New Direction is Best

[Sleeq]

Mario and Zelda suffer from a nostalgic fanbase even moreso than KQ I believe.

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.

[BagginsKQ]

Actually 'polished' wasn't really a complaint for KQ8 back in the day... Most reviewers actually admitted it was polished (trying to compare it to newer games of today is like comparing apples to oranges), and it compared favorable more so than other polished games at the time such as Tomb Raider 3. It got overall better reviews than KQ7 (which most were saying was 'outdated', and that sierra should have let KQ quite when it was ahead (KQ6)). KQ8 was largely praised by the professionals. It even generally received higher ratings than Grim Fangdango received at the time...

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!

[Sleeq]

Perhaps some of the creative decisions in KQ8 left a bad taste in people's mouths. Generally it was the fan base, not the general public, who were upset.

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.

[gamingafter40]

I'll be interested in whatever Telltale's team decides to do. I've yet to see them completely abandon a property's fanbase -- that is really not what they do. At the same time, I'm pretty sure everything will be in 3-D to keep animation costs down and quality reasonable.

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.

[BagginsKQ]

Generally it was the fan base, not the general public, who were upset.

Ya, one of Roberta's problems (or virtues depending on the opinion) is she was often designing what she wanted to see (and what she wanted to play), and/or what the largest audience would want to see.

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.

[Lambonius]

I have no doubt that Telltale will capture the tone of the KQ series that is important to its most ardent fans--light-hearted fairy-tale, storybook narrative style, nods to classic fantasy tropes, some humor, etc. Capturing the right tone for the various licenses is what Telltale is best at.

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.

[gamingafter40]

I actually never played the original versions of Space Quest I, King's Quest I, Police Quest I or Mixed-Up Mother Goose -- I have only played the SCI remakes of those titles. The only games I played in AGI format were the original Leisure Suit Larry, Gold Rush and King's Quest II, and I jumped into most of the other series in the SCI era with Police Quest II, Space Quest III and The Colonel's Bequest.

[gamingafter40]

Originally Posted by Lambonius

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.

I think the "interactive movie" genre has been proven not to work very well, many times over at this point. At least, examples to date indicate that when canned video footage is involved, there isn't enough flexibility to provide much player control.

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!)

[Blackthorne519]

Gritty™ & Realistic™ and Reboot™ have become over-inflated parodies of the concepts. I'm sick of everything being turned into this gray, depressing, over-wrought, shallow-pretending-to-be-deep crap.

Bt

[Irishmile]

Originally Posted by Blackthorne519

Gritty™ & Realistic™ and Reboot™ have become over-inflated parodies of the concepts. I'm sick of everything being turned into this gray, depressing, over-wrought, shallow-pretending-to-be-deep crap.

Bt

[Lambonius]

HAHA!!

Fucking AMAZING.

I take it all back.

[BagginsKQ]

Ok, I'd play a King of Quest (God of War) type game, LOL! Graham could carry around the Magic Shield, Magic Mirror and Chest of Gold as the various weapons! Bash monsters over the head with the Chest for example!

[Lambonius]

Screw the Mirror, Shield, and Chest! Give me the custard pie of death! Sweetened with the fluff of a thousand children's souls!!!

[doom saber]

Itotter a KQ game with a more pixar/dreamworks direction than a gritty direction.

[MusicallyInspired]

That picture is amazing.

[Blackthorne519]

Well, Irishmile just smashed everything I believe in!!


Bt

[Sleeq]

The pie of chaos. Bringing destruction to Yetis since the dawn of bakery.

[techie775]

Originally Posted by Sleeq

Also, if you think about it Graham is a knight; I don't see why it can't be a gritty adventure and he slays enemies with a sword. Why only with wits (or pies?!)

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

[MusicallyInspired]

You can also kill a whole bunch of things in KQ1.

[BagginsKQ]

You could also kill stuff in Wizard and the Princess.