Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Thread

[Sentinel]

So Torment bombed, Deus Ex bombed, Baldur's bombed.. what's next on the list for devs to train wreck.. Vampire and Arcanum?
Is nothing sacred these days?

I'm fairly sure Activision is considering reviving Arcanum to sort of compete with Cyberpunk 2077 and enter the RPG market.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The idea that they didn't have money for T:TON because it went into WL2 makes no sense. WL2 alone easily made enough profit to fund $5-10 million game. Plus if you don't have money to make a game, you try to come up with something quick and push it out of the door, not sit on it 4 years and watch the money bleed away.

Besides, some of this shit is just unexplainable, like the excuse that Oasis is gone because they decided Bloom is better pick for major hub. Now I would be fine with a switch like that, if it wasn't for that little stint where they asked for additional funding to "restore Bloom to it's full glory". Nobody mentioned at that point that it means Oasis will be gone. Did they honestly believe people won't notice there's some major bullshit going on here? They couldn't possibly be that dumb.

 

[Lurker King]

As Darth Roxor pointed out, they funneled the Numanuma funds into the development of Wasteland 2, with the intent of funneling the BT4 money into Numenera, but they got very few pledges for that. This is the end result.

And what happened with the more than 600 thousands units of W2 that were sold? They have money, guys. They just decided not to use it.

 

[canakin]

Fucking Tycho from Fallout was a better companion than all TToN buttbuddies combined.

 

[Turjan]

Did they honestly believe people won't notice there's some major bullshit going on here? They couldn't possibly be that dumb.

I guess they must have hoped that the game sells well enough that the backer disappointment gets diluted out. Of course, this didn't happen.

 

[Lacrymas]

They sold 600 thousand units of W2? Lol.

 

[Lurker King]

I know they sold more than 500k the last time I checked, and some fanboy said they sold more than 600k, which is a lot, especially considering the price tag.

 

[Lacrymas]

I see GOG discounting it frequently though, so I doubt most of them are at full price. It's discounted right now, too.

 

[Lurker King]

It's still a lot of money.

 

[CyberWhale]

As Darth Roxor pointed out, they funneled the Numanuma funds into the development of Wasteland 2, with the intent of funneling the BT4 money into Numenera, but they got very few pledges for that. This is the end result.

And what happened with the more than 600 thousands units of W2 that were sold? They have money, guys. They just decided not to use it.

Bard's Tale VR?

 

[Lacrymas]

Then what is the explanation for Numanuma being in the state it is in? Even if you "like" it, the cut stretch goals are an objective measure for something going wrong. What, they just decided to cut them for no reason whatsoever?

 

[Habbonovio]

Also, who the fuck thought a console version for TToN was a great idea?

Cause the first time I read about that I nearly laughed my ass off.

I mean, aren't you curious about the process that gave birth to that nonsensical undertaking?

 

[HoboForEternity]

Re: Alternative portraits for last castoff

• Quote

Postby Firkraag » March 2nd, 2017, 4:31 am

Look, how dashing my replecement portrait for Tybir is!

Well, when I'm getting my Steam-to-GOG conversion, that is.

brilliant.

just.

brilliant

 

[felipepepe]

Did they honestly believe people won't notice there's some major bullshit going on here? They couldn't possibly be that dumb.

Reminder: Interplay shipped Descent to Undermountain in an unplayable state and heavily promoted "4-player Modem/Network option" as a feature in the game's box, despite that having been cut from the game.

At least reviewers had balls back then... look at dear old CGW's review:

Ugh. Enough already. How a game this delayed (when loading, it displays "Copyright 1996") and out-of-date can appear rushed to the market is something of a mystery. But in the end, any company that has the gumption to describe itself as "by gamers, for gamers" (as Interplay does) should be ashamed for releasing a product with so many obvious and inexcusable flaws.

 

[Anthedon]

The cast, drama and twists and turns surrounding the making of TTON is a better narrative than the actual game has.

 

[Infinitron]

Also, who the fuck thought a console version for TToN was a great idea?

Cause the first time I read about that I nearly laughed my ass off.

I mean, aren't you curious about the process that gave birth to that nonsensical undertaking?

Sometime close to the release of Wasteland 2 Director's Cut:

"Oh shit wtf, Torment's development is a mess. Sorry Kevin, I can't justify paying you six figures after seeing this, and my boy Chris Keenan needs something new to do anyway. Now, we're going to need more time and money. Call a publisher! They'll probably demand a multiplatform release, but since we were planning to do a console port eventually anyway like with Wasteland 2 and the game is delayed now, we might as well roll them together."

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

charlatan
ˈʃɑːlət(ə)n/
noun

1. a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill.
   "a self-confessed con artist and charlatan"
   synonyms: quack, mountebank, sham, fraud, fake, humbug, impostor, pretender, masquerader, hoodwinker, hoaxer, cheat, deceiver, dissembler, double-dealer, double-crosser, trickster, confidence trickster, cheater, swindler, fraudster, racketeer; More

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

You know, I think Infinitron might be onto something here. The part about Early Access being indicator of sales, I mean.

What if, with $5mln from Kickstarter and probably at least $10 million profit from WL2, they went just crazy overambitious. Let's expand the Bloom into a 3rd city, let's add a ton of VO, let's write one million words because we can afford localization, let's add this, let's add that. And they've basically drawn up a budget for twice of what was gained from Kickstarter. Money. wasn't an issue at that point, we know they had it and more.

They start working on it for a while, everything goes well, then they launch Early Access and it sells like trash. They realize this thing will likely never break even with the current scope. So they're left with a choice to either bet entire company on it and possibly go under, or gut everything possible to get it closer the original budget. And we're left with empty shell of a game.

I mean, this game shouldn't be selling as terribly as it does. The reviews are great, they've had plenty of hype, Techland was vomiting out new trailers every other week. Unless, unless they knew something we don't know.

Edit:

Wasteland has 650k owners on Steam alone, and probably at least a 100k on GOG. They were in Humble Monthly as a lead game, but at that point I'm pretty sure they already moved at least 500k units.

 

[GloomFrost]

Also, who the fuck thought a console version for TToN was a great idea?

Cause the first time I read about that I nearly laughed my ass off.

I mean, aren't you curious about the process that gave birth to that nonsensical undertaking?

I know right! I would love to find out what was going on in their heads. Also only know i realize how much affort and hard work Obsidian put into POE. I mean whether people like it or not at least they delivered what they pretty much promised. Like stronghold for example, yeah it was useless but it still made it into the game, it wasnt cut or The endless paths, they promised 13 levels, they delivered 13 levels.

 

[Lacrymas]

Is Early Access a good estimate for final sales though? I'm thinking a lot of people are disappointed in EA games and hold off on buying them until after they are finished.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Is Early Access a good estimate for final sales though? I'm thinking a lot of people are disappointed in EA games and hold off on buying them until after they are finished.

I have no idea, I was just talking out of my ass brainstorming based on something Infinitron said. Not sure if I should trust a Jew though.

 

[Infinitron]

Of course lots of people hold off, but you can still compare yourself to other Early Access games and get a measure of the general interest in your game.

 

[Lurker King]

And what happened with the more than 600 thousands units of W2 that were sold? They have money, guys. They just decided not to use it.

Bard's Tale VR?

Yes, that looks like the kind of reasoning that Fargo would have.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Of course lots of people hold off, but you can still compare yourself to other Early Access games and get a measure of the general interest in your game.

It broke kickstarter records from overwhelming enthusiam, what more 'indications' do you need? Oh you want more sales while its in alpha, yeah, ok...

 

[Urthor]

Probably wasn't an "oh shit nobody bought early access better slash features and change development from 7 years to 5 years," moment, game was already in trouble at that point I bet.

More likely they just pissed the budget up against the wall and have millions of dollars of cut content and they had to semi-relaunch development multiple times because it was a fucking travesty 2012-2015 with Adam Heinz doing bumfuck something and Colin McComb doing bumfuck something. Left hand not talking to right hand and making hours of quests for areas that were never made and vice versa, and they didn't tell us about it.

Eventually they took a long hard look at the game, started slashing areas, and released an Early Access for emergency funds that was the third of the game they'd already done and made it seem like it was 1/5th of the game instead of literally a third. They must have had the entire team pouring everything into Sagus cliffs to get it as good as it was(n't) for the Early Access, that area was super complete for that time period, so much so that they must have hit the breaks and had the entire team work on what would become the first third of the game to polish it up.


Anyway if there's anything to celebrate it's that considering Wasteland 3's shitty backer reception on FIG and the general negative reaction to everything InExile does, Brian Fargo is going out of business and back to making shitty mobile games in a few years and we can all celebrate that while feeling sorry for Torment's poor sidequest writers.