The P3N1S award????????????

[GreenBoy]

Meh I just thought it was a crack up that Al Emmo got nominated.

I voted for it.  Though I do hope the creators dont take it personally Generally I just go for the funniest option.

Anyways I hope the award stays around.

Maybe one day Ill win my own P3N1S.

I sure hope so.

[AGD2]

1. Attitude does play an important role! Keep it in mind

1) Yes, it does. Though some people feel that thier sensitivities have been offended by extremely trivial and often imagined things. And when you are at the receiving end of the pack's verbal jousts, people will hold you accountable for every little detail you say, while conveniently forgetting to apply the same netiquette to their own behaviour. Things get blown way out of proportion. Not everyone is going to like you as a person, nor your games for that matter. And that's fine. You can't please everyone, and I don't expect to. I really don't care to get tangled up in all the forum politics and arguments as I consider that a big waste of time that could be put to better use. There will always be people ready and willing to tell you that your work is crap, and beleive me, I've become well-accustomed to it over the last 7 years. This doesn't bother me in the slightest. I prefer to focus on the simplicity of just making games.

At the same time, this doesn't mean I'll refrain from defending certain actions or comments just to ensure that I stay in everyone's good books. I talk about what I believe is factually correct, not politically correct, and I'll only ever react to someone in the same tone that they have first spoken to me. I don't go out of my way to be rude to people. I guess you could say that attitude begets attitude. Unfortunately many people here accuse others of something that they themselves are equally guilty of. However, one thing is certain; spite will only continue the vicious cycle on all sides.

2. The other alternative would be to have the game for free, or not to include commercial efforts to the AGS awards

2) Like voting for games on the main AGS Games page, perhaps it would be fair if voters could only vote if they had actually played the full version. Otherwise, how is the vote valid? Academy Award panelists don't judge the Best Picture Oscar based on viewing only the 2-minute trailers of some movies, while viewing full screenings of others. By the same logic, voters should not be able to vote for best backgrounds either, unless they have played the full version so that they have an overview of the entire quality. I think it is better to exclude commercial games from the runnings (at the developer's wish) if such a confusing loophole exists.

That is the case with most penis awards. In this particular case it was a case of the community getting back and "taking revenge" on a game that promised a lot, made by extremelly talented people who have given us to fabulous remakes, one of them an extraordinary game in its own right, and that not only fell flat on its face, you had to pay to see it fall. This lack of imparciality seems to surprise you. It shouldn't, it's human nature. I say again, you hurt people, people will hit you where it *hurts* - re, your game.

3) With all due respect, I honestly don't beleive that is the case here. I can tell genuine criticisms apart from spiteful ones, and the reaction to the game here in the AGS forums has been far harsher than in many other places on the net. As you said, people will take their votes out on perceived 'attitudes' of the team, even if they haven't played the full game, as a way of extracting revenge. If this is the case, then the voting system is flawed. The game's are supposed to be what's being judged here. As I said, I don't care about receiving a P3n1s award (though, I think it should be called a "Chonky" instead). What concerns me more is the fact that the voting system loses its credibility if people can use it for such purposes.

If you want to stick to your last comment, go ahead, but it hardly puts you in a good light.

Aw, come on... it was just a light-hearted joke! If the community can't take them, then it certainly shouldn't be issuing them in the first place! 

[Nikolas]

*ahem*

Company founders, Britney K. Brimhall and Christopher T. Warren, previously established AGDInteractive, LLC (formerly known as Tierra Entertainment), a company which nearly single handedly resurrected classic adventure gaming.

You call this factual? :o

I call this an insult to AGS, to the community, to me, and everyone else here making adventure games! This quote has been discussed for ages... But just don't try to turn things around even now! You came out waaaaaaaay over the top and more over you dissapointed a lot of people with some real problematic issues in the game: (voice acting, 3-d cutscenes, portraits...). I personally don't mind and I've bought the game and the soundtrack! I also support all the way your decision to go commercial! I always did!

Anyways, no need to respond really as this is waste of my time as well.

[GarageGothic]

I wonder, would everyone be happy if we had nominated the Al Emmo DEMO instead of the full game?

[deadsuperhero]

I find it hilarious to see people argue like this.
*sits in middle of it all*
Continue.

Actually, I wasn't too thrilled with Al Emmo, mainly because it resembled Leisure Suit Larry, which isn't the kind of game I really like to play.
On the other hand, it had some great graphics, and the voice acting was way better than anything I could throw together (that goes for music, too)
But it's kind of like paying to go see a movie. You go into it, not knowing what to expect, and in the end, you decide it wasn't bad, you weren't expecting anything either good or bad.
However, let's say that movie has some damn good previews, and you get to the movie and it's still just an okay movie. That okayness shrivels into mediocrity. Sure, it looks nice, but we came for a deep story, or at least something not thrown together like a Family Guy episode.
Just my two cents.

[SSH]

This reminds me of "The Avengers" movie. The trailer and main actors were sexy, cool and generally awesome IMHO. The movie was.... garish and surreal. Now, some people may like garish and surreal, but that's not how it was presented in the build-up, so nearly everyone was disappointed.

[AGD2]

Company founders, Britney K. Brimhall and Christopher T. Warren, previously established AGDInteractive, LLC (formerly known as Tierra Entertainment), a company which nearly single handedly resurrected classic adventure gaming.

You call this factual?

I didn't write that. Britney said she designed the site from a pre-existing template which she created for another company. The page still contained the other company's text. Our own company text was quickly typed-over some of the existing words to serve as a space filler when the page was being designed. This page was accidently uploaded with that line of text left in place. It was changed as soon as it was pointed out to us.

This is a good example of how things get blown out of proportion and such assumptions are made. Despite explaining this many times, people continue to drag up. The situation was resolved, why bring it up again?

more over you dissapointed a lot of people with some real problematic issues in the game: (voice acting, 3-d cutscenes, portraits...).

KQ2VGA+ included all of these features too, and Al Emmo improved on them significantly (i.e. lipsynched portraits, character & enviromental models in the cutscene movies). To jump from an award of "best game" to "worst game" when such improvements are given major attention (even if they are not deemed totally perfect) is quite a large jump backwards. We're talking about complete polar opposites! The commercial factor must hold a heck of a lot of influence in the voting system... yet if most voters didn't play the full version, then how could that possibly work?

[Vel]

Just my two cents, AGDs...
But I think Al Emmo was nominated for worst game just because your previous effort, KQ2VGA was so good. It doesn't have anything to do with the game being sold, at least not in my opinion. It doesn't have a spark of the fire KQ2 had, even if the portraits were not lip-synced, even if the graphics were not as good. As I am sure you are well aware of the fact that the game was out on practically all torrent sites, I shall say that the demo discouraged me to download the game for free, let alone buy it. The latter is something I would not have hesitated to do for KQ2VGA.
So, in my opinion, the immense difference between great expectations and the modest game Al Emmo seems to be, at least story-wise, got you a p3n15 award nomination.
And if you want another opinion of mine, you should not try to bring back classic adventure gaming - it is as flawed as it is dead, but strive for new heights of the genre - you've surely got the potential.

[SSH]

Well, I didn't finish 2010: World Of Chaos, but I still know it's a terrible game (but ain't in the games DB so isn't eligible).

Personally, I think the backlash reflects the disappointment rather than the quality. You had set a high bar for yourselves, and when people came to pay more than double what games like Bone and Sam and Max charge they expected something more. In some ways, its like a formula:

rating =  quality * price of old game / quality of old game * price of new game

and since your old game was free, you've got a multiply by zero which screws you up bigtime

Anyway, as I hinted earlier: it only took 3 votes to get you nominated. And you're in illustrious company here: http://forums.adventuregamers.com/showthread.php?p=387491 where you were narrowly beaten to worst game of 2006 by Benoit Sokal and Broken Sword 4...

[Vince Twelve]

The P3N1S award is just a chuckle.  It has no real meaning whatsoever because there are no rules to guide what you should nominate.  Some people nominate the games that were unintentionally bad, some nominate the intentionally bad, some just nominate what would be the funniest game to get the award.  It's just whoever you think deserves a P3N1S.  And since there were lots of games that got 1 nomination, a few that got two, and only two games that rose above that, we're not looking at a unified forum consensus here.

Take it with a chuckle and brush it off.  It doesn't mean that the other awards are broken or have no merit.  It just means that three people wanted to give you a joke award.

And on the whole arrogance subject, which may or may not have had something to do with your nomination, some people gave the Herculean Effort boys some crap for having the slogan "it's not easy being the best."  And that's just being sensitive.  However, I have to admit, your website, even in its current revision is still a bit pretentious.  I can understand why some people would be a little riled up by it.

Well, I didn't finish 2010: World Of Chaos, but I still know it's a terrible game (but ain't in the games DB so isn't eligible).

Yeah, and what the hell, Yodaman?  Did you delete it?  You were totally going to get an award!

[Snarky]

For your consideration: Al Emmo, for the P3N1S Award.

You guys seriously need to get someone else to do your PR for you. And if there's something you absolutely need to get off your chest, post anonymously. Can't you see that you're only making it worse?

[SSH]

And if there's something you absolutely need to get off your chest, post anonymously.

Can you be more anonymous than "Anonymous Game Developer"?

[m0ds]

Can you be more anonymous than "Anonymous Game Developer"?

Not after accidentally uploading this page, no!!

Company founders, Britney K. Brimhall and Christopher T. Warren

Do you call each other number 1, and number 2?

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Company founders, Britney K. Brimhall and Christopher T. Warren, previously established AGDInteractive, LLC (formerly known as Tierra Entertainment), a company which nearly single handedly resurrected classic adventure gaming.

You call this factual? Shocked

I call this an insult to AGS, to the community, to me, and everyone else here making adventure games! This quote has been discussed for ages...

Enough already!  I'm sick of reading about this, so please stop including 'everyone' in your claims, Nikolas.  I for one don't give a good shit what they claim they've done for adventure games, and neither should any of you, really.  It's just advertising whitewash for one thing, and for another it's an opinion.  One you don't have to share or acknowledge.  If you like their game play it.  If you don't then don't play it.

Please stop rehashing this garbage and move on. 

Thanks.

[loominous]

I suspect that this might all be a culturally based misunderstanding, one that if it has any bearing might be of interest to americans wishing to avoid alienating the european market.

As a european, or, to narrow it down, swede, I'm not really used to reading claims like that of Himalaya studio and Herculean Effort, so instead of just filtering it away, like Prog seem to be able to, I get a conceited impression of them, which I assume is bad for their PR.

Out of curiosity, do you other americans react similarly to Prog (without the agitation)?

[calacver]

There will always be people ready and willing to tell you that your work is crap, and beleive me, I've become well-accustomed to it over the last 7 years. This doesn't bother me in the slightest. I prefer to focus on the simplicity of just making games.

No. If so many people have told you this then maybe it's time you considered the possibility and stop being arrogant/dillusional, cause people claiming they are amazing and ain't gets into these kinda trouble when they produce something.

You won't find 2 people that say Herculean Effort is crap, or the Shivah team. Cause they aren't.

Also there is a huge difference between remaking a game and making one, since you didn't have the design experience, the other commercial people have made some original freeware games and it shows. Hopefully you will learn from all of this and grow.

[SSH]

You won't find 2 people that say Herculean Effort is crap, or the Shivah team. Cause they aren't.

Actually, Dave also suffered a going-commercial backlash from The Shivah, and 2 people did nominate it for the PeeThreeEnOneEss

[Ishmael]

1) Disliking members of a dev team and overlooking the game itself.

This works in reverse, too. Why would a game with a very uncomfortable GUI get the best scripting award? Why would a game with simple graphics get the best graphics award? Because it's made by a cult type of person or team. People go "OMG <person>'s game! I vote it for everything!", happend in may awards in a row.

[MrColossal]

How many people voted Al Emmo for this award?

10?

20?

20,000?

It is my understanding that these awards have a very small turn out. If 5 people voted for Al Emmo and 4 people voted for another game, Al Emmo wins the nomination. This isn't some huge backlash from a silent majority of people. You don't like that you're game was received badly by some people? Too bad, accept it and move on. You can't change their mind by posting about it on a forum, they played the game and they didn't like it. The only way to change their mind is to make another game and hope they like it.

Also, I to wish people would stop with the whole "arrogant" kick and ALSO stop comparing game makers. Who gives a shit what someone's tag line is on their pretend interenet company? Are we so desperate for drama in our lives that we have to make mountains out of mole hills?

anyway, in my opinion and all that

[calacver]

You won't find 2 people that say Herculean Effort is crap, or the Shivah team. Cause they aren't.

Actually, Dave also suffered a going-commercial backlash from The Shivah, and 2 people did nominate it for the PeeThreeEnOneEss

I assure you, purely a publicity stunt by dave   j/k.