Preserving the History

[MrFlibble]

Recently, while browsing the 3D Realms website, I suddenly realised how much effort Joe Siegler has put into keeping the eyewitness records of the company's history. This includes his Apogee Legacy Interviews, Apogee's history outline, the photo gallery, and the Apogee/3D Realms Memories, not to mention extras concerning the history of particular games. Reading this was like really getting to know the people behind the games, and this is certainly an important part of the game historiography as well. I've also checked out the interview section, and there are the various FAQs and independent articles like this very detailed account of how Rise of the Triad came to be. Yet it seems that other companies of that time did not get such good historiographical background (Blizzard doesn't seem to offer demos of their old games for download, for example), and only occasional pieces of historically significant information remain scattered across the Net. So I thought that it would be a good idea to have some sort of a centralized archive of interviews, press releases and other game and company related media, in addition to an archive of the game files proper. What do you think?

[ThreeHeadedMonkey]

You mean like a mirror site or something? That would be a good idea, since we don't know how long 3D Realms is going to keep all that "old stuff" online.

[DOSGuy]

The mandate of the site keeps growing, but there is still only one site administrator. If someone else will do the work, I'll put it online.

On that subject, I apologize for my relative silence lately. I'm working on something exciting, but quite risky.

[MrFlibble]

You mean like a mirror site or something? That would be a good idea, since we don't know how long 3D Realms is going to keep all that "old stuff" online.

That, too, but the general idea was that other companies of the time seem to haven't had the luck to have their legacy preserved (at least, parts of it), so maybe if someone stumbles upon something like an old interview or whatever, it would be nice to keep it in some sort of a database. Old gaming magazines should have some interesting stuff of that kind, too.

[DOSGuy]

I'm all for it, but I don't have the time to devote to it. I might be able to create an FTP site and grant anonymous upload privileges, to help you guys preserve stuff without the need to go through me for everything.

[leilei]

Maybe you can still ask Scott Miller about it.

[DOSGuy]

Apogee is the company I'm least worried about. Joe Siegler worked hard to preserve their history, and I don't think that 3DR's website is going anywhere. Even if it changes or dies, we'll still have archive.org. Also, when they added scanned manuals for every game they could find, I downloaded all of them and asked Joe if I could put them on this site. He said yes. I feel quite safe about Apogee's legacy being preserved online for the near future.

As for pretty much every other company, most of them seem to have erased any mention of their classic games, as though having produced EGA games in the EGA era would somehow be embarrassing today. Yes, those games may look a bit silly next to DirectX 11 games, but I don't think most people are so ignorant of the past that they would look down on a company for having produced games with 16 colors when that was the most that a PC could handle.

So, if you can find stuff to preserve the legacy of other Apogee or anyone else, I assure you that I support this. That said, every library has an archive and every museum has a warehouse. I don't know that I can "feature" all of this stuff with its own exhibit, but I won't turn any of it down. I like the idea of letting everyone upload to an FTP area. The files will be preserved (I won't turn on DELETE privileges), and I or future administrators can look through the archive at any time in the future and create new exhibits from whatever is there.

[MrFlibble]

Apogee is the company I'm least worried about. Joe Siegler worked hard to preserve their history, and I don't think that 3DR's website is going anywhere. Even if it changes or dies, we'll still have archive.org. Also, when they added scanned manuals for every game they could find, I downloaded all of them and asked Joe if I could put them on this site. He said yes. I feel quite safe about Apogee's legacy being preserved online for the near future.

Agreed. In fact, it's Joe's work that made me think other companies are lacking something in this respect It appears that the people who have been involved in the industry themselves haven't thought of preserving the memories. I've visited Tom Hall's website, it's more about current personal stuff; on the other hand, John Romero makes quite frequent excursions into the past, although those are scattered among other issues on his site. He's got a photo gallery, too.

As for pretty much every other company, most of them seem to have erased any mention of their classic games, as though having produced EGA games in the EGA era would somehow be embarrassing today. Yes, those games may look a bit silly next to DirectX 11 games, but I don't think most people are so ignorant of the past that they would look down on a company for having produced games with 16 colors when that was the most that a PC could handle.

Yeah, I really don't understand why this is so. Many companies have pages about their old games (or lists of old games in order of publication), but not the downloads themselves (e.g. the Warcraft II demo, old Raven games like Black Crypt or ShadowCaster etc.). It is possible that some companies are not sure people will figure out how to run their old games on new hardware, and are not willing to bother with adding a DOSBox shell or other forms of support to ensure compatibility. Anyway, it's a shame that their legacy is ignored like that; seems like making money is more important nowadays than just having fun and keeping fond memories...

So, if you can find stuff to preserve the legacy of other Apogee or anyone else, I assure you that I support this. That said, every library has an archive and every museum has a warehouse. I don't know that I can "feature" all of this stuff with its own exhibit, but I won't turn any of it down. I like the idea of letting everyone upload to an FTP area. The files will be preserved (I won't turn on DELETE privileges), and I or future administrators can look through the archive at any time in the future and create new exhibits from whatever is there.

I think a good step in this direction would be involving more people who are interested in the game history, and maybe also contacting those of the game development figures, who, like Joe Siegler or John Romero, are willing to preserve the past.

[MrFlibble]

Here's a mirror of the official Warcraft: Orcs & Humans page that used to be on Blizzard's website:

http://www.diablo3.nl/war1/

Note that the demo files to which the page links are still located at Blizzard's FTP.

[MrFlibble]

Just stumbled upon this interesting Wiki called Videogame Music Preservation Foundation. As the title suggests, it's about music from various video games and related information. It provides information about the games, screenshots and, of course, music. Quite an interesting resource, to be sure!

[DOSGuy]

I love video game music! I can actually remember the music from almost every console game I've played and enjoyed. NES games (Metroid, Zelda), SNES games (F-Zero, Soul Blazer), every Dragon Warrior game and, of course, the Final Fantasy series.

All of the FF games had beautiful music, but FF4 and FF7 really sticks out. In FF4, the music from Fabul (Yang's village) is just awesome. In FF7 the Prelude in that game was absolutely beautiful (stay on the title screen long enough for the orchestral accompaniment to kick in). The battle music and boss fight music were amazing. The music from Red XIII's village is one of my favorite pieces of video game music ever.

That said, it's hard to post video game music online because it represents copyrighted material. I can't visit that link right now (just having lunch at work), but I'll check it out when I get home.

[MrFlibble]

I also enjoy video game music a lot, although I must say I haven't played the game's you've mentioned I like Lee Jackson's soundtracks a lot, as well as music from Blizzard games, and of course Frank Klepacki's works

[leilei]

I used to use my spare time transcribing video game music to small (100kb<)MOD files, by ear (which can be very fun and rewarding if things sound right). This is one of my better examples. There's of course, some Final Fantasy IV stuff, some V and VI

[MrFlibble]

I used to use my spare time transcribing video game music to small (100kb<)MOD files, by ear (which can be very fun and rewarding if things sound right). This is one of my better examples. There's of course, some Final Fantasy IV stuff, some V and VI

Awesome

BTW, since it's relevant to the topic title, I've noticed that you maintain a site dedicated to Pie in the Sky's Game Creation System engine

[MrFlibble]

What I have completely missed is that the wiki I linked to above is in fact part of a site with the same name:
Vidoegame Music Preservation Foundation