Discuss the current AGS era.

[Helm]

I was looking through my private message outbox for the first time and found this pm I had sent to Andail back in 2003 for whatever reason. Seriously do not remember what produced this retrospective mood, but I think it's an interesting read still



Horrible Quest, Hi Colour and a few Blancs Era (1999-2000):

Noted Games: House Quest, Lassi's Quest, Rob Blanc 1.


Community: The era I arrived in, although there was a Obscuritly Obscure Era of Obscureness before that, but everybody's reluctant to talk about that... However I have a strong impression of those times. The community was very small, replies to the forum threads counted at one every day -if at all-, rather than one every other second like now. Many people who became prestigious members later on were just making their humble -or not so humble- begginings now, such as Spyros, Phil Reed, Rode... Back then, there weren't many non-AGS threads, because people didn't see it any point to them, given the number of people around.

Highlights:

*Yahtzee carried himself around as not only a member of the Have Finished A Full Game club, but also the president.

*Greg Hurst was Master Coder. He practically dominated the tech forum along with Gilbot.

*I suspect Chris at that time, not only couldn't forsee how successful AGS would be, but also was just a bit sad to how people used his engine...

*About then, Chris made the General forum, which I dubbed General General. Not many people would give me credit for that name, simply because once I mentioned it, everybody started using it because it made absolute -in a sorta idiot savant- sense. Ags Technical, Ags General, General General.

*On said General General, the very first few threads included a "What kind of music do you listen to?" by Sylpher, who also for extra points mentioned Cannibal Corpse. That was a thread we're doomed to replay all over again every other month.  A "pizza or burritos" thread by some incarnation of the user, Gravity, later creator of the basic idea of Reality on the Norm.

Civil War, Public Unrest and some Great Games Era(~2001 and maybe the first half of 2002)

Noted Games: Larry Vales, Larry Vales, Larry Vales. Rodekill, Permanent Daylight.

Community: With LV and Rob Blanc 2 and 3, we suddenly had quite a few more users joining. Those games were something of a 'test' for AGS. When people played them, they understood it wasn't as limited as they'd like to think, and thus not as easily dismissable. Also because GLUMOL and more notably SCRAMM weren't an option, they all turned to AGS which was free, fully functional and constantly updated. Some other users of the past have matured into members of said club, which Yahtzee continued to pioneer. Spyros, Shawn, tomato, where all members with stature, and a few games under their belts at the time, much to Yahtzees dismay, which led to his departure. Other users simply left, like Abstauber or Bionic Bill. The ags general general had become the most frequented board at the time, with lots of -in retrospect- quite interesting threads, and a few fights.


Highlights:

*The wonderful AGS zine.

*The Whiteboard, made by eric was a consistent outlet of communal creativity. Some people created friendships there that endure to this day. It was one of the more enjoyable spects of the AGS scene, at the time.

*Joke games, and characters. DGM and me are to blame for them, I think. Snail Quest was the first 'joke' game, if memory serves. Andy Penish remains the original joke character, may his soul rest in a paradise made of slippery treats.

*Andail left, came back, left and came back. It was a silly time.

*National AGS Teams. A product of Spyros and me, the first national ags team was GAC, shortly followed by the (now defunct?) DNA. Partly joke, partly distribution novelty, it added a competition flair to the AGS community.

*MAGS



Newbie Counterstrike from the Norm Era (~2002)


Noted Games: first few RONs, SOL, 6 Day Assassin, PLEUGHBRUDUGFDHTG, Tulle's World III, the Bucher games...

Community: RON was, on retrospect, a blessing for the community. Many members appeared after descovering RON, and a few of them grew to be asteemed creators. The engine flourished under the constant attention and application and the quality of talent abound was amazing. The forums changed a bit. Less personal and more utilitarian. Not much else to say. I became slowly but gradualy detached from the scene by then, to concentrate on a number of other things, so there's no highlights of that era besides the games themselves. Oh, Run Hot didn't come out.

Today's a Fine Day to Dream Era

We're living in it, really.



So, in that happy community spirit, I ask people that have been here from 2003 and onwards to comment on the age since then to now, and where we stand today.

[SSH]

That's great, Helm! Maybe you (or someone, with your permission) could put that in the wiki under AGS History somewhere...

[Helm]

No, I'd rather not.

[Andail]

Hehe, I remember that. I was about to compile some sort of ags history page, and asked a few of the "oldest" members to write some stuff about certain periods.

It's a very nice essay, I recognize so much about it.

[Helm]

hehe I like how the 'Spyros, Phil Reed, Rode' that I mention in the first bit as making their first steps in the scene are all not here now.

And by like I mean hate

[Pumaman]

The Obscure Era of Obscureness (1998-1999)

Before the days even of ezboard, the community consisted of an insidetheweb message board, which attracted less than 1 post per week.

Gilbert was there, as was eric (since he was time travelling through the area at the time). The messageboard consisted purely of questions like "When is AC 1.13 coming out?" and "How can I do a lucasarts GUI?" (which of course at the time, you couldn't).

They were the days of unhinged optimism, where everyone in the community saw brighter things ahead and all joined together to defeat any evils that would come our way. Back in those days we had a real sense of social justice -- if one person had trouble making their game, the others would gather round and brutally murder them so that they wouldn't drag the community down.

Notable games: None were made as far as I know; but that's not surprising since all that AGS supported at the time was a Walk() and Display() command.

[Pet Terry]

The Era of Games That Never Were (~2003)

The amount of new members kept growing while AGS got more and more powerful tool. This led into people starting ambiguous projects that simply were way too much for them to handle. Many new projects were started, but not many of them got finished because either people realized it probably wouldn't be a good game after all or the the project was simply way too big. Games like The Legend of Leitor's Edge, Revenants, The Cloak, The Case etc. were highly anticipated, but eventually the development just halted. Which is a shame, really.

Community: General General made people to post lots of pointless post, but the some of the good debates proved some new members to be great debaters, like Farlander and Barcik. Some of the oldies simply vanished, but many new members turned out to be great game developers. Andail hosted Mittens in Sweden. I think it was some time in 2003 when Games in Production -forum was created, too.

Many hilarious personalities made their appearances too. RPGcreator was making the best RPG ever, made the fastest song ever and told how great person (s)he is. frenchy_117 wanted to make the possibly most ambiguous AGS game ever, The Road Through Life.

Noted games: The Uncertainty Machine, Keptosh I: The Search for Junc, RoN: Apocalypse Meow, Apprentice, 5 Days a Stranger, to mention a few.

If anyone remembers something I failed to mention/isn't correct, please do add/correct.

[Anarcho]

Helm, I think you left out two really important games to the AGS community--Tierra's KQ1 VGA (released August 7, 2001) and KQ2 VGA (released December 3, 2002).  Although remakes, they were some of the first professional-quality (and professional-length) releases to come out of the AGS community.  When I came across AGS I was impressed with Permanent Daylight and some others, but KQ2 VGA really convinced me of the engine's potential.

I think Pete's appraisal of the '03 period is apt, i.e. The Era of Games that Never Were, though the same could be said going up to the present (Dan Clarke, Bernie, Petteri, I'm looking at you!  ). 

This is a fun topic, let's keep it up.

[Rincewind]

Games like The Legend of Leitor's Edge, Revenants, The Cloak, The Case etc. were highly anticipated, but eventually the development just halted. Which is a shame, really.

Well, the production of Leitor's Edge has been down for quite a while now, but that Snake and I are still on it, no doubt about that. Well, as soon as he can send me that friggin' update, that is... Ahem.
So it's not dead yet, at least.

[Chicky]

How long you been saying that for eh Rince?

[Rincewind]

Haha, well, yeah, true, I suppose.. Far too long, probably. You've got a point, there.

But as far as I heard from our reptilious friend last week, things are to be rolling again soon.
The main portion of the story is basically finished, so it's mostly the minor stuff and the details that we'll concentrate on from now on. And then hopefully it'll keep on moving from there with graphics and the whole kit.

Forgot to say that t'was an interesting thread, btw. That was what it was all about, after all. A very nice retrospective.

[Helm]

Although remakes, they were some of the first professional-quality (and professional-length) releases to come out of the AGS community.

I'm sure many agree with you. They are not important games from my point of view. I'm sure Andail got a lot of other people to talk about the Tierra games in the pms, I was just painting the picture from my own experiences. The tierra remakes, apprentice games and most other celebrated high profile games of the ags community really aren't to my preference a lot of the time. Lots of work put into them for sure, but I've outgrown the nostalgia that dictates that if  it looks and plays like old sierra/lucasarts games then it's good.

[Squinky]

When Snake actually finishes a game, I will be wearing adult diapers.......

And yeah, thanks good stuff all around. Fun to be nostalgic...

[rodekill]

I'm still here, just feel that I don't have much to contribute anymore.

I check the forums at least once every couple of days.

Kind of nice to see someone mention one of my games again though, heh.

In all honesty, I miss the smaller community. I can't really relate to a lot of the stuff that gets posted these days.

I guess that's the price you pay once your community grows.

Hell, most of the users probably don't even know who I am anymore.

Can't believe it's been like what, five years? Six?

Crazy.

I'm trying to get back into finishing this old game of mine. AGS seems to have changed about 99% since the last time I opened it though. Now on top of tackling animation, which I loathe, I face learning AGS all over again.

Anyways, I think the Tierra games were significant in that they really opened people's eyes to AGS. They didn't grab hold of me much, since I've always been more interested in seeing original work, but you can't deny the amount of work and dedication that went into them. I think people finally really grasped how powerful AGS was actually becoming by then.

The Windows editor didn't hurt either.

Some memorable moments that immediately jump to mind:
- Little Willy (I made him pee)
- Monkeyspank's game where the guy runs around peeing. That was awsome.
- Stick Man and Snail Quest
- Winning my only AGS Award for the game that took me the least amount of effort and time to make. Somehow of course this became my most popular game.
- Being determined to make a text-parser game. That was an interesting adventure.
- The billion or so collaborative efforts that never came to fruition. I have folders and folders and folders of unused art. I should just make a game using all that mishmash of stuff.
- Insta-game. DOWNLOAD NOW!
- IRC chats and MSN chats keeping me distracted from the snooze-fest that was my old job. I finished two whole games at that desk. Hmm. Maybe I should have stayed there after all...
- Larry Vales. Damn I miss those 'burns. TIME IS NOT HEALING THEM!
- Mods' choonz. I still listen to them. I will use your excellent choonz Mods, I swear.
- And this is getting long, so let's just end this off with the development of Rode Kill 2, which was brutal and educational and dissapointing and poorly thought out. I should just release what I made so people can actually see what I'm talking about.

Alright, bed time.

[LGM]

I miss the EZboards and the inside jokes that wouldn't die. I miss the operas and the AGS shows.

I miss late night hour games in #ags.

I miss moonlit walks with m0ds.

I miss heated MSN debates with Helm where I end up accusing him of being an age racist (oh how silly I was.)

I miss missing Run Hot.

I miss making graphical scripts in ROOMEDIT.

Hell... I miss AGS.

But most importantly, it's not about what I miss. It's about how much the forum has affected me through my growth from an annoying 13 year old to an adult. So I have all of you to thank for that. Even you, Squalman.

As for today's era.. What's to be said. We've grown immensely popular since AC 1.13. People come and people go. Others lurk. Others ask you to vote for their own Adventure Game forum and then myseriously leave. Some might say we've degenerated into just another gaming message board, but we haven't. Sure, it's not the same, but the community is still here and still kicking.

The AGS community feels more like a community than any other place on the net. Of all of the forums I've graced my presenece with, this has been the finest and most behaved of them all.

There's just no place like http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb.

[The Inquisitive Stranger]

I remember when I had an ezBoard at around the same time the AGS community did, and Helm, Captain Mostly, MrColossal, and others would post in it and we'd have interactive stories about quaggas, seventeen-piece boy bands*, and Chinese pleasure balls. I remember not even knowing what Chinese pleasure balls were at the time...

I also remember being the inspiration for Neole's pirate squirrel mascot for 2dadventure.com. I think that site was the first place I heard of AGS, since it hosted Yahtzee's Rob Blanc games (which I, to this day, have never played).

* Incidentally, my upcoming game features a seventeen-piece boy band.

[DGMacphee]

One of the things I'm both glad and grumpy about starting was The AGS Awards (and to a lesser degree the MAGS comp).

Not to sound like a tosser who thinks way too highly of himself (but let's face it... I am), I think the AGS Awards encouraged people to exceed certain boundries of prior adventure games. That I'm glad about. I'm all for progression. And it was a big project I stuck with for three years. I'm happy about that.

I was also a little grumpy about starting them for the same reasons. It seemed some people just wanted to win an award just for the sake of winning an award and not because their games were pushing boundries. I got a lot of PM's with "hey i want to win an award can you make a category like best pciture of a cow in an adventure game".

But overall, they were fun. And it was damn interesting to see what people liked to vote for.

[Kinoko]

Do you mean to tell me that there ISN'T already a catagory for Best Picture of a Cow in an Adventure Game?!

[DGMacphee]

I told you when you first PMed me... NO!

[Helm]

I miss heated MSN debates with Helm where I end up accusing him of being an age racist (oh how silly I was.)

AGEIST!!!1111 haha yeah that was great! I probably provoked you, I don't remember. You were always very inviting to be made fun of, regardless of whether you actually deserved it I guess.

I remember when I had an ezBoard at around the same time the AGS community did, and Helm, Captain Mostly, MrColossal, and others would post in it and we'd have interactive stories about quaggas, seventeen-piece boy bands*, and Chinese pleasure balls. I remember not even knowing what Chinese pleasure balls were at the time...

Yeah I remember all that, fun times for 16 year old helm. You were memorizing pi at some point too, how did that pan out?

I got a lot of PM's with "hey i want to win an award can you make a category like best pciture of a cow in an adventure game".

Hey, I thought 'most inane ags community inside references in an otherwise straight-faced sci-fi adventure game' was a valid category!