Torment: Tides of Numenera - Turns out there is room for 2!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Torment: Tides of Numenera - Turns out there is room for 2!

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

Personally I'm excited about this. Of course I can't tell if it's going to be anywhere near as good as PS:T, but I'm willing to give Brian Fargo, Monte Cook and co. a chance. If it's the closest we can get to PS:T 2, I'll take it.

Also Monte Cook's Numenera looks like a great setting. I'm willing to settle on "a decent to good CRPG in the Numenera setting," even. How often do we get cRPGs based on P&P RPGs these days?

staplegun posted:

Unless they're picking up talent from people that worked on the original, there's no reason for me to support this before it's released. Although the Planescape setting is pretty rad by itself, the stellar writing is what made that game.

Colin McComb, one of the original pen and paper Planescape writers and Chris Avellone's second on PS:T, is on the team.

There's also some ex-Obsidian talent, notably Kevin Saunders, the project lead on Mask of the Betrayer (which is the closest Obsidian got to PS:T, incidentally).

Of course my wet dream would be for Chris Avellone and George Ziets (lead writer on Mask of the Betrayer) to join the project. That would be the perfect Torment 2 team.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2013 20:50

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:09

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

From what I have heard and read elsewhere, the launch of the Torment 2 Kickstarter is scheduled for this Friday. (Brother None might want to correct me on that.) Funnily, that means it'll probably coincide with the reveal of Richard Garriott's mystery project, also rumored to be a Kickstarter.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2013 14:15

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

This Wednesday already? Oh my oh my. I wonder if the decision to start it so early has been influenced by Lord British's countdown.

By the way there's also this article at Rock Paper Shotgun, with Chris Avellone's endorsement video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8hpnATIpqQ

# ¿ Mar 4, 2013 17:25

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

And it's on! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera

I'm in for $20, and I'm really curious to see how high it can go.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 15:07

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

Rinkles posted:

Is he a freelancer or is he employed full time at Obsidian?

Freelancer, as far as I know. He also tweeted that "It *would* be pretty cool to work with Kevin [Saunders] again! But will the gods of Kickstarter permit me to be a stretch goal again? Dunno."

I really hope he's a stretch goal. That would make me up my pledge considerably for sure and not care anymore about Chris Avellone not being involved.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 22:09

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

I'm really curious how that image is going to translate in-game.

2015 can't come soon enough.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2013 16:41

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

That is one hell of an interview.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 17:24

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

At the RPG Codex forums Colin McComb and Kevin Saunders got asked how linear the game's going to be compared to PS:T. Here's what they replied:

Kevin Saunders posted:

villain of the story posted:
are we to understand that game will be fairly linear?

I'm hesitant to answer your question directly because I don't know precisely what implications come with your definition of "fairly linear." =) So instead I'll say some things that maybe get at what you and others may be curious about.

When the two aspects are at odds with each other, we are favoring greater reactivity over greater freedom. (Generally speaking, the more non-linear the game, the more effort it is to have robust reactivity because there are more permutations to account for. This is not an absolute.)

You will often have choices about what you do/where you go next. You won't be able to go anywhere at any time. In general, I expect players will have considerable freedom, but we'll use story-based gates (and other techniques as well) to allow us to create the high degree of reactivity we want while keeping the scope of work manageable.

Colin McComb posted:

Infinitron posted:
People want comparisons. How linear will it be compared to PS:T?

Looking at my story flowchart, I'd say: less linear. We do have major story beats that will remain the same; as ksaun [i.e. Kevin Saunders] noted, we're using story-based gates and other techniques for some pacing control, so you'll have to hit certain of those gates to progress. There is a distinct critical path through the game. However, there are places where the story diverges considerably based on your choices and actions.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2013 17:10

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

There's a pretty interesting discussion of Torment's Crisis concept going on at the RPG Codex, with input from T:ToN project director Kevin Saunders (user ksaun): http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/torment-tides-of-numenera-crisis-concept.87059/

Just thought some of you may be interested in that.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2013 18:54

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

Torment 2 is supposed to do away with trash fights entirely and only focus on a handful of hand-crafted encounters.

And in that case, I believe turn-based is preferable, since it can make the combat more tactical.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2013 23:14

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

MartianAgitator posted:

this kerfuffle is completely the fault of of the devs, who could have just said "Turn-based or RTwP: TBD" on the kickstarter.

Which would've likely gotten exactly the same kind of comments ("PS:T was RTwP so I assumed the successor would be too!" "betrayal!" "InXile was pro-TB all along!" "Inxile's only going for turn-based because W2 is turn-based!" etc.) once they would've announced the decision to go turn-based.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 16:41

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

This just in: George Ziets, narrative lead on Mask of the Betrayer, joins the Torment team full-time: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/797498

quote:

My new role on Torment will be Lead Area Designer. Until now, this position hasn�t really been necessary, but with production starting soon, area creation will become a major focus for our team. We�re in the midst of detailing our plans for area design in Torment (including aspects of pacing, layout, and reactivity). I�ll be making our approach more concrete, establishing standards for our area designers to follow, and then leading the area design team for the remainder of the project.

My role might be surprising to those of you who know me as a narrative designer, but in truth, a lot of the things I�ll be doing on Torment will be similar to the things I did on Mask of the Betrayer. I�ll be making sure that you have multiple ways to solve quests, that your choices are meaningful, and that the repercussions of those choices are felt in many places throughout the game. I�ll be designing characters and quests to reflect both the themes of our story and the fundamental weirdness of the Numenera setting. And I�ll be working with our art team to create cool and bizarre locations to explore, like the floating corpse of Myrkul from Mask of the Betrayer.

Great news. My expectations for this game just grew considerably.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 16:14

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

Kevin Saunders and Adam Heine are also answering questions in that interview thread, in particular about the Obsidian/Pillars of Eternity tech they're using and how close they're going to stay to it:

Kevin Saunders posted:

Infinitron posted:
Hey, ksaun, I'd like to ask you this question again about character sizes: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/torment-tides-of-numenera-inxile-torment-successor-thread.79051/page-260#post-2803354

In general, how is Torment's graphical style shaping up now that you're definitely using the Pillars of Eternity tech as a baseline? Will it look similar, or will you make an effort to differentiate like the original PS:T did viz a viz Baldur's Gate?

I think you raised a great point, but ultimately we have gone conservative on this front and are planning to keep with the basic parameters (e.g., size of character on screen, camera angle) that PE is using. Whenever we more closely keep things as they are in PE, it reduces work/risk as we have confidence Obsidian will solve whatever problems arise. This gives us more oomph to be more experimental/different in the specific areas we choose. Anywhere we deviate, there is the possibility that some aspect of the PE technology doesn't behave as expected, creating new issues to solve.

Also, (and this is oversimplifying some), if we have the characters be, say, 30% larger on screen, then, well, we're also 30% closer to the environments. So the cost of creating the environments would also go up.

(One thing we are planning to do differently is to maintain the same screen space regardless of the resolution.) That is, if you play at a higher resolution, what you see would be at a higher detail, and the "zoom level" stays the same.)

We are planning to do a couple other things differently from PE that should place greater emphasis on the companions, but we're not ready to go into details yet.

karfhud posted:
What a great interview - thanks! I have more and more faith in George Ziets; it's almost unreal, but I have literally no expectations from TToN, not because I don't want to get overhyped, but because I just have no idea what to expect. The little red bugger on my shoulder says, "it can be better that PS:T, with all this writing talent on board and you know it, so pull that hype lever and go insane, now".

As for combat - it's not gonna be cut entirely, will it? It's not even suggested in this interview; there will just be other ways to resolve it, that's how I understood it. I wouldn't worry about pacing, writers know all about pacing and since there's so many of them on TToN, they'll nail it.

I'm also really excited for Brother None's, what should I call it, progress? Must be very rewarding to be able to learn on-the-go within such a brilliant team and then have an opportunity to write and contribute. Keep it up!

Oh, and I can't wait to hear what is it that Brian Mitsoda will write for this.

Please keep your expectations low so that we have some hope of exceeding them (or at least coming within a few sighs). We are just humans (well, most of us, anyway). (Though I'll say that I have a lot of faith in George Ziets, too (obviously).)

We intend for some Crises (i.e., >= 1) to involve "tactical" situations and problem-solving that occur in the absence of combat.

Infinitron posted:
throwaway posted:
Has the lack of day-night schedule been mentioned before? It's alright if its explained in the lore but I'd rather some dynamism than a static Bioware area.

I know they were considering it, but this is the first time it's been confirmed, I believe.

This was the first time we publicly stated this decision. We'll probably discuss more of the details "soon." (I.e., within a couple/few updates. Which apparently won't be soon at all.)

# ¿ May 23, 2014 18:43

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:09

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

Sea Otter posted:

Additionally, as a less important aspect, the size of the main character is as small as characters of Pillars of Eternity, different from the comparison between PS: T and other Infinity Engine games.

You can zoom in to get the PS:T look if you want.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2015 12:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Torment: Tides of Numenera - Turns out there is room for 2!