Forums > News > King's Quest III remake

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nullnullnull (1463) on 6/19/2006 4:18 PM · Permalink · Report

Infamous Adventures has just released a remake of the classic King's Quest III. The release is a faithful 1:1 remake of the game with modern VGA graphics and sound. As a King's Quest fan myself I think this is an amazing project. However, it does beg the "intellectual property" question. Sierra is very much alive and kicking as part of Vivendi and "owns" the King's Quest trademark. Did these guys get permission? What risks do they run doing a remake such as this? Is a love for the game enough to protect them from an over zealous legal department?

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Andy Voss (1861) on 6/19/2006 4:41 PM · Permalink · Report

With these fan remakes, it usually seems the case that, as long as they don't sell it for money, the original publishers don't hunt them down for litigation. After all, KQ1 and KQ2 remakes have already been done, and are here under the King's Quest VGA series.

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Slug Camargo (583) on 6/20/2006 12:36 AM · Permalink · Report

I hope they have the author's permission, and also they release a DVD version, so they can add some extra stuff such as a video of Ms. Williams herself speaking, live, her immortal words of wisdom:

Back when I got started, which sounds like ancient history, back then the demographics of people who were into computer games, was totally different, in my opinion, then they are today. Back then, computers were more expensive, which made them more exclusive to people who were maybe at a certain income level, or education level. So the people that played computer games 15 years ago were that type of person. They probably didn't watch television as much, and the instant gratification era hadn't quite grown the way it has lately. I think in the last 5 or 6 years, the demographics have really changed, now this is my opinion, because computers are less expensive so more people can afford them. More "average" people now feel they should own one.
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Trixter (8952) on 6/21/2006 11:49 PM · Permalink · Report

That's exactly how I feel. View it as pretentious, or however you want to classifiy it, but 15-25 years ago you couldn't be a moron and operate a computer. Nowadays, most people who operate computers are morons. The entire scope of social computing has changed completely in just one decade.

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Slug Camargo (583) on 6/22/2006 12:59 AM · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Trixter wrote--]That's exactly how I feel. View it as pretentious, or however you want to classifiy it, but 15-25 years ago you couldn't be a moron and operate a computer. Nowadays, most people who operate computers are morons. The entire scope of social computing has changed completely in just one decade. [/Q --end Trixter wrote--] To boot, that "people of a certain income or a certain educational level" thing is flat out bullcrap. I'm surrounded by engineers at work, they all have high educational levels and most of them can afford to light cigarettes with 100-bucks bills, and yet easily 87% of them are a pack of blazing morons.

I simply don't think there's that much of a direct correlation between liking adventure games or knowing about computers and being more or less intelligent. I mean, what is exactly your definition of "moron"? Like, does having the patience to pixel-hunt for hours on end in an adventure game, knowing how to assemble a computer piece by piece, knowing how to program or being able to do complex math in the air necessarily make people intelligent?

I think there have always been morons in the computer world. Maybe some years ago they were computer-savvy morons but morons alright.

I have no doubt that a lot of adventure game lovers and computer geeks are truly smart people, but then there are a lot that are simply a bunch of pretentious pricks.

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Riamus (8480) on 6/22/2006 1:26 AM · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Dr. Von Katze wrote--] Like, does having the patience to pixel-hunt for hours on end in an adventure game, knowing how to assemble a computer piece by piece, knowing how to program or being able to do complex math in the air necessarily make people intelligent? [/Q --end Dr. Von Katze wrote--]

Hm... I can do the computer building and some programming (depending on the language, I'm either very good or very bad... not usually in the middle), and I can do some kinds of complex math in the air... 3 out of 4... so, am I intelligent or a moron? LOL!!!

You always have morons. I'm not sure that I'd call everyone who doesn't know how to use a computer a moron, though. You don't have to be computer smart to not be a moron, just as being computer smart doesn't preclude you from being a moron.

Overall, I'd definitely agree that there are more people using computers today who haven't got a clue what they are really doing than there were in the past. And it's not because of money. It's because of the OSes. Even the kids who really know computers probably can't tell you what is really happening when you drag a file to another location (using move). Or what is really going on in the background while Windows is loading up (or any other GUI OS). Those who grew up with DOS really did know more of how things worked because you HAD to in order to really do much on a PC. Linux users also know how things work for the same reason, though they manage to know it even when using a GUI Linux because there is still so much that they need to do with the command line.

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Unicorn Lynx (181788) on 6/22/2006 4:36 AM · Permalink · Report

As always, Dr. Von Katze comes with provocative questions that can potentially inspire a whole library of new threads... This time it is how do we define a moron?

I have to agree with the doctor that education and skills do not always equal high intelligence. On the other hand, I do agree with R. Williams and Trixter that you had to have at least a bare minimum of intelligence (and also of imagination) in the old days. Games were hard, required you to think more, and due to graphical limitations your fantasy had to work overtime. Nowadays, it's just a trip to virtual world. And I must say there is a relation between your intelligence level and the kind of games you play. I do think people who play adventure games tend to be more intelligent than those whose gaming arsenal is confined entirely to finger-twitching arcade action.

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chirinea (47504) on 6/22/2006 5:04 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Prof. ben Fuo wrote--]As always, Dr. Von Katze comes with provocative questions that can potentially inspire a whole library of new threads... This time it is how do we define a moron? [/Q --end Prof. ben Fuo wrote--]

And, as always, we MobyGamers just can't avoid going off topic!

Well, what was the question again? If people doing remakes are morons? =)

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Slug Camargo (583) on 6/24/2006 4:44 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Unicorn Lynx wrote--]And I must say there is a relation between your intelligence level and the kind of games you play. I do think people who play adventure games tend to be more intelligent than those whose gaming arsenal is confined entirely to finger-twitching arcade action. [/Q --end Unicorn Lynx wrote--] Well, I was about to fire off a thread about this same thing: Back in the day I used to be a big fan of adventure games, and I did take pride of my enormous adventure player brain, and would say stuff like that you just said all the time and whatnot. Then, recently I noticed that I remember way more puzzles solved by random guessing than by proper reasoning; I remember that most of the times you needed nothing short of a X-ray of the friggin' designer's brain to figure what the hell did he/she think would be a convincing solution to a given problem. And it did happen to a lot of other adventure players I knew.

You know, there are puzzles in which, once you get them cracked, you think: "Oh, how didn't I think of that before?", and then there are others that make you go: "So that was it... well, I wouldn't have figured it in a million years...". To me, the second kind is not the way a puzzle should make you feel, and yet I remember way more of those than I do of the first kind.

I don't know, maybe it's just that I and everyone I knew were simply stupid, but in any case, even though we did enjoy playing adventure games, today I'm fairly convinced that most of the times we mistook "blind, dumb luck" or "impossibly enormous patience" for "intelligence".

Sure, finger-twitching FPS'ers are still probably even dumber than adventure players, but at least they don't have that brainiac Me-and-my-huge-brain-we-are-so-above-instant-gratification petty attitude.

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Ben K (23955) on 6/22/2006 12:27 PM · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Dr. Von Katze wrote--] Like, does having the patience to pixel-hunt for hours on end in an adventure game, knowing how to assemble a computer piece by piece, knowing how to program or being able to do complex math in the air necessarily make people intelligent? [/Q --end Dr. Von Katze wrote--]

I thought that in the period that Ms. Williams was talking about, we had parser input adventure games. They certainly helped me with my typing - I can type "look" in an instant, and "throw rock at guard with supporter" pretty quickly too. :-)

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Unicorn Lynx (181788) on 6/24/2006 5:14 AM · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Ben Kosmina wrote--]"throw rock at guard with supporter" [/Q --end Ben Kosmina wrote--] Wait a sec... Isn't that from Space Quest 2? ;-)