Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Rev]

If their silence really means they cut the content, funded stretch goals even, a month from release, this really is the most dick move inxile has pulled.

I don't know man, there's a really high competition with all the other shit they pulled off in the last two years.

 

[Rev]

Btw, thank you Zombra for the parrot-rating.
Always wanted to farm those, but somehow I always get other ratings.

 

[Fairfax]

Being secretive about cut stretch goals seems so foolish and suicidal that I cannot imagine inXile actually doing it. Being a dick is one thing, but being stupid dick is another.
When did Larian announce that Original Sin stretch goal (day/night cycle?) is being cut in relation to the game premiere?

~3 months before release. Swen said he regrets it, but they were overbudget and decided to focus on fixing bugs and adding NPC reactivity.

 

[Rev]

That's because Swen is a bro and a decent human being, while Fargo is a fraudster.
Really, despite whatever we can think of the games that came out of this KS thing, the only ones (of the so called RPG renaissance, at least) that pulled this kind of shit repeatedly over time are inXile. Obsidian, Larian, HBS, even Stoic for fuck's sake all managed to come out cleaner than them.

 

[Bester]

 

[karfhud]

use your eyes, there's about 4 architectural features repeated ad nauseum in that shot as for your poor attempt to justify bog-standard CGI plastic shininess that hasn't been tuned by a human, try harder.

Ah, that's what you mean, the asset repetition within that very screenshot. That's nothing out of the ordinary, regular practice; the meshes still seem to be unique to this place.

 

[agris]

exactly, this isn't a polished map that took significant amounts of manpower to develop. the existence of this screenshot doesn't indicate something is or is not in the game.

karfhud look at the asset diversity of maps in the beta, you'll see a stark difference.

 

[Infinitron]

exactly, this isn't a polished map that took significant amounts of manpower to develop. the existence of this screenshot doesn't indicate something is or is not in the game.

karfhud look at the asset diversity of maps in the beta, you'll see a stark difference.

Why are you talking about a screenshot when there's a trailer showing live footage of that area

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

decided to focus on making bugs

You've made a typo there.

 

[Bester]

Why are you talking about a screenshot when there's a trailer showing live footage of that area

It's exactly the same level assets-wise, only minor changes. The lighting is better undoubtedly, but that repeating things are still there. Lazy.

 

[Infinitron]

Why are you talking about a screenshot when there's a trailer showing live footage of that area

It's exactly the same level assets-wise, only minor changes. The lighting is better undoubtedly, but that repeating things are still there. Lazy.

Yes, but the point is that the map is so low-effort they could easily afford to cut it. If there's recent gameplay footage, they probably didn't.

 

[agris]

If there's recent gameplay footage, they probably didn't.

That's a fair point, although I would think inXile would be embarrassed to ship the game with that map looking the way it does. The asset reuse screams 'low-effort', to borrow your phrase.

 

[Bester]

but the point is that the map is so low-effort they could easily afford to cut it.

They wouldn't just be cutting the map, but they'd also be cutting the swimming controller, which is a heap of work. That is if they even have this controller. Maybe they're cutting cause they have no time to make one.

 

[ushas]

If their silence really means they cut the content, funded stretch goals even, a month from release, this really is the most dick move inxile has pulled.

Do you mean that they cut already done content (why, for future DLCs?) or that it hasn't been done in the first place (thus decided for cutting way back)?

Any of those options are much worse without any official announcements and explanations. I almost dread of finding out upon the release.

Like, there is not going to be backers update about cutting the Italian localization? Did they think Italian backers would not need to know that they may be potentially unable to play or enjoy the game? Even when one gets the full refund eventually, how it just seems, from outside it may even look like inXile/Techland was trying to withhold the information as long as possible - practically having ideal loan.

 

[Kev Inkline]

Really, despite whatever we can think of the games that came out of this KS thing, the only ones (of the so called RPG renaissance, at least) that pulled this kind of shit repeatedly over time are inXile. Obsidian, Larian, HBS, even Stoic for fuck's sake all managed to come out cleaner than them.

I guess Double Fine to can be said having behaved in a similar manner, even though DF-9 was early access.

Surprisingly, guess who are running Fig?

If I really want to put a positive spin on it, and assume everything's fine(*), inXile fail at least communications hard.

(*)

 

[Fairfax]

It wouldn't be the only low-effort area in the game, really.

I thought this one from the trailer was pretty bad. The rock surfaces are so low-res, and the whole scene is just bland. The gutters are all look exactly the same, they just pasted 6 of them without adjusting much of the background.

The gutter's base is bright because of the liquid gold thing, but the surface around it isn't, so it looks like it's hanging above the rocks.

The environment art is very inconsistent. Here you have rocks that look straight out of a 2006 game:

Here it looks much nicer and more like you'd expect in a pre-rendered handcrafted background:

But still not even close to a good PoE environment:

 

[agris]

Ugh. That inconsistency is going to be hard to ignore while playing.

 

[Kev Inkline]

It wouldn't be the only low-effort area in the game, really.

Here it looks much nicer and more like you'd expect in a pre-rendered handcrafted background:

But still not even close to a good PoE environment:

I don't think it's close to any PoE content, tbh.

Although it's sufficiently good for me.

 

[Bester]

Yeah.

Fargo's team doesn't have 3d and 2d artists. Obshitian doesn't have writers, animators and composers.

If we merge them, throw out Feargus and Fargo out on their asses, dismember Sawyer by horse, replace the management with Cain-Anderson-Boyarski, the company could make kickstarter titles indefinitely.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I think inXile is in financial troubles and desperately needs money. Fargo is a smart guy. No way he would place short term gains above the long term gains and destroy his biggest asset - good will of the backers. All money he gains now by withholding those information will be lost tenfold in the future by losing the trust. Wasteland 2 Early Access was a success and brought a lot of money. Fargo when planning the Torment budget must have thought ToN EA will bring similar or not substantially smaller amount of money. When ToN EA failed (when I checked it last there was like 10k owners and most of them must have been backers) there was a shortage of money, stuff was cut and the deal with Techland was made.

 

[Fairfax]

I think inXile is in financial troubles and desperately needs money. Fargo is a smart guy. No way he would place short term gains above the long term gains and destroy his biggest asset - good will of the backers. All money he gains now by withholding those information will be lost tenfold in the future by losing the trust. Wasteland 2 Early Access was a success and brought a lot of money. Fargo when planning the Torment budget must have thought ToN EA will bring similar or not substantially smaller amount of money. When ToN EA failed (when I checked it last there was like 10k owners and most of them must have been backers) there was a shortage of money, stuff was cut and the deal with Techland was made.

You overestimate how much people care and can even remember that stuff. Unless you go full Molyneux, most people are willing to forgive all that stuff as long as they like the game and/or the developers. Fargo is aware of it:

You have to be able to say no to people, and make them feel good about it. It's a lot of psychology, and understanding the philosophy of the products. I think it's the hardest job in the business.

He was talking about being a producer, but it's the same principle. It's why fans are willing to be continually scammed by AAA studios like Bethesda and BioWare. As long as you make a portion of your fanbase feel good about it, they're willing to do your job for you without being asked. They'll actively defend these decisions and attack those who criticize the studio.

The long term gains for them (console market, more casual players) are worth a lot more money than the vocal minority who cares about this kind of fuckery. If the game is moderately successful, the new, non-KS players won't give a damn about undelivered promises, and if they like the game, their praise will drown most of the criticism, and InXile will keep doing the same things.

 

[Sentinel]

Just passing by to laugh at any retard that actually donated money to Brian Fargo.

 

[Rev]

The long term gains for them (console market, more casual players) are worth a lot more money than the vocal minority who cares about this kind of fuckery. If the game is moderately successful, the new, non-KS players won't give a damn about undelivered promises, and if they like the game, their praise will drown most of the criticism, and InXile will keep doing the same things.

What you say would actually be right, if only inXile's business model wasn't so completely reliant on crowdfunding, something that isn't likely to change soon either.
They've been launching one campaign after another, even if only one game has been released until now, and they've already lost a lot of backers in the process, as BT4 and WL3 have shown (yeah, WL3 collected more than its predecessor, but most of it was from investors). With every unkept promise they will leave backers more and more unsatisfied and therefore less willing to partake in another "give me your dollars for a game that will take 3+ years to make!".

At the end of the day, fans are willing to forgive some of your bullshit if they end up liking the game, that's true. But it's not that obvious that a lot of people will indeed like it (just look at WL2 and it's not really warm reception even outside the Codex, especially when compared to games like D:OS and PoE), and continually breaking your words will undermine the trust you'll receive from your potential backers, which is essential to inXile if they want to stay afloat.
Also, yeah sure, if they somehow manage to sold a lot of copies of the games and reach new markets beyond original backers they'll be fine, but how likely is that? Have you ever seen a regular console user expressing interest over T:ToN? Most of them don't even know the game exists! It makes no sense from a business-savvy point of view to give your hardcore consumers/supporters the middle finger while trying to reach a mythical new target that is (mostly) not even aware of you, nor interested in the kind of games you make.
Still, that's what Fargo is doing, but while, to give him credit where it's due, he had a good business sense in seeing the potential for KS to come back in the rpg scene, we should also keep in mind that if he was that good at making strategic plans maybe there would still be Interplay today and he wouldn't have spent the ten years after its fall by making shovelware.

 

[karfhud]

exactly, this isn't a polished map that took significant amounts of manpower to develop. the existence of this screenshot doesn't indicate something is or is not in the game.

karfhud look at the asset diversity of maps in the beta, you'll see a stark difference.

Agreed! It's not polished, it's just an early blockout, selling the basic mood of the area, albeit done with a bunch of assets unique (around 10 of them I reckon) to this level.

This way or another, there's some ambiance to it, so I'd still like to see the Sunken Market in the released game.

Ugh. That inconsistency is going to be hard to ignore while playing.

Some of the areas they'd shown in trailers/screenshots were indeed worrying in quality, but actually, the visuals in all the recent gameplay previews look surprisingly good. On one hand it might be just that these areas were extremely polished for the preview purposes, but on the other, they might've added the needed details here and there. That, and final post-processing treatments.

 

[Fairfax]

What you say would actually be right, if only inXile's business model wasn't so completely reliant on crowdfunding, something that isn't likely to change soon either.
They've been launching one campaign after another, even if only one game has been released until now, and they've already lost a lot of backers in the process, as BT4 and WL3 have shown (yeah, WL3 collected more than its predecessor, but most of it was from investors). With every unkept promise they will leave backers more and more unsatisfied and therefore less willing to partake in another "give me your dollars for a game that will take 3+ years to make!".

It was like that at first, but they've been slowly moving away from backers and focusing on investors and publishers, which is what Fig is all about. Like you said, most of WL3's funds came from investors. Extra money is good, of course, but they don't want to rely on backers anymore, and for two simple reasons:
1 - If you're not sure you can/want to deliver what you promised, it's too much of a hassle. Backers want accountability and transparency, and they also want their feedback to influence the game. Fig investors will only care about their funds being properly used and the game's sales.
2- It's not enough money for the games they want to make and the ambitions they want to fulfill. D:OS, PoE, TTON, WL2, Shadowrun and every other big KS RPG went overbudget. That's quite problematic when you rely on crowdfunding, but not so much if you have a publisher and/or investors.

Notice the wording in the WL3 campaign:

We'll be developing Wasteland 3 in good part from continuing revenues from our portfolio, but to reach our ambitions for this title, we need more of your support!

Back in the original KS campaigns it was all about needing backers to make the game happen in the first place. Now pledges are glorified pre-orders that provide extra money and stretch goal stuff, but even that was pretty moderate this time around.

At the end of the day, fans are willing to forgive some of your bullshit if they end up liking the game, that's true. But it's not that obvious that a lot of people will indeed like it (just look at WL2 and it's not really warm reception even outside the Codex, especially when compared to games like D:OS and PoE), and continually breaking your words will undermine the trust you'll receive from your potential backers, which is essential to inXile if they want to stay afloat.

Agreed, and the WL3 campaign shows people are less willing to give them money, but if the game is successful, investors will be happy. I hate seeing liars like Todd Howard and Randy Pitchford get away with their bullshit as much as everyone else, but ask shareholders how much they care.

Also, yeah sure, if they somehow manage to sold a lot of copies of the games and reach new markets beyond original backers they'll be fine, but how likely is that? Have you ever seen a regular console user expressing interest over T:ToN? Most of them don't even know the game exists! It makes no sense from a business-savvy point of view to give your hardcore consumers/supporters the middle finger while trying to reach a mythical new target that is (mostly) not even aware of you, nor interested in the kind of games you make.

I agree that it doesn't make sense, but that's their mindset. Also, I don't think TTON will be particularly successful, but it doesn't have to be. $5 million came from backers, and even if they had to spend another $5 million out of their own pocket (which I doubt, but just an example), they'd only have to sell ~300k copies across 3 platforms to make $10 million back. If it sells like Tyranny (~130-140k), that's $4.1-4.5 million, which should be more than enough to cover their own expenses.

By the way, I don't think they're counting on the game being a hit either. Here's what they said about the italian localization: (rough translation)

[...] it became clear that the costs for the italian localization would have required hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our estimates of previous RPGs showed that the amount of italian backers and sales that we could expect would have been too low to support these efforts.

Let's say the italian localization would cost $500k (if it's closer to $1mi then it's far more understandable, but I doubt it's that expensive). The game costs 45 euros on steam and 50 euros on consoles, which would be ~48-53USD. That means they'd only need to sell ~15k copies across 3 platforms in Italy to cover that cost. That's not much if you're expecting your game to be a hit.
According to Steamspy, 3.28% of PoE players and 1.77% of PoE owners from the last 2 weeks are from Italy. If applied to the total number, that would be somewhere between 15k and 27k copies. Not to mention there's money from more expensive editions and pledges, plus copies from other stores like GOG and Origin. If the cost is closer to $1 million, then

I believe they're expecting something less successful than PoE. I do think it'll sell a lot less, but that doesn't show a lot of faith by the publisher.