Lessons of Torment...

they also implement failure paths with the whole resurrection system if you die/fail in certain places. torment/oblivion/witcherswake-nwnmod are the only games i can think of that tried this and i like the idea very much, if used sparingly and where it makes sense.
fallout had one too i guess with the junktown jail but it was very limited.

(oblivions is the jail/guard sytems when you fail/break the law) a + despite what most codexers will admit.

 

I think it's yet another thing that would be a positive if implemented well, but the way it's implemented makes it a negative in most cases.

 

No sorry. I quite see where your coming from with your complaints and I can agree with many of them , but this little paragraph is just wrong, and we both know it.

A world in which a game's commercial success was determined by gameplay value?
That would be pretty much a perfect world, but its not reality.
You can't argue that Planescapes commercial failure was due to some huge gameplay issues - how would you like to explain Oblivions tremendous succes then?

Do you really think there was a significant number of players around who said: "wow, the story is supposed to be fantastic, the setting amazing... but I heard it has some serious gameplay issues...im not buying it therefore!"
Oh cmon!
Also, in order to experience the gameplay issues, one would actually have to buy the game. Sure, you may argue that potential buyers took notice of gameplay issues because of negative word of mouth, but thats equally nonrealistic.
The general consent among players is undoubtly that Planescape is a great game, even among casual gamers among the net. And it was even more so shortly after its release, where there had not even enough time passed to analyze the game and its possible failings in a more elobateted way.
The codex is pretty much the only place where Torment isis critisized and analyzed is a more sophisticated manner, and even here it is a rare thing.
General census is Torment= Great game, which pretty much eliminates the possibility of bad word of mouth about gameplay issues as a possible reason for people not buying it.
I can also guarantee you, that you hardly won't find any print or online review dated shortly after Planescapes release which is mentioning any gameplay issues besides the slightly tedious combat.

I don't want to speculate too much about the reasons why torment didn't sell well, but id rather blame poor marketing, a not very appealing boxcover design (thanks hotsnack), too mordid and unusual setting, and perhaps the huge amount of reading required to play the game. (allthough "blame" is ambiguous concerning the last two points since they are of course two of the main strenght of the game)

To think that the game failed because of some gameplay issues is...naive.

As a sidenote, the game has tedious combat, but I can't really agree with the whole Torment Story= Great, Torment Game= suxx. It has its issues, but people tend to be too negative about certain titles here. (same with fallout 2)

 

I missed that the first time around, but fallout and torment both sold the exact same namer of copies, as well. Neither one was a huge hit, but they both had a big following.

When you make a good game word does spread, which is why quality trumps marketing.

Anyway, the only reason there was no sequel was that the planescape world was scrapped when 3.0 came out.

 

When you decide to have a half-naked zombie as the cover art of your game, don't be surprised if people don't touch it.

 

I don't see a half-naked zombie here.

 

I want to ban everyone that says they wouldn't buy PS:T just because of the fucking box art.

Stop being so dumb.

 

The art was bitching. Of course, people who buy games because there are boobs on the cover were disappointed, but that's a different story.

 

Oh noes:

 

If you do not think the ugly cover is one of the factors in the slow sales of PS:T, then what do you attribute it to?

-T

 

As I posted before, the sales were NOT bad.

 

HotSnack: Where did you find that cover? All the covers I can find are slight variations on the one I posted. Did it come from a limited jewel case only release? The closeup of TNOs face was the standard cover art.

 

What I heard from the developers was that PS:T was a slow burn. So first month sales looked poor compared to other big RPGs, but after 2 years, the numbers evened out. I'd say that's actually pretty fine, and it makes me think that another Planescape game would be viable.

Was it? I mean, Planescape as an official setting is gone, I guess that's what you mean. But I'm sitting here looking at The Manual of the Planes. It's an official D&D book (3.0 or 3.5, I'm not sure). On page 8, it has The Great Wheel in almost the exact same form as it was in PS:T. On page 104 it has Carceri. Baator, 115. Bariaur, 161. Seems to detail a lot of PS:T, so I think it would still be entirely reasonable to create a game on the planes, using the same creatures, same cities, same gods, same language. Maybe take a pass on using the Planescape logo. But other than that, looks OK.

-Tony

 

Its the cover of a german release of the game called the "Memorial Box"
The original US release, the german, french, uk and pretty much every other release was the one you posted (the memorial box was a bargain re-release)

Oh yeah, to support bryce: Wiki says that that Planescape brought enough in to cover productions costs, so it actually did not that bad in sales.
I mean, Fallout wasnt a topseller either.

 

@FaranBrygo: I believe it was called the "memorial edition," you can follow the source of the image to go to the (german) mail order site I pulled it from.

@aboyd: I think it was mentioned that the planescape setting can't be completely recreated in 3.5, due to the changes in plane-hopping made in the newer rules. I don't play DnD myself, so I can't really say if this is true or not though.

 

That is correct. But you can't really blame a "half naked zombie" for poor sales if this half naked zombie was only used as coverart for a re-release version in a single country. (the memorial box was only published in germany)

 

While sales were better than most people remember, nonetheless, we've not seen a Planescape game since. So my question to LlamaGod stands, although I'll reword it for you. LlamaGod, it appears that something prevented PS:T from being a franchise like BG. If you don't believe the box cover had something to do with it, then what did, in your opinion?

-T

 

If it makes you feel any better, I can replace half-naked zombie with zombie mug shot. Either way they both don't really pull in the punters unless you're counting on morbid curiosity.

And by the way, "poor sales" (though it has already mentioned the game has done pretty fair) probably had more to do with it having a small guaranteed fan-base (planescape was one of many "spin-offs" at the time I believe), and for it being a new game in a well established genre.

 

But when? You don't give any examples. Edit: surely you can't be referring to the examples I quoted earlier, I already explained why they don't work. I can only recall a few dialogue options like this and even then they arguably aren't failures. Failure, to me, can only really be failure if it is accidental, not intentional. Like when I pissed off Vhailor on my first run through PS: T, I wouldn't regard that as a real failure since I did it intentionally. A lot of dialogue options have the player forego candy but it usually ties into RP. For example, with Fhjull, if you drain him of a lot of his weapon/magic stock, you take a hit to alignment. The good character doesn't get much, but the good character shouldn't have taken much in the first place unless he was powergaming, which strikes me as the problem. Unless you're powergaming, there was no need to check out all paths. You simply play in character and take what comes your way. PS: T didn't really punish you in the long run for being good or evil or what not, so this was fine. There were advantages to being evil that you didn't get from being good (can sell your friends into slavery, sacrifice Morte in a ritual, etc), but good characters had their trumps too (can use Celestial Fire if Vhailor kills Trias for you with no hit to alignment; can use things like the Tears of Salieru Dei ). And again, alot of that wasn't even that big a deal if you missed it because there was little combat for the most part (see below section). Lots of dialogue options didn't really have a right/wrong choice that screwed you over. For example if you help out Nemelle and decline the reward, she STILL rewards you, and you get a bonus to alignment. If you ask for the reward, you get it, with no change to alignment. Now don't tell me the alignment counts as candy because it really isn't. It's just for your RP.

I agree the gameplay could be improved here, I just don't think it had anything necessarily to do with the "no candy" part you mentioned earlier, which is a logical result in a lot of quests (outside of PS: T for that matter). If you meant for this to be your argument, then I agree. Arcanum and Fallout do much better here.

There wasn't much combat in the game. There are four major zones of serious (read: tedious) combat-- the Warrens, Carceri (shifted), Baator, and the Modron maze. The Modron maze wasn't necessary to completing the game or even using the cube, just for finding Nordom. You didn't and shouldn't have fought in Carceri. I admit here I made the same mistake for about 10 minutes, trying to take down every single thing on the map. Until I realized. Dude, you're in hell (kind of)! At which point the Carceri fight became pretty easy-- don't fight what you can't win. Just convince everyone to be orderly and Carceri begins to shift back. You were in Baator for like 5 minutes, and again, you shouldn't have been trying to fight everything. The Warrens on the other hand I agree. Actually there was another person who played PS: T recently and IIRC his chief complaint was the Warrens which spawned way too much. But apart from the mentioned areas, there really wasn't much combat. The Fortress of Regrets is akin to Carceri(shifted)-- it doesn't count because there's too much to beat. Fighting was the worst choice. If you chose to fight in every encounter you could have (at the Alley of Dangerous Angles or whatever, at Carceri(shifted), in the Fortress of Regrets, in the Sigil Underground, etc), then yes there was a lot of combat but hey, that's up to the player.

But wouldn't the fact that there are so few choices and consequences imply that there is not much of a reason to save/reload. It's not as if you're missing out on a lot of terrific loot by choosing one path over another, either. PS: T, in terms of loot, is pretty terrible especially when you compare it to other D&D games like BG II.... (eg the Crom Faeyr from BG II or the Carsomyr +6 http://www.gamebanshee.com/baldursgatei ... s.php#null ) Anyway, save/reload was really unnecessary in PS: T. You were immortal (for the most part), so the only reason to save/load would be to find alternate story fragments or to get more physical rewards (gold, XP, items, etc). For the former, it's no different from a choose your own adventure-- the player must have discipline. For the latter, PS: T wasn't really meant to be powergamed. There wasn't much difficult combat and so loot wasn't a big deal... On my first play, I sort of goofed and ended up not upgrading Annah's equipment and not grabbing Nordom until near the end so I ended up with two totally useless characters in combat but still had no problem in the endgame..

Get it-- it's almost exactly what you're looking for, if you consider Fallout to be the holy grail of RPGs thus far. Be warned though-- if you thought PS: T was unforgiving, you may find Arcanum to be killer, especially in terms of melee imbalance. I would recommend taking a look at this thread because unlke PS: T it's easy to create a hard character in Arcanum:

http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12620

 

Not always. There are different kinds of computer games, just like there are different kinds of games in general.

Good story-based games are not more pointless than, say, books. They tell a story, express something. That's their point.

Good system-based games aren't pointless either. They create intellectual challenge.

"Pure fun" games like Pacman are ultimately pointless. But they are only one kind out of many.

So what? Enjoyability is subjective, and it's not an ultimate measure of game's worth.

(And just in case you migh be thinking about it, please do not give me that neo-hedonism crap about fun being life's purpose of all humans.)

 

They made it difficult for a god from the Greyhawk setting to be mixed in with a god from Forgotten Realms. And similar for Eberron. So the planes no longer are home to all the gods from all the official settings. But that's something like "game setting jumping." I don't need that to play Planescape. I'm fine to have Planescape be its own self-contained thing. I don't need my character to jump into Greyhawk and meet the Grey Mouser, then jump into Forgotten Realms and meet Drizzt. I just want to be able to play a game with a Tiefling, set in Sigil. Or play a game using that excellent plane-speak (I love the Cant), with excellent dialogue, exploring the main theme of the planes ("belief is power"). To me, it would be really easy to create a modern Planescape game. The rule books are in place. I may even try to use the NWN 2 toolset to create a tiny game in the Planescape setting. Again of course, it wouldn't have the Planescape logo, as that's dead. It wouldn't have Modrons, as they no longer exist. But I should be able recreate the rest. And if I can, why wouldn't Obsidian or Bioware? Something prevents them from going back to the planes, just as something prevents them from exploring psionics in their games.

-Tony

 

Are you implying Wizards of the Coast is responsible (not disagreeing, as I wouldn't be surprised, WoTC has always been a rather stubborn company.)

 

No. I was still thinking of my question to LlamaGod. I'm just exploring.

My personal assessment is that psionics don't play into the fantasy cliche, and developers are reliant enough on the cliche that they are not comfortable jumping outside of the box. In addition, if they were going to jump outside of the box, I'm not sure psionics would be the #1 place to jump. For example, in my own D&D campaigns (pen & paper), I think I tried psionics once in 10 years, and didn't really find it to be compelling. If the developers are similar in mindset, it may be that psionics just hasn't occured to them as a fun gameplay option, or perhaps they're enticed by other options (such as jumping outside of the D&D setting entirely). But I'm pretty sick of standard fantasy games now, so I'm ready to revisit that. I wish other developers were too.

My personal assessment of the dearth of games in the PS:T setting/genre/style is that initial sales were bad enough that developers took notice (those who worked on the game, and those in the industry in general). They collectively made a mental note, "Planescape == too strange to generate sales." And then I believe they didn't much notice 2 or 3 years later when people at the company started saying "actually the sales were pretty good after a while." For example, one of the developers of PS:T itself posted here (I think) 2 years ago suggesting that sales were poor, and when he was told that the sales had actually turned out OK, he was surprised. Even HE didn't know. Of course, I don't think he was a big name on the project. It may not have even been the Codex forums that I'm thinking of. But if my memory is accurate, it's no wonder "let's try a game like PS:T" doesn't get tossed out during brainstorming sessions. And I think that's regrettable. Given the main theme of PS:T, I suppose that's appropriate.

-Tony

 

it really is a great game. quite amusing to see changes made that negate, for me, easily the most compelling setting related to dnd or gaming in general.

2: im replaying at the moment due to this thread and the complaint about the modron maze not being hinted at isnt true. the faded planewalker in the burning corpse relates an encounter with a puzzlebox in the plane of limbo (i think) that is then entered into your journal.

 

Well, a slow burn does not make as much money, but it indicates that a sequel would. The word I got was that with the changes they made that sigil was pretty much gone or retardified. they did not plan anymore books for it, so everything else had to be witha more current realm like *puke* forgotten realms.