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Gaming terminology used by old school gamers which aren't used today

Ultima Online... creating a macro to mine stuff whilst you went to work.

0800 dialup

Omg 0845 dialup and huge phone bills!!!

US Robotics 28800 modems

AOL and their shitty 30 day demo cds on everything.
 

buizel

Banned
Last night I was thinking about growing up with a Spetrum 48K and thinking about all the new game development buzz words that were used back in the day...

Colour Clash - it's easier to colour and area than individual objects which lead to characters changing colour when they pass through backgrounds. Most evident on old systems from the 80s.

Sprites - an object in a game.

Parallax Scrolling - several layers of backgrounds are applied to side scrolling games. These move at different speeds to simulate real life perspective.

FMV - Full Motion Video. Some games used real video footage like Mad Dog McCree.


What other terminology can you remember which was big then but now it is never used?

All of these terms are still used in game development today.
 

K.S v2.0

Banned
Actually ,8 for the first argument was for the disk drive. ,1 was the default which was the Datasette. The second argument ,1 meant load it into the correct area of memory instead of the area reserved for Basic (which was default). Clever developers would load code into the interrupt area of memory so their game would auto-run without having to SYS anywhere (or having your Basic loader do it). Cartridges of course loaded at startup.

I actually never knew that beyond ,8 was the disk drive. When I had only the cassette player it was ,1 and then when I bought the disk drive the manual said just do ,8... and then the buddy who gave me a lot of games on disk said load em using ,8,1... I asked why and he was like 'dunno, is what I was told, so I'm telling you' :p

Good to know tho... after literally 30 years I finally know why!
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Mouse with a ball in it.
Joysticks
Floppy discs
Physical disks in any form really
Cheat codes.
Having to reinstall windows every third month.
No GaaS, just stick with what you got.
Single player games that were worth completing.
Dungeon keeper and bullfrog in general. RIP.

You guys remember cheat codes? ....
Crazy, I know.

Iddqd
Idkfw
Idnoclip


Does "cheat codes" count? Haha.

Yes and no, today they just cost money (some dlcs).

Do people still say Ding when they level up?

Did we ever stop? 🤔
 
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deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
- Memory card
- Extra life (Doom Eternal brought it back, but what was the last time before it?)
- High Score
- Expansion (yeah, yeah, we have some DLC that is basically the same, but the name was changed, so...)
 

buizel

Banned
Usually called something else... like assets.

Yes, people use the term assets in game development. But specifically they also use all the terms you listed above.

As a game developer I have used all 4 of the terms on my current project. We use spriters, we utilize parallax scrolling, we considered FMV for some effects and I use colour clash theory to make sure everything is readable.
 

01011001

Banned
as someone from germany, Importing has stopped being a thing.

back in the bday you'd often hear people say "I got the Pegi version" or "yo wanna play GTA SA? I have the NTSC version"

back then you'd import either to get around censorship or 50hz garbage pal versions.

nowadays where almost no game gets censored anymore and PAL50 isn't a thing anymore in games... that has almost died out.
now when someone from germany imports a game it's either because it's cheaper or so you don't have the giant USK age rating on the cover art.

you know... censorship sucks and all, but it was kinda fun back in the day to seek out the uncensored versions of games.
you'd go to a flea market and some guy there would have all the PEGI and UK or even US versions.
you'd see a guy selling Manhunt (which is technically illegal to sell in germany) and you were the cool kid if your grandpa or parents would buy it for you.

kids these days have it so easy (cue old mans voice) BACK IN MY DAYS YOU COULDN'T JUST BUY GEARS OF WAR IN YOUR LOCAL GAMES STORE!

🤣🤣

so yeah, nowadays you don't hear "Pegi Version" or "NTSC version" anymore, because people don't import much these days. first of all because digital is now huge and second of all because there's almost no reason to do it anymore
 
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MiguelItUp

Member
So much nostalgia.

Buffering
Modem
Heat.net
Mplayer
GameSpy 3D
Expansion Packs
Chat Room
FTP

LPB - Low Ping Bastard
HPB - High Ping Bastard
 

regawdless

Banned
as someone from germany, Importing has stopped being a thing.

back in the bday you'd often hear people say "I got the Pegi version" or "yo wanna play GTA SA? I have the NTSC version"

back then you'd import either to get around censorship or 50hz garbage pal versions.

nowadays where almost no game gets censored anymore and PAL50 isn't a thing anymore in games... that has almost died out.
now when someone from germany imports a game it's either because it's cheaper or so you don't have the giant USK age rating on the cover art.

you know... censorship sucks and all, but it was kinda fun back in the day to seek out the uncensored versions of games.
you'd go to a flea market and some guy there would have all the PEGI and UK or even US versions.
you'd see a guy selling Manhunt (which is technically illegal to sell in germany) and you were the cool kid if your grandpa or parents would buy it for you.

kids these days have it so easy (cue old mans voice) BACK IN MY DAYS YOU COULDN'T JUST BUY GEARS OF WAR IN YOUR LOCAL GAMES STORE!

🤣🤣

Yeah I'm also from Germany and I remember the days of the most stupid censorship. Like in C&C, humans have been replaced by robots and blood with oil. Or Tomb Raider 2 having violet blood. Or in Half Life, when you killed scientists, they sat down on the floor, shook their heads and.... magically disappeared. Those were times. Oftentimes it was crucial to get the uncut version. It was that bad.
 

01011001

Banned
Yeah I'm also from Germany and I remember the days of the most stupid censorship. Like in C&C, humans have been replaced by robots and blood with oil. Or Tomb Raider 2 having violet blood. Or in Half Life, when you killed scientists, they sat down on the floor, shook their heads and.... magically disappeared. Those were times. Oftentimes it was crucial to get the uncut version. It was that bad.

I wouldn't have wanted it any other way looking back at it.
back then everyone including me hated the USK and BPjM for the censorship but looking back at the times, it was fucking fun to hunt down uncensored versions.

going into a small nerd store and seeing Ninja Gaiden 2 for 360 there or black cover GTA Vice City... there was some magic to it knowing that it was "forbidden" lol

it's fucking weird to feel nostalgic towards censorship lol
 
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Makariel

Member
That slogan is killing me :messenger_tears_of_joy:

GPU boxes were truly something else back then.

AwqOf7RjGkGHIucCJO0WoPsdfIXV0id5mnnAoauT_CfDS24K90BVIp1yyfEDCoC-TWvLgEaEVlc5M57PNbSqWymvGQLcOQ
"What colours should we use?"
"Yes."

Some wild examples are here: https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/9/9274915/graphics-card-boxes-weird-art

Such as:

xfx-nvidia-geforce-6200-agp8x-256mb-ddr2-no-da-video-120701-MLA20380857756_082015-F.0.jpg


I mean, what even...? Defenders of the Gaming World yeah...

ASUS was also on a trip back then:
14-geforce256-1-636x476.jpg


They simply don't make 'em like that anymore...
 

regawdless

Banned
I wouldn't have wanted it any other way looking back at it.
back then everyone including me hated the USK and BPjM for the censorship but looking back at the times, it was fucking fun to hunt down uncensored versions.

going into a small nerd store and seeing Ninja Gaiden 2 for 360 there... there was some magic to it knowing that it was "forbidden" lol

it's fucking weird to feel nostalgic towards censorship lol

Yeah getting my hands on games like Blood 2 felt magical. But I never had that hunting experience because you know.... Pirating was a thing and if you knew the right people, stuff just flew in from time to time.

For me, all that censorship sucked bawllz and I'm glad it's mostly over.
 

01011001

Banned
Yeah getting my hands on games like Blood 2 felt magical. But I never had that hunting experience because you know.... Pirating was a thing and if you knew the right people, stuff just flew in from time to time.

For me, all that censorship sucked bawllz and I'm glad it's mostly over.

I mean for PC stuff that was an option but on console it was a but more complicated to even run pirated stuff
 

Null Persp

Member
200+ page physical manuals.
No time for that tutorial shit back then. Better to read a fucking book to understand the games mechanics.

Don't miss those tbh.

Oh my! I remember the manual for Joint Strike Fighter, detailing every technical detal and possible maneuver you coul do with the aircrafts!
It was a 150+ page booklet, all in color, and it was awesome

oNrogJG.jpg

You could fly the real thing after reading this.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Is Goroud shading still a thing?

Then there was MPEG vs. JPEG.

And transparencies

PS1 had them all, while Saturn didn't. No wonder Saturn games looked crap. Even Saturn's CGI were staticky like it's a shitty video from a VCR recording, but PS1's CGI clips were smooth and clear.
 

Bogroll

Likes moldy games
Ive not used a tank or My last tank.
Was used in very early 80's to say how many lives you have left when playing arcades.
I don't expect anyone to know that it may be a regional saying in the UK.
 

GAMETA

Banned
Please, insert the CD: ROM

No Memory Card found, your progress will not be saved.

edsx.dll not found

aegis
how do you turn this on

klapaucius;!;!;!;!;!;!;!
 
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klosos

Member
People around me used the term Clocked when I was young, it meant when you have finished/beaten a game.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
300 baud modem.

Back in the mid 80s, my bro had a one for his Apple computer and he'd download games off bulletin boards. Looking back, I don't even know how you find these random boards, but he'd download games at night. It used the phone line so nobody could get a call in so he'd download middle of the night.

He'd queue up games and most games were super small or one disk worth (64k), yet these games would take hours to download. And if something bombed out, you can't just continue where it left off. He'd have to re-do the whole download.
 

Fuz

Banned
C:\Game>game.exe

<game doesn't run coz not enough conventional memory>

C:\Game>edit autoexec.bat

<locate all DEVICE=xxx lines, change to DEVICEHIGH, save, exit>

C:\Game>game.exe

<game runs, no sound... fiddle w/ sound settings in game, doesn't work>

C:\Game>edit autoexec.bat

<fiddle with SET BLASTER=xxx line, EVEN THOUGH IT WORKED PREVIOUSLY>

C:\Game>game.exe

<still no sound...>

C:\Game>edit autoexec.bat

<put all sound settings back to what they were>

C:\Game>game.exe

<wtf, sound works now... but, gamepad doesn't work... >

... Its now been 3 hours since you tried to play game...
This is what made men.
 

Airola

Member
In the late 80's and early 90's arcade adventure games were called "aardvarks" at least in British game magazines.

That never became that widespread things while "shmup" is still used today and that was coined by the same magazine.
 
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UnNamed

Banned
Press Fire
Side A, Side B
Quickshot
Autofire
Datassette
Azimuth
Graphics chip
PKzip
Extended/expanded memory
Take that (item), will give you extra life
 
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