Torment: Tides of Numero Uno

[Marceror]

Which print did you pick, out of curiosity Hiro?

[Lexx]

The first novella is out, by the way. It seems to be pretty short. Will read it on monday, when I am on my way to work.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Which print did you pick, out of curiosity Hiro?

 

There's five to choose from. In the end I went with 'Before the Fall'.

[Marceror]

Cool. I'm torn between that one and Sojourner of Worlds.

[IndiraLightfoot]

All of them are nice, but I have a soft spot for Nils Hamm's art.

 

[Sensuki]

I think we will make it, it's going at about ~1K a day atm but there will likely be a spike towards the end.

[rjshae]

I'm finding the failure to fund the Gullet hard to swallow...

 

*ducks*...

[prodigydancer]

I'm finding the failure to fund the Gullet hard to swallow...

Personally I'm not crazy about George Ziets. The guy has nothing to do with Torment (he wasn't on the P:ST development team) and the way he gloated about inXile scratching RTwP combat in TToN really, really made me mad.

Edited October 21, 2014 by prodigydancer

[rjshae]

 

I'm finding the failure to fund the Gullet hard to swallow...

Personally I'm not crazy about George Ziets. The guy has nothing to do with Torment (he wasn't on the P:ST development team) and the way he gloated about inXile scratching RTwP combat in TToN really, really made me mad.

 

Bummer for you then. *shrug*

 

I'm fine with either turn-based or RTwP, which just gives me more freedom of choice... To each their own, I guess.

[prodigydancer]

I'm fine with either turn-based or RTwP, which just gives me more freedom of choice... To each their own, I guess.

Um. I'll gladly participate in any RTwP vs TB vs RT debate but this one time it's not about combat mechanics. It's more about professionalism and attitude towards the community. inXile let TToN backers vote on which combat system would be used. TB fans won but it was pretty close (48% vs 47%). So almost half of the backers believed that RTwP would be preferable and Ziets then said that RTwP exists "to appeal to a mass-market audience." In other words, it's an inherently inferior option and half of TToN backers are mass-market audience, casuals who don't know what's good for them.

Edited October 22, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I have to admit I voted for rtwp. Having played PoE and WL2 and if rtwp isn't done right, then I'd rather have turn based. Seeing the focus with this game isn't combat, then I'm all for turn based now.

[Lexx]

I am so, soo happy the game will be turn based. The combat in the original Torment annoyed the hell out of me.

 

 

Just saying.

[Marceror]

Looking forward to seeing how the crisis system works in turn based combat. I think I'm generally becoming more of a turn based convert as I play more tb games.

[Humanoid]

 

I'm fine with either turn-based or RTwP, which just gives me more freedom of choice... To each their own, I guess.

Um. I'll gladly participate in any RTwP vs TB vs RT debate but this one time it's not about combat mechanics. It's more about professionalism and attitude towards the community. inXile let TToN backers vote on which combat system would be used. TB fans won but it was pretty close (48% vs 47%). So almost half of the backers believed that RTwP would be preferable and Ziets then said that RTwP exists "to appeal to a mass-market audience." In other words, it's an inherently inferior option and half of TToN backers are mass-market audience, casuals who don't know what's good for them.

 

 

I guess I'm with the 5% that presumably voted for "no combat".

 

 

* By 'No Combat' I don't mean it literally as such, more like I'd prefer it use an auto-resolve system.

[Sensuki]

and Ziets then said that RTwP exists "to appeal to a mass-market audience." In other words, it's an inherently inferior option and half of TToN backers are mass-market audience, casuals who don't know what's good for them.

Good. I like it when developers speak their mind and don't hide behind some PR speak (even though GZiets himself is very good at PRspeak lol). I like RTwP, but since I know that the inXile devs and GZiets prefer TB combat they'd probably be more at home designing for that.

 

Josh Sawyer also prefers turn-based combat

[Labadal]

Saw this posted on RPGCodex.

http://gziets.tumblr.com/post/101107339823/a-few-words-about-the-gullet

 

A Few Words About the Gullet

 

So here we are… four days remain on the Gullet stretch goal, with a little under $7000 left to raise. Before the stretch goal ends, I’d been meaning to say more about how the Gullet came to be, so if you’re interested in the realities of area design, read on!

 

I wrote my design for the Bloom in late 2013. At that point in time, very little work had been done on the content side of our game. All we had was a Mere that consisted of two scenes, and we still had to determine the overall look and feel for Torment. My goal was to give our players an experience that was as close to the original Planescape Torment as possible - I played PST a lot while I was writing the design documents, trying to make sure I hit just the right tone and analyzing what worked and what didn’t.

 

One element that sometimes worked… and sometimes didn’t… were the dungeons. While PST was primarily a dialogue-driven experience, it included a few dungeons, strategically scattered throughout the game. Some were purely combat-focused, like the mausoleum in the Hive. Others were a mix of combat, exploration, and dialogues, like the catacombs beneath the Buried Village. I thought the latter worked best. Combat wasn’t one of PST’s strengths, but when it was balanced with exploration and a few dialogues, the whole experience was tense, interesting, and fun. It also contrasted nicely with the dialogue-driven gameplay that preceded and followed it.

 

So when I designed the Bloom, I decided to include something similar (though shorter in length) – a “dungeon” environment that skewed more heavily toward exploration and discovery. And since players would pass through this area on their way into the Bloom’s depths, it would be set toward the end of the zone… a perfect time to pay off on some of the player’s earlier choices.

 

That’s how the Gullet was born. This was where old and forgotten things would be found, devoured by the Bloom in the distant past, sinking slowly into its guts, finally coming to rest here. Echoes of the Bloom’s victims would wander here too, including victims the player may have “nudged” to their demise. In the end, all things find their way to the Gullet. (Last week, somebody on the team likened it to the Bloom’s liver, which I thought was a particularly apt comparison.)

 

I drew up a map on graph paper, numbered the encounter areas (old-school D&D-style), and detailed everything that would happen in the Gullet. When the other leads reviewed the design documentation, they seemed to like the Gullet content, and I was pretty excited to include all this weird and horrific stuff in the game. But strictly speaking, the Bloom could function without the Gullet (and its most important content could be relocated somewhere else), so when we realized that we didn’t have the resources to develop all the content I had proposed, the Gullet became [C] priority. I was sad, but such are the realities of game development.

 

In the old days (by which I mean 2012 or so), a cut was a cut. If we didn’t have the resources to implement everything we had planned, we made the decision to cut something, and that was that. The cut content was forever lost. But now, in the strange world of crowd-funding, the Gullet has a second chance at life. Will we make it to the stretch goal? I hope so. I think it’ll be fun to prototype our version of a PST dungeon, full of exploration and weird discoveries. If you’ve contributed, thanks for getting us this far… and if all goes well, I’ll see you on the other side of the finish line.

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Looking forward to seeing how the crisis system works in turn based combat. I think I'm generally becoming more of a turn based convert as I play more tb games.

I like the idea of RTwP more over TB, but have accepted that in practice TB is superior to RTwP. Ships already sailed for PoE, but if Obsidian does another KS I hope they give TB a whirl.

[redneckdevil]

Where do i go to donate?

[ShadySands]

Where do i go to donate?

https://torment.inxile-entertainment.com/

[Lexx]

Would be ****ty if the goal can't be reached once again.

[ShadySands]

With only 4500 bucks remaining I would be shocked

 

 

Edit- In fact I'm tempted to up my pledge to get the comics and novellas

Edited October 28, 2014 by ShadySands

[Marceror]

Not to be a broken record, but they will achieve the goal.

[sorophx]

The combat in the original Torment annoyed the hell out of me.

but InXile knows that. that's why RTWP could've been a better choice, they would've made sure it was better than in the original game.

 

actually, I am cautious now, having played Wasteland 2 and seen how bad TB combat made by InXile can be. I would've preferred to see their take on RTWP. alas, now we'll never know

Edited October 28, 2014 by sorophx

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I'd rather WL2 combat than PoE combat any day of the week.

[prodigydancer]

Well, how is WL2 combat bad? It's typical for a non-magical sci-fi setting. In a nutshell it's a simple fast-paced DPS race which you win because you're better equipped. Even if they listened to Fallout fans and added aimed shots the difference would be minimal.

 

As for PoE, I think it's too early to judge. Obsidian is still experimenting and we see wild balance swings and new bugs. Some thing improve, some degrade. Personally I think they should postpone the release till late 2015, let backers officially vote on controversial topics like engagement system and XP sources, feature freeze according to vote results and spend the remaining time on tweaking and QA passes.

Edited October 28, 2014 by prodigydancer