[Andy_Roark]

Hello all,

I wanted to post a quick message and let old time Sierra On-Line fans know that I've started a Sierra On-Line history webpage, focused on offering high quality scans and PDF downloads of much of the 1980s and 1990s Sierra publicity materials.

The first project I've undertaken is in scanning and posting the Sierra Newsletter, Sierra News Magazine and InterAction Magazine scans. In addition I have some articles, ads and other material up but nowhere near complete. The InterAction scans are 80% complete (with 10 issues from the full run missing and 5 more left to scan, 22 or so already up).

The website is at http://www.sierravault.com/

Please come by and take a look. If you like what you see (or think maybe you might have one of those elusive missing Sierra magazines I'm missing a scan of and would like to contribute) please drop by the forums and say hello.

Thanks

Andy
Webmaster, SierraVault

[kadji-kun]

Thank you for all that you have done. Its awesome seeing the logo evolve overtime.

[GreyFuss]

Andy

You have done a fine job with your site. I have been spending a lot of time the the official Preview Video area and still have more exploring of the site to do. I wanted to take time out to thank you. For sure I have added you to my favorites list and look forward to watching your site grow as I expect it will..

[Andy_Roark]

The site will indeed continue to grow. While I'm getting close to wrapping up the InterAction scanning (2.5 issues to go!) I've got a ton more articles and ads to scan in and upload.

Bear with me as the site grows - I've decided to focus on heavy content uploads before working on site pretty things (like a streaming video player for that video page). I'm not a programmer or web developer and am using the site as a learning tool. If nothing else I want people to be able to have a copy of any of this material they may want.

Please keep checking back in and let me know if you see anything wrong. I am by no means an expert and so far I've been getting lots of help on little mistakes.

Andy

[ATMachine]

Amazing work!

I've been going through the scans and noticed that there are plenty of pre-release screenshots from vintage Sierra adventures. I hope you don't mind if I use your scans to illustrate my point - if you wish, I'll take these images down.

King's Quest I SCI




The actual game's version of King Edward's castle.




The original backgrounds of the same scene--no guards, much more overgrowth, and a wider moat. I suppose the original idea was to mimic the AGI KQ1, where the player walks Graham into the King's Chamber, before the new introduction was conceived.

Colonel's Bequest


The Dramatis Personae.


An early version of the same shot. Laura's hair is different; for the final game it was changed to a bob cut, the ultimate in 1920's fashion.

King's Quest V


An early version of KQ5 features a title bar that was removed in the final product.

Space Quest IV





The finished game has gray title bars.





Early versions of the game had yellow title text on black, without the descriptive subtitles. Plus the Galaxy Galleria is shown as being in SQ12, not SQ10.

[Andy_Roark]

No problem at all in using the scans - that's the whole reason I'm putting them up there. You won't find a single watermark on my stuff for this exact reason.

The way I look at it I didn't have a single thing to do with making any of this stuff - I just enjoyed the heck out of it. If anyone has a copyright complaint it's Sierra and they'll probably let me know about it with a Cease and Desist letter!

The pre-release screen shots were always very cool to me. If you look through the catalog section you will find a "Tiger Software" catalog (badly worn out). Most of the screenshots in there were from development debug screens and they left the debug bar at the top in that state rather than cropping the photo. There's lots of cool stuff like that in what I'm scanning.

[Ascovel]

Many thanks. I've never had an oportunity to read any of those before.

Does anyone have scans of Lucasart's Adventurer magazine? I found scans of three issues in the net, but I'd like a lot to see some more of these too.

[AndreaDraco83]

Thanks! You've done an amazing job.

I've never had the opportunity to read InterAction, 'cause I live in Italy, and it's a real pleasure

[Ninja Dodo]

I was going to say "intriguing", but having browsed through the site a bit I'm going to have to go with: Awesome!

Kudos on keeping gaming history from drifting off into obscurity. Between efforts like this and Warren Spector there may yet me hope for the memory of old games.

[Andy_Roark]

Once again, thanks a lot guys.

There may be a bit of a lull on updates for the next few days. I'm not happy with the "Articles" section in it's current incarnation - I put the items up there and I can't find what I'm looking for. I can only imagine how it must look to you guys. I need to see if I can come up with a better approach that makes me happy before I start adding even more articles and confuse myself totally!

Today I'm working on recreating the InterAction scans that came in WAY too big (100 meg plus). I've found a way to recreate them at about half size. I apologize to anyone who was annoyed by the very long downloads. The new batch of smaller files should be up later today.

As far as the content goes I'd love to move onto some of the other highlights from that period outside of Sierra once I am happy with the Sierra site (Tex Murphy, Wing Commander, Sentinel Worlds) but I've got a long, long way to go before then. At this point I'd say I've got about 25% of the Sierra stuff I have access to up and scanned.

Please keep me in your bookmarks and check back. Right now the site is kinda basic and I will be attacking some flashier, prettier aspects as well. One day it will look like a real webpage!

Andy

[Kazmajik]

Excellent job with the site! Some of those video and audio clips are real treasures of gaming history. I look forward to seeing the site continue to develop.