"We Want a New Space Quest Game" Facebook group

[Troels Pleimert]

Ryan Nicotera has created a Facebook group called "We Want a New Space Quest Group."

 

It can be found at http://facebook.com/groups/wewantanewspacequestgame

 

The purpose of the group is to show the rightsholders to Space Quest that there is still a vast interest in continuing the series. With The Odd Gentlemen's King's Quest reboot coming out soon, and hopefully being quite successful, the hope is that Sierra Games (owned by Activision) will be looking to revive the Space Quest brand next.

 

If that happens, it is of course imperative that The Two Guys From Andromeda are involved, and not (no offense to TOG) a completely unrelated indie developer. The Guys are already indie developers now, with their own indie studio!

 

So, do consider joining the group, just to show Sierra Games/Activision that there is a great number of fans who want a new Space Quest. Think of it like signing a petition or something. Who knows, it may do nothing to prove anything. Maybe Sierra Games/Activision are already painfully aware of how much we want a new SQ game. Who cares. It can't hurt, can it?

[Collector]

He added me to the group, but I have not yet accepted. It is Ryan Nicotera, after all. If you have not been aware he has caused enough problems to get banned from the Sierra Gamers and Sierra Chest groups.

[MusicallyInspired]

Yeah, no offence but I'm not getting involved with anything Ryan Nicotera starts. He's been banned from two Sierra Facebook groups already, as Collector said. Groups that people from TOG, Sierra, and ActiVision have been known to frequent. He's been all too vocal and chances are that representatives of those 3 companies know who he is. I doubt they'll take anything he's involved with seriously either. I feel sorry for the guy, but I'm not going anywhere near this. Especially seeing as it probably wouldn't do any good anyway. It's scary to think what he'd be capable of in a Facebook group where he has actual power in admin status. It wouldn't do well to associate with this if you actually want a future for Space Quest. In my opinion.

[Frede]

I'm wary, but meh, I've joined. There are more admins in the group, after all. I can't see it hurting anything. At least it's a positive statement to make.

 

I did quit Sierra Gamers and Sierra Chest because of those massive flamefests, but truth be told, the impulse to do so had been there for a while. Nostalgia is often spoken of as a good feeling, but in my experience, it's also responsible for a lot of vitriol and miscomprehension.

 

No, a game published by a major studio in 2015 is never going to boast VGA graphics and a point'n'click interface. Said major studio will never "give" or "lend" its valuable IP to the original designers. Ken Williams was a shrewd businessman, not Santa Claus. Addressing someone as "Sir Knight" and referring to your social sphere as "Daventry" will never be anything but extremely awkward. And so on. On a more superficial level, I've also found it tiring to have to scroll through the same questions asked by newcomers who are seemingly unable to stay informed. There's no excuse for a "fan" of Space Quest to have missed SpaceVenture at this point. Am I being too harsh? Quite possibly. But I do think a Sierra-related group that looks forward is a breath of fresh air. I always make a point out of reminding people that Sierra never looked backward. 

 

That said, all things above considered, I did turn down a friend request from Ryan in the aftermath of those incidents. It's no different than Ben Lindelof and Benjamin Penney who aren't my cup of tea at all. I have been able to gather that the feeling is mutual, so it's not something that bothers me, but why pretend people like that are my "friends" just because of one shared interest?

 

I have little doubt Ryan regrets some of his antics. I've been there. But it's a little too son after telling everyone they should "fuck off and die". People probably didn't really feel like chatting with me after the infamous SpaceQuest.Net hack or some of the other crap that went on back then anyway. Some people mellow. We'll see, but till then, I don't mind giving him the benefit of the doubt with something like this.

[Collector]

Many of "those massive flamefests" were instigated by Ryan Nicotera. I left the Sierra Gamers group too. I was getting tired of the flaming crap as well. But that was not the only thing. I was having a number of other things that I had just got tired of. One of the admins kept deleting my posts, even though I was not posting anything offensive. I had one of the admins contacting me for help over technical issues and then never respond to my messages. Many of the new members that were never part of any of the core Sierra communities were pretty dismissive of me. Not that I need my ego stroked, but to be treated by some outsider as if I knew nothing about solving problems with playing Sierra games is a bit much. Then some would just tell others to ignore what I poated and get the game from GOG, not realizing that I have designed many of GOG's releases directly or indirectly. After Rudy turned over admin of the group I had decided I had had enough.

 

That said, I am not sure I want to deal with a new group started by the author of many of those flamefests, as much as I would love to have the rights for a new SQ given to the 2 Guys. I think that is inevitable if the new KQ does well enough. Additionally, a new SQ group can only further spread the SQ community too thin. Brandon Klassen had already started his SQ fans group. If anything, any FB presence of the SQ community should be an extension of this one. Does anyone know who admins the main SQ group on FB?

[Frede]

Yeah, I'm very well aware of what Ryan did. That said, there was already a lot of overzealousness present in those groups. That doesn't vindicate Ryan's actions, but I'd felt bummed about those particular Sierra communities on Facebook prior to that. As far as I can tell from your post, I'm not being completely unfair towards them. Your experiences kinda prove my point - there are just too many fans of these games who are too slow on the uptake. How does someone not know about your work? They'd have to be pretty inept with Google, for which there is no excuse if you're on the Internet anyway. To be blunt, discussing Sierra there simply lacks the fun.

 

I've already made my mind fairly clear on Ryan, but I can kind of agree with you about spreading the community to thin. The current number of Sierra Facebook groups is too damn high. But, again, I like how this is a group that focuses on what could happen with this IP in the future. Not a group in which many members throw a bitch fit when the new King's Quest is inevitably revealed not to be classic P&C. In my opinion, the other groups focus near-exclusively on semi-sycophantic "Do you remember..."-talks, which is also a point of contention for me. But I'll admit that maybe, I'm just not sentimental enough to get anything out of those discussions.

 

The admin of the Space Quest group is David Maunder, I think.

[MusicallyInspired]

 

 

Not a group in which many members throw a bitch fit when the new King's Quest is inevitably revealed not to be classic P&C.

 

That's a fairly broad brush you're painting with there. I don't believe people throw fits because the new KQ is not P&C. They knew it wouldn't be. It's just the limitations of which the direction of the approach they do engage is inherently comprised of are annoying and needless. They could have done so much more with that same interface without being P&C. It's not always about VGA 320x200 nostalgia nonsense. That was actually something Ryan accused many of (myself included) and he was just as wrong.

 

But anyway, that's for another thread. I'm still not joining this one. Let me know how it goes, though. At the end of the day, could it be that Sierra communities have been so segregated for so long that it may be impossible to keep everyone together in one place? Everyone has different ideas about what is fun to talk about regarding Sierra. And as it happens, people have left FB groups, banned others, and started new groups for one reason or another because of it. The existence of the many Sierra groups could just be evidence of that fact.

[suejak]

Funny. I didn't realize there was so much drama, even among Sierra fans! I normally get blocked/flamed by LucasArts fans...

 

Anyway, I joined just for the sake of bumping up the number of members. I probably won't participate much outside of that  :blink:

[MusicallyInspired]

It's not really drama....it's just the way things always were. All the KQ fans hung out on one forum, SQ on another (two others, actually. There was probably more drama there than anywhere but it's all sorted now). There were some overlaps here and there but people mostly kept to themselves. Now that everyone's sort of attempting to come together on these Facebook groups, it's kind of awkward.

[Collector]

Ryan was not part of any of the main communities that I know of, let alone on the official Sierra boards. I suspect that he is a younger person that didn't grow up with these games when they were new. That would explain his immature nature. The SQ community seemed to leave the official boards sooner than the fans of the other series. Of the fan communities the main KQ was (then) Kimmie's Sierra Planet where nothing much dramtic happened there. There was probably more drama on the fan SQ communities than others. But then we were all much younger then.

[Frede]

Ryan was not part of any of the main communities that I know of, let alone on the official Sierra boards. I suspect that he is a younger person that didn't grow up with these games when they were new. That would explain his immature nature.

 

Easy there, tiger! Some of us managed to grow up without these games without turning into assholes  :P

 

Had he been a teenager, then fair enough. Most of us were a little dumb around that time (yes, you were), which is easily attributtable to puberty. But at age 25, it's a little too late to blame his age. I jump for this argument mainly because I dislike ageism. I'd probably buy it if I hadn't met some many opionated old people who have no idea what they're talking about, "life experience" or "proper upbringing" be damned. Stupidity comes in all shapes and sizes.

 

As far as I can tell from some of the stuff he posted, he has had a ton of real life issues which he has yet to solve, and he's trying to get a kind of acknowledgement out of these places that they're simply not for. It's deeply unhealthy, I have no doubt it ultimately makes you lonelier and it's bound to make anyone blow a fuse, which basically appears to be what happened. And, to a certain extent, I do sympathise with him because I can relate to bits and pieces of that. And I think most people can if they look inward a bit...

[Collector]

Of course asses can be found at any age, but there is a certain behavior that is much more typical of immaturity and that is how he was coming across to me. I will also grant you that maturity is not directly proportional to actual age. I have no idea about how old he is. As far as I know he is a teenager. The only thing that I was getting at in terms of the games is as an age indicator. Given the the first game was released 30 years ago most of the fans that grew up with the games are at least in their 30s and 40s. I was not trying to imply that growing up with the games had anything to do with behavior.

[drdrslashvohaul]

I turn 30 in two months' time, and I still love to throw my toys out of the pram at regular intervals.

[Blackthorne]

Ryan's a bum-paddle.  Good lord, I've had to read lengthy PMs and emails from him that are pretty intense.  But he's mostly harmless, like Earth.

 

Sierra Gamers is an odd group, for sure.  But I know who my friends are in the community - I can't believe people were dismissive of you, Collector, or that they deleted your posts.  Just about everyday I wanna send you a gift basket.  But I digress.

 

Of course a new SQ isn't going to be VGA P&C.  I never expected that.  I just wish Activision would have given Mark and Scott the fucking millions they provided TOG with to make an SQ game or to Space Venture.  Space Venture looks great to me so far, and imagine what it would be if it had a multi-million dollar budget.  Sigh.

 

Anyway, you're all a bunch of assmunches and I'm glad you're my friends.

 

 

Bt

[Collector]

I imagine that if they gave the 2 Guys SQ and the funds that they did for the new SQ there would be more of a demand for a tighter schedule. But more funds could also buy more help to get it done faster. As it is, I am very pleased to see the quality level of SV. It looks fantastic. I am in no rush.

[Monolith_Pig]

I've added my request to join the group too (Tom Lee has anyway).

 

Would be great to see the Space Quest name resurrected too...

 

Heck I want a new Jim Walls Police Quest and codename: ICEMAN game while I'm at it! 

[drdrslashvohaul]

As time goes on, I wonder whether a new SQ is really the way to go, or whether it might be better to allow another universe to be created. Something fresh, something built on the 20+ years that have happened since.

 

If there were something, very loosely, called SQ, about the only thing I would keep is the conceit - a space janitor being plunged into a major crisis and bumbling his way through despite himself. EVERYTHING else, from the Sariens via Vohaul to Beatrice can be forgotten about.

 

Or, to put it another way. I would want a game to be written that had a great story - if the authors then want to set it within the SQ universe, I'm OK with that. I just wouldn't want a game that leant on the nostalgia name value and ignored game mechanics and plot as a result. Or one that tried to hard to recapture some imagined "magic" rather than pushing forward.

 

But let me be very clear, Kent. If they ever make a new SQ, you can have all my money.

[pcj]

Speaking of, I went on the Internet and I found this:

 

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/the-old-gentlemen-to-do-space-quest

[Frede]

The Old Gentlemen

Now, Scott and Mark may no longer be as young as they once were, but that's just damn rude.

[suejak]

Speaking of, I went on the Internet and I found this:

 

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/the-old-gentlemen-to-do-space-quest

 

My reaction to this gave me a hernia. Holy Christ, I would be intolerable if Old Gentlemen ever got the Space Quest IP.

[Collector]

Though I can think of others than TOG that I would have prefered, Roberta is retired and nothing will draw her out again so someone else had to do it. The 2 Guys on the other hand are a different matter. To not give them first dibs would be outrageous.

[Mop Jockey]

Hey, I just wanted to say that I'm the admin of the We Want a New SQ group, and yeah, I was quite an asshole on SG. For that I'm sorry, but I'd hope that me as a person wouldn't, as some have suggested here, disassociate from the group due to me personally. That's why I made a number of respectable Sierra-fandom related people co-admins, I wanted to bring together a group of people who are both well-liked and well-versed in Sierra and Space Questy stuff. I really doubt anyone from the "Sierra" brand or Activision know who I am. But that's besides the point...

I made this group as yes, a vocal petition. I figured now would be the best time to try to get as many people together to say they wanted a new SQ as possible given that Sierra-related stuff is kind of in the spotlight again. I would not however want The Odd Gentlemen to design a new SQ unless they hired Scott as Creative Director and Mark as Art Director on it. Ideally, I'd want Scott to design and direct the game, Mark to co-design and lead the art team, and Josh Mandel to write a lot of the narration. I think I can speak for a great deal of SQ fans when I say an SQ game that didn't feature either all or at least Two of the Three Guys wouldn't be acceptable.
 

While I would ideally love a hi-res 2D, retro style SQ7, I think we all know that will sadly never happen. But I think out of all the Sierra properties, Space Quest has the best chance of working really well as an episodic series; it already had that 'old sci-fi serial' feel to it, and it was the most intelligent of Sierra's series IMO - It was their Monkey Island and a revival stands a good chance of being a success. I think if we speak loud enough and SpaceVenture does well enough, it could happen. Space Quest was a big hit for Sierra way back when and Sci-Fi is as big as it ever was, given the popularity of nuStar Trek and Doctor Who. That said, I would ideally like a theoretical SQ sequel to be, for one, a sequel rather than a "reimagining" and to have more traditional game mechanics than the new KQ game did. KQ was always a testing ground for new formulas and styles; SQ on the other hand always had a set style of gameplay which demanded a high level of interactivity, and outside of hiring a professional Sci-Fi writer or Matt Groening, no one can match Scott/Mark/Josh's humor.

And to sum this all up, once again, I apologize for having been such an asshole, the community had just gotten really divided and really ugly and there were a lot of bad vibes and I guess I was in a bad position (RL wise) where I was much more susceptible to it. Wish I could take things I said back and repair my standing with some of you but c'est la vie. I just hope you don't think of me as "Paul Trowe 2.0", and I hope some of you would be willing to join and help the effort to get a final Roger Wilco adventure out there. It's been 20 years, the guy's had enough naptime.

 

 

 

[MusicallyInspired]

Awright I'll join.

[Troels Pleimert]

Speaking of, I went on the Internet and I found this:

 

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/the-old-gentlemen-to-do-space-quest

Thankfully, only three people have actually signed this petition.

[Collector]

Anyone know who this Damien Vandenberg is?