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Torment Planescape Torments Me

Castanova

Prophet
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
2,949
Location
The White Visitation
I've tried to play through Planescape before. It ended sometime around after I had explored all four quadrants of the Hive and was about to seek out Pherod. I just couldn't find the motivation to continue playing. Yesterday, I decided to give it another go. Come at it from the perspective that I KNOW it's going to be glorified interactive fiction. I KNOW it won't be any fun gameplay-wise. Just power through it. Today, I gave up. It ended sometime around after I had explored all four quadrants of the Hive and was about to seek out Pherod. I just couldn't find the motivation to continue playing.

Good lord is this game boring.

Every zone has like 20 named NPCs, 18-19 of which serve no gameplay purpose. Nonetheless, they have a name and all their dialog trees look exactly the same. You want to ask them questions. They agree. You ask them their name. They tell you. You ask them about themselves. They talk about themselves for about 2,000 words. Why do I care about you, NPC? Why do I care what you have to say? If you're lucky, after reading the 2,000 word monologue about their past, present, and future, they will conclude their tale by offering you the opportunity of the lifetime: to run a fed-ex quest for them. Oh, joy of joys.

So, you accept the quest. You run, and run, and run, and run. On the way, three-- no, make that six now--- "thugs" aggro you for no apparent reason. You can outrun them anyway so you ignore them. Sometimes they annoy you so much, you stop and kill them. Combat consists of clicking on them and waiting. So you click on them and wait. Thirty seconds later, they're dead and you're a copper bracelet richer. Oh, joy of joys.

Several minutes later, you have delivered your FedEx box to the recipient. But then you have to run back again to get your XP reward. Hello another fifteen thugs. Goodbye another five minutes of real life.

As a game, I see no redeeming value in this. None. It's atrocious. I can understand that people enjoy story but there's very little story here. There's only thousands upon thousands of words on the subject of random NPC backgrounds, their moods, their menstrual cycle, and so on. There is no motivation to read the words because they don't tie into the gameplay. They don't enlighten you about the world you're in-- hell, half the time the 2,000 words are about another dimension entirely. It feels like one giant study guide for some non-existent college exam on Planescape lore dressed up as a game.

I'm interested to know about my character and what his story is and what his past is. Why do I need to spend 10 hours reading monologues from 100 NPCs in order to progress my own story? Oh, that's right. Because MCA makes games, not novels. Lucky us.
 

Stalin

Scholar
Joined
May 27, 2006
Messages
497
Location
Sweden baby!
Castanova said:
I've tried to play through Planescape before. It ended sometime around after I had explored all four quadrants of the Hive and was about to seek out Pherod. I just couldn't find the motivation to continue playing. Yesterday, I decided to give it another go. Come at it from the perspective that I KNOW it's going to be glorified interactive fiction. I KNOW it won't be any fun gameplay-wise. Just power through it. Today, I gave up. It ended sometime around after I had explored all four quadrants of the Hive and was about to seek out Pherod. I just couldn't find the motivation to continue playing.

Good lord is this game boring.

Every zone has like 20 named NPCs, 18-19 of which serve no gameplay purpose. Nonetheless, they have a name and all their dialog trees look exactly the same. You want to ask them questions. They agree. You ask them their name. They tell you. You ask them about themselves. They talk about themselves for about 2,000 words. Why do I care about you, NPC? Why do I care what you have to say? If you're lucky, after reading the 2,000 word monologue about their past, present, and future, they will conclude their tale by offering you the opportunity of the lifetime: to run a fed-ex quest for them. Oh, joy of joys.

So, you accept the quest. You run, and run, and run, and run. On the way, three-- no, make that six now--- "thugs" aggro you for no apparent reason. You can outrun them anyway so you ignore them. Sometimes they annoy you so much, you stop and kill them. Combat consists of clicking on them and waiting. So you click on them and wait. Thirty seconds later, they're dead and you're a copper bracelet richer. Oh, joy of joys.

Several minutes later, you have delivered your FedEx box to the recipient. But then you have to run back again to get your XP reward. Hello another fifteen thugs. Goodbye another five minutes of real life.

As a game, I see no redeeming value in this. None. It's atrocious. I can understand that people enjoy story but there's very little story here. There's only thousands upon thousands of words on the subject of random NPC backgrounds, their moods, their menstrual cycle, and so on. There is no motivation to read the words because they don't tie into the gameplay. They don't enlighten you about the world you're in-- hell, half the time the 2,000 words are about another dimension entirely. It feels like one giant study guide for some non-existent college exam on Planescape lore dressed up as a game.

I'm interested to know about my character and what his story is and what his past is. Why do I need to spend 10 hours reading monologues from 100 NPCs in order to progress my own story? Oh, that's right. Because MCA makes games, not novels. Lucky us.
did you try dualclassing to a bard?
 

taplonaplo

Scholar
Joined
Aug 8, 2008
Messages
628
Who the hell said you need to do any of that crap. L2 skip content dumbass.
 

Castanova

Prophet
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
2,949
Location
The White Visitation
malko_sundervere said:
ITT: >>Talk to everyone in the Hive
>> Complain that there's too much dialogue

I figured the npcs were there for a reason. But thanks for pointing out that the key to enjoying PST is to skip its content.
 

Lonely Vazdru

Pimp my Title
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
6,656
Location
Agen
Castanova said:
Combat consists of clicking on them and waiting. So you click on them and wait. Thirty seconds later, they're dead and you're a copper bracelet richer. Oh, joy of joys.
:lol:
 

pocahaunted

Arcane
Joined
Jan 9, 2010
Messages
4,017
Location
Pyongyang, Best Korea
Stalin said:
there is a game where you just press a button and something awesome happens you know

Yeah, why are you complaining in the first place? There are plenty of games where NPCs are just cardboard cut non-interactive bystanders to fill your gaming needs if you loath "pointless" dialogue that much.
 
Joined
Dec 23, 2010
Messages
476
Project: Eternity
Castanova said:
malko_sundervere said:
ITT: >>Talk to everyone in the Hive
>> Complain that there's too much dialogue

I figured the npcs were there for a reason. But thanks for pointing out that the key to enjoying PST is to skip its content.
I'm very proud of you for your reading comprehension, because that was *exactly* what I said and there was no other intention behind those words.

What you seem to be asking for is a world with absolutely no flavor whatsoever, wherein every NPC knows exactly where you need to go. Thus, you're complaining about... not every NPC being main-plot-related.
 

Castanova

Prophet
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
2,949
Location
The White Visitation
Stalin said:
there is a game where you just press a button and something awesome happens you know

I know, and PST was supposed to be it. Instead, when I click on an NPC, my eyes start to glaze over. Hell, I can't even stay focused through a full conversation with my wife about how her day was, and now you're expecting me to sit through a treatise on the composition of all 48 planes when it has nothing to do whatsoever with the gameplay OR plot of the story?
 

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
I didn't even know about the alley of dangerous angles(Thug alley) until my second run-through. Maybe you're talking about the thugs who may attack you on the other main city maps? :oops:
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
6,207
Location
The island of misfit mascots
Castanova said:
Stalin said:
there is a game where you just press a button and something awesome happens you know

I know, and PST was supposed to be it. Instead, when I click on an NPC, my eyes start to glaze over. Hell, I can't even stay focused through a full conversation with my wife about how her day was, and now you're expecting me to sit through a treatise on the composition of all 48 planes when it has nothing to do whatsoever with the gameplay OR plot of the story?

Actually they have direct relevance to the locations, story, themes and in particular the ending. Castanova can't into foreshadowing?
 

Castanova

Prophet
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
2,949
Location
The White Visitation
Foreshadowing executed properly is fast and subtle. The 40 various dialog diarrheas populating the Hive qualify as neither. Obviously it crossed my mind that this information may apply to future events but these future events are nebulous and therefore not a good motivator to continue playing. PST is supposed to be a paragon of cRPG storytelling and yet it fails at one of the most basic, story 101 concepts: show, don't tell.
 

Castanova

Prophet
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
2,949
Location
The White Visitation
pocahaunted said:
Yeah, why are you complaining in the first place? There are plenty of games where NPCs are just cardboard cut non-interactive bystanders to fill your gaming needs if you loath "pointless" dialogue that much.

Just because there are 40 interactive NPCs with unique names and races in the Hive doesn't mean the game is interactive. So far, PST is effectively a novel where the chapters are doled out to the reader based on a walking simulator.
 

Zomg

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
6,984
To get anything out of the gameplay you have to be in RPG sperg mode about finding XP and +1 stat bonuses and stuff, even though there's never any actual "content gate" combat or anything that needs you to be level ten million with every boost to pass. That is the way most people play RPGs, sperg for sperg's sake, use builds and whore loot that only all comes together in the last 5% of the game and lets you beat the last boss in one hit type pointless pseudogameplay. MMORPGs and Beth/Bioware games eventually coopted it as the Skinner Box RPG "fun" model.

So it's all abysmal gameplay, at least the writing in PS:T is good. I probably couldn't play it for the first time now to be honest though.
 

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