[John]

Just wondering if it is possible to make a patch to edit or block out gory details for King's Quest 8. Because i heard this game is gory and i can't stand the sight of blood. And i like to play this game because i played 1 through 7.

John

[samIamsad]

There's blood dripping from the Mask Of Eternity? I can't remember much of that. Then again, I played the German version, and you know what these are usually like.

[fov]

I don't know anything about a patch like that. This game is very different than the other KQ games, though, so just because you liked KQ1-7 doesn't necessarily mean this one's worth playing.

[samIamsad]

It's better than bloody awful KQ7!

*runs*

[Kurufinwe]

Is an awful, bloody game better than a bloody awful game? Hmmm...
(and I ended up liking KQ7, actually, though it certainly wasn't love at first sight)

And, John, if you don't like blood, you probably don't like games about fighting either. So you won't enjoy KQ8, which is almost only about fighting monsters (and a few weak puzzles here and there). And it looks terrible (already did at the time, and it hasn't aged well). If you're actually interested in trying exploration/fighting games, you might have fun with it (though there are certainly better ones around), but don't play it just because it's King's Quest --- it really has nothing in common with the previous games.

[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by Kurufinwe

Is an awful, bloody game better than a bloody awful game? Hmmm...[/SIZE]

I've had quite some fun back then. Not that it's at the same level of quality as my favourite games of 1998 (Thief, Grim Fandango, Baldur's Gate), but it is (or was, for that time) rather well designed, overall. Then again, I'm not one of these diehard KQ geeks. I agree though, don't expect to like this game simply because it has the name "King's Quest" written on the box.

[Luke]

MoE was designed to a completely different design specification than the other games. Roberta Williams always outwardly supported the drastic changes in the series, but I can't help but wonder if she was forced to design it that way. I remember reading about the game in InterAction (Sierra's old magazine), where Roberta was quoted as saying that she "just felt it was time to get rid of" the Royal Family of Daventry as the series' protagonists. Sounds like she was probably putting a pretty face on something she didn't personally want to do.

What I'm getting at is that the blood and gore, as inappropriate as it is to the character of the series, forms such an integral part of the game that it wouldn't make sense to develop a patch to get rid of it. Sierra's management probably wanted to develop a more "market-friendly" installment in the series, but for them that meant releasing a Doom clone.

[fov]

According to Ken Williams, the MOE that shipped wasn't really the same game that Roberta had envisioned.

KQ8 was in development at the same time that the company was sold. Basically, Sierra went through changes during the development of the game, and those changes are reflected in the game. During the first half of the game, I was the CEO - during the last half of the game my status shifted to "reasonably nice guy who used to work here". My way of doing things was different than the new way of doing things.

My #1 issue was always to maintain the "clarity of vision" of the game designer. A Sierra project, like KQ8, has nearly a hundred highly creative people on it. Many of these people were working at Sierra because they wanted their shot to be a game designer. It was not uncommon for everyone on a project to seek opportunities to "put their mark" on the game. This is a delicate issue. I recruited people who could be designers, and I was a huge supporter of creativity. Roberta wanted ideas from the team, but at some point, if you accept too many ideas, the product can become a muddy mess. There were dozens of people on KQ8 who could have been the designer, any of which would have made a great designer. But, unfortunately, if this tendency, on the part of developers, to add their creativity to a product, isn't carefully controlled, the product starts to veer into "design by committee". Roberta had her vision for the product, as did almost every person on the project.

When I lost control of Sierra, Roberta's ability to maintain her control over KQ8 was also eroded. The product that shipped is very different than what would have shipped had the company not been sold.

There was another issue at work on KQ8. Roberta is a perfectionist (I'm guilty of the same sin). Whenever she would play the game, she would turn in lists of hundreds of "bugs". Perfectionist can be a pseudonym for nit-picker. When a development team gets a long list, the natural tendency can be to look at some bugs as nit-picky. I always supported my designers. I wouldn't let a game go until the designer was happy (with a couple of exceptions that I regretted later), even when it seemed like we were spending lots of money to fix stuff no one cared about. It was critical to me that the game our customers played represented the game our designer wanted produced. When I left Sierra, Roberta's ability to get bugs fixed diminished.

Ultimately, the last year of KQ8 development was a tough one for Roberta. For a long time, she refused to let the game ship and there was threatened litigation floating around.

This is not to say that the game that shipped isn't a good game. Roberta was reasonably happy with it at the end - but, it reflected a much wider product vision, than Robertas alone. People other than Roberta influenced its development, in a greater capacity than in her previous products. There will be some gamers who see the change as positive, and some who wanted a Roberta product more consistent with her prior products.

Full thread.

[Luke]

Thanks for the clarification. I had never seen or read that thread before. Now we've heard it from the horse's mouth, or the husband of the horse, I guess.

[Burge]

Seriously, LOL.