Steam Anthology Question

[Mizuki]

Hello! Thank you for bringing the 3D Realms Anthology to Steam. All of these games I once incessantly played under the Apogee banner are all in one place, and I find that pretty awesome.

However, I wanted to ask if there were plans to introduce Steam Achievements and Steam Trading Cards to the individual titles. I still have all of these games and occasionally play them (in fact I beat Dark Ages on an older computer just last month, lol) but I can't justify a $30-$40 price tag to myself to purchase games I already own without that something extra added in. For instance, I 100%-completed the whole Crystal Caves trilogy when I was pretty young. If I had the ability to do that again and track my progress through Steam Achievements I would do it in a heartbeat. Also, I'm under the impression from word of mouth that adding Steam Trading Cards doesn't even require modifying the original games.

It may sound silly, but this really is the roadblock stopping me from buying the Anthology (again, sort of). Thank you for your time and consideration.

Mizuki

[Hendricks266]

Achievements would be impossible without extensive reverse-engineering of every game in order to monitor the game state conditions needed to award them.

[Joe Siegler]

What Hendricks said. That kind of alteration requires altering the game code. For several of these titles, the source code doesn't exist anymore.

[Mizuki]

Thanks for your responses!

I thought that might be the case. I actually have a degree in CS, so I knew it would be a hassle to modify the original code and recompile the executables, but I figured it wouldn't be impossible if one wanted to, for instance, find whatever code was responsible for endgame splash screens or 100% completion dialog boxes and hook whatever Steam uses to generate achievements in there (depending on the language the game was created in I suppose). I was not aware that the source code for some of these games was completely lost, though.

I would still like to ask, though, if the same decision applies to Steam Trading Cards? As far as I was aware, those don't require changing the original games, as the cards drop through Steam. I enjoy them because they give that extra incentive to play every game in my library for at least a couple of hours, long enough to try it out and learn the ropes.

Thanks,
Mizuki

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by Mizuki

I would still like to ask, though, if the same decision applies to Steam Trading Cards? As far as I was aware, those don't require changing the original games, as the cards drop through Steam. I enjoy them because they give that extra incentive to play every game in my library for at least a couple of hours, long enough to try it out and learn the ropes.i

I don't know the answer to that. I'll inquire, though.

[Mizuki]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

I don't know the answer to that. I'll inquire, though.

Hi Joe,

Sorry to trouble you, but I was just wondering if you'd heard a response either way yet?

Thanks much,
Mizuki

[Joe Siegler]

I haven't. I'll ask again.