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I actually liked Hunted: The Demon's Forge, though it's hardly high-art. I am super-excited for Torment 2, though, especially after seeing that first gameplay video of Wasteland 2. YOURFRIEND posted:Like they're making Wasteland 2 which I could not care less about and has yet to be seen whether it's even going to be a decent game and before that they made what? Cell phone games? Hunted: The Demon's Forge The Bard's Tale quote:I don't understand why they're kickstartering another project when their first isn't even done, either. I think their plan is being preproduction on Torment 2 with a small team. Then once Wasteland 2 is finished, they can segue right into full development without having to wait months or worry about hiring the Wasteland 2 team back. From their perspective, at least, it makes a lot of sense.
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Feb 20, 2013 20:04
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I don't think inXile has enough personnel to support full development of another major RPG, so I don't think they're actually going to jump right into another Kickstarter within the next few days/weeks. This seems like feelers more than anything else, gauging what people think about and how they want it setup for reference later in the year. And it would make sense to do it that way. Most of the company is currently tied up on Wasteland 2, except for the preproduction guys who have already been shipped over to Torment 2. But Wasteland 2 should start winding down towards the end of the year, meaning that inXile is going to need a lot of on-hand cash to keep them around. Hence the need for another Kickstarter. Waiting for profits from Wasteland 2 might mean firing some people and then trying to hire them back a few months later, which doesn't like a great way to do things. Having said that, if they launched a Torment 2 Kickstarter tomorrow, I'd back it.
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Feb 20, 2013 21:19
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Mahuum Aqoha posted:The thing that stood out about Planescape: Torment for me was just how weird and original the world is. I mean, sure, "what can change the nature of a man" was awesome and there was all sorts of philosophical implications, but there was also a guy(?) that was an avatar of a letter in the grand alphabetic code of the universe and when you talk to him you get brushed by absolute enlightenment. Or a guy that has a head that's separate from his body and you have to go find his head and reunite it with his body, who is stumbling around awkwardly in the Festhall. As long as this Numenera setting is capable of supporting such unique situations I'm all for it. There isn't a lot of information out there, but I do absolutely love the vibe coming off the few bits of art they've shown so far:  
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Feb 21, 2013 03:57
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Drifter posted:They're last two games were, what, Chopper HD and Hunted Demon's Forge? Yes, and I did enjoy Hunted, but they're working with an almost completely different team for Wasteland 2 and Torment 2, a lot of new faces were brought in specifically for those games [and specifically for their previous experience working on the originals]. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be cautious about throwing your money around, just that it's hard to really judge how their two new games will turn out based on inXile's previous efforts.
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Feb 21, 2013 05:34
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My great shame is that I still haven't finished PS:T. 
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Feb 21, 2013 05:42
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No, it's very much ready to go! Mods all up in that business! I've played far into the game at least 3 or 4 times, but I keep getting distracted and forget to actually finish it. I'm the worst person in the world. 
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Feb 21, 2013 05:47
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They've basically tried to get as much of the old team back together as possible and Chris Avellone even helped put the team together, despite not actually being involved in the development himself. Seems kind of premature to write off the game based on the lack of his direct involvement and not liking the exact wording of the game's theme. Well, whatever.
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Feb 25, 2013 08:14
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quote:What was most memorable for most players of the game? Based on the conversations I’ve had with friends and fans, the answers (at least from a design perspective) boil down to these. It: quote:The first step in designing a new Torment story is to ask the primary question. I’m older than I was when I worked on Torment, and my questions now are different than they were. I have children now, and I look at the world through their eyes and through mine, and that’s changed me – in fact, the intervening years have changed me so much that I have new answers for the central story in the original Torment. So now that I know what can change the nature of a man, I ask: What does one life matter? … and does it matter at all? He's the creative lead for Torment 2. Great Rumbler fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Feb 25, 2013 |
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Feb 25, 2013 08:50
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I've been thinking about the theme for Torment 2 "What is a man's life worth?" Obviously, one of the most popular examples of a work that posed and explored that question is It's a Wonderful Life. George believes that his life is worthless [or at least worth less than the amount of his life insurance] and nearly takes Mr. Potters advice that he's worth more dead than alive. Then through the course of the movie he realizes that his life has touched a great many people and its those people who have made his life worthwhile. It's a feel-good, life-affirming story. But I think there's another story there that's at least as interesting: Mr. Potters story. What would a movie about him be like? Suppose he's an old man near the end of his life. He looks back and thinks "I've lived a good life. I've made a lot of money and I've turned this little business of mine into a powerful force. I've never wanted for anything in years and I live a life of luxury. Where others failed, I succeeded." But then Clarence appears and shows him the fruits of his life: the people he's hurt, the families he's destroyed, the lovers he's spurned or cheated on, the rubble he's left in his wake because of his greed. For all his material wealth, he has no friends, his family wants nothing to do with him. And when he finally dies, his name will live on only as a curse. Now that I really think about it, of course, that's basically the story of A Christmas Carol. BUT in this case there would be no chance for redemption. Potter is too old for that, too frail. He had his chance, but now it's too late. That's the kind of thing I'd like to see Torment 2 explore. Rather than giving the option right at the very end to be good or evil [as some games made by developers who I will not mention tend to do], the game takes what you've done and shows you the impact that you've had. Did you save the child from drowning? He grew up to become a doctor who helped save hundreds of people. Did you shoot that bandit that tried to surrender? He had a wife and two kids who starved waiting for him to come home. Obviously, that's incredibly ambitious, but I think a Torment sequel has to be incredibly ambitious. Just my own little thoughts on the matter. Great Rumbler fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 25, 2013 18:56
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I got to thinking more about the scenario I threw out without out much thought in my earlier post, about the bandit with the wife and two kids. Some interesting ideas came to me and I just figured I'd pass them along. If you kill the bandit, his wife and children starve waiting for him to return. Now what happens if you spare him? That could go in several different ways. Perhaps sparing him alters the universe from where it would go if you killed him. Instead, you learn that he's a total jerk and uses his new-found life to plot revenge against you. He never had a wife and two kids in the universe where you spared him. Either he comes back to haunt you later or he continues his campaign of violence, spurred on by the humiliation of losing to you. Or, maybe the rest of his clan finds out that he surrendered rather than fighting to the death. They find him later and kill him, thus dooming his family. No matter your choice at the end, you doom his family to die by deciding to invade that bandit camp. Some weight could even be added to that by having the family show up in an earlier part of the game. They're polar opposites of the bandit. The wife is a loving mother and she only wants to do right be her children and make sure that they grow up to the be good people. You don't know at the time that they're the bandit's family, but you realize it later after its too late to do anything. But suppose you came across some hint that was later confirmed at you met the bandits. Rather than waiting to find out the fate of the family later, you go straight to them after dealing with the bandit. You can save them, for a price. Caring for three people is expensive, especially when the wife has to care for the children and the children are too young to make a living for themselves. It's going to cost a LOT of money. Do you tell them what happened to their father? Do you tell them your role in his fate? Do you lie and tell them something that won't hurt as much? What you choose to do and what you choose to tell them have an affect on their reaction and how their story eventually ends. If you tell them the truth, they resent you despite your aid. If you lie to them, they refuse your aid and decide to wait until the bandit comes home. If you bend the truth a little bit, they accept your help. Is it worth the cost to help them? No one will even know whether you do or don't, but you'll always know that you could have helped them but didn't. What other uses could that money have been put to? Who else could you have saved with it? How much more powerful could that money have made you? Is it worth that trade off if you don't even get anything in return? How will choosing to help them, or choosing to lie to them, impact the rest of the game? Ha, you could just about right a whole story just around this one minor scenario, but it does raise a lot of really interesting questions if you really want to dig deep into the impact of even the most insignificant choices. Most games really don't do that at all, and it's disappointing. I'm rambling, aren't I? Well, I get excited about things sometimes and tend to ramble about them. Sorry!
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Feb 25, 2013 19:49
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Torment 2 does need a very strong, very focused pitch, I agree. It can't just be "Hey, we're doing a sequel to Torment 2, it's going to be an RPG and have cool characters, please give us money." It's going to need details and those details need to be interesting and compelling. It also needs to focus on the people involved, what they bring to the table and how they plan on making this a worthy to successor to what most people consider one of the greatest RPGs and greatest videogame stories ever. Wasteland 2 didn't really have that kind of pressure, I think, but it's definitely going to be there with Torment 2. Make us care! Make us want this so bad that we're willing to throw our money at you nearly two years in advance! Make us feel like this one's going to be a real winner! Wow us, in other words.
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Feb 25, 2013 21:09
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Brother None posted:That's the plan! We've got way more run-up time to this than Wasteland 2 or Eternity had, and plan to use it. Expect a more informative, detailed pitch. That's what I like to hear. I'm not saying the W2 pitch was bad or vague, but it's strength was more in reviving a genre that most people thought was practically dead and buried. So, the excitement was less about the game and more about the genre, I think. Same with Eternity, though Eternity had the name-recognition from being developed by Obsidian. Built in fanbase and all that. The Torment pitch has to struggle against a genre that is already being revived by several high-profile titles, the fact that it's the second inXile pitch [coming before the release of their first game], and trying to live up to the expectations of what people think a Torment sequel should be. The latter is probably the most important, as getting people to believe that a Torment sequel can work [and that inXile are the people to do it] is going to be absolutely vital to getting them to crack open their wallets. And it's good to hear that you won't necessarily need as much as W2 to make this happen. Of course, I would very much like to see you guys put up crazy numbers on it anyway!
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Feb 25, 2013 21:53
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Adraeus posted:There should be a Kickstarter goal for changing the title back to just "Torment" from the awkward, oddly maddening, uber-geeky, and even unscientific "Torment: Tides of Numenera". So, you think they should name it Numenera: Torment or something along those lines? I'm not really sure what your complaint here is.
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Feb 26, 2013 07:04
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SaucyLoggins posted:If anything, it's worth it for seeing how personally offended people are getting. As if Brian Fargo was their best friend asking them to borrow another 50 bucks. Whoah bro, you still haven't paid me back for the 50 bucks I let you borrow last week. How dare you! Yeah, some of the reactions here are a little...strange. I mean, if you trusted Fargo enough to put up your cash on Wasteland 2, why suddenly balk at even the idea of him wanting to do another roughly a year later? I can understand being cautious and wanting to hear a strong pitch first, but geez, it's not like he's asking for more money to finish up W2 or some other shady thing. But please do show us more of Wasteland 2, because I definitely didn't get enough the first time.
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Feb 26, 2013 15:52
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Adraeus posted:In the end, the "Torment" name, like the revived Black Isle Studios, is just a name and their hope is that a bit of the magic that made Planescape: Torment special (read: fans with wallets) will rub off on this game. Torment: Tides of Numenera is most of a band getting back together under a slightly different name because they couldn't get the rights to the old name. The new Black Isle is just a tribute band. Great Rumbler fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 16:12
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There's one very good reason why I don't mind the Torment 2 Kickstarter going up as soon as possible: Waiting until after Wasteland 2 is released will mean Torment 2 likely won't be released until at least late-summer of 2015. Doing the Kickstarter now will mean Torment 2 might be released as early as the end of 2014. Yes, I am a very impatient person.
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Feb 28, 2013 20:31
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I think a short story or novella would be the best way to go here. Maybe 40-50 pages, introduce the world and some locations, touch on some of the major themes, and the like. It could focus on a minor character who appears briefly in the game or maybe not appear in the game at all, just create a brand new character and carry them through the arc of their own personal story. That way, you don't have to worry about spoiling part of the game or trying to properly present a slice of the game story that's devoid of its context. The story story itself would the context, since it would be self-contained.
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Mar 2, 2013 21:33
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CottonWolf posted:Fargo's twitter has been strongly hinting that the Kickstarter will be happening at some point this week. Or maybe there's some other big RPG announcement coming next week that Fargo knows about, and being really dense. Both are possibilities! He could be talking about the live showing of Shadowrun Returns.
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Mar 4, 2013 02:35
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theblackw0lf posted:200,000 in less than an hour. Holy crap! Yeah, I don't think they're going to have any problem reaching [and blowing away] their goal, which makes me happy. Now, where did I put my wallet...
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Mar 6, 2013 15:53
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Zilkin posted:They pretty much have to make it close to 1 million in 24 hours or so if they want achieve W2, or maybe even close to P:E, level of funding. I'd say that's not outside the realm of possibility, given how much they've gotten in the first hour and a few minutes.
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Mar 6, 2013 16:13
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$800k in 5 hours. Craziness! Give it another 30 minutes and it'll be fully funded!! I've been bombarding Twitter/Facebook with this same message, but I'll say it here, too: Kickstarter makes me more excited about videogames than just about anything else in the past decade. How did we ever get by without it?
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Mar 6, 2013 20:08
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coffeetable posted:It's also not encouraging that the big games inXile have done before (Bard's Tale, Hunted) have been somewhere between mediocre and bad, and that there's only been two of them in the ~ten years of the studio's existence. Now, there may be very good reasons as to why this is, but unless what went wrong then and why it won't go wrong now is laid out, people are perfectly entitled to feel uneasy about the odds of success. I like Bard's Tale and Hunted, even though I may be in the minority there, but those two games were made by teams with a completely different makeup. Both Wasteland 2 and Torment are [at least at the higher levels] made up of people who were specifically brought on because of their experience with previous games in their respective series.
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Mar 6, 2013 21:48
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TG-Chrono posted:998K! Holy moly, I hope this doesn't plateau too severely! As usual, that will largely depend on the stretch goals.
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Mar 6, 2013 21:55
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theblackw0lf posted:It's still pulling almost $20,000 every 10 minutes and should hit 1.1 before the end of the hour. I think it could actually pick up a little bit in the next few hours as people get off from work and have a chance to check the Kickstarter out in detail.
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Mar 6, 2013 22:46
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Grandpa Goodtimes posted:I wonder why its more expensive here vs the 75 dollars buy in that Wasteland had. Feedback said that people didn't care about physical stuff that much and wanted more of their money to go straight to making the game. I'm sure their prices are in reaction to that.
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Mar 6, 2013 23:34
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coffeetable posted:Something not enough people know about KotOR2 is that it was made in 9 months. It was also being made under the assumption that they'd have much more time than that. I'm sure the game would have turned out differently if they'd known before they started exactly how much time they were ultimately given.
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Mar 7, 2013 04:03
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MaterialConceptual posted:Well I hope the creators of Numenera get to keep control of the setting this time instead of it falling under the control of a huge conglomerate. They will continue to keep control of the setting unless they decide to sell it. Numenera was funded through Kickstarter last year: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1433901524/numenera-a-new-roleplaying-game-from-monte-cook
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Mar 7, 2013 16:08
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2house2fly posted:Fallout 3 was set in an area that should really be an overgrown swamp but eh, Fallout 3. Fallout 3 did have an expansion [Point Lookout] that was set in a swamp, though.
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Mar 7, 2013 17:36
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CottonWolf posted:That's why I question the wisdom of letting the backers vote for anything, especially as something as big as the combat system. We (well the majority of us) don't make games. We don't know what's going to work best thematically. If they go that route, surely they're not getting freedom. Aren't they just trading one master for another? Fargo said during the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter that they're always willing to listen to their fans and even take their opinions into account, but that they've also got their own ideas about how to make the game and they're not necessarily just going to throw in everything that people want just to "appease" them.
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Mar 7, 2013 17:53
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Yep, this is definitely a thing that I like listening to with my ears.
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Mar 8, 2013 04:39
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So, am I reading this right that the Castoff's Labyrinth will be something like the Endless Paths from Project: Eternity, in that it will expand as more Kickstarter funding comes in?
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Mar 8, 2013 06:18
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Yessssssss. I loved checking in on the Project: Eternity Kickstarter to see new levels of the Endless Paths revealed, it made it that much more exciting to see how much money the campaign could bring in.
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Mar 8, 2013 06:28
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I just wanna say that Steve Dengler [@Dracogen] is one classy, awesome fellow and he should probably be allowed to the play the completed game before anybody else.
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Mar 9, 2013 18:07
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Hakkesshu posted:But it's also one of those things where Brian Fargo runs the risk of being villified for the rest of his career if these games end up being disasters. Brian Fargo strikes me as a guy who really wants to get back to relevance in the games industry. It's only been a little more than a decade ago that he led a major publisher with 500+ employees that was releasing some of the most talked about PC games of their time [some are even the most talked about TODAY]. Wasteland 2 and Torment being successes would give him a real shot at returning to, if not a top-tier publisher, at least a self-funded outfit that's able to make what it wants on its own terms. Wasteland 2 and Torment failing, however, would probably erase any possibility of that ever happening and see the end of inXile, especially with how vociferously he's cut ties with traditional publishers. What it all boils down to is this: it's in Fargo's best interests to do everything within his power to ensure that Wasteland 2 and Torment meet and exceed the expectations of [most] of his fans. Now, knowing that and actually achieving it are two different things, of course, but I would be incredibly surprised if I failed to get more than $45 worth of entertainment out of these two games.
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Mar 11, 2013 21:59
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Adraeus posted:Daikatana didn't stop John from developing games and starting companies. He's been bouncing around from project to project and company to company for 12 years, with virtually nothing that anyone remotely remembers having come out of that period. This coming from someone who had nearly a decade of high-profile hits. Well anyway, I made my point and it's fine if you don't agree. This is just how I see things.
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Mar 11, 2013 23:15
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Adraeus posted:In any other field, yeah, "bouncing around" would often rightly be considered a bad thing, but that's what most game developers have to do to make a living. But that's basically my point. For a good while after Daikatana he was just "making a living," not being the rockstar game developer with his lavish studio and making whatever games he wanted. The latter was where his successes got him, Daikatana cut him down to "just making a living." That's a considerable change in career trajectory. But maybe he turned things around with Ravenwood Fair, I don't know, but that was a good nine years later. I just really don't think Brian Fargo would shrug off a decade of scraping to get by because he got knocked down by a high-profile failure, that's all I'm saying.
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Mar 12, 2013 00:32
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Hakkesshu posted:Romero makes an appearance in the latest episode of the Double Fine documentary, and it definitely seems like he's a lot wealthier than "just making a living", even though he hasn't done anything for over a decade aside from some mobile games. Is Ravenwood Fair really popular or something? Romero probably made a ton of money working at id [and may still get residuals from his time there]. Ravenwood Fair seems to have done fairly well for itself in the world of social games, but I'm not sure how much of that money comes back to Romero [he was brought in to lead the development team about a month and a half before the game launched and stayed for a few months after].
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Mar 12, 2013 00:46
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Ball of Goo romance option must happen!!
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Mar 12, 2013 02:02
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I don't care what anyone says, Hunted is a solid bit of fun.
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Mar 12, 2013 04:08
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Sir_Seth posted:I'm just sayin' making quality games is not inXile's forte, so obviously their new business plan is to resurrect old IPs just to leech money from weepy nostalgia-ridden man-children and clearly they are doing a great job of it. At least put in a little effort if you're gonna troll, we plowed that ground ages ago and grew a whole crop of whinging on it.
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Mar 12, 2013 05:41
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