Decline New King's Quest game - MASSIVE DECLINE Everything is shit

[felipepepe]

For the better part of the last two decades the adventure game genre was thought dead. Or at least comatose. But in these past few years it's finally returning. And how diverse a return it's been! In one corner, we've had Telltale's streamlined, linear take on interactive storytelling. In another, we've got Double Fine remixing old templates with modern tech and style with Broken Age. And then there's Maniac Mansion creators Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick successfully Kickstarting their faux 1987 throwback Thimbleweed Park. So how will The Odd Gentlemen, the LA studio behind The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom and Wayward Manor, handle reprising King's Quest? The answer is a mix of all of the above in a way that's distinctly its own.

Why journos hate Daedalic and Wadjet Eye Games so much?

 

[Infinitron]

For the better part of the last two decades the adventure game genre was thought dead. Or at least comatose. But in these past few years it's finally returning. And how diverse a return it's been! In one corner, we've had Telltale's streamlined, linear take on interactive storytelling. In another, we've got Double Fine remixing old templates with modern tech and style with Broken Age. And then there's Maniac Mansion creators Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick successfully Kickstarting their faux 1987 throwback Thimbleweed Park. So how will The Odd Gentlemen, the LA studio behind The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom and Wayward Manor, handle reprising King's Quest? The answer is a mix of all of the above in a way that's distinctly its own.

Why journos hate Daedalic and Wadjet Eye Games so much?

"Daedalic? That's those German guys, right? I heard they have bad translations."

"Wadjet Eye? Gemini Rue was supposed to be pretty good, right?"

And it'd be the same with RPGs if we hadn't forced the journos to wake up and pay attention with our Kickstarter bucks.

 

[felipepepe]

You're right, no one cared for Larian until they raised a million dollars on KS...

 

[Blackthorne]

There definitely is some truth in that "journalists" and their superiors are only interested in what will generate them more revenue, not what's actually interesting or good. There's a few times when interesting/good crosses with profitability, but it's rare - and if you're not generating them enough buzz, you don't matter. Daedelic must not cause them enough buzz - and WadjetEye is only getting interesting to some because Brian Moriarity mentioned them. Make no mistake - "journalists" are in a business too, and I think people often forget about that. (Especially journalists from larger or major outlets) Occasionally, you'll get one who doesn't give a fuck about advertising revenues or paychecks and reports on what they really think is important - but unless that journalist creates some kind of cult or personality from their "rebel behavior" they'll eventually get shit-canned by the higher ups.


Bt

 

[MicoSelva]

Jesus fucking Christ, what a terribly shitty article. 'Journalists' my arse.

EDIT:
The game itself might still turn out good, though.

 

[MRY]

Another time Gwendolyn calls BS on his tale of heroically charging into a dragon's mouth, i.e. dying. "I was just checking to see if you were still awake," he chimes in. It's not the first time we've seen this narrative device employed in an adventure game - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Stanley Parable come to mind - but it's a great fit for this fresh take on a vintage series.

Sigh. Monkey Island 2 used it. And Sands of Time is definitely not an adventure game.

 

[Darth Roxor]

And Sands of Time is definitely not an adventure game.

You play the role of a man going through an adventure, ergo it is an adventure game.

 

[Tigranes]

And Sands of Time is definitely not an adventure game.

You play the role of a man going through an adventure, ergo it is an adventure game.

It's an RPG, duh

 

[felipepepe]

Besides, Sands of Time lets you make time go backward, it has nothing to do with having an unreliable narrator.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Besides, Sands of Time lets you make time go backward, it has nothing to do with having an unreliable narrator.

*player drops to a bloody death against some spikes*

"No, no, that's not what happened... may I start again?"

Granted, that's the only way it's used in the game, but...!

 

[felipepepe]

My autism says it's different, because in PoP you can jump of a cliff, grab an item on the way down, rewind time and you'll keep the item. You exist outside the laws of time, in a sort of way.

The only way this KQ would get close to that is if you could trick the narrator, but I doubt it will have something like that.

 

[Aenra]

I remember hearing about the first Harry Potter (am i spelling it right?) and being surprised about how broad its audience got..especially after reading it. Couldn't see why, plenty of writers that did it better, that were around for decades.
But you know what? Made kids start looking out for books, made proper, paper-made book sales soar upwards. Somehow younger people had started reading again;

If they manage that, just that, i am perfectly happy to simply sit back and ignore the fact this got published
(..while bitching about it here..)

We need more adventures, and we definitely need semi-AAA level productions getting advertised as successful

 

[taxalot]

Jesus fucking Christ, what a terribly shitty article. 'Journalists' my arse.

EDIT:
The game itself might still turn out good, though.

I was able to post that. What an aboslutely terrible piece of text. It literally says NOTHING. What have you guys learnt from the gameplay reading that empty collection of words?

From the early press demo I see at GDC, King's Quest seeks to combine Telltale's episodic structure with Double Fine's lofty production values while staying true to the classic Sierra games with their penchant for comic deaths and multiple endings. This may be billed as a "reboot," but it's not the sort of modern update that fills vintage fans with dread. You won't be mashing buttons to fend off dragons, nor will you clumsily push blocks around to solve those popular "physics puzzles" that are all the rage these days. Instead, you'll be using your noggin to suss out the solution to many of King Graham's most entertaining problems. Or die trying (incidentally, you'll do that a lot).

Thanks for telling us what the gameplay isn't. I'm also pretty sure it doesn't involve golf.

WHAT IS THE GAMEPLAY LIKE, ASSHOLE ? HOW ABOUT TELLING US THAT ?

 

[felipepepe]

Wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't say it due to some preview clause. Sounds fishy as hell, could it be just platforming sections + CYOA-like text choices?

 

[lightbane]

The Stanley Parable

That's not even a game FFS, it's one of those "walking simulators" whose only gimmick is a narrator that's extraordinarily annoying and unlikeable. Without puzzles, other characters to interact, dialogues or nothing like that. And it's overpriced to boot.

 

[AngryKobold]

It can't get any worse than KQ8: Mask of Eternity, right?

Just kidding. Of course it can and it will be. The crossbar has been lowered drastically since 1998.

And in 1998 Sierra showed the true colors. A bunch of complete morons unable to tell what technology is good for an adventure game. Seriously, nothing has changed ever since.

 

[felipepepe]

It can't get any worse than KQ8: Mask of Eternity, right?

The first 15 minutes were cool, because you could use an axe to cut a tree and make it block a river, and seeing that in 3D was awesome in 1998! If you think about it, it was a fully 3D RPG even before Ultima IX. Maybe Gothic is influenced by it, or something like that!




Ok, it was crap.

 

[AngryKobold]

The all talk about episodes gets unsettling. As I watch the news, the smartasses of Double Fine started it. An unexpected return of shareware; this time worse than before, meant to be completely against the customer. Twenty years ago shareware at least gave you the right to play the first episode for free...

 

[felipepepe]

It began with TellTale doing Bone and those Sam & max games back in 2005-2006. Not only they make their games divided into episodes, but into seasons as well...

 

[tuluse]

Also Valve with HL2 ep1 and 2.

 

[Aenra]

i am not much for conspiracy theories, the truth can just as easily be the outcome of multiple factors coinciding..
partly the focus having shifted with the new generations of "gamerz", partly a technological progress this genre failed to utilise (and money was lost and the big boys don't want that), partly the 'satellites' this booming market attracted to have orbitting around it, themselves a portion of said 'new generation*' that was never there when adventures were more popular. And to a smaller extent, the genre itself's failure to maintain its own quality standards.

* and this is why i detest streaming, youtubing with 'agendas' (let alone the monetised kind), etc. these are by-products whose cause we have come to take for granted

but "buried the genre"..?
This is last year:



not trying to be argumentative just for the sake of it, but you are not doing yourself a favour by forming a picture based on just one aspect of the whole.

 

[MRY]

While I agree that it's annoying that WEG and Daedelic get overlooked, I think the gist of the article is probably right. It seems like adventure games were something of a mass phenomenon in the past, and (to the extent you consider TellTale games to be a mass phenomenon) are returning to that status now. WEG and Daedelic make niche products, by comparison.

That said, when I was trying to find data to back this up, I was surprised at how relatively low Lucas Arts sales figures seem to be -- perhaps they're inaccurate, though. [EDIT: This site also reports low figures.] Apparently even KQV only sold 500,000 copies, although granted that was probably for $40 a pop or whatever.

 

[Infinitron]

While I agree that it's annoying that WEG and Daedelic get overlooked, I think the gist of the article is probably right. It seems like adventure games were something of a mass phenomenon in the past, and (to the extent you consider TellTale games to be a mass phenomenon) are returning to that status now. WEG and Daedelic make niche products, by comparison.

That said, when I was trying to find data to back this up, I was surprised at how relatively low Lucas Arts sales figures seem to be -- perhaps they're inaccurate, though. [EDIT: This site also reports low figures.] Apparently even KQV only sold 500,000 copies, although granted that was probably for $40 a pop or whatever.

Hey, half a million was a very good number for a PC game back then - especially with Sierra's honed development pipelines that managed to crank these games out in record times with very low budgets.

Even in the late 90s, Fallout was lauded as a surprise success for selling (I think) a lot less than that.

 

[Aenra]

like Infini-RAM-tron says.
Plus, i will remind you that while it may have been different (?) for you being in the US, down here owning a PC in the 80s especially, but in the 90s as well, was a rich man's thing.

 

[felipepepe]

Sales were low back then, remember that Myst became THE best selling PC game of the early 90's with like 1 million copies:

Broderbund releases the game in September 1993. "Myst" astounds everyone. Within a week of its release, word spreads on the Internet and demand skyrockets. Within five months, 200,000 copies are sold. Sales hit 500,000 in January 1995. Four months later sales top a million and now [1996] are approaching 2 million. The Millers are profiled in publications from "Newsweek" to "People," and they appear on "Good Morning America" and "MTV." They have one agent for publishers, another to handle Hollywood offers, and a third for merchandising. "Myst" has become the multimedia equivalent of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" or Nirvana's "Nevermind" — a popular hit that's also a fresh and original demonstration of a medium's potential. They nailed it.

-Source

IIRC, Roberta once said that it was not that Adventure games were selling less during the "adventure games are DEAD" era - sales never actually declined. But selling 150-200k when stuff like Tomb Raider and Quake were selling millions won't please publishers, nor afford those bloated 3D budgets... looking at you, KG8.

As Leon Boyarsky said back in 2002, in one of the Codex's first articles:

I don't believe either of the Fallouts have sold over 500,000 units. I see people clamoring on the boards all the time for more "Fallouts", but which do you think a publisher is more interested in, a Fallout (app 300,000 - 400,000 worldwide over its lifetime) or a Diablo 2 (1 million units in a week)