Thank you very much for your offer of assistance!

As a writer/designer for Hero6, I sometimes find myself uncertain of what people expect or want from this game. I would rather not imitate the Quest for Glory games TOO closely, on the grounds that Hero6 should stand on its own; however, the further we venture away from the blueprints laid by the Coles, the more risks we take.

So, one easy, but important, way people can help the team out is to take a few minutes to answer the following casual survey.


QFG-Related:

1. Have you played the QFG games? Which ones? Which was your favorite?

2. What did you like MOST about the QFG games?

3. What did you like LEAST about the QFG games?

4. What is your favorite character class, and why?

5. What sort of puzzles did you enjoy in the QFG games? Which didn't you enjoy? Are there any QFG puzzles or scenes that you really liked or disliked?

6. Did the QFG games have too many stats? Too few stats? Would a simplified system be more involving? Less involving?


Dialogue-related:

7. What do you like to see in game dialogue? Should it be short, punchy, and to the point, or detailed and intricate? Do you like menu conversations?

8. In all the computer games you've ever played, which character's dialogue did you most enjoy? Why?

9. What do you NOT want to see in game dialogue? Would you mind if Hero6 made occasional use of national stereotypes, as the QFG games sometimes did? What about accents and dialect?


Other:

10. Do you like a lot of backstory in your games? Should understanding the backstory be crucial for solving the game? How about optional, but helpful?

11. Hero6 has a day-night cycle system. How much real time do you feel would appropriately correspond to one day? Would you like short days? Long days? Do you like puzzles that require one to take time of day into account? Dislike them?

12. How much combat do you like in a game? How hard should it be to escape from battle? Should the frequency of battles be higher or lower than in the QFG games?

13. Do you keep a map on paper when you play games like this, or do you remember the rough locations of everything in your head?

14. What speed is your computer processor? What platform? How much memory do you have? What is your Internet connection speed?

Thank you very much for your time.

- John W. Wells

A strictly Unofficial Answer:

The fangame is an old and honorable undertaking. The earliest fangame I can think of offhand came out in 1996 - a Zork/Enchanter fan text adventure called Spiritwrak. However, there were doubtless earlier ones.

That said, Hero6 was the first massive collaborative graphic adventure fangame I know of. It certainly set the stage for future fan collaborations, whatever its own difficulties. I wouldn't say that the current crop of fangames wouldn't have happened at all if it weren't for Hero6, but there might be fewer. It's really hard to say.

Congratulations to the winners! I enjoyed reading your entries.

- John W. Wells, Plot Department

The possibility of buying a house is definitely something to consider for, er, Hero9. Until then, I doubt that our hero can be tied down so easily. The whole "finding a safe place to rest" conundrum was, I think, a nice touch in the QFG games, and so our hero will remain a vagabond for some time.

This is not, of course, an Official Answer. Official Answers are not really possible for anything past Hero6. That said, investing in real estate in Albion will probably not be a good idea until somebody makes it a little safer.

It's the hero's eternal dilemma. You can't settle down nicely until you've made the country safe, but once you've made the country safe, you're out of work. Oh, the pathos!

Hero7 - should we ever manage to get around to it! - will most likely be set in a Norse setting. Thus, while it's rather late to use rune magic in Hero6 now, it would be plausible in Hero7 to incorporate it into a few wizard puzzles, or even into the learning of new spells. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

One of the more interesting rune magic systems occurs in the game Death Gate, I think, but you only really need to use it on a few occasions to solve some specialized puzzles. The Ultima rune magic system appeals to me somewhat less. Too much fiddling.

A system in which you need to combine elements to create magic SOUNDS like it should be fun, but the combinatorial explosion mentioned above can create huge problems. And if the combinations are limited to a few preset ones to avoid that, we've basically got an ordinary spell system with runes scribbled onto it.

In a pure RPG, a combinatorial magic system would be more plausible; some spells would just have specialized effects. But the Hero games are adventure/RPG hybrids, and this means that every puzzle forces the designers to consider ALL possible solutions. Most RPGs limit your options to "apply the obvious (or non-obvious) skill." Adventure-style gameplay means that effectively having a few hundred spell combinations would make puzzle design incredibly complicated.