Release the old Prey?

[MeatWagon]

Now that prey has been out for a while, would you guys consider releasing the old original prey from the 90's for your fans to mess around with? I'm sure theres plenty of people who would love to take a look.

[Snowy]

That would be pretty sweet.

[Damien_Azreal]

I would doubt it. Hell, I would be surprised if they even still had the old build anymore.

[Floodge]

That would be great.
I recall them saying they had it, just password protected or something.

[Kennerado]

In classic 3DR style:

Not Gonna Happen.

[Malgon]

They might still have it, but it's a safe bet it won't be released. I'm sure Joe could clarify, or already has.

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by MeatWagon

Now that prey has been out for a while, would you guys consider releasing the old original prey from the 90's for your fans to mess around with? I'm sure theres plenty of people who would love to take a look.

I don't think that will be happening.

I don't know what George has, but in my personal archives, I have a couple of backroom demo versions of Prey from the 90's, but the problem with those is to prevent theft, they were seriously restricted. I'd be surprised if they actually worked - we put in some heavy duty things like having to have environment variables right, time/date stamps in a certain range.

Back in the day, we used to put things like that into our betas - if the info wasn't right, the game would corrupt itself.

Point here is even if we have it, it probably wouldn't be in a releasable state. The back room demos weren't always truly playable "games", they were things generally built for specific demonstration things at E3. Oh, they'd have bits and pieces to show off, but full fledged "games" as you the end user might understand it - no, that's not generally what they were.

I doubt anyone would want to take the time and go back and see if it's even in a state where it could be released, much less do the work to actually release it.

[MeatWagon]

^Oh thats cool, if its a pain then its not really worth it for a small bit of content. Glad thats cleared up then

[Altered Reality]

Point here is even if we have it, it probably wouldn't be in a releasable state. The back room demos weren't always truly playable "games", they were things generally built for specific demonstration things at E3. Oh, they'd have bits and pieces to show off, but full fledged "games" as you the end user might understand it - no, that's not generally what they were.

I doubt anyone would want to take the time and go back and see if it's even in a state where it could be released, much less do the work to actually release it.

Well, you know what? I bet that if those backroom demos WERE released (with all the restrictions they have), someone would surely make the appropriate changes in the executable to get rid of the restrictions and make documentation about how to play them correctly. Never underestimate the community!

[Zero]

Originally Posted by Altered Reality

Well, you know what? I bet that if those backroom demos WERE released (with all the restrictions they have), someone would surely make the appropriate changes in the executable to get rid of the restrictions and make documentation about how to play them correctly. Never underestimate the community!

As much as I'd love to see the content, even if 3DR releases it in it's crippled state I doubt anyone here would reverse engineer the program to fine out what needs to be corrected. The time and effort to do such is not worth the pay off. Although it would be a great starter project for someone to get into disassembly with, the problem is I don't think 3DR would like it if there content was disassembled or reverse engineered.

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by Altered Reality

Well, you know what? I bet that if those backroom demos WERE released (with all the restrictions they have), someone would surely make the appropriate changes in the executable to get rid of the restrictions and make documentation about how to play them correctly. Never underestimate the community!

Don't overestimate our desire to release stuff. You also missed the part about these not being "games", they're.... Aw, you didn't ear this the first time you're not going to hear it now, you just want it released nevermind WHAT it is.

Let me be more blunt since you missed the point in the first message. It's not happening - forget about it.

[Altered Reality]

Let me be more blunt since you missed the point in the first message. It's not happening - forget about it.

I will. No problem.

But please, don't assume I missed anything about what you said in the first place. I know, those are not full games, that was just technology to show off some cool stuff in a backroom at E3, and it was intentionally crippled to avoid misuse of it.
But if you are a gamer, if you are a geek like everyone here is (because gaming is for geeks by definition), then you'll know that this kind of stuff is precisely what attracts gaming geeks, who therefore are going to ask about it until an official answer (positive or negative that may be) comes. To know as much as possible about a certain game, and that includes discarded ideas, pre-alpha versions, tech demos... it's the same reason why collector edition DVDs include so many documentaries about how a movie was made: to show the work in progress and let geeks see what was going on, before the final product was released.
Personally, I have several pre-alpha versions and tech demos that were released after the full game they refer to, but I don't consider them "free games" at all. You seem to believe that people would want that stuff released just to play a game for free, but they don't. It's just cool to see a work in progress of a finished product you know and go "Cool, I recognize this!" or "Man, that was lame, thank god they scrapped it!" or "Look at that, it was so different!"

Now let me point out that right now I'm not begging you to release the old Prey at all. It won't be released? Fine, I can live with that. But don't assume I missed any point of your post, when I didn't; and don't assume I made my previous post just because I'm some cheap bastard who just wants another game for free, when I'm not.

Having said this, I assume that, after receiving an official negative answer from you, this topic has no more reason to be. If you want to lock it, sticky a post that says "the old Prey will never be released" and erase any future topic mentioning the old Prey, I won't complain.

[Cipher]

All I want to know is how the whole "hyperrealism portals" thing panned out.

[Altered Reality]

Originally Posted by Cipher

All I want to know is how the whole "hyperrealism portals" thing panned out.

From what the videos showed, that wasn't a unique effect that we never saw again, it was just a buzzword to describe detail textures. Pretty much like Sega's "blast processing" which wasn't a real technology but a simple buzzword to indicate a higher processor clock speed.

[prophecy holder]

Just like condement despersal units is another tech word to describe those little ketchep (or katsup) packages you see at fastfood places.