MoE, KQ or Not?

[DeadPoolX]

Although I didn't think MoE was bad (and consider it KQ8 due to it's labeling), I do feel like it would've been best if Sierra had somehow identified it as a side-story within the KQ universe. I'm sure most fans of the series wouldn't have had an issue with MoE if it hadn't been the eighth official KQ.

I think Sierra wished to experiment with new technology (for the time, anyway) and knew that the KQ series had a devoted fanbase that was fairly large. By slapping "King's Quest" onto the box, Sierra was able to lure in previous fans of the series. Since most software retailers won't accept returns of games that have been opened, Sierra figured the sales numbers would be high, regardless of how gamers felt about it.

That's a poor long-term strategy, but in the short-term, it'd guarantee sales. Unfortunately, the idea worked (for the most part) since MoE sales were above other Adventure Games at the time.

[Datadog]

I still sort of like "Mask of Eternity," but it really doesn't need the "King's Quest" label on it. The first level is called Daventry and we see King Graham in it (who inexplicably has a very nasal accent) but that's about it. Otherwise, I really like the gameplay and animation. Fighting the monsters and watching them explode when you punch them is quite satisfying.

[Almirena]

Mask of Eternity was quite a surprise to me. I'd bought the game as soon as I could - but couldn't play it on my computer. I finally managed to install it once my father bought himself a new computer (but there was a problem with his speaker set-up - no sound!). Naturally, I was in favour of the mi computer, su computer code of practice...

After being stuck at the blocks in the lava pool for what seemed like an eternity (no drumbeats,no inkling that I was looking for prime numbers and that those shapes on top REPRESENTED prime numbers), I made my way to the KQ forum to beg for help.

That was the first time I went online - booking time on one of the local library's computers. I had to check back the next day and the next to see whether an answer had been forthcoming. Once I realised that we were starting with 3 in the prime number series and that I had to look for a triangle which represented it, it was obvious that a square + line was five.
(Shortly after, I got the sound issue figured out. It was a LOT easier - and definitely more fun - with sound.)

I remember that the beginning of this King's Quest game was marked for me in darkness and silence. The colours on the monitor seemed barely differentiated - blackness within black, shadows on darkness, an obfuscation of night within starless darkness, this lack of colour everywhere.

It gave me such a sense of menace. I was taken aback by the whole ambience - it seemed to push me away rather than draw me in. And I was confused... How was this King's Quest? Which character in the royal family was I? When and where was this? Yet - because it was "King's Quest", I continued playing. I was certain this black beginning was just a beginning, and that adventure and colour and light and enchantment and delight would come flooding in soon enough.

The story itself - and the character of Connor, as well as the game engine - seemed designed to hold me at a distance. I felt strangely uninvolved, but I wanted desperately to be involved because finally, finally, finally I was playing this long-awaited KQ game. I wouldn't acknowledge that I felt like an alien in this game rather than a well-loved friend.

There were, of course, some absolutely gorgeous bits in the game. Some scenes were so beautifully created that it was like finally come back to the KQ "feel" that I remembered so well... but always the story revealed that the major concern for the player wasn't to follow an adventure so much as it was to avoid being killed by murderous skeletons, ill-intentioned zombies, specks of lava, poisoned lakes, and so on.

That was the pivotal difference. It was of course possible to die in the earlier KQ games (sometimes quite amusingly) - but there wasn't the FOCUS on that as there was in this game. Here it was kill or be killed, and that was the substitute for the storyline and the adventure of the past games.

The focus had shifted, and with it, the sense of glorious enchantment and a story of wonder.

I enjoyed Mask of Eternity, but it didn't feel like a real KQ game to me. I enjoyed it for different reasons, and I didn't enjoy it as deeply or as consistently as the other KQ games. While I consider it a KQ game by virtue of its having been designed in the Daventry universe, I don't truly, in my heart of hearts, think of it as KQ8. It's really an offshoot, just as The Scorpion King is not a Mummy movie, but an offshoot of The Mummy II. Same character, same "universe", but still not a mummy movie.

[Fender_178]

At the beginning I was only 14 or 15 when I got MOE and I felt that this inst a Kq game and im not going to bother with this but then later on I decided that I wanted to see the ending but that was a disappointment to keep away for a tad longer then I decided a couple weeks ago to complete and finish MOE from start to finish and I liked the game as a spin off but I felt that they shouldnt have gone away from the story of Rosella at the end of KQ7 they should have finished the kQ series that way. Maybe with the The silver lining being made and once its completed maybe they might finish the KQ story that way and maybe add a few more steps that tied in MOE.

[AndreaDraco]

I'm now replaying it, and I'm just arrived in the Land of Death. I didn't like it the first time around, and - whilst now I'm enjoying it per se, like a good hybrid action-adventure - I'm still quite detached from it, like Almirena said. My primary problem is still that the environment seems lifeless and dull. My major complaint with the story, on the other hand, is that they totally dropped one of the most intriguing storyline, the Black Cloaks. And I was really looking forward to them.

[Fender_178]

I hope your replay goes better than mine did problem free. Well mine went rough with all the xp related problems and I had to install the VB6 Runtime update and it fixed what ever problems xp was having with the game.

[AndreaDraco]

I'm playing it in XP and so far no problems. I haven't even installed the patch, which I found out about later. Crossed-fingers!

[DeadPoolX]

Something to remember about MoE is that at the time, the best-selling and most popular video card (then called "3D accelerators") brand was 3DFX. They used a proprietary API known as GLIDE. Every other video card employed OpenGL or Direct3D, both of which were inferior at that point. Even if they weren't, 3DFX had cornered the market, so nearly every game that could use a higher-performance video card was designed with 3DFX's line in mind.

The reason that's important is because MoE looked much, much better when using a 3DFX card. The game's software mode was graphically inferior to hardware acceleration in every way.

Finding a 3DFX card today would be nearly impossible, although eBay might still have some somewhere. 3DFX was bought -- and subsequently dismantled -- by Nvidia. That's why the dual-card system that 3DFX invented (called SLI) is now used, with a number of modifications, in some Nvidia cards.

There might be a patch to fix this issue, but if there is, I don't know of it. Technically speaking, Nvidia owns GLIDE, but they've never used it. It's unlikely they will, since no modern games use that API. So if you're interested in seeing better graphics, you might have to purchase a Voodoo2 or Voodoo3 card off the Internet somewhere.

[AndreaDraco]

I remember the time I bought a Voodoo2...

It seems years... They are years...

[Fender_178]

ya even Diablo2 looks good using Glide.

Andrea,
Also since you are in DOD (dimension of death) you wont find any problems until you get to the land of the gnomes with entering the the shops and the barron region when using the elevator.

[Collector]

Something to remember about MoE is that at the time, the best-selling and most popular video card (then called "3D accelerators") brand was 3DFX. They used a proprietary API known as GLIDE. Every other video card employed OpenGL or Direct3D, both of which were inferior at that point. Even if they weren't, 3DFX had cornered the market, so nearly every game that could use a higher-performance video card was designed with 3DFX's line in mind.

The reason that's important is because MoE looked much, much better when using a 3DFX card. The game's software mode was graphically inferior to hardware acceleration in every way.

Finding a 3DFX card today would be nearly impossible, although eBay might still have some somewhere. 3DFX was bought -- and subsequently dismantled -- by Nvidia. That's why the dual-card system that 3DFX invented (called SLI) is now used, with a number of modifications, in some Nvidia cards.

There might be a patch to fix this issue, but if there is, I don't know of it. Technically speaking, Nvidia owns GLIDE, but they've never used it. It's unlikely they will, since no modern games use that API. So if you're interested in seeing better graphics, you might have to purchase a Voodoo2 or Voodoo3 card off the Internet somewhere.

To use an old 3dfx card, you would not be able to find drivers that would work on modern windows, so you would be stuck with having to put together a dinosaur with Windows 9x. You can use a Glide wrapper, but you need a fairly beefy system to run both the wrapper and the game.

[AndreaDraco]

Thanks, Fender. Maybe I'll have to install the patch later. Is it compatible with my savegames? Or I'll have to restart the game?

[Fender_178]

No you wont have to restart. its compatible with your saved games. At the part I was at I had to collect stuff to work the elevator and when I touched the pipe to look at it the game crashed on me and after I installed the VB6 run time update the crash stopped.

[YeOldeSierraFan]

Yes, it is.

[AndreaDraco]

Well, YeOldeSierraFan... care to further your opinion a little bit? Do you like Mask of Eternity? And, if so, why?