Interview inXile's Torment successor officially announced on RPS, will use Monte Cook's Numenera setting

What? I'm not paid by inXile. I mean, I'm biased, but I'm not paid. I do all this stuff gratis.

Yeah? Fargo's openly talked about that for months now. He wants to keep returning to Kickstarter regardless of how games sell, because he likes the crowd involvement and energy process. Of course it won't raise millions every time. It doesn't really need to. But it's not news that this is how he wants to operate. And it's not like it's free money, you're basically pre-selling your game at a much lower price, I have no idea how well the top tiers balance that out, especially with all the extra digital copies, plus KS and Amazon take a cut, Kevin's estimate of 2 million left from 3 isn't that far off. Say they sell it for $25, that's 80K copies (more copies if you factor in distribution cost), whereas they had 60K backers, and way, way more than 60K copies. Not exactly money in the bank. In an economic sense, Kickstarter money just isn't "free", no matter how you want to turn it, unless your reward tiers exclude copies of the product.

If you don't agree, don't want to use it like that, then don't. I can certainly understand wanting to wait until at least something is out so you're sure the process works. Each person's logic is differently.

If he has to wait for WL2 money to roll in he has to start firing people now, since concept artists and writers are all done. It's a small studio and there's no other projects to roll into. That's just a basic economic reality. And assuming WL2 sells enough to fund the next game is highly dubious, we have no idea yet how Kickstarter-based games sell.

 

But it's not freebies, it's pre-purchases with a bonus and at a lower price.

 

A dungeon crawler and a crpg are one and the same.

A crpg diluted with "adventure games" is a diluted crpg.

 

How? The only thing missing, to turn an adventure game into an RPG, is character progression and a rule system to handle interaction with the environment and NPCs.

To my horror, that's probably what someone thought about FPSs.

 

I wouldn't say that. It's a close reproduction of p&p, as far as rulesets go, but it doesn't necessarily encompass many of the functions that a DM might have. On top of that, it's only combat; it's mainly a strategy game.

 

Player chose cleric as class, is perfectly fine. What, you think he/she would choose a class that can't cast spells? In third edition? Ha!

 

You forgot the freedom of action, which is something "adventure games" cannot into by design and which is the watershed separating an RPG from a wargame.

 

Yes. A "dungeon crawl" is a very barebones RPG, but an RPG nonetheless.

RPG is a form of strategy game - of wargame, to be precise.

 

Blade Runner has a semi open world, lets you choose dialog options, and gives you a degree of choice with regards to killing people.

 

What about monopoly? I mean, it has dice rolling right?

Like Command & Conquer or Men of War?

Yeah, that's bogus. C&C is a pretty standard feature in interactive storytelling, unless your conception of adventure games stops with Lucasarts.

 

It doesn't have anything to do with wargaming, however.

Consult wikipedia to discover what a "wargame" is. Hint: it's that thing Gygax was playing when it occured to him, "gee, what if we turn back from this set-piece battle and look for a town instead?"

Having more than 1 way to solve retarded puzzles is a good start, but a long shot from having no retarded puzzles to begin with.

 

Brother None

No, it is not just pre purchases. Look at successful Kickstarter reward tiers carefully. The pre purchase of the game itself is usually the second lowest tier, and it is a digital copy that is only slightly lower than what the final game will sell on steam or online anywhere else.

After that, you get much bigger 'reward' tiers, which basically require some more programming by the dev team, not any real expenditure of money (npc of your choice, spell of your choice, in game item, etc etc)

And this is fine. This is how it should be. If Kickstarter only backed pre purchases, most projects would fail to get funding.

But now this system is starting to be abused and that is wrong.

 

I'd actually prefer a pure FPS-esque RPG in the vein of Bloodlines than an isometric RTwP which is always a worst-of-both-worlds.

I really loathe RTwP. What's the point? Save the player some time by just letting it run in real-time while you're fighting a trash mob and content with your guys just auto-attacking? I'm happy we're getting cRPGs made again but why the hard-on for this shitty system? Has any RPG ever benefited from being RTwP over turn-based?

 

I can't think of a single RTwP game that wouldn't have been better turn-based. By your own admission the sole benefit is speeding up fights against trash mobs (a result of shitty game design, not turn-based combat itself). So for the minor benefit of faster trash-mob clearing we have to be doomed to an unhappy compromise that dooms the game to mediocre combat at best for anything more complex than KotOR?

Because for anything more challenging than killing some level 1 kobolds you spend so much time pausing and unpausing that the game might as well be turn-based. But instead you have to slam on the pause button every four seconds or (if the game allows it) set it up so the game pauses every time you take damage, kill an enemy etc

I don't see how RTwP can be seen as anything else but a pathetic attempt to draw in the "turns? wtf is this bullshit, chess? why is my guy just standing there when this other guy is swinging a sword at him lol this game is unrealistic and shit, I'm taking this back to GameStop" crowd. I wish that sentence was hyperbole but it's similar to what a lot of my console-playing friends have remarked to me upon encountering turn-based. Which is all very well and good, but stop shit-ifying our games in the vain hope of drawing people like them in. Let us have Fallout and Knights of the Chalice and them have Modern Warfare and League of Legends. This 'hybrid' system just ends up resulting in a really shitty version of the original turn-based.

 

This game will not be completeley RTwP, I've heard the dialogues will be turn based.

 

To be honest, he kinda does come over as a snake-oil salesman type of person, who will tell you absolutely everything you want to hear to sell his product, and while that is a very good ability to have in business it can come over as rather dishonest at times. I loved that anecdote he told at some point about him calling different computer shops and asking them if they've seen that cool new game from some "gaming magazine" to get them to stock his game, since it tells a lot about him as a person

And reading some Interviews he did for his Bard's Tale or Hunted in the past:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/the-bards-tale-qanda-brian-fargo-keeps-a-straight-face-6111481

http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/03/15/hunted-brian-fargo-interview

Using the same kind of language of him obviously wanting to do it forever and ever kind of gives an example of how adaptable to any given situation he is. But for instance the "crowd involvement" so far hasn't been much to write home about. Double Fine did/do it the best with their Documentary every other month, Production Updates with art assets and details behind their methods and a "community" feel in their Backer forum. Obsidian and Shadowrun Returns seemed to also have done it better so far even though they haven't shown that much, but there's at least interaction. But the most backers got out of Fargo so far have been two Screenshots and a few words in a long time one would usually get from a gaming magazine article or similar for an upcoming game anyway, and he's trying to sell it as "community involvement" xD

Also it kind of is like it is free money, since it pays wages for most of the employees during the entire development, allows him to keep his IP and allows his company to pocket everything he gets from Sales from Release unto eternity. And let's be honest, the game will sell at least a few hundred thousand copies if it isn't reviewed as one of the worst broken pieces of shit ever created. Games like Terraria or Super Meat Boy sold over a million copies with the help of platforms like Steam and there was a lot less Hype behind them.
Compare that with some of the standard publisher deals and you'll feel like you are in heaven: http://www.obscure.co.uk/blog/2007/02/26/the-myth-of-the-developer-royalty/

That said, I don't even have much against him dipping in the KickStarter pot once more, but I really don't like how he put it in some Interviews regarding "monetizing game features and communities" (like the Codex) and using them as an extended arm of marketing, for instance: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-10-29-fargo-succeed-or-fail-ill-return-to-kickstarter

The point is that it fits to story/character-based games that are often mere inches away from being Adventures like Sanitarium or STASIS a lot better than a "turn based system".
I would be the first to argue for a turn-based system in games like Jagged Alliance, Heroes of Might & Magic, X-Com, Temple of Elemental Evil, King's Bounty, Civilization and similar where combat is mostly the focus of the game and there is often not much story to write home about whatsoever.

It doesn't however much fit a game that is trying to tell a good story and build up a few characters to take the player out of the action and concentrate solely on long-winded combat encounters that way, since that shifts the focus of the entire game to that instead of storytelling. If a game has a complex turn-based fighting system with lots of man-hours put into it like Jagged Alliance 2 with single combat encounters taking several minutes to finish it can't put much focus on much else than that at that point and the developers will likely want to make use of it as much as possible. (which will also result in scaring away storyfags)

 

wow....

So Rtwp is not inherently faster, action like and visceral but TB is inherently long winded?

and in TB you dont?

advantage over what?


Saying turn based is only for combat heavy games and doesnt or cannot fir a story heavy game is simply ludicrous and ridiculous.
The only thing that shows is what limited and shallow understanding of TB such a person has.

First of all a game doesnt really need to force you to do any combat. A good rpg will usually provide content that can be solved in other ways - thats what makes it an RPG instead of an action game.
Second of all encounter design is what makes combat long winded - especially if the system lacks options to prevent that.

 

Rome Total War works because you've got all the time and the world to sit back and relax as your legionaries hack away at Celts (pausing now and then to shuffle some units around and order movement). You don't have that luxury in RPGs where combat is often short and deadly and what round you cast a spell or use a feat in is of vital importance. Losing three seconds where a rouge uncloaks itself and starts stabbing up your wizard because you were busy watching your barbarian chop up those orcs is unacceptable and forces you to constantly be in the RTS 'zone' of constant awareness and prepared reflex.

While I can see the fun in playing your friend in an RTS or the appeal of games like League of Legend, when I play an RPG I want to plan and strategise not have the game at all dependent on my reflexes.

There is no getting around the fact that RTwP invokes the player's reflexes as a part of combat unless it's set up to frequently auto-pause, in which case you simply get a poor man's turn-based.

 

TB used to be perfect before immershun kicked in.

Now the rules demand everything to display its gorgeous animation in slo-mo, and the result is kinda longwinded indeed. There is a reason PORROMD and Wizardry 8 were pretty much the last games of their kind. No one who had played them could have been able to endure through another one.

 

PORMOD was utter shit. And not mainly due to combat.

Wizardry 8 was great. However, it would have been better without the shit story that made no sense.

ToEE too fucked up in game design, not by being turn based.

Turn based with lots of animations can be done very well...you just need good fucking game designers. The rest of the game needs to be good too, not just combat.

Lastly, Final Fantasy X is a great example of a turn based game being good and selling very well. There was insane amount of random combat in the game, yet ppl still loved it and did not get tired of combat.

 

o_O

You've got to be trolling here.