Since I'm the one who first started this Quest for Glory II remake as a one-man show all the way back in December of 2000, I figured that I should take the initiative to say thanks to everyone else who came on-board over the past 8 years for their involvement in seeing the remake through to its final release!
Firstly, I'd like to publicly thank Stijn (Erpy) for the complete reliability and dedication he's shown to seeing this project through to completion. I think I can safely say that without him, this game simply wouldn't ever have ever been finished, and certainly not to such a high level of quality. His bug fixing speed, and skill with programming complex scenes (like combat) in AGS' programming language is something to be envied. Thanks for all the hard work!
Thanks go out to John Paul Selwood (KQArtist), Emily Selwood (Rose1), Johan Botes (Gronagor), Britney (AGD1/Milan Easton), Brandon Klassen (Relight), Anthony Hahn (Cornjob), Jack Shaedler (Jackhomer), and Michael Freeman (DrawAllDay). All the artists who touched up my crappy original 'doctored' backgrounds and turned them into works of art, rivaling the Sierra greats of yesteryear! You've all done a superb job of raising the bar and bringing this project to a new standard of visual quality.
I would also like to particularly acknowledge the additional efforts of John Paul Selwood (KqArtist) and Johan Botes (Gronagor) for going the extra mile in this particular project and working on numerous additional art and animation touch-ups, breathing much more life to the game world and characters!
Eriq, phenomenal job on the launch and website. What a blast it has been getting this thing up and running over the last month. (Not to mention the stress of yesterday's launch!) The updates, teasers, sneak peeks, and goodies were even enough to make ME excitedlyanticipate what was coming next in the courses updates, and I'm made the game! I've said it before, but you do what you do so very well and your donations to this project have brought everything to a whole new level. Great work!
Tom Lewandowski of QuestStudios shall now be congratulated for the record time in which he got all the music pulled together and recorded digitally for the project. I think that the wait until the release date must have seemed longer for Tom than for anyone else on the team, considering that he finished all of his work in a small fraction of the time it took the rest of us to complete all the jobs in our respective departments! Tom also has the special ability of being able to read my mind when it comes to creating brand new music pieces for scenes in the game where no music existing previously. (Well, either that, or we have very similar musical tastes). This man KNOWS Sierra music and the game's soundtrack is in very good hands, so thanks, Tom, for all the tunes.
Now, I will bow my head in remembrance of our long lost Moderator turned programmer, Adam Senn (Wolfgang Abenteuer). Wolfgang disappeared from these parts quite some years back, and where he went, nobody knows. But during his active time here, he assembled every dialogue from the original QFG2 SCI game and organized them into the clickable dialogue trees that you see in the remake. He also painstakingly mapped-out the entire alley system and laid-out the foundations and design for the remake. Wolfgang, if you're out there and you read this, cheers to you for your excellent efforts... and come back, y'hear!?
To Chris Jones (or Pumaman/CJ as he's more commonly known in AGS circles) thanks again for the fantastic game engine that is Adventure Game Studio. Without this magnificent tool, none of these games would even be possible in the first place. Thanks also for the constant support and assistance when things mess up (or when we're just too dumb to figure stuff out) and helping to set it all right again!
Lori and Corey Cole, you must also be given immense gratitude for writing the Quest for Glory series of games and inspiring me to want to remake Quest for Glory II in the first place. From the first time I played the original QFG2, it has been my favourite game of all-time. So, being able to remake my favourite game and actually complete this monstrous project is a huge honor. After going through the game so thoroughly and re-constructing absolutely EVERYTHING from the original version, I have seen the amount of depth that the you've put into the design and writing; how much additional detail is "beneath the surface" which many players may never even notice. I now have an even greater appreciation for your game design and plot-structuring talents. If Vivendi ever decide to throw this remake on some kind of future QFG Collection, I'll be glad to know that any increased sales will be getting you guys a share of the royalties.
The beta testers (well, the ones who actually did some testing) really did a exceptional job in weeding out many, many obscure and hard-to-find bugs and were responsible for making the game MUCH more stable than it ever could have been. Special thanks to the two testers who discovered the most bugs for their tireless efforts to keep finding more bugs when everyone else couldn't take it no more: Avoozl Snot and Prio, your extra efforts improved the game's stability greatly. Make no mistake, all the other testers listed in the credits did a most excellent job as well and were very clear and thorough in their reports. Thanks for the thorough work guys, and hopefully you're not too burnt out on QFG2 to refrain from replaying the final release!
Thanks to all the server owners who have kindly donated us space to mirror our files on. You guys and girls know who you are - and when our newsletter goes out, so will the rest of the world!
To Vivendi and Rod Rigole, thanks for allowing us to move ahead with the release of this project and for understanding the strong community spirit behind these much-loved classic Sierra games, rather than seeing things black & white and shutting the games down from the get-go. Most companies would, no question about it, and I think your actions have gained you genuine respect in this community as a result.
And last but not least, a big thank you to all the fans who (im!)patiently waited for us to get this game "out the door". It's amazing to see that, more than 10 years on, the flame is still burning strong for these classic Sierra On-Line 'Quest' titles! The community spirit and support speaks volumes about the popularity of these games and it's clear that they truly have a legacy which will never die. Just the anticipation of this release; people camping out all night for the download link (Star Wars style!); the amount of people getting incredibly antsy over the release of an old-school classic game, tapping F5 every 10 seconds because they're so eager to play it, really goes to shows how good the old Sierra games were to cause such a craving for adventure in players.
To a lot of people I think these are MORE than just games. They're intriguing stories which conjure up good memories of old times when real depth existed in games and the characters had personality. This is something that's seldom seen these days in modern titles. So I hope all the fans will continue to keep the community spirit of the Quest for Glory games (and Sierra "Quest" games in general) alive for many years to come yet. Thanks for all the support and praise you've all shown and are continuing to show after the release. It's appreciated!
--EDIT--
Oh, yes, and I mustn't forget to mention the sheer number of bugs pointed out by adeyke (Alexander deyke) and Relight (Brandon Klassen). They both found large amounts of bugs that made the game much more stable. And also Britney (AGD1/Milan Easton) for the extra attention put towards the excellent dialogue portraits and Relight (Brandon Klassen) for extra visual touch-ups here and there. Whew!
Any excuse to experience QFG2 through fresh eyes, again.
