Frede

Oh. Hmm. The grandma visit I can at least understand. If I remember correctly, the book has Gabriel visit his grandma around day 4 too. Though it's not immediately apparent to me why they'd find that approach better; in any case, it doesn't make much sense for him, narrative-wise, to go visit his grandmother all of a sudden. Hartridge's office, on the other hand, is a loss. I sure hope Gabriel isn't going to stumble upon his corpse in the lecture hall. Having a dead body in there without any students or staff noticing would be yet another case of "Phoenix logic" (let's fly across the U.S. to get a bottle of liquor), which seems to have supplanted the dreaded "Roberta logic" (yessiree, that slice of Gouda can really juice up your magic wand) - these days. Sam's ad saying he's at the Napoleon House is also a bit... yeah. I think these devs need to consider whether something like that would truly ever be able to happen in real life. If the answer is "no", don't implement it. But yeah, let's wait and see what's going to happen. The ad for the jewelry shop would be easy to fix; simply have one of the nondescript New Orleans houses be "Sam's Jewelry" and post an "OUT" sign on the door. The game world only gives him so many places to go to, and there's only one Sam in it. I suppose the only way to deal with Gabe visiting granny would be a bit of railroading. And Hartridge's office probably isn't the most difficult location to implement compared to others.

Ugh. That does not bode well for the game :angry: Do you have any examples of what was cut out handy, or would you prefer not to disclose that here?

Opinions are fine, but lots of the ones stated have reeked of "This is not how you make an adventure game...", even going so far as to suggest that massive delays would never have happened had this been Sierra (it would've, and did, according to Corey Cole). I don't like opinions that consist of manipulative bullshit in the guise of facts, which is what the latter certainly was. I think all that Blackthorne is pointing out is that many of us just aren't qualified to tell the Guys how to deal with the delays. If they conclude they have to work on it till 2015, you can bet that decision has not been taken lightly. And I think it's a legit point to make in this case.

People seem to be fairly disappointed in the beta. Too bad. I was hoping it would work out better, but I can't say I'm surprised that it doesn't really take off. Still, I'll probably play the game when it comes out. If only for the revamped soundtrack, which sounds pretty killer. But yeah, I'd prefer a Gabriel Knight 4 as well. Or maybe a re-release of Gabriel Knight 3 so I can actually play it; it's hopelessly broken on Windows 8. Also, I really shouldn't be touching this, but as for the "faux outrage"... am I correct in assuming that "Moebius" is your baseline? Because 2-3 disgruntled reviewers and a minority of anti-Phoenix players having a legit excuse to not touch the game does not an "outrage" make. I also don't perceive any hostility towards adventure games, but then again, my knowledge of what goes on in the gaming press is peripheral at best. Maybe it's because many of the Kickstarter projects that have seen release have been treading waters as to how the genre should be treated. Many of them (BS5, LSL1:R, Moebius) seem to be 1980-1990's games, redressed with pretty graphics. Doing something that's already been done to perfection normally doesn't sit well with gamers; look at the reception "Batman: Arkham Origins" got for not being revolutionary.

If you use ScummVM for playing your golden oldies, the game is hacked to play the SoundBlaster samples by default. But NRS' patch was also what allowed to hear those sounds in game. The guy is a genius indeed. Heck, his patches actually allowed me to play SQ4CD back in the pre-DOSBox days.

Bit more complex than that; that's only if you get the "Papers, Please: Denmark"-DLC ;)

I need to buy that at some point. It looks fun, and they deserve credit for what they did to counter piracy. Apart from playing the waiting game after finishing The Last Door (the next episode is coming soon), I've been playing quite a bit of Papers, Please. Which is arguably more entertaining than it should be. Quite thought-provoking too.

I just finished the Collector's Edition of The Last Door. Highly recommendable for all horror fans. Especially at the moment, since it's currently discounted as part of the Steam Summer Sale.

I second that. I wouldn't mind a bit more insight into this framework and these tools you've been working on. It's probably been a while since someone put together a "pure" adventure game on a custom platform, rather than in the vanilla version of one of the readily-available engines. Could be fascinating to hear more about. Ironically, in that sense, the Guys are doing something very close to what Sierra would've done, at least on the technical level.

I might follow the World Cup. Considering the current body count, I think it's gonna be a doozy. Probably closer to Counter-Strike than usual, too. Yeah, the PC Police is currently on a strike. Budget cuts. Jokes about the World Cup aside, Corey Cole just posted a damn interesting comment with some fascinating historial information on the Kickstarter page. I realise the "If only it had been Ken Williams producing this..."-argument hasn't really cropped up here, but I still wanted to share this bit of insight. Adding that to Troels' post above, I guess the morale of all this is "Shit happens". With an optional "Deal with it" postfixed ;)

This is one thing I agree with. Communication could've been better, and they could've shown more. Ultimately, I'm not disappointed like others, but yeah, SVRewards kind of fell apart, after some updates that were relatively promising. Even so, I do think people should bear in mind that it's a game they backed. The rest is just nice to have to me, but not obligatory. Some clearly feel otherwise. Maybe the biggest problem is that it turned out that Mark and Scott are very eager to keep a lid on potential spoilers, making the documentation of the process a bit unsuitable for Kickstarter to begin with. Lesson learned in any case, I suppose.

For me, it's a bit hard to take argumentation seriously because we've only seen a fraction of the game. Probably a fraction of the third that's been completed, too. Of course, they're not gonna show off all the good stuff right now. Pope has written countless of times that Mark, especially, doesn't want to spoil anything major. Judging from that, we can probably conclude that anything released prior to the game that is Mark Crowe-approved will be fairly innocuous. I think you're acting like you instantly know how the entire game is going to be just by looking at backgrounds (without characters and, presumably, objects you can interact with) and critiquing an early build which didn't even contain the complete script for the section it showcased. It comes off as more than a bit arrogant. The guy who was pretty much forced to take over as lead programmer on the game (pcj) has stated, like, two or three times that you're only really stirring the pot here. That your fears are unfounded. I don't know what else you want. A piece of paper going "SpaceVenture will NOT be what you fear!" signed by the entire team? In that light, it becomes more than a little bit annoying to read "Yes, but here's a[n] [hyperbolic adjective] worry of mine that would [hyperbolic verb] the entire game for me!" And to me, it honestly doesn't seem like you're interested in a discussion that goes beyond "Well, yes, Fronzel, you could very well be right". I am trying to reply in a serious fashion, you know. Not just put down your arguments for the fuck of it. You could be right, but in my view, chances are you're not. Ultimately, I suppose it's a "glass half-full, glass half-empty"-type thing. I just choose to be optimistic. Fair enough that some people have become pessimistic due to the delays and their reactions towards the material they've seen, but just remember that: 1) It's a crowdfunded game, so it's literally based on goodwill. 2) It was pitched as the Guys from Andromeda doing their thing in 2014. Not as Guys from Andromeda pulling a Tim Schafer, Guys from Andromeda looking over the shoulders of Telltale or the AAA companies, or Guys from Andromeda asking the community for advice when every design decision has to be made. Even if it's been 2+ years, I personally pledged to give them a chance. Till they either give up or release the game, that's still my goal. And yes, dammit, I will be popping in here regularly to dish out a bit of vitriol to ensure that people do not forget the two points above.

@JimmyTwoBucks: Ah. Got it. I rest my case, though. We have a thread for feminism and political correctness in gaming and said "joke" only makes me feel more cynic about the negativity in here. I mean, if Fronzel can't even take the discussion seriously himself, how am I (or TGFA, for that matter) supposed to? I'm not a humourless asshole, but the lines are beginning to blur. Again, have a look at the KS comments. It's a matter of time before someone posts a biblical quote. Also, in response to Fronzel, everyone agreed that there were flaws about the alpha. There was no "high fucking praise" of anything, but there was plenty of "this is gonna be awesome when you weed out the kinks". So, no. You're not gonna find high praise of the swiping, but that may not neccessarily have anything to do with the controls being as big a problem as you're making it out to be.

Someone felt "raped" by the "patriarchial" swipe controls? "Raped"? Seriously? And does this person even know what patriarchial means? Considering the context in which that word appears, I'm going to go with "no" and combining that with the exquisitely bad taste of throwing rape into the mix, I'd say this is the single most useless piece of "feedback" I have ever laid my eyes on. Take this with a sarcastic grain of salt, but this is how the ever-increasing hyperbole and manipulation in this thread (and in the KS comments, for that matter) make me feel: Mea culpa.

As soon as people start throwing words like "redemption" (chill out - it's just a game) into the discussion, it's a free-for-all as far as I'm concerned. I would say all those phrases are fairly common, but maybe that's just me. And I think Gareth is spot on. SQ4CD was delivered on time with a set of dreadful timer bugs that I'm sure - despite the advancement of technology being the culprit - could've been picked up in a code review. SQ6 was delivered on time with the solution for a very complicated puzzle cut from the manual without its primary designer being asked, and a crapload of bugs. KQ7 was delivered on time with resource files that were indicating that a sizable chunk of the game had been scrapped at the last possible minute (King Graham being scrapped after he was voiced). Truth be told, I wasn't playing these games back when they were released, but I do know a few bits of Sierra history. If you were to ask someone more knowledgeable like Troels, Rudy or Andrew, the list of examples above would probably be longer. The rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia seem to be messing an awful lot with people's heads here.

I consider the individualisation of some of the Borg to be a story arc which kicks off with "I, Borg". And you could also argue that every Q episode is part of a story arc that goes on from the beginning of the show to the end. I would also argue Lore has a bit of a story arc - he ties heavily into Data's own evolvement, which is a major part of the show. But overall, TNG started off a lot of things it sadly never got to finish. The chestbuster-like parasites seen in season 1 (which were ultimately replaced by the Borg) and the alien abductions spring to mind...

Hush! Don't silence the debate! ;) I can be an asshole if it's just a good-natured jab, right? Seriously, kudos for doing your research. And, unintentionally, proving why everyone really ought to take a deep breath, count to ten and just trust the Two Guys basically because they're the Two Guys.

Same here. I've gone straight from my education to full-time emoloyment. The days of binge adventuring are drawing to a close!

Well said. And I think we can all agree the development has been too lengthy. Even several members of the team itself have stated that. So I personally don't think any of us should go there. It's being taken care of, so it's kind of a dead horse...

I just want to point out that I didn't work on that. The SQ game I primarily worked on was Vohaul Strikes Back. That said, I do agree that the SQ2 remake was good, but I'm also glad the Guys aren't going with 320x200 VGA. Love the nostalgia trip, but I'm not interested in them becoming The Two Guys from Las Vegas, if you catch my drift. I dunno... I think a major problem is that us backers are just not qualified. We may have some pretty nifty ideas about what we want that may sound cooler than sliced bread, but are catastrophic when implemented. Moebius' inventory handling is indeed a prime example. So I just kinda prefer trusting the Guys with this. And I'm sure they've been following the criticism that the other Kickstarter adventure games have received. I'm probably on the fence here because I honestly think the whole Kickstarter thing can get awfully dramatic really quickly. I'm tired of seeing people in the comments who probably backed with, like, $15 go "So where is my game? I have but lost all faith in you and I am off to slit my wrists while I listen to Tokio Hotel" when I have friends here who've pitched in with 5K or 10K are able to shut the heck up and quietly respect that there's a process going on and that the Guys may just be more qualified than they are. And the above rant isn't meant to silence any debate whatsoever. It's probably just my final two cents on the topic unless something spectacular happens. But again, I want it to be known that I have complete confidence in the Guys. And, crowdfunding be damned, I've come to think that I really don't want to play a fangame. Or want my experience spoiled. So, I suppose backer involvement is not something I miss that much and that we might just have to agree to disagree on that count :) EDIT: And then, while I was busy trying to wrap "Fuck this" up in diplomacy, Troels made some excellent points about why we may want to consider trusting Scott and Mark a bit more than the average "adventure game lover".

Well, I just find it really weird that some of you are actively expecting something Space Quest was never really known for and then screaming blue murder when you see, like, 4-5 screens (from a game I would presume will have at the very least 30-40) that aren't totally cluttered with stuff. Case in point - the Space Quest 6 elevator is possibly the most hotspot-laden environment in all of the games and thus the most "cluttered" because there's so much stuff you can interact with. But how busy does it look? It's just as empty as some of the SpaceVenture backgrounds. Until you start clicking around, it's just an elevator. And it's not even a Murphy/Crowe game! Space Quest is just chock full of massive, largely empty locations to begin with. The Arcada, Vohaul's asteroid fortress, parts of the Garbage Freighter, Phleebhut, ScumSoft, Vohaul's super computer, the StarCon academy, etc. So to me, it sounds like you're looking for something that sounds more like Monkey Island. And of course, 2GFA taking a cue from other games would be absolutely fine, but we were promised a spiritual successor to Space Quest. The only things they've really promised will be altered from the Space Quest formula are unfair deaths, dead ends and puzzles that are brutally unfair. In my opinion, I think it's way too early to tell how the game might look and feel. Not in terms of development time, but in terms of what we've been privy to see. But I am reassured that they're not going out of their way to make a boring game, cluttered environments or not. And if I can't trust Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe to come up with a solid game, then who can I trust?

I liken the alpha to a movie trailer. And I seriously hate movie trailers that show every single good scene of the movie. I'm not losing sleep here either...

All I can read, no matter how I try, is "I disagree with the art style!" And I believe the only appropriate and honest reply is "well... sucks to be you, then!"

Nope. Best I can do is to get the writer's intern blitzed and hope he reveals something!

The ending in which you're chastised for not getting the cartridge is in the game. I believe it's carried over 1:1 from the original where the same thing could happen. I've done it once because I forgot to bring the cartridge with me after playing it on Kerona.