died and gone to heaven!

D

dafink

New member
Hiya all, I was given your link by the great people over at www.exiled-gamers.co.uk

My name's Brian. I'm 23yrs old, for another nine days atleast, and am from NJ. I work as a patient tech at a local major hospital and am also a volunteer EMT on my town's rescue squad.

I love gaming and my favorite would have to naturally be Crusader. Played the series back when it came out through windows 95 when it was easy to play Dos games, which of course it's not now. Found different sites over the years...but basically the two games have just sat in their cases.

Then I come across Exiled-Gamers and their petition to companies to remake their game's windows compatible or atleast re-release them so we can buy them. There's definitly plenty I enjoy from the Police Quest series to many others.

They told me about DosBox which I just couldn't figure out last time I used it, and this site. I can't believe that Crusader was popular enough to get this! I knew many liked it, but never thought people would keep it alive for this long...

I'm guessing all you have gotten it working which means eventually i'll be able to play it. I did get it working once a few months ago, but without sound. Of course with all old games, trying to set up the sound kept crashing the installation (did it in DOS figuring maybe that'd help). It did work without sound but these games aren't worth it if you can't enjoy the entire experience.

So anyways, i'm just real happy that I have other people to talk to about two forgotten games.

On another note...can I create a cd-rom boot disk or must it be a floppy? If so, i'll just buy a drive off newegg or from bestbuy.

Brian
 
Hi! It's always so great to find fans online!

I think a boot disk must be on a floppy.
 
Hey man, nice to meet ya.

Yea it's such a fun game...but theres so many games out there I thought this was just another one that would have nothing more then fan sites.

I'll definitly be stopping by best buy this weekend to get a drive....prices are basically the same off newegg so i'd be paying more in shipping if I did that.

I'll have time to play this weekend as the nhl playoffs advance to the 2nd round. I'm a huge Devs fan so I won't be working when they're playing :)

How long has this board been around?

Has anyone from Origin or EA contacted any of you encouraging you to make a sequel? Doesn't look like there will ever be another game in the series so I don't think there'd be a problem with making one.

Wasn't there a rumored Crusader 2 (or 3, which ever way you look at it) a few years back? I remember reading on a fan site that they wanted to include multiplay and all that.
 
This board has been around since September 2005.

Well, I haven't been encouraged by Origin employees... I've tried to encourage them! However.... This is a secret known only to me and a friend of mine from across the world. His studio is pitching the idea of another Crusader game to EA at this very moment. I seen a test video of the game so far, and it looks great.

Yeah, there was another Crusader game in the works (actually about three more) called No Mercy.
 
Hiya Keenan, board's been around for a long time....has the site been up that long too? Hadn't googled Crusader in a while before finding out about the site so who knows when I might've found it next.

Good to hear that you've tried to encourage them. I'm not exactly sure who to write there seeing as EA owns Origin now. Only www site I could find on Origin anymore goes back to EA....guess they just dissolve everything they buy up.

Have you been able to email former Origin employees or just EA in general? Is his studio pitching the Crusader: Echo Sector or is that just a fan based version? Love to see either come out. Is there a www site where we could see progress or be kept up to date about your friend's project?

About me getting the game working, i've had some progress but problems seem to find me.

I bought a floppy drive today from best buy so I can get this started. Created a boot disk little while ago which loads fine and I followed the instructions in the readme file to the letter.

When I try to switch to the C:\live\sound.bat folder to load the sound drivers however, it says "reading drive C Abort, Retry, Fail?"

I try just switching to the C: drive which it does, so I try loading up the directory but I get the same issue.

It sure isn't being made easy getting this working, that's for sure.
 
The site and the board opened up at the same time.

As to former Origin employees, I'm in contact with:

Tony Zurovec
Mark Vittek
Warren Spector
Jason Ely
Matt Scibilia
Denis Loubet
Michael Morlan
Chris McCubbin (kinda apart of Origin)

and I'm also in contact with Marco Perella, who played Weasel in No Remorse.

Crusader: Echo Sector is just the name of this website and the board. It has nothing to do with the game that my friend is pitching. His game is called No Pity. There is no website for the game, but there is a website for his dev team. http://www.outsiderdevelopment.sk/

Are you using Cyberion's DEEP program?
 
WOW that's a pretty impressive list then man.

Never heard of most of them but Warren Spector definitly and Mark Vittek sounds familiar. Was Marco Perella a employee or just did the video? I hope if they do still make a return to the game that they try something different from FMV....Crusader was the only games I know of to do them well but man, most of the FMV stuff in games was pretty sad!

What's the DEEP program?

I just dled the Dos Environment package, made a bootdisk from the readme files and followed that pretty much.

I'm not sure why it's having the issues when I try to switch to the C: drive....have others had those problems or is it normal thing that sometimes happens because of what we're trying to do in DOS?
 
Tony Zurovec was producer/director, Jason Ely was the lead programmer, Matt & Denis were artists, Michael Morlan did the intro video, Chris McCubbin wrote the strategy guide.

DEEP is the DOS Environment Package.

Not sure about your problem.
 
Wow that's pretty cool you know all those guys. How were you able to get in contact with all the different people involved in the game as i'm sure they're not all still with Origin now?

I didn't realize DEEP was the same thing as the package, but that is what I tried first off the bat.

I unzipped it, created a bootdisk, and restarted. Booted through the software and when it was done I tried switching to the c:\live\sound.bat file but I got the error...so I tried just switching to the C:\ which worked but then trying the "dir" command the same error came up.

I'm not sure why it's happening either but it's a pain in the ass. I was so happy to finally be able to get these 2 games to work it seemed, but i'm not sure why this is happening. I have a 2nd HD but it's designated slave and that shouldn't effect anything anyways.

I could always try it on my dad's pc. Mine was custom built by a small company that did a great job, but his is a Dell, so you know it won't have any problems like this if you know what I mean. I'd just rather play it on mine being that I bought Logitech's Z-5500 speakers a few months ago and would love playing it in all it's 5-speaker glory.

I guess just getting it work right now is the most important, but I really can't understand what's wrong.

Should I try msging you or Cyberion on aim/yim? Being that he wrote the program he might have some insight or maybe trying to figure this out in real-time might find out what's going on?

Brian
 
I got in contact, basically, by just searching for them on the web! First, I found Jason Ely and his website and contacted him a couple of times. Then, he sent out a chain message to some people in his contact list about going away for awhile or something, and I seen TONY ZUROVEC was on his list, I immediately sent him an e-mail... I got Warren's address from Tony and so on.

I don't think you need to do the C:\live\sound.bat thing at all, you can just skip that whole process.

Message me anytime! :)
 
did you unzip the files in c:\live ? cause if not the DEEP can't find the files in other directories. But GOKU is right, the sound files in needs for the sound playing. on most sound cards there is no need for such a driver. They support dos environmnet. Some don't. Like Sound Blasters, that's why i included those sound drivers. But in order to run Crusader you do nto need those files. It's jsut a metter if you have sound in the game or not.


Noone else had the problemyou are talking about. Most of the time the problem is that people have a sound card of rare modification and even those drivers do nto help them.


So try to check if you unzipped the files in the right directory. Try to follow exactly all the steps in the readme file.
 
Do your PC run with Windows XP ? If yes, maybe it's because you formatted your HD in NTFS format.

I already tried boot disk for some DOS games and, when I reboot on the floppy, I couldn't read my HD with NTFS format (but FAT32 format is OK) !...
This boot disk wasn't DEEP but another, so maybe it's different for DEEP. ???

If it's that, you can try DOSBox (easiest to configure with D-Fend)... :)

I hope that you well-understand me because I haven't the habit to speak English for technical help ! :p
 
Hey all, how was everyone's weekend? Turned 24 on thurs so my weekend was pretty good  :)

Hiya Cyberion, nice to meet the guy behind this great program :)

Yea I followed the instructions to the letter. Read everything I was doing twice just to make sure I was doing it all right. Typing in C:\live gave me that error but when I just tried C:\ it switched, but then still gave me the problem when I tried the DIR command or then switching to the Live folder.

What you're saying about the sound folder is if I just install the cd-rom and mouse drivers and then skip right to installing the game that it should work? With the sound?

I have an Audigy 2, that "SHOULD" work without me installing the files? Never know what'll happen with my pc so i don't want to jinx it early or anything lol.

Hey Robotophe, yep it is a XP Pro machine. I never thought that NTFS would present any kind of problem...I guess one of the shortcomings of NTFS is in DOS it doesn't detect NTFS drives? Cyberion, encountered this problem anywhere?

I'm surprised noone else has this issue since i'm sure others on here have XP as well.

I've never used Dosbox but if I try the game with DEEP and don't get any sound maybe I will. Anyone know of a forum or readme like the DEEP one that I can follow?

Cyberion, I don't know the programming that went into your program so i'm just asking here. Would it be possible to make the program NTFS compatible?
 
It *should* work, dafink. Try skipping the whole step for that, and just use the other stuff in the .zip file.

Happy birthday! :)

I turn 18 in about 6 months. :p
 
Hey Keenan, well in 6 months i'll make sure to wish you a happy b-day lol.

Gonna try it tommorow or friday sometime. Working tonight 7-7 so maybe after I sleep tommorow morning, be a nice thing to play and relax doing.

What i'm wondering is, if DEEP won't detect my C:\, will the installation program detect the drive when I go about installing it? Even if it does work, i'll probably still have the drive issues.

Browsing around I saw your DOSbox post on getting the game to work through that, so if this doesn't work i'll attempt that. Should I just google it or is there a www site that I can dl the newest version from?

Seems like all these different ways are just damn confusing. I know it's what we all have to go through to play older games, but hell, couldn't Origin or Sierra or whoever just make it Windows compatible?? I don't know how hard it is, but it'd have to be easier then this!    :-\
 
I hope that he does make them Windows compatible one day, that'd be sweet.

I tried DEEP on a second computer. Got the installation program started but as it was loading up from DOS it crashed...was looking for the C: and had the same error as before. DEEP just doesn't recognize NTFS unfortunatly, and unless there's a new version coming soon that I can suggest that i'll have to try dosbox.

Where can I dl the newest version from? I got your readme on trying that so I guess i'll give it a go.
 
I don't even have any of the Wing Commander games....but those are some others i've always wanted to get.

Should I try Dosbox first then? Where can I find the most current version of it?
 
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