Game News inXile admit that Torment stretch goal content has been cut, including companions

[Apexeon]

I think Fargo should have switched careers after Interplay.

But then again we asked for it.

He should of switched over to used car sales man. More respect in this industry.

 

[Roguey]

I'm looking forward to this face-planting so I no longer see "T-they cut all these things to make the rest of the game better..."

 

[MRY]

Saunders was let go about a year (seems to be less than a year) into the official production

We don't know what they were doing before that. He was in charge of the game for years, including the Kickstarter and all of those stretch goals. I've been told that he ran Torment like his own private fiefdom within inXile and Fargo had minimal involvement. The buck stops somewhere, and I don't think they fired him just because they're evil.

By definition, a project manager manages his project as a "private fiefdom" -- a fiefdom is an estate entrusted to an intermediate lord by the king conditioned on the lord providing service to the king. Everything in life is feudal: higher ups entrust lower downs to certain projects, which the lower downs hold conditionally, and they then devolve part of that to their lower downs and so on. "Private fiefdom" is exactly the kind of vague, yet pejorative, description that is impossible to disprove because the disproof would consist of "I didn't do my job."

Since Kevin is too modest to defend himself, anyway, let me do so. In every meeting I participated with him, he simultaneously made sure to let everyone say his piece and made sure the meetings moved forward and reached concrete conclusions, employing techniques I myself have since used in my law practice. In every email exchange I had with him, he promptly responded to all of my questions, whether dumb ones I should've known better than to ask or probing ones about the game's story and design. I never saw him behave high-handedly or disrespectfully with anyone; I never heard him say a bad word about anyone behind his back. Given the hours at which he responded to my emails, he was working extremely long days even very early into the project. He managed a team of first-rate veterans and also took the time and the leap of faith to find, and teach, newer writers like Gavin, me, and Leanne. He was actively involved in every aspect of the project, and always seemed to me to show great theoretical understanding alongside great practical experience.

I will also say that every interaction I had with Brian impressed me: he is focused on business, but also on gaming; he isn't overbearing or micromanaging, but he sat in on meetings and offered advice (never diktats) on even fairly specific things like the font for a Mere or a particular turn of phrase. He took time to get to know me, even though I was a nobody on the project, and in fact took me out to lunch twice. He had a hand in many games I have loved, and he (along with Kevin) had a hand in giving me the opportunity to work on Torment, which I also loved.

Finally, while I had fewer interactions with Chris, he too seemed a thoughtful and energetic leader. He was brought in as a "closer" (in the baseball sense, not the telemarketing sense), and he never shrank from making hard decisions, or from the obligation to explain those decisions to the team. He solicited my feedback on parts of the game when he had no need to do so, and responded thoroughly to what I said.

Managing TTON presented obvious and substantial difficulties: it's the first adaptation of the Numenera ruleset to a cRPG; the narrative lead was in Detroit while the design lead was in Thailand and the majority of the team was in Orange County; numerous other writers were flung across the country; ambitious goals were made publicly via Kickstarter rather than privately in internal deliberations; inXile was using an engine for the first time and switching to a different graphic style from WL2; the game was haunted as well as animated by the spirit of Torment. Finally, it seems the KSer budget for the project was not comparable to the ordinary cost of making such an elaborate project, and inXile's team is spread between many projects.

I take no position on how public relations are handled, because I'm not good at that. I do know that no one made decisions to shortchange anyone, and no one behaved selfishly or rashly in managing the project. It may not be everything everyone hopes -- of course there may be nothing that could meet the hopes for a "spiritual successor to Torment," and moreover everyone's hopes are different, so satisfying some will mean dissatisfying others. I do think it is a game that reflects the love, care, sweat, and toil that many talented and hard-working people poured into. I don't think people should be disappointed in backing it, but then I also think it's crazy to pay more than $20 for a computer game, so anyone who bought statuettes and NPCs and so on is beyond my comprehension anyway.

Well, there's my defense of things. Carry on now.

:agenda:

 

[ghostdog]

 

[duanth123]

I don't think people should be disappointed in backing it

People require catharsis, especially the chatty cathys on this site. No doubt many will continue to vacillate up to release.

That being said...

of course there may be nothing that could meet the hopes for a "spiritual successor to Torment," and moreover everyone's hopes are different, so satisfying some will mean dissatisfying others.

InXile "earned" the consequences of any unmet expectations when they named the game Torment. Notwithstanding this garden variety Kickstarter backpedaling that we're now seeing with some of the stretch goals.

If anything, to now be posthumously (and I consider there to have been a sort of spiritual death at this point) considering the folly of the entire enterprise only reiterates just how much this game was built by the short term gratification of unrealistic desires.

 

[Invictus]

Come on this retarded beyond measure, you honestly think someone said "hey that second city sounds awesome let me up my pledge so we can get it" the stretch goals are there to paint a pretty picture and help motivate people who might be on the fence to actually pitch in because the actual initial funding goal is done.
It sometimes is interesting and the cut companions ARE noticeable but child please the development of this has been one fuckup after another...no project that is going well is changing producers halfway through production and we all knew it so spare me the surprise and indignation
In the end this will be the norm with crowdfunded games; a competent, fun perhaps even good to great game which was funded and developed with peanuts and good intentions but wont be an all time classic by any means of the imagination and some cut content here or there don't change that

 

[Turok]

Holy shit

 

[Ismaul]

Every news about inXile these days is terrible. I expect more surprises to come.

Kickstarter frees medium-sized devs from under the heel of publishers, but then it's the customer backer (so don't complain) that gets shortchanged.

Only one thing left to do: disengage.

 

[TigerKnee]

Morte No.9

 

[almondblight]

Come on this retarded beyond measure, you honestly think someone said "hey that second city sounds awesome let me up my pledge so we can get it" the stretch goals are there to paint a pretty picture and help motivate people who might be on the fence to actually pitch in because the actual initial funding goal is done.

Keep in mind that they used these when they were spamming people asking backers for more money long after the KS finished. To give an example, this went out as a KS update in October 2014 (two months before the estimated release date):

Hi, Thomas here. I'd like to start out today's update with a huge "thank you!" for the immense outpouring of support we received for our stretch goal to add the Gullet into the game. We received some incredibly generous pledges from many backers, including an anonymous donor ($1665), Pookie ($1271), Najiok ($900), Hiro Protagonist ($750) and even a pair of $750 pledges from our very own Colin McComb and Kevin Saunders.

Unfortunately, we fell somewhat short of our goal (about 15%, or $35,000) to see the Gullet added to the final game. However, we did not want to see this great effort of yours go for naught, and we also realized based on comments about this stretch goal as it closed that awareness had not spread widely enough. Some people suggested extending the deadline, in part to allow word to spread to where it didn't before.

So, we're moving the stretch goal deadline for the Gullet to the end of Friday, October 31. Just over $30,000 to go!

Coincidentally this is also when we will be closing a number of add-ons from our Kickstarter period. So while new backers are more than welcome you may also want to consider some of our add-on options! And to remind everyone: please specify your add-ons by Friday, October 31!

Yeah, stretch goals are stupid, but it's still scammy to try to push them to get money from people like this when you might just drop them whenever you feel like. Yeah, the flexibility is better for the game, but it's still a dick move. As is not telling backers they've been cut, and giving some BS line about it being to improve the game. Does anyone seriously think sea really knows why these cuts are made? Giving people meaningless PR spin is frankly more insulting than silence.

Anyway, cutting stuff that doesn't work well is a good idea. However, it seems likely that a lot of stuff was cut because they're trying to shove the game out the door ASAP, which is always a bad move. The stretch goal cuts are important because they give us a look into the rather opaque and troubled development process, and suggest a game that's had major pieces cut out because the company leadership is trying to rush things.

 

[Invictus]

Yeah...to be honest other than Dark Souls I dont play games on release anymore, I always wait for the round of patches and fixes and these kickstarter games are not different at all and because of their limited budgets perhaps they have even worse QA problems
My opinions with Pillars of Eternity were 180• from release to the 3.0 versions so that is an example and even though Wasteland 2 was pretty damn decent in release the DC is clearly better

 

[Infinitron]

MRY It wasn't meant to be a pejorative. On this forum, where many people seem to think Brian Fargo is on a personal mission to ruin their games, it's quite the opposite.

 

[Wizfall]

Lot of people here appears to be complete noobs concerning game development despite the site having a reputation of hardened veteran.
Quite incredible, everyone and his grandmother know game development is almost always more or less a cluster-fuck where things change greatly from the start to the finish evzn for AAA games.
Now you can tell Inxile should have not commit to add certain features, but experienced as we are, it was quite naive to put too much expectation it.

I'm not disappointed at all InXIle dropped some features which are more like ideals things to do, it's a good thing to have them however in a kickstarter as it show the way to go and give a perspective.
And it's a good thing to drop them as the project evolve to concentrate on the good parts and make the better game possible considering the constraints that we can be sure will arise.

PoE 1 is a good example of features that should have been dropped like the too bland megadungeon and even the whole stronghold thing.
They should have made a 3/4 levels dungeons instead. And drop crafting too to make better itemization
And imo they should have even reduced the size of the Twin Elm to make Definace Bay a real city, not a boring place with too few things to do in each zone.

At the end all i care is the game being good, not if it checked a "to do list" of features that in game development are always dropped partially anyway.

 

[Ovplain]

Keeping stretch goals that turn out to be bad for the game (like in PoE) isn't better than cutting them and focusing on things that work better.

Yeah but at least TELL US about that shit, goddammit! Fine, cut whatever you want, cut McComb's bald head off, but pl0x tell the backers sooner rather than later. The fact that they did this all on the QT is what really stinks here.

 

[Ismaul]

The fact that they did this all on the QT is what really stinks here.

The fact that they did this multiple times over, let's not forget.

 

[Morality Games]

Lot of people here appears to be complete noobs concerning game development despite the site having a reputation of hardened veteran.
Quite incredible, everyone and his grandmother know game development is almost always more or less a cluster-fuck where things change greatly from the start to the finish evzn for AAA games.
Now you can tell Inxile should have not commit to add certain features, but experienced as we are, it was quite naive to put too much expectation it.

I'm not disappointed at all InXIle dropped some features which are more like ideals things to do, it's a good thing to have them however in a kickstarter as it show the way to go and give a perspective.
And it's a good thing to drop them as the project evolve to concentrate on the good parts and make the better game possible considering the constraints that we can be sure will arise.

PoE 1 is a good example of features that should have been dropped like the too bland megadungeon and even the whole stronghold thing.
They should have made a 3/4 levels dungeons instead. And drop crafting too to make better itemization
And imo they should have even reduced the size of the Twin Elm to make Definace Bay a real city, not a boring place with too few things to do in each zone.

At the end all i care is the game being good, not if it checked a "to do list" of features that in game development are always dropped partially anyway.

There is a legally binding obligation to abide by stretch goals if anyone actually cared enough to organize a case.

Stretch goals aren't ideals and they aren't ultimately optional. Failing one part of the agreement is strictly speaking identical to failing the entire agreement unless otherwise noted.

Agreements worth far more have been dissolved on far shallower breaches.

 

[Black]

I guess that's why they call it Torment!

 

[CRD]

Featuring Inxile as Castro and Mr Burns as kickstarter

 

[Prime Junta]

These guys are so inept it's ridiculous. I tweeted about this, and Fargo actually replied. His reply?



That's, like, the classic notpology: the one thing you're supposed to not say in a situation like this. Even "sorry we disappointed you" is better.

(I for one am sorry Fargo is a greasy little shitweasel. I'll save that for when I owe him an apology.)

 

[Morality Games]

These guys are so inept it's ridiculous. I tweeted about this, and Fargo actually replied. His reply?



That's, like, the classic notpology: the one thing you're supposed to not say in a situation like this. Even "sorry we disappointed you" is better.

(I for one am sorry Fargo is a greasy little shitweasel. I'll save that for when I owe him an apology.)

Our disappointment is our own fault. We need to stop projecting it on inXile.

 

[Fenix]

crash and burn

cash and bum

I think Fargo should have switched careers after Interplay.

Well, he did some "diversification". :D

I think what this helps illustrate is that game development is never a straight line to the end. Building an RPG this big is a huge endeavor on both creative and technical levels. This sometimes means ideas don't work out the way we expected, and sometimes new ideas will appear and be so compelling we can't help but add them. When content changes, that doesn't mean we're just yanking it out and tossing it on the floor - in all cases it means that we're using those same efforts to improve other parts of the game, or adding brand-new things entirely.

This sound reasonable for me, but not for majority here.
Why?

I can say that I don't care. Didn't backed it, don't want to support with buying due concentration of SJW-fashism on official Numanuma pics, and I'll probbaly play it, or not - 50/50.

The only interest in this info for me is a kitchen, or backstage of InXile.

 

[Invictus]

In Fargo's defense some of those missing features will probably be added after release via patches and DLC
We know how these things work, they will release the game, patch the game to a somewhat decent state during the first month and then start adding content 3 4 months after release

 

[Fairfax]

These guys are so inept it's ridiculous. I tweeted about this, and Fargo actually replied. His reply?



That's, like, the classic notpology: the one thing you're supposed to not say in a situation like this. Even "sorry we disappointed you" is better.

(I for one am sorry Fargo is a greasy little shitweasel. I'll save that for when I owe him an apology.)

Not surprised, he thought not letting people in on the cut content was fun:

I was talking to George [Zeits, lead area designer on Torment] and he mentioned that the game had been cut down a lot during development. As executive producer on this project, I imagine you had oversight of what was cut -- how do you decide what stays and what goes, in a game like this?

Well, ultimately I let the writers decide that. I'll extrapolate out and say well, at this rate, this thing is going to go too long by x amount, and we need to change something. I'd rather have more time in the iteration cycle, right.

I tell the guys all the time, we're either going to have more levels or more time to iterate. Which would you rather have

It's always more time to iterate, because you get to polish more, and make what you have better. So that always wins out. So I let them ultimately decide how they need to tell this really heavy, single-player narrative story, yet still remove things. And so yeah, they had to work themselves into pretzels a couple different times in order to do it. But it's fun, because at this point we're the only ones that know what's not there anymore. And at the end of the day, the game is still pretty massive -- it's probably a 40- to 60-hour game. But again, I let those guys make that decision, in terms of what makes sense.

 

[Prime Junta]

In Fargo's defense some of those missing features will probably be added after release via patches and DLC
We know how these things work, they will release the game, patch the game to a somewhat decent state during the first month and then start adding content 3 4 months after release

Probably this that and the other, yeah right.

They are handling this incredibly badly. They should have been open and up-front about this, explaining the situation, the actions they have taken, and the actions they want to take later to mitigate the damage. There would've been a lot less damage had they come up with something like this a few months ago:

"Hello backers. We have some good news for you, and some bad news. The good news is that we have a release date for T:ToN, and it's Feb 28. The bad news is that not all the stretch goals we promised in the Kickstarter are going to be in it.

<<list them, explain what was dropped, what was added, and why>>

"Now, we realise many of you are going to be disappointed by these changes. That's why we're offering all of you backers <<store credit/partial refund/hero of the ninth world badge/another apology video for the Complete Book of Elves>>. We are also making plans for implementing <<cut features>> as post-release DLC which will, naturally, be free to you.

"We'll be more careful with stretch goals in our future projects so this doesn't happen again. We've also taken steps to tighten up our design and development practices. Our new Director of Development, Joe Stalin, will tell you all about it in an upcoming video update.

"Once again, we are immensely grateful for your support. We dun goofed, are doing everything in our power to make things right with you and stop this from happening ever again. Over and out, this is your humble community manager, Bob Baghdad."

 

[Wizfall]

There is a legally binding obligation to abide by stretch goals if anyone actually cared enough to organize a case.

Stretch goals aren't ideals and they aren't ultimately optional. Failing one part of the agreement is strictly speaking identical to failing the entire agreement unless otherwise noted.

Agreements worth far more have been dissolved on far shallower breaches.

Yea sure righteous internet paladin let's sue InXile !
They should done all the features mentioned by the book, no matter the crappy final game result and you would be happier !
Pfff...