Installing a game off 4 CDs...

[CurseTheSky]

The worst game media wise that I can remember is Lands of Lore III. 4 CDs, and you had to insert different discs for different areas during game play. You could easily hit 4-5 "please insert disc X" screens in ten minutes (and as much as ten minutes primarily because it took a while to load after the CD was inserted... if it only took a second, you could hit more like 15-20).

AND, they didn't go sequentially in order. It wasn't like "Oh sweet, I'm moving on two disc 3... that means I'm half way done with the game!" Various areas were apparently stored on various discs. You could jump from disc 1 to disc 3 (IIRC) just by going to a different area of the starting town, and then jump to disk 2 by going outside. Finally, you'd hit disc 4 by visiting an essential cave which wasn't very far outside of the town exit.

I loved Lands of Lore 1 and 2, but 3 was just annoying to play. The graphics weren't much better than #2 either.

 

[Sam25]

I've always wondered about something. In certain games you'll require to insert the cd 1 into your system again after the last cd's installation is complete. For example, lets say the game has 5 cds in total and once your done with installing from the 5th cd the installation process asks you to re-insert disk 1 again back into your system. The moment you re-insert cd 1, the installation completes in a magical second and your ready to play. What does this re-inserting of the first cd do?

 

[coldmeat]

Originally posted by: Sam25
I've always wondered about something. In certain games you'll require to insert the cd 1 into your system again after the last cd's installation is complete. For example, lets say the game has 5 cds in total and once your done with installing from the 5th cd the installation process asks you to re-insert disk 1 again back into your system. The moment you re-insert cd 1, the installation completes in a magical second and your ready to play. What does this re-inserting of the first cd do?

I always thought it was just to make sure you put cd 1 in before it started the game.

 

[BFG10K]

I always buy DVD versions over games whenever possible. In fact multi-DVD installs may soon make Bluray useful.

 

[PingSpike]

I remember there were usually CD and DVD versions of the game and the DVD version usually cost more. I bought the CD...WTF would I pay you more money to save you money on packaging?

Sure its annoying when installing...but I just don't install any one game often enough for that to be something worth paying extra for.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: coldmeat

Originally posted by: Sam25
I've always wondered about something. In certain games you'll require to insert the cd 1 into your system again after the last cd's installation is complete. For example, lets say the game has 5 cds in total and once your done with installing from the 5th cd the installation process asks you to re-insert disk 1 again back into your system. The moment you re-insert cd 1, the installation completes in a magical second and your ready to play. What does this re-inserting of the first cd do?

I always thought it was just to make sure you put cd 1 in before it started the game.

I suppose its also possible that the developers have the system do the "final build" or update to the executable for the DRM on the theory that crackers would have to run the whole long ass install to test that portion.

 

[Regs]

Ah I remember Far Cry. The 4-5 CD's were actually very good suspense builder at the time lol.

 

[FuryofFive]

gogo Far Cry with 5 discs... and gogo UT2004 with its 6 discs

 

[JTsyo]

FF7 was a few CDs for the PC install. Installing Alone in the Dark of disks was a long process. I remember having a bundle of disks that were rubberbanded together.

 

[Sam25]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: coldmeat

Originally posted by: Sam25
I've always wondered about something. In certain games you'll require to insert the cd 1 into your system again after the last cd's installation is complete. For example, lets say the game has 5 cds in total and once your done with installing from the 5th cd the installation process asks you to re-insert disk 1 again back into your system. The moment you re-insert cd 1, the installation completes in a magical second and your ready to play. What does this re-inserting of the first cd do?

I always thought it was just to make sure you put cd 1 in before it started the game.

I suppose its also possible that the developers have the system do the "final build" or update to the executable for the DRM on the theory that crackers would have to run the whole long ass install to test that portion.

This might be the very possible reason. I've also seen this happening while installing some older games.

 

[Eeezee]

Age of Empires 3 is not really a "newer" game, it's 4 years old...

The last game I bought that came on CDs was the first DoW, and that was a long time ago

 

[Eeezee]

I'm waiting for PC games to start coming out on Blu-Ray

 

[nageov3t]

in my day we had to install games off of 20 floppy disks! :frown:

but seriously, the answer is because while just about *everyone* with a desktop pc or non-ultra portable laptop has a cdrom, not everyone has a dvd drive (though that's quickly changing)

 

[lupi]

what's that one that had like 11-12 cds.

 

[Sam25]

Originally posted by: lupi
what's that one that had like 11-12 cds.

There was actually one which needed 12 cds?!

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: Sam25

Originally posted by: lupi
what's that one that had like 11-12 cds.

There was actually one which needed 12 cds?!

I think Phantasmagoria was like 8 (whether or not is actually *needed* 8, idk, but like each disk was 1 chapter)

 

[KoolDrew]

I think the most I've encountered was UT2004 that needed 6.

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I always buy DVD versions over games whenever possible. In fact multi-DVD installs may soon make Bluray useful.

And blu-ray drives are quite cheap so it sounds all good.

Something like Age of Conan which is an absolute monster once installed would be a perfect candidate.

 

[BladeVenom]

I think Far Cry was the worst, 5 CDs no DVD option, and DVD drives were cheaper than games by that time.

 

[imported_hopeless]

Originally posted by: loki8481
in my day we had to install games off of 20 floppy disks! :frown:

Then you had to go through another stack to install the the "Speech Pack".

 

[Sam25]

Originally posted by: loki8481

I think Phantasmagoria was like 8 (whether or not is actually *needed* 8, idk, but like each disk was 1 chapter)

As per wiki they needed so many cds for Phantasmagoria to accommodate the massive amounts of video generation.

 

[imported_hopeless]

Originally posted by: Sam25

Originally posted by: loki8481

I think Phantasmagoria was like 8 (whether or not is actually *needed* 8, idk, but like each disk was 1 chapter)

As per wiki they needed so many cds for Phantasmagoria to accommodate the massive amounts of video generation.

The first one had 6-7 CDs and they duplicated data across all the disks to cut down on disk swapping. Each day (chapter) was a seperate disk so you just had to have that days disk in the drive until you moved on to the next day then swap to disks.

On a side note, it was a pretty fun game.

 

[Sam25]

Originally posted by: hopeless

The first one had 6-7 CDs and they duplicated data across all the disks to cut down on disk swapping. Each day (chapter) was a seperate disk so you just had to have that days disk in the drive until you moved on to the next day then swap to disks.

On a side note, it was a pretty fun game.

Ahh. Never got around to playing it. Does it work on XP?

 

[LittleNemoNES]

FSX Gold is 3x DVDs O_O

I have like 10 steam games that together add up to a ~46GB backup file. takes FOREVER to reinstall all those games.

 

[imported_hopeless]

Originally posted by: Sam25

Originally posted by: hopeless
The first one had 6-7 CDs and they duplicated data across all the disks to cut down on disk swapping. Each day (chapter) was a seperate disk so you just had to have that days disk in the drive until you moved on to the next day then swap to disks.

On a side note, it was a pretty fun game.

Ahh. Never got around to playing it. Does it work on XP?

I never had the chance to try, loaned it out years ago and it didn't make it home.