Amentep

Wasn't he interrupted before he could do that? I saw the movie twice in the theater and I actually can't remember. Something happens.

My objection is that (especially given the restraint), there's no point in naming the game Torment aside from tugging on the heart strings since people highly regard the game Torment. For the same reason I'm not a fan of Interplay reviving the old Black Isle Studios name. It's manipulative and not necessary. Stating that they want to make a torment style game would be fine. But noooo, they are naming this game Torment straight up, and have said "Torment games have these themes." What made Torment amazing was that it was new, fresh, and unexpected. He's already handicapped himself for what the game's themes can be (i.e. a rehash of the same themes explored in Torment, so what was surprising and unique in the original game is now being leveraged to acquire more money, all the while undermining the potential for being surprised and unique in the same way that the original game could be." How has he handicapped himself? If he'd said that he was making a "torment style game" and said it'll have "these themes because we see this as the thematic aspects of Torment that will make a torment style game"...how does it matter what they name it? Your problem still seems to boil down to "I don't like them using the name" for no other reason than, apparently the name is sacrosanct. But they're still doing their own thing; they've defined Torment 2 within a context, but they could have defined that same context without calling it Torment 2; the idea that they've limited themselves is ridiculous because they've only limited themselves in ways in which they'd have to limit themselves - to define what it is they want to do. And doing Wasteland 2 isn't? Doing Project Eternity and mentioning Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale (and yes, PLANESCAPE: TORMENT) isn't? All of these kickstarters have used a hook, a way to boil down the essence of what the pledge is going for. And really Planescape: Torment is a "powerful franchise"...that never got a sequel back when the original Black isle could have done it? But how does development of this game effect PST at all? Is Fargo going to use the kickstarter to hire a bevy of break-in artists to snatch every existing copy of PST from the houses and vaults of the unsuspecting? Seriously, how has the "novel new funding mechanism that frees developers from their creative shackles" really done in terms of inventiveness? Project: Eternity - sold as a successor to IE games, heavily promoted BG, IWD, PST Wasteland 2 - sequel Shadowrun Returns - sequel and adaption of existing game system Star Citizen - sold on strength of connections to Wing Commander and Privateer / Freelancer Broken Sword - sequel Leisure Suit Larry - sequel Grim Dawn - spiritual successor to Titan Quest (using some of the same assets) and so on. Even most of the non-sequels are usually setting themselves up as "like [thing x]". So again, how new/novel is the stuff we're getting? Not much to my mind. Doesn't mean it isn't good or worth supporting, but I haven't seen anything that is shackle freeing (in the sense that defining a project will always shackle it in some fashion). And yet there are already arguments over things like power cool-downs, romances, level scaling and things like that and whether that makes Project Eternity a "real" successor. Anytime you frame a new creative endevor as "like" something else, there are going to be people who don't like it. And there are going to be people who dislike something - regardless of its quality - because they don't like the name. Maybe the game will be good. Maybe it'll be bad. But I'm not going to sweat the fact that they've decided to call it "Torment" of some kind. It is limiting, because we as gamers already know what the game is going to be about - the new and fresh themes that were established in the original. Which is completely contrary to what PST delivered (since Torment 2 is bound to attempt to recreate what PST delivered, lest it be a failure). Might as well just say "we're going to wow you just the same as PST did!" and step on your landmine right from the get go. No we don't know what its going to be about because we haven't played it. And again, had Fargo came out and said - "yeah we're doing a game and its going to have these themes" you wouldn't be saying he'd limited himself, because at some point he has to define what the game will be. The problem here is that they're calling it "Torment" and you see that as a slap to the face of torment fans. And that's fair enough. But I figure a game needs to be evaluated on what it is and whether it works for what it does, not for what its called or not even what the game its supposed to be like was.

Of course it does. But so does saying a game is "inspired" by the Infinity Engine. The arguments down in PE's forums show that not everyone agrees as to what "inspired by the IE" should be. BG2 style romance arguments, anyone? So your objection is less that this game has tenuous ties to the original game but that you'd like it to have less ties to anything and be more original? Because a lot of people in this thread are arguing the game can't be "good" unless it has more ties to PST (in fact many seeming to have wanted a direct sequel with the same characters). Which kind of proves my point; everyone has a different perception of what "Torment" means - including Fargo. The game that (may) get made will be his (and his teams) perception. That's not limiting - but if you want to see it as such, any game they made would be limited by the creative group's perception of what the game "is".

Boss probably shouldn't be making fun of people's names. Not terribly good boss-like behavior.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet;

For me, the real issue is "why call it Torment?" The things he listed are things I want in pretty much all my RPGs. But in calling it Torment, you still have a better hook for what their goal is than if they just stated the things he listed.

“There is no dark side in the moon, really. As a matter of fact it's all dark"” While I like DSotM, I probably like Wish You Were Here a little better. And of course Syd Barrett was a genius, so Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Saucerful of Secrets are must listens since he's on Piper (and possibly some of Secrets). Albums I always go back to (as well as some of their movie music, like Obscured by Clouds). Also -

Ditto. C64 was awesome. Less awesome was the Apple IIe that we borrowed (that may be because of the crappy half-done games we tried to make on it, though). I actually didn't take a dip into the Windows/PC stuff until 1999 (missing out on many classic PC games in the process).

Right...but would the fans of Planescape Torment be pleased with a game that could be summed up as "TNO and crew fight their way out of the Blood War"? I'm under the impression that that kind of "actiony" concept actually isn't what fans of the game would want. Again I'm not saying that a direct sequel is impossible, you can do a direct sequel to anything. But you need a bigger hook than tying up the loose ends from the previous story. The character arc for TNO is wrapped up so what new character story are you bringing to the table?

Neither Dak'kon or Neeshka are immortal (or shouldn't be as both were regular members of their races unless I'm forgetting something). The other maybe, but I'm not sure I'd be jumping at "Morte, Ignus, Vhailor and FFG travel the planes looking for TNO in the Blood War" game either. What is the narrative hook outside of trying to tidy up the ending of the previous game and put a bow on it? Arguably I'd imagine a sequel like that - which exists solely on wrapping up dangling thread from the first game without a stronger narrative hook to give the new game its own identity - would lessen the impact of the first game, to be honest. EDIT: Clarity again

Actually I wouldn't care. Primarily I'm interested in who the game makers are and what they say what the game will be as opposed to how they sell it. Activision wants to do "Pitfall in Space, a thematic sequel to the classic Jungle adventure" my main interest is whether I think the game is going to be any good, not whether I feel its a sacrilege to the name of Pitfall Harry because of how Activision has chosen to package the title. I've liked games Brian Fargo's been behind; I backed Wasteland because of that and because I thought that the game sounded good not because I liked the original game (I only played about 20 minutes of it, to be honest). If they kickstart this game - which I understand they are - I'll watch the pitch, read the information, weigh that with how I feel about Fargo's work and decide if I want to back it - regardless of any connections it may / may not have to Torment. Again to me the Torment angle is a hook; its saying "here's a context for you as a gamer to understand what our vision is". However, I never expected a sequel to Planescape: Torment to be Planescape: The Further Adventures of the Nameless One - now even MORE Nameless!" so perhaps my mental framework is vastly different from others expectations.

Seems to me they're doing the same thing Obsidian did with Project: Eternity which heavily touted Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale and the Infinity Engine despite the fact that its not set in the Forgotten Realms or the Planes of the D&D game, nor using Bioware's engines. Its a hook. They're saying. "We liked Torment. We're going to do a game that explores themes similar to PST. It'll have "torment" in the title. But it won't be set in the Planescape campaign setting because Hasbro wouldn't license it to us". But just as PE isn't going to be Baldur's Gate 3, Icewind Dale 3 or Planescape 2: Electric Boogaloo, neither is this game. Don't really see what the big deal is, tbh. Really? Because I always figured if another Planescape game had been done at best its only connections to Torment would be references (like Dak'kon's blades or some other relic) because the story of those characters was - IMO - done and that really only leaves the abiltyi for the sequel to be thematic in nature. Maybe it'd be less of an issue if Black Isle had done the PS1 Planescape game...? EDIT: Clarity.

Even if the government went home to home, building to building etc...there's too many places in the US for people to hide guns and there's no way the government could afford to check every square inch and blockade areas they've checked. So the idea that the government could take away everyone's guns is silly. They can't even keep convicted felons from getting guns even though they're actually supposed to be doing that.

I thought about suggesting "The Eternity Project" but it sounds like a 70s album-rock band.

I'd argue it sounds like a problem of "silent expectations". I know a woman who is a mother and she constantly complains that her daughter-in-law never volunteers to help her in the kitchen. She hates people helping her in the kitchen and wants people out from underfoot when she's cooking. But she still feels like her DIL should volunteer to help in the kitchen to show that her DIL cares. And then she can politely decline the offer. More than likely her son told his wife that his mom hates having people in the kitchen and she just avoids the area when she's cooking not realizing that she's slowly grating on the nerves of her mother-in-law. I'd have to agree with your father on the first two of his points. We've been to a lot of parties and also held a lot of parties and never been in a situation where we had to get wine after guests have arrived. It shows that you're not well organised and running things by the seat of your pants. If we arrived at a party and the host had to go out and get wine after guests arrived, We'd be thinking 'what have they been doing all day to be getting wine now?' This is the exact reason why I hate giving or going to parties. I understand some folk feel like that being invited to a party is a honor bound contract that their every whim is catered to by a coterie of servants, but really if'n ye don't like gettin' some vittles and some hooch then you can get your back-end of a donkey back in your cart and throw yourself your own dang party without me. Next you'll be saying that a clean shirt and jeans isn't acceptable dress, that we all need to be in fancy-shmancy evening wear and the silverware should be laid out in accordance to Hoyle...* *This works best if you imagine "Gabby" Hayes sayin' it.

i always thought the gun thing was because we think that we're out to get ourselves. Yes there's a bit of a "defend ourselves from the tyranny of England" in the intent, but also "defend ourselves in case our government becomes a tyranny" too. I think looking at logical gun control makes sense; particularly looking at closing the loopholes that allow people to get around the current laws and perhaps looking at ways to keep guns moving into black markets as well. But generally speaking bans don't work in the US, IMO. But I also don't think that a tragedy like this would be prevented if there were not guns; something like the Bath School killings in 1927 (38 children killed) illustrates how a particularly dedicated and desperate person will find a way to be destructive with or without guns.

"The Obsidian Crowdfunded RPG Initially Known As Project Eternity" Because regardless of what the name ends up, it'll always be "Project Eternity" to me...

Its sad that such a universally loved movie couldn't break 15 million US gross. Supposedly a 50 million take would have greenlit a sequel. I figured that was an easy task then it debuted at number 6 or so behind a damn re-release of Finding Nemo. It should have done a lot better. Alas, what could have been.

A lot of its going to depend on how they implement the classes. Cipher is probably the 1st choice based on what little I know. Druids, Barbarians and Chanters I'm also interested to see what they do with them.

Stupid non-canonical theory probably contradicted by some bit of information I forgotten from ME2 or 3, but... In ME1 if you use the object the Asari consort gave you on a special Prothean artifact you find on one of the worlds/moons you moon-buggy across, you get a vision of a small group of Protheans capturing and experimenting on early hominids on earth. I've always assumed because of that scene that humanity was engineered by the Protheans to be "awesome" the next time a cycle came and humanity was at the reaper extinction level.

Not sure if this is funny or awesome: University of Chicago gets an interesting mystery package - http://uchicagoadmissions.tumblr.com/post/37809971913/indiana-jones-mystery-package-we-dont-really

I really don't care one way or the other about LARPing. But I really hate when people are like "I hate A" "I hate B" "I shall describe A as being B to show my disdain for both." IMO, If you think that a costume design looks poor, say it looks poor, not looks like a bad LARPer.

Being a bit more serious, there was an old Doctor Strange issue where this guy basically knew shout magic; each word, perfectly shouted created an effect. I'm really thinking that's going to be what the Chanter does channeling energy into the old texts and using those words to cause things to happen. I'm hoping its not just buffing, though, as I find buff oriented classes fairly boring.

It's possibly just a physical representation of his power. Aloth: "Hey everyone! Tremble at the physical representation of my power!" Barmaid: "Let me get this straight, your physical representation of power is to hold a snake in your hand" Aloth: "Yeah, a glowy purple snake that enlarges as I channel my power in it." Barmaid: "Could your representation of power be any more phallic?"