The Official Tierra Entertainment Newsletter 4 Authors of the King's Quest remakes This is the fourth newsletter being sent out to you from the Anonymous Game Developing team at Tierra Entertainment. (To review previous newsletters, you can visit the archives at the official Tierra site: http://www.qknowledge.net/royalquest/newslettersKQ1.htm.) The purpose of this newsletter is to bring you up to date on what is happening behind the scenes on all of our current projects. Here is a short description of what will be addressed in this edition: 1. We've been /.'ed! 2. KQ1VGA version 3.0 (including language packs) 3. Adventure Gamer and Computer Games Magazine 4. Mirroring and offers 5. Progress of KQ2VGA. 6. A Word from the Composer 7. Progress of QFG2VGA 8. Progress on the secret project. 9. The GDC and Sierra rumors 10. The new and improved EZboard forums 11. New Domain Name 12. Website errors fixed. 13. Special thanks to people who have given a helping hand. We've Been /.'ed! On the evening of March 26th, 2002, the King's Quest 1 VGA remake was featured on Slashdot.org. For those who are not familiar with this site, it's just happens to be one of the most prominent high-tech communities on the Internet! Although we were unaware that we had been featured as a top story, we were unable to stay oblivious to this fact for long; within an hour of the initial post, we received over 7,000 hits to our site, and by the end of the night, the number had risen to over 18,000! Within days, our download count went up by 20,000, and most of our servers were killed in the process! It was definitely an exciting time for us, and enabled us to expand our game to a new audience. In fact, we even received an offer of support and assistance from a member of iD software shortly after, and even got job offers from other professional game companies! Overall, this was definitely one heck of an exciting experience that opened many doors for Tierra. King's Quest 1 VGA Version 3.0 King's Quest 1 VGA is getting polished up for its third (and hopefully final) release. Although an exact release date has not yet been determined, it should be sometime in the not-too-distant future, so be sure to keep an eye out if you're interested in downloading it. Version 3.0 will include bug fixes, some big interface changes, and most importantly, translation language packs! We've had admirable support from the community, with many members contributing translations for the game. As of now, the following language packs have either been fully translated, or are in the process of being translated: Icelandic, Dutch, Danish, German, French, Spanish, Latvian, Russian, Greek, Swedish, Hebrew and perhaps even Latin. It's important to note that language packs created with an alphabet different from the Roman will not be supported until True Type fonts are implemented into the AGS engine. Hopefully this will be a possibility soon, though. If you'd be interested in participating in the KQ1VGA remake, then loaning your unique translating skills to the project would be an excellent chance to do so. If you fluently speak a language that was not mentioned above, and would like to create a language pack, just visit us at the forums and post a job proposal in the following thread: http://pub57.ezboard.com/froyalquestforumsfrm1.showMessage ?topicID=465.topic Please include your name, email address, and language that you would be willing to translate the game into in your post. Upcoming Articles to Lookout For We have recently been interviewed by two journalists, and you won't want to miss these stories once they come out. The Adventure Gamer (www.adventuregamers.com) interview included over 40 questions, covering everything from Tierra in general, to the KQ1VGA remake, to all of our upcoming projects. We've included exclusive screenshots for this article from KQ2+VGA and QFG2VGA as well. In fact, we have purposely kept from releasing any screenshots or goodies on our site because of this upcoming treat! Additionally, a Canadian magazine called ComputerGames Magazine is covering a story on older games that people are keeping alive with remakes. I checked the local bookstore, and found the magazine there, but our article won't make it until next month's edition. But, some of our foreign fans won't find this magazine in bookstores, as it doesn't seem to be distributed worldwide. Either way, we'll be sure to post an update on how both articles turn out just in case you don't get the chance to see them online or in the bookstores. Mirroring Offers Ever since we were slashdotted, we have been having problems with our servers. Since then, the fan offers for assistance have been unreal! We've received several donations for mirroring and server space, and in the near future, should have numerous links on our site to places that the game can be downloaded from. That way, if one site is down, you should have no problems downloading the game, voice pack, MP3 pack, or language packs from another location. If you would also like to be part of bringing back adventure games by donating some server space, just drop us a line at tierragames@hotmail.com. Thanks very much to everyone who has donated bandwidth to us. Progress of KQ2VGA from the diary of Cadbury Wookie KQ2: Romancing the Stones (formerly Throne) has been a labour of love for me these past several months. I have thoroughly enjoyed developing and expanding this game beyond its original parameters... and hope that you - the player - will enjoy the 'enhancements'. All the screen shots have been completed. About 20 or so minutes out of an estimated two hours total music is left to be composed. As of this writing, around four to five dialogue pictures are left to be completed . Over a third of the game is scripted. The game should hopefully be ready for download around September. Maybe later. We'll see how much equipment blows up between now and then! A Word From the Composer from the personal log of Tom Lewandowski KQII+ is big. REALLY big! And it's getting bigger every day. I would like to accept some of the fault for its size, even though just traveling through the world of Kolyma alone will be a spectacular event for those playing the game. But along with all the wonderful scenery, there will be lots of fun themes and sound effects to help set the mood even better. As of this month, the majority of music for KQII+ has been composed and recorded. And already, the music would more than fill an audio CD. I'm estimating the entire soundtrack will end up around ninety minutes in length. Rather large, I know, but as I said earlier, KQII+ is REALLY big. Since the game will include a General MIDI version of the soundtrack, many people may not want to take the time to download the digital version of the soundtrack. So what's the difference? EVERYTHING! The difference can be likened to listening to an orchestra as compared to a 3-piece band. There will be many subtle nuances heard throughout the game, and sounds that will bring the land of Kolyma alive, but they won't be heard in the General MIDI version....only in the digital version, where the sky's the limit with what we can do. But of course, this music makes the game's file size much larger, too. But in my opinion, biased as it is, the file size is well worth it! Those completing the game will be surprised with a special treat as well. I wish I could say more, but I can assure you -- it's the last thing you'd expect in a fan-made adventure game. Composing music for Tierra has been one of the most enjoyable projects I've ever had the pleasure to do. I couldn't ask for a more supportive or talented group of people to work with. (Of course, I have to say that after they revealed their secret identities to me. It's part of the contract.) But seriously, I'm quite pleased with the music that my wife, Dianne, and I have been able to score for Tierra, and feel very proud to be part of this great endeavor. Progress of QFG2VGA by AGD2 Since we have been focussing primarily on the KQ2 remake for the past several months, QFG2 has not been given much priority lately. We've touched up a few more background screens and it's also been decided that the hero will wear an Arabic adventuring outfit, similar to his clothes in QFG2 EGA. We've also got most of the stats system in place and in working order, as well as the animations for the hero's spell-casting and the spell's effects. Without saying too much, we've taken the liberty of making certain spells in the game act like they were always supposed to. But probably the most notable thing about the QFG2 remake, is that we can now confirm that the game will definitely feature the character importing and exporting features that Sierra's QFG series was so well- known for. Progress on the Secret Project Ever since our scripter for the secret project went missing in action, we've halted work on it for the time being. This project will remain on hold until we at least finish the KQ2 remake. The GDC and Sierra Rumors by AGD 1 I had the chance to go to the Game Developers Conference in Silicone Valley during the last week of March. I saw the latest trends in gaming, learned about the Xbox, 3D graphics, game development tools, games, game companies, and more! I had the chance to talk to Sierra, and learned some very interesting things about the return of adventure gaming. unfortunately, I cannot disclose them here. Perhaps in the future, I will be able to elaborate on this issue some more. The New and Improved EZboard forums: The day has finally arrived-our forums are now banner-free, allowing for faster loading times and minimal annoyances! Each of the game developers invested some money into upgrading the forum account to eliminate these banners. Unfortunately, it is not a permanent situation. Once the $60 in our community chest runs out, the old banners will make an appearance once more. The good news is the money we have at the moment is sufficient to keep the banners away for several months. But, if anyone would like to donate money to the community chest to keep our forums banner free and increase everyone's (including your own) posting experience in the upcoming months, you can easily do so by clicking on the "direct payment" link at the top of the forums. It's quite simple to donate, but please don't feel obliged to do so. A special thanks goes out to captainb77 and kippesoep for so kindly donating $5 each, ultimately bringing about a better environment for all of our posters! A final note about the forums: We have now added an Off-Topic forum on a trial basis. Here, you may discuss anything not related to Tierra or Tierra's games - within reason. Please feel free to post in this forum and make new friends amongst other Tierra fans. However, we do expect people to treat this new forum with respect. Which means abiding by the forum rules at all times. Recently, there has been some minor concern about people not reading the forum rules before posting, and then getting upset when their posts are deleted or locked. We can't stress enough; Please, read the forum rules *thoroughly* before posting. We know that most people just skip over the "wordy stuff" and are eager to dive directly into where the action is, but the rules really are there for a purpose. Following these rules ends up saving time for everyone, (the AGD's included) and this way, nobody takes offence when we're simply doing our job, by trying to keep the forums a family-friendly environment that anyone can enjoy. It also ensures that we are able to release these games to you as quickly as possible (which we're sure is the situation that everybody wants)! The New Domain Name! Speaking of all the kind contributions from our fans, we received another wonderful donation as well. Mark has bought us the domain name www.tierragames.com. For the time being, you can reach the Website by going directly to this new address or by using the old site address at: http://www.qknowledge.net/royalquest. This contribution really meant a lot to us, as we'd been interested in buying it for quite some time, yet already had too many expenses to justify purchasing it. It really adds an increased level of professionalism though, and has even helped complete strangers find our site on accident! Thanks again, Mark! Website Errors Fixed This should be well-received news to all of you that have been receiving the really annoying errors on the Website. After spending immense amounts of time analyzing the situation, we realized that some JavaScript in Dreamweaver was causing the problem. To fix the problem, we had to bypass Dreamweaver, and make the corrections directly in the text editor. After 6 hours of editing and re-uploading every page, it seems that all the errors are finally fixed. If you would like to reap the benefits of this Website correction, just be sure to refresh every page of the site, and the errors should be gone! Special thanks goes out to Schloss Ritter for originally pointing out this problem and giving advice as to how it could be fixed. Special Thanks It would be impossible to mention every name of every person that has helped Tierra over the past few months. But, we would like to give a special recognition to a few people that have really made great efforts to help out, without ever being asked, and without getting anything in return: We would like to thank all the translators of the game. We'll be sure to include the names of each and every translator as the complete list of translations come in.) We would like to thank Mark again for his donation of the domain name www.tierragames.com. We would like to thank all the people who have recently donated hosting and mirroring space. A renewed thanks goes out to JustAdventure Ezine (www.justadventure.com) for continuing to host the KQ1VGA remake. And lastly, special thanks goes out to Erpy for doing such a fine job unofficially moderating the forums. Often, Erpy comes up with more sound answers than our own would have been! Additionally, Erpy has created a Dutch language pack and has done extensive testing of the new AGS language pack feature. To top this off, Erpy has done work on templates for the manuals for translators. In fact, we were so impressed by this that we've decided to make Erpy an OFFICIAL Tierra forum moderator! Be sure to keep a look out for his replies on the forums, as he may just pass on the official word. Thanks again on many jobs well done! Additionally, thanks goes out to anyone that we may have forgotten to list, and to all the fans of Tierra. This wraps up the fourth addition of the official Tierra Entertainment newsletter. From all the Anonymous Game Developers at Tierra, we'd like to thank you for your continued interest in Tierra, our past projects, and our exciting upcoming projects as well! We look forward to bringing you games that will (hopefully) eclipse our previous work in all aspects in the near future. In the meantime, we're looking forward to hearing from you on the forums! Site address: http://www.tierragames.com Forums: http://pub57.ezboard.com/broyalquestforums Email: Tierragames@hotmail.com - o -