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posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Wed 30 June 2010, 12:54:10
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RPGFan fondly take a look back at everyone's favorite western JRPG.
Torment's gameplay elements weren't ignored in favor of storytelling, however. Mistaking Torment for a combat-light visual novel type game is a big error. Combat is complex, as are the game's magic spells, items, and quests. One ability has Morte the floating skull taunt a foe with a string of insults, and every time he hears an NPC utter a profane barrage of curses in dialogue with The Nameless One, the ability becomes more effective. So much detail for just one ability – that kind of industriousness is unknown today. Even enemies are more complex than they first appear. The game's answer to the sewer rat is more powerful in groups, for instance. With hive minds, cranium rats are stupid alone, but intelligent in groups – so intelligent as to be able to cast spells. Should The Nameless One come across a pair of cranium rats, he'll have no problem dispatching them. Should an entire pack appear, however, they'll start flinging abdomen-splitting lightning bolts.
Quest and dialogue mechanics are just as complex, requiring specific lines of questioning and careful selection of dialogue options to trigger the best experience awards and side quests. Items often become useful long after the player acquires them, and a careless inventory cleanup can cause a missed opportunity later. Equipment is well designed as well, and the pacing of the power level is superb. Every item seems to have a use, every character seems to have something to say, and every location is of importance. One gets the impression that the game has an infinite number of quests and dialogue options to offer, and that no matter what one does, the game will never reveal them all in one playthrough.
Combat complexity not detected.
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The Gift of Torment ( Editorial )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Tue 30 March 2010, 18:43:04
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Former GameSpot executive editor Greg Kasavin has put up his thoughts on this classic RPG.
It took years for anyone to improve on Torment's basic idea of letting you determine your character's intent and not just the content of his speech, but the Mass Effect games finally took this a step further through their system of subtext-driven dialogue. In those games, it's genuinely exciting to see the protagonist act out your dialogue choices, because you don't know exactly what Shepard is going to say or do -- you tend to just pick the emotion or intent behind the outcome you want, and your reward is seeing Shepard act it out faithfully, in most cases. The basic consequence of this is that dialogue sequences tend to be worth watching and listening to, something that's rather important for a game that's bothering to have tons of story content.
Mass Effect - the first games that managed to genuinely improve on the standards set by Planescape Torment.
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Die Hard Game Fans want the Nameless One to stay dead ( Editorial )
posted by Monolith on Tue 15 December 2009, 11:51:57
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In this week's “Sequel, Spin Off, Start Over or Stay Dead?” the Die Hard Game Fan staff had to decide if Planescape: Torment should get a sequel, spin off, a start over or should stay dead. They voted for the latter.
Here's half the article:
The real reason I want Planescape: Torment to stay dead save for the occasional OS update is because I have no faith in Wizards of the Coast. Not only did they completely bury the Planescape setting once they got their grubby mitts on the rights to Dungeons and Dragons but they have been absolute idiots with the franchise, from an unbelievable score of atrocious D&D themed games based on the 3.0 or 3.5 edition of the tabletop game to burying the most popular variants of D&D such as Dragonlance, Ravenloft and Planescape in favour of their own god awful creation of Eberron. They allowed horrible movies to be made with the license’s name included two horrible live-action films and a god awful Dragonlance animated movie. The only thing that WOTC has done right since buying Dungeons and Dragons from TSR was the miniatures game, which they then stupidly stopped making at the height of its popularity. Wizards of the Coast has shown absolutely no intelligence or respect for the D&D franchise, which can be seen even to this day with 4th edition and the termination of the Dragon and Dungeon magazines. The thought of WOTC doing a 4th edition version of Planescape: Torment disgusts me to no end and I hope someday Hasbro cracks down on their inept asses and puts people in charge that can do the license proud and restore it to its 2nd Edition/SSI golden era. Until that time, I’d rather Planescape: Torment be kept as far away from the minds of WOTC as possible and just let the game be re-released so it can be played on MAC and PC operating systems as they change with each passing generation.
I'm for spin off, still waiting for Purgatorio (I know, I know, wrong on so many levels...).
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Torment Retrospectacular ( Game news )
posted by Edward_R_Murrow on Tue 04 August 2009, 06:11:10
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A fellow by the name of Matt Barton has created a video looking back at Planescape: Torment, with some footage and comentary. This week, I look at one of the lesser known but still excellent CRPGs of the "Platinum Age," the term I used in my book for the late 90s era of CRPGs. Planescape: Torment is one of Black Isle's best, based on the Infinity Engine. Black Isle had achieved fame before for their fabulous Fallout series, and their roots go back even deeper (as Interplay, which created Bard's Tale among others). Of course, they'd go on to create the party-based Icewind Dale series.
Enjoy the video! This one went smoothly. The only challenging part was getting the Fallout footage. For some reason, that program really hates FRAPS, and I'm not sure how else to record it. I had to run it in Dosbox, and that obviously led to its own set of problems. I guess that will preclude me from covering Fallout anytime soon. Check it out if you're in the mood for some nostalgia. Or if you're one of the few who still needs to play Torment and need a little convincing.
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Fan Made Fallout Puts Out An Alpha. ( Mod news )
posted by Edward_R_Murrow on Mon 16 February 2009, 21:09:37
More info on Fallout 2: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game - More info on Black Isle Studios
If you really crave proof that Fan Made Fallout is almost a reality, you can head on over to their website and read about the release of a limited Alpha build, or even download it yourself.
Welcome to the first release of the Fan Made Fallout demo. This release is currently in Alpha form. We're calling it version 0.1. Here's some important information you need to know, then we'll post the message from our script lead on how to check things out.
1 - It's going to be rough
2 - Our dedicated, two man scripting team is working very hard to learn the skills they need to get you a demo that ... well, works. They appreciate your feedback and assistance.
3 - We're going to be constantly updating this demo version as we go. If you have comments you'd like to make, please respond to THIS posting. Likewise we will update information here with update releases so you can patch mistakes we've fixed.
4 - Thanks for coming on the ride with us .. hope you like where this goes ....
5 - Oh, and thank you to everyone over the past 7 years that have gotten us to where we are on this journey (including HVAttack8, who is our other scripter
Here's hoping for the full release within a decade.
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Planescape: Torment - More Fanboy Love ( Review )
posted by baby arm on Sat 17 January 2009, 22:38:35
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Richard Nolan penned an article expressing the many reasons he adores Planescape: Torment.
Uniqueness and extremely well thought out personality depth define all seven of the player characters who can join The Nameless One's party, every one has a deep and rich history tangled within incarnations of The Nameless One's past. These stories are integrated throughout the game, but not least of all in that PS:T allowed you, unlike previous Black Isle games, to hold conversations with your party characters whenever you desire. These turned out to be very well conceived and often in-depth conversations which, if the right options were chosen throughout the conversation sequence, could massively affect your game - causing the character in question to experience stat gains, generate unique items, leave the party (permanently), or even attack the player.
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Fallout 2 restoration project up for grabs! ( Mod news )
posted by Nedrah on Sun 06 January 2008, 15:30:00
More info on Fallout 2: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game - More info on Black Isle Studios - More info on Feargus Urquhart
NMA poster killap announced his extremely ambitious unofficial expansion "Fallout 2 restoration project" today. The day of release has finally come. It has taken me about almost 2 years to get this complete and yet I still believe I can find stuff to add. The purpose of this mod is to add back into the game all the content that was originally planned by the Fallout 2 devs. You will find about 6 new locations (some quite large, other smaller) as well as a few new areas to old locations. In addition, almost every town in the game has new content whether it is new characters, quests, or items. Playing this will definitely be a new experience. Completion of this expansion would also not have been possible without several individuals who I thank in the readme of this mod. Big thanks to all of you!
You can also find a full list of all things the mod adds to the game in the forum post linked above. I'm not quoting that here because some of you might prefer to just install and play the mod without spoiling what's new for yourselves.
Let's thank and congratulate killap for pulling this off instead of going the vaporish way of most things with a scope like this. Now, hope you all have finished MOTB and The Witcher, because those games are just soooo 2007 and it looks like it's time to dust off those Fallout 2 cds.
Thanks Elwro
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Part 2 of Planescape: Torment interview at RPGWatch ( Interview )
posted by Calis on Wed 01 August 2007, 10:47:55
More info on Planescape: Torment - More info on Black Isle Studios - More info on Chris Avellone
RPGWatch has published the second part of the excellent interview with Chris Avellone and Colin McComb, conducted by Brother None. To this day, I rue the fact that Chris A was never as involved on the official forum while the game was still in development as his designer-underlings Colin, Adam and Scott. It's good that someone finally dived into that demented brain of his to extract this information. Obligatory interview quote, dealing with cliches in Torment:
- Rats became one of the most dangerous creatures to fight.
- Undead were often more human and sympathetic than their living counterparts (Pharod vs. Stale Mary, for example).
- Quest givers were usually people you had given quests to, but had forgotten you had (Pharod).
- Brothels indulged not physical lusts, but intellectual lusts. A LOT.
- The plane of chaos was incredibly orderly.
- Gaining information was often more important than increasing your stats.
- Death didn't end the game, and in places, helped progress it.
- You didn't get a name until the end of the game.
- You are frequently fighting against things and traps you set for yourself in previous lives.
- No swords - and there was an attempt to avoid conventional and expected spells and weapons.
- No dwarves, elves, halflings, etc.
- Options were provided for the player to easily raise dead companions so the game could keep going easily.
- The most prominent Succubi in the game was non-sexual.
- Devils were painfully honest, angels... well, weren't.
It's most definitely a must-read and even includes the original Torment pitch-it-to-the-management document. Go read itThere are 24 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
Planescape: Torment interview at RPG Watch ( Interview )
posted by Vault Dweller on Mon 30 July 2007, 13:56:31
More info on Planescape: Torment - More info on Black Isle Studios - More info on Chris Avellone
RPG Watch has posted an excellent "Planescape: Torment" interview with Chris Avellone and Colin McComb:
Planescape: Torment was never developed to be a huge hit. How much involvement or interference was there from the suits of the company?
Chris Avellone: As far as being a huge hit, I think everyone wanted Torment to sell very well (it made a profit, but not a huge one, and certainly not anywhere near Baldur's Gate numbers).
Still, there were a number of elements that I think hurt it in the long run:
- Not an accessible setting. It's not a fantasy world that is comfortable for players to settle into, and we did not take pains to make it comfortable (no dwarves, elves, or halflings, as one minor example).
- Story-heavy in the wrong ways. It has a slow start, and while the momentum does pick up in the Hive, there's a lot of reading, and people don't buy games to read, they buy games to play them.
- Marketing. The box of the product reinforces #1 above - it says, "hey, we're strange," rather than promoting it as a role-playing game using the Baldur's Gate engine, which probably would have made it a more interesting target to the game community.
As far as interference-from-above goes, we probably could have used more than we had - like Fallout, Torment was sort of under the radar for a while, and the producer role changed several times over the course of the project. Brian Fargo was mostly hands off, except to complement us on the writing, and give me a pretty stern lecture (deservedly) about the localization costs for the game. Feargus was also concerned about how much it slipped over the course of the development cycle, and those weren't fun discussions.
Colin McComb: As far as I know, a surprisingly small amount compared to the amount of money they spent on us. We had to do a few dog-and-pony shows for game magazines, a couple of presentations for the investors, but from my perspective, the executives didn't get too involved with our development cycle, focused as they were on the big money titles like Fallout 2, Stonekeep 2, and the games on the other side of the building. Chris might have a different story, since he was a step higher on the ladder, and he may simply have performed the valuable service of protecting all his designers from any spatters from above. I certainly never felt that we were being jogged or pushed in any one particular direction especially. Part 1 comes with TWO ORIGINAL DESIGN DOCUMENTS, so don't miss them. A must read for PST enthusiasts!
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Van Buren tech demo ( Development info )
posted by Calis on Wed 02 May 2007, 19:00:02
More info on Fallout 3 (Van Buren) - More info on Black Isle Studios
Straight from the "Things that could have been" department, No Mutants Allowed have asked their former BIS contacts to kick the dead Van Buren horse one more time, which has resulted in them getting their greasy hands on the Van Buren tech demo code. In case you're wondering, Van Buren was Black Isle Studios' last attempt at making Fallout 3 before licensing (and subsequently selling) the IP to Bethesda.
Go here for more info.
Since this is a pre-alpha thingamajig, don't expect a lot in terms of gameplay or stability. In fact, I wouldn't recommend torturing yourself by downloading it at all, but I'm going to anyway.
NMA requests that other sites wait a couple of days before mirroring this file. However, since the 3DDownloads waiting queue seems to be around 20 minutes now, you may want to ask around on IRC to see if anyone can hook you up.
If you're in line waiting, here's some more Van Buren to depress you:
Video (low-res YouTube link is your best bet)
Screenies
Thanks Kotario and Brother None (formerly known as Kharn) for pointing this out. There are 90 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
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