Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Rostere]

Read: "I want to work in projects where I can implement muh stuff".

Really? How much of his stuff has went into his side projects, in the end?

Read: "I don't like to work with this people anymore. They are using my name to do idiotic side projects, but I can't take the lead in anything here".

wat

Obsidian hardly used MCA's name for "idiotic side projects". That would be MCA himself.

Don't get me wrong, I also would want more of MCA in Obsidian's games. But my guess is that his involvement in their projects was mostly limited on his side. If not, then it's probably due to Feargus (and perhaps other people in upper management) preferring Sawyer's project management style over MCA's. The Sawyer/MCA clash of personalities is probably mostly, but maybe not entirely, made up by the Codex projecting their own opinions on recent events.

More likely, MCA's departure has to do with him doing too much on the side - which of course in turn may be due to him feeling constrained at Obsidian, which indirectly is a consequence of upper management handing more responsibility to people like Sawyer.

He announced his departure on social media and caught everyone by surprise. It's obvious that some conflicts happened there.

It depends on what you mean by "conflicts". Obviously, there was a conflict of interest. The question is really if differences had to do with design approaches, or more practical issues (keeping to schedules, being available for work...), or even personal issues (in which case we might never know what really went down).

Codex seems to believe that differences were due to MCA and Sawyer having different design ideas. I don't think that was the root cause.

It would be rewarding if the rest of the game were developed like that, but it isn't.

I haven't finished the game yet, so...

 

[Luckmann]

Meanwhile in another corner of the internet.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Torment/comments/5yhp0s/aligern_custom_portrait_the_other_companions/

ColinMcComb

This is some nice quality! One note, though: I'd love to see this Aligern made a little less Caucasian - something we constantly had to tell our artists is that, per the Numenera core tenets, in the Ninth World, everyone is mixed race. In the intervening years between now and then, humanity's gene pool has melded together.

This is a great direction. Looking forward to the iterations!

Healthy priorities a key to successful development!

The most absurd notion is that somehow, for whatever reason, evolution in this post-apocalypse/pre-modernity/science-fiction setting took a billion-year-long holiday. The idea that all of humanity would somehow have a collective gene-pool that would somehow meld together, and then remain melded together without crystallizing into distinct populations and evolutionary subgroups, is utterly insane. It's straight-up cultural marxist nonsense with no basis in reality, pushed in order to establish a narrative in which the creolization of mankind can be spun in a positive light, rather than the very real-life balkanization that is unveiling in front of us.

This gets even more absurd considering that abhumans and genetic offshoots of humanity is an established facet of the setting - but apparently, this evolutionary variance does not apply to humanity itself, other than when it explicitly results in something that can no longer be categorized or immediately recognized as entirely human. This level of cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics is certifiable insanity.

 

[Harold]

Trias' power is definitively the key to why Curst ended up in Carceri.

Um... yes and no.

If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can. I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me.

The point that was being illustrated with Curst was the power belief has in the setting, i.e. if enough people believe something, it manifests. Curst was at the edge of falling into complete chaos and thus Carceri, because it's denizens were all mostly shady scumbags (though I still mantain this was very poorly executed). When you free Trias, he gives it a little last needed push, assuming a Trickster role, but most of it is still determined by the beliefs and actions of its denizens. Tying the city sliding one way or another exclusively to some char sheet Deva special ability is lame and runs contradictory to the theme the game was going for - hence my problem with it, if you don't stop the chaos and just go fight him.

It's a well known fact the late game was rushed, so I prefer attributing this inconsistency to that and McComb's incompetence.

 

[an Administrator]

Meanwhile in another corner of the internet.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Torment/comments/5yhp0s/aligern_custom_portrait_the_other_companions/

ColinMcComb

This is some nice quality! One note, though: I'd love to see this Aligern made a little less Caucasian - something we constantly had to tell our artists is that, per the Numenera core tenets, in the Ninth World, everyone is mixed race. In the intervening years between now and then, humanity's gene pool has melded together.

This is a great direction. Looking forward to the iterations!

Healthy priorities a key to successful development!

The most absurd notion is that somehow, for whatever reason, evolution in this post-apocalypse/pre-modernity/science-fiction setting, evolution took a billion-year-long holiday. The idea that all of humanity would somehow have a collective gene-pool that would somehow meld together, and then remain melded together without crystallizing into distinct populations and evolutionary subgroups, is utterly insane. It's straight-up cultural marxist nonsense with no basis in reality, pushed in order to establish a narrative in which the creolization of mankind can be spun in a positive light, rather than the very real-life balkanization that is unveiling in front of us.

This gets even more absurd considering that abhumans and genetic offshoots of humanity is an established facet of the setting - but apparently, this evolutionary variance does not apply to humanity itself, other than when it explicitly results in something that can no longer be categorized or immediately recognized as entirely human. This level of cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics is certifiable insanity.

dude fantasy lmao

 

[Infinitron]

Remember what I said about Adam Heine? http://www.adamheine.com/2017/03/current-status.html

2) I have a new game design gig. I am not (currently) working for inXile and instead am doing narrative design for Nexon. I do very much hope I get to work with the fine folks at inXile again in the future, but I'm also pretty excited about what we're doing at Nexon. Such is the life of a freelancer.

 

[Jarpie]

If TToN would've been funded by the publisher or actual investors, inEptile would be in the fucking shitter right now given what a fucking crapfest the development must've been based on the cuts they made. They are fucking lucky it was funded by crowdfunding where they don't have to answer to anyone but themselves. If anything people should've learned from all the crowdfunded games which has gone over budget and/or over the schedule, it's that publishers are apparently needed to keep the developers in suitably short leash.

 

[Roguey]

So all the people who mismanaged Torment are going to Nexon huh

When's Colin joining?

 

[Tacgnol]

If TToN would've been funded by the publisher or actual investors, inEptile would be in the fucking shitter right now given what a fucking crapfest the development must've been based on the cuts they made. They are fucking lucky it was funded by crowdfunding where they don't have to answer to anyone but themselves. If anything people should've learned from all the crowdfunded games which has gone over budget and/or over the schedule, it's that publishers are apparently needed to keep the developers in suitably short leash.

This seems to be the biggest issue with crowdfunding. Publishers can be cunts, but they do at least keep developers on tight leashes.

Companies like InXile need that tight leash, or they just feature creep and mismanage to hell.

 

[Prime Junta]

Companies like InXile need that tight leash, or they just feature creep and mismanage to hell.

What feature creep? There are barely any features left in the damn thing.

(Mismanage, clearly. Not sure how a publisher would've helped with that, except perhaps to pull the plug on the project before it ever saw the light of day... leaving inXile free to play the evil-publishers Dolchstoss card again.)

 

[Jarpie]

Companies like InXile need that tight leash, or they just feature creep and mismanage to hell.

What feature creep? There are barely any features left in the damn thing.

(Mismanage, clearly. Not sure how a publisher would've helped with that, except perhaps to pull the plug on the project before it ever saw the light of day... leaving inXile free to play the evil-publishers Dolchstoss card again.)

I think he meant overpromising with the kickstarter and the stretchgoals....talking about using cards...I wonder if inEptile actually pulls "It's the bad evul entitled gamurs who bash our great masterpiece!"-card in some Shitaku interview.

 

[Roguey]

What feature creep? There are barely any features left in the damn thing.

(Mismanage, clearly. Not sure how a publisher would've helped with that, except perhaps to pull the plug on the project before it ever saw the light of day... leaving inXile free to play the evil-publishers Dolchstoss card again.)

I'm enjoying all the crow that must now be eaten by those who optimistically believed inXile had to cut out all those features and content to make the rest of the game better.

 

[Immortal]

I thought for sure this game would be another PoE Shilljob.. But it seems the codex is mostly in agreement.
This game was fucking shit.

 

[Prime Junta]

I thought for sure this game would be another PoE Shilljob.. But it seems the codex is mostly in agreement.
This game was fucking shit.

As a friendly reminder, there is a slot open for a neutral-positive review. Volunteers please apply within.

 

[Jarpie]

I'm surprised Prime Junta doesn't like TToN given its commie-marxist post-modern bullshit, as he is a dirty champagne socialist pinko.

Spoiler

 

[an Administrator]

I thought for sure this game would be another PoE Shilljob.. But it seems the codex is mostly in agreement.
This game was fucking shit.

As a friendly reminder, there is a slot open for a neutral-positive review. Volunteers please apply within.

Anything positive about the game can be summarized in less than a paragraph.

 

[Prime Junta]

I'm surprised Prime Junta doesn't like TToN given its commie-marxist post-modern bullshit, as he is a dirty champagne socialist pinko.

Spoiler

Liberals aren't Marxists. That's cultural appropriation.

 

[Luckmann]

The most absurd notion is that somehow, for whatever reason, evolution in this post-apocalypse/pre-modernity/science-fiction setting, evolution took a billion-year-long holiday. The idea that all of humanity would somehow have a collective gene-pool that would somehow meld together, and then remain melded together without crystallizing into distinct populations and evolutionary subgroups, is utterly insane. It's straight-up cultural marxist nonsense with no basis in reality, pushed in order to establish a narrative in which the creolization of mankind can be spun in a positive light, rather than the very real-life balkanization that is unveiling in front of us.

This gets even more absurd considering that abhumans and genetic offshoots of humanity is an established facet of the setting - but apparently, this evolutionary variance does not apply to humanity itself, other than when it explicitly results in something that can no longer be categorized or immediately recognized as entirely human. This level of cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics is certifiable insanity.

dude fantasy lmao

But it's not fantasy, it's science-fantasy. It's ostensibly meant to make sense, so you're have to argue that nanobots did it, not wizards. Check mate.

On the absurdity of this particular issue, by the way: https://www.reddit.com/r/Torment/co...t_the_other_companions/der26e4/?context=10000

I'd love to see this Aligern made a little less Caucasian - something we constantly had to tell our artists is that, per the Numenera core tenets, in the Ninth World, everyone is mixed race.

I didn't even assume it was "mixed." I assumed skin tones could be all sorts of things. Anywhere along modern skin tones to pastels or deep gem hues.

That had been my impression initially, but we had emphatic feedback from MCG that this was not the case.

But apparently it only applies to white people, doesn't it, Colin? Methinks he should worry more about the quality of the game than about establishing a political platform for the emotionally deranged. I would've easily have taken Tyber as Happynegro #5 and Aligern as Sciencetastic Shitlord Punk #31 over the shit that's in the finished game.

Seriously, I hope they had just run out of money and took someone to just whip something up in the office over lunch, because the in-game portraits are below the quality I can pay some random dude on the internet $40-60 to do.

I'm surprised Prime Junta doesn't like TToN given its commie-marxist post-modern bullshit, as he is a dirty champagne socialist pinko.

Spoiler

Liberals aren't Marxists. That's cultural appropriation.

Jews to the left, Jews to the right. Same shit, different names. Two different roads to the same end. Liberals are just better at subversion than Marxist hardliners. It's why we're closer to Brave New World than 1984, when what we should be going for is Starship Troopers.

Spoiler

The only good bug is a dead bug.

 

[Jarpie]

I'm surprised Prime Junta doesn't like TToN given its commie-marxist post-modern bullshit, as he is a dirty champagne socialist pinko.

Spoiler

Liberals aren't Marxists. That's cultural appropriation.

"Pinko Ruskie is a pinko ruskie even if baked in butter." -old finnish proverb.

 

[Prime Junta]

For the record, I thought T:ToN's politics, such as they were, were incredibly vapid. They did the BioWare thing: made everything a rainbow coalition of skin colour, gender, and sexuality, and left it at that. No exploration of what a post-gender, post-race society could look like, what institutional forms relationships between people could take, how societies could be structured, what the relations of production would be and social stratification would proceed from that, and so on and so forth. Even Obsidian did it better in Pillars, and it's not like they did it really well.

Planescape: Torment had all that. The Lower Ward was a very cool twist on a Dickensian capitalist hellhole, complete with workers coughing their polluted lungs out. Chris Avellone is an honorary comrade. Come the Revolution, we'll make sure not to accidentally liquidate him.

 

[an Administrator]

Found some Iranian review of TTON
I might post the translation soon
http://www.bazicenter.com/torment-tides-of-numenera/reviews/721

"
score: 9/10

pros:
incredible story
A lot of C&C
Different quests with multiple ways to solve them
Good characters
Beautiful world-building
Innovative character development

cons:
Lack of voice acting
Simplified combat
People who don't like reading lengthy paragraphs may find it boring
"

lol
http://www.metacritic.com/publication/bazicenter

"Torment: Tides of Numenera is all about choices. You can finish the game five times with five completely different scenarios; and that’s because its writing is one of the best ever. Every single thing you want from a solid and classic RPG is on offer here."

You know, you can savescum and achieve all endings

 

[Sòren]

Meanwhile in another corner of the internet.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Torment/comments/5yhp0s/aligern_custom_portrait_the_other_companions/



Healthy priorities a key to successful development!

diversity is finally eliminated. - a dream comes true

 

[FeelTheRads]

For the record, I thought T:ToN's politics, such as they were, were incredibly vapid. They did the BioWare thing: made everything a rainbow coalition of skin colour, gender, and sexuality, and left it at that. No exploration of what a post-gender, post-race society could look like, what institutional forms relationships between people could take, how societies could be structured, what the relations of production would be and social stratification would proceed from that, and so on and so forth. Even Obsidian did it better in Pillars, and it's not like they did it really well.

Planescape: Torment had all that. The Lower Ward was a very cool twist on a Dickensian capitalist hellhole, complete with workers coughing their polluted lungs out. Chris Avellone is an honorary comrade. Come the Revolution, we'll make sure not to accidentally liquidate him.

That's again part of the setting. Not saying that inXile couldn't have gone into that, but the setting doesn't provide it and they barely took advantage of the setting as it is let alone develop it.

Not taking into account McComb, apparently, which it seems took one thing and only thing from Numenera: "no whities".

 

[Tacgnol]

What feature creep? There are barely any features left in the damn thing.

I should probably clarify this point slightly.

I meant more in the sense that they tried to add new features over what was intended, in doing so they ended up cutting more basic stuff as they ran out of time/funds.

 

[Sigourn]

I'm not exaggerating when I say a good looking UI and good looking companion portraits would have increased my enjoyment of the game ten-fold. As it is in the vanilla game, I can't help but thinking I'm playing some sort of Beta.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I'm not exaggerating when I say a good looking UI and good looking companion portraits would have increased my enjoyment of the game ten-fold. As it is in the vanilla game, I can't help but thinking I'm playing some sort of Beta.

By now it should be known as "playing an inxile" or "this smells like an inxile".