Torment: Tides of Numenera?

[Lord of Lost Socks]

Yes. That's a problem with sequels in general.

[Nordicus]

I'd be perfectly happy if they dropped the Torment name before the game came out, they'll have got the backing by that time and established that this is a spiritual successor, like Dragon Age used Baldurs Gate as a namecheck.

The example would be more fitting if Planescape: Torment didn't have that name, but rather "Planescape", or "Sigil"

 

Dividing the scenarios of "spiritual sequel to PST", and having the word Torment in it, is bloody arbitrary

[Zoma]

Music sample

 

 

Very Torment'ish. Yet different. I like it.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Zoma

[Aiddon]

pledged $50 for it yesterday. It'll be interesting to see what sort of Stretch Goals they'll come up with in the next few weeks. I wonder if they'll pass Eternity in terms of funding.

[babaganoosh13]

I actually skipped on Shadowrun.  Not familiar enough with the setting, the dev, or any of the like.

 

Only PE, WL2, and now Torment 2 for me.

I just pre-ordered Shadowrun the other day. It's still $15. The artwork from the game that Harebrained put up last month got me really excited. The fact that Jake, the PC from the SNES game is in it really put me over the top. I probably should have waited for the video of the walkthrough tomorrow, but screw it. The editor looks pretty good.

 

I had never played a game like Shadowrun for the SNES at the time. It was my introduction to cyberpunk, and the story was stronger than any other RPG I had played previously. The Sega Genesis game wasn't as strong as the SNES one. However, to this day about the Genesis version, I still remember being pissed off at the time that Vigore & Jarl, the guys who were paying me the best were really (Insert spoiler here.)

 

Outside of those 4, I really wanted Tom Hall's games to go through. Those early id/Apogee games were a big part of my early IBM gaming, outside of the Sierra/Lucasfilm Games adventures. Fortunately the LSL/2 guys/Cole's/Jane Jensen games got through (barely.)

[nikolokolus]

I just wanted to log in and say I think Colin McComb et. al. are going to do a helluva job.  Really looking forward to some good RPGs after years of wandering the proverbial desert.

[alanschu]

 

I just pre-ordered Shadowrun the other day. It's still $15. The artwork from the game that Harebrained put up last month got me really excited. The fact that Jake, the PC from the SNES game is in it really put me over the top. I probably should have waited for the video of the walkthrough tomorrow, but screw it. The editor looks pretty good.

 

I appreciate the update, but I preorder games so rarely that this is still kind of in the boat (aside from the kickstarters, the only games I have ever preordered are Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, Hearts of Iron 3, XCOM, and CIv 5).  I hope the game is awesome (since I hope all games are awesome), but it's very rare for me to agree to pay for a product before actually receiving the product.

 

I'm an Obsidian fanboy, and Avellone's involvement in Wasteland 2 is what convinced me to contribute, Project Eternity is a no brainer, and Torment 2 is a game I suspect I'll feel I just have to play as well (and given I get a discount, it makes sense).  So in those cases I receive a very obvious benefit for contributing to something that I know I will pretty much buy at release.  Unfortunately for Shadowrun, it just didn't grab me, so I will look more closely after it is released.

[Theobeau]

Misc thoughts about a very exciting KS.

 

Managed to grab one of those limited number tiers early and have been mesmerised watching the pledge count climbing at an astounding rate.  Is 2M in 2 days as much as a record as 1M in 7 hrs?

 

More meat from the recent updates; Colin McComb's most recent update was interesting and helped add flesh to the themes of the up and coming game.

 

Fargo's part of the initial pitch was great; he has a gift for being the straight man and that kid who plays the Metric Games CEO is gold.  However his insights about the challenges of looking for funding and the business model of small-med game firms was fascinating.  This whole KS process has really informed the gaming community about the unique difficulties of the industry and explains why big gaming studios spend millions and still turn out dreck a la Colonial Marine: Aliens.

 

Back to watching the money trial while waiting for the next update.  Haven't been this excited about a KS since, well Project Eternity (and still holding out for MCA as a stretch goal!)

[Bryy]

The whole "what does one life matter?" thing feels a bit trite. PS:T never marketed the whole "what can change the nature of a man?" bit; it was just part of the story. Here it seems like they thought up some "deep" pseudo-philosophical sounding question and are now trying to figure out how to make a game around it. It's like a couple of guys got around for beers and had this convo:

 

Dude 1: Dude, we should make another Torment game!

 

Dude 2: Yea, man, but would it be about?

 

Dude 1: I dunno dude, but Torment was deep and ****. You know, that 'what can change the nature of a man?' crap.

 

Dude 2: Yea! We need some deep question for this game too!

 

Dude 1: How about... how many roads must a man walk down?

 

Dude 2: That seems a bit unoriginal, lets do... what does one life matter?

 

Dude 1: Duuuuuude!

Basically.

 

I'm interested, but I need to see more, and everything just sounds like a rehash of Planescape.

 

I own Planescape.

 

Why do I need to own it again?

 

Also, I don't want InExile to become a company dependent on Kickstarter to survive.

[Spider]

Why not? If they prefer the crowdfunding model over the publisher model, what is wrong with them going all out on the former?

[Karranthain]

Why not? If they prefer the crowdfunding model over the publisher model, what is wrong with them going all out on the former?

 

Should Wasteland 2 and Torment be successful, they'll be able to sustain themselves easily (remember, profits from selling the completed game will go to inXile, not the publishers).

 

Not to mention the fact that by the time they'll be ready to announce a new project, Kickstarter should grow even bigger and budgets will increase exponentially. 

 

It is inevitable that some high-profile project might fail, but I really don't think that will scare people off; Kickstarter really has a bright future ahead of it. Most importantly, we, fans of proper cRPG games finally have something to look forward to! I have already pledged way more money than I spent on buying games in the last few months.

[Bryy]

Why not? If they prefer the crowdfunding model over the publisher model, what is wrong with them going all out on the former?

 

1) Crowdfunding is a publisher.

 

2) So by that logic, they should never have enough money to publish anything on their own? That's a completely stable business model.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Bryy

[Sacred_Path]

I backed this and am hoping for better stretch goals. The community has suggested a few decent ones, I hope they respond to that.

[Bester]

Music sample

 

 

Very Torment'ish. Yet different. I like it.

 

Blown away by this.

[Keyrock]

$2.5 Million: George Ziets, Death Mechanics – The Castoff’s Labyrinth, Monte’s Novella, New Companion, Colin’s Apology (Part 1)

Ziets!

We are thrilled to announce that George will be joining Torment as a writer at this Stretch Goal. This is a personally meaningful addition to me. You may know George from his role as Creative Lead on Mask of the Betrayer, where he led the story and character design for the game. Working on that game was one of the highlights of my career and I have George to thank for much of that. His creative aesthetics are perfect for the themes we are exploring in Torment and I’m very much looking forward to collaborating with George again.

He's here, he's there, he's everywhere!  Ziets!  ZIIIIIIIIIIIIETS!

 

In other words, I'm super excited about this stretch goal which I'm sure will be easily reached.

 

In other news, I went ahead and made my $75 Numenera Seeker pledge.  I can't wait to get my grubby little hands on the digital Numenera Player's Guide.

 

Edit:  As far as anyone hating on the game and inXile, I say let 'em hate.  I already expressed my disagreement with their stance, but it's their prerogative to feel however they do.  You can't please everyone and the support for this project has been overwhelming, to say the least.  If people want to express their hatred toward their project, they can.  Just like we can drown out their voices with our support.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Keyrock

[Karranthain]

Now let's have a 2D backgrounds stretch goal and we'll reach 5-6 million easily!

[Malcador]

Ziets can make a good business as a Kickstarter RPG story hitman.

[alanschu]

 

Should Wasteland 2 and Torment be successful, they'll be able to sustain themselves easily (remember, profits from selling the completed game will go to inXile, not the publishers).

 

Not to mention the fact that by the time they'll be ready to announce a new project, Kickstarter should grow even bigger and budgets will increase exponentially.

 

It's too early, in my opinion, to start saying things like this.  Budgets may increase, but we're going to need to see the games.  An exponential increase in budget means we're going to start seeing 12, 20, 40 million dollar kickstarters very quickly, which just isn't going to happen in my opinion.

 

There's was a lot of people that were pretty thrilled because of the total amount of money Eternity brought in, and all the talks about how much money it was, when it's a small slice compared to a lot of games today.

 

The strength of Kickstarter is to appeal to a niche.

 

 

 

It is inevitable that some high-profile project might fail, but I really don't think that will scare people off; Kickstarter really has a bright future ahead of it. Most importantly, we, fans of proper cRPG games finally have something to look forward to! I have already pledged way more money than I spent on buying games in the last few months.

 

It's easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm.  If these games aren't all quite stellar (and they won't be), fans will be guarded.  No one is going to be happy contributing $100+ to Torment 2 if the game ends up being mediocre.

[Gfted1]

I just pre-ordered Shadowrun the other day. It's still $15.

You can still get in on Shadowrun even though the KS is over? Link please. I should have backed this from the beginning.

[Keyrock]

 

I just pre-ordered Shadowrun the other day. It's still $15.

You can still get in on Shadowrun even though the KS is over? Link please. I should have backed this from the beginning.

Here you go.

[Serrano]

Here are a couple of other links to kickstarters where you can pre-order/slackerback; Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Xenonaughts, Starship Coporation and Project Eternity. Might be useful to make a thread if other people can think of titles worth mentioning.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Serrano

[Karranthain]

It's too early, in my opinion, to start saying things like this.  Budgets may increase, but we're going to need to see the games.  An exponential increase in budget means we're going to start seeing 12, 20, 40 million dollar kickstarters very quickly, which just isn't going to happen in my opinion.

 

There's was a lot of people that were pretty thrilled because of the total amount of money Eternity brought in, and all the talks about how much money it was, when it's a small slice compared to a lot of games today.

 

The strength of Kickstarter is to appeal to a niche.

 

I'd argue the opposite - Kickstarter, in my opinion, has proven that the supposedly niche market is quite a bit larger than previously presumed (or that it even exists!). 

Keep in mind that the focus here isn't the profit - it's the product (it's the other way around for the publishers).

 

A steady increase in budgets is a fact (and that's before any of the major titles are even close to be released!). I certainly wouldn't expect to see the so called AAA budgets (60-100 million dollars) anytime soon (or ever, for that matter), but that's beside the point; I believe that companies will be able to sustain themselves solely through the Kickstarter model, without any interference, while continuing to develop high quality titles with small to moderate budgets. 

Torment's campaign also disproves the Kickstarter fatigue myth - it was widely believed that people would quickly lose interest, after the initial wave.

 

It's easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm.  If these games aren't all quite stellar (and they won't be), fans will be guarded.  No one is going to be happy contributing $100+ to Torment 2 if the game ends up being mediocre.

 

Conversely, should T:ToN be a huge success, the previously mentioned exponential increase in budget is quite likely. 

 

Your guess is as good as mine, I just prefer to be optimistic.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Karranthain

[Spider]

 

I'd argue the opposite - Kickstarter, in my opinion, has proven that the supposedly niche market is quite a bit larger than previously presumed (or that it even exists!).

 

How do you figure that? if anything it's proven that the niche market is a fairly small, but very dedicated segment. PE had somewhere around 80000 backers. In a business where normal titles expect to sell over a million that's just not an impressive number. What is impressive is that groups willingness to spend, on average, $55 before the game production has even started. So small, but dedicated, is all we know so far.

 

We'll have a better gauge on how large that market is once these games start getting completed and there are actual sales numbers to go with the pledges.

[Gfted1]

 

 

I just pre-ordered Shadowrun the other day. It's still $15.

You can still get in on Shadowrun even though the KS is over? Link please. I should have backed this from the beginning.

 

Here you go.

Awesome, thank you.

[Karranthain]

 

 

I'd argue the opposite - Kickstarter, in my opinion, has proven that the supposedly niche market is quite a bit larger than previously presumed (or that it even exists!).

 

How do you figure that? if anything it's proven that the niche market is a fairly small, but very dedicated segment. PE had somewhere around 80000 backers. In a business where normal titles expect to sell over a million that's just not an impressive number. What is impressive is that groups willingness to spend, on average, $55 before the game production has even started. So small, but dedicated, is all we know so far.

 

We'll have a better gauge on how large that market is once these games start getting completed and there are actual sales numbers to go with the pledges.

 

Keep in mind that crowdfunding is a relatively new concept - I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that PE has the most backers among all Kickstarter projects (across all categories). 

With that in mind, Torment, Wasteland 2 or PE etc. could be considered (relatively speaking) extremely popular. But of course we'll be able to make a more accurate assessment once the sale numbers are known to us.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Karranthain