While it is fantastic to hear that you are shooting for a release this month, God knows I was waiting for your game more than anything else, I am also sad because a couple years ago, I intended to mail you a wishlist of stuff I would love to see in Heroine's Quest, mainly features from the past QFG games, but real life issues got in the way until recently, and now that I know the game is very close to being released, I also know that, no matter how convincing my arguments are, there's no way any of the stuff I'd suggest is going to make it into the game, unless it's in there already.
But I figured there's no harm in asking is there? Although you can always say "
The game's coming out this month, can't you wait and find out for yourself?
"
, I would be interested to know if any of the features I'd have suggested are currently in Heroine's Quest or not, just so I can be even more excited about its incoming release. Plus, you will have some food for thought if you plan to make Heroine's Quest 2 with the help of Kickstarter, and I hope you will
1) Danger everywhere you go
Although I love QFG2, if there is one point where Sierra screwed up it was that you mostly didn't need to leave Shapeir to progress in the game, almost everything happened in the safety of the city and later in its sister city. It really contrasted with QFG1 where you are constantly traveling between more than 15 locations, fighting, avoiding and running from monsters everywhere you go, if you wanted to progress in QFG1 you had to stay sharp and face the dangers that lurked outside the town walls. That doesn't mean you cannot have a QFG game set entirely in one big city, but it means that if you do, danger needs to lurk at every street corner, not just outside the city walls.
2) No minimap quick travel
One aspect where QFG3 and 5 failed at. Traveling on a map was just not the same as exploring Spielburg's valley for the first time. That sense of exploration and discovery is completely lost with a minimap, you also couldn't get lost, not to mention it removed a great deal of tension when you ran away from monsters because you did not need to remember your current location and the location of safe areas.
3) Keep your feet warm
Just like SQ1, QFG2 and KQ5 required us to stay hydrated in their respective deserts, I hope that Heroine's Quest, being the first time we get to explore an icy environment in the QFG universe, will requires us to not only eat and rest but also stay warm and protect ourselves from the nordic climate.
4) Earn your spells
The wizard was always my least favorite class in the series, but if there's one game in which I loved being a wizard, it was in QFG1. Because in QFG1 you had to earn your spells, you begun with 1 spell, and you had to search left and right, up and down, solve puzzles, beat minigames, and earn cash in order to find or buy the 7 remaining ones. In most of the following games, as if you weren't powerful enough because of the wide arsenal of spells you acquired in the past games, you also started with enough cash to buy all the new spells found in stores, leaving only 1 or 2 spells that you genuinely had to earn for yourself. Most of the fun I had with a magic user in the first game, of starting weak and earning my spells, was gone by QFG2. While on the subject of spells...
5) Learn new tricks
Casting the same spells from the first game gets old after 4 sequels. Due to the nature of Heroine's Quest and the fact that it's not a sequel you can import your past save file into, I hope you really seized this opportunity to ditch or tweak some of the spells from the old games and come up with new ones. Sure, there are spells from the old games that are stapple which you cannot really get rid of, but I wish that we will mostly have brand new spells to solve puzzles with.
6) The Elder Scrolls effect
Although I never played with hybrid characters when I first played any of the QFG games, and I always gave each of the 4 classes a proper playthrough before I spiced things up with hybrid classes, I've got to say that one of my little pleasure whenever I finished a QFG game or whenever I replay one is to create an hybrid character with the goal of completing every quests and sidequests in the game, kill all the monsters, rob every houses, acquire all spells, win at every minigames... just for the satisfaction of knowing I 100% completed every challenge, big and small, the game offered me. And it greatly bothered me when the later games in the series locked me out of potential challenges and rewards because of the class I chose rather than the skills my character knew. In a good QFG game, a sword wielding wizard or thief should not be forbidden from participating in every fighter related sidequest and vice versa. Speaking of sidequests...
7) A land of opportunities
QFG3's biggest fault was clearly its lack of sidequests. Although Tarna was especially barren for the thieves, I feel that all classes were affected by this. I hope Heroine's Quest will give us plenty of opportunities for us to put our character's unique skill set to use, no matter what class we choose to play. I think it's safe to say that in QFG, the more sidequests and side activities has always been the better, you just can't never have enough.
8) Being a fighter =/= being a jerk
I don't know if you intend to implement the paladin class but if you do, don't make the same mistake Sierra did in QFG3. QFG2 did a good job to differentiate the fighter and the paladin, both strive for peace, justice and the greater good, both defeat monsters, but while the fighter is driven by fortune and glory, the paladin is selfless and regards peace, justice and the greater good as a reward in itself. The fighter is a combat pragmatist, while the paladin will not fight dishonorably. Besting the griffin in a fight, if for nothing else than personal glory, was a very fighterish thing to do in QFG2. This greatly contrasted with QFG3 where the fighter was pictured like a douchebag. The only way for a fighter to not become a paladin in QFG3 was to act like a jerk to Rakeesh, the king and everyone you met in your journey. And that's not how the fighter should be portrayed if you ask me. While on the subject of sidequests and griffin...
9) The big game hunter
Unique challenging monsters and encounters are to the fighter class what thieves jobs or mage mazes are to the thief and wizard classes. QFG1 had the Goblin camp, the fortress entrance, the weapon master, the Hidengoseke unique troll, QFG2 had the griffin and the EOF initiation, the remake added Sir James and the Pizza Elemental (although that one was too difficult for me)... These encounters do not need to be graphically unique either, a couple of unique rare spawn, palette swapped, extra tougher version of a monster wandering the land would go a long way to add more stuff to do for the fighter class.
10) Money makes a terrible reward
Due to the lack of loot acquisition in QFG, the presence of free lodging and the immense fortunes you receive at the start of some of the QFG sequels, there generally come a time, especially with a thief, where you have tons of money and nothing to spend it on, sometimes it gets so bad that your purse encumbers you. There aren't too many solutions:
Either the design philosophy behind money in the series needs to be revamped, and by this I mean that money should become a resource that must be carefully managed, like it was during the first half of QFG1 (before the baron ruins everything by giving you 50 gold for rescuing his son), that means no more free lodging, no more free meals and being extra careful that at no point in the game the player can acquire an unbalanced amount of money that would remove the survival aspect.
Either quests reward you with money, but you can spend it on aesthetical upgrades (like in the remake of QFG2.)
Either quests continue to reward you with money but the stores sell magical items to makes your character stronger, like in QFG5. That may however encourage people to grind gold.
Either quests reward you in the form of magical items, tomes of forbidden knowledge, secret techniques... stuff that makes your character stronger instead of money (thieves could receive gold from heists but spend it on various thief tools and equipment). The advantage of that solution is those who solve puzzles and successfully complete quests and sidequests could get away with less stats grinding (a problem that plagued the series if you ask me), and the survival aspect remains intact (you will still need to find gold for your potions and lodging.)
Or it may also be a mix of all four solutions.
11) The import function
If you decide to make a sequel where we can import our character from the previous game, I think that like in QFG4, stats should be carried over but magical items, money and other unfair advantages should be left behind, to avoid situations where you have so much money you can buy everything right at the start, or situations where your character is too powerful too early.
Work is still progressing steadily.
