Are you excited for this game?
I really don't want it to seem like the naysayers are in the majority, so I was wondering, if you're excited for this game, like I am--could you post in this thread?
There are some very negative, even hateful very vocal people--but they're in the minority, I believe, and I don't want the loudness of the minority's negativity to doom this game before it's even out. It's like some people are refusing to even give this game a chance.
There are some very negative, even hateful very vocal people--but they're in the minority, I believe, and I don't want the loudness of the minority's negativity to doom this game before it's even out. It's like some people are refusing to even give this game a chance.
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Comments
And hey, thanks for the direct insults. That was certainly warranted.
I don't want this game to fail, or be cancelled due to a vocal minority's negativity. Direct insults? Sorry, I'm excited to see KQ reborn.
I, on the other hand, don't want the company to go into pre-production without knowing my concerns and misgivings. Maybe if they go into it knowing that they do not have the home advantage here and that they have something to prove, something better may come out of it. I don't want the team to go in with the viewpoint that everyone backs them in everything they do with impunity, because then we'll see Telltale take the path of least resistance and release a regular Telltale game that changes nothing about how they make games, but with superficial King's Quest trappings. This isn't their home territory, they don't belong here, and they need to make significant changes to the way they do things in order to make it work. It's possible, but I don't believe they have the stuff for it.
And by "direct insults", I mean the obvious vilifying of myself and people who share my point of view on the matter. When I made a thread to gauge peoples' reactions, I didn't call those who enjoy the game "sheep", I worked hard to make sure my poll was as balanced as it could be and that my wording was conducive to a discussion no matter how you viewed things.
Your original post here was hyperbolic to the extreme ("THEY DON'T $8&&7 DESERVE THIS!" "HOW DARE THEY!") and bordered on the same attitude as the crowd which cries "George Lucas raped my childhood!" The fact is, TT could fail at this, or they could do a good or even great job. We don't know. We haven't seen a single screenshot or trailer. I choose to look at it has the glass half full as opposed to the glass half empty. I'm not looking for another KQ6, another "epic" (KQ5 is my favorite.) If they do a fun fantasy/fairy tale yarn that feels like KQ, they'll have suceeded. Roberta Williams laid out the framework for what a KQ game is years ago, and it was very simple.
The fact that they've been working/talking with Josh Mandel (designer of KQ1SCI, voice of Graham, a man whom Roberta herself says knows KQ just as much as her) and that he gave it his personal seal of approval is a VERY good sign to me. He's pretty honest with his opinions (being vocally against Mask of Eternity and TSL for going away from the original KQ framework) and doesn't bullshit the fans.
I believe they're going to challenge themselves on this; I also think they realize that this isn't their home territory. They've most likely played KQ. They know how it's different from LucasArts and their own games. They probably read these boards even if they don't actively post. I don't believe they're out to f*ck over the fans.
You have a very pessimistic attitude about this, and that's your right, but consider this:
Activision could've EASILY farmed KQ out to an action game studio, to a group of people who never played a KQ game, and made it an Action/RPG like Mask of Eternity. Look what Vivendi did with Leisure Suit Larry. Do you know that Sierra itself was going to design a KQ9 in 2002, and it looked like a Zelda clone? Or that they Okayed the development of a SQ game in 2003 and farmed it to an action game company, and the company they farmed it out to was told specifically NOT TO PLAY OR LOOK AT THE ORIGINAL GAMES. TT, love them or hate them, is the PREMIER adventure game company out there. They're the strongest, the most influential at this point. They also know, and love the adventure genre.
I'll put it this way: It can't be any worse than Mask of Eternity, or TSL. It might divided fans, but every KQ game since KQ4 has gotten mixed reactions.
And yes. They don't deserve it, and they shouldn't have dared to set foot in this territory. It's not theirs, and I was made more upset by the fact that I had recently played Back to the Future: Episode 2: Get Tannen!, which is one of the worst games I've ever played in my entire lifetime. You have to go into titles that were actually functionally BROKEN, like Superman 64, to get something worse.
The "framework" is simple, but it goes against Telltale's "framework" that they've used for more or less every single game from Bone onwards. They have shown and openly and proudly admitted that they want to dumb down the adventure genre. They have proven in practice, with Back to the Future(episode 1 of which you can get for free here) that they can fail extremely hard in terms of making a compelling and intelligent adventure game. I understand that we have no screenshots or video, but it's not the look or the story that I'm most concerned about, and it's not like my viewpoint is simply conjured up from the aether. It has grounding in the company's other works, much the same way I have a view of Zynga's future products without having played them.
Wait, what fact? Citation please! And even if this is so, there is the matter of whether or not "working/talking with" is anything substantial. If they were working with him closer to the core of the project and he was deeply involved, then yes that would allay many concerns. If they have lunch with him and ask him a couple questions before going along their merry way, then it doesn't mean much of anything.
And I disagree, and I base that on just as much grounding information(if not more grounding information) than you do.
So a bad game is excusable by the possibility of a worse one? I just don't buy that.
And I'll put it this way: I think it can be. Even if it's not, I don't want "slightly better than Mask of Eternity" to be its main "selling point". A bad game should not be elevated by something worse sitting next to it.
Look, I get that nothing will change your mind, and, even if the game is stellar you probably will dislike it simply because TT created it. You seem to HATE them.
They don't deserve it? Says who? You? And who are you? TellTale has been one of the majr companies which has kept the adventure genre from dying and disappearing completely. They've done more good for the genre since Sierra shut down it's adventure game division in 1999. They've brought the genre to a new generation, and classic games back from the dead for new and old fans to experience and enjoy Oh, KQ's not theirs? KQ isn't yours either, nor mine. You're acting irrational.
As for "dumbing down the adventure genre", again, they may just do something different with KQ. And it's not like KQ5-KQ7 were the toughest games ever made, either. KQ7 was pretty easy and ''dumbed down.'' Going from a parser to a point and click interface dumbed down the games. Just ask Scott Murphy. The fact is, you can't stick to the same exact gameplay mechanisms as were used in 1990. You think if Sierra was still alive and making adventure games with Roberta that they'd be using the same format themselves? By 1994 with KQ7, even a narrator was gone; most of the interactivity with the game environment was taken.
Citation? Ok:
Josh Mandel:
"Telltale and I have spoken a bit lately, but there's nothing more I can (or should) say about it!
But I would love to be King Graham for Telltale, and I trust them completely with the property.
--Josh"
http://www.adventuregamers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=574476&postcount=27
Also, Cesar Bittar (head of the TSL project, who worked for TT and knows Josh) said: "yep. I know Josh and Dave (Grossman) had been talking since last year.
Dave also wanted to get in touch with Roberta."
http://www.infamous-adventures.com/forum/index.php?topic=4018.60
The two of them talking since last year sounds a lot more than one just casual lunch conversation, or bullshit talk. The fact that they want to reach out to Roberta (who is pretty much 'over' KQ and wants to move on with her life, according to her husband when I last spoke to him) says to me they want to keep within the framework of the series, and want to respect the original games.
He's a fan, a customer, and a follower. I guess he has the rights to express his opinions. Everyone has the rights to express his opinions. From the beginning to the end of this thread, you advice people not to say one single bad thing about Telltale in case they may suddenly become so passive-agressive they'll shut down the whole thing. It doesn't work that way and it shouldn't work that way. Man, talk about irrational.
To me, it's like debating on Nintendo making a God of War game. People know that they won't be able to produce something as good because of the company's own restrictions (One of them, the dependence on using their really restrictive gameplay engine, in Telltale's sense) but then some other guy comes and hits others' heads with a bat and yells "You didn't pay for the license, NINTENDO DID, so stfu".
And it's rather misleading for you to state that they're working with him in any way as you have no idea whether that's accurate or not. For all you know it was just a single phone call to do some research into the history of the series and that was it.
Heh, it's still better than you guys getting the license any day. Must really burn you that Josh actually seems to trust these people and thought (as an increasing number do) that your storyline was crap.
Also Josh's disagreement with TSL wasn't on the story itself - he just disagreed on whether it should actually be called "King's Quest IX" because of the fan fiction liberties we were taking. He was right about that, and we did end up changing the title and have mended fences with him.
I'd be surprised if Telltale called their game King's Quest IX anyway, they'll probably have some other random spin-off title for it.
How do you know this? I bet there's at least an outline of a story written, as well as a general idea of a gameplay. Just because we haven't seen anything regarding this doesn't mean it doesn't exist. From the sounds of things Telltale have been working on this idea for a while prior to the press release.
He's a part of the TSL team. If you know anything about them, you should know they have and have always had an agenda--They wanted the license themselves to reboot the series too, and since they've been denied it, they are trying to downplay this game.
My only point here is that some people are getting way over-hyped about the fact that a couple of people from Telltale talked to Josh Mandel once that we know of. That's really not that big of a deal. If he does end up working with Telltale (which I do highly doubt because that's simply not how Telltale operates) that would be great.
And yes there may be a story written at this point for the game, but there wasn't several months ago when that contact was first made with Josh. Telltale doesn't take months to write a story and get working on a game, they're very fast movers and if they had started the story in December they'd have screens and trailers for this game done by now.
You shouldn't be one to talk about hype as when Roberta played your very brief first episode of your game (with apparently no inside info about the game or plot twists) and gave a general positive review of it, you hyped that as much as you could and your leader even literally proclaimed your company the heirs to Sierra/Roberta.
Not only that, but you don't know of his contact with them since, or of any potential contact in the future.
So getting Ron Gilbert to consult on Tales of Monkey Island doesn't count? What about the Brothers Chaps and SBCG4AP? Not forgetting Steve Purcell & Graham Annable.
Certainly I expect Telltale to try to run their concepts by people like Josh Mandel or Roberta Williams, but they're not going to make any attempt to actually bring them on full time to help with the project. Telltale has their own writers and directors, and bringing in someone else from the outside (even someone as awesome as Josh Mandel) would cause serious internal problems for them.
I'm sure you guys have been telling them just that
The fact is, the set up you're talking about (having an original designer on board with minimal help from them) is the same system which which gave us KQ6 and KQ7. Roberta had very little to do with the creation of KQ6 other than the most basic story ideas, and she didn't write KQ7 at all.
I don't think "downplay this game" is official TSL team policy.
I'm not a member of the TSL team. I get that you don't like TSL--there's plenty I don't like about it either. But this personal vendetta you seem to have against them is getting old.
Public, official statements and actual goals/personal feelings not stated officially are two different things. PR, baby, PR.
This personal vendetta will continue until the game is a distant memory, and until there's absolutely no chance of them ever even having any official connection to any future Sierra Quest games.
And it will continue so long as their members come here to downplay this game here (even if their official statement on their website says they're all for it--just like their official website said their game was coming out in Winter 2005) to strengthen their own efforts at securing a commercial license. They have much to gain by TT failing in this.
To sum it up, Manannan is not Valanice's father. Graham is not a wise fatherly sage who spouts off cliched insightful words. Alex is not an emotional basket case who cries like a child over his traumas. Valanice is not a lying, half Druid, secretive and suicidal miserabe. Rosella isn't a spoiled, mischevious, careless brat. The BCS is not responsible for every single event in the KQ series. And I'll keep fighting against any of those ideas ever becoming anything resembling canon.
I'm pretty sure there's absolutely no risk of any of the fan games becoming canon, so you don't need to worry.
This is hardly the first megascale all-volunteer fan project to get pushed back. (Ask a Star Wars Fanfilm forum about "Tyderium" sometime.)
Faramir does not take the ring to Gondor. Treebeard doesn't hesitate before deciding to attack Isengard. Elves don't show up at Helm's Deep. Saruman takes over the Shire.
And yet, despite the fact that these things were changed in a way I strongly dislike, I have no personal vendetta against Peter Jackson. He told the story the way he felt it fit his movie. I disagree with him, but I understand his perspective, and I can even enjoy much of the movies.
Hell, there's even LESS that I like in the Rankin-Bass and Ralph Bakshi LOTR films. But I don't go to every Tolkien forum and turn every post into a rant against those filmmakers.
Wow, hater much? Nice try attempting to speak for how our team feels about the Telltale project too. You don't know what our internal discussions are like so don't even try to guess because you couldn't be more wrong. We are definitely interested to see what Telltale does with the series both in public and in private. We don't sit around whining about how we wish we had the license - we've moved on and have other things to work on. We literally spent like 5 minutes talking about how nice it would have been for us and then we left it behind.
Having outside designers with no prior experience in the series they're working on designining most of the game with miminal to no oversight by the original designers was Sierra's business model in adventure games in their middle and later days.
See:
KQ1SCI (designed soley by Josh Mandel with only one piece of input from Roberta)
Laura Bow 2 (designed by Bruce Balfour with barely any involvement from Roberta)
King's Quest V (designed by Roberta but with Bill Davis acting as Creative Director)
King's Quest VI (designed mostly by Jane Jensen while Roberta went on vacation, and written almost solely by Jane)
King's Quest VII (no real imput from Roberta other than the idea that the direction should be Disney inspired)
Phantasmagoria II (handed off completely to Lorelei Shannon, who had NOTHING to do with Phantas I)
Space Quest 6 (Designed mostly by Josh Mandel who had very limited prior experience with SQ).
Not all that different.
Proud hater
And getting a commercial KQ license might've been nice for you, but it would've sucked for KQ fans.
If our game is really that bad, why don't you make a better one with all that energy rather than just constantly whining about it? Do something productive instead?
If Iyam, Iyam. If I'm not, I'm not.
Tis for me to know what I do and what I don't do.
I could very well be doing that right now, or I might not be.
I will never, ever, ever understand this mentality. To take pride in dwelling on something that displeases you? It doesn't make any sense to me.
If a piece of entertainment bothers me, especially one that I got *for free*, I usually review it and point out where I think it could have been improved, and then I ignore it. Makes life a *lot* less stressful.
I only want to prevent an abortion of a game ever being made canon, and it's designers ever being anywhere near an official KQ game. That's my goal. I don't dwell on the game itself, it's kind of laughable to me, and haven't even played it since its second episode and have instead watched LPs. But I love the originals probably more than any franchise (be it movie, game or book) and thus I don't want them falling into certain people's hands.