Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Pre-Release Thread [ALPHA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Tigranes]

When you look at something for about 50 times longer than you should, it is possible to find a flaw in every single aspect of it. What has in fact happened is that you have flawed your own eyes through the exercise.

What about people who notice these things the first time they read them?

Then you would simply be wrong about a lot of things, e.g. the uses of 'as if', and also guilty of analysing the material in a way that it is not intended to be, it does not need to be, and it often is not, analysed. And also passing off your opinion about what suits and doesn't suit.

Anybody, for instance, could take any great literary work, read a piece of prose, and then criticise how it should have used this word and not the other, how this adjective doesn't seem to jive very well with this other adjective in their opinion... but in many cases their whining would fall on deaf ears.

 

[Bubbles]

while the dialogue in the screenshot is not stellar I expect the final in-game result to be more in tune with what was shown here:

Torment: Tides of Numenera pre gameplay

"His face and voice lose their ironic, cynical edge" is lulzy stuff, but yes, generally the writing there is less off-putting than the Jont dialogue. I'm just worried that the quality will decrease as the volume increases, and that's not what I want from a PST successor.

Six words is more than enough for a voice to be recognized as grating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMU2o4qJsLM Here I want to stuff my ears literally in the first 2 seconds.

Fair point about the speed, but I'd prefer to register his voice as grating after he's actually spoken a word. Still, he might simply have a scene monologue.

Then you would simply be wrong about a lot of things, e.g. the uses of 'as if', and also guilty of analysing the material in a way that it is not intended to be, it does not need to be, and it often is not, analysed. And also passing off your opinion about what suits and doesn't suit.

I was talking about the use of "as if he had" vs. "as if he has", and there's indeed a difference. Do you want to contend that there isn't one? Where does the "guilt" inherent in analyzing material in a way that is possibly not intended by its author (presumably you mean the author of that specific line, and not the head writer, the developer, or the publisher) derive from? And I'm posting my opinon because I can.

Anybody, for instance, could take any great literary work, read a piece of prose, and then criticise how it should have used this word and not the other, how this adjective doesn't seem to jive very well with this other adjective in their opinion... but in many cases their whining would fall on deaf ears.

Criticism isn't whining. If you want to say that my posts are whining, you can just call them "whiner posts"; that would save me from trying to explain them to you on the basis of criticism.

 

[Tigranes]

""as if he had lost a great deal of weight" indicates that it isn't actually true (otherwise you'd use "as if he has")"

The subjunctive / irrealis rules in English are, like many others, fucked up, but in terms of practical usage, the introduction of subjunctive 'as if' means the 'had lost' does not necessarily mean the weight loss is no longer the case. This is especially true because with 'weight loss', unlike, say, 'crying', is something that happens once and then leaves a state. You can be a grammar nazi and insist on the technically correct usage, but my point isn't even that you are 'technically wrong'; the point is that this is the kind of criticism that is irrelevant, nitpicky, does not derive any concrete improvement, and nobody else cares.

The grating thing has already been shown to be without substance.

The point about too many 'and's is obviously open to debate.

Hence, what appears in sum is a mishmash of pointless nitpicks, transparently unfair criticism and random doses of opinion. The most obvious conclusion was that you spent far too much time trying to 'analyse' it. Since you say that is wrong, we must then defer to the conclusion that you are one of those people that waste everybody's time in meetings complaining about shit that isn't exactly untrue but doesn't help anybody.

 

[Bubbles]

You can be a grammar nazi and insist on the technically correct usage, but my point isn't even that you are 'technically wrong'; the point is that this is the kind of criticism that is irrelevant, nitpicky, does not derive any concrete improvement, and nobody else cares

First you claim I demonstrate "lack of english", now you're calling me a grammar nazi. I don't want to argue against me having or being either; I simply enjoy posting my criticisms without feeling compelled to call the inXile writers shiteating imbeciles or anything of that nature. If you doubt the merits of every post on these forums that could arguably espouse idiosyncratic notions, then you might as well dismiss 99% of the posts here as trivial. Which I wouldn't even disagree with; I just happen to like reading people's opinions.

The point about too many 'and's is obviously open to debate.

A debate which we could have if you wanted to have it. But I don't mind just posting my opinion and leaving it at that.

Hence, what appears in sum is a mishmash of pointless nitpicks, transparently unfair criticism and random doses of opinion. The most obvious conclusion was that you spent far too much time trying to 'analyse' it. Since you say that is wrong, we must then defer to the conclusion that you are one of those people that waste everybody's time in meetings complaining about shit that isn't exactly untrue but doesn't help anybody.

There is opinion in most textual critcism, starting with the decision of what a text is supposed to achieve and figuring out who has the authority to make that decision (which is already being debated in this thread as regards TToN being a successor to Torment, an homage, supposed to be written the exact same way, sort of the same way, emulating a similar atmosphere etc. etc.). You can still state an informed opinion, which is what I usually try to do.
I get the impression that you just find my posts annoying; that's fine with me, but I don't really have the time to make that my problem.

 

[undecaf]

The fuck is happening in this thread?

 

[Infinitron]

Looking forward to Bubbles' Pulitzer Prize-winning Blackguards 2 review.

 

[Bubbles]

Looking forward to Bubbles' Pulitzer prize-winning Blackguards 2 review.

I'm not going to pay a $50 entry fee for an unpaid pseudonymous review. If you want the award for the site, you can take it out of the site funds.

 

[agris]

When you look at something for about 50 times longer than you should, it is possible to find a flaw in every single aspect of it. What has in fact happened is that you have flawed your own eyes through the exercise.

That's a nice saying, did you come up with it?

 

[Athelas]

I can't believe I'm agreeing with Bubbles, but...I didn't like that bit of descriptive text either. It simply has too much descriptions and adjectives, and instead of helping the reader visualize something or someone, it muddles it.

 

[undecaf]

Is this bubbles dude arguing for somethin that actually matters, or is he just flinging out his outer gum?

 

[hiver]

Bubbles

I have only a few things to add to your correct criticism.

This is hardly the finished dialogue. Far more likely it is just the first pass of some situation that will itself change several times until final release. As such, it wouldnt make much sense for the team to waste a lot of time and energy on proof reading it right now or after each alteration and adjustment.

Secondly, its probably something the gave BN to write and ... well, that says it all.



undecaf
nah, he is correct. but its probably just too early.
Still, a good criticism should never be disregarded. Or strawmaned and insulted.

because thats the surest way everyone will end up with garbage.

 

[undecaf]

undecaf
nah, he is correct. but its probably just too early.
Still, a good criticism should never be disregarded. Or strawmaned and insulted.

because thats the surest way everyone will end up with garbage.

True.

For the rest of you:

Spoiler

 

[DosBuster]

Jesus, if this sucks, the butthurt could potentially kill the codex.

 

[hiver]

I have to add that that doesnt apply to the team, just the very blatant codex general habit of screaming at and insulting anyone who criticizes anything at all that the hive mind likes for whatever retarded reason.

Besides guys, PST wasnt that well written in all the details of every sentence either. Lets be fair.

Jesus, if this sucks, the butthurt could potentially kill the codex.

Extreme emotional engagement does "wonders".

:looks over at many posts proclaiming wateland2 awesome:

 

[undecaf]

Jesus, if this sucks, the butthurt could potentially kill the codex.

So it is. I fucking messe up with my answer. So what?

 

[hiver]

Man... i have to take a drink myself now.

 

[Lord Andre]

Concerning writing in general I favor the philosophy that final passes should eliminate the unnecessary "fat" from a text, so as the relevant information is transmitted in a clear and elegant way without the filler "noise". On the other hand I can see first iterations being a bit bloated especially when you write about a dozen descriptions in a row and sort of get in a rhythm. So, if I were to judge a text in progress I would ask myself, if the fat is taken out, perhaps a word changed here and there, would I enjoy/be interested in reading this ? If yes, than the final version will probably be ok.

(also, I'm not a writer so the above is just armchair philosophy/ personal opinions, to be taken with a grain of salt)

 

[Sensuki]

Well that was a useful few pages. I'm going to go back and quote myself from a few pages ago

Sure, why not?

(DISCLAIMER: This is no guarantee the feature will make it into the game, but it should guarantee someone more knowledgeable than me evaluates it for feasibility.)

I would like to ask, is the code for adding a Game Option the same (or very similar) to the Pillars of Eternity code? Because if you guys haven't looked at how to do it yet ... we've (well, Bester has) been modding custom ones for Pillars of Eternity for quite some time now - they're not that hard to do. If your programmers haven't looked at how to do it yet you may save yourself time by asking, let us know.

For example:

 

[MRY]

For what it's worth, I think it should be "has" unless the narrator knows that he has not, in fact, recently lost a lot of weight. My guess is that it was a typographical error, though perhaps it's a grammar rule / style norm I'm unaware of. (I'm not great with the rules.) There were a couple other usage nits I might pick -- for example, "piques" should be "peaks" or "is piqued" -- but not that many for an early stage of production.

I agree that "I seriously need" feels off. That said, the PC prompts are much easier (IMHO) to tweak as things go on. Typically you don't have the PC saying anything poetic or lengthy, so the prompts feel like placeholders until they're final. When I'm writing, I don't take them nearly as seriously as I take the responses; even at the end, my goal is to make them as terse and (typically) unadorned as possible. Sometimes the PC will say more than the prompt, but the prompt itself should really be about business because (to me, at least) it exists on the "game" layer and not the "narrative" layer -- it's more like the character sheet than like the spoken lines of dialogue.

So what I was looking at was mostly the responsive text, not the prompts. Some of the complaints in prior posts seem off in that regard. While it's certainly true that I cannot begin to picture Jont, the writing isn't designed to be[*] visually depictive but emotively depictive. In other words, the game isn't trying to tell you what the PC sees, such that you can draw your own reaction to it; it's trying to tell you what is happening in a way that causes you to feel the way you would feel if you were the PC and you saw it. Thus, for example, "the muscles of his face twitch and bob" could mean anything (I've never seen "bob" used that way before); but it's clearly meant to describe an unnatural, herky-jerky motion -- a malfunctioning character model in a game, perhaps, something like the faces in Oblivion, mingled with the crazy eye movements of Dreamfall. Similarly "blotchy even patchwork" or "sonorous yet fluting"; you get a vague sense of the actual content but a strong sense of the reaction it's invoking.

I realize that it's a mantra of good writing to "show, don't tell." I'm not persuaded the rule is correct in most cases, and it's certainly not correct in every case, epsecially where efficiency matters. When Edmund Spenser tells us a character is "a bold bad man," he's done more in four words than the longest description of some characters scars, sneer, blah blah blah possibly could. In this kind of writing, you want a mix of show and tell: enough showing to feel it's not summary, enough telling to move the pace along briskly.

In terms of the "this but that" structure, it is quite clearly one of two defining characteristics of this character -- the sense that something is off about him, and the PC-close-narrative-voice can't quite get his hands around it. Jont is a mismade man of some sort, stuck in an uncanny valley, and when the PC tries to express it, he can't. This is a pretty standard fairy tale trope, and one that works well. It also captures the crookedness of him: he bends the wrong way -- just as his joints do (literally) so does the impression he makes. You read him one way, he turns another.

To the extent I would criticize anything it's that this trait (mismade crookedness) doesn't obviously tie to his purported lack of memory (his second defining trait) and neither of those come through particularly in his speech patterns. Despite saying he has no memory, he talks about events in the recent past. Of course his memory might be flawed in some more subtle way, but there's no indication of any sort of amnesia/dementia in his speech. His speech patterns are weird, but not really in a "blotchy even patchwork" way, let alone inhumanly jointed way.

Still, it's such a tiny window, there's not much to conclude other than this: this is an ancillary character relating to what seems like an ancillary quest, but even at two degrees of remove, look at the size of the dialogue tree! This is not bonsai or topiary, but a rainforest. To me, that is the essential spirit of PS:T: a superabundance of gonzo characters representing random notions ("mismade man with no memory" -- give me 20k words!). You get a bunch of good writers engaged in that, you get something special. Analyzing a twig on a branch of one tree is a good way to miss the forest.


[EDIT: * I have no idea what the actual intent was, actually. But it doesn't feel like Hemingway to me.]

 

[Tigranes]

"Analyzing a twig on a branch of one tree is a good way to miss the forest."

This, basically. Criticism should always have a function and an end goal. Criticism is not valid or useful just because it is correct; it is possible to make a critique of anything in any way endlessly, after all. And that rule should apply to both games that one dislikes and games that one wishes was the best cake in the bakery.

When you look at something for about 50 times longer than you should, it is possible to find a flaw in every single aspect of it. What has in fact happened is that you have flawed your own eyes through the exercise.

That's a nice saying, did you come up with it?

Sure, but I'm equally sure more illustrious figures have said it before, and all that.

 

[Bubbles]

Still, it's such a tiny window, there's not much to conclude other than this: this is an ancillary character relating to what seems like an ancillary quest, but even at two degrees of remove, look at the sophistication of the dialogue tree! This is not bonsai or topiary, but a rainforest.

Yeah, it's impressive. The total amount of words is a little smaller than it looks since because the introductory sentence ("Greetings, sojourner...") is repeated 13 times and other options are just slightly changed to account for asking the same question a second time or getting the same answer in four slightly different ways depending on speech checks and prerequisites. The tree structures themselves, however, are obviously quite complex.

Secondly, its probably something the gave BN to write and ... well, that says it all.

Thankfully, we don't have to entertain that nightmarish possibility, since the update states that CMC wrote Jont's dialogue tree.

Criticism is not valid or useful just because it is correct

I don't think there's such a thing as invalid correct critcism, but I agree that there's plenty of factors that can determine utility. As for the twig analogy, it's standard practice for pre-release PR to entice the customer to make certain assumptions about the full game by focussing our attention on small snippets of information. What form that attention takes is up to the interests of the individual customer, but if we're supposed to get hyped by a tiny bit of content, I'd think we're also allowed to be a little critical about it.
It's probably more fair to the game and more conducive to maintaining an objective view point if you avoid any information about content until you actually have the finished product in your hands, but then you'd have nothing to talk about at all.

 

[Tigranes]

There's an appropriate degree to which we should take a single screenshot, a gameplay footage or a line of dialogue, then try and figure out what that means for the game. We don't want that to be zero, lest it Destroy The Codex!!!, but there's far too much stupid overreacting about every single little thing. Has been losing weight, had been losing weight, Geralt's hair looks a shade thinner than it did in the last screenshot... *shrug*

If they charged me to write that line I would change a few things. Ain't the point, world doesn't revolve around me. What I look for is whether the dialogue on offer seems to extend the atmosphere we've already seen in TTON, and it definitely does. I always liked Torment's over-verbose style as part of its charm. If it didn't, I'd be doing a lot of bitching. (The 'seriously' is a bit offputting, but I don't see it as a big deal.)

 

[MRY]

Sometimes criticism is fun, even if not useful. Sometimes it hones one's own style and critical capacity, even if it doesn't help anyone else. These two reasons justify 90 percent of substantive posts online. But I think it's a kind of pleasure (a hardened kind) that's a lot easier to have in life than the delight of enjoying something you love. Best to be careful not to trade a rare good for a common one. I myself am already too far gone, of course.

 

[hiver]

A good analysis there MRY.

I would only add, from the left field completely, that Jont decriptions may in fact be visually depictive. Those weird looking descriptions may indeed by his physique literally described.
Considering how many very good writers they have on the team i would think that there is a good chance such wording may not be a mistake at all.
and considering the setting there is no reason to think Jont is an ordinary man or human.

"the muscles of his face twitch and bob" could mean anything (I've never seen "bob" used that way before);

Ive never seen it used like that either. And it could very well be that muscles of his face do indeed twitch and bob.


-ninjaed-



btw, since we are talking writing... ahem, i just took a look at what work you are doing. I have to say it sounds interesting and i like the art and the general idea.
So i took the added story to read. And the first few sentences go:

Herr left arm was crushed beneath some component of the lander, once critical, now useless. The dead weight of five bodies sat on her chest, her legs, her good arm.

"Some" makes the reader automatically ask or wonder: "which one?", but the remainder of the sentence tells its not important at all. Useless.
It would be better if it was merely "a component" or "one of the components" - i think.


"dead weight of five bodies sat on her chest" ?
I literally thought those were dead bodies of some of her fellow travelers or something like it, literally sitting on her chest? Bit crowded that would be. And strange for the dead to be sitting.
But its only the gravity? (if she is human that would make it impossible to move too)

How about something like: "The weight of five bodies pressed on her chest, her legs, her good arm." Or maybe, "She felt like weight of five bodies...- "

The wreckage held other casualties, too, beside her limb.

So... the other casualties were beside her limb... - which was somewhere else as in not attached to her?
very strange pictures you evoke in my mind there... i have to say.

And "But the others were dead too, -"
Why is there a "But" at the beginning when the situation is not any different then what was already rather established? If they were alive i could see the usage of "But" to signify something different.

Now, i dont mean anything by it. No ill intentions here. but i was just reading your analysis of the writing above and opened the free PDF from your page.

There's an appropriate degree to which we should take a single screenshot, a gameplay footage or a line of dialogue, then try and figure out what that means for the game. We don't want that to be zero, lest it Destroy The Codex!!!, but there's far too much stupid overreacting about every single little thing.

Like you are doing there exactly.

Ain't the point, world doesn't revolve around me.

You got that right buster, muahahaha.

"Analyzing a twig on a branch of one tree is a good way to miss the forest."

Say that quickly ten times while looking in a mirror for penance!

This, basically. Criticism should always have a function and an end goal. Criticism is not valid or useful just because it is correct;

Ten karma points deduced from Griffindor.

I think one should keep his blatant butthurt in check lest it overtakes completely and makes one go around preaching what others should or should not do in a very annoying mewling manner.

Secondly, its probably something the gave BN to write and ... well, that says it all.

Thankfully, we don't have to entertain that nightmarish possibility, since the update states that CMC wrote Jont's dialogue tree.

 

[Tigranes]

"I think one should keep his blatant butthurt in check lest it overtakes completely and makes one go around preaching what others should or should not do in a very annoying mewling manner."

No worries, hiver. I would hate to take over your job. (As in, I really would hate it.)