Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Jarpie]

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.

I can tell you, spoiler alert!

Spoiler

 

[DeepOcean]

Meanwhile in another corner of the internet.

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

Pretty funny that Mr. McCuck doesn't get surprised that a fan portrait is of better quality than the utter shit they used on the game... nope... the only thing that he pays attention is that the skin colour isn't brown enough.

Why this diversity talk always has this smell of BS? Smokescreen trying to deflect attention from real problems? Like the game sucking and InXile being a bunch of liars?

Hey, we cheated you but we are pro diversity bro... our virtue signalling make everything okay, feel privileged.

 

[Lurker King]

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

SJWs aren't 19th century liberals. That's cultural appropriation.

 

[Luckmann]

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.)

Maybe that's Fargo's entire MO? Get a publisher, make a game, put it in development hell, get cancelled, blame publisher? When they couldn't pitch their shit to publishers, they started pitching it to backers that are clueless and then promptly ignore said backers, cash in, botch game, publish, rinse, repeat? Works for a couple of games and then you jump ship or restructure your assets and relabel.

How old is Fargo anyway? We should be especially careful around the time for retirement, when he'll probably do a huge thing and then move to the Caymans after emptying the accounts.

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.

0 x 10 = 0.

My god, you're right! It all adds up!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Has anyone done improved Last Castoff portraits?
Kev Inkline ?

 

[Jarpie]

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.

Also, you know what's the difference between capitalism and communism? while you cough your polluted lungs out, at least you get paid in capitalism.

 

[Infinitron]

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.

I feel like inXile suffer from being a small developer working in a "jack of all trades, master of none" mode. You get the impression that there's nobody there who is really good at any one thing. You can't make great RPGs like that, they demand mastery.

One of the reasons why I scoff at Fairfax-style statements that "Obsidian is a shadow of its former self" because of writers that have left is that throughout it all they've managed to preserve a core of high quality technical staff. Artists, programmers. That's the spine of a good game. The people at inXile love talking about how they "iterate" but you can't iterate effectively when you don't have a grasp on the fundamentals.

I think maybe that's why they talk about it so much, because it takes them more time than it takes other studios. Obsidian doesn't need to talk about iteration because it comes easier to them, they just do it.

 

[Luckmann]

Has anyone done improved Last Castoff portraits?
Kev Inkline ?

The plebbit thread we linked to with the Aligern portrait. The guy that made that portrait also made two Last Castoff portraits, one male and one female.

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.

Also, you know what's the difference between capitalism and communism? while you cough your polluted lungs out, at least you get paid in capitalism.

Are you saying that car tires and cheese are not livable wages? Sounds like someone is being a bit of a kulak.

 

[Prime Junta]

I feel like inXile suffer from being a small developer working in a "jack of all trades, master of none" mode. You get the impression that there's nobody there who is really good at any one thing. You can't make great RPGs like that, they demand mastery.

One of the reasons why I scoff at Fairfax-style statements that "Obsidian is a shadow of its former self" because of writers that have left them is that they've managed to preserve a core of high quality technical staff. Artists, programmers. That's the spine of a good game. The people at inXile love talking about how they "iterate" but you can't iterate effectively when you don't have a grasp on the fundamentals. I think maybe that's why they talk about it, because it takes them so much more time than it takes other studios. Obsidian doesn't need to talk about iteration because it comes easier to them, they just do it.

Yep-o.

I'd even say artists are somewhat dispensable. Programmers/scripters, system designers, sound, UI, and interaction designers. People who have the capability to take a design idea for a game and turn it something that's enjoyable to interact with. That's really fucking hard and takes a long time learn. If on top of that you have one or two bosses with good taste, you're golden -- you can hire the artists, writers, musicians and what have you for each project you're working on.

If you don't have that hard core of people who can get shit done, you can have the best artists, writers, and musicians in the world, and produce nothing but a really very extremely cool marketing video.

 

[Sigourn]

I feel like inXile suffer from being a small developer working in a "jack of all trades, master of none" mode. You get the impression that there's nobody there who is really good at any one thing. You can't make great RPGs like that, they demand mastery.

I have to agree. I didn't find anything in Wasteland 2 that told me "wow, these guys are incredible at making games", in any way or form. The artstyle was bad. The performance was bad. The mechanics were unenjoyable. The interface was terrible, and there was no "quality of life" features to be seen anywhere, all the way to buying and selling stuff, that carried over to T:ToN. No "select items you want to buy, then click Purchase". Rather, this clunky "double click item to purchase, and help the game doesn't bug out after you selected an item you only wanted to preview". The sound wasn't good, and neither was the music. The areas were laughably bad. The combat was repetitive and not really challenging.

The only thing the game had going was the multiple choices, which again isn't particularly good if you don't have the incentive to play the game again, just because it is so bad.

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.

0 x 10 = 0.

My god, you're right! It all adds up!

Ironically, you are right. I would probably stop playing anyways after I encounter a new wall of text.

For those interested, I posted this on Torment's Facebook page after they asked about our experiences with the game.

I stopped playing after three hours. I gave the game another chance with a new playthrough, experienced my first proper Crisis, and then stopped playing again after there hours.

I'll explain what my issues with the game were, and you are absolutely free to disregard them given my small play time, in which I only explored the Circus are and the one right east of it.

- The script is too long winded for my taste. I have played Planescape: Torment, I have won PS:T, I have enjoyed PS:T, and I would play PS:T again. So it is not an issue of "games with lots of reading aren't for you", which a lot of players like to repeat. (I even had to deal with annoyances like the low resolution upscaled so my eyes didn't hurt) Rather, the problem I find is that the text goes in great detail to talk about things that, in my opinion, just don't deserve that amount of detail or description. Quite often "less is more", and this is absolutely true in Torment: less descriptions would have made the game's pace more enjoyable.
- The combat is fairly bad. Like I said, I've played PS:T, and with a "combat" build to boot, so I know what terrible combat looks like. But those battles were dynamic and were over quickly, which is the opposite of Torment. ToN's first proper Crisis (right when you head for Sagus Cliffs) dragged on for too long,
- The setting is aesthetically interesting, but not so from a lore point of view. Again, this is my opinion, but I found PS:T was both aesthetically and thematically interesting: every NPC had something interesting to hear about, even the most unsuspecting ones.
- And since I'm talking aesthetics: I heavily dislike the interface and the character portraits. The interface seems more fitting for a game series like Mass Effect, while the portraits are this strange mix of "photograph" and "painting" which is very unsettling. Plus they don't exactly convey what the characters are all about (from my short experience with them).

Take all these critcisms with a grain of salt. Remember, only 6 hours, and I barely explored two maps. But I didn't enjoy the overly long script at all, and that didn't stop me from enjoying PS:T, because the game felt natural and real. Words mattered. In Tides of Numenera, I feel words are an excuse, and I don't have the strength to dig deeper for gold.

All that said, I really enjoyed Wasteland 2, so I'm looking forward to Wasteland 3.

Spoiler

I'm not looking forward to Wasteland 3, but I figured I had to say something nice for a change.

 

[Infinitron]

I'd even say artists are somewhat dispensable. Programmers, system designers, sound, UI, and interaction designers. People who have the capability to take a design idea for a game and turn it something that's enjoyable to interact with. That's really fucking hard and takes a long time learn. If on top of that you have one or two bosses with good taste, you're golden -- you can hire the artists, writers, musicians and what have you for each project you're working on.

Well, I feel like artists are a pertinent mention in the context of frequent complaints about the game's portraits. Obsidian is a big enough company that they can afford to employ a Lindsey Laney, somebody whose entire job is to pump out cool 2D art all day long. My guess is that inXile's artists are a lot less specialized.

 

[Prime Junta]

Well, I feel like artists are a pertinent mention in the context of frequent complains about the game's portraits. Obsidian is a big enough company that they can afford to employ a Lindsey Laney, somebody whose entire job is to generate cool 2D art all day long. My guess is that inXile's artists are a lot less specialized.

They subcontracted out most of the T:ToN core team. They had a five-million-dollar budget. That'll buy a lot of quality portraits.

 

[Lord Andre]

I feel like inXile suffer from being a small developer working in a "jack of all trades, master of none" mode. You get the impression that there's nobody there who is really good at any one thing. You can't make great RPGs like that, they demand mastery.

If you take 4 years to make a 40 hour game and I can only choose from 3 foci that amount to passive bonuses than it's not a matter of mastery, it's a matter of someone being utterly retarded.

What I wouldn't give for 2 hours with the lead designer, a room and a webcam...

By the way, who's the twinkle toed fairy-faggot commie cocksucker who was in charge of managing this shit after Kevin left ? I NEED to know his NAME.

 

[Infinitron]

By the way, who's the twinkle toed fairy-faggot commie cocksucker who was in charge of managing this shit after Kevin left ? I NEED to know his NAME.

I'm afraid Chris Keenan doesn't lend himself easily to that sort of mockery. He's a pretty normal-looking dudebro:

 

[SausageInYourFace]

What were the reasons again for Saunders leaving? Is it known or is it a mystery?

 

[Roguey]

They had a five-million-dollar budget.

Plus "multiple millions."

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

Every video or picture I see of Colin McComb always has this super-exaggerated and plastic smile on his face that reminds me of the description of the Levies in Sagus.

 

[hexer]

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

I'll get a chance to meet MCA in one month so I'll ask him.. hopefully he still remembers what was the idea

 

[Prime Junta]

BTW did any of you read Colin's novellas?

I did.

They were pretty okay actually. Nothing unforgettable, but competent and imaginative, and managed to do the New Sun/Dying Earth schtick pretty well.

Am disappoint not much of that carried over to T:ToN. Maybe he had an editor for the novellas.

Edit: links here, the first one is free and the second one is pretty cheap:

http://colinmccomb.com/fiction-get-some-here/

 

[Jarpie]

BTW did any of you read Colin's novellas?

I did.

They were pretty okay actually. Nothing unforgettable, but competent and imaginative, and managed to do the New Sun/Dying Earth schtick pretty well.

Am disappoint not much of that carried over to T:ToN. Maybe he had an editor for the novellas.

Or he spent most of his energy/time on the novellas than a fucking game.

 

[Prime Junta]

BTW did any of you read Colin's novellas?

I did.

They were pretty okay actually. Nothing unforgettable, but competent and imaginative, and managed to do the New Sun/Dying Earth schtick pretty well.

Am disappoint not much of that carried over to T:ToN. Maybe he had an editor for the novellas.

Or he spent most of his energy/time on the novellas than a fucking game.

He wrote those before the T:ToN project.

 

[Roguey]

BTW did any of you read Colin's novellas?

I did.

They were pretty okay actually. Nothing unforgettable, but competent and imaginative, and managed to do the New Sun/Dying Earth schtick pretty well.

Am disappoint not much of that carried over to T:ToN. Maybe he had an editor for the novellas.

Edit: links here, the first one is free and the second one is pretty cheap:

http://colinmccomb.com/fiction-get-some-here/

2012 era Roguey impressions http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ed-go-to-new-thread.79051/page-3#post-2420392

The signs were there all along.

Edit: The past really was a foreign country. A critical sea before inXile's brainworms got to him http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...released-go-to-new-thread.79051/#post-2417906 http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ed-go-to-new-thread.79051/page-2#post-2418079 http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...d-go-to-new-thread.79051/page-44#post-2525233

 

[Jarpie]

BTW did any of you read Colin's novellas?

I did.

They were pretty okay actually. Nothing unforgettable, but competent and imaginative, and managed to do the New Sun/Dying Earth schtick pretty well.

Am disappoint not much of that carried over to T:ToN. Maybe he had an editor for the novellas.

Or he spent most of his energy/time on the novellas than a fucking game.

He wrote those before the T:ToN project.

All of them? Maybe I'll read them at sometime if they're decent.

 

[an Administrator]

I think you guys are misunderstanding Colin's statement about that Aligern portrait being "too white". Looking at the concept arts, it indicates that characters such as Aligern and Tybir do have brown/black skin color. Of course it would not be ok to change the characters' basic features in a portrait. It's like drawing a blond Durance portrait.

 

[AngryKobold]

Spoiler

BTW did any of you read Colin's novellas?

I did.

They were pretty okay actually. Nothing unforgettable, but competent and imaginative, and managed to do the New Sun/Dying Earth schtick pretty well.

Am disappoint not much of that carried over to T:ToN. Maybe he had an editor for the novellas.

Edit: links here, the first one is free and the second one is pretty cheap:

http://colinmccomb.com/fiction-get-some-here/

2012 era Roguey impressions http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ed-go-to-new-thread.79051/page-3#post-2420392

The signs were there all along.

The knight training being unisex struck me as odd. This is one of those in-vogue grimdark fantasy settings where brutal things are happening to people all the time so it's weird to me that women would get this equal opportunity to be soldiers and receive the same harsh training as the men. Even stranger is that three women passed the finals and proving themselves superior to many of the best men. I guess this can be waved by it being fantasy.

(...)

On a similar note that one sailor who seemed disappointed in the lack of male whores in her shore leave town was odd. Like as if the author thought "Well if male sailors go see whores on shore leave, then a female sailor will purchase the services of a male whore." While some women do this kind of thing it seems unlikely to me that this particular character would have to directly pay for it.

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!

All of above make Goral's words of wisdom at release day extra funny. :D

You have light brown skin

SJW detected, 1/10, time to uninstall.