Git the Planescape Licence!

[Nameless One]

for an outsider (and nonenglishnativespeaker that maybe had overread that point)...they cant get the planescape licence because?...there is none...or?...but...what would a gamedeveloper like obsidian have to do when he would make another planescape game?...or pst2...I dont get it...and I tried a bit

[Taoreich]

How many times has Gromnir whipped out that link since it originally posted?

 

Everytime I see it, I imagine Gromnir silently mouthing "coup fourre," at his monitor as he enters the link.

[Gromnir]

so, ps:t success or failure is a valid topic to be discussing after all?

 

*shrug*

 

as recently as during jefferson development, we was still hearing that while there would be loads of character development and interaction, it wouldn't have as much of that stuff as in ps:t. this was not stated as a condemnation of jefferson, but rather as a way to reassure folks, potential customers, that mistakes made in ps:t would not be repeated in future games. even bis developers who liked ps:t and thought it was great, was still recognizing its value as a cautionary tale for future developers and publishers... a cautionary tale which bioware largely ignored.

 

we can speculate on how much word of mouth might possibly have created an additional market or how many of those sales was disappointed folks much like original purchasers often seemed to be. though we do not that it is not like the ip/bis ps:t boards became ever more increasingly popular. is lots of speculation going on, but what is a known is that ps:t did not sell very well initially, and it took many years to finally break even... by which time it had already done ip more harm than good.

 

would ps:t2 be different? it might, but if setting not matter, as you suggest, then why would you take a risk on such a title... obsidian folks might like another crack at ps, but how many publishers is gonna wanna take that risk? once obsidian gets some dough, maybe they can do as irrational is doing with freedom force 2

[JJ86]

When game companies make sequels it helps to spell the death of a license. Nothing like repetition to kill a good idea. For some reason the marketing arms of games companies and movie studios like to force feed the same idea to consumers ad infinitum. Please lets get rid of this idea and move on.

[Gromnir]

as a fencer of some two and a half decades, we mumbles "coup fourre" in our sleep and at work and during sex even... which is no doubt disconcerting, but point taken. we just love that we would be using a bis developer's post in such a way... never get tired of appreciating the irony.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[LlamaGod]

PS:T2 would be horrible, more than likely. Fallout 3 showed that a new number doesnt mean better.

 

As for Planescape, due to things like Baldur's Gate, WotC found it more important to push the godawful Forgotten Realms setting the most they can and sort of culled Planescape, Planescape became the Manual of the Planes for 3rd Edition, and with 3.5 the whole manual was put into the Dungeon Masters Guide. So Planescape became assimiliated and Forgotten Realms is still around, ugh.

[RayCide]

for an outsider (and nonenglishnativespeaker that maybe had overread that point)...they cant get the planescape licence because?...there is none...or?...but...what would a gamedeveloper like obsidian have to do when he would make another planescape game?...or pst2...I dont get it...and I tried a bit

Let me explain: PlaneScape was a campaign setting for AD&D2E. It didn

[Atreides]

Would it be viable to buy a dead franchise that the owner has no intention of supporting? It could be disassociated with WotC and just use generic d20 rules to run it while the content's modified to the buyer's needs.

[Nameless One]

thanks RayCide

[Mr. Teatime]

Gromnir having sex?!

'Oh baby we is liking this.....dont stop.... it makes us happy...... yesss.....we is there, ooooh......my precious...!'

 

turned into gollum

[Darque]

Ouch that was mean

[Gromnir]

Ouch that was mean

mean? nah, but it was predictable.

 

*shrug*

 

HA! Good Fun!

[RayCide]

No problem, glad to clarify.

 

Atreides, of course it

[chaosprism]

Torment was a great game, and I left that game feeling I'd watched a great movie almost. Maybe the "outcast" part of me synched with the characters around the and including the nameless one. The game actually got better as you played it, it rewarded you for continuing to delve into it by showing you new things.

 

And yes great games dont NEED sequels... sometimes a story is good enough to stand alone and it will be lessened by the need to revamp it.

 

I mean look at highlander2, thats got to be the worst sequel EVER not only was the movie crap but it destroyed its own storyline by corrupting its mythology with the "alien" shizzle.

 

Building a game in a framework world though I can understand, its good for the publishers because they like the fact people will recognise the world setting. Its also good for the developers because a lot of creative content has already been made up that can be incorporated into the game that is more or less consistent.

 

What I'd like to see though is a game that really tries hard to be immersive, that means that there arent any "cardboard cuttout" characters, if you want to talk to people on the street you could talk to anyone for a while about various things (yes it is a bit of a dialog nightmare though)

Games also like to make the main character in the story the figurehead at which the world pivots, raising them to a godlike status, but this only caters for powerheads that have something lacking in their own life that they want to become deified. You need to tell a good story, you could even take the "acting" part of many characters in the the game "like the old zak mckraken games" where no one character is god. Its even possible you could play multiple time threads through the same time, where the characters meet up for a while before again going off into their stories. And they could travel together for a time as well with the AI controlling the other characters that the player isnt.

 

Its a wide canvas out there, and many many pictures that can be painted, many shades that havent been used yet that should be.

[Atreides]

IMO the setting isn't the most important thing that made Torment great. It was the storytelling, emotional journey, characters and general weird vibe. Such things plus other positive things could be incorporated in another game which doesn't need to be Planescape based.

[Feargus Urquhart]

I'm not sure if anyone ever covered this before, but the funny thing about the Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Al-Qadin (or whatever that is called, Ravenloft and the rest of the TSR worlds is that they were created specifically for licensing. Back when Lorraine was still in charge of TSR they needed cash and they came up with the idea of creating multiple "worlds" of D&D so they could license each of them individually.

[Ed Descault]

ive started a thread about other settings as well,but i must ask you,have you considered ravenloft or Dragonlance?(which is still owned by wizards of the coast)Ravenloft is owned by White Wolf now i believe,but is still readily played table top in D20 thanx to the good folks at white wolf.I personaly am not a fan of star wars and dont look forward to another KOTOR,but thats my own lil humble opinion i wont knock i solidly built game:) but indeed those two worlds are still available and are very rich in backround wonderfull backdrops for a good crpg,but i wouldn't be against another planescape game i loved torment:)

[Murdoch]

What about the theory that the box turned people off the PS:T as much as anything? I for one fall into this category. I saw Black Isle and skulls and such but the box itself was so garish that I was turned off. But word of mouth got me to bite and I found my favorite CRPG of all time, complete with avatar and quote.

 

My point is that an attractive cover is probably alot more important than anyone would like to admit.

 

In addittion, if I'm not mistaken PS:T had a preview movie that came with IWD and BG2, but it didn't peak my interest either. It was too abstract.

 

2 cents

 

BTW love the boards!

[Iolo]

Didn't turn me off. I never judge games by box art and never will. On the other hand, I had been paying attention to the development of the game so I bought it as soon as I could (which was actually online from Amazon since the local stores were sold out of it).

[Karzak]

hasbro won't ok a 3.5e planescape game until they have a planescape supplement to sell.

[Murdoch]

So, why is that relevent to my point? The average gamer isn't going to follow any game development let alone one as relatively obscure as PS:T.

 

You are not in the group that I'm addressing. To be clear I'm saying that people who are perusing the local electronics store shelves are caught by a visual 'hook'. PS:T did not have that hook for me, while Baldur's Gate and IWD did. Nor am I the first (or probably last) to say this.

[chaosprism]

To be clear I'm saying that people who are perusing the local electronics store shelves are caught by a visual 'hook'. PS:T did not have that hook for me, while Baldur's Gate and IWD did. Nor am I the first (or probably last) to say this.

People that only get things based on the visual hook wouldnt be the largest section of the gaming community anyway.. it is a portion granted. And I dont follow development usually myself and i'm been a gamer for a very long time.

I do look at screenshots and such but thats after the games have already been developed, i'm not interested in looking at vapourware. I usually dont care about somebodies ratings but more what they have to say about the game itself, and the amount of bugs in TOEE for example didnt stop me from buying or playing it.(though they did get annoying, but you can blame atari QA for that, and atari's need to push it out the door before its ready but enough said about that)

 

I like complex games, I like stuff which makes me think, i like immersive worlds that are good fun escapism. I also like the ability to travel in these worlds in a form of my own choosing (ie varied races/classes/characters) and see that actually change the experience. But most of all I like a good story much like I like a good book.

[Deadeye Dragoon]

Well I liked the orange/blue contrast, but TNO's hairbeads did make me ponder the purchase a bit. Still, the collections of letters (...words?) on the box combined in a way to make the game look interesting.

 

What's the status of the Dark Sun setting? Is it live or dead? I'd like to see a new DS game as much as a new Planescape one, and a DS game would be more free of wacky comparisons and fan mayhem due to Torment.

 

But I kind of hope Obsidian stays well away from WotC. What I'd really like is a new franchise setting and ruleset all owned by Obsidian, with no upward hierarchy to bollix up the works. Screw I'play, screw WotC, I want to see Feargus & Co. survive, and thrive or wither, on their own. KotOR 2 is a fine establishment but in the future I hope they look to independence from outside influence. Assuming they can deny the sirens of the megacorporate capitalist pigdogs.

[Aaron Contreras]

planescape, as much as we liked game, made folks uncomfortable. people wanted elves and dwarves and stuff... they wanted recognizable fantasy stuff. we cannot help but wonder if planescape woulda' sold better if it had been set someplace just a little more familiar to the average gamer. without planescape you might not have curst, but you could have a town slipping into hell, no? you could still have characters like ravel and trias, and you could even have had settings like the mortuary reproduced with little change.

The setting being unique probably did have something to do with pushing the developers to make something unique. If you look at the Final Fantasy brand, they started out rather conventional but have such a large following now that the designers can do more weird stuff with the setting.

 

I agree with what you are saying...but even your most deviant-minded designer is going to slip into cliche every now and again if he is given the Forgotten Realms to work with.

[Iolo]

Dark Sun is dead as far as WotC is concerned. Same with all of the others. There may be a fan based site for continuing the content somewhere like the other campaign settings have but it would be unofficial.