Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

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Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#1 Post by pbpb33 » Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:10 pm

Recently AGDI's main programmer, Erpy, mentioned in another post that he might be retiring due to other professional obligations. If Erpy retires, we will never see any more AGDI games?

Will we see any more AGDI or Himalaya games, or is the team going its separate ways? We will get no more gaming that harkens back to the golden era of adventure gaming? No more awesome flash websites trumpeting the release of a new AGDI adventure game, which always reminded me of what it was like when a new Sierra game would come out? What is the latest word from AGD1, AGD2, Erpy and Eriq Chang? It would be so sad to see this team vanish from the adventure game scene. They have made such a name for themselves in the adventure game genre, but it seems like they are quite mum on whether there will be future releases.

Has anyone from AGDI ever confirmed that the QFG2 remake would not be their last release? I'm sure that a new project would depend a lot on the kinds of funding they'd get, as Erpy mentioned in another thread, so if the team is unable to secure enough funding, then is that the end of the great AGDI and Himalaya Studios?

Below is what Erpy wrote in another thread with regard to making more free games... is this signaling his and AGDI's final goodbye????

"I myself might be retiring soon actually. I recently got a new job and a new appartment to live in and I'm not sure if I could combine all that with work where an actual deadline, rather than my own motivation was responsible for the pace. I'd miss it a lot, of course, I enjoy creating stuff and especially stuff I designed myself."

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#2 Post by Erpy » Mon Jul 13, 2009 6:57 am

A year or two ago, I made a promise to myself (and a couple of other people) not to jump into another big project right away. That was even before QFG2VGA was released. Since I too prefer to finish what I start, I did intend to see every running thing we had going on here to completion. However, when AGD2 asked if I was interested in participating in a hypothetical new Himalaya project, I had to decline the honor. That's not the end of the world though. My scripting contribution to Al Emmo remained relatively modest too. (I mostly scripted the final chapter in the game in addition to some general debugging stuff and that was already a bigger part than was initially planned)

About the end of AGD Interactive...it's very likely that 2009 will be AGD Interactive's last active year anyhow and that has nothing to do with me. We said after QFG2VGA's initial release that we'd continue to tie up our remaining loose ends and we've been doing just that for the last 10 months or so. I don't know if we're gonna issue some official "final press release" at some point or another, but we've said quite some time ago that AGD Interactive would not be starting any new projects. The website and games will probably remain here as long as we're allowed to keep them up, whether that's 2010 or 2020. And as long as the forums remain somewhat alive, I'll probably be around here too.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#3 Post by Angelus3K » Mon Jul 13, 2009 9:57 am

Yea I think the community will still be around for many years to come!

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#4 Post by Klytos » Tue Jul 14, 2009 2:54 am

I don't. The longer I stay in this community (adventure games, not AGDI) the more I think that we really have died.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#5 Post by Erpy » Tue Jul 14, 2009 10:54 am

I sometimes wonder about that too. In fact, I'm kinda curious if we'll be seeing any major Sierra-based fangame activity here after the end of the year.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#6 Post by Angelus3K » Tue Jul 14, 2009 11:59 am

Yea I wouldnt say Sierra-based but adventure game fans in general will still stay in communities I think.

Afterall in the modern world we're practically the only other people we can talk to about adventure games, I mean none of my friends play adventure games!

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#7 Post by Klytos » Tue Jul 14, 2009 1:49 pm

Part of my nonchalance towards Sierra games in general now is the Telltale Monkey Island and Sam and Max games. I don't need to live in nostalgia anymore. I have new games based on IP that I love. It's enough to get my through.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#8 Post by Blackthorne519 » Tue Jul 14, 2009 5:52 pm

Yeah, the Nostalgia Boom that began almost 9 years ago with the "VGA" remake of King's Quest I has died down. Think about it - it's been 7 years since KQII+ has been released. That's like going from 1987-1994.... Sierra's hey-day years.


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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#9 Post by Angelus3K » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:43 pm

I dunno like, personally adventure game nostalgia will probably always be a piece of my life.

Maybe I'm just that sad lol!

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#10 Post by MusicallyInspired » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:56 pm

Actually, lately the Sierra fan community has died down significantly. But the LucasArts adventure fan community is still very much alive and kicking. Head over to forums like ScummVM, MixnMojo, Tell Tale Games, and others and you'll see what I mean. All we've got is the AGDI, IA, and Sierra Help Forums. And all those places only have a handful of regulars. Everywhere else it's dead (Janitorial Times, TSL (aside from the random off-topic nonsense that goes on there), even the fairly new Police Quest forums, etc).

I don't know what it is about the LA community. They seem far more dedicated than any Sierra community has been. They have people working on upscaling game boxes for high quality poster printouts that you can take and actually have printed and post them on your wall. They got custom DVD slip covers for most of the LA adventure games. They've got ScummVM! And what did we have? FreeSCI which was no where near as functional or complete. Yes, SCI is probably a harder engine to reverse engineer but all the while that work was slowly being done on FreeSCI, ScummVM kept churning out support for all kinds of other third party engines with SCUMM already under its belt. And eventually Sarien (AGI interpreter) and FreeSCI itself got integrated into it. There just seems to be more of a community in that area. I'm not really sure why.

There's also the whole SCI Studio debacle as well that I'm sure I don't need to get into. At least the AGI fangame community was around for a while. That's probably the single greatest thing Sierra fans had going for them (aside from AGDI/IA).

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#11 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Wed Jul 15, 2009 2:12 am

I think that a major part of this is due to LucasArts' willingness to reinvest attention back towards their adventure library and allow TellTale to reinvigorate their games commercially for their adventure fanbase (even though they're probably a minority). Commercial remakes will always garner a lot more publicity than those created by fans. They get people excited and inspired. And it's not JUST the games that do this, but also the uplifting notion that new life is being breathed back into the genre and old franchises. It shows that the people with the power (and money) to make a difference haven't turned their back on the genre. I think this is the main factor that inspires fan communities to get creative.

The way the Sierra adventure game IP has been horded away over the last decade is pretty disgraceful. It shows that where LucasArts can be progressive and innovative, the IP holders of Sierra's "Quest" titles have always been generally lethargic and apathetic when it comes giving any credence to what fans actually want.

In a nutshell, I believe that the IP holders are the ones responsible for the Sierra gaming community's decline. Fans can only maintain a certain level of 'excitement' in adventure titles that were released well over a decade ago and have already been played to death. Sadly, fan remakes are released too infrequently to keep all but the most dedicated/loyal fans sticking around for any length of time. The fact that free remakes don't generate money to support the genre's continued survival means that they don't generate much mainstream publicity, nor the attention of big publishers. Even AdventureGamers refused to post news of Quest for Glory II's release on their main site page. Fan remakes are seen as just something for fans to play, reminisce over, and then forget about. That cycle falsely reinforces the idea that the genre is financially nonviable. The Sierra adventure game IP desperately needs to be re-commercialized like LucasArts'/TellTale has done, in order to keep the community going.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#12 Post by MusicallyInspired » Wed Jul 15, 2009 3:10 pm

Yeah, but even before TMI/SMI:SE was ever announced (and before the rumours of SMI:SE's existence) when everyone still thought LA was the devil and unforgivable for canceling Sam & Max 2 those communities were still going strong talking about Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and Full Throttle and creating posters/dvd covers/fan artwork/etc while our communities had long since dwindled.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#13 Post by Klytos » Thu Jul 16, 2009 3:12 pm

LA released adventures a few years after Sierra stopped. That's gotta be one reason why they are more active.

The Sierra catalog is dead. It needs a reinvent with fresh people and fresh ideas. The old days are gone and we're not getting them back. Things need to evolve, and TT are doing that to some extent. Chapter's are a great idea, relatively cheap downloads is another good idea. Semi-sandbox worlds (or islands in the case of MI). We can't deliver that as fan games. It sucks and I'd love to, but we can't do it.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#14 Post by seraphimdreamer777 » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:28 am

Well I hoped the forums would be here for many years cause I don't have many friends offline who really listen to me. I guess once AGDI is gone IA will be there for a while at least. Then there is Caves Of Narshe of which they aren't as nice as the people here and at IA.

Oh well I guess moving on is a part of life but it can be hard most the time. :cry

Heres to good times at AGDI! :D

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#15 Post by Angelus3K » Fri Jul 17, 2009 8:13 am

AGDI won't be going anywhere for a long time (if I have anything to do with it!)

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#16 Post by daventry » Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:52 pm

I cant believe the Sierra Fan Base is dying out, you will be missed Erpy. :hat :cry

We are getting Old Gandalf, i csn feel it in Our Hearts, the Last Days of Sierra are coming.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#17 Post by Erpy » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:58 pm

Hey, don't write an epitaph for me yet. I merely mentioned I won't be jumping into another big project at this point. It was already mentioned AGD Interactive won't be starting more remake projects, so that's hardly a surprise. So about your "what about AGDI"-question, I figure that answers it.
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The last few months I tried to visit there, I got a message the site was offline. I wouldn't be surprised if it died. It's possible they continued and I simply missed the site move update or they went underground to work in peace without being nagged with progress requests. However, seeing how much they stressed the importance of fans giving their opinions on design decisions, that would be a 180 for them.
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I heard it was starting beta phase, assuming the three-headed monkeys haven't been distracting Klytos too much.
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You mean TSL, right? I recall them saying they'd release chapter 1 and 2 near the end of the year. I also assume that'll be the only chapters of the project being released, unless Cesar can coax his buddies at Telltale to purchase a license to the KQ franchise from Activision.

Other than that...yeah, I'm looking out to any other Sierra-related project in the near future. Unless someone recently started a promising Sierra-style project that I'm still unaware of.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#18 Post by Brainiac » Fri Jul 17, 2009 7:03 pm

Erpy wrote:
SQ2VGA
I heard it was starting beta phase, assuming the three-headed monkeys haven't been distracting Klytos too much.
What are you talking about? We all know there aren't any three-headed monkeys! :p

Now Monkey Island, on the other hand...yeah, that's very distracting.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#19 Post by Erpy » Fri Jul 17, 2009 8:05 pm

What are you talking about? We all know there aren't any three-headed monkeys!
Actually, there's one standing right behind you as I'm typing this. :p

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#20 Post by Brainiac » Sat Jul 18, 2009 2:06 am

Yeah, and Mia's enjoying Althena's Springs right behind you. :p

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#21 Post by Blackthorne519 » Sat Jul 18, 2009 3:37 am

Heh. As much as three headed monkeys are distracting me (and they are. Oh they are! 10 bucks for a brand-spankin new game, with new graphics and voice acting? LucasArts has got it right.) Work on SQ2 is barrelling along. It's coming along great, and I'm very excited to finish it and send it on it's way!

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#22 Post by Klytos » Sat Jul 18, 2009 7:31 am

You have to know that any release of a Monkey Island game is going to slow me down in the game making department. Releasing two Monkey Island games within a couple of weeks of each other... man, they're killing me. Softly. With their song. Damn, that was a bit weird.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#23 Post by pbpb33 » Sat Jul 18, 2009 11:23 pm

This is very true. I hope LucasArts has success with their re-releases. Maybe that will convince Sierra (or Activision or whoever it is that owns the rights now) to do something similar. Though there have been many admirable fan attempts at Sierra remakes, in terms of quality, polish, etc. none even came close to what AGDI released. Obviously AGDI can't do it all alone. Look at the non-AGDI Silver Lining project... Although I have no doubt that a lot of hard work was put into it, the demo didn't quite live up to what I was expecting. I look forward to seeing what they come out with in the future, though.

Also, I think the sierragamers.com site hasn't been used to its full potential. They have been promising a revamping of that site for a while now, and hopefully it gets finished.
Anonymous Game Creator 2 wrote:I think that a major part of this is due to LucasArts' willingness to reinvest attention back towards their adventure library and allow TellTale to reinvigorate their games commercially for their adventure fanbase (even though they're probably a minority). Commercial remakes will always garner a lot more publicity than those created by fans. They get people excited and inspired. And it's not JUST the games that do this, but also the uplifting notion that new life is being breathed back into the genre and old franchises. It shows that the people with the power (and money) to make a difference haven't turned their back on the genre. I think this is the main factor that inspires fan communities to get creative.

The way the Sierra adventure game IP has been horded away over the last decade is pretty disgraceful. It shows that where LucasArts can be progressive and innovative, the IP holders of Sierra's "Quest" titles have always been generally lethargic and apathetic when it comes giving any credence to what fans actually want.

In a nutshell, I believe that the IP holders are the ones responsible for the Sierra gaming community's decline. Fans can only maintain a certain level of 'excitement' in adventure titles that were released well over a decade ago and have already been played to death. Sadly, fan remakes are released too infrequently to keep all but the most dedicated/loyal fans sticking around for any length of time. The fact that free remakes don't generate money to support the genre's continued survival means that they don't generate much mainstream publicity, nor the attention of big publishers. Even AdventureGamers refused to post news of Quest for Glory II's release on their main site page. Fan remakes are seen as just something for fans to play, reminisce over, and then forget about. That cycle falsely reinforces the idea that the genre is financially nonviable. The Sierra adventure game IP desperately needs to be re-commercialized like LucasArts'/TellTale has done, in order to keep the community going.

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Re: Erpy's possible retirement mean the end of AGD Interactive?

#24 Post by Angelus3K » Sun Jul 19, 2009 4:37 pm

Tbh, I'm not sure if Sierra adeventures would sell with "casual gamers" come on thats the new must have target market apparently.

LucasArts adventures are fun, wacky, humorous, you can't die and have pick up and play bonus.

Whereas imo Sierra adventures are hardcore adventures with in-depth stories (even SQ to an extent), numerous deaths, serious (with the expection of LSL but look what happend to the new version of that) and not much pick up and play value (to a casual gamer).

I could be wrong but thats the way I see it at the minute.

I can see Joe Bloggs whose never played a game picking up Monkey Island and laughing his ass off trying to become a pirate in comparison to same dude picking up KQ and getting stuck into a meaty adventure trying to save king and country.

Its not a case of which is better, its a case of whats going to initially catch their attention.

Like I said, I'm probably wrong lol

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