Mask of Eternity?

[Yonkey]

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.  

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.

[Baggins]

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.

[Yonkey]

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 (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...

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

[TheGreatGraham]

  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.

[Baggins]

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.

branded 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.

Their 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.

[oberonqa]

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.  

[Baggins]

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.

[oberonqa]

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).

[Baggins]

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....

[oberonqa]

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).

[Yonkey]

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.

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".

[Baggins]

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.

Actually 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.

KQ5 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.

[oberonqa]

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?   

[Baggins]

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.

[oberonqa]

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. 

[Baggins]

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.

[Yonkey]

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.

Now promoting something on the other hand you aren't necessarily "selling" something.

That I agree with completely.

[Baggins]

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.