Sierra Mailbag - Spring 1988
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To The Sierra Company,

I am writing to express our thanks and appreciation. Recently, we purchased your "King's Quest III" game. When we attempted to put it on our hard disk, we ran into problems. Jim called your customer service department, using the number you provided in the catalog you enclose with your programs. While we expected a bit of hassle, due to past experience with other companies, this is not what we got. The person on the other end of the line determined in a short period of time that we had received defective disks. We were told that replacement disks were on their way. We expected it to take two to four weeks before we got them. We were quite surprised and pleased when they were here three days later. You not only have quality in your programs, but also in your personnel. So here's letting you know that these customers appreciate you.

So far we only have two of your games. We started with "The Black Cauldron", which took three of us, working almost a week to finish with the total amount of points possible. We had so much fun with it that we went out to find another Sierra game. That's when we found "King's Quest III". We haven't even come close to solving this one yet. My 12 year old son spends the majority of his time bugging the wizard, as he finds it exciting to see what kind of punishment the wizard will give him. We all enjoy it very much.

Thank you again for your wonderful programs and your employees' helpfulness.

Very Sincerely,
Elaine L. Gwynn

Dear Sierra,

I enjoy all of the adventure type games that you publish, and presently own all of them. Through the years of experience, I have developed several questions and comments.

On the newer games coming out now, I find that the solutions are becoming more difficult. With King's Quest II, it was very easy, yet now, especially with Space Quest II, the solutions have become far-fetched and almost impossible to think of on one's own. Perhaps there is a happy medium in there somewhere, a problem that takes thought, yet is in the range of reasonable thinking.

After having to call the hint line, I produced some comments about this "Customer Service." I thought that the must be extremely busy, for each time I called, I got the busy tone. But please, put someone on the phone who knows what they're talking about (gives you the correct solution to the correct problem), and someone that woke up on the right side of the bed that morning. It is sort of discouraging when a fruit cake or a grizzly bear answers the phone. Once, I almost hung up because I thought I must have had the wrong number.

So I have heard that King's Quest IV has a new graphics system. Will it improve the graphics on an IBM PC with an EGA? Or, is this just an improvement for the IBM SYS/2 or the Apple IIGS?

I would like to have information on the status of games in the works. Last fall, I got a "next spring, in March" to an answer for the date that King's Quest IV would be out. I called again a month ago and found that October was the new date. October!

It seems that all of the new games came out in the Fall/Spring of 1987/1988. I was playing three of your games at the same time in one week. Now was that interesting. I can expect two to three more years for the sequels to those to come out. Are there any fresh ideas for the Quest family? I have a few: "Dinosaur Quest: The Quest for the Bone" or "Kitten Quest: Manannan's Revenge" (Manannan? What kind of name is that?)

One last thing. This is not really important, but could you work on perspective so that Rosella (Rosella? Is that like Tulipa?) walks farther "up" the screen. It looks more like she is farther away.

Sincerely,
Steve Kehlet
Creve Couer, Missouri

P.S. I looked up Coarsegold and it took me an hour to find. No wonder you are in one of the largest buildings in town!

Dear Friends,

You know, I gotta tell you - your graphics games are the best! I have about 20 text-adventure games from another company that starts with an In-, and I really like those. But I really love yours! I wish I had 20 of yours. We currently own Space Quest I and II, Police Quest, and King's Quest III, and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of King's Quest IV. Keep up the good work!

Also, every time (only four times I wimped out!) called Customer Service for a hint on Space Quest II, the people have always been helpful and friendly, and have never steered me wrong - yet.

Again, keep up the good work!

Sincerely yours,
An Everwandering Adventurer
Lorrie Williams

Dear Sierra,

We love Sierra products. Your games get us through the winters! Playing games is a family affair and quite often dinner-time conversation is pent trying to figure a way to get a "hero" out of his latest predicament.

All of my four children, ages 4 to 12, are beginning to think like your game designers. This may be good, especially if they ever think about lighting an open flame in a restroom somewhere! Oh, and they are calling each other "wing nuts" now — there are worse things they could be saying.

Seriously, thank you for your excellent products and service. We will be customers for long years to come.

Sincerely,
Dawn Robinson
Cleveland, Tennessee

Dear Sierra On-Line,

About two months ago I purchased a Tandy 1000 TX computer and your HomeWord word processing and spelling package. I am a teacher (social studies) here in western Pennsylvania and had been contemplating buying a computer and word processing package for several years. I would like to let you know how pleased I am with your product. Once I caught on to how to use it (my knowledge of computers and word processing was limited) your word processing software has proven most useful. I have been placing all of my tests, work sheets, review guides, etc. on disks using your HomeWord package and have discovered how convenient a product such as yours can be. It has proven to be ideal for my purposes and would recommend it to anyone considering buying a word processing package.

My thanks to you and your staff for developing and marketing such a fine product.

Sincerely,
Jack McMahon

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