Game News Torment Kickstarter Update #14: Tony Evans On Combat, Vision Doc and HOLY CRAP Another Screenshot?!

[Captain Shrek]

Brother None

 

[A user named cat]

That the least you found? Almost all projections of objects that tilt in any angle to the horizontal plane are terrible. Look at those stairs! Not to mention the stark contrast between different objects which just fail to blend in with the picture and look like were added as a later thought. THE FUCKING BRIDGE FOR EXAMPLE.

It was just pretty much the first thing I noticed. The area looks pretty cool though and I like the design on the building to the right, could make for a great city to explore. I agree that the bridge does stick out like a sore thumb.

 

[Kz3r0]

 

[Zeriel]

But is the door destructible?

 

[Captain Shrek]

Nope. Only lockpicks.

 

[Murk]

Exponential incline.

Soooooooo much good stuff. Oh lord.

 

[Shevek]

The Codex will have to come out in force to make Turn Based happen for this game.

 

[Zeriel]

The Codex will have to come out in force to make Turn Based happen for this game.

We can't even beat RPGWatch on the Divinity Kickstarter. Somehow I doubt we're going to outweigh 60,000 Bioware RTwP fans.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

All this incline ... I think I'll just quit gaming in 2015. Best to leave on top of the incline tide, I couldn't bare witnessing another decline after all of this.

 

[Stabwound]

The Codex will have to come out in force to make Turn Based happen for this game.

We can't even beat RPGWatch on the Divinity Kickstarter. Somehow I doubt we're going to outweigh 60,000 Bioware RTwP fans.

Hey, man. According to Swen of Larian's blog, as of today this place has a whole 6 more pledgers than the watch. But they did donate more overall. It's pretty close.

 

[St. Toxic]

Hate to nitpick ANOTHER screenshot especially since this one looks much better and more interesting. What is up with the perspective though? It's messing with my brain or I'm just looking at it wrong.

Oddly, my reaction is the opposite. The first mockup was a straight-up 3d brushover, while this would actually be passable even for 2d sprites. Even the stairs make sense. Poor reality but descent isometry.

 

[Zeriel]

The Codex will have to come out in force to make Turn Based happen for this game.

We can't even beat RPGWatch on the Divinity Kickstarter. Somehow I doubt we're going to outweigh 60,000 Bioware RTwP fans.

Hey, man. According to Swen of Larian's blog, as of today this place has a whole 8 more pledgers than the watch. But they did donate more overall. It's pretty close.

Spoiler

Just saw that! And was like, "Someone is going to call me out on that". But I really feel like the masses of people who played the Infinity Engine games are going to outweigh us massively on the combat system. Especially considering even here there are quite a few people who are fine with RTwP, too.

 

[tuluse]

I'm pretty sure that is a ramp going up. So the answer to "vertical much?" is yes.

 

[Stabwound]

Just saw that! And was like, "Someone is going to call me out on that". But I really feel like the masses of people who played the Infinity Engine games are going to outweigh us massively on the combat system. Especially considering even here there are quite a few people who are fine with RTwP, too.

I think you might be surprised here. I think turn-based might still be more popular overall. You'd hope that people who are purchasing a "thinking man's" game rather than a dungeon hack would be more inclined to like slower, more tactical combat.

I just hope I'm right.

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

did someone say no TB combat?!

lol combat fags, prepare your anii...cuz if it comes down to a vote this bitch will be RTwP!

It's times like this when I thank Galactus for creating me a flexible and tolerant man.

 

[FeelTheRads]

lol combat fags

Someone ban this retarded faggot.

 

[Taluntain]

The screen's nice, but a bit too clean and smooth for my tastes. Like before Menze went in and dirtied and detailed the original Torment backgrounds. I hope this gets done still.

For reference: http://planescape.outshine.com/official.planescape-torment.org/oldnews/tim_0609.html

 

[Anac'raxus]

I think you might be surprised here. I think turn-based might still be more popular overall. You'd hope that people who are purchasing a "thinking man's" game rather than a dungeon hack would be more inclined to like slower, more tactical combat.

I just hope I'm right.

If they want anything like a Many-as-One fight, I hope they won't go for classical IGoCraniumrat1GoCraniumrat2Go...Craniumrat20Go turn-based. Fallout was awesome, but waiting for rats to take turns wandering aimlessly while in combat wasn't. There either needs to be no massive battles resolved outside of something like dialog trees, or some level of simultaneous resolution in combat.

 

[Jashiin]

Hate to nitpick ANOTHER screenshot especially since this one looks much better and more interesting. What is up with the perspective though? It's messing with my brain or I'm just looking at it wrong.

Oddly, my reaction is the opposite. The first mockup was a straight-up 3d brushover, while this would actually be passable even for 2d sprites. Even the stairs make sense. Poor reality but descent isometry.

 

[MRY]

I feel bad saying this, but I find this screenshot really quite off-putting. For me, a key component of the Dying Earth genre -- which Numenera is clearly trying to evoke; key examples would be the Dying Earth series itself by Jack Vance, the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, and the Viriconium series by John Harrison (how odd, incidentally, that all are tetralogies) -- is the uncanny, alien, and vaguely off-putting quality that infuses them. While the last screenshot may have been over-the-top in that direction, and is somewhat derivative of a variety of other game environments (the Sanitarium one immediately popped out to me), it did at least feel genuinely alien. The idea that humans would inhabit such an environment is part of what infuses, I'm groping for the right word, the tragic displacement of Dying Earth fiction: humans once had a home suited to them, it's been ruined, but there's still something of it left that you can see, enough to remind you of what they lost.

The Sagus Cliffs concept art had that feel because the intense vertical configuration (sort of a hyper-Sorrento), the unnervingly transparent and unreflective water, the not-quite-seagulls, the giant cobwebbing, and even the crappy shanty-town look to some of the buildings. Now, I realize this screenshot is just one thing. But, even considering the force-field bridge, there's nothing that either conjures Earth's lost past (which is to say, our present) or Earth's uncanny future. This could easily be the Forgotten Realms. I do realize that you need some less strange places to offset the strange places, but couldn't the less strange places be more like our world and less like a generic fantasy setting?

Maybe I'm looking a the Numenera world the wrong way, though. For what it is, it's a very pretty screenshot. Would look great in Project: Eternity.

 

[Zeriel]

I feel bad saying this, but I find this screenshot really quite off-putting. For me, a key component of the Dying Earth genre -- which Numenera is clearly trying to evoke; key examples would be the Dying Earth series itself by Jack Vance, the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, and the Viriconium series by John Harrison (how odd, incidentally, that all are tetralogies) -- is the uncanny, alien, and vaguely off-putting quality that infuses them. While the last screenshot may have been over-the-top in that direction, and is somewhat derivative of a variety of other game environments (the Sanitarium one immediately popped out to me), it did at least feel genuinely alien. The idea that humans would inhabit such an environment is part of what infuses, I'm groping for the right word, the tragic displacement of Dying Earth fiction: humans once had a home suited to them, it's been ruined, but there's still something of it left that you can see, enough to remind you of what they lost.

The Sagus Cliffs concept art had that feel because the intense vertical configuration (sort of a hyper-Sorrento), the unnervingly transparent and unreflective water, the not-quite-seagulls, the giant cobwebbing, and even the crappy shanty-town look to some of the buildings. Now, I realize this screenshot is just one thing. But, even considering the force-field bridge, there's nothing that either conjures Earth's lost past (which is to say, our present) or Earth's uncanny future. This could easily be the Forgotten Realms. I do realize that you need some less strange places to offset the strange places, but couldn't the less strange places be more like our world and less like a generic fantasy setting?

Maybe I'm looking a the Numenera world the wrong way, though. For what it is, it's a very pretty screenshot. Would look great in Project: Eternity.

Yeah, I was getting this vibe too, just didn't want to be much of a dick by mentioning it. The more I've seen of Numenera, I get the feeling that aesthetically they're trying to do more science fantasy than science fiction, even though Monte talks a lot about sci-fi. (Monte also talks about how science fantasy IS sci-fi, but I'd argue that there's a very strong aesthetic difference between the two.)

 

[Direwolf]

Keeping mine at $28 tier. Too jew go higher.

 

[DeepOcean]

The bloom screenshot was good but too alien to attract unsuspecting biodrones or Torment noobies, the second screenshot is perfect for that because it shows a art style very similar to a Infinity Engine game. The art style on the end game is going to be, probably, more like the bloom screenshot.

 

[MRY]

The more I've seen of Numenera, I get the feeling that aesthetically they're trying to do more science fantasy than science fiction, even though Monte talks a lot about sci-fi. (Monte also talks about how science fantasy IS sci-fi, but I'd argue that there's a very strong aesthetic difference between the two.)

Well, Dying Earth fiction really is more fantasy than sci-fi anyway. Vance's stuff was chock full of magicians and demons and whatnot, Viriconium has knights and monsters and pseudo-elves and actual dwarves (except that I think they're just like, small people not a separate race, which makes it kind of brilliant). With Wolfe, it's a tougher call, but it's still sword fights and monsters (smilodons! alzabos!) and giants and so forth. So I don't think that's quite it. It's more that the settings are crumbling, rotting. Where things are beautiful, it's because they're slicked with oil. If there are huge statues, they have alien proportions and inhuman visages. Etc. One great example of this, which alas I can't find online, is the description of the Metal-Salt Marsh in "The Lamia and Lord Cromis" in Viriconium Nights. Basically it's this weird fantasy swamp full of huge fantasy opponent insects and fantasy strange trees, but the whole thing is in the context of the swamps being polluted with heavy-metal run-off, such that rather than just feeling like a romp through a low-level dungeon, it's another nail in Earth's coffin. Here's a taste from the inferior Pastel City (the first book in the same series):

He was a hero. During his lifetime, he untied the tribes, drove the Northmen into the mountains and tundra beyond Glenluce, and built the city-fortress of Duirnish on the edge of the Metal-Salt Marsh where rusts and chemicals weather-washed from the Great Brown Waste collected in bogs and poisonous fens and drained into the sea. Thus, he closed the Low Leedale against the remnants of the Northern regime, protecting the growing Southern cities of Soubridge and Lendalfoot.

Later

But straight ahead among the bracken and coarse grass at the mouth of the valley ran a narrow track. Fifty yards from the road, the heather failed, and the terrain became brow, faintly iridescent bog streaked with slicks of purple and oily yellow. Beyond that rose thickets of strangely shaped trees. The river meandered through it, slow and broad, flanked by dense reedbeds of bright ocher color. The wind blew from the north, carrying a bitter, metallic smell.

. . .

In the water thickets, the path wound tortuously between umber iron bogs, albescent quicksands of aluminum and magnesium oxides, and sumps of cuprous blue or permanganate mauve fed by slow, gelid streams and fringed by silver reeds and tall black grasses. The twisted, smooth-barked boles of the trees were yellow-ocher and burnt orange; through their tihgly woven foliage filtered a gloomy, tinted light. At their roots grew great clumps of multifaceted transulcent crystal like alien fungi.

Charcoal gray frogs with viridescent eyes croaked as the column floundered between the pools. Beneath the greasy surface of the water, unidentifiable reptiles moved slowly and sinuously. Dragonflies whose webby wings spanned a foot or more hummed and hovered between the sedges: their long, wicked bodies glittered bold green and ultramarine; they took their prey on the wing, pouncing with an audible snap of jaws on whining ephemeral mosquitoes and fluttering moths of April blue and chevrolet cerise.

Over everything hung the heavy, oppressive stench of rotting metal. After an hour, Cromis's mouth was coated with a bitter deposit, and he tasted acids. He found it difficult to speak. While his horse stumbled and slithered beneath him, he gazed about in wonder, and poetry moved in his skull, swift as the jeweled mosquito hawks over a dark slow current of ancient decay.

(And yes -- that decadent prose is as much a staple of the Dying Earth genre as anything else!)

Anyway, that scene, on some level -- a dwarf leading a knight through a magical marsh full of monsters and environmental hazards -- could just as easily be the Fellowship of the Ring detouring through the Dead Marshes. But the environmental details are unsettling; the idea that magic is grounded in a corruption of our natural world through workaday pollutants, the narcotic atmosphere, etc. I just don't get any of that from the second screenshot, while the first does have some of it.

I suppose "Haters gonna hate" applies to me.

[EDIT: Incidentally, I'm positive that Monte Cook will have read all the same books I've read in this genre, and more; his nerdscore is much higher than mine, he's been around longer, and this is his real job. So I'm sure he knows what he's doing in this respect. I hope the Torment team reads them, too, and doesn't just rely on the way they're digested into the Numenera source material because then you have the whole copy-of-a-copy effect. (Not saying Numenera is a copy; only that it is drawing upon a tradition.) I think they should be faithful to the Numenera setting, but capturing its vibe would probably be helped by knowing where that vibe comes from. Or where I imagine it comes from, anyway.]

 

[Jasede]

The hell is going on; the $$$ is barely rolling in right now. I was hoping for a more dramatic end rush, really.