rec.autos.simulators

Hi!

Finally, after ordering on Nov 20 at www.sierra.com, VR arrived here in Germany,
they must have used a canoe...

Now, full of e***ment, I try to install the ***, and what happens?
A dialog box telling me:

Can't find _SETUP.DLL, which is needed to complete the installation.
Error 103

Oh, the disappointment! Did anybody else have this error and receive
a solution from Sierra? I emailed their support, but I'm not expecting
an answer very soon...

Hmm, where's the CD with that demo again?

l8er
ronny

--
How to get rid of censorship in German game releases
<http://www.racesimcentral.net/;

          |\      _,,,---,,_        I want to die like my Grandfather,
   ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_              in his sleep.
        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'     Not like the people in his car,
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            screaming their heads off!

Ok, it's solved. Well, it runs now, but it's still a stupid mistake on
Sierra's side. The US version "needs" the country settings, but this has
to happen during Win95 installation.

Nevertheless, if you just copy the "Data" directory to the HD and start
race.exe, it works without the Setup program or the CD in the drive.
Due to the bug I at least found a way not having to swap CDs for VR... ;^)

l8er
ronny

--
How to get rid of censorship in German game releases
<http://www.racesimcentral.net/;

          |\      _,,,---,,_        I want to die like my Grandfather,
   ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_              in his sleep.
        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'     Not like the people in his car,
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            screaming their heads off!

Hi there,
   Sorry about the language problem--it was caused by using an international
Installshield template with a non-international version of Installshield.
It somehow slipped through the cracks of Sierra's product testing.  Of
course, the European
versions will not have this problem, but people running the current US Viper
on
non-English machines will.  (My advice to any game programmers: NEVER agree
to work on an installer!)
  Further evidence of our incompetence: the "race.exe" on the Data directory
wasn't supposed to be on the CD!  However, it actually helps fix the
non-English
bug.  So here's the workaround:
    1.)  Insert Viper CD.
    2.)  Make a directory on your hard drive (e.g., c:\Games\Viper)
    3.)  Make a subdirectory called Data (e.g., c:\Games\Viper\Data)
    4.)  Copy the contents of the Data directory on the CD to the one on
                your harddisk.
    5.)  Copy Data\race.exe to the Viper directory

   Now, you should be set, and just run "race.exe"  However, the "race.exe"
is a FUNKY variant, so your drivers will be called "H-1" and stuff.  So be
warned!

  -Dave

Dave Pollatsek
MGI

Hi!

My advice to game publishers: there are hundreds, most probably
thousands of
gamers, who HATE localized games (bad translations, censored graphics or
content, late patches, etc.), so PLEASE keep sims independent from
language
settings of Win95!!

BTW, EVERY time I install a Sierra product, I know I will be swearing at
some
point during installation: I want to organize my directory structure, so
racing
sims go on partition D:, 3D shooters on E:, and flight sims on F:, BUT I
don't
want to have THREE f**** Sierra directories on THREE drives.
This pis...... <pausing for a few seconds now>

Thanks, after fooling around enough I found this solution myself. 8^)

l8er
ronny

--
Your mouse has moved. Windows must be restarted for the change
to take effect. Reboot now?
          |\      _,,,---,,_        I want to die like my Grandfather,
   ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_              in his sleep.
        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'     Not like the people in his car,
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            screaming their heads off!

Try disabling your Virus Checking software...

-Larry

Well, I agree with you there, but it was IN OUR CONTRACT that we had to do
a "Sierra install", which uses a Sierra directory, as well as installing
Sierra Utilities
to the root of the Start menu, and using $^%$ installshield. (OTR, I think a
lot of people feel the same way, so feel free to bug Sierra about their
installer...)
 -Dave
PS.  We actually started the project as a "self-installing" game that would
just run off the CD, and just store a bit of configuration info on the
computer.
We optimised our resource usage so that it would run really well on 8X or
12X CDROMS.  Unfortunately, we discovered that a lot of CD-ROMs, while being
labled
12X or whatever would clock out as 4X or worse, even on extended reads, so
we
ended up dumping that idea, but we ended up with a very small disk footprint
that will certainly help pirates download our game from wArez sites.  So it
goes.

I don't have much hope being able to convince them, actually. And of course,
I didn't blame your company for the Sierra installer... ;^) I know, you HAD
to use it!

But that's the catch! The pirates NEVER have a problem to STEAL software, but
software companies should reconsider, if they want to trouble their HONEST
customers by using copy protection, that doesn't work on all CD drives (latest
example is Colin McRae Rally!)... The last ten years should have proven that
copy protection only bugs the honest customer, not the warez guys...

l8er
ronny

--
How to get rid of censorship in German game releases
<http://www.gamesmania.com/german/maniac/freedom/freedom.htm>

          |\      _,,,---,,_        I want to die like my Grandfather,
   ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_              in his sleep.
        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'     Not like the people in his car,
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            screaming their heads off!

Seconded! Unless a game has a lot of text (adventures come to mind), a
localized version is nothing but trouble and definitely not worth it.

What should be included is a language specific handbook and a chart
for the key mapping that coincides with the keyboards used in the
different countries, though.

This is also true for non-game apps (hello Microsoft!) My computer has
a c:\programs directory, where sloppily programmed English speaking
Win95 apps place themselves. It also has a C:\Programme directory,
which is the official directory replacing C:\programs in the German
version of Win9x. The same with C:\my files and C:\Eigene Dateien etc.
etc. If the naming was the same in all versions, this wouldn't happen.
(Call me ***retentive, but I hate this cluttering of directory
structures!)

An amusing tidbit about localized versions and the trouble marketing
departments have with them: when Interstate 76 first came out here, it
had a sticker saying (in German) something like "Hey, it's the cool
original US version!" Now, the same sticker says "Hey, *finally* the
game is completely in German!" Too bad, for the $20 it costs now, I
would buy the "cool original US version", but I'm not interested in
the dubbed thing.

--
Wolfgang Preiss   \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.