Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

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TomDread
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Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by TomDread »

Seeing all the great stuff in series 3, then the stuff in series 5, it feels as if series 5 hadn't been worked on.
What i find so borin about series 5 is there's really no challenge in it.

Comparing Level 1- In level 1 series 3, teams had to dodge snakes, scorpions and ogres. Whilst 5- team 1- all they had to was have a little chat to B. Mace and then give gold to J. Scaramonger. That's far too easy.

Also, life-force clock wise- series 1-4 had the heartbeat. Series 5 only used the beat once. It became less scary.

The doorway to the dungeon had that horrible computer beam effect in series 5 which some people in the forum have commented on.

The rooms- series 3 has superb painted rooms capturing the dungeon itself. 5 has bad computerized photos of castles, looking terribly flat.

Also- the pace of series 5 was terribly slow. Team 3's especially. They were slow i almost changed to sky 1.
Series 3's pace was much more quicker.

PHEW! This is by far the longest post i've written so far.

Any1's free to have their views...
Last edited by TomDread on 22 Jul 2006, 22:02, edited 1 time in total.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by frieza »

I agree with those views, although series 5 seemed to have more "atmosphere" than some of the earlier episodes, particularly when Ben+co entered Winteria. The ending to series 5 was quite effective and more interesting than the dungeon simply blowing up. Characterisation was also better in the later series, with many of the good/bad people given more unique identities.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by Malefact »

I think series 5 actually had a lot of imagination put into it. Km never stood still for a moment - each series is distinct. If there seems to be a bit of a drop-off in terms of graphical quality from series 4 onwards, it's because of the technical limitations. The Eye Shield was introduced to produce better transition between places. This was done in conjunction with real footage (albeit processed to give the colours an 'art freeze' look, so as to make it appear other-worldly) because there was no way computer animation was good enough (or cheap enough) back then to produce what was needed. The look of series 4+ was through necessity.

Don't forget that series 4 discarded an awful lot - precious little remained from the previous series. To ditch so much when doing so well is a risk. As for series 5, don't forget that this was the series which introduced Lord Fear, Sylvester Hands, scrolls, spyglasses, descenders, Smirkenorf, the end of season 'event' etc. This significance of all this can become dimmed because for us it's all in hindsight with the following series, but back then it was a big change.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by TomDread »

I think the characters in series 5 are O.K. But i prefer the early series characters. SIGH! :( It's a shame Tim Child is making knightmare for younger audience. The perfect series 9 for me would be cartoon opening, painted rooms, and the characterization of 5,6,7, & 8. Sadly this'll just remain a vision, as rooms will more than likely be computer generated. Sure it was better than the stuff in 4, 5, 6, & 7, but i feel painted rooms is best fitting. Maybe painted rooms with computer effects?
Last edited by TomDread on 27 Jul 2006, 19:57, edited 1 time in total.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by Drassil »

In the Episode Discussion threads for the early episodes of Series 5, many people have commented on how slow it was. Personally, it does trouble me that the first quest of S5 is a 'passive path' throughout - no clue rooms on Levels 1 or 2, and thus the team is denied a crucial element of choice. This is indeed an unsettling echo of a major Series 4 flaw. However, I agree with Malefact about the importance of all the new aspects introduced in Series 5: it is the series where the drama/plot aspect really takes off, and so I think Tim Child and crew can be excused for not getting the balance quite right initially.

Series 3 is regarded as the finest by many if not most fans. But I'd venture to suggest that if all 8 series had been identical to S3, we'd have got bored of Knightmare, and would be unable to look back on S3 as reverently as we do now. We'll never know, but it's possible.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by kev_hamster »

I would disagree, to be honest.

For me, series 4 was far less interesting than series 5 - the graphics looked poor, most quests were the same and Mogred was not as effective in the new surroundings! Plus, the sword mistress, Gundrada - how irritating she was!

For me, the only real plus points of 4 were Fatilla (who was hilarious and sadly never seen again) and the introduction of the corridor of blades.

For me, series 5 was a massive improvement on 4.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by Naitch »

Hello

Was Knightmare downgraded?

I'm not sure. It seems that everyone sees series 3 as 'the' series, and by in large I would have to agree.

However, I liked the new locations. I thought the Eye Shield sequences cut in to the adventure time, but there is always a balance with these things.

I liked the Crazed Heffer, and I liked the bits of Wolfenden and the Greenwood and also the various castle ruins and market places.

Gwendoline irritated me, but I like Julius Scarramonger and Ah Wok.

I said in a previous post that series 5 and 6 had a slight dip in quality, but really only by a few percent in my opinion.

But hey while I would have prefered the Dungeon rather than the outside locations, I still love series 5 & 6.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by knightmaredave »

Series 5 was a bit weird for me as well it had a lot of POSITIVE changes ok it was a little easy especially level 1 and some levels went on forever but bringing in a whole new buhc of charactewrs made it alive again especially as series 4 was soo slow. i agre some questst were far tooo east bens winning quest was hurried i think so somebody would win. there awere also quite a few annoying teams from s 5 whom id have gladly zapped if i were the oppositon.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by KaM »

I've always enjoyed Series 5, especially in relation to 4, but when compared with S3, perhaps I can see the quibbles. I find Knightmare's 'phases' move in accordance with the changes in the title sequence: S.1-3, reaching a peak with 3; 4-5, reaching a peak with 5; 6-8 perhaps don't follow in the same way in terms of popularity, but perhaps in graphics and development.

Part of the reason why I think 3 is so popular is that, alongside the richly handpainted rooms of David Rowe, the dark, traditionalistic aura that we all really loved, there were two years of experience to draw upon: subtle touches added to the dungeon map, characterisation, introduction of Hordriss etc. Together with this, considering Forester's work on S2, the element of challenge is not always there. With S3, we get the same pace, quite short, frequent quests, but with greater challenge, thus more interesting death sequences and gameplay.

S4 is the most radical conversion, and I think the gameplay suffers for it: repetition, weak characters and all. What I think is underway here is encouraging fewer, longer quests with a view to integrating background stories through a central evil character, spy-glasses and the such. S4 provides the year's trial, or 'experience' perhaps, to adapt gameplay from a high turnover of teams to longer, expanded quests. S5 builds upon this well, I think, and to add to the list of new additions, Causeways were fantastic ~ indicating the shift from intellectual challenges to physical and team-co-ordination challenges, which would add more suspense and drama to the gameplay. S5 is a different era to S3, perhaps a different game altogether, but it holds its own with pride.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by ross »

I must say that I liked the introduction of Lord Fear, and the introduction of the spy glass, which added drama, to the action. As well as that it was a way of teams getting info, although I do see the point of them having to earn it in series 3, by getting questions right in a clue room.

Series 3 characters and series 5 characters well I can't be bothered to go through all of them, but Motley is one of my favourite characters simply because he was in it for a long time, and of course he was funny. (Well he made me laugh anyway.) Series 5 charachers, well obviously Lord Fear was the main character introduced for Series 5, and I would not want to work for him, with his demands to kill off every dungoneer, when he never gives his crew enough to work on, and keeps giving away clues.

Elita was a good character. She could be rude and appear unhelpful, but if teams met her challenge they often got rewarded. I think the way she dealt with team 3 and team 4 in series 5, (or more bluntly how the teams dealt with her,) team 3 taking ages to decide to do anything, team 4 making their mind up quickly, and the different rewards the teams got, confirmed that she could be helpful if teams were to her, but she made them earn something.

As for rooms, well if I was doing a knightmare combined for series 3 and series 5, I would have Causeway Puzzles from levels 1, 2, and 3, (which was a long series of Roman Numerals,) from series 5, C of B, the Block and Tackle, and from series 3, Open Ground (the green path,) water room, The Corridor of the Catacombs, Beams' Path, The Scorpion, The Corridor of the Catacombs 2, the Bomb rooms (I missed these rooms after they were took out at the end of series 3,) firecave, and serpents tongue (and therefore its stomach,) spindizzy, many doors, raven, giant step, merlin's throne, The Corridor of the Catacombs 3, Corridor of Spears, Medusa, Cats, Narrow causeway, and Catacombite.

Some of those rooms may only be used as one offs, and obviously time to shorten or lengthen quests and the nature of quests would see what rooms would be used. As for say should the wellway or Smirkenorff the dragon should be used it doesn't bother me too much, neither does having a dice room or just teams verbially choosing their quest before it starts. You might notice I haven't chosen a clue room, thats not to say there wouldn't be one at all, it only shows that I'm not too fussed, should Oakley, or Golgarach and Brangwen be used.

As for characters I would have, Motley, Merlin, Mrs. Grimwold (and pet dog,) Brother Mace, Sir Hugh de Witless, Hordriss The Confuser, Lord Fear, Skarkill The Goblin Master, Julius Scaramonger, Elita the Cavern Elf, Sylvester 'Sly' Hands, and others.

Of course Treguard would be there, but he was there in every series. Pickle, well he interfeared in series 4, so I would have him, but not as an adviser to the team, more like a character in the dungeon.

You might notice a lot of characters for my "baddies" were from series 5. Don't get me wrong I liked Velda and McGrew from series 3, and also Mellisandre, but I don't think having Mellisandre would look right in a series that has Lord Fear and a series of baddies. Olaf, Mogdred, Morghanna, were also good characters as well.

The main reason why I think I have picked a load of series 5 baddies is because I liked the idea of having a central "main baddie" Lord Fear, who was the boss, and could tell everyone else what to do.

Oh a long answer to a simple question although I don't really think it is a simple question. Series 5 had a main baddie, and Spy glass scenes added drama, as well as difficult causeways, but series 3 had more variety of rooms, so I guess the rooms were better in level 3, but because of a chief baddie, in series 5 I have more characters from that series, so what I am really saying is that Lord Fear and his series of baddies in series 3 would be the best combination.

However it still remains despite all that only good teams won Knightmare, so it was still a challenge.
Last edited by ross on 27 Nov 2006, 07:27, edited 1 time in total.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by ross »

Right that last post was before I had read any other posts, this comes after it, just so I could mearly see have an opinion first, without prompting then see what you all said, and maybe add to it.

3 main points. 2 from Malefacts post and 1 from knightmaredaves post.

First the 2 points from Malefacts post.

1) First scrolls. Thanks for reminding me, because I did enjoy these. The only reason I missed it out is because theres nothing in the series guides in the level1/2/3, about them, when describing the rooms in various levels.

2) End of season. I just don't think Knightmare ever got this right to be honest. In series 1 the team died at the final hurdle and the problem was avoided. Series 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8, were teams rescued during their quest, whilst they still hadn't done anything wrong, these teams were denied a chance of victory. Only in series 7 was it done right, although that was down to the team managing to get to the end of level 3, as the series was about to end. As for series 4 and its Christmas, when Treguard asked the team "if they wanted to be home for Christmas," it would have been funny if the team said back to him something like: "of course, but we do want to finish our quest first, and see if we win or lose." Overall 6 of the series endings I didn't like, although its difficult to know what could have been done about it.

WWTBA Millionairre always has a series ending as a contestant ends, avoiding problems such as in Knightmare.

OK it might be a little unfair to compare the two shows because WWTBA is a load of sitting and thinking, only the question being asked, the answer being given, CT saying: "final answer," the contestant saying "yes," and the answer revealed, and when contestants use lifelines, only ever have to be shown, there can be as much or as little "sitting and thinking" in between to build up tension as whatever the productions see fit.

Given that Knightmare was always edited (and here we can compare with WWTBA Millionairre,) surely the producers, could have avoided problems by doing the editing to avoid this problem and making sure a team dies/wins, at the end of a series, avoiding the problem of a team entering the dungeon, knowing they are not going to win.) (Before you ask, no I was not an editor on Knightmare,) but as it wasn't live, I do generally feel more could have been done with regards to this.

knightmaredave, I do not think Bens team had it easy. The quest lasted over an hour, so I don't think it was shortened for quickness or for a team to win at all. I thought this team was very good. Julius Scaramonger ok was not exactly difficult to deal with, but their reply of "its too hot," was witty, and quickly thought off during a "live" conversation. The questions with Sly hands in level 2 were perhaps easy, but the scene where they were trying to convince Gwen, that they were indeed Ben was funny and entertaining. I do not think it was obvious whether they had to use fire or freeze to defeat Aesandre, and in general their teamwork on causeways was excellant. Finally they dealt with Elita perfectly, and as you may have noticed in the post above, teams had to earn something from her.

There is always slight differences in quests, so yes we could go through on a room and room basis for every quest ever done, however I do think this was a good team, who dealt with everything the dungeon threw at them, and one might say that their quest was easy, because they made it look easy.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by 37Herbie »

As has been mentioned about the role playing aspect in Series 5 seemed much better than earlier series although many people rate the difficultness and quickness of quests in Series 3 as the best. To combine both would be difficult to achieve, have a truely immersed RPG with quick puzzles and dungeons. You could see that this was what they were aiming to achieve and I think each series was a way towards this goal, albeit not always a direct way! Series 4 was a lot slower, a massive change to Series 3 because I believe that they really did want to include a lot more Role Playing from the Dungeoneers side of things. It changed the game a lot and I think in Series 5 they tried to combine the RPG elements from Series 4, and the larger world outside the dungeon, and Series 3 which was more about the communication between advisor and dungeoneer in visual challenges. I think Series 5 was good and Lord Fear really does add a lot of amusement watching the shows!

I cannot agree that it was downgraded, merely different. In the famous words of Treguard, "The only way is forwards, there is no turning back"
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by HStorm »

ross wrote:I do not think Bens team had it easy. The quest lasted over an hour, so I don't think it was shortened for quickness or for a team to win at all.
Overall, Ben's quest was fair, but they had it very easy indeed on level 3. There were only two proper obstacles they faced on the entire level; Aesandre and the (tediously long but not desperately taxing) causeway puzzle. When compared to how much teams would have to do to survive level 3 in the early seasons, Winteria did seem an awfully limp conclusion.

Season 5 could be excruciatingly slow in fact. Team 3's quest lasted 57 minutes and didn't even get halfway through level 3. There were some compensations, especially Lord Fear taking over from Captain Cliche as leader of the Opposition, but as a whole I'd say S5 was definitely a low point.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by Skarkill »

As much of a fan as I am of the last 4 sessons of Knightmare I do have to admit that Series 4 & 5 were not high points of the shows legacy.

I put this down to how much change occured in those 2 sessons and the amount of new characters that were introduced in them.

Series 5 for me is the marginaly better of the 2 Series 4 is deredfully Samey and those Bloody Weeping doors!!!!!

Series 5 was over long and slow though. However it did intorduce my FAV character of all time Skarkill.

Not to mention the gourges Elita.......*sighs wishfully*

However less said about Aseandra and The Gatekeeper the better.

I'm not sure I agree with the notion that Knightmare was downgraded as it wnet along I just think that the attension seemed to turn to more RPG based pussles then in early sessons.
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Re:Knightmare was downgraded?

Post by WhiteFloatingSkull »

My first returning post is simply this:

The worst series for me is when we lost... ::)...and gained :'( instead.

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