Was TOMI developed in a hurry?
First thing: I congratulate TellTale for the great (and deserved) success of TOMI! It's wonderful!!!! 
Second: Am I the only one who feels that TOMI had some (very) minor flaws due to lack of time during the development?
I give you some examples:
- Use of the same model for different characters
- The synth music instead of real instruments
- Framerate optimization
- Dialogue options that leads always to the same spoken line
- Some "spaces" between polygons (on the ground in the jungle, or on the fingers of the cursed hand when Guybrush wakes up and look at it)
So i ask: will these (or some of these) problems be corrected on the DVD version? BTW, take your time between episodes, we like quality!
Thank you sooo much! No other Software House put such great animations, story, cinematic experience and FUN in an adventure like you do!!! Well Done!!!:D
Second: Am I the only one who feels that TOMI had some (very) minor flaws due to lack of time during the development?
I give you some examples:
- Use of the same model for different characters
- The synth music instead of real instruments
- Framerate optimization
- Dialogue options that leads always to the same spoken line
- Some "spaces" between polygons (on the ground in the jungle, or on the fingers of the cursed hand when Guybrush wakes up and look at it)
So i ask: will these (or some of these) problems be corrected on the DVD version? BTW, take your time between episodes, we like quality!
Thank you sooo much! No other Software House put such great animations, story, cinematic experience and FUN in an adventure like you do!!! Well Done!!!:D
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And that's fine. Because while what they put out tends to have some compromises here and there, it's overall a great product that comes out on time.
To the second point: Either your direct X 9 isn't updated or you chose a too high graphic quality setting for your GPU. Try lowering it in the settings menue.
Got Catalyst 9.7 and newest DX9 (March) on a Radeon 4850. But still have these:
BTW these are MINOR flaws
I enjoyed TOMI soooo much!
(ps.:For framerates i was talking about Wii)
No, you aren't.
http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10938
BTW, the actual game design and script are great. Those are VERY important.
Happy that someone explained my toughts better than me!
And I'm picky, but I said they are VERY MINOR FLAWS.
Ps: Thank u Diduz..... I love Lucasdelirium!
The one brown line in the jungle, I thought was a twig.
(Who cares about a few minor bugs (if you can even call em that casue they don't make the game lock up or anything)
The moment you can make games that look as good as Tales of Monkey Island i'll take this tread seriously!
Edit*: I don't have any of thoose flaws running the game on Windows Vista (only the fog around that hand that very ocasionally becomes a square) the rest is all fine.
Now where's my Full Throttle 2 and a enhanced Day of the Tenacle release..?
WiiWare has a 40 megabyte file size limit, so we have to reuse assets when possible. It's this, or reduce the number of characters in our games. We don't really have the resources yet to make design changes or different (major) assets for different platforms, either.
The midi music is to fit inside of WiiWare file size limitations. I think we did higher quality mp3s (or something) for the PC version, but they're still not actual recordings.
This is also partially due to the file size limit. Everything in computer science is a trade off between speed and memory. Since we're forced to use super-compressed assets and memory-friendly algorithms everywhere, our speed suffers. There's still room for us to improve here, but our hands are tied for a lot of this.
We have to compress meshes and animations to save space, which leads (unavoidably) to floating point imprecision, which leads to spaces between some polygons.
Disclaimer: None of this is an "official" word or anything, and I'm talking about this stuff more as a game developer in general and not an actual representative of Telltale or its position on these subjects. That said, if you all want to put some pressure on Nintendo to raise that 40 meg limit for us, by all means please do.
At least take an extra month or tow (or more) to make the DVD version less compressed. And preferably with an "Play full season" option.
I just thought the same. Especially as i really would apprechiate to see more character models, be able to travel to different locations and so on. Is it really that lucrative for Telltale to develop for the Wii?
Don´t get me wrong on this, but it seems like "Tales" could be so much better if it would be a PC only game.
P.S. Don't even THINK of making a petiton about this!
Well that's a huge shame Nintendo spoiled your development opportunities. I don't care too much about midi music and I'm completely impartial to the breaks in polygons but the character design I did notice.
I hope you will at least use different models in each episode! I don't reeeally want to see the fat man and the skinny man with different clothes on in all five!
Again, speaking as an individual and not necessarily a Telltale representative (especially since I'm not privvy to the business side of things): Companies have to strike a balance between their ideal product, and dealing with the fact that they're businesses and need to turn a profit to stay afloat.
Yes, companies could always go over budget, make the most awesome game possible without worrying about profits, and then go promptly out of business after releasing their product. The consumer would think this was awesome for a while, but the economy would collapse and the game industry would basically disappear if businesses followed this model.
I know I'll get some "Telltale Game$$$" replies for this, but that's just how it is. Everyone in this industry loves making games, but everything boils down to this equation:
Profit = ( (Price Per Copy) * (Number of Copies Sold) ) - ( Development Cost )
And sadly, less than 4% of games made today ever make the development cost back, let alone turn a profit. It's a rough industry and the margins are razor thin. Would we like a few months to polish and optimize things until they're absolutely perfect? Of course. I mean, who wouldn't? But that makes development cost go +++++ while usually not increasing copies sold, or the price per copy. It's hard for business people to justify polishing a game once you hit diminishing returns on the sales.
I should probably shut up about this since the golden rule in the game industry is to not tell anybody anything because they'll just find something new to complain about anyway.
Let me tell you this: People will find something to nag about all the time, no matter how much effort you put into the product. This is one of the few times where i´m about to read honest and open words from a developer, even if you are not officially speaking as one. Thanks for that.
I´ve browsed quite some bit on several indie developer boards to get some inside snoops. I know it´s a rough business. "Monkey Island" is a huge Flagship though, the name alone should get you a lot of customers. Developing something big as "Monkey Island" is a dream never to come true for most indie devs.
The same model thing strikes me as more of a design choice. I doubt it saved them much time since they all have unique clothing and such.
Also, the dialog options leading to the same thing was just one conversation (with Nipperkin in the beginning) and again, was a choice, and a callback to earlier games in the series that did the same thing.
Yes, the game was developed on a short schedule (about 7 months before the first episode shipped, with one month for each additional episode) and there are concessions made to that effect, but those aren't among them. They're deliberate.
4%?!?
I knew it was tough but that is incredible.
So are TTG part of that 4%? must be...
Sorry if I'm a bit whiny, I do like the game and I really appreciate your answers.
Let's see...
-Didn't notice it
-Don't really care
-Eh.
-Which every other MI game had.
-My graphics card is pretty old, and I thought the graphics couldn't have been done better. Worked like a charm
But, it is nice to have it for more than the PC. I'd imagine it gets more people interested in the game, and maybe even the series as a whole. Just seeing the trailer for TMI turned one of my friends into a MI game fanatic.
Because more people have said console?
But they are rushing things, check out the bugs in the treasure hunt minigame lol. That was the dumbest code entry system ever, only takes 4min to hack.
Unless it was a ploy to make me buy games at half price.... In which case it worked....
Maybe I was tricked here....
Nah
I remember that the Amiga version of the first Monkey Island had A LOT of slowdowns (Scumm Bar, for example). And the Amiga version of Maniac Mansion accessed Disk #2 just to load the "I can't pick that up." sentence! Talk about optimization...
We still got something in exchange though, because the Amiga sound was far better than PC Speaker / Tandy / AdLib stuff.
Chet Faliszek at Valve says this: "I once joked that we could put $20 in a box and charge $10 for it, and someone’s going to complain, and that’s just fine - that’s just the way it is."
Imo, the X-Box 360 would have been far better to port to. It uses DirectX, so apart from interfacing the gamepad and some more testing, what's to add to dev cost? Also, file limit is much higher. No-brainer, really.
Thank you so much for all the explanations. It's very easy to create a perfect game in our minds, but it is just a fantasy until you are able to make it. And you guys make really good games.
I consider that Telltale found a very good model and they're one of the few developers that got episodic downloadable games right. Even Valve as amazing as they are take years to make their Half-Life episodes!
I enjoyed tremendously all episodes of Sam and Max (especially after 103) and I'm glad you brought adventures back to life. Yeah, I think you are resposible for that. And now that you've got to do a new game of Monkey Island you are all my heroes.
Thank you for all that! :-D
Yeah, I remember that the scrolling annoyed me a little. And the fact that there were verbs like turn on/off that you never used. But I think that at the time we just learned to live with those little details.
I remember being much more impressed by the good stuff like how characters changed size when moving closer to the screen. In those 2d days, that little 3d effect was amazing for me! Or the quality of the Amiga music. Or the beautiful locations, etc, etc, etc.
I think these days people just have seen so many good stuff that they became a bit spoiled and don't consider all the hard work people have to make games and how many data games have, so obviously they will have some minor details that are not perfect. But not being perfect doesn't stuff something for giving you a good time, if you try to enjoy and not be nitpicky about everything.
Just take it easy, people. Nothing is perfect. Games are meant to entertain you and Telltale Games gave us a lot of entertainment.
they shouldve made it for 360 and/or ps3 instead
I have all those consoles so dont say im being a 'fanboy'