[Episode 21] Origins [Archive]

Ravenlock

11-04-2009, 06:47 PM

http://image.colonyofgamers.com/imcast.png

Every story has a beginning -- sorry, I'm kidding, I'm not actually going through with that. The 20th installment of Immortal Machines seems a momentous occasion, though, so we did want to do something a little bit different and special. Toss on your rose-colored glasses and take a trip with us back in time as we reminisce about days, systems, and games gone by.

Many hands are on deck this week to share a little bit about our roots - the games and machines that got us into PC gaming years (sometimes decades) ago and will keep us there for years to come. Our retro title goes about as far back as it is possible to go, delving into the history and ramifications of Spacewar! Also discussed are the delightful and short Small World (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/10/23/its-a-small-world-lets-keep-it-that-way/), the surprisingly authentic Doom Roguelike (http://doom.chaosforge.org/), and Abandonia (http://www.abandonia.com/), home to wayward titles from a lost age.

And, of course, the usual smattering of news and commentary (actually, quite a bit of news) to get you through the day. If you happen to subscribe to our iTunes feed and you like the show, head over there and give us a rating, that'd be swell. :)

Without further ado, Immortal Machines presents... Origins (http://www.immortalmachines.com/public/podcast/Origins.mp3).

Hosted & Summarized by Eric [Ravenlock]
Participants are Robert [Trebor], Jacob [MagGnome], Mike [Bandango], and Bryan [Smoof]
Produced by Clayton [Voodoo]

iTunes (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=301414682) | Zune (zune://www.immortalmachines.com/public/podcast/immortal_machines_podcast.xml) | RSS (http://www.immortalmachines.com/public/podcast/immortal_machines_podcast.xml)

Spigot

11-05-2009, 06:39 AM

I'll have to give this a listen soon. I'm going to be getting back into PC gaming with a vengeance shortly and need to wean myself off of all of the console blather :)

Nice to see a podcast dedicated to older titles, esp. the reference to Abandonia. I'm never 100% sure how the site in general feels about abandonware but I'm of the mind that if nobody is making the game and selling it anymore and the only way to find it is via the secondary market, sign me up for abandonware any day. So much of the focus is on the next big thing that people rarely take a moment to look back at our relatively short history of titles.

Keep up the good work all!

Ravenlock

11-05-2009, 07:16 AM

I try to talk a fair bit about that in there when we mention it - generally speaking, it looks like Abandonia tries its best to only offer games that you literally can't buy from anyone anymore; if a game is available for sale, they link to the place you can buy it, not a download.

I wrestled with it a bit but decided to trust that they do that as a policy, not as a token gesture ("Hey, we're legit - see, we linked to Amazon for this one!"), and I'm assuming that if a copyright holder emailed them and said "Take my game down", they would do so promptly.

I don't think there's any defense for offering downloads of games that are still being sold out there - especially by the publisher - and personally I'd rather see everything offered with good support at a reasonable price, as the folks over at Good Old Games (http://www.gog.com) do an excellent job of. (There, now I've given Good Old Games equal time, I feel better. :p) But in the absence of that possibility, I really can't call offering up "lost" games in an archival sense "wrong."

I would much rather see these games preserved in some form, even if it's just in bootleg copies floating around, than simply see them disappear. I know many (though I'm sure not all) of the games' original creators feel the same way.

Spigot

11-05-2009, 09:09 AM

Exactly my feelings. The rise of services like Good Old Games does help to rectify some of the guilt we may feel 'acquiring' older PC games that aren't on offer anywhere else (esp. if the company has vanished into the ether, as many old devs and publishers have).

But yeah. We have such a young medium to try to preserve and so much of it just flitters off into nothingness once it passes an arbitrary, rolling cut-off date that many of us just feel the need to hold onto some of it to keep it alive in some respect. Granted, there are often technical hurdles to overcome to enjoy even the simplest of games from back in the day but at least there around in some form or another.

Like I said before, I'm just happy to see people other than myself who appreciate the legacy of what has come before beyond the usual "See, this game is a remake/sequel to that beloved game from 10 years ago" kind of reflection on the industry.

Now if only Good Old Games could put up a proper working copy of the original Thief...

Voodoo

11-05-2009, 11:00 AM

I agree with you both. Personally, I have many old games on floppies and the rationality comes of if I am entitled to grab myself a copy off the net or is it my role to repurchase this game off of a site like Amazon. For instance, I have X-Wing on 3.5" floppies and several of the floppies are no longer readable...

LordDon

11-05-2009, 11:44 AM

I can't tell you the number of gems I found on Abandonware sites because I hadn't experienced them the first go 'round. I've got great love for the GoG guys, and abandonware sites for doing what they do.

Ravenlock

11-05-2009, 01:15 PM

Your late link for this episode is to the free download for Death Rally, which I totally forgot I had mentioned. ;)

Go get it (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/10/21/brand-new-youre-retro-death-race/)!

LordDon

11-05-2009, 02:08 PM

I loved that game!

Ravenlock

11-05-2009, 03:03 PM

And now you can love it again for free! ;)

Karmakin

11-05-2009, 05:29 PM

Unfortunately piracy is still piracy. It doesn't matter if its in print and out of print. As it stands, content creators have every right to pull something off the market completely and basically drop it down the memory hole.

This is wrong, btw. But this is also the law. Personally, I'd like to see that changed. But as it stands right now, it's illegal.

The big difficulty with getting this changed is getting things such as music, movies, video games recognized as being more than just commodities, that they are important parts of our culture and need to be respected as such.

Ravenlock

11-05-2009, 07:38 PM

Yeah, I know that too, which is why I also said hey, if you're not comfortable with it, don't visit the site. ;)

In the cases where the companies who own the rights to the material literally aren't around anymore, there's pretty much zero chance that anyone will ever care that Abandonia (or any other site) is hosting them. Most still-active companies with an old catalog enforce their copyrights by sending take-down notices to sites like this, which I'm assuming Abandonia is trying to preempt by linking to purchase sites rather than downloads when they can.

It would also be nice to see a library type system where a site could legitimately purchase some number of licenses for an old game and then "lend" them out digitally - I know of libraries that do this with audiobook MP3's, basically sending you a time-limited digital copy to listen to, after which it becomes available for someone else. Unfortunately very few libraries carry games of any kind, so I'm sure there's no momentum to do something like that, and only the existing library system could get away with such a thing.

It's sad to realize that if public libraries didn't already exist, there's no way you could start them now. You'd be sued into oblivion before the idea ever got off the ground.

Ravenlock

11-05-2009, 07:40 PM

A clarification in case it's needed - the Death Rally link is not to any abandonware, it's been released free of charge by the legitimate owners. Feel free to enjoy it without any guilt or fear whatsoever regardless of what you think of abandonware. ;)

Spigot

11-05-2009, 07:46 PM

Plus there's the whole issue of getting older games to run on modern hardware. It's not nearly as difficult with the emulation on older consoles, as they had standarized hardware. At least a site like Good Old Games is putting the effort in to try to give us stable, working copies of these older games for good prices that will hopefully see some pay-off to the original owners.

LordDon

11-05-2009, 10:22 PM

Clocking in at 2 hours I think you should've maybe gone with clips rather than entire songs for the favorite old soundtracks. Unsolicited opinion.

MagGnome

11-05-2009, 10:50 PM

Have you listened to the show yet Spigot? I'm curious to hear your impressions!

Apparently I have a sultry voice. :p

I was a little out of it during the first part of the podcast. I haven't listened to the episode yet, but I'm hoping that didn't come through. There were so many things I wanted to say about how I got into gaming, and then when my turn came I just sort of stammered!

Ravenlock

11-05-2009, 11:44 PM

Clocking in at 2 hours I think you should've maybe gone with clips rather than entire songs for the favorite old soundtracks. Unsolicited opinion.

Opinions are in fact explicitly solicited, so thank you for providing them. ;)

Voodoo

11-06-2009, 05:41 AM

Clocking in at 2 hours I think you should've maybe gone with clips rather than entire songs for the favorite old soundtracks. Unsolicited opinion.

I know you was jammin' to Mixed Up Mother Goose. :)

Spigot

11-06-2009, 05:42 AM

I haven't listened yet (don't ask why, it's a sad tale of woe) but I plan to in the very near future.

MagGnome

11-06-2009, 07:25 AM

He was obviously jamming to my selection from The Longest Journey, assuming it made it in there. :D

LordDon

11-06-2009, 12:53 PM

I know you was jammin' to Mixed Up Mother Goose. :)

It's funny because I remember my parents picking that up for my younger sister. You ratted me out. =D

MagGnome

11-07-2009, 01:53 PM

Voodoo

11-08-2009, 04:10 AM

*Disclaimer - Mixed Up Mother Goose was Bandango's selection, not mine. I chose a song from The Longest Journey. Clayton got this mixed up when he edited the podcast.

Not that it really matters, but I wanted to set the record straight. :p

Yup! I knew something was wrong about the episode but couldn't quite put my finger on it until a review of the music submissions after I posted the podcast and reformatted to Windows 7. WHOPS! I suppose for this podcast you could call me the mixed up mother goose. :D

LordDon

11-09-2009, 03:52 PM

Awesome choice for your piece, btw, Voodoo. They really need to remake I'76.

CappinCanuck

11-10-2009, 12:15 PM

Great podcast btw. I don't know why, can't quite place it, but I enjoyed this one more than usual. Maybe the nostalgic content. Way to represent Spigot, glad we have a Canadian on there; an Ontarian at that!

Ravenlock

11-10-2009, 12:27 PM

...Spigot wasn't on the podcast. Not that we wouldn't love to have him, but we don't yet. :p

That said, really glad you liked it! ;)

Spigot

11-10-2009, 12:47 PM

Oh man. I've gone viral, infecting places I've never been and podcasts I haven't recorded.

MagGnome

11-10-2009, 03:00 PM

I'm curious as to who CappinCanuck mistook for Spigot.

CappinCanuck

11-10-2009, 09:58 PM

I'm curious as to who CappinCanuck mistook for Spigot.

Oh, I didnt' think he was on this one. Just in the past. Either way, it looks like I'm confuzzling shit up :). In that case, I demand you get a Cdn on the podcast. This sort of thing shouldn't happen in this day and age, downright travesty. (I don't actually care if there is or isn't a CDN. Sometimes satire doesn't translate over the internet heh.) Still a great podcast. Mag, let's just assume I meant you, you've always struck me as very Spigotesque.

Spigot

11-10-2009, 10:50 PM

Mag, let's just assume I meant you, you've always struck me as very Spigotesque.Is that a compliment or an insult to poor Maggie?

I used to be a somewhat regular caller to Evil Avatar Radio back when Phil Kollar hosted it. I also have been stalking the guys on In Game Chat via e-mail and Twitter. I was hoping to be on either this or the FUDCast once upon a time, but I'm a very tough person to get a hold of for long enough to actually talk about something into a microphone.

MagGnome

11-10-2009, 10:55 PM

I'm not sure how to take that either, Spigot. I only wish that I could come up with a feature on this site that is half as interesting as Turning the Spigot. :)

Spigot

11-10-2009, 10:59 PM

I'm not sure how to take that either, Spigot. I only wish that I could come up with a feature on this site that is half as interesting as Turning the Spigot. :)Just have someone call you out on some off-the-cuff remark and then go write an article about it every week. That's what I did.

If I ever get around to making my dream podcast, The Obscuricast, you can be the co-host :)

MagGnome

11-11-2009, 08:03 AM

Just have someone call you out on some off-the-cuff remark and then go write an article about it every week. That's what I did.

If I ever get around to making my dream podcast, The Obscuricast, you can be the co-host :)

Awesome!

I could probably write a feature each week about my Backlog. That's what I get the most grief about around here. Well that and the "other" thing, but I'm not sure that would make for a good column on COG.

Spigot

11-11-2009, 08:39 AM

What other thing? That hideous growth on your neck? :)

CappinCanuck

11-11-2009, 09:06 AM

Is that a compliment or an insult to poor Maggie?

Neither. My comment was meant to obscure and confuse my error; and very little on Mag's Spigot-like qualities. :cool:

MagGnome

11-11-2009, 07:27 PM

What other thing? That hideous growth on your neck? :)

The growth is on my leg, and that's not what I was referring to. :p

Spigot

11-11-2009, 08:24 PM

Your seeming immunity to spider venom?

MagGnome

11-12-2009, 06:54 AM

Your seeming immunity to spider venom?

That's it! :p

Zecon

11-15-2009, 09:01 AM

I just started listening to the podcast, and although I'm mainly a console gamer, I still really enjoyed it. My family had a couple of PC's growing up which included a tandy, then a Laser(IBM knockoff if i remember correctly). and finally a gateway. I remember playing Megaman 1, Dig Dug, the Twilight zone, and Nightmare on elmstreet when I was a kid.

Wow, that EQ theme brought back some memories, too bad the sequel didn't tun out too well.

Ravenlock

11-15-2009, 09:57 AM

Spigot

11-15-2009, 10:06 AM

Megaman 1 was a kick in the nuts. Megaman 2 could be done in 2 lives by my younger, 8-9 year old self. Nowadays? Not so much :)

Zecon

11-15-2009, 10:19 AM

Thanks for the feedback, Zecon! Glad you enjoyed the show. :)

The early Megaman games were a kick in the nuts, but damn were they fun. I hope you picked up Megaman 9 for your system of choice, it's a great walk down nostalgia lane. ;)

After picking up demon's souls, I don't think I have enough hate for myself left to buy Megaman 9. I did try out the demo, and yeah couldn't beat the first stage ><.

CappinCanuck

11-15-2009, 10:46 AM

Ready for the next podcast... gimme gimme gimme.

Oh, and I'm surprised nobody mentioned some of the frontiers of multiplayer clients like Kali or MPlayer heh. Oh, good ol days. I would kill for a Steam and Mplayer lobby style integration.

Ravenlock

11-15-2009, 11:18 AM

Our next recording is happening reaaaal soon now. Look for your fix midweek. :)

And hey, a reminder - feel free to email us with topics you'd like us to cover, questions you'd like us to talk about on air, or really anything. We do ask you to do it every time, you know. ;)

podcast at immortalmachines dot com.

EDIT: I was never a huge multiplayer guy in "the olden days" but I definitely remember Kali, as well as All-Seeing Eye and the original Gamespy. Crazy times, those were.

MagGnome

11-15-2009, 01:43 PM

I dare say that those were better days. I remember when I could spend an entire summer doing nothing but hanging out with my friends and playing video games.

Ravenlock

11-15-2009, 04:24 PM

That has more to do with us getting old than anything else, Mags ;)

I'm definitely jealous of the kids still in high school and college who have time to play all the fantastic stuff out there right now.

And the people who essentially play for a living. Yes, jealous of them too.

MagGnome

11-15-2009, 06:28 PM

Hopefully I'll have more time to game now that I'm quitting my full time job to go back to school.

Of course I might just end up with a post count of 20,000 + instead. :o

Doogie2K

11-23-2009, 01:09 AM

Minor thread necro.

As one of the young'uns around here (23), my first PC was a 486, as well (a 486DX4 marketed as a "586", 100 MHz). Before that, though, I played some edutainment games in elementary school, like Reader Rabbit and Math Blaster. There was also this pair of games -- again, one reading, one math -- that played similarly, that were platformers where you collected letters or numbers as you progressed through the level, answered math/reading questions when you hit a box with your head, and eliminated enemies by sliming them with the spacebar. I loved those games.

Anyway, a little later on, I played Raptor: Call of the Shadows, Mah Jongg for Windows, and Wolfenstein 3D on my uncle's 386. Wolf3D spooked me the first time I played it, because I wasn't good at it, and got myself killed, and it was very scary. When we got that 486, though, it came with the shareware version of Wolf3D...with the browncoats replaced by Pac-Mans, one of those very early FPS mods. After that, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, a bunch of Apogee side-scrollers and shmups (Raptor, Duke Nukem 1/2, etc.), EGA Trek, Tank Wars (which was basically Scorched Earth), TIE Fighter, Descent, and Wing Commander II. Those were the games of my childhood, and I still look back fondly on most of them, and wish I could get some of them working on my computer.

I didn't get my first console until 2004, an original Xbox when I was 17 or 18, so suffice to say, I'm a PC gamer though and through, because it was all I ever had, and in the end, all I ever wanted. Only when my PC was too shitty to play games was I ever heavily into consoles (when I wasn't into WoW), and now that my PC is decent again, I've noticed that half the games on my Christmas list are PC versions...funny thing is, I wasn't even really trying to do it that way, it just happened.

Ravenlock

11-23-2009, 06:23 AM

Good story. Raptor: Call of Shadows is to this day one of my favorite vertical shmups. Excellent game. :)

Spigot

12-02-2009, 07:05 PM

Why does the "Run: History" link come here instead of where it needs to go? HMMM???!

Ravenlock

12-02-2009, 08:22 PM

It's a trap!

...I have no idea, which link where? Ask J Arcane, I guess?

MagGnome

12-02-2009, 09:28 PM

It's a trap!

...I have no idea, which link where? Ask J Arcane, I guess?

I have no idea what he is even referring to. :p

Voodoo

12-02-2009, 09:40 PM

I already fixed it. For some reason, J Arcane's newest feature on the CoG front page linked to this thread.

Doogie2K

12-02-2009, 09:45 PM

Why does the "Run: History" link come here instead of where it needs to go? HMMM???!

Because...Raptor is awesome?

Spigot

12-03-2009, 07:13 AM

I already fixed it. For some reason, J Arcane's newest feature on the CoG front page linked to this thread.It's STILL linking to this thread.

Voodoo

12-03-2009, 08:05 AM

It's STILL linking to this thread.

I just checked it and it isn't. Perhaps you have a cached copy that isn't updated with that tiny change. When I mouse over, it is linking to 14607 (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=14067) and this is 429363 (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?p=429363).

Spigot

12-03-2009, 08:25 AM

I just checked it and it isn't. Perhaps you have a cached copy that isn't updated with that tiny change. When I mouse over, it is linking to 14607 (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=14067) and this is 429363 (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?p=429363).But I'm at work now and it's STILL bringing me here. I'm cursed, never to leave this thread...