Torment: Tides of Numenera *Kickstarter $4 million Achieved!

[ImpulsE69]

Did you, by chance, back Bards Tale IV too? Lots of critical comments on the bits we've been shown there too. I think some people just don't like InXile or their success. Maybe Brian Fargo stole their girlfriends or something.....

No, never really got into Bards Tale.

 

[Worthington]

For those that backed or pre-ordered... it's live. Gogogogo

 

[SMOGZINN]

This will be the bomb...but 2014...damn that's a long way till awesomeness.

Remember that time you thought 1.5 years was a long wait for a game?

 

[you2]

Any good ?

 

[Mem]

Any good ?

I'll let you know soon, since my retail pre-order is out for delivery for either today or tomorrow hopefully.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Any good ?

Don't know. I've been anticipating this game for years and now I'm too busy to play it.

 

[Dahak]

For those that backed or pre-ordered... it's live. Gogogogo

Thanks for the reminder, I actually had backed this but forgot all about it. saved some money

 

[Worthington]

I haven't gotten to play it much yet but from the bit I've seen it's damn well done. Char creation could be a little better but after that it's definitely engrossing.

 

[ImpulsE69]

The reviews are a bit disturbing. Did they really cut so much content? People are making it sound like a ton got cut out and were never told until last month, and think they used most of the money to get console ports done. Going so far as to say the only reason for the combat change was so that it would translate to consoles better.

I backed it, but I didn't really keep up on what was going on with it.

 

[SMOGZINN]

The reviews are a bit disturbing. Did they really cut so much content? People are making it sound like a ton got cut out and were never told until last month, and think they used most of the money to get console ports done. Going so far as to say the only reason for the combat change was so that it would translate to consoles better.

I backed it, but I didn't really keep up on what was going on with it.

In the original KS campaign they kept adding on stretch goals like 3 extra companions, a second hub city, and stated that the game was being developed for PC, Mac, and Linux, and now we get a game with out any of those things but is a Xbox One and PS4 release. I know that development is not so straight forward that you can directly equate Xbox support with less content, but their lack of communication has given an impression of dishonesty.

 

[ArenCordial]

Yeah it seems like they cut 3 companions, a major city in the Oasis of something something, crafting, and an entire localization. Sorry Italians. The legacy system seems like it might have been cut as well or at least I've not really encountered it yet. There might be more that I can't remember.

This bad for two reasons. First is the nature of crowdfunding which very much give us x money and we will give you y features. Working with a crowd is a very different beast than a publisher. Cutting those stretch goals looks bad and makes your backers question why even have them considering you got the additional funds so essentially stretch goals are just bs marketing.

Second and imo what's worse is they didn't disclose these cuts until shortly before launch and only after data miners discovered it. To cut content is one thing, it's just a part of game development at times, but to do so only when some of your backers figure it out and confront you on it is inexcusable. One of the whole supposed benefits of crowdfunding is increased transparency and those cuts should have been disclosed as soon as the decision was made. Course InXile wouldn't have wanted to do that since that could affect the funding of Wasteland 3 and maybe Bards Tale 4.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I'll make a final decision once I've played the game, but from the sounds of it, I am done with crowdfunding. I've already been burned once before .

 

[Stg-Flame]

My buddy is pretty upset right now since he was one of the $500 backers. The summarized version of his rant is they supposedly said there would be all this extra content added into the game and somewhere near the end of the development, they just said "**** it" and cut all the stretch goal content, even though they had been extremely vocal about adding in extra stuff since they hit their goal so quickly. I never got around to playing the original games, but I can sympathize with backing a game only to watch as the developers piss away all the content they spoke about (looking at you Starbound).

 

[rivethead]

I did not back Torment, but I did back InXile's next game: Bard's Tale IV. Many BTIV backers are really upset too. One of the backer rewards was supposed to be Bards Tales I, II, and III remastered to play on modern PCs without an emulator. InXile hired Old Skuul to do this remastering (the owner of Old Skuul is the wrote all the source code for the original BT games). But it looks like Old Skuul and InXile are now in some type of dispute and the remasters aren't going to be finished. While InXile was very careful not to promise this reward (they worded things very carefully), it just looks bad. On top of that, last week InXile announced they are co-producing a VR game called A Mage's Tale. It will use some of the same assets and is set in the same universe as A Bards Tale IV. But I have to wonder (and others are too) if A Mage's Tale is really gonna be beneficial to BTIV (InXile says development assets from A Mage's Tale will benefit BTIV) or is it the new focus for InXile (Brian Fargo is clearly enamored with VR).

Bottom line: InXile is not in a good spot right now in the eyes of many.

 

[Borealis7]

i just started playing Tyranny, so this would come next. i come with no expectations, so i can't be disappointed, right?

also, knowing the developers, it would be best to wait for patches to come out, or a new edition of the game.

 

[zinfamous]

This is why you don't crowdfund, folks: Let the devs do their work and assume the actual risk. You know, like it's supposed to be done.

Unless you can sue these groups to get all of your pledge money back from failed goals, then this will only ever be a scam practice. People need to stop supporting this nonsense entirely.

 

[Craig234]

This is why you don't crowdfund, folks: Let the devs do their work and assume the actual risk. You know, like it's supposed to be done.

Unless you can sue these groups to get all of your pledge money back from failed goals, then this will only ever be a scam practice. People need to stop supporting this nonsense entirely.

That's wrong, though. It's like looking at a police officer who does wrong and saying 'this is why you don't have police'. It ignores the good that comes from crowdfunding.

It's not perfect, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of good coming from it also.

 

[sweenish]

This is why you don't crowdfund, folks: Let the devs do their work and assume the actual risk. You know, like it's supposed to be done.

That's still wrong. Publishers or real investors assume the risk.

Kickstarter is an interesting platform, in that it allows people to secure funding they may not have acquired otherwise, but in doing so they are also able to sidestep the responsibility that comes with traditional investments. There isn't enough accountability on Kickstarter, and that's my biggest problem with it.

 

[zinfamous]

That's wrong, though. It's like looking at a police officer who does wrong and saying 'this is why you don't have police'. It ignores the good that comes from crowdfunding.

It's not perfect, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of good coming from it also.

I'm talking about video games. I'm not talking about support for causes that are relevant or actually need charity. Don't confuse the legit use of crowdfunding for jackasses that just want a free ride for building material that the market no longer wants, while shuffling all of the risk away from themselves. Yeah, I'd like "better" games to be made, but this isn't the way.

I honestly have ZERO sympathy for those that lose $$$$$ over "disappointing" experiences with crowdfunding the whims of developers.

 

[Craig234]

I'm talking about video games. I'm not talking about support for causes that are relevant or actually need charity. Don't confuse the legit use of crowdfunding for jackasses that just want a free ride for building material that the market no longer wants, while shuffling all of the risk away from themselves. Yeah, I'd like "better" games to be made, but this isn't the way.

I honestly have ZERO sympathy for those that lose $$$$$ over "disappointing" experiences with crowdfunding the whims of developers.

You are talking about video games. That's what an analogy is - it has a difference to make a point.

If you're saying there are good and bad devs, ok. If you're condemning all crowdfunded games, I disagree. There can be benefits to the game by crowdfunding.

 

[you2]

I disagree with a lot; personally I think xile is a good developer and very honest. Yes a lot of kickstarters over promise (Larian cut a lot of content from D:OS-1 for example); but xile makes a solid attempt to provide a solid product and they support the product well after release (like wasteland 2 director cut). If torment does well and they can afford to add in more content they will and it will likely be free to backers. While content was cut and can be found in the data files it is not polished hence it was cut.
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as for bards tale remake 1,2, 3 it isn't dead and they have been forth coming in describing the current issue.
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As for torment as a good game - i haven't played yet so no personal comments but as a backer I am not upset with the 'cut content'.

 

[StinkyPinky]

As far as I know, Larian only cut the day/night cycle from Original Sin. They were quite upfront about it also. Sent a couple of emails explaining why, apologised etc. Compared to inexile who have been somewhat deceitful and not very upfront about it.

The cut content from this game is huge. They're basically gutted it and barely implemented stretch goals. And yet they added more than *two* years to the development time. I'm not saying it's a poor game but it should have been better considering the time and promises made. Put it this way, it compares very poorly to Pillars of Eternity which had a similar budget.

 

[Borealis7]

so just wait for "Torment: Director's Cut" to get all those stretch goals as a free upgrade to original game purchasers.

 

[you2]

Larian cut substantial content that was promised as stretch goals. night day schedule was relatively minor compare to everything else cut.

 

[Mopetar]

I didn't back the game, or follow the Kickstarter much at all, but finally got some free time and bought the game on Steam.

So far I'm really enjoying it, but I don't know how far I actually am into the game, so I can't give much more than a first impression.

The game is very much in the style of Planescape: Torment in that its very narrative focused and revolves around understanding your characters history. You can almost always avoid combat and so far I don't think any part of the main story has required any combat at all. I haven't experienced a lot of combat, but the combat system doesn't feel good at all (the one major fight seemed to drag on forever), so I almost feel as though it's better to play a character that's more focused on dialog than fighting. It's got a turn-bases system that really needed a fixed grid, because the current style falls incredibly flat and feels like more of a chore.

The writing is reasonably good and the world so far is interesting. It seems as though there are typically more than a few ways to solve most problems. The game system is somewhat unique, and typically doesn't punish failing skill checks too seriously. However, the character build I've been using might make the system somewhat trivial as it seems as though if you aren't combat-focused as a character, it's pretty easy to be good at most skills to the point where you'll never fail if you don't want to. Even if you fail in a way that should kill you, death works in such a way that it's not a permanent problem.

Unless you're a serious fan of the genre, you can probably wait until it goes on sale. I'll try to update once I get through the entire game, but that may take a while since I tend to go through a lot of the optional dialogue in trees and explore a fair bit.