57 replies to this topic

[taikara]

Heyas everybody

In the near future, our fearless leader, Kosta, will be placing a poll on the main page of the site in order to gain feedback from site visitors.

This poll is extremely important - the results will determine the future direction of the content that will be on the site.

This is not a genre poll, as we've debated about in the forums thus far. This is regarding what type of freeware we will be putting up on the site from now on. We are trying to decide where to draw the line between freeware and abandonware - do commercial games turned freeware qualify? Should we only feature independently produced games? Should we focus on games that are capable of running on XP? Or, is all freeware created equally, and therefore anything goes?

The options will be:

• DOS or Windows, old or new, I like all types of freeware
  
• Recent commercial games that turned freeware (Tribes, GTA 2)
  
• Old games that became freeware (Black Cauldron, Castle Wolfenstein)
  
• Brand new & WinXP compatible games (Vega Strike, Battle for Wesnoth)
  
• Community made games (5 Days a Stranger (AGS), Enclosure (AGI))
  
• Remakes of old games (Wings of Fury, Kings Quest 1 - VGA)

The poll should be going up on Tuesday or so. I'll post a link here when it actually goes up. In the meantime, feel free to discuss the issue here

[Juni Ori]

Well, anything with quality goes.

[Tom Henrik]

I feel that all games that are declared freeware should be showcased on this site. There is a lot of good games out there, and people need a place they can get everything served on a plate.

If you want AGS games, you go to AGS' homepage. If you want AGI games, you go to AGI's homepage. If you want any other games, you have a problem. How do you search for "Battle of Wesnoth" if you don't know it even exist? Search for "Freeware"?.. And there are many great commercial games that have been released as freeware, and finding them isn't easy if you don't know what you are looking for. Not to mention that there are games that are special, like GTA 1 and 2 and Wild Metal Country.

In my opinion, we should create a site, the site, for freeware in general, where everyone could discover freeware games from all categories and from all ages of computer history.

As of now, there doesn't exist such a site on the net, and AR would be the first site to accomplish this feat. Making the site extremelly popular with any freeware gamer. No matter what each gamer appreciates. AR would serve them all.

Just my two cents.

[Kon-Tiki]

Anything with quality goes. If we'd put up a max. age limit, what would we do with new games made for old engines, like Enclosure, and old games made for the same engines, like The Black Cauldron? It doesn't make any sense putting Enclosure up, but refusing The Black Cauldron to be put up. Refusing to put Enclosure up'd make no sense either, as it's a great freeware game.

In my eyes, whether the game's old or new doesn't matter. Whether or not it runs on XP doesn't matter too (I run Win98SE, so if it'd only be XP compatible, I'd be left out ), and whether it's community made or commercial turned freeware doesn't matter either. All that does matter, is that it's a quality game that's freeware.

On a sidenote... only remakes'd make this site a bit pover, wouldn't it? I'd say remakes and freeware.

Edit: Besides that, only newer games, or only XP-compatible games, wouldn't make any sense with the utilities section, where DosBox's the only thing in there so far, plus with the DosBox forum, and the interview with Qbix and Harekiet. Turning the site to take in only such games'd rule out an entire feature of the site.

Edited by Kon-Tiki, 09 October 2005 - 06:20 PM.

[Flop]

I'm with you Tom. But I guess we'll have to wait and see what the poll says.

[Doubler]

I'm with Tom

[taikara]

I personally agree with all of you. Freeware is freeware, and quality freeware is even better.

The thing that makes it freeware is the fact that there are no legal consequences for downloading and playing the game, not the age, not the software that's required to run the game.

We should not discriminate against the different types of freeware, as there will always be people who prefer different types - some will like new games, some will want old games, some will only be interested in independent releases, some people want to see their old favorites remade with newer stylings.

Anything goes, really.

And in addition, AR is partially dedicated to game producers, because we are hoping to encourage the production of freeware games. If a game producer released a popular commercial game that later was released as freeware, we can interview him, and then his experiences can enlighten future game producers through our site.

We shouldn't ignore that producer and his games just because they were released commercially ages ages ago - releasing his games as freeware shows that he has the spirit that we are encouraging - making games available to game lovers for the love of the game, rather than for the possible profits involved.

That's sort of the point, I think.

[Havell]

Like Tom, I think all of those should be added to this site.  If it's legal, it goes here, on AR, if not, then it should be on AB.

[DakaSha]

i actually think that no games that were once commercial should be put on the site, it ruins the image of being dedicated to hobby game authors which in my opinion is very sad. as an aspiring author its nice to think there is a place that will be here just for the guys not making money with thier games.

i think abandonia should lose the pure dos image and just feature games that were once commercial and WENT abandonware OR freeware.

Abandonia + Reloaded =
All fields of free games divided into pure *Freeware* and *Commercial abandonware/freeware*.


Now if its not possible (for any reasons) to have abandonia feature more than just dos games then id go with Tom. but otherwise id go with what i just tried to explain.

[Tom Henrik]

It also must be said that I didn't even know that the AGS and AGI communities existed, before I had been an admin on AB for a long time. I knew about the definiton Freeware, but not where I could find quality games.

And searching for Freeware gives you a lot of articles on the subject, and very few actual freeware sites. And if you stumble over sites like AGS og AGI, then there is still a huge hidden world of quality freeware games you don't know of. And none of the community sites today will tell you about other freeware games.

Freeware in general is hard to find, and AR has the potential of becomming the first site ever to serve everyone's taste of Freeware.

Not to mention that many people will be surprised at finding out just how many commercial games are now Freeware.

One site for all quality Freeware, I say.

[Kon-Tiki]

I'm an aspiring game maker too, and I'd love to be put between the great ones that used to sell their games, and decided to give them out for free now. Not to mention that their professional experiences and ideas'll help people like us to make better games as well. You don't know how much I'm dying to learn from Sid Meier

Edit: For the record... there's not an official AGI homepage. AGI has a community, in which most people know each other, and the new releases're announced in the forums. There're a couple of people making efforts to keep track of it all, but one focuses more on a game database (the currently most official one's not accurate either. It lists Jiggy Jiggy Uh! Uh! as demo, while it's a finished game), while others did that, and 'bout tools and announcing news (the major one for that's been unupdated for a few years now, as the person doing that's too busy), and aside from those, there're just some user-made sites, which're usually far from complete. If you're part of the community, you'll know where to get what, and what to get. If you're not a part of the community, you won't know. If you haven't been around for long enough, you won't know certain things, and'll miss looking for them. It makes it all that harder to find finished AGI games (or just AGI games under development), if you're an outsider, not to mention that the released games usually stick within that community, due to that same old thing. Who here's ever heard of Tonight The Shrieking Corpses Bleed, Caitlyn's Destiny, or Time Quest? Enclosure's an exception on this, though. Femo Duo didn't promote it, yet it broke through and got to the world outside the AGI community as well. Only game that've done so as well, is Space Quest: The Lost Chapter. That's two games, on a countless amount of games (although most of those're not finished)

Edited by Kon-Tiki, 09 October 2005 - 06:44 PM.

[PrejudiceSucks]

Aye, one site for all quality freeware, but I would prefer it if all of the games could run on XP as well as 98 etc.

DOS is not a problem, they're DOSBox for that.

Anyway, all freeware should be on this site.

[DeathDude]

Well not much else to add except that yes I do agree that all types of freeware should be showcased on AR, coming here should be a place to cater to the different interests of the gamer in terms of freeware tastes that is.

[Flop]

One site to rule them all
One site to find them
One site to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them

Anyway, when can we expect this poll?

[Tom Henrik]

Whenever Kosta get's round to it. It now seems Friday is the most likely candidate.