The TSL critique thread

[Rudy]

A bar that even Sierra itself failed to reach twice since.

I don't know... All that hacking and slicing in King's Que... sorry, Mask of Eternity, kinda got me excited .


I'm KIDDING, lol!!!

[AndreaDraco]

While I don't have an opinion on the game, given that I'm not able to play it yet due to a technical difficulties, and while I agree that their treatment of many tech issues is less than stellar, I would like to see a calm and quiet discussion between us, without heat and hatred. Not that I'm saying that I've seen these things so far, but the thread seems to be headed down a dangerous road.

If there's a thing our forum shines for is how civil we always are with each other, so let's keep it that way and discuss the merits and flaws of the game. After all, the only thing we all care about is to see a franchise we love treated with the respect it deserves and I, for one, think that Phoenix Studio is handling King's Quest with the uttermost respect. I may not always agree with their decisions, but I can understand what they are coming from.

And Rudy, one very important thing: don't kid about MoE!

[AndreaDraco]

This is unbelievable.

Someone finally provided me with a solution for my problem with The Silver Lining, and I'm finally able to play and enjoy the game on my new machine, without a single glitch or crash (at least so far, but I've played for an hour straight so I'm hopeful ).

Oh yes, do you want to know who this benefactor is?

But Collector of course!

Thanks Collector for your suggestion! It worked!

[MusicallyInspired]

I want to make a couple of things very clear:

I certainly don't want to discourage anybody from playing TSL or any games from POS. I may have my personal reservations but I have absolutely no intent of bashing the project or the team's work to keep people from playing it. In fact I've encouraged everybody I've come across to play it and form their own opinions. I've said it before, it is a darn good looking game for a free project. It's not without issues but I can forgive most all of those. It's a great experience to play King's Quest one more time. I just wish it was a little more faithful to the original series and in my opinion it really isn't. But that's ok. Fan fiction is fan fiction. I don't have to consider it canon and I don't even have to play it. But I certainly don't want to give the impression that it is entirely without talent and creativity. In fact most of the work put into TSL is quite good (with exceptions being some of the voice work and the amateurish writing). The first episode roused enough curiosity in me to look forward to the next chapter and I may even still play it. But my opinions still stand in regards to the way POS treats feedback. I've said my piece and now I'll leave it at that.

[Datadog]

We should all hug now.

[Collector]

One of the things that I love about this board is the high level of civility. Every now and then there might be a slight bump in the road, but nothing has ever gotten out of hand. In fact, outside of spambots we have only ever had one banning. That was someone that joined just to flame DPX as a commie for posting a humorous link about Walmart.

[Tawmis]

We should all hug now.

Well Jules did post in this thread... so I am willing to take one for the team and hug a bunch of dudes, if at the end, I get to hug Jules too!

One of the things that I love about this board is the high level of civility. Every now and then there might be a slight bump in the road, but nothing has ever gotten out of hand. In fact, outside of spambots we have only ever had one banning. That was someone that joined just to flame DPX as a commie for posting a humorous link about Walmart.

Wait, but isn't DPX a Canadian Commie?

Kidding aside - it's true. The forum here is pretty civil. I think a large part of that is we all know each other (so to speak) by now from years of exposure to one another - whether it was on the Sierra forums, or for those that came over to my own forums, and such - we all got to know one another for a very long time... and we all have a passion for old Sierra games... it's not a forum about, "Look how l33t my armor is! I would pwn you!"

[dotkel50]

We should all hug now.

And sing Kumbaya !

[AndreaDraco]

I finally finished the first episode!

The Good: I really liked the episode. For me, it definitely had a King's Quest feeling to it that I found deeply endearing: the settings were lovely reproduced, the atmosphere was exactly what I'd expect from a Roberta Williams' game and I personally found the writing very good. I enjoyed clicking on everything just to hear what the narrator - who has an amazing voice, by the way - has to say about it, and I was pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount of details gone into making the world coherent and alive. I also liked that the episode was easy and fairly straight-forward: the pace allowed me to be sucked into the story without worrying to much about puzzles and inventory items, which is exactly how I like my adventures. I found the voice acting really good (with one notable exception) and the graphics just perfect, considering that this isn't a AAA title or even a published adventure. As a side note: I simply adored Azure

The Bad: While I didn't find the narrator's comments long-winded, I agree that a few of them are perhaps a bit too expository. The actor voicing Oberon and the Arch Druid is indeed terrible (especially when playing Oberon), but this is the only gripe I have with the voice acting. I also had some pathfinding problems, but nothing major.

Bottom Line: I really enjoyed the episode and I'm already looking forward to the second episode!

[Tawmis]

The Bad: The actor voicing Oberon and the Arch Druid is indeed terrible (especially when playing Oberon), but this is the only gripe I have with the voice acting.

Ah, good. I am not alone then...

[El Ravager]

Andrea, if I may ask, what was it you did to get the game to run smoothly?

[wilco64256]

I'd like to add a couple of notes to this thread if I may:

We have changed our policy on closing tech support issues - instead of leaving them simmering for one day we'll now wait for five days before closing an issue due to lack of updates. We have appreciated the feedback about leaving those open longer and are accomodating the request to do so.

Alex's spiky hair is here to stay by the way, just a style adjustment for the times. And both the story itself and the puzzling aspects that people expect from the series pick up in a huge way in the next chapter (which we are working like CRAZY to get finished as soon as we can).

Thanks guys, feel free to send us any feedback you have any time, we always listen and do what we can within reason to improve things!

[wilco64256]

Andrea I am glad you were able to get the game up and running. For others who have issues - please be sure you get us accurate information so we don't send you down the wrong path.

[Fender_178]

Well I liked the 1st episode. I really didnt like the voice acting of Oberon his voice wasn't quite deep enough to really fit the mold set by KQ7. I liked the Narrator though with her sassyness. I wasnt too keen on the voice over for the Arch Druid either. But other than that the episode was great and I cant wait until the 2nd one is released.

[Fender_178]

I dont mind the Long narrations or the narrator style I think they are just great they way they are.