What I thought

[avatar_58]

First off - congrats for not letting VUgames push you around and showing them the fans *DO* care about the classic titles even if they don't.


Now as someone who began his PC gaming 'career' (uh, yeah lets use that one) with King's Quest, I may be a tad harsh. You've already read my thoughts on 3DRealms...but I want to add to them so I'll give it another go.

Since the patch the demo is not nearly as buggy as it was, though it still feels unpolished. Now I've been told that freewalk and the fixed speech are in the finished project so I can't really harp on those issues. The 'left of the bookstore' bug isn't going to be in the final either, and thats where I left the demo on my first playthrough so admittedly I need to get in there and finish it.

However there is something I'd like answered - did you choose the Green Isles for story or for ease of rendering/concept? Be honest now, as I understand you don't have a large budget here. I personally was very turned off at the prospect of 'reliving' KQ6 again as I have already played and finished that one. I realize it may be easier to re-use characters and scenes rather than come up with new ones, but its a little much.

I could be off my mark here as I haven't seen the final product so maybe Graham is there for a short time. Looking at the screenshots however, I recognize 95% of the terrain so I doubt that very much. The only KQ to re-use scenes was KQ3 with some of Daventry but even they changed it drastically. I would have rather you guys have come up with your own memorable locations using Graham as the 'familiar' aspect for fans. Maybe a cameo or two, but having all the chars from KQ6 just feels cheap to me. Thats my opinion anyway, but I doubt possibly that I'm alone.

Anyway I thought I'd get that off my chest as I personally have a big issue with many fan games that re-use IPs as a way to target fans. I'm not saying thats what YOU are doing, but its hard to tell if you haven't been able to put the past KQ games out of this one. I had the same opinion of AGDI before the coming of Al Emmo, as they showed themselves a one trick pony before making their own IP. I still believe the same can be said for Telltale as they've yet to produce a game without a 'known' personality. That seems to be the norm in adventure games these days, as unkown characters can't make it without a strong narrative and game behind them.

Anyway take what I say as a constructive critique, because I felt your demo had great potential....both as an inspiration point and as a throw back to the 'good old days'. May the full product blow me off my chair and send my fears into oblivion, as I hope it will. As a pessimist you have to excuse my fears, but I feel they are warranted when looking to the past.



(PS - how did you know to look on 3DRealms forums for feedback? Seems like such a random pitstop, and you get my respect for seeking out fans. )

[TribeHasSpoken]

While the game starts in the Green Isles, the game will take you to entirely original lands inhabited by original characters. We're not going to spoil any of that, which is why all the content released thus far shows existing locations and characters from the KQ universe.

[Yonkey]

Welcome avatar_58!

First off - congrats for not letting VUgames push you around and showing them the fans *DO* care about the classic titles even if they don't.

No problem.   However, our team didn't just show them a demo.  During our shutdown back in October/November 2005 our fans spoke up for themselves as well.

However there is something I'd like answered - did you choose the Green Isles for story or for ease of rendering/concept? Be honest now, as I understand you don't have a large budget here. I personally was very turned off at the prospect of 'reliving' KQ6 again as I have already played and finished that one. I realize it may be easier to re-use characters and scenes rather than come up with new ones, but its a little much.

The reason for choosing the Green Isles as the setting for Chapter 1 and 2 was more because it was the most popular game in the series.  It didn't really save much in terms of development time or re-use, since KQ6 was actually 2D.  By this, I mean all scenes and characters had to be designed by our art team from sketch, to 2D colour, to 3D model, to 3D texture, to animation.  You can get an idea of this process by looking at the two Evolution wallpapers available at: http://www.postudios.com/archivedTSL/media/wallpapers/

I would have rather you guys have come up with your own memorable locations using Graham as the 'familiar' aspect for fans. Maybe a cameo or two, but having all the chars from KQ6 just feels cheap to me. Thats my opinion anyway, but I doubt possibly that I'm alone.

Chapter 2 is filled with many 'unfamiliar' locations that do not exist in KQ6, including: Chessboard Land, Beast's Castle, and Winged Ones' City, as you can see from our screenshots.  However, everything from Chapter 3 onwards is original content.  We will be exposing more and more of this Chapter (as it is included with Shadows) but in due time.

Anyway take what I say as a constructive critique, because I felt your demo had great potential....both as an inspiration point and as a throw back to the 'good old days'. May the full product blow me off my chair and send my fears into oblivion, as I hope it will. As a pessimist you have to excuse my fears, but I feel they are warranted when looking to the past.

We greatly appreciate your feedback.

(PS - how did you know to look on 3DRealms forums for feedback? Seems like such a random pitstop, and you get my respect for seeking out fans. )

Hehe, I think Michael found you, so I'll let him reply to that.

[TribeHasSpoken]

Hehe, I think Michael found you, so I'll let him reply to that.

I get to talk about my job on the team? Either you find me very valuable, or you want me to share all my secrets to save some of the time and energy needed to train someone new when you fire me next week.

Though I've created some threads about the game/demo/single etc on forums which I believe to be critical to spreading the word about the team's efforts, I also routinely use search engines to try to find threads about the project. I do this so that

A) We can get an idea of the expectations and reactions of the broader gaming community (not necessarily just our core demographic of adventure players) vis-a-vis the project and act accordingly.

B) Any questions or innaccurate speculation about the project can be addressed by the team itself. Hopefully this means we can convince them to come here to ask their questions, since it's the easiest way of contacting us, not to mention tapping into the knowledge of our more devoted fans.

C) We always find it wonderfully stimulating to be in the company of those who grew up with these kind of games just like we did. When someone says "I wish they still made these types of games", we see a part of ourselves, since it's really that kind of statement that got every single one of us on this project in the first place.

[Yonkey]

I get to talk about my job on the team? Either you find me very valuable, or you want me to share all my secrets to save some of the time and energy needed to train someone new when you fire me next week.

Awwww, both.

But yeah, sometimes I Google around for our project and find a bunch of sites (both English and non) that mention us, and if it needs responding to I'll either do it myself or have one of our reps do so.

[avatar_58]

You guys really are refreshing you know that? You take criticism very well and really know how to respond. I can see why the community here really wanted this project to continue.

Good to hear about original locations and characters, beyond that I don't have many concerns then.

Also don't mind my ranting in this thread, I wasn't really in the best of moods yesterday so I'm amazed it came out nice at all

Well I'll be testing the rest of the demo later to see what else happens

[Yonkey]

Thanks!

And don't worry, I wouldn't even classify your post as ranting, considering I've seen and responded to much worse and non-constructive criticism in the past.

[avatar_58]

Well I'll say this - you've convinced me to replay the original games. Its been a long time since I've played certain entries in the series, and I still have yet to finish KQ4 and KQ7 (*gasp*). I never owned those ones before so I was behind.

[Rick_Florez]

I just to expand on the question of why were reusing the Green Isles instead of starting off in new territory.

The basic idea behind this was to have the first 3 chapters of the game be considered as the nostalgia chapters.   A lot of KQ fans have not played the games in a decade.   The idea was to reintroduce those players to the KQ universe by placing them in a familiar setting at the start.

Chapter 1 has many of the screens from the original game but in a dreary tone that reflects the emotional turmoil of what has recently happened to the twins.

Chapter 2 will be a much more sunny day, it will feel a lot more like KQ6 in tone.  Graham's mission will be very different from Alex's in KQ6 and he will end up exploring parts of the Green Isles fans have only been able to imagine up to date (ie Chessland Land, Beast Castle, Winged City).  Those places were just out of reach in KQ6 so we though it would be fun to explore them in more detail.

Chapter 3 takes you to a dreamworld.  I won't go into too much detail about that one, but it does have a lot of nods to the original games that fans will recognize, this was done for a good reason.

Beyond thats its fresh territory.  We will be revisiting a few old sites and of course Castle Daventry but seeing as it was never really developped in previous installments we had to create most of it from scratch  using information we peiced together from the games and novels.

Finally I just want to say that I personally have never been a fan of stories that simply rehash the original content of games.  That is a very easy trap to fall in, one that we worked very hard to avoid that in this game.

Richard Flores
Art Director
TSL Development Team

[ThunderChild]

Interesting. After playing the demo I was thinking that this was more or less KQ6 all over again . . .

[Yonkey]

Interesting. After playing the demo I was thinking that this was more or less KQ6 all over again . . .

Considering KQ6 was the most enjoyed game in the series, we'll take that as a compliment.

[ThunderChild]

Considering KQ6 was the most enjoyed game in the series, we'll take that as a compliment.

KQ6 was indeed the best part of the whole series but each KQ game started from different locations and that is what I believed added strength to the series, that no segment of a KQ game was ever 'visited' again (not counting KQ8) . . .

[Yonkey]

(not counting MoE) . . .

Nor the setting of KQ1 & 2, nor the beginning & ending of KQ4, nor the intro of KQ6.

Anyway as stated before, Chapters 1 and 2 are the only "revisited" chapters throughout all of TSL; Chapter 2 being far more fleshed out than KQ6 was.  But, you'll just have to wait and see for yourself.

[Cez]

There are other reasons why we chose to start in the Green Isles, and more or less re-visit old locations all the way to chapter 4 (Tho, I will say chapter 3 is not exactly re-visiting and chapter 4 is daventry inside fully, which we have never played).

This game takes a vast step from previous King's Quest games. We didn't want to completely shock the audience by throbbing down the full blown out plot but more like give it one teaspoon at a time. We slowly depart from previous known lands into new territories, and that wasn't random. It is because the plot departs from previous King's Quest "depth" into something never seen before in a King's Quest. "Shadows" is both an statement to difference and a reconciliation with the past, and as you move forward you will have departed from what you are accustomed in a King's Quest title. But, we didn't want to start doing it right off the bat, otherwise the fans would feel allienated to what they know.

[Yonkey]

(Tho, I will say chapter 3 is not exactly re-visiting and chapter 4 is daventry inside fully, which we have never played).

Yeah, I think "re-visited" isn't really the right term for it, it's more like reinterpreted or revamped. Plotwise though, I can see what you mean by that, but visually, Chapter 3's sets are quite unique and refreshing to see.