World of King's Quest (MMORPG)

World of King's Quest MMORPG was an early design for King's Quest: Mask of Eternity in development by Davidsons' personal management between September 1996 and January 21, 1997. It was apparently pushing for an MMO RPG game in development by managers put in place by Bob and Jan Davidson (of Davidson & Associates).

The initial base game release would have been known as "Mask of Eternity". It would have been followed by updates, further add-ons and expansion packs to expand the game into the World of King's Quest ('from the world of King's Quest...'), had the game been released in that form.

Because the company would not listen to Roberta, she felt at times that she had lost control of her own game (though her own team steadily continued to develop her version).

Background

Between September 1996 and January 1997, while Roberta was busy developing Mask of Eternity (with its own series of technical problems, and mixups between Sierra and Dynamix), Roberta apparently found criticism from Bob and Jan Davidson of the parent company Davidson and Associates (probably due to the speed of development, cost of development).

While Williams continued to work on her own ideas including its own script and puzzles, the Davidson's team of managers began to design their script and puzzles for their own version of KQVIII. Davidson's intervention was ultimately stopped (Davidson left the company in January 1997) and Williams reasserted her control, but this was not without its damage to her version of the game's final release (due to loss of time and funding), which was already hurting from other technical issues caused by Dynamix engine development problem and others.

Roberta began to feel as if the company wasn't listening to her, and that she had lost all her voice and control. It wasn't until around January 21, 1997 (when the Davidsons left), that she regained enough control back to her version of the game. However the damage by the upper management had been done both to time and resources. The game had other sets of problems, due to Dynamix unfinished game engine, and the need for Roberta's team to build one themselves, more time and resources were spent (the game was pushed back several times), and material had to be cut to make the game's final release date.

Ken Williams passed along a message from Roberta, regarding the problems caused by the Davidsons.

"Davidsons ‘killing’ Phantasmagoria as it was still going strong: True.

Two teams working on KQ8 at the same time: Partially true. There really was only one team, but I was assigned several ‘managers’ to work above me and those managers were told to not really listen to me and do things their way (presumably, Davidsons’ way?). Hence, the frustration on my part and the fact that KQ8 suffered as a result.

Roberta Williams"

Roberta brings up the idea that there were two design teams, one under her that wanted to push 3D, and keep the game closer earlier games (but adding some new features to keep it up with how culture had changed, and what they were interested in at the time), while the second team wanted to turn the game into a RPG Massively Multiplayer Game. Roberta said she was interested in both ideas (she was not interested in RPG stuff as much), but felt MMO Adventure wasn't conceivable at the time, and possibly not conceivable at all in hindsight.

It is unclear how much management had gotten into their game design and how much it differed from the released game.

It's possible that some of the Davidsons ideas may have made it into the final project, but this is unclear. The RPG mechanics apparently did, and that was an idea also supported and pushed by Mark Seibert (who was under Roberta's team).

Behind the scenes

The story goes that there was a second version of KQ8's design that was being written by a team of managers put in charge of Roberta's team by the Davidsons (Jan and Bob Davidson), primarily Jan.

Two contradicting theories are given about Davidsons proposed game and involvement. While Roberta was designing her own script and puzzles for her version of the game, the Davidsons managers were working on their design document for game,.

• One from Roberta and likely the most credible is that they actually were pushing for a massively multiplayer online RPG set in the King's Quest universe. It would have had little to do with what King's Quest was, and probably took on more aspects like Diablo/Diablo Hellfire (the a latter had planned multiplayer but it was cut), another of Davidson's released titles. It would not have had many puzzles, that was something Roberta was pushing for with her team.

• The second theory originating from Ken Wiliams, and mentioned by Harold Goldberg, where the Davidsons are accused of being 'conservative', religious zealots who were seemingly against any form of violence, sexual, religious imagery and demons/monsters in games, they only liked games that were Christian friendly (from their perspective). They are accused of being critical of Roberta's vision of the game due to violence and religious themes. It is claimed that their game, would apparently been one that would have lacked combat and any other violent themes in the game. The story goes that between September 1996 to January 21, 1997, due to conservative criticism over the content in Phantasmagoria, Leisure Suit Larry, and King's Quest]] by Davidson & Associates, a team of managers was assigned to work above Roberta Williams. They began creating their own version of KQVIII while ignoring her version. They are accused of purging combat, violence and possibly religious themes from the game. It is claimed that the Davidson's believe the Williams were corrupting influence on the nation's youth due to her work on Phantasmagoria. The were accused of seeing Phantasmagoria as immoral and Mask of Eternity as being too violent for the nation's impressionable youth. Not trusting Roberta to make a game that would fall within their standards, they set up their own team (of managers), who developed their own script and puzzles for the game. They stripped off the violence and any other themes they felt unfit for the game. They tried to bypass Roberta, ordering her team to make the game their way, and to ignore Roberta. The accusation goes that based on the Jan Davidson's complaints that their management's design lacked the violence and combat found in the released game, and possibly would have been less religious.

...King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, the eighth in the landmark adventure series. There were problems from the get-go. Sierra was now overseen by another Cendant acquisition, a conservative Christian edutainment company called Davidson & Associates. The Davidsons, especially former schoolteacher Jan, looked down on the Williamses in the way a wary parent might look down on the punky teenager who comes to date the pure-as-snow daughter. Roberta told people the Davidsons believed Phantasmatoria was immoral, something that would ruin the nation's youth, who might go on rampages of violence in imitation of what they'd witnessed. If the Davidsons had been fully behind Phantasmagoria--which had still been on the shelves and selling steadily at the time of the CUC acquistion--Roberta believed it would have sold far more during its retail life span.

Roberta tried to hold back her feelings, but she felt sick inside. At times she was livid; she no longer had true control over her work in particular the next installment of the King's Quest series. As Roberta worked on her script and puzzle ideas, another team worked on on theirs. When it came down to it, she felt like she wasn't being listened to...

Ken has also commented on his dislike of the Davidsons' involvement in Sierra;

At the time of the acquisition of Davidson and Sierra, the two companies were flying high. Sierra was dominant in entertainment and Davidson was dominant in education. Actually it was a perfect marriage in that Sierra lead the market in education outside the US, and Davidson had an entertainment hit in their Blizzard subsidiary. Together, the two companies should have been unstoppable. Unfortunately, it sounds easier as a theory, than it was as a reality. When first approached by CUC, about being acquired, I was fine. But, then when CUC spoke about their strategy of consolidating us with Davidson, I worried that it was a 'marriage doomed to failure'. There were companies I could envision being teamed with, but Davidson wasn't one of them. I had tremendous respect for Bob Davidson, and thought he was a brilliant businessman. But, I didn't think he was the right guy to run a combined Sierra/Davidson, and I didn't think he would be willing to subordinate his company to Sierra. On this basis, I refused to 'do the deal.' My fear had to do with Sierra's product line, rather than anything personal. Sierra published a wide range of products, including both entertainment and education products. Davidson also published both entertainment and education. That Davidson could publish children's education AND Warcraft was a positive. However, during the negotiations, there were rumors that Bob and Jan Davidson were concerned about Leisure-Suit Larry and Phantasmagoria -- two of Sierra's biggest hits. To me, it was clear that they were non-supporters of the products. Putting Davidson in charge of selling these products, which were a huge percentage of our revenue, I felt would be a mistake. I just didn't think it would work. During the negotiations, CUC convinced me that the 'Davidson Issue' was a 'non-issue.'    CUC put a structure in place which created a consolidation of non-product related functions, such as manufacturing, while leaving Sierra and Davidson independent for the purpose of creating product. In other words, I was assured that only non-product related groups would be merged. Davidson would not be dictating product strategy at Sierra, and neither of us would be reporting to the other. This is quite different than what actually happened. One the deal was done,Bob Davidson was put in charge. However, even this had problems -CUC and Davidson had their own conflict, which resulted in Bob Davidson leaving the company...

The latter accusations, seem highly unlikely of course, considering their involvement with games like Diablo: Hellfire, which are incredibly violent and filled with satanic imagery.Ken Williams has mentioned in the past that Roberta had problems with the 'Suits' controlling Sierra and the development of MOE, and at one point Roberta thought about removing her name from the game, and even suing the ones running Sierra. While the details have been unclear what the Suits had actually done, it would seem it would have something to do with this alternate version of KQ8. If it had been released, Roberta would have had little or no part in its development.

See also

• KQ8 development
• King's Quest Online
• Ken discusses Davidsons