Windows Server 2019 Includes OpenSSH - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/12/11/windows-server-2019-includes-openssh/ <comment><USER2> That is really something, before as a dev coming from linux when I first was about to login on a Windows Server I didn't understand how to do it since it were no SSH.

Administrating the server via a GUI always felt backwards somehow. Why waste CPU cycles on rendering a UI when the CLI is so great (on linux)?

<comment><USER3> Microsoft has come a really long way recently towards moving to CLI-based management. Starting with Server 2016, the default installation method of Windows Server no longer includes most of the GUI (called the Desktop Experience), leaving you with a command prompt window in the middle of the screen instead. An even thinner version of Windows Server, Nano Server, is also available, and includes even less GUI, being much more like a Linux terminal UI, though it is a bit less intuitive to get started with as you can't even install it, you have to image it to deploy.

Most Windows admins still prefer a lot of GUI management (I've gotten some groans in response to my statement new servers would tend not to have it), but remote desktop to the server is no longer the preferred way to do that: Remote Server Administration Tools effectively installs all of the server GUI on your desktop PC.

Due to the number of legacy applications Windows Server folks tend to support, it's unlikely server GUIs are going away entirely anytime soon, but for a lot of basic server functions supported directly by Microsoft, it's doable. And in addition to not wasting processor and memory pushing pixels, Windows Servers without the GUI are susceptible to less attacks, require less changes during Windows updates, and reboot faster, all on account of just having "less" onboard.

<comment><USER4> They started on this in the late 2000s when I was an intern there. But there was a lot to untangle. It's the biggest refactoring job you can imagine. A decade long effort.

Back then they didn't really understand the point of ssh though. They had a vision of remote management via .net RPC and powershell.

<comment><USER5> I dont know if that means they didnt understand it. It reads like they were trying to solve the underlying problems with a different approach.

SSH is an awesome tool & capability as a relatively high level network channel. The defacto "shell" approach leads to a lot of problems when used as a management device. It encourages adhoc, unstructured, and opaque changes. Managing your hosts via Secure Shell simply leads to bespoke, unrepeatable, outcomes and crushing debt.

Moving to a well structered, repeatable, management paradigm is the only way to survive large or long term deployments. I see "systems configuration" and "orchestration" as the most common ways to achieve that. Personally Ive been trying to move linux/bsd host management off of SSH for 10 years now. I will be very very happy when SSH shell instantiations approach zero per day.

<comment><USER4> They already had group policy for structured administration. What Windows was missing specifically was a non-GUI way for that unstructured "get in there and fix the problem" work flow. Structured workflows may well be better for you, but quick and dirty has a lot of appeal.

Sometimes you just have to give people the candy they want - even if its not good for them.

<comment><USER6> > "get in there and fix the problem" work flow

Isn't this an anti-pattern considering the cloud tenants of treating machines as cattle not pets?

<comment><USER4> Windows had this problem much earlier with every employee getting a PC on their desk. They solved it with Group Policy and domains. That still works well.

SSH and Remote Desktop solve a different problem. It may not be the one you have - but some of us just need to log into the machine because we have needs that don't fit into some predefined workflow. Or we have so few boxes it's not worth it.

Consider SSHing into a large build machine for compiling as an example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting that their ssh-agent runs as a service under an Administrator account. I'd guess this is an attempt to better protect the private key against theft during a local compromise (i.e. unlocked computer left running on your desk).

I haven't seen this done on Linux. Has this trick been implemented on other systems?

<comment><USER7> Useful reading:

[https://blog.netspi.com/stealing-unencrypted-ssh-agent- keys-...](https://blog.netspi.com/stealing-unencrypted-ssh-agent-keys-from- memory/)

[https://blog.ropnop.com/extracting-ssh-private-keys-from- win...](https://blog.ropnop.com/extracting-ssh-private-keys-from- windows-10-ssh-agent/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's really nice that they've finally decided to add something that a lot of people needed in 2005.

<comment><USER9> They also got notepad to not blow everything up when opening a file with normal line endings. It still fucks everything up when creating new files though.

<comment><USER10> I guess, with "normal" line endings, you mean <LF> instead of <CR><LF>.

<comment><USER11> He means the defacto standard, yes.

<comment><USER12> Not the defacto standard, but plain POSIX. Carriage return + line feed to enter a new line starting at the left margin makes perfect sense mechanically, though, and a lot of systems with ASCII/ASCII-like encodings use some variation of this sequence (e.g. <cr><lf> or <lf><cr>) for "newlines". Of course, in the interest of compatibility I'd prefer if it was one way or another, but I don't think it's fair to say that POSIX is the defacto standard. Lines in network protocols, for example, typically use <cr><lf> as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> OpenSSH with powershell is such a great combo. I was very skeptical about powershell, but after writing many scripts I'm a convert. Powershell does so many things nicer than bash. It feels like a real programming language but still not loosing its scripting roots.

For running tests for a GUI application which requires us to spin thousands of Machines in parallel, manage job queues, interact with Windows UI automation, do some html result dumping, shell buffer streaming, and a whole bunch of crazy things, powershell interfaces with things really nicely.

I absolutely love that powershell pipes streams of objects rather than just streams of bytes. So much more expressive.

<comment><USER14> Yep. I've been using bash since the 90s, and really got into Powershell a couple of years ago (I now run it on macOS too).

The amount of people who try and explain bash basics to me when I say I use Powershell is staggering. I'm _quite good_ at regexs thanks, I just like my scripts picking keys 'select' and 'where' rather than scraping with grep / awk etc. The amount of (poor) pwsh clones on Linux is a good testament to the solidness of this approach.

<comment><USER15> Scripts over say, 10 lines or so shouldn't be written in bash. That's when moving up to Python or Ruby makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Even right now, you can install sshd and/or use the client by adding them as a feature, or by installing manually.

[https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH](https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH)

and

[https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh- portable](https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable)

</comment><comment><USER17> Microsoft is becoming the defacto leader in open source.

<comment><USER18> This is almost undeniable. Seems like everyone and their mother are using vscode, typescript is huge, .NET Core is FOSS, PowerShell is now open source, etc etc.

The Language Server Protocol has revolutionized IDEs in general.

And now that they own GitHub (and their projects like Atom), it seems like the entire FOSS developer workflow is likely to be from MS-derived projects. Which I'm sure they are hoping will translate into more cloud service revenue and online software subscriptions.

If you are starting a new company, BizSpark is a really attractive offering. Could run a whole business on it, and yet none of your devs need to be running windows on their machines.

<comment><USER19> They can browse your private projects though so nobody in the right mind would use them to run cutting edge business.

<comment><USER20> Github Enterprise is self hosted which eliminates that issue

<comment><USER21> GitLab can be self-hosted for free and provides a complete DevOps platform.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for writing about GitLab.

If you are wondering what's the Auto DevOps - GitLab Auto DevOps eliminates the complexities of getting going with automated software delivery by automatically setting up the pipeline and necessary integrations. You can find out more info at the landing page [1] and the documentation [2].

[1] [https://about.gitlab.com/product/auto- devops/](https://about.gitlab.com/product/auto-devops/)

[2] [https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As someone who just started working as a developer and is using windows for the first time in 4.5 years, I can't believe how much I miss ssh and command line tools for everything...

ssh keys would solve so much trouble with scripting and credentials...

Also sudo...

<comment><USER24> From a developer perspective, Windows does SSH keys just fine. You can't SSH into Windows boxes (yet apparently!) but you can SSH out of them a-ok.

Window Key, type "optional features" and install the OpenSSH client.

<comment><USER23> Yeah... that's the thing.

We're a windows shop 100%. So it's non trivial controlling other machines from a command line.

I miss it so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Party like it's 1999!

<comment><USER26> I know it's a joke, but OpenSSH is not that old: its initial release was in December, 1999.

<comment><USER27> Looks like it was forked from some predecessors ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell#OSSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell#OSSH)) but doesn't go into the history much more than that. I remember telnet, where there any encrypted predecessors before the ssh family?

<comment> jamieson-becker OpenSSH was forked from the original SSH (version 1) code by Tatu Ylönen after it went closed source in the mid-1990's IIRC.

[https://www.openssh.com/history.html](https://www.openssh.com/history.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If it's similar to SSH in Windows 10 (developer feature) it behaves quite strangely with user account privileges. I tried to `vagrant up` a project configured to use VirtualBox but it was not successful and caused a whole load of file system permission errors in thr project directory mixed between SYSTEM and Andrew (my user account). Additionally, VirtualBox had trouble deleting the VM until a reboot.

This is the Vagrantfile: [https://github.com/andrewmackrodt/boot2lxd/blob/develop/Vagr...](https://github.com/andrewmackrodt/boot2lxd/blob/develop/Vagrantfile.dist#L32) \- it creates and attaches an extra virtualdisk in the project directory which was owned by SYSTEM IIRC.

TL;DR the VM which should have worked did not work, my FS had weird permissions and a reboot was required to clean up VirtualBox.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's available out of the box in Windows 10 April 2018 Update, as well. Just pop open a Command Prompt and type "ssh."

<comment><USER3> Actually, note that Windows 10 has the OpenSSH _client_ , "ssh", but to my knowledge, does not include the ability to be an OpenSSH _server_.

EDIT: 1803 build appparently _can_ get OpenSSH Server running, but it's "a bit of work": [https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/how-to- insta...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/how-to-install-the- built-in-windows-10-openssh-server/)

<comment><USER30> I am running this on AWS. It was a 30 minute exercise and it's only available on the 'core' AMI. This means there is no GUI even if you wanted one. I do like the ability to run regular CMD _or_ PowerShell. I am experimenting with using SSH to automate deployments to Windows Server.

<comment><USER31> TIL there's an AWS Windows AMI that comes without a GUI. Another user in the thread was talking about the "default install" of Windows not containing a GUI; wonder if this is what they meant.

<comment><USER32> If you install Windows 2016 RTM without changing a single option, you will end up without GUI. You have to choose "desktop experience" during install to get the traditional desktop installed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The only thing that's now left for them to do is to donate to the OpenSSH project :)

<comment><USER34> Actually Microsoft has donated every year since 2015 to the OpenBSD Foundation, with 2018 listed as $25-50k ([https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/contributors.html](https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/contributors.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Back when I was a sysadmin at Microsoft, we installed F-Secure's SSH server on every server we built (Messenger/Hotmail). The Windows team thought we were nuts. Well, what do you expect if you ask a bunch of Solaris admins to run Windows?

There were no real alternatives. I remember when they got all excited about showing off remote Powershell to us circa 2004, and we collectively rolled our eyes.

<comment><USER36> Could you write more stories about that job you had?

I always wondered what messenger/hotmail was ran on, and such stories would be really really interesting imho.

<comment><USER35> Hotmail was FreeBSD on the front end until it switched to Windows IIS in an ISAPI filter. The back end was Sun E4500 with T3 purple storage. Then they switched to HP with some terrible RAID crap.

Messenger was borne from the Net Meeting team in an informal weekend hackathon (before that was a thing). Backend stored the buddy lists and was 3 Hotmail ustores (Sun E4500 with EMC clariion storage). Front ends started out as Sun 420R then switched to Windows bit by bit (DP, SB, and then CS and PS). The Messenger HTTP gateway always ran in IIS.

<comment><USER35> Hotmail and Messenger used a lot of rdist in the early days. Until one of the managers rdisted /dev/null to /etc/passwd. Just one of many lolz in the day.

<comment><USER36> Glorious stories. You should write your memories about that somewhere in a blog or something.

Thank you for sharing that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> So windows at some point will be a bunch of services running on top of Linux :0

</comment><comment><USER38> I really like the idea, but if you're going to administer production Windows servers, it seems like you may as well learn PowerShell which already has a nice remoting framework.

<comment><USER39> > nice remoting framework Hell no. I've tried to use that thing on Windows > 2012 and it was awful compared to what OpenSSH brings to the table.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It would be great if openssh integrated into Windows properly. I can't ssh in as a user with any real permissions.

[https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/issues/139](https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/issues/139)

</comment><comment> jamieson-becker This is pretty awesome news.. for the last few months, we've been working on porting the Userify shim (but not currently the server) to Windows.

This will work exactly as it does on Linux (and the shim will continue to be open source): local admin (or user) accounts will be created and keys deployed, and the user will be able to choose PowerShell as their shell of choice.

(FWIW, Userify is both a cloud/SaaS and on-premise/self-hosted SSH key management solution designed for modern clouds like AWS and Azure that creates local accounts, deploys keys, and then keeps everything in sync using just outbound HTTPS connections.)

</comment><comment><USER41> Yes! More than two users connected to a server at any one time.

</comment><comment><USER42> Does anyone know — sorry if I forget the correct terms — whether you can SSH with pub key auth and perform operations that require elevated permissions, such as disk resizing?

I have some vague memory of limitations in earlier versions, with distinct differences between password auth and key auth.

<comment><USER43> If logging in as one of the adminstrators, you will be in an elevated session - so yes, you can do things like disk resizing.

The difference between password auth and key auth is that using password auth you can access network shares that need authentication from within the remote session. With key auth, you wont be able to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Does it support SSPI (GSS) authentication?

<comment><USER45> just saw this pull req [https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh- portable/pull/360](https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/pull/360)

<comment><USER43> its in the making....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> So now I'm just waiting to hear Microsoft is switching its kernel to Linux. Especially after the switch to chromium.

<comment><USER47> From what I understand NT already abstracts Win 32/64 APIs roughly the same way it abstracts the POSIX ones -- if they switched to Linux kernel + an abstraction layer for Win 64 (Official Microsoft Wine, basically) that's one less kernel and one less abstraction to maintain (WSL replaced by the kernel's native interface). I would happily pay for and operate such a product -- especially if I could install such a "Windows" as a subsystem upon some otherwise unmodified Linux distribution.

<comment><USER48> Primary issue with this would be driver support. Also there is value in the NT kernal itself in my opinion.

<comment><USER49> Because?

What advantages does it offer?

<comment><USER50> Read Windows Internals. It's a very different design from Linux. Worth learning about another approach to operating systems if you're at all interested.

WNT evolved (spiritually) from VMS and has a lot of unique things in its structure.

Note also that Windows already kind of is a perfectly serviceable Linux kernel through WSL. That's one of the unique things about NT - it was designed for binary compatibility for programs written for several distinct systems.

<comment><USER51> This compatibility layer approach is quite common. Solaris Linux Branded Zones and FreeBSD Linux Emulation Layer (now defunct?) also did the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would be more interested about spying. Does it spy? Call home? How safe is corporate data on that system? Can I audit the source code?

<comment><USER38> [https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh- portable](https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable)

<comment><USER19> I was referring to this Windows in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> This reminds me of that old quotation: "Those who don't understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly."

<comment><USER53> Well, if you're going to trot out quotes from the 80s (more precisely, 1987, Henry Spencer), you should be aware that Microsoft made and sold one of the first commercial Unixes: Xenix. And they made it in 1980, long before your quote.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix) ->

"In the mid-to-late 1980s, Xenix was the most common Unix variant, measured according to the number of machines on which it was installed.[1][2] Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said in 1996 that for a long time that company had the highest-volume AT&T Unix license"

Microsoft definitely understood Unix and figured out there was no market for it for close to 2 decades.

<comment><USER54> Apple successfully leveraged UNIX to develop macOS (officially UNIX) from which they developed iOS. Google successfully managed to leverage the Linux kernel (Unix-like) and Java to develop Android. Windows Phone, on the other hand, flopped.

<comment><USER53> My original comment said: "there was no market for Unix for close to 2 decades". That was hyperbole, but:

1\. 1980 to 1998 for Google, 18 years -> that's awfully close to 2 decades.

2.1980 to 2001 for Apple, 21 years -> that's more than 2 decades.

So your counter examples confirm what I said.

3\. Windows Phone and family failed because of marketing blunders, not because of tech. MS-DOS and Windows succeeded because of marketing prowess, not because of tech.

4\. The mainstream market just wasn't ready for Unix for a long time. The biggest Unix success was Sun, for a long time, and Microsoft absolutely dwarfed Sun for most of their existence. Further proof that my statement was right.

<comment><USER54> > Regarding Windows Phone: for technical reasons? Not really...

Not alone, it was also the network effect, and Microsoft's _terrible_ reputation they gained in the end of '90s and '00s.

> 1980 to 2000

Yes, I noticed, but that isn't a representative range. If anything, what's relevant is their recent history:

1) Less proprietary software, more FOSS.

2) Data gathering is more important.

3) As the old cash cows dwindle (Windows and Office) new ones are attempted.

<comment><USER53> I'm not sure I understand your comment, are those supposed to be criticisms of Microsoft?

<comment><USER54> Observations, both compliments and criticisms alike. Doesn't have to be one extreme or the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Microsoft changed more and more!

</comment><comment><USER56> Oh no, now we need to train all winIT how to use command line instead of mouse.

Always, laughed while configuring/managing MS products.

Great news anyway. Congrats on launch (2018)

<comment><USER57> Now we need to train UNIX admins how to do it without bash.

SSH alone doesn't seem any good without all the UNIX tools.

<comment><USER56> Agree. Sorry for flame fueled post. Still, old but vivid MS memories. The key point (for me) ie. 8 years ago was really hard to _efficiently_ and error- prone to do most of the task on MS platform. Hope the UNIX tools will ported soon too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Now all they have to do is switch their kernel to linux, their gui to kde and get their office suite to LibreOffice, and Windows will be the perfect computer.

<comment><USER59> Windows ux is better out of the box than on any Linux so far, it's really polished.

The office suite is also much better than alternatives.

So just switching the kernel to Linux would be enough and super winrar.

<comment><USER60> Does Linux have the equivalent of WinNT's i/o completion ports to prevent heavy I/O from freezing the user interface?

<comment><USER61> What about asynchronous I/O calls? Or using separate threads for I/O vs UI?

<comment><USER62> >What about asynchronous I/O calls?

random google result: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11866076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11866076)

>Or using separate threads for I/O vs UI?

not the target use for completion ports, which is handling thousands of outstanding IO requests with a few threads.

<comment><USER63> You mean an IO scheduler, eventually with a plugable architecture ?

[https://lwn.net/Articles/720675/](https://lwn.net/Articles/720675/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


NASA Opens Mars Downlink JSON Pipeline - <AUTHOR> http://json.jpl.nasa.gov

<comment><USER2> This is amazing. Dead simple, programmable access to absolutely piles of NASA Mars imagery. Everything from the first photos Spirit and Opportunity took on the surface to the latest vistas from the Curiosity rover.</comment>


Pogue Reviews Xoom - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/technology/personaltech/24pogue.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><USER2> I found the review ridiculous but I wasn't expecting anything better from Pogue. Yet another case of non-Apple products bringing the worst out of Pogue!

It sounded like he was marketing the iPad more than reviewing the Xoom. His point? Copies the iPad neener neener neener!

The bezel on the Xoom is considerably smaller than iPad and has no hardware buttons but Pogue finds only the differences worth a ridicule.

The browser on the Xoom is way more desktop like than the iPad - Pogue won't give a damn about that either.

He is bent on making himself look stupid by sigthing the 5 vs. 11 scrollable desktops on Xoom and iPad when Android desktop is nothing like the I pad.

He found the similar iBooks and Google Books animation similarities amusing but chose to neglect the fact that you can actually buy a book or two on Google Book Store ;)

Wow. Just wow. Watch the video as well while you are at it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the second review I've seen where they get the price wrong and after they correct the price they just leave all the conclusions and surrounding text the same, so that it no longer makes sense. It's a bit sloppy, but maybe it's done by an lowly-editor who doesn't have the authority to be rewriting articles just because the author got some basic facts wrong.</comment>


Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital: "Target Big Markets" - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKN-abRJMEw&embed=1 <comment><USER2> You only need a couple of good things

1\. Exceptionally good at technology and engineering 2\. Marketing - so you could understand what markets are out there. We (Sequoia) weren't interested in creating markets, but in exploiting markets early.

The art of storytelling is very important. Many entrepreneurs who come to us can't tell a story. The money flows as a function of the stories (24:45). Learn how to ask a question. Because you want to have a person comfortably telling you what he thinks is important so he can get help.

Only one metric matters in our world for a CFA: cash flow.

Lesson from worst investment: Technology always worked. What didn't work sometimes was the dynamics of the market.

(Stopped at 50:39; will finish later)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This video is kind of long, but worth watching. He knows what he's doing.</comment>


Visual Studio 2017 for C++ developers - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2017/03/07/visual-studio-2017-for-c-developers-you-will-love-it/ <comment><USER2> I first used Visual Studio for C++ in 2007. Although I'm not a C++ developer currently, I remember vividly trying to find an alternative to VS after switching from Windows to Linux. I never found an IDE that came close in comparison.

<comment><USER3> I can recommend Clion from Jetbrains. I am very happy with it. Although you have to be ready to drink the cmake kool aid. (I am using it on OSX, not Linux. When I edit something on a server I use vim + cmake + ninja build.)

[https://www.jetbrains.com/clion/](https://www.jetbrains.com/clion/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I do appreciate the interest shown to C++ by Microsoft. I love using VS2013 for non-visual C++ work. If I could ask for an extra piece of candy, however.

I really need a visual editor much like C++ Builder/Delphi and how it uses their custom "VCL" WinAPI wrapper. That would make my life so much easier. Put the "Visual" back in visual. Thank you and I will continue to enjoy Visual Studio.

</comment><comment><USER5> C++17 conformance is still lacking:

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/visual-cpp-language- con...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/visual-cpp-language-conformance)

Come on, Microsoft...

</comment><comment><USER4> This version does not provide an ISO. However, they support creating your own like so:

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/visualstudio/install/create...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/visualstudio/install/create-an-offline-installation-of-visual-studio)</comment>


If I Made Another Monkey Island (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://grumpygamer.com/if_i_made_another_monkeyisland <comment><USER2> Was actually rather surprised to find that he didn't like MI3 (Curse of)! While I definitely loved MI1 and 2, I actually call MI3 my favorite one. (4 was pretty bad, I couldn't get through even the first 20% of the game)

It takes getting used to the art style, but I felt like 3 really hit the spot with the humor, puzzles, voice-acting (!) and even mostly doing away with verbs (something he stated that he wanted). I totally get that there is a certain charm in 1 and 2 that isn't in 3 because of the major differences in art style. I just feel that 3 is such a strong game that shouldn't be overlooked. If I had to criticize it, I would just say that the last act (or two?) falls short. When the theme park part starts, it felt like they just wanted to rush to finish the game. The rollercoaster ride at the end as the boss battle was also lacking. Though, it was actually structurally quite similar to the final battle in MI2.

<comment><USER3> I'm lukewarm on 3 because it's got that feeling of "made by fans" instead of original ideas coming from the original minds. So you see repeats of insult swordfighting, the lazy crew that do nothing once you put to sea, etc.

Murray and the "A Pirate I was Meant to Be" song are both great, though.

<comment><USER4> Dueling banjos were also great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not another Monkey Island game (unfortunately). This is from 2013. After that Ron crowdfunded and built Thimbleweed Park (www.thimbleweedpark.com), an old school adventure game using some (not all) of these ideas. I played it and it is just as great as the best old ones.

From time to time Ron complains that Disney wouldn't sell him the rights to Monkey Island. The only reason I believe he doesn't build one more.

Edit: he kept the verbs in Thimbleweed Park and compromised a little in the tutorial (there is an easy mode).

<comment><USER6> I must say, MI didn't age well.

The humor was pretty awesome back then, but now it just feels awkward all the time :/

<comment><USER7> Having recently forced my partner to play through both MI1 and MI2, I must disagree. We played the fan-created hack which is the original SCUMM version but with the full voice from the remastered version hacked on top, and it's super great. We laughed. A lot.

<comment><USER8> Why the hack? I think you can switch to the old graphics in the remastered version. Or does that switch voices too?

<comment><USER9> Yes, you can't have the voices with the old graphics in MI1 Special Edition so you need the hack. Unfortunate oversight since I think many people would like to enjoy it that way. I believe they made it possible in the MI2 remaster but never changed this for the first one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not all that directly related, but if you like these old adventures and don't know it yet then check out ScummVM! It's an open source project allowing you to play all these games on more or less any modern device (including Linux, Android, iOS etc.)

They also have a few awesome games freely available under [http://scummvm.org/games/](http://scummvm.org/games/), for example "Beneath a Steel Sky" (which I'm playing right now, probably for the fourth time or so ;)) or "Flight of the Amazon Queen".

<comment><USER10> I played Beneath a Steel Sky entirely on ScummVM. Fun little indie game. It's kinda amazing the story telling that's possible with that engine. My favorite LucasArts adventure game from that era would be a toss up between The Dig and Full Throttle.

<comment><USER11> It isn't an indie game though. It was made by Revolution Software (known for Broken Sword) and was published by Virgin Interactive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Fifteen - It would have full voice. It's something we dreamed of back then > and we can do it now.

Eh, I don't know. I've never been a fan of voice acting in adventure games. You often have to repeat dialogues and stuff. Voice acting time costs, so it always puts constraints on the content that walls of text don't. Plus voice- over dictates speed in a way reading does not.

Some good ambient-matching tunes and occasional sound effects are all it needs.

The other points sound like a great non-plan though.

</comment><comment><USER13> Tangentially related - it's a f#cking shame and tragedy that Disney pulled MI1 and MI2 from Apple Store. Those are fantastic remakes of the original.

<comment><USER14> Institutional incompetence or some stupid "Disney Vault"-like reason?

<comment><USER15> Disney will close the MI door and lose the key, to never look back. They don't want it to compete with their main pirate-themed franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean.

But I would love if they called Ron, and in some future movie, they introduced a young pirate-wannabe, Guybrush. That would be great, and would put in good use their MI IP. And maybe then, we would get a new game.

<comment><USER16> Uncharted 4 had a little nod to MI

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> But with no verbs how would you do the gag from Monkey Island where the verbs change for the parrot?!

[http://monkeyisland.wikia.com/wiki/Murderous_Winged_Devil?fi...](http://monkeyisland.wikia.com/wiki/Murderous_Winged_Devil?file=Prod_parrot.gif)

(I kid; the verbs are mostly superfluous, as "look" and "use" basically cover all the options, but I really do fondly remember the verb-changing gag above...)

</comment><comment><USER18> > I wouldn't raise huge sums of money or break any records

This guy would raise a ton of money, even if that wasn't his goal and didn't try to oversell anything. His history in making games speaks too much for itself.

<comment><USER19> Look at how much money Star Citizen raised, largely due to nostalgia and reputation of the Wing Commander games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "It doesn't need 3D. Yes, I've seen the video, it's very cool"

Anybody know what he's talking about? edit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bInZ7_y4Lw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bInZ7_y4Lw) most likely

<comment><USER21> Looks awesome, is there any first person 3D point and click adventure? I only know the very old Normality but otherwise I'm not aware of any game that follows the "classic" adventure approach... Firewatch is cool but there are not many real puzzles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I will throw money in his direction to make any version of monkey island he pleases. I loved monkey island 2 so much. I'm old now and actually got monkey island free with our first Creative sound blaster 2 Soundcard. The games after that just didn't have the same humour and the graphics were overdone. I'm guessing if he hasn't made it by now though then it isn't going to happen :(

</comment><comment><USER23> Sounds like he got to do most of those things in Thimbleweed Park - [https://thimbleweedpark.com/](https://thimbleweedpark.com/)

</comment><comment><USER24> It sound like much more than "thinking and dreaming", he thought about quite concrete points like the number of people being part of the team or the kind of tools he'd use. The only thing holding him back seems to be the IP issue.

I'd add an eighteenth point to the list, if Ron would agree :

 _It wouldn 't include puzzles that require to be a part of a particular culture, or speak a particular language, to solve._

I'm specifically thinking of the "Monkey wrench" puzzle from Monkey Island 2. Let's just say that as a kid, playing the French version of the game, getting past that part of the game was quite frustrating.

<comment><USER25> >I'm specifically thinking of the "Monkey wrench" puzzle from Monkey Island 2. Let's just say that as a kid, playing the French version of the game, getting past that part of the game was quite frustrating.

Touchè for the german one. Years later I finally understood the joke behind the puzzle after finding out the english/americans call that specific tool a monkey wrench. In germany we call it "engländer" (->english man) but it seems that sometimes or in someparts of germany they call it "franzose" (-> french man)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Four - It would be a hardcore adventure game driven by what made that era so great. No tutorials or hint systems or pansy-assed puzzles or catering to the mass-market or modernizing. It would be an adventure game for the hardcore. You're going to get stuck. You're going to be frustrated. Some puzzles will be hard, but all the puzzles will be fair."

Difficult, in the age of the ubiquitous walk-through. You'd need to introduce randomization so that each instance of the game was unique, but even then, sites can describe methods of finding the solution.

<comment><USER27> I don't agree on that. Of course, if someone wants to bypass a puzzle they can, but that's not the spirit in which I read the "no tutorials or hint systems" bit. What he's really offering is the option for the player to elect to never see hints and training, and puting the constraint on himself that he has to use gameplay and good design to explain the problems and not beat you over the head with the solution.

I believe his goal is not to make it more fun by making the "finished this game" more exclusive, but rather make it more fun by designing it to be intrinsically fun for the audience he's targetting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > If I used Kickstarter, there would be no fancy videos of me trying to look > charming (as if I could). No concept art or lofty promises or crazy stretch > goals or ridiculous reward tiers. It would be raw and honest. It would be > free of hype and distractions that keep me from making the best game I > could. True, I wouldn't raise huge sums of money or break any records, but > that's not what I want to do. I want to make a game.

Whoa, a jab at Double Fine? In the documentary they made a big deal about how Ron Gilbert leaving was a simple change of plan and not because he was unhappy with anything at all. This seems to belie this (as if we didn't know already but still).

</comment><comment><USER29> I love that he dumps on the art style of the games after MI2. That was the main reason why i never touched any of those.

<comment><USER30> MI3 was pretty great, despite the change in style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> That man wants to make that game so bad.

</comment><comment><USER32> "I would lose the verbs. I love the verbs, I really do, and they would be hard to lose, but they are cruft. It's not as scary as it sounds. I haven't fully worked it out (not that I am working it out, but if I was working it out, which I'm not, I wouldn't have it fully worked out). I might change my mind, but probably not. Mmmmm... verbs."

Signature Monkey Island writing style . Ron Gilbert wrote one of the greatest all time scripts - one can read the entire game here: [https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/562681-the-secret-of-monkey- isla...](https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/562681-the-secret-of-monkey- island/faqs/23891)

</comment><comment><USER33> >>> The only way I would or could make another Monkey Island is if I owned the IP.

Ron is a creative mind, and he proved his value to society (gamers of course, he didn't cure cancer after all).

Reading this paragraph on IP is so disheartening.

</comment><comment><USER34> First, note that the article is from 2013, before Thimbleweed Park was conceived. Or maybe he had the seeds, the returned urge to write an adventure game again as he wrote this blog, as the Kickstarter was announced in 2014?

> Three - It would be a retro game that harkened back to Monkey Island 1 and > 2. I'd do it as "enhanced low-res". Nice crisp retro art, but augmented by > the hardware we have today: parallaxing, depth of field, warm glows, etc.

Much of this was Thimbleweed Park's style. It does have both "enhanced low res" pixel art and paralllax too; as part of the very first scenes, no less! I don't think it has DOF effects though, maybe it was deemed they didn't help once he got an actual retro game in front of him?

> Five - I would lose the verbs. I love the verbs, I really do, and they would > be hard to lose, but they are cruft.

These were strangely in Thimbleweed Park though, and even from early alpha/beta screenshots. I wonder if they were always there. He must have changed his mind early on. What's weird is that TP doesn't even have the reduced verb set found in later LucasArts games? It's the full, clunky 180 of what he wrote here! I think only three are actually essential: "Act", "Look", "Combine". "Acting" on a door opens/closes it, acting on a light switch turns it on, acting on a person talks to him/her, acting on a book in a bookshelf reads it... Looking is always passive, for descriptions. Combining is to combine items in your inventory to contraptions.

Otherwise he nails a lot of those points in TP. He did rewrite SCUMM, he did introduce humorous conversations, juicy pixelated inventories, use a small team, and even used Monkey Island cameos.

I've had this theory that Thimbleweed Park is secretely played in the Monkey Island universe. I wish that was true, but alas the in my opinion a bit too Gilbertesque ending kinda disqualifies it for that. If it weren't for that, there is a "G <3 E" (Guybrush <3 Elaine) in the elevator, you find a Navigator's Head, etc. It's also been theorized that Thimbleweed Park has an ending originally envisioned for "his" Monkey Island 3 since it would go well along with similar fourth wall breaking in that game, but Gilbert has expicitly said that he wouldn't reuse such an MI3 ending for a different game.

I think TP wasn't really a financial smash hit so I have my doubts we'll ever see MI3 unless Disney on a whim donates him the rights. Maybe then, because Kickstarter funding would obviously be no problem that time? He'd also have his new adventure game engine to build upon. It's a shame Disney is so closed up and uncommunicative like a clam about those rights that has seemingly little relevance to their current works.

<comment><USER35> > Combining is to combine items in your inventory to contraptions.

Combining is also just acting with you selecting an object first.

Daedalic removed the verbs entirely, and made left mouse button act, right button look.

To combine, you click on an inventory item, and then on another item or object.

To talk, you click on a person.

To flip a switch, you click it.

To look at stuff, you can always right-click.

Daedalic has made many games in the spirit of the old Lucasarts games, and been very successful. And demonstrated you don't need verbs in the game.

<comment><USER36> The bulk of adventure games use the 'single cursor' control scheme these days; Daaedalic is not the first.

<comment><USER35> Daedalic actually was the first, they've done it in basically all their games. And they do it very well, which is why I mentioned it.

<comment><USER36> As a company, Daedalic has only been a company for 10 years. Here are some games older than 10 years that use a 'single cursor' interface:

King's Quest 7 from 1994

Zork Grand Inquisitor from 1997

The Longest Journey from 1999

Blackwell Legacy from 2006

Pretty much, this has been the standard interface for most P&C games since the mid 90s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I thought that some of these points were digs at how the Broken Age kickstarter went and how that game was compromised on so many levels by modernisation until I've read the date.

<comment><USER38> Broken Age was good, though. Not extraordinary, but good. I wouldn't say that the old PACAs were a lot better. But maybe I like story more than most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This post is from 2013, maybe add this to the title?

</comment><comment><USER40> That font..brings back nice memories

<comment><USER34> I think he used this one, or a close relative? [http://style64.org/c64-truetype](http://style64.org/c64-truetype)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> He's making another Monkey Island?!

</comment><comment><USER42> I can't seem to find the kickstarter link.

<comment><USER43> [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimble...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimbleweed- park-a-new-classic-point-and-click-adv)

edit: found in "Final Hours!" Blog post from Dec 17, 2014

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > I'd do it as "enhanced low-res". Nice crisp retro art, but augmented by the > hardware we have today

I think we now refer to that as "pixel graphics".

<comment><USER45> Tooth and Tail has this style [http://www.toothandtailgame.com/](http://www.toothandtailgame.com/)

<comment><USER46> That looks amazing. However I am not sure how it plays, it says RTS, there are some building in the videos but it looks more like a diablo style hero-focused gameplay.</comment></comment></comment>