Depends. When and what did you work on?

Also, I think the developers are more into the "email directly" then "post on the forum" part now. You might try that one and see where it gets you. 

Yep, fun tool, indeed. So what did everyone else make?

Not much. The game may or may not still be in development, and many of the original hardcore member base have moved on. Still, we do get new people here such as yourself every once in a while, and if you look through, there's lots of links to other cool fan projects and other interesting tidbits, as well as for posting about...well, anything, really.

Short rundown: the game's been in development for 10 years at least. Yeah, long time, huh? Since it's a volunteer project - aka, no money, never was, never will - most people can only contribute a little bit of their time and effort to help crank this stuff out. That, and the fact that "life happens" so that people may have to leave the project indefinitely - along with project mis-management, new people bringing new ideas that need complete rewrites, and advancements in internet culture so creatives can go make their own thing - and you have a VERY VERY VERY slow moving creation process.

Why there's hope: QFG is AWESOME, so much time has been spent that it would be really anticlimactic to throw it all away NOW, and because it's free, there's no budget and thus no way to go OVER budget (so no suits coming down from on high and scrapping the game). So yes, it may take a while, but there's no reason (other then lack of enthusiasm) on why it should STOP being made until it's done.

All that said, I wish the developers WOULD come out and say "We've locked this in place, no more changes or updates, this is 100% DONE and SET IN STONE". Getting some of those yellow lights to turn green could help out with the whole "interest" bit, even if the game's still not ready yet.

It is and I do, but I think intros are taken in the stickied "Hero Hall" at the top, if I remember correctly.

Other then that, welcome! Good to see some new folks here!

I'd settle for wool-carpet-on-feet static if it'd get the forum going again...

(lol) It HAS been remade:

http://www.agdinteractive.com/games/qfg2/

And they did a FANTASTIC job! Combat system has been revamped and updated to be a lot more fun and varied, graphical AND music updates, some new minigames, and even a couple of entirely new secret side quests to do.

Bottom line: if you consider yourself a fan of QFG, the second game, and/or old-school adventure games in general, YOU SHOULD PLAY THIS!

Well, they're certainly not telling, are they? ;-)

To those who view this: regardless of if you're a fan of the games, it's actually a pretty cool website. Give it a shot, but expect to put in some work if you want any reward out of it...

Looks like they've moved and the new site no longer exists. Oh well...

Hi guys
just recently joined and am a HUGE QFG fan.
I appreciate what the Hero6 team is doing.

Just wondering how the project is coming along?

*heh* Loaded question. Some say it's dead, others that it's on life-support and it'll BE dead soon, and others that it's creeping along at a steady (if glacial and/or quiet) pace.

At any rate, I suggest that, unless there is a true expectation of the project being completed "soon," most of the general Hero6 material be released to the public domain so people can get a more complete idea what the game might have been like -- perhaps it will provide creative inspiration for other projects.

Open source all the material, in other words? Hmmm...idea has merit, though I would say that perhaps open sourcing as much of the redundant/obsolete material would be better. It would give people the benefit of seeing how an open-source game can change over time, while also allowing the developers to continue working on this if they wish.

Would privatizing it have a chance of spurring it's development?

Quite the opposite, trying to privatize it - i.e, make money off of it to pay people to make it - would cause Sierra/Activision to swing the "gavel of copyright law +infinity" at Hero6, closing it up for good. At least right now, we can pass it off as a (admittedly very long-developed and somewhat mismanaged) fan-made game that pays homage to the original game.

If you feel you can help, or just want to show your support, my email is...

Email = good. Website (slapped together if needed) = better. Show us you're at least KIND OF serious about this.

*slow applause*

Regarding the backstory rewrite: would you consider the stuff left out to still be cannon? If so, you could always write it down in a PDF format and release it along with the game. Sort of like how old-school manuals sometimes used to explain much of the backstory to their games because the technology to allow the game itself to convey it wasn't there.

Glad to see stuff is still going on after all this time!

  Oh come on. If anything, that may have been what restarted interest...

...wow, maybe I should just stop coming to the board for a few years. I leave for 2 months and miss out on a possible rebirth of the game...if I come back after a few years, I'll probably find a full game patched to version 2.7, Hero7 version 1.7 already complete and out, and a forum clamoring for the half-completed Hero8 they just got their third demo on :-P...

I've played one of the demos, and it only showcased the artwork and a tiny bit of the adventuring element / engine. Good to do, but it didn't have any of the combat mechanics in it.

I think that perhaps two different types of demos would be needed: one to showcase the adventuring elements like previous demos (a "traditional demo"), and one to both showcase AND test the Stats/combat mechanics (a "test demo"). Essentially, this demo would have only one scene, where the hero gets to train a few select stats (player gets to pick what and how many times for each), and then after a chosen number of "trainings", a monster or obstacle is scripted to appear, and the character sees how well they did. Characters get to see their stats and decide if they're satisfied before the test occurs, and can restart if they're not happy.

The test demo would serve multiple purposes: 1) to show users that we're serious about creating an actual QFG-style game, not just a standard adventure game that looks like qfg (QFG 5 1/2, I'm looking at you and your broken "stats" system), 2) To have willing alpha/beta testers post what they liked about progress and what needs improvement ("I lifted those barbells 20 times and my strength only went up 2 points?? WTF, cut us some slack!"), and 3) It serves to tide over people for far longer then the traditional demos as it introduces replayability into the mix ("Alright, let's see if I can pick that lock with just 1 point in Pick Locks!"). An additional advantage over a traditional demo is that it won't necessarily reveal actual plot elements: you can create "alpha beast" for the demo only, then not include him in the game at all (or as an obvious easter egg somewhere

I am a Beginning Programmer (simple C++, simple Java, PL/SQL, simple Shellscripting), and I do realize the actual demo would take months to make, but it seems to me like the basic formula for these would be as follows:
1) Start demo with preset stats (Advanced: allow player to choose a class, and have different stat-sets for each). Test no more then 5 stats at a time. Ask the player if they'd like to log or not to log this game.
2) Have stat-building objects that the player can interact with around the one scene. Have the code for stat advancement set up, and allow the players to check their stats with a single key-press at any time.
3) Have a counter keep track of how many times the character has used any skill building object, and a script that logs how many times they used each object and how many skill points they received in total.
4) After a set number of times, have a scripted event that makes use of most/all of the skills given (combat, an obstacle test, etc) that the player must overcome (advanced: have the actual combat system in the game and log what buttons the player used so you can eliminate unused buttons and/or balance out overused buttons).
5) After the skill challenge is done, if they were logging, ask the player to forward the log file to an email address for testing purposes, and to post their comments on a specially prepared forum topic so the dev team can get feedback.

The first one would undoubtedly be hard to make since you're starting from scratch, but after that, if you want to save time, almost half of the demo can be saved and reused. In fact, if you want the community to have an active role, you can take user feedback, tweak the demo to match, then re-release it as "version 2/3/pi/etc" until you've got each stat-component nice and shiny.

Now since I don't want to double-post, I'm going to make this a very long message and simply add in what I think to be a VERY VERY important element for the plot and story writing: humor. Every single QFG game had some elements of humor to them somewhere, a bit of light-heartedness that was uplifting even when the game itself was extremely depressing as a whole (QFG3 and the Monkey village, QFG4 and Punny Bones, etc). Humor, however, is somewhat difficult to come across when you're actually TRYING to be funny (example: Every "modern" Leisure Suit Larry game that's been released thus far), so finding and keeping someone who has a humorous bent should be a top priority if you want to retain the real QFG feel. Hard to do, and I'm not sure where to begin with something like that, but it's definitely a priority if you're going to start over.

Though I AM glad to hear that the original game is alive again...! Here's hoping that we can see it through this time!