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Brandon, I believe that if we implemented what you are suggesting, then the game would no longer be an adventure game but a RPG. At some fundamental level, I believe for it to qualify as an adventure, we need to give each player a unique experience that only he/she has access to. Massively multiplayer comes into it as we allow many players to have these unique experiences (the main quests I suggested) within a shared environment/world.
We seem to be approaching the same problem (that of Massively Multiplayer Adventure Games) from two different angles. Obviously mine is more restrictive, but that’s the way I see adventure games. You shouldn’t be leading the player by the nose, but at the same time consider that we’ve never seen a truly non-linear adventure game, probably because it cannot exist.
Anyway, to sum up, I suggested the Main Quests as separate experiences unique to each player (and driven by human or computer controlled NPCs), and added the smaller Side or Sub Quests as ways of allowing players to mix socially with each other and to allow the creation of shared experiences (thus providing the multiplayer element).
no no no.. I think its the lobster you free with the sharp shell. Is your screen, full screen? sometimes if the game is playing in a window, you might have to maximize it and restore it to get it to be clickable.. if that makes sense 😛
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“… (by lostheaven.co.uk@gmail.com) At one point in the game you swim up to a drift net (“north” of the “octopus scene”) and you can free a lobster there. The problem is you can’t swim back down. Or up. Or any other direction, apparently once you go into that screen you cannot exit. Trying to go back down sends you down, but then immidiately sends you back up to the net (as in a cutscene) for some reason.The walkthrough I have does not mention this place at all, and it does not appear necessary to win the game but I would say it’s needed if you want all the points.
I am pretty sure the game is up to date (patch).
I don’t suppose any one here has any idea what I am talking about? Please? 🙂
…”
Hey there,I assume you mean the scene where you open the old trunk and let the crab out? The one with a skeleton?
– Alistair
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“… (by Brandon Klassen) Willie, welcome here! I’ve sent you an email regarding the music.Brandon Klassen, archivist ~ SierraGamers.com admin/dev team ~
…”Excellent! Hey Willie 🙂
I’ve had people upload heaps of Shivers music to my FTP, and would’ve released it, except that it’s always low quality..
What quality is the soundtrack files you have, Willie? 🙂 As in, what kHz and what kbps?
– Alistair
Sounds like you’ve got some cool stuff Willie! It’s exciting how former employees are hearing about this site and dropping by. From the email I sent to you, we can discuss everything you might have from your Sierra days so that they can added to our archival projects.
Willie, welcome here! I’ve sent you an email regarding the music.
Brandon Klassen, archivist ~ SierraGamers.com admin/dev team ~
I’m sorry – I’m lost.
Which gme were you looking for source code for?
I have some old snippets of the SCI rooms used in Shivers, Shivers2 and all the other games I chimed in on. Bit and bits… here and there….I’ll see what I got.
I used to have boxes of interaction magazines for the 4 years I was there. Don’t know if I still got them (sorry). I’ll look in my old closet for them…I actually have a poster of PQ1 (SWAT) hanging in my office (18×24). Don’t know how I can get you a scan though….
I do have the original versions of the music. Send me a short email and maybe we can coordinate the transfer. Otherwise I can simply cut the songs and mail you a CD.
Willie Eide
(former) Lead Game Developer for Shivers and Shivers 2Quote:
“… (by Timo Takalo) Now this brings back memories. Ironically I was nine years old myself when I got this game. Willy Beamish had definitely one of the cooler manuals out there. I read once from a gaming magazine that a sequel was planned where Willy & pals would’ve reached their teens. Too bad that never happened. I would’ve liked to see an older Willy and Dana make out.
…”I love Willy Beamish! Dynamix games kick some serious heinie. For a “kid’s” game, like Eco Quest, it covers serious issues and is thoroughly entertaining.
Yes, the Chef Childish sequence is a timer bug, as is the Tavern calendar sequence, and the final battle sequence.
Really sad that the sequel wasn’t made! It was more than planned, I saw pictures once. Can’t for the life of me find ’em though..
Nice post, Timo, I totally agree. 🙂– Alistair
Now this brings back memories. Ironically I was nine years old myself when I got this game. Willy Beamish had definitely one of the cooler manuals out there. I read once from a gaming magazine that a sequel was planned where Willy & pals would’ve reached their teens. Too bad that never happened. I would’ve liked to see an older Willy and Dana make out.
To address a few things you said specifically, Johann. If I misinterpreted what you mean, then don’t worry about it. This might clarify what you meant or bring up more discussion points.
“In order for this project to remain (fundamentally) an adventure game, I do believe we would have to restrict each player to a single main quest. For it to remain an adventure game, each player must have one single quest that is only accessible to that player. A single story that only that player has a part in.”
I disagree… firstly, that I think there need to be multiple main quests, so after each player finishes a main quest, then they can do another main quest. If there is a quest bank, the easier ones would not be the length of a Sierra adventure game, but would still be considered main quests. The later, harder main quests would approach the length and depth of a Sierra adventure game. And, that quest modules may be added to the quest bank in expansions sets by the developers. There is a simple reason for this. For me to want to continue to play in the game world, I’ll want to keep questing. Diversions / subquests can only keep me interested for so long (I’ll say more about that in a second).
Secondly, that the main quests must only be exclusive to one player – that’s wasting a lot of potential material that can be re-used by allowing multiple players to each progress through each main quest, as I suggested in my previous post. This is only logical – it’s simply not developmentally feasible to write main quests for 200 players that only one player would ever experience.
“The subquests, or diversions, would be integral to adding richness to the player’s experience of the world. They would also facilitate “party formation”, where a bunch of players join together to solve a subquest.”
I agree. But where players join together to solve quests, I believe should be the main quests. There should be single player and multi-player main quests. The diversions should be in the style of mini-games. Now, of course it depends on what we are both thinking about the term “subquest.” If there are subquests, I don’t think they should be adventure-styled (inventory objects, dialogue with NPCs, etc). Diversions could be mini-games as I said… as for subquests, one idea is that they could be puzzle-game type subquests. For example, explore a cave with two other people. This is a one-screen (or a series of one-screen) puzzle in the puzzle-style of the Coktel game Gobliiins, where the two players must work together to reach the end of the puzzle and receive a reward.
“You could implement a game ranking system, whereby say a player is awarded a gold star for each main quest completed and a silver star for each subquest completed. A money system would also be a good idea. The player could in true Quest for Glory style earn money by selling ingredients to herbalists or cleaning stables or working farms, etc.”
I agree about some sort of ranking system, simply showing how many main quests are completed. Depending on what subquests are, a ranking system could be used there too. Money / QFG-like RPG stats I agree would be a good thing to have. I think if the subquests were puzzle-type, then subquests could be used simply as a way of building up your stats and bettering your character. I believe in having inventory-solutions (place a plank over a broken bridge to cross the rapids (you can’t wade through it)), but I also believe as I said in having that real world ability – if you have enough of whatever stat, you can jump far enough to jump over it. Whether or not the subquests do develop stats, or if we have some puzzles that require you to jump (with no inventory solution) – thus meaning that you have to do the subquests in order to progress in a main quest – is up for debate. The other thing about this is that stat-developing subquests could result in money awards, which could be used to buy things (better shoes, better sword, better armor, etc), or could simply result in acquiring those items. Yes, I did say sword, armor, etc. We’ll have to discuss if there’s going to be any combat – and I’m certain we are agreed that primarily this needs to be rooted in traditional adventure puzzles – but I do think the player should have these things in a QFG-like style. Perhaps we are going down a similar road that Roberta went down when she first started designing KQ: Mask of Eternity – except for the multi-player part of it. I can’t help but imagine what Mask would have been if it had remained in Roberta’s creative control. Or, as Lori & Corey tried to design QFG5 multi-player.
“So that you could accomodate many players, by giving them access to different parallel, though basically identical, game worlds.”
The cool thing is that once players complete a quest set, the developers could create a new one. Or, the developers could create a whole new world. You get onto a ship, sail across an ocean, and join other players who have completed the first set of quests in a whole new expansion land. These players could still return to the first land as well and continue to interact with players who are still there or new players who join.
The problem with assigning each player to a single main quest to accomplish is that… this is a lot of main quests to write. Of course, my variation that quests are open to different players to see how they are progressing does not mean significantly less main quests must be created. I agree that the main quest needs to be part of the adventure experience. I also appreciated Alun’s thoughts about what the differences / similarities between adventures and RPGs are. Perhaps there are still more models, other alternatives as to how to approach this. I’ll think more about this today.
Another option that comes to mind immediately. That every player plays the same main quest. Once they finish one main quest, they move to the next one. This encourages players to chat in the game world, as they might ask each other for help. This means you have infinitely less main quests to write. This could ignore or use the idea of a “quest bank” that you can return the quest to. Either it doesn’t, and every player must go through each quest in order. Or it does, and you can pick the quest you want to do. If there’s 100 quests, then at first you can only choose from the first 20, the easier ones. As you complete more, more become available to you. In my opinion, if you give up a quest in this model, then the quest should reset. This would be basically the same as your original idea – except that I’m saying quests are re-useable / experienced by each player, and they’re not “assigned”. From the start, the player should choose what quest they’re going to embark on. And the idea I mentioned earlier, I think needs to somehow happen. Eventually main quests should come up that require players to work together with other players, 2 or 3 players at the most.
Something I wanted to mention on another point that also ties into the game being more reality-based is that player should have more freedom of movement, more like a 3D Shooter or an RPG than an adventure game. This may be obvious and you may agree with it, or this may not be obvious and you’ll disagree. But when there’s a fence, the player should be able to jump or climb over the fence, instead of walking all the way around it. And similar things.
More thoughts later.
In order for this project to remain (fundamentally) an adventure game, I do believe we would have to restrict each player to a single main quest. The subquests, or diversions, would be integral to adding richness to the player’s experience of the world. They would also facilitate “party formation”, where a bunch of players join together to solve a subquest. However, to return to the original idea – for it to remain an adventure game, each player must have one single quest that is only accessible to that player. A single story that only that player has a part in.
You could implement a game ranking system, whereby say a player is awarded a gold star for each main quest completed and a silver star for each subquest completed. A money system would also be a good idea. The player could in true Quest for Glory style earn money by selling ingredients to herbalists or cleaning stables or working farms, etc.
I also should have added that everything (in my last post) applies to a single server, or Ultima Online-like shard. So that you could accomodate many players, by giving them access to different parallel, though basically identical, game worlds.
This is a common problem with running AGI games with some modern Graphics cards. ther are three ways around this. Try running the game with the -s -v switches. If this does not work for you, you can run the game with another interpreter, such as NAGI:
http://www.agidev.com/nagi.html
The game will also easily run in an emulator like DOSBox:
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“… (by Chris Williams) Dunno, I approach adventure games as being an attempt to give a player the ability to become a character in a story in as seemless a manner as possible….”Actually, I’d quibble a bit with this. I don’t see story as being a distinguishing factor between adventure games and RPGs. There are RPGs with very complex and well-developed stories. And there are adventure games that are little more than a plotless collection of puzzles, with a paper-thin story pasted on afterwards as an obvious afterthought. Both adventure games and RPGs have stories, and in both genres there are some games that have better or more complete stories than others.
The way I see it, adventure games and RPGs are actually very closely related. Both genres share two main goals: to tell a story, and to give the player a feeling of immersion in an imaginary world. In both genres, some games concentrate more on one of these goals than the other (and some games don’t manage to do a good job of either of them). But both adventure games and RPGs need something else to keep the player occupied, to give him more to do than just plow through the story with minimal interactivity. And it’s in how they approach that “something else” that the genres differ. Adventure games do it by requiring the player to solve puzzles to progress. RPGs do it by forcing the character to gradually build up level and/or stats to face more difficult opponents later in the game.
So that, as I see it, is the key difference between adventure games and RPGs–not in the story, which exists in both genres (to varying degrees depending on the individual game), but in the puzzles. I think Johann de Waal and Brandon Klassen have brought up some interesting ideas for how to approach puzzles in a massively multiplayer setting, and I’m certainly not trying to find fault with those; I just wanted to express my disagreement with the implication that adventure games are focused on story and RPGs aren’t.
Yeah, I too remember the articles that Chris wrote in InterAction. About how Roberta said he couldn’t play Phantasmagoria, but then he did anyway. I remember the articles about Mask and Outpost… and I’m sure there were more.
I don’t see the necessity of an isometric or pre-rendered view, although that’s certainly one way to do it.
The idea of having a bank of quests that players can choose from (or be assigned), and if they want to give it up can return it to the pool is interesting, but also perhaps not necessary. Why divide up main quests and subquests – if the subquests are just diversions? Say for a really simple one, a farmer’s cow has been stolen. When player #2 talks to the farmer, farmer has all his regular dialogue and then says “player #1, player #4 and player #6 have gone to look for my cow. I hope they bring it back to me, but if they don’t, maybe you can!” And then player #2 is added to his list. I don’t know if that’s the best solution. My perspective is that the game world needs to have realism to immerse the player in it, and it won’t be realistic if player #1 walks up to farmer and has a chat with him while player #2 sits there watching, then player #2 goes up to the farmer and the game tells you “It’s a farmer going about his business, don’t bother him” because the farmer is locked-off as a player #1 quest. I think players should be able to interact with each other on two levels – one, to solve quests together. Two, to have those diversions together. Such as playing a game of checkers or darts in an inn.
Good ideas, keep them rolling. I might post a few more in reaction to what you wrote later.
I’m sure that Carol MacNeill who handles the Gold Rush orders from their website http://www.softwarefarm.com) would ship internationally (and of course the postage charge would be more).
I don’t know about this problem. It could be caused by a corrupt game. I seem to recall hearing about or seeing this problem before as well, but I don’t remember the details anymore either.
We’re setting up a site that will be an ultimate archive of Sierra stuff, including multimedia files. Once we get it really going, anyone will be welcome to submit the files / stuff they have.
Yes, in the Fall 88 catalogue it does say “Choose between good and evil!” And, “Manhunter, a twist on contemporary adventure games, allows players to choose allegiance between good or evil as the story progresses … as the player’s character develops into either a destructive Manhunter or a supporter of the human underground.” Actually, I’ve never played the Manhunter games (I think I have both of them in their cheap, slash versions). I started playing but didn’t get very far as I didn’t take the time to get used to the non-traditional-Sierra type of gameplay.
You have to start ignoring mainstream developers and publishers. Pay more attention to the European market. Keep an especially close eye on what’s happening in Eastern Europe, in countries like the Czech Republic, Poland, the Ukraine, etc. Many excellent games are still being produced, but they totally go under most people’s radar.
