Interview RPG Codex Interview: Corey Cole on Quest for Glory and Hero-U (Now on Kickstarter!)

[Humanity has risen!]

It looks like it will use a Flash-inspired art style.

If it's the only way the game fits the budget, please at least try not to make the vector-based nature of the graphics too obvious. Flash graphics are not aesthetically pleasing and I really don't like this trend.

 

[SCO]

Quick rundown of the QfG series for youngling newfags? Did somebody say in another thread they were grindy and exploitable? Any of them aged decently?

The Combat part is a after thought, so i couldn't care less they are 'exploitable' (grindable).

think of them like a text heavy adventure game, sierra style (descriptions for everything, you can use everything with everything), with a dash of multiple solutions (enforced by the classes, multiclassing, exploration, cool abilities (the puzzles don't tend to be hard since they are normally solvable by your class abilities), and that can import you character into the next game (sometimes with cool bonuses). There are also secret skills in all games expect the first, that become 'normal' in the next.

Here is where the grinding comes in: to solve the puzzles you can absolutely play normally. But if you are a autistic spectrum like me, you're not going to resist building a multiclass paladin-wizardmage-thief starting from the thief template (yes a thief can become a paladin).

It's heavan.
That isn't to say that this was easy; some games have time limits.

 

[pakoito]

I have started playing that QfG2 remake and while having a good time, the pain that is travelling between locations (labyrinth since minute 2, really?) and the fact that I think I have missed the description of the McGuffin is putting me off. After getting lost and visiting all locations, I found and got money exchanged from Moneylender, did not know what I was supposed to do next, then went to the desert to die.

 

[Jaesun]

That's what happens when you do not read or pay attention and actually think and reason. Was KotOR your first RPG?

EDIT: The GREAT thing about the old Sierra games is that they were gigantic dumbfuck indicators. In that if you keep dying, odds are you are just too stupid to play it so maybe you should move onto something more to your level of intelligence.

Like Pong.

 

[pakoito]

It was fun finding my way on the labyrinth tho, it did gave me the sense of being lost in a dumb north-african city. I'm not asking for a quest marker, but a quest reminder/journal in some NPCs wouldn't hurt. The writing is not as clever to engage me, I'm an avid reader and this scripts are what in a book would put me off after a couple tens of pages, but I hoped to parse the McGuffin from the dialogues.

And yeah, I don't have that much time to play to figure out stuff instead of enjoying it

Was KotOR your first RPG?

The first one I remember despite not understanding English yet is a roguelike for Windows 3.11 called Castle of the Winds. Next one probably some console stuff like pokemon. Yeah I have said before that I'm a youngling and was born in a non-english speaking country in the late 80s, so access to classic RPGs was not possible until recently.

I am (trying to be) educated in game history and design theory, yet I feel I have to fill many gaming gaps from that age, and now it's as a good time as any other. Feel free to use me to experiment your theories on RPG evolution and such, I'm as biased as the next guy. I'm a gamist with a taste for exploration, competitivity and minmaxing.

Like Pong.

Or DOTA. I wish I could, but my netbook is not willing to :/

 

[Jaesun]

I'm not asking for a quest marker, but a quest reminder/journal in some NPCs wouldn't hurt.

Go play BioWare and Bethesda games and get the fuck out of here.

 

[Infinitron]

Quest for Glory 2 is really a simple game once you get down to it. Get your money, explore the town once, then just wait around for cool shit to happen.

 

[pakoito]

I'm not asking for a quest marker, but a quest reminder/journal in some NPCs wouldn't hurt.

Go play BioWare and Bethesda games and get the fuck out of here.

I'm not a fan of the NWN stuff, Act 1 is slow to a crawl and D&D3 in low levels is plain bahwring. NWN2 was broken, but since I started coming here I want to try MOTB. Never played KOTOR either. Then came ToEE which was a wonder, and still one fo my favorites (despite having never finished it) :D Mass Effect was also not of my liking, combat system was not the tactical party promised in the dev videos, neither it was Dragon Age. I didn't start Bethesda until Oblivion, despite owning Morrowind + exp for a while. And I've been playing PST lately until the game broke from one of the stability patches. I can't get past BGs horrible horrible interface so I never played more than the first couple of rooms, maybe I'll retry soon. Also I hated the barbarian guy with the mouse, maybe the fun was lost in translation.

Oh! Second PC RPG I remember is Realms of Arkhania 3. Sooo much time spent in the sewers of that game. As I kid I never understood combat so I autoresolved everything and lost a lot of high-level fights I was not supposed to take. I also played a couple of those first-person ones but language was a problem when I was younger. I also tried to come back but I feel like missing a lot of info from the manual, specially the spell description.

these old games dont have pointers/journals

I have played other old games and some of them did, specially adventure games. Sometimes a *tip* button at the top to remind you what you were doing in case you returned to the save game years later.

 

[Roguey]

All of the Sierra adventure games were shit without exception. LucasArts capitalized quite well on their sheer inanity.

 

[Jaesun]

Oh look. Our resident shitposter.

 

[Roguey]

"We believe that you buy games to be entertained not to be whacked over the head every time you make a mistake."--something in pretty much every LucasArts adventure game manual. And they were right, Sierra was dead wrong.
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html -- more classic Sierra fail.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah. Opinions. We all have them. Amazing. And in this case they are wrong.

 

[Infinitron]

I swear to god if anybody links that OldManMurray article again. Do you realize that's supposed to be an indictment of ALL adventure games, Roguey? LucasArts included?

 

[Jaesun]

Roguey is just doing what he normally does, every time, just doing his shitposting rounds for the day.

 

[Roguey]

Not true, if Erik hated adventure games then he wouldn't have worked on the Portal series (and Psychonauts as I had forgotten).

Dumb as your television enjoying ass probably is, you're smarter than the genius adventure gamers who, in a truly inappropriate display of autism-level concentration, willingly played the birdbrained events described in that passage.

This on the other hand is so true.

 

[tuluse]

Portal and Psychonauts are both platformers and only "adventure" games in the broadest of terms, and certainly not what someone means when they say adventure game.

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey's gonna rogue.

 

[Metro]

Portal and Psychonauts are both platformers and only "adventure" games in the broadest of terms, and certainly not what someone means when they say adventure game.

Psychonauts is a pretty decent hybrid. Certainly more adventure game than Portal which isn't an adventure game in the slightest.

 

[tuluse]

Portal and Psychonauts are both platformers and only "adventure" games in the broadest of terms, and certainly not what someone means when they say adventure game.

Psychonauts is a pretty decent hybrid. Certainly more adventure game than Portal which isn't an adventure game in the slightest.

Fair enough, I forgot about the items and inventory aspects actually.

 

[skuphundaku]

I swear to god if anybody links that OldManMurray article again. Do you realize that's supposed to be an indictment of ALL adventure games, Roguey? LucasArts included?

I don't get this adoration some people have for OldManMurray - it's borderline stalker-creepy. I never heard of OldManMurray until a couple of years ago, when the site was already more like a pharaoh's tomb and those two guys were already wanking around at Valve. When I heard the amount of tongue-bathing people were giving them, I went to the site to see what's this marvel that I missed and I was thoroughly unimpressed.

 

[Haba]

Yup, we're creepy old people. The good news is, our house doesn't have a basement. On the other hand, we do have almost 50 acres in which to bury the bodies.

Oh how could I not support a fellow connoisseur of the higher arts.

 

[thesheeep]

Am I the first to point out that "Hero-U" just sucks as a name?
Anyway, hope they have success with it

 

[DwarvenFood]

Yup, we're creepy old people. The good news is, our house doesn't have a basement. On the other hand, we do have almost 50 acres in which to bury the bodies.

Oh wait, that isn't right! We aren't scary at all... much.

Welcome, and good luck!

 

[Volrath]

All of the Sierra adventure games were shit without exception. LucasArts capitalized quite well on their sheer inanity.

 

[Blackthorne]

I love the old Sierra games - especially Quest For Glory! It's DEFINITELY an influence on my company's work, without a doubt. I also loved the old LucasArts games as well - I was an avid player of both. I loved that you didn't have stupid deaths in LucasArts games - and, yeah, there were some puzzles and deaths in Sierra Games that made me go "What the hell?" but there were some games, like Space Quest, in which the deaths were part of the experience! They were funny at times! Our current game definitely has deaths - but we try to go for more humorous ones, and we don't make them happen around every corner, and certainly not a part of solving a puzzle. I'll admit, as the writer of the game - I find it fun coming up with lines for the narrator to say as he insults you for dying. But we've learned lessons from growing up with both styles of games, and I'm working very hard to create a hybrid of both gaming mechanics.

Some people are going to like it, others aren't. It's a big world with lots of games out there, for sure.

I think we'll see a lot develop from Hero-U as the campaign progresses. I've actually worked personally with Eriq Chang (Art Director) and John-Paul Selwood (Artist) in the past - and I can tell you, these artists are the real deal. They grew up with this material, and they create the resources and art with such love and devotion - I can't say enough good things about them. This is a game being made by gamers for gamers - The Coles have never been anything less than helpful, cordial and excellent to me in any correspondence I've had with them. They're going to make an interesting and engaging team, and I've backed their project happily, and proudly.


Bt