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Sierra tech support reunion party, KQ7 is mentioned quite a bit

ArmakuniArmakuni
edited February 2012 in Kings Quest Game
I recently stumbled upon this Youtube called MetalJesusRocks, and the guy whose channel it is used to work for Sierra, in the phone support section.

He hosted a little reunion party for other people having worked in support, and while it might sound really dull to watch... it's actually quite interesting!
They talk about which games were the most work to support, and which ones were the easiest... and Kings Quest 7 is mentioned several times as being one of the very worst ones as it was apparently incredibly buggy when it was first released (mine wasn't as far as I remember, but then again I didn't buy it right away and maybe the European release was more polished..?).
It was actually so buggy that they started including patch floppies in the game boxes! :D

Anyway, here are links to the two parts -
Sierra tech support reunion part 1/2
Sierra tech support reunion part 2/2

Comments

  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited September 2011
    AFAIK, the earlier release that didn't come with a DOS version had quite a few bugs. Incidentally, this is also the version that comes with Vivendi's 2006 KQ collection.
  • ArmakuniArmakuni
    edited September 2011
    I see... I think my version didn't come with the DOS version actually... haven't tried it out in so long that I can't remember anymore... the few times I've tried it out over the years I've always played the version that comes with the Roberta Williams Anthology, but I have no idea if that one is buggy or not.
    However, I did finish the game once way back when it was rather new, and I can't remember encountering any serious issues.
    Another game I bought where I seem to remember I didn't get the DOS version is Phantasmagoria 2... though if I remember correctly, you could download a patch to enable DOS support.

    Btw, Outpost was apparently another really buggy game according to the people in the clips... I haven't played many of the non-adventure Sierra titles so I know very little about most of them (though I did play their VGA version of Oils Well quite a bit, and didn't they have some Lode Runner game too..? I played that one too... and some of the Dr Brain stuff, those aren't really adventure games either).
  • BagginsKQBagginsKQ
    edited September 2011
    AFAIK, the earlier release that didn't come with a DOS version had quite a few bugs. Incidentally, this is also the version that comes with Vivendi's 2006 KQ collection.
    The first version version that came out originally was 1.1 for Windows 3.1. This was the buggy version.

    The Vivendi box version is 1.4 (or 1.51), the first win 95 version. This version has developed bugs on modern operating systems.

    The first dos version was version 2.0.

    http://www.sierraplanet.com/kingsquest7/techdoc2.html
  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited September 2011
    Ah. Apparently I did in fact not know as far as I thought.
  • BagginsKQBagginsKQ
    edited September 2011
    I think the bugs and the crappy QA work done on kQ7 lead to many of complaints, bad reviews etc for the game.

    The QA really went down starting around the release of QFG4.
  • EmilyEmily Telltale Alumni
    edited October 2011
    BagginsKQ wrote:
    I think the bugs and the crappy QA work done on kQ7 lead to many of complaints, bad reviews etc for the game.

    The QA really went down starting around the release of QFG4.

    Don't blame QA, blame management. I interviewed Lori Cole a couple of years ago for a Quest for Glory article and she talked about this:
    Lori Cole wrote:
    When Shadows of Darkness was released, it was terribly buggy. The programming system had been behind schedule and the game only had about a week of testing before they shoved it out the door for Christmas. I was miserable. The game was virtually unplayable. ... Shadows of Darkness started late because of system redesign and it was a very complex game. Sierra was shipping two other games that year, and all competed for the QA department's testing. Rather than miss the Christmas season, they shipped the game with only a week in QA. Then the management couldn't understand why it was so buggy.

    A week in QA for a game of that size is ridiculous. King's Quest 7 was the same vintage, the QA situation was probably similar.

    Back on topic - Armakuni, thanks for posting the YouTube links, that will be fun to watch!
  • exoexo
    edited October 2011
    now they release buggy games all the time. every time I boot a console game it has to download a patch. bet sierra wishes they had that sort of direct line to a consumers pc back then. :rolleyes:
  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited October 2011
    Except for SCI games, once the game is updated old save games no longer work. Not so for modern games, in most cases, anyway.
  • CKSquaCKSqua
    edited December 2011
    now they release buggy games all the time.

    There's some degree of bugginess in most products. However, I felt that games like Police Quest: Open Season, Quest for Glory IV (which I couldn't even start up until I got a new computer), and King's Quest VII were much worse than the majority of modern releases. Sierra had serious issues (incessant crashing, interface glitches, corrupt save games, etc.) once DOS extenders and Windows 3.1 were supported.

    In addition to the holiday rush, I suspect that QA schedules hadn't evolved to match the growing complexity of games.
  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited December 2011
    Their Windows 3.1 interpreters were absolute GARBAGE. The developers said so themselves. Win 3.1 was apparently not very developer-friendly as far as programming third-party programs was concerned. That's why I always stick to the DOS interpreters. The Win95 ones did far better, though.
  • KisaiKisai
    edited December 2011
    hehe, I had all of those games they hated.
    KQ7 - I don't know what version I had on disc, but I know it wasn't Version 2 because I definitely remember being in Costco and going "Version 2?" Which had like different box. Point of interest... I played it on a 386. I played Space Quest 6 on a 386. Which is probably why I didn't run into bugs in...

    Quest For Glory 4, had this too, ticked me off that Sierra wouldn't switch the floppy for the CD version. It was definitely buggy but I managed to complete it at least twice. When I later tried to play it on Dosbox I was ran into the Error 42 problem that I managed to work around by making it emulate a 386.

    Outpost, ha, this game was great... if you had internet access and downloaded the patches. They literately did not release the entire game. There were things in the manual that didn't exist until the patch. The game itself was actually very hard. (I also had Outpost 2 which was a completely different game, the first was a sim more like simcity, 2 was more RTS like starcraft.)

    At some point in time I've had all the Kings quest and Space Quest games from their original installation media (I had relatives that would trade their games to each other and myself) up to Space Quest 6. When I recently went though all my CD's I could only find Space Quest 4 (which came from the 5foot 10 pack set IIRC) and 6. LSL 6 and 7, and KQ7. I think I lost most of the floppy disks for everything (I have a box of 5 1/4" discs on a shelf, and a drive in a bin somewhere. I know KQ3, KQ4, PQ2 I had on 5 1/4's.) QFG nobody had 2, so I went from QFG1 (which was the EGA Hero's Quest version) to QFG3 and then 4.

    I have never called Sierra support. I used their website since I had internet during the Win3.1 era... on a 386.

    This does show the decline of Sierra's Management, choosing to ship broken games.
  • techie775techie775
    edited December 2011
    I played Space Quest 6 on a 386. Which is probably why I didn't run into bugs in...

    Ugh I still remember that stupid crash in SQ6 when you try and load the keycard in the sickbay. I think I had a 486 at the time. I ended up using Mo'slo or some other program to slow down my computer.
  • JuntMonkeyJuntMonkey
    edited February 2012
    I rarely experienced "bugs" in Sierra games, OTHER THAN memory issues in DOS. I was always making boot disks and was able to make it work. I started off using the boot disks they recommend in the game manuals verbatim, and eventually started figuring out how to modify them myself and increase performance. I remember I made one legendary boot disk that my friend referred to as "The Disk".
  • BagginsKQBagginsKQ
    edited February 2012
    Sierra ultimately released a very good boot disk maker, they called it something like Bdall!

    I don't know if Sierra made it themselves, or simply pulled it from a third party source, but worked great back then...
  • PowerlordPowerlord
    edited February 2012
    Kisai wrote: »
    hehe, I had all of those games they hated.
    KQ7 - I don't know what version I had on disc, but I know it wasn't Version 2 because I definitely remember being in Costco and going "Version 2?" Which had like different box. Point of interest... I played it on a 386. I played Space Quest 6 on a 386. Which is probably why I didn't run into bugs in...

    If you still have the box, version 1 has Malicia in the center looking down at a tornado with Valanice and Rosella in it.

    Version 2 has a castle with a volcano behind it.
  • BagginsKQBagginsKQ
    edited February 2012
    There were at least three versions...

    There was the Windows 3.1 original, 1.1, I think (buggy as hell)...

    There was the 1.4/1.51 version, Win 95 (won't work on 64bit). Has a few extra deaths, and events.

    There was the 2.0, Dos/Win 95 version (dosbox!). Has removed material, to fix timing bugs... It added better saving though...

    Personally can't wait until there is a working scummvm that run the 1.4 version... Just to have access to the extra death scenes, animation...
    This does show the decline of Sierra's Management, choosing to ship broken games.

    Seriously, when you think about it the management under those times were mainly Ken Williams! It got worse when he left... But it was pretty bad when he was completely in charge of the company as well... He was often the one at fault for pushing games through before they got tested... Since he wanted meet Christmas deadlines and such...
  • Hiroshi MishimaHiroshi Mishima
    edited February 2012
    I don't remember running into any real problems with the King's Quest games I played via the King's Quest Collection of '97. However, the Space Quest Collection I got had all the games except 6 as unplayable. I could never get in contact with someone about it, though, because I'd bought it online and this was before we had stuff like Amazon and good customer service for online purchases.

    However, it wasn't an expensive collection and the fact that I loved every minute of SQ6 made me feel the money wasn't a total waste.

    The bonus game, Laura Bow 2, on the other hand that came with KQC.. I could never finish it cause it had numerous bugs which rendered it unfinishable.
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