Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Luckmann]

Who is hating Planescape?

I have long loved Beavis & Butt-Head Do America. Stupid isn't always bad. This whole thread began by noting that the problem with Numenera (and TTON) was the lack of the goofy/stupid quality of Planescape, and its replacement with overwrought seriousness.

That's a very small part of everything, though. I wouldn't call it the problem. But it's certainly there.

lolwut

the Numanuma setting is way more retarded and goofy than Planescape ever was.

No. Planescape is a setting which has depth and a serious nature, but it does not take itself seriously. Numenera, on the other hand, is a completely retarded setting with no consistency whatsoever, but that still insists on taking itself seriously.

 

[Sacred82]

the Numanuma setting is way more retarded and goofy than Planescape ever was.

No. Planescape is a setting which has depth and a serious nature, but it does not take itself seriously. Numenera, on the other hand, is a completely retarded setting with no consistency whatsoever, but that still insists on taking itself seriously.

Do retards taking themselves seriously seem retarded and goofy?



My point was that the ridiculous timeframe/ chronologies in Numanuma, among other things, make it way more fucked up than "some place between the Planes". You add the numenera to that and the whole thing is so over the top silly it never actually occured to me it could be taking itself very seriously.

 

[Ulukai]

I loved the Lore and the writing of Tides Of Numenera despite its objective flaws. I wonder where the creators borrowed the Bloom concept


This reminded me of a Heinlein novel where a spaceship drifts endlessly or the Italian comics Druuna where the biomechanical architecture of spaceship endowed with a conscience is constantly changing.


Is this giant creature that crosses dimensions is originally from the books of Monte Cook?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky

The gigantic, cylindrical generation ship Vanguard, originally destined for "Far Centaurus", is cruising without guidance through the interstellar medium as a result of a long-ago mutiny that killed most of the officers. Over time, the descendants of the surviving loyal crew have forgotten the purpose and nature of their ship and lapsed into a pre-technological culture marked by superstition. They come to believe the "Ship" is the entire universe, so that "To move the ship" is considered an oxymoron, and references to the Ship's "voyage" are interpreted as religious metaphor. They are ruled by an oligarchy of "officers" and "scientists". Most crew members are simple illiterate farmers, seldom or never venturing to the "upper decks" where the "muties" (an abbreviation of "mutants" or "mutineers") dwell. Among the crew, all identifiable mutants are killed at birth.

 

[Infinitron]

Rare question on George Ziets Tumblr:

 

[SausageInYourFace]

"Disconnect between remote leads and onsite team. (...) I think things would have worked better if the leads - esp. the primary visionaries - were onsite with the team."

Pretty much what Monty also said.

 

[Mikeal]

After all this years I still don't know one thing. Why George Ziets looks like Basshunter?

 

[Bohr]

A bit of a lulzy twosome, just hope it doesn't hurt Goat Simulator's prospects

 

[MRY]

Goat and GOAT, obviously.

 

[Blaine]

Goat and GOAT, obviously.

What about Torment, though?

 

[vortex]

MRY if Larian gets the licence for Planescape 2, would you consider to join as writer?

 

[MRY]

No.

 

[agris]

Smart man.

 

[hexer]

Planescape inspires you to make Primordia, but you wouldn't want to write for an actual Planescape game...

 

[MRY]

Planescape inspires you to make Primordia, but you wouldn't want to write for an actual Planescape game...

(1) Planescape: Torment was a major inspiration for Primordia. The Planescape setting was not.
(2) On TTON, the team I joined included all of the PS:T writers (albeit with Avellone in a very reduced role, it turned out) and the lead designer and creative lead from MOTB. To sit alongside them (albeit only a couple of times, since almost all of my work was remote) was a great privilege and learning experience. But the consensus is that TTON is not PS:T or MOTB. Why would I expect the result with Larian to be closer to PS:T?
(3) As I've said many times before, I don't want to repeat the experience of pouring all of my writing time into a project for 14 months only to have my contribution to the game be an effectively irrelevant/invisible <5% of its writing. Nor do I want to work as an implementer of other people's themes and concepts. For me to overcome those aversions would require something really special. For instance, if Paul and Fred asked me to work on their Star Control game (never gonna happen), I would have a hard time saying no, both because that kind of game is still on my bucket list and because I owe so many happy childhood moments to them. If Moriarty asked me to work on a Loom sequel, or if I had the chance to work on a Sacrifice or Legacy of Kain game, that might also be appealing. But the Torment / branching-dialogue-RPG itch has been scratched.
(4) I need to spend what game-writing time I have on Fallen Gods and Strangeland. (The money is now entirely irrelevant. My total pay for 14 months on TTON comes out to something like three days' salary at my current job. But the same job that gives me more money takes more of my time; so even as time is scarcer and more valuable, compensation is abundant and less valuable.)
(5) If I had enough game-writing time that I could work on the project without it cutting into other things, I would instead use that time providing additional help to VD on CSG.

 

[hexer]

Thanks for the clarification.
I wish you all the best in your upcoming endeavours.

 

[undecaf]

I didn't consider TTON a particularly "bad" game, it was just an uninteresting one.

It had all the right makings all the way up to the setting (that was particularly full of potential), but there was too little gameplay there. I don't mean just combat, combat is not an issue, I mean that there was too little interactivity for a so heavily text based game to become actually interesting. Say what you want about the thrashmobs of PST, but they did give a break from all the reading.

I think this whole project was developed through a misunderstanding of what made the original fun, there was not enough analytical eye put on it.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I think this whole project was developed through a misunderstanding made the original fun

No shit. Let's not forget Fargo tweeting every other week the current amount of words they reached. WE NOW HAVE OVER 10 BILLION WORDS! THAT"S MORE THAN THE BIBLE!

Can one be surprised there's no editing on this game? Editing often means removing words, that just goes against what PST was, no????

 

[undecaf]

I think this whole project was developed through a misunderstanding made the original fun

No shit. Let's not forget Fargo tweeting every other week the current amount of words they reached. WE NOW HAVE OVER 10 BILLION WORDS! THAT"S MORE THAN THE BIBLE!

Can one be surprised there's no editing on this game? Editing often means removing words, that just goes against what PST was, no????

That's true otherwise, but the number of words isn't accountable of anything. That's just a number. At least not in my book. The whole design was jeopardized over the misconception of the source materials fundom, which sounds especially weird considering the poeple that made it were working on this one too.

 

[Vault Dweller]

(5) If I had enough game-writing time that I could work on the project without it cutting into other things, I would instead use that time providing additional help to VD on CSG.

That would be awesome.

 

[BING XI LAO]

or if I had the chance to work on a Sacrifice or Legacy of Kain game, that might also be appealing.

Both of the writing-heavy games in my sig, long odds or just taste? Have you something in mind you'd theoretically write for a Sacrifice sequel's plot?

 

[MRY]

or if I had the chance to work on a Sacrifice or Legacy of Kain game, that might also be appealing.

Both of the writing-heavy games in my sig, long odds or just taste? Have you something in mind you'd theoretically write for a Sacrifice sequel's plot?

I just loved their melodrama. No particular ideas.

 

[Saduj]

I don't mean just combat, combat is not an issue, I mean that there was too little interactivity for a so heavily text based game to become actually interesting. Say what you want about the thrashmobs of PST, but they did give a break from all the reading.

I was pissed off when The Sorrow showed up during the first castoff fight. Was looking forward to that one but, no the big metaphysical hamfist has to show up instead. Can’t imagine anyone thought “What? Oh cool, The Sorrow!” When that happened...

 

[undecaf]

I don't mean just combat, combat is not an issue, I mean that there was too little interactivity for a so heavily text based game to become actually interesting. Say what you want about the thrashmobs of PST, but they did give a break from all the reading.

I was pissed off when The Sorrow showed up during the first castoff fight. Was looking forward to that one but, no the big metaphysical hamfist has to show up instead. Can’t imagine anyone thought “What? Oh cool, The Sorrow!” When that happened...

I never looked at the way things were written to happen. The story goes where it goes. It happens, in RPG's. All the time. My general complaint was and is, that the game was not very interesting to play inspite what the setting provided. There was lots of text, but not much of meaningful interactivity.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I think this whole project was developed through a misunderstanding made the original fun

No shit. Let's not forget Fargo tweeting every other week the current amount of words they reached. WE NOW HAVE OVER 10 BILLION WORDS! THAT"S MORE THAN THE BIBLE!

Can one be surprised there's no editing on this game? Editing often means removing words, that just goes against what PST was, no????

It's what you got when you let an accountant in charge.

 

[Ninjerk]

or if I had the chance to work on a Sacrifice or Legacy of Kain game, that might also be appealing.

The three best RPG games are Spyro the Dragon for aesthetic, Sacrifice for combat and Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain for story

Why are you the way that you are?