Yea I like the writing but the interface and combat systems still definitely need polishing.
Feels like this game has been in development forever and the beta (which is almost feels like a pre-alpha in many respects) is very, very unpolished. I wouldn't expect this thing before Halloween, if not later.
The first pass of the writing is officially completed. This means that the story has been written, quests are layed out and that the finetuning and optimizations of the story can begin.
"So what is next for Torment? We are hoping to have the game content complete by the beginning of April. At that point, we will be taking the game into iteration. We are dedicated to getting Torment right, so just like the writing needs to go through polish passes, we have allotted significant time for ourselves to improve upon the game's content. This includes things like additional passes on environment art and visual effects, quests and dialog, user interface art and functionality, and gameplay balance, not to mention fixing bugs and optimizing performance."
Updated Our Journal #55: Red Novella Now Available, Posters Back in Stock
tl;dr: Production update, Red Novella released, backer posters available
Hello Exiles,
Eric checking in. In our previous update, we told you about how we were targeting an April milestone for getting the game content complete. We're happy to say that we've hit that milestone – this means Torment is now playable start to finish, albeit in a somewhat rough state.
The feedback we've gained from the backer beta has been invaluable in allowing us to improve upon the game in a number of ways. In particular, we've been in the thick of a massive user interface overhaul on both the art and design fronts, cleaning up a lot of the temporary and placeholder stuff that was in when the beta launched. It is shaping up extremely well.
Furthermore, we've been reworking the game's introduction. This is one of the things we got the most comments about during the beta's early stages - how while the strangeness of the world, the visuals and the writing were all engrossing, the pacing and the way information was communicated about the game systems and story felt like they could use a bit of work. The changes we've made should address these points while also moving things along a bit more quickly.
A lot of these polish points are still in the works, and we're also chipping away at our bug lists, balance and systems tweaks both in and out of combat, and adding additional layers of improvements on for animation, visual effects and scene artwork. We're still working towards a more stable and complete build for you to enjoy, but when the next beta update comes, it will be one of the most extensive we've done.
From the Depths: Red
We have some good news on the rewards front today. Those of you who backed Torment at levels that included novellas will be happy to hear we are releasing a new installment in our "From the Depths" series - The Red Hand.
This novella comes courtesy of writer Nathan Long, who crafted several characters and quests for Torment: Tides of Numenera. You will also likely recognize Nathan as the lead writer behind Wasteland 2, not to mention that he has well over a dozen fantasy novels and several TV episodes and films to his name.
The Red Hand is a Ninth World story set in the subterranean city of Haref, which shows how art and passion can inspire great acts of heroism, but can also be twisted into tools of oppression. It follows an artist in love with a revolutionary leader as his art turns her outrage into a powerful symbol of revolt, and then escapes his control.
Applicable Torment backers who got the Red Novella with their rewards can download it right now from their Torment backer account. Just login to your Torment account, check the Rewards page and look for the "Downloads" button on your reward package that contains the novella. And remember that our novellas are still available in digital form as add-ons if you don't already have them.
What happens to a symbol when the revolution has been won? And what does an artist do when his art is used in ways he never wanted?
For those of you who would like a preview, here is a sampling from the early pages:
A splintering crash from the front of the bar stopped Parna and brought everyone's head around. A pair of massive purplegray Bayan watchmen—twice the height and five times the weight of the slight, blue-skinned Nil—were ducking through the door, truncheons in hand. Another crack, much closer, and the back door caved in too. A third Bayan squeezed in, her muscles bulging under her leather uniform and slurge-shell pauldrons—a sergeant of the watch. Her short-haired, heavy-boned head brushed the ceiling.
"No one move," she rumbled. Her voice sounded like boulders rolling down a tailings scree. "By order of the Sona Assembly, you are all under arrest for fomenting unrest and plotting rebellion. Kneel and put your hands on your—"
The patrons of the Black Pit didn't wait for her to finish. They bolted in every direction. Some dodged around her and her men and out the doors behind them. Some squirmed through the transoms on the street side of the bar. More ran for the secret doors that were the elementary precautions of any meeting place for rabble-rousers.
"Stop." The massive sergeant strode forward, trying to grab a mob of Nil who were all fighting to dive down a hatch in the floor. Sahi saw his chance. He caught Avza's arm and called for Parna.
"Parna! Come on! Out the back!"
Sahi laughed as they ran through the broken door into the alley and the sergeant called after them. How did that lumbering cow expect to catch a pack of running Nil? She was far too big and slow.
Two more hulking watchmen loomed out from the shadows of the alley. Parna tripped over the body of a bruised and battered Nil lying on the stones. Sahi and Avza hauled Parna up and ducked under the Bayans' swinging truncheons. The Bayan turned and pounded after them, heavy feet shaking the ground.
"Stop."
"Why do they bother saying that?" panted Parna. "Has anyone ever obeyed?"
"Less talking," Avza gasped. "More running."
They dodged around Mother Beda, the old Nil woman who sold grilled mushroom skewers in the mouth of the alley behind the bar, and plunged into the shadows of the subterranean street.
"Damn kids!" Beda shouted. "Watch your shenanigans, you—"
The Bayan watchmen burst out of the alley, knocking Beda's cart and grill to the cobbles and spraying her with hot coals. Beda shrieked and stumbled away, clutching her bare, burned arms.
"Bayan pigs!" She shook her carving knife at them. "Look what you did! You ruin everything!"
Sahi looked back at Beda's shout and saw one of the Bayan club her with a casual backhand. His truncheon was as big around as Beda's leg. It smashed her to the ground.
Sahi skidded to a stop. "No!"
Avza tugged at his arm as the Bayan lumbered closer. "There's nothing we can do."
Sahi couldn't pull his eyes away from Beda as she clutched her bleeding head and tried to get back to her feet. She reached out to steady herself, then sank back down, unconscious or dead. Her hand left a bloody print on the back wall of the bar.
Torment Posters Are Back!
During the Kickstarter campaign, we had exclusive Torment backer posters available as add-ons, but they haven't been available for a while… until now.
Due to popular demand, Torment posters are now available once again! These feature a striking design to match the one we did for Wasteland 2, and includes a list of backer names integrated into the artwork.
As an added bonus, the Torment poster includes free shipping for anyone in the USA, and everyone worldwide with total pledge level of $70 or above. To add the poster to your rewards, login to your Torment backer account, check the Rewards page, and add it as an add-on (it will be either on your Shop or Unlockable tabs).
In the News
A few news items to round out the update. Last time we showed you an interview with Colin and George on Arvan Eleron's Twitch channel that many of you enjoyed. And shortly after that, we had some other friends of ours featured on another episode of the show.
Featuring Monte Cook, Shanna Germain, and Patrick Rothfuss, the hour-long discussion has them talking about their contributing roles to Torment: Tides of Numenera and the Numenera setting as a whole.
Next, more interview goodness! Colin and George were recently featured on Shane Plays, a gaming-focused radio show and podcast hosted by Shane Stacks. You can enjoy the nearly hour-long interview to hear them wax about such exciting topics as Torment's development, how to break into the games industry as a writer, and who would win in an arm wrestling contest between them and Brian Fargo.
Last, we'd like to draw your attention to Consortium: The Tower, a single-player, first-person sci-fi immersive sim set in one massive location. The project initially launched on Kickstarter a couple of months ago, but as a smaller project without a pre-existing fanbase it didn't quite get the attention it deserved. This is exactly the kind of undiscovered title that can do well on a more curated platform like Fig, so we recommend you take a look if you like the sound of the pitch but missed it the first time around.
EG: Torment: Tides of Numenera seems like a hugely ambitious project, one that aims to redefine what a CRPG can be. As it enters open beta, what would you say to a player going in without having played the original Torment? What about a hardcore fan?
BF: I would want anyone new or old to prepare for a literary experience as they begin playing Torment: Tides of Numenera. The quality of its writing and the bizarre universe it established were what made Planescape: Torment wonderful. These are the focus of this game as well. It is not a game that works if your mindset is to rush towards victory.
P.S. It's funny that Brian Fargo mentions Sacrifice, the game from 2000, as something he considers to be very interesting. "That game was so creative and the multi-player aspects really hooked me." I remember that game too and I liked it a lot.
Also, RPG Codex interviews Feargus Urquhart (from Obsidian) at Digital Dragons 2016, and he said something related to TToN:
JMR: You lent inXile the Pillars of Eternity engine for Torment.
FY: Yeah.
JMR: Are the two companies working separately on the engine? Or are you exchanging technical updates and/or feedback?
FU: So how it works is... so we're not an engine support...we're not an engine development company, right? So part of it is that when inXile... the idea was that, you know like, we will help you as much as we can but you're kinda taking the engine and you'll get our updates and things like that. And we get some things back from them. But also, they own what they've done, so they made a change to the engine. You know, it's basically like... we try to do that, like... when we do technical work on our games, even if it's on the Star Wars game we try to own whatever we can. So it's the same, because we want them to feel ownership over their game and how they keep on making it. And so there is some conversation, but I would probably say... there probably could be more? You know, I would say like neither... we have not made it a priority to kind of make that happen, everyone's busy. [laughs]. So I could probably say that's the thing. If I had to say about it I would say, yeah, I would say that I think it's... we probably should have made more of an effort to work together, but we still...the teams chat about things, and when they need some help, they ask and we give it to them, you know. Like for instance, we wanted their implementation of WWise which is an audio engine and they sent it over to us, so there is still passing back and forth but it could probably be more.
JMR: Yeah, you may be both fighting against the same bug.
www.gamegrin.com has interviewed George Ziets, the Lead Area Designer of TToN:
GameGrin:
What was the most important thing to you, going into creating Torment: Tides of Numenera?
George:
For me personally, it was recapturing the exuberant weirdness of Planescape: Torment. That's what I loved most about the game, and that's what I still remember now, more than fifteen years after I first played it. In PST, I could remove my own eyeball, carry around my intestines, learn to understand the language of creatures who spoke in rebuses, engage in philosophical discussion with giant golems. Nearly every NPC was strange and memorable, with a unique voice that sounded different from everyone else. (At the time, as someone who was just getting started in game writing, this was a revelation to me, and it inspired me to be a better, more flexible writer.)
It was clear to me that the Planescape design team wasn't worried about conforming to expectations or being too different from the usual fantasy fare - they were letting their imaginations run wild.
I wanted to do the same in TTON. Fortunately, we had the benefit of the Numenera setting, which encourages imagination. It's a setting with a billion years of history and technology behind it, and literally anything can happen. We also had the benefit of some excellent, highly creative writers. When I was designing areas and coming up with strange NPCs and circumstances for the player to encounter, it was always a pleasant surprise to see how the writers fleshed out the characters and made them even more interesting than they'd been in the design documents.
Based on my playthroughs of our first zone, Sagus Cliffs, I think we've succeeded in creating a highly imaginative world for players to explore. If anything, some of the later content feels more "Tormenty" than Sagus Cliffs - it keeps the weirdness, but it gets a little darker and feels even more like the original game.
GameGrin:
In Torment, you're not able to customise the appearance of your character beyond the sex. What's the aim behind this design choice?
George:
In our game, the player is being dropped into the shoes of a specific character (much as the player took the role of the Nameless One in PST). In this case, that character is the Last Castoff, the most recently vacated body of the Changing God. It's important to our narrative that the character have, for example, a specific and recognizable tattoo, and that his or her head is scarred from the fall to earth that begins the story.
One notable change from Planescape: Torment is that your clothing won't be limited to a single outfit. You'll be able to wear a variety of armors, which range from the mundane (plate or brigandine) to the Numenera-exotic (living exoskeletons, synth armor from previous worlds, or even animate Bloom-flesh).
So, from "late 2015" to "Q1 2017". For me, it's completely worth it. A new Torment game should meet the expectations, and an amount of additional months doesn't mean much.
I can say, from the little bit I've played of the latest beta patch, InXile have made some vast improvements over the original beta release. The optimization alone is huge. They've also shortened the beginning area since it didn't seem like anyone really enjoyed the original area very much. Kudos to them for listening to the community. And in case anyone missed it, the beta is now available to all backers who would be getting the game as part of their donation (including Bards Tale IV backers).
Wow...I've gotten to play a few hours of the beta, and I am very optimistic the game will be a classic. Not for everyone, for sure, but for fans of the original a home run. There's some stuff that's still obviously still being worked on, but from what I've seen so far, it's really solid and fun.
Sigil was a huge part of PST. It had its own personality and lore. Another thing is it really provided the sandbox that you played in. You explore Sigil and make trips from there. I wonder how much TON here will miss having that additional "character" that Sigil provided.
I finally watched the trailer on page 1 and many things were familiar such as the protagonist's deep voice, lots of text, and the art style but I wonder how much the character of Sigil will be missed. Here's hoping for the best.
tl;dr: The mystery publishing partner is Techland!
Chris here for some important and exciting news. Last update we teased that we’re working with a new publisher on Torment. For those who have not yet seen the news that broke shortly after, we are pleased to inform you that we have partnered with Techland Publishing. You might know Techland as having developed some excellent games including Dying Light and Call of Juarez, but they have also done regional publishing and distribution on titles for many years now. With Torment, they are making the move to global publishing.
The partnership is something we are very excited about. Techland will be handling retail distribution, marketing the game, and physical backer rewards come release. This allows us to focus the vast majority of our resources on development of the game itself. They are an experienced team and are able to lend their expertise on a number of fronts, while we can spend more time working directly in the world of Torment.
Techland is offering a partnership with a full understanding of Torment’s legacy and goals as a narrative-driven RPG, and they want it to succeed as much as we do. As developers themselves, Techland has a great understanding of how important it is to stick to your vision, so we will be keeping full creative control over the game. We look forward to working with them to deliver a quality release we can all be proud of.
This isn’t the only component to our partnership, however. In addition to helping with the PC version of the game, we are pleased to announce that Techland is also lending its backing to bring Torment: Tides of Numenera to Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
For those of you who backed Torment and are wondering, “how does this affect the game?” the answer is rather simple, it doesn’t. Torment was developed from the ground up as a successor to the legacy of the original Planescape: Torment. Those of you who have played the beta will see that it is a rich, deep RPG full of involving quests, characters and a world full of detail.
You’ll also likely know that this isn’t our first rodeo when it comes to consoles. With Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut on Xbox and PS4, we proved that it was possible to bring all the depth of a PC style RPG to new audiences without sacrificing the tactical complexity and scope, and with Torment our approach is not changing. As developers, we’re pleased to bring the game to even more players, and with the success of WL2:DC critically, commercially and among our fans, it had long since been in our plans to do a console version of Torment.
Most importantly, you might be wondering if this affects our timeline for the game beyond what we’ve previously said. We have great news for you there: it will not! We talked about our production timeline in the last update, and how our plans to localize and polish the game meant we are looking at an early Q1 2017 release. When looking at our production timeline, it became clear that our art, design, and engineering resources were becoming available, giving us the opportunity to bring the game to consoles without affecting the PC version and overall timeline.
Torment at Gamescom
On a related note: next month at Gamescom, we will be presenting Torment on consoles with Techland from August 18th to the 21st. If you are able to visit the convention in Cologne Germany, you can find us in the entertainment area in Hall 10.1. We’re always happy to chat with fans and talk shop. Additionally, Brian will be holding a signing on August 19th, at 3 PM local time in Hall 10.1, booth B-073, so swing by if you can.
For those of you not attending, there will be many more Gamescom goodies to come, including interviews, screenshots and videos. We will be sure to showcase them in future updates and on our social media and news pages.
Torment: The Explorer’s Guide
We also have some news for fans of pen and paper gaming. When the Kickstarter began, we said we’d partner with Monte Cook Games to offer a Torment Sourcebook for the Numenera tabletop game. That has now come to fruition in the form of Torment: Tides of Numenera – The Explorer’s Guide by Shanna Germain.
The Torment Explorer’s Guide (for short) is a deluxe sourcebook containing background in Torment’s section of the Ninth World, including locations, items, characters and events from the game itself, as well as some that do not feature directly in the game but are part of the wider fiction and lore. Many of these were contributed to by our own designers and writers, and Monte Cook Games also expanded and fleshed them out for the tabletop.
The Torment Explorer’s Guide comes illustrated with artwork from the game and Monte Cook Games’ own artists. If you preorder the hardcover version for $40 USD and use your preorder code on the Monte Cook Games store before midnight on August 10, you will gain access to a free digital copy of the PDF, as well as several special extras.
Meanwhile, if you prefer the digital PDF version, it is available to new backers for $15 USD. (Those backers who pledged for the digital version at $12 previously during the campaign will still keep their early discounted price.)
To get your copy, just visit the Rewards -> Shop page on the Torment site and filter by “Monte Cook PnP”. You’ll see options for both the digital and hardcover Explorer’s Guide available. Once again, the preorder for the hardcover bonus is only available until midnight August 10, so get in now if you want to get the extras with it. Both versions will be available mid-August.
Brian Talks Development, Adam’s New Novella
If you follow our social media channels, you may have noticed we mentioned Brian Fargo was attending Reboot Develop in Croatia earlier this year. Reboot has now posted the full talk he gave on their YouTube channel for everyone to enjoy.
The audio quality is a little choppy in spots, but if you’d like to hear some of Brian’s insight about managing and embracing the chaos of game development and his role in “parenting” games, it’s definitely worth a watch.
Next, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Adam Heine’s new novella, Izanami’s Choice, which is published by Broken Eye Books. It’s a sci-fi story about a ronin who lives in Meiji Era Japan… and fights androids. The book will be released on September 1st, but you can pre-order it right now. More information on Izanami’s Choice and other stuff can also be found on Adam’s web site.
That’s all for this update. Thanks for checking in with us, and we’ll have more to share on how we’ve been polishing and iterating on Torment as we steadily get closer to release early next year!
"Hey guys, just to clear up some points that we may not have touched on enough in our Kickstarter update! We've seen some comments suggesting that backer funds from the Kickstarter are going towards the console versions of the game. These are fair concerns but rest assured, not a single penny of that money went towards console development. On top of the Kickstarter funding, inXile has put in multiple millions of dollars towards development of the game for PC, Mac, and Linux. In addition, Techland is footing the bill for console development. We said during the Kickstarter that we weren't going to compromise on the design and to this day, we haven't. It costs more money to do so, but we've designed multiple UIs and input modes for the game (one for mouse and keyboard and one for controller) so that there didn't have to be any concessions. Whichever platform you choose, we want you to have the best experience possible and will continue to strive to make that so."
I can say, from the little bit I've played of the latest beta patch, InXile have made some vast improvements over the original beta release. The optimization alone is huge. They've also shortened the beginning area since it didn't seem like anyone really enjoyed the original area very much. Kudos to them for listening to the community. And in case anyone missed it, the beta is now available to all backers who would be getting the game as part of their donation (including Bards Tale IV backers).
Yea i have to admit ive played it additionally a few hours today. Its really improved compared to what it was like when it was initially available on Steam. Its kind of too bad they arent updating it again until release but so far im really digging the setting and elements like the tides.
Updated Our Journal (58): Gamescom 2016, Building the Necropolis
"tl;dr: Torment comes to Germany, Adam and Joby talk design
Hello Exiles,
Chris checking in. In our last update, we mentioned that we had partnered with Techland Publishing for Torment, and that our first major event would be showing the game at Gamescom 2016. After quite a few weeks of prep, it was go time. Brian, Colin, George, Thomas and myself all packed our bags up to visit Germany, and it was an incredible experience.
Techland did a fantastic job in setting up not one but two booths for us, and worked around the clock to provide support and assistance demoing the game. We even had professional cosplayers on hand! They are treating Torment like one of their own titles and know how important it is to get things right. We would not have been able to pull it off so successfully without them.
That was reflected in the reception for the game - from press and fans alike, the response was absolutely incredible and universally positive. We even got a few nominations and awards for best RPG and best of show! Here is a glimpse of some of our memories:
We'd like to thank everyone who came by to visit, whether that was stopping by the booth, covering the game as press, or showing up for an autograph with Brian. We could not make this game without the support of all of you and it is deeply gratifying and humbling to see people so passionate for Torment. It's been a long road but we are finally nearing the end.
Of course, for those who didn't get to attend Gamescom directly, there is still plenty of cool new footage and materials to check out. We sat down for multiple video interviews with Brian and Colin, and several articles have also appeared.
We'd also be remiss if we didn't mention PAX West. While it was a little more low-key, George Ziets and Colin McComb both attended over this last weekend. There were yet more interviews and demos during that time – including one with Alienware you may be interested in, as it features some excellent narration from Colin.
And there'll be more to come! For example, Colin will be at EGX in Birmingham to present a Developer Session on Torment.
Both Gamescom and PAX have been inspiring experiences, and we are energized and even more motivated to get the game polished up and ready for you early next year!
With the game content complete, getting more polished every day, and well on its way to completion, we also thought it was a great time to start talking about some of our content that comes just after the beta portion of the game that many of you have been enjoying. And, with release not too far away, it also seemed like a good moment to commemorate those backers who helped make the game possible. So without further ado, here's Adam to talk about the Valley of Dead Heroes, and more specifically, the Necropolis.
Designing the Necropolis
Adam here. A little while ago, George told you how we are incorporating backer NPCs into our game. I want to tell you how we're including the largest quantity of backer content: tombs and epitaphs.
First, let me take you back to our Kickstarter planning sessions. We knew from the start we wanted a reward where higher-tier backers could include their name in the game somewhere. In a game about legacy, set in a world built on the bones of forgotten civilizations, it made perfect sense for that reward to be a tomb. We designed a massive gravesite for these tombs, called the Valley of Dead Heroes. In this place would be hundreds of tombs, memorializing heroes of the past and naturally raising the question: "What does one life matter?"
Like our backer NPCs, we wanted the tomb content to feel like a natural part of the world. We also wanted to encourage players to actually read the tombs – not all of them, but some of them at least. And ideally different players would search through different ones. It was a challenge, but one we were confident we could make great... until the Kickstarter broke records, and we found ourselves with nearly four thousand tombs and epitaphs that needed to be in our game somewhere.
As we began designing areas, we did the math. We originally planned for two scenes that would contain most of the tombs: the Valley of Dead Heroes and "Valley Part Two" which would be placed in another zone of the game. But even if we made those scenes enormous, cramming in as many tombs as we could fit on-screen while still giving the player space to walk, it would only take care of half of the required number. We also considered sprinkling the other tombstones throughout the game, but that would still require far too many tombstones to be placed in every single scene in the game. So our algorithm master and all-around guru Joby Bednar had the very Numenera idea of a massive underground storage space, now used in the Ninth World as a burial ground.
The rooms in this space would be accessed by a control panel: the user enters a code and is taken to a room in which lie a subset of our tomb/epitaph markers. Mechanically, the room would be a single Unity scene, but with the props, lighting, effects, etc. swapped out based on the code the player enters. It would take a lot of custom scripting, but it gave us the flexibility to handle all the backers we needed to feature. It was the perfect solution, and with some design constraints outlined, thus was born the Necropolis…
News Bits
Eric here to round things out with just a couple of additional news bits for you before we sign off! First, an important word for our backers: the end of September will be your last chance to pledge for or upgrade to physical Torment rewards. This includes boxed copies, add-ons and anything requiring shipping. With release not too far off we need to start locking down our final reward counts, so if you had been waiting to pledge, now is your last shot to get backer physical goodies. And on a similar note - if you haven't yet claimed your rewards or updated your shipping address, now is definitely the time!
And last, Techland has produced a fantastic trailer for the game introducing the world of Numenera to players."
"One of the biggest concerns we saw in the beta was that the text scrolling needed to be improved. In earlier versions, text would always appear at the bottom of the interface, which could lead to a lot of extra scrolling or manually expanding the whole conversation screen to read it.
Our revamp for conversation text scrolling now has text appear at the top of the interface rather than appearing near the bottom, so you don't find yourself scrolling nearly as much. When we need to show lots of text all at once, we also added a "Show More" button and a little down arrow indicating that there is more below. Instead of manually scrolling when there's lots of words on screen, now you can just keep hitting the Enter key, Spacebar, or clicking the button, which means that you can focus more on the contents of the conversation rather than getting pulled out of the narrative.
That said, a text box isn't in and of itself the most interesting thing, and for Torment we wanted to do something a bit more special. So, we decided to include additional notifications, audio cues and special effects while you're in conversations in order to highlight key moments.
A great example of this is the new "Item Gained" prompt. All of our items in the game are hand-designed and often written with lots of detailed lore and story elements, and so we wanted it to make it feel like a great moment when you found something interesting. Since so many of these items are given out during conversations or scripted interactions, it made sense to devote a portion of the conversation interface to them."
Crisis and Combat Updates
"Additionally, our engineers have rebuilt our tooltips when you mouse over an ability. The system we have now is incredibly robust, showing detailed information which also automatically populates and formats itself based on some simple tags the designers can write. Even special statuses and fettles will auto-fill their effects, so that when designers start doing balance changes, they don't have to manually go in and change the text for everything affected. You'll also see how the action cost is also more clearly indicated, tying in with the changes I mentioned above. On the whole, these tooltips are just more readable, more accurate, and a bit prettier looking than what we previously had.
Expanding on our improved tooltips, we have also added a right-click popup window to every ability in the game which allows you to inspect their full details just like in the Infinity Engine RPGs, and each has more flavorful long-form descriptions we've penned for them for you to read:
Torment: Tides of Numerera got a big update about a week ago on Steam. Apparently they've changed a bunch of things. If you already own the game it might be worth checking out (though don't use old saves)
Comments
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1511197
"So what is next for Torment? We are hoping to have the game content complete by the beginning of April. At that point, we will be taking the game into iteration. We are dedicated to getting Torment right, so just like the writing needs to go through polish passes, we have allotted significant time for ourselves to improve upon the game's content. This includes things like additional passes on environment art and visual effects, quests and dialog, user interface art and functionality, and gameplay balance, not to mention fixing bugs and optimizing performance."
Anyone here greatly enjoying reading Numenera's novellas on their tablet? I sure do! Making this news extra tasty for me~
EG: Torment: Tides of Numenera seems like a hugely ambitious project, one that aims to redefine what a CRPG can be. As it enters open beta, what would you say to a player going in without having played the original Torment? What about a hardcore fan?
BF: I would want anyone new or old to prepare for a literary experience as they begin playing Torment: Tides of Numenera. The quality of its writing and the bizarre universe it established were what made Planescape: Torment wonderful. These are the focus of this game as well. It is not a game that works if your mindset is to rush towards victory.
P.S. It's funny that Brian Fargo mentions Sacrifice, the game from 2000, as something he considers to be very interesting. "That game was so creative and the multi-player aspects really hooked me." I remember that game too and I liked it a lot.
http://existentialgamer.com/brian-fargo-on-fallout-torment-wasteland-3-interview
Also, RPG Codex interviews Feargus Urquhart (from Obsidian) at Digital Dragons 2016, and he said something related to TToN:
JMR: You lent inXile the Pillars of Eternity engine for Torment.
FY: Yeah.
JMR: Are the two companies working separately on the engine? Or are you exchanging technical updates and/or feedback?
FU: So how it works is... so we're not an engine support...we're not an engine development company, right? So part of it is that when inXile... the idea was that, you know like, we will help you as much as we can but you're kinda taking the engine and you'll get our updates and things like that. And we get some things back from them. But also, they own what they've done, so they made a change to the engine. You know, it's basically like... we try to do that, like... when we do technical work on our games, even if it's on the Star Wars game we try to own whatever we can. So it's the same, because we want them to feel ownership over their game and how they keep on making it. And so there is some conversation, but I would probably say... there probably could be more? You know, I would say like neither... we have not made it a priority to kind of make that happen, everyone's busy. [laughs]. So I could probably say that's the thing. If I had to say about it I would say, yeah, I would say that I think it's... we probably should have made more of an effort to work together, but we still...the teams chat about things, and when they need some help, they ask and we give it to them, you know. Like for instance, we wanted their implementation of WWise which is an audio engine and they sent it over to us, so there is still passing back and forth but it could probably be more.
JMR: Yeah, you may be both fighting against the same bug.
FU: [laughs]
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10307
GameGrin:
What was the most important thing to you, going into creating Torment: Tides of Numenera?
George:
For me personally, it was recapturing the exuberant weirdness of Planescape: Torment. That's what I loved most about the game, and that's what I still remember now, more than fifteen years after I first played it. In PST, I could remove my own eyeball, carry around my intestines, learn to understand the language of creatures who spoke in rebuses, engage in philosophical discussion with giant golems. Nearly every NPC was strange and memorable, with a unique voice that sounded different from everyone else. (At the time, as someone who was just getting started in game writing, this was a revelation to me, and it inspired me to be a better, more flexible writer.)
It was clear to me that the Planescape design team wasn't worried about conforming to expectations or being too different from the usual fantasy fare - they were letting their imaginations run wild.
I wanted to do the same in TTON. Fortunately, we had the benefit of the Numenera setting, which encourages imagination. It's a setting with a billion years of history and technology behind it, and literally anything can happen. We also had the benefit of some excellent, highly creative writers. When I was designing areas and coming up with strange NPCs and circumstances for the player to encounter, it was always a pleasant surprise to see how the writers fleshed out the characters and made them even more interesting than they'd been in the design documents.
Based on my playthroughs of our first zone, Sagus Cliffs, I think we've succeeded in creating a highly imaginative world for players to explore. If anything, some of the later content feels more "Tormenty" than Sagus Cliffs - it keeps the weirdness, but it gets a little darker and feels even more like the original game.
GameGrin:
In Torment, you're not able to customise the appearance of your character beyond the sex. What's the aim behind this design choice?
George:
In our game, the player is being dropped into the shoes of a specific character (much as the player took the role of the Nameless One in PST). In this case, that character is the Last Castoff, the most recently vacated body of the Changing God. It's important to our narrative that the character have, for example, a specific and recognizable tattoo, and that his or her head is scarred from the fall to earth that begins the story.
One notable change from Planescape: Torment is that your clothing won't be limited to a single outfit. You'll be able to wear a variety of armors, which range from the mundane (plate or brigandine) to the Numenera-exotic (living exoskeletons, synth armor from previous worlds, or even animate Bloom-flesh).
The whole interview is available here.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1598831
I finally watched the trailer on page 1 and many things were familiar such as the protagonist's deep voice, lots of text, and the art style but I wonder how much the character of Sigil will be missed. Here's hoping for the best.
https://torment.inxile-entertainment.com/backer-information/ast-faq
Updated Our Journal #57: Techland Partnership
tl;dr: The mystery publishing partner is Techland!Chris here for some important and exciting news. Last update we teased that we’re working with a new publisher on Torment. For those who have not yet seen the news that broke shortly after, we are pleased to inform you that we have partnered with Techland Publishing. You might know Techland as having developed some excellent games including Dying Light and Call of Juarez, but they have also done regional publishing and distribution on titles for many years now. With Torment, they are making the move to global publishing.
The partnership is something we are very excited about. Techland will be handling retail distribution, marketing the game, and physical backer rewards come release. This allows us to focus the vast majority of our resources on development of the game itself. They are an experienced team and are able to lend their expertise on a number of fronts, while we can spend more time working directly in the world of Torment.
Techland is offering a partnership with a full understanding of Torment’s legacy and goals as a narrative-driven RPG, and they want it to succeed as much as we do. As developers themselves, Techland has a great understanding of how important it is to stick to your vision, so we will be keeping full creative control over the game. We look forward to working with them to deliver a quality release we can all be proud of.
This isn’t the only component to our partnership, however. In addition to helping with the PC version of the game, we are pleased to announce that Techland is also lending its backing to bring Torment: Tides of Numenera to Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
For those of you who backed Torment and are wondering, “how does this affect the game?” the answer is rather simple, it doesn’t. Torment was developed from the ground up as a successor to the legacy of the original Planescape: Torment. Those of you who have played the beta will see that it is a rich, deep RPG full of involving quests, characters and a world full of detail.
You’ll also likely know that this isn’t our first rodeo when it comes to consoles. With Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut on Xbox and PS4, we proved that it was possible to bring all the depth of a PC style RPG to new audiences without sacrificing the tactical complexity and scope, and with Torment our approach is not changing. As developers, we’re pleased to bring the game to even more players, and with the success of WL2:DC critically, commercially and among our fans, it had long since been in our plans to do a console version of Torment.
Most importantly, you might be wondering if this affects our timeline for the game beyond what we’ve previously said. We have great news for you there: it will not! We talked about our production timeline in the last update, and how our plans to localize and polish the game meant we are looking at an early Q1 2017 release. When looking at our production timeline, it became clear that our art, design, and engineering resources were becoming available, giving us the opportunity to bring the game to consoles without affecting the PC version and overall timeline.
Torment at Gamescom
On a related note: next month at Gamescom, we will be presenting Torment on consoles with Techland from August 18th to the 21st. If you are able to visit the convention in Cologne Germany, you can find us in the entertainment area in Hall 10.1. We’re always happy to chat with fans and talk shop. Additionally, Brian will be holding a signing on August 19th, at 3 PM local time in Hall 10.1, booth B-073, so swing by if you can.
For those of you not attending, there will be many more Gamescom goodies to come, including interviews, screenshots and videos. We will be sure to showcase them in future updates and on our social media and news pages.
Torment: The Explorer’s Guide
We also have some news for fans of pen and paper gaming. When the Kickstarter began, we said we’d partner with Monte Cook Games to offer a Torment Sourcebook for the Numenera tabletop game. That has now come to fruition in the form of Torment: Tides of Numenera – The Explorer’s Guide by Shanna Germain.
The Torment Explorer’s Guide (for short) is a deluxe sourcebook containing background in Torment’s section of the Ninth World, including locations, items, characters and events from the game itself, as well as some that do not feature directly in the game but are part of the wider fiction and lore. Many of these were contributed to by our own designers and writers, and Monte Cook Games also expanded and fleshed them out for the tabletop.
The Torment Explorer’s Guide comes illustrated with artwork from the game and Monte Cook Games’ own artists. If you preorder the hardcover version for $40 USD and use your preorder code on the Monte Cook Games store before midnight on August 10, you will gain access to a free digital copy of the PDF, as well as several special extras.
Meanwhile, if you prefer the digital PDF version, it is available to new backers for $15 USD. (Those backers who pledged for the digital version at $12 previously during the campaign will still keep their early discounted price.)
To get your copy, just visit the Rewards -> Shop page on the Torment site and filter by “Monte Cook PnP”. You’ll see options for both the digital and hardcover Explorer’s Guide available. Once again, the preorder for the hardcover bonus is only available until midnight August 10, so get in now if you want to get the extras with it. Both versions will be available mid-August.
Brian Talks Development, Adam’s New Novella
If you follow our social media channels, you may have noticed we mentioned Brian Fargo was attending Reboot Develop in Croatia earlier this year. Reboot has now posted the full talk he gave on their YouTube channel for everyone to enjoy.
The audio quality is a little choppy in spots, but if you’d like to hear some of Brian’s insight about managing and embracing the chaos of game development and his role in “parenting” games, it’s definitely worth a watch.
Next, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Adam Heine’s new novella, Izanami’s Choice, which is published by Broken Eye Books. It’s a sci-fi story about a ronin who lives in Meiji Era Japan… and fights androids. The book will be released on September 1st, but you can pre-order it right now. More information on Izanami’s Choice and other stuff can also be found on Adam’s web site.
That’s all for this update. Thanks for checking in with us, and we’ll have more to share on how we’ve been polishing and iterating on Torment as we steadily get closer to release early next year!
Signing off,
Chris Keenan
Follow us: Twitter | Facebook
Source: kickstarter.com
Shiny new trailer is shiny!
"Hey guys, just to clear up some points that we may not have touched on enough in our Kickstarter update!
We've seen some comments suggesting that backer funds from the Kickstarter are going towards the console versions of the game. These are fair concerns but rest assured, not a single penny of that money went towards console development. On top of the Kickstarter funding, inXile has put in multiple millions of dollars towards development of the game for PC, Mac, and Linux. In addition, Techland is footing the bill for console development.
We said during the Kickstarter that we weren't going to compromise on the design and to this day, we haven't. It costs more money to do so, but we've designed multiple UIs and input modes for the game (one for mouse and keyboard and one for controller) so that there didn't have to be any concessions. Whichever platform you choose, we want you to have the best experience possible and will continue to strive to make that so."
-inXile entertainment
Also, some gameplay analisis -
by pcgamesn:
http://www.pcgamesn.com/torment-tides-of-numenera/torment-tides-of-numenera-kickstarter-gameplay
by mmorpg.com:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/1020/feature/11137/PAX-West-2016-The-Tide-is-Rising-with-this-CRPG.html
And and interview with Colin McComb by Gamereactor:
http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/453223/Torment+Tides+of+Numenera+is+colourful,+different+experience/
"tl;dr: Torment comes to Germany, Adam and Joby talk design
Hello Exiles,
Chris checking in. In our last update, we mentioned that we had partnered with Techland Publishing for Torment, and that our first major event would be showing the game at Gamescom 2016. After quite a few weeks of prep, it was go time. Brian, Colin, George, Thomas and myself all packed our bags up to visit Germany, and it was an incredible experience.
Techland did a fantastic job in setting up not one but two booths for us, and worked around the clock to provide support and assistance demoing the game. We even had professional cosplayers on hand! They are treating Torment like one of their own titles and know how important it is to get things right. We would not have been able to pull it off so successfully without them.
That was reflected in the reception for the game - from press and fans alike, the response was absolutely incredible and universally positive. We even got a few nominations and awards for best RPG and best of show! Here is a glimpse of some of our memories:
We'd like to thank everyone who came by to visit, whether that was stopping by the booth, covering the game as press, or showing up for an autograph with Brian. We could not make this game without the support of all of you and it is deeply gratifying and humbling to see people so passionate for Torment. It's been a long road but we are finally nearing the end.
Of course, for those who didn't get to attend Gamescom directly, there is still plenty of cool new footage and materials to check out. We sat down for multiple video interviews with Brian and Colin, and several articles have also appeared.
We'd also be remiss if we didn't mention PAX West. While it was a little more low-key, George Ziets and Colin McComb both attended over this last weekend. There were yet more interviews and demos during that time – including one with Alienware you may be interested in, as it features some excellent narration from Colin.
And there'll be more to come! For example, Colin will be at EGX in Birmingham to present a Developer Session on Torment.
Both Gamescom and PAX have been inspiring experiences, and we are energized and even more motivated to get the game polished up and ready for you early next year!
With the game content complete, getting more polished every day, and well on its way to completion, we also thought it was a great time to start talking about some of our content that comes just after the beta portion of the game that many of you have been enjoying. And, with release not too far away, it also seemed like a good moment to commemorate those backers who helped make the game possible. So without further ado, here's Adam to talk about the Valley of Dead Heroes, and more specifically, the Necropolis.
Designing the Necropolis
Adam here. A little while ago, George told you how we are incorporating backer NPCs into our game. I want to tell you how we're including the largest quantity of backer content: tombs and epitaphs.
First, let me take you back to our Kickstarter planning sessions. We knew from the start we wanted a reward where higher-tier backers could include their name in the game somewhere. In a game about legacy, set in a world built on the bones of forgotten civilizations, it made perfect sense for that reward to be a tomb. We designed a massive gravesite for these tombs, called the Valley of Dead Heroes. In this place would be hundreds of tombs, memorializing heroes of the past and naturally raising the question: "What does one life matter?"
Like our backer NPCs, we wanted the tomb content to feel like a natural part of the world. We also wanted to encourage players to actually read the tombs – not all of them, but some of them at least. And ideally different players would search through different ones. It was a challenge, but one we were confident we could make great... until the Kickstarter broke records, and we found ourselves with nearly four thousand tombs and epitaphs that needed to be in our game somewhere.
As we began designing areas, we did the math. We originally planned for two scenes that would contain most of the tombs: the Valley of Dead Heroes and "Valley Part Two" which would be placed in another zone of the game. But even if we made those scenes enormous, cramming in as many tombs as we could fit on-screen while still giving the player space to walk, it would only take care of half of the required number. We also considered sprinkling the other tombstones throughout the game, but that would still require far too many tombstones to be placed in every single scene in the game. So our algorithm master and all-around guru Joby Bednar had the very Numenera idea of a massive underground storage space, now used in the Ninth World as a burial ground.
The rooms in this space would be accessed by a control panel: the user enters a code and is taken to a room in which lie a subset of our tomb/epitaph markers. Mechanically, the room would be a single Unity scene, but with the props, lighting, effects, etc. swapped out based on the code the player enters. It would take a lot of custom scripting, but it gave us the flexibility to handle all the backers we needed to feature. It was the perfect solution, and with some design constraints outlined, thus was born the Necropolis…
News Bits
Eric here to round things out with just a couple of additional news bits for you before we sign off! First, an important word for our backers: the end of September will be your last chance to pledge for or upgrade to physical Torment rewards. This includes boxed copies, add-ons and anything requiring shipping. With release not too far off we need to start locking down our final reward counts, so if you had been waiting to pledge, now is your last shot to get backer physical goodies. And on a similar note - if you haven't yet claimed your rewards or updated your shipping address, now is definitely the time!
And last, Techland has produced a fantastic trailer for the game introducing the world of Numenera to players."
You can read more about the update here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1674434
A brand new trailer for the game:
Conversation UI update:
"One of the biggest concerns we saw in the beta was that the text scrolling needed to be improved. In earlier versions, text would always appear at the bottom of the interface, which could lead to a lot of extra scrolling or manually expanding the whole conversation screen to read it.
Our revamp for conversation text scrolling now has text appear at the top of the interface rather than appearing near the bottom, so you don't find yourself scrolling nearly as much. When we need to show lots of text all at once, we also added a "Show More" button and a little down arrow indicating that there is more below. Instead of manually scrolling when there's lots of words on screen, now you can just keep hitting the Enter key, Spacebar, or clicking the button, which means that you can focus more on the contents of the conversation rather than getting pulled out of the narrative.
That said, a text box isn't in and of itself the most interesting thing, and for Torment we wanted to do something a bit more special. So, we decided to include additional notifications, audio cues and special effects while you're in conversations in order to highlight key moments.
A great example of this is the new "Item Gained" prompt. All of our items in the game are hand-designed and often written with lots of detailed lore and story elements, and so we wanted it to make it feel like a great moment when you found something interesting. Since so many of these items are given out during conversations or scripted interactions, it made sense to devote a portion of the conversation interface to them."
Crisis and Combat Updates
"Additionally, our engineers have rebuilt our tooltips when you mouse over an ability. The system we have now is incredibly robust, showing detailed information which also automatically populates and formats itself based on some simple tags the designers can write. Even special statuses and fettles will auto-fill their effects, so that when designers start doing balance changes, they don't have to manually go in and change the text for everything affected. You'll also see how the action cost is also more clearly indicated, tying in with the changes I mentioned above. On the whole, these tooltips are just more readable, more accurate, and a bit prettier looking than what we previously had.
Expanding on our improved tooltips, we have also added a right-click popup window to every ability in the game which allows you to inspect their full details just like in the Infinity Engine RPGs, and each has more flavorful long-form descriptions we've penned for them for you to read:
You can read more about the update here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1699659
Between this game and Divinity 2, 2017 can't come soon enough.
Also, DSOGaming has published 17 new screenshots of TToN. They look really good.