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Old 10-06-2005, 12:41 PM   #1
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Default King's Quest IX project forced to close

I just got this news forwarded to me from a friend today:

http://www.kqix.com/home.php

This sucks, to put it as a vast understatement, especially seeing as how Tierra/AGDI has permission from Vivendi to release their remakes. It also makes me wonder what will happen to the SQ7 project.

This is a very sad day... I was privy to enough stuff to know that this was going to be an extremely awesome and worthy sequel to the KQ series, and I can't believe this happened!

Sadness & Unhappiness, Liz
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Old 10-06-2005, 12:53 PM   #2
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Bastards. ****ing bastards.
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Old 10-06-2005, 01:04 PM   #3
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Well... I just died a little inside, don't know about you...
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Old 10-06-2005, 01:13 PM   #4
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I can't find words to express how much this saddens me. KQIX was the most promising amateur adventure game I've ever seen, and I was looking forward to it immensely.

The team did amazing and wonderful work; I hope they'll stay together and produce something else of just as high quality.

Dammit.
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Old 10-06-2005, 01:18 PM   #5
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*checks calendar*

No, it's some months away from April.

I have one word in response to this news:

Damn.
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Old 10-06-2005, 01:31 PM   #6
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This means one of two things;
1: Vivendi plans on making their own sequal.
2: Vivendi is made up of paranoid freaks who shut things down even when it does not promote their self-interest.

I am leaning with the second.

My advice to the KQIX team is to take out all explicit links to old King's Quests (while leaving subliminal ones), rename and remodel the characters, and change the title to something other than "King's Quest" but still keep parts such as "every cloak has a silver lining." Then Vivendi can't do anything about it.

Last edited by austin2359; 10-06-2005 at 01:41 PM.
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Old 10-06-2005, 02:02 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by austin2359
My advice to the KQIX team is to take out all explicit links to old King's Quests (while leaving subliminal ones), rename and remodel the characters, and change the title to something other than "King's Quest" but still keep parts such as "every cloak has a silver lining." Then Vivendi can't do anything about it.
What about the first part of the game, that takes place in part in the Land of the Green Isles? Are they going remodel all the locations too? What about the dialog already recorded? Re-record all the lines that refer to someone's name?

By the end, it isn't even a King's Quest game, and that's the entire point. My advice to them would be to start a completley original project, as it would truly showcase the team's greatness.
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Old 10-06-2005, 02:12 PM   #8
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Quote:
Are they going remodel all the locations too?
That hurts them a lot if it is the same part of the land of the Green Isles as it was in King's Quest VI. If they just have called it "the land of the green isles" but it doesn't resemble the original, they are in better shape. They can use many of the ideas and concepts that would have gone into KQIX in the new game, probably salvaging 60-70% as my rough estimation just based on common sense and nothing more. Of course I don't know the plot specifically so I can't make an estimation as well as they could. But I'm sure if you are tricky about it, you can save a lot of the concepts and even a signigant amount of the drawings.

As far as dialogue that probably won't be as difficult, because I doubt they are referring to other KQ people's lines every other line. Look at any King's Quest game such as KQ5. I realize Graham does refer to his family a few times especially near the end, but I would bet most of his lines don't. I don't see why this game would be different in that respect except maybe that it is being developed by different people.

Although for that owl they would maybe have to reprogram the word "Graham" to something else and insert it into the audio resources by hand because he says it a lot. That would be easier than re-recording each one.

Last edited by austin2359; 10-06-2005 at 02:38 PM.
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Old 10-06-2005, 02:25 PM   #9
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It seems these people never stop. What a heartless decision.
And so late too.

Thanks Vivendi once more. Coktel, Sierra... you blast everything you touch.

One more company to boycott
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Old 10-06-2005, 02:58 PM   #10
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Default KQIX Shut Down

Shit... shit shit shit shit and shit again.

From JA+ -

Quote:
http://www.kqix.com/home.php

Here's the email sent out to subscribers:


On September 30th, 2005, we received a letter from Vivendi Universal Games, Inc. (a.k.a. Sierra Entertainment) requesting that we cease and desist any further development of KQIX. We always knew this might happen and as stated previously, we are completely willing to comply with Vivendi's request as they are the legal owners of the King's Quest trademark. As a result, we are obligated to stop all production on KQIX.

We are not certain what precipitated this request. Whether or not they are planning to begin development on an official King's Quest sequel is unknown at this point. Vivendi is currently rereleasing the King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry Collections now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. Exact details of the products are not available but if they prove to be worthwhile we suggest you show Vivendi that there is still a strong interest in the series.

What does this mean for the future of KQIX and Phoenix Online Studios?

For the time being we are exploring the various possibilities open to us. There are plenty of ideas floating around the team but no official direction has yet been chosen. The team has become a solid entity in the past few years and has a strong desire to continue working together on whatever project we choose to face.

We would like to thank all the thousands of fans around the globe that have shown their support for our project since its creation. KQIX: Every Cloak Has A Silver Lining was always intended to be a free, fan-made sequel that would give the series some closure. Though we had hoped to spark some curiosity we never expected so much interest would arise from the adventure game community.

To all those who supported and motivated us to always keep going and never give up we dedicate the memory of this project. May your endearing spirit for adventure never fade.



Thank you,

The KQIX Development Team



We would like to hear your thoughts on this, please visit: http://www.kqix.com/forum/index.php?topic=3003.0
Thanks to Avatar at JA+.
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Old 10-06-2005, 02:59 PM   #11
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Jeysie already posted it.

http://forums.adventuregamers.com/sh...ad.php?t=11008
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Old 10-06-2005, 03:01 PM   #12
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Thanks. Why isn't this news?

TREP?
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Old 10-06-2005, 03:01 PM   #13
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She.... it.... I think Ill fire bomb Vivendi Universal.
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Old 10-06-2005, 03:02 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by squarejawhero
Thanks. Why isn't this news?

TREP?
But then again maybe the horrid injustice of it means it deserves 2 threads.

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Old 10-06-2005, 03:04 PM   #15
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I agree.

I'm officially firing all members of AG'ers... er... even though I can't.

This is big news. This would've been the best indie freeware title ever, from wha t and who I know who worked on it and the passion of Cesar and his team.
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Old 10-06-2005, 03:21 PM   #16
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Further signs of Vivendi's brain-deadness:

http://www.kqix.com/forum/index.php?...1441#msg121441

The things Vivendi told AGDI make no sense whatsoever. I mean, if a company does a C&D, it's because they're worried that the fan's work will ruin their profits or copyright in some way, yes?

So, on the one hand, we have AGDI's remakes. The KQ1 remake is essentially a prettied-up redress of the original... if you've played the remake there's not really a reason to play the original unless you're nostalgic for EGA graphics and a text parser.

The KQ2 remake has a full-blown expanded original storyline and has only the bare bones of the original games's plot. And yet, because the original game kinda was mostly bare bones, there's not a lot of reason to play the original game either.

On the other hand, we have the KQIX project. It's a very original plotline based off the details of the first games in the series. It doesn't replace any of the existing games; if anything, it would make people want to go play them because it would help them understand the KQIX plot better. It doesn't interfere with an official sequel; people will still play the official sequel in order to see the official storyline continuation, understanding that any fangame is just an "alternate view".

So essentially, going by Erpy's information in his post, AGDI's gorgeous remakes that replace the original games (which I would think would be any game company's nightmare) are OK. But any spin-offs or sequels that do not replace the original games, and indeed might encourage people to play them, are not OK.

Can I just say a very loud HUH?!

Please note that this is emphatically NOT in any way a diss on the sincerely fabulous work of AGDI!

This is instead entirely a diss of what I personally feel to be an illogical and unfair discrepancy in who Vivendi gives permission to for things. Can anyone explain the logic of this to me?

And as Tramboi said, this was a very late declaration. If Vivendi was going to shut down this game they should have done it a very long time ago when not a lot of work was done yet. To wait until so many years of work had been done and it's almost ready for release and then shut it down... well it may be legal, but it's ethically horrible.

More sadness and pissed-offness, Liz
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"Actually, I'm thinking more like the Candyland board game. But, I like this idea better."
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Old 10-06-2005, 03:31 PM   #17
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If I wasn't afraid of being banned for "insiting violence," I would make some very angry statements about Vivendi right now.
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Old 10-06-2005, 03:53 PM   #18
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Those bloody monsters! Did they have to wait until the game was almost finished? I hate them.
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Old 10-06-2005, 03:55 PM   #19
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Man, that sucks! I hate it when companies shut down fan games and mods.
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Old 10-06-2005, 04:57 PM   #20
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I thought I heard awhile back that they had a backup plan in case this happened, they could just change the names and release it as something else, but similar? Or maybe I'm just making this up...

Could they? Or would it be infringing on the rights by being too similar to the king's quest series? Or maybe it's too far along to switch that now?

It just seems such a rediculous waste to scrap the whole project completely now, with so much developed. Hopefully lot of the work can be salvaged.

It's infuriating that a company would do this NOW, after so long... Vivendi has now lost all respect from me, not selling rights to GK4, and now shutting down an amature freeware game?
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