Development Info Colin McComb on Narrative Design in Torment at EGX Rezzed 2015

[Tudor von Nirgendwo]

You guys are really great because you thought of including a female character too. Such a great idea you guys had.

I wonder if the hordes of middle-class kids with degrees in Humanities (aka the The SJW armies) will jump on this game as well if... well... you can't romance said female character. Devs in Europe (or even better, Eastern Europe) can resist the poison, but as you move further to the West, they all become more susceptible to the nefarious influence of Grima Wormtongue.

Anyway, I get hyped whenever I see new articles or videos detailing the game a little bit more. I hope I can resist the urge to preorder, as preorders are the way sin spreads into this world.

 

[LeStryfe79]

To me he sounds like a cross between Sessler and Sawyer. I think Colin might be my favorite SJW. He's very articulate and kind.

 

[you know what time it is]

Updated OP.

gave me a chuckle

 

[Awakened_Yeti]

It all seems to come together well, but I hope they dont make the setting too bland and explainable. I hope its more Jodorowvsky style. But I am afraid that they would have to spend a lot of the kicktsarter money on drugs, and bhuddist throat singing cds.

 

[Darkzone]

To me he sounds like a cross between Sessler and Sawyer. I think Colin might be my favorite SJW. He's very articulate and kind.

No he ain't. He is a platonist, and this is the worst kind. He believes in the real manifestation of an archtype of the patriarchy somewhere in the universe, and every other patriarchy is casted from it's form.

 

[GloomFrost]

The "writing team" is something out of this world: Avellone, Cook, McComb, Mitsoda to name a few. Holy sweet Jesus the dialogues and texts are going to be THE best in an entire gaming industry.

Yeeeeah, don't get your hopes up too high.

I mean get them up, but just because theres lots of names do not make the mistake of counting those up.

For example in Avellone's, Mitsoda's and possibly Cooke's case I wouldn't automatically assume their very best work.

Why not?? Avellone for example only did New Reno for fallout 2 and it was one of the best locations in the game. Mitsoda already proved on many occasions that he can write some really memorable texts.

[/QUOTE]
I'm pretty sure on that list only McComb is going to be writing dialog for the game.[/QUOTE]
What exactly makes you think that? There is like a dozen writers there, what are they going to do?

 

[Roguey]

Remember that time Colin trolled Roguey into thinking Jack Off Jill was doing the music? Only on Codex...

I just wanted his wife to lay down some sick bass lines.

 

[hiver]

You guys are really great because you thought of including a female character too. Such a great idea you guys had.

I wonder if the hordes of middle-class kids with degrees in Humanities (aka the The SJW armies) will jump on this game as well if... well... you can't romance said female character. Devs in Europe (or even better, Eastern Europe) can resist the poison, but as you move further to the West, they all become more susceptible to the nefarious influence of Grima Wormtongue.

Anyway, I get hyped whenever I see new articles or videos detailing the game a little bit more. I hope I can resist the urge to preorder, as preorders are the way sin spreads into this world.

There was plenty of screaming about romances already through User Voice. And it has been handled and chocked out sufficiently i think.

But i was actually referring to this:

Although now that i bothered to check it i see Kevin said they had talked about that feature before i suggested it. And since its Kevin i believe it.

 

[Athelas]

I didn't know you were so concerned with the plight of female representation in games, hiver. What an *interesting* surprise.

It is an issue though - I've found that in games where you can be any gender, the protagonist often doesn't feel very believable or grounded in the game world.

 

[hiver]

Thats because you are a cheap imbecile.

Im concerned about the quality of the game, moron. And if you found any such idiotic issue in other games its half because you are stupid and half because it was implemented, written and designed in a stupid way.

Oh but maybe you are referring to that incident when half of codex jumped to opportunity to further humiliate and laugh at a victim of a gangrape while other half watched like subhuman cattle that they are - for which i call most of you shit lickers and feces feeders.

if you do we can discuss that in more detail too.

anytime you want.

 

[LeStryfe79]

 

[hiver]

Make a negative of that and you would be closer to the truth. I hope.

 

[Darkzone]

LeStryfe79
Do you believe that he will understand this? Because i have my doubts. Or he will give a poor answer, that corresponds to his Forest Gump IQ, with the wit of an closed madhouse basement inmate on heavy sedative.

 

[hiver]

You are too stupid to understand how to breathe properly, let alone anything else you laughable pathetic retard.

 

[LeStryfe79]

St. Irenaeus has been mentoring me on how to improve my brofist numbers.

 

[hiver]

St. Irenaeus is good at what he does and although i would suggest aiming for something higher, maybe that would be too ambitious.

 

[LeStryfe79]

There is no greater ambition than to be a well respected member of the prestigious RPG Codex community, nor any greater shame than to be its ostrich.

Spoiler

 

[Grotesque]

If the name Hiver also pops up in Torment like it did in Larian's relationship simulator, I will call the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

 

[Tudor von Nirgendwo]

I didn't know you were so concerned with the plight of female representation in games, hiver. What an *interesting* surprise.

It is an issue though - I've found that in games where you can be any gender, the protagonist often doesn't feel very believable or grounded in the game world.

One solution would have been to make the entire story from the point of view of a female protagonist (of course too late at this stage). I agree with the developer wanting to avoid additional costs (at least at this point), but I also have zero issues with the main character being male or female, as long as they don't dilute the story into an easily digestible soup with interchangeable placeholders for whatever he/she does.

The premise of the entire story is you (as a player) being the new-born conscience of an abandoned body/vessel, so NPCs are already bound to react somewhat different towards you. The entire world of Numenera is so far removed from anything resembling contemporary society that it's hard to even tell what would be a meaningful difference in the way characters react to a male as opposed to a female character.

At the end of the day, you can role-play with whatever set of tools and premises you have, but special snowflakes will always want their playable characters to be infinitely customisable from the very start. You'll never see serious writers changing the gender of the protagonist after the fact just because his/her publishing house got angry letters from privileged teens with too much disposable time and/or money.

 

[hiver]

If the name Hiver also pops up in Torment like it did in Larian's relationship simulator, I will call the Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Highly doubt it. And i suggested to Larian to remove my nickname from DOS, but its their call.

There is no greater ambition than to be a well respected member of the prestigious RPG Codex community, nor any greater shame than to be its ostrich.

You seem to be doing a great job of being the second.

But to be a true turd licker of this devolved idiotic community you will have to try harder still.

Which btw is not what "st irenaeus" is doing.

 

[LeStryfe79]

 

[Lurker King]

Colin McComb is letting me down. He put Dragon Age: Cisinquisition right next to Mask of the Betrayer. Blasphemy! And now Hiver turned into a SJW. Tsc, tsc, tsc. You can’t trust anyone these days.

The "writing team" is something out of this world: Avellone, Cook, McComb, Mitsoda to name a few. Holy sweet Jesus the dialogues and texts are going to be THE best in an entire gaming industry.

That’s a lot of talent, but games with many writers always lacks in cohesion. Take Planescape, for instance. Avellone had an entire year to write the game. The game would not feel the same with many writers, each one with his specific style.

 

[StaticSpine]

Colin McComb is letting me down. He put Dragon Age: Cisinquisition right next to Mask of the Betrayer.

=

 

[GloomFrost]

Colin McComb is letting me down. He put Dragon Age: Cisinquisition right next to Mask of the Betrayer. Blasphemy! And now Hiver turned into a SJW. Tsc, tsc, tsc. You can’t trust anyone these days.

The "writing team" is something out of this world: Avellone, Cook, McComb, Mitsoda to name a few. Holy sweet Jesus the dialogues and texts are going to be THE best in an entire gaming industry.

That’s a lot of talent, but games with many writers always lacks in cohesion. Take Planescape, for instance. Avellone had an entire year to write the game. The game would not feel the same with many writers, each one with his specific style.

Yes but at the same time Planescape had a lot of very "dry" and dull text and some unnecessary, "skipable" dialogues. Also the writing wasnt that good after you left Cigil. Which shows that one lead writer even as talented and hard working as Avellone is simply not enough. I personally prefer the writing in MOTB and Bloodlines personally.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Going into stalker mode for a second. Colin recently went out for a drink with Mike Laidlaw from BioWare. He's the lead designer of the Dragon Age series. If they are friends, it makes sense for Colin to give the DA series a shout out, however minor it was.

But yeah, it doesn't make that much sense considering the phenomenal difference in attitude between BioWare and everyone else now. I'm not talking about SJW, I'm talking about basic game design principles. The dumbed down mechanics and the offensively awful sidequests that dominated my experience of playing DA:I have no fucking place in a Torment-inspired game.