I have created wikis for nearly every major Sierra IP (at least mainly for series with 2 or more games)... There is also a general Sierra wiki (that one is still in the beginning stages, when I took it over)...
Still the most active ones (as in most active edits in last six months to a year, and number of editors) so far are the King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, Police Quest, and Conquests wikis...
Freddy Pharkas wiki is growing (mostly stubs at the moment), but still has a ways to go...
Strangely, haven't seen much action on the Gabriel Knight or Laura Bow... But I'll likely continue to add to them, when I have more time, and I have a chance to play through them again...
Space Quest Creators Reunite and Promise a New "Spaceventure"
Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy, creators of the Space Quest series of adventure games by Sierra Online, today announced they were gettin' the band back together, under the (Two) "Guys from Andromeda" nickname they coined for themselves so long ago.
There isn't much yet to announce in the way of funding, game direction or details, but the Two Guys do need your help. The video is just a spread-the-word effort trying to trundle up social media support for their project through Facebook or Twitter or YouTube. The company is also hiring.
Space Quest Creators Reunite and Promise a New "Spaceventure"
Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy, creators of the Space Quest series of adventure games by Sierra Online, today announced they were gettin' the band back together, under the (Two) "Guys from Andromeda" nickname they coined for themselves so long ago.
There isn't much yet to announce in the way of funding, game direction or details, but the Two Guys do need your help. The video is just a spread-the-word effort trying to trundle up social media support for their project through Facebook or Twitter or YouTube. The company is also hiring.
Anyone else is wondering if the crazy fragmentation of Sierra communities compared to LucasArts communities could be a problem to the success of Sierra related Kickstarters?
The mood and humor between LucasArts adventure games are so similar, if you like one game, you have good chances of liking them all. There's also Mixnmojo and LucasForums which act like a hub for all things LucasArts and ex-LucasArts employees related things and cultivate a sense of unity among LucasArts fans.
By contrast, Sierra games and series are vastly different in mood, tones and kind of humor, Leisure Suit Larry is simply not the same as King's Quest or Gabriel Knight, and these differences subsist even when you delve deeper in a subgenre, fans of King's Quest are not automatically fans of Quest For Glory or Conquests.
And as a result, we don't have a Sierra equivalent of Mixnmojo and LucasForums, although we haven't been lacking new material to cover in the last couple of years, with various releases and announcements of fangames and remakes, to fan made Let's Play, retrospective and interviews with Sierra designers, to Telltale's King's Quest revival and veterans getting out of retirement. Instead all the information is spread across many websites and forums, each dedicated to a specific series, fan project or aspect of Sierra.
There are a number of explanations one can identify as to why DFA attracted so much money, but I'm not sure Mixnmojo is one of them. I don't really know, though -- I've heard of the site, used it for reference a few times over the years, but never as a source of news or interaction. Double Fine had its own fanbase and network that, I would have to guess, was more important than any "LucasArts community" was to the success of DFA.
And now we have this situation where any LucasArts related Kickstarter will interest all LucasArts fans, but Sierra Kickstarters will interest only a specific subset of fans among all Sierra fans. And if the future of Sierra depends on crowd funding, we might face a problem one day. I have no doubt Al and Jane will meet their goal, but I don't expect the same kind of overfunding we've witnessed with Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2 or Shadowrun Returns. And Kickstarters for lesser known series and designers will have a much harder time meeting their goals.
I'm not sure I can think about all this in terms of "the future of Sierra". Is that really the thing to be desired here? If the success of these projects depends on crowdfunding, then ultimately they'll have to sink or swim on their own merits. I don't see how I have a stake in the idea of Sierra as a unified whole, absent the coming forward of someone with the necessary resources and talent to make that a realistic option. And it seems kind of late for that now there are three sets of former Sierra designers working independently and the KQ license is already held by Telltale.
At the same time, I would find it convenient if there was a website feed aggregating news -- major news only -- about all the projects involving former Sierra designers and properties (even including fangames). I subscribe to Telltale's blog and signed up for all the media from Andromeda, but I just don't have time to wade through every little post from the other two commercial projects, in which I have only marginal interest; I'd still like to keep loose tabs on them, though.
Yeah... it has totally lost it's novelty. I mean, maybe if we'd seen or heard something in the past few months - but I've honestly got a speck of interest at this point. I'll check it out when it or something comes out, but my bubbling enthusiasm has totally waned.
I don't know but the way I see it, the reason why LucasArts communities went thru the sky while most Sierra communities crash and burned is because of this network and unity among LucasArts fans, from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to adventure games and Double Fine and Telltale and Autumn Moon, they've reached critical mass and now have so many implicated contributors and fan material creators that their machine is self reliant, they create so much that more fans join their forums than fans leave it.
Sierra instead needed a dedicated forum for every Sierra related site and project, and every time a site stopped being updated or a project was canceled or completed, everyone went home. No critical mass achieved. And now Tim and Ron could overfund their adventure games projects forever* while people like Al, Leslie, Josh and Jane can barely make it past their Kickstarter goal in the same span of time, and I think that's partly because we lack the machine LucasArts fans have.
Just because we're scared of mixing together fans of Larry and fans of King's Quest, even if most of them like more than one series, myself I grew up playing Police Quest I, Space Quest III, Gold Rush and Conquests Of Camelot on my dad's knees, I was a total fanboy of Goblins and Incredible Machine during my childhood, I played the crap out of Castle Of Dr Brain, EcoQuest, Blue Force and VGA Space Quest and King's Quest games with my cousin, I was grounded for blowing up our monthly thirty hours "bandwidth" limit because I spend a whole night pirating early Police Quest and King's Quest games when we got the internet, I got hooked to Leisure Suit Larry and Quest For Glory during my teenage years, I discovered and played them remakes and fan games, I tried to finish both Gabriel Knight and Laura Bow three times without succeeding in between all this mess, in the last years I got around to play Pepper's Adventure In Time and Conquests For The Longbow, Return of the Incredible Machine for the first time ever, I've watched Sierra Let's Play myself to sleep for a whole year now, and I'm currently playing The Black Cauldron and Vohaul Strikes Back and I've had a blast all these years, and I know I'm not alone.
I don't even identify myself as a King's Quest fan, there's plenty of other Sierra titles and series I loved much more yet I still find myself lurking on King's Quest related sites and forums, including this very forum, late at night reading posts and articles because I like Sierra as a whole. I like reading and talking about it and its games.
And I discover the SpaceQuest.net revival project and all I see is squandered potential because, damn, that site was so damn awesome and informative and so well edited and friggin' entertaining and and all I can think of is why not expend it to cover every damn Sierra, Dynamix, Coktel, fan games and former Sierra employees titles, give these fine games the SpaceQuest.net treatment, with scans of official hint books, box art, manuals, soundtrack, easter eggs, cameos, death lists, FAQs, behind the scene tidbits and interviews, it would be just like the LucasArts Secret History craze, except with Sierra.
Why do I have to check a dozen different forums to keep up with Sierra related news when we could have a site dedicated to all thing Sierra, for both official and fan related news, gather every Sierra fans under in one forum, reach critical mass, get the machine running and discuss and create and celebrate Sierra games like we did in the good old days. Such project would have a tremendous impact on the Sierra community as a whole, and unlike a fan game, it's not something contributors and editors would work on for a decade in secret, it's something that would be updated constantly and fan reaction would be instantaneous.
[/rambling]
Anyway, I think my point has been made, if there was one in the first place. I'm spending ways too much time reading about games and not enough time actually playing them these days, so this will be the last time I'll bring up that subject.
By the way, MusicallyInspired or Collector, since I can't be arsed to register on a forum for a single post and since I have Vohaul Strikes Back to finish, one of you gotta convince Frans of SpaceQuest.net to give fan material, (that means fan games but also noteworthy Let's Play, fan arts, articles, analysis, retrospectives, interviews, like the one Josh Mandel had with Matt Chat...) the coverage and treatment they're due on his site, to help spreading the word about them and encourage creative people to create more otherwise as soon he'll be done with his site update and run out of the official material, the Space Quest community will crash and burn once again.
* It's no jealousy, I can't wait to play Double Fine Adventure, I just wish the future Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest and Quest For Glory games have the same production values as Double Fine Adventure.
And now Tim and Ron could overfund their adventure games projects forever* while people like Al, Leslie, Josh and Jane can barely make it past their Kickstarter goal in the same span of time, and I think that's partly because we lack the machine LucasArts fans have.
Uh...I think you're neglecting the fact that Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert both continued to make successful video games professionally all the way through the present day, while all the ex-Sierra guys got out of the business in the late 90s. I'm fairly certain that has significantly more to do with the success of their Kickstarter than any imagined Lucasarts fanboy unity vs. Sierra fanboy disparity.
Yeah, I agree with Lamb and tried to say something similar in previous post. My willingness to support an unspecified Schafer-Gilbert game came as much from my enjoyment of Psychonauts, Stacking and DeathSpank as it did from fond memories of Monkey Island, Tentacle and Grim. I also think that getting there first, turning it into a celebration of adventure gaming in general, had a huge impact that we're not going to see again, no matter who the players are.
Things like this are so dependent on having the right people, the right project, at the right time. Fortunately, it looks like the Larry proposal will do fine; not sure about Jensen's but there's still a lot of time left. If Autumn Moon goes forward with something, that could be a test of our competing hypotheses -- I don't think it will do any better than the Sierra projects no matter how cohesive the Lucasarts community is. Dunno, we'll see.
Regardless of any impact on current and future Kickstarters, I support what you're saying about how it would be to have a (cyber)home for the Sierra fan community. To be honest, I always thought there was one -- out there, somewhere -- that I never bothered to look for. I tend to like discussing meta-issues and trends in gaming more than the games themselves and somehow this forum has been kind of a home for that in a weird sort of way, LOL, with people I like talking and listening to. But I'd be interested in alternatives.
Why do I have to check a dozen different forums to keep up with Sierra related news when we could have a site dedicated to all thing Sierra, for both official and fan related news, gather every Sierra fans under in one forum, reach critical mass, get the machine running and discuss and create and celebrate Sierra games like we did in the good old days. Such project would have a tremendous impact on the Sierra community as a whole, and unlike a fan game, it's not something contributors and editors would work on for a decade in secret, it's something that would be updated constantly and fan reaction would be instantaneous.
If TTG has the courage, the intestinal fortitude (and, if I may, the intellectual wherewithal) to make a proper King's Quest game, worthy of inclusion with the traditional gameplay style of the KQ franchise, such a gathering may very well happen.
This is to say that I was drawn here when Tales of Monkey Island came out (having never spent any significant amount of time on other LucasArts-related forums previously) and I haven't left. Now, we still have to hold our breaths on this, because Telltale has been moving way over toward appeasing the casual market as of late, so there's no guarantee that they will target the hardcore old-school adventure gamer market with this.
Blueskirt, Frans and Jess are seriously looking at mergine SQ.Net and the Virtual Broomcloset. The plan is to make one giant SQ themed website based around news. There will be content and whatnot, but it's mainly going to focus on news. There will be many site authors that will post news tidbits and reviews and whatnot. There will also be a heavy section for fan efforts as well, at least that's the way it's looking at the moment. But Frans is open and a lot of people are asking for it.
And the reason SQ.Net doesn't turn into a "Sierra.net" is because, honestly, most SQ fans (Frans included, I believe) simply do not care about the other Sierra series as much. Sierra had so many more games than LucasArts did (adventure-wise). I still also don't believe LucasArts' success was due to Mixnmojo. Mixnmojo was created BECAUSE of the following LucasArts had. Sierra's community is an entirely different animal and may never be the same way. In a way I'm kind of happy it's not the same. It'd be far different than it actually is now in that case. Although the idea of a super mega Sierra site is nice to think about. I remember a Sierra website someone sent me. It had so much content and information on every Sierra game ever it was a fantastic resource to get information from. Easter eggs, video trailers (if they existed), links to soundtracks, all the different versions, what compilation packs they were included in, you name it it was there. All the way from Mystery House to whatever the last game they published in 1999 was. However, it's not online anymore sadly.
Is there perhaps another URL for the site you're talking about, because according to my internet that one redirects to somewhere not remotely related to Space Quest (unless there's an FMV version of SQX: Latex Babes of Estros I don't otherwise know about it). :eek:
Is there perhaps another URL for the site you're talking about, because according to my internet that one redirects to somewhere not remotely related to Space Quest (unless there's an FMV version of SQX: Latex Babes of Estros I don't otherwise know about it). :eek:
That would be spacequest.net Thought the content of sq.net does look pretty nice.
With all the talk throughout this thread of resurrecting sierra and such, I think it is worth mentioning that Jane Jensen has posted tons of gk1 production documentation. She even got her hands on original sketches that a guy saved from a dumpster when Sierra closed down that are being offered to high-end backers. She is also providing design bibles for gk1 & 2 among other things. So while it is not a resurrection, it is the most old school material being released in quite some time.
I have high hopes for the Replay Games remake of Leisure Suit Larry, since the company is made up of former Sierra employees and they have the original Larry team working on the remake.
I really hope it turns out great and ends up selling well once it's released in the general market.
I hope that this game is successful and that the Sierra alumni get financial backing and support on original projects as a result. Maybe, if these projects are successful, it might even jolt the Queen of Adventure Gaming, Mrs. Roberta Williams, herself out of quiet retirement. The world of adventure gaming needs her innovative mind at work once more, and it's been far too long since we've heard from her. Now getting Roberta back in the game might seem to be a hope against hope, BUT, five years ago, could anyone have foreseen this level of renewed adventure game interest, let alone this much Sierra adventure game related activity and interest? I see this as being a time where anything is possible--I am an optimist.
Five or six years ago, Sierra and it's adventure games seemed totally dead and buried outside of fan games and our memories; The developers of the classics we love were seemingly retired for good, great adventure gaming seemed a thing of the past, relegated to a tiny niche market...But now we have a good number of the greatest Sierra designers and writers out working on new adventure games, we have on our hands probably the most interest in the adventure genre since the late '90s, we have Telltale working on a new, official KQ game that won't be a total perversion (ala Vivendi's LSL sequels), it's a damn good time to be a Sierra or adventure game fan.
Long live the legacy of Sierra, and long may this revival last! I wish nothing but success to Jane Jensen, Al Lowe, the Two Guys from Andromeda, Josh Mandel, and any and all Sierra alumni who have put themselves back into the game. And I thank them all for the treasures and memories they helped give us in the past through their creativity.
And in closing, I thank ALL of the fan game groups who have kept Sierra's spirit alive throughout these long years--AGDI, Phoenix, IA, and every fan who ever penned a fan story or did a piece of fan art. All of you are as much responsible for this revival as any Kickstarter campaign could ever be.
Merlin: You brought me back. Your love brought me back. Back to where you are now. In the land of dreams.
I don't know if Roberta has any want or will to get back into it. She and Ken are quite financially comfortable, compared to the authors who are getting back in to it.
I think Ken said he and Roberta have taken up a writing... Topics on history and boating or some such... Not sure if they have any books released yet though.
According to a 'fireside chat' with Lowe, he stated he would like to see the rest of the Larry games brought up to date as well as a new Larry. Assuming this first remake is financially successful (which it appears to be thus far), I'd say the possibility of Replay\Codemasters pursing remakes of the rest stands a good chance.
A new larry however is a whole different beast. the guys doing the art for this remake are from Israel I believe, and it is quite easy to draw newer graphics based on existing screens. A new game would require concept art, story outlines, puzzle development, dialog, etc... which is quite a bit more intensive than these remakes.
I don't know why there would need to be a remake of LSL7, or even LSL6 (there is a hires SVGA version out there)... Albeit, they do need improved patching for modern computers...
But I would like to see a make/remake of the mysterious LSL4, .
I loved the Conquest games. They did a great job of mixing historical information with entertaining gameplay. I didn't get to play Conquests of the Longbow until a few years ago, and I was surprised by the depth of possible endings.
When they speak of remaking "all" the Larry games, I'm really not sure what that encompasses Considering the new art style mimics LSL7, it does not make sense to redo that game other than from a 'getting it to run on modern hardware' perspective. I would not be interested in funding that however, as dosbox works just fine for me.
In the second fireside chat Al specifically talks about LSL4. He has joked in the past that he did it as a joke, simply because he was poking fun at the sequential nature of all the sierra games at the time. Another time I heard him say that by the time it would release, all the other sierra games would be on part 5 by that time, and they wanted to catch up. In this chat however, I think he presents the most plausible explanation. Essentially Larry 3 wrapped everything up very nicely. He said he didn't really know how to begin part 4, and one day it occured to him that if he skipped pat 4 he culd start Larry anywhere he wanted with a wink towards part 4 as where it all went wrong.
On the other hand, Larry was happy at the end of all his games, and that never stopped Lowe from finding ways to make him a single loser again next time around.
Other than part 2 and 3 which geographically relate to each other, the rest of the games could technically be played in any order and you would never really know it, save for a short sequence in the beginning that *ruins* or explains away the last game.
The only thing LSL5 lacks that would make it a perfectly acceptable part 4 is some brief line in the beginning that says something like, "Larry's software business never took off and his wife left him."
Now suddenly it picks up right where part 3 left off.
"Essentially Larry 3 wrapped everything up very nicely. He said he didn't really know how to begin part 4, and one day it occured to him that if he skipped pat 4 he culd start Larry anywhere he wanted with a wink towards part 4 as where it all went wrong."
Right, that's essentially his explanation in the Larry Scrapbook and the Official Book of Larry, IIRC.
One of the plot lines in LSL5, IIRC, was the stolen game disks of LSL4, by one of the villains in the game.
We made it! We've reached $650,000 with less than one hour to go. That means a new location, with new characters and puzzles, more plot and jokes and a new girl to woo!
Okay - I am a backer on this. I am. But this whole Kickstarter Campaign has been a bit of a shit show from the start.
Kickstarters rules explicitly say that it is NOT used for fundraising for a company - which is exactly what this thing started out as. A Kickstarter for "Pinkerton Road", a game company. So there's that.
Then, they say they have three ideas of what to do, and give vague ideas about that. Eventually, the choose Moebius, which is the most interesting looking choice of all (in this gamers opinon).
Still, it's a loosey goosey campaign. Basically predicated on the fact that it's "Jane Jensen's Idea".
That's crap - to go and ask people for money like that, without a solid plan? It's crap. And NOW, they're telling us that they're making a game, which they won't tell us the name of, but they still want our money?
This thing fuggin' reeks, and though I'm contributing merely because I want to see more adventure games produced and enhance the community as a whole, this campaign has been run poorly.
Bt, those are reasons why I believe her campaign hasn't made a lot lot of money yet.
Seriously, she only has ~4k backers at present, while Al Lowe has >14k of them (on Kickstarter alone.)
More than a few people have said they didn't originally know what her kickstarter was for, and that all comes down to bad marketing strategy (not the least of which is having a front page banner image that shows nothing about the campaign more than Jane's photo.)
EDIT: Also, concerning the campaign's main video, it originally followed her daughter "trying to find Jane to get an interview," but Jane didn't even appear in the video until like 2/3 or more of the way through.
I agree-- her campaign really has been managed poorly.
I have to agree. I didn't plegde my money among the first people, as I really had hard time grasping what I was going to get with the money. There was talk about three games, but the amount the were gathering was so small, I didn't think it was realistic.
I thought it was pretty clear at the start. Jane Jensen was wanting to get at least one adventure game made. That's all I needed to understand. I went straight for the $50 level because it offered the most for my budget, with at least one game and a kid's ebook/game included. The additions to that level have only sweetened the deal, plus the guarantee of a second adventure game.
It's certainly a hell of a lot less ambiguous than Tim Schafer's kickstarter.
Yeah, they said they wanted to make one adventure game, but it should have been clear from the start. This thing was just launched into, and decisions were made along the way as to what would happen. It's just a bit slipshod. I know they have big ideas, but they should have picked one game from the start - talked about how they needed funding for that game, and if it was succesful it would "Kickstart" a company and the concept of Community Funded Gaming.
They made it seem from the start that they were making more than one game hence the wording that you get the choice of ONE game they make during the year... or higher tiers get ALL the games that year... Pretty much implies that we would be funding more then one game...
Now they are saying they got some other funding from elsewhere to make game X and that we are just paying for Moebius and we are getting game x as a bonus..... We were already getting two games... Should that secret funder and secret game be separate from the games we are funding anyway? What happened to the second game the Kickstarters where funding?
also... Josh Mandel and Al Lowe mentioned Jane's kickstarter multiple times asking people to help fund her project as well, I do not think anyone from Jane's camp returned the favor.. sort of tarnishes my enthusiasm in Jane's project to be honest.
Still looking forward to it.. and still funding generously ($100) but I sort of feel like they are purposely misleading us.... I think they want people to think they got the rights to make Gabriel Knight as their game x to try and get people to pledge more money.
I am looking forward to her games whatever they may be.. but I do not like being taken for a fool.
They made it seem from the start that they were making more than one game hence the wording that you get the choice of ONE game they make during the year... or higher tiers get ALL the games that year... Pretty much implies that we would be funding more then one game...
At the start of the campaign only one game was promised if the main Kickstarter target was achieved and if $600k was raised then a second game would be made as well, out of the 2 remaining project ideas (what was left after Mobius was chosen as the first game). Once it look like it'll barely hit $300k let alone 600 I guess they thought that they would rather get outside funding for the second game rather than hope they double the Kickstarter fund.
As the 2nd game is being funded from an external publisher then I would imagine it's less likely that it'll be either of the two remaining game ideas (if it is one of them then it's probably Gray Matter 2 as that would be a better choice for an outside publisher). Simply there isn't a lot we know about the mystery project and that's probably due to the fact that an external publisher is funding it. Hopefully we'll find out if it's a publisher pushed idea or an idea that Jane has taken to a publisher and they've said yes to it. As much as I would like Gabriel Knight 4 I highly doubt it'll happen this year - I feel Activision are a bit more stingy and restrictive when it comes to lending out their licences.
Comments
Still the most active ones (as in most active edits in last six months to a year, and number of editors) so far are the King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, Police Quest, and Conquests wikis...
Freddy Pharkas wiki is growing (mostly stubs at the moment), but still has a ways to go...
Strangely, haven't seen much action on the Gabriel Knight or Laura Bow... But I'll likely continue to add to them, when I have more time, and I have a chance to play through them again...
Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy, creators of the Space Quest series of adventure games by Sierra Online, today announced they were gettin' the band back together, under the (Two) "Guys from Andromeda" nickname they coined for themselves so long ago.
There isn't much yet to announce in the way of funding, game direction or details, but the Two Guys do need your help. The video is just a spread-the-word effort trying to trundle up social media support for their project through Facebook or Twitter or YouTube. The company is also hiring.
http://kotaku.com/5902030/space-quest-creators-reunite-and-promise-a-new-spaceventure
http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29004
There are a number of explanations one can identify as to why DFA attracted so much money, but I'm not sure Mixnmojo is one of them. I don't really know, though -- I've heard of the site, used it for reference a few times over the years, but never as a source of news or interaction. Double Fine had its own fanbase and network that, I would have to guess, was more important than any "LucasArts community" was to the success of DFA.
I'm not sure I can think about all this in terms of "the future of Sierra". Is that really the thing to be desired here? If the success of these projects depends on crowdfunding, then ultimately they'll have to sink or swim on their own merits. I don't see how I have a stake in the idea of Sierra as a unified whole, absent the coming forward of someone with the necessary resources and talent to make that a realistic option. And it seems kind of late for that now there are three sets of former Sierra designers working independently and the KQ license is already held by Telltale.
At the same time, I would find it convenient if there was a website feed aggregating news -- major news only -- about all the projects involving former Sierra designers and properties (even including fangames). I subscribe to Telltale's blog and signed up for all the media from Andromeda, but I just don't have time to wade through every little post from the other two commercial projects, in which I have only marginal interest; I'd still like to keep loose tabs on them, though.
Yeah, TTG has sat on KQ for 14 months now -- if it hasn't already lost its novelty, it certainly has now.
Bt
I don't know but the way I see it, the reason why LucasArts communities went thru the sky while most Sierra communities crash and burned is because of this network and unity among LucasArts fans, from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to adventure games and Double Fine and Telltale and Autumn Moon, they've reached critical mass and now have so many implicated contributors and fan material creators that their machine is self reliant, they create so much that more fans join their forums than fans leave it.
Sierra instead needed a dedicated forum for every Sierra related site and project, and every time a site stopped being updated or a project was canceled or completed, everyone went home. No critical mass achieved. And now Tim and Ron could overfund their adventure games projects forever* while people like Al, Leslie, Josh and Jane can barely make it past their Kickstarter goal in the same span of time, and I think that's partly because we lack the machine LucasArts fans have.
Just because we're scared of mixing together fans of Larry and fans of King's Quest, even if most of them like more than one series, myself I grew up playing Police Quest I, Space Quest III, Gold Rush and Conquests Of Camelot on my dad's knees, I was a total fanboy of Goblins and Incredible Machine during my childhood, I played the crap out of Castle Of Dr Brain, EcoQuest, Blue Force and VGA Space Quest and King's Quest games with my cousin, I was grounded for blowing up our monthly thirty hours "bandwidth" limit because I spend a whole night pirating early Police Quest and King's Quest games when we got the internet, I got hooked to Leisure Suit Larry and Quest For Glory during my teenage years, I discovered and played them remakes and fan games, I tried to finish both Gabriel Knight and Laura Bow three times without succeeding in between all this mess, in the last years I got around to play Pepper's Adventure In Time and Conquests For The Longbow, Return of the Incredible Machine for the first time ever, I've watched Sierra Let's Play myself to sleep for a whole year now, and I'm currently playing The Black Cauldron and Vohaul Strikes Back and I've had a blast all these years, and I know I'm not alone.
I don't even identify myself as a King's Quest fan, there's plenty of other Sierra titles and series I loved much more yet I still find myself lurking on King's Quest related sites and forums, including this very forum, late at night reading posts and articles because I like Sierra as a whole. I like reading and talking about it and its games.
And I discover the SpaceQuest.net revival project and all I see is squandered potential because, damn, that site was so damn awesome and informative and so well edited and friggin' entertaining and and all I can think of is why not expend it to cover every damn Sierra, Dynamix, Coktel, fan games and former Sierra employees titles, give these fine games the SpaceQuest.net treatment, with scans of official hint books, box art, manuals, soundtrack, easter eggs, cameos, death lists, FAQs, behind the scene tidbits and interviews, it would be just like the LucasArts Secret History craze, except with Sierra.
Why do I have to check a dozen different forums to keep up with Sierra related news when we could have a site dedicated to all thing Sierra, for both official and fan related news, gather every Sierra fans under in one forum, reach critical mass, get the machine running and discuss and create and celebrate Sierra games like we did in the good old days. Such project would have a tremendous impact on the Sierra community as a whole, and unlike a fan game, it's not something contributors and editors would work on for a decade in secret, it's something that would be updated constantly and fan reaction would be instantaneous.
[/rambling]
Anyway, I think my point has been made, if there was one in the first place. I'm spending ways too much time reading about games and not enough time actually playing them these days, so this will be the last time I'll bring up that subject.
By the way, MusicallyInspired or Collector, since I can't be arsed to register on a forum for a single post and since I have Vohaul Strikes Back to finish, one of you gotta convince Frans of SpaceQuest.net to give fan material, (that means fan games but also noteworthy Let's Play, fan arts, articles, analysis, retrospectives, interviews, like the one Josh Mandel had with Matt Chat...) the coverage and treatment they're due on his site, to help spreading the word about them and encourage creative people to create more otherwise as soon he'll be done with his site update and run out of the official material, the Space Quest community will crash and burn once again.
* It's no jealousy, I can't wait to play Double Fine Adventure, I just wish the future Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest and Quest For Glory games have the same production values as Double Fine Adventure.
Uh...I think you're neglecting the fact that Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert both continued to make successful video games professionally all the way through the present day, while all the ex-Sierra guys got out of the business in the late 90s. I'm fairly certain that has significantly more to do with the success of their Kickstarter than any imagined Lucasarts fanboy unity vs. Sierra fanboy disparity.
Things like this are so dependent on having the right people, the right project, at the right time. Fortunately, it looks like the Larry proposal will do fine; not sure about Jensen's but there's still a lot of time left. If Autumn Moon goes forward with something, that could be a test of our competing hypotheses
Regardless of any impact on current and future Kickstarters, I support what you're saying about how it would be to have a (cyber)home for the Sierra fan community. To be honest, I always thought there was one -- out there, somewhere -- that I never bothered to look for. I tend to like discussing meta-issues and trends in gaming more than the games themselves
If TTG has the courage, the intestinal fortitude (and, if I may, the intellectual wherewithal) to make a proper King's Quest game, worthy of inclusion with the traditional gameplay style of the KQ franchise, such a gathering may very well happen.
This is to say that I was drawn here when Tales of Monkey Island came out (having never spent any significant amount of time on other LucasArts-related forums previously) and I haven't left. Now, we still have to hold our breaths on this, because Telltale has been moving way over toward appeasing the casual market as of late, so there's no guarantee that they will target the hardcore old-school adventure gamer market with this.
And the reason SQ.Net doesn't turn into a "Sierra.net" is because, honestly, most SQ fans (Frans included, I believe) simply do not care about the other Sierra series as much. Sierra had so many more games than LucasArts did (adventure-wise). I still also don't believe LucasArts' success was due to Mixnmojo. Mixnmojo was created BECAUSE of the following LucasArts had. Sierra's community is an entirely different animal and may never be the same way. In a way I'm kind of happy it's not the same. It'd be far different than it actually is now in that case. Although the idea of a super mega Sierra site is nice to think about. I remember a Sierra website someone sent me. It had so much content and information on every Sierra game ever it was a fantastic resource to get information from. Easter eggs, video trailers (if they existed), links to soundtracks, all the different versions, what compilation packs they were included in, you name it it was there. All the way from Mystery House to whatever the last game they published in 1999 was. However, it's not online anymore sadly.
Is there perhaps another URL for the site you're talking about, because according to my internet that one redirects to somewhere not remotely related to Space Quest (unless there's an FMV version of SQX: Latex Babes of Estros I don't otherwise know about it). :eek:
And be sure to check out the forums for the actual discussions taking place regarding the merging, http://forum.spacequest.net
That would be spacequest.net
Bt
I really hope it turns out great and ends up selling well once it's released in the general market.
Five or six years ago, Sierra and it's adventure games seemed totally dead and buried outside of fan games and our memories; The developers of the classics we love were seemingly retired for good, great adventure gaming seemed a thing of the past, relegated to a tiny niche market...But now we have a good number of the greatest Sierra designers and writers out working on new adventure games, we have on our hands probably the most interest in the adventure genre since the late '90s, we have Telltale working on a new, official KQ game that won't be a total perversion (ala Vivendi's LSL sequels), it's a damn good time to be a Sierra or adventure game fan.
Long live the legacy of Sierra, and long may this revival last! I wish nothing but success to Jane Jensen, Al Lowe, the Two Guys from Andromeda, Josh Mandel, and any and all Sierra alumni who have put themselves back into the game. And I thank them all for the treasures and memories they helped give us in the past through their creativity.
And in closing, I thank ALL of the fan game groups who have kept Sierra's spirit alive throughout these long years--AGDI, Phoenix, IA, and every fan who ever penned a fan story or did a piece of fan art. All of you are as much responsible for this revival as any Kickstarter campaign could ever be.
Merlin: You brought me back. Your love brought me back. Back to where you are now. In the land of dreams.
Bt
A new larry however is a whole different beast. the guys doing the art for this remake are from Israel I believe, and it is quite easy to draw newer graphics based on existing screens. A new game would require concept art, story outlines, puzzle development, dialog, etc... which is quite a bit more intensive than these remakes.
But I would like to see a make/remake of the mysterious LSL4,
Or maybe something based around Ivanhoe!
When they speak of remaking "all" the Larry games, I'm really not sure what that encompasses Considering the new art style mimics LSL7, it does not make sense to redo that game other than from a 'getting it to run on modern hardware' perspective. I would not be interested in funding that however, as dosbox works just fine for me.
In the second fireside chat Al specifically talks about LSL4. He has joked in the past that he did it as a joke, simply because he was poking fun at the sequential nature of all the sierra games at the time. Another time I heard him say that by the time it would release, all the other sierra games would be on part 5 by that time, and they wanted to catch up. In this chat however, I think he presents the most plausible explanation. Essentially Larry 3 wrapped everything up very nicely. He said he didn't really know how to begin part 4, and one day it occured to him that if he skipped pat 4 he culd start Larry anywhere he wanted with a wink towards part 4 as where it all went wrong.
On the other hand, Larry was happy at the end of all his games, and that never stopped Lowe from finding ways to make him a single loser again next time around.
Other than part 2 and 3 which geographically relate to each other, the rest of the games could technically be played in any order and you would never really know it, save for a short sequence in the beginning that *ruins* or explains away the last game.
The only thing LSL5 lacks that would make it a perfectly acceptable part 4 is some brief line in the beginning that says something like, "Larry's software business never took off and his wife left him."
Now suddenly it picks up right where part 3 left off.
Right, that's essentially his explanation in the Larry Scrapbook and the Official Book of Larry, IIRC.
One of the plot lines in LSL5, IIRC, was the stolen game disks of LSL4, by one of the villains in the game.
Jane's campaign is getting really close--plus she announced today that there's definitely going to be a second game this year!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1005365109/jane-jensens-pinkerton-road-2012-2013-csg/posts/220771
Really? Mystery Game X?
Okay - I am a backer on this. I am. But this whole Kickstarter Campaign has been a bit of a shit show from the start.
Kickstarters rules explicitly say that it is NOT used for fundraising for a company - which is exactly what this thing started out as. A Kickstarter for "Pinkerton Road", a game company. So there's that.
Then, they say they have three ideas of what to do, and give vague ideas about that. Eventually, the choose Moebius, which is the most interesting looking choice of all (in this gamers opinon).
Still, it's a loosey goosey campaign. Basically predicated on the fact that it's "Jane Jensen's Idea".
That's crap - to go and ask people for money like that, without a solid plan? It's crap. And NOW, they're telling us that they're making a game, which they won't tell us the name of, but they still want our money?
This thing fuggin' reeks, and though I'm contributing merely because I want to see more adventure games produced and enhance the community as a whole, this campaign has been run poorly.
Bt
Seriously, she only has ~4k backers at present, while Al Lowe has >14k of them (on Kickstarter alone.)
More than a few people have said they didn't originally know what her kickstarter was for, and that all comes down to bad marketing strategy (not the least of which is having a front page banner image that shows nothing about the campaign more than Jane's photo.)
EDIT: Also, concerning the campaign's main video, it originally followed her daughter "trying to find Jane to get an interview," but Jane didn't even appear in the video until like 2/3 or more of the way through.
I agree-- her campaign really has been managed poorly.
It's certainly a hell of a lot less ambiguous than Tim Schafer's kickstarter.
Bt
Now they are saying they got some other funding from elsewhere to make game X and that we are just paying for Moebius and we are getting game x as a bonus..... We were already getting two games... Should that secret funder and secret game be separate from the games we are funding anyway? What happened to the second game the Kickstarters where funding?
also... Josh Mandel and Al Lowe mentioned Jane's kickstarter multiple times asking people to help fund her project as well, I do not think anyone from Jane's camp returned the favor.. sort of tarnishes my enthusiasm in Jane's project to be honest.
Still looking forward to it.. and still funding generously ($100) but I sort of feel like they are purposely misleading us.... I think they want people to think they got the rights to make Gabriel Knight as their game x to try and get people to pledge more money.
I am looking forward to her games whatever they may be.. but I do not like being taken for a fool.
At the start of the campaign only one game was promised if the main Kickstarter target was achieved and if $600k was raised then a second game would be made as well, out of the 2 remaining project ideas (what was left after Mobius was chosen as the first game). Once it look like it'll barely hit $300k let alone 600 I guess they thought that they would rather get outside funding for the second game rather than hope they double the Kickstarter fund.
As the 2nd game is being funded from an external publisher then I would imagine it's less likely that it'll be either of the two remaining game ideas (if it is one of them then it's probably Gray Matter 2 as that would be a better choice for an outside publisher). Simply there isn't a lot we know about the mystery project and that's probably due to the fact that an external publisher is funding it. Hopefully we'll find out if it's a publisher pushed idea or an idea that Jane has taken to a publisher and they've said yes to it. As much as I would like Gabriel Knight 4 I highly doubt it'll happen this year - I feel Activision are a bit more stingy and restrictive when it comes to lending out their licences.