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

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

So, one person defended the fact that a character in nuKQ says he's "pissed off" by saying:

"I would like to say one other thing in the game's defense. People criticize the use of the word "pissed", but I can assure you that it isn't the first time such a word has been used in a medieval fantasy game.

Skyrim, for example, has this guy:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Siddgeir

who will ask you to bring him a special kind of mead, and "none of that local piss." If Skyrim can get away with that, then I fail to see why King's Quest can't."

'If an action RPG aimed at teens and adults can use curse words, why can't a game that's part of what was always a family-friendly series?'

 

[Blackthorne]

Really, they're thinking about their marketing when they're making games on the scale they are.


Bt

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

Really, they're thinking about their marketing when they're making games on the scale they are.


Bt

Explain? I'm not sure what this comment is referring to.

 

[Blackthorne]

They're thinking about what kind of merchandise they can sell, and sell exclusively. Like, selling Orcs? Anyone can do that. Snuvandlars, though, only the IP holder can sell licensed shit with that on it. Marketing. Every popular game that's out there by AAA companies, look at how much ancillary swag they produce out there in prodigious numbers! It's a huge process on many levels. Owning all your IP is how it works.


Bt

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

They're thinking about what kind of merchandise they can sell, and sell exclusively. Like, selling Orcs? Anyone can do that. Snuvandlars, though, only the IP holder can sell licensed shit with that on it. Marketing. Every popular game that's out there by AAA companies, look at how much ancillary swag they produce out there in prodigious numbers! It's a huge process on many levels. Owning all your IP is how it works.


Bt

But in the new KQ, that doesn't make sense. I mean do Activision/TOG really think they're going to sell Snarling Snarlax plushies? Is the age we live in really this commercial and shit?

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Is the age we live in really this commercial and shit?

 

[Jackalope]

Gee, selling plushies? This seems like the only logical reason why they replaced all horses with dogs.

 

[Archibald]

But in the new KQ, that doesn't make sense. I mean do Activision/TOG really think they're going to sell Snarling Snarlax plushies? Is the age we live in really this commercial and shit?

I don't think that they are expecting to sell them, its probably more of a "just in case" thing. Imagine if, for whatever mysterious reason, new KQ was huge hit and everyone loved it? Well, selling Snarling Snarlax plushies might not look that stupid as it looks now.

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

DISNEY STYLE "DARKNESS"! MORE GOOFYNESS! MORE MODERN LINGO!

Did you ever think you'd hear King Graham, in a KQ game say, "Ready to bust outta here?"

 

[Archibald]

When will you write your official review?

 

[felipepepe]

Wow, even the Steam fanboys are unimpressed:

I've really been enjoying this reboot of the King's Quest series, but I have to say that this installment is the weakest of the two. It's very short on playtime, probably about three hours, and a lot of my questions remain unanswered—not so much about the plot, as about why the devs chose to do certain things. I played this chapter twice: halfway through without a Chapter 1 save (I picked the wrong slot), and then again with a Chapter 1 save, and I was surprised that certain decisions you made don't have anything to do with anything here. I expected that having made "good" choices would've given me at least one perk from one specific character, which he says he will do, but the devs cop out on that and he gives you something useless instead. If you were "good" to him, he also offers you a "half-off discount," except if you were "bad" to him, his prices are the same. That was frustrating in and of itself.

The journey was pretty fun, but it was dampened by me thinking certain choices were going to have extremely negative consequences... which it turns out isn't the case. All is forgiven at the end. I was also looking for a bigger climax, like in Chapter 1, but there really isn't one here.

I was also wondering why Graham couldn't have just told certain characters, "Hey, this is the situation," instead of telling them nothing. For example...

(SPOILERS)

...why couldn't Graham have told Bramble that she could only drink half the cure potion so you could give the other half to Mr. Fuzzycakes? And for that matter, why did Bramble need medicine, anyway? Wente flat-out says she's sick because she's pregnant... so how is medicine going to help?

Lots of questionable decisions by the dev team on this one. It felt rushed. I'm willing to wait longer for the next one, if that's what it takes to get us something like Chapter 1.

How utterly underwhelming.

 

[CryptRat]

DISNEY STYLE "DARKNESS"!

if only...

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

Yeah, "rushed" is a great word to describe it. Pretty visuals but little else - even as a non-KQ adventure game. Lots of back tracking, which while sometimes an aspect of adventure games, gets very repetitive here. For example, in KQ6, jumping back and forth between the Islands got a little meh after a while - but, at least the Islands each offered differing, beautiful environments. This was described by The Odd Gentlemen as the "darkest" Chapter, but there's little darkness or dramatic tension in the chapter. There's stuff that might startle a three year old, but nothing in the game that would probably even disturb a five year old. All the stupid charm of the first Chapter - if we divorce the first chapter from KQ, it actually is a highly charming casual adventure game - is not present here. Even though I didn't really like what the new game did with King's Quest, the first chapter was still a really fun, at times rewarding game to play. This Chapter, with the exception of the introduction which is only enjoyable because it is so over-the-top (you start the game off with one giant dialogue-driven QTE sequence), feels like a core. An unpolished, rushed chore.

And it really does feel unpolished. For example, you can feed the other prisoners, and when you give them meat, all they have is their empty hands at their mouth, not very well animated as well; it looks like the way a 3D game from say, 2001 might've done a character eating. This Chapter feels like it was let out of the gate raw, and also like the developers felt with the overall positive reception the first chapter got, they could ship anything out. It is incredibly short - my playtime was 2 hours (compared to 6.5 for the first chapter).

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

"It was too short. Chapter 1 was more enjoyable. I felt like the message at the end was the developers talking directly to us and encouraging us not to complain, which put me off. The consequences I thought existed didn't, which was both a relief and a disappointment in different ways. I liked some of the references to a previous character, but there were a few too many of them. And I thought the intro, for sure, could have been done better. I also have a bunch of questions, though they're spoiler-filled, so I'll leave that for another thread."

"Definitely agreeing with everyone else that it is significantly shorter than Chapter 1. It's also quite striking that there are far fewer hidden achievements (Only one?). Overall I felt like it was a lot less charming than Chapter 1, but still a reasonably fun time. I have a season pass, so I'll be continuing on either way.

Disagreeing with Papa_Sloth -- I didn't really notice any new fundamental mechanics being introduced. You have your inventory of items, you slowly add and lose items, you wander around rooms sorting out puzzles.

One thing that became really irritating is that you can't re-start only chapter 2 on a given save file. If you haven't started yet and you have a slot free, I strongly recommend you MAKE A COPY OF YOUR SAVE FILE once you've done ch 1 but before you've started ch 2."

"It was way too short compared to Episode 1 and also glitchy as hell. The cutscene leading up to the page of bravery was so bad I can't believe no one caught it before the game launched. I also had significant graphics issues during the pillar jump minigame too."

"The story is out of place, it's weird and inconsistent, first of all, it's been so long i forgot about chapter 1 story, but as showed in this chapter, it ended up as a cliffhanger that something happened to grandpa, in which in 2nd chapter they didn't said anything about it. But doesn't matter they maybe said something about it in chapter 1, but man it's been so long i really forgot about it.

My complain doesn't come from that though, it comes on grandpa getting angry at grant and telling him to go to sleep, then his granddaughter is "taken away to her bed" and wakes up because of the rats and grandpa keeps talking about the story like she woke up and went back to see him again. The story is confusing, too corny and stupid.

The game has become full of random ♥♥♥♥, and at the end.... man the ending was more stupid, like what kind of cliffhanger is that, nothing important and not even exciting for us to say OMG i can't wait for next chapter.

if it took them 5+ months for them to do a "rushed" chapter, i just lost hopes for this game and the series aswell. I would love to continue bashing on the game but it would be filled with spoilers, i rather not. Play the game and you will understand."

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

I think George Lucas wrote the script:

Graham: "Sweet dreams, Gart. Sleep well."
Gart: "That I can do with my eyes closed."
Graham: "Hahaha...Now you're learning!"

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

So, the new KQ chapter literally gives players the finger:

 

[Jackalope]

Just started Ep. 2

It starts with King Guybrush Graham feeling the weight of the crown.... He has to choose the color of the uniform of the guards (red or red), what kind of foot massage he wants and if the dogs should wear socks. And for some reason this is really hard for poor Graham. He's even having a mental breakdown because of it. What? The writers are idiots. Or complete manchilds.
Also... how long has it been? The next episode is coming when? I don't imagine they'd ever release the whole thing, this game is quite the flop.

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

Just started Ep. 2

It starts with King Guybrush Graham feeling the weight of the crown.... He has to choose the color of the uniform of the guards (red or red), what kind of foot massage he wants and if the dogs should wear socks. And for some reason this is really hard for poor Graham. He's even having a mental breakdown because of it. What? The writers are idiots. Or complete manchilds.
Also... how long has it been? The next episode is coming when? I don't imagine they'd ever release the whole thing, this game is quite the flop.

There seems like there was a lot cut from the game, or it was heavily rushed for real.
I go with the complete manchilds theory.

 

[lightbane]

So, I guess the devs ran out of the money they stole for producing this shit.

 

[felipepepe]

And they still have to produce 3 more episodes... an indie company would just close down and leave buyers hanging ('sup Double Fine), but they are published by Sierra Activision. This might get interesting.

 

[Fronzel Neekburm]

Sooo, Chapter 1 was sold off at a 90% discount during the recent Humble sale, which reeks of a desperate move to lure in new players. Not surprising either, considering that according to steamspy, Chapter 1 is owned by a mere 85,580 users. I assume that doesn't even begin to recoup the production costs for Chapter 1, let alone the entire game.

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

Sooo, Chapter 1 was sold off at a 90% discount during the recent Humble sale, which reeks of a desperate move to lure in new players. Not surprising either, considering that according to steamspy, Chapter 1 is owned by a mere 85,580 users. I assume that doesn't even begin to recoup the production costs for Chapter 1, let alone the entire game.

Yeah, it seems like it's in freefall. A good third to half of the second chapter was cut, you know; and what was left was very sloppily edited and not very cohesive...I wonder what will happen next.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Sooo, Chapter 1 was sold off at a 90% discount during the recent Humble sale, which reeks of a desperate move to lure in new players. Not surprising either, considering that according to steamspy, Chapter 1 is owned by a mere 85,580 users. I assume that doesn't even begin to recoup the production costs for Chapter 1, let alone the entire game.

Don't forget the developer embezzling transferring funds from one project to another so that they could get this out the door.

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

A question: Is there any precedent for an episodic game being cancelled midway through completion?

 

[MRY]

A question: Is there any precedent for an episodic game being cancelled midway through completion?

Half-Life 2? :D

Bone and Uru, arguably?