I have seen a lot of well deserved praise for Roberta Williams in these forums and in TSL itself, and I feel it is necessary to recognize King's Quest VI co-writer Jane Jensen's contributions to the series and TSL as well.
Though having only worked on one KQ game, her efforts made KQVI a gold standard of the series and adventure gaming as a genre. In addition to helping Roberta write the game she also wrote the clever dialogue and the wonderfully detailed Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles.
It is no coincidence that TSL starts it's adventure in the realm she created following the reference she made to a "Black Cloak Society" near the end of the game.
If anyone wishes to express their gratitude please post. Thanks!
Thank you, Ms. Jensen! Not only for your work in KQ6, but also EcoQuest, which was another of my favorite games as a kid (and still is) and Gabriel Knight, which I have not yet played but I own and hopefully will delve into soon! You rock! You and Roberta together certainly proved to be a force to be reckoned with!
Jensen was also the sultry and sarcastic Mae Bot, the sales robot in the Galaxy Galleria who snarkily helps Roger dress down in drag. ;D
She and Roberta may not have intended the Black Cloak to be anything other than a throwaway line in an incriminating letter of Alhazred's...
But it made too much sense. In retrospect, it tied at least Alhazred, Mordak, Mannanan, and Hagatha together. Arguably, Dahlia (from the first game) could be included if you see the Companion, as her scheme to steal the Treasures was a classic Black Cloak Xanatos Gambit. It gave a plausible mytharc and framing to the series.
Quote from: Allronix on July 25, 2010, 02:33:21 PMJensen was also the sultry and sarcastic Mae Bot, the sales robot in the Galaxy Galleria who snarkily helps Roger dress down in drag. ;D
Nice! I didn't know that.
She wrote the Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles as well, from KQVI, which is awesome.
Even though she only worked on one King's Quest, I have to say, it was hands-down the best King's Quest. Roberta Williams and Jane Jensen created an epic adventure. Not to mention that Jane Jensen was genius for introducing the Black Cloak Society. Linking the villains of the series made the concept all the more interesting. Jane Jensen also made another favorite of mine: Gabriel Knight.
I've never played GK, but I agree strongly about KQVI. It's just awesome.
I just realized: Cez will be all over this thread when he finds out about it. I'm pretty sure he's a Jensen fanboy!
Also, Jane Jensen is working on a title called "Gray Matter" that's coming out for the 360 and (of course) the PC. It's supposed to be a point-and-click adventure as well. The story sounds interesting, and I like the art style. I do want to see how it will play though.
http://www.graymatter-game.com/
Don't mention gray matter on these forums or César goes beserk again ;)
In a 'good' way though
LOL.
Yay for Jane Jensen! I had been thinking she wasn't getting enough attention on the forums.
Jane Jensen had a tremedous effect on the way that the rest of the KQ games developed, TSL especially. Her wit and knowledge made the sixth game what it is, and I have all kinds of respect for her. Rock on, chica!
Why hasn't Cez commented on this yet? I had been looking forward to an outpouring of JJ fanboyism!
Has Cez been around at all recently? I haven't seen him posting lately...GASP! Is he lost?! :o
Jane Jensen was directly involved in what were (arguably I suppose) the two best games Sierra made in KQ6 and Gabriel Knight, so she deserves all the appreciation she gets. Although I know that this place is going to have a lot of Roberta Williams love, I actually think that Jensen and Scott Murphy were the best designers/writers who worked at Sierra.
And anyone who hasn't played the Gabriel Knight games, you owe it to yourself to do so. They're on GoG, no reason not to.
Haha, no, Cez has been taking a step back from the forums intentionally lately. He's rather busy with other things anyways! :)
And yes, all hail Jane Jensen!
Quote from: KatieHal on July 27, 2010, 12:50:36 PM
Haha, no, Cez has been taking a step back from the forums intentionally lately.
Why come?!
Quote from: KuroShiro on July 27, 2010, 12:49:40 PMAnd anyone who hasn't played the Gabriel Knight games, you owe it to yourself to do so. They're on GoG, no reason not to.
I've always wanted to but I'm concerned that they won't run with my 64-bit Windows 7. :(
YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY JANE JENSEN!
...that's all.
Quote from: Haids1987 on July 27, 2010, 12:52:12 PM
Why come?!
It's hard to not get defensive and into heated debates/arguments when it feels like a lot of people are attacking what you've spent a lot of time and effort on--he decided to step back from the forums while a lot of the narrator discussions were happening and in full swing.
Anyone else get this really uncomfortable feeling when you read 'why come?' ?
Quote from: KatieHal on July 27, 2010, 01:08:36 PM
It's hard to not get defensive and into heated debates/arguments when it feels like a lot of people are attacking what you've spent a lot of time and effort on--he decided to step back from the forums while a lot of the narrator discussions were happening and in full swing.
That makes sense. I'm sorry he feels that way, cause as many people as there are that have something bad to say, there are fans that are excited for the next episode. That means you guys had to have done something right. :)
Quote from: B'rrr on July 27, 2010, 03:13:42 PM
Anyone else get this really uncomfortable feeling when you read 'why come?' ?
Yes! It bothered me no end. :P
Quote from: KatieHal on July 27, 2010, 01:08:36 PM
It's hard to not get defensive and into heated debates/arguments when it feels like a lot of people are attacking what you've spent a lot of time and effort on--he decided to step back from the forums while a lot of the narrator discussions were happening and in full swing.
That makes sense. Tell the boy we miss him!
Quote from: tessspoon on July 27, 2010, 04:32:05 PM
Quote from: B'rrr on July 27, 2010, 03:13:42 PM
Anyone else get this really uncomfortable feeling when you read 'why come?' ?
Yes! It bothered me no end. :P
Sorry guys, like I said, I work with kids. I pick up their slang sometimes. ;P
Much love for Jane Jensen. Anybody else a big fan of Gabriel Knight 3 here? It got a lot of slack for that dreadful motorcycle puzzle but La Serpent Rouge and THAT storyline makes it one of my all time favourites. Definitely my favourite of the three. Is that controversial?
Quote from: Odball89 on July 28, 2010, 11:46:51 AM
Much love for Jane Jensen. Anybody else a big fan of Gabriel Knight 3 here? It got a lot of slack for that dreadful motorcycle puzzle but La Serpent Rouge and THAT storyline makes it one of my all time favourites. Definitely my favourite of the three. Is that controversial?
Gabriel Knight 3 was the first game I played in the series, so I hold it in high regard. Definitely my favorite of the three, as well. It was kind of funky with the sub-par 3D environment, but the story kept me glued to my PC. I want to play all of the games over again, but I don't think they'll work on a 64-bit version of Windows 7. If I can find a way to play them though, I'll definitely go back to play them.
Quote from: KatieHal on July 27, 2010, 01:08:36 PM
Quote from: Haids1987 on July 27, 2010, 12:52:12 PM
Why come?!
It's hard to not get defensive and into heated debates/arguments when it feels like a lot of people are attacking what you've spent a lot of time and effort on--he decided to step back from the forums while a lot of the narrator discussions were happening and in full swing.
Ah! It's good to know he's not actually open to anyone's suggestions.
That's not remotely what I said, shadyparadox. And no, I would really rather not get into a semantics debate about it either.
I'm sure he gets feedback. Just because he doesn't respond on the forums, doesn't mean he wouldn't monitor them and see what people are talking about. Besides, Katie is a designer as well, and she's always responding to our claims and suggestions.
I agree with shadyparadox here...
It's easy to let things get to you when you put a lot of work into something and all you see is people complaining. Then again, he also is taking the feedback and trying to utilize it in a way that allows everyone to be happy and get the game on time (Anyone see the topic he made about the long narrations?). I know for a fact that Cesar and the rest of the team are taking all serious criticisms and working with them to try to create a better game. As far as I can tell, part of the point of releasing the game in episodes was to get feedback to make it better. They're listening, but that doesn't mean being bombarded with repetitive criticism is going to help anyone.
Quote from: Rosella on July 28, 2010, 10:50:43 PM
It's easy to let things get to you when you put a lot of work into something and all you see is people complaining.
There is a lot of complaining, but also a great deal of praise as well. If we dismiss the "too short, not enough puzzles" complaints as invalid (because Ep1 is only a prologue), then the only real complaints focus on the narrator and writing.
Aside from that, the game has received a great deal of praise.
Quote from: kindofdoon on July 28, 2010, 11:03:44 PM
then the only real complaints focus on the narrator and writing.
Yes. One of which we were blatantly and quite tersely told (in so many words) was not going to get fixed, so to stop whining about it. ::) And then he left so no one could argue the point. To the casual observer, it in fact looked very much like he wasn't open to criticism. Just sayin.' :-\
Criticism that could be fixed is one thing, but complaining about the writing style when 1) Cesar's (and Katie's) writing style won't change and 2) The lines have already been recorded, which is an awful lot of work, well, it's just not viable to rewrite and rerecord the lines without greatly delaying the game's release. It's not that the team isn't open to criticism, it's that what's being criticized isn't viable for changing. Besides, Cesar offered an alternative to the long narrations as a compromise and that wasn't received well.
What alternative was that?
Quote from: kindofdoon on July 28, 2010, 11:53:58 PM
What alternative was that?
He was going to rerecord a shorter version of the narrator's comments, or at least cut up the original recording to make it more tolerable for those who couldn't stand the narrator's voice. But in the end, the majority of the respondents had voted for keeping the narration the way it is.
Oh, I see. I must have missed that.
Quote from: Fierce Deity on July 29, 2010, 12:39:17 AM
Quote from: kindofdoon on July 28, 2010, 11:53:58 PM
What alternative was that?
He was going to rerecord a shorter version of the narrator's comments, or at least cut up the original recording to make it more tolerable for those who couldn't stand the narrator's voice. But in the end, the majority of the respondents had voted for keeping the narration the way it is.
Actually, it was (and has been, multiple times ::)) made very clear that rerecording anything was just not an option--which is understandable, I admit.
The solution was to cut up the narrator's lines and implement a "short version" option that the player could select at the start of the game.
And to be clear, it wasn't about the sound of the narrator's voice, it was about the comments being too long to the point of disrupting the gaming experience because the player was forced to just stand there and wait if they wanted to hear the whole narration.
It's a reasonable solution, but I understand why certain people didn't received it well, since it only addressed one aspect of the complaint.
By the way, the only reason why people aren't complaining about it anymore is because it seems that complaining about anything here is futile, not to mention asking for trouble. You just get jumped on by a bunch of people who tell you you're wrong and try to change your opinion. If you read any board other than this one, you'll find that it's an issue that is constantly being talked about.
That's probably because most people here have invested quite a bit of time and energy in the game. I don't think anyone intentionally stifles criticism here.
Quote from: Fierce Deity on July 29, 2010, 12:39:17 AM
He was going to rerecord a shorter version of the narrator's comments, or at least cut up the original recording to make it more tolerable for those who couldn't stand the narrator's voice. But in the end, the majority of the respondents had voted for keeping the narration the way it is.
I missed the vote aswell, didn't knew there was one. I was under the impression that the shorter narrations were still going to happen.
Quote from: B'rrr on July 29, 2010, 02:15:42 AM
Quote from: Fierce Deity on July 29, 2010, 12:39:17 AM
He was going to rerecord a shorter version of the narrator's comments, or at least cut up the original recording to make it more tolerable for those who couldn't stand the narrator's voice. But in the end, the majority of the respondents had voted for keeping the narration the way it is.
I missed the vote aswell, didn't knew there was one. I was under the impression that the shorter narrations were still going to happen.
I was actually just trying to sum it up in a few sentences, but I don't think there was an actual "vote" per se. All I know was that Cesar was taking a census based off of those who commented in the thread. The majority of the people in the thread came to the conclusion that shorter narrations weren't important enough to warrant its own option when starting a new game. There were a few people who felt like shorter narrations would help them stay in tuned with the story, but without being weighed down with the long descriptions. But it's ultimately still up to Cesar. If he still wants to implement that option, he can. The thread wasn't an end-all decision.
Also, Lambonius was right. It wasn't the sound of the narrator's voice, it was the length of her descriptions. Sorry for being unclear about that.
As others have said. We are looking to implement shorter versions of the narrations, and other feedback from the fans has indeed been noted and we're trying to take it into consideration where we can. Re-writing and re-recording all of the narrations just isn't possible at this point, so that one won't happen. Things like working on pathfinding, scrolling through icons with the mouse wheel, etc, are ones we can look into, however, and are.
I can't say which are things we will be able to implement at this point (not a suffer thing--I honestly don't know myself, I'm not a programmer), but we're definitely aware of the feedback out here and taking a look at what we can and can't do at this point.
Yeah, like I said--not changing writing or recordings at this stage of the game is definitely understandable. I think it wasn't necessarily that people didn't like getting backstory from the narrations at certain points, it was just that it seemed excessive to the point of actually interfering with the way one normally plays an adventure game--which is to click on just about everything you can to get concise clues as to whether or not it's something you can pick up or use. ;) I think that's a pretty valid point, and one that the short option Cesar mentioned would certainly solve. If the team had infinite time and resources (which it doesn't :)), implementing a multiple click narration system so that you had the option of gathering information in successive tiers would certainly have been a more elegant way to handle it, and it's a shame it wasn't something that was thought of early on in the design process. But hey, hindsight, you know. :)
It is 20/20 ;)
But anyways--back to Jane Jensen! I'm a big fan as well, and I'm looking forward to Grey Matter quite a bit!
Does anyone know what kind of narration Grey Matter will have, if any? Didn't Jane Jensen drop the separate narrator for GK2 and GK3?
I hated the narrator in GK1--she taaalllllkkkkeeeeed soooooo slooowww. And certain words were hard to understand with her accent. It sucked because all the rest of the voice acting was really solid in that game.
Funny how we successfully merged both our off-topic discussion and our Jane Jensen discussion. Good job guys.
I don't know much about Grey Matter. Just that it will also be on the 360 alongside the PC release. I hope console development doesn't cripple the exploration and environment of the game. I like Jane Jensen's work, and wouldn't want "new-gen" standards to get in the way of her creativity.
Oh yeah, I turned the narrator voice off right quick in GK1. I appreciate what they were going for with her, but her long, slow, drawn out reading was just too much for me.
Incidentally, I liked it.
I was going to ask Sahara what did she think of it, because of the GH avatar on the profile.
I have really enjoyed the Gabriel Knight series and of course the King's Quest series with VI being my favorite, so you could say I like her work.
Now I am looking forward to Gray Matter thanks to the link from here.
For the people wondering about GK on Win7 64bit, yes you can. Mainly just have to use DOSBox to get things done. Check out this site for installers that help you install it. (You still need to have the original disks)
http://www.sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/NewSierraInstallers.html#G
Just finished replaying Sins of the Father. Such an awesome game! ;D
Quote from: Cez on July 30, 2010, 11:47:54 AM
Incidentally, I liked it.
I was going to ask Sahara what did she think of it, because of the GH avatar on the profile.
Yep, I'm a he, and I do enjoy the narrator in GK1. Jane's writing is great, which makes all the difference. Sometimes I click through the narration, though, when it gets a bit long. I also wish the voice actor would have spoken a bit faster at times... how many times to we hear "Gaaayyy-bree-ellll" and things like that. The narrator is talented, but I think the game might have flowed better with Gabriel himself providing (through thoughts heard aloud?) much of the info the narrator offers. It's interesting that (unless I'm remembering wrong) Jane Jensen dropped the narration for the next two games. Do you think doing so hurt the games 2&3 at all, or did it perhaps help the gameplay?
Quote from: sahara on August 04, 2010, 03:53:02 AM
Quote from: Cez on July 30, 2010, 11:47:54 AM
Incidentally, I liked it.
I was going to ask Sahara what did she think of it, because of the GH avatar on the profile.
Yep, I'm a he, and I do enjoy the narrator in GK1. Jane's writing is great, which makes all the difference. Sometimes I click through the narration, though, when it gets a bit long. I also wish the voice actor would have spoken a bit faster at times... how many times to we hear "Gaaayyy-bree-ellll" and things like that. The narrator is talented, but I think the game might have flowed better with Gabriel himself providing (through thoughts heard aloud?) much of the info the narrator offers. It's interesting that (unless I'm remembering wrong) Jane Jensen dropped the narration for the next two games. Do you think doing so hurt the games 2&3 at all, or did it perhaps help the gameplay?
I say dropping the narration was a better decision. I always felt like narration belonged in King's Quest because it felt more like something out of a storybook or an off-shoot fairytale. But Gabriel Knight is more of a detective/investigator, so narration isn't needed. If anything, Gabriel Knight should be the one describing his adventure and identifying his surroundings, cause that's exactly what a detective would do.
I would definitely have loved to have heard Tim Curry's Gabriel sarcastically commenting on his surroundings and interactions. The few times in the game where he does so already (not as part of the narration) are classic and fit the character very well.
Haha, that would fit the private investigator mold. And given Gabriel's appearance and long duster, would totally remind me of Harry Dresden all the more. :) (a character from a Jim Butcher series of novels, The Dresden Files)
Quote from: sahara on August 04, 2010, 03:53:02 AM
Quote from: Cez on July 30, 2010, 11:47:54 AM
Incidentally, I liked it.
I was going to ask Sahara what did she think of it, because of the GH avatar on the profile.
Yep, I'm a he, and I do enjoy the narrator in GK1. Jane's writing is great, which makes all the difference. Sometimes I click through the narration, though, when it gets a bit long. I also wish the voice actor would have spoken a bit faster at times... how many times to we hear "Gaaayyy-bree-ellll" and things like that. The narrator is talented, but I think the game might have flowed better with Gabriel himself providing (through thoughts heard aloud?) much of the info the narrator offers. It's interesting that (unless I'm remembering wrong) Jane Jensen dropped the narration for the next two games. Do you think doing so hurt the games 2&3 at all, or did it perhaps help the gameplay?
It's a matter of taste. I personally have GK2 as my fav game ever, but I did miss the interaction with the world. I'm just that kind of guy, I love backstory and character development, I want to know what the characters are thinking, and I think the adventure genre is the only genre in gaming where this is doable --because of the slow pace nature of the genre. In TSL, as it's shown, some people seem to love it, some people seem to hate it, so it's one of those things that will never please everyone.
I believe that part of the atmosphere of episode 1 is due to the nature of the game, and that includes the style of the narration. I can understand some people not liking it, the same way that some people felt about the narrator in 1, which I felt very adequate for the story.
Quote from: KatieHal on August 04, 2010, 04:42:59 PM
Haha, that would fit the private investigator mold. And given Gabriel's appearance and long duster, would totally remind me of Harry Dresden all the more. :) (a character from a Jim Butcher series of novels, The Dresden Files)
+1 awesome points for working Harry Dresden into the conversation.
Yay, another Dresden fan!!
Quote from: KatieHal on August 04, 2010, 10:12:09 PM
Yay, another Dresden fan!!
You know it.
(http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5716/dresdena.jpg)
Broken picture link :(
try;
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1248964599329.jpg
Broken link...
eep, yes, it is now, it wasn't when I clicked on it earlier :-\
Fixed! And awesome.