Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Infinitron]

A bit ironic, that.

 

[Luckmann]

I think one of the reasons why it's not selling, beside inXile pissing off core audience with simultaneus console versions is the marketing and trailers. They spell out the fucking story in the trailer, if they'd left enough to be a mystery and for players to find out, I think there'd be more positive buzz around the game.

10 min in the game,you already know the story and can pretty much guess what will happen.

Yeah, I love how apologists were all "Nah, nah, man it's not the story itself, it's just the premise, so how does it matter?!" and now those same apologists have completely forgotten that point, now that they've largely been proven wrong, and start jumping through different hoops altogether like there's some kind of fucking participation award for the mental gymnastics.

 

[an Administrator]

A bit ironic, that.

A broken clock is right twice a day

 

[hexer]

Yeah, that is all fine and dandy, but is it really how the video game market works? That people wait until the steam reviews, read them carefully and decide? Well, not in AAA cases, that's for sure. So I think the actual reason for why the game did poorly at release cannot be connected to merit, but to some general principle, like looks -- the game looked too weird -- or general isometric RPG fatigue.

Some factors:

(1) Most reviewers didn’t play Torment, and it shows. They tried to praise the game, but without any enthusiasm. IGN even said that the game was made by Obsidian, for fuck sake. You just need to compare these reviews with the ones that PoE received by the same paid journalists to notice the difference. So, while these reviews were positive in a technical sense, given the expectations players have about reviews, their compliments were already perceived as trashing the game. They can capture this even on a subconscious level after years of "10/10 best game ever".

(2) The game was released amidst other bigger releases because Fargo has no business sense.

(3) The game has one of the worst intros in the history of mankind. If you buy the game expecting for PoE or D:OS, you will ask for a refund immediately.

(4) InXile doesn’t know how to connect with their audience properly or keep them stimulated, and the broken promises didn’t help either. The natural consequence of this is that most backers were not trying to promote the game.

LOL, that's not my quote bro

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

Honestly, it's always easy to judge from the outside. We don't know how the development went (apart from that it was troubled). So, I think, speaking about a/m tweet, it's not correct to personally assault people. It's perfectly fine to criticize the game in question - if you didn't like it, than you didn't like it, nothing to do about it, and there are reasons for that. But trying to hurt and insult people behind the game - it speaks of some kind of weird (and ill) obsession.
I really liked Prime Junta's posts about the game. He didn't like it, he expressed his opinion, and that's it. He hasn't started a crusade against InXile and personally TTON's team. That, to my opinion, is a correct way to deal with your dissatisfaction

 

[Lurker King]

It would be bad for the genre, if it wasn't for Obsidian doing a similar game with very positive results. Isn't good for the future of turn based RPGs though.

Of course, because we only have two studios making cRPGs. If they fail, we won't have cRPGs to play anymore.

 

[Prime Junta]

He hasn't started a crusade against InXile and personally TTON's team.

...yet.

 

[ga♥]

Well, it felt like McComb wanted really hard to become the next MCA in the heart of the people. Seems like it won't happen and he's angsty.

Maybe if he keeps whining about political correctness in 20 year old games it will help, though.

Yeah, and I don't feel very well about it.

The man is talented, his Planescape books are awesome.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Apparently, the number of owners, according to steam spy, has been decreased.

First time i see something like this...

http://steamspy.com/app/272270

Happens all the time with Steamspy. Might possibly indicate some problem with gathering of data.

I think one of the reasons why it's not selling, beside inXile pissing off core audience with simultaneus console versions is the marketing and trailers. They spell out the fucking story in the trailer, if they'd left enough to be a mystery and for players to find out, I think there'd be more positive buzz around the game.

There might be something in that.
I remember when I saw a trailer for the PS:T.

It left me curious.

Trailers for Numanuma don't leave anything for the imagination.

 

[J_C]

Knowing myself and seeing stuff from the game, I'm pretty sure that I will like this game, but it is true that Inxile made mistakes during development and maybe they need a spanking to come to their senses and learn a lesson.

I think they became overconfident after the success of WL2 and the success of their kicsktarters. They thought they are big guys now, they need to do several console versions, play the SJW game, open sevaral studios and shit. They should have remained a humble PC dev which caters to a niche market. Like Obsidian is doing, despite that they are a better fit for a big company.

Trailers for Numanuma don't leave anything for the imagination.

I still don't know who thought that the last trailer was a good idea. They really spoiled the basic premise. Imagine how cool it would have been if you discover these in the game, instead of seeing it in a trailer.

You know, this is another sign that Inxile lost their priorities. Because that trailer looked and sounded awesome, it was cool. They wanted to make a jaw dropping trailer. But they should have held back, be more humble and make a smaller, more interesting trailer, which doesn't spoils everything.

So yeah, Inxile is a victim of their ambition.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

God damn it.

 

[Prime Junta]

That music...

 

[Infinitron]

God damn it.

"Silent" = no voice acting, or no banter?

EDIT:



Banter it is.

 

[Luckmann]

A bit ironic, that.

Jesus, Infinitron, what the fuck? Just because he's mentally retarded doesn't mean that he can't tell the difference between a Fargo Mudcake and the 5-Star Cousine he was promised without it being "ironic". Are you one of those ableists that think that everyone with a cognitive disability is just as happy if you give them a Happy Meal and roll them into the ball-pit at McDonalds? Disgusting.

 

[FeelTheRads]

There might be something in that.
I remember when I saw a trailer for the PS:T.

It left me curious.

Trailers for Numanuma don't leave anything for the imagination.

I remember armchair marketing strategists blaming trailers like that (and the box art) for the poor sales of PST.

So.. hey... guess it's up to what armchair marketing strategists you believe?

I don't think anything related to this can be more than a theory.

 

[Lurker King]

Trailers for Numanuma don't leave anything for the imagination.

You decide to make a spiritual sucessor of a game that is based on mystery, but you hamfisted everything because you want a console audience that you despise as dumb. Result: shit.

 

[Volrath]

discuss RPG mechanics

 

[Stavrophore]

Pirated this shit, played for a while, seen the game as another lore dump, much like the original PST, with super crappy combat. If you are a story faggot who can sit for two hours straight,read all the npc backstory, and love nonsensical setting [its like africa, where negroes have cellphones and satellite dishes, but live in mud huts] then its your game. I'm too old to get interested in every nonsensical nook and cranny of fictional world, and i dont give a shit about places and people i don't know, and will never know, presumably, they are just fillers that writers added to make the game appear as having a voluminous world, without much coherence.
Uninstalled after merely 2 hours of gameplay.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

I still don't know who thought that the last trailer was a good idea. They really spoiled the basic premise. Imagine how cool it would have been if you discover these in the game, instead of seeing it in a trailer.

The problem is, a lot of information from the trailer gets spoon-fed to the player in the very beginning of the game.

 

[Habbonovio]

IGN even said that the game was made by Obsidian, for fuck sake.

Spoiler

 

[cvv]

Pirated this shit, played for a while, seen the game as another lore dump, much like the original PST, with super crappy combat. If you are a story faggot who can sit for two hours straight,read all the npc backstory, and love nonsensical setting [its like africa, where negroes have cellphones and satellite dishes, but live in mud huts] then its your game. I'm too old to get interested in every nonsensical nook and cranny of fictional world, and i dont give a shit about places and people i don't know, and will never know, presumably, they are just fillers that writers added to make the game appear as having a voluminous world, without much coherence.

Love to see your top10 games list.

 

[Lurker King]

lol
I've created a thread (on inXile forum) criticizing Torment for SJW propaganda (giving examples) and they've deleted it and gave me a warning (Zombra specifically). Political correctness uber alles.

Serves you right for defending these hacks.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

Happens all the time with Steamspy. Might possibly indicate some problem with gathering of data.

It's not a problem, it's the way SteamSpy works. It's not hard data, SteamSpy extrapolates numbers from the selection of data.

 

[Luckmann]

God damn it.

"Silent" = no voice acting, or no banter?

Possibly a bit of both...? If the files aren't firing, that would explain a lot. That said, the text should've still displayed above their heads, so I think it's a matter of the bantz not activating at all, other than extremely rarely. It's still hilarious, though, because they didn't show up in beta either, and they never picked up on it? Top notch, inXile. Top notch.

I think nobody reported it to them, because by the time you'd notice banter, you no longer have any expectations of the game.

Trailers for Numanuma don't leave anything for the imagination.

You decide to make a spiritual sucessor of a game that is based on mystery, but you hamfisted everything because you want a console audience that you despise as dumb. Result: shit.

This is genuinely what I think happened. I think Techland was the ones pushing the promotional spoiling of the game, with the strongest argument likely being "it's all revealed in the first 10 minutes anyway", because of the terrible loredumping that was never curated/editorialized. The original intent was likely for the CNPC:s to dole out information after a while.

It really pisses me off that they said that The Sorrow is an agent of balance, though - that's actually revealed fairly late in the game. Had they not spoiled that, the motivations of The Sorrow could've been a major hook, but given how they couldn't even stress the fact that you don't know what the motivations or goal of The Changing God is until they just hand you the information in a "twist", I can't say that I'm surprised. Not sure what you can expect from a company that needlessly anthropomorphized what could've otherwise been a great and unknowable villain, and a looming, encroaching threat.

Tides of Numenera is wasted potential on all fronts.

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

InXile has better portraits than those overpainted photos:

But probably somebody's niece wanted to be vidya gaem artists or something like that.

I remember seeing these last year and shitting on them. If only I had known that these were golden apples compared to the alternative