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Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Prime Junta

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What complications does console development add aside from ui?

The UI is a big complication in and of itself. The UI doesn't just hang in space, it's intimately connected to the gameplay. You can't just swap one out and not have it affect the way the game plays. This means that there will need to be adjustments in the gameplay to make it possible to create a UI that works on all the target platforms.

Other complications are just things that don't quite work the same way although, perhaps, they should -- the renderer, shaders, memory constraints, performance constraints, API implementations that are theoretically identical but in practice have different bugs, different performance bottlenecks, and different quirks. You might have something that works perfectly fine on the PC but stutters horribly on the console, and might discover that the console problem is actually with something deeper in the code. So you change that, and then have to re-test to make sure your changes didn't break something on the PC.

Similar problems apply even if you're just developing for different OS's -- the UI is the same for all of them, but you will still occasionally run into trouble. In Pillars, for example, the middleware handling dynamic cloth suddenly stopped working on OS X and Linux, and I don't think they ever managed to fix it.

Multi-platform toolkits are fantastic, but they never work 100% perfectly, and the more platforms you add, the more frequently you will run into those times it doesn't quite work.
 

Lady_Error

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The UI is a big complication in and of itself. The UI doesn't just hang in space, it's intimately connected to the gameplay. You can't just swap one out and not have it affect the way the game plays. This means that there will need to be adjustments in the gameplay to make it possible to create a UI that works on all the target platforms.

Isn't it possible to adjust the UI for consoles and leave the original UI for the computers? Why do the UI's have to be exactly the same for both?
 

Prime Junta

Guest
The UI is a big complication in and of itself. The UI doesn't just hang in space, it's intimately connected to the gameplay. You can't just swap one out and not have it affect the way the game plays. This means that there will need to be adjustments in the gameplay to make it possible to create a UI that works on all the target platforms.

Isn't it possible to adjust the UI for consoles and leave the original UI for the computers? Why do the UI's have to be exactly the same for both?

They don't have to be, and they shouldn't have to be. The trouble is that the UI and the gameplay are connected. Certain varieties of gameplay just don't translate well across UIs, which means that if you're doing a multiplatform game, you have to either not have that kind of gameplay, or make the gameplay itself different across platforms.

For example, IE-style games depend heavily on being able to quickly select one or more units on the battlefield, by lassoing or shift-clicking. You just can't do that effectively with a controller (although you can on a tablet). That completely changes the way combat feels. So if you want to do a party-based multiplayer, multiplatform RPG, you can't do it (well) with that kind of combat.

I know this isn't directly applicable to T:ToN, because turn-based, but similar things will manifest all over the place: what kinds of interactions you can have with the environment or objects in your inventory, how your abilities work, and so on and so forth. The upshot is that the decision to do both console and PC will have repercussions that go beyond just a different UI. The alternative is just that the game will be bad on one platform or the other.
 

Kem0sabe

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Isn't it possible to adjust the UI for consoles and leave the original UI for the computers? Why do the UI's have to be exactly the same for both?
Inxile, the company behind the 100 iterations of an UI rpg... Wasteland 2. That changed the pc Ui for the worse when they later released the console version.

They will fuck it up, as they always do.
 

Lady_Error

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Inxile, the company behind the 100 iterations of an UI rpg... Wasteland 2. That changed the pc Ui for the worse when they later released the console version.

Why the fuck would they do that?

They will fuck it up, as they always do.

Unless their design team changed a lot, you may be right. Though I actually liked WL2 when it came out.
 

Roguey

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It also costs money to release patches on consoles, so say goodbye to any kind of frequent or long-term support. :M
 

Roguey

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Is that still the case? Thought they might have changed it for the new gen

I looked it up just now and it's been dropped for "independent" developers. I don't know if techland/inxile qualify.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Is that still the case? Thought they might have changed it for the new gen

I looked it up just now and it's been dropped for "independent" developers. I don't know if techland/inxile qualify.

All developers nowadays have an interest in promoting a "gaming as a service" model which would involve frequent patching. I'd be pretty surprised if that $40,000 patch thing from 2012 is still around.

Anyway, this is like wrapping the EE development into the original devtime, so maybe the game won't need as many patches? :M
 
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Isn't it possible to adjust the UI for consoles and leave the original UI for the computers? Why do the UI's have to be exactly the same for both?
Inxile, the company behind the 100 iterations of an UI rpg... Wasteland 2. That changed the pc Ui for the worse when they later released the console version.

They will fuck it up, as they always do.

They did that I won't argue. The inventory takes full screen now but, at least I have 2 versions in the Steam library so I can play it the way I want. For TToN that won't be the case since it uses the same UI. I always wondered why the heck buttons are so big in TToN. Now I know why.....
 

DosBuster

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Is that still the case? Thought they might have changed it for the new gen

I looked it up just now and it's been dropped for "independent" developers. I don't know if techland/inxile qualify.

All developers nowadays have an interest in promoting a "gaming as a service model" which would involve frequent patching. I'd be pretty surprised if that $40,000 patch thing from 2012 is still around.

Anyway, this is like wrapping the EE development into the original devtime, so maybe the game won't need as many patches? :M

Considering how lots of games release patch after patch with content (GTA V, Rocket League, Minecraft) they've either abolished it, or it's very cheap now.
 

ArchAngel

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The UI is a big complication in and of itself. The UI doesn't just hang in space, it's intimately connected to the gameplay. You can't just swap one out and not have it affect the way the game plays. This means that there will need to be adjustments in the gameplay to make it possible to create a UI that works on all the target platforms.

Isn't it possible to adjust the UI for consoles and leave the original UI for the computers? Why do the UI's have to be exactly the same for both?

They don't have to be, and they shouldn't have to be. The trouble is that the UI and the gameplay are connected. Certain varieties of gameplay just don't translate well across UIs, which means that if you're doing a multiplatform game, you have to either not have that kind of gameplay, or make the gameplay itself different across platforms.

For example, IE-style games depend heavily on being able to quickly select one or more units on the battlefield, by lassoing or shift-clicking. You just can't do that effectively with a controller (although you can on a tablet). That completely changes the way combat feels. So if you want to do a party-based multiplayer, multiplatform RPG, you can't do it (well) with that kind of combat.

I know this isn't directly applicable to T:ToN, because turn-based, but similar things will manifest all over the place: what kinds of interactions you can have with the environment or objects in your inventory, how your abilities work, and so on and so forth. The upshot is that the decision to do both console and PC will have repercussions that go beyond just a different UI. The alternative is just that the game will be bad on one platform or the other.
There is another problem. Console audience on average is different than PC audience and requires changes in gameplay.
We probably will not know the difference in the end but you can be sure the game would be different if only ever designed for PC.

I am pretty sure WL2DC skill system was left in its bad version (but simpler) due to its console release.
 

Cassar

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throwaway

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The absence of the, fairly active during preproduction, leads of the game from this or the news thread speaks for itself. Probably still preferable to PR people's attempts at damage-control. Can't help but agree with MR that the predisposition to turn-based seems twice as suspicious now. With Fargo being proved to be a lying salesman the game will have to hit at least MotB levels for me to back another title of theirs.
 

Zombra

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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth

undecaf

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
I don't think this console shit annoucement is going have any substantial effects to the game. It might for future titles if their ship starts to seriously steer towards that abyss (at which point history starts repeating itself and we can forget any of this ever happened), but I don't think we're quite there yet.
 

SniperHF

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My issue with the console release isn't so much the console release itself and how that affects the game, though there's obviously potential for shit there going forward.

It's the opportunity lost of having a company dedicated to making PC games and the mindset that brings. I'd rather have inXile not spend one moment thinking about how to reconcile the two platforms, even if they come to the right decision. That's one moment that could have been spent thinking about how to actually make the experience better for the PC player instead of keeping what works pliable for both. Oh well.
 

prodigydancer

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Isn't it possible to adjust the UI for consoles and leave the original UI for the computers? Why do the UI's have to be exactly the same for both?
Because they hate us. They can never publicly admit it, but oh, how they hate us. We still have standards - however low they may be these days. Consoletards have no standards. They'll eat shit and praise the taste.

It's clear that Fargo wants inXile to become an AAA. And every major VG company - whether a publisher or a developer - dreams of a world without PC gaming. A perfect world where the sheeple pays $60 (maybe more), has no expectations, remembers no promises, asks no difficult questions, and later posts a positive review even if the game is unplayable.
 

Kem0sabe

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And what was that casual game he made ... Wasteland 2, I guess. Did you actually play it?

Didn't you know? Inxile was a mobile company churning out smartphone and casual shit games for years before Fargo found out he could milk pc gamers with kickstarter.
 

Lady_Error

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One of the few companies creating something resembling classic RPG's - yeah, let's shit on them over some console port, because principles.
 

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