Monkey Island 2: SE

[ThunderPeel2001]

Is the thread at Lucasforums particularly negative? If so, allow me to counter by saying that I actually liked MI:SE and intend to unreservedly buy MI2:SE the second it is available to me. As someone who had played MI enough times to have the entire game path coded into their muscle memory, it was cool to have a new take on it, while at the same time very nice to be able to hit F10 whenever it got to be too much for me. I'm excited to have the same experience with MI2.

No, it's more contentious than that... If anything there's friction simply because some of us aren't super OTT in love with some of what we've seen so far, and because we were burned with the first SE, and so are bracing ourselves for the worse. Of course, there's still hope for MI2... and some of the stuff we've seen does look very nice indeed.

[Thyroid]

No, it's more contentious than that... If anything there's friction simply because some of us aren't super OTT in love with some of what we've seen so far, and because we were burned with the first SE, and so are bracing ourselves for the worse. Of course, there's still hope for MI2... and some of the stuff we've seen does look very nice indeed.

Man, I really like those credits to the end of Lair of the Leviathan.

[brkl]

It's a joke. Murray says it in Lair of the Leviathan's end credits: "Jake, go talk to someone who cares." I thought the line fit here. I'm not actually dissing or trying to insult Jake.

I think I repeated that back when the game was released to a similar effect

[Thrik]

Yeah what you don't realise is that joke's based on merciless bullying Jake has endured for years at Telltale. ;

[MrHoatzin]

Yeah what you don't realise is that joke's based on merciless bullying Jake has endured for years at Telltale. ;

Awwww

[Garple]

Yeah what you don't realise is that joke's based on merciless bullying Jake has endured for years at Telltale. ;

I can imagine it.

[enterthewumpus]

The president of Lucasarts? the guy responsible for making the Monkey Island stuff happen? he's gone now. this makes me sad, and kind of nervous that all of the potential that Lucasarts has been showing may be washed away pretty soon.

[Scrobbs]

Not knowing the history, I was startled to see the previous guy depart abruptly too. Is there something nasty in the woodpile?

[Hermie]

Sadface. =\ no matter what you feel about the new art of MI, you have to respect the fact that they actually got made. As I understand it, that was this guy's doing, as well as letting Telltale use the license, getting the old adventure games on steam, making an actual fun SW game, and I can only assume he help in getting Old Republic happening.

Apparently he came on as a fan of LA growing up? Either way, with the positive changes attributed to him, it's sad to see him go.

[Thrik]

I'm just going to quote my post on Mojo's comments because I can't really voice my thoughts any better than that:

Ouch, pretty sucky. From what I could tell he had a solid plan: less emphasis on massive budget-sucking games that were a bit shit, more emphasis on smaller innovative games which can be runaway hits, and limiting the Star Wars license to a small number of high-quality games rather than passing it around like a spliff.

If I had to guess any reason for him being pressured into resigning it'd be that he hasn't let the company spew out crappy Star Wars games (which I'd imagine continue to be like cash cow faeces). But then he wasn't necessarily pressured — maybe he's doing a Will Wright and wants to start a new company with some of his key players.

Granted it's not like he was the most risky president in history, with refurbishing absolute classics being fairly high up the 'guaranteed success' ladder nowadays. But he recognised that compelling internal development and more original IP is the way to go if LucasArts is to survive the long haul, and I hope his replacement doesn't lose sight of that.

[syntheticgerbil]

I sort of wonder if the guy really had that much thought or say in things. I know he's a fan, I've read the interviews. I'm sure somehow has some inside info saying otherwise, but still...

The small game download culture is sort of where everyone's heading with or without LucasArts, and now's a great time for remakes, deluxe editions, and rereleases in just about every industry.

Sadface. =\ no matter what you feel about the new art of MI, you have to respect the fact that they actually got made.

I don't subscribe to that notion at all. An effort was made and all, but unless it was fully successful, which the SE fell extremely short of, it's not getting my respect.

I don't know why we should all care so much or feel sorry for these rich business men and their dreams of profit. I'm really more interested in the creative folk who will continue to be creative whether they are getting paid or not.

[Thrik]

Presidents do typically have a fairly large influence on things. If he pushes for something then he's most probably going to get it, kind of like how the previous president knowingly avoided things like Monkey Island and internal development.

Who knows exactly what the deal is, but it wouldn't surprise me if we had no special editions, no Tales of Monkey Island, and no internal development whatsoever if Ward were still in charge.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Crap.

[thorn]

On a vaguely related note, when the Lucasarts Adventure pack was released on Steam ages back they implied that more classic adventure games would be on the way. Does anyone know if they still intend to release more, like Sam & Max and DoTT?

I personally don't think those games would require Special Edition updates, but do you think that Lucasarts management would agree?

[Forbin]

Some guy (presumably a LucasArts employee) on another site posted that this is actually a good move for the company. The implication is that his vision wasn't a problem, but he was too novice and tried to micro-manage. Forcing teams to adhere to layers of process they weren't comfortable with.

However it's happening at a financial time of the year, so this could have been a board decision. Hopefully they'll continue to trend back to the old ways instead of flip-flopping again. LucasArts needs to develop in house, contracting out their IP is the worst thing the company has ever done.

[miffy495]

Yeah, because Tales of Monkey Island and KotOR have done nothing but hurt the standing of those properties.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, I'll never forget how awful the X-Wing games were...

[Forbin]

Yeah, because Tales of Monkey Island and KotOR have done nothing but hurt the standing of those properties.

Kotor was before the LucasArts meltdown, and Tales was prettymuch after. If you're talking about my comment on outsourcing, I don't mean to imply that LA doesn't license it's properties well. They've always done a lot of work with other studios. But the problem is a few years ago they abandoned doing any work themselves. After TFU, they just shut down.

Recently it seems like they were turning that around, but with the departures of these executives I hope they don't turtle up again. Lucas should be making games.

[miffy495]

It just seems to me that, for the last decade or so, the only Lucas games that have been worth playing have been developed out of house. I guess I just feel that they'd be better off working as producers now and licensing out their properties to developers that would do right by them. Aside from Republic Commando (good) and Force Unleashed (ok-ish) the last 10 years have not been kind to Lucasarts. To put it another way, it seems like asking Lucas to move their development in-house is like asking for a continuation of RTX: Red Rock or Lucidity. I bought Lucidity. I think that may have been one of the most ill advised purchases I made last year.

[Garple]

letting Telltale use the license, getting the old adventure games on steam,

Smartest thing Lucasarts has done in like 15 years. Jake, do you think there's any chance you guys would ever be able to pick up a Sierra license, like King's Quest or is that all owned by Activision? I mean, giving Telltale the license is probably the best possible way to make some money off that stuff these days but I'm sure Activision wouldn't do it because Activision mostly does bad things. However, if they could be convinced that they'd make money...everybody buy the new Sam & Max stuff.

[pabosher]

Smartest thing Lucasarts has done in like 15 years. Jake, do you think there's any chance you guys would ever be able to pick up a Sierra license, like King's Quest or is that all owned by Activision? I mean, giving Telltale the license is probably the best possible way to make some money off that stuff these days but I'm sure Activision wouldn't do it because Activision mostly does bad things. However, if they could be convinced that they'd make money...everybody buy the new Sam & Max stuff.

I'd like to see the old Sam and Max: Hit the Road (and any others if there were any before Season One) given a SI remake.

[syntheticgerbil]

Smartest thing Lucasarts has done in like 15 years. Jake, do you think there's any chance you guys would ever be able to pick up a Sierra license, like King's Quest or is that all owned by Activision? I mean, giving Telltale the license is probably the best possible way to make some money off that stuff these days but I'm sure Activision wouldn't do it because Activision mostly does bad things. However, if they could be convinced that they'd make money...everybody buy the new Sam & Max stuff.

I don't think anyone posted the source of where they got the information (Was it Kroms who posted it?) but a couple of months ago on the Mixnmojo forums someone said Telltale had been bidding on some Sierra franchises at some point. It may have been recent or it may have been a few years ago before the Activision buy out.

I doubt Jake's allowed to say publicly, but that's just a guess.

[Patters]

I'd like to see the old Sam and Max: Hit the Road (and any others if there were any before Season One) given a SI remake.

I wouldn't, The 2 Monkey Island games being treated this way simply didn't age that well, 2 less so of course. Which of course isn't to say that they aren't incredibly important, they are.

Later Lucasarts games were far better with interface and presentation, particularly Full Throttle. A HTR remake would be a graphical overhaul with it already being fully voiced. The graphical overhaul is the biggest problem with these games too, read the opinions given in this thread showing how dearly people hold these games.

[Forbin]

It just seems to me that, for the last decade or so, the only Lucas games that have been worth playing have been developed out of house. I guess I just feel that they'd be better off working as producers now and licensing out their properties to developers that would do right by them. Aside from Republic Commando (good) and Force Unleashed (ok-ish) the last 10 years have not been kind to Lucasarts. To put it another way, it seems like asking Lucas to move their development in-house is like asking for a continuation of RTX: Red Rock or Lucidity. I bought Lucidity. I think that may have been one of the most ill advised purchases I made last year.

That has a lot to do with the fact that Republic Commando and Force Unleashed are pretty much the only games they did in house. To avoid confusion, I'm basically talking about what Jim Ward did to LucasArts.

[Forbin]

*bump*

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