Preview Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta Live on IGN

[sstacks]

I'm sure inXile will have a copy to spare for a prestigious youtuber.

Aaaand that knocks me right out, but thanks for the reminder that my YT far underperforms my show and podcast

 

[Lord Azlan]

LOL
who the hells gonna waste time reading 500.000 words of crap

he should be publishing books

Exactly.

"This sort of game is like curling up in bed and reading a large book..."

Maybe Bards Tale 4 is the one I want then

 

[Kev Inkline]

Kleenices?

Spoiler

Penii

Box of Kleenex or box of tissues.

Never heard that plural. Handle in your resignation ASAP.

Help me with grammar, I can't seem to remember the correct form: a faggotry of Codex, or Codexes?

 

[Bubbles]

Exactly.

"This sort of game is like curling up in bed and reading a large book..."

Maybe Bards Tale 4 is the one I want then

I predict that inXile will not hit their stride until Autoduel.

 

[Mustawd]

The plural of "Kleenex" is "Kleenex".

Let's test it out.

"Hand me a Kleenex please"

Ok makes sense

"Look at all that Kleenex"

Hmm, ok.

"It's a flock of Kleenex"

So far so good

"Give me 10 Kleenex please"

No..sorry this doesn't do it for me.

"The word Kleenex has been said so many times it has lost its meaning"

Pretty much...Kleenex.

 

[OndrejSc]

Fargo: "It's fun, it's just fun to be talking about it."

 

[Mustawd]

Snoop Doge is not cool tho

 

[Fezzik]

Color me impressed, inXile. Gimme.

 

[DeepOcean]

The beta is released. I am trying to decide whether to get a bowl popcorn to accompany the unfolding drama, or a box of kleenexes for when I am reduced to tears by Codexian scorn.

Codexian scorn come from hurt love, we are that girl that was cheated too many times to trust. Will this new Mr. Handsome be different and prove that love really exist? Pretty good plot for a romantic movie so I advise for you to get both popcorn and kleenex.

 

[Spectacle]

It's the PoE engine, just zoom in.

How would zooming in change the fact that character models don't have lots of detail or unique movement, acting, casting, fighting or idle animations (or so I assume)? Even on 2 different companions, robes seem to flutter at a same time.
2d graphics really emphasized personality of PST characters.

It's got nothing to do with 2D, the character sprites in PS:T are all pre-rendered 3D models. Giving the Numenera companions the same kind of individuality would require about the same amount of relative effort as it did for PS:T, Fargo just hasn't prioritized doing it.

 

[Infinitron]

It's got nothing to do with 2D, the character sprites in PS:T are all pre-rendered 3D models. Giving the Numenera companions the same kind of individuality would require about the same amount of relative effort as it did for PS:T, Fargo just hasn't prioritized doing it.

Wasn't his call...

 

[Shadenuat]

It's got nothing to do with 2D, the character sprites in PS:T are all pre-rendered 3D models. Giving the Numenera companions the same kind of individuality would require about the same amount of relative effort as it did for PS:T, Fargo just hasn't prioritized doing it.

I know that IE is all pre-rendered, it's just easier to say 2D than always say "pre-rendered" when comparing old isometric pre-rendered games to modern 3D ones.
It may even be quite viable term since it means there is no 3D geometry in game.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

It's got nothing to do with 2D, the character sprites in PS:T are all pre-rendered 3D models. Giving the Numenera companions the same kind of individuality would require about the same amount of relative effort as it did for PS:T, Fargo just hasn't prioritized doing it.

Wasn't his call...

To be fair, just because ksaun passed this info on to us doesn't mean it was his decision alone. Perhaps it was, but it seems like quite a high level strategic decision on how they wanted to make use of PE's tech, so who knows. I wonder what exactly he meant by this line though:

We are planning to do a couple other things differently from PE that should place greater emphasis on the companions, but we're not ready to go into details yet.

 

[Spectacle]

It's got nothing to do with 2D, the character sprites in PS:T are all pre-rendered 3D models. Giving the Numenera companions the same kind of individuality would require about the same amount of relative effort as it did for PS:T, Fargo just hasn't prioritized doing it.

I know that IE is all pre-rendered, it's just easier to say 2D than always say "pre-rendered" when comparing old isometric pre-rendered games to modern 3D ones.
It may even be quite viable term since it means there is no 3D geometry in game.

But why bring it up at all? Pre-rendered or real-time rendering has no bearing on how varied the characters can be, it's just a matter of whether or not you dedicate time and resources to making different models and animations.

 

[Shadenuat]

But why bring it up at all? Pre-rendered or real-time rendering has no bearing on how varied the characters can be, it's just a matter of whether or not you dedicate time and resources to making different models and animations.

It's you who brought it up. I was just bitching that characters don't look nearly good enough compared to old PST, and even pointed out that more effort seemed to be put into backgrounds than characters themselves. "2d graphics really emphasized personality of PST characters" meant that PST used it's pre-rendered graphics to good effect, not that 3d graphics is somehow inferior.

 

[Gruncheon]

There's a bunch of people who contributed more than Monte Cook and McComb.
Cook wrote 3 modules afaik (too lazy to check atm):
Tales of the Infinite Staircase: This one was...ok. It was well written, but poorly designed.
Dead Gods: It had one major flaw in the ending, but overall it was pretty good.
Great Modron March (with McComb): Everything about this one was terrible.


Except Monte Cook never worked on PS:T...

Why was Modron March so bad out of curiosity? Remember liking it when I was much younger

 

[Fairfax]

There's a bunch of people who contributed more than Monte Cook and McComb.
Cook wrote 3 modules afaik (too lazy to check atm):
Tales of the Infinite Staircase: This one was...ok. It was well written, but poorly designed.
Dead Gods: It had one major flaw in the ending, but overall it was pretty good.
Great Modron March (with McComb): Everything about this one was terrible.


Except Monte Cook never worked on PS:T...

Why was Modron March so bad out of curiosity? Remember liking it when I was much younger

It was endless combat with a boring story and bad writing. The modrons attack every X years for no special reason, now they're attacking out of schedule. That was the story, yet the main question ("why now?") is only explained in Dead Gods. It adds a metaplot, but unless the DM knows all of it by heart (the sequels included), there's zero to expand upon.
The scenarios are all meant for different levels with gaps between, which requires adaptation if you want to play them in sequence. That's alright when they're worth it, but it has nothing going for it besides the endless fights, and they weren't that interesting either. The alternative is to go back to them sporadically, and that makes the module even more disappointing.

Basically, anything important story-wise could've been told in Dead Gods, and the endless encounters are boring (Hellbound was much better in that regard, and it was a similar premise).

 

[uaciaut]

Kleenices?

Kleenexi

 

[United Nations]

I think TTON will flop. I hope I'm wrong but ... it seems they are going the wrong way in their quest to be original/different.

The combat looks bad. The walls of text likewise. CYOA shit is still shit. The narrator is annoying. UI is ... no comment.

Basically the story/gameworld will make or break this game. Or I'm missing something?

UI looks like some whack-ass sci-fi design that was generated by an HR Giger wannabe.

 

[crawlkill]

just threw in another $20 to get beta access, because I have no sales resistance. I keep feeling iffy about this game for no reason I can say, and I didn't really like the delivery of the voicework in the beginning there (c'mon, the dude shouting for you to make a bridge was no Morte), but on being reminded they didn't have any of the bullshit intolerable interminable samey meaningless combat that plagues...uh, most RPGs, I was smitten anew. I reeeally am only interested in hand-crafted encounters in non-action games.

 

[MrMarbles]

Why do they shove the tech in the player's face right off the bat? One of the great advantages of this kind of setting is to be able to build up the player's anticipation, so that when you get your first glimpse of the old world it's a memorable experience. Imagine if AoD started off with the player stepping through a portal. Even Fallout made you explore the shithole wasteland before The Glow. If you want people to think something is special you have to make it hard to get.

 

[almondblight]

Eh, I dunno. A lot of dying earth type fiction has advance tech just kind of floating around. The point isn't so much that it's hidden, but that it's not understood (and also fairly valuable). Not saying that ToN had to go this route, but it's a route that's worked just fine in the past.

 

[crawlkill]

The scrolling is a little...janky, and my machine hitches for a half-second every time an enemy is selected in combat. those shadow thingies you unfight (which was interesting in itself and feels promising for the combat system in general, my tabletop design philosophy for games like this is that absolutely every encounter must have unique mechanics, don't waste your players' time with "popcorn") looked pretty boss, but had kind of this weird...ness in their animations. then I got into a remarkably long little CYOA experience of someone else's brain and ended up getting the poor guy devoured by a ghost. there were implications that I could've had him win, but when I replayed the shadow thingy combat and made the same choices, I got a different vignette the second time around, which faintly irritated me (in the stream they explicitly said the one you got was based on what you'd done so far).

 

[MRY]

You should've gotten the same Mere. Could you report the big via feedback button?

 

[crawlkill]

You should've gotten the same Mere. Could you report the big via feedback button?

Sure thing (it's also possible I didn't actually take the same steps, but I did deliberately try to, and in both cases picked the option that I'd tend to--think I even did the tanks in the same order).

Is it possible to beat the ghost's brain? I did notice that he seemed to be "rallying his forces" as I watched him. I wanted to wiiin! Then again maybe wormnose didn't deserve to.