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slightly late
Well, Escape Velocity 1.0.0 was released on May 5th, 1996. So, give or take a week or so this game has been out for ten years now. Pretty impressive how people are still talking about it and playing it.
When did you discover the joys of EV? Was it the original EV, or did you play one of the later ones and come back to play this one later on?
It was on a demo disc for our Mac way back in either '96 or '97. I enjoyed playing it and have stayed with the series up until today. So yah, Happy Birthday Escape Velocity!!!!! :laugh:
Happy Birthday, beloved game. I found EV once when, realizing television was utter shash, I decided to check out every item on my Mac Secrets CD. It was love at first sight. I played for hours. After playing EVO and all those plugins, then Nova, I went back and started playing the EV plugins. I still play it when I have time because there are a lot of great plugins I haven't played.
My copy was on a MacFormat CD - this was when everyone had dialup access and it took hours to download the skinniest little application. I registered before Hector started taking potshots at me, I think.
There aren't too many games that live ten years after their inception, are there? At least, not without updates, new scenarios and the like from the authors. The only other game from that period I can think of that I still play is the Marathon trilogy.
Oh, wow. I meant to post something about this, but I guess I just forgot. Nice call though, Mazca.
I didn't start playing EV until '97. I was 8 years old at the time. It was great. It took a little bit of training from my older brother, but I quickly mastered it.
I first played the game with a full compliment of cheat plug-ins at my middle school. I never would have guessed how much influence that game would eventually have on me (I created my first real website to show off some animated GIFs I had made of the ships).
I'm 98% sure it was in the late summer of 1997 that I started playing Escape Velocity, because I'm pretty sure that's when we got the first Mac with a CD drive, and I know I got EV for the first time off of a CD. One of those random collections of demos and shareware titles, it had a number of ASW games on it. Then later on we got cable internet and I found my way to escape-velocity.com, heard they were making EVO, messed around with stuff on the edges of the community, heard they were making EV Nova, joined the forums here, and the rest is history.
@mrxak, on May 17 2006, 03:32 PM, said in Happy 10th Birthday, Escape Velocity:
I'm 98% sure it was in the late summer of 1997 that I started playing Escape Velocity, because I'm pretty sure that's when we got the first Mac with a CD drive, and I know I got EV for the first time off of a CD. One of those random collections of demos and shareware titles, it had a number of ASW games on it.
MacAddict Gaming Megapac by any chance? That's where I first got my copy of EV, and how I was introduced to Ambrosia (through EV).
I think it was sometime in '97 for me, although I think EVO had already been released so that would give a better indication.... EV took about 2 minutes to load on our LCIII of the time, but it was well worth it. Even the 5+ minutes for loading EVO was a small price to pay :). Later I played under emulation on a PC and that was much quicker!
When Nova was imminent it was even one of the reasons I got an iBook. Unfortunately the appeal of Nova was rather short lived, but Override's will never die :).
@cippy, on May 17 2006, 06:33 PM, said in Happy 10th Birthday, Escape Velocity:
Yeah, that sounds about right. But thinking back, I believe I had two discs like that back then, so I don't really know which one I was first introduced to EV by.
I was given a copy of Override about two years* before OSX. Then I forgot about it, until discovering a copy of Deimos Rising after X came out on an old laptop. So I went to Nova, then played through EV and EVO.
*A complete guess. Woo.
EDIT: Annd. 700. Joy.
This post has been edited by Aelran : 19 May 2006 - 11:44 PM
Man, I must've answered this question a dozen times already... I hope people actually care about it.
I actually owe my one-time (well, several-time, just not anymore) EV addiction to my brother, who downloaded the game back when I think it was at version 1.0.4. I don't think I noticed the difference in graphics when I upgraded to 1.0.5, but I'm sure it was the older version when I first got it. Of course, those test pilot files always gave me that error when I tried to load them.
I definitely got hooked on the game right away, but I must've been pretty happy as a trader / deliveryperson, because I just did mission computer missions for several months (in real life) before working my way up to a corvette. Soon thereafter I discovered the actual mission threads, plug-ins, and even plug-in development.
Of course, EVO came around a while after that, and I was one of the people who opposed splitting up the boards. In retrospect that was obviously a good move, although today it looks like the EV and EVO boards wouldn't suffer much from being reintegrated. Still, nothing would be quite like the good 'ol WWWBoard, would it...?
Ah, good times. It'll be summer soon, and I'll be bringing my laptop to NYC (which is where I'm working this summer). Maybe I'll break this game back open again...
Wow...has it really been 10 years? geez, i need to get a real life... I started playing in 97 or so. My moms friend had an old mac 'Performa' i belive. He gave the computer to me and my brother after he got a new one. And EV was on it (guess he was a gamer...). I was only 6 at the time, so it was a bit hard to understand. But it only took a bit before i had it mastered. Heck, i made my first plug when i was 7.
Yeah I played it on a Performa too. My cousin was taking a break from collge and staying with us. He d/l'ed a bunch of shareware games and introduced me to EV :laugh:
I discovered EV on an old MacAddict CD someone gave us, sometime later in 1997. Initially our old LC III didn't have enough RAM, so the game would freeze when it got to the title screen. (I recall taking a look at that frozen screen and figuring the gameplay must occur inside the little box that lists name, ship, combat rank, etc.!) When it was finally upgraded, I gave the game another try. It proceeded to eat my junior high years.
1997, MacAddict CD. We'd gotten a 6500/300 (with a 603ev chip, how prescient!) and there was a MacAddict CD they threw in with it. Played thousands of games of Space Cab, but didn't touch Escape Velocity because the name sounded too much like some astronomy sky map game.
Got bored one day, tried it out, and promptly cursed violently for wasting 30 days with space cab.
Actually, i opened up EV 1.0.5 yesterday, and astonished myself by remembering my license code. I'm either fantastically l33t or a terminal geek.
Cheers, Guapo
ElGuapo7, you are simply awesome.
I found Nova about a year and a half ago. I have played all sorts of EV/EVO/"other" TC's, too... I still think this game rules. All of them. There is something really addictive and awesome about the EV seiries, strange considering it is really 10 year old shareware...
@mazca, on May 17 2006, 05:37 AM, said in Happy 10th Birthday, Escape Velocity:
I discovered EV Classic shortly after it launched. I had reliable web access back then, so it may have been through one of the Mac news sites. Let's see, mid-96, I would have been using a IIsi (!), but the original EVC would run on it. I didn't go PowerPC until '97, when I got a Performa 6400. I remember when I upgraded, I had to turn the speed control way down on EVC until I got used to it.
@elguapo7, on May 24 2006, 12:12 PM, said in Happy 10th Birthday, Escape Velocity:
1997, MacAddict CD.
Yeah, I discovered EV on a MacAddict CD too. I think I started with version 1.0.2 (might have been 1.0.4) and well remember the very long wait for my rural dial-up connection to download the 1.0.5 updater with the greatly-improved graphics!
My favorite weapon back in the day were the space bombs. For a while I played with a plug where they had torpedo guidance, but that just made things too easy.
I can't play EVC anymore because my old PowerPC 603e Mac died, so I play Nova (or EVC on Nova). Somehow Nova still can't quite approach the wonder of the original...
And I still remember my license code.
This post has been edited by albuminouslump : 26 May 2006 - 12:01 PM