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Game News Torment Kickstarter Update #66: Post-Release Plans

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Chris Keenan; InXile Entertainment; Torment: Tides of Numenera

Ten days have passed since the release of Torment: Tides of Numenera. While the game did quite well with professional reviewers, actual gamers appear to feel otherwise. Its Steam user review score is at 69% and falling, sales seem underwhelming, and the Codex thread is exploding. It's increasingly clear that inXile have a bit of a fiasco on their hands, and many people including myself were expecting them to cut their losses and move on to Wasteland 3 post-haste. However, the latest Kickstarter update proves that they're not quite ready to do that. Though not before some slightly too anxious self-congratulation:

We are now a little over one week after the release of Torment! It's been amazing to see the reception that the game received. The game has been an extremely strong success critically, with praise, awards and even several perfect scores along the way. If you want to read some of the reviews, we’ve done a pair of roundups that you can find here and here, as well as an accolades trailer. More importantly, we've been seeing your feedback throughout the forums, comments and social media.

We've heard from hundreds of you who have reached out to say that that Torment: Tides of Numenera is a worthy successor to Planescape: Torment, and that is something we are extremely pleased and humbled to hear. We'd love for you to get out there and keep spreading the word, leaving reviews, posting comments, sharing your experiences, and more. There’s a lot to discover in this game, and we’re looking forward to seeing you all discuss the story and events of the game for years to come!

When we came to you on Kickstarter, you gave us an incredible opportunity to make a game that would never have happened otherwise. It's through your continued support that these kinds of games will continue to get made. You have our everlasting thanks for providing us the ability to bring these type of games back.

What Comes Next?

Since release, we have been tirelessly reading your feedback, comments, and reports, and using that to plan a few patches for the near future. These will be primarily focused on fixing some pesky bugs that some of our players have encountered, as well as performance and stability optimizations, both on PC as well as on consoles. You can expect to see our first patch coming in the next couple of weeks.

But, we also want to address the longer term. Four years is an extended development timeline for an RPG, and it is a hallmark of our ambition for the game. Torment has the longest script we've ever produced at over 1.2 million words, and provides more nuanced reactivity and more complicated quests and stories than we have ever done before.

Despite that, there were some features we wanted to include in the game that we weren’t able to finish in time for release. Companions, in particular, were a big production trade-off. Not only does a single companion take many months of work from writers, scripters, designers, and artists. Because we wanted companions to interact and react to the game world and conversations in a deep way, their implementation needed to happen later in the development process, when quests and area design were mostly complete. As we were iterating on the companions, we felt the time was best spent building them out deeper as opposed to slamming in a few more on a surface level. These development decisions are never black and white, but we always approach it from a position of what we truly believe is best for the game. As we addressed in a previous update, reducing their number was a necessary trade-off to hit the level of quality we wanted.

But, there's a saying that no work of art is ever truly complete. We certainly know that many of you were looking forward to some of the things we couldn't squeeze into our release build, and it just didn't sit well with us leaving those behind. Now that we have had a time to see your feedback on the game, we also have a better sense of where we can focus our resources to improve.

To that end, we are pleased to announce that we will be working on additional content and updates for Torment post-release. These updates will include:
  • Oom ("The Toy" companion).
  • Voluminous Codex.
  • Crisis system improvements.
Our initial updates to the game will focused on bug fixes, optimizations, and other improvements, while the content additions will come later down the line. Both the patches and content updates will, of course, be completely free for all Torment owners, including backers, PC buyers, and console players. We will have more news on these in the coming weeks and months!
Well then, Torment Director's Cut, here we come. I wonder if the Voluminous Codex is still planned to be outside of the game...
 
Weasel
Joined
Dec 14, 2012
Messages
1,865,661
Dammit inXile, had to stop playing this husk of a game before I was forced to retire to the study with a bottle of Scotch and a revolver. The one fucking KS game I got a bit hyped for, even avoiding the threads and potential spoilers (at least until the console/publisher/interview/dev hell shenanigans became obvious to all but the most deluded of fanboys).

Now can't even finish it as this mess they eventually shat out is just too depressing, reeking of wasted potential and obvious mismanagement. The only inXile crowdfunding I'll be contributing to in future is a campaign to free Ziets from his hellish indentured servitude on the shovelware production lines.

 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
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Messages
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Where are they even getting the money to make these improvements? :hmmm:
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
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Terra da Garoa
Indeed, that's one self-congratulatory update... then again, they did the exact same with W2. Even the W3 Kickstarter was like "W2 was perfect, we'll make W3 MORE perfect!"

Well, at least they didn't cried they were victim of a harassment campaign or anything.
 

Kem0sabe

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
13,076
Location
Azores Islands
How much resources can they dedicate for months to patch the game, improve performance and write in 2 extra companions in a way that doesn't feel half assed?

Also, is the codex now an in-game thing? That would be even more work and money.

All this sounds implausible.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
We are now a little over one week after the release of Torment! It's been amazing to see the reception that the game received. The game has been an extremely strong success critically, with praise, awards and even several perfect scores along the way. If you want to read some of the reviews, we’ve done a pair of roundups that you can find here and here, as well as an accolades trailer. More importantly, we've been seeing your feedback throughout the forums, comments and social media.​


Notice the careful omission of the words "commercially successful" here. This reminds me of the "X hours played" metric EA used for Dragon Age Inquisition.

We've heard from hundreds of you who have reached out to say that that Torment: Tides of Numenera is a worthy successor to Planescape: Torment, and that is something we are extremely pleased and humbled to hear. We'd love for you to get out there and keep spreading the word, leaving reviews, posting comments, sharing your experiences, and more. There’s a lot to discover in this game, and we’re looking forward to seeing you all discuss the story and events of the game for years to come!
How many seconds a critical comment survives on InXile's forum? Two seconds? Less than one second? A nano second? Or this guy is a prodigy and can really read comments on less than two seconds or he isn't reading any real feedback at all.

When we came to you on Kickstarter, you gave us an incredible opportunity to make a game that would never have happened otherwise. It's through your continued support that these kinds of games will continue to get made. You have our everlasting thanks for providing us the ability to bring these type of games back.
Making these types of games? Shovelware? No thanks, plenty of shovelware was released before InXile and will continue being released after InXile so the market is saturated guys, sorry.

But, we also want to address the longer term. Four years is an extended development timeline for an RPG, and it is a hallmark of our ambition for the game.Torment has the longest script we've ever produced at over 1.2 million words,
Truly impressive InXile, some criminal law books are shorter than that but more fun to read though.

and provides more nuanced reactivity and more complicated quests and stories than we have ever done before.
Please, why don't you release this version of the game where this "more nuanced reactivity and more complicated quests and stories than we have ever done before." actually exist? It would be pretty cool, you need to share InXile, why hoarding the good stuff only to yourself?

Companions, in particular, were a big production trade-off. Not only does a single companion take many months of work from writers, scripters, designers, and artists. Because we wanted companions to interact and react to the game world and conversations in a deep way, their implementation needed to happen later in the development process, when quests and area design were mostly complete. As we were iterating on the companions, we felt the time was best spent building them out deeper as opposed to slamming in a few more on a surface level. These development decisions are never black and white, but we always approach it from a position of what we truly believe is best for the game. As we addressed in a previous update, reducing their number was a necessary trade-off to hit the level of quality we wanted.
Some part of me was still somehow hopeful for InXile but, nah... they are fucking shameless liars. The conversations you had with Dakkon probably had more content than all InXile companions.

But, there's a saying that no work of art is ever truly complete. We certainly know that many of you were looking forward to some of the things we couldn't squeeze into our release build, and it just didn't sit well with us leaving those behind.
Yeah, I was looking for the 75% of the game you didn't include.

To that end, we are pleased to announce that we will be working on additional content and updates for Torment post-release. These updates will include:
  • Oom ("The Toy" companion).
  • Voluminous Codex.
  • Crisis system improvements.
Hmmm, where is the "make the game again" update? Can't wait for the ignore turn movement toggle and the lame lore dump as if the game didn't have enough of that already.
 
Joined
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Messages
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Where are they even getting the money to make these improvements? :hmmm:

The game already has over 100,000 copies sold on steam plus the sales it has on consoles and gog. Not sure why you fags think that's bad when that's a lot better sales than most of the indie crap that comes out.

also, NB4 IMaFagWithaHugeNick

Well, because all of the other AA Kickstarter RPGs sold better.

It should be clear I'm not inXile's biggest fan, but I think this assumption that Torment has failed is a bit premature and almost certainly false.

This game is a constant revenue stream. There's a lot worthwhile in it and there's nothing else really like it on the market, or like to be. It is never really going to stop selling, particularly not with content updates.
 

Apexeon

Arcane
Joined
Nov 10, 2012
Messages
864
Inxile said codex is racist to shovelware, even its polished with 7 million dollars and they slap a Torment sticker on it.

Instant classic just slap a Torment TM sticker on it.
 
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waveplay

Literate
Joined
Feb 2, 2017
Messages
17
Man there's a lot of hate for inXile. Still haven't really played Torment (only a few hours of Sagus Cliffs) but what I did play was enjoyable and refreshingly different from the usual RPG fare thanks to setting and writing. Where does all this anger stem from? Because of the cut content controversy? Is the game reeeaally that bad as to call it shovelware?
 

Imperialist

Novice
Joined
Nov 6, 2016
Messages
26
Torment:TON lies on the opposite end of the spectrum for most RPG's. For once I can play a game, read dialog and not have to battle every 10 seconds through a boring horde of animation. Though it's almost a novel-written style game, ya it falls short of well written novel like War and Peace it's still an adventure and there are hardly any games out there this ambitious. Perfect no, is T:TON on the right path, yes. Will a 10 yr old pick this game up, not likely. For me, it's incredibly enjoyable.
 

Lycra Suit

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I thought the game was pretty widely despised here. Why would you cover every single bit of news that comes out of a loathed studios?

I don't know about the others but when I come here from time to time I like to have my news feed on point, not having to waddle through a clog of irrelevant artifacts from climb-any-mountains types of console game peddlers.
 
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Messages
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I thought the game was pretty widely despised here. Why would you cover every single bit of news that comes out of a loathed studios?

I don't know about the others but when I come here from time to time I like to have my news feed on point, not having to waddle through a clog of irrelevant artifacts from climb-any-mountains types of console game peddlers.

Posters come to the Codex mostly to complain about stuff they don't like, this is especially true of games during their initial launch period. There's a natural deference toward negativity that is only opposed in fits and starts and most people who are enjoying a game would rather play it than be here defending it against posters who aren't going to change their mind about it being shit.

If the game was widely despsied this thread would already be on page 3 or 4 with shitty comments all the way. The negative people don't feel that negative and the positive people aren't here or aren't talking.
 
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CRD

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Divinity: Original Sin 2
Though it's almost a novel-written style game, ya it falls short of well written novel like War and Peace

Seriously, comparing a videogame writing with one of the titans of the literature and his best book is above the retarded complains seen here from time to time.

Of course is going to fall short, same as 99.99999% of the published books in the last century ffs.

What's going to be next, comparing Wasteland 3 with The Illiad? They are fucking videogames closer to a choose your own adventure book for teenagers than any other thing and none of them can be compared to proper quality books, not a single one.

Avellone or Ziets are not fucking Tolstoy
 
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waveplay

Literate
Joined
Feb 2, 2017
Messages
17
Seriously, comparing a videogame writing with one of the titans of the literature history and his best book is above the retarded complains seen here from time to time.

Of course is going to fall short, same as 99.99999% of the published books in the last century ffs.

What's going to be next, comparing Wasteland 3 with The Illiad? They are fucking videogames, they are closer to a choose your own adventure book than any other thing and none of them can be compared to proper quality books, not a single one.

Avellone or Ziets are not fucking Tolstoy

Hear hear!
 

l3loodAngel

Proud INTJ
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Messages
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I thought the game was pretty widely despised here. Why would you cover every single bit of news that comes out of a loathed studios?

I don't know about the others but when I come here from time to time I like to have my news feed on point, not having to waddle through a clog of irrelevant artifacts from climb-any-mountains types of console game peddlers.

Because it's news and there are not that many news in the RPG universe? It's called RPG codex and not CNN for a reason. Besides some people like the game/the studio or both and even if someone doesn't like it, they might still want to know the news. I mean those who know the difference between Tolstoy and Erritis or Aligern.
 
Weasel
Joined
Dec 14, 2012
Messages
1,865,661
If the game was widely despsied this thread would already be on page 3 or 4 with shitty comments all the way. The negative people don't feel that negative and the positive people aren't here or aren't talking.

Well, the post-release game thread is already 140 pages with plenty of negative comments. Although I'd say the dominant emotion there is disappointment rather than hatred, which is the sad thing as this game had obvious potential and some talented people involved. Guess we'll see how much they can salvage and how long it takes.
 

FeelTheRads

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Apr 18, 2008
Messages
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Reminder of the bullshit they vomited out about the Voluminous Codex:

Voluminous Codex: We always intended for Torment to have a journal that would log your discoveries within the Ninth World. Not the kind of Journal that tells you exactly where you need to go next and what you need to do – you are an RPG connoisseur after all, and don’t need us to hold your hand. But what you might like is a journal to catalog your travels and discoveries, one to which you might refer when some past details elude you. One of your suggestions that we really liked was to take the journal quite a bit further. At this Stretch Goal, we are doing that – we’ll expand the journal, giving you more lore, more creature and character portraits, and more information on interesting/important events as you come across them. As with the rest of the game’s user interface, the journal will be highly customizable to suit your tastes.

Literally everything in that paragraph turned out to be a lie.

The journal is exactly the hand-holding type, it gives you NO lore or creature/character portraits and the interface has exactly 0 customization options.
 

l3loodAngel

Proud INTJ
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Edgy
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Messages
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Reminder of the bullshit they vomited out about the Voluminous Codex:

Voluminous Codex: We always intended for Torment to have a journal that would log your discoveries within the Ninth World. Not the kind of Journal that tells you exactly where you need to go next and what you need to do – you are an RPG connoisseur after all, and don’t need us to hold your hand. But what you might like is a journal to catalog your travels and discoveries, one to which you might refer when some past details elude you. One of your suggestions that we really liked was to take the journal quite a bit further. At this Stretch Goal, we are doing that – we’ll expand the journal, giving you more lore, more creature and character portraits, and more information on interesting/important events as you come across them. As with the rest of the game’s user interface, the journal will be highly customizable to suit your tastes.

Literally everything in that paragraph turned out to be a lie.

The journal is exactly the hand-holding type, it gives you NO lore or creature/character portraits and the interface has exactly 0 customization options.
You are reading it wrong.
 

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