22nd September 2004, 8:39 AM
Quote:Haha, well it's kind of like being in the middle of a three-person political debate and not being able to hear out of your left ear.
And since you're hell-bent on ignoring the last part of one of my above posts, I'll post the damn thing again for you.
Kinda, yeah.
Why didn't I reply to that last post? All of the responses were one line and didn't say much and I had to go anyway and didn't have time to get around to it.
Quote:I don't think you really understand my opinion on this. I'm not saying that point-and-click controls are always bad, I'm saying that they work for certain types of games and shouldn't be used in certain cases. In something like Monkey Island where you don't have direct control over the character, it could be good if the developers really ran with it. Instead of using that control style to its fullest potential they made it sort of an odd, confused mix of direct and indirect controls. So many PC games are like that. Either let the player control Guybrush directly or make it apparent that you are not fully controlling him but rather guiding him. The game already has some of those ideas, what with the interaction between yourself and the character (which further proves my point about you not controlling Guybrush directly). They could have made the game even more interesting if there was a greater emphasis on that player-Guybrush interaction, or if you just plain became him directly. Going all the way in either direction would have resulted in a better game. I still love MI though.
You sure sound like you are saying that for any single character game(and a lot of multi-character games) direct controls are always better...
As for this, I really don't know what you mean. Confused mix of direct and indirect controls in Monkey Island? Interaction between you and Guybrush? Wha? I have no idea what you mean by that...
Quote:I was mainly just ranting actually. Considering what I've heard in the past from OB1 about RPG combat systems and how he seems to consider that gameplay style perfectly valid, I'd be hard pressed to see a couple quotes, possibly taken out of context, as a knock against the entire RPG method of combat. So, mainly that was a rant against the casual gamer who, upon watching me play an RPG like Chrono Trigger, or even NWN, says to me "you should be able to control that guy and just duck out of the way and deliver a sword blow to the back of the head right when they dive, like in Soul Calibur!", namely, the sort of casual gamer that totally misses the point of the genre.
I'm honestly not sure what OB1 thinks of it... seems to me to be somewhat conflicting messages. Explanations, OB1?
Quote:So then, KQ7, glad you enjoyed it. It is a fun game, though as I've said not my favorite in the series. It's kinda the Wind Waker of the series, what with the art style being controversial and the gameplay being on the easy side (though yes, there are challenging puzzles, they did take out the point system and the idea of finding really clever ways to solve puzzles rather than the "obvious" way though).
We'd had the game for some years now but I'd never managed to get through that stupid desert... as I said, some of the puzzles are really hard! Especially at the very beginning. Easy? Hmm... short, perhaps. Though not overly so -- Sierra adventure games are generally not particularly long, after all. But easy... parts maybe, but the annoyingly hard puzzles are what I remember much more. :) As for the art style, I think it's fine... I know 'too cartoonish' is a complaint about it but honestly I think that that's not valid for the KQ series. I mean... look at it! Even KQ1 with its 16 color EGA obviously is trying to be cartoonish, not to mention KQ5, the first 256 color title... yes, this one is a bit more so, but both of the other games in the series that I have played are only limited by what their graphics can show on that category.
On that subject, QFGV. I'm not too far, but already it is proving to be both great looking (for a game that came out in 1990 it's extremely impressive!) and very frusterating. I hate those 'wander around in a wilderness, die every eight screens, and hope that you run into the randomly placed thing you need to find' areas! And I've heard this game has not just this one but three of them... ick! Anyway, I'm not too far, but it definitely seems to be challenging. Or annoying at least. Oh well. It also proves again how the KQ series is simple... such simple conversations! Only click and talk and maybe use an item on them. I definitely prefer true conversation trees like in Quest for Glory or (though not quite as deep perhaps, it's also definitely got them) Space Quest. Makes it easy, but conversations are a fun part of these games and I wish that there was more interactivity...
Oh, and I know I've said it before, but if EcoQuest and Quest for Glory IV can be CD games with speech AND have the option for text boxes as well as speech, why can't KQV and KQVII?
Quote:Anyway, that plot hole. At first I didn't know what you meant, but then you pointed out something I noticed myself when I first played the game . It's true isn't it? Rosella and Valanice really shouldn't have missed each other so utterly there. They seemed to take good care in keeping the two seperated between most chapters, but when it came to that particular point, yes, you'd think one would have seen the other wandering in the land of zombies . I admit it would have been a tough plot hole to stitch up, but I think it could have been handled just a little better. As it is, you just have to assume a very cartoonish "both wandering within feet of each other, but missing each other by a second" scenario
Rosella is in Ooga Booga. Valanice is in Falderal (I think that's the town...). The only way between the places is though the werewolf wood and the forest. They go through the same place at the same time and the game gives no hint that this happened (I mean, even a scene with some stupid excuse for why they missed eachother would be great!), yet through other things makes it clear that it did -- Rosella had just left Ooga Booga recently. Same for Valanice in Falderal. But it completely ignores this... it really bugged me. Minor plot holes I can ignore, but when it's a major, gaping one that has significant plot implications it really annoys me... like in the movie 'Minority Report' where he uses that eye to get into the building at the climactic part near the end. There is no way that in such a futuristic society that they would have still had that eye's security enabled! He should never have been able to get in that way! ... anyway, it was really annoying.
Quote:King's Quest 1, which one are you playing? There are two official versions, one using the old engine and the other using the updated SCI engine made for King's Quest 4 (still used the old 16 color video cards of the time, but it was a much cleaner, higher quality, and just plain better engine, actually inspired by Japanese programmers when Ken Williams visited Japan to try selling games there and eventually got the rights to publish the PC version of Thornado (I think that's what it was called). The updated version has sound card and mouse support. The old version is a game that consists of large blocks making up each character . You'll know the difference .
I thought it was the updated version... it's from the PC Gamer Classic Games Collection issue. From the King's Quest Collection I thought. But it's 16 color EGA with only PC Speaker sound and no mouse support, so maybe not...
Oh, and the game you are thinking of is Thexder, DJ. Thornado is that cancelled Turrican-style sequel, remember? They also did Lode Runner, by the way... I believe that that is also Japanese.
Quote:Okay, back on topic, sorta, with the KQ text interface games. Yes, you'll never really have to worry too much about forming complex sentence structure. You will still run into the annoyances of trying to think of just the right synonymn for the word you are thinking of, and yes, it is annoying when a word as simple as "bowl" manages to totally escape you during these games (it's like the game casts a stupidity beam out of the moniter that makes you forget half your vocabulary during the puzzles). But anyway, almost every puzzle can be solved with 2-3 word commands, so it's not too tough. Cursor is better than parser (when done right), but they did a pretty good job with KQ1-4 anyway.
No, the job they did is the same. KQ games are just extremely simple. You just talk to people to get all the details or use an item on them to get them to react to that item. That's it. Very simple, so the parser works okay because it doesn't have to do a very detailed system... it's once you have much more complex titles like QFG that, in my opinion, the system really fails.
Quote:But yes, the parser interface (what I've learned the text interface system is called) is pretty easy to use in KQ 1-4. I never played QFG, but I did have the pleasure of playing Laura Bow: The Colonel's Bequest (a detective adventure game, meaning you have to learn who the MURDERER is, it's fun actually, just remember, with a keen eye for details, ONE TRUTH PREVAILS). That game had a text interface as complicated as the one you describe, in conversations anyway. I could still just type "look painting", or actually even "talk lady" if I felt like it, and I'd get some basic information. But yes, to get any real progress in conversations, one had to actually keep track of a lot of information. You had to learn to type things like "tell Patricia about Clair and Robert", and then watch the fun. So, I went around picking up all sorts of info like "Wait a sec, the secret is, he isn't wheel-chair bound at all!" or "I see! So THAT'S how they got into the second balcony of a house that's nowhere near any other houses!". Fun game actually, comes with the Roberta Williams Collection which has KQ1-7, both Laura Bow games, and an assortments of Apple II games (with an emulator program so you can actually play them). Oh yes, Laura Bow 2 (The Dagger of Amen Ra) used a mouse interface (also, it is very VERY picky about the computer you run it on, KQ5 was less picky), but in order to keep you from being able to solve pretty much any conversation just by scrolling through a short list of 3 options (ala KOTOR, seriously, those "tests" people gave you were pathetic for the most part, except the murder mystery where you actually had to unlock chat options by talking with people, as it should be), instead, you got a massive number of headings you wrote in your little notebook. When you wanted to talk to someone, you had to decide exactly what to ask them about. As you can imagine, there was a lot of speech in the game (recorded in lovely 8 bit quality...), but it meant you actually had to solve the puzzles conversations presented, which is a good thing.
Ah, but do you have to remember to TELL (clicking on you) PERSON HELLO and TELL PERSON GOODBYE in order to boost your communication skill, which gives you various advantages across the series? And the QFG games also usually have a lot of things to talk to people about... just in the 'ASK' category (clicking on them) there is often six or eight different things to say when you meet someone. And some of those bring up sub-categories. And as the game progresses you will see plenty of new options with a lot of the characters, especially in the later games in the series (see, QFG games don't have epic quests in the sense that you progress from one land to another -- each of the games is set in one land. There is one town, and surrounding areas. You explore and solve puzzles and fight monsters, but it's all done in one area... so you will find yourself returning to characters frequently. As I've said, the first game is simpler in regards to some of these things but it's got plenty of depth too... there is just less of returning to characters to get totally new dialogue trees unless a major event has happened.
Seriously, finding that used copy of the QFG collection this summer... best thing I've gotten in years and it's got three games in it that I've wanted for a really long time. Especially QFGIV, which I am now playing and is every bit as fantastic as I was expecting. I was expecting it to be great and it really is... QFGIII I was expecting to be good but not as great and that's how I felt about that one too. Okay, maybe my expectations shaped it somewhat, but that's what I think. :) QFGII looks incredible if not for parser conversation guessing.