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Narrator Poll - Specific Feedback Requested!

Started by wilco64256, September 25, 2010, 03:21:34 PM

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Of these five narrator comments, which 2 do you find most bothersome?

That is not going to work.
6 (7.2%)
Tic toc, tic toc, oh, are you done trying crazy things?
69 (83.1%)
Who taught you that logic, Graham?
23 (27.7%)
Those two don't work together.
3 (3.6%)
You've gone insane, haven't you?
37 (44.6%)

Total Members Voted: 83

Voting closed: October 25, 2010, 03:21:34 PM

Novem

In King's Quest IV you could interact with or talk to almost all objects on the screen and did always get a individual response. Why not in TSL? We have just handfull standard responses we already know them from Episode 1! :(

KatieHal

Actually, a lot of response change from Day 1 to Day 2, especially on the Isle of the Crown.

We did write a lot of narrations for a lot of objects and scenes, but you'd be amazed how easy it is to write a lot of those and yet still have a big chunk of your screens still give a default reply or the same reply!

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Novem

No matter what object I try to talk to, I always get the same "You're crazy" or "Visti TSL-Asylum" messages. Don't know what I'm doing wrong.

atec123

Quote from: Novem on September 26, 2010, 07:29:34 AM
No matter what object I try to talk to, I always get the same "You're crazy" or "Visti TSL-Asylum" messages. Don't know what I'm doing wrong.
I never heard the visit TSL Asylum message.....

and about the KQ5 "X".  I remember that now.  I actually liked that a lot.  Saves time and the narrator doesn't get annoying. (though the KQV narrator was pretty good)  It doesn't hurt to have some funny comments, though.
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kindofdoon

Quote from: atec123 on September 26, 2010, 07:46:37 AM
and about the KQ5 "X".  I remember that now.  I actually liked that a lot.  Saves time and the narrator doesn't get annoying. (though the KQV narrator was pretty good)  It doesn't hurt to have some funny comments, though.

Exactly! Otherwise you have to sit through a remark you've already heard before, or skip it, both of which are not desirable. I don't understand why the "X" seems to be unpopular...

Daniel Dichter, Production/PR
daniel.dichter@postudios.com

atec123

Quote from: kindofdoon on September 26, 2010, 07:58:39 AM
Quote from: atec123 on September 26, 2010, 07:46:37 AM
and about the KQ5 "X".  I remember that now.  I actually liked that a lot.  Saves time and the narrator doesn't get annoying. (though the KQV narrator was pretty good)  It doesn't hurt to have some funny comments, though.

Exactly! Otherwise you have to sit through a remark you've already heard before, or skip it, both of which are not desirable. I don't understand why the "X" seems to be unpopular...
me neither.

Example: I am now playing the KQ3 IA remake.  EVERY time you try to grab something you can't, it says "What would you do with it?"
a little red x would be much less aggravating. (Not dissing the remake or IA, just sayin)
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Lambonius

#26
Quote from: KQ5Fan on September 26, 2010, 03:10:21 AM
I agree, the plug doesn't bother me that much. I just think that the sarcasm should be toned down intensely, to only being present in rare, specific occasions.

Heh.  The plug doesn't really bother me either--I was just giving you guys a hard time.  ;)

Although, now that I think about it, it is one of those things where I probably would have hidden it a little better.  My philosophy on that sort of thing is that if the player can easily stumble across it in the course of a direct path through the story of the game, then it's out of place.  Those types of things can really snap you out of the story if they keep popping up too frequently, in my opinion.   :)

That's good to hear about the new lines, though.  I think it'll greatly help the enjoyability of the game and encourage players to explore and find all the goodies you guys spent so much time putting in there.  Thumbs up.  :)

Think about it this way--you make these corrections early on in the first few episodes, and players are going to have less and less to nitpick as further episodes come out.  ;)

Rick_Florez

Actually the narrator in KQ5 and KQ6 made me want to blow my brains out.  I always hated those narrators and that's actually the main reason there is an option to turn off narrations in TSL.  Cez and me had long arguments about that feature and I really pushed for it in the early days.  Ironically once Amy came onboard I actually started liking the narrations.  She had a fun style to the way she read unlike the KQ5 and KQ6 narrators which I found were very monotone and bland. 

Also I think the big reason narrations were a killer in the CD version of the early sierra games was that they were so bloody long.  They worked great when you simply read them since you read much faster than you can speak.  Ironic yes I know given the issue that caused us to implement short/long narrations.

As Katie said there are a LOT of responses in the game.  However they are mostly linked to the eye icon.   I guess that we naturally gravitated to since that's the icon you use most to explore.  I do agree that Hand or Ali for example should give a better response than your nuts, maybe something more like Ali would not appreciate that.  We'll see what we can do.
Truth, Justice and the King's Questian Way

Jafar

Really? I mean, there's no denying the KQ5 narrator is pretty dry, but the KQ6 narrator never bothered me that much.

I see what you're getting at with the "boring, bland narration" point, but you don't really want to go to the opposite extreme either. (Hence all of the people complaining about Amy's sarcasm and wackiness)
It's all about balance, really. KQ6's narrator had his fair share of silly, playful lines, and John Rhys-Davies in QFG4 was just amazing all around. :P

I do think having the option to turn the narrator off is a pretty good idea, though. When AGDI's KQ remakes got updated with the narrator, I had a hard time getting used to him and kinda missed having silent narration with voiced characters.
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crayauchtin

QfG4 has the single best narrator -- both in voice and in the writing -- over any game I have ever seen.
"If your translation is correct, that was 'May a sleepy hippopotamus lie down on your house keys,' but you're not sure. Unfortunately, your fluency in griffin-speak is too low."

We're roleplaying in the King's Quest world: come join in the fun!

MangoMercury

I think the narrator for KQ5 suits the game more than if they had the KQ6 one.  KQ5 narrator sounds "older", to go with Graham, like the KQ6 one in comparison sounds younger to go with Alexander.

My two "least favourites" out of those lines are the "Tic-toc" and "You've gone insane" lines, just because they seem a bit too "extreme".  At least with "That logic is not going to work", it's just telling you as such, and the other two aren't overly interactive with Graham, so they work as well.
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crayauchtin

I voted for tic, toc as well but I did vote for the "That logic..." one because, uhm, since when does logic have to do with it? Seriously? It's an adventure game not real life. :P
"If your translation is correct, that was 'May a sleepy hippopotamus lie down on your house keys,' but you're not sure. Unfortunately, your fluency in griffin-speak is too low."

We're roleplaying in the King's Quest world: come join in the fun!

MangoMercury

Adventure gaming is serious business.

I guess I just didn't find it as annoying as the "insane" line!
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Countess of Tyrol and Maid of Honour to the Queen

Cez

Yes, that's exactly what I love about Amy. She brought LIFE to the lines. We had a previous Narrator that read all the lines in hte KQ6 way, and it honestly put me to sleep. Amy brought a dynamism to it so needed for these lines. With that, and the cinematic cameras, we found a balance between the long narrations and the 3D that made them work --maybe not all of the lines, but a good chunk of it.

So, yes, that was a choice. I personally love Amy's sarcasm, because she made hilarious deliveries of lines that weren't even supposed to be funny. Once she started doing that, it became natural that I wanted to write more lines suited for her. She became sort of my "muse" in that sense, and I started throwing lines in especially thinking of how she'd deliver them.

I think she's done a fantastic job. We did change the face of King's Quest narration wise, but I agree with Rich in that a slow drawn out narrations are a thing of the past. As a matter of fact, at one point, I wanted to do away completely with the narrations, but since everyone else disagreed, we experimented a lot to make something different from them. Some things worked, others didn't. We'll try to fix what we can for the remainders episodes. 


Cesar Bittar
CEO
Phoenix Online
cesar.bittar@postudios.com

Haids1987

#34
I thought the narrator in KQ6 was the awesome!  I loved him.  But anyway, we're talking about Amy, not Bill Ratner. :P

I really like Amy as a narrator, I think she has a great voice for narration and it's very refreshing to have a female narrator.  However....yes, the constant sarcasm is pretty annoying.  This isn't her fault, it's just the frequency of the lines delivered.  I mean, they sound funny the first time you hear them, but after awhile it's like, "Ugh.  This again?"  Like everyone is suggesting, they wouldn't be so aggravating if they were timed more appropriately.
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rowee

I agree with the basic sentiments here. The sarcastic lines start to grate and feels like it punishes players trying out new things (especially when the same line is repeated ad nauseam).

In other words the player is generally trying to do something they think is logical and the narrator b**** slaps them and calls them an idiot  ;D

atec123

Quote from: rowee on September 26, 2010, 08:48:41 PM
I agree with the basic sentiments here. The sarcastic lines start to grate and feels like it punishes players trying out new things (especially when the same line is repeated ad nauseam).

In other words the player is generally trying to do something they think is logical and the narrator b**** slaps them and calls them an idiot  ;D
exactly.

this is where the KQV red X would come in handy.

some new programming, probably more than I think, but no new things would need to be recorded!
Official maintainer of TSL in linux via Wine. TSL AppDB page
Maintainer of TSL in OSX via Wine
TSL IRC Chatroom Maintainer
We are the Defenders of Jazz Ballet
People say, when they see us:
Hey, folks! It's the Saviours of Jazz Ballet
Fearless heroes of kick and spin

kindofdoon

I agree, but I doubt the team would ever get behind the idea so late into production.

Daniel Dichter, Production/PR
daniel.dichter@postudios.com

kyranthia

I did pick two - the 'Are you done trying crazy things?' and the the 'Tic Toc' one.  The Tic Toc one I find the most irksome though. 

Other than those two, I don't have any issue with the other narrator's lines.  They're pretty direct saying something won't work without being too off putting. 

I don't have any issue with her general narration either.  I find that to be just fine.

QuoteI thought the narrator in KQ6 was the awesome!  I loved him.  But anyway, we're talking about Amy, not Bill Ratner.

I liked him too.  But then again, Bill also does the introduction for our local news so I got more of a kick out of hearing his voice.

Haids1987

Quote from: kyranthia on September 27, 2010, 09:49:54 PM
QuoteI thought the narrator in KQ6 was the awesome!  I loved him.  But anyway, we're talking about Amy, not Bill Ratner.

I liked him too.  But then again, Bill also does the introduction for our local news so I got more of a kick out of hearing his voice.
Shut UP!  That's so cool! :D
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