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

[tuluse]

What an odd way of thinking. So if Wasteland 2 had only doubled its goal inXile wouldn't "feel safe" about it?

That seems fair. The more money they have the more wiggle room and ideally the better the game they can make so, I think a 50% increase in budget should make them "feel safe[r]".

 

[kaizoku]

tl,dr



What are the odds of the combat being TB?

Party size will have a max of PC + 5 NPCs?

 

[tuluse]

tl,dr



What are the odds of the combat being TB?

Depends on what the backers votes for

 

[Zed]

I don't want TB combat unless they actually have something proper planned already. Shitty TB is worse than no TB. A game won't become Fallout just because it has TB combat.

 

[Excidium]

I'd rather have TB because it's much harder to fuck up. The worst that can happen is it being too slow or too simplistic.

 

[Jaesun]

I assume you have never played Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor Excidium?

 

[Excidium]

You assumed right, I always heard it's beyond terrible.

 

[Adam Heine]

From the IGN interview:

Intended for PC and Mac currently, McComb sites several guiding principles as pillars to the design from its inception, including the integration of narrative elements, meaningful player decisions before combat, meaningful player decisions during “real-time smart combat”, and quality encounters over quantity. “We don’t just want a bunch of trash monsters running up to you and smacking you.”

Is this fix already?

It was a dumb thing that fell out of my mouth because I was nervous. We haven't finalized a decision on our combat, and we're going to take advice from our backers when we get to that discussion of gameplay.

It was actually part of a joke system I named when trying to think of something that was neither TB nor RTwP. I said something like "Real Time Smart Combat w/ Simultaneous Turn-Based Pause Actions."

We are thinking of a hybrid system that is neither RTwP nor TB, but as you guys said, ultimately it will be up to the backers. We'll present our possible systems as well as we can (incl. TB), and whatever is decided, we'll implement the crap out of it (um, in a good way).

Would be interesting if all magic is just some form of highly advanced tech and not some kind of psi or energy mumbo jumbo.

Yeah sure, but at least something that you can control with your will, that is fairly easy to obtain, and that is reliable (by that I mean, no wifi body control risk when You implement the chip/dna...)

There are many sources of "magic" in the Ninth World. Some of them are inherent to casters, rather than gear. Numenera has a fricking fantastic setting. I think you'll be happy with what we do with it. (At least I hope you will ).

Have you read Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun? Numenera draws a lot of inspiration from that (and then gets even weirder).

 

[hoverdog]

Have you read Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun? Numenera draws a lot of inspiration from that (and then gets even weirder)

It was actually part of a joke system I named when trying to think of something that was neither TB nor RTwP. I said something like "Real Time Smart Combat w/ Simultaneous Turn-Based Pause Actions."

We are thinking of a hybrid system that is neither RTwP nor TB, but as you guys said, ultimately it will be up to the backers. We'll present our possible systems as well as we can (incl. TB), and whatever is decided, we'll implement the crap out of it (um, in a good way).

phase-based?

 

[Sunsetspawn]

Every single time I see the title of this thread when I'm viewing new threads...

 

[Western]

Book of the New Sun is one of my faves, nice to see it as a source of inspiration. Recommended reading to any monocled gentleman who haven't yet done so.

 

[Akarnir]

There are many sources of "magic" in the Ninth World. Some of them are inherent to casters, rather than gear. Numenera has a fricking fantastic setting. I think you'll be happy with what we do with it. (At least I hope you will ).

Have you read Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun? Numenera draws a lot of inspiration from that (and then gets even weirder).

Thanks

That looks pretty cool. I did heard of those books before and the descriptions were interesting.

I did read some Dying hearth stories by Vance. Although magic and traditional fantasy elements are very prevalent in them. Numenera does seem more oriented on the big technology remains of previous civilizations. I may be mistaking here.

Is there a way to read on Numenera's lore already ? Are the books all released or are you working with exclusive material?

 

[Adam Heine]

Is there a way to read on Numenera's lore already ? Are the books all released or are you working with exclusive material?

The books aren't released yet (e.g. I have a setting doc, but it's an unedited first draft and under strict NDA), so I think your best bet at the moment are the Numenera Design Diaries or the Playtest Reports (though the latter haven't been updated in a while). Otherwise you'll have to wait for the information we've got in the coming weeks.

 

[Roguey]

A game won't become Fallout just because it has TB combat.

Um...

 

[evdk]

Um...

Yes..?

 

[Infinitron]

Not even Fallout became Fallout because it had TB combat

 

[Roguey]

Fallout combat wasn't good. It wouldn't be difficult to make turn-based combat as good as Fallout since most of it's carried by the death animations.

 

[evdk]

Fallout's combat was functional, the game's strength lays elsewhere. But it was by no means a horrible mess.

 

[Lancehead]

Not even Fallout became Fallout because it had TB combat

Not even?

 

[Roguey]

Fallout's combat was functional, the game's strength lays elsewhere. But it was by no means a horrible mess.

It was dysfunctional because of criticals, eyeshots, companion AI, single-character control, non-working or not-working-as-intended AP ammo, and the occasional place where there would be way too many to fight and it'd take forever. Still managed to be more fun for me than Torment despite those issues.

 

[Rake]

Fallout's combat was functional, the game's strength lays elsewhere. But it was by no means a horrible mess.

It was dysfunctional because of criticals, eyeshots, companion AI, single-character control, non-working or not-working-as-intended AP ammo, and the occasional place where there would be way too many to fight and it'd take forever. Still managed to be more fun for me than Torment despite those issues.

How many $ you intent to donate to Tides of Numenera ?

 

[Roguey]

I'll probably get a box unless they say something that offends me.

 

[Rake]

So you can bitch about it afterwards of course

 

[evdk]

I'll probably get a box unless they say something that offends me.

Eggshells.

 

[Infinitron]

Perhaps Roguey can find something that offends him on Adam Heine's blog: http://www.adamheine.com/2013/02/what-ive-been-doing-instead-of-blogging.html

What I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging

I hate having only First Impact posts go up, but I am trying to make money at this writing thing, so. Anyway, here are some of the things I've been doing in the last few weeks instead of blogging.

ON TORMENT...
Designing an alignment system. Basically codifying all of human experience and emotion into little boxes so we can tell the player things like, "You're Lawful Good." (Note: We're not using Lawful Good.) FUN LEVEL: High.

Thinking about what makes RPG combat interesting. There is quite a lot of debate in the hardcore CRPG world about whether combat should be turn-based or not. Part of my job has been to think about this a lot. FUN LEVEL: Medium (only because I'd rather get into specifics, but I can't yet).

Writing design docs. Fact: if we don't document it, it gets forgotten. FUN LEVEL: Tedious (but like our producer told me and Colin the other day, we don't get to do the fun stuff until we actually have money to do it).

(Anyway, tedious is a relative term. The most boring game design task is way cooler than anything I did for my Office Space job. I just want to think up cool stuff all day and have someone else write it down for me, is all.)

Writing Kickstarter copy. You'd be surprised how much work goes into a major crowd-funding campaign. I mean, look at a typical big-budget Kickstarter. Someone has to write all that stuff. FUN LEVEL: Tedious.

Planning Kickstarter videos. FUN LEVEL: High (until they start talking about myvideo update, then Abject Terror).

Iterating. I get an e-mail asking what I think of a design doc. I critique said design doc. What do I think of the latest concept art? Review and reply with my thoughts. Music? Videos? Someone's possible response to a forum question? Review and respond. Oh, and also respond to all the critiques of my stuff. FUN LEVEL: Surprisingly High.