Game News "What can change the nature of a game?" - Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter is LIVE

[Kosmonaut]

 

[Mrowak]

Almost every dialog tree revolves around dispensing lore. There are a couple dialogs here and there where you need to have been paying attention. But those are few and far between.

Ok, I'll say this in red: It is impossible for a human to progress in Planescape: Torment if you don't comprehend the text and act upon it. One could assume that because PS:T requires an informed and thoughtful action on the part of the "reader" it is a game.

I mean this assumption was an inherent part of computer text adventure games, and PnP RPGs. This is the gameplay in them.

If you don't agree than please give your own definition of gameplay.

I didn't say that PS:T has no gameplay, I said the gameplay is bad. The combat and quests (from a mechanical perspective), which make up the VAST majority of the gameplay, are both really really bad.

Combat, yeah. Quests, nah.

The part where you have to read, understand, and then make informed choices based on dialog is good. But this happens rarely. Be honest: how many times do you truly need to make decisions in the game based on what you've read in dialogs? Most of the game is spent (a) fighting

True, combat is PS:T is attrocious and it should be fixed in the sequel.

(b) walking around doing fed-ex quests

Good thing they were logically structured and fun to complete, ergo it was good gameplay.

(c) reading lore-dispensing dialogs.

Which took place during gameplay and were important part of it explaining how and why player should even care about all those fed-ex quests.

Way, way down the list in frequency is (d) making thoughtful decisions based on your understanding of the world and story.

Well, this may be because PS:T is a pretty linear game. But to be honest I don't get the entire "quests were really, really bad". Actually there isn't an RPG in recent memory that didn't have bad quest gameplay. Prime example would be quests in Arcanum which all too often boil down to skillchecks that determine success/failure without the input of the player (so it's the numbers the player has set in his character screen are really playing the game for him - that's pretty spastic). Going further along this logic, mechanically most dungeon crawlers are about fulfilling some arbitrary goals by fed-exing to and fro for some reasons, with pretty much boring combat in between. Frankly, I cannot think of any game that had better quest structure and quest-oriented gamplay than PS:T... save maybe for Betrayal at Krondor... and Sengoku Rance.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah, now for a Hunted The Demon's Forge 2 Kickstarter!

Yeah well you gotta go what you gotta do to stay alive. That's the way it works.

 

[commie]

Yeah, now for a Hunted The Demon's Forge 2 Kickstarter!

Yeah well you gotta go what you gotta do to stay alive. That's the way it works.

That's what the Kapos said at Auschwitz.



Anyway I threw down 100+ for this. I'm a bit miffed at them offering W2 as well in some of the pledges. Maybe it's better to wait another year and get all 7 inXile KS funded games in some kind of KS compilation.

 

[Brother None]

I love how smug Brother None is being now that his job was secured by sweet KS money: "Most producers still seem to think you can just stitch together any ol' teaser in under an hour and rake in millions, but not us, oh no, we at InXile know what's up." , while he probably puked his guts out of sheer terror right before the campaign launched...

Pretty much, haha. It's all relief and adrenaline speaking at this point man. What, drunk!? DRUNK NOT AM I!

Anyone tracked down any Hi res concept art yet? I really want that sojourner as my desktop.

I have 'em. Oh, you mean public? Well then. No

Ehh, it isn't really market research There are pretty large media campaigns behind these things. It is as much 'testing the market' as the launch event for the last halo series Except, you don't need to invest more than hiring a concept artist for a few pictures and putting together a video.

Oh yeah, we totally have a huge marketing budget on this thing, and we totally didn't have to put up anything more substantive than a bit of concept art and a video.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

If Fargo ever visits the Codex, I'd like to ask him where the bow popamole in Hunted came from. That is honestly such an... extravagant idea, I'm curious who came up with it. Was it publisher meddling? Or perchance the kind of new-weird creativity that'll shine through in the new Torment?

Yeah, now for a Hunted The Demon's Forge 2 Kickstarter!

Yeah well you gotta go what you gotta do to stay alive. That's the way it works.

That's what the Kapos said at Auschwitz.

Actually, that's what most of the actual survivors said afterwards.

 

[Kirtai]

So, what was Kevin Saunders reaction?

 

[Brother None]

Brian hardly ever talks about Hunted. He'll proudly espouse the Bard's Tale, and while he's open about its flaws he's pretty happy about what they accomplished. But Hunted? He won't even mention that thing. I think it was just something to do.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I have 'em. Oh, you mean public? Well then. No.

 

[Jack]

I know I want that damn Bloom pic on my desktop ASAP. It's so awesome <3

This one? Not really high res enough to be a decent wallpaper I'm afraid.

 

[mindx2]

mindx2 will not be happy.

I know. He's going to be missing out. I should have asked him what tier he wanted and hold one for him. But even now with the KS going so fucking crazy It would probably get taken the second I backed out of it.

Don't fret my friends. I snuck onto a computer at work this morning and grabbed one of the first $250 tier spots. My only dilemma was should I go with the $500 tier, I would really love to have this signed box next to my Wasteland 2 signed box.

But you won't have a PE signed box...unlike me. Kill yourself now.

Au contraire, mon frère. I did go for the $250 P:E tier... I just forgot that I had along with the WASTELAND DOOMSDAY PREPARATION SURVIVAL KIT .

As a collector I eat these things up.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Thanks! I prefer black bars on the sides anyway.

 

[Cynic]

Gameplay footage of Wasteland 2 looked FUCKING TIGHT BROS!!!!!!!

SO HYPED

 

[clemens]

I know I want that damn Bloom pic on my desktop ASAP. It's so awesome <3

This one? Not really high res enough to be a decent wallpaper I'm afraid.

Good enough.

 

[commie]

mindx2 will not be happy.

I know. He's going to be missing out. I should have asked him what tier he wanted and hold one for him. But even now with the KS going so fucking crazy It would probably get taken the second I backed out of it.

Don't fret my friends. I snuck onto a computer at work this morning and grabbed one of the first $250 tier spots. My only dilemma was should I go with the $500 tier, I would really love to have this signed box next to my Wasteland 2 signed box.

But you won't have a PE signed box...unlike me. Kill yourself now.

Au contraire, mon frère. I did go for the $250 P:E tier... I just forgot that I had along with the WASTELAND DOOMSDAY PREPARATION SURVIVAL KIT .

As a collector I eat these things up.

Yeah well....:looks around the room:....I bet you don't the AD&D Collectors box eh? huh? HUH????

 

[jewboy]

Would there even be any point in getting Ziets or even MCA as a stretch goal? Surely they are being kept busy over at Obsidian. There are only so many hours in a day. Especially for a creative type. If it weren't for the fact that Ziets himself suggested the idea, I wouldn't pay it any attention at all. If he has time for 2 projects at once then I'm thinking Obsidian isn't making full use of him. I'm starting to think that these employee stretch goals should mention how much of their time (or other work metric) we are buying. Having said that, Ziets would obviously be perfect for this project. After all, he basically already made a PS:T in spirit. It should be old hat for him by now.

 

[Zeriel]

@CMcC

Assuming the funding doesn't drop off immensely and we hit around 3-5M mark, I hope you guys really push for a full 2D look. It could really take this project from "cool" to "absolutely classic". Just thinking what a classic 2D look could be like with modern tech gets me so excited.

 

[Gozma]

Yo BN, tell whoever the person was that thought up the concept that the PC is basically one of the people TNO stole a soul from (I know it's not an actual narrative connection, but thematic) is an absolute genius and no Torment sequel would have ever been accepted without that idea. It's such a good idea people are going to forget how retarded a Torment sequel seemed before they heard it, so make sure it's understood now

 

[mindx2]

Amazing... just amazing... the $20 tier that had 15,000 slots is almost gone!!!

And half of the $500 tiers are already gone in what nine hours?!!

.... can I resist the urge.... ugh.... what dear? No, it must be identity theft that caused our account to go down $500... damn those thieves!!

 

[Zeriel]

Would there even be any point in getting Ziets or even MCA as a stretch goal? Surely they are being kept busy over at Obsidian. There are only so many hours in a day. Especially for a creative type. If it weren't for the fact that Ziets himself suggested the idea, I wouldn't pay it any attention at all. If he has time for 2 projects at once then I'm thinking Obsidian isn't making full use of him. I'm starting to think that these employee stretch goals should mention how much of their time (or other work metric) we are buying. Having said that, Ziets would obviously be perfect for this project. After all, he basically already made a PS:T in spirit. It should be old hat for him by now.

I'm one of those crazy people who is averse to these "specific person" stretch-goals. Getting talented people in on the ground floor as core parts of the team is great, but getting them there as last-minute additions doesn't strike me as a particularly good idea. The potential for either adding nothing good or even making things worse by going in and screwing up pre-established stuff seems pretty high. There's a reason supergroups in music often tend to crank out inferior stuff.

So I guess I'm in the "either add these amazing people as full-time members of the development team, or not at all" camp. Which may or may not be a camp of just me. Lonely here. No wood for the campfire.

 

[Rivmusique]

Sounding good, though I didn't like the video much (apart from the music of course). But the concept art, story teasers and the tides/legacy systems are intriguing. Pretty excited for this.

 

[evdk]

@CMcC

Assuming the funding doesn't drop off immensely and we hit around 3-5M mark, I hope you guys really push for a full 2D look. It could really take this project from "cool" to "absolutely classic". Just thinking what a classic 2D look could be like with modern tech gets me so excited.

No matter how much funds get raised in the end, the box must have dreadful off putting art on it, with a lot of orange. It's a tradition.

 

[mindx2]

I'm one of those crazy people who is averse to these "specific person" stretch-goals. Getting talented people in on the ground floor as core parts of the team is great, but getting them there as last-minute additions doesn't strike me as a particularly good idea. The potential for either adding nothing good or even making things worse by going in and screwing up pre-established stuff seems pretty high. There's a reason supergroups in music often tend to crank out inferior stuff.

So I guess I'm in the "either add these amazing people as full-time members of the development team, or not at all" camp. Which may or may not be a camp of just me. Lonely here. No wood for the campfire.

I doubt very much that anyone they add wasn't already "on board" since the beginning but InXile knows they can milk those type of announcements for more or higher pledges, right Brother None?

 

[Zeriel]

@CMcC

Assuming the funding doesn't drop off immensely and we hit around 3-5M mark, I hope you guys really push for a full 2D look. It could really take this project from "cool" to "absolutely classic". Just thinking what a classic 2D look could be like with modern tech gets me so excited.

No matter how much funds get raised in the end, the box must have dreadful off putting art on it, with a lot of orange. It's a tradition.

Since it's going to be a largely digital release at first, they need to go one step further and make the title screen off-putting too. Some sort of Meatspin-y action. Maybe in canon as a horrible gaping anus vortex inside the Bloom?

 

[Wizfall]

Yeah, now for a Hunted The Demon's Forge 2 Kickstarter!

Yeah well you gotta go what you gotta do to stay alive. That's the way it works.

Hunted The Demon's Forge : The Bard Chapter
Would not be a bad way to change a bad souvenir for a good one.
I woud be happier with a arcanum sequel or an original "space" cRPG though.