Response from Laurent Stanevich, Learn Technologies Interactive:

I was one of the design leads on "Qin: Tomb of the Middle Kingdom", and
I came across your site in one of my regular sweeps of the Web and
UseNet for Qin-related material.  Let me say first off that I'm always
impressed with sites like yours -- it's always gratifying to see a
response out in the greater world to something that's taken up the past
year of your life.

I thought I'd respond to the comments at the end of your walkthrough,
not so much to change your mind about anything, but many of them did
seem directed to the designers of the product more than a general
audience, and I figured someone who's put as much time and effort as
this deserves a response.

	"The game's weakest point by far is its extreme slowness in
	responding to mouse movements.  The circle-and-dot mouse cursor
	itself seems to have been designed with this lack of
	responsiveness in mind.  Qin apparently was not written in
	Macromedia Director, as many of the better Windows games are.
	One wonders why a workable interface was reinvented, only to
	produce an inferior result."

I'm sorry you found that to be the case, but I'm not quite clear on
whether you're referring to the way in which the Qin cursor acts
differently than a normal cursor, or the poor responsiveness we've seen
on some machines to clicks and such.  As far as the cursor behavior
goes, I'll be honest with you -- using a different model for the
"physics" of the cursor was my idea, and I had to argue for it even
within our design group. (As I initially designed it, it was _very_
different from a conventional cursor.  By the end of the process,
though, the only real difference was the nature of its motion.) 
Nevertheless, if you don't prefer that type of behavior, the "Cursor
Speed" setting in the "Preferences" screen should restore to an almost
entirely normal behavior, or anywhere in between.  If you're referring
to any mechanical "flakiness" in its responsiveness, then you're right,
it's unfortunate.  We've seen better and worse responses on different
machines, and while our talented engineers did their best to wring out
the best performance from our game engine, it's by no means perfect at
this stage in its development.

	"The recommendation in the game's README.TXT file for using a
	640 x 480 pixel Windows video mode is in fact a requirement if
	text in the Archive is to be readable without being truncated at
	the right.  A scalable Windows font would have been more
	flexible."

Much to our chagrin, you're right about the encyclopedia getting
truncated -- that one slipped by us _and_ the testers.  Most of our font
options, however, were constrained by the text display engine we used
to create the encyclopedia.

	"Although the history and extensive background information in
	the Archive was helpful in setting the game atmosphere and
	providing clues to puzzles, the overall tone of the game is much
	too serious.  The whole concept of Qin's tomb under Mount Li was
	done better, and with more humor, in The Riddle of Master Lu."

So be it.  We didn't and don't think so, but that's a subjective
evaluation, and I wouldn't argue the point.

	"The reference to "traps" in the advertising on the game
	packaging would appear to be essentially false since no traps
	exist in the game (other than sometimes being at a loss as to
	what to do next).  While the game _technically_ had multiple
	endings, most of the gameplay was very linear."

Understood. In the interest of making a more accessible product, I was
probably the most vocal in insisting that the player not get officially
"stuck" (i.e., find themselves in an intentionally designed trap with
nothing they can do to get out).  That doesn't always mean that the
player is 100% certain what to do next.  (Game players have been very
divided on whether they like being guided or not -- some feel it's poor
design to have to figure out what to do next, and others are insulted
when they feel they're being led around.  Our design team had the same
divisions. Personally, I'd rather a player never _not_ know what to do,
but others felt we would be condescending to people.)

This also doesn't mean the game is absolutely free of flaws in its
implementation, either.  Along those lines, there's a bug that was
found very quickly after the release where the objects on the
sacrificial altar do _not_ behave correctly -- if you pick up the
"animal sacrifice" and then immediately pick up the "precious object",
the animal sacrifice will disappear permanently, and the only way to
get it back is to return to an earlier saved game.  This is of course
the type of thing that makes us lose sleep at night, but now that we
know about it, I'd rather people be aware of it than not.

	"The online game on the Qin web page at http://pathfinder.com is
	very misleading when it implies a prize would be awarded on
	completion of the demo.  After you finish the online game, you
	are given merely a _chance_ to win a Qin game or some other
	product."

Misunderstandings like this are regrettable -- I understand your
concern.

	"The maps with teleportation features and the compass were
	helpful in avoiding tedious repetition of movements during
	gameplay and in maintaining bearings in new environments.  It
	would have been preferable to show _all_ compass stops, rather
	than just the adjacent two."

We tried that.  There were a few issues involved in choosing only the
two adjacent points, but it basically boiled down to the fact that it
was something we realized would be helpful late in the game.  I
definitely believe it was a better choice to have a simpler, slightly
less informative display than one that was more complex to implement,
and because it was slipped in late, potentially more troublesome/buggy.
 Overall, we did try very hard to eliminate a lot of the tedium
involved in slideshow type games -- I've found a lot of products that
claim to take "20-30 hours" to complete, but a large portion of that is
spent walking back and forth, figuring where the hell you are, etc.  Of
course, it's a double-edged sword, because if you eliminate those
factors from the game experience, a player looks at their watch when
they're done and says, "Hey, that was fun, but it didn't take me
_nearly_ as long to finish as [tedious product of choice here]".

	"The Archive display function needs a PageUp/PageDown feature,
	and its useful search function would be even better with a
	FindNext button."

Yup.

	"The single footstep heard during movement could have been
	improved with a full sequence of step sounds such as was used in
	_Buried in Time_."

I'm not sure exactly what you mean -- I haven't seen "Buried In Time"
for a while, and I don't remember exactly what the steps sound like. 
Again, though, in the end it's a design decision our sound designer
made.  I know he felt that playing a bunch of footsteps every time you
move (especially in a space as large as some of the Qin realms) got
tedious fast.  Personally, my primary concern was giving audio feedback
when you made a valid movement (in addition to the lit arrow), and
using a footstep seemed more appropriate than some sort of tone or a
sample that didn't feel like it was within the space itself.

	"Unlike Director, Qin's savegame feature includes a
	file-overwrite warning."

Yup. Stuff like that's important.

Like I said before, I didn't write this to change your mind or to make
apologies for our product.  Having been in the multimedia business for
a while now, I had to accept a long time ago that I will _never_ be
part of the process of creating a perfect product -- not because I'm
not a good designer (I am), but because no one ever will.  That
definitely does not mean we have to blithely accept flaws -- believe
me, your list doesn't even come _close_ to the list each of us carries
in our hearts of the things we would have liked to do better on "Qin". 
By the end of the production process, it's a serious morale issue to
stop people from focusing exclusively on the flaws they see, because
everyone takes the standards we aspire to very seriously. 
Nevertheless, there's a lot of "great" products that never see the
light of day because the teams that produce them can't let go, or they
can't distill what's feasible within their budget and schedule from
what's not, and they'll never release something that's technically and
commercially viable.  Everything that's released as a commercial
product is released to public scrutiny (and that's good), and the most
we can hope for is that the criticism we receive is constructive and
focused (like yours), rather than just flames and ad hominem attacks. 
There are already a lot of people who really like "Qin". I'm not quite
sure whether you did or not, but whether or not everyone loves it, it's
always gratifying to see people pay attention and offer intelligent
feedback.  Thanks.

Laurent R.O. Stanevich
Senior Designer
Learn Technologies Interactive
"lairbob@learntech.com"

20-AUG-96