Hey Digitalpress! ( Classic Computer Gaming? )

[FxMercenary]

Hey forums! I was sitting here this morning reading some posts and I noticed something. There are more and more posts popping up about classic computer gaming and I was wondering, is it time for a new forum section for computer gaming?

Now, I know that this forum started out for retro console gaming, and then modern console gaming, but hear me out.

I started collecting for Nintendo and Super Nintendo, then moved forward to N64, Genesis, 32x, CD, Saturn, PS1, PS2 then PS3, Wii and 360. But somewhere along the line I got the sudden urge to build a Retro Gaming PC for games like Duke Nukem, Doom, Warcraft II, Starcraft, Diablo etc...

I know that some of people dont have alot of experience building PCs, and may be curious about doing so, and are even looking for some good tips on what games to pick up, and what hardware to look for to get some of those old games to run again ( hardware problem free )

I think a classic PC Gaming section would be perfect here at digitpress, who knows we could even have some fun long distance gaming nights for Warcraft II or something =)

What do you guys think?

[Jorpho]

http://vogons.zetafleet.com

[FxMercenary]

http://vogons.zetafleet.com

Yes I do realize that there are other forums to find information at, I just think that it would be cool if there was a section here at digitalpress for the members here to share things and play together.

[Kid Ice]

Yes I do realize that there are other forums to find information at, I just think that it would be cool if there was a section here at digitalpress for the members here to share things and play together.

Agreed. A classic computing section is long overdue.

[Flack]

We had one as a forum du jour for a while ... not sure if the idea ever flew for making it permanent or not.

[Trumpman]

Yeah, we did have one as the forum du jour, but I agree that it would be nice to have a separate classic PC gaming thread. I've recently been getting into DOSBOX, which is great, and it's definitely a different beast than classic console gaming. I'm definitely for this.

[eskobar]

mmmmm.... if there's no separate space for NES, SNES, AMIGA, SATURN; why don't make a simple thread for any specific question ?.

I think that one of the greatest things about DP is that the forums cover EVERY SYSTEM equally for the most part.

Classic PC gaming belongs to CLASSIC GAMING, i don't think that's a good idea to make a separate section for this.

Are there many Retro PC Gaming threads to make it happen ?

[Jorpho]

We had one as a forum du jour for a while ... not sure if the idea ever flew for making it permanent or not.It kind of died after a while, as I recall.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I would be totally for this. I would love to play more old PC games, thrift shops are grave yards for them but I don't have access to a old PC to run them. An entire forum would be great even if it doesn't get as much traffic as the rest do.

I say go for it.

[backguard]

A classic computing section would be awesome. My vote is yay.

[cyberfluxor]

We had one as a forum du jour for a while ... not sure if the idea ever flew for making it permanent or not.

Yeah, I really liked it but it didn't receive much traffic from the read/respond counts. It was located further down the sub-forum ladder and that may have accounted for it or that it really isn't much of a topic. I struggle to meet others interested in classic computing/gaming. Most of those that were into it have moved onto newer hardware and phased out of gaming and thus into the IT/security realm. I can see most members just posting about troubleshooting and to keep more gaming topics abound it'd have to include modern PC gaming, which inturn would become a "I have the latest & greatest graphics card" match. It's the sad reality of that spectrum of gaming.

I've wanted to help an organization with older computer game scans and reviews, but every site I've been referred to is either too small to make an impact, appear as a dead community, or treat submitted work as proprietary information not to be shared. If DP were to open its arms to the beast of computer games it would be a huge undertaking.

[swlovinist]

I see both sides of this. On one side, I could see digitpress having a more diverse section layout of video games. I agree that vintage computer games is the red headed stepchild of all.

On the other side, you can see that wouldnt this just be a great topic under "classic gaming?"

[c0ldb33r]

mmmmm.... if there's no separate space for NES, SNES, AMIGA, SATURN; why don't make a simple thread for any specific question ?.
...

Classic PC gaming belongs to CLASSIC GAMING, i don't think that's a good idea to make a separate section for this.
I agree. Classic games are classic games. My vote is negative.

HOWEVER, if you wanted to make a forum devoted to non-gaming related classic computers, I think that'd be fine. For instance, "I need a word processor for a CP/M - what should I use", that type of thing. However, I don't know how busy that type of thread would be.

[Trumpman]

I agree. Classic games are classic games. My vote is negative.

Couldn't you say the same thing about arcade games, though? Arcade games are classic games, so why do they need their own forum? And yet we have one, that was started not too long ago, for a good reason. For the same reason, I think that classic PC games deserve their own forum. The difference between classic console games and classic PC games is equally as vast as the difference between arcade machines and classic consoles.

[AB Positive]

I've recently become a slave to my A500 Amiga so I'd have to go with ressurecting the compy forum too :D

[eskobar]

Couldn't you say the same thing about arcade games, though? Arcade games are classic games, so why do they need their own forum? And yet we have one, that was started not too long ago, for a good reason. For the same reason, I think that classic PC games deserve their own forum. The difference between classic console games and classic PC games is equally as vast as the difference between arcade machines and classic consoles.

Game consoles and personal computers were developed for personal use and both have similar input / output methods.

ARCADE is intended for public audiences and is marketed quite differently, ARCADE means Pinball Machines, Basket Ball Sims, Soccer Sims, Car Sims, DDR .... and even those machines like "whack-a-mole".

For this and many more reasons, ARCADE really deserves a category on its own.

[Trumpman]

Game consoles and personal computers were developed for personal use and both have similar input / output methods.

Not really. A controller is much different than a mouse and keyboard. Arcade controls are much more similar to a console controller than console controllers are to the mouse and keyboard.

[FxMercenary]

Like Arcade machines, computer gaming covers a huge variety of differences. Sure a PC game is a PC game, but the trick is with the hardware. Doom wont run for me with an optical mouse, it took a ball mouse. Tie Fighter's 3D Graphics Acceleration would not work with a certain nVidia driver that was too new, nor a certain driver that was too old, I had to find one that was somewhere in the middle.

PC gaming is a tricky thing, its not just working parts and games. I really do feel that classic computers are going to be one of the hardest things to find in the near future, if not already, because people just recycle them. Nobody keeps an old pentium 1 or 2 around if they just bought a pentium 4.

I think that people kind of expected their old stuff to work with the new stuff, because it was "just a faster computer". PC gaming really took off in the mid-late 90s and alot of people are starting to re-visit these major titles.

A Classic Computing section here may not have been an interest a few years ago, but the interest is really picking up now. ( lol I just got MTG: Duels of the Planeswalkers going, Black Lotus anyone? )

[Ed Oscuro]

Not really. A controller is much different than a mouse and keyboard. Arcade controls are much more similar to a console controller than console controllers are to the mouse and keyboard.
X68000 and FM Towns (non-Marty) systems come standard with keyboards and mice, but with the Atari game port you can plug in essentially whatever controller you wish. They're really used as games consoles that have their own screens now.

@ FxMercenary:

Ever heard of zDOOM? That'll fix your optical mouse issue. (In fact I'm not sure the original releases of DOOM had mouse support period - I remember playing with keyboard only on DOOM and licensed engine games even though I had a mouse).

[Gameguy]

Computer games should have a separate section, the site is large enough to support it. Besides, why should computer games just fit with classic gaming? There's modern games too, and both can be run on modern hardware so where do the topics really fit in? Plus with computers there's not just games that you can discuss, you could collect other software or hardware for them that's not gaming related.

Plus, why are there separate sections for classic and modern games? Another forum I'm on just has a section for gaming in general, as well as separate sections for arcade games and off topic stuff. It really depends on the size of the forum, the other forum is smaller so it doesn't need separate sections but here it's much larger, that's why there's separate sections for classic and modern(everything would just get buried if there was only one section). I feel this site is large enough for a separate computer section.

[icbrkr]

http://www.particles.org/forum ... created 5 years ago for just this reason.

[Griking]

/shrug

People who aren't interested a computer gaming forum wouldn't have to visit it while the people who were interested would be thrilled by it.

[Flack]

After hashing it over for six weeks (and years before that), a new sub-forum of "Classic Gaming" called "Classic COMPUTER Gaming" has been created. Don't let me down, guys!

[Poofta!]

make it a subforum to classic gaming. this website was always console oriented, it should stay as such, so a small subforum to keep stuff like amiga and dos out of the way would be perfect. just my 2 cents.