Tales of Monkey Island Announced + Revamped Original

General chat related to ScummVM, adventure gaming, and so on.

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seubz
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Post by seubz »

A quick update to this thread:
Apparently, SMI:SE uses the SCUMM engine also. They definitely made some modifications to it in order to support high res graphics, but well...

Here is an extract from Craig Derrick's facebook "interview" (he is the game producer):

Why only Microsoft love? When can we expect Mac and PS3 versions? Share some Linux love too! I doubt this is using the SCUMM engine, so ScummVM is probably out.

After our launch is successful. And it is using the SCUMM engine.

Full interview:
http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?p=2633404

Seb
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Kisdra
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Post by Kisdra »

For the Mac version, it's kinda strange, but illustrates the change of politics in games : The Secret of Monkey Island in 1990 was released at the same time on Atari ST, Mac & PC. Are the costs really more expensive now ? Moreover, it's digital distribution, so…

Concerning the language localization : OK, subtitles will be nice, the voice acting in English is too, but The Curse of Monkey Island had new voice acting in each country ! The digital-only distribution is to blame for that, I think…
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sev
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Post by sev »

Kisdra wrote:Are the costs really more expensive now ? Moreover, it's digital distribution, so…
It seems that you underestimate costs of testing on each supported platform.


Eugene
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LogicDeLuxe
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Post by LogicDeLuxe »

Kisdra wrote:Are the costs really more expensive now ?
Reminds me of the telephone in the Dinky Island jungle. You can ask for the reason adventure games became that expensive. The answer was all those VGA graphics.
Considering, there is even more animated stuff now than it was in the classic version, plus live recorded music, plus voice acting, yet it was somewhere mentioned, that the game probably sells between 10$ and 15$, something really seems odd.

There are a few lines hinting on the price in both, MI1 and MI2. I wonder, if they stay the same.


As the SCUMM engine is highly portable (we have prove enough, I guess), other systems would be possible. Either, they don't think it worth due to lack of customers, or they use some kind of copy protection not available on other systems.
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Kisdra
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Post by Kisdra »

LogicDeLuxe wrote:
Kisdra wrote:Are the costs really more expensive now ?
Reminds me of the telephone in the Dinky Island jungle. You can ask for the reason adventure games became that expensive. The answer was all those VGA graphics.
Considering, there is even more animated stuff now than it was in the classic version, plus live recorded music, plus voice acting, yet it was somewhere mentioned, that the game probably sells between 10$ and 15$, something really seems odd.

There are a few lines hinting on the price in both, MI1 and MI2. I wonder, if they stay the same.


As the SCUMM engine is highly portable (we have prove enough, I guess), other systems would be possible. Either, they don't think it worth due to lack of customers, or they use some kind of copy protection not available on other systems.
Well, I guess it's a bit more expensive than at the time, but un the technical side, there's only adds on the original version : new graphics, new sound, new interface. Just eye and ears candy, for other points, the game stays the same : animations are the same, the story is the same…

But, if it uses SCUMM, maybe it'll run with SCUMMVM ?
Nikioko
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Post by Nikioko »

I heard that the speech will only work in the new mode but not in the old one. THAT would be a nice task for ScummVM: adding support for mp3s of the new sound to the old game (similar to the audio tracks of the enhanced audio edition). The owners of the SE would just have to rip off the audio and copy it to the MI directory, and it will be recognized. ;-)
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Longcat
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Post by Longcat »

well, that all depends on how the new version utilizes audio..

besides, I don't know how LucasArts were to feel about adding support for such a newly released edition.
Nikioko
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Post by Nikioko »

Jonatan wrote:well, that all depends on how the new version utilizes audio..

besides, I don't know how LucasArts were to feel about adding support for such a newly released edition.
Well, what should be the problem? You only have the audio files if you own the original SE.
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LogicDeLuxe
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Post by LogicDeLuxe »

Jonatan wrote:I don't know how LucasArts were to feel about adding support for such a newly released edition.
The main thing ScummVM adds is portability. And since LEC doesn't feel the need for Mac and Linux versions, there's nothing to loose for them. People without an officially supported platform might even buy the game too.

Ideally, people will buy the special edition from LEC, and play it with ScummVM on their favorite platform with their favorite combination of graphics/voice/music.

Also, ScummVM kept SCUMM alive. Maybe there won't be even a SE without ScummVM's effort keeping people interested in those games.
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noize
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Post by noize »

I agree with LogicDeluxe in ways of how it should be, but let's be realistic here.

To Lucasarts ScummVM only means a way of playing their games for free, meaning decrease of income. It is not very probable they'll want anything to do with this. It's more likely Lucasarts will try anything in their power to stop support for ScummVM: encrypted files, and some kind of copy protection (online login key) to stop illegal distrubution.
If Lucasarts wants crossplatform support they will surely have it done themselves to ensure a raise of income.

But you know, you never know for sure. We'll see.
Nikioko
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Post by Nikioko »

noize wrote:I agree with LogicDeluxe in ways of how it should be, but let's be realistic here.

To Lucasarts ScummVM only means a way of playing their games for free, meaning decrease of income. It is not very probable they'll want anything to do with this. It's more likely Lucasarts will try anything in their power to stop support for ScummVM: encrypted files, and some kind of copy protection (online login key) to stop illegal distrubution.
If Lucasarts wants crossplatform support they will surely have it done themselves to ensure a raise of income.

But you know, you never know for sure. We'll see.
Ah, ScummVM is a way playing the games for free? As I know, ScummVM only gives the games support on modern machines. You still need to have the original data. There is no support for pirated software here. If they had the will and the power to stop ScummVM, they would already have done it.
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md5
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Post by md5 »

Nikioko wrote:
noize wrote:I agree with LogicDeluxe in ways of how it should be, but let's be realistic here.

To Lucasarts ScummVM only means a way of playing their games for free, meaning decrease of income. (...)
Ah, ScummVM is a way playing the games for free? As I know, ScummVM only gives the games support on modern machines. You still need to have the original data. There is no support for pirated software here. If they had the will and the power to stop ScummVM, they would already have done it.
You can't play games "for free" with ScummVM, as you need to own the original games to play them. But Lucasarts has sent us a cease&desist letter (with some incorrect claims), to which there was a prompt response (search around and you'll find it).

The fact is that the popularity of their games has been increased considerably with the efforts of ScummVM, and that ScummVM has no aims to undermine Lucasarts' earnings in any way, as we do not support piracy. Hopefully, their lawyers have been convinced by now... :?
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noize
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Post by noize »

This discussion I started is not about what the intention is of the ScummVM team, but much more about how Lucasarts views us.

The clear aims and intention of ScummVM and it's users doesn't seem to change Lucasarts vision much. It's a bit similar to the dicourse of Roland not supporting emulation of MT32.

The intention of Munt and ScummVM is both entertainment and to stimulate economic values, but is much biased by the ease of illegality, much more important to some commercial insitutions. In legal matters they probably found that it's not so easy, and probably not worth the effort to stop ScummVM from excisting, so ignoring seems the best strategy.

This attitude can be seen by the rereleases of games like Sam & Max, which instead of including ScummVM (like seen on rereleases from both Revolution software and Adventure software), includes a very similair win32 wrapper made by Lucasarts. The legacy games support pages of Lucasarts website do not include words like: please try ScummVM to run your old DOS games on new computers.

In other words they don't support ScummVM and do not wish people to know about it.

But like we said before, who knows, maybe they do have changed their minds about it, but I doubt it.
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SuperDre
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Post by SuperDre »

Nikioko wrote:Ah, ScummVM is a way playing the games for free? As I know, ScummVM only gives the games support on modern machines. You still need to have the original data. There is no support for pirated software here.
Oh so you say scummvm doesn't work with pirated versions?
I really don't think Lucasarts will like it if the SE version is supported by ScummVM, trust me, it would be the end for Scummvm..
md5 wrote:You can't play games "for free" with ScummVM, as you need to own the original games to play them.
See comment above..
md5 wrote:The fact is that the popularity of their games has been increased considerably with the efforts of ScummVM, and that ScummVM has no aims to undermine Lucasarts' earnings in any way, as we do not support piracy. Hopefully, their lawyers have been convinced by now... :?
And you can actually provide number which shows the populairity of their games have increased through Scummvm? I think that's a very bold statement without actual numbers..
And even if you don't have the intention of supporting piracy, the fact ScummVM does run pirated versions makes it a bit of a problem... So don't think for a second that everyone who uses ScummVM is using only legally optained versions of the games ScummVM supports, as you can find complete sets of games with scummvm included on nonlegal sites..
But that's the negative site about ScummVM, even though it's a great program, IMHO one of the best since I'm an adventure freak and own an immense library of those games, it will also be used by people who aren't that interested in supporting the original creators and are only interested in their own wallet..
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ezekiel000
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Post by ezekiel000 »

Although that's true, the pirate games you can play on ScummVM can also be played with the original interpreters.

As the only games you can play with their copy protection disabled are because LucasArts have already released those games with no copy protection. So that's not really a fault on the ScummVM side but on LucasArts side.

So if MI:SE is released with a form of copy protection that can be replicated in ScummVM there shouldn't be a problem, but that's unlikely. The old forms of copy protection aren't used anymore it will be something like encryption or online activation.
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