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Matt Chat - Chris Avellone on Torment, Tides of Numenera


WDeranged

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OMG!!! Every new interview about this game, every new piece of info, just make me want to play it even more! :)

 

I love the prospect of PE, but it still rests on the premise of CRPG nostalgia and classic IE-games, whereas T:ToN is simply the future in all kinds of respect: it's futuristic, it's having new, interesting ethical-emotional tides that will have profound effects on your character's development (now that's a sentence that rarely mean anything in CRPGs), it's having nothing but meaningful encounters - including all of its combat (no trash mobs here!!), layers of history and culture make for psycho-social archaeological dig into the game and into oneself (it's almost a probe into your own mental landscape at a certain point of time - a mood check of supreme fun and quality.

Edited by IndiraLightfoot
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*** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***

 

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OMG!!! Every new interview about this game, every new piece of info, just make me want to play it even more! :)

 

I love the prospect of PE, but it still rests on the premise of CRPG nostalgia and classic IE-games, whereas T:ToN is simply the future in all kinds of respect: it's futuristic, it's having new, interesting ethical-emotional tides that will have profound effects on your character's development (now that's a sentence that rarely mean anything in CRPGs), it's having nothing but meaningful encounters - including all of its combat (no trash mobs here!!), layers of history and culture make for psycho-social archaeological dig into the game and into oneself (it's almost a probe into your own mental landscape at a certain point of time - a mood check of supreme fun and quality.

TTON rests just as much on nostalgia. Like no trash mobs isn't a new concept, effects on charachter developments aren't (In fact PE features its own systems), and the last part you can't really make a comment on without playing the game.

 

I mean it sounds nice, deep, creative but that stuff is LARGELY dependant on execution. We'll see.

 

Edit: Not that I'm not hopeful.

Edited by C2B
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The Tides sound like an alignment system to me, and a rather arbitrary one at that. Everything else sounds cool though.

 

I love the prospect of PE, but it still rests on the premise of CRPG nostalgia and classic IE-games, whereas T:ToN is simply the future

I don't think T:ToN would have gotten a fraction of the funding it did without the name and nostalgia of PS:T. For example, its premise is identical to PS:T: a blank slate immortal seeking his identity in a strange world.

Edited by Quetzalcoatl
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Yeah, yeah. You're right. It's nostalgia too. However, I reckon Planescape Torment is such a stand-alone CRPG in its own right that it was way ahead of its time. I really hope that there will be many more games of that kind, and perhaps less of the run-of-the-mill CRPGs (that statement belongs in the heresy thread). :)

 

And yes, the execution is all that matters in a complex game like this. However, for the future of CRPGs, I can feel the tides turning...  ;)

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*** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***

 

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Cool interview, now I'm even more interested in the Tides system than I was before. The bit about them being an external quasi-physical force you can influence, not just a more involved alignment system where based on your actions you get categorized as aligned with two of them makes me positively giddy with anticipation.

 

By the way, been meaning to ask since forever: where does "MCA" come from? I mean, the CA part I can understand, but MCA?

"Lulz is not the highest aspiration of art and mankind, no matter what the Encyclopedia Dramatica says."

 

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M stands for Master in this case, but it's also alluding a bit to stuff like MC Hammer - all in all, a mighty cool dude abbreviation-thingie.

 

Suddenly everything becomes clear! Thank you.

"Lulz is not the highest aspiration of art and mankind, no matter what the Encyclopedia Dramatica says."

 

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OMG!!! Every new interview about this game, every new piece of info, just make me want to play it even more! :)

Exactly the opposite with me!

 

 

 

 32462742.jpg

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*** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***

 

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Chris: "This concept makes the bloom sound so horrifying of a place"

 

Well of course it is, the freaking area is designed by George Ziets! I would expect nothing less from him.

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M stands for Master in this case, but it's also alluding a bit to stuff like MC Hammer - all in all, a mighty cool dude abbreviation-thingie.

My understanding was that it's MR. Chris Avellone, and MCA was alluding to the actual real MCA aka Adam Yauch of The Beastie Boys.

"Things are funny...are comedic, because they mix the real with the absurd." - Buzz Aldrin.

"P-O-T-A-T-O-E" - Dan Quayle

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I spent half of last night watching old interviews from this guy.  He's talked to a lot of really interesting people.  The Lord British and John Romero interviews were especially good.

Check out his interviews with Scott Miller too, that man made a lot of strides for early PC gaming marketing including having the shareware system.

 

Other ones of interest are any interviews he has with Josh Sawyer, Tim Cain and his one interview with Ralph Baer (its especially interesting if you are an Electrical Engineer).

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Sounds glorious to me :D I can already see many gamers disappointed with combat (again, after PS:T) however, as the Crises (?) will automatically be fewer and there will be less fighting involved, except for players of really aggressive characters, than in "usual" CRPGs.

Citizen of a country with a racist, hypocritical majority

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  • 3 weeks later...

don't know where else to put it, but I was listening to some podcast where MCA named his favorite cRPGs excluding the ones he had worked on, and I thought his list was pretty interesting:

 

Wasteland

Chrono Trigger

Final Fantasy VI

Baldur's Gate II

 

and honorable mentions:

 

KOTOR

System Shock 2

 

and I am posting this only to point out that there aren't any old Interplay/Black Isle or Troika titles in it  :dancing:

Walsingham said:

I was struggling to understand ths until I noticed you are from Finland. And having been educated solely by mkreku in this respect I am convinced that Finland essentially IS the wh40k universe.

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It would be rather immodest to name one own work however, wouldn't it?

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

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he didn't work on any Troika titles or old BIS games (like Fallout 1), so I don't know why you bring that up  :alienani:

Walsingham said:

I was struggling to understand ths until I noticed you are from Finland. And having been educated solely by mkreku in this respect I am convinced that Finland essentially IS the wh40k universe.

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Oh I do apologise, I thought the gentlemen had worked on all the Black Isle games in some manner. Of course I knew about Troika but considering his lupine problems I thought that was a jape.

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

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Well technically Fallout 1 wasn't a Black Isle title, so you could say he did work on all the actual Black Isle labelled games. :)

 

But then again Descent to Undermountain wasn't a Black Isle title either, but he *did* get a credit for it...

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L I E S T R O N G
L I V E W R O N G

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Ah yes one remembers now, it installed by default under Interplay. I think I may have misplaced the Ghouls playing Tragic and talking about Morte from the second game into the first.

Quite an experience to live in misery isn't it? That's what it is to be married with children.

I've seen things you people can't even imagine. Pearly Kings glittering on the Elephant and Castle, Morris Men dancing 'til the last light of midsummer. I watched Druid fires burning in the ruins of Stonehenge, and Yorkshiremen gurning for prizes. All these things will be lost in time, like alopecia on a skinhead. Time for tiffin.

 

Tea for the teapot!

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