The planescape torment style

[czinczar]

Hello!,

What is for you the PS:T style? And what should the devs take and leave from the best rgp ever made on pc ?

 

For me, one of the most important aspect is the main quest : they should at least take that from PS:T : a quest which is not directed towards the outside world, but towards the inside : who am i ? What do I do here ? What is happening to me ? Why do I have those characteristics ? Is this a dream ? And possibly a main question like in PS:T : what can change the nature of a man ? Or go one notch further : is it possible to change the nature of a man ? What is the nature of a man ? Is there even one ? And all the adventures of the main character would serve to change him on the inside, and not primarily to change the outside world. What I don't want to see as a main quest is : gather your party and fight the evil; because that's boring to the bone.

 

Magic should not be used only as a weapon, but it should be part of the world, part of the everyday lives, of the everyday problems and solutions, like in PS:T. In Sigil, I really felt like I was in a universe where magic was like that when I heard that everything could be used as a portal to another plane, and that the key could be anything : a word, an emotion, an event .. In games, magic is too often used as a weapon only, and it feels like it is just our real world, and guns are replaced with magic spells.

 

I want deep interactions with the companions, like with Da'akon. I don't really care about romantic relations in rpgs, because it feels always artificial and superficial anyway. And I much prefer deep discussion like the discussions around the circles of zerthimon.

 

I like strange and deep dialogues with strange beings : a tree, a rock which looks like a human face and other strange encounters, not necessarily related to a quest, but beings with a different point of view, beings which would see the Time in a different way than us, beings from which I could gain bits of wisdom which would serve me or not in the future. A realistic world is a world in which all kinds of useless (dependent or independent of me) things happen.

 

 

Well, I think that's all for the moment. What is your opinion ?

[sgtpopper]

I agree, don't make the main quest about saving the world...

[fan]

Great post, sadly not too many people had the privilege of reading it.

 

Have a bump!

[Veca]

I completely agree with the romance part. And with the rest of the text, but the romance especially.

I have no interest in an artificially romance with some pixels, its enough of a stress in real life.

 

 

#edit, lulz whats with the almost identical portraits 2 posts in a row

Edited September 17, 2012 by Veca

[Rostere]

Agree with OP...

[Astanas]

I agree, don't make the main quest about saving the world...

But don't make it about some random dude living in a town and getting rich, either. There's got to be something that drives the plot.

Planescape Torment managed to do that perfectly.

[Vatdim]

I also agree with the OP. I sincerely hope Obsidian don't plan on making a "save the world" kind of game. That's boring and cheesy, plus I believe Obsidian have always been much better at crafting deep and personally engaging stories.

[Bos_hybrid]

I wouldn't mind a destroy the world plot. But I know I'm in the minority there.

[Dianjabla]

I wouldn't mind a destroy the world plot. But I know I'm in the minority there.

 

It would certainly make a different story line...

[BaronVonChateau]

Great post OP. You summed it up very nicely.

 

From my point of view, one the numerous things that made PS:T so great was the use of its game world to tell and reinforce its story. Many side-quest were parables which resonated with TNO's journey, giving it flesh, illustrating its stakes on a smaller scale while giving insight about how Planescape's world is working.

 

There is a reason why PS:T's sidequests are interesting : they are not a diversion from its main content : they directly flow from and back to it, bringing something along the way - either because you discover something TNO did in his past lives, either because you're learning some surreal bit information which - you're not sure how yet - will connect with something else later.

 

For that reason, I'm very glad I played it when I was a teenager. There is a very strong "you don't now jack about the outside world" message in it. While it is very true that the main quest is about the inner self, how it grows with experience and with being confronted with uncanny sights and unconventional views, there is also a strong focus on the outside world, which acts like a (distorting) mirror to the player's choices and TNO's actions.

 

It may be far-fetched to add this, but it's not by accident that PS:T is a RPG and not an adventure game (even if it's RPG aspects weren't all that predominant) : it's a story about growing (up). In the same manner as TNO sometimes learns BIGASS experience just by saying "WOKAY, I HEARD DAT", the player may learn something about himself and how he relates to the world.

 

Because the game is unconventional, I still feel it addresses something within us (even if we are bitter old salarymen and women) : the small chunk of cerebral stuff that gets all jumpy and excited when we learn something new.

 

So yeah, to connect this to Project Eternity : I'm kind of expecting Obsidian to bring us into a fantasy world, where they will waste our preconceptions in the most ruthless way.

[Arrgeron]

Wish there was more to say, but I agree completely.

[czinczar]

Also, in PS:T, I really liked that shop in which you could buy all kinds of strange artefacts, like the nordom box, if I recall well.

 

And a character that I will never forget is the Lady of Pain..That mysterious giant goddess/being ..

[el pinko grande]

Well said OP. The one thing I hope they don't take from PS:T is the visual aesthetic. Really hated the color palette and the overall look of the world.

[Gurkog]

From what I have seen, this will be spiritual successor to PS:T. The main 'quest' is about a personal event/tragedy and how it effects your character. Something like that, because they are deliberately vague so early on.... no sense spoiling the game when they aren't even in alpha testing yet.