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System Shock seriesWhere is System Shock 1?(57 posts)(57 posts)
(57 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 17, 2013
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deathunlimited89: i remember reading on the ttlg forum that ss1 is freeware, but i can't find the post right now or was just my imagination lol.
TTLG had SS1 on their ftp server for a while in 2000, until the bandwidth drain got too much and it was taken down, that's actually where I got my copy from. Certainly they had an entirely different attitude to download copies of SS1 (tolerated) as opposed to SS2 pre the GOG release (definitely not tolerated, even NOCDs).
Posted February 17, 2013
Betrayal at Krondor had limited 'free release', it was once hosted on Sierra's website, but the EULA said you could download it freely, but not redistribute it. It could only freely be downloaded as long as Sierra hosted it.

So there are some interesting exceptions there. That may have been the case with SS1 as well.

Speaking of which I wonder what the restrictions if any are on Johnny Castaway screensaver? It was also hosted free on Sierra years ago, but not sure if it had the same redistribution restrictions as BAK.

There were also a few companies that released some special promotional release of games modded to give 'advertising' (ad popups and such) that were 'free' from short time, until they were taken down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_video_games_released_as_freeware
Games no longer freely distributed

The following are commercial games that were re-released as freeware but were not freely redistributable software. They were only available as freeware for a limited time, but could not be redistributed, so they are no longer freely available.
Airborne Ranger (1988), a stealth 2D game by Microprose. It was released as freeware by Atari to promote Airborne Rangers. A free registration was required to download the game. After Airborne Rangers wasn't released, the Airborne Ranger page and the download link were removed. The game is still mentioned as freeware and many forums and sites have the now dead link to the game page. The legal situation now is unclear because the installer has no disclaimer.
Area 51 (2005), a first person shooter by Midway Games. Its free release was sponsored by the US Air Force. It later changed hands and its freeware status was removed.[96]
B-17 Flying Fortress (1992), a flight simulator by MicroProse.[97]
Betrayal at Krondor (1993), a role-playing game by Dynamix.[97]
Caesar (1992), a city-building game by Sierra.[97]
Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, free at GOG.com for 2012 Holidays.[98]
Fallout (1997), a role-playing game by Interplay Entertainment, free on GOG.com for two days.
Far Cry (2004), first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek. Ubisoft had released the game in a four-day promotion as ad-supported freeware on FilePlanet.
Gateway (1992), an adventure game by Legend Entertainment.
Hollywood Monsters (1997), an adventure game by Péndulo Studios, for a month to promote the release of another Pendulo title, New York Crimes.[99]
Patrician III: Rise of the Hanse (2003), a strategy game by Ascaron and FX Interactive, for two weeks to promote the FX Classics Store.[100][101]
Portal (2007), an action/puzzle game by Valve Corporation, available from May 12, 2010, for two weeks to promote the Steam client's availability to Mac users, and once again for a few days in September 2011, to promote the "Learn with Portals" initiative.[102]
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003), third-person action adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal. Ubisoft released the game as ad-supported freeware on FilePlanet for a limited time.[103]
Rayman Raving Rabbids (2006), a video game in the popular Rayman series, developed by Ubisoft Montpellier. Ubisoft had released the PC version of the game in a four-day promotion as ad-supported freeware on FilePlanet.
Realms of Arkania 1+2, free in GOG.com completing a survey.[104]
Realms of Arkania 3, free in GOG.com taking a download quality test.[105]
Red Baron 3D (1998), a flight game by Sierra.[97]
Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War (2006), a real-time strategy/third-person shooter by Stainless Steel Studios and Midway Games. Re-released as ad-supported freeware, sponsored by the US Air Force.[106]
Runaway (2001), an adventure game by Pendulo Studios and published by Dinamic Multimedia, and later by FX Interactive. The game was released for free for 30 days to celebrate the launch of Hollywood Monsters 2, a.k.a. The Next BIG Thing.[107][108]
The Suffering (2004), a horror third/first person shooter developed by Surreal Software and published by Midway Games. It was released free in September 2008, but is no longer available due to a new copyright holder.[109]
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (2001), a tactical shooter by Ubisoft. Released in an ad-supported free download version in 2007 for a limited time; available to US residents only.[110]
Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, text adventure games by Infocom.[97]
Post edited February 17, 2013 by Baggins
Posted February 17, 2013
There are also a few games hosted by programmers who worked on the game on their own sites, but may not be entirely legal. They say you are downloading at your own risk.

Peppers Adventures In Time, Conquests series (Camelot and Longbow), Troll's Tale, Black Cauldron (& other Sierra disney games), etc.
Post edited February 17, 2013 by Baggins
Posted February 17, 2013
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Baggins: Speaking of which I wonder what the restrictions if any are on Johnny Castaway screensaver? It was also hosted free on Sierra years ago, but not sure if it had the same redistribution restrictions as BAK.
Johnny Castaway's readme.txt makes no mention of distribution, only saying "Since this screen saver is for your enjoyment, and it is FREE to download, we will not be providing any technical support for this product". The Krondor restriction will have been to ensure they retained control over the marketability of the series (by being able to remove the free version later on, etc.), whereas Johnny Castaway was a one-off product.

You can find the original, unaltered free version at PCWorld and possibly some other sites.

A minor tweak is needed for 32-bit versions of XP and newer (see [url=http://web.onetel.net.uk/~gnudawn/johnny/download.html#xp1]Method 2[/url]). Unfortunately Johnny Castaway is a 16-bit screensaver so it won't work on 64-bit versions of Windows.
Post edited February 17, 2013 by Arkose
Posted February 17, 2013
Darn shame someone can't find a way to convert it up to 64-bit...
Posted February 17, 2013
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deathunlimited89: i remember reading on the ttlg forum that ss1 is freeware, but i can't find the post right now or was just my imagination lol.
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Phasmid: TTLG had SS1 on their ftp server for a while in 2000, until the bandwidth drain got too much and it was taken down, that's actually where I got my copy from. Certainly they had an entirely different attitude to download copies of SS1 (tolerated) as opposed to SS2 pre the GOG release (definitely not tolerated, even NOCDs).
Yeah. Also apparently the systemshock(dot)org forum has a portable version for free download, but i can't find any information about the game being released as freeware by the company.
Post edited February 17, 2013 by deathunlimited89
Posted February 17, 2013
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Lukes78: System Shock 2 is surely a more refined experience (after all, it came out in 1999, five years later than the first episode and after a nice slew of first-person games), but System Shock 1 is *really* a UNIQUE beast, when it comes to graphic style, gameplay options and interface clunkyness. It's also unimaginable hard for today's standards: yeah, hard doesn't equal "fun", but you really had to watch your steps, even in the first, very confusing level (just look up the map on Google).
SS1 had quite a few difficulty configuration options, though, so you could configure it from fairly easy to oh my god are you some kind of masochist what is wrong with you.

Realms of the Haunting is really similar in terms of gameplay, by the way, and gog DOES have that.
Posted February 17, 2013
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Lukes78: System Shock 2 is surely a more refined experience (after all, it came out in 1999, five years later than the first episode and after a nice slew of first-person games), but System Shock 1 is *really* a UNIQUE beast, when it comes to graphic style, gameplay options and interface clunkyness. It's also unimaginable hard for today's standards: yeah, hard doesn't equal "fun", but you really had to watch your steps, even in the first, very confusing level (just look up the map on Google).
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amccour: SS1 had quite a few difficulty configuration options, though, so you could configure it from fairly easy to oh my god are you some kind of masochist what is wrong with you.

Realms of the Haunting is really similar in terms of gameplay, by the way, and gog DOES have that.
Yeah, that's a good comparison. It's like Realms of The Haunting crossed with Ultima Underworld.
Posted February 17, 2013
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sgoshe: The way SS2 was protected for so many years, I think SS1 portable download would be shut down pretty quickly if the owners didn't want it out there.
Just my opinion. Makes me think it is truly abandonware.
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Baggins: THere is no such thing as 'truly abandonware'. Abandonware is never legal. It would take something like 70+ years for a game to become 'public domain'.

Now, there is 'freeware' in which a company makes the game free to the public, legally. It is very important to find out if that was ever the case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freeware_video_games

Then there "opensource' in which the game itself may not be freeware, but the sourcecode has been opened ot the public by the company. Keep in mind sometimes the sourcecode 'escapes', and is not legally released. That is not 'opensource'.
Yea, my bad. Really no such thing as abandonware in the strict sense. I guess the point I was trying to make is it does seem they have abandoned any attempts to prevent downloading it for free unlike SS2. Does this make it OK? I don't know. But you'd think they would shut down the obvious download links if they really cared. Is my logic wrong?
Posted February 17, 2013
Ever hear of dj oldgames? It's a site that has downloads for old games and even puts them in similar installers as gog does. They seem to be mostly ignored but every time Gog releases a game dj takes their versions down, and offer direct links to gog to buy the games legitimately.

Maybe the companies ignore them as they seem to at least follow a respectul etiquette to other companies.
Posted February 17, 2013
There's an unspoken agreement among reputable abandonware sites that you quit offering stuff for free once it's being sold somewhere. The actual decent abandonware sites are there for archival purposes, not piracy. If GOG/Sold Out Software/Dotemu/Steam/GG is selling an otherwise out of print game, the archival purpose is met.
Posted February 24, 2013
The thing with System Shock is, if you played it at the time it came out, it was totally stunning because there had been nothing like it before. Then if you played SS2 it was a tad disappointing for some (including me), although still a great game. I think relative to its time SS was much more innovative, more of a bombshell, whereas SS2 was basically just a more streamlined version of the same gameplay. Unlike some "streamlinings" (Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 2 and 3 I'm looking at you) it was quite a good streamlining that didn't really equate to "dumbed down", just made it a bit different of an experience.
Post edited February 24, 2013 by gurugeorge
Posted March 02, 2013
The way it stands, I'll probably end up buying a copy on Ebay if GOG doesn't get the rights to it. I don't want it to come to that to get a legal version though, as Ebay prices on SS1 are fairly high (not Earthbound high, but still pretty high).
Posted March 03, 2013
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DarkJaguar: The way it stands, I'll probably end up buying a copy on Ebay if GOG doesn't get the rights to it. I don't want it to come to that to get a legal version though, as Ebay prices on SS1 are fairly high (not Earthbound high, but still pretty high).
Here's are some of my thoughts:

Unless you desperately want a legal version, if SS1 isn't being sold anymore for a reasonable industry price, I wouldn't feel bad about pirating it. However, there are still ways to let GOG know you support SS1 coming here, like buying SS2, voting in the wishlist, emailing them about that, etc. Then when SS1 shows up (I'm guessing it will simply be in the 5.99 price range), you can buy it legally.

I have a hard time imaging SS1 NOT showing up here unless there are some extra legal wranglings that make it more difficult to acquire than SS2. (Maybe Night Dive isn't interested in SS1 right now? :P) I can't imagine compatibility would be an issue thanks to DOSBox, but maybe the game chugs in DB. (Seems pretty unlikely for a '94 title, though)
Posted March 03, 2013
When I wanted to get a working copy of SS1, I downloaded a copy that was modded to work with current operating systems and then went and bought a legit CD copy off eBay. I don't do piracy, but my conscience is clear having purchased a copy - despite using a slightly different one.

However, this is where sites like GOG could really fill a void if they could get their hands on it, like they did with SS2. The issue with many people is less piracy and more availability. Make it available for five bucks and it will sell easily imho.
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System Shock seriesWhere is System Shock 1?(57 posts)(57 posts)
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