Is it over?

I guess maybe it's over now. The PoG page is gone. Happy holidays (or not...). Any comments Ducky?

We have yet to see an official death certificate, but it seems that no work is presently being done on either Coldstone or Pillars of Garendall. The powers that be are reluctant to release the source code to capable third parties, so I have all but given up hope of ever seeing this situation resolved.

'Tis a sad day in Fantrima, indeed.

And I was replaying PoG a few weeks ago on my "OS-9 game-playing" machine--and I was really enjoying it.

Direct links still work, it looks like (add "addons.html" to the end of the link and it'll still show you the addons page).

Does this mean pipeline's proposal fell through?

@macmaxbh, on Dec 16 2006, 09:10 AM, said in Is it over?:

Does this mean pipeline's proposal fell through?

All I know is that Andrew has not given anyone outside of ASW staff the okay to work on CS/PoG. I have had word from pipeline that he is still trying. It is a delicate situation which should not be messed with at present. In other words, I don't think an outside appeal will help. We have to just sit on this right now.

@rubber-ducky, on Dec 16 2006, 10:29 AM, said in Is it over?:

All I know is that Andrew has not given anyone outside of ASW staff the okay to work on CS/PoG. I have had word from pipeline that he is still trying. It is a delicate situation which should not be messed with at present. In other words, I don't think an outside appeal will help. We have to just sit on this right now.

How about this:
Those members who do not want PoG to die change their avatars to a PoG or PoG-related pic in a silent show of support?

Would that be beneficial?

I agree with Izzi

SAVE PoG!

Hmmm... That good enough?

@two-jacks, on Dec 17 2006, 02:48 PM, said in Is it over?:

Hmmm... That good enough?

Your sig sounds like you're appealing to bring it back, rather than just showing support for the game, and RD said an outside appeal wouldn't help, and possibly might hinder. I do like the way it's written though.

The keyword in my last post was SILENT. As in show support for PoG without asking for anything.

Ok shuld i delete my sig? And could you send me (or upload onto this thread) a pog pic please? I can't seem to find one..

Ah by the way I liked this Wiki entry about PoG, and I think it would be good for anyone who would like to know about the current situation (give or take a few details).

http://en.wikipedia....rs_of_Garendall

This post has been edited by Two Jacks : 18 December 2006 - 02:24 AM

Why thank you (you knew I wrote that, correct? That was the beginning of my failed "hey everybody, let's improve the PoG wikipedia article" drive)!

Quote

All I know is that Andrew has not given anyone outside of ASW staff the okay to work on CS/PoG. I have had word from pipeline that he is still trying. It is a delicate situation which should not be messed with at present. In other words, I don't think an outside appeal will help. We have to just sit on this right now.

Believe me, I'm very good at sitting and waiting when it comes to PoG.
RD--thanks for passing on updates and what you hear--without you, there'd be nothing around here.

This post has been edited by macmaxbh : 18 December 2006 - 09:36 AM

@two-jacks, on Dec 18 2006, 02:15 AM, said in Is it over?:

Ok shuld i delete my sig? And could you send me (or upload onto this thread) a pog pic please? I can't seem to find one..

1. Probably, though RD might be able to tell better whether that would be okay or not.

2. Check out this site:

http://stark.evula.n...walkthrough.htm

I took a snapshot from the bestiary there for mine. There's also the "Important People" section that has some pics. If you are using OS X, like I am, then your snapshot will probably be in .pdf format (mine always are and I don't know how to change that...). Use Graphic Converter (it came free with my system!) to convert it to an uploadable type. A partial screen snapshot is Open-Apple(a.k.a. Command)-shift-4, in case you don't know.

If you are on Windows, I'm sorry, I don't know how to take a snapshot or convert the image if neccessary.

NOTE: Taking a snapshot is better than just dragging the pic to your desktop, especially in most of the bestiary, because of all the black space around the main part of the pic. Your avatar will be very small, so the less black space the better.

I've gone one further - my signature has this link in it, telling people to come here to save PoG.

Mac OS X 10.3.9 (7W98)
Preview 2.1.0 (v211)

File --> Export
-> BMP, JP2, JPEG, MacPaint, PDF, Photoshop, PICT, PNG, QuickTime Image, SGA, TGI, or TIFF.

I hope your version of Preview can too!

(Cythera player, PoG is too big for my dialup connection.)

Maybe we should sign a petition or something...

@crazychick, on Dec 30 2006, 02:32 AM, said in Is it over?:

Maybe we should sign a petition or something...

Let's do a reality check. This thread has been here for just over two weeks and seven members have posted in it. I'd say PoG has already lost its once active member support. From a more pertinent perspective, no petition, even with 2000 names, is going to sway Andrew's position at this time. ASW has already spent more time and money on attempting to fix CS/PoG than most other publishing companies would be willing to do. Please remember that AmbrosiaSW does not write the software it sells (with the exception of a few small utility programs.)

What would it take to get this back?

° Assemble a team of dedicated writers to start from scratch and remake Coldstone (although the name would change) to be native to OS X. I estimate this might take 3 to 4 years.

° Write a new game (PoG is someone else's intellectual property and, undoubtedly, not available) which would be up to the standards of today's game market and would allow expansion with plugins as PoG did. Another 3 years? I'm semi-retired and have some time on my hands and it took me seven months to write Damsels in Distress which is very small compared to PoG itself.

And after all that, we don't have Pillars of Garendall , we have something else instead. It pains me to say this but the title of this thread is "Is it over?" I am afraid so. I anticipate my moderator pink slip any time now.

Aw... Well this is bad news, but I understand why Ambrosia will cut it. Broken games don't pay bills. However I would have bought the game even if it was just for OS9, mayve ASW can sell it labeling it as only OS9 compatable, or just release the source?
I dunno maybe I'm still just being to hopeful...

If it is the end of PoG and Coldstone, then awell I waited, waited, and waited but you just didn't show.

Hmm, wow this is interesting:
http://www.ambrosias...mes/winall.html

Try the bottom of the list.

Maybe ASW's first windows only game?

EDIT: As you can see from the edit date, this is later on after my original post.

I'm kinda mad here. How many years has it been since an actual anouncement has been made to the public about the currnt status of PoG and CS. Right now I just need closer on this, either can it or let it lose I say. What's keeping this forum even on the ASW forums? Is ASW still debating wether or not they'll fix it, or are the few annual posts keeping it hanging by a hairline? I don't want to get down on ASW, after all it's their buisness not mine and I can respect that. However I feel they should handel this buisness like, like I said earlyer can it or release it.

Uhg, anyone ever try running PoG in Sheep Shaver or another emulator?

Note: Please excuse any annoying spelling errors. I try, I really do.

This post has been edited by Two Jacks : 17 July 2007 - 05:45 AM

I've never played PoG, but I just downloaded it. Why did it die? There are other games just as old as it is that aren't dead. And for any of you who are wondering, you can download PoG here.

EDIT: Uh... well... I'm not sure if this is the reason for PoG's demise, but I just tried starting it and I just got a black screen with some nice music.

This post has been edited by PhoenixFire : 21 August 2007 - 03:07 PM

Pillars of Garendall does not work with newer versions of OS X. You can play the demo on OS 8.5 - 9 and on a Windows PC, but you cannot buy a registration for it so you'll never be able to finish the game or play most of the plugins. The reasons for this have been presented and rehashed many times on this forum so I'll not reiterate them here. Suffice it to say that the problems go back to the Coldstone application which was used to build the game and its subsequent plugins. ~RD

RD, thanks for making this a sticky. After all, it is the question on all PoG player's mind, and it keeps the PoG board from saying "no topics", which is quite a sad thing to see (as I see on the ferazel forums).

sigh. Perhaps someday PoG will be officially laid to rest / open-sourced (not likely due to rights issues, but I think more likely then fully repaired) / repaired ("aha! that's what the big secret for the past ten years has been! pog:remixed with 3d and a free set of steak knives!")

I remember the good old days of this forum, when it was filled with questions relating to all matters PoG (and spells expander! and the other plugins, such as yours, damsels in distress!), I remember the "plugin idea" thread I created which had some good reading matter in it. PoG was a good game back in the day. It's a sad thing for it to end, not with a bang, but with a wimper.

And I must thank you, RD, for your devotion and knowledge. You have stewarded and moderated these forums excellently, and have stayed after all the other moderators have moved on (and made great plug-ins to boot!). My hat is off to you.

This post has been edited by macmaxbh : 04 September 2007 - 09:01 PM