Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Pre-Release Thread [ALPHA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Brother None]

I wonder how that wil work out for him. On the one hand, he doesn't have to take creative direction from anyone, on the other, he has to make his own bread. I guess this will all pan out after W2 is released, and the sales figures are in. But I'm not sure how far Fargo can rely on the backing of what is after all a niche audience.

It's a risk, but inXile is a really small studio, and looks to remain really small even while they pre-produce Torment alongside Wasteland 2, so it's a very manageable risk, one that Obsidian couldn't make even if they wanted to, due to their size. That makes a lot of this more manageable. As long as the audience that backed Wasteland 2 doesn't disappear and he can Kickstart the next project again there's no real problem. If that can't happen, he'll have to hope Wasteland 2 sells well, though that seems less likely with so many interested people having already bought it. But who knows.

 

[Infinitron]

though that seems less likely with so many interested people having already bought it

What are the sales figures for FTL? What are the sales figures for Legend of Grimrock?

If I was Brian Fargo, or Feargus Urquhart for that matter, I would be very interested in those numbers.

 

[Oesophagus]

though that seems less likely with so many interested people having already bought it

What are the sales figures for FTL? What are the sales figures for Legend of Grimrock?

If I was Brian Fargo, or Feargus Urquhart for that matter, I would be very interested in those numbers.

Yeah, I guess that's a point, but you can't assume that a game will sell well just because it's an indie, or from kickstarter. This will probablly boil down to the frequency of the words "wasteland 2" and "Fallout" being used together on the IGNs and shit.
Come to think of it, that would be triple incline, if all the F3 tards ran out and bought W2 without checking that it's not an FPS. Because:

1. Fargo gets their money, and they can't do shit about it, except moan
2. We get another game from fargo (since he has cash)
3. The Bethtards are annoyed and have a bad day (which is always nice)

 

[SwiftCrack]

Hey inXile, let's see Wasteland 2 before you start jumping on things like this.

This this this

 

[Mother Russia]

Fuk you all, InExile's Bard's Tale was a great game. Humor was awesome.

 

[Volourn]

"Come to think of it, that would be triple incline, if all the F3 tards ran out and bought W2 without checking that it's not an FPS. Because:

1. Fargo gets their money, and they can't do shit about it, except moan
2. We get another game from fargo (since he has cash)
3. The Bethtards are annoyed and have a bad day (which is always nice)"

that's how companies like Betehsda, and Bioware view the Codex. LMFAO

 

[Jaesun]

If they could get Lustmord to do music for this, THAT alone would be fucking awesome. <3 The PST trailer music was SO fucking good.

Though that would probably cost way too mush.

 

[Roguey]

All right, I finished Oathbreaker. My impressions:

"The general's tale" portion is a straight up pace-killer filled with useless, made-up trivia that I felt served no worthwhile purpose. The guy kept dropping a lot of names and describing a lot of events that I simply could not be bothered to care about. Most of that could have been cut and the story would have lost nothing.

I don't like the inklings of "Man, things were so much better in the past when we had that noble king who united the kingdom and was practically a living saint" blah blah. Though the rest of the story implies this may be a history-written-by-the-winners thing and it wasn't all sunshine and roses.

The knight training being unisex struck me as odd. This is one of those in-vogue grimdark fantasy settings where brutal things are happening to people all the time so it's weird to me that women would get this equal opportunity to be soldiers and receive the same harsh training as the men. Even stranger is that three women passed the finals and proving themselves superior to many of the best men. I guess this can be waved by it being fantasy. It feels a bit like inclusion for the sake of inclusion rather than an inclusive world that's been thoroughly thought-out. I'm sure this is some nice ragebait for the misogynerds though.

On a similar note that one sailor who seemed disappointed in the lack of male whores in her shore leave town was odd. Like as if the author thought "Well if male sailors go see whores on shore leave, then a female sailor will purchase the services of a male whore." While some women do this kind of thing it seems unlikely to me that this particular character would have to directly pay for it.

All in all, I didn't find anything that offended me, but it didn't really hold my interest either. Magic cyborgs are thankfully not-Tolkien but the whole DUTY/OBLIGATION theme wasn't enough to grab me (plus it looks like Book 2 is a tangent with a completely different set of characters; what an odd decision). I don't think Lesifoere would hate it either, but she too would likely find it boring and be put-off by the author's obvious male-perspective. So regarding Torment, I think I can rest a bit more comfortably about it not being especially off-putting to women (unless inXile has some awful artists)but I'm still uncertain about whether or not it will be an original story worth telling.

 

[Murk]

Was about to brofist Volourn's post because I didn't see the Quotation marks int he quote and thought he was making sense.

I must be tired, I should go get some food -- my perceptions off.

 

[tuluse]

I'd fist you Roguey, but I'm boycotting this micro-transaction nonsense.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Yeah, thank you Roguey, I always wanted to know if a book is off-putting for women before I read it. Totally relevant in literature.

And I'm sure all women share the same thoughts and are put off by the same things you decided to be off-putting.

This is why your kind (retarded activists) should die.

 

[Roguey]

It's relevant for women who want to read books without getting pissed off or their brains messed with if they're young and impressionable. It's important to check these things from a feminist perspective and send death threats harangue those who are stuck in the last century.

 

[evdk]

It's relevant for women who want to read books without getting pissed off or their brains messed with if they're young and impressionable. It's important to check these things from a feminist perspective and send death threats harangue those who are stuck in the last century.

So, when will you find a new trolling modus operandi?

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

For me the only hope is that Fargo forgets "Planescape Torment" (which is one of its kind) and remembers his youth when he was producing games which oozed atmosphere like "Mindshadow", "The tracer sanction", "Borrowed time", "Tass times", "Wasteland" or "Dragon wars".

 

[tuluse]

I don't think Fargo will be the driving creative force. He seems more like he "find talented people and put them in a position to succeed" type of guy.

 

[Roguey]

So, when will you find a new trolling modus operandi?

I have to fill the hole Lesi left when I motivated her departure. It doesn't matter that she didn't act this way here; doing so proves I'm the better feminist.

 

[evdk]

But since she did not act this way here there is no hole to fill, ergo you are doing this just to satisfy your perverse cravings. Confess!

 

[LeStryfe79]

Don't worry Volly, I loved Bard '04 too.

 

[Roguey]

But since she did not act this way here there is no hole to fill, ergo you are doing this just to satisfy your perverse cravings. Confess!

I don't feel comfortable trying to emulate the kitchens of distinction incident so this'll do. A contrary, critical voice must be heard nonetheless.

 

[Menckenstein]

Is anyone else concerned that since they don't have rights to Planescape this might end up being a reimagining in a "Legally Distinctive From The Original" setting since there's now so many more gamers out there who've never experienced PST?

I mean that approach gave us Fallout but it (minus rights issue) also gave us Bard's Tale eXtreme.

 

[catfood]

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.formspring.me/ksaun/q/410478874460186394

Can you talk a bit about what the position of a project director entails and how it is different from that of a lead designer or producer?

Good question – what any given title or role entails can vary quite a bit company by company or even project by project. "Project director" can be synonymous with "producer," depending upon how the role of producer is defined. At some companies, producers can be more focused on schedule and budget - more of a focused organizational role. At others, producers are project leads and provide more direction.

In my case, what it means to be project director is that I am ultimately responsible for all aspects of the game – my role is to do whatever is necessary to maximize its quality and success. This could include anything. What exactly it will entail in practice will vary based upon the game’s final budget. As is probably a surprise to no one =), inXile will continue to embrace the crowdfunding model and the freedom it provides from traditional game publishing. (One of the major appeals that led me to choose to join inXile was this approach – it is great to be accountable to the players first and to be able to (and expected to!) make decisions on their behalf. This can be hard to do in a typical developer/publisher relationship.)

So while we’ll know what the minimum budget for the game will be (assuming it reaches its funding goal), the final budget is an unknown until our crowdfunding campaign concludes. The more we raise, the bigger the project will be and the more ambitious of a game we can support. (This, by the way, was another draw to inXile for me – I appreciate Brian Fargo’s commitment to the quality of the games in that everything raised goes toward the project. And even though he directly contributes to the games, Brian doesn’t take a cent from the funds for himself. From the perspective of someone managing the budget, this is gold – free labor! )
I’m the de facto lead designer, but if we have sufficient resources, I’ll be managing more and doing less hands-on design. For example, as you know, Colin McComb is the creative lead for the project and he’s leading our vision from that perspective.

But even the well-funded Kickstarters have very modest budgets when compared to current major game development projects. From the funded amount you see, 9% of that immediately goes to Kickstarter and Amazon. Depending upon the details of the pledge rewards, another 10-20% of the funds could go toward physical goods and fulfillment – paying for the game boxes, the cloth maps, the printed materials, shipping, etc. So, for example, Wasteland 2 (WL2) raised about $3M, but the effective development budget was closer to $2M. This is sufficient to make a great game, but doesn’t go as far as you might think. It is in the ballpark of the budget for a PC RPG expansion (such as Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir). But there’s more work to be done than in an expansion because the RPG game systems aren’t in place – you’re creating a first title, not building upon an existing RPG game engine. I’ve used Unity on a couple past projects (at Alelo) and it’s terrific to work with, but it lacks many of the pieces that a good RPG wants/needs. And you don’t have all of the art assets from a previous game to repurpose (which is part of our motivation behind the Wasteland 2 experiment in conjunction with the Unity Asset Store – we want to stretch the game’s funding as far as possible to deliver the best game we can for its backers).

Anyway – my expectation is that I’ll be operating in the role of lead designer as well, and I think my position will be very similar to what it was as the producer and lead designer on Mask of the Betrayer. I’ll certainly have help in the area design arena and hopefully in terms of systems design as well. Also, while the game will have some RPG systems that differ from WL2’s (to be true to the game style as well as setting we’ll be exploring), we’ll be leveraging as much of our WL2 work as we can. And I’m fortunate to have joined inXile at a time when I can contribute to some of the WL2 design decisions, both to help out with that game and to influence the foundation we’ll have for the next one (without, of course, compromising WL2 in any way – that Wasteland 2 be of highest quality is critical). Making the most of Wasteland 2’s accomplishments – again, when it makes sense – will allow us to create the best Torment game possible for its backers.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Hey, that was my question. Cool of him to answer it in such detail.

 

[Infinitron]

Hey, that was my question. Cool of him to answer it in such detail.

Heh, were these questions to George Ziets also yours?
http://www.formspring.me/GZiets/q/410612939238702830
http://www.formspring.me/GZiets/q/410612333086262131

 

[Crooked Bee]

Nope.