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"Torment Revisited" article at Gamers with Jobs


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http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/index.php?mo...isplay&sid=1162

 

As of this writing, two weeks have passed since I decided to play through Planescape: Torment, and much has changed in the interim. My outlook on gaming has changed. My appreciation of gaming's past and my expectations for its future have been bolstered. My zest for life has increased, my six terminal illnesses have been miraculously cured, and my libido has never been more active. All of this, thanks to one game!
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Ahhh, yes, "Longing." I was impressed with how they handled that sequence as well.

 

It wasn't my favorite single-player gaming moment of all time; in fact, it wasn't even my favorite of Planescape: Torment (that belongs to my conversation with Ravel Puzzlewell, or perhaps the last act of the Fortress of Regrets.) Nevertheless, it's a very memorable part of the game.

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you

But I get the feeling that you don't like it

What's with all the screaming?

You like monkeys, you like ponies

Maybe you don't like monsters so much

Maybe I used too many monkeys

Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

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Yes, PS:T was a great game...

 

It did however strike odd, that the most Monstrous of your incarnations was the practical one...

 

 

oh well, they don't make games as they used to.

"If at first you don't succeed... So much for skydiving." - Henry Youngman.

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Yes, PS:T was a great game...

 

It did however strike odd, that the most Monstrous of your incarnations was the practical one...

 

It makes sense if you understand the usage of the word practical. In some circumstances, the word is a compliment, but it can also be used as a euphemism for someone who gets things done without worrying about useless annoyances such as 'morality' or 'good' or 'evil.' They see the quickest method required to reach their goal, and they use it no matter how much damage it causes or who it hurts.

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you

But I get the feeling that you don't like it

What's with all the screaming?

You like monkeys, you like ponies

Maybe you don't like monsters so much

Maybe I used too many monkeys

Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

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Ah, Longing.

 

Deionarra is certainly among the most meaningful game personalities I have ever encountered. She may well be the one who touched me the most.

 

By comparison, for example, the much-vaunted Aeris was simply meaningless to me. She lived an undeveloped, cliche anime character's life and died the death of just such a character. Signifying nothing.

 

Deionarra had already touched me thirty minutes into my first play through the game, when I encountered her ghost and learned something of her past with TNO for the first time.

 

Sad, then, that whatever story might have been developed by her stone in the Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts (I realise the game misspells "slaking," "slating" but refuse to reproduce the typo) could not be told: there is one stone which was left unnamed, but which was presumably originally meant to be hers, as we know she worked there. We also know that development of the brothel basement was cut, as per Scott Warner. But so it goes, with game development.

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I always thought slaking was the right word.

 

They're slaking their thirst for intellectual conversation.

 

Like that?

 

My favorite part of PST was the gradual discovery of Dak'kon mindset through the Circles of Zerthimom.. I'm partial to people who carry around awesome swords.

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My favorite part of PST was the gradual discovery of Dak'kon mindset through the Circles of Zerthimom.. I'm partial to people who carry around awesome swords.

Same.

 

The Morte revelation being 2nd.

 

That's why those two are my favorite NPCs in any game, period.

Hadescopy.jpg

(Approved by Fio, so feel free to use it)

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The best moment in Torment for me was when I found out that guy in the Clerk's Ward (Iannis I think his name was) was Dieonnara's father. I just froze there for 5 minutes.

"For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences- either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us- and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

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  • 2 weeks later...

Too bad the developers released it, patched it and forgot about it. There's no unofficial content patch, nothing to make the game as it was supposed to be; the fans don't know what the devs had in mind and there's a strange expansion in the works called Vengeance :(

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some writers not care what readers think... not matter if audience "gets it," or not. to such writers, what the author intended ain't near as important as whether or not the reader(s) was moved by the work... for whatever reason.

 

other writers will burst blood vessels as they read reviews or listen to feedback... listen to folks who completely misunderstood or got bass ackwards. drives 'em nuts.

 

one hopes that chris a is a relatively relaxed writer.

 

people wonder why Gromnir is such a jerk to developers... never seems satisfied or content. "What is your problem?" is a question a number o' bis developers and bio developers and troika developers has asked or wanted to ask us over the years.

 

*shrug*

 

is chris a's fault we seems like such a curmudgeon. blame him. development of ravel in ps:t convinced Gromnir that crpgs were a medium that could support moments o' artistic virtue

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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Umm, ya mean released it, patched it, and got shut down?  Whether or not they forgot about it seems kind of beside the point, given they ceased to exist. :thumbsup:

 

Although they did last a few years after Torment was released. Enough to release IWD 1 and 2 for instance. So I don't really think you can blame them being shut down for not adding anything to Torment after the patch.

 

Though there are pleny of other, valid, reasons why they didn't (and why that was the right thing to do).

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