Developers You Could Do Without!

[Scott Baret]

A while back there was a poll about favorite software developer. Now it's time to look at that topic's alter-ego...

What is a software developer you could do without?*

My vote goes to Sierra. I recall playing a game called "Mixed Up Mother Goose" in elementary school. It was confusing as to the objective of the game, the graphics were subpar by Mac standards, and the navigation was horrible. The rest of the class felt the same way for the most part.

I've looked at their old catalogs, etc and have seen very little that even looks good from this company. The graphics never looked good from what I saw of their product reviews, etc.

* If you could, please do not say Microsoft. I know many of you do not care for Microsoft but don't want to see this become an immature "I hate Microsoft" thread.

 

[Christopher]

Empire Earth looked like a knock off of Age of Mythology so I would have to vote the same.

Also I would have to say I could do without the developers of NicePlayer. It's basically the same thing as Quicktime Player but with less of a UI...

 

[II2II]

I'll second Sierra. I used to love their adventure games as a kid, but never did get through one without a few hints. Story telling was always child-like or more of a hack-job (writer sense, not computer sense).

Lotus, for not pushing Improv until it was the dominant metaphor for spreadsheets. Modern spreadsheets are still a grid of cells. I can replicate their functionality and more using awk or python.

Sorry, but I'm going to say Microsoft. Microsoft ain't all bad, but their products are very hit and miss. On the plus side, they have fairly long support cycles, modern products are generally stable, and they pretty much let people modify their product how they please. I do have my complaints, which is why I added them to my list, but I won't go into them because of that flame bait aspect.

 

[johnsonfromwisconsin]

I remember Sierra back around 97-2000. They put out some very raunchy junk for Windows. It was spectacularily horrible.

 

[LCGuy]

Real? :lol:

 

[heebiejeebies]

Yeah, they were behind the Larry series weren't they? That was funny for about 5 minutes, when I was 12 years old.

 

[coius]

haha I second leisure suit larry. that game never needed to make it out of the break room of junior high programmers

 

[returningmacuser]

haha I second leisure suit larry. that game never needed to make it out of the break room of junior high programmers

What are your thoughts on the Space Quest series? Any of you ever played that? I'm just curious. :?:

 

[coius]

never played space quest. I know there is another game I owned "StarWarped" that I wish never got out of the idea room. It was a novelty PC game I found at the local do-it-yourself hardware store (yes, that's right. they sold software games at a "Home improvement" store. Weirdest combo I have EVER seen)

I wish i never got that game. No one even wanted it. It was like a REALLY bad b-rated movie that got stuffed into a game and was made even worse. They also made a couple games called "PYST" and "DRIVVEN" or something. it was a sequel to MYST and RIVVEN

EDIT: did a quick look. The developers were "Parroty Interactive"

 

[heebiejeebies]

Yep, it's been 20 years since I played Space Quest so I can't remember if it was actually good, but I enjoyed it at the time. I also liked their game Jones in the Fast Lane, which I played again recently, rather less enjoyably.

 

[II2II]

I played a bit of Space Quest on the Apple II, and another version on the PC. Wandering around in the beginning was kinda fun, but I always got stuck.

I've since grown to hate adventure games, graphical or text. Graphical since they usually reduce to pixel hunting at some stage of the game, and text because they usually have puzzles that only make sense in the creator's minds. Still, there are a few good text adventures and I still love the artwork in the Myst series.

 

[heebiejeebies]

I would like adventure games if they weren't so damn hard! I've never been able to make it through a single one without a walkthrough (but then, I'm stupid).

 

[II2II]

Bah. The ability to solve an adventure game has little to do with intelligence. Here's why:

1. You have to realize that there is a puzzle to be solved. Sometimes this is obvious (e.g. a panel of buttons), but quite often the hints are subtle. Sometimes they are so subtle that you may think nothing of them. For example: you don't realize that a puzzle exists until you realize that you are not making progress in the game.

2. You have to figure out the nature of the puzzle. If the puzzle is presented straight up. This may be obvious, either with the puzzle clearly stated or something you can figure out by trial and error. In other cases it may be hard to figure out the nature of the puzzle. For example, you may understand that you are not making progress because you cannot find a hidden passage, but you need to recognize the puzzle that allows you to unlock the passage first.

3. Finding a solution to the puzzle. This is (arguably) the only one that implies any form of intelligence because it involves a problem solving process.

Another hitch with adventure games are limitations in the user interface. In a text adventure game, there may be literary or linguistic references that you do not understand. In a graphical adventure game, a graphical element may not give an obvious clue as to another passage or where stuff is hidden (which leads to ransacking rooms, or pixel hunting).

 

[heebiejeebies]

Just admit it, we're stupid.

 

[~Coxy]

Seriously, Space Quest (and some of the other Sierra games) is exceedingly illogical, infuriatingly difficult, and relies on 80s/90s pop culture to get half the stuff.

Even when it came out you didn't have to be stupid to give up on it.

http://fromearth.net/LetsPlay/Space%20Quest/

 

[Unknown_K]

Those old games were meant for kids, so you have to think like a kid from the 80's to understand the puzzles.

The only game developer I would like to see go away would be EA. Once upon a time EA had some good games, but then they decided to buy out other good games developers and destroy them completely (Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis, etc).

 

[chris]

I like Sierra's stuff, esp the King's Quest series.

I second EA, mainly because they release the same games over and over and over again with minor graphics updates, and have been since what, early 90s? Madden [year], I'm looking at you.

 

[Christopher]

Yes Madden and Nascar [year] both are just retarded to update. I have Nascar '99 and the only differance really is just SOME new cars and a few more tracks. Otherwise its the same thing. And the stupid thing is that the stats of each driver/player are no different.

 

[Scott Baret]

Longtime Madden fan...I usually buy the newest one every two years since I like my rosters to be up to date. The years I don't buy Madden I try to use create-a-player to make the new draftees and shuffle the guys around who got traded or signed as free agents. One year of that is fine but after two NFL drafts there are a lot of new players in the league plus the attributes on all players may have changed. Not to mention some of the older guys retire.

I'd like to see downloadable rosters for Madden so I don't have to buy the same game over and over again...I know it wasn't a possibility for Game Cube (which is what I used to play Madden on until I got the Wii) but I'd imagine Wii, PC, Mac, etc would all be doable. Even if there was a $15 fee I'd do it. Not sure if EA would do that or not but I think they'd get a lot of hardcore NFL fans like myself who would buy the new rosters.