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Well, actually, dasTobias remade Intergalactic Life into a graphic adventure and in that Knoffel was a real ugly sprite. I guess Dave Gilbert asked someone to redraw the sprite.

Bit mean of me, but I actually used Knoffel as a way to poke fun at his creator (i.e., the horrible english).  And, er, I drew that sprite myself. :-/  The sprite of Maria Scotterson (the real estate lady) was taken from a text game though. 

Well, DasTobias actually liked the appearance of Knoffel in your game. so I guess he took it positively.

Eh, I just guessed that someone else drew the sprite, because, ehm, I had the impression that you're not a great graphic artist. And, since I'm equally untalented, I couldn't imagine that you could drew a nice looking sprite.
So, respect!!

About the timeline: that's really a cut down one, Anym. I have to check if the Grundislav games are really that unessential. Also, while Purity Of The Surf wasn't referenced it had much story development (much like Soviet Union Strikes Again!, which introduced Thakbor, his mom, Mr. Namyah...).
So, Purity and Union should be included.
Edit: Oh, and I would be more for IISpy instead of Dead Man's Political Party.
Doesn't Pirate Postman play at one day of Dead Man's Political Party?

Well, that surely explains why Melt & Drake were picked up in many other games...

Well, I was talking about plotlines. You're talking about characters.

Well, that brings up the question again when a game get referenced. According to you when a plotline gets deepened, but Anym thinks when a character gets adopted.

Or maybe it could be because, like Cabbages and Kings, The Tapestry is so obviously a trilogy made by the author and still unconcluded that people don't want to mess with that storyline until they know how it ends, hmmm?

Well, that surely explains why Melt & Drake were picked up in many other games...  :

Surreality was an effort, and the first one to pick up on the surrealist. Since then no games did, but then again, that's pretty much the point where RON games stopped being the work of love that they used to be, with a few exceptions. Also, I think it's unlikely that anyone expected one single game to explain the whole Surrealist thing, and if that's the reasoning people had then maybe that's the problem. It's supposed to *grow*, in much the same way that, say, the X-Files mythos or the Twin Peaks storyline grew - or even the Legacy of Kain storyline. Lots of people adding their bit, taking care just not to contradict. Eventually it'll take shape.

Naturally, if people just look at it and go "this is too big, there's no way I can explain it", it doens't work. No one has to explain it, just add to the mystery until it takes shape.

That's true of course. Maybe it's just my way of thinking. I try to conclude most things.
Yeah, you could spread some hints, but eventually it should lead up somewhere, unlike the X-Files.

Josh is still there. So no one has bothered to pick him up yet, he's still there.

I know. My point is, he wasn't picked up. So to say that only games are good which also get referenced in other games is wrong. So, you can't say that there's proper self-control.
And, of course, John Steel is an interesting character, but "Paranormal Investigator" wasn't really great.
Additionally, even if you could say that only games are good which get referenced then this wouldn't mean that the game which is referencing is good.

Also, "Punk Allen" having no walking animations as a reason for him being use makes sense... but only when you don't think of characters like, say, the blue alien. That guy came from a text game, and a really weird one. Someone had to draw the character. Once it was drawn, it was used. Meaning, if someone really wants to use a character, stuff like that is the least of people's worries.

Well, actually, dasTobias remade Intergalactic Life into a graphic adventure and in that Knoffel was a real ugly sprite. I guess Dave Gilbert asked someone to redraw the sprite.
But in most cases only one person tries to do everything himself.
And interesting enough, most people who are interested in RON are horrible graphic artists.
Also, I want to use Punk Allen in my game. But I need to ask someone to help me out with animations because I can't animate, really.

[Lunchtime of the Damned]

better graphics (nice for the eye, attracts more people. There has been done some work on it - see the sprites by Wogoat)

Nice, but by no means necessary IMHO and it shouldn't be a priority.

You know, I don't care that much about the graphics. And I agree that other things are more urgent.
But it's part of the plan to attract more people. I haven't weighed the importance of the tasks.

better quality control before inclusion in the RON catalogue (fixing inconsistencies, checking playability; production quality might also play a role (MI5 Bob or The Spoons were unacceptable in my opinion))

Unacceptable how? Those two games didn't strike me as especially bad. Sure, they aren't cream of the crop, but the puzzles have a sense of logic, the games don't have any obvious bugs and they aren't inconsistent with the rest of the series. Are the graphics not good enough? Do they introduce too many new characters and locations? And compared to what? I think they'd probably compare favorably to such "standard" titles like Lunchtime of the Damned or Vengeance of the Chicken.

Well, I have to admit that I played them, hm, two years ago, but as far as I can remember I thought that these were the least enjoyable ones (together with the Surreal Dreams).
Well, you could say that there were no bugs, no showstoppers, the story was consistent with the canon and that's enough for inclusion.
But I think that developers should get pushed to try it better. For example, they could be asked to add more hotspot descriptions, to fix the grammar (well, that would probably need the help from a native speaker) and the perspective of the backgrounds.
Often there's nothing totally wrong, but some fine-tuning can make the difference between a somehow okay and really good game. 

Well, I understand that the graphics are a critical point. When are they good enough?
Maybe graphics alone shouldn't hold back for inclusion in the RON catalogue.
Still, it should be definately recommend to look at some drawing tutorials or ask someone for help with the graphics.
Like I said, it's not about reaching professional niveau.
But it should also be more than a door and a bare wall and bottom.

Looks like I'm more on the conservative side regarding quality control in RON (which means liberal quality control). I very much agree with what Rui said:

Overall, the game makers have been making their own quality control, haven't they? Picking up on what was good and leaving behind what was bad - most episodes are mostly self-contained, so that's entirely possible.

That's an oversimplification. For example, nobody picked up the story about the Surrealist (okay, except this eye-torturing game "Surreality"). Josh Beachcomber was never seen again after Purity of the Surf.
And I haven't seen a reference to the Tapestry episodes in games by other authors.
It doesn't always work like that. Often it's also the question how much work it is to follow one storyline or develop a character more (for example, I think the reason that Punk Allen was never used more is because he had no walking animations, afaik).
The Surrealist was also a vague concept and pretty much everything could fit in. The border was so wide that it wasn't that easy to come up with a good explanation.
And about the Tapestry stuff: these are unusual dark games and that's probably the reason why it hasn't found its way into other RON games.

Of course, the thing is that the importance of a game can't be judged when it is released.
It would need at least a half year to see how other authors adopted the characters and ideas in that game.
RON is very dynamic and the importance of a game can't be foreseen.

Regarding quality control: I guess the thing I would like to reach with it is that people stop to work lazy on a game and draw just a background with three colors (red for the wall, black for the outline and gray for the bottom, a method that's not seldom in "The Spoons", for example).
If you do a RON game you should be a bit more ambitious and not try to make a game as bad as possible and see if it gets accepted.
It's not about reaching a professional niveau. I mean the graphics of "Purity of the surf" weren't pretty, but the game had wonderful writing and was well put together. Also, you feel that the author had fun making that game.
And, as a player, you also want to have fun with a RON game.

Regarding the timeline:
I agree, there should be an all-including timeline and one with the essential games.
Maybe it would also be a nice idea if I could search for essential games ordered in the timeline.


Of course, the authors shouldn't be a seperate category.
But the catalogue is so big already that we probably need a search function. And with that I should also be able to search by author.
And, at the moment, I can't look what other games the author made when I click on his name on a game page.

Regarding advertising RON in other game-making communities:
Well, we should start then to offer the character graphics in sth. different than the .cha files, like .pcx or .png.


Of course, it will take some to come to a RON 2.0. It won't happen over night. But it should happen.

[I]

Anyway... My last mean comment : Censorship for naive ears.

Spoiler

If keeping RON alive matters so much for you. If having a RON community matters so much. WHY THE F*** just not doing yourself RON game !?!. The RONite in this tread cumulate years of scripting.

[close]

Because there's a concept called time and I can't handle it.
I have already enough today with math at university, otherwise I would work nearly nonstop on it.

Edit:

What I now think is best is to have one extra piece of information with each game: a 'games referenced' list. What do you think?

Actually a nice, but a bit problematic idea! When does a game get referenced? Probably not when one of its characters gets featured (I mean, every game featuring Mika would reference ISpy and everyone featuring Davy Lunchtime Of The Damned...)
I'm sorry, I'm not sure how this could work.
Hm, well, there are some rare cases, let's say the Melt & Drake games, the ISpys and the games with Gower running for mayor belong to each other....
...but these are the only ones that spring to mind.

Normally I would say, it doesn't really matter what I think.

But then, this is the irritation: whose opinion matters???
For RON, this would be the community, naturally.
But, honestly, it doesn't exist anymore.
Now the question is: Should some few people take the fate of RON in their hands, create a new license scheme, new rules and a new content organisation without affirmation of the (lost) community?
I think it has to be this way.
But actually, it's a big task, and it would be an unreasonable demand on Renegade Implementor & Bumblearse alone, especially since they weren't asked. This is community work.
And that's a problem without a community.
We have no time, but need games to promote new people. We have no community that can reach decisions and change the organisation.
Well, I just hope that some nice games come out in the future. Dylan has his last Tapestry game in the works. There's the exorcism of Julian Lapis and judging from the extremely short demo it does have at least graphics which show that some work has gone into it.
I work also at a game, somehow. I've finished two more backgrounds in the last week, but I can't promise that it will go on like that.
Also, I would need many animations and I can't animate even if my life would depend on it.

Hm. But what we definately would need is something like a RON 2.0, but less vague like Web 2.0, this should have more or less (in my opinion):
- better quality control before inclusion in the RON catalogue (fixing inconsistencies, checking playability; production quality might also play a role (MI5 Bob or The Spoons were unacceptable in my opinion))
- better graphics (nice for the eye, attracts more people. There has been done some work on it - see the sprites by Wogoat)
- new content organisation (seperation of main and supporting characters, in some cases adding more information about characters, all Bum identities, categorization of the games (Canon, Good Stuff, Other), more informations about the games (what engine, what genre, also, games should be searchable by author)
- walkthroughs for every game (Anym does good work on that, keep going )
- compact overview for beginners & developers (clear timeline, tutorials (like for background graphics),...)

Okay, this is all I can think of. Critic and other suggestions are welcome!!

When the old RON games run under compatibility mode then it should stand in the FAQ at least. Not all people come to that conclusion, probably.
Also, when possible, maybe some RON contributors should compile their old RON games with a newer version of AGS.
This doesn't always work perfectly, of course.

1. Make RON accessible

Problems:
-too many characters

Actually, I don't think so. There's mainly Davy, Elandra, the Bum, George Watstatt, Mika, Melt & Drake, Phil Nihilist, Lucca, Dr. Die Vie Ess, Death and Gower, maybe the chicken too.
I think the rest was never really that important. The nightguards? The sheriff? Well, not more than supporting roles.
So, what's the problem?
I think we talked through it before. There's no seperation between main and other characters. They are all in the same pot. That's irritating for beginners.

-too much difference in quality of the many different games on the game pages

Yeah, right. Like we discussed, a categorization is necessary:
- Canon
- Recommended Games
- Other

Also, we should specify with which engine the game was created and in which genre it belongs.
These would be my suggestions.

-too much difference in styles of the many different games on the game pages
-too much difference in graphics of the many different games on the game pages

Well, it's impossible that all RON games have one consistent style, except if there were some head artists who make all the graphics of all the games.
But it's maybe a weakness of the concept. Everybody has a unique style and differing talents. The best you can do is to pick the backgrounds which are the most similar in style for your game. So, better don't choose the Town Square from Phantom Inheritance and with an old picture of the forest...

-too complex timeline

Dylan tries to cut it down. But to be honest, we can't forget the history. We should recommend on the start page for the developers to have a look at the timeline.
If we just try to cut it down to, let's say, Lunchtime of the Damned, I Spy, Apocalypse Meow & Purity of the Surf (just to have an extreme example), then people may see the introductory and some of RON best games, but they may also be confused. Because of all these strange side plots that don't seem to make sense (the appearance of death as a lifeguard would be strange for example). And they would miss some very important history points.
If they would then create a game based on this knowledge then we might have even more games with story inconsistencies.
The timeline would start to make even less sense and new users might be even more frustrated.

So, I think the only thing we can do ist to include those game in the timeline which have real significance.
This means that they had moments and introduced new characters which were also referred to in games of other authors. Also, they shouldn't totally contradict with the former RON history.
Further, we should include a walkthrough on every game page. This might reduce the time to get known to RON.
You can't hide the fact that many things already happened in RON. We should only try to make it easy, uncomplicated and short on time to get introduced to RON.

take into account that nobody would make anyone who has never seen Star Wars watch the Phantom Menace first in order to get into the movies (I mean, everybody would still start out with A New Hope right?).

You mean, it's better to play the games in the release instead of the chronological order?
Well, maybe. I did it this way.
I can also see why this is the better way. For example, a new game is set at an earlier time but still does refer to sth. which got revealed later on.
This problem is probably best explained with the Chzo mythology:

7 Days Skeptic may happen at the end in the timeline but was made as the second. And that's the reason why it doesn't have references to Trilby's Notes or 6DAS, though they happened earlier in the timeline.
When you would play it in a chronological order you would be confused to find yourself in a spacecraft as part of a horror moment, for example.
Or, then in 6DAS, you would control Somerset and have now idea who he is!

Still, while this means that it would be a better way to play the games in the order they were released it could be an interesting experience to play it after the timeline.
Also, the timeline is important for reference.

-Davy Jones is dead and alive and both and neither

I wouldn't have thought that Davy Jones' death would present such a problem. There's one really vague game with a unique style wherein he dies (Davy Jones C'est Mort). There's a non-interactive thing which tries to make more sense of it than the notice of Davy being sexually molested to death by a man in a cow suit (the Universal Equaliser). And there's a -quite nice (in my opinion)- game which brings Davy back in a very clear way (Davy Jones Is Back). I don't think it should be so hard to follow but apparently people have issues with the series, perhaps because of the controversial first game (featuring a rather disturbing rape scene)?
My solution would be: separate these games and put them into a subfolder, giving an explanation of the history of the games next to it.

I don't understand this subfolder thought. For me, the whole thing with subfolders may make it more complicated than easier.
I mean noobs may ask themselves why there's a DasTobias category, what DasTobias is, what it contains, why it is seperated. Also, just to make an own category for three controversial games seems a bit silly.
I don't think that Davys death makes no sense or is hard to understand. The controversy was about killing the character and not because it was a story quirk.
When people can laugh in a Simpsons episode when a steel block gets awarded for the best employer of the month then people won't be too irritated by the death and resurrection of Davy Jones. After all, he's even a sorcerer!

An obvious way to decide which games go where is to make a rating system or voting system, or maybe go by their current ratings on the RON page although those may be not too reliable (says the guy whose game ranks on the third spot...) Food for later!

Well, yes, we should definately improve on it. The current voting system was abused. I think it would be a good idea that only people with a forum account could give a vote.

Please get rid of the arcade games and the quizzes. They don't contribute anything to the series other than making it a haphazard inaccessible mess. A quiz can be made in HTML. Who would care to download an AGS quiz featuring five questions that you either know if you played the relevant game or don't know if you didn't? What's the point of having a paratroopers game supposedly connected to RON because it's said to be one of the characters' dream?!

Ehm, I think it would be unfair to remove the arcade games. While the paratrooper one has nearly nothing to do with RON it's a good game. So it should belong into Good Stuff. But it's not an adventure. That's a reason why we should categorize the games after the genre.
About the quizzes: Theoretically, you could use audio & graphics to make them prettier, maybe these mediums could even be relevant for a question. So, in general, they are nothing bad. But I have to agree: the current ones aren't very inspired...

Demos should be removed. You see a demo, the first thing it tells you is that it's not finished. That equals inaccessibility, especially since the real games of the couple of demos featured were never finished.

I agree totally.

The text parser games could go under another folder: 'non-AGS' games. But it should then be a subfolder of the 'collectors only' folder as that is what they would have been anyway.

Like I said already, we should also make categories for the game engines.

Speaking of other opinions, I'd love to hear what people think of the points I made above.
Do people agree that my 'three steps' are the issues needed to be adressed to save RON?
If so, let's first discuss the accessiblity issue. Do people agree with my folder division idea? If not, please tell me why and share your own ideas; what would make up an accessible RON game list in your opinion and why?
Who is going to take control of the situation? Renegade Implementor, you are the guy behind the RON site, right? How do you feel about revamping the website?

Keep the discussion alive, we might save a town!
Thank you all for thinking!

Discussion is good.
Of course, my opinion is also only one under many.

You post a year after the game has been released??  :o

One year??
Two years!!

Well, it's definately a nice offer.
I would come back to it if I have a properly finished game someday.

I'm curious how the newbies of the group discovered RoN, as there hasn't been much of an effort to call attention to it. 

Well, you're right, there wasn't much, but as you mentioned before, there was an Adventuregamers article. This brought me to RON.
I think though that, earlier or later, I would have found it through this forum.

Like when the aliens came and took him away?

Yes, and they also returned him.  That's either a case of mistaken identity or the aliens couldn't tolerate him for very long.

As far as I can tell, it seems like most would like to have tags or classifications of:

1. Canon (games that make up an established history of RoN)
2. Essential to newbies (games that best serve to introduce characters and plots to those new to RoN)
3. Non-adventure/misc (puzzle, quiz, arcade, any game that isn't classified as adventure)
4. Substandard (games that people feel are of a lesser quality and should be separated from the rest) - note: this needs, perhaps, a more diplomatic term.

Is this close to what people where thinking?  If it is, then a small group, say 3 or 4, should get be formed with the purpose of going through the existing games and sorting out what should go where.  If anyone is interesting in this part, let me know.

The difference between "Canon" and "Essential to Newbies" doesn't seem very big.
The last one seems to have just less games than the first one.
RON may have the problem that you can't play only the five best games. You probably won't have an idea what it is all about.
But I think people who want to have a full grasp of this town should play through the canon. And the ones who want to enjoy only the high points should better play something like the "Recommended Games", like Anym suggested.
These contain, of course, also games, which are fun, but not in any way relevant to the RON history.

Edit: Something like "Crisis on Infinite Earth" would be a very BIG project, so I don't think that there would be anybody interested in making it.
Dylan compiled a nice Timeline and we should see if it is complete enough. I think there are some things, especially in the later games, which got ignored.
However, I think it is enough when we build the future RON games on this one and the city map.

Another thing which I would recommend is a introduction of the important RON characters in your game. This shouldn't be necessarily at the beginning of the game, but as a menu option for the newbies.
I think that's easy to make. You can introduce them on many levels. They could talk to the player in their own manner or appear in a typical scene (like Mika talking to the Chief Editor of The Realiser about an article or Lucca talking to his brother while something starts to scorch in the oven).
This shouldn't be harder than including some character.say and move commands, so it's not a big thing.

I think I will do something like this in my game.

A repeated personality wouldn't break any rules, of course.
But like I said, it wouldn't be very funny if the bum was a hippie for the fourth time AGAIN.
I would look for something new, and the list of all the roles of the bum could help.

Rui: There are some walkthroughs, that's true, but I think only for a few first ones.
I was glad that "Defender Of RON" had a walkthrough included because I think that this was the hardest game.
Of course, you can say that not many games make much trouble, and that walkthroughs aren't necessary. But I wouldn't consider this very developer-friendly and I think that most people are turned off from RON because they think they would have to play through all these games.
I think I needed 2-3 weeks to play through the most RON games (skipping some surreal "gems").
Walkthroughs would probably help that developers wouldn't feel intimidated of the mass of games. And I think you could at least cut the time to the half down you would need to play through all them.

You could ignore the walkthrough issue, but then you shouldn't wonder that nobody wants to develop a new RON game.
I don't think that this is the only problem, of course.

Well, a new RON game is generally good. It's nice to see that some still believe in the concept.

You're right, the graphics aren't the best, but at least it's not of the type to pick 3 shades of red and draw some outlines to portray a room.
I am also horrible with graphics, but the one tip I can give you is that you don't leave empty white spaces like you did in the picture before the gate.

I definately can't help you since I am already myself overburdened with a too ambitious RON project!

But, still, I wish you much luck!!

[[edit]]

Oh, DC, you're right, it was Kunafits. I confused this, sorry.

The sherriff was replaced?  I just figured he was redrawn.  He's the same guy, I believe.

I don't know. If the redrawn sprite looks 20 years older like the original one then I would call it a different character.

Also, you're right Dave, I didn't make a distinction between story-relevant & quality games.
But I think that some games, though they might be horrible for themselves, brought some interesting ideas to RON. I, for example, will reuse The Spoons in my game.

[edit] But I don't think that you would have to play the game where they first appeared to understand RON. I probably never finished it myself. It seems non-relevant then.
But I would say that Davy C'est Mort, for example, IS a relevant game, if only because of my prequel ideas [/edit]

I think, to distinct between story-relevant and not relevant games is important for developers, not for pure gamers.
For gamers there should be a featured page.

I think another problem is that for the most time only one person is working at a RON episode. It's not the way that one does story and scripting, another the music and the last does the graphics.
Something like this is pretty common for "normal" AGS games.
Of course, musically, we have the excellent RON theme. But most people get easily frustrated with graphics, so while there might be good ideas, either the game doesn't get finished or it has ugly graphics.
Sure, most who are good at graphics make also their own games. But it would help to establish the thought of collaboration a bit more, especially because there's necessarily not much new to add in terms of sprite or background graphics or for the musical background.

Furthermore, some character descriptions are awfully thin on the RON page. I had to play Dead Man's Political Party to find out the name of the sheriff!!
There should be a list of all the roles of the alley bum. Nothing would be less funny than a repeated one.

[edit] At last, there should be walkthroughs available for every RON game. It seems bad enough that you have to play through many of them to get an idea of RON, but it's really terrible when you're hopelessly stuck at a puzzle. It doesn't help the research of the back story. [/edit]

Man, I'm excited to see people talking about RON again!! Whoohoo!!!

I am, of course, also working on a new RON game. It actually grew bigger than I intended it to be and I think it would be hard to cut it down.
I have completely outlined the story, thought up most of the puzzles, scripted the parser interface and finished one background and nearly one music track. I released the last one on the RON Release Something, though it was still unfinished.

That's not much, of course, but I don't have the time, sadly. If I had I would probably spend night and day on it.

But I will show you the only background for now, so you can see there's still some progress made. Oh, btw, I'm a terribly artist, so I spend 3 DAYS on it so that just people could stop complaining about the terrible graphics.
Here it is:

Apartment Floor Normal:


With night filter and light effects:


Yeah, it's not that great, but I'm improving!!


So, now my suggestions to help RON:

First, I think DarkComet is/was working on a game which took place on a yacht and which didn't care much about RON consistency and rules. But it was clear that it was part of an alternative reality of RON and that this episode shouldn't have an impact on the overall timeline. So, character may have died, but this wouldn't have stood in contradiction.

You can immediately start working on such a game, nothing will stop you!

Furthermore, I think that games should go through an official beta test period. That means that some small consistency errors which might be annoying could still be fixed before they are added to the database.
Some examples:
- With this Luigis Restaurant wouldn't have "crushed" the Pet Shop. (this would have probably killed off the relevance of "Rend" though )
- The misunderstanding the Davys room lies directly at the outside door could have been fixed (I think it was Nightwatch)
- Some strange things like the window of Scids to the back alley which jumps its position from picture to picture (though Yahtzee already introduced it)
- And the window in the upper floor of the Jones House (did nobody else wonder that it didn't make any sense there? Dylan???)

There are some other things which weren't explained (like that the kiddie sheriff is replaced by the older one) but still could in another game, so this is no inconsistency per se.
Even the Pet Shop example wouldn't be a problem as there could be a game which told the story how the Pet Shop got teared down and replaced with the Restaurant. But then, some future games took the Pet Shop and some the Restaurant so at some time it didn't make much sense anymore.

Additionaly, there should be a seperation between story relevant and not relevant games.
For example, Defender Of RON, ISpy, Purity Of The Surf and the Tapestry Trilogy are certainly relevant to the story, as they introduce new characters and locations and new facts, but on the other hand Simon's Journey and Disappearance Time are more something like a Simpsons Episode with the reset function.

This way, you would have an idea which games you would need to play to have an idea of the whole story.

That's all for now!

Yeah, I know, fixing may destroy the flow.
But I still could change it then again afterwards again.
Also, the song actually allows it to stretch some syllables or sing some more, it's not that strict.

The boat in the first picture doesn't exactly look like a boat, more like a floating wooden platform.
Other than that, everything is recognizable, though a bit bare.

Okay, probably this text doesn't make much sense.
But I wrote it for a song, so it mainly should sound nice.

My main problem is that the grammar is probably a bit wonky.
It would be nice if someone could fix it for me.

But all critic is still very welcome.
I'm not exactly that proud of it. It has probably a bit too much pathos.

Here it is:

I am all drowned in absence,
trouble takes its time.
Digging in hope to find sense,
problems near to shine.

Caught the hope in my hands,
held it to my heart.
Kept this shimmering darling
for troubled times apart.

And the riot adopts the street,
spreading over every city.
Fighting for things they're unaware about,
anarchy is the winning arm.

I sense fire burning,
fed by anger and hate.
No one, no one could extinct it,
it seems to be all too late.

You can fight, you should, you must fight,
but it's better, it's better to listen first.

You're your own leader,
ignore the belief feeders,
where is a personal advantage
there are lies.

And the riot rampages through the streets,
destroying every city.
Fighting for something they're not sure about,
civil life is on the run.

Why is this happening?
Why is this happening?

No bond is holding together,
everybody's fighting each other.
When all is battered and broken,
a miraculous wonder is spun.

Nothing remained intact,
nobody remained alive.
And out of the corpse of death,
vitality struggles for life.

A new culture starts to breed,
building on the ruins of the past one.
They have some million years to beat
to follow the fate of the lost one.

But maybe they will do it better, learn together to avoid a pattern.
There's still the hope in my heart
believing in a change.

I think in some terms your edit is better and in other it is worse than the original.
I personally think that the added sound effects feel misplaced. Some reverb seems overused.
The changed solo is really very out-of-sync.
For me the orginal solo part seems better even with the distortion.

Otherwise, the added violins are lovely.
And the reverb on the voice is fitting.

About the original: I also like it very much. That's cool because I thought that the last song from Tuomas was terrible.
But this one has some very nice guitar work.
I hope you continue to improve!!

Now, I actually liked "Horror" the most. 
It's true, the drums break the creepy atmosphere, but I can imagine it as a logical progression for a tense scene.
"Sad and alone" had, for my sensation, a very boring melody line.
"Overworld" was mediocre. Not bad, but also nothing outstanding.

Mew is a cool band, not only because they are good but also in terms of atmosphare, it's 80ies, synthie pop, but not cheesy. Okay, I only know one song from them, but it is really hard to get it out of your head, as long you got accustomed to the strange rythm...."special"...