[fov]

EDIT: My article is finished - thanks everyone for your help!

As I mentioned here, I'm working on a behind-the-scenes article about Quest for Glory that will be appearing in GamesTM magazine in a few months.

The article will include a quote from someone on the forums talking about their memories of the series... but chatter over at their forums about Quest for Glory has been kinda small. So I figured I'd come straight to the source.

So tell me, what did you like about Quest for Glory? For me, it was the first RPG I'd played, and I didn't actually realize it was something other than an adventure game until much later. I thought it was an adventure game that had fighting in it. (Which, as it turns out, is more or less how Lori Cole intended it, so I wasn't wrong. I just didn't know there were other "fighting" games like that out there!)

I played the VGA remake of the first game, on a Mac, when I got it in a "buy one, get one free" sale through Sierra's catalog. That was my only Quest for Glory experience until AGDI's remake of the second game came out, but I found the marketplace and the time-based structure in that game hopelessly confusing, so I haven't gotten too far into it. While working on this article I played Wages of War and part of Shadows of Darkness, and I loved both of them. Unfortunately I hit some bugs in Shadows of Darkness and am not sure if I'll be able to continue... Thus far, Dragon Fire won't run on my computer, but I haven't tried very hard.

But my story's not interesting. Yours is! So please, tell me about your experiences with Quest for Glory... and they might just show up in print.

By the way - AG just wrapped up its reviews on the series last week with a Dragon Fire review... if you're not familiar with this series, the reviews tell you exactly what to expect, and even go into detail about whether it's possible to play the game without any combat. They're good reads.

[booB]

My limited experiences are with QFG I VGA, QFG 2 original, and QFG 3. I stopped playing 2 for likely the same reason as you: I got tired of wandering aimlessly around the marketplace. (Plus the decline in graphical quality from 1 was depressing. ) QFG I VGA and QFG 3 were interesting, but VERY buggy on my machine, and I lost interest in both before I was able to finish either one. I think the inclusion of action (fighting) elements in a Sierra adventure game were poorly implemented.

[Collector]

Originally Posted by fov

Unfortunately I hit some bugs in Shadows of Darkness and am not sure if I'll be able to continue... Thus far, Dragon Fire won't run on my computer, but I haven't tried very hard.

You are aware of the NewRisingSun patches, aren't you? The one for QfG4 addresses nearly all of them. The NRS patches with the right DOSBox settings should give you a very smooth game play. The SHP installer for QfG4 will apply all relevant patches, including the NRS patch and automatically set it up in DOSBox with optimal settings for you.

QfG on 2k/XP/Vista/Win7 is a bit hit or miss. Be sure to apply the QfG5 Compatibility patch and the QfG5 1.2 patch. If you still have problems, see the QfG5 Help page for more help.

[stepurhan]

Only played Shadows of Darkness (the gajillion floppy disk edition) I'm afraid but anything to help.

For me it was the first RPG that made a decent stab at having a good story as well. The RPGs I'd played before tended to have stories that were an excuse for stringing a bunch of fights together. Whilst there were plenty of fights in the game there were also huge chunks where you had to use your brain and do a bit of exploring as well. Even the grand finale didn't end up going for the cliche of having to fight a creature bigger and tougher than all the creatures you'd fought before. A hunk of mindless monster mashing has its place (usually after a bad day at work) but I'll go for something with a more cerebral element any time.

EDIT OK, I've gone to count and it's 9 disks. I do recall that each disk change brought a new screen of text to keep you interested while it loaded. Mostly tales of tech support. My favourite, dating back from the days when disks were genuinely floppy (and much thinner) was of the customer whose disk drive broke installing a game. The problem? He'd repeatedly followed the instructions to insert the next disk. He'd never been given instructions to take any out. If I recall correctly he got 4 in before it jammed.

[fov]

I do recall that each disk change brought a new screen of text to keep you interested while it loaded. Mostly tales of tech support.

Ha ha, that's awesome! I don't remember anything like that in the floppy disk Sierra games that I played... but mine were all on a Mac, and I know sometimes the Mac and PC versions were different when it came to stuff like this (error messages etc).

Just curious, since you're in the UK... do you recall how you heard about Quest for Glory? Was it as well-known as the other Sierra games (assuming those were well-known)? Obviously I only have my own experience to go by, and I'm wondering how popular the Sierra games were in Europe in the 80s and 90s. (I know the LucasArts games were big in Germany but I get the impression Sierra games weren't as popular there...)

You are aware of the NewRisingSun patches, aren't you? The one for QfG4 addresses nearly all of them.

Yeah, I know, it was my fault for installing the Windows version initially (since that's what the regular Collection Series installer wanted me to do). I did use the installer patch yesterday so I could get some Shadows of Darkness screenshots and it went without a hitch. If I end up replaying from the beginning, it'll be with that version.

I installed both of the QfG5 patches and the newest QuickTime and that's about as far as I got. I have an older Win95 computer that I can use for these games -- makes it much easier not to have to tweak everything! -- but we recently rearranged the office and it's in the garage right now, and I don't feel like gaming in the garage. In theory I'll move that back upstairs at some point, and can play QfG5 on that.

[kadji-kun]

Yeah, never played QfG5. Always felt that it killed the series like the last Kings Quest did. Others said otherwise so, so it might just change my opinion on it. In my own belief though, I feel that QfG5 is trying to hard to be an RPG instead of its own thing. Everytime I look at the screenshots, I think "Wow, this looks like it won't be fun", unlike how all the screens from previous games did otherwise.

Still, I have to say QfG4 is the best. Great atmosphere, well done characters, great story progression, more than decent rpg battle mechanics, interesting quests (I really don't understand how people dislike them. These quests are greatly superior to a lot of the RPG's of the time), good ending, interesting use of mutlpiple classes to tackle various situations, cool magic system, and awesome voice acting.

The downside was the bugs. Thankfully, that is what patches are for. Not to mention, I beat the game original without any problems, so I can't hate it like so many people already do. I never liked QfG3 either. Didn't feel right.

Edit: I take that back. I confused QfG3 with QfG2. I really liked QfG3, but only because it preceded QfG4. QfG2 wages of war wasn't originally apart of the game series, so I pretty much ignored it as a game. :/

What was great about the QfG series was how each game utilize a different location, season, mythology, and element. (minus wages of war which was added in to be canon to the story).

[fov]

QfG3 was Wages of War. QfG2 (with the Persian atmosphere, marketplace, etc.) was Trial By Fire. Sounds like QfG2 was the one you liked and QfG3 the one you didn't.

You're right about QfG5 being more of an RPG - it was intended that way, actually. Sierra had moved onto their "milking our franchises for everything they're worth" stage by then. It's sort of amazing that Gabriel Knight 3 didn't turn into a Tomb Raider clone or something...

[Collector]

Originally Posted by kadji-kun

I confused QfG3 with QfG2. I really liked QfG3, but only because it preceded QfG4. QfG2 wages of war wasn't originally apart of the game series, so I pretty much ignored it as a game. :/

As fov mentioned, 2 was Trial By Fire, which is EGA with a text parser, and QfG3 was Wages of War, VGA with a point and click parser. It was Wages of War that was not originally envisioned for the series. The series was supposed to be a trilogy, but after QfG2, the Coles felt that the Hero was not yet ready for the challenges of what was intended for the third installment of the series, Shadows of Darkness, so they came up with Wages of War for QfG3 to prepare him. The series was supposed to end with Shadows of Darkness, but the fans demanded more. Dragon Fire was the result. While the game does not use the SCI engine, it is more true to the series than MoE is to the King's Quest series. Roberta Williams lost control of the development of Mask. The Coles maintained control up to the time of the release of Dragon Fire.

Most fans' favorite is either QfG2 or QfG4. Shadows of Darkness is my favorite. It seems to have more adventure game elements that the others and the music track is indelibly etched into my memory.

[dantebk]

I wish I had a cool continuous narrative of memory, but all I have are these random glimpses of a time long past.

Quest For Glory is one of the reasons I started playing PC games in the first place. As a kid, since everyone knew I was interested in games, sometimes I received random game-related items, and that included a few issues of Sierra's Interaction Magazine, even though my family didn't own a PC yet. I was fascinated with all the articles about adventure games, but especially the ones about Quest For Glory. I remember reading that the original plan was to have four games based on the four elements, but that QFG3 was inserted in the series because they thought the difficulty jump between QFG2 and QFG4 was too steep otherwise, and thinking: Whoa!

When I finally got a PC, my number one priority was getting my hands on some Sierra adventure games, but it would be a while before I could make this goal come true. I remember eventually ordering used versions of QFG1 and QFG2 from Play It Again Games out of the back of a magazine. I remember getting both the EGA and VGA versions of QFG1 so I could see the differences. My dream was to one day own the whole series (QFG5 wasn't even a "Coming Soon" yet) and create a character that I'd port through each game so it would all be like a single storyline. I even went so far as to start a new game for each entry and write down the starting stats so I could make sure not to beat the previous game until I had at least those scores in each skill category.

Two more memories: I remember the first time I finished QFG2, I was so touched by the final scene where all the things I'd accomplished were recapped that I was almost moved to tears. I also remember checking the mailbox every day for a letter from Sierra telling me how to get past where I was stuck in QFG4 (that's right kids, before the Internet if you couldn't afford strategy guides or expensive hint lines you could get free walkthrough advice by writing actual letters to Sierra), and then thinking: "I can't believe I never tried that!"

[BerserkerTails]

I was a giant fan of Hero's Quest for years and had played it about a million times, but my first very vivid memory of the Quest for Glory series was when Shadows of Darkness came out. I had never beat QfG2, I think it was too hard or boring for a young'un like me (I was 6 the year QfG4 came out). I remember my dad borrowing a coworkers copy of the game around Christmastime, but it required a 486 to play, and we only had a 386 at the time. Nevertheless, my brother and I took the entire afternoon installing the 9 diskette game, plus the two disks of patches from Sierra (Probably downloaded from a BBS by my dad), just to see if it would work. It didn't. Santa brought us a 486 that year, and can you guess what the first thing we installed on it was?

Slightly off-topic, but I also vividly remember the CD-Rom drive on our 486 breaking, and when Santa brought us a Pentium the next year, I was more excited about a working CD-Rom drive to enjoy "talkies" again than the actual processor itself.

[BerserkerTails]

Originally Posted by dantebk

I also remember checking the mailbox every day for a letter from Sierra telling me how to get past where I was stuck in QFG4 (that's right kids, before the Internet if you couldn't afford strategy guides or expensive hint lines you could get free walkthrough advice by writing actual letters to Sierra), and then thinking: "I can't believe I never tried that!"

Or buy the hint-book I remember the Space Quest 5 one being hilarious.

[kadji-kun]

Originally Posted by Collector

As fov mentioned, 2 was Trial By Fire, which is EGA with a text parser, and QfG3 was Wages of War, VGA with a point and click parser. It was Wages of War that was not originally envisioned for the series. The series was supposed to be a trilogy, but after QfG2, the Coles felt that the Hero was not yet ready for the challenges of what was intended for the third installment of the series, Shadows of Darkness, so they came up with Wages of War for QfG3 to prepare him. The series was supposed to end with Shadows of Darkness, but the fans demanded more. Dragon Fire was the result. While the game does not use the SCI engine, it is more true to the series than MoE is to the King's Quest series. Roberta Williams lost control of the development of Mask. The Coles maintained control up to the time of the release of Dragon Fire.

Most fans' favorite is either QfG2 or QfG4. Shadows of Darkness is my favorite. It seems to have more adventure game elements that the others and the music track is indelibly etched into my memory.

Yeah, probably was the second.

Correction though. The idea behind Dragon Fire has been there since the start of the series. So, it had nothing to do with "just popping out of no where". Its like saying Star Wars Episode Six came to be because the last two films were just great! No, it was the plan and they went with it.

Space Quest was suppose to receive another game to end the series, but did it happen? No.......sadly. At the time I thought it was cool, but I feel they would have kill the series with that game. Same opinion I have for QfG5. Abusing new technology. Seriously, could developers just wait for tech to mature before using it to kill their series? On the other hand, we would have never received QfG5, which I hope to play soon.

[Little Writer]

QfG1 I've played several times. I really like the adventure aspect of the game, but I don't think I would've been able to finish this game without a walkthrough. I've never been able to finish the game as a pure fighter/wizard/thief, either. I really liked the burglaries for the thief, loved the magic spells, but hated the battle sequences. So usually I'd just create a hybred using the strenght of the fighter coupled with magic ability.

After a while I got the hang of the fighting, and then I loved taking on the goblins.

I liked QfG2 much better. It was so much more a true adventure, with lots of characters to interact with, lots of puzzles and quests. Though I did hate the endless training sessions. So much repetition. Like levelling up in a Final Fantasy game but without the fun of actually trying to achieve a goal. There were several days in a row with nothing else to do but train.

Started QfG3 a while back but never finished it. Didn't like the setting and the travelling, the repetition in the village ... Perhaps I'll finish it one day with a walkthrough at hand, but not on my own. I don't think it's worth my time.

Never played the 4th and 5th games, and I doubt I will without having finished the 3rd first, even though I'm very interested to see what happens.

[Kurufinwe]

Originally Posted by fov

Just curious, since you're in the UK... do you recall how you heard about Quest for Glory? Was it as well-known as the other Sierra games (assuming those were well-known)? Obviously I only have my own experience to go by, and I'm wondering how popular the Sierra games were in Europe in the 80s and 90s. (I know the LucasArts games were big in Germany but I get the impression Sierra games weren't as popular there...)

I can't speak for the UK or Germany, but I can definitely say that Sierra games were popular in France. The leading computer gaming magazine in the late 80s - early 90s was Tilt, and Sierra games were given extensive coverage and, usually, very good scores (LB1, KQ5, QG2: 18/20; KQ6: 19/20...). LucasArts games were treated equally well, though I think Tilt slightly favoured Sierra. The other two big computer gaming mags, Gen4 and Joystick, had younger writers, and I think they generally liked LucasArts games more; that might be due to the style of humour, and probably to the fact that LucasArts games got excellent French translations (ever since Maniac Mansion), which was not the case of Sierra games, and the writers of those two other mags probably couldn't speak a word of English (they could hardly write proper French either), whereas the people at Tilt usually reviewed the English versions. That translation problem is probably a big reason why LucasArts games might have been a bit more popular in France, but Sierra games still had many fans.

(The rest of the post is just personal stories that you probably couldn't care less about, but since you asked for it...)

It was because Tilt featured an extremely positive review of QG2 (beginning simply with "Superb!") that my parents decided to buy it. Unfortunately, it's not a fun game to play as a family (watching someone fight Uhura, or throw daggers, over and over again isn't particularly great), so we quickly gave up on it.

A few years later, I remember being intensely bored (don't ask me why), and deciding on a whim that I wanted to play QfG3, which had been recently released. I remember bugging my Dad for hours until he'd take me to the store so that we could buy the game (and by "we", I mean "he", of course -- I must have been 10 or 11 at the time). It was a French version, suffering from a disastrous translation (obviously done by an American with only a minimal knowledge of French), and QfG3 is definitely my least favourite game in the series, but it was enough to get me hooked to the series. And then I started bugging my Dad like crazy to have him order the remake of QfG1 from the US (it hadn't been released in France). For some reason, it came with a free copy of QfG2 (I think my parents still have our two copies at home) and a hint book for that game, so I went on to play QfG2 afterwards (I probably wouldn't have done it without the hint book, as that was the first English-speaking, parser-driven game I played entirely on my own).

And then those long, agonising months of waiting for QfG4 (What was going to happen? Were would it be set? How was the hero going to escape Ad Avis's clutches?)... I replayed the entire series from the beginning to build a perfect character for each class, in order to be perfectly prepared for QfG4. Looking back, all of this feels weird to me; I generally was a quiet, reasonable child, but the QfG series made me fanboyish and obsessive and hysterical -- which, I guess is a testament to how much those games made me love them. I demanded that my parents buy it for me for Christmas '93, and couldn't wait to play it, so as soon as I got my hands on it, I left my parents and my grandmother at their stupid Christmas meal while I raced upstairs to install it (and yes, I also remember the many floppies and the tech support horror stories ). Of course, the game was a technical mess, which required a newish computer and some fiddling with DOS to get it to work, which I was unable to do on my own. That was a disappointing day. Eventually, my Dad managed to get it to work, but at some point I hit a nasty bug (where some letter from Ad Avis never reached you when it should have), and it was a long time before I finally finished that one. And then there was QfG5, which I also awaited with some eagerness, but that was many years later and things just weren't the same.

[fov]

Thanks, everyone, for the memories! You guys rock.

Originally Posted by BerserkerTails

I remember my dad borrowing a coworkers copy of the game around Christmastime, but it required a 486 to play, and we only had a 386 at the time. Nevertheless, my brother and I took the entire afternoon installing the 9 diskette game, plus the two disks of patches from Sierra (Probably downloaded from a BBS by my dad), just to see if it would work. It didn't. Santa brought us a 486 that year, and can you guess what the first thing we installed on it was?

Oh man, this happened to me exactly, but it wasn't a Sierra game - we had a Mac LC with a 68020 processor and The 7th Guest required an 030. (Or maybe it required System 7, which we couldn't run on our 020 processor.) Anyway, we tried to make it work and it didn't, and took it back to the store. I was so bummed. Then for Christmas I got that game and I remember saying to my Dad "But it's not going to work!" and he was like "Santa knows what he's doing..." And a little while later I opened a (used) Mac LCII. The 7th Guest worked and I was a happy camper. (It became obsolete again not long after... the same thing happened again when I wanted to play The Beast Within and Phantasmagoria...)

Originally Posted by kadji-kun

Correction though. The idea behind Dragon Fire has been there since the start of the series. So, it had nothing to do with "just popping out of no where".

Yes and no. A concluding game with the same storyline was planned. For it to be more of an RPG than an adventure and in 3D was not. The series was canceled while the Coles were starting to make the game they envisioned, and when Sierra later approached Lori with the opportunity to make another game (different than what she envisioned), she took it and worked the intended storyline back into it.

[Cellardoor]

Watching my older brothers play the original Hero's Quest on a very old monochrome computer is one of my earliest memories... I couldn't even read (let alone understand English!) when they first showed me how to throw rocks at the bird's nest outside of the healer's hut to get the ring.

When I started playing myself, the possibilities of the game amazed me. To me, it seemed like an unlimited game where you could do anything and everything: Walk wherever you want, talking with everyone, (and "ask about" anything you could come up with!) throwing things, casting and learning spells, robbing people... It was all very intriguing, especially when compared to other games of the time, which felt very limited in various ways.

I also think the non-linearity really makes this game special, and finding all the hidden locations in the forest and mapping them out was a fun quest in itself. I remember my first map of Spielburg Valley... A mystery that really fascinated me was the cave behind the Ogre. When I was younger, I recall how killing the Ogre was a huge challenge that needed a lot of preparation; and the pay-off of finally killing it was quite rewarding.

Hero's Quest is a game I'm very nostalgic about. It used to be my all-time favorite adventure game when I was younger, although now I can no longer objectively hold on to that claim. I don't think I've played this game to death, but sadly some of game's mystery is gone, now that it no longer holds any secrets...

[fov]

Thanks everyone for your help. I just sent in the article (but of course we can keep talking about Quest for Glory!)

[th311]

I remember playing Hero's Quest. I eventually played the rest of the Quest for Glory games. I definitely had a lot of memories of it. Spielburg was a fun place to explore.

I did discover a few years ago, some fans made a Quest for Glory 4 1/2 and set it back in Spielburg. It's poking fun at the original, but it was fun to play and the jokes were fun. I recommend it if you want to revisit Spielburg on a different adventure!

[Collector]

Originally Posted by th311

I did discover a few years ago, some fans made a Quest for Glory 4 1/2 and set it back in Spielburg. It's poking fun at the original, but it was fun to play and the jokes were fun. I recommend it if you want to revisit Spielburg on a different adventure!

That fan game was controversial. It originally had questionable and/or racist humor. It may have been cleaned up.

[TheWorld]

Trial by fire is my favourite game ever and i really love the remake, though i still prefer playing the original version for nostalgic reasons.
I discovered quest for glory when i was a kid. I got quest for glory 3 and instantly fell in love with it. It's not one of my favourites today (i think it's a better game than dragon fire, but worse than the others) but I found it really innovative back then, with it's magic atmosphere and characters.
I love the gameplay in those games but what I miss the most is its setting. Quest for glory had one of the most memorable cast of characters ever. I'll never forget characters like Ad Avis, Rakeesh or Erasmus.
I think shadow of darkness had the best atmosphere in the whole series. The people in Mordavia where very cold at the beginning of the game, but started warming up when you proved you were a real hero. There was nothing best than entering the inn and being welcomed by the cheers of it's guests.