Q&A with another Sega Vet (SegaNet etc) No more Geist talk PLEASE!

[Druid II]

You should ask someone that worked at Ubisoft, really.

You mean 3do or New World Computing.

Well, there's always a chance that a copy was sent to Sega for QA checking, or something like that.

[arnoldlayne]

Given the bad news about the Geist Force disc from Donny - are you willing to share your copy with the community Monkfish?

Just curious (as are a lot of other people, no doubt.)

[monkfish]

I didnt realize there was bad news re: Geist Force - I thought it was good to go?

I am giving thoughts to donating it as I like what is happening here (forum, community, etc.), but am currently planning on selling it (for financial reasons). If I do the latter I will video it, etc. so everyone knows it functions. As I was telling Admin my build is 6 months older and is the absolute last build.

I know all will hate me for saying this but I havent booted it since the day I got it. So one way or another the disc is going to leave my hands as it has been on the shelf too long.

[arnoldlayne]

I humbly eat my hat!

[Segafreak_NL]

My questions:
-What happened to the DC versions of Baldur's Gate & Age of Empires 2?
-Why didn't SEGA offer to publish Black & White?

?

[monkfish]

Sorry checking with a few friends re: this and other games. I played a lot of different games @ Sega in different states I can't remember all of them :|.

[lordnik0n]

Daytona USA
Here is the true story. Daytona USA was rocking, everyone loved it. Our contract (with whomever was hosting us) went out or we moved. It was discovered at that point that the temporary IP addresses meant only for temporary use in the alpha code hadn't been replaced with DNS named sub-domain / domain. So when we moved the game turned off.

It was something we never did - giving out direct IP addresses (specifically for that reason), but the domain wasn't ready yet and access was needed immediately. At the point the address was given I understand it was made very clear that the switch needed to happen at a later point but something got lost in translation / transition. So... very sad. Everyone @ Sega loved that game.

Options obviously might've been a VMU upload (patch) or worse a re-issue of all Dreamcast discs (an impossibility at the time). I am not sure if a VMU patch would've worked. As I know a bit about VMU and Dreamcast innards, boot, etc. I think it could've, but I wasn't there when this happened so I am not sure if it was considered.

This is the absolute 100% reason why Daytona USA was turned off. Now it can be told?

I can confirm this is accurate. I have records of the time period from Sega boards, as well as syndicated re-posts at another board with quotes from Sega staff. Alien Front Online was the other game that was lost during this DNS snafu.

On the topic of AFO, years back at OC we figured out that AFO will glitch to the main lobby and sit there for almost 2 seconds. It gives you a brief glimpse, but then leaves. I acquired a GD-ROM developer disc of AFO that when booted up does the same glitch, but lasts for an entire 30 seconds. So you can see the background 3D Animations, along with the starting lobby.

(btw Hi to the Assembler community. It seems there is a rule in admin settings that prevents any account being created with the word "nikon" in it. I have been wanting to reg here for years, but never could. Hope its okay that I am here.)

[subbie]

Hey monkfish,

Not sure if this was maybe asked already but was there any special dev kit you saw for making Naomi/Naomi 2 games? I rarely see much info on arcade kits released online though one time what looked to be a Saturn/stv arcade test was on ebay at one time (wish I bought it).

[monkfish]

There may have been. We had a few teams on-site @ Townsend. Specifically the Alien Front Online team (not sure of the division - Smile Bit?) and Sonic Team. I am chatting w/ some old colleagues and I will try and bring it up.

[karsten]

I can confirm this is accurate. I have records of the time period from Sega boards, as well as syndicated re-posts at another board with quotes from Sega staff. Alien Front Online was the other game that was lost during this DNS snafu.

On the topic of AFO, years back at OC we figured out that AFO will glitch to the main lobby and sit there for almost 2 seconds. It gives you a brief glimpse, but then leaves. I acquired a GD-ROM developer disc of AFO that when booted up does the same glitch, but lasts for an entire 30 seconds. So you can see the background 3D Animations, along with the starting lobby.

(btw Hi to the Assembler community. It seems there is a rule in admin settings that prevents any account being created with the word "nikon" in it. I have been wanting to reg here for years, but never could. Hope its okay that I am here.)

welcome. Spam-waves keep us mods busy and certain nick were blocked as a filter.. enough nikon lenses for sale!

@monkfish
any detail on the saturn protection/ring?

[monkfish]

I have spoken to my friend and he is up for answering questions.

I will try and give him some modicum of anonymity, but he is very technical and can answer most if not all questions related to Dreamcast development and hardware. He could also likely answer *some* KAGE / SNAP questions (I am getting my other friend who can answer those).

He is one of the most technical people I know (being technical myself). Also (as a side note) about the nicest guy there is.

Not the place to ask about unreleased games so much.

I will take your questions, bundle them when I have a bunch post to him and post back here.

monkfish

[LeGIt]

I've just spring cleaned and reopened the thread so that people may resume speaking to monkfish - there are plenty of Geist threads for discussion, so please keeep the questions here in relation to everything else but Geist - I'm sure there is a lot to talk about :)

Also +1 on WTB info on Naomi/Naomi 2 dev info, but also monkfish, do you or your associates know how the System Disc 2 works?

Lastly, any chance of ninja the serverside hosting applications to bring life into the DC network games? People will be able to hack the ROMs for a new master server IP so that will be a non-issue. Cheers!

EDIT: I also merged your other Q&A thread here seeing as you will be speaking on his behalf and some of the questions people have or would pose are here already.

[spot778]

Speaking of Planetweb ...

Shot this in March of '09 halfway between Shibuya and Roppongi

[Shadowlayer]

monkfish, considering Counter Strike the mod was released before the 9/9/99 launch, and that due to how popular it was they made the retail version around the time JGR was released, were there any plans at all for a Dreamcast version?

[billcosbymon]

Zomg the planet web company still exists??????
I would love to see lord nikon get his hands on that online code because he runs dreamcast online servers

[monkfish]

Planet Web wont be able to help you *at all*. All they did was build the web browser for Dreamcast. They had no involvement in backend code, etc. nor game code.

[Cyantist]

monkfish, considering Counter Strike the mod was released before the 9/9/99 launch, and that due to how popular it was they made the retail version around the time JGR was released, were there any plans at all for a Dreamcast version?

there are a few beta's leaked. not sure if they are homebrew

[APE]

there are a few beta's leaked. not sure if they are homebrew

All 100% homebrew (using Half-Life's DC rip as a base to work with). I recall when most of them came out and the discussions on how they were done and how you could add in your own mods too.

Someone even managed to put Opposing Force onto a disc. I've yet to try it but I've at least seen it floating about.

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

So this is open to general questions about DC development as well? If that's the case, did Scud Race ever get beyond the demo thing that ran on the Katana dev systems? That is, was it ever playable?

[jp.]

The day Alien Front Online quit being playable online was one of the saddest days of my life. That was probably the best online game that has ever existed (to me).

Is there any chance this could one day be playable online again? I seem to remember it went down for reasons similar to what you described happening to Daytona USA.