Game News Torment: Tides of Numenera announced for PS4 and Xbox One, gets new trailer

[Burning Bridges]

King's Quest III was not rendering the whole scene to implement reflection - it was rendering the very few movable units and drawing that on top of a static, precreated, and almost certainly hand-drawn, "default background reflection". You can do essentially the same thing for any 3D game with a stationary camera as long as most objects (walls, stairs, pictures, tables, etc.) are mostly stationary from one frame to the next -- just render the static reflection once, and then every frame render and superimpose (2D/post-rasterization/cheap operation) only the moving objects that fall within the "mirror's field of view" on top of that static pre-rendered reflection (with the possible added complication of needing a Z buffer or using multiple non-overlapping 2D pre-rendered layers if the static stuff isn't strictly behind {from the mirror's perspective} the moving stuff, and with the down-side that that may not compute all of your lighting correctly - though you could probably fake that too to some extent - lighting is all fakery anyways so computing it "correctly" is never really an option).

Or you can just be a lazy-ass programmer and render the whole scene.

The key here is that the angle you view the mirror from is always the same. That's not the case in a 3d or 2.5d game.

Angle or not, isn't this relatively straightforward to implement by a camera? The content of the mirror is the camera, camera position is = center mirror position and camera angle is always -1 * Angle PlayerMirror ?

Of course this needs to get optimized so that the camera gets only calculated when the mirror is in the FOV of the player, renders at lower quality, etc

 

[a mod]

Angle or not, isn't this relatively straightforward to implement by a camera? The content of the mirror is the camera, camera position is = center mirror position and camera angle is always -1 * Angle PlayerMirror ?

Of course this needs to get optimized so that the camera gets only calculated when the mirror is in the FOV of the player, renders at lower quality, etc

What I mean is to do it in such a way that you do not need to rerender it. You can actually do a skybox render too and use that for your mirror and just change uvs on the textures but it's going to require more texture space to save it. And of course you have to do any dynamic changes separately...but if we talk about an rpg or console game this is a good way to do it cheaply. Otherwise just render from a portal if you don't care too much about performance.

tldr most game makers and even engine makers are morons, and even the ones who are not, are either lazy or under time constraints.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I wouldn't call myself a genius either, and it's some years since I fired up a 3d engine, but from what I remember in eg Ogre3d this sounds like something that could be done in a day. Just look at how easy many games can render UIs in 3D now, it's simply because this is all the same for the engine. The same way you can place cameras into the scene and as long as you dont put dozens of cameras at the same time, there isn't a problem with performance. As programmer you only need to update the angle which computationally speaking is total chickenfeed for modern CPUs.

 

[AwesomeButton]

$60 million for a divorce

wat

Maybe it's in rupees.

I blindly trusted this:

I've been avoiding saying this because it gets too personal for me

For me too.

Spoiler

It seems I haven't found anything about his curren divorce, looks like he paid nothing for this, though he paid 60-70 mln for his previous, so I don't think it is the case

 

[Infinitron]

Uh Brian Fargo is clearly a wealthy man but I doubt he has a net worth in the hundreds of millions. The development of inXile's games would have looked very different if he was. He's probably just a "garden variety" multi-millionaire.

 

[a mod]

To be honest, this is the big concern here. We've complained about control schemes in consoles for years. They're not... great. And for a developer to say they're focussing on PC, to turn around and announce they're now doing a simultaneous release on consoles... When has that ever gone well?

Making a port from any platform to any other platform typically isn't easy (ref current No Man's Sky debacle) - hence the extra time needed. But then you need to change things in the game too. Some things that worked great on a PC with some extra RAM, just don't work on a console. Among a myriad of other problems.

What it tells me is inXile did in fact run out of money for their vision. They needed extra, and went to a company that has never published a game before (Techland are developers, not publishers - Torment 2 will be their first). The extra time isn't just to do the console port, it's to finish the game. Which again means they still don't really have enough cash to complete their vision... Which means the whole KickStarter thing is probably dead. These guys had been saying since the start how this was PC focussed, this was a PC game... now suddenly it's a console game too and there's no problem with that?

I've been avoiding saying this because it gets too personal for me, but I do wonder if Brian Fargo's current divorce has been a part catalyst. The guy's got money himself, and has always spoken about putting in a bit extra for games he likes, but with a potentially expensive, messy divorce on the cards - he may have actually needed the extra cash. Throw in state of mind, even if he's ok but just with the divorce being a distraction, etc...

This has so many potential teething issues it has "possible impending disaster" written all over it.

I think it's mainly the people chosen for the task that are the problem. They obviously had wrong priorities, hired too many writers and too many designers and not enough programmers. And no one actually making any of this has made any of the classic rpgs of old either. If you gave them 5 million or 50 million there's just no reason to expect them to be able to make a game like torment.

And anyone who disagrees is a fucking idiot. I didn't invest in this turd. I was right. You were wrong so suck it morons.

 

[a mod]

Uh Brian Fargo is clearly a wealthy man but I doubt he has a net worth in the hundreds of millions. The development of inXile's games would have looked very different if he was. He's probably just a "garden variety" multi-millionaire.

Millionaires don't get rich by giving people money. I won't be surprised if my dad is richer than fargo (his neighbor)...and he didn't even pay for my fucking college.

You can bet that as a rule if you kickstart 2 million dollars, about a million goes into feargus or fargo's pockets. That is not a personal comment on those particular parties that is just how human beans operate, and what you have to do to stay in business.

You also can't really save business opportunities by throwing money at them either. It looks to be a turd unfortunately, time to salvage what can be salvaged and move on. That doesn't mean he can't ever make a good game again but OTOH if these kickstarters are not making enough to make pc only game or they just don't want to make them then obviously that's it.

 

[Fairfax]

Uh Brian Fargo is clearly a wealthy man but I doubt he has a net worth in the hundreds of millions. The development of inXile's games would have looked very different if he was. He's probably just a "garden variety" multi-millionaire.

Nobody said he's worth hundreds of millions, but that villa alone is worth at least $20-30 million.
And InXile only made iOS shovelware between the 2004 Bard's Tale release and getting the Hunted: Demon's Forge contract in 2009/2010. He had to pay that out of his pocket, I imagine.

Also, just because he's that rich doesn't mean he's willing to put his own money on the line like that. Who knows how much he's tapped into the family's coffers already.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I think it's mainly the people chosen for the task that are the problem. They obviously had wrong priorities, hired too many writers and too many designers and not enough programmers. And no one actually making any of this has made any of the classic rpgs of old either. If you gave them 5 million or 50 million there's just no reason to expect them to be able to make a game like torment.

And anyone who disagrees is a fucking idiot. I didn't invest in this turd. I was right. You were wrong so suck it morons.

After the KS I often asked myself if he even could get enough of the right people. I mean there are so many people today with computer related jobs and so few with actual skills. After teh kickstarter he probably hired a shitton of people and 50% garbage.

The shittieness of WL2 was leading in that direction, at the beginning they had really high hopes and ambitions but during the actual development it quickly turned to shit because those people were no good.

So from the beginning it felt for me like an attempt at making 1st rate games with too many 2nd and 3rd rate people. I mean they hired even Brother None, what more is there to say

 

[Roguey]

Nobody said he's worth hundreds of millions, but that villa alone is worth at least $20-30 million.

You would be mistaken, all the estimates I see on the internet value it at at 6-13 million (I imagine realistically it'd be somewhere in the middle), annual tax around $80,000-85,000. You'll have to google it yourself because even though it's very easily publicly available it'd be inappropriate to post his address here imo.

 

[valcik]

This is interesting actually, so I went ahead and searched for hard data related to Kickstarter. Found some paper released by University of Pennsylvania:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2808000

Kickstarter is responsible for:
300.000 jobs created
$5.3 billion in economic impact generated
4.200 patents related to KS projects registered due to more than 50% projects considered to be inovative
8.800 new companies created

How come we still don't have proper new Fallout or Arcanum grade RPG with all this shit?

 

[sser]

What's this about a Codex ban?

 

[Fairfax]

Nobody said he's worth hundreds of millions, but that villa alone is worth at least $20-30 million.

You would be mistaken, all the estimates I see on the internet value it at at 6-13 million (I imagine realistically it'd be somewhere in the middle), annual tax around $80,000-85,000. You'll have to google it yourself because even though it's very easily publicly available it'd be inappropriate to post his address here imo.

From a quick look at Sotheby's: his seems to be of this caliber, and that's $20 million in Newport Beach.
This one is $13 million, but nowhere near as big or fancy as the one in the video (although it's seaside).

It all depends on the ZIP code, of course, but 6-13 million seems a tier below.

 

[Infinitron]

Uh Brian Fargo is clearly a wealthy man but I doubt he has a net worth in the hundreds of millions. The development of inXile's games would have looked very different if he was. He's probably just a "garden variety" multi-millionaire.

Nobody said he's worth hundreds of millions

Except for the people ITT positing that he paid a $60M divorce settlement.

 

[Lurker King]

What's this about a Codex ban?

Everything is in this epic thread.

 

[Roguey]

From a quick look at Sotheby's: his seems to be of this caliber, and that's $20 million in Newport Beach.
This one is $13 million, but nowhere near as big or fancy as the one in the video (although it's seaside).

It all depends on the ZIP code, of course, but 6-13 million seems a tier below.

As far as the US government's concerned his land is worth $3,932,660 and the building itself is worth $4,005,729. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[a mod]

After the KS I often asked myself if he even could get enough of the right people. I mean there are so many people today with computer related jobs and so few with actual skills. After teh kickstarter he probably hired a shitton of people and 50% garbage.

The shittieness of WL2 was leading in that direction, at the beginning they had really high hopes and ambitions but during the actual development it quickly turned to shit because those people were no good.

So from the beginning it felt for me like an attempt at making 1st rate games with too many 2nd and 3rd rate people. I mean they hired even Brother None, what more is there to say

On WL 2 they had The Supreme Jerk for instance. But torment was sort of the B team.

But look at all the random tards they hired. A bunch of writers from whogivesafuckistan, some washups from obshitian which itself never made a classic RPG.

Hiring writers is actually a pretty new and shitty thing for RPG land. That is how we got worthless fucks like gaider and Hepler. Because no one who wants to be a writer wants to work in shitty video games in the first place.

For torment instead there was guido henkel and cris avelone. They were guys who wanted to actually make video games, and one of the was probably someone who could be classed as a top notch programmer as well.

So what do we get here with a random lol let's make a game crew typical of today's agming industry. We get some asshole writers who can give a fuck about vidcon nonsense and are not good enough writers to make it in the big time. We get a bunch of 'designers' who are really coders implementing shit...but they are NOT real programmers.

Plus no one on the crew ever made a single thing that is a classic, or honestly anything good at all.

So how the fuck can this possibly lead to making a classic game?

The classic vidcons were all made the same way. Some good programmers, some good artists, some generalists here and there and some of them got promoted to being producers or project managers.

It's like someone wants to make a louis armstrong knockoff. First off let's get some synthesizers! And autotune! And let's hire Geore R. R. Martin to do the lyrics! FUCKING BRILLIANT THIS WILL BE LIKE LOUIS ARMSTRNG BUT TEN TIMES BETTER.

 

[Fairfax]

Uh Brian Fargo is clearly a wealthy man but I doubt he has a net worth in the hundreds of millions. The development of inXile's games would have looked very different if he was. He's probably just a "garden variety" multi-millionaire.

Nobody said he's worth hundreds of millions

Except for the people ITT positing that he paid a $60M divorce settlement.

Didn't see that, but yeah, for the settlement to be $60M he'd have to be worth several hundred million.

From a quick look at Sotheby's: his seems to be of this caliber, and that's $20 million in Newport Beach.
This one is $13 million, but nowhere near as big or fancy as the one in the video (although it's seaside).

It all depends on the ZIP code, of course, but 6-13 million seems a tier below.

As far as the US government's concerned his land is worth $3,932,660 and the building itself is worth $4,005,729. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The fuck, you know his address? I think it should stop here.

 

[a mod]

I wouldn't call myself a genius either, and it's some years since I fired up a 3d engine, but from what I remember in eg Ogre3d this sounds like something that could be done in a day. Just look at how easy many games can render UIs in 3D now, it's simply because this is all the same for the engine. The same way you can place cameras into the scene and as long as you dont put dozens of cameras at the same time, there isn't a problem with performance. As programmer you only need to update the angle which computationally speaking is total chickenfeed for modern CPUs.

I was just responding to the guy who said it could be done statically in some method easily. In reality you can just use a portal and bam it's done. On PC at least where you have the power.

 

[Lurker King]

This is interesting actually, so I went ahead and searched for hard data related to Kickstarter. Found some paper released by University of Pennsylvania:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2808000

Kickstarter is responsible for:

300.000 jobs created

$5.3 billion in economic impact generated

4.200 patents related to KS projects registered due to more than 50% projects considered to be inovative

8.800 new companies created

How come we still don't have proper new Fallout or Arcanum grade RPG with all this shit?

That is because you are looking in the wrong place and for the wrong people. On theory, Kickstarter sounds like a wonderful idea, but in practice is a hype machine that induces developers to overpromise what they can’t possibly know in order to get funded. The result is developers overwhelmed by poorly planned deadlines and rushed development, charging backers for earlier access, and releasing games in alpha stage. The days of the veterans of the industry are long gone. They are completely burnout and have no passion for cRPGs anymore. Just forget about them, they are the past. You need to refocus your attention to the where the talent really is. Underrail, Age of Decadence and Battle Brothers (still in early access) blow out of the water all the hyped kickstarters with celebrity devs. Each of these games was made by few talented and passionate individuals living on a tent. No millions of Kickstarter funding, no journous giving them free publicity, no veterans of the industry, no nothing. Yet, they are awesome. We have new classics, you are just not paying attention.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Ah ok. But it's not 1994 anymore.

 

[Tito Anic]

That is because you are looking in the wrong place and for the wrong people. On theory, Kickstarter sounds like a wonderful idea, but in practice is a hype machine that induces developers to overpromise what they can’t possibly know in order to get funded. The result is developers overwhelmed by poorly planned deadlines and rushed development, developers charging backers for earlier access, games in alpha stage being released, etc. The days of the veterans of the industry are long gone. They are completely burnout and have no passion for cRPGs anymore. Just forget about them, they are the past. You need to refocus your attention to the where the talent really is. Underrail, Age of Decadence, Serpent in the Staglands and Battle Brothers (still in early access) blow out of the water all the hyped kickstarters with celebrity devs. Each of these games was made by few talented and passionate individuals living on a tent. No millions of Kickstarter funding, no journous giving them free publicity, no veterans of the industry, no nothing. Yet, they are awesome. We have new classics, you are just not paying attention.

fixed

 

[Burning Bridges]

So what do we get here with a random lol let's make a game crew typical of today's agming industry. We get some asshole writers who can give a fuck about vidcon nonsense and are not good enough writers to make it in the big time. We get a bunch of 'designers' who are really coders implementing shit...but they are NOT real programmers.

Where you wrote coders I actually read codexers, and I almost spilled my elder juice

But the real problem today abd the reason for is that the really good people all have companies of their own or better paid jobs elsewhere, whereas in the good old days they often ended up in small companies and made great games, at least when they were still young. Today PC games are mostly made by the riff raff. I mean even I was considering game development at some point, luckily I never went past the prototyping stage or I could be the center of endless derision now

 

[AwesomeButton]

OMG, what happened to this thread

 

[Roguey]

The fuck, you know his address? I think it should stop here.

Are you sure you're not interested in pictures of his ostentatious tastes

https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4261218578/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4261246372/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4260491523/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4260473561/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4267568689/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4260474209/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4261229444/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4261240076/in/album-72157623177335482/

I don't know how one can stand to live in such an orange, Skyrimmy environment.