Hi all,
While browsing the internet I came across the following petition:
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To: LucasArts, every game producer
After 1993, no more producers published good adventure games: Sam&Max, The Day of the tentacle, Indy and the fate of Atlantis, The Dig, Monkey Island 1&2, Zak McKracken, and many more. This tiny little games that used to fit in a few floppy disks were the best ever in videogames history. Nowadays we've got only games with massive 3d graphics, fps, and stuff like this. We don't want those games, we don't buy those games. We want simple SCUMM-based games (the "read - get - talk - whatever" interface) with the wonderful graphics like those games of 10 years ago, a good story background and humour :))). We assure that if games like these will be published (like Indy 5), 100% people would buy them... we don't need 3d graphics, we don't want 3d graphics (although Grim Fandago ruled)! Just really, really good games such the ones that nowadays are rare.
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I stopped playing LucasArts games a long time ago. I haven't bought or played anything they've done since they cancelled Sam and Max 2, and I won't. It's not even like I'm missing out on much. Sure occasionally one of their Star Wars games is great, but I've as much interest in playing another Star Wars game as I do in playing another World War 2 shooter. Been there and done that over and over again. Not going to waste hours of my life doing it again however iteratively better it might be.
Everyone jokes about internet petitions achieving nothing, but it doesn't hurt to try. And according to what I've heared the revival (yet to be seen though) of Sam and Max was actually based on an online petition. One of the project leads for TellTale said he saw an online petition that had 30,000 signatures on it and it really made him take perspective on just how many people wanted this game made.
So if you agree with this petition, go ahead and sign it and who knows.. it might make a difference:
BROWSE TO: http://www.petitiononline.com/q45grew/petition.html
And spread the URL :D
Gr.
Donny Vain
"no more producers published " ?
"This tiny little games" ?
"massive 3d graphics" ?
"stuff like this" ?
"we don't buy those games" Then how can EA make a profit?
"story background" ?
":)))." ?
"if games like these will be published (like Indy 5), 100% people would buy them" If, will, would? Are there 90% people?
"3d" 3-D or 3D also three-D
"..." ?
"such the ones that nowadays are rare" ?
I'm not signing this ass crap.
And The Dig was released in 1995.
Grim Fandango was the best adventure game ever made and it was released in 1998.
I'm sorry but I think I'm with Jet on this one.
The Last Express and Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned were released in 1997 and 1999, respecitvely, and they both stand as one of the best adventure games ever made. Stop whining and let the genre develop. ¬_¬
QuoteEveryone jokes about internet petitions achieving nothing, but it doesn't hurt to try.
I have serious arthritis in my fingers and typing is excruciating for me. I use the Internet anyway because after weighing the pros and cons I decided that the torment was worth it. But what this means is that I cannot go to just any website and sign just any petition. It does hurt to try. Maybe if this petition had something to do with Howie Mandel being bald I would be interested, but as it is I think I'll pass.
:P
Oh and, knights of the old republic is a classic game.
Anyway having just played the broken sword 4 demo and decided I'm going to buy it, a game with 3D graphics, I am also not going to sign this petition, which is full of errors and bullshit.
(Broken Sword is nice for its 3D graphics, but they've yet to create a good control system)
That petition is the least rude to AGS(ers). Simple.
I consider this forum to be on of the busiest (if not the busiest, but you never can tell really) forums about adventure games. I don't know who started this petition, but I would like to see him visit this place and check it out.
Quote from: Mr. Vain on Mon 28/08/2006 15:28:43
One of the project leads for TellTale said he saw an online petition that had 30,000 signatures on it and it really made him take perspective on just how many people wanted this game made.
Those same people are also the ones who, as more and more of the game gets shown to the public, end up nitpicking everything they don't like and refusing to play the game just because it doesn't fit their skewed memories of the games they played when they were eight years old and loved back then. *sigh*
Hey! You should see the forum for Oblivion! The majority there spend their days moaning that it's not as good as Morrowind.
For that matter, the folks at the Morrowind forum were complaining about all the features that were in Daggerfall that didn't make it into Morrowind.
The problem, as Jet metioned, it's that the writing it's basically uncosnistent and childish...
The writing is poor, yes, but I also disagree with most of the actual content.
Quote from: Erenan on Mon 28/08/2006 19:53:25
For that matter, the folks at the Morrowind forum were complaining about all the features that were in Daggerfall that didn't make it into Morrowind.
Haha you're absolutely right!
Game fans are not game developers, and whenever they try to be they come off looking pretty silly... right or wrong, every game forum has people moaning about how things used to be better, or are better now, and (most bizarrely) how game developers they were once fans of owe them something today. It's not going to change. The worst thing we can do as developers is listen too carefully to game fans. Even on this forum it's a rare thing when we manage to have a coherent discussion on game design.
Very few people who play games have any clue about how to design a good game, all they remember is that at some time in their lives they liked games like X, which had 2d sprites and dialog like Y and some sort of gameplay mechanic and get fixated on these surface details. It's pretty sad that they list these things as important game elements, and say nothing about what was actually great about the early 90s adventure games. All it shows to someone that thinks about games, like a game designer, is that they aren't worth listening to. It was not the simple look, talk, walk interface, and it was not the (often well drawn) 2d backgrounds and sprites. That's really not what you want to be asking for, think about it.
If any game is going to give you something like the feeling you had playing your favorite p&c adventure game in the early 90s, it's certainly not going to be a clone of them because we've all changed since then. I agree that they had great things to teach us that we can apply to games that we make in 2006, but whoever started this petition hasn't identified what those things are.
I think... Yea... Yea I am.. I'm making love to Scotch's post.
I agree. I think we can learn from the past, but we shouldn't be stuck in the past. "Let's make games like they did back in X decade" won't get us anywhere. It'll just cause us to sit in one place. If things change, that's okay. We go to by coming from. In order for game development to develop for the better, either as an artform or as an industry, we have to allow for developers to move forward and experiment with different things, while still utilizing those things that they've already experienced and learned from past endeavors. Even the Neo-Classical composers only allowed Classical music to be an influence. A strong one, yes, but they weren't composing genuine 18th century Classical music a la Mozart and Haydn. They were creating modern music with characteristics of music from days past.
As I said, I consider a petition to persuade developers to make the same games that we loved from back in the day to be a more trivial petition than one meant to persuade Howie Mandel to wear a hairpiece.
The past sucked. I was there.
meh I would sign this petition if I believed it had any chance. But first of all there's never be enough people to convince lucas to make such games and the peope who made those old school games don't work there anyway but most importantly even if such petition would actually be accepted it would just end up by them making abominations like "Leisure Suit Larry": Magna Cum Laude (booooooo) or the action-adventure Indiana Joneses. So what's the point. It's like asking Virgin Records to release new music on 8-tracks or ask movie companies to release new films on BETA. You just can't make corportate companies go back in technology. Luckily we have AGS and enough people who provide dozens of games every year. And we can always replay those old classics.
The only internet petition I'd sign would be the one about abolishing the concept of internet petitions. Write a real fucking letter to the company, using your own words, sign it , put it in an envelope, go to the post office and mail it. Annoying internet and the ease of boredom.
I don't want to simply jump on the bandwagon, but:
Quote from: Mr. Vain on Mon 28/08/2006 15:28:43
We assure that if games like these will be published (like Indy 5), 100% people would buy them...
100% of people? The majority of people live on less than $2 a day, they're probably not too concerned with the demise of the SCUMM interface.
I think there are a lot of great adventure games around at the moment, far more than 5 years ago. If you genuinely feel something is missing from current adventure games, then why not make your own? I know of some free software you could use...
Given the sloppy tone and awkward grammar and punctuation of the petition, I seriously doubt anybody involved at LucasArts would take it seriously (not to mention the fact that 391 signatures is NOTHING in sales figures or even internet meme-level). If you want a good retro game, you should support the indie movement instead.
And besides, even if you could persuade someone to make a certain kind of game, no petition could produce a good game.
Radiant, Erenan: Indeed!
besides isn't it considered spam to register for the forum, post a link to a petition (or anything else) and leave?