Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Lacrymas]

vivec, sure, but I was talking specifically about Chris. Ziets didn't do any major narrative work on Numanuma either.

 

[Lurker King]

They are painfully aware that Chris can do that, you can be sure of that. The problem is they think they can be writers as well (in this day and age everyone is speciul and can do everything) and muscle him out to prove themselves, but all they manage to do is shit the bed, because surprise, surprise, writing isn't easy. None of the Kickstarted RPGs will be hailed as narrative classics and that's because devs shoot themselves in the foot by keeping MCA on a leash. Hubris is the key word. You don't even have the excuse of sale figures anymore, Torment is a pure attempt at storyfaggotry in the vein of PS:T.

I don’t think it is that simple. The core team of ToN was also responsible for MotB, which is a great game. The problem lies elsewhere. It’s the presumption that you need to hire a bunch of mediocre writers to do that. I think that the disconnection between the interesting background lore, NPCs and quests is caused by that. You have a bunch of people eager to create something, but only a few can actually implement quests, and the quests are mostly bland and pale in comparison. It’s almost as if the level designers assumed that only the less imaginative material could be implemented for budget reasons. In fact, I think even the writers think that way. They just assume they can't implement anything more complex, so why bother. The result is walls of lore to satisfy people's creative impulses. It’s a disjointed mess.

 

[Lurker King]

If you read his interviews, MCA isn't even interested in writing anymore. I think he's highly ciritical of his previous work and seams bent to do more systematic, emergent game design instead.

What I said is they should let him making everything: quests, NPCs, story, setting, dialogues, etc. Wich is pretty much what he wants. To be a designer like he was in PS:T and not just another writer.

 

[Axie]

I started playing the game three times so far. Two days ago, during the afternoon, then soon I took a nap. That same evening, fell asleep — earlier than usual. Last night, same thing. WTF is wrong with this game, why its words keep me sleepy?

Snooze of Numanuma, I will give you one more chance... But I am not calling my cocaine dealer for you sir!

 

[Prime Junta]

Most of the problems with game writing (in this one and most other writing-heavy games) could be solved with an asshole editor ruthlessly cutting stuff at all levels.

 

[Repulsive]

Some Steam forum cancer. http://steamcommunity.com/app/272270/discussions/0/133258092257945238/

 

[Nael]

Cool game, bro.

Back to Arma 3.

 

[Turjan]

Speaking of purple prose:

Started decent enough in their description and then suddenly WOAH curving line carved in oak and radiant lantern of a starless night. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Dude, fuck off.
Why did these two random NPCs needed to have their smiles described in such detail and why the fuck should I care?
Random, not very interesting (even after finding out what they actually do) but with pretentious descriptions NPCs. Why?
Their smiles are completely irrelevant to their story, and to their characterization so why should I care about this high-school level of writing?

Backer NPCs. What did you think they were?

There was also a Codexer NPC in Valley of Dead Heroes. Talked about "Mask of Prosper" IIRC.

Honestly I find the criticisms of the writing here all over the place. Some people claim they hate the "encyclopedic" writing, some people hate that they start throwing numenera setting specific terms at you right from the start without explanation. It's hard to please all of you.

On my part I will say that all the background lore made me find the setting memorable and interesting, something PoE and Tyranny failed to do. I never followed the whole developmental cycle or read the Numenera p&p books, but the game makes me want to find out more, just as playing PST made me want to find out more about Planescape.

I don't know, it depends on how you read I guess. I agree that the screenshot above is just purple prose, but I read/skim very quickly and don't really spend a lot of time on passages like that.

I would definitely criticize the writing for being grandiose. However, the more pressing concern is the lack of engaging storytelling. Most of the quests come off as means of getting XP and that is all. That is the real problem.

I don't know. I didn't find that story about the little boy that came from an otherwise starving family from a different era uninteresting. The dialog even makes fun of you in a way for asking lots of questions.

 

[Lurker King]

Most of the problems with game writing (in this one and most other writing-heavy games) could be solved with an asshole editor ruthlessly cutting stuff at all levels.

Not really. If the quests were interesting, nobody would care about the walls of text. In fact, PS:T cargo cult comes from this. People assume that what made PS:T good was the walls of text. But if your quests are uninteresting, and you remove the walls of text, what do you have? A painfully shallow game.

 

[Turjan]

Cool game, bro.

Back to Arma 3.

I find this a nice result of choosing an obviously stupid action.

 

[vivec]

I don't know. I didn't find that story about the little boy that came from an otherwise starving family from a different era uninteresting. The dialog even makes fun of you in a way for asking lots of questions.

I said most, not all. Some quests are good. Most, not.

 

[Lurker King]

I predict much steam butthurt and backlash in the near future:

Favoring consoles over PC for an Isometric RPG?

So the only reason I can think that they changed RTwP gameplay for TB one is because its easy to adapt for consoles. Inxile, I'm not sure you understand that PC is the market that funded this fucking game, and you try to sell a kind of game that has a niche fanbase because only PC cares about it, on console.

 

[Repulsive]

I predict much steam butthurt and backlash in the near future:

Favoring consoles over PC for an Isometric RPG?

So the only reason I can think that they changed RTwP gameplay for TB one is because its easy to adapt for consoles. Inxile, I'm not sure you understand that PC is the market that funded this fucking game, and you try to sell a kind of game that has a niche fanbase because only PC cares about it, on console.

At least buy the games when you go trolling, bro.

 

[Turjan]

I don't know. I didn't find that story about the little boy that came from an otherwise starving family from a different era uninteresting. The dialog even makes fun of you in a way for asking lots of questions.

I said most, not all. Some quests are good. Most, not.

That's okay. But the line of thought started with this little episode (the quote from Paja), and that's what I was referring to.

 

[Malpercio]

I can say for certain that the setting of Numanuma is better than PoE's. Congratulations. How they use that setting, however, will be determined after I play it more seriously. I bee-lined to Erritis as soon as I found out where he is, his character is 10 times more interesting if you have scan thoughts, very interesting use of interactivity. Your choices allow you to dig deeper or find out stuff about characters you wouldn't otherwise. This can be exploited to great effect.

I agree (Although being better than PoE's setting is not hard, eh),but at times it kinda feels weird for the sake of being weird. Kinda pretentious? I'll have to play more.

 

[Roguey]

The smell of that particular flavour of shit is unmistakable. Keep your nostrils flared, you'll recognise it easily enough.

So Obsidian turned out to have the right idea by marking them all in gold?

I'm amused by all the posters who thought ToN's writers would more expertly weave in backer NPC content.

 

[Sigourn]

but a Spanish person probably wouldn't qualify as white unless you were told they were Spanish beforehand.

I think you haven't traveled much to say that, Spaniards are not like south-americans in regards to appearance, and hell, some people from south america like the Argentinians can be more white than a German.

I come from Argentina and I am very white.

 

[Gepeu]

Did you apologize for being white already?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

but a Spanish person probably wouldn't qualify as white unless you were told they were Spanish beforehand.

I think you haven't traveled much to say that, Spaniards are not like south-americans in regards to appearance, and hell, some people from south america like the Argentinians can be more white than a German.

I come from Argentina and I am very white.

Irenaeus how white is he?

 

[Lambach]

I come from Argentina and I am very white.

We can't know that from this picture alone, we need to see the color of your nipples.

 

[Moth]

So, I noticed last night, after about twenty hours of playing, that no matter how many times I saved, the load option was greyed out.

And waking up this morning, I discover that my computer has automatically restarted.

Fuck. Please pray for me bros. I don't want to go through all the sluggish bullshit that is Sagus Cliffs. Starting up the game now, in fear.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Anyone else annoyed by how finding Rhin plays out?

Finding Rhin Spoilers (open)

Spoiler

Basically, when you initially find Rhin, three thugs working for the slavers that are looking for her walks up to you. Even if you've been hired by the slavers and tell them this, you're faced with the situation of having to persuade/intimidate/deceive them, or fight.

If you have Sense Thoughts (or whatever it's called), you know for a fact that they are doing this reluctantly. This is reinforced even harder by the fact that if you succeed on the Persuasion test, claiming that slavery is evil (which many of us might be reluctant to pick as an option, seeing as how this is a post-apocalyptic medieval science-fantasy setting in which that is by far not a given moral assumption by the protagonist, or anyone in the fucking universe, really - you might also want to avoid it since you fear that you'll get Gold or Indigo Tide, despite intentions) you again Sense Thoughts, where the key thug thinks to himself that he cannot face his children if he does this.

All of this is annoying not just because I may not want to be opposed to slavery on moral grounds or risk those moral grounds affecting my tides, but because I'm hauling around over 600 shins. I know that this guy is only doing this to keep his family fed, I know that this guy isn't a bad person, and I know that by not handing Rhin over, I'm depriving three thugs and their families food. Why the fuck can't I just pay them off when it's hinted at me repeatedly that shins are all they need? Sure, this might sound oddly specific, but if you don't intend to give me the possibility to do something, don't drop hints left, right and center that that thing you can't do would be the right thing to do. If I hadn't had Scan Thoughts, this encounter would've been fine (and also less interesting).

This is complete BS. The slaver actually has a completely different reason for wanting her. Did you even play the game?

The setting-specific terms are not as bad, because you tend to know that they're nonsense. The issue with those is that the actual meaning of the words are never explained to you. Even the common "berk" was explained to you in Torment, although not immediately.

Leave the Tutorial on, if you want things to be explained to you. Other things you can find out on your own (gasp!) when talking to the numenera scholar in the tavern, for example. Again, did you even play the game?

As someone who writes pages-long dissertations on what is wrong with this game, you should at least try to get your basic facts straight.

And how come he couldn't find NPC that explains the Tides if he met the slaver and talked with her about Rhin?

I don't know. I didn't find that story about the little boy that came from an otherwise starving family from a different era uninteresting. The dialog even makes fun of you in a way for asking lots of questions.

.

Yeah, that entire quest was p. cool. That bit of dialogue where NPCs where spewing very private information then they suddenly started making fun of you for asking too much questions, that was genuinely fun moment

 

[Kem0sabe]

So, I noticed last night, after about twenty hours of playing, that no matter how many times I saved, the load option was greyed out.

And waking up this morning, I discover that my computer has automatically restarted.

Fuck. Please pray for me bros. I don't want to go through all the sluggish bullshit that is Sagus Cliffs. Starting up the game now, in fear.

Did you play the early access? If so, delete the save folder.

There's a conflict between the final version of the game and early access saves, that makes it impossible to save games.

 

[Sigourn]

Speaking of purple prose:

Started decent enough in their description and then suddenly WOAH curving line carved in oak and radiant lantern of a starless night. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Dude, fuck off.

You nailed it with that picture, I had the same thoughts. Here's what a concise description of that situation looks like:

"There's a couple in silence, standing together. They are looking past you. They turn towards each other, grab each other's hands, and smile."

And here's the thing: you can't turn a boring action into an interesting action just by making it more detailed. A boring turd is as boring as feces that magnificently shine under the sun, away from the gaze of its owner, who happily yet cautiously walks away from it.

 

[Moth]

Did you have it confirmed how many foci are in the final game?

Did you play the early access? If so, delete the save folder.

There's a conflict between the final version of the game and early access saves, that makes it impossible to save games.

Yes. Yes I did. I apparently missed that memo.

I guess that confirms that I lost two days of playing, doesn't it? Fuck me sideways.