As I understand it, there wasn't much of a plot to Mask of Eternity so will it be easy to understand the plot of this game without playing MoE? I was wondering if past events that are referred to in the game will be elaborated on so I understand what happened. Thanks
Yes. The plot of TSL is more based on the other games in the series rather than MoE. The only elements taken from MoE are Connor, Sarah, and the Mask of Eternity. :)
One of these days I'm going to sit down and put together the entire script for MOE and put it up on King's Quest omnipedia for anyone to read :p.
"'Tis beyond my reach."
Repeat? :P
LOL! Moe was a stupid game. I thought about rewriting moe and making it be more of an adventure game, writing a story for it and giving it substance. I think Connor is an interesting character, moe would have been a lot better have they given it a deeper plot, made it more difficult to defeat Lucreto, etc. Connor's character needs lots of work.
Quote from: Rosedragon on July 18, 2006, 03:07:13 PM
LOL! Moe was a stupid game. I thought about rewriting moe and making it be more of an adventure game, writing a story for it and giving it substance. I think Connor is an interesting character, moe would have been a lot better have they given it a deeper plot, made it more difficult to defeat Lucreto, etc. Connor's character needs lots of work.
It was supposed to be, initially, but somehow the adventure elements got lost in production. :-\
Quote"'Tis beyond my reach."
Repeat?
Well sure that was pretty much what you got every time you tried to solve a puzzle... But beyond the box, rope, and jumping puzzles, there were actually some interesting dialogues with the various NPCs you could talk to(at least for the main NPCs)... At least interesting to me.
Yes, sadly alot of storyline was cut due to difficulties with the engine, and sierra wanting the game released on schedule no matter how much was missing...
QuoteYes, this was the only KQ game that was not fully developed at one location. The idea was to leverage the 3D engine Dynamic was building in Eugene. We were to use their engine and focus mostly on content. The problem was that the engine work ended up WAY behind schedule and that had disastrous results on our content development. To make a long story short, we finally took what they had and finished it ourselves. Unfortunately, by the time we did this the project was way behind schedule, way over budget, and we still didn't have an engine. We scrambled to complete the project and it unfortunately showed. It saddens me to have had the King's Quest series end with a product that suffered so.
So yes, many things were cut - the leprechaun, the Red Capped goblin, I think two complete levels, and then MANY major cutbacks on what is there. As you point out, a good example is the Swamp Witch. In the original script as it was developing, her part was much larger. But as we had to devote time to technical issues, the esthetic issues and the amount of detail and breadth of content continued to get chopped. Remember, this was also right at the time the industry was saying that "Adventure gaming is dead." It was not easy to convince marketing to invest more to develop an adventure game. The end result was that we shipped what we could, and it was a pretty sad showing for such a great series.
-Mark Seibert, March 11, 2006.
QuoteI have played both of those, but I totally forgot about Alexander and Rosella using the mirror (besides that the prime minister guy saw it in Mask of Eternity.
I should also note that Connor uses the mirror himself to see Lucreto for the first time. For some reason Lucreto is actually able to speak to Connor through the mirror as well, as he can apparently see into Castle Daventry from his side of the mirror(whatever it is he's using). Genesta also was able to communicate through it when she was talking to Rosella. Ghost of Edward was able to speak through it to Graham as well. Apparently it was once used by Merlin, as it is the Mirror of Merlin.
Quoteas he is the sole creator (past and present), whereas the KQ series had several different ones.
It probably be should be noted that Lucas generally only wrote the outlines for the stories in the movie, but had a screen writer flesh out the plot beyond the outline. Plus a huge creative staff that came up with the many alien races. Lucas did not come up with it all.
Its not much different than Roberta's involvement with the series. She usually came up with the outline for the stories, and had other writers flesh out the script. She tried to maintain just enough control that she made sure it fit into vision she wanted.
QuoteHad MoE done its job plot-wise (at least), our game would not exist and the series would possibly still be thriving
Had Havas Interactive let the MoE team do its job, and what it had planned. We probably would have seen Roberta go on to make an official King's Quest IX, years ago.
By Roberta I mean she would have made her next basic outline of where she wanted the plot direction to go, and then had some other people flesh out the story.
The unfortunate thing is that Havas forced Sierra to release the game mostly unfinished, so it has a rather linear plot, but no detailed puzzle solving.
Sierra was forced to release the game without many of the planned scenes that would have fleshed out certain enemies, some were removed(do to puzzles being incomplete due to technical issues) or never made it into the game at all.
Also there really isn't any reason for TSL to go back to lands in MoE, as Connor fixed the problems in them, and they are not really all that important in the scheme of Daventry geography.
The kingdom of Daventry? Eh I'm pretty sure there is no reason to return to Connor's Village specifically. But I wouldn't be surprised if one of the games visits somewhere in Daventry.
Castle Daventry? Well I wouldn't be suprised of TSL shows some parts of the castle, just not the parts seen in MoE.
Connor fixed the Dimension of Death, and once the Mask of Eternity was fixed the portals to it would have likely closed. So there would be no reason for anyone to go back to it.
The swamp was just an area that got in the way to reaching the Underground Realm of the Gnomes, and nothing really important went on there, besides the evil swamp witch... Connor defeated her, purified the swamp, and healed the Swamp king.. So everything is all and good there, no reason to return.
Underground realm of the gnomes? Besides the possible connection to the "Ancients" and an Ancient Lost city, which may be the same race that once live in the Green Isles, it really serves very little importance. Everything was cleared up, and gnomes can go back to their mining.. No reason to go back there.
The ancients open questions that might have been interesting to touch in a future game.
The barrens? Eh its just another high mountain area in Daventry... Its not like we have seen other places on those mountain ranges in other games, like in KQ3, or KQ5... Everything was restored... Hillmen and weirdlings can go back to their peaceful and remote lives just trading with the races living in the Frozen Reaches.
The Frozen Reaches? Eh its another romote high mountain with an Ice Nymph Queen, and Orc race, in the same mountain ranges that contains Yeti's and another Ice Queen(in Serenia part of the range)... Everything has been fixed there, its so remote I'm sure there would be no reason to return to it.
Paradise Lost? Eh beyond an entrance to the Temple of the Sun it had very little going on of any importance.
Temple of the Sun? Beyond the Mask of Eternity having to remain there for its own protection and to keep balance, truth and order over the world. I'm sure it serves very little importance otherwise.
There is some implication tha a previous removal of the mask from the temple may have been what caused the previous cataclysm, the one that destroyed the Ancients city and buried it underground, before it was returned back to the temple. However it also lead to the Prophecy made by the mask that prophecied Connor by name, and that he would be the chosen one, and would save the mask at a later point in history, so that the previous extent of destruction would not happen again.
Since the Mask of Eternity is one of the only elements brought from the game, I'm guessing the idea that it had to remain in the temple to prevent catastrophy is being ignored for sake of TSL's plot ;). :suffer:
Quote from: Baggins on August 14, 2006, 10:54:57 AM
Had Havas Interactive let the MoE team do its job, and what it had planned. We probably would have seen Roberta go on to make an official King's Quest IX, years ago.
By Roberta I mean she would have made her next basic outline of where she wanted the plot direction to go, and then had some other people flesh out the story.
Actually, given all interviews I've read from Roberta, her role in MoE was miniscule at best. It started out as having potential, but quickly degenerated into that mess you see today. ;) I still maintain that had she been able to keep creative control, the KQ series would not have been extinct. ;P
QuoteActually, given all interviews I've read from Roberta, her role in MoE was miniscule at best.
In the making of video for MoE she sits at a table and discusses her plot outline of what she wanted, while she kept track of current progress of the game at the time.
Her involvement was mainly to try to make sure the story was the one she wanted to portray even though she did not write the entire story itself.
Infact its in those videos and in old issues of interaction magazine, and the Talk Spot interviews, that Roberta points out her reason for wanting to add RPG elements to the series. One reason was her son's enjoyment of the Super Mario 64 game. She wanted to make something just as popular.
In the talk spot interviews(a 3 part online radio interview made just as the game was released) she discusses her involvement with the game, the elements of the plot she was forced to remove, and many other things she was involved with during the making of hte game.
Many ideas she had planned were unfinished, or didn't work well yet, and Havas wanted the game released early, as they were already starting to go over Havas' budget. So they were simply cut, so that the game could be released early.
RPG elements is something she actually regrets now in hindsight, as not one of her best ideas. But as she says, "you know what they say about hindsight".
The biggest problem was Havas always tried to butt into her and her creative team's process, and ultimately cut their budget and forced them to release the game unfinished.
Plus they had problems with Dynamix being rather slow with coming out with the engine while they worked on the story. So they were forced to scramble at the last moment to finish the engine themselves, which was another reason many story elements were cut.
Here is a bit more of the issues as I was told by Mark Seibert himself;
Yes, this was the only KQ game that was not fully developed at one location. The idea was to leverage the 3D engine Dynamic was building in Eugene. We were to use their engine and focus mostly on content. The problem was that the engine work ended up WAY behind schedule and that had disastrous results on our content development. To make a long story short, we finally took what they had and finished it ourselves. Unfortunately, by the time we did this the project was way behind schedule, way over budget, and we still didn't have an engine. We scrambled to complete the project and it unfortunately showed. It saddens me to have had the King's Quest series end with a product that suffered so.
So yes, many things were cut - the leprechaun, the Red Capped goblin, I think two complete levels, and then MANY major cutbacks on what is there. As you point out, a good example is the Swamp Witch. In the original script as it was developing, her part was much larger. But as we had to devote time to technical issues, the esthetic issues and the amount of detail and breadth of content continued to get chopped. Remember, this was also right at the time the industry was saying that "Adventure gaming is dead." It was not easy to convince marketing to invest more to develop an adventure game. The end result was that we shipped what we could, and it was a pretty sad showing for such a great series.-Mark Seibert, March 11, 2006
I can see the kind of pressure that Mark Seibert must have been under. It's certainly not easy to revive a dwindling genre when everyone else had already moved onto FPS that were profiting more than any other previous KQ game. However, they could have solved all this very easily: by removing "King's Quest" from the title. :P
Unless they were banking on the marketting and prestige to carry their game alone, there was no way MoE could have maintained the same KQ fanbase on merit alone. It was sub-par in many areas, whether due to cutbacks or not. If it were up to me, I would have just rebranded the product and hoped for the best. Rather than embarassing the entire company and KQ community, it could have just been seen as an experimental product. 8)
And this isn't some random suggestion. Sierra was already experimenting with different plotlines, just compare: KQ6, KQ7, Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight. The MoE product-line could have easily formed a new and separate market, but the pressure got to them. It's a classic case of someone trying to re-invent and push something that people just aren't ready for. ::)
Quote from: Baggins on August 14, 2006, 10:54:57 AM
Castle Daventry? Well I wouldn't be suprised of TSL shows some parts of the castle, just not the parts seen in MoE.
They've already said that we will get to see the inside of the Castle Daventry. In fact, I believe that they've released screenshots of it.
Well that's the unfortunate thing at the time, a couple of adventure game companies went "tomb raider" style of 3rd-person adventure game with game sequels..
Indiana Jones franchise did as well.
Recently they added combat into the "longest journey series" with dreamfall...
Tomb Raider actually wasn't that bad of a game (for its market), but yes it was a certainly different genre than adventure and far less storyline/puzzle driven than TSL. 8)
I actually can't stand Tomb Raider...
I actually consider Mask of Eternity to be a superior game compared to Tomb Raider... Same with the last two Indiana Jones adventure games(Infernal Machine, and Emperor's Tomb), both were superior to tomb raider.
Maybe I just prefer the subject matter, Fantasy, and Indiana Jones, heh heh. Also it seemed that Mask of Eternity and the Indiana Jones games had more plot and puzzles than the tomb raider games.
Another game that had the Adventure Game feel at the time, but had some Tomb Raideresque elements, was Thief(they called it a First-Person Sneaker). I absolutely love that series.
Plus I think it was Mark Seibert that once said in an interview based on Roberta's idea to add Super Mario 64, and N64-style combat to King's Quest;
He wanted to go for something closer to Ocarina of Time, a game he hadn't actually played but he knew was popular at the time. He wanted something that could actually compete with Ocarina.
Yeah, that's why I modified my post to say "for its market". Since you still need to be a bit of an action fannatic to really appreciate it from other mundane FPS games. 8)
But to get back on topic, MoE was a bit too hack-and-slash for me to even consider playing its demo. :no: Even from that Making Of video where Roberta is trying to promote it as something worth playing. :P The in-game video footage pretty much speaks for itself. ;)
Believe me if you play on easy mode the hack and slash(which literally plays like the Diablo Franchise btw, including the potion menu) isn't all that bad(it isn't necessarily bad on normal either). Most of the game involves more like Tomb Raider style exploration, with some adventure game style inventory puzzles thrown in.
The game was not as good as some games at the time, but it better than many of the games at the time, IMO.
There is something like only 20-40 enemies per zone (except in Dimension of Death where they throw the undead skeleton and zombie, and ghost horde at you in several rooms maybe 100 enemies total)... The rest of each map are either empty of enemies, or involve tile puzzles, wall puzzles, box puzzles, sound puzzles, color puzzles, and inventory puzzles, pure exploration, NPC encounters. Plus other tomb raider style jumping puzzles. A few of the "bosses" actually required you to think somewhat rather than just combat.
Connor's "Rope and Hook" essentially replaced the Whip which Indiana Jones used to climb up cliffs in "Infernal Machine".
However you bring up, First Person Shooters. I like FPS better than Tomb Raider... Hell many FPS had better plots than Tomb Raider... I love World War II shooters... I also love Half-Life series (which added some adventure and action-adventure game elements.) I even found Doom 3 to be an enjoyable game.
I don't know maybe I just felt Tomb Raider's levels felt repetitive and all looked alike...Plus it was exploration in pretty much completely lonely setting, few NPCs, and the character (and her development) wasn't even that interesting to me. Maybe it was the time frame that the story was set... Tomb raiding in 1930-50's, or "medieval times" cool... In the 90's eh not so interesting... She didn't even have fun one-liners like Indiana Jones does, or Connor's over-dramatic conan-style heroic comments.
I actually love Diablo 2. ;D I played it once and was hooked. XD If our company ever makes a game similar to that in the future, I think it would be a best seller and great progression from the adventure genre. :) But anyway that's going off-topic. :P
Regarding MoE, I'm not 100% sure about the other games around that time (since I stopped playing adventure games altogether after KQ7), but I believe Half Life was out, or very close in any case. If you compare the "action/adventure" in that to MoE, you'll see a clear class distinction, even though Connor uses knives instead of guns.
As you said, I and the majority of KQ fans would not have a problem if MoE was not marketted as a KQ game. It's actually the reason behind the whole "K-Q-8" filter installed on this forum. KQ fans simply do not consider it a sequel to the series, despite Sierra's attempt at trying to make it one.
I too prefer Quake and Unreal Tournament to the early versions of Tomb Raider, but the more recent ones capture my attention more than any FPS game ever will. 8) I have a feeling I might enjoy Indiana Jones, but I just don't have the time to play video games anymore. :P
[
QuoteIf you compare the "action/adventure" in that to MoE, you'll see a clear class distinction, even though Connor uses knives instead of guns.
Obviously a difference. Though Connor does use "bows" and other projectile weapons as well. But it still has more in common with Diablo than Quake.
BTW, the original Quake was never my favorite FPS (though Quake II had a bit more of a story, and some nice scripted sequences so was a bit more interesting). Unreal Tourn, now that was fun just simply for the multi-player.
MOE is not even called KQ-8. It was called King's Quest: Mask of Eternity. Roberta's reasoning? She didn't want to alienate new fans she thought she could bring in the series based on its tombraider style adventure and diablo style RPG. She didn't want people to feel obligated to having to play previous games in the series, so she didn't number it. But since it was tied to the King's Quest universe it retained the King's Quest title.
A similar thing was done with Thief 3, in which they called it Thief: Deadly Shadows.
In some ways QFG5 has more in common with MoE than it did with previous games in its series. In that both had pure action rpg elements, and were a bit more diablo-like. QFG5 had less puzzles than MoE from what I remember :(... It was mostly a series of battle sequences throughout the entire game.
This was likely the fault of Havas owning the company at the time though, they seemed to think every adventure series sierra started had to be converted into action games. They even wanted to add Multiplayer elements to them as well... The two times they planned on making a Space Quest 7, they pretty much were going to turn them into FPS.
Now it wasn't their fault for MoE entirely since Roberta claims that the idea to add action was all her original idea. It was inspired by her son's enjoyment of N64... She even came up with the idea before Havas took over the company.
But with QFG series, and Space Quest it was all their fault that games weren't like their original counterparts, and why no one was interested in getting SQ7 and why it was cancelled.
Sadly only GK3 was able to retain some level of how the original games were. Yet it didn't sell well enough for a sequel, and the series remains with a major cliffhanger in plot...
I've been recently playing the new Bard's Tale and except for the top down viewmode the gameplay reminds me a bit of MOE and Diablo's style of play.
I have one of the newest Tomb Raiders, 6 I think, Angel of Darkness, but I just couldn't get into it...Controls were clunky and story just didn't interest me much.
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 12:54:03 PM
MOE is not even called KQ-8. It was called King's Quest: Mask of Eternity. Roberta's reasoning? She didn't want to alienate new fans she thought she could bring in the series based on its tombraider style adventure and diablo style RPG. She didn't want people to feel obligated to having to play previous games in the series, so she didn't number it. But since it was tied to the King's Quest universe it retained the King's Quest title.
That's understandable, but there was also no need to even call it "King's Quest" since he was not a King nor was the outcome of the game a coronation ceremony. Also, I've seen box art of German or other European translations where they do mention "King's Quest VIII" on the box itself. That may have just been something lost in translation, but I'm sure it still duped people into buying it. :suffer: :P
It would have been great for Sierra to do what they asked
us to do. Drop the KQ trademark entirely and allow the game to develop on its own merit. I personally believe our game is playable as a standalone trilogy, and thanks to our connection with the backstory, fans needn't even play any previous KQ game to understand TSL's plot. 8)
Well KQ3 and KQ4 you do not play a king nor does it end in coronation ceremonies.
Also its a King's Quest because one of the major plot elements is Connor is out to save King Graham from having been turned to stone. Thus why graham is in the intro, shown to be turned to stone, Connor then tries to get into castle daventry to find Graham, and in the ending Graham is freed from the stone.
It was also still a King's Quest game because it was vision Roberta Williams had for her next installment (even if what was released was incomplete).
Its very easy to discuss what could have been done in hindsight, but hindsight is 50/50. Its not like things could be changed, most of it had been set in stone by the time of its release.
Plus it was highly anticipated, by King's Quest fans at the time. Many who were curious how she would combine action with her original adventure game puzzles.
However it never brought in the new players like she wanted. Havas wanted it ot make more profit than any previous King's Quest game.
Sad thing is even if she had gone and made it like the earlier King's Quest games, it probably still wouldn't have sold well enough at the time, for havas, OK another sequel.
Adventure games simply didn't pull in the audiences that other action games brought in at the time.
Even Gabriel Knight didn't make enough for Havas, as the series only had a cult following and didn't bring in new customers.
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 01:40:49 PM
Well KQ3 and KQ4 you do not play a king nor does it end in coronation ceremonies.
Their main characters are still related to King Graham.
[spoiler]Alex discovers his royal lineage, implying that he will inherit the throne eventually (even though that doesn't happen). And Rosella's quest was to save the king.[/spoiler]
In other words, the subtitles "To Heir is Human" and "The Perils of Rosella" fit 100% with the games' outcome and relation to the KQ storyline, deserving of the KQ trademark. MoE on the other hand... ::)
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 01:40:49 PM
Also its a King's Quest because one of the major plot elements is Connor is out to save King Graham from having been turned to stone. Thus why graham is in the intro, shown to be turned to stone, Connor then tries to get into castle daventry to find Graham, and in the ending Graham is freed from the stone.
That's still a stretch because Connor is actually saving the world, not King Graham alone. Again, a simple plot change could have better accomodated this IMO.
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 01:40:49 PM
It was also still a King's Quest game because it was vision Roberta Williams had for her next installment (even if what was released was incomplete).
Its very easy to discuss what could have been done in hindsight, but hindsight is 50/50. Its not like things could be changed, most of it had been set in stone by the time of its release.
That may be true, but just as our game's vision remains intact despite the title change (which we had set in stone and branded in the minds of fans for 4 years), they could have easily changed MoE's box art prior to release. :P
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 01:40:49 PM
Plus it was highly anticipated, by King's Quest fans at the time. Many who were curious how she would combine action with her original adventure game puzzles.
However it never brought in the new players like she wanted. Havas wanted it to make more profit than any previous King's Quest game.
Those two points are facts and I agree completely. :)
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 01:40:49 PM
Sad thing is even if she had gone and made it like the earlier King's Quest games, it probably still wouldn't have sold well enough at the time, for havas, OK another sequel.
Adventure games simply didn't pull in the audiences that other action games brought in at the time.
Even Gabriel Knight didn't make enough for Havas, as the series only had a cult following and didn't bring in new customers.
And here is the exact niche market that TSL has tapped into.
Money's the issue? Solved 4 years ago by clearly stating this game is 100% freeware. Too small fanbase? We have 60,000+
known fans that have accessed our site during our official rebirth, currently 1,100+ forum members, 3,000+ newsletter subscribers, etc. So I can guarantee you there's a sizable audience. Not to mention, word-of-mouth which increase these numbers exponentially with each and every PR promotion and announcement we make. Cult following? Hehehe, with a fanbase strong enough to reverse a C&D, I would certainly consider that to have "cult" status. 8)
Some people consider our game the eigth game in the series because we're doing now what Mask of Eternity should have done 8 years ago. Well, that's my opinion anyway. 8)
I actually don't know what to think of MoE. I can't really be the judge since I haven't finished it yet. (I got it off eBay not long ago). From how much I've played (I'm not playing now, I stopped in the dimension of death. I've killed all the enemies, but I'm not sure what to do next) it's different than the other games not only because it is not a standard adventure, but the storyline is different. From what I've seen I would agree with Yonkey that it does not really desetrve a 8 after its title, but is more of a stand-alone game based off the King's Quest universe that the eigth part of a series.
I think that's the difference as a fan-game you make it as a labor of love, not for market. I'm a bit confused why you used the term your game has a "market". Since you technically aren't marketing it.
Where as Sierra's intent was purely for monitory reasons, through the entire series.
Quotebranded in the minds of fans for 4 years), they could have easily changed MoE's box art prior to release.
But not necessarily all the in-game text and marquees.
QuoteTheir main characters are still related to King Graham.
Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):
Alex discovers his royal lineage, implying that he will inherit the throne eventually (even though that doesn't happen). And Rosella's quest was to save the king.In other words, the subtitles "To Heir is Human" and "The Perils of Rosella" fit 100% with the games' outcome and relation to the KQ storyline, deserving of the KQ trademark. MoE on the other hand..
Actually KQ3 was largely hated by many former King's Quest fans at the time and roberta received many hate letters, because they never caught the fact that "Gwydion" was related to royal family,(thinking he was just a peasent) and theirefore chose not to buy it, or play through it all the way.
It's kinda funny.... I view QfG5 to be closer to it's source material than MoE. Yea the combat system was a bit hokey, but at least the Cole's managed to wrap up the series in a game that retained some of it's roots... whereas MoE completely ditched it's roots for whatever reason.
As an aside... I can play MoE on Windows XP without too many problems... but I can't for the life of me get QfG5 to play despite assorted fiddling. :(
While QF5 did a good job of tieing up the story... I really wasn't much of an adventure game. It was mostly a series of combat sequences all over the world... With some NPC conversations in between.
MOE actually has more actual puzzle solving. Albeit its NPC interaction wasn't nearly as well done.
They simply both have problems, :p... Not necessarily the same problems, but certain problems that make them different than earlier adventure games.
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 02:24:37 PM
While QF5 did a good job of tieing up the story... I really wasn't much of an adventure game. It was mostly a series of combat sequences all over the world... With some NPC conversations in between.
I agree... but then again the only thing lost in QfG5 was the adventure element... which was slowly happening anyway. If you compare QfG4 to any of the prior games, you'll see that the series was slowly moving away from the adventure aspect and focusing more on the action aspect.
I'd go so far as to say QfG3 was the last true "adventure-action" hybrid in the series. Both QfG4 and QfG5 were each distinctly action oriented (the latter being the most pronounced).
QFG4 imo was the best game in the series, IMO, and it had plenty of adventure game puzzles, hell it was longer and had more puzzles than any of the previous games.
Only the battle system was changed to give it more action.
Hell the final area of QFG4 involved a very long drawn out adventure game puzzle sequence in order to set up the ritual.
And if you played the CD version, it was loaded with so much narrative, by John Rhys Davies himself, that really helped the storyline. A storyline I consider the best in the series.
I compare QFG4 to quality level of KQ6 as far as adventure game puzzles were concerned, IMO.
I literally have a hard time choosing between QFG1 and QFG4 for which is my favorite game in the series.
What did QFG5 get for ending sequence? Eh just another live action battle....
Well I couldn't tell ya much about QfG5... I only got to play it for about 20 minutes at a friend's house shortly after it came out. I got a hold of the CD version about 2 years ago and have never had any luck playing it.
But from the 20 minutes I was able to play it, I can tell you I was impressed with it's focus on the action. The only adventure element I could tell was the whole figure out the murder aspect... which I was rather ho-hum about anyway (if I wanted a murder mystery I'd play any of the GK games).
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 02:18:51 PM
I think that's the difference as a fan-game you make it as a labor of love, not for market. I'm a bit confused why you used the term your game has a "market". Since you technically aren't marketing it.
Where as Sierra's intent was purely for monitory reasons, through the entire series.
Actually we are marketting/promoting it; we're not "selling" it. There's a distinct difference between sales and marketing. :P
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 02:18:51 PM
Actually KQ3 was largely hated by many former King's Quest fans at the time and roberta received many hate letters, because they never caught the fact that "Gwydion" was related to royal family,(thinking he was just a peasent) and theirefore chose not to buy it, or play through it all the way.
Well, every game in the series can be hated for something or the other. KQ1 & 2 for being illogical, KQ3 for identity confusion, KQ4 for female lead (yes this was actually a bad thing the time), KQ5 for dead-ends, KQ6 for hmm.. I'm not sure... I guess Alex abandoning his family?, KQ7 for being too juvenile, MoE for being too isolated, and our game for being "different". 8)
Unfortunately the solve the murder aspect had very little puzzle solving adventure aspect... Though conversation tree was involved in order to get clues. However the game didn't even let you solve the crime really, it ends up giving you the answer to the crime without you figuring it out yourself.
All it was, was a plot device, but not actually "adventure", as far as adventure games are concerned.
QuoteActually we are marketting/promoting it; we're not "selling" it. There's a distinct difference between sales and marketing.
Actually sales and marketing are related, promotion and marketing are not exactly related;
Webster;
Main Entry: market
Function: verb
transitive verb
1 : to expose for sale in a market
2 : SELL
Main Entry: mar·ket·ing
Pronunciation: 'mär-k&-ti[ng]
Function: noun
1 a : the act or process of selling or purchasing in a market b : the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service
So by calling it "marketing" you are actually implying you are "selling" something on a "market".
Now promoting something on the other hand you aren't necessarily "selling" something.
QuoteKQ5 for dead-ends
Actually every King's Quest game had dead-ends, except for maybe MOE.
Even in KQ7 it was possible to get to the final sequence without having all the items you needed to beat the game. Which would lead to a bad ending, or a death scene.
In MOE you literally can't move on until you have everything you need to leave an area. It won't let you leave to the final zone without having everything you need to beat the game.
heh - your making me want to dig out my copy of the game and try to give it another go at trying to make it run Baggins. Any advice on getting it to run on Windows XP? ;D
Which game do you want to play on XP?
QFG5? I didn't know there was a problem with it... But then again I never went back to play it, since there have been much better action games since its release.
Plus much better adventure games released since then as well, through "Adventure Company", and other small companies.
MoE works fine in XP, especially if run under a glide wrapper.
Yea I can run MoE without any problems.... but QfG5 won't run at all. It installs without any problems, but when I start the game, the game window opens, then closes out without any errors before anything actually happens.
I've tried it in compatibility mode... I've tried it with the screen resolution set down to 640x480x16... tried fiddling around with the configuration settings.... all result in the same thing. :(
Hmm, you have piqued my curiosity... Maybe I should try to install it just to see what it does for me...
Anycase if anyone's interested, I've been adding more material from MoE , places, characters, enemies and its storyline into King's Quest Omnipedia. So far mainly from Connor's Village zone.
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 02:44:13 PM
So by calling it "marketing" you are actually implying you are "selling" something on a "market".
It could be debated that we are both "marketing" and "selling" even though we aren't getting any financial gain from it (yet), so I won't argue the point any further. 8)
Quote from: Baggins on August 15, 2006, 02:44:13 PM
Now promoting something on the other hand you aren't necessarily "selling" something.
That I agree with completely. :)
New and improved articles for MOE characters, places, and inventory is now finished up to Dimension of Death, and the Swamp over in the Omnipedia. Check it out when you get the chance.
I don't know if its been mentioned but Roberta actually did all the writing, dialogue and story for Mask of Eternity, according to the game credits. If that wasn't an important part of the involvement I don't know what is.