Torment: Tides of Numenera Catch-All

Granath wrote:

Context is everything.

If you don't like text, there are plenty of games to play. Torment isn't one of them.

That's why I stopped playing it. I'm expressing my hope for this new game that's being made. My question again is this, is it really wordiness that defines Torment games? I say no, it's not.

What can change the nature of a Torment game?

complexmath wrote:
Vector wrote:

I also have an extremely hard time understanding any sort of D&D rulesets. I don't get what dice rolls mean and find it very unintuitive. So apart from the combat being broken and slow, it was also very confusing for me.

They're just to provide a random chance of success for some task, with the min roll for success set by the difficulty and bonuses provided by player skill. Though I'll grant that things are a lot more straightforward with current D20 rules than when Torment was made (does Torment have THAC0?).

D&D originated from tabletop war games, so a lot of the original mechanics are based on that (armor class, hit points, etc). That's actually where the old mode of negative armor class came from, I believe. For ship battles, a fully armored ship would be AC 0, just like a fully armored soldier is AC 0. But once you throw magic into the picture, suddenly AC could go all the way to -10. That was confusing and so they added a pre-calculated value of THAC0, which arguably didn't help at all.

Is my nose bleeding? I think my nose is bleeding.

maverickz wrote:
Granath wrote:

Context is everything.

If you don't like text, there are plenty of games to play. Torment isn't one of them.

That's why I stopped playing it. I'm expressing my hope for this new game that's being made. My question again is this, is it really wordiness that defines Torment games? I say no, it's not.

Ahh maybe it is. You should go back and finish it. Looking back, I don't see much to throw away except some of the combat.

django wrote:
maverickz wrote:
Granath wrote:

Context is everything.

If you don't like text, there are plenty of games to play. Torment isn't one of them.

That's why I stopped playing it. I'm expressing my hope for this new game that's being made. My question again is this, is it really wordiness that defines Torment games? I say no, it's not.

Ahh maybe it is. You should go back and finish it. Looking back, I don't see much to throw away except some of the combat.

Yes, a person who hasn't finished the game isn't the best source for what made the game so great.

Stengah wrote:

Yes, a person who hasn't finished the game isn't the best source for what made the game so great.

We have a winner.

Well, in truth, complexity of story and exploration of what were (for the time) some fairly interesting philosophical ideas was what made Torment special.

To deliver that complexity and exploration, it took a heck of a lot of text. Paying to have all that dialog voiced would have been obscenely expensive. Text is just the cheapest way to deliver a lot of ideas. There'd be nothing wrong with a fully-voiced sequel, but to get to the same level of intricacy, it would take an ungodly amount of money for voice acting.

We all get attached to the text, because it was so well done. But the text is just the delivery mechanism.

Unfortunately, with Kickstarter budgets, that's all we're going to get in the sequel, at least if we want something of equal scope. Lots and lots and lots of text.

Yeah, sure, full voice acting would indeed be better. No question. But they don't have fifty million dollars, they'll probably only have about 3, maybe 3.5.

Oh, also..... Torment was like a forty hour game as it was. If you actually had to wait for people to SAY stuff, instead of reading it, I'm sure it would been, god, 150 hours? There is a sh*tload of reading in that game.

Malor wrote:

Oh, also..... Torment was like a forty hour game as it was. If you actually had to wait for people to SAY stuff, instead of reading it, I'm sure it would been, god, 150 hours? There is a sh*tload of reading in that game.

That's part of why I liked having the text, I read a heck of a lot faster than people speak, and even now prefer to play with subtitles so I don't have to wait for the voice actor. In addition to the cost having it fully voiced would add, it'd make the game take up much more disk space.

The charm of Torment was 95% the writing. I cant even fathom how people who have played it could think otherwise.

Edit: no interest in flame wars

Malor wrote:

Oh, also..... Torment was like a forty hour game as it was. If you actually had to wait for people to SAY stuff, instead of reading it, I'm sure it would been, god, 150 hours? There is a sh*tload of reading in that game.

Well my whole point is info dumps are bad. Whether thye are text or voice. That's what I meant by "show me don't tell me".

I just re-installed PS:T, I haven't played through it in a while.

I don't mind reading.

maverickz wrote:

Well my whole point is info dumps are bad. Whether thye are text or voice. That's what I meant by "show me don't tell me".

Well, given their budget, and the amount of story and backstory and discovery they wanted to do, I would argue that this was probably the only way to do it.

And they WERE showing, you usually, just with text instead of voice-acted dialog. It wasn't like it was a dry recitation of historical fact.

tboon wrote:

I don't mind reading. :)

Heh, think of how much reading you've done just in this thread. You'd already be through several areas!

Looks like the Kickstarter has definitely slowed down by now. 2.2 million, I suppose that's not bad.

People with more experience with KS say that means it should end up around 3-4 million, so hopefully they do reach this goal.

maverickz wrote:
Malor wrote:

Oh, also..... Torment was like a forty hour game as it was. If you actually had to wait for people to SAY stuff, instead of reading it, I'm sure it would been, god, 150 hours? There is a sh*tload of reading in that game.

Well my whole point is info dumps are bad. Whether thye are text or voice. That's what I meant by "show me don't tell me".

I don't think they could convey the same information by just showing it to you. To continue using the example from the Sensorium, a cut-scene would let you watch someone transform, but you wouldn't get the same information (why they did it, how it felt) unless they were awkwardly shouting exposition throughout the whole thing. For the rest of the game, the info dumps were delivered through conversations and big parts of them were not necessary to finish the game. You could go through the game with a low intelligence, or simply skip over most of the info dumps, and still reach the end, you're just missing out on the best parts of the game. You don't need to talk to Dak'kon about Zerthimon or find out Morte's backstory to finish the game, but doing so will improve their stats.
The entire reason Planescape: Torment has the following it does is because of the depth and character those info dumps revealed about the game world. Without them it wouldn't be nearly as memorable.

You guys keep talking about cost, but this game is going to make like 10 million dollars before it ever starts

I just read the 2.5M level bonus..

Colin's Apology

TheGameguru wrote:

I just read the 2.5M level bonus..

Colin's Apology

Best bonus ever. I just increased my pledge.

Stengah wrote:
maverickz wrote:
Malor wrote:

Oh, also..... Torment was like a forty hour game as it was. If you actually had to wait for people to SAY stuff, instead of reading it, I'm sure it would been, god, 150 hours? There is a sh*tload of reading in that game.

Well my whole point is info dumps are bad. Whether thye are text or voice. That's what I meant by "show me don't tell me".

I don't think they could convey the same information by just showing it to you. To continue using the example from the Sensorium, a cut-scene would let you watch someone transform, but you wouldn't get the same information (why they did it, how it felt) unless they were awkwardly shouting exposition throughout the whole thing. For the rest of the game, the info dumps were delivered through conversations and big parts of them were not necessary to finish the game. You could go through the game with a low intelligence, or simply skip over most of the info dumps, and still reach the end, you're just missing out on the best parts of the game. You don't need to talk to Dak'kon about Zerthimon or find out Morte's backstory to finish the game, but doing so will improve their stats.
The entire reason Planescape: Torment has the following it does is because of the depth and character those info dumps revealed about the game world. Without them it wouldn't be nearly as memorable.

That's fine, it didn't work for me. Again, my point is that I hope the new game doesn't follow this trend.

Malor wrote:
maverickz wrote:

Well my whole point is info dumps are bad. Whether thye are text or voice. That's what I meant by "show me don't tell me".

Well, given their budget, and the amount of story and backstory and discovery they wanted to do, I would argue that this was probably the only way to do it.

And they WERE showing, you usually, just with text instead of voice-acted dialog. It wasn't like it was a dry recitation of historical fact. :)

Yeah, I completely understand that there was a limitation to the technology at the time. My original statement that got this whole thing rolling was about the new game, not the old one.

I'm actually kind of surprised by the response I'm getting to it because I didn't think what I said was all that radical. I enjoyed the story and the world created by Torment, the presentation just didn't work for me. I'm not criticizing Torment as an entity or IP in total, which I think some people took it as such. I just think the large quantity of text did the game more harm than good. I don't believe that the only way to tell a good story is by requiring the player to read a lot of text. Did Deus Ex's story suffer? Or how about Assassin's Creed 2? Half Life 2? Ultima 7? I don't think so.

What does Colin have to apologize for?

Malor wrote:

What does Colin have to apologize for?

Text info dumps, clearly.

maverickz wrote:

I'm actually kind of surprised by the response I'm getting to it because I didn't think what I said was all that radical. I enjoyed the story and the world created by Torment, the presentation just didn't work for me. I'm not criticizing Torment as an entity or IP in total, which I think some people took it as such. I just think the large quantity of text did the game more harm than good. I don't believe that the only way to tell a good story is by requiring the player to read a lot of text.

Maybe if you had shown us, instead of just telling us, we'd have understood...

I think everyone has different "info dump threshold". I found that in PS:T, mine wandered a bit - sometimes amount of text seemed alright and sometimes I found myself reading diagonally.
In spite of that, one of the best games I`ve ever played. Spent whole Christmas in the office playing

Mex wrote:
maverickz wrote:

I'm actually kind of surprised by the response I'm getting to it because I didn't think what I said was all that radical. I enjoyed the story and the world created by Torment, the presentation just didn't work for me. I'm not criticizing Torment as an entity or IP in total, which I think some people took it as such. I just think the large quantity of text did the game more harm than good. I don't believe that the only way to tell a good story is by requiring the player to read a lot of text.

Maybe if you had shown us, instead of just telling us, we'd have understood...

I am limited by the technology in my post telling.

maverickz wrote:

Again, my point is that I hope the new game doesn't follow this trend.

I think most of the people anticipating it would be quite disappointed if it didn't.

Malor wrote:

What does Colin have to apologize for?

According to the stretch goal description: a nerd-on for elves that caused some balance issues in D&D.

Stengah wrote:
maverickz wrote:

Again, my point is that I hope the new game doesn't follow this trend.

I think most of the people anticipating it would be quite disappointed if it didn't.

Malor wrote:

What does Colin have to apologize for?

According to the stretch goal description: a nerd-on for elves that caused some balance issues in D&D.

Have you considered some form of fantasy genre choose your own adventure books?

maverickz wrote:
Stengah wrote:
maverickz wrote:

Again, my point is that I hope the new game doesn't follow this trend.

I think most of the people anticipating it would be quite disappointed if it didn't.

Malor wrote:

What does Colin have to apologize for?

According to the stretch goal description: a nerd-on for elves that caused some balance issues in D&D.

Have you considered some form of fantasy genre choose your own adventure books?

I'm not sure what you're suggesting.

maverickz wrote:

I'm actually kind of surprised by the response I'm getting to it because I didn't think what I said was all that radical. I enjoyed the story and the world created by Torment, the presentation just didn't work for me. I'm not criticizing Torment as an entity or IP in total, which I think some people took it as such. I just think the large quantity of text did the game more harm than good. I don't believe that the only way to tell a good story is by requiring the player to read a lot of text.

I think the proper form of delivery really depends on the content. That long monologue quoted above, for example, wouldn't have worked if voice acted because much of the story was about how the author felt. The high budget alternative would be a video diary along the lines of Bioshock, but that doesn't really fit into the Planescape universe.