Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition FAQ
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,758
There's a very detailed list of Frequently Asked Questions on our site.
Check https://store.beamdog.com/planescape_faq for all the details of PST:EE.
Our team members are giving interviews to media, which you can read here:
https://www.pcgamesn.com//planescape-torment/planescape-torment-enhanced-edition-steam - Interview with Trent Oster
https://www.pcinvasion.com/planescape-torment-enhanced-edition-interview-qa - Interview with Alex Tomovic
http://blog.beamdog.com/2017/03/q-with-chris-avellone.html - Interview with Chris Avellone
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/an-interview-with-beamdog-about-linux-gaming-they-say-its-worth-it.9483 - Interview with Alex Tomovic, Scott Brooks and Alexei Pepers
https://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=407 - Interview with Phillip Daigle, Alex Tomovic, Scott Brooks
https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/17/beamdog-spells-out-its-biggest-hurdle-to-making-planescape-torment-enhanced-edition/ - Interview with Trent Oster
http://www.dragonmag.com/5.0/#!/article/114737/103426554 - Interview with Phillip Daigle
Check https://store.beamdog.com/planescape_faq for all the details of PST:EE.
Our team members are giving interviews to media, which you can read here:
https://www.pcgamesn.com//planescape-torment/planescape-torment-enhanced-edition-steam - Interview with Trent Oster
https://www.pcinvasion.com/planescape-torment-enhanced-edition-interview-qa - Interview with Alex Tomovic
http://blog.beamdog.com/2017/03/q-with-chris-avellone.html - Interview with Chris Avellone
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/an-interview-with-beamdog-about-linux-gaming-they-say-its-worth-it.9483 - Interview with Alex Tomovic, Scott Brooks and Alexei Pepers
https://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=407 - Interview with Phillip Daigle, Alex Tomovic, Scott Brooks
https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/17/beamdog-spells-out-its-biggest-hurdle-to-making-planescape-torment-enhanced-edition/ - Interview with Trent Oster
http://www.dragonmag.com/5.0/#!/article/114737/103426554 - Interview with Phillip Daigle
Post edited by JuliusBorisov on
12
Comments
- No new party members, quests, NPCs, areas or cinematic movies
- No new writing by anyone except Chris Avellone. In case you're wondering, Chris wrote a couple of new journal entries, adjusted a few special ability (i.e. Morte's Skull Mob) textual descriptions and composed the text that is displayed on the new "Welcome Screen". He also designed the Steam Achievements (wrote the text and specified the icon appearance) and named the new main menu buttons (i.e. Options = Alter Senses)
- No changes to existing writing except for a proofreading pass of the original game text by Chris Avellone (he asked to do this)
- No kits/classes/races/spells/items from BG2 or IWD
- No changes to the combat and general gameplay
- No "Story Mode" or "Heart of Fury" difficulty settings
- No multiplayer
Note that when we say "writing" we're referring to the text that the player can access within the gameworld i.e. by talking to NPCs, inspecting objects, spells, items and the journal. That doesn't include text that is accessed outside of the gameworld such as the technical descriptions which explain how new UI options like "Zoom Lock" or "Hardware Mouse Cursor" function. The descriptions of those options were written by the developers who worked on implementing them, not by Chris Avellone.Soundtrack.
We had access to the original, uncompressed versions of the music tracks which were then used for the remastering process.
Mark Morgan wasn't involved directly.
Outlines and sprites.
And for people asking about the black outlines and blurry sprites, here's a pixel perfect 1080p screenshot with most of the EE options turned off.
That should be the closest to the original game + widescreen mod.
Portraits.
We didn't have access to the source art for the original animated portraits and movies.
Without the source art, the only way to update the EE versions would be to re-create the movies and portraits from scratch and we felt that doing that would alter the feel of the original game too much.
Combat AI.
The combat and general gameplay of the original game were left unchanged for PST:EE.
Altering those within the base game (without making it optional) didn't feel right to us.
PST Fixpack.
For people asking about the integration of the PST Fixpack: we contacted Qwinn in the early development stages of PST:EE and obtained permission to use it. During development, the fixpack has undergone a thorough review by the PST:EE team and Chris Avellone was consulted whenever there was uncertainty. As a result, all objective bugfixes have been integrated into PST:EE.
Note that some of the more subjective fixpack changes have been deliberately left out for PST:EE because they contradicted the original (Black Isle) developer intent. This is not Qwinn's fault, as he didn't have access to the original PST design documents (which we do) nor to the PST source code (which we also have) so he had no way of knowing. As an example, PST:EE leaves out the fixpack change that gave enemies the ability to run towards the player while engaged in combat. The original design documents and the source code both confirm that enemies were deliberately prevented from running in that situation.
Unfinished Business.
We obtained permission to use the Unfinished Business mod, but decided not to after some internal discussions.
If/when the mod is updated for PST:EE people will still be able to install it, if they are so inclined.
Pathfinding
PST:EE uses the same pathfinding code as Siege of Dragonspear, with minor improvements on top of that.
That code is more advanced than what was used in the original Planescape Torment.
YES YES YES YES!
I Would say some things are very bugged some changes the way how you understand things like the morte mod.
Players they never played Planescape will many things not understand here.
My Question here is.
Were you able to Reimplement the EAX Sound Effects ? Its the only thing you cant Emulate on new Systems. (alchemy wont work)
I would be happy when you can do it in the modern sound way :-)
Which mods, or parts of mods, for PST are included in PST:EE?
Qwinn's PST Fixpack has undergone a thorough review by the PST:EE development team. With Qwinn's permission, we've integrated most of the content from that mod into PST:EE. Other changes were left out as some of them had been cut from the original game on purpose.
And an addition.
PST:EE is the canonical version of the game in terms of the content.
We've been working with Chris Avellone on it, and his stance is that some of the content that was cut from Planescape: Torment was cut for a reason, so we didn't want to include Unfinished Business since it wouldn't be the canonical version of the game.
It was Chris Avellone wish to not add any new content? Didn't he want add anything?
If you were concerned about losing the look of the original you could make it toggleable like they did in the monkey island remaster - you can swap between hires and classic.
Greater glabrezu is so hard to encounter.
I pre-ordered.
One thing though. It would have been fine to improve combat AI.
What is in the game is laid out nicely here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/63938/planescape-torment-enhanced-edition-announced-pre-orders-available/p1
and in the FAQ
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]
Steam? Gog? Android? IOS? All of the above?
EDIT: So, according to smeagolheart's link, we can get a steam copy here if we manually request one. I suppose the 'default' version we get is just a DRM-free download or something then? Store page could do with some clarification still.
Well, I did expect it. I did get a good chuckle out of the advertising of a Chris Avellone EDITING PASS, though. But in seriousness, while I'm personally disappointed in the lack of anything new, I think it was the right call for Beamdog due to the irrationality of the internet, so good luck, guys.
I'd like to quote @elminster from the beta forum:
"One thing in particular I like (beyond what has been mentioned here) is that the console now works for it (you still have to enable I think).
Players probably won't need to use the console (the original didn't have it) but for anyone who wants to get into modding PST it's pretty useful when it comes to moving between areas, spawning creature files, and for confirming whats wrong with your mod."
Just one question to the developers: will we see some original content as DLC? I really like your original content in all EEs and in SoD, so I would buy your P:T EE dlcs.
1. Warrior, Mage, Thief
2. I think it was D&D 1 with tons of customisation by Black Isle Studios. It definitely wasn't any true D&D system.