How versions differ?

[Rakeesh]

Recently an issue arose with a collection of savegames. Sierra savegames are incompatible to different versions of the same game and we had to test them.

This made me wonder: too much trouble for little gain. Why should the versions ever change? Well, obviously some bugs are fixed and some updates here and there but what's the difference really?

I mainly played Sierra games on the Amiga and then replayed some many times, other copies were bought, others were borrowed, others I saw on a friend's PC. However I don't remember any differences throughout the copies I played.

The current copy of CoC I have on the PC is the one downloaded from Marx's website and chances are that it has a different version number from the one I had on the Amiga. Even if it's so, I don't find the one better or more updated than the other.

So, I wonder if there is anywhere some "version history" about each of the games or even if anyone of you personally noticed some difference between two versions you happened to see

[Collector]

Such lists exist, but I am not sure where to find them, offhand. It's more of a developer interest. Try looking on the old FreeSCI site or the ScummVM wiki.

Most versions are due to bug fixes and other improvements to the games. You might not ever encounter some bugs that get fixed in later version or through patches. Some bugs are specific to certain hardware or to specific sequences of events during game play. A good example of a bug that you would never see is one specific to a class in the QfG games when you are playing another class. Some differences are impossible to miss, such as a floppy version vs an MPC CD-ROM talkie. Games ported to different platforms necessarily have different interpreters.

There might have been ways to make save games more cross compatible, but would have been more involved. I doubt that it would have been universally possible in all cases. Consider that a save game is essentially a list of game event flags that tracks what has already been done, what is in the inventory, etc. If a bug fix involves one of these flags, that alone could render a save game useless if the bug fix makes the flag stored the save game invalid.

In the end, Sierra probably didn't worry much about it. They would not have been expecting people to be sharing save games, let alone decades after the game was released.

[audiodane]

let alone decades after the game was released.

The classic problem of software (and hardware) development... nothing man creates ages gracefully unless a LOT of time/money is put into it (e.g. most bridges last a pretty good while)

For consumer software though, 5 years is a long life..

..dane

[Rakeesh]

I forgot to mention that spacequest.net of old, provided for download many different versions of the same game(s) and even included some details.

It mentioned that specifically, the first Space Quest I had some references to a company (I think it was the Toys/Droids R Us thing); but these had to be removed in the following versions for copyright reasons.

I wonder if there were any such significant differences in other games

[Collector]

You mean the ZZ Top thing?

[Tawmis]

You mean the ZZ Top thing?

No, it's indeed the TOYS R US reference.

http://www.spacequest.net/sq1/spoofref/

Space Quest 1 Spoofs and References VGA version
Droids-B-UsNot only is the Droid-B-Us store still there, it even has a modified version of the Toys-R-Us giraffe logo. In one of the many lawsuits concerning the Space Quest series, Scott and Mark were sent to court concerning their in-game spoof of Toys-R-Us (Droid-B-Us). They won the lawsuit, but they needed to change Droids-R-Us into Droids-B-Us in the EGA version. You might think they would have learned from this and that they would be a little bit more careful in the future. Not quite: years later the Two Guys even added a spoof of the official logo to the Droids-B-Us store in the remake of Space Quest 1! Oddly enough, they weren't sued again for that one. What's more, in Space Quest 4 when you return to Ulence Flats a remark states: "Smells like another lawsuit coming back to haunt the Two Guys from Andromeda."

[MusicallyInspired]

In SQ4CD they changed the "Radio Shock: A Dandy Company" store from the disk version into "Hz So Good".

[Tawmis]

In SQ4CD they changed the "Radio Shock: A Dandy Company" store from the disk version into "Hz So Good".

They did? I never noticed... I don't get the joke "Hz So Good"

[Collector]

In SQ4CD they changed the "Radio Shock: A Dandy Company" store from the disk version into "Hz So Good".

They did? I never noticed... I don't get the joke "Hz So Good"

Hz=Hertz

[Tawmis]

In SQ4CD they changed the "Radio Shock: A Dandy Company" store from the disk version into "Hz So Good".

They did? I never noticed... I don't get the joke "Hz So Good"

Hz=Hertz

*face palm*

Right. How did I miss that...

[doctorfargo]

I hope I'm posted in the right place.

I noticed that the music tempo for most Amiga SCI games is slower than the DOS originals.

Space Quest III DOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNbXTKuObCQ

Space Quest III AMIGA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkRkHToYLDs

Codename Iceman DOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqfjK8PSgzc

Codename Iceman AMIGA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLyy1N57ttc

I noticed that at least Colonel's Bequest (maybe others too?) runs at the right tempo on the Amiga.

Colonel's Bequest DOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJZeZqm9TDc

Colonel's Bequest AMIGA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV6EZyasaVk

[Tawmis]

I've noticed the difference in (tempo for the) music also... even by whatever sound card it uses.