Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[kwanzabot]

I didn't get much emotion out of this except annoyance.
Connection between slow walk->run->slow walk and "thought provoking game" = 0

Perhaps they can put in one of their famous toggles (for those damn people who don't get their vision, of course) and let us decide if setting it to always run ruins the thought provocation.

how much u gonna cry about a game ur too poor to buy?

 

[Infinitron]

Robert Purchese is doing overtime with the Torment hype: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-02-12-weird-and-imaginative-this-is-torment

Torment is unusual - and it will make unusual demands of you
Exploring inXile's old-school RPG in Early Access.

A weird scene catches my eye. There's a man standing on a rostrum with a creepy mummy-like figure behind him, and it's wrapping a rope around him - a rope coming from his mouth! Rank! I have to know more.

It's an execution and the rope-spewing man is the accused, and that thing behind him, that's his Death, a sort of living statue formed by the rope, which is actually flesh, tumbling from his mouth. Words turned to flesh, coming from a forced, hallucinatory nightmare. It gets worse, or better depending on how you look at it, because now the Death is fully formed it's using the fleshy rope to wrap around the man and squeeze him slowly to death. And when he dies, an even more ominous figure lurking behind - a hooded Devourer of Wrongs - will eat him, sucking the marrow from his bones, confirming the guilt within.

It's just a passing scene in a town, no biggie, and yet it's so typical of Torment: Tides of Numenera. This may look like something you've seen before, may even look unremarkable, but let yourself be intrigued and look again and you'll find that it it's so much more.

That's my little team, at some sort of cliff-face bar, obviously.

Having a relatively limited budget - a handful of millions - has been so liberating for this old-school role-playing game, which is now available in Early Access. Teams of people haven't spent weeks on cut-scenes that you're forced to watch otherwise the work be missed and wasted. Instead, Torment: Tides of Numenera relies on text, on imagination - and so fills its world more liberally, allowing you to miss things, which in turn makes discovery more rewarding. I can't remember the last time I explored a city so enthusiastically. I find a lady dealing in secrets, mine for hers; I find warriors fighting psychic mind wars; I learn about an odd citizenship procedure that requires instantly sacrificing a year of your life so a guard can be created to watch you. Then there are your bizarre surroundings: a world where civilisations have risen and fallen and left ancient relics far beyond comprehension and even time. Then, your bizarre predicament, as a body used by a god who has hastily just departed it.

Torment doesn't struggle for imagination but to make it really work you will need to invest yours, too, for this is a game about reading, about letting your mind wander as if you were reading a book - or as if you were playing a tabletop role-playing campaign. If you don't meet it half-way you will be left with a plain experience. Fully half of the screen can be text at times, with little going on elsewhere, although sparse but well-timed sound and visual ornaments - shouts of a crowd, flashes of light - do enough to bring to life what you read. It isn't ugly, I'm not saying that; the environments are like lovely little paintings that your rather more mundane characters trample on. But it is a game that requires your input.

This is the disclaimer of sorts that greets you as you start new game. It's lovely, in a way.

It does a good job of getting you in the right frame of mind, though, pushing you down into your chair and preparing you for what comes ahead. I wrote about the the opening two minutes of the game in a separate article because they stunned me, slapped me up sharp, and this was followed by an inventive character creation sequence with not a statistic in sight. It was all story and interactive dialogue and ethical and philosophical choices about who I was. It was very effective.

But of course there are dice rolls. There are those mechanical innards - this is a role-playing game after all. It's not based on Dungeons & Dragons, that's a major differentiator from its thematic predecessor Planescape: Torment, but instead a new tabletop game called Numenera, which tends towards story rather than spreadsheets, and that's apparent here. But there are statistics, character sheets, to-hit modifiers, turns, flanking, and all that stuff. And there are new things, such as abilities connected with Tides (alignments of sorts), and ancient relics called Numenera you can use in battle. Generally, though, it's familiar and comfortable, although the implementation can be sluggish and fiddly and ultimately a bit boring, lacking the zip and zest of a turn-based game like XCOM 2. Still, it's early days, and there's usually a way out of Torment's major encounters that isn't fighting.

When it has to do numbers and stats, they're generally clear and understandable.

More broadly, the Early Access experience can be rough, and it would be unfair to scrutinise too deeply at this stage. I've had crashes, bugs preventing progress, incompatible saved games. This meant retreading sections and trying things differently, and the game is pliable in this way, but not enough to prevent my re-traipsing eventually becoming a slog. And a slog isn't how I want to remember Torment nor how I would advise you experiencing it. I hope inXile uses the months planned in Early Access - and the patient people along for the ride - to bang out the kinks and sharpen the edges.

I believe there's something special here, something unusual, something different. Not since Planescape: Torment has a role-playing game sparked my imagination in the same way. I always wondered how Torment: Tides of Numenera would - or indeed could - follow such an act, such a singular story about the very nature of human beings. Would it be possible? Well, hold your breath, because from the glimpse of Torment: Tides of Numenera I've seen, yes, I think it is.

 

[Daedalos]

Next patch, when??!?!

 

[Infinitron]

Arvan Eleron interview tonight:

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Jedi Exile]

Finally found some time to play the beta and it's funny, but I am actually impressed by the game even in its very early stage. It's fun to play, writing is good and music is great (Morgan did a better job with Torment than Wasteland 2, I think). I didn't really figured the systems yet, but it takes time. TToN definitely managed to capture that Planescape: Torment vibe and develop it further.

 

[damager]

Was inclined to try this. But 44,99€ for a Beta. Who is supposed to buy at that price? At 25€ they would have had a deal.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Was inclined to try this. But 44,99€ for a Beta. Who is supposed to buy at that price? At 25€ they would have had a deal.

You might be trolling, or you've never visited the InXile forums.

 

[damager]

But it's shameless isn't it? This is what causes piracy.

 

[Fry]

Not really, no.

 

[Abu Antar]

But it's shameless isn't it? This is what causes piracy.

They would supposedly piss off Kickstarter backers.

 

[dragonul09]

https://www.pixeldynamo.com/feature...ing-legacy-planescape-torment-tides-numenera/

Every object on those screens look so out of the fucking place,what the fuck happened? I get it,blatantly copying Planescape theme and atmosphere would be unwise,but to take such a nose dive in the art department? Everything looks so colorful and somehow the atmosphere has that knick of hapiness?
Is the design department split in 3 teams and never interact with each other? Because that's the feeling I get from this game.

 

[Prime Junta]

^
I wouldn't put it quite as harshly but yes, this is IMO a weakness of the game, as well a certain general sloppiness about the art.

cobblestones

 

[Grotesque]

This will be the game where Fargo will prove that he learned and acknowledged the weaknesses of Wasteland 2, especially at the start of the game.

Planescape Torment had a sense of ever-present weirdness and morbidity following you as a player.
But in regard to the feeling I got (from playing a pirated beta for 20 minutes) was more like "life in plastic is fantastic".

The first character I get to interact to is this fuckface,

where in Torment I got a freakin' sarcastic floating skull!? (oh, fuckface here floats too)

It's like the conversation went like, "draw the most boring face you can come up with, and then make it all green...
Then we'll hire a voice actor to make it sound like the nicest guy alive with a slight deficiency in the hormonal department"

The writing is superfluous, like the stake is to prove something to someone.
No sense of mystery also. Like it's suffocated by all these redundant words!
Over and above, seeing fuckface for the first time I had the feeling of being in the most boring 1 000 000 000 years in the future setting ever.

If the rest of the game feels as disjointed as these first gameplay minutes felt... this will be Pillars of Eternity reloaded in the failed expectations department.

 

[Prime Junta]

It gets better after a bit.

 

[Daedalos]

Was inclined to try this. But 44,99€ for a Beta. Who is supposed to buy at that price? At 25€ they would have had a deal.

To ensure not every retard like yourself gets to spew their nonsensical bullshit comments and opinions, that clutter up the real constructive feedback from people who actually care and wants to spend money to ensure the game gets good.

 

[CptMace]

Was inclined to try this. But 44,99€ for a Beta. Who is supposed to buy at that price? At 25€ they would have had a deal.

To ensure not every retard like yourself gets to spew their nonsensical bullshit comments and opinions, that clutter up the real constructive feedback from people who actually care and wants to spend money to ensure the game gets good.

Believe

 

[Reapa]

This is PS:T

Dolores (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs)
BY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower;
When these are gone by with their glories,
What shall rest of thee then, what remain,
O mystic and sombre Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain?

Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;
But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,
Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,
And then they would haunt thee in heaven:
Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
And the loves that complete and control
All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
That wear out the soul.

O garment not golden but gilded,
O garden where all men may dwell,
O tower not of ivory, but builded
By hands that reach heaven from hell;
O mystical rose of the mire,
O house not of gold but of gain,
O house of unquenchable fire,
Our Lady of Pain!

O lips full of lust and of laughter,
Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,
Bite hard, lest remembrance come after
And press with new lips where you pressed.
For my heart too springs up at the pressure,
Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;
Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,
Ere pain come in turn.

In yesterday's reach and to-morrow's,
Out of sight though they lie of to-day,
There have been and there yet shall be sorrows
That smite not and bite not in play.
The life and the love thou despisest,
These hurt us indeed, and in vain,
O wise among women, and wisest,
Our Lady of Pain.

Who gave thee thy wisdom? what stories
That stung thee, what visions that smote?
Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores,
When desire took thee first by the throat?
What bud was the shell of a blossom
That all men may smell to and pluck?
What milk fed thee first at what bosom?
What sins gave thee suck?

We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,
Thou art noble and nude and antique;
Libitina thy mother, Priapus
Thy father, a Tuscan and Greek.
We play with light loves in the portal,
And wince and relent and refrain;
Loves die, and we know thee immortal,
Our Lady of Pain.

Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;
Thou art fed with perpetual breath,
And alive after infinite changes,
And fresh from the kisses of death;
Of languors rekindled and rallied,
Of barren delights and unclean,
Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallid
And poisonous queen.

Could you hurt me, sweet lips, though I hurt you?
Men touch them, and change in a trice
The lilies and languors of virtue
For the raptures and roses of vice;
Those lie where thy foot on the floor is,
These crown and caress thee and chain,
O splendid and sterile Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.

There are sins it may be to discover,
There are deeds it may be to delight.
What new work wilt thou find for thy lover,
What new passions for daytime or night?
What spells that they know not a word of
Whose lives are as leaves overblown?
What tortures undreamt of, unheard of,
Unwritten, unknown?

Ah beautiful passionate body
That never has ached with a heart!
On thy mouth though the kisses are bloody,
Though they sting till it shudder and smart,
More kind than the love we adore is,
They hurt not the heart or the brain,
O bitter and tender Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.

As our kisses relax and redouble,
From the lips and the foam and the fangs
Shall no new sin be born for men's trouble,
No dream of impossible pangs?
With the sweet of the sins of old ages
Wilt thou satiate thy soul as of yore?
Too sweet is the rind, say the sages,
Too bitter the core.

Hast thou told all thy secrets the last time,
And bared all thy beauties to one?
Ah, where shall we go then for pastime,
If the worst that can be has been done?
But sweet as the rind was the core is;
We are fain of thee still, we are fain,
O sanguine and subtle Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.

By the hunger of change and emotion,
By the thirst of unbearable things,
By despair, the twin-born of devotion,
By the pleasure that winces and stings,
The delight that consumes the desire,
The desire that outruns the delight,
By the cruelty deaf as a fire
And blind as the night,

By the ravenous teeth that have smitten
Through the kisses that blossom and bud,
By the lips intertwisted and bitten
Till the foam has a savour of blood,
By the pulse as it rises and falters,
By the hands as they slacken and strain,
I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,
Our Lady of Pain.

Wilt thou smile as a woman disdaining
The light fire in the veins of a boy?
But he comes to thee sad, without feigning,
Who has wearied of sorrow and joy;
Less careful of labour and glory
Than the elders whose hair has uncurled:
And young, but with fancies as hoary
And grey as the world.

I have passed from the outermost portal
To the shrine where a sin is a prayer;
What care though the service be mortal?
O our Lady of Torture, what care?
All thine the last wine that I pour is,
The last in the chalice we drain,
O fierce and luxurious Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.

All thine the new wine of desire,
The fruit of four lips as they clung
Till the hair and the eyelids took fire,
The foam of a serpentine tongue,
The froth of the serpents of pleasure,
More salt than the foam of the sea,
Now felt as a flame, now at leisure
As wine shed for me.

Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen,
Marked cross from the womb and perverse!
They have found out the secret to cozen
The gods that constrain us and curse;
They alone, they are wise, and none other;
Give me place, even me, in their train,
O my sister, my spouse, and my mother,
Our Lady of Pain.

For the crown of our life as it closes
Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust;
No thorns go as deep as a rose's,
And love is more cruel than lust.
Time turns the old days to derision,
Our loves into corpses or wives;
And marriage and death and division
Make barren our lives.

And pale from the past we draw nigh thee,
And satiate with comfortless hours;
And we know thee, how all men belie thee,
And we gather the fruit of thy flowers;
The passion that slays and recovers,
The pangs and the kisses that rain
On the lips and the limbs of thy lovers,
Our Lady of Pain.

The desire of thy furious embraces
Is more than the wisdom of years,
On the blossom though blood lie in traces,
Though the foliage be sodden with tears.
For the lords in whose keeping the door is
That opens on all who draw breath
Gave the cypress to love, my Dolores,
The myrtle to death.

And they laughed, changing hands in the measure,
And they mixed and made peace after strife;
Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;
Death tingled with blood, and was life.
Like lovers they melted and tingled,
In the dusk of thine innermost fane;
In the darkness they murmured and mingled,
Our Lady of Pain.

In a twilight where virtues are vices,
In thy chapels, unknown of the sun,
To a tune that enthralls and entices,
They were wed, and the twain were as one.
For the tune from thine altar hath sounded
Since God bade the world's work begin,
And the fume of thine incense abounded,
To sweeten the sin.

Love listens, and paler than ashes,
Through his curls as the crown on them slips,
Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes,
And laughs with insatiable lips.
Thou shalt hush him with heavy caresses,
With music that scares the profane;
Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses,
Our Lady of Pain.

Thou shalt blind his bright eyes though he wrestle,
Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive;
In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle,
In his hands all thy cruelties thrive.
In the daytime thy voice shall go through him,
In his dreams he shall feel thee and ache;
Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue him
Asleep and awake.

Thou shalt touch and make redder his roses
With juice not of fruit nor of bud;
When the sense in the spirit reposes,
Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.
Thine, thine the one grace we implore is,
Who would live and not languish or feign,
O sleepless and deadly Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.

Dost thou dream, in a respite of slumber,
In a lull of the fires of thy life,
Of the days without name, without number,
When thy will stung the world into strife;
When, a goddess, the pulse of thy passion
Smote kings as they revelled in Rome;
And they hailed thee re-risen, O Thalassian,
Foam-white, from the foam?

When thy lips had such lovers to flatter;
When the city lay red from thy rods,
And thine hands were as arrows to scatter
The children of change and their gods;
When the blood of thy foemen made fervent
A sand never moist from the main,
As one smote them, their lord and thy servant,
Our Lady of Pain.

On sands by the storm never shaken,
Nor wet from the washing of tides;
Nor by foam of the waves overtaken,
Nor winds that the thunder bestrides;
But red from the print of thy paces,
Made smooth for the world and its lords,
Ringed round with a flame of fair faces,
And splendid with swords.

There the gladiator, pale for thy pleasure,
Drew bitter and perilous breath;
There torments laid hold on the treasure
Of limbs too delicious for death;
When thy gardens were lit with live torches;
When the world was a steed for thy rein;
When the nations lay prone in thy porches,
Our Lady of Pain.

When, with flame all around him aspirant,
Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,
The implacable beautiful tyrant,
Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;
And a sound as the sound of loud water
Smote far through the flight of the fires,
And mixed with the lightning of slaughter
A thunder of lyres.

Dost thou dream of what was and no more is,
The old kingdoms of earth and the kings?
Dost thou hunger for these things, Dolores,
For these, in a world of new things?
But thy bosom no fasts could emaciate,
No hunger compel to complain
Those lips that no bloodshed could satiate,
Our Lady of Pain.

As of old when the world's heart was lighter,
Through thy garments the grace of thee glows,
The white wealth of thy body made whiter
By the blushes of amorous blows,
And seamed with sharp lips and fierce fingers,
And branded by kisses that bruise;
When all shall be gone that now lingers,
Ah, what shall we lose?

Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion,
And thy limbs are as melodies yet,
And move to the music of passion
With lithe and lascivious regret.
What ailed us, O gods, to desert you
For creeds that refuse and restrain?
Come down and redeem us from virtue,
Our Lady of Pain.

All shrines that were Vestal are flameless,
But the flame has not fallen from this;
Though obscure be the god, and though nameless
The eyes and the hair that we kiss;
Low fires that love sits by and forges
Fresh heads for his arrows and thine;
Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgies
With kisses and wine.

Thy skin changes country and colour,
And shrivels or swells to a snake's.
Let it brighten and bloat and grow duller,
We know it, the flames and the flakes,
Red brands on it smitten and bitten,
Round skies where a star is a stain,
And the leaves with thy litanies written,
Our Lady of Pain.

On thy bosom though many a kiss be,
There are none such as knew it of old.
Was it Alciphron once or Arisbe,
Male ringlets or feminine gold,
That thy lips met with under the statue,
Whence a look shot out sharp after thieves
From the eyes of the garden-god at you
Across the fig-leaves?

Then still, through dry seasons and moister,
One god had a wreath to his shrine;
Then love was the pearl of his oyster,
And Venus rose red out of wine.
We have all done amiss, choosing rather
Such loves as the wise gods disdain;
Intercede for us thou with thy father,
Our Lady of Pain.

In spring he had crowns of his garden,
Red corn in the heat of the year,
Then hoary green olives that harden
When the grape-blossom freezes with fear;
And milk-budded myrtles with Venus
And vine-leaves with Bacchus he trod;
And ye said, "We have seen, he hath seen us,
A visible God."

What broke off the garlands that girt you?
What sundered you spirit and clay?
Weak sins yet alive are as virtue
To the strength of the sins of that day.
For dried is the blood of thy lover,
Ipsithilla, contracted the vein;
Cry aloud, "Will he rise and recover,
Our Lady of Pain?"

Cry aloud; for the old world is broken:
Cry out; for the Phrygian is priest,
And rears not the bountiful token
And spreads not the fatherly feast.
From the midmost of Ida, from shady
Recesses that murmur at morn,
They have brought and baptized her, Our Lady,
A goddess new-born.

And the chaplets of old are above us,
And the oyster-bed teems out of reach;
Old poets outsing and outlove us,
And Catullus makes mouths at our speech.
Who shall kiss, in thy father's own city,
With such lips as he sang with, again?
Intercede for us all of thy pity,
Our Lady of Pain.

Out of Dindymus heavily laden
Her lions draw bound and unfed
A mother, a mortal, a maiden,
A queen over death and the dead.
She is cold, and her habit is lowly,
Her temple of branches and sods;
Most fruitful and virginal, holy,
A mother of gods.

She hath wasted with fire thine high places,
She hath hidden and marred and made sad
The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces
Of gods that were goodly and glad.
She slays, and her hands are not bloody;
She moves as a moon in the wane,
White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy,
Our Lady of Pain.

They shall pass and their places be taken,
The gods and the priests that are pure.
They shall pass, and shalt thou not be shaken?
They shall perish, and shalt thou endure?
Death laughs, breathing close and relentless
In the nostrils and eyelids of lust,
With a pinch in his fingers of scentless
And delicate dust.

But the worm shall revive thee with kisses;
Thou shalt change and transmute as a god,
As the rod to a serpent that hisses,
As the serpent again to a rod.
Thy life shall not cease though thou doff it;
Thou shalt live until evil be slain,
And good shall die first, said thy prophet,
Our Lady of Pain.

Did he lie? did he laugh? does he know it,
Now he lies out of reach, out of breath,
Thy prophet, thy preacher, thy poet,
Sin's child by incestuous Death?
Did he find out in fire at his waking,
Or discern as his eyelids lost light,
When the bands of the body were breaking
And all came in sight?

Who has known all the evil before us,
Or the tyrannous secrets of time?
Though we match not the dead men that bore us
At a song, at a kiss, at a crime —
Though the heathen outface and outlive us,
And our lives and our longings are twain —
Ah, forgive us our virtues, forgive us,
Our Lady of Pain.

Who are we that embalm and embrace thee
With spices and savours of song?
What is time, that his children should face thee?
What am I, that my lips do thee wrong?
I could hurt thee — but pain would delight thee;
Or caress thee — but love would repel;
And the lovers whose lips would excite thee
Are serpents in hell.

Who now shall content thee as they did,
Thy lovers, when temples were built
And the hair of the sacrifice braided
And the blood of the sacrifice spilt,
In Lampsacus fervent with faces,
In Aphaca red from thy reign,
Who embraced thee with awful embraces,
Our Lady of Pain?

Where are they, Cotytto or Venus,
Astarte or Ashtaroth, where?
Do their hands as we touch come between us?
Is the breath of them hot in thy hair?
From their lips have thy lips taken fever,
With the blood of their bodies grown red?
Hast thou left upon earth a believer
If these men are dead?

They were purple of raiment and golden,
Filled full of thee, fiery with wine,
Thy lovers, in haunts unbeholden,
In marvellous chambers of thine.
They are fled, and their footprints escape us,
Who appraise thee, adore, and abstain,
O daughter of Death and Priapus,
Our Lady of Pain.

What ails us to fear overmeasure,
To praise thee with timorous breath,
O mistress and mother of pleasure,
The one thing as certain as death?
We shall change as the things that we cherish,
Shall fade as they faded before,
As foam upon water shall perish,
As sand upon shore.

We shall know what the darkness discovers,
If the grave-pit be shallow or deep;
And our fathers of old, and our lovers,
We shall know if they sleep not or sleep.
We shall see whether hell be not heaven,
Find out whether tares be not grain,
And the joys of thee seventy times seven,
Our Lady of Pain.

Okay, very early impressions of the beta (somewhat repeating myself from the news thread), since MRY and possibly other Exiles are reading.

(1) Too many adjectives. Get an editor to cut them by half and the writing will be greatly improved.
(2) Way, way too much information too early. Don't even name The Sorrow at this point, let alone define those scary shadow things as 'Sorrow fragments.' It's enough to know that something is after me and wants me dead, and the less I know about it at this point the scarier it will be. Same thing applies to the Tides: just let me interact with those critters without explaining what each of the Tides actually is; I want to discover that gradually as things go. And about lots of other things.
(3) Don't saddle me with Aligern and Callistege this early. I want to feel disoriented, lost, lonely, and confused; this way, I've got these two helpful characters giving me an orientation course straight out of the gate. Or else make them them a lot less informative and helpful. If you have to, have them argue sotto voce with each other on what to do with me, instead of presenting their cases politely and waiting for me to decide.

In short, MOAR MYSTARY. PS:T was all about a gradual unfolding of the mysteries of Sigil, the Planes, and TNO's past.

There will be more as I get deeper into the beta for sure.

this +100 and i would add that the writing has no style.

So is there a way to fast track character generation minigame?
If we got to answer question to create a character I prefer how SitS did it.

Also I don't like how tides choosing is done. I want the game to choose my Tide as I play, not by answering random questions before the game even starts.

From what I seen on IGN stream the start is a borefest compared to PST start.

Still not getting what people find so bad about the start/intro.

I think it fits perfectly, without being too verbose or obstructing in the narrive structure and exposition.

It's not skipable. It's arguably worse than unskipable intro videos since you can't even go do something else in that time. it's obviously much worse than skipable videos. For multiple playthroughs or just rerolls this shit is unjustifiable. forcing a fucking tutorial on the player just adds insult to injury.

Torment didn't have a single normal character. Animated dead, floating skull, ancient samurai elf, demonic babes, a TV set, etc. These characters look extremely boring in comparison. They look no different than the average IRL art student. I hope the remaining characters are a little more spectacular.

There is an argument for keeping the first few companions simple: It's to help the audience relate more to their story and to help open to up to what is a very weird world with some weird rules. That way later on you can start introducing weirder characters into the mix now that the audience is used to everything.

For example, despite Morte being a talking skull his characterization was one that we've seen many times before in other media. Now, I don't think they should just replicate Morte with a different form/voice since that's starting to push the line of simply appropriating Planescape's story.

There is no excuse for mediocracy. You wanna do something mediocre you get at job at McDonalds and sell burgers with fries 8 hours a day then go home to play fallout 4.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Good post by Reapa

 

[MRY]

Reapa While I'm not sure either problem can meaningfully be addressed in iteration, I'm curious. By "the writing has no style" do you mean: (1) unlike PS:T, where a single writer's style covered the overwhelming majority of the writing, here there are different styles from the different writers and it feels inconsistent or (2) the writing is bland (i.e., lacking "style" in the sense of "verve" or whatever)? My curiosity is mostly academic, but I'm curious all the same.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Answer him Reapa

 

[Reapa]

Reapa While I'm not sure either problem can meaningfully be addressed in iteration, I'm curious. By "the writing has no style" do you mean: (1) unlike PS:T, where a single writer's style covered the overwhelming majority of the writing, here there are different styles from the different writers and it feels inconsistent or (2) the writing is bland (i.e., lacking "style" in the sense of "verve" or whatever)? My curiosity is mostly academic, but I'm curious all the same.

fuck
probably both. i'd have to replay it to make any accurate evaluation since the last time i did was about a month ago. what i can say for sure is that the writing did not have the same impact on me compared to some of the writing in PS:T. it's hard to put a finger on it but there are books and games that have certain texts that will both send a shiver down my spine with goosebumps all over and make me want more. the spoilers will be my thoughts on the quotes and why they are good.

morrowind: azura's intro speech

They have taken you from the Imperial City's prison, first by carraige, and now by boat. To the east, to Morrowind. Fear not, for I am watchful. You have been chosen.

Spoiler

• you don't know who is talking to you and why: big hook
• she sounds caring, powerful and she gives you a quest even though she doesn't tell you what it is. this is symbolic of the freedom of morrowind. it's what people seem to miss with the new titles. there is no hand-holding and if you want to find out what you're supposed to do and why, you will have to search for those answers instead of getting them spoon-fed to you. yes you get told to report to caius cosades but it's not azura that tells you to do it, it's some officer. based on the fact that you are a prisoner about to get released and on your own opinion on authority you may very well disregard your orders and just carve your own path through the game. after all a higher power just told you, you had nothing to fear.
• it's basically just a one-liner but it tells you much about what kind of game you're going to play without as much as one descriptive word.

bg2 shadows of amn: irenicus intro

Spoiler

• you are told you are the child of bhaal but are not told who bhaal is.
• you are presented with the very antagonist: big hook
  
• he doesn't tell you he's the antagonist. he doesn't even sound evil. he's coherent, calm, and he's involved in some sort of research of which you are the victim. he seems to want to learn something from you and at the same time also teach you what he's learning. this contrasts with the fact that he's torturing you and risking your death in the process ("the pain will only be passing. you should survive the process"). that contrast makes him extremely interesting and worth hunting. he's also obviously very dangerous in the intelligent kind of way.
• note that bg 2 has a narator but it's not the narator that introduces you to the game. you don't get any superfluous description of who you are, where you are, why you are there. everything about the world is left to the player to explore.

stephen king's the dark tower: the gunslinger

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed

Spoiler

• by now you should see a pattern
• this is a masterpiece of how much can be said with how little wording. you have the good guy, the bad guy, an obvious conflict, the stage, even fucking character traits in only 12 words, in only one sentence.

tides of numenera: 4:48-6:27

Spoiler

• tl;dr
• but seriously why? why would you make an introduction that long? why would you hit the player with a wall of text right from the start? why would you so meticulously describe every fucking thing? i even hate having to write the following:
• "your mind wakes in darkness." no, it does not. you wake in darkness. separating the player from his own mind doesn't seem to serve any purpose (yet?). too much information that the player doesn't need at the time and didn't ask for. and no information whatsoever about the game.
• "aching cold sets into an unfamiliar body" you are (fucking) cold. again the game hints at things that require a lot of explaining and are not needed yet.
• "a distant howling surrounds you. louder with each passing second." thank you for paying someone to tell me i hear a howling instead of paying him to howl. is there a purpose to this given that the game features sounds? this is classic failure to acknowledge the medium one uses for his art.
• "insistent and invisible hands slap and tear at the membrane that protects you" oh i get it, you're telling me a fucking story instead of letting me play a story. this also begs immediate explaining which fails to materialize.
  
• "your first emotion is an involuntary and formless panic." duh, you just described the emotion of panic. -> you're panicking!
• "you feel you have forgotten something - something important, as if it once meant the world to you." i thought i was busy panicking. also i can't emulate that feeling. i just tried. probably because when i forget things they don't seem important, more than that i don't usually think of things i forget since i have forgotten about them. of course you can forget a movie title but you do know at the moment you're trying to remember it that it's a movie title you're trying to remember. you don't forget what it is you're trying to remember or you wouldn't be trying to remember it in the first place. but maybe that's just me. failing to tell me what it is i'm trying to remember makes this line extremely retarded to me at least.
• "but the details slip away as you grasp them." sooo, you don't actually grasp them. also how the fuck did we get to details all of a sudden? we don't even know the core idea we're trying to remember there.
• "you wake in darkness. you're cold. you're panicking. you're trying to remember something but fail" color me unimpressed and uninformed after a whole fucking wall of text.

PS:T Nihl Xander, Godsmen Engineer:

They do not possess the true fire. They speak of creation and they boast of their potential but they do not create anything beyond the mundane. Their imagination is poor, obsessed with the small details. A true Dreamer, I say, creates a grand scheme and then concentrates on the details. Starting with the details is for the ants of the imagination - the small insects who aspire only to be fed.

Spoiler

very nice imagery and self explanatory unlike the slapping hands. feel free to see this as prophetic criticism of PS:T writers of the PS:T sequels writers to come

PS:T O, of divine alphabet:

You mortals are like wasps. You build your lives/nests from the slimmest of branches, and when the wind shakes your home/life free, you seek to sting the wind to death. Instead of realizing your foolish mistakes, attempting to repair the damage you have caused yourselves, and learning from your experience, you bring harm to any who have the misfortune to blunder near you in your time of pain and distress. My advice to you - and to all mortals: Stop acting like an insect and start acting sentient.

Spoiler

and at long last a sample of style. "you seek to sting the wind to death" 3-4 2-5 3-4 2-5

 

[MRY]

Reapa I like most of the samples you posted, but then, I also like the intro to TTON. (It would certainly be nice if we reached the level of Stephen King's best writing, but even in my headiest arrogance/least depressive moments, I don't expect to pull that off.) I agree that TTON's intro doesn't fit with tone of the other texts you enjoyed. There is a kind of ironic detachment to it, and I can see how some people would find it off-putting. But I think it's a stylistic choice, as opposed to an absence of style.

I do wonder to some degree whether there is an imbalance in your comparisons between PS:T and TTON -- namely that you are comparing these side characters with virtuoso writing to an expository introduction. To be honest, I think I've benefited from that mismatch when people say nice things about the Meres: I think my job in writing the Meres and the side characters I was assigned was much easier than writing along the main quest path, and certainly easier to engage in the kind of high concept, poetical stuff like O and Xander. (I'm not saying I matched their quality, I don't expect that I did, only that it's easier to pull that stuff off in side-shows than in the main act.)

(Speaking of the Meres, I think I almost have the daylight to put in the bazillion edits that folks here have suggested to them. I don't want people to think I've ignored them on this, I've just been rushing to meet other deadlines.)

 

[DosBuster]

I always got the impression that the intro was intentionally overblown with heavy adjective use in order to convey a sense of confusion that comes from being inside your own mind.