Sierra, my love

http://www.gigex.com/general/article/?id=6956&game_id=&source=00001

speaking as someone who has seen s**t like this first hand, no company that starts at the bottom of the ladder in layoff's, truly knows whats wrong in a failing business.

in most cases, its the top levels of the ladder that truly constitute financial instability..

consider, one president of a company makes enuff to pay the salary of what? 100 employees? 1000?

in most cases, you cannot rightly replace the president/owner.. but you usually have many subordinates who tally up a considerable sum.. if the whole ladder was reduced say, 10 percent, you could retain more of the mid-level, and lower level employees, who are essentially the backbone anyways..

anywho's.. i doubt there is any issues with the people discharged, that the upper levels didn't cause :rolleyes:

I was under the impression that Sierra had already been dead... They're a relatively local company, could have sworn I saw something about them being shut down around a year ago. But after reading that, they're Seattle-based, so maybe they just shut down the Eugene part of it... I dunno.

I believe you are thinking of Dynamix... that was one of their sub devlopers in Oregon.

I am quite sorry to see Sierra go. I played all the kings quest games and many more besides. anyone remember Aces of the Pacific?

They are nowhere near the company they used to be. All the great titles I associate with Sierra predate '95 with the exception of HL, of which they don't really back all that well anyway.

THERE'S AN ADD ON THAT PAGE SAYING THAT THE HL2 RELEASE DATE IS 5 DAYS AWAY!!!

WOO! well i hope its right probly isnt tho... :sad:

Well according to EBGames it's September 9th...and seeing as they are a large retailer and are reliable in their sources I'd go with their estimate seeing as I haven't heard anything about a June date from anywhere but this little box.

fishy said:
THERE'S AN ADD ON THAT PAGE SAYING THAT THE HL2 RELEASE DATE IS 5 DAYS AWAY!!!

Wouldn't get too confident, over at amazon they are saying thats its not released till 3rd of september, and they say that this is the system specs;

Windows98/2000/Me/XP
700MHz processor
128MB RAM
DirectX 6.0 or higher compatible graphics card/accelerator

Bit low for HL2 isn't it?

I predict 9/30.

TB: Right, Dynamix, thanks for clearing that up. :smile:

$loth: No, the HL2 system requirements were made low so more people could play, because that's a lot of the reason why HL1 was so popular... anybody on his piece of crap 166 could play it. :biggrin:

Also, i could play it on my old 2meg Graphics card :biggrin:

At 0.25 FPS. :wink: I don't trust their video card requirement, but the rest should be fairly kosher...

The Source engine is very customizable. You could play HL2 at a decent framerate with those specs, but you'll have to play at the lowest res and miss all the spinky effects like shiny/reflecting water and so ...

30/06/04 is the last day of Q2. I expect they just have the release date in their database as 'Q2'.

and this is why I'm buying a whole new computer :smile:

that and it'll become loads easier to make pimp map for you guys!

Oops, I meant it said September 1^st.

My uber rig computer should be finished just in time, so I'll be able to map quicker, as well as HL2 map in all its glory.

Hmm, I reckon that if you play with the lowest specs, HL2 will probably look like HL1. Kind of an anti-climax, I would think. :smile:

$loth said:
Windows98/2000/Me/XP
700MHz processor
128MB RAM
DirectX 6.0 or higher compatible graphics card/accelerator

Bit low for HL2 isn't it?

there's no way that hl2 will require high end, cutting edge, up to the minute specs or components to run well. even if you want all the settings at max. after all, the engine is already over a year old. i mean, if it wasn't for the theft, then lots of us would have been loading it up on comps that were, in one way or another, inferior to what we have now. i know i'd have been happy playing it on a 15 inch monitor with a gforce4. not to say i wont be happier with my new 19" and fx5900ultra. :kitty:

then again, if things keep to form, i might have upgraded again by the time the game eventually gets released. who knows what christmas* could bring?

Ferret said:
and this is why I'm buying a whole new computer :smile:

if i wanted to be sure that a new comp was brand sparkley new when hl2 does hit the shelves, then i'd really be waiting to see the released game with my own eyes before i went anywhere near a computer store.

*2005

Same here.. I bought new CPU/RAM, but am waiting for the game to be out before getting the graphics card. I have needed an upgrade for a couple of years anyway, and have been able to play a few decent games like far cry and UT2K4 on my old graphics card.

fishy said:
i know i'd have been happy playing it on a 15 inch monitor with a gforce4.

He hem, that is my specs :rolleyes:

Athlon xp 2500
GF4 MX440 64meg
512 PC2700 DDR
Asus a7v8x-x Mobo

and a 15inch crt monitor. should do for HL2

I would rather have my old PC with a decent monitor than my new one with a 15 inch CRT... You can pick up a really good 17" for like... ?120 these days.

scary_jeff said:
I would rather have my old PC with a decent monitor than my new one with a 15 inch CRT... You can pick up a really good 17" for like... ?120 these days.

look around, 17" monitors are almost considered old.. you can get them for 1/2 of what you think they are worth..

$50-$65 is an average price now. (whatever that converts to in your currancy)

$50 is not the average price for a 17" decent monitor. Pricewatch is down but newegg has them all around the $100-$170. Decent = will do 1600*1200*75Hz.

jeff, i have a decent video card, and a damned good monitor, and mine max's out at 1280x1024 at 95hz, so how do you figure decent, exceeds my maximum?

maybe my dollars are a bit overzealous, but 17" monitors are exceedingly common around here, and this is just arkansas.. in fact, i bought a 17" Compaq monitor 3 weeks ago for only 10 dollars.. granted, the people didn't realize what it was, but still being older, they thought they did alright, and i didn't enlighten them a bit :wink:

in fact, i am sitting here ATM on a cheapo computer, with an even cheaper monitor, and it runs 1280x1024 at 85hz with an antique voodoo banshee..

if you feel decent exceeds my maximums, i damned sure would love to hear what "top of the line" monitors can achieve..

and pricewatch is never down..

[edit] 17 inch monitors

scary_jeff said:
Same here.. I bought new CPU/RAM, but am waiting for the game to be out before getting the graphics card. I have needed an upgrade for a couple of years anyway, and have been able to play a few decent games like far cry and UT2K4 on my old graphics card.

Err... if you can play a game like Far Cry with decent graphics, I'm pretty sure that you won't have to upgrade for HL2. Far Cry really taxed my system in some areas.

Specs: XP 2800+ (UCed due to cooling issues), 9500 Pro, 512 Mb RAM.

Plus, most of the people I know have 17-inch CRTs or LCDs, maxres 1600x1200 on the CRTs. Strangely, those who don't upgrade often have 19" CRTs...

I have a GeForce2 GTS. Ran Far Cry smoothly at 800*600*32, but obviously I didn't get the nice looking water.

Orph, I think we were looking at different things. I didn't mean to call you a liar, I'm sure you can get a 17" monitor for $60. The ones I'm looking at are flat screen 1600*1200*75... I say that because with the newest generation graphics card, you will be playing most current games at 1600*1200.

The monitor is just one area where I think you should splash out - a good monitor will last you through several computers, and has 5 year 24-hour swap out. What's the point of having doom 3 graphics if you are watching them on a nowhere-near-flat 15" monitor?

I also think CRTs are better than LCDs for most people. The only advantage of LCD is portability and you save 8 inches of desk space - the disadvantages are that you pay four times as much, you get a much worse response time, much worse viewing angle, lower brightness, and you only get one resolution that gives a sharp image (or the half/double resolutions, but they are normally undesirable), which isn't very good when you are trying to set your favorite game up to run smoothly whilst looking as good as possible.

Oops, that wasn't meant to be a monitor rant. Sorry :smile:

I would put up with minimum settings to play HL2 on a old pc, but I would prefer to play it on my lovely x800 pro.

Specs:

<UL dir=ltr>
[*]
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">P4EE 3.4 (@ 4.5GhZ Prometia MAch II)</DIV></LI>
[*]
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Asus P4C800-E</DIV></LI>
[*]
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">2gb OCZ PC4200 EL</DIV></LI>
[*]
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">ATi X800 Pro</DIV></LI></UL>

No, you're right, Jeff.

LCD/TFTs are inheritably slow.
If you're a gamer a CRT is what you want.
The bigger the better. :smile:

By the way, most 'LCD' monitors have TFT stuff, so they don't have the issue of being viewed from the side. It looks the same, just not as bright.

so jeffery, you are saying my monitor is not quite so piece of s**t :smile:

i apologize, i honestly thought we were discussing CRTs.. i unfortunately, cannot afford a tft, or an lcd..

but i will have a 19" monitor before HL2 arrives.. that much is a certainty :biggrin:

I would not buy a LCD/TFT monitor right now, there is new technology which makes views 10x sharper and is way cheaper than current tft's. Its a special type of liquid crystal which is called Biaxial Nematic Liquid Crystal.

[Edit] my 15 crt cost ?15/ ~$20-$22

kings quest 1 - 7 took up a good portion of my childhood. and montazumas revenge, anyone remember that?

siron said:
kings quest 1 - 7 took up a good portion of my childhood. and montazumas revenge, anyone remember that?

I was probably still a minor sibling at that time.

ahhhh those were the days

Orph, a TFT is an LCD. TFT isn't a type of monitor, but more of a technique.

In other words a Thin Film Transistor is a technique for creating a Liquid Crystal Display appear smoothly and at higher resolutions (and it gets rid of the funny angle invert crap)

Also, at times its great, since there's no glass light doesn't shine off of the screen :smile:

But .... yeah ... if you're a gamer/mapper, whatever. Don't get a flat panel of any kind ... unless its a plasma screen drool

Gorbachev said:
Well according to EBGames it's September 9th...and seeing as they are a large retailer and are reliable in their sources I'd go with their estimate seeing as I haven't heard anything about a June date from anywhere but this little box.

Never trust retailers' release dates. Some asshat at Gamestop was SWEARING to me last fall that HL2 would be out Nov 12th or some s**t, I wanted to smack the idiot. They will tell you anything to get you go do their pre-buy stuff. Hell, they'll sell you Duke Nukem Forever if you ask I bet :rolleyes:

That being said, I think HL2 is finally on track, hopefully we'll get it early this Fall. I'd just as soon they take a little longer, I'll need a month or so to digest DOOM 3 anyway.