E3 - Brief new King's Quest info
Blind Sniper
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"Grossman said Telltale actually approached Roberta Williams, one of the designers of the original games, to see if she was interested in working on the new one. While she declined by saying she had retired from games, she did offer the development team advice, some of which was "very valuable," according to Grossman. "
http://pc.ign.com/articles/117/1174593p1.html
http://pc.ign.com/articles/117/1174593p1.html
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Rather than pointing out the fact that she was the 'original' creator of King's Quest series, wife of the owner/CEO of Sierra On-line? ...or the fact that she was usually the producer of the series?
Its almost as if she has been forgotten and sent to the dustbins of history. Kinda sad really...
Now the fans can commence with the arguments on if this has the rights to be a true or canonical KQ game or not... ...and I'm sure some fans will start that debate, since there is now confirmation that she has virtually no involvement with the game (and likely little involvement with the story)... We still don't know how much involvment Josh Mandel (or other former Sierra King's Quest developers) have or are giving towards the game...
Yeah I was disappointed by the lack of info on this
There are 2 arguments that can be made saything that they did not do the right thing. First, they knew Roberta Williams would turn them down and so all they did was try to make people think they did the right thing (they got you to buy in). Second, they perhaps wanted to bring her in, she saw their direction and said, "I don't want to work with them on that, the direction is awful!" She then turned them down and once again, it would show the direction TellTale is taking is something she did not want to be a part of. If they would have offered her 100% control of the project, she might have actually come onboard. Until I hear they offered her that, I think it is just for press and they think we as fans are too stupid to know the difference.
But alas, it's probably going to be a BTTF clone with 5 things to click on, 2 items in your inventory and a generic response for everything.
My fate in humanity is at its all-time low.
BTTF has more non important scenery things to examine,
, and get messages than KQ7 had... But still less than KQ5 even (that game had more to look at than the previous games in the series)...
But I'd want to see a bit more light hearted fairy tale mixed in as well, less of the epic fantasy/biblical/mythology. More Dreamfall less high fantasy (But some is ok). There needs to be a balance. A sequel does not need to be as atmospheric or dark, it worked for that story, but MOE sequel should have a different direction for the story. There is room for more whimsy, but keeping fighting in in some form. I wouldn't want MOE 2 to be an exact clone of the first.
Were you really expecting Telltale to offer her 100% control? The idea that Telltale would offer significant control to anyone outside their own management team is unrealistic. TT doesn't work that way, and really, no established game company would. In fact I think it's unrealistic to expect that any of the original KQ creators will have direct involvement in the project at all.
More importantly, I don't believe that's an appropriate standard to which to hold Telltale. I think it's theoretically possible for a development team that does not include the original designers to produce a game that fits into the KQ universe and captures what the fans most enjoyed about the existing KQ games. (Whether Telltale can or wants to actually produce one is, of course, an entirely separate question, one discussed ad infinitum in many other threads.)
So I don't see any reason to be ungenerous to Telltale on this, especially since there is precedent with Ron Gilbert and Monkey Island. I have no trouble believing that Telltale would have liked to have had Roberta come in for a day and talk about KQ with the staff, and that she declined for her own personal reasons. I think they could ask the same from one or more of the other people who worked on KQ at Sierra, and while it might not have any direct influence on the final product, it won't be just for show either.
I agree fully. A modern King's Quest RPG/fighter would be fantastic. But that's most likely not going to happen.
Which is one of the reasons exactly why I've been against this from the start.
The difference between these two opposing points is the belief that it's not possible for Telltale to create something in Sierra's style therefore there will be compromises to fit the business model and appeal to a wide range of gamers and non-gamers to make the biggest profit possible. They simply haven't proven themselves worthy or able to continue a Sierra series.
I see no reason to be optimistic at all. I'm curious to see what'll end up happening, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
Well, a KQ7 clone would still be better than BTTF, gameplay-wise.
It was easier than the previous entries in the series, but you had to solve puzzles to finish the game.
I agree with KQ6 being the best one, though.
Seriously many reviewers were harsh with that game, many saying it was more like watching a cartoon movie catering to small children then playing a puzzle solving adventure game.
The only thing I can say for it is it did offer a couple of alternate puzzle solutions for one or two puzzles, such as how to get rid of the scorpion. But then they released version 2.0 which dumbed it down even further complete removing a few timer puzzles and the deaths that went along with them! For example the volcano no longer has a chance of erupting in the final chapter!
Btw I'd say that BTTF has puzzles, even adventure game style puzzles. But the puzzles are pretty much ripped from the cliched stale depths of puzzles used and abused almost twenty years ago. So far many of them have been variations on the hand gestures puzzle in Monkey Island II, or the even more stale slide the newspaper under the door to get a key. Probably the most over used adventure game trope from the adventure game design hand book. These puzzles might have been original decades ago but now those ideas no longer present a challenge. There is seriously a lack of the originality in puzzle game design anymore.
I'm not going to speculate anything that Tell Tale is doing with this until I see SOMETHING from them.
Bt
To be honest Roberta's greatest strength was pushing the adventure game genre forward by pushing the technology forward. She was more about presentation less about story. She looked at technology and figured how to use that technology to design a better game, the games were designed to take advantage of the technology. There was a time when she pushed the whole computer industry forward (getting people to buy into new devices and hardware just to be able to play her games). They were uber tech demos. Now she would be so far behind that I'm not sure she would have ideas that would be revolutionary or original. She probably would be clueless, as I understand it she doesn't even really play games at all, so she likely wouldn't have any ideas how to push things further.
I'm pretty sure almost anything that comes out will be more retro for nostalgia purposes rather than truly innovative in themselves. The whole episodic gaming and digital download technologies are no longer innovative. Roberta also wanted to push the series toward massively multiplayer gaming, but that is no longer truly innovative idea. The lack of innovation would be missing out on one of the essential aspects of being a Roberta Williams or KQ game.
Maybe that's another one of the big reasons why we loved King's Quest so much. It showcased new methods of game design that weren't possible until King's Quest invented it. That's something Telltale can never follow up on unless they change their whole business strategy as a company.
Thought-provoking post, Valiento.
Telltale was only really innovative their first year, when they created the quick release episodic format, that other companies are now copying. Valve attempted the episodic distribution as well but really failed. Valve got the whole digital download service going through Steam though.
Now Telltales' 'claim' to 'innovation' has something to do with a Pilot program to give aspiring designers a chance to create new games series.
http://ixdasf.ning.com/forum/topics/ui-designer-games-award
Yeah. Nintendo are the only ones left. And they pay through the nose for it seemingly. I guess it's not surprising no one else dare try. In the words of Ken Williams: "You can't innovate without taking risks."
Mine is. :cool: KQ6 is the best.
I hate Cedric, all of the animal-voice acting, and the glut of nonsensical puzzles in KQ5 like using cheese to make the machine at the end work.
I did come across this;
Cheez powered time machine But that's apparently something new, some graphic novel. Maybe Roberta was ahead of her time?
Many of those animals in KQ5 were Roberta Williams herself playing the roles!
KQ6 brought rotoscoped animation (with live actors), an impressive for the time 3D introduction scene by Kronos, several well known and respected actors (so it was getting closer to the multimedia Hollywood ideal that Ken and Roberta wanted Sierra to move towards). Not sure if it ever got any criticism?
The thing about inovation, it also gave us things like KQ7 which brought feature length quality animation to computers aimed at a younger more family friendly audience (while her other game at the time, Phantasmagoria pushed movie quality live action, went more towards the mature audiences), and streamlined the interface (reducing it down to a single cursor + inventory), and MOE (which was Roberta's push to bring hardware 3-D graphics and action to PC and the adventure game genre). Both have been controversial to some of older fans, while also bringing new fans to the series.
But but, KQ5 had the poiiiisonous snake in it. KQ6 is still the best, but Cedric is cool nonetheless.
You're making all these hasty assumptions based on absolutely nothing and it's honestly making you look like you're hoping that this game is gonna come out bad.
I mean, at least TellTale is trying... of course they probably knew that the likelihood of Robert accepting was slim to none, but they did get some valuable advice out of it so where's the harm in that? Maybe it's something that will help them capture the essence of the games...
Granted, there's nothing wrong with being hopeful and open-minded. I'm just... skeptical, that's all.
It's just that King's Quest was known and loved for things I don't believe Telltale can ever deliver. Innovation, difficulty, and consequences.
I've been saying this for years now. Adventure games were popular (relatively speaking) back in the day because they were pushing the technology. When you wanted to show off your new 386, you bought the latest King's Quest game. Even after the advent of first-person shooters, games such as Phantasmagoria and Gabriel Knight 2 came in and were the best-looking games around.
Current fans of the genre like to say that it was always all about the story and characters, because they want to feel as if adventure games are the "intelligent" genre and that they are more cultured than those adolescent FPS players. But as I've said ad nauseum, that is not the case.
There was a thread in the main forum here recently about multiplayer adventure games. Many people pooh-poohed the idea, saying that cooperative adventure games are not possible for various reasons. There was a thread elsewhere about the possibility of open-world adventure games. This was pooh-poohed as well, because adventure games simply cannot be done in an open-world environment.
That's the anti-innovative thinking that we're dealing with, and it's why the genre has been in this gross rut for over a decade. It's arguably devolved since 1999, and until the players and developers get out of this box and start innovating again, adventure games are going to remain a cute little niche casual genre.