Game News Torment Kickstarter Update #53: Beta Released

[Prime Junta]

Yeah, the mystery in Planescape Torment really only lasted 5 minutes before Dhall explained the basis. I'm not sure if I prefer the hostile feeling The Hive had or the weirder feeling Sagus Cliffs had. The area design in at least the circus is much better, it's more constrained and delivers the heavy lore better and not all at once.

Oh rubbish. If anything, Dhall deepened the mystery. He knows me? He's seen this before? He thinks I should get reconciled to dying? WTF is this even, I only just got here! There's no "Well, we are the Dustmen, and this is how we believe, but before you commit to a faction you ought also check out the Sensates at least. And don't miss the fine attractions of The Smoldering Corpse. Also, there's the Blood War between the chaotic evil Tanar'ri and the lawful evil Baatezu which you should try to avoid <but will inevitably get drawn into> etc etc."

 

[Daedalos]

I really cant understand the concept behind this open beta, PoE had it to try out gameplay nechanics, combat and a few quests, but having this for Torment is spoiling a bunch of gameplay goodies which shouldnt be played at all before the final release
I am staying well away from any of this, the PoE engine looks great, so the only thing that InXile has to do is let Zeits handdle things from here with some good lore, interesting characters, competent writing and their take on the Wasteland 2 combat with Pillars graphics.

The Torment beta is exactly the same? trying out a few quests, gameplay mechanics and combat. Nothing too spoilery in the beta and it doesn't really give away that much of the "muh mystery"

 

[Prime Junta]

It's like when Sawyer uses Might for wizards' spellcasting to keep programming ultra-simple, and then utters some PR coated "fuck you" to intelligent gamers.

I have a great idea, let's turn this into a Pillars thread too

 

[Infinitron]

Daedalos, the beta is the entire first ~40% of the game. Of course it's full of spoilers.

(This is going to be just like the Wasteland 2 beta days again, isn't it)

 

[DosBuster]

Yeah, the mystery in Planescape Torment really only lasted 5 minutes before Dhall explained the basis. I'm not sure if I prefer the hostile feeling The Hive had or the weirder feeling Sagus Cliffs had. The area design in at least the circus is much better, it's more constrained and delivers the heavy lore better and not all at once.

Oh rubbish. If anything, Dhall deepened the mystery. He knows me? He's seen this before? He thinks I should get reconciled to dying? WTF is this even, I only just got here! There's no "Well, we are the Dustmen, and this is how we believe, but before you commit to a faction you ought also check out the Sensates at least. And don't miss the fine attractions of The Smoldering Corpse. Also, there's the Blood War between the chaotic evil Tanar'ri and the lawful evil Baatezu which you should try to avoid <but will inevitably get drawn into> etc etc."

Alright, I see what you mean, however, I still think that falls into the trap of being cryptic for the sake of being cryptic. You shouldn't muddy information unless you have a plot-specific reason to, besides, if you asked a faction member about their own faction wouldn't it make sense for them to explain it clearly?

 

[Daedalos]

Daedalos, the beta is the entire first ~40% of the game. Of course it's full of spoilers.

(This is going to be just like the Wasteland 2 beta days again, isn't it)

So the beta is going to be 20-25 hours long? That seems strange. Can you find me a source on that?

If that is true, though, that could be worrying. Regardless, people know what a beta is for, nobody is forcing people to "spoil" themselves Perhaps people could just play the intro areas, and get a sense of the game and mechanics/systems and provide feedback on that, leaving the majority of the beta untouched.

 

[Prime Junta]

Alright, I see what you mean, however, I still think that falls into the trap of being cryptic for the sake of being cryptic. You shouldn't muddy information unless you have a plot-specific reason to, besides, if you asked a faction member about their own faction wouldn't it make sense for them to explain it clearly?

Depends on the faction. The Dustmen were inspired by Buddhism. Buddhist teachers fucking invented cryptic. And Dhall is a really old Dustie. From where I'm at it's a miracle he's even intelligible at all.

'Once Yunmen said to the assembly:
"Medicine and disease cure each other. The entire earth is medicine. What is the self?"'

(And that too you discover gradually, as you get to know the Dusties in the crematory and the bar where they hang out. You also find out that different Dustmen have materially different ideas about what True Death actually means and how to get there, and a few have gone off the rails in more or less interesting ways.)

 

[DosBuster]

Well, in that case, yeah it's justified. However, you have to give the player a goal to strive for every story begins with a wish. There is a lot of mystery behind the Changing God and The Sorrow but we still have that pie-in-the-sky goal to compel us to venture forward. Expecting TTON to replicate how Planescape did everything is just going to end in disappointment

 

[Prime Junta]

Well, in that case, yeah it's justified. However, you have to give the player a goal to strive for every story begins with a wish. There is a lot of mystery behind the Changing God and The Sorrow but we still have that pie-in-the-sky goal to compel us to venture forward. Expecting TTON to replicate how Planescape did everything is just going to end in disappointment

Look at how PS:T did it. Past-me had tattooed a message ON MY BACK with ANGRY capitals giving the vibe of a DERANGED MIND with instructions to FIND PHAROD. No idea why, who Pharod is, just another mystery, a terrible sense of urgency, and a sense that past-me was not quite right in the head so I had better think carefully about my options rather than just following blindly.

The opening in T:ToN didn't do that. It just gave me an infodump and some options, plus a kinda-sorta concrete goal (replace this thing I smashed in my fall, or find another one like it).

 

[Caconym]

Doesn't Numenera have other species?

Yes, yes it does. The source books have a loot of good stuff which makes it pretty disappointing that the first things they show are some boring banal looking humans with equally boring bios. Is this supposed to make me interested in playing a Torment successor?

It's not even about non-human species. The core book includes options like biomechanical people rewritten by engineered viruses, people with a nervous system laced with circuitry and jacks and ports on their bodies, products of generations of eugenics, bolstered with cybernetic enhancements and psychic abilities, posthumans, mutants of all kinds, people existing partially out of phase, people covered in ice or flames etc. (not to mention exotic tattoos and embedded crystals and weird hair/beard styles and shit like that) -- again, all of these are considered 'human' system-wise. You don't really need non-human species to have characters that look much much more interesting and unique than plain old Lando Calrissian here. I mean just look at some of these intriguing-looking, sexy human motherfuckers:

Spoiler

And yes, I get that Tybir is supposed to be a baseline of sorts.

 

[Daedalos]

You don't really know who or what The Last Castoff is either at the beginning of T:TON. You don't even know much about the Sorrow or Changing God, eventhough they are briefly mentioned here and there, it's for YOU to find out, that's the mystery.

The Sorrow is after you, that's a sense of urgency for me, and does a good job of just smashing me into the world head first. You don't know who you were before you took over this persons body, so you should be careful around Sagus Cliffs.

For me, one immidiate goal only leads to a bigger mystery. Find and repair stuff, and then more stuff reveals itself once you stumble around and solve the first goal

 

[Athelas]

You don't really know who or what The Last Castoff is either at the beginning of T:TON.

Another thing PS:T did well - it didn't spoil the central mystery by naming the main character something like 'The Last Castoff' - immediately informing us that the player character is the castoff to end all castoffs.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Well, one can only hope that all these things mean that the big mindblowing mystery lies somewhere else or that what you know at the start is not the actual truth.

 

[Prime Junta]

You don't really know who or what The Last Castoff is either at the beginning of T:TON. You don't even know much about the Sorrow or Changing God, eventhough they are briefly mentioned here and there, it's for YOU to find out, that's the mystery.

I know way too much.

In PS:T you only found out what you were after Ravel's Maze, which was, like three-quarters into the game. You didn't know there was a Transcendent One, let alone your relationship to him, or how it came about. At the very start of T:ToN I know what The Changing God is, what I am, what my relation to The Changing God is, how I came about, how The Changing God is seen by various groups in the world, that there is something called The Sorrow which is really really old and is after The Changing God and therefore me, and so on and so forth.

It could get better of course: as I said, I've only just started, and these are early impressions. But as it is... would you buy a detective story titled The Butler Shot The Lord Because He Was In Love With The Lady?

 

[Kev Inkline]

You don't really know who or what The Last Castoff is either at the beginning of T:TON.

Another thing PS:T did well - it didn't spoil the central mystery by naming the main character something like 'The Last Castoff' - immediately informing us that the player character is the castoff to end all castoffs.

Well, I interpreted it as PC being the most recent in the chain of castoffs, not necessarily the final. And since the main plot involves some entity attempting to kill every single one of its castoffs, I guess it makes sense that the player character would be the last in that chain?

Besides, the latest castoff or the penultimate castoff sounds somewhat stupid.

One can always larp instill a sense a mystery upon himself: I am surely the last castoff, or am I?

 

[Infinitron]

You're created at the moment the game begins so of course you're the last one. So the real issue is that you know you're a castoff at all. However, the developers chose to make the castoffs a known faction in the world, so logically it wouldn't have remained a secret for long.

 

[Prime Junta]

I would have no problem discovering I'm a castoff fairly early on. Like, when I wander into Sagus Cliffs and have people screaming and pointing at my tattoo, going "The Changing God! The Changing God!" and someone else going "No it's a castoff!" and somebody else sidling up to you going "Good lady/sir/ladysir/sirlady I know just the person to help you in this predicament of yours" in order to sell your ass to the Order of Truth or the Cult of the Changing God and so on. That would've been neat actually, as it would immediately have raised new questions -- what is this Changing God and what does it cast off and why does everybody act like they know me?

But having the spectre lay it all out to you perfectly coherently before you've even come to is just way too pat.

 

[DosBuster]

Perhaps, unlike Planescape, the meat of the story lies elsewhere. My current prediction is that the Spectre is not who he says he is. That's just a personal theory however.

The Sorrow, from what I've seen referenced, is going to work very differently than the Transcendent One in that it is my belief it will dynamically chase you down in the game. But hey, maybe this whole premise we've been given is a ruse and there is something deeper to it.

 

[Prime Junta]

Sure anything's possible, but they are requesting feedback, and I can only go by what I'm actually experiencing, not what I may or may not experience later.

 

[MediantSamuel]

The criticisms given in this thread are starting to worry me.

That said, I realised earlier I only pledged at the "Loreseeker" level on Kickstarter so I did what any self-respecting cautiously pessimistic individual would do:

I donated another 20 bucks for beta access.

 

[prodigydancer]

In PS:T you get Morte (who knows more than he lets out) and a vague lead (tattoos on your back). Dhall (the scribe) reveals that it's not the first time you meet and the circumstances are always the same. Finally, Deionarra's ghost confirms Dhall's observations by claiming to be acquainted with one of your previous personas and implying that your amnesia is unusual because your memories are being stolen by "the thieves of the mind."

It's a very appropriate amount of starting information and if in TToN they tell you much more from the get go they should rethink their approach. How is it Torment if there's no mystery, if you know exactly what you're looking for? And telling the player too much early on and making it all irrelevant with some kind of a plot twist much later isn't a good solution (particularly because it was attempted in ME3 and we all know how well it worked there).

 

[Plane Escapee]

I agree with the general sentiment that the (lack of) diversity of the revealed companions is disappointing. Really not what I had in mind for a game that has PST as template and primary inspiration. They should have had Studio Fawn, George Lucas and Hieronymus Bosch do the art direction and character design for this game and have given a bit less of a fuck about bugging out the engine. Screw the engine if I can't have my multi-tentacled floating fish-slug-pig cyber-demon princess companions in a setting that is supposed to be all about the weird.

 

[mastroego]

Yeah the whole point was to recapture the magic of old times, when games were great despite technological limitations of the times.
What we get is being told with a straight face that the characters are uniform to avoid engine issues. Almost 20 years later.

It's a fucking joke, but let's wait and see the rest... (to clarify, I'm not even thinking about buying this blind. I donated a small amount for the kickstarter but that's it).

 

[FeelTheRads]

What we get is being told with a straight face that the characters are uniform to avoid engine issues. Almost 20 years later.

In the end it will be our fault because we wanted the game to be 2D. See if I'm not right and at some point Fargo with his tired yes and charming smile will tell an IGN reporter "well, they wanted the game 2D which limited us, you know..."

 

[Daedalos]

Pretty sure the information given to the player is not the pivotal point of the story and discovery of mysteries etc.

I think the focus of the story lies elsewhere than the introduction, which only serves to lay the very basic groundwork and foundation of the story unfolding over the next 30-40 hours.
I got no problem knowing abit about what I am, OR what I *THINK* i am, or what others *THINK* I am.

Nothing should be taken at face value this early in the story.

Regarding the companions, sure, they might seem abit bland early on, but give them room and time to develop.

There's also an option to disregard any help from any of the two companions at the start.