Editorial Chris Avellone on Doing Planescape: Torment Successor

[laclongquan]

What they intend is not that important. What they made, is.

 

[Mrowak]

What they intend is not that important. What they made, is.

Indeed - that's the hallmark of good writing/design. Again If you write about super amazing heroe, but fail to convey all the attributes by which you characterise him and this results in him coming across as e.g. shallow, plastic - it's bad writing. If you write about another character, and you purposefully make him larger than life and ludicurous - and your audience sees exactly that - it is good writing. Some members of the audience may not like that character, but it doesn't mean he was written bad - they just don't like him.

 

[l3loodAngel]

It achieved what it wanted to achieve - they wanted pulpy characters from James Bond movies? Well, they are here. A good writing is like that, even if you didn't like it. Bad writing is when the author tries to depict something but falls flat on the face: e.g. in DA2, Hawk being heroic, noble and intelligent.

Following this logic it does not matter what you write, it only matters how you write.

Which is right I think, your story won't be better or worse based simply on what you chose to write about. You can make a wonderful, complex story out of some kids robbing people on the beach, and banal shit out of a universe-shattering battle bewteen the gods themselves.

I am just saying that AP is the later, while PST is the former. While complex world does not guarantee great a story/setting, it does have a better chance to become good if all the stuff in the game world works to improve the story/setting, rather that distract from it.

 

[EG]

I must find some way to repress this urge to give MCA money based on nothing.

 

[kaizoku]

Kickstart-wise, I love the idea of doing a setting sourcebook first. If the setting is as good as PlaneScape I'd want a sourcebook anyway, and if it isn't I wouldn't want to fund the video game.

That would get me pretty much butthurt.
So we have to wait until late 2013, probably 2014 for MCA to start working on something else.
If he comes with a book/PnP thing that would mean what... another year?
So it would be another 1 or 2 years to make the game itself?

2017 for a new game?
By then most of us will be dead.

I think MCA is just trolling us.

 

[SCO]

I also see a lot of whining in this thread. I'll just say that if I get a game that has the same immersive strenght as Torment in writing, story, style, atmosphere and creativity, I don't care if the combat is a mix of a driving sim with a Street Fighter minigame with levels of pop-a-mole cover FPS.

Streets of Rage: Torment

 

[Misconnected]

Maybe he can be persuaded to start off with a Clone MCA Kickstarter? A few clones would free themhim up to start working on not-PST right away, and theyhe might shave a year or two off the development time.

Regarding the sourcebook, though, I suspect our priorities differ. The sourcebook would be far, far more valuable to me than the video game.

Still, I only use quality drugs, so I'll most likely live a good bit past 2017. You might want to consider doing the same if MCA can't be convinced to clone himself. Trust me, you won't just live longer, the high is better too.

 

[Gakkone]

In the case of a Torment like game what would interest me more than the specifics of the combat system would be the encounter design. So long as the amount of combat would be similarly low to Torment, and even then offered mostly as but one way to progress I think I'd be satisfied with anything resembling a functional TB or RTwP system.

 

[kaizoku]

Regarding the sourcebook, though, I suspect our priorities differ. The sourcebook would be far, far more valuable to me than the video game.

but why would you want such a thing?

In the case of a Torment like game what would interest me more than the specifics of the combat system would be the encounter design. So long as the amount of combat would be similarly low to Torment, and even then offered mostly as but one way to progress I think I'd be satisfied with anything resembling a functional TB or RTwP system.

But I want a Torment-like game with ToEE-like combat.

edit:
Some may say I'm day dreaming here... but if Fargo can get 3 fucking million dollars on a game that basically trampolined from the olds Fallout (and not the new shit), I don't see how MCA & Obsidian would get any less than that when they KS a successor to the RPG considered by many as the best RPG of them all.
So I don't see any reason for hoping for less than that.

cool thing that occurred me... maybe inXile can return the favor and borrow their combat mechanics and tools to Obsidian (well, assuming they are good anyway)

 

[EG]

[random guess] I suppose for Obsidian to pull a Fargo would require something more along the lines of 12 million for a year of development? How many people does inXile employ on average?

 

[tuluse]

[random guess] I suppose for Obsidian to pull a Fargo would require something more along the lines of 12 million for a year of development? How many people does inXile employ on average?

I don't think Obsidian works on a single project at a time. If Avellone were to do a kickstarter for a Torment spiritual successor, I seriously doubt he would have his whole company working on it exclusively.

 

[EG]

[random guess] I suppose for Obsidian to pull a Fargo would require something more along the lines of 12 million for a year of development? How many people does inXile employ on average?

I don't think Obsidian works on a single project at a time. If Avellone were to do a kickstarter for a Torment spiritual successor, I seriously doubt he would have his whole company working on it exclusively.

Again, i ask, how is inXile doing this? Do they have other projects right this moment?

Yes, I'm that ignorant of all this.

 

[General Maxson]

[random guess] I suppose for Obsidian to pull a Fargo would require something more along the lines of 12 million for a year of development? How many people does inXile employ on average?

I don't think Obsidian works on a single project at a time. If Avellone were to do a kickstarter for a Torment spiritual successor, I seriously doubt he would have his whole company working on it exclusively.

Again, i ask, how is inXile doing this? Do they have other projects right this moment?

Yes, I'm that ignorant of all this.

I recon, inXile is doing this by being a lot smaller than Obsidian. There are maybe around 20 people at inXile. And they get some money from selling Bard's Tale and Hunted. Obsidian must gain a large amount of cash to support a lot more people.

 

[villain of the story]

2) Tactical combat – it doesn't need to be turn-based, but pausing and choosing your actions is important.

Fuck this shit. Seriously. There is no shortage nor an end to RTwP games and one PST with abysmal shit combat was enough. I'm not backing ANY project with RTw-fucking-P, MCA or not. I don't care if it's the perfect spiritual successor to PST.

I don't know, pretty much all of these Kickstarter RPG projects are promising turn-based. Right now RTwP would almost be a welcome change of pace.

Yeah, we are so overflowing with TB, I guess we now have the luxury of settling with an inherently inferior and shit combat system.



Plus, it's Obsidian. They have yet to make a single game where combat is good. The best -the most solid and balanced- they have ever done is in Dungeon Siege 3 and that's a console grinder game. If at least they make a TB, they can make use of Tin Can Tim Cain and maybe settle with something that's at least fun.

 

[tuluse]

[random guess] I suppose for Obsidian to pull a Fargo would require something more along the lines of 12 million for a year of development? How many people does inXile employ on average?

I don't think Obsidian works on a single project at a time. If Avellone were to do a kickstarter for a Torment spiritual successor, I seriously doubt he would have his whole company working on it exclusively.

Again, i ask, how is inXile doing this? Do they have other projects right this moment?

Yes, I'm that ignorant of all this.

I don't know about InXile, but I know that the kickstarter project for DoubleFine is just one of at least 3 projects they have in development right now. Tim Schafer has talked about how it's hard to balance being a project leader and the CEO of the whole company.

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah, we are so overflowing with TB, I guess we now have the luxury of settling with an inherently inferior and shit combat system.

Actually, yes, we are overflowed with TB Kickstarters. Accept it.

 

[villain of the story]

And that is a good enough reason to ask for RTwP Kickstarters?

 

[Alex_Steel]

I would prefer if they didn't make a half-arsed version of a Torment-like game.

 

[Infinitron]

And that is a good enough reason to ask for RTwP Kickstarters?

Who said anything about "asking"?

 

[Stinger]

Avellone lip service doesn't get me off like it used to.

 

[Irxy]

It'd be best not to use [the Dungeons & Dragons] mechanics or the Planescape license. One reason is doing so would undermine some of the joys of the Kickstarter (not having to answer to anyone but the players – if we take a license, we have to answer to the franchise holder), I'm not sure Wizards/Hasbro/whoever knows where to take the license, and looking back on Planescape: Torment, it's been clear to me that we had to bend a lot of rules to get some of the mechanics and narrative feel we wanted. Could we have done that easier outside of a Planescape universe? Sure.

I'm not so sure about this, Planescape setting is awesome and is one of the reasons why PS:T is a cult game. Chances to create something equally deep and inspiring from scratch are slim.

 

[EG]

Avellone lip service doesn't get me off like it used to.

Homoerotic jokes aside, I doubt anything does.

You've changed, man.

 

[kaizoku]

Avellone lip service doesn't get me off like it used to.

Homoerotic jokes aside, I doubt anything does.

You've changed, man.

What can change the nature of a man?

The RPGCodex can.