Game News Torment: Tides of Numenera announced for PS4 and Xbox One, gets new trailer

[Burning Bridges]

100 times more tasteful than Molyneux home. Reminds me of Richard Garriots castle actually.

EDIT: clicking on some more images, it could also be Medieval Dungeon in Westworld, only needs some female sexbots

 

[a mod]

Well he is a redguard.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Redguard? You mean he's a commie?

 

[a mod]

Where you wrote coders I actually read codexers, and I almost spilled my elder juice

But the real problem today abd the reason for is that the really good people all have companies of their own or better paid jobs elsewhere, whereas in the good old days they often ended up in small companies and made great games, at least when they were still young. Today PC games are mostly made by the riff raff. I mean even I was considering game development at some point, luckily I never went past the prototyping stage or I could be the center of endless derision now

Good people all came from somewhere, right? But when they all go to some game design school instead of real university, and you all use the same gay engines and same gay scripting languages, and you all hire random fuckfaces as writers who like to talk about diversity and shit...well, you will always get the same result. Pure shit.

 

[a mod]

Redguard? You mean he's a commie?

Nh he is some kind of mexican or soemthing, hence the color scheme. Also that was prevalent in the game redguard. Redguards are kinda generic ethnic people but they seemed more like spaniards than anything else to me.

 

[Fenix]

Because no one who wants to be a writer wants to work in shitty video games in the first place.

Same thing in Russia regarding translators of fiction literature.
Soviet-class translators, those mammoths of translation with the best and unique soviet school of translation were gone after 2000, mostly in another much more profitable segments of market.
Lolsers who translate today are shit, so translations are shit mostly, except maybe big hits.
Same with programmists - game dev died after 2000 when many opportunities appeared, which were much more profitable then game dev.
Sad thing when only third class workforce goes to some niche.

 

[Lurker King]

So how the fuck can this possibly lead to making a classic game?.

Colin McComb worked on Planescape and Fallout 2 - classics. Kevin D. Saunders was the lead on MotB - a classic. George Ziets worked on MotB and F:NV - classics. Is not about the names, is about the process and their personal involvement. If they are entangled in halfcocked concept to make a game attending Kickstarter and if they are not really into it, you can’t expect good things out of it. They have other priorities in life. Game development for them is just a means to pay the bills.

But the real problem today abd the reason for is that the really good people all have companies of their own or better paid jobs elsewhere, whereas in the good old days they often ended up in small companies and made great games

The really good people are indies like Styg and Vault Dweller and the guys behind Battle Brothers.

 

[Fairfax]

The fuck, you know his address? I think it should stop here.

Are you sure you're not interested in pictures of his ostentatious tastes

https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4261218578/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4261246372/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4260491523/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4260473561/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4267568689/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4260474209/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4261229444/in/album-72157623177335482/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40719545@N02/4261240076/in/album-72157623177335482/

I don't know how one can stand to live in such an orange, Skyrimmy environment.

The address is not interesting, but let's leave it at that.

As for the house, I think that fills the list of every rich guy villa cliché out there.
I'm not a huge fan of spanish colonial revival architecture, specially with that much brown and orange. Seems to be in good taste within that style, though.

And yeah, not as big and fancy as I imagined, so not worth $20M, but not as low as $6M either.

 

[a mod]

Colin McComb worked on Planescape and Fallout 2 - classics. Kevin D. Saunders was the lead on MotB - a classic. George Ziets worked on MotB and F:NV - classics. Is not about the names, is about the process and their personal involvement. If they are entangled in halfcocked concept to make a game attending Kickstarter and if they are not really into it, you can’t expect good things out of it. They have other priorities in life. Game development for them is just a means to pay the bills.


The really good people are indies like Styg and Vault Dweller and the guys behind Battle Brothers.

Obshitian games are al shit imo. You may like them but you can't pretend they are classics. They are barely a blip.

Colin McComb who did like two lines in torment, and worked on fallout 2. A good game but the writing was some lulzy shit.

Which is perfectly fine but don't waste a bunch of money on writers if you are willing to shoot for lowbrow shit.

Paying the billsis why they should do a good job. It's called professionalism. You do a good job no matter what. That is how professionals behave like a programmer or doctor. But you don't get that from random hack writers.

 

[Burning Bridges]

That is because you are looking in the wrong place and for the wrong people. On theory, Kickstarter sounds like a wonderful idea, but in practice is a hype machine that induces developers to overpromise what they can’t possibly know in order to get funded. The result is developers overwhelmed by poorly planned deadlines and rushed development, developers charging backers for earlier access, games in alpha stage being released, etc. The days of the veterans of the industry are long gone. They are completely burnout and have no passion for cRPGs anymore. Just forget about them, they are the past. You need to refocus your attention to the where the talent really is. Underrail, Age of Decadence and Battle Brothers (still in early access) blow out of the water all the hyped kickstarters with celebrity devs. Each of these games was made by few talented and passionate individuals living on a tent. No millions of Kickstarter funding, no journous giving them free publicity, no veterans of the industry, no nothing. Yet, they are awesome. We have new classics, you are just not paying attention.

I remember was very sceptical with kickstarter, and Melodrama (who afaik was knotanalt at the time) was also one of the people who saw where this was going. The gist was, kickstarter could be a good option to get good ideas over the finish line once they had reached the point where a good enough game was in the making. But the whole idea to produce kickstarter over kickstarter only to start a game and hire people was doomed to end exactly .. the way it ended. Kickstarters we pledged for all did not deliver or fizzled out, and the games we are playing now are entirely others. So it had zero impact, or maybe only indirectly because people pledged for games that we play and vice versa. But yeah I guess it is a good experience for ordinary gamers now they understand the plight of publishers and investors, because it has always been like 1000's of projects are funded but at the end of it you nearly always feel like you put your money on the entirely wrong horse.

 

[Roqua]

Console release + codex ban = another shitty dev, who tricked gamers into buying (donating to) their shit.
PS Obviously game will be shit too.

To be honest, this is the big concern here. We've complained about control schemes in consoles for years. They're not... great. And for a developer to say they're focussing on PC, to turn around and announce they're now doing a simultaneous release on consoles... When has that ever gone well?

Making a port from any platform to any other platform typically isn't easy (ref current No Man's Sky debacle) - hence the extra time needed. But then you need to change things in the game too. Some things that worked great on a PC with some extra RAM, just don't work on a console. Among a myriad of other problems.

What it tells me is inXile did in fact run out of money for their vision. They needed extra, and went to a company that has never published a game before (Techland are developers, not publishers - Torment 2 will be their first). The extra time isn't just to do the console port, it's to finish the game. Which again means they still don't really have enough cash to complete their vision... Which means the whole KickStarter thing is probably dead. These guys had been saying since the start how this was PC focussed, this was a PC game... now suddenly it's a console game too and there's no problem with that?

I've been avoiding saying this because it gets too personal for me, but I do wonder if Brian Fargo's current divorce has been a part catalyst. The guy's got money himself, and has always spoken about putting in a bit extra for games he likes, but with a potentially expensive, messy divorce on the cards - he may have actually needed the extra cash. Throw in state of mind, even if he's ok but just with the divorce being a distraction, etc...

This has so many potential teething issues it has "possible impending disaster" written all over it.

Personal matters aside, they also opened a new office in LA didn't they? Managing two offices 3k miles away can be rough on management when it first kicks off. Also, opening a new office usually goes way over what is predicated depending on the competency of his financing analysts or cost accountants. Companies try to buy their way out of problems when management workload increases with items outside their usual scope. They may be not bad decisions but are costly decisions, and that is where having a competent financial team or person with more accurate formulas and control and measures come in.

 

[Thonius]

Uh Brian Fargo is clearly a wealthy man but I doubt he has a net worth in the hundreds of millions. The development of inXile's games would have looked very different if he was. He's probably just a "garden variety" multi-millionaire.

Nobody said he's worth hundreds of millions

Except for the people ITT positing that he paid a $60M divorce settlement.

Didn't see that, but yeah, for the settlement to be $60M he'd have to be worth several hundred million.

From a quick look at Sotheby's: his seems to be of this caliber, and that's $20 million in Newport Beach.
This one is $13 million, but nowhere near as big or fancy as the one in the video (although it's seaside).

It all depends on the ZIP code, of course, but 6-13 million seems a tier below.

As far as the US government's concerned his land is worth $3,932,660 and the building itself is worth $4,005,729. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The fuck, you know his address? I think it should stop here.

I don`t see a problem if its open source.

 

[Fenix]

Colin McComb worked on Planescape and Fallout 2 - classics. Kevin D. Saunders was the lead on MotB - a classic. George Ziets worked on MotB and F:NV - classics. Is not about the names, is about the process and their personal involvement. If they are entangled in halfcocked concept to make a game attending Kickstarter and if they are not really into it, you can’t expect good things out of it. They have other priorities in life. Game development for them is just a means to pay the bills.

You should understand one thing about people.
When they are young - they are rebellious and tend to be nonconformists. They are maximalists.
When same people get old, they are more conformists to all things, most of them, do you like it or not.
They think more about family and their old age with money, usually.
No matter what's your attitude about it - this is the order of things.

So don't look at veterans - look at young, who is ready to move mountains.

 

[a mod]

You should understand one thing about people.
When they are young - they are rebellious and tend to be nonconformists. They are maximalists.
When same people get old, they are more conformists to all things, most of them, do you like it or not.
They think more about family and their old age with money, usually.
No matter what's your attitude about it - this is the order of things.

So don't look at veterans - look at young, who is ready to move mountains.

That is the other thing, too. Lots of teenagers who didn't have anything to lose jumped into the early game industry, learned to program and do art and write. But what they really wanted was to just make cool games.

 

[Lurker King]

I remember was very sceptical with kickstarter, and Melodrama (who afaik was knotanalt at the time) was also one of the people who saw where this was going. The gist was, kickstarter could be a good option to get good ideas over the finish line once they had reached the point where a good enough game was in the making. But the whole idea to produce kickstarter over kickstarter only to start a game and hire people was doomed to end exactly .. the way it ended. Kickstarters we pledged for all did not deliver or fizzled out, and the games we are playing now are entirely others. So it had zero impact, or maybe only indirectly because people pledged for games that we play and vice versa. But yeah I guess it is a good experience for ordinary gamers now they understand the plight of publishers and investors, because it has always been like 1000's of projects are funded but at the end of it you nearly always feel like you put your money on the entirely wrong horse.

It had an impact, but it was a negative one. It made niche communities like the Codex to focus all their energy and money on medium overhyped studios like Obsidian, Harebrained Schemes and InXile. The fact that a significant number of codexers only play or buy these games would be bad enough if these games weren't also dumbing down our standards. In a way, this is much more perverse than traditional triple-A popamoles, because we are creating a new generation that believes that any 2d isometric iPhone game like Shadow Run is incline. This is terrible, whatever way you look at it. I would prefer that we have only one tenth of these releases if they had more cRPG “meat” in them.

Edit: "VladimirK rated your post prosper"

 

[Fenix]

It's called professionalism. You do a good job no matter what.

You can do "a good job" differently.
Bethesda did a good job how do you think? All these TES-games, Fallout 3/4?
I think they did very professional job, also I can play only Fallout 4 as a roguelike[like]3D.

Styg did a professional job? He did, oh he did.
You see?

 

[Burning Bridges]

You should understand one thing about people.
When they are young - they are rebellious and tend to be nonconformists. They are maximalists.
When same people get old, they are more conformists to all things, most of them, do you like it or not.
They think more about family and their old age with money, usually.
No matter what's your attitude about it - this is the order of things.

So don't look at veterans - look at young, who is ready to move mountains.

Sounds a bit melodramatic and over the top tbh, the best is always a good mix of talent and experience.

Because no one who wants to be a writer wants to work in shitty video games in the first place.

Same thing in Russia regarding translators of fiction literature.
Soviet-class translators, those mammoths of translation with the best and unique soviet school of translation were gone after 2000, mostly in another much more profitable segments of market.
Lolsers who translate today are shit, so translations are shit mostly, except maybe big hits.
Same with programmists - game dev died after 2000 when many opportunities appeared, which were much more profitable then game dev.
Sad thing when only third class workforce goes to some niche.

Changes in education systems mostly. I know that Soviet and East bloc produtions were done by real professionals, dictionaries from East Germany for example contains almost zero mistakes (if you ignore politic bias and bullshit) and schools were giving immense training in language. Schools in the West were also much better than today. Sadly, those time are gone and we have all become more superficial.

 

[Thonius]

Colin McComb worked on Planescape and Fallout 2 - classics. Kevin D. Saunders was the lead on MotB - a classic. George Ziets worked on MotB and F:NV - classics. Is not about the names, is about the process and their personal involvement. If they are entangled in halfcocked concept to make a game attending Kickstarter and if they are not really into it, you can’t expect good things out of it. They have other priorities in life. Game development for them is just a means to pay the bills.

You should understand one thing about people.
When they are young - they are rebellious and tend to be nonconformists. They are maximalists.
When same people get old, they are more conformists to all things, most of them, do you like it or not.
They think more about family and their old age with money, usually.
No matter what's your attitude about it - this is the order of things.

So don't look at veterans - look at young, who is ready to move mountains.

Too bad they are not interested in games. They interested in making monies.
They are moving shit mountains down our throats. And inadequate amount of monies into their pockets.
You need to look at ppl who like making games. Like Styg and VD.

 

[Fairfax]

Uh Brian Fargo is clearly a wealthy man but I doubt he has a net worth in the hundreds of millions. The development of inXile's games would have looked very different if he was. He's probably just a "garden variety" multi-millionaire.

Nobody said he's worth hundreds of millions

Except for the people ITT positing that he paid a $60M divorce settlement.

Didn't see that, but yeah, for the settlement to be $60M he'd have to be worth several hundred million.

From a quick look at Sotheby's: his seems to be of this caliber, and that's $20 million in Newport Beach.
This one is $13 million, but nowhere near as big or fancy as the one in the video (although it's seaside).

It all depends on the ZIP code, of course, but 6-13 million seems a tier below.

As far as the US government's concerned his land is worth $3,932,660 and the building itself is worth $4,005,729. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The fuck, you know his address? I think it should stop here.

I don`t see a problem if its open source.

I gues you can't even hide that stuff these days, it's more about what someone could send there with "Codex send their regards" attached.

 

[Burning Bridges]

It had an impact, but it was a negative one. It made niche communities like the Codex to focus all their energy and money on medium overhyped studios like Obsidian, Harebrained Schemes and InXile. The fact that a significant number of codexers only play or buy these games would be bad enough if these games weren't also dumbing down our standards. In a way, this is much more perverse than traditional triple-A popamoles, because we are creating a new generation that believes that any 2d isometric iPhone game like Shadow Run is incline. This is terrible, whatever way you look at it. I would prefer that we have only one tenth of these releases if they had more cRPG “meat” in them.

Let me put it this way. The intentions were good but the timing was not, for it was already too late. Biologically speaking, new branches grew from an already sick tree and while they somehow resemble healthy ones they are all ugly. And the fact that engines make it way too easy to click together worthless games that look the same as 100s of others plays a big role too. So you could say the new games resemble healthy children but are in fact very sickly, made from inferior material and look like clones.

 

[Lurker King]

You should understand one thing about people.
When they are young - they are rebellious and tend to be nonconformists. They are maximalists.
When same people get old, they are more conformists to all things, most of them, do you like it or not.
They think more about family and their old age with money, usually.
No matter what's your attitude about it - this is the order of things.

So don't look at veterans - look at young, who is ready to move mountains.

I don’t think it has to do with being conformist or not, but with the fact that some people can devote their entire lives to a passion that also happens to be their professions. But most people don’t have that, even if they like what they do. They lose their motivation and their touch when they release they have nothing to prove to anyone.

 

[Fenix]

Sounds a bit melodramatic and over the top tbh, the best is always a good mix of talent and experience.

Maybe.
But let's analyze what we got - Underrail, Age of Decadence, Serpent in the Staglands (not that tier like previous two overall but look at progress with Copper Dream announce).
All are young - biologically or in terms of career, when you want to create a name for yourself, to erect a fucking monument for yourself before you died.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I don’t think it has to do with being conformist or not, but with the fact that some people can devote their entire lives to a passion that also happens to be their professions. But most people don’t have that, even if they like what they do. They lose their motivation and their touch when they release they have nothing to prove to anyone.

Nah, I think it is because everything is a pyramid. Just think of books, how many millions of books have been written and only a few are worth reading.

 

[Fenix]

I don’t think it has to do with being conformist or not

Lol what? Do you think someone who want to cater to popamole audience can and/or want to make something like SitS?

Of course you should be a person who values the principles higher than the money to make such games.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Sounds a bit melodramatic and over the top tbh, the best is always a good mix of talent and experience.

Maybe.
But let's analyze what we got - Underrail, Age of Decadence, Serpent in the Staglands (not that tier like previous two overall but look at progress with Copper Dream announce).
All are young - biologically or in terms of career, when you want to create a name for yourself, to erect a fucking monument for yourself before you died.

Well, yes and no. For example it is said that mathematics is a young men's game, and the same is said about chess. But at the same time some of the greatest mathematicians and chess players defied that rule, and were at the top of their game even at high age. Often contributing new things in meta areas that were not well understood before. The advantage that old men have is that they have many blueprints in their head, their disadvantage is of course motivation and raw power, and also the stupidity to try something radical, but if they have retained enough of that they will do amazing stuff, and they can do it very directly and quick.