KickStarter Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption - adventure-RPG from the creators of Quest for Glory

[Jaesun]

Yeah. They are trying to make ToEE.

 

[FeelTheRads]

This isn't going very fast, is it? I hope it won't be on the edge like with SpaceVenture. Maybe they have better prepared updates.

 

[Mother Russia]

They have already earned more than $75,000/- in almost 24 hours. How much fucking faster do you want it to be?

This project will easily meet it's goal, in case there was any doubt, by how much it exceeds them is the question. I hope they make at least around $800,000, allowing them to commission more art and add in more NPCs and cool dialogue.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Fuck off Andhaira, you've only talked uninformed shit in this topic. Go troll somewhere else.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah. They are trying to make ToEE.

What's the point of putting combat into a game if it's going to be in banal boring single-character turns? They're purposely setting out to make bad core gameplay; An Eschalon-style snoozefest. It won't be a thinking person's combat gameplay no matter how many times they say it will be.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah. They are trying to make ToEE.

What's the point of putting combat into a game if it's going to be in banal boring single-character turns? They're purposely setting out to make bad core gameplay; An Eschalon-style snoozefest. It won't be a thinking person's combat gameplay no matter how many times they say it will be.

The combat is exactly like Eschalon? I seemed to have missed that in the KS page.

 

[Roguey]

-style does not suggest copying something precisely. Single character turn based games. Universally bad unless they have style to cover up how bad they are, like Fallout with its critical hit text descriptions and death animations.

 

[Morkar Left]

They are making a new approach to a QfG-like game. QfG was basically an adventure game with stats. And combat. Combat that sucked. Even Indy4 had better combat and it had no stats.

Combat in QfG was annoying at best and usually a chore you tried to avoid (which was difficult because you had to grind). Trying to remedy this by making the rt-shitfest who didn't worked into turnbased combat is already an improvement. No matter how simple it will be.

The more tactical they can make it the better though. But with tactical they didn't meant the combat engine only it seems to me but all the other tactical abilities/options you have to approach an opponent.

 

[The Round Peg]

Yeah, while Quest for Glory was a good series, the combat in the games -- all of them -- were problematic in one way or another. A turn-based combat would be a good start to fixing the problems.

 

[suejak]

I liked that they didn't really worry too much about combat. That was my favourite part of QFG 1-4. The combat was there, but it was at most a minigame.

I am worried about the possibility that these two may be making a combat-heavy game. That has not been the basis for their past successes.

 

[The Round Peg]

Kotaku has just released a very good interview: The Creators Of Quest For Glory Want To Make A Western Version Of Persona.

Highlights from the interview:

"While the Quest for Glory series was about 70% point-and-click adventure and 30% role-playing game, Corey added, Hero-U will be more like 60% RPG and 40% adventure."

"You're going to a new school; you get to interact with your classmates through dialogue that advances the story and so on. So at night, you can go to the catacombs below school to try to make money, go on quests, and fight monsters. And during the day, you can select from dialogue trees, explore the school, meet new people, compete with those people... and piece through the many strange events surrounding Hero University and its neighboring areas..."

"There are a lot of mysteries going on in the school... Part of it is mysteries in your own past: You're going to get hints and things of something you didn't know, and your character doesn't even know about. He's trying to figure out who it is that's doing this and what happened. And then there's the mysteries of your classmates—cause everybody is a very complex character."

(Hm. Reminds me of Harry Potter and Hogwart.)

"So if this Kickstarter is successful, Corey and Lori say they have four more games in the cards, all based on Quest for Glory classes: the second will star a wizard; the third will star a fighter; the fourth will star a paladin; and the fifth will star a mystery character."

 

[suejak]

So they took out the best parts of QfG huh :/

Ok cool :/

 

[suejak]

We're gonna make an RPG!

It's gonna allude very heavily to QfG in theme, art direction, plot -- even the title!

But!

You have one pre-set character with a pre-set name and a pre-set class, who YOU get to lead through our great story!

And there's a lot of combat and questing, sort of like mainstream RPGs! You like those!

Money please!

 

[Jaesun]

If they fund this though, you will get the other classes in the future games. IIRC the first one is the rogue, but the next one will be the Mage.

 

[suejak]

Yeah, but you get one designated character per game and set of content.

In the classic QfG games, part of the fun was tackling the same problems with different characters/classes. Your fighter would kill the monster, your mage would cast a fetch spell to take the monster's treasure, and your thief would wait for the monster to leave then sneak in, take the treasure, and sneak out.

That seems to be missing from the new games.

 

[Jaesun]

This could still work though. While in QFG you could play 3 classes, the amount of content for all 3 was very low. In this they can expand upon focusing on just one of the classes, and doing a lot of content with it. Like for example QFG2. There was the awesome part of joining the mage guild but after that, that was it. Also for the thief, there was that one really good quest only the thief could do, but that was it. This way use 1 class but add a LOT more content just for that class.

 

[suejak]

I guess. I'll probably just replay The Adventures of Willy Beamish again.

 

[SCO]

I'd look for tome4 for inspiration... many movent/attack/evasion abilities, lethal combat.

But of course it won't happen. This will be marketed towards people who don't particularly like combat in games (old adventure fans), and by perverse logic, i can see them making a 'simple' combat system because of that.

 

[J1M]

Other character classes will be held for ransom as stretch goals.

 

[iamlindoro]

As much as it kills me to say so, I really want this Kickstarter to fail.

Don't get me wrong-- I don't wish any ill will on the Coles, and I owned every QfG game from the original EGA Hero's Quest (still in my closet as a treasured childhood memory). I adore the very content they're referencing and I would contribute in the hundreds to a Kickstarter that aimed to recapture that charm and wonder.

I knew Quest for Glory. I loved Quest for Glory. This, my friends, is not Quest for Glory. Now, before you shout me down for suggesting that of course this isn't QfG, take a look at the way the Kickstarter is being marketed. If you're setting out to do something new-- a totally fresh game world with a totally fresh mythos, then fine. Do whatever style of game you like. But this is setting everyone who backs it up for disappointment. You cannot on one hand reference this in marketing material as being the "spritual successor to Quest for Glory" and on the other insist that you intend to gut it of the very things that make that spirit unique and wonderful, no matter how much people beg you to return to the tried and true formula that made them your fans in the first place. The game is set in the same game world, but jettisons the elements that made QfG an epic.

One of the common claims for this appears to be the budget. In a private question about the art and game style of the game, one of the Coles replied that Quest for Glory 5 cost $5 million to make, and that they couldn't possibly match this art budget. There are two problems with this argument, however. The first is that QfG5, the highest budgeted game of the series by far, was an absolute travesty. Budget is not the only correlation to quality of game. If the Cole's delivered a game called "Search for Famousness" and it was EGA sprite art, but it captured the humor, achingly beautiful plot, scope, and giddy adventurousness of the original four games, I would pay any price they asked for it. The second is this-- I think their success in this KS so far is being constrained by others who feel as I do. How much, paying themselves and the rest of the staff, would Lori and Corey have to pay their staff for a reasonable wage, while producing a decent adventure RPG in the style of QfG? It's not $5 million. DoubleFine, who have unarguably more overhead than a diverse group working from home, are managing it on a couple of million. I believe that if this Kickstarter were proposing to do what the QfG fans are hoping for, then covering production costs would be extremely possible.

Do I think there's a good chance that $400K will be reached? Yes. But I think that if there is any struggle at all, or if the response is a little underwhelming, or if it fails, it's not that there's nobody interested-- it's that they propose to offer something that isn't quite what people want. Those who think they're going to get a "spritual successor to QfG" may find themselves extremely disappointed when they get a 2D top down hack n' slash. Still more (IMO only) will not contribute at all.

So, for those reasons, I'm crossing my fingers that this will go (by hook or by crook) back to the drawing board and that "version two" will be a wild, unmitigated success.

 

[Jaesun]

I see that Paul Trowe has found his way to our little corner of the internet world.

 

[suejak]

As much as it kills me to say so, I really want this Kickstarter to fail.

Don't get me wrong-- I don't wish any ill will on the Coles, and I owned every QfG game from the original EGA Hero's Quest (still in my closet as a treasured childhood memory). I adore the very content they're referencing and I would contribute in the hundreds to a Kickstarter that aimed to recapture that charm and wonder.

I knew Quest for Glory. I loved Quest for Glory. This, my friends, is not Quest for Glory. Now, before you shout me down for suggesting that of course this isn't QfG, take a look at the way the Kickstarter is being marketed. If you're setting out to do something new-- a totally fresh game world with a totally fresh mythos, then fine. Do whatever style of game you like. But this is setting everyone who backs it up for disappointment. You cannot on one hand reference this in marketing material as being the "spritual successor to Quest for Glory" and on the other insist that you intend to gut it of the very things that make that spirit unique and wonderful, no matter how much people beg you to return to the tried and true formula that made them your fans in the first place. The game is set in the same game world, but jettisons the elements that made QfG an epic.

One of the common claims for this appears to be the budget. In a private question about the art and game style of the game, one of the Coles replied that Quest for Glory 5 cost $5 million to make, and that they couldn't possibly match this art budget. There are two problems with this argument, however. The first is that QfG5, the highest budgeted game of the series by far, was an absolute travesty. Budget is not the only correlation to quality of game. If the Cole's delivered a game called "Search for Famousness" and it was EGA sprite art, but it captured the humor, achingly beautiful plot, scope, and giddy adventurousness of the original four games, I would pay any price they asked for it. The second is this-- I think their success in this KS so far is being constrained by others who feel as I do. How much, paying themselves and the rest of the staff, would Lori and Corey have to pay their staff for a reasonable wage, while producing a decent adventure RPG in the style of QfG? It's not $5 million. DoubleFine, who have unarguably more overhead than a diverse group working from home, are managing it on a couple of million. I believe that if this Kickstarter were proposing to do what the QfG fans are hoping for, then covering production costs would be extremely possible.

Do I think there's a good chance that $400K will be reached? Yes. But I think that if there is any struggle at all, or if the response is a little underwhelming, or if it fails, it's not that there's nobody interested-- it's that they propose to offer something that isn't quite what people want. Those who think they're going to get a "spritual successor to QfG" may find themselves extremely disappointed when they get a 2D top down hack n' slash. Still more (IMO only) will not contribute at all.

So, for those reasons, I'm crossing my fingers that this will go (by hook or by crook) back to the drawing board and that "version two" will be a wild, unmitigated success.

 

[Infinitron]

I agree with him.

 

[iamlindoro]

You're right that I didn't express what I felt was lacking very well-- but then, I didn't set out to, not really. I guess that on some level, I felt that this not having any relationship to the QfG games was somewhat self explanatory.

My point is that "spiritual successor" is a loose term, but it implies that while not a direct sequel, it shares in common the core mechanics that made the original worthwhile. My impression of what I see in the KS, an impression supported by having asked questions of the creators and read over the KS page again and again, is that the core mechanics of QfG, an adventure game with RPG elements that give the player an opportunity to play who and what they want in the game world, are not present here. My impression is that plot, adventure, and flexibility of path/flexibility of character creation are secondary goals at best. The game pitched as I see it is as much a spiritual successor to QfG as Planet Pinball starring Roger Wilco is to Space Quest. In short, it's not an adventure game. It's a board game with a potentially neat story set in a fictional world that I miss. It's almost compelling enough... but it just isn't working for me.

You're right, it's possible that if this KS fails, no reconsideration or "second draft" will occur. On the other hand, if this one succeeds, my impression, and that's all it is, my impression-- is that the game QfG fans like me are looking far will never be made.

 

[iamlindoro]

And if you're wondering if what I want is a third person adventure game in a traditional Sierra style, yes. Yes it is.