Any chance of us seeing a Planescape Torment upgrade?
Surat01
Member Posts: 11
I'd love to see an update to this game with some of the quests that weren't finished wrapped up and maybe some new items like say... armor for the main character. :P
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Comments
Enhanced gameplay? Yes
Enhanced graphics? Yes
Enhanced UI? Yes
Additional items? Yes
Quests? No
NPC's? No
Anything dialogue related? No
No offense to Beamdog, but I feel any characters/ sidequests wouldn't have any positive effect (but then, I'm biased. The only new party member in BG: EE I liked was Rasaad. The others were far too over the top for my liking and distracted from the story. Give how wonderful the story is in PS:T, I'd rather not have it ruined by childish humour. Sorry if that sounds mean in any way).
Also, I didn't feel like the humor in the EEs so far was childish. I liked the new content.
There is no way they can keep up the high quality writing of Planescape Torment. While i truly enjoy BGEE and i'm very happy to play it, they did fail on the dialogue, quest and NPC part.
The original Baldur's Gate was much better written than anything in BGEE.
Planescape Torment is leagues ahead of Baldur's Gate when it comes to writing.
So if they can't keep up with the original writing of Baldur's Gate, they have a snowballs chance in hell to even come close to the writing that is Planescape Torment.
I support beamdog and will gladly pay for their games, but after having seen BGEE and their writing, they should stay away from that and focus on the gameplay and graphic part of the game.
Also, what don't you like about Beamdog's writing? And what is it about the writing in Planescape Torment that makes you put it on a pedestal? The story of PST is absolutely incredible when you look at it as a whole, but when you just look at a specific chunk of text in the game, it's well written but it doesn't seem like something that requires unimaginable skill to write.
I guess given the game is 15 years old, they *could* make changes to it but as you say - there's not a lot of combat involved. And if you get a few addons for widescreen etc, I doubt you'd need much else. Well, at least I wouldn't.
Characters...the thing is, most characters you run into in PS:T have some past connection with TNO. Not all, but a lot, and that in turns offers depth and context. You could develop characters who knew him, but it might come off as - for example - Hexxat working for L. One problem I had with this is the characters Beamdog had were...shall I say, slightly larger than life? I feel it would be distracting, especially if they were imposing brand new companions. They could introduce new characters, but to what purpose? There's Annah for that, who found your body. There's Grace, who is fascinated by your condition. To fit in with the context of the story, it would be plausible to have a concrete reason for a new character to appear, as well as having a "torment" of their own (to keep in the narrative of the story).
Unfortunately, I just don't think Beamdog is there. They were subtle with Rasaad but they thus far have made very "loud" characters. It's all very well having vampiresses with mysterious paths or blackguards with quests of vengence in Baldur's Gate. But in "Torment" I feel they would only make characters who overshadowed TNO's story, if that makes sense. This might not be true, and I'm fine with being proven wrong. But as a kneejerk reaction and again, not that I'm not thankful for their efforts, but I don't think they could pull of characters who wouldn't prove distracting.
Beamdog's writing...I'm tired, but one example I can think of is where you meet Haxxat the first time. The part where she says it's nice to meet you, and you reply with "don't you mean 'eat?". Yeah, things like that. It's personally cringe-worthy for me, and most of the responses from the new content I just didn't find amusing personally. I don't like the writing in general as you can see the difference between the old and new content. Not to say I didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't really to my taste.
Planescape's writing paints a picture. Within 3-4 sentences you get a very clear snapshot of a character's appearance, personality as well as a whole set of imagery to amaze or disgust you. It's skilled writing that one would see in a novel. Just click any random npc and you get a usually wonderful mental picture of them, which I love personally. Granted, yes, it's just text that isn't attached to the main plot, but it helps paint a landscape of the people and the strange city you woke up in. I put it on a pedestal as it's immersive, and its what has made me replay the game countless of times. It's my favourite game ever, essentially.
Anyway, in short I'm not trying to bash Beamdog. I appreciate their efforts, and I think they made Baldur's Gate even better by injecting new life, characters and fixes into it. But I do maintain I find their writing somewhat childish and trying to make a joke of everything, and their characters could have been handled better. But we'll see, I was just saying I don't really see the need of giving PS:T an enhanced edition. If one came out, I'd buy it regardless.
It's like saying that other people can write in the same style as Shakespear, doesn't mean that they can keep the same quality that he does.
And i'm not saying that it would be impossible for them to write decent NPC's and dialogues. But from what I've seen in BGEE i wasn't impressed at all, then add Hexxat in BG2EE and i lost faith in them when it came to that part. Then again they are doing great at many other things (gameplay, interface, graphics) and you can't be good at everything.
I hope they don't introduce any NPCs or make any additional quests. Indifference about everything else.
The story is what made Planescape Torment one of a kind, when it came to gameplay it was bland and boring.
I believe that to some degree the discomfort with the new EE-content actually could come from this and not it's quality. Especially if it's as intrusive as the Neera stuff.
Still, with a medium that ages as fast as computer games it is necessary to keep them technically up to date and Planescape certainly deserves that.
2.Close combat being king is the nature of early game AD&D. How is this different than early game BG1? That's just how low level D&D works. Physical combat is better than direct damage spells because spells were mostly for utility and crowd control. However, there are a few spells in the game that did decent amount of damage (like FFG's call lighting spell)
As a guy that played both games for years, I can confirm that combat was nearly the same in both games. On the other hand, what you should be complaining about is the "encounter design." That's probably why most don't like the PS:T combat.
Planescape ought to be cleaned up someday... the interface was harsh, and not as intuitive as BG was. Just don't be a hack restoration expert that draws a mustache on the Mona Lisa!
I do see your point, but BG1 had a deficit of interaction, made much more glaring by the diamond rarity of those moments when an NPC says or does something other than joining the party, or threatening to leave. Maybe I am unique?
Close combat is king through the ENTIRE game, from the moment you're in the mausoleum to the point where you're fighting the last boss, melee is much more powerful than anything else. There is no early game AD&D here, there is melee combat first place and everything else is half the efficiency.
I've played both of the games to death and i can tell you that combat in Planescape Torment might look the same to most, but it's something completely different. It's like they started out with Planescape Torment and then upgraded it for Baldur's Gate, not the other way around. Just because they use the same system, doesn't mean combat is the same.
But to me I would like Beamdog to finish their work on the IWD franchize by releasing IWD2EE and then start working on something new. The game we haven't played yet. To be able to taste something new.
If they start working on PSTEE it will mean any new game by them will be postponed.
IWD3 sounds very appealing and I would like to see it in 3-4 years rather than 5-6 years from now.
Of course, everyone writes IWD for Icewind Dale when I guess it should be ID. Three letters are better than two!
And, I'd also like to see an EE of PS:T