Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Schizophrenic monolog]

unlike the average gamer - a 16 years old boy - who can play the game 10 hours a day.

Uhm, no, the average gamer is in their 20s, even older. 73% of them are above 18.

http://www.theesa.com/about-esa/industry-facts/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/189582/age-of-us-video-game-players-since-2010/

Holy shit!
You've just ruined my entire post with your... FACTS!!!

Wow, and I thought most gamers are at younger age...

But, I'm still pretty sure that the majority of the gamers have less patience than 15 years ago...

 

[Roguey]

I know you have a quote somewhere - I'd be interested to see it.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...t-content-and-more.111252/page-5#post-4764286

 

[Sentinel]

Infinitron, no one in his right mind will bad mouth their past employers on public, unless they have a meltdown, are drunk, or both. We can't take things people say in public at face value, because they have conflicts of interest.

Chris Avellone seems quite happy to trash the managers at Obsidian on his personal Twitter feed. Although he hasn't said it directly, it is obvious he means Feargus as he was passive-aggressively live tweeting while watching Feargus' IGN interview.

It's not Feargus but Chris Parker.

 

[Lurker King]

I don't think those numbers mean anything. TTON audience probably much older than GTA, Doom and Tomb Raider alike audience. For example, I really love TTON but I only play an average of one hour a day. I have a family, work and other things to do through out the day - unlike the average gamer - a 16 years old boy - who can play a game 10 hours a day.

If you want to keep this culture alive, teach your kids to play some fucking cRPGs. Just throwing money at these irresponsible studios and repeating that their inferior games are awesome for nostalgia sake just make things worse.

 

[Lacrymas]

Schizophrenic monolog, I wasn't trying to "ruin your post" lol, just correcting your assumptions.

 

[Schizophrenic monolog]

I don't think those numbers mean anything. TTON audience probably much older than GTA, Doom and Tomb Raider alike audience. For example, I really love TTON but I only play an average of one hour a day. I have a family, work and other things to do through out the day - unlike the average gamer - a 16 years old boy - who can play a game 10 hours a day.

If you want to keep this culture alive, teach your kids to play some fucking cRPGs. Just throwing money at these irresponsible studios and repeating that their inferior games are awesome for nostalgia sake just make things worse.

I understand you think TTON is shit.
But at least they tried.
I prefer 50 bad Crpgs and 2 great one than none at all...

More over, I think that an average RPG is better than a good FPS or the best theme park game.
That the genre I love so in that case I'm really happy to see the genre come to life again - even at the cost of lots of just average games

 

[Lurker King]

I understand you think TTON is awesome. If you want cRPG development to have a future, instead of these squalid sales, teach your kids to play cRPGs.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, that gamer statistic is probably very broad and include people who ...debase themselves by playing all sorts of deviant things. Like CoD, Battlefield, Ass Effect etc. It may actually include mobile games as well. Someone should make a statistic about how many people are actually the Aryan master race, i.e. those not playing the basest of games/genres previously described. Teach your children some culture.

 

[Schizophrenic monolog]

I understand you think TTON is awesome. If you want cRPG development to have a future, instead of these squalid sales, teach your kids to play cRPGs.

I understand your point, I really do.
I don't think you're wrong.
But I do believe that if those games will fail, there'll be no CRPG games in the near future.

So, as I said before, I'll take my risk with tons of mediocre CRPG just to get a chance to get a really good one.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Infinitron, no one in his right mind will bad mouth their past employers on public, unless they have a meltdown, are drunk, or both. We can't take things people say in public at face value, because they have conflicts of interest.

Chris Avellone seems quite happy to trash the managers at Obsidian on his personal Twitter feed. Although he hasn't said it directly, it is obvious he means Feargus as he was passive-aggressively live tweeting while watching Feargus' IGN interview.

It's not Feargus but Chris Parker.

During his live tweeting of the Feargus interview, he refused to refer to Feargus by name - just 'Obsidian CEO' - and when asked by someone if he was criticising Feargus, he didn't actually answer. https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/status/826913377188392960

 

[Lurker King]

He's no longer willing to defend Chris Parker either.

You mean the guy that supposedly helped him ruin Alpha Brotocol?

There was a ton of work put into this game. The problem is that it was a ton of undirected work, or work on things that were just stupid. The Executive Producer for the game, Chris Parker (also an owner of the company), seemed to think he was the world’s greatest designer ever, and created all these absolutely shitty systems and wouldn’t listen to any of the real designers or devs about things that just didn’t work. And you can’t exactly argue with one of the owners of the company when he doesn’t want to listen. He basically took over the game and dictated exactly how everything would work (or not work, as the case may be). The other producers realized this early on and just gave up, leaving Parker to micromanage all the designers and programmers directly.

Sega also was a factor, because they kept changing the design requirements (yes they had heavy influence there), which never gave the producers and designers time to actually decide on one set of features to make and polish. The blame is still mostly Obsidian’s because the execution was absolutely terrible, and it was obvious 2 years ago that this game should have been scrapped. Instead, though, they focused on adding still more features and never fixed the ones they already had. That is a recipe for tons of bugs and no polish… as is obvious.

This game was just an absolute failure of production, and it’s no wonder that so many of the developers left the company, even after the 40% staff layoffs. I am still happy about some of Obsidian’s other current projects, New Vegas included, because they are going pretty well. Their big unannounced project is looking great and is already much better than AP ever was, and that may end up being the game that everyone was looking for with AP.

Sega should have canceled AP instead of Aliens.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

He's no longer willing to defend Chris Parker either.

You mean the guy that supposedly helped him ruin Alpha Brotocol?

There was a ton of work put into this game. The problem is that it was a ton of undirected work, or work on things that were just stupid. The Executive Producer for the game, Chris Parker (also an owner of the company), seemed to think he was the world’s greatest designer ever, and created all these absolutely shitty systems and wouldn’t listen to any of the real designers or devs about things that just didn’t work. And you can’t exactly argue with one of the owners of the company when he doesn’t want to listen. He basically took over the game and dictated exactly how everything would work (or not work, as the case may be). The other producers realized this early on and just gave up, leaving Parker to micromanage all the designers and programmers directly.

Sega also was a factor, because they kept changing the design requirements (yes they had heavy influence there), which never gave the producers and designers time to actually decide on one set of features to make and polish. The blame is still mostly Obsidian’s because the execution was absolutely terrible, and it was obvious 2 years ago that this game should have been scrapped. Instead, though, they focused on adding still more features and never fixed the ones they already had. That is a recipe for tons of bugs and no polish… as is obvious.

This game was just an absolute failure of production, and it’s no wonder that so many of the developers left the company, even after the 40% staff layoffs. I am still happy about some of Obsidian’s other current projects, New Vegas included, because they are going pretty well. Their big unannounced project is looking great and is already much better than AP ever was, and that may end up being the game that everyone was looking for with AP.

Sega should have canceled AP instead of Aliens.

I doubt that was Avellone. I think it was written by someone who had worked on AP and left Obsidian. Remember that Avellone was an owner of the company just like Parker during his time at Obsidian.

 

[Roguey]

You mean the guy that supposedly helped him ruin Alpha Brotocol?

That guy was fired and bitter, and another laid-off employee said he was an asshole.

But sure, Parker mismanaged AP.

 

[Lurker King]

But I do believe that if those games will fail, there'll be no CRPG games in the near future.

But there will be cRPGs in the near future. The difference is that they will be even a nicher genre than they are now. cRPGs now are like jazz, a luxury entertainment for a minority. The future of cRPGs belong to indie developers like Stygian, ITS, Overhyped, etc., which are always willing to take risks and implementing decent mechanics. Medium studios either will fail like inXile, or are going to become more and more streamlined and popamole, like Obsidian and Harebrained Schemes – and even in this case they will struggle due to their unsustainable business model and huge payrolls. The gap between cRPGs with meat and popamole pseudo-cRPGs will continue to increase to the point that people will be talking about two isometric games as if they belonged to the same class, but one of them will be WoW with isometric clothing. But even with all these problems, both popamole and genuine studios would be doing better if old-school grognards were teaching their kids the joy of playing cRPGs.

 

[adddeed]

Well I really couldnt care less if there wont be any more good cRPGs, we have plenty of those already. I am perfectly fine with replaying old classics (actually most of the fun in these games I get from replayng them) and plus there are so many I havent even played yet. Its sad that competent well funded developers of this genre dont exist anymore, but thats how things go.

 

[an Administrator]

So the main question is - is TTON any good?

No

 

[Dwarvophile]

Steamspy says there are 40.000 people playing Torment.

I don't think those numbers mean anything.

TTON audience probably much older than GTA, Doom and Tomb Raider alike audience.
For example, I really love TTON but I only play an average of one hour a day.
I have a family, work and other things to do through out the day - unlike the average gamer - a 16 years old boy - who can play a game 10 hours a day.

And Torment was never meant to sell like POE.

It's a very "Wordy" game with slow pace and very philosophic approach unlike games like Doom or even POE that are more combat oriented...

And I do believe that the market today have even less patience for heavy games with lots of words and fewer battles...

So, I don't think TTON going to sell as well as lots of you guys here think or thought.

So the main question is - is TTON any good?

After few hours in the game I believe it's awesome.
Maybe because nobody make games like this anymore - which make him one of a kind by default.
Or maybe because it's really that good in my opinion...

I read lots of different opinions here, but the bottom line is that I'll be the judge of TTON after I'll finish it.

And my advice to those who love CRPG is to play the game for yourself.
Some of you, like me, probably will enjoy it!

You seem to be awfully balanced for a schizophrenic monolog.

I think you're right on the average gamer, despite what market's studies will say or despite the feeling I could get while reading posts on the codex, it just take 10 minutes of play on any multiplayer game to feel like I'm surrounded by 10 years old gamers. Whatever they write; it's what they do that will reveal their real age.

 

[Schizophrenic monolog]

But I do believe that if those games will fail, there'll be no CRPG games in the near future.

But there will be cRPGs in the near future. The difference is that they will be even a nicher genre than they are now. cRPGs now are like jazz, a luxury entertainment for a minority. The future of cRPGs belong to indie developers like Stygian, ITS, Overhyped, etc., which are always willing to take risks and implementing decent mechanics. Medium studios either will fail like inXile, or are going to become more and more streamlined and popamole, like Obsidian and Harebrained Schemes – and even in this case they will struggle due to their unsustainable business model and huge payrolls. The gap between cRPGs with meat and popamole pseudo-cRPGs will continue to increase to the point that people will be talking about two isometric games as if they belonged to the same class, but one of them will be WoW with isometric clothing. But even with all these problems, both popamole and genuine studios would be doing better if old-school grognards were teaching their kids the joy of playing cRPGs.

I totally agree with you except one thing:
Unlike you, I don't think InXile making bad CRPGs.
I had great time with Wasteland 2, POE, The banner saga and D:OS.
So Obsidian, InXile, Larian and the others did very good - in my opinion...
And so far, I'm in love with TTON.
Maybe I'm more forgiving than you about the games I play...
(It's like people who laugh from anything.
You don't really understand them, but you can't ignore the fact that it's easier for them to enjoy life...)

 

[Schizophrenic monolog]

You seem to be awfully balanced for a schizophrenic monolog.

I've been a good boy mommy.
Took my medicine today...

 

[Moth]

While my opinion of T:TON leans slightly in the favorable direction, I just experienced one of the cringiest moments possible. From a meta level.

There is a clear typo during Tybir's personal quest. This line is actually voice acted. The voice actor speaks the broken line as if nothing was wrong. It is one of the most awkward sentences I have heard in my entire life.

b r a v o
r
a
v
o

 

[Roguey]

While my opinion of T:TON leans slightly in the favorable direction, I just experienced one of the cringiest moments possible. From a meta level.

There is a clear typo during Tybir's personal quest. This line is actually voice acted. The voice actor speaks the broken line as if nothing was wrong. It is one of the most awkward sentences I have heard in my entire life.

b r a v o
r
a
v
o

How does it compare to Risen 2's "I don't have gold enough"?

 

[DeepOcean]

Why Torment isn't selling so well, just an experiment:

RockPaperShotgun conclusion to their Torment review:

Torment: Tides of Numenera is a roleplaying game far more interested in thoughtful choices than wizarding and warrioring. Though combat is often an option, it’s the least interesting element of a game that rewards patience and thoughtfulness.

Although it boasts beautiful environments, Torment is very much a game about reading – a choose-your-own-adventure on a grand scale and with far-reaching, meticulously-interwoven consequences that often only show themselves hours later.

Sometimes, it’s too interested in world-building over emotional clout, and you may find yourself scanning rapidly through seemingly endless paragraphs of well-written word salad to find the central point or dilemma of its many conversations. For this reason, its pacing can be awkward, while critical plot events are presented oddly abruptly and major characters don’t make quite the intended impression.

Nevertheless, enough of its ideas and characters coalesce into unusual brilliance to survive this sometimes flabby quality. This a both a worthy successor to 1999’s beloved Planescape: Torment and a smart, reactive and singular RPG in its own right.

Translation: "Man, I'm so fucking bored with this endless boring exposition about uninteresting fantasy stuff but I need to recommend this game for mah old school credits and indie support virtue signalling."

Man, such an excitement, I never seen someone loving a game so much... I will go buy this game right away after this.

Pity is that I can't even mock this tard as I usually do because he has kinda of a point.

 

[Moth]

How does it compare to Risen 2's "I don't have gold enough"?

About on par. The syntax isn't quite as awkward, but the emotion poured into the voice acting just makes it so much worse.

"I'm the one killed [insert name here.], and it's my fault he's dead."

I'm the one killed.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

How does it compare to Risen 2's "I don't have gold enough"?

About on par. The syntax isn't quite as awkward, but the emotion poured into the voice acting just makes it so much worse.

"I'm the one killed [insert name here.], and it's my fault he's dead."

I'm the one killed.

 

[Darth Roxor]

How does it compare to Risen 2's "I don't have gold enough"?

About on par. The syntax isn't quite as awkward, but the emotion poured into the voice acting just makes it so much worse.

"I'm the one killed [insert name here.], and it's my fault he's dead."

I'm the one killed.

Joke's on you, though, because that's archaic syntax. Or at least it might be.