The Silver Lining thread

[Blackthorne519]

Originally Posted by Cez

Thanks!!

been too sleep depraved for the past two weeks!

Hahah, sleep depraved? Have you been committing base and vile acts in your sleep again, Cez? Methinks you're sleep deprived!

Bt

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by Blackthorne519

Hahah, sleep depraved? Have you been committing base and vile acts in your sleep again, Cez?

YES! He's been raping my childhood!!! haha

[Cez]

LOL, Exactly, Lamb! That's precisely what I meant!

Man, I need to go to bed now...!

[KatieHal]

Episode 4 is now available for one and all!

Head on over, download and enjoy!

http://www.tsl-game.com/episode_iv.php

[der_ketzer]

yay. Downloading it now.

[Mr. Freeze]

Telltale, take notes. Although TSL did get a lot of things right and it IS an overall fun game (and this is the best episode to date), there are a LOT of things they got wrong.

Besides the obvious problems with cliche dialogue and an unnecessary need to tie everything together (although it is interesting to watch it unfold to an extent), I also have problems with the formatting of the game. It just seems a bit too.... formulaic. King's Quest has never been about chasing down specific items for a spell the whole game, it's more about having a general objective and picking up items along the way that you happen to find useful to you later on (I know you can argue that KQ4 is about finding the fruit, but you're not constantly reminded that that's your primary objective. You can explore the world and do LOTS of things and you soon forget that that's what you were even there for in the first place). On that note, it's also incredibly annoying to have to travel across the entire world looking for a specific item when most of the world is unchanging and not that fleshed out/interactive - not to mention the long loading times between screens.

Also, the retry button ruins any sense of danger. There's also hardly any deaths.

The boss fight, however, they got right. It was really fun and looked great. I would prefer making it so that you can react the whole time, instead of having to choose your move beforehand, but that's just me.

The Pandora's box puzzle before the boss fight, though, was a definite NO. PLEASE don't put anything like this in these games. It would have been ok if you only had to do 1 side, but that was just FAR too tedious. I know Cez made the defense that he wanted the player to feel the frustration that Valanice was feeling, but I don't like that logic. I think making the viewer feel frustrated is an effective artistic technique in other areas of expression - such as film or even music, but people play games solely for fun... and that simply was not fun. It didn't even feel rewarding after beating it.

Anyways, that's just my two cents.

[KatieHal]

Thanks for the feedback! And glad you're generally enjoying the game.

We've been interested in particular about feedback on those two puzzles/events/sequences--the box and the fight. An interesting range of answers have come back, but we like getting it all so we can make future attempts in Episode 5 or Cognition (our upcoming first commercial game) even better.

[Lambonius]

My recommendation would be to slap Cesar's grubby little hands and shout a resounding "NO!" when he tries to put his foot down regarding ridiculous design decisions that he has (for some reason) gotten emotionally attached to. Sometimes children need to be disciplined for their own good before they'll learn. lol

[Simo Sakari Aaltonen]

Originally Posted by Lambonius

My recommendation would be to slap Cesar's grubby little hands and shout a resounding "NO!" when he tries to put his foot down regarding ridiculous design decisions that he has (for some reason) gotten emotionally attached to. Sometimes children need to be disciplined for their own good before they'll learn. lol

Never mind, César! Keep doing what you think is right.

[Anakin Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Simo Sakari Aaltonen

Never mind, César! Keep doing what you think is right.

"yes man
your party counterpart that will agree to *anything* regardless of how crazy or stupid - and sometimes illegal - it is, who can meet or beat your intoxication level and still remain as coherent as you are"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...term=yes%20man

[Blackthorne519]

Sycophant

Beware the sycophants.

Bt

[Chyron8472]

As a diehard King's Quest fan, I must say that I will never truly be interested in playing TSL. I've played through part of Episode 1, and I just have to say that it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like King's Quest.

Speaking from my own experience on KQ1-7, each game had its own land to explore--there was no re-exploration of the same land (except a teeny bit of Daventry at the end of 3); there wasn't any obvious fan-service related content (unless you count seeing cat-Manannan again as fan service, which I don't); and there certainly wasn't a looming melancholy tone over the plots of any of the games.

But what clinched it most of all for me against playing TSL was to catch a bit of spoilery info about Manannan's relationship to Valanice. That's just... wrong in so many ways. I mean, really. I just can't abide that at all.

I don't want Telltale Games to take TSL as a learning experience for themselves, as I don't want TTG's KQ to be at all like TSL.

Other KQ fans can like TSL if they so choose, but for myself, I'm not going to play it as I don't want it to reconningly ruin my perceptions of the canon games by adding knowledge about characters that shouldn't (and as far as the canon is concerned, doesn't) exist.

I don't want to be mean or rude. It just that my spoiler tagged mention really really does bother me alot. It would have been better that I remained ignorant of such an idea.

[puzzlebox]

A reminder here to refrain from personal attacks - keep the criticism constructive and relevant please.

[Simo Sakari Aaltonen]

Anakin and Blackthorne, please refrain from personal insults. When you have something constructive to say, please say it constructively... Otherwise this will be my last reply to you. Thank you.

I admire the work and achievements of César and his team - that doesn't mean I agree with all their creative choices, nor was such implied in my message of support. I don't have to agree with everything someone does in order to appreciate what they do and lend them my support! Nor does César himself agree with all his own choices in hindsight - and he's big enough to say so - but the important thing is he always follows his heart when making his choices, and I won't fault anyone for that.

My message to them is still: keep doing whatever you believe is best. That's my message to everyone. It says nothing about not listening to feedback. Ultimately the choice is still made by the individual based on what she or he believes is right.

I think it's unfortunate that the atmosphere of this forum has deteriorated due to the influence of a small group of "haters" (for lack of a better word, sorry), some of whom actually come from the KQ fan-game community. That genuinely saddens me and makes me wonder if they remember what made them KQ fans in the first place. Maybe they do.

I assume most of us are here because we love King's Quest - not because we hate what other fans are doing. I mean, the last thing King's Quest is about - except when it comes to the villains - is hate.

I'm sorry if any of this was too negative in tone... I respect so many people over here, but it upsets me to see the hostility over and over.

[MusicallyInspired]

Originally Posted by Simo Sakari Aaltonen

Anakin and Blackthorne, please refrain from personal insults. When you have something constructive to say, please say it constructively... Otherwise this will be my last reply to you. Thank you.

Back seat moderator IN THE HOUUUSSSE!

[der_ketzer]

I enjoy the new artsy style of the graphics.

[Blackthorne519]

I wasn't really trying to attack - I just felt sycophant was a more elaborate word than "yes man".

I do think it's good advice, though - avoid the sycophants. When you surround yourself with people who have no backbone and laud your every movement, it dilutes the quality of your output. I enjoy working with people who, if they disagree, are able to tell me and communicate it clearly.


Bt

[Cez]

you guys make a lot of assumption on how our team works. It's rather insulting to the team, really, to assume that I have a team at my disposal just doing and implementing everything I want, the way I want it.

Sometimes I wish it was that easy If anything, the Art Director gets more his way than I do sometimes to be honest I was ready to cut Shadrack's fight two weeks ago when it wasn't still fully implemented, because I was nervous it wasn't going to be fully finished, but Rich pushed to keep it in, and we kept it in because of him. And, although I designed Pandora's Box puzzle, the end result was an interaction between Rich, Weldon and myself, with feedback from the testers in between that caused a bunch of changes.

It's fun to see assumptions flying all around, especially when they are so far from being what actually happens

And Simo, yes, I feel you. Some people are just hellbent in bringing some stuff down with every little chance they have. Really, it's sad to see so much energy spent on it, but hey, whatever rocks their boat.

[MusicallyInspired]

I think they're referring to your fans and audience not your team.

[Lambonius]

Originally Posted by MusicallyInspired

I think they're referring to your fans and audience not your team.

Nah, I was referring to both.