Discworld 1 (and 2?) to become freeware
 

According to SCUMM....it's gonna happen and be legal. However, it's is NOT freeware at the moment:

http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Discworld

:(:( I just got this on eBay. Damn.

1 and 2 are cool, but if they could manage to support Noir, oh man.

Great news, I've been playing Discworld Noir again and I must say I still love the game as much as back when I bought it (beofre I had even heard of the books)
I've played Discworld 1 before, but never Discworld 2... so I am eagerly awaiting further progress.

Thank you for informing us.

That wiki page only mentions Discworld 1 to become freeware... if it's ever going to.

Discworld 1 was a very hard game, as far as I remember. Did it ever have a talkie version, or was that only the second one?

It did had a version with speech, dubbed by the same four actors of the next games in the series (Rob Brydon, Kate Robbins, Tony Robinson and Jon Pertwee), and Eric Idle doing the part of Rincewind.

Both :)

Yep, Discworld 1 was talkie. Eric Idle as Rincewind. (Don't know if he reprised his role for part two, but he was awesome in the first game.)

Definitely looking forward to this. I've always wanted to play Missing Presumed/Mortality Bytes. And Discworld 1 will be infinitely easier to play than my PlayStation copy... *grumbles about point-and-click adventures with controllers*

Aah, Discworld. An example of how one game series can veer between ridiculously obtuse and ridiculously easy between just two installments :D.

I bought Discworld Noir 8 months ago, having not been able to get Discworld 2 I didn't get around to playing it yet. Discworld 1 was fun as hell and ran OK on DOSBox.

I own the talkie versions off all the (three) Discworld games! :D Haven't gotten around to playing Noir yet, but the other two are great games!

Discworld Noir is... different from the other games, but that doesn't make it a bad game.
The first two games reflect the Old Discworld Books (to use Pratchett's own terminology) they deal with Rincewind they are much more based on magic and everything is colourful. Discworld Noir is based on the New Discworld Books (eventhough the New Books were just being published) in that it's based in Ankh Morpork, it's much darker it has a rather complicated plot and then there's the watch.

Aw, they spoiled the surprise! (I don't remember they announced FOtAQ and BASS,in advance, but I might be wrong)

--Erwin

I think a publisher still actively owns the rights to Noir, so its less likely we'll see that one freeware'd any time soon, and the ScummVM guys have said they won't generally support new games/engines at this point unless they can get the source.

Also, Noir is still being sold.
http://www.cdaccess.com/html/quick/discnoirpr.htm

I'll be glad if they get 1 and 2 up as freeware as I've never played them. :)

Too bad the game isn't really XP compatible. *sigh*

Noir plays fine on XP. Just gotta remember not to access the Options or load game choices on the main menu. Always press F1 to load saved games.

Discworld 1 was so rediculously hard and the dialogue is so drawn out it took me about 4 attempts and eventualy a walkthrough to complete. I enjoyed the enviorment of the first but the flaws made me never give 2 a fair chance. I may have to change my stance.

I can get Noir running, but it's very buggy; the game randomly crashes on me pretty frequently. I'm not sure if the problem is due to XP or if the game acts like that on other operating systems. So ya, if they could fix the bugs, I would be very happy. :)

I seem to remember Noir working fine for me in XP as long as I avoided parts of the menu. XP seems quite fidgety with things like that though; Quest for Glory 5 suddenly changed from working on XP with similar nuisances to not even loading without me having changed anything.

Discworld Noir was a really good game (the notebook, for instance, is a feature I'd like to see standard in detective games) and Discworld less so but still very enjoyable. Hopefully this means I'll finally get to play 2... that Pratchett... he's so dreamy...

Is Noir point and click or keyboard interface?

Point & click. 3D on 2D backgrounds so 2.5D. Funnier than hell....in that dry kind of way. I liked the fct that everytime you came across a new location, it would play a short video which was the camera panning back or a dolly shot of some kind within the location. It kind of made it feel like it was realtime, but of course it was just a clip that ended with the final background plate.

Nice... I have Discworld 2 but my friend broke the second cd.

From what I remember, Discworld 2 is the polar opposite of the original when it comes to those issues. For instance, I reached the last puzzle after less than a day's playing :shifty:.

I though it was insane difficult, albeit not as much as the first one, but also completely illogical.

Well I'm going to quote the manual of the game (which is also worth reading!)

Actually the character of Lewton is often in full 3D, everything else seems to be rendered.

That's one of my only gripes about Discworld Noir... it was extremely cool, as I'm a big fan of film noir and love the Discworld universe and all, but with Lewton being the only actual 3D character, and the rest being hardly-animated 3D dolls, it felt extremely inconsistent. Here you have a sharp, detailed Lewton talking to a zombie. Prerendering is fine for environments, but not characters.

I never played the first one, but I played Discworld 2 and loved it. I bought Noir and completed it, went to to replay it, got stuck (more like reached a dead end) and haven't touched it in about a year.

I thought Noir was an excellent game though and I'd like to try out other detective games...any ideas?

I hope this means I'll finally be able to played the first installment.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I just bought DW2 for £30 on ebay 30 MINUTES AGO! God damn it >.<

Ouch :frown:

Are the Discworld games scarce or something?

Yeah, kind of. It's just when I buy on ebay I can't be arsed to bid - I end up never winning (someone always bids 2 seconds before the end) so I have to pay 10X more via the 'buy now' option.

I just bid two seconds before the end. I feel dirty doing it, but I follow the theory that "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"...

There used to be software that automatically did that. Much more precise than any human could be. :) I don't know if it still exists, though. Never used it myself either.

--Erwin

I refuse to use software. I like the adrenaline kick of bidding a minute before the end and then refreshing every 5 seconds.

I used to get sick of making a small bid and having someone trump it, and so I ended up paying more when I won than I would had I let them bid first. So now I *never* bid before the end if I can possibly help it.

yeah, I received an email about that but I think you have to pay for it and, well, I'd feel dirty.

I used to do that too. Unfortunately it wasn't such a good idea with a particular item I really wanted. There was this large Wing Commander 3 special edition in a film canister, and only one person had bid on it. It was at only 9 Dollars, which is very cheap. The page said the seller only ships within the USA, so I contacted him a few days before the auction ended. He agreed to ship to the Netherlands after all, so I was pleased. Now, a few seconds before the auction ended, I placed my bid. Guess what happened? The seller didn't change the shipping properties in Ebay and I all I got was a message: This seller doesn't ship to your country. So the item went to the other bidder at a lousy 9 Dollars.

If I'd placed my bid earlier, I could've contacted the seller to tell him to change the properties.

--Erwin

I feel like saying that Discworld + graphic filters + easily playable on Windows XP + free = absolute awesomeness.
If ScummVM supports Discworld, then it's a step away (Kyrandia) from eternity. No exageration. :)

Ouch.

Why not just enter the maximum you're willing to pay? I don't really understand the obsession with waiting until the last minute. Of course other people have more chance to outbid you if you enter a max. bid early on, but then only up to a point. You might save a little bit of money by waiting until the last minute, but only the difference between some guy placing a speculative bid and the same guy not getting the chance, surely?