Preview Tyranny GDC 2016 Previews

[Tao]

Have you seen any "gray morality" story in games that wasn't painfully idiotic?

PoE was not bad overall, both for some side quests and the grand scheme of things. You need to get into it though to care about anything gray. If you just breeze through text, you'll miss it and don't give a fuck.

As for Good vs Evil, it's fucked usually because they forget that it's the OTHER axis that's actually important: Order vs Chaos. That's the one that defines everything meaningful.
Good and Evil are just a matter of perspective usually based on slight variations of the value of life of various creatures. Human find Orcs evil for killing humans, Elves find Human evil for cutting trees, etc...Nobody gives a fuck really but it's simple to understand for morons and handy in a combat focused game.
Order vs Chaos (Law vs Self, etc) is deeply philosophical and completely opposed. This is the real shit that makes or break stories, characters, entire nations. Sadly, it seems that 99% of games out there just force the player to be Chaotic by default (kill and loot everything, no respect for laws which are usually not even bothered to be explained anywhere anyway, exacerbated self and ego of the protagonist, no fuck given for society as a whole whatsoever). Even when you're the law, you don't even get the fucking book with the laws in them so you can do your job and instead are forced to be the law by yourself, usually for yourself. Shit, last time I was the law properly in a game was in Police Quest I think.

That's why these "good vs evil" stories are usually completely idiotic and will continue to be...

Nice reading, i completely agree this is the issue about all the rpgs out there have trying to make C&C matter when focus on the good vs evil, they forget the consecuences are not tie to them or worse, they make good=possitive evil=negative consecuence and the most revolutionary they could think iabout s making good=gray. So edgy!!!

 

[undecaf]

20 hours gameplay, its nearly nothing, we will spend more time posting about it than playing it ,by release date.

20 good hours is better than 40+ here and there.

That said, I can't get the reek of a "middlework" off this thing so I'm not at all certain it will actually be "20 good hours".

 

[Prime Junta]

Late Bronze Age setting?
20 hours?
Massive C&C?
Improve-by-doing?

Ultimately it's all in the execution though. This could be really good, it could be a complete pratfall, or, most likely, something in-between.

Overall my hype-o-meter went up a notch or two with these news, but not gonna lose any sleep over this at this point.

 

[Jaesun]

This actually sounds pretty cool so far.

 

[Fairfax]

• RTwP.

• Combat seems more dynamic than Pilllars, with stuff like combo moves that can make companions shoot up in the air and fire arrows at the enemy.

• It's a shorter game than Pillars, focused on choice & consequence and replayability. One site mentions a playtime of less than 20 hours (though I wouldn't take that as gospel).

• Choice & consequence actually begins at character creation, with different initial world states depending on your choices in a CYOA-style character creation sequence.

• The usual Obsidian faction reputation and companion approval mechanics are in and can grant you unique abilities, for both positive ("Favor") and negative ("Wrath") reputations.

• There's going to be some sort of spellcrafting system, but Obsidian aren't ready to talk about it yet.

• The game uses the Pillars of Eternity engine

• Party size is four rather than six.

• The character system is classless with improve-by-use progression, although there are still experience points and levels.

• The game will have a stronghold, which they also aren't ready to talk about yet.

• The character system is classless with improve-by-use progression, although there are still experience points and levels.
• There's going to be some sort of spellcrafting system, but Obsidian aren't ready to talk about it yet.
• The game will have a stronghold, which they also aren't ready to talk about yet.

These will probably suck, as usual. Pretty retarded if it's anything like Skyrim.

The game world is called Terratus. The story is set in a Mediterranean-inspired region, during Terratus' equivalent of the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

I don't see the Mediterranean inspiration, but ok. Beats the ultra-generic Dyrwood.

 

[Infinitron]

As somebody who actually lives there, I can tell you that the terrain in some of the first screenshots we saw did look Mediterranean to me. It's not incredibly distinctive but you recognize it once you know it. Muted green, scattered foliage.

 

[Excidium II]

If you squint really hard.

 

[deuxhero]

RtWP

Into the trash.

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

i am so excited about this game! I really like that we will have another CRPG before PoE2 with the same engine. Hope the loading is faster (maybe this is why we have different backgrounds quality). I also hoe we will only have humans (like AOD).

 

[Fairfax]

As somebody who actually lives there, I can tell you that the terrain in some of the first screenshots we saw did look Mediterranean to me. It's not incredibly distinctive but you recognize it once you know it. Muted green, scattered foliage.

That's more savanna than mediterranean forest to me. "Muted green and scattered foliage" can describe half a dozen biomes, by the way.

 

[Infinitron]

I really like that we will have another CRPG before PoE2 with the same engine.

Which brings to mind the question, which will come first, Torment or Tyranny?

 

[Excidium II]

i am so excited about this game! I really like that we will have another CRPG before PoE2 with the same engine. Hope the loading is faster (maybe this is why we have different backgrounds quality).

Uh it's all pre-rendered so it doesn't matter.

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

Uh it's all pre-rendered so it doesn't matter.

I know it's pre-rendered but I think that it counts the resolution thus the size.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Also, PoE loading times were super quick. Wtf are you talking about

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

Which brings to mind the question, which will come first, Torment or Tyranny?

Tyranny I think.

 

[Athelas]

i am so excited about this game! I really like that we will have another CRPG before PoE2 with the same engine. Hope the loading is faster (maybe this is why we have different backgrounds quality).

Uh it's all pre-rendered so it doesn't matter.

I believe it does, depending on how many 'layers' the pre-rendered background has and therefore how much data it has to load. I think it's something the designers working on PoE talked about at some point.

 

[Fairfax]

I really like that we will have another CRPG before PoE2 with the same engine.

Which brings to mind the question, which will come first, Torment or Tyranny?

My money is on Torment. Early Access is selling so poorly I think Fargo will rush it really hard to cut their losses.

 

[Infinitron]

Haha, surely the real reason why Torment should come out first is that it's had eight months more of development time.

 

[Mustawd]

In general, just want to comment I've gotten a bit tired of "gray" morality in RPGs. It's fantasy and escapism, I think it's totally fine to have clearly defined good and evil and not have to deal with moral ambiguity.

I'm not saying no games should be like that, they can be quite fun, just saying after a couple of decades of it I would enjoy a good old old fashioned clearly defined good vs evil in my fantasy.

Sorry, I was under the impression that we've had a couple of decades of the same old tropes again and again and again.

 

[Bubbles]

PoE has had a ton of issues with their save/load feature since release; I'm guessing map size was the least of their problems.

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

My money is on Torment. Early Access is selling so poorly I think Fargo will rush it really hard to cut their losses.

The price is too high. I think that Torment will release somewhere in December. In this state it's still in Alpha.
Tyranny could be done by the end of summer.

 

[Neanderthal]

"Muted green and scattered foliage" can describe half a dozen biomes, by the way.

Neh mind biomes, whatever the fuck they are, that describes my fuckin John Thomas.

 

[Excidium II]

i am so excited about this game! I really like that we will have another CRPG before PoE2 with the same engine. Hope the loading is faster (maybe this is why we have different backgrounds quality).

Uh it's all pre-rendered so it doesn't matter.

I believe it does, depending on how many 'layers' the pre-rendered background has and therefore how much data it has to load. I think it's something the designers working on PoE talked about at some point.

The layers are for things like lighting and such, this will probably have the same.

It might have more dynamic backgrounds like TToN does. They wanted it on PoE but had no time.

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

Also, PoE loading times were super quick. Wtf are you talking about

No they were not. At least not the first loading screen.

 

[Infinitron]

i am so excited about this game! I really like that we will have another CRPG before PoE2 with the same engine. Hope the loading is faster (maybe this is why we have different backgrounds quality).

Uh it's all pre-rendered so it doesn't matter.

I believe it does, depending on how many 'layers' the pre-rendered background has and therefore how much data it has to load. I think it's something the designers working on PoE talked about at some point.

The layers are for things like lighting and such, this will probably have the same.

It might have more dynamic backgrounds like TToN does. They wanted it on PoE but had no time.

In last year's retrospective panel at PAX, Adam Brennecke said Obsidian had plans for massive reduction of load times that could only be implemented in a sequel, as well as things like "sub-areas" that don't require loading and other features: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10051

It'll be interesting to see if/how many of these are already implemented in Tyranny.