New Direction is Best
First time poster here!
I'm now 31 and I've played almost all of Sierra's games since I was a kid (yes even Larry... we were cool back then... and how else do you think I learned how to play Blackjack!)
I loved every moment of these games and they really challenged the mind. They hold a special place in my heart.
However, we should get with the times.
King's Quest is a controversial series due to the loyal fanbase; I know it will be hard to please everyone. But I don't think going for a 2D classic game will cut it this time.
I think going for a 3D (please don't kill me) Mask of Eternity style'd game is the way to go, and adding more classic elements from the older games into it.
Think about it; a POLISHED free roam 3D game with classic item hunt and use mechanics with MINOR or REDUCED action sequences with a little more mature themes/humor would be pretty good if pulled off.
I don't want to feel nostalgic; if I want to I'll just replay the games. I want a new direction.
As far as puzzles, they should be challenging but fair. No dead-ends, but death sequences are ok (to provide a sense of urgency).
The best games this new generation for me were Demon's Souls & Dark Souls, simply because the mechanics of minimal plot, addictive combat, and challenge created a great formula. Every mistake you made was yours and you learned from it.
So putting this philosophy into the new game would surely be helpful.
Sorry for the long post!
I'm now 31 and I've played almost all of Sierra's games since I was a kid (yes even Larry... we were cool back then... and how else do you think I learned how to play Blackjack!)
I loved every moment of these games and they really challenged the mind. They hold a special place in my heart.
However, we should get with the times.
King's Quest is a controversial series due to the loyal fanbase; I know it will be hard to please everyone. But I don't think going for a 2D classic game will cut it this time.
I think going for a 3D (please don't kill me) Mask of Eternity style'd game is the way to go, and adding more classic elements from the older games into it.
Think about it; a POLISHED free roam 3D game with classic item hunt and use mechanics with MINOR or REDUCED action sequences with a little more mature themes/humor would be pretty good if pulled off.
I don't want to feel nostalgic; if I want to I'll just replay the games. I want a new direction.
As far as puzzles, they should be challenging but fair. No dead-ends, but death sequences are ok (to provide a sense of urgency).
The best games this new generation for me were Demon's Souls & Dark Souls, simply because the mechanics of minimal plot, addictive combat, and challenge created a great formula. Every mistake you made was yours and you learned from it.
So putting this philosophy into the new game would surely be helpful.
Sorry for the long post!
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
I would not be interested to play a 2D game; that is too old school and is basically fan service to please the few hardcore KQ fans.
The classic KQ games have not aged well either; I replayed KQ 2-6 in the last few months and there's so much cheese. MoE is not a perfect game yet the mature themes resonate more with me now than seeing Red Riding Hood or the 3 bears (again, call it blasphemy if you want but I'm not interested in children's fairy tales anymore).
I'm not gonna speculate what they will do as that's another topic... but I personally feel it would do more harm to recreate a classic... that's why they are classics in the first place. Leave them be the jewels they are and make a new game with the elements of the series as a guide.
A good recent example would be Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Again, not a perfect game (it had some pacing issues and some annoying sequences), yet I really did enjoy it and I think Mercury Steam did a fine job. It's the best selling Castlevania and they are now doing TWO sequels (Mirrors of Fate and LoS 2).
I hope TTG can take this in consideration... make a reboot that is worthy enough to capture the hearts of the fans.
Oy...there's that word again. "Gritty."
Sigh...I'll leave that one alone for now. I know Anakin likes dark and gritty stories--he can probably field that one.
Let me ask you this--would you also never go see a 2D animated movie? Is 2D animation also "too old school" for you?
And some food for thought: I would argue that any new gameplay direction would mean jack shit if Telltale couldn't first capture the tone that the series is known for. This is actually the one area where I have pretty solid confidence in them though--by far the least of my worries.
As for a you're suggestions I think one thing we CAN agree on when KQ was done right it was an adventure game... KQ doesnt need to be MoE turned Skyrim.. Its ok for it to be nostalgic and "outdated" the fans that want this game love the old games as they are.. otherwise you wouldn't have people making fan games in the same decades old style... It isn't broke in my opinion.. why fix it?
Will TTG make a great KQ game? I dunno.. I think they certainly have it in them, I think they will, but time will tell... I am looking forward to it.
I don't want another TSL, especially an official one...
Now, I'm fairly certain Telltale won't do the game in 2D, mainly because it's expensive and somewhat less efficient than skinning 3D characters and environments, and part of their episodic model is low costs and fast production times.
Next effin' question.
Bt
Oh I'm sorry... I didn't know it was such a hated word around here. I guess I have no choice but to accept that the next KQ will have you save Pocahontas and play pick the flowers with Snow White.
It's not an interactive medium, therefore there is little that can be done to actually progress it other than visual technology.
Why can't a series evolve with the times? You have some good results, GTA, Metal Gear, Castlevania... in fact, it's games that never try something new that I don't play anymore (JRPGs, Mario games, etc).
Why do you want to stay locked in the past? We might as well stick to the steam locomotive... it ran fine and it got you where you needed!
MoE was a bold step forward, however flawed it is.
Again, I point out that there are 2D adventure games which came out recently that are beautiful and are very good games. If people complain about The Whispered World, they complain about the fake choice at the end or else the melancholy attitude of the protagonist, not the fact that it's 2D.
If you try to say that 3D games sell better, I would counter by saying that games that are marketed well sell better and that that is more important than being forced to use 3D.
I'm not saying KQ should or shouldn't use 3D (although 3D a la Sam & Max is better than 3D a la MoE). I'm saying it's not required to create a good game that people love and that sells well.
The reason why Mario and Zelda games are still popular, despite using a similar formula for all their respective games, is that while each game has changes to the gameplay, they don't make too many changes too quickly and keep to a familiar tone for the franchise. Mask of Eternity made a whole lot of changes to the gameplay all at once (eg. protagonist not in Royal Family; 3D; over-the-shoulder camera; emphasis on combat; etc.) to its detriment. If these changes were to be made successfully, they should have been more gradual in the franchise rather than changing a bunch of things all at once.
No one complained when Metal Gear moved to 3D with MGS for example. Now playing MG1 or 2 is nostalgia factor only.
MoE was not a polished game... if it was then I'm sure things wouldn't have been the way they are now.
Gradual change has also to do with the available technology. In the 80's, there were technical limitations. Now, we have almost infinite choices... it's all about how competent of a developer you are.
You can blame the audience, most gamers were moving away from adventure games at the time, wanted more... Adventure Game community itself had become a niche. That niche wasn't enough to make the games worth making for the companies. Companies were about profit margin.
It also didn't help that Sierra was on its last fumes at the time... In its final years of collapse... and KQ8 was actually pretty much their best selling game, after Half-life (very little could touch Halflife)
For comparison Gabriel Knight 3 only sold about a third of KQ8. QFG5 was pretty much just described 'failure' in sales (I haven't read if they released the number it sold or not)... As far as Sierra was concerned that wasn't a success... From an adventure game developers perspective that didn't see the kind of sales that other genres were receicing, 300,000 only seemed like a lot to Jane Jensen. But Tomb Raider (for example, as a popular franchise back them) was easily selling around a million copies per game back then!
Doom and Halflife? FPS shooters probably easily much more than that. Companies were about the bottom line, and public demand... They wanted to make what the public wanted... Niches were not the direction to look. That's why companies left adventures in the dust, and genre basically 'died'. It's still alive in the niche market, and somewhat in the 'casual' gamer market now, but its nowhere near as successful as any Call of Duty or Deus Ex type franchises!
I'm not going to enter a debate about KQ8 though since that's not the point of my original message.
If developers don't take bold steps then of course the game could suck.
I refer again to Demons/Dark Souls; the dev From Software basically made a niche game but the formula was so successful they are some the highest rated games this gen that are not designed for the mass public; yet both sold over a million copies each, and won high acclaims and many devs such as Epic Games are now trying to go in that direction.
TTG should strive to not be mediocre with this title; there is way too much potrntial to just take the simple way out and make a 2D game.
Personally, I'd like to see King Graham operating in a KQ 7 mode, with humor and personality. And I'd like to see some nods and references to the series' history. But I don't want the new series to have too much unquestioning respect for what has gone before, either. Let the new King's Quest take some chances -- it's not like the old games are going to disappear if the new one takes risks that don't ultimately work out. I'm expecting a traditional adventure game, but I hope the tone and look surprises me.
The trick wasn't just to stick to a single group of fans, but draw in 'new fans'.
You read most of the reviews for each game in the series, it was often the long time fans who were the most criticle with each additional release!
They were also the biggest to complaint about the KQ1SCI remake, and one of the main reasonsy why it failed (it didn't really see outside fandom at all)! The old fans didn't like her tampering with the games, and wanted new ones instead.
There is a nich of newer fans that like the KQ1SCI remake now, but it wasn't like that back in the day. It can be seen as one of the 'failures' that lead to the rise and fall of the KQ in popularity over time.
The real question is whether or not the gameplay itself will have any substance to it, given Telltale's recent insistence that interactive movies are the wave of the future. :rolleyes:
I think the "interactive movie" genre has been proven not to work very well, many times over at this point.
But I am intrigued by recent efforts at interactive storytelling with more subtle kinds of branching and longer-term impacts. While Mass Effect didn't ultimately pull it off in the end, and most of The Walking Dead remains to be seen, I think THAT can still be a legitimate goal. I'd like to see player choices have consequences beyond the "now I can't finish the game" sort.
Most of the old-school games were ultimately linear plotwise, aside from natural variations introduced by the player's own approach (which for me usually consists of backtracking after realizing I should have been more persistent about some earlier puzzle, or in the case of King's Quest III, missing key bits of dialogue altogether!)
Bt
Fucking AMAZING.
I take it all back.
Bt
Well if I remember right, in KQ2 you can kill the lion (for less points) with sword at the end. Also I want to print that pic out and hang it on my wall
Graham using a sword on a snake is a solution to a puzzle.
Solid Snake shooting a single guard in the face is not.