The Silver Lining thread

[Blackthorne519]

Originally Posted by Anakin Skywalker

King's Quest 3: To Heir is Human (a play, ironically, on Shakepeare's "To err is human; to forgive, divine.")

Just to let ya know, that quote is from Alexander Pope, not Shakespeare.

I know how you dig history, and if you haven't read any Pope yet - do yourself a favor and pour over some. You'll dig it.


Bt

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by KuroShiro

And concerning Shakespeare... well, there was a reason he titled his plays things like "Hamlet" rather than "'Lo! My murd'rous Uncle doth stab at me and sparrows fall with special providence!".

Love this! Hahaha

[der_ketzer]

Originally Posted by caeska

Not only will we get more of the action sequence goodness we had in episode 3

God no. Please no!

[tomimt]

Originally Posted by Blackthorne519

Constructive criticism? Rein yourselves in a bit. Show some restraint in writing. What you leave out is often more important than what you leave in. Brevity is the soul of wit. That's honest, constructive criticism.

You've got a beautiful looking game, with wonderful sound and music - but the storytelling leaves something to be desired. The plot elements are interesting, but the execution is overly self-indulgent.

Bt

QFT

Thw way story is told now in the Silver Lining drove me off from the game. It has many good elements in it, but the narrative really brought it down for me.

[MusicallyInspired]

Meh...it's just a fangame. They can do whatever they want. If they had gotten the King's Quest license from ActiVision to produce commercial titles, THEN I'd be the first to jump the gun and defend its innocence.

[Cez]

Originally Posted by Blackthorne519

Constructive criticism? Rein yourselves in a bit. Show some restraint in writing. What you leave out is often more important than what you leave in. Brevity is the soul of wit. That's honest, constructive criticism.

You've got a beautiful looking game, with wonderful sound and music - but the storytelling leaves something to be desired. The plot elements are interesting, but the execution is overly self-indulgent.

Bt

Duly noted.

Looking at it now, I actually think our cutscene material is very strong, while our conversations with characters/narrations could use a lot of editing. But you know what they say about hindsight, right? I was too in love with my prose, that's very true.

The conversations needed an editing pass that they never got, mainly because we were scrambling to finish the script in time for when recordings started. So, Katie did a great job, but only in fixing my broken English --since it's not my native tongue and back then, it was very broken.

With narrations, we took the wrong turn when the demo feedback requested for more. I think we had the right amount back then, as we never received this type of feedback then. And then I unleashed a self-indulgent beast I should have never released.

Regardless, I think we have a strong storyline. I also think that thanks to the feedback, we've managed to make the new elements that we've included in every episode very strong and fans favorite, because we've now dedicated the time to write the right amount of text and take our time to properly edit stuff --noted by sections like the brevity of the tower narrations, or the conversations with Lt Shorty, or even the ending cutscene to Episode 3, all which have received good amount of feedback as they were edited and re-edited and touched and re-touched until they felt right.

Episode 5 was fully written taking all the feedback in consideration. The flowery prose is still there, but only used when necessary to keep up with the story tone. Gone are the long, long narrations except in few cases, where, again, the story demands more detail. And gone are also the unnecessary conversations --helped by the notion that Episode 5 is very desolate.

So we do appreciate the feedback. It has helped immensely to make every episode better and better. Episode 3 has received a lot of praise and it's because we listened to this feedback, and we'll continue to listen as we go, but there are also things we cannot change at this point without having to cause a major rework. There's also the fact that the story's tone, for what The Silver Lining is, is also one we are extremely happy with, and that is something that may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Thanks and sorry for the long email

[MusicallyInspired]

Applause-deserving post deserves applause.

[Blackthorne519]

Right on Cez. That was a great post.


Bt

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by Cez

The conversations needed an editing pass that they never got, mainly because we were scrambling to finish the script in time for when recordings started. So, Katie did a great job, but only in fixing my broken English --since it's not my native tongue and back then, it was very broken.

With narrations, we took the wrong turn when the demo feedback requested for more. I think we had the right amount back then, as we never received this type of feedback then. And then I unleashed a self-indulgent beast I should have never released.

*Sobs*

Thank you. THANK YOU!

With that admission, I can now die happy.

My life is complete.

[BagginsKQ]

I'm glad to hear, of these improvements, and looking forward to playing the new episode...

I know I was very vocal about those issues!

[KatieHal]

The "beast" being let loose is why there's a joke about long narrations somewhere in, I think, the IoW Garden--I was sick to death of editing them, deleted one and wrote that instead!

I still give Cez grief about that damn grapes narration in the IoW garden, heh. :P

[Cez]

I will never hear the end of the grapes story

[KatieHal]

No, Cez--WE will never hear the end of the grapes story!

[caeska]

And now episode 4 has November 6th as a release date, according to this trailer.
This is unacceptable. When they say it's going to release it October, they had damn well better release it in October too, and by an October release I do not mean October 31st.
If I could be arsed to make an account, I'd go over to the PoS forums and tell them exactly what I think.

[MusicallyInspired]

Why? Because you gave them your hard-earned internet cookies and you're entitled to "customer service"? You're not a customer, you're a fan. Wait your turn.

And if you were being sarcastic, then redirect this to whoever isn't.

[wilco64256]

Originally Posted by caeska

And now episode 4 has November 6th as a release date, according to this trailer.
This is unacceptable. When they say it's going to release it October, they had damn well better release it in October too, and by an October release I do not mean October 31st.
If I could be arsed to make an account, I'd go over to the PoS forums and tell them exactly what I think.

We had quite a bit of other stuff going on in October that ate into our time a little bit and we wanted to make sure we released a solid Episode. Since you don't even have an account, I'm not sure why you care so much. But if you did have an account you might have noticed the frustration that came up when we released Episode 3 without giving ourselves the proper amount of breathing room and there were some fairly annoying bugs. We have resolved all of those issues for this release and want to just be sure that we have a few days dedicated only to testing before we throw this episode out to the public.

And you're the only person I've seen who's even complained that instead of releasing the game this weekend we had a big party to announce our first major commercial title with guests from Fable Foundry showing off some really awesome stuff they're working on, various presentations, and even a visit from Jane Jensen. I guess if you really would have preferred a buggy and unfinished game over that then that's your own preference. Oh well.

[caeska]

Releasing a bug-free game is all well and good but what annoys me is you promising a release within a certain time frame and not upholding it.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who was mentally prepared for an October release, and coming with a trailer on the second-last of the month and giving a completely different release date is the equivalent of you telling your customer base "screw you".
It would have gone a long way of alleviating the frustration if you would have just informed the public of developments and posted some updates, but you didn't even do that. I don't think that's fair.

[MusicallyInspired]

Right. "Screw you" was totally the intended message here.

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by caeska

Releasing a bug-free game is all well and good but what annoys me is you promising a release within a certain time frame and not upholding it.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who was mentally prepared for an October release, and coming with a trailer on the second-last of the month and giving a completely different release date is the equivalent of you telling your customer base "screw you".
It would have gone a long way of alleviating the frustration if you would have just informed the public of developments and posted some updates, but you didn't even do that. I don't think that's fair.

And you continue to come across as a whiny little bitch. The fact that the release date is literally a week away from your original bitchy post really makes you sound like an impatient little child. Might I suggest growing up and getting a life outside of complaining about not getting your free game sooner?

[caeska]

Originally Posted by Lambonius

And you continue to come across as a whiny little bitch. The fact that the release date is literally a week away from your original bitchy post really makes you sound like an impatient little child. Might I suggest growing up and getting a life outside of complaining about not getting your free game sooner?

Oh, so we're resorting to insulting people now?
First of all, everyone's got a right to state their opinion. And secondly, yes, it is a big deal. Not getting what you're paying for always is.
I won't accept this kind off treatment.