Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Pre-Release Thread [ALPHA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Irenaeus]

Coming soon, from Black Isle Studios, Planescape: Affliction

 

[Kane]

Coming soon, from Black Isle Studios, Planescape: Affliction

 

[BobtheTree]

Eurogamer.net ‏@eurogamer
Wizards of the Coast declares that it is open to licensing Planescape - Bit late for inXile's Torment game now: http://bit.ly/12GqYjb

I bet they licenses it to Bioware.

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

If it doesn't involve proper turn based tactical combat, it is dead to me. The one Realms of Arkania have. All Infinity engine based games are crap.

>catering to 1 or 2 oldfags who want turnbased combat or bust vs. the proven donator fanbase of the IE games.

yep, they're gonna miss your 20$ KS contribution alright...I guess they'll just have to cry into their pillows stuffed with cash about how they lost that one guy out there that held off on playing because it wasn't turnbased.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Harg Harfardarssen I'll show that to him.

Think about a game where ALL dialogue encounters with near-hostiles are like the NWN2 trial.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Yeah if it's not a continuation of the brand, story, ruleset or characters, it basically can't have anything to do with Planescape other than maybe some thematic similarities. Anyone want to ask inXile exactly how they plan to pull that off?

Planescape is interesting enough that they can make something out of the setting. I'm not expecting a PS:T 2, but I'm sure they can do a hell of a lot better than current era of shit RPGs. (If you can call them RPGs).

 

[Roguey]

http://www.formspring.me/ksaun/q/425265477120455477

stuff

Project continues to underwhelm. DX:HR is just a fancy win/loss thing where saying the "right" thing can end up conflicting with the kind of character concept you'd want to play, why would anyone want to be influenced by that? Once again Josh Sawyer proves he's ahead of the curve with his Do (Say) The Right Thing presentation.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.formspring.me/ksaun/q/425265477120455477

stuff

Project continues to underwhelm. DX:HR is just a fancy win/loss thing where saying the "right" thing can end up conflicting with the kind of character concept you'd want to play, why would anyone want to be influenced by that? Once again Josh Sawyer proves he's ahead of the curve with his Do (Say) The Right Thing presentation.

(though it seemed more linear than I would prefer)

 

[FeelTheRads]

I assume they're pretty happy since the response has been really positive, but I haven't checked specifically, I just sent out a big thoughts 'n digest email to them, as I do.

Nothing about the video response impacts the plans for Torment or its kickstarter, no.

Thanks, bro. I figured it might have an impact because the W2 video could influence the reaction to another Kickstarter from them.

>catering to 1 or 2 oldfags who want turnbased combat or bust vs. the proven donator fanbase of the IE games.

Well, fuck newfags who are "too busy with their lives". They have enough games to play. So, fuck off and die, retard.

 

[Jaesun]

Roguey fails at reading. Film at 11.

 

[Ogg]

Interview of Fargo, Saunders and McComb on French site "Dagon's Lair"

Not much new it seems. But it's always nice to read about the project.

About the title:

Some have been curious about the title. The “Tides” are part of a choices and consequences system that Colin, Kevin, and particularly Adam Heine have been designing for Torment. Adam was a scripter on PS:T and we were fortunate to bring him aboard the team, too. Kevin has said this about the Tides: “They could be loosely compared to D&D’s alignments or Ultima IV’s principles and virtues. But unlike alignments, they are not in direct opposition to each other and unlike the virtues, you won’t necessarily want to achieve them all. Nor can you, really… you’ll have to decide what’s most important to you.
The Tides are more nuanced and complex, with the “best” choice for any situation being a personal decision for you (or how you want to play) rather than a decision that we as designers judge. Now, NPCs in the game will certainly judge you based upon their own beliefs and agendas, but we will strive for the game itself to be impartial. We want to provide satisfying reactivity and allow you to explore your own answers, for you to play as you wish and have the game’s story unfold accordingly. We’ll talk more about the Tides down the road and there are aspects of the system for which we’ll be seeking backer input.”
The Tides are a good example of a way in which we are deviating from PS:T while being true to its legacy and also how we are injecting the Torment philosophy, as you mentioned, into the Numenera setting.

About the team:

Colin McComb is the creative lead, with his experience in world-building and fiction writing as the cornerstone of the story and thematic elements. He worked on both developing the Planescape setting and as a designer on Planescape: Torment. Torment’s project director is Kevin Saunders, who was the lead designer and producer for Mask of the Betrayer, which some of the hardcore RPG fans feel was the game closest to PS:T yet. We have several great concept artists involved, including Nils Hamm, Andree Wallin, Chang Yuan, and Dana Knutson, who was the primary concept artist of the Planescape setting. Mark Morgan is creating the game’s soundtrack – he’s already created a piece for Torment and completely nailed it. A lot of great talent is involved.
Chris Avellone won’t be working on the project, but is very supportive of what we’re doing. He also referred both Colin and Kevin to me, so in that way he helped Torment form.

About production steps:

In a perfect world we would want to start pre-production on Torment long before Wasteland 2 is complete. Long pre-production is key for RPGs and you like to have every little detail hammered out before the production team starts implementing. To have the Wasteland 2 team finish up, take a break and then return to a 1000 page+ design ready to be implemented would be ideal. However, we need to show more on Wasteland 2 first before we propose such things. The development of Wasteland 2 is going excellent and we will be showing our progress shortly.

 

[Infinitron]

Hmm...

 

[Ulminati]

If it doesn't involve proper turn based tactical combat, it is dead to me. The one Realms of Arkania have. All Infinity engine based games are crap.

>catering to 1 or 2 oldfags who want turnbased combat or bust vs. the proven donator fanbase of the IE games.

yep, they're gonna miss your 20$ $40 KS contributions alright...I guess they'll just have to cry into their pillows stuffed with cash about how they lost that one those two guys out there that held off on playing because it wasn't turnbased.

 

[Infinitron]

More walls of text from Kevin Saunders.

http://www.formspring.me/ksaun/q/426247638183083857

In Numenera : there is a sense of mystery in most technology featured. But aren't we pretty sure that they were engineered by a sentient specie using plain old rationality and science? Any potential for more supernatural (dimensions, magic...) stuff?

That depends on how you define magic. =) Turning the question around, I can imagine a typical fantasy wizard believing his spells to be perfectly scientific, following the “laws of magic.”

But you are right in that we, as players, know that everything has a scientific explanation. But that doesn’t mean we actually (or even often) know that explanation. In Numenera, we don’t have the burden of having to explain (or know) the details. And we, as characters, do not know there’s always science somewhere behind what we observe. Some in the Ninth World might believe this to be true – just as in our world – while others believe in the supernatural.

From a game development perspective, if we want to treat something as magic, if we want to think of something as magic, we can. If we do want to explain, we can do that, too. As storytellers, we have ultimate freedom (though we have to use that freedom wisely!). Our intent with Torment is to embrace the mysterious atmosphere that permeates Numenera. How you explore that mystery is up to you. It will feel magical if you let it. =)

Female PC will be a stretch goal, INB4 FEMINIST BUTTHURT Roguey

How about a Female PC in TToN - with some relatively small but appropriate differences in the NPC reactions and dialogue C&C? In PST it couldnt be done because it wasnt in design from the start. Time to correct that unintentional oversight?

Yes – we want to do this and have talked about this topic explicitly. There are some complications, though. I agree with you that meaningful and appropriate reactivity would not be a major effort. But for some of the languages for which we hope to localize the game, this is no longer true because gender of the speaker or listener affects the word forms used. So localization would require much more work -- we’d need to have both male-PC and female-PC versions for all PC and NPC lines.

And if we allowed both genders, we’d want to do it properly. We really want Torment to be of high quality and will sacrifice feature scope as necessary to increase the quality of the features we do have. So if we had both genders, we’d want them to use different animation skeletons and animation sets. Of course, we need this anyway for the companions and other characters, as we aren’t planning to have a monogender world =) (I made that word up). But because you will play as a specific individual, we would like to do more with custom animations for the player. (By “specific individual” I don’t mean to imply that we will impose a personality on you. That specific individual is what you make of them. But we can give them a little more “physical personality” if you know what I mean.) Allowing choice of gender would magnify any extra animation work we want to do. And maybe we’ll want some unique equipment for the player and these too might require more work if we have both genders.

So if we’re going to do all of that work anyway, we’ll also want to take the dialog reactivity a little further than the minimum required, as reactivity is one of the pillars of Torment. Thus, what could have been a slight amount of work blossoms into a significant undertaking. =) For this reason, we plan to have the option to choose your gender be a stretch goal.

(As an aside: the way I view our target funding goal is that it’s the resources we need for Torment to be worth making. At our target funding, I will be confident that we can make a satisfying role-playing game that delivers on our promises to our backers. We have no way to predict how the Kickstarter will go, but I can’t afford to assume it will do as well as Wasteland 2 or Project Eternity. This is one of the tricky parts of planning the game’s design and the Kickstarter. We need to be fully confident that we can at least meet our backers’ expectations. Since I’m confident we can make Torment great even if the PC’s gender is fixed, I have to relegate supporting both genders to being a stretch goal.

Incidentally, this is yet another reason to have the Kickstarter while in preproduction – we can be most efficient with the resources available if we know what they are before we’ve committed to too much of the design. If we have enough support and interest, we’d love to be more ambitious with Torment. But my priority is ensuring that we don’t set our sights so high as to preclude being able to make Torment in the first place. Unlike some other possibilities, this particular decision is, as you note, one we have to commit to early. So we can’t for example, wait to see how Wasteland 2 sells to see if we can afford to add this feature to Torment.)

Anyway. =) So both genders – yes, absolutely in our plans, but it depends how the crowd funding goes. If we do end up only being able to support a single gender, we intend to let the backers vote on which one they’d prefer. =)

 

[Lord Andre]

As always, Saunders gives reasonable responses.

 

[Harold]

=)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =)) =))

In before tranny & eunuch stretch goals

 

[Roguey]

Female PC will be a stretch goal, INB4 FEMINIST BUTTHURT Roguey

Why would I care? Merilinda would be the one getting upset if she were still around.

 

[Elthosian]

Technically, having both genders will be the stretch goal, and in case they don't reach it -which I seriously doubt-, there will be a poll.

I just hope that if they do reach the goal they make both characters as different as they are saying they will be, I hate when gender/race choices only affect attributes, combat effectiveness and two or three obscure dialog lines.

 

[Gozma]

I'm skeptical about the tides system. Abstract reactivity systems have a really low batting average for being acceptable without refinement, much less actively good. It took like four attempts for Obsidian to make an Influence system that wasn't a net negative for one of their games. Or like the faction system in FNV with the amnesties and faction armor, which felt as natural and non-mechanical as a chickenwire mother

 

[hiver]

I would rather have another layer to investigate in the game C&C then some custom animations of the PC.
I cant remember have i ever noticed anything like it in any game before.... except maybe some idle animations?

If anything should be a stretch goal then something as cosmetic as custom PC animations should be it.
Localization to other languages possible complication can also be reduced significantly if writers use gender neutral designations for PC most of the time - in interactions with NPCs.

Voting, or a poll doesnt make sense since majority of audience now is male. Aint anyone going to vote for there being no male PC.

The smarter approach would be to use this to attract female audience because - kickstarter? Asking for moneys?

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think you realize what "custom animations" means. The protagonist will be a custom made model, like TNO in PS:T. It's not like Baldur's Gate where you share the same model as all other characters of your race, class and sex. Every single thing you do is a custom animation.

 

[hiver]

Again you and your fucking assumptions about what i understand or dont.
And again - while failing in "realization" of basics of what youre talking about yourself.
A Model and animation of the model are two different things.
Animations are rigged to the skeleton of the model. All human models will have same animations despite individually looking different.

TNO did not have any special custom animations.
Anna had a spin kick i didnt see on other characters though, Morte was the only flying skull around, Modrons had their own thing, maybe Dakon had his own "move" with the blade and Fall from grace had those wings - but those probably shared same animation that Baatezu demons had.


Kevin said, they will have female characters anyway, and animations for them which will presumably be slightly different then those of male models.
It doesnt need to be anything extensive at all. It is cosmetics - because it doesnt make any difference for gameplay itself!
Which doesnt mean having more or better animations isnt nice to have.

btw... what was that last PE update?


Today:

@HiverZ: You’re right in that I gave the animation mention more text than deserved.=) It’s just an example – I agree that it’s not that important.

Localization to other languages and doing a female PC in a right way, in regards to some differences in reactions from NPCs and variable C&C coming from that, - is the important and production more demanding stuff.

For localization, it is more complicated than using a title for the PC because other words in the sentence (adjectives, verbs) can vary based upon a noun’s gender. Again, just an example of a complication. =) It’s all solvable, just not trivial.
/
Your point about appealing to more players is also a good one. This is true of many things, though, and we need to draw a line to keep the target budget realistic. But you may be right that both genders could be better on the other side of the line.

 

[Infinitron]

In before asexual genderless PC

 

[Ulminati]

I want to be a modron!

 

[laclongquan]

I want to be a Nordom, ie perverted modron.