"Congratulations. You have just discovered the secret message. Send your answer to Old Pink, care of The Funny Farm, Chalfont." -- Pink Floyd, backwards message, "Empty Spaces" - The Wall 1979 ------------ Thanks for finding this message. This is a note from Joe Siegler, long time and now former webmaster for Apogee Software, Ltd. We were more popularly known as "3D Realms" as the years went by. I'm leaving this goodbye note in the install directory for Rise of the Triad. Why? Today is my final day of work at Apogee. Despite the company really being known as 3D Realms since about 1996 or so, and despite the apperance of a "New Apogee" around 2007 (which is legally Apogee Software LLC, a different company completely), I still refer to the company I work for as Apogee. I started working here on December 14, 1992. That was my first day on the payroll, although I was involved since late spring 1992 as a beta tester. May 22, 2009 was my final day on this job that I thought I'd be with for the rest of my life. It really sucks that I have to leave this job - I never wanted to. Due to a set of circumstances I'm not getting into here, I was informed on May 6, 2009 that I would have to look for a new job. It's sad, man. It really is. My last official act as an employee of Apogee was to remaster the product line with a DOSBox shell. Most of our games are old DOS games which have uh, "issues" with newer operating systems. The DOSBox product is great with this, making these games work again like they did back in the day. So with two days left of work, the decision was made to redo the product line with a DOSBox shell, so I spent the last two days doing this. 3D Realms will continue on, and will continue to sell the games that we've sold all these years. So in a mad dash of work, I had to learn a new install program, evaluate the entire product line, and rebuild all the registered game installs with this new installer, as well as putting a DOSBox wrapper around them. If you are seeing this file, you've bought one of these remasters I put together. On Thu the 21st, I redid Duke Nukem 3D, and started on Shadow Warrior. But on Friday the 22nd, I did every game that we still sell (which is 26 of them). It was one heck of a day. Somewhere in the middle of it, I got my official termination papers, and as I write this text, it's a few minutes before 8PM Central time. I was officially no longer an employee at 6PM, but I wanted to get this remastering project done. I've handled every game install, and every download file produced by the company since January of 1993 through now. I've always kind of looked at the game installs as my baby, and I wanted this done before I walked out the door as an employee for the last time. My final day working here was quite a whirlwind of typing and compiling. And that brings me to Rise of the Triad. I did the games alphabetically, except for Rise of the Triad. I left this one for last. This is because ROTT holds a special place in my heart. I was a true developer on this one. I worked with Tom Hall on this, who was someone I admired before I started working here. I then worked with Tom Hall alone on the little known expansion pack, "Extreme Rise of the Triad". EROTT was discontinued ages ago, and was the only product I received actual royalty checks on. It was one of my favorite professional moments - from being digitized to appear in the game, from the level design, to the shooting off of water rockets in the bulding lobby the night of the release... I love ROTT. Not counting Apogee's owners, I was the last man standing here from the development team who worked here on the game. They're all still around somewhere, although not all in the industry anymore. Except William Scarboro, an old friend of mine who died of asthma at the age of 31. God bless William, and his mother, who survived him. So anyway, I did ROTT last, because I wanted this to be the biggest, baddest ROTT release ever. Since this is probably the final release of ROTT ever, I wanted everything to be here. Everything released from Apogee about ROTT is here from both ROTT & EROTT. All the maps, all the versions, tons and tons of user addons, too. Even the source code is here. I spent more time on Rise of the Triad's final release here than I did on every other game in this remaster project. I love ROTT, and I will miss working at the company that birthed it now a little over 15 years ago. It's quite sad for me to write this, to finish ROTT. I really don't want to leave the office this last time. I'll be 44 this August, and I'll be unemployed for the first time in my life. I thank Scott Miller & George Broussard for everything they've given me. They've shown a lot of patience with me over the years, and I wouldn't be where I am without them. Long live Rise of the Triad, and thanks for reading this. Goodbye folks - I'm out the door after finishing this. Save this goodbye, compile the game, and I'm done. After sixteen and a half years, I'm walking out the door with my ROTT Gad sheet. When I arrived this morning for work, I was the first one here, and when I leave, I'll be the last one out the door tonight. Goodbye Apogee fans.. Joe Siegler Former Apogee/3DR Webmaster "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)