[comp.sys.amiga] Psygnosis games vs advanced technology...

91_bickingd@GAR.UNION.EDU ("Bicking, David") (11/23/90)

>From: buffa@kish.inria.fr (Michel Buffa)
>Date: 22 Nov 90 18:12:43 GMT
>Organization: Inria Sofia Antipolis
 
> [quotes from netters about failings of Psygnosis ]
 
>I SAY THEY ARE GOOD PROGRAMMERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
>  Won't run on a 3000
 
>WHO CARES ? Don't buy a 3000 if you are a real video game fanatic.
 
>> won't run reliably on a number of different configurations
 
>Really, people with a 68020 accelerator, and custom ehancements aren't people
>who play much. You'd better had bought a 500 instead of this stupid
>accelerator card or this stupid hard drive controller, made only for people
>who use their amiga for working (BEUUUUUURK !!!!)


You are rude, obnoxious, and WRONG.  I want to get an A3000 (soon) and I am
currently stuck with an A500.  The one thing that keeps me up at night is 
knowing that many of my games, and many games I'll want to buy, will NOT work
on the A3000 because some PUTZ decides he's too lazy to write a program right.
I bought an A500 (in 1987) because it was all I could afford.  I haven't 
expanded it ONLY because I planned from the start to upgrade before expanding. 
I'm still waiting :(

 
> can't be put on a hard  drive
 
>WHO CARES ???????? What is the interest of putting a shot'em up on a HD ???
>If you had a normal A500 configuration (2 drives, 1 meg), the custom dos
>(YEAHHH ! I love custom fast dos, because I can load my games faster than all
>the serious folks with expensive configurations, who can not even play the game
>!!! HA ! HA ! HA !)

Try being civil for once, you'll make fewer enemies.  I'll tell you what the
interest is.  What if I'm working on a project for say, 8 hours.  The end isn't
in sight, there's code everywhere, and I'm stressed - so I decide to play a
game to help me keep sane, take a break.  Unfortunately, I gotta stop
everything, save everything, turn off the computer, and plug in the game disk. 
THEN I gotta wait anywhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes for it to load *IF*
it works on the computer.  I then play the game for 15 minutes, then I gotta
spend more time restarting the system and finding my place in the project...
THIS AIN'T FUN.

	Then there's the ADVENTURE GAME - you know, the ones that keep reading
files of the DISK?  Do you have any idea how much faster and smoother a game
like Dungeon Master or Bard's Tale would be from a HD?  Wouldn't it be great if
you could load a game into RAM, play it for a while, pause it, and continue
with your work/programming/writing/BBS'ing?  No, I guess you aren't able to
understand that.  I guessed that from your innocuous comments and your ignorant
tendancy to laugh at people for expecting something better.


>> can't be multitasked 
 
>I HATE MULTITASKING GAMES. When i play I don't want to do something else. Try
>to make a 60 frames/second shoot'em'up multitask !!! I hate multitasking
>anyway because I just bought my computer for playing and I'm sure I payed an
>extra for this !@#$$%% multitasking system. I just want to play games. Forever
>!!!! 

	Fine.  Buy a SEGA and leave us alone. I already described the
usefulness of multitasking games above.  Too bad you can't comprehend them.

>> -- 
>> Mike Farren 				     farren@well.sf.ca.us
 
>Mike Farren is too serious. He owns a too big computer for blasting the aliens
>at a very hight rate, because he wants to multitask too much. He's got a too
>big HD. He cannot play all these good games.

No.  You have too small an intelligence, too little imagination, and no
manners.  The programmers are too greedy or lazy to write their code correctly,
so you think people like Mike should pay the price?  You're twisted.  Only when
the games developers realize they won't make money off cheep ports (or in
psygnosis' case, harsh protections) will they start to do the job right.

 
>He must buy an Amiga 500, the simpliest one, buy a good joystick, and just
>have fun. (And not say to himself: "If this game multitasked, I could play my
>word processor at the same time !!!)

I think not.  He has the intelligence and creativity to see beyond that. 
Besides, why should he give up his BIGGER AND BETTER TOYS so he could stoop to
your tinkertoy level?  
	Once again, you miss the point.  It would be nice to play Hybris for a
while, pause it, flip screens and write a little while, then go back and finish
the game where it was left off.  But you probably wouldn't know how to use a
wordprocessor anyway.  Oh well.

Direct flames directly to ME via EMAIL.  My address is below.


>-- 
>------------------------------------------
>Michel Buffa:       Projet Robotvis, INRIA, France

C'est domage que tu es Francais... pour les autres francais.  Tu es impoli (sp)
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-
Dave Bicking         	       Single Tasking????? Just say NO!!!!
Union College Box 152          91_bickingd@union.bitnet              //
Schenectady, NY 12308          91_bickingd@gar.union.edu	   \X/ Amiga 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

mndaily@ux.acs.umn.edu (Linda Seebach) (11/23/90)

I have to come down on the side of upwards-compatability. If you write a
game which doesn't work on the 3000 under 2.0, but works on other amigas,
there is only one explanation.

There is something *seriously* wrong with your programming.

Just for the record: I have an a3000, and I have games. I can tell you this
much:

1] dungeon master works. However, you have to turn the computer off and start
  it up again under KS1.3, or it won't work. It's one of those cardinal sins -
  a copy-protected game you can't run off a hard drive. Get a life, folks.
  Although it's an ok game...
2] Populus will, so far as I know, not run at all.
3] Simcity works very well. It has a couple of bugs, but the people at Maxis
  were willing to listen to a bug report, and actually try to fix things.
4] Starflight: Works under 2.0 or 1.3 or their boot. However:
  Under 2.0, the mouse is (almost always) completely useless. They must be
  relying on something weird.
  Under 1.3, you get little scan lines in the graphics window occasionally.
  Under their boot (like, from the disk, or a disk copy) it works fine.
Almost everything else I've seen works ok...

Anyway, yes, you *would* get an a3000 and play games. The 3000 beats the hell
out of a 500 for games. Among other things, they move fast enough to be
interesting, and you can get interlace without that stupid flicker...

--SeebS-- (Peter, not Linda, Seebach)
Prophet in Exile

rblewitt@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Richard Blewitt) (11/24/90)

In article <2763@ux.acs.umn.edu> mndaily@ux.acs.umn.edu (Linda Seebach) writes:
>I have to come down on the side of upwards-compatability. If you write a
>game which doesn't work on the 3000 under 2.0, but works on other amigas,
>there is only one explanation.
>
>There is something *seriously* wrong with your programming.
>
I agree, and I would also like to add this game to the list of well
written games:
      
    Chessmaster 2000: works perfectly under 2.0, and off a hard
disk, and even multitasks.  Very impressive for a game that was
written in 1986, when people had 256k A1000's as a standard system.

I have tried several other games, and most work well.  

The 3000 is a great machine, which I bought because I have some
ideas for applications that I want to write for it.  But since it is
sitting on my desk, I also want to run games on it.  After crashing
the system a few times with my buggy programs, I need to shoot some
evil mutant monster things :)


>
>--SeebS-- (Peter, not Linda, Seebach)
>Prophet in Exile

                                                 Rick Blewitt
                                                 rblewitt@ucsd.edu

skank@iastate.edu (Skank George L) (11/24/90)

>>Don't buy a 3000 if you are a real video game fanatic.
>
>You are rude, obnoxious, and WRONG.  I want to get an A3000 (soon) and I am
>currently stuck with an A500.  The one thing that keeps me up at night is 
>knowing that many of my games, and many games I'll want to buy, will NOT work
>on the A3000 because some PUTZ decides he's too lazy to write a program right.

     I own a 3000 and it irritates me too that so few games are written to run
on the machine, hey, I like a good shoot-'em-up as much as the next person! :)
If there was ever a machine to play some great games, the 3000 is it.  So come
on people, this is a great opportunity to make some more $$$!

                                        --George

farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) (11/28/90)

In response to M. Buffa:

I speak as a game programmer as well as a game player.  You see, I happen
to suffer from one problem: I know just how easy it is to design a good
game which runs on both hard drives AND floppys, which runs on any Amiga,
regardless of processor type, and which allows multitasking if that's
what you, the player, want to do.  Or not, if you don't - nobody is forcing
you to run other programs at the same time.  I just don't agree with those
folks who are forcing you to NOT run other programs at the same time.

As far as I am concerned, if it is just as easy to allow these things as
not, then the failure to allow them is just plain dumb.
-- 
Mike Farren 				     farren@well.sf.ca.us

jlehmann@wpi.WPI.EDU (Jonas A. Lehmann) (11/29/90)

Dear Mr Farren why don't you tell us what the name of that
game is you know how to program that works as nicely on HD and on floppy.
It must be quite some game you wrote there since it is compared to 
Populous and Psygnosis type games!!!

Jonas Lehmann - Email in Header!

daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (12/06/90)

In article <9011222042.AA22368@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> 91_bickingd@GAR.UNION.EDU ("Bicking, David") writes:
>>From: buffa@kish.inria.fr (Michel Buffa)
>>Date: 22 Nov 90 18:12:43 GMT
>>Organization: Inria Sofia Antipolis

>> [quotes from netters about failings of Psygnosis ]

>>I SAY THEY ARE GOOD PROGRAMMERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>  Won't run on a 3000

>>WHO CARES ? Don't buy a 3000 if you are a real video game fanatic.

>>> won't run reliably on a number of different configurations

>>Really, people with a 68020 accelerator, and custom ehancements aren't people
>>who play much. 

>You are rude, obnoxious, and WRONG.  I want to get an A3000 (soon) and I am
>currently stuck with an A500.  The one thing that keeps me up at night is 
>knowing that many of my games, and many games I'll want to buy, will NOT work
>on the A3000 because some PUTZ decides he's too lazy to write a program right.

The basic problem is one of honesty.  Any good programmer knows what he/she
has to do to write a correct Amiga program (which, by definition, will run on
any Amiga under 1.3 or 2.0).  Some choose not to.  Then somebody like David
here comes along at the computer store and buys a program that says "for the
Amiga" on the package.  The implication is that it is a correctly written
program for the Amiga, which means any Amiga.  If it won't run on the A3000,
it has a bug.  That should be fixed.  If the company knows ahead of time that
the program (based on either direct experience OR knowledge that the same
techniques failed on the A3000 in the last program that used them) fails on
the A3000, or on 68020/30 machines, and still labels it "Amiga" rather than
"Amiga 500 only", they are lying to you, plain and simple.  This kind of
thing should not be tolerated by the consumer, any more than you would put up
with CDs than played on Sony CD players but not on Panasonic CD players.

>Dave Bicking         	       Single Tasking????? Just say NO!!!!


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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