was so convinced that he had to be right. There are also the AGI and SCI Wikis, but those are for programming in AGI/SCI.
I would not mind having a more generalized Sierra Wiki, but do not want to start one if I am the only contributor. I could start another Wiki and add you as an admin if you would like to help get thing rolling. It could tie into the AGI and SCI Wikis and the SHP resources. Perhaps BBP could add her game "scripts".
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 6:03 pm
by audiodane
Thanks, glad to be back!
As every time I return, I hope to be able to stick around a while, but I can never know the future.
I do know that over the coming weeks I hope to FINALLY create that archive of old games that my brother and I used to enjoy. A couple years back it was going to be a USB stick with DOSBox, but then came the issue of being able to generate some decent interface to start them, as DOSBox couldn't reset itself and reload a conf file. (I was going to create an old-school DOS ASCII-art style menu interface (like the old Sierra installation interfaces) to select which game to start, which would then re-load DOSBox with the proper conf file.) Anyhoo, my thought now is to set it up as a Raspberry Pi SDCard, running the RPi version of SCUMMVM with all our old games loaded. So I may be back from time to time over the summer trying to get that going.
But I digress--- Yes, I recall seeing various wiki's over the years. I do not pretend to be such an expert on everything Sierra. And, truth be told, I'm looking for some cool internal company project codenames, and I thought why not use in-game locations from old favorite Sierra games? I thought Daventry would be good as the first codename since it was my introduction to Sierra back in the day.
I also don't mind hosting a simple wiki plugin on my wordpress site -- at this point I'm simply looking for in-game location information (for the aforementioned reason)... For that matter, just a list would be fine. But the wiki interface allows others to edit and add easily ...
You said you could start "another" Wiki ... Does that mean the AGI and SCI wikis' on your SHP main page were started by you?
..dane
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 6:18 pm
by Collector
Yes. The AGI Wiki was started as a recreation of the agigames.com's AGI Wiki and other extinct AGI sites from remnants retrieved from the Wayback and other. I have also added to it. Of late some of the original internal documentation has surfaced and has been added to the Wikis.
You might also be interested in the fact that the new version of SCI Companion has a decompiler (not just a disassembler) included.
http://sierrahelp.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4403
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 11:07 am
by audiodane
That is awesome. I have hopes one day of trying my hand at something like this. Though I wonder if AGI would be easier (or harder??) ..
As for the wiki.. I'm actually pretty surprised that there isn't a more comprehensive sierra wiki.. I'm a huge fan, but not nearly very knowledgeable, so my actual contributions would be extremely limited. Maybe I could simply accomplish my goals by posting a thread to gather some information from folks... The thought of a full up wiki with my limited time sounds a bit out of my skillset.
..dane
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 11:26 am
by Collector
AGI is easier. The problem is that all of the existing AGI IDEs have issues on modern Windows. I managed to get the source for the old unfinished Visual AGI project. It was written in C#, so it was right up my alley. I modernized the Pic and View editors. I added the missing Logic, Object and WORDS.TOC editors. It mostly just needs the Logic backend and compiler to be functional enough to create an AGI game. Unfortunately those two things are outside of my abilities. Gumby was doing the backend stuff, but has been too busy and is rarely around. Lance Ewing (the author of the old AGI PicEdit) had expressed some interest in the project, but has mostly been absent, too.
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 11:43 am
by audiodane
Hmm.. I would imagine they're out of my ballpark also. I'm primarily a electronics hardware designer, my programming knowledge is from my youth, before college training as an electrical engineer. I totally get the busy aspect of everyone's lives though. Unfortunate, but volunteer is as volunteer does.
I would not mind admin'ing a wiki page specifically to organize games and their story locations, but I would feel overwhelmed if it went larger scoped than that ... I have a use for story locations at work, so I would have a vested interest to flesh out that (one) page at least.. I don't know that a single page would be worth the effort to setup, however. I looked and didn't see any small, simple wiki page plugins for wordpress.. they are much more robust.. A sortable table would be easy, but not very user-friendly..
..dane
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 6:53 pm
by Collector
MediaWiki has builtin sortable tables. I am about to step out for a while, but when I get back I'll setup a new Wiki. If nothing else it can provide a canvas to create your locations project and then we can see if it can grow from there.
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 11:17 pm
by Tawmis
Collector wrote:MediaWiki has builtin sortable tables. I am about to step out for a while, but when I get back I'll setup a new Wiki. If nothing else it can provide a canvas to create your locations project and then we can see if it can grow from there.
I'd be interested in seeing said wiki getting developed.
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2016 2:14 pm
by BBP
Would love to help! I was interested in helping out at the Shivers wikia (you'll see I uploaded a number of pics there) but I just don't get that software.
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2016 7:41 pm
by Collector
I have started a new Wiki. I still have some work to do on it before it is ready. I'll let everyone know.
Re: Wiki or master list of Sierrra in-game locations?
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 3:32 pm
by Collector
Here is an initial version. I still have a lot of templates to add and in large part the layout is based on the AGI and SCI Wikis, so there are things that will need to be edited to fit the more generalized aim of the new Wiki. The exact included content is at this point open ended. I would love to have game reviews/synopses/trivia added. Screenshots, scans, walkthroughs, point lists, maps, developer bios and save games are some possibilities that could be added. You can suggest any other content. This can include any of the Sierra family companies, games or applications. Really anything Sierra related.
Registration is disabled to avoid having to deal with bots. Let me know if you want an account and I'll add one for you.