Kings Quest IX Needs Help

#1 Meh, finish the game under a different title. That way they can sell it for money, and with all this publicity they can maybe turn a profit :)

#2 Hehe yeah, change all the names, people locations.. etc
Change the art, flip up the story some so its not related anymore. Add in new concepts.

#3 This just sucks. These people worked hard for years on this. This is nothing more than a mod. This is in my opinion the same as telling kids that they can't play Han Solo or Superman in the school yard. It's just bullshit. They weren't going to make any money. I don't see how anyone has a right to tell them to stop. I can understand them not wanting them to distribute... but telling them to stop making it altogether even just for themselves to play is just stupid.

#4 I agree with Jason and Chris. Devil Whiskey www.devilwhiskey.com was strongly influenced by old school RPGs like EA's Bard's tale series. Somehow, the makers managed to create an original product that remained free of any legal hassles. I would suggest backing up, re-thinking, re-writing, and re-structuring this project and then release a game that is in the 'spirit' of King's Quest yet immune to VU's lawyer-mages.

#5 That would definatly work, and they very well might end up doing just that, but it doesn't hurt to show your support.

#6 There was also a mod team that was making Bid for Power a quake 3 total conversion with the Dragon Ball Z chars. They were given the same letter.

Quote:BFP started out as a Dragonball Z game, and neared completion as one. We ran into legal problems and had to repopulate the universe with original things. This delayed us quite a bit, but we ended up with a population of unique and cool characters to play.

But somehow someone released a file that added in all the Dragon Ball chars again. :)


There is one group of people that have negotiated with Vivendi to release a game based on the Star Siege IP. www.starsiege2845.com/splash1.html

#7 It shouldn't come as a shock or surprise to anyone that a company will protect their IP. Why people insist on doing this and then cry when they get a cease and desist letter is beyond me. I'm sure they were probably warned by numerous people that this would happen and yet chose to ignore it.

Sorry, I can't support such actions. I certainly wouldn't allow anyone to do as they please with my IP, fan or not.

I'm not trying to be mean but being a fan of something doesn't give you any rights use it. There are proper channels to getting permission to use other's IP but don't be surprised 99.9% of the time permission is refused. Always get permission first if you're wanting to do something based on someone else's copyrights.

#8 I'm all for making tributes to great old school things that we all love, but not using trademark names is as logical as it is common sense. If they saw it coming, then why name it Kings Quest in the first place? You can still reach out to the KQ fans by saying it was inspired by it, without using its name.

#9 WOOOT! http://www.savekqix.org/

Looks like it worked after all.

#10 I'm not really paying attention like i should, but is this a torque built game?

#11 Yes, it is

#12 Here is an interview with the creators.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/freeware-king8217s-quest-ix/677071p1.html

Garagegames should do something to help these guys out. Looks like it could be a nice marketing piece if and when it comes to market.

btw, the creators were on this forum looking for people to help them out. They're probably lurking still if anyone's interested.

#13 Sangwoo, you do realise the company who made/published Kings Quest want to protect their IP? By letting fans make a unofficial sequel, you're taking great risks. The product might be of lesser quality than they expect, and people WILL connect that with the original company.

Why GarageGames should do anything about that, is beyond me.

#14 He's not really meaning they SHOULD do something in the sense that they owe it something. He's saying that it would be a damn good marketing idea for them to do something. They could have 'published by GarageGames' etc. on the finished product for name recognition and marketing.

It's a good opportunity considering how much press it's getting.

#15 Stefan, if it were still a "fan only project" I wouldn't say Garagegames should do anything about it but the team behind "King's Quest IX" recently got the blessings of VU Games to go ahead and bring to project to finish. VU Games is even reserving the right to bring the project in-house if the project looks promising enough to release to retail.

Such an event taking place would serve Garagegames' best interest. That would give Torque a bonafied "AAA" title under it's belt and much needed visibility to boot. Wouldn't you agree?

#16 >Wouldn't you agree?

Umm, no.
Let's say VU games does bring the project "in-house" (which means they'll take all your assets/code/whatever via litigation and run with it). Then you have a torque engine license issue and a battle over who owns the code.. If I were Garagegames, I'd revoke your license before this gets out of control.

Make an original game and avoid the courtroom.

#17 No I don't agree; instead, take inspiration from the KQ series and create a fresh title that you own.

VU now has consented ability from the developers to scoop up KQ if its promising while still being able to squeeze them out and trash the project.

All this and you aren't getting paid?

BTW, Garage Games provides middleware and, legally, has nothing to do with the publication of the software.

Just one more thing in case you haven't figured it out yet. Working for free is for suckers, and that's exactly how VU has structured the future of this project.

#18 >Let's say VU games does bring the project "in-house" (which means they'll take all your assets/code/whatever >via litigation and run with it)

Would it necessarily mean "take your assets", etc?

It would be a total waste for VU Games' to just take the assets and hand it to a bunch of new guys who have no idea how any of it is put together. What would they do? Put together an in-house team who understand torque intimately enough to take the work that's been done and run with it? Or how about taking all the assets and some how converting it to run under some other middleware? I hightly doublt VU Games would waste their time and money this way.

Of course the gambit here for the fan team is that the upside of taking "in-house" not just the assets but the people who are putting the assets together makes more business sense then the obviously vicious worst case scenario of just ripping them off. Besides, in-house doesn't have to mean they are literally brought in house. Most likely if the fan team sees any money out of this, and I doubt they will, they might see it as a 3rd party advance at best which means it's ALL UPSIDE for VU Games no matter what happens. Hell, if VU Games works it right they may not even have to wager a single cent as an advance and get a game that's ready to ship basically for free. And in a world where projects burn through millions of dollars and get canned on a regular basis, it would be a real boon for some executive at VU Games if he/she's somehow able to turn this whole affair into a modest success.

Sure, VU Games could do the vicious thing and pull the rug right out from under the fan team at any time. For all we know, VU Games could even let the fan team finish the game, ship it to retail, make a bunch of money, and tell the fan team to go screw themselves. But that wouldn't be a very nice PR move. It wouldn't be worth the paltry profits a King's Quest sequel would generate to have their good name smeared all over the gaming press as a-holes. Would such a move loose them real world customers? Probably not. But at the very least the guys on the fan team would get some real world credentials together and go out and do it again, this time with some advance money up front. After all, they would have proven to the powers that be that they are able to plan, excute, and most importantly, deliver which is more than what can be said of most of us.

Frankly speaking, I'm amazed that things have come as far as they have come. I don't know anyone who's working on this stuff personally but I have to say that they should be commended and encouraged. If they pull off what they're trying to do, and I believe they have a pretty good chance at doing it, it would set a very interesting precedence which might even effect things in the so called "mainstream" world.

It might seem like steering clear of any and all obsticles is always the smart thing to do but sometimes having the audacity to venture head on in to the fire knowing fully well that you're going to get burned is exactly what it takes to make it out to the otherside. And for that very reason I wish the guys working on the King's Quest sequel the best of luck. It's good to know that there are still people who are not afraid to jump in to the fire to see what happens next because they believe what they're working on should be what it aspires to be.

#19 >Working for free is for suckers

But they are not "working for free". VU Games never offered these guys jobs and no one's twisting these guys' arms to work free for VU Games.

The fan team guys are in an absurd way insisting that they want to work on a "King's Quest" game and only on a "King's Quest" game because they love "King's Quest". I mean it's just truly absurd. No one in their "right" mind would do this but they are doing it and they've gone further then anyone could have possibly expected exactly because they've made this truly absurd decision to just "go there".

I for one can't say that I would make such a decision and that is the very reason why I think people should give these guys a break and at least throw them a few words of encouragement. It's kind of like how fan made Star Wars projects and how they have taken on a life of their own. It's pretty freaky that something like that might happen for the first time for games. No matter what the outcome this is a cool thing.

#20 The Kings Quest game series is one that I grew up with, and when Kings Quest 8 came out I was devistated, as the game was no longer a Kings Quest game... it was some 3D action game. In todays world, where we no longer have Point and Click adventure games in the mainstream market, I've had to look in other places for my P&C fix, namely the fan-made community of http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ and playing the awesome games there.

With a team producing a fan-made Kings Quest title, I couldn't be more happy. Sierra is not, and cannot do it, as they no longer exist. The latest Leisure Suit Larry game we could had nothing in common with the previous games aside from a name (I own all the Larry games except this latest... it's just a bunch of mini games, where's my Point and Click adventure?)

Huge kudo's to the team working on this Kings Quest project. I hope you guys can become a full-fledged company and help bring Point and Click Adventure games back to the mainstream, where they belong!

-Dave C.