Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[kwanzabot]

This was the Female PC at some point (still in the game's files):

Huh, that's actually OK.
But I guess it wasn't ugly enough.

Should've went with old bald one instead of this "my mom smoked and drank during pregnancy" face.

I'd like to see you do better

 

[Hegel]

Haven't played the game nor read the thread. What's the consensus?
Anyway, years from now - when I'll finally have enough time and willpower to play the game - I'll use my rpgcodex avatar for a male main and this one in case of a female char:

 

[Irenaeus III]

She looks great except for the purple dyed hair and the weird cat ears.

Btw, afaik there's no way to change your character in the game.

 

[Fairfax]

This was the Female PC at some point (still in the game's files):

Huh, that's actually OK.
But I guess it wasn't ugly enough.

Should've went with old bald one instead of this "my mom smoked and drank during pregnancy" face.

I'd like to see you do better

It's not that hard to find an artist that can do better, to be honest. These are very low-quality speedpainty pieces, unlike the original artwork with the bald pale woman.
20 euros can get you something like this on deviantart:

 

[Hegel]

She looks great except for the purple dyed hair and the weird cat ears.

Btw, afaik there's no way to change your character in the game.

She's supposed to be Deionarra, afaik the author is a Torment fan.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Those look much better than what we'll have, but I think the purpose of InXile is making the PCs particularly ugly so none of them are turned into waifus or tsunderes by the more underrailly section of the audience.

She's supposed to be Deionarra, afaik the author is a Torment fan.

I see it now

Spoiler

 

[MRY]

This is neither here nor there, and isn't intended for any argumentative reason, but randomly while reading Stanislaw Lem's Fiasco, I came across a passage strikingly similar to the start of T:TON. I figured I'd post it here -- it's a different setting, and a different style, and a different medium, but it's always interesting to me to see how two skilled writers attack the same problem:

He returned to consciousness blind and without a body. His first thoughts were not formed of words; his feeling were confused, inexpressible. He receded, disappeared somewhere, and returned. It was only when he found his internal speech that he could put questions to himself. What was I afraid of? What kind of darkness is this? What does this mean? And when he made this step, he was able to think: What am I? What is happening to me?

He tried to move, to locate his arms, legs, torso, knowing now that he had a body, or at least that he should have one. But nothing responded, nothing moved. He could not tell if his eyes were open. He felt no lids, no blinking. He exerted all his strength to lift the lids, and perhaps succeeded. But he saw nothing except the same darkness as before. These attempts, requiring tremendous effort, again led him to the question: What am I? I am a man.

This obvious answer was a revelation to him. Then, immediately, he knew its obviousness and smiled at himself, because what kind of brilliant discovery was that?

Words returned slowly, from where he did not know, and at first were scattered and without pattern, as i£ he were pulling them up like fish out of unknown depths. Am. l am. Where, I do not know. I cannot feel my body. Why is that? Now he began to feel his face, the cheeks, possibly the nose. He was even able to move the nostrils, though that took an enormous exertion of will. He stared, moving the eyeballs, in all directions, and concluded, because his ability to reason had returned: Either I am blind or it is completely dark. The darkness brought to mind night, and night a great space full of pure, cold air, and air suggested breath. Am I breathing? he asked himself, and listened carefully to his darkness, which was so like nothingness and yet so unlike it.

It seemed to him that he was breathing, but not in the usual way. The belly, the ribs were motionless, held in incomprehensible suspension; the air entered by itself and gently left. There was no other way he could breathe.

He had a face now, lungs, nostrils, a mouth, eyes, though unseeing. He decided to make a fist, remembering perfectly what hands were and how to close them tight. Still he felt nothing, and fear returned, this time rational, from logic: This is either paralysis or I have lost my arms and possibly my legs. The conclusion seemed false -- he had lungs, that was certain, and yet no body. Into his darkness and fear intruded tones, measured, distlnt, dull. Blood?

His heart? It was beating. Then he heard, like the first tidings from the outside, the sounds of speech. His hearing opened suddenly, though it was mulfled. There were two people speaking -- he distinguished two voices -- but he did oot understand what they were saying. The language was known to him; the words, however, were indistinct, like objects seen through misted glass or a fog. As he focused his attention more, his hearing sharpened, and -- strangely -- t was through his hearing that he emerged from himself, finding himself in a space that had a bottom, top, and sides. This meant gravity, he realized. Then he started to concentrate completely on the hearing. The voices were masculine, one higher and softer, the other low, a baritone, very close. Perhaps he could speak himself, it he tried, But he wanted to listen first, not only out of curiosity and hope, but also because it was a pleasurable thing to hear so well and to comprehend more and more human speech.

I don't think this was an inspiration for the T:TON text, but I thought it was neat all the same!

 

[Fairfax]

I love this artist as well. My favourite PoE piece and it's not even in the game:

She/he asks $30 for a portrait.

(These examples are $45-55 for being half of full-body)

 

[Irenaeus III]

Alright, I'll pay it. InXile, contact me.

 

[Echo Mirage]

There also this one by Ruanjia, which would have fit perfectly.

So in short. There is much better portrait art out there for next to nothing.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Yeah, I'm sure they're aware about the availability of other artists.
The question is why did they chose what they chose in the first place. Maybe they actually think that's excellent work, I don't know. First you have to figure out what kind of madness it is before prescribing the pills.

Seeing how they switched the portrait between two beta versions, though, my diagnosis is again the lack of someone with a final word on art choices. An art director, in other words. It's the W2 thing all over again... keep switching stuff around in every build with not much reason or logic until everybody tires of complaining about it.

 

[ghostdog]

Unfortunately this seems like a standard inXile problem. They definitely lack a good art director. It's cheaper and probably some of the devs was thinking, eh, that's not hard, I'll do it myself. Well guess what, it's fucking hard.
I wish they had someone like Leonard Boyarsky in the team, the guy is a fantastic artist, and a competent game designer to boot. What the hell is he still doing in Blizzard anyway?

 

[Irenaeus III]

What the hell is he still doing in Blizzard anyway?

Probably being forced to play WoW all day and contemplating hanging himself.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Getting paid a lot without doing much, probably, that seems to be how Blizzard works.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Imagine if Boyarsky would actually be art director. We could have a game with the art quality of Fallout again. That would be too awesome which is why it will never happen.
FFS, even the setup program of Fallout was part of and consistent with the art direction.

 

[throwaway]

Maybe we can't rule out the possibility of avatar changes based on in game events?
I mean if the quality of the PC's avatars is going to be at this level* surely having a handful avatars isn't unfeasible, plus that would make the pro blandness argument make sense. If the game has some events similar to TNO's and TTO's fusion but not in late game then an altered avatar would make a lot of sense.

*Even the colourful one in the previous page has a strong KingsBounty feel to it. The less said about the Chernobyl one the better.)

 

[Drudkh]

Well, it certainly runs way smoother and finally fullscreen works for me at my default resolution (2560*1440). New portrait is, eh, better (I think that's the one they used in they updates and tumblr promotion), but it looks even more like a sociology student.

Still, better than that Chernobyl victim.

I liked the "Chernobyl" version better!

Same here. It gives off a darker persona rather than some jaunty teenager. It's actually kinda gross to think that folks were mad because the "Chernobyl" portrait girl is ugly rather than if she fits the mood of the game. Now we get to play a pretty punk rock girl... surely it will have more mass appeal so, whatever's better for the success of the game i suppose.

I agree that the hipster hair looks stupid on both genders, but it's quite fucking obvious that the point is to underline the stamp left by the changing god.

 

[agris]

This is neither here nor there, and isn't intended for any argumentative reason, but randomly while reading Stanislaw Lem's Fiasco, I came across a passage strikingly similar to the start of T:TON. I figured I'd post it here -- it's a different setting, and a different style, and a different medium, but it's always interesting to me to see how two skilled writers attack the same problem:

He returned to consciousness blind and without a body. His first thoughts were not formed of words; his feeling were confused, inexpressible. He receded, disappeared somewhere, and returned. It was only when he found his internal speech that he could put questions to himself. What was I afraid of? What kind of darkness is this? What does this mean? And when he made this step, he was able to think: What am I? What is happening to me?

He tried to move, to locate his arms, legs, torso, knowing now that he had a body, or at least that he should have one. But nothing responded, nothing moved. He could not tell if his eyes were open. He felt no lids, no blinking. He exerted all his strength to lift the lids, and perhaps succeeded. But he saw nothing except the same darkness as before. These attempts, requiring tremendous effort, again led him to the question: What am I? I am a man.

This obvious answer was a revelation to him. Then, immediately, he knew its obviousness and smiled at himself, because what kind of brilliant discovery was that?

Words returned slowly, from where he did not know, and at first were scattered and without pattern, as i£ he were pulling them up like fish out of unknown depths. Am. l am. Where, I do not know. I cannot feel my body. Why is that? Now he began to feel his face, the cheeks, possibly the nose. He was even able to move the nostrils, though that took an enormous exertion of will. He stared, moving the eyeballs, in all directions, and concluded, because his ability to reason had returned: Either I am blind or it is completely dark. The darkness brought to mind night, and night a great space full of pure, cold air, and air suggested breath. Am I breathing? he asked himself, and listened carefully to his darkness, which was so like nothingness and yet so unlike it.

It seemed to him that he was breathing, but not in the usual way. The belly, the ribs were motionless, held in incomprehensible suspension; the air entered by itself and gently left. There was no other way he could breathe.

He had a face now, lungs, nostrils, a mouth, eyes, though unseeing. He decided to make a fist, remembering perfectly what hands were and how to close them tight. Still he felt nothing, and fear returned, this time rational, from logic: This is either paralysis or I have lost my arms and possibly my legs. The conclusion seemed false -- he had lungs, that was certain, and yet no body. Into his darkness and fear intruded tones, measured, distlnt, dull. Blood?

His heart? It was beating. Then he heard, like the first tidings from the outside, the sounds of speech. His hearing opened suddenly, though it was mulfled. There were two people speaking -- he distinguished two voices -- but he did oot understand what they were saying. The language was known to him; the words, however, were indistinct, like objects seen through misted glass or a fog. As he focused his attention more, his hearing sharpened, and -- strangely -- t was through his hearing that he emerged from himself, finding himself in a space that had a bottom, top, and sides. This meant gravity, he realized. Then he started to concentrate completely on the hearing. The voices were masculine, one higher and softer, the other low, a baritone, very close. Perhaps he could speak himself, it he tried, But he wanted to listen first, not only out of curiosity and hope, but also because it was a pleasurable thing to hear so well and to comprehend more and more human speech.

I don't think this was an inspiration for the T:TON text, but I thought it was neat all the same!

One key difference in the mechanics of the writing- the staccato style that incorporates a lot of descriptive text. I like the dialogue in the TToN beta so far, but the narrative / introduction text is so so heavily "X and Y" with adjectives, it needs editing.

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

This was the Female PC at some point (still in the game's files):

View attachment 6523

I actually like this portrait...a lot.

 

[Daedalos]

So any feedback on the new patch other than mindless bitching about the portraits yet again, and butthurt about Blizzard?

 

[Prime Junta]

Performance is much better. User interface has hotkeys and is more responsive. Cyphers can be swapped between characters and have received a tweaks, making them actually useful in combat. Everything is smoother and more responsive. Lots of other similar things. A lot of the "well it's a beta" crust has come off.

 

[Infinitron]

Prime Junta, what about combat bugs like this one:

(Yes, they're severely bugged. In that fight, Aligern became completely unable to act; the only command he would respond to was "pass the round." I ended up losing, went into my fathom, came back out, and my revived party wouldn't respond to any commands. And of course it's been a while since the last save. :sigh

 

[Prime Junta]

Prime Junta, what about combat bugs like this one:

(Yes, they're severely bugged. In that fight, Aligern became completely unable to act; the only command he would respond to was "pass the round." I ended up losing, went into my fathom, came back out, and my revived party wouldn't respond to any commands. And of course it's been a while since the last save. :sigh

Nothing like that so far. Everything's working fine!

 

[kwanzabot]

Getting paid a lot without doing much, probably, that seems to be how Blizzard works.

How would you know he isn't doing anything? maybe he's working in diablo 4?

 

[Irenaeus III]

Getting paid a lot without doing much, probably, that seems to be how Blizzard works.

How would you know he isn't doing anything? maybe he's working in diablo 4?

That't the same as doing nothing.