Torment PS:T + Lustmord

[m_s0]

https://facebook.com/Lustmord.Page/posts/10151579839426616

So basically he's at least aware of what Kickstarter is, possibly supportive of it. That's a couple of paragraphs of explaining shit he already knows that we can drop from the petition.

 

[iqzulk]

I'm thinking about this. As nice, as tuluse's letter is, it's still his draft, and it is written in a different manner compared to anything I write. I simply wouldn't be able to convey the conversation in the same manner (should there ensue any) without basically consulting Codex for composing every answer. It would be much simpler for everyone, if tuluse just sent the email himself, arguing that he just happened to stumble upon the twitter discussion from the original post.

In a couple of days AFTER tuluse's (or any other universally accepted in this thread) draft is sent, I'll write to Brian another couple of twitter messages (or maybe I won't, depending on the answer tuluse gets), saying that I was (and still am) working on that message for "usual channels" on and off, and asking if 30kb message, choke-full of interconnected trivia and information (regarding how Planescape is generally perceived and why, recent Planescape-related Kickstarter developments and their significance, and potential steps concerning hypothetical release of the original Torment album) is OK, and whether he would be willing to waste spend at least 15 or 20 minutes carefully reading through all that stuff. If the answer is "No way in hell", then I basically suck it down. If the answer is "Yes, I'll read that", then I'll rework/expand my draft to make it more focused and able to "get the point across" (not to mention at least some reduction in size due to the message above), and then send it.

Again, if there will be some promising developments on tuluse's side, I won't do anything so that not to create any unnecessary disturbances.

tuluse has my blessings and complete moral support, but it still is his message - and the best person to develop an actual conversation from it is, again, tuluse himself. At least, that's my position on the matter.

 

[Infinitron]

Uh not sure I'd address the man on Twitter again. He probably thinks of you as "that Twitter spam guy" by now.

 

[m_s0]

My edit of tuluse's draft:

Spoiler

Planescape: Torment has become a cult hit among video games with a dedicated following and as such there are a lot of people who would be interested in hearing/preserving [/h&p] a copy of your original soundtrack.

Recently, a Kickstarter campaign for a follow-up to Torment was funded to the tune of 4 million dollars. This proves that Planescape: Torment itself still attracts considerable attention within the community.

The staying power of the game is further reflected in the coverage the game continues to receive on high-profile PC-centric websites to this day:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/09/25/retrospective-planescape-torment/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/planescape-torment-retrospective
http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/planescapetorment/

I cut out the bits that were needlessly repeated, all the explanation about Kickstarter, since he already knows what that is, and made it more to the point, less wishy-washy. No offence, man, but this needs to be precise and brief.

Someone get more links to articles, retrospectives and other assorted P:T crap - the larger the website the better.

I'm thinking adding examples of game music Kickstarters is a pretty good idea as well.

This is WIP, obviously.

 

[Akratus]

I also noticed that Tuluse had explained that the ps sequel got 4 million in it's kickstarter twice. I'd agree with Iqzulk that it comes off as a salesman's pitch. What you should be telling him is not how planescape is important to random people he doesn't know, but how making a kickstarter for this album is important to him. You should tell him that he has the chance to market the one and only soundtrack that never was for the cult game that everyone loves. Or whatever. You know, try to get those dollar signs to show up in his eyes.

 

[m_s0]

Fuck the dollar signs. You won't convince him this will make tons of money. He's not a retard. We need to convince him this isn't a waste of his time and resources - beyond that we can't do shit, especially not if we get sentimental about it and write entire essays about how we love P: T. To him it's a job for which he possibly got fucked 15 years ago.

Informing Brian Fargo about this wouldn't be a bad idea either. Since Inexile has Torment license, they might even be willing to use some of these songs in TToN. Maybe resident twiteress Crooked Bee could let him know.

Fargo is a bro and he might add some credibility. As of now this probably looks like a bunch of no-lifes crying for some music and probably expecting it to be free of charge.

 

[Sensuki]

or you could just try "yo man you should crowd-fund your PS:T music and cash in on the recent Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter success - the lead designer of the game said he'd give you an endorse as well"

 

[m_s0]

The only problem is: he didn't say that. Fargo is probably the better choice here (no offence to Colin, it's just a matter of name recognition), but as much as that would've helped I highly doubt they'd want to get involved officially.

What could help is publicizing the existence of another soundtrack before we send out our petition. Getting some more attention, spreading the E3 trailer with an explanation, linking to samples from Metavoid etc.

 

[tuluse]

m_s0, I think your message is too brief and too the point. It reads like a news ticker scrawl.

My approach was this: He probably doesn't think much of video games, and so he probably thinks most other people don't care either. I mean in general who would care about a canceled soundtrack to a 15 year old game? So we have to convince him that it is something people care about and would spend money on.

Also, we need to find out how much it would cost to do the mastering to see if kickstarter would be viable for him.

 

[Sensuki]

We could always do a Codex fundraiser

 

[m_s0]

m_s0, I think your message is too brief and too the point. It reads like a news ticker scrawl.

My approach was this: He probably doesn't think much of video games, and so he probably thinks most other people don't care either. I mean in general who would care about a canceled soundtrack to a 15 year old game? So we have to convince him that it is something people care about and would spend money on.

Also, we need to find out how much it would cost to do the mastering to see if kickstarter would be viable for him.

I think the tone and style are right (relatively dry, sticking to the facts above all) and that was my goal with that quick edit. As I said: it's still work in progress. Not complete, there's things that need to be added that are not there yet. I basically just cut out everything that I found unnecessary in your draft, 90% of which consisted of explaining Kickstarter anyway, and altered the rest a bit.

My reasoning is that you won't make him care if he doesn't give a shit already by droning on about how we love this game for several pages. I know I wouldn't feel like reading it in his position. Just read his posts on his forums - he doesn't look like he likes to fuck around too much and probably has shit to do. By sending a petition/letter/email you're already asking him for his time even before you actually get to request more of his time to fulfill said request.

I'd favour an approach that proves to him (as much as possible, anyway) that there is interest and that P: T isn't a random title from 15 years ago that no one remembers. Proves, not tells. Random people on the Internet - which we kind of are, hiding behind nicknames etc. - can tell you all sorts of shit. From there you can bring up ToN (with the number of backers, a tier breakdown of pledges, stuff like that) and start arguing that this is the best time to capitalize on the music he's got done anyway.

Also, a thought: I don't know how he works, but seeing as we're talking electronic music here chances are most of the heavy lifting has already been done, some of it possibly while he was working on Metavoid.

Oh, and feel free to add/mangle whatever you want, just don't go overboard (the two first drafts have gone way overboard imo). I feel we really need to keep it restrained - to a single page of text or so at most.

If anyone has feedback, helpful links, anything: do chip in, rewrite even.

 

[Brzęczyszczykiewicz]

We could always do a Codex fundraiser

Yeah I think that has biggest chance of success. Ask him straight "how much?" and then unless he would demand way too much for codex try to raise the money.

 

[ghostdog]

lol about the constant editing of the "draft", it's not like you're trying to make your case to the supreme court. Just give it to the guy already and be done with it.

And frankly this is a long shot. It's obvious Lustmord doesn't seem to be wanting to release this stuff, and he probably still holds a grudge for what happened back then. IF not, uploading them on his site and selling them through bandcamp (http://lustmord.bandcamp.com/album/metavoid) should be very easy for him and he doesn't need to raise any money to do so, bandcamp just takes a piece of the sale.

 

[m_s0]

lol about the constant editing of the "draft", it's not like you're trying to make your case to the supreme court.

I agree, but what we have now is scatterbrained shit, and that includes my bastardisation of what tuluse put together.

 

[tuluse]

I'd favour an approach that proves to him (as much as possible, anyway) that there is interest and that P: T isn't a random title from 15 years ago that no one remembers. Proves, not tells. Random people on the Internet - which we kind of are, hiding behind nicknames etc. - can tell you all sorts of shit. From there you can bring up ToN (with the number of backers, a tier breakdown of pledges, stuff like that) and start arguing that this is the best time to capitalize on the music he's got done anyway.

That's what I tried to do bringing in the retrospective articles and the TToN kickstarter, but maybe I didn't do a good job of it.

Also, I was definitely trying to use pathos in my letter because that's how kickstarter works, you have to appeal to people's feels.

 

[m_s0]

Pathos and petitions don't mix.

It likely won't matter if he really doesn't want to release it, but it doesn't look like he has a problem big enough to straight-up deny releasing it, and he's been asked a few times already here and there. As ghostdog pointed out, there are relatively cheap ways to do this - it's probably just a matter of putting some final work (meaning: time) into it. The more I think about his possible reasons the weirder they seem, honestly. I'm also thinking that it wouldn't hurt if the Codex wasn't the only community on get in on this. It would show him there's interest across several communities at least, so it's at least two people that care.

I'll try to string something together.

 

[m_s0]

My proposition of the lead-up to whatever we decide the actual suggestion should be, based on tuluse's write-up. Less dry and a bit more readable. I hope. There's even a touch of pathos especially for tuluse, but hopefully it's not overly-melodramatic, lol:

Spoiler

(Dear) Mr. Williams

We wish to inform you that there are a lot of people who would be interested in hearing your original soundtrack for Planescape: Torment.

Recently, a Kickstarter campaign for a follow-up to Torment was funded by over 74,000 backers to the tune of over 4 million dollars:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera

It is the most-funded game project on Kickstarter, and the second most-funded project on Kickstarter in general:
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/02/torment-tides-of-numenera-delayed-a-few-months-beyond-dec-2014/

This proves that Planescape: Torment itself still attracts considerable attention within the community. Planescape: Torment itself has become a video game cult hit since its release with a dedicated following lasting to this day, despite its age. The staying power of the game is also reflected in the coverage it still continues to receive on high-profile PC and RPG-centric websites. To name a few:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-greatest-games-of-all-time-planescape-torment/1100-6135401/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/planescape-torment-retrospective
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...t-a-podcast-post-mortem-with-the-games-makers
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/09/25/retrospective-planescape-torment/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/28/re-retrospective-planescape-torment/
http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/planescapetorment/
http://www.thunderboltgames.com/feature/remembering-planescape-torment

We are in no way affiliated with any parties involved in the creation of Planescape: Torment or its copyright/trademark owners. We’re merely a community of people passionate about role-playing games – virtual or otherwise – their history and their future. Our passion is reflected through the continuous support of independent developers and various Kickstarter campaigns in the recent years through a number of successful fundraisers:

I figure listing the fundraisers and the total amount they collected wouldn't be a terrible idea. Suggestions?

 

[tuluse]

That's pretty good. I personally, would put just a touch more into the introduction to make it flow a little nicer, but you did distill my letter down to it's core, well done.

Oh, one thing I noticed, the rps links are to the same retrospective, they posted it twice for some reason.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Informing Brian Fargo about this wouldn't be a bad idea either. Since Inexile has Torment license, they might even be willing to use some of these songs in TToN. Maybe resident twiteress Crooked Bee could let him know.

Sorry, I haven't been following this thread. What do you want me to tweet exactly? (And why?)

 

[ghostdog]

Sorry, I haven't been following this thread. What do you want me to tweet exactly? (And why?)

That there is about 100 minutes of music Lustmord made for PST before he was replaced by Mark Morgan. (You can hear his music in the first PST trailer). PST fans would be interested in seeing that music get published or even used in some parts in TToN.

Or something along those lines. (Lustmord is a bit butthurt for being canned from PST in the last minute).

Bah, frankly I'm not even sure if this would be of any real consequence.

 

[CMcC]

I just dropped him a line via Facebook to apologize for the way Interplay treated him, and to let him know that I'd be happy to talk to him about Kickstarter if he has any interest in pursuing it.

(it was really more about the apology for me, but I figured I might as well save you guys some agonizing while I was at it)

 

[FeelTheRads]

I just dropped him a line via Facebook to apologize for the way Interplay treated him, and to let him know that I'd be happy to talk to him about Kickstarter if he has any interest in pursuing it.

(it was really more about the apology for me, but I figured I might as well save you guys some agonizing while I was at it)

 

[Ninjerk]

I just dropped him a line via Facebook to apologize for the way Interplay treated him, and to let him know that I'd be happy to talk to him about Kickstarter if he has any interest in pursuing it.

(it was really more about the apology for me, but I figured I might as well save you guys some agonizing while I was at it)

You gonna get all the fists

 

[CMcC]

So I've got good news and bad news...

The bad news is that he's incredibly busy and doesn't have the time to invest into doing a Kickstarter that (depending on how he structured the rewards would probably bring in about $10-15K, most of which would be spent on shipping and rewards. I've told him that if he ever changes his mind, I'd be happy to help him build a campaign, but in the meantime, his new projects are pretty damn cool, and at least one of them has me suitably geeked out.

I'll talk to him again closer to the time that we're putting together the PST retrospective.

(The good news is that he and I are totally cool; he doesn't blame me for Interplay yanking the music, so the lingering guilt-nausea I've had for the past decade has lessened a bit)

 

[FeelTheRads]

PST retrospective.

Is that when you're supposed to do the PST let's play?
Come on, man, how long do we have to wait for that? We're not immortal, you know?