ThunderPeel2001
-
Posts
3454 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
61
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by ThunderPeel2001
-
-
Hmm. Speaking as an entitled older fan stuck in the distant past (1990 was 10 years ago, right?), I don't know anyone who would think it'd be OK to send aggressive messages to Ron. It just baffles me.
-
So apparently some of the comments were directed at Ron. I don't get it... as a fanbase have we become less mature as we've gotten older? Or is it younger fans that think it's OK to react this way? Really sad
-
Wasn't DoubleFine primed to be involved in a Remaster or Sequel at some point? I seem to remember seeing Loom featured prominently on a monitor in the DFA documentary... or maybe it was all just rumours and speculation from that one shot in the documentary? Either way, intriguing!
-
22 hours ago, Udvarnoky said:
I'm pretty sure it was yet a third item, in addition to the manual and the Grail Diary. It looked like this.
And yeah, LucasArts put out some budget reprints of their games around this time, which cut down on the paraphernalia included and exhibited cheaper printing choices. The disk labels on these releases are so generic looking, that sometimes when they show up on eBay people mistake them for bootlegs. Nope, the company was just that cheap!
Yep, the original version I owned was a very budget release. I guess the sales didn't justify a more expensive one. Took me years to finally get my hands on a "real" Grail Diary!
-
10 minutes ago, elTee said:
For anyone who hasn't seen this, I can't recommend it highly enough. Best $10 I've spent on the internet in living memory! What a brilliant evening it was.
It was fantastic. I got two questions answered, too, which was just icing on top of an already very icing covered cake.
-
1
-
-
5 minutes ago, Jake said:
It came from when the excavating was happening but wasn’t released. This is New Content exclusive to this thread.
Seriously...? That's mind blowing! How did you get exposed to this? Are you connected with the VGHF? Was there anything else not released?
It seems to be that this was them comparing art styles: The left was drawn directly, and the right was scanned in. A proof of concept perhaps. Wonderfully interesting!
-
On 4/23/2022 at 4:43 PM, Jake said:
I think it’s a safe bet that “Monkey 3,” had that been made right after 2 instead of DOTT, would have pushed into a more stylized space, but what exactly that space is can never be known. It is clear from everything they did afterwards, the LucasArts art department was interested in pushing the limits into more stylized spaces. They also seemed uninterested in repeating themselves. It’s unlikely that Monkey 3 would have tried to look like a Chuck Jones cartoon, but it’s very unlikely it would have looked like “more Monkey Island 2.” Everything they did afterwards pushed for more illustrative and bigger characters for example. (Except The Dig but that doesn’t count because it started production before all of its contemporaries.) Again that doesn’t mean a Monkey 3 definitely would have shared that, but the odds are decent it would have at least been explored.
This image was recovered as part of the VGHF dive into the Monkey Island 1 and 2 source, and nobody was able to divine what it means or what it’s from so please don’t draw conclusions. It’s NOT from any Monkey 3 project. Its impossible to say what it was for beyond a quick style exercise. It was actually found in the source files for Monkey 1, and the reason for that is hard to know (it could have just been a filing mistake, or not?) but it shows that even during production of Monkey Island 1 and 2, the artists were starting to explore pushing into more stylized looks. It really does feel like once scanning paintings was added to their repertoire, the sky was the limit on style exploration.
Where did this image come from? It's not on the VGHF website?
-
3 hours ago, SurplusGamer said:
I've seen people tweeting mean things at Rex, as well as Ron and Dave, and I hope that everyone here is going to be better than that.
I've sent them all several death threats, but I assume they know I was joking. (Seriously, why would people Tweet mean things? Aggressively entitled fans are the worst.)
3 hours ago, Jake said:It’s clear we’ve been fed very little when very very hungry
Very aptly put. We're agonising over minuscule morsels like ravenous beggars. Microscopically inspecting every breadcrumb. I hope they give us something more substantial soon.
-
2
-
-
Actually it's been a steady rotation of people, like a tag team. But either way, I'm bored now. I'll always remember this quote:
3 hours ago, Zaxx said:it's very dangerous to think in principles when it comes to releasing an entertainment product
It's super important to not be led by your principles when making entertainment! Or doing anything at all. Let that be a lesson for us all
-
1
-
1
-
-
I'd put the LAUGH reaction on that video, but the reaction functionality isn't working for me again.
-
1
-
-
7 hours ago, SurplusGamer said:
If people haven't seen very much of Rex's art before I really do recommend Knights and Bikes. I think some of the stuff going on thematically should appeal to Monkey Island fans and while it looks like it's not exactly the same style as they're going on for Return, there's obvious overlap and I think what you'll see is that when in motion it really comes together and the character work actually becomes really expressive.
The more I look at the images we have (especially in high res) the more it's growing on me. I think it looks worse when it's shrunk down to a thumbnail size, which is obviously not how we're not going to play it.
I especially like that courtroom in hires, actually (might have to open in a new tab and zoom in to see all the detail):
-
2
-
-
17 minutes ago, elTee said:
What the hell is wrong with people?! I've waited 30 years for Ron to make another Monkey Island game, now he's actually doing it and people are anything other than HAPPY? Gah! I'm sure you won't see this Ron, but from my point of view I just want you to make the game YOU want to make.
It's strange. My generation was all about the "Director's Cut". We learned that studios often meddled with a director's vision, and getting that original unfiltered vision became the holy grail for fans. Now it seems it's getting a tailor-made edition that suits your tastes exactly. Creator vision be damned.
In a way that's fine if people are prepared to make changes themselves (fan edits, fan mods, etc), but it sounds like the comments must have drifted into flat out abuse for Ron to shut down his website.
Although hopefully it wasn't abuse towards the team and maybe just squabbling between fans.
-
3
-
-
I read it all, so I guess I'm awesome.
15 hours ago, Zaxx said:I think that's what people in general want from a remaster: a feeling of authenticity. Note that I didn't say actual authenticity, just the sense that what you're playing preserves what people who played the original version felt back in the day. I think it's very much possible to keep a remaster authentic to its original self as long as nothing gets reinterpreted in the sense that the meaning is altered.
This is completely subjective, which was elTee's point. You're just saying, "this was important to me, so therefore I should have the option to disable it".
You're trying to argue that there's some objective standard that we all could agree and adhere to, but even if use your Star Wars example, that simply isn't true: Things in Empire and Jedi were changed in order to tie those films better into the prequel trilogy. Dialogue was rewritten. Actors were replaced. Objectively the meanings of several scenes were altered.
But the biggest complaint by far, the one that led to fans going berserk, was the one you cited: Han not shooting first in the original film. Which arguably had far less impact on meaning than the other changes but which drew far less ire from fans. It's all inconsistent.
And despite what you've said about SFX changes being acceptable to most fans because no "meaning" was changed, there are several high profile Star Wars restoration projects and they're ALL focused on removing every single change that has happened since 1977. Not just the infamous Greedo scene. In fact if there is a project that removes that single scene and keeps the other modern changes, I've not heard of it. But could list the others off the top of my head: 4K77 and Harmy's Despecialised Edition.
For the fans who care the most, the ones who are prepared to put thousands of man hours into these projects, it's all or nothing: They want the untouched original.
So there is no real consistency: There are just different camps of people who believe certain things are important. And because you belong to one particular camp, you think you represent the majority.
Which again brings us back around the original point: This is all subjective. What's important to you is not important to me. And vice versa. And even if you find a subreddit somewhere that is a home to a lot of people who all agree on one point, it does not mean that their opinion is more valid, important or objective. It's just one of the dangers of the internet: It can easily make you feel that your opinion is the only sound-minded one out there by putting you in an echo chamber.
And what's worse: You put things out about "censorship" and "wokeness" and other people, who actually don't care as much, will parrot back what they've heard. Like people who only read the headlines of news articles.
Objectively speaking, changing Bosco's voice doesn't alter the meaning of anything. Nor does removing references to special needs children. But for you it alters the "authenticity" (the meaning of which could be debated in itself) of the experience. For me it doesn't. It's still all subjective.
As for your comment about ignoring "imaginary bad actors", this has been addressed several times already. In short, the dev team did not wish to put their name to something they felt uncomfortable releasing. They were prepared to potentially upset some fans in order for them to be happier with what people played. In other words, they put their principles before money.
Anyway this conversation has gone on far too long. I can't believe there's a single point that hasn't been covered by now. And I suspect that if people really do care that someone will release a patch that inserts the original dialogue into the remaster anyway.
-
3
-
-
Yikes. I didn't bother to read the comments, but they must have been really terrible if Ron has taken his blog down. I think he's pretty philosophical about things generally, so I can't imagine.
It's great that Ron decided to create this whole thing in a vacuum, otherwise it would have been two years of toxicity messing with the creative process. I wonder if Schafer can offer some sanguine words privately to the team, given that DF have been through this themselves.
There was a poll on a big LucasArts Facebook group (18K members) and the result was that 80% of people liked the new style. 15% were disappointed but hopeful. Only 2% didn't like it outright. So it seems like a vocal minority anyway.
-
1
-
-
3 minutes ago, Udvarnoky said:
I wonder if they figured the Grail Diary was piracy-discouraging enough, and saw an opportunity to save a few pennies by not printing out those cards.
It's been so long since I saw that screen. Were they separate cards? I thought it might have been grail diary quotes. Ah yes, as I write this, wasn't Greek letters or something?
-
I wonder. It was probably financial, whatever the reason. I do believe the later releases didn't include the full grail diary, so it might be to reduce production costs at the risk of sales lost to no copy protection. Or the fact that couldn't really win without at least the grail diary excerpts... Hmm.
-
I agree with you there (but I still hate the lighting in the new Melee scene -- although I have grown to like the other two examples we've seen).
-
1
-
-
On 4/22/2022 at 12:18 AM, Zaxx said:
Yes, certainly, I'm just not sure that opening (or giving bad actors the opportunity to open) that small front in the culture war was necessary in order to do the right thing. For example why was it important to re-record Bosco with a black actor? Because a black actor should have gotten that role in the first place, once you fix that then ultimately it doesn't matter if you include the original performance or not. I admit it's a utilitarian way of looking at it but since the original games won't disappear it kind of makes the most sense anyway.
What you're suggesting implies a toggle to switch off ALL the changes that the Remasters made (which were a LOT more than just recasting Bosco and rewriting a few minor lines), because why should they just cater to YOU and nobody else who wants another specific change reversed?
Which brings us back to the original reply that elTee made to you:
QuoteIt almost sounds like what you want is a version of the game that keeps the graphical improvements, because you've deemed those to be acceptable, but that also lets you choose which other aspects of the game are "original" or "updated". That's fine if that's what you want, but let's not pretend that's an objective desire for "the original". That's what YOU want. And again, it's okay to want that. But why do you expect to find it in anything except your original version that you fell in love with?
And round and round we go...
-
On 4/21/2022 at 11:41 PM, ATMcashpoint said:
I should also point out there's no VGA version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that has the copy protection included - the VGA DOS version and the FM Towns version both shipped without the room used for the copy protection in the EGA version (92.LFL).
Intriguing. I wonder why they did that? I guess some versions came without a full Grail Diary. I know the Amiga version kept the copy protection.
-
5 hours ago, Jake said:
Monkey Island 1 and 2 both are pretty grounded architecturally, and then push the style of the rendering to exaggerated fisheye perspectives. Curse takes that and starts applying it to the architecture itself. In Plunder Island, the buildings start stacking vertically and haphazardly, so that the architecture is getting increasingly implausible in support of the visual style. It's only a tiny step in that direction really, but I think it's notable.
(I dont think this is a bad thing! It's just interesting to watch happen across those 3 games.)
Yes, it was one of the things I didn't like about Bill Tiller's art direction at the time. The world was never cartoony, it was always very grounded. Can you point me to where you found that image that you said was from the VGHF?
I watched the whole thing live and have scanned their webpage... unless I'm going blind (which is definitely a possibility) I cannot see the image you claim came from there?
https://gamehistory.org/monkeyisland/
And can we all just stop for a second and appreciate the utter beauty of this image... Look at those shadows, the gentle use of colour. It's GORGEOUS. I love Peter Chan's work.
And it still looks beautiful with a limited palette..
Sigh
-
2
-
-
On 4/20/2022 at 5:18 PM, Zaxx said:
Why Skunkape though? I don't want them cutting out random jokes and recasting voice actors
15 hours ago, Zaxx said:To clarify: I 100% agree with the reasoning behind the changes and I think they are coming from a good place, I just don't agree with the changes themselves.
I don't understand how these two sentences can co-exist. Perhaps you just went off half-cocked in your first post, but if so, you can see how someone can misinterpret your intentions.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Goury1 said:
I think it would be difficult for Ron to squeeze the entire story of RTMI between the ending of MI2 and the beggining of COMI, he must have found a way to get some more room for a good story in there. The presence of Murray confirms it.
The magic of writing means anything can fit between those two events. Hell an entire season of 24 supposedly happens in... 24 hours. There's plenty of time if that what Ron wants to do (and personally it's what I want to see).
-
elTee makes better points than me, but quite frankly the logic of the complaints towards the Remasters seems reflective of so many other hyper-emotional fanboi rants that seem to bleed out from Reddit.
To me they are the product of groupthink -- ideas supported and bolstered by a group existing in a vacuum. And when they're challenged outside of that vacuum there's an inability to defend them without resulting to circular logic or side-stepping. Or just a plain old hyper-emotional response.
In the case of people complaining about missing lines and recasting in the Remasters. Hmm. Lines were changed between versions of MI. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by mistake. (Some of them have only just been restored in ScummVM.) And the special editions made even more changes, cutting lines.
I don't recall anyone getting seriously upset any them.
Same goes for recasting. TellTale games would sometimes recast roles between episodes! Sometimes people missed the originals, sometimes they preferred the new takes. Sam & Max themselves have been recast countless times throughout their many iterations!
Again, I don't recall anyone getting seriously upset about that.
I know elTee suggests this is purely a generation thing, but honestly I can't say I'm convinced, because when someone is recast for reasons which could be described as "woke" (reasons for which I wholeheartedly applaud and support), strangely then it's a huge issue.
Changing a line like "take our complimentary goggles designed for special needs children!" is treated as a crime against culture!
Sorry, I just don't buy it.
I do prefer the performance of the original Bosco actor, but I also understand and agree with why it was changed. Same goes with the line alterations.
And believe me, I'm someone who has gotten bent out of shape when other remasters have gotten things wrong. It drives me crazy when something I really care about is changed for bad reasons (like the "Golo Flake" label oversight in Grim Fandango which makes the puzzle harder to solve -- after DoubleFine promised a "Criterion Edition" level remaster).
But the changes made to the S&M Remasters weren't done for bad reasons... So if that still bugs you then I think it's less about the changes themselves, and more about the reasons for the changes.
Recent example to illustrate my point: Earl Boen isn't going to reprise LeChuck in Return to Monkey Island and so the role is going to be recast. Fans accept this unfortunate turn because of the reason (Boen has decided to retire).
So I think it's actually all about the reason for the changes. Either you think the reasons were justified, and so you are disappointed but understand. Or you think they were unjustified, and so you refuse to buy the product and blame the developer for making them.
I know this makes me sound old, too, but this sort of reaction (and the blind belief that everyone, everywhere agrees with it) makes me worry about the future. *shakes old man cane*
-
6
-
-
2 hours ago, Zaxx said:
Note that I didn't say explain as in "they tell you what is going on", I said explain away as in "trying really hard to desperately squish all the meaning and intention out of MI2's ending in order to fit their limited interpretation of what MI is". They were cowards about it in order to please a vocal part of the playerbase that didn't like MI2's ending and that's why it's a terrible solution, not because they gave you an explanation.
Guybrush floating on that dodgem saying "well that was a thing" and leaving it at that would have been an explanation too but it's one that respects the idea of MI2's ending having multiple meanings. Something like how Blade Runner 2049 didn't give you an answer to Deckard being a replicant or not in order to keep all interpretations of the original movie still intact.
I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think anyone was hankering to play Willy Beamish Has a Mental Breakdown and Thinks He's a Pirate. Monkey Island was always about actual voodoo pirate tales. Moving away from that would have been brave, certainly, but it's not what I think anyone wanted (to play or to make).
I also don't think you can compare it to the Deckard thing. Whether Deckard is a replicant or not doesn't change the elements of the story... whether it's all in his head or not (as you're suggesting for Guybrush), certainly does. It would become the focus. I mentioned previously that the whole "is it fiction or is it reality?" thing has been done before in Buffy and K-Pax, too.
For me the idea that it's all a child's fantasy is very unfulfilling. And I'm not sure you can have your cake and eat it: Either I'm going to be invested in the story and the characters, or I'm going to be detached because it's all a fantasy. I can't see how it can be both.
In the end, I just want a good pirate story, but let's see what Ron and Dave have cooked up!
Loom sequel speculation
in General Discussion
Posted
Yes, exactly. I'd have expected them to pull in the right people to consult on the things. I think this also stoked the fire that they were involved: