Planescape: Torment Successor Funded In 6 Hours 118
New submitter abuelos84 writes "Just a few hours after the Kickstarter project was opened to the public, Torment: Tides of Numenera, successor of the legendary Planescape:Torment, had been funded. In the dev's own words: 'Our heads are still spinning at the incredible response we have had from today's support of our Kickstarter campaign. We had plans to roll out our stretch goals and to write our Kickstarter updates but never in our wildest dreams did we think we would fund this quickly!!! We are joyfully scrambling right now to get a longer update and some stretch goals in front of you as soon as we can. We should have more to say later today.'"
Well no shit (Score:5, Insightful)
People are DESPERATE for a game with meat and depth like the old RPGs of yesteryear. There are too many games with more concerned with quicktime events and cinematics than there are with story and character development. The big publishers seem to think that fluff is enough, but a gamer cannot survive on fluff alone.
Good luck (Score:4, Insightful)
That seems a bit like crowd sourceing a successor to the Lord of the Rings.
Getting the money is easy, but getting a product out, after all the time and all the dispersed talent, that does not suck in comparison to the original, that is a challenge
Re:Well no shit (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there are plenty of games with meat on them. The Witcher series has been excellent from a story telling perspective ... Skyrim, while predictable had a deep backstory - even some of the MMO's out there have good story telling and deep back stories. I think they just get lost because the market is so flooded now a days...
With that said, Planescape: Torement has to be one of the most memorable games I've ever played. I still remember the Nameless One and Morte - and I haven't played it in ages...
Re:How I feel about this (Score:4, Insightful)
However, at the same time, science projects and other genuinely helpful for humanity research projects struggle with their Kickstarters
I wouldn't be surprised if they struggled with their Kickstarters, since Kickstarter is exclusively for creative projects:
Everything on Kickstarter must be a project. A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it.
If you want to fund something with a nebulous goal, with the aim of helping someone, you make a donation, you don't pledge to a kickstarter. In a sense, donation-driven organisations are the oldest form of crowd-funding.
Re:Good luck (Score:4, Insightful)
I have pretty much zero concern that Torment: Tides of Numenera will be anything less than awesome. They did a Kickstarter for Wasteland 2 before this and Inexile have been very transparent about the development of that game and the early game play video looks great.
What made Planescape:Torment one of the best games ever wasn't something that would ever show in a gameplay video. It was the story and character development that kept you desperate to keep uncovering more. I think that was the only game I've ever played where I went straight through from Friday night to 3 am Monday morning with nothing but bathroom breaks and a snack or two. Not even Fallout was that good. I think part of the reason was that the story was a very personal struggle, and really got you emotionally invested in the outcome, rather than the standard "time to go save the world" plot.
It sounds like they're trying to head that direction again, but the only way to tell will be to play through... Definitely hoping they can do it, though.
Re:Well no shit (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll take "dumbed down" over poor game mechanics any day of the week. Oblivion's leveling system punishes you for failing to micromanage your skill use properly, that's not good gameplay.
While I would have preferred something more along the lines of nGCD [nexusmods.com], I've found that Skyrim's perk-centric character system actually works pretty well to encourage specialization. I've made three characters so far and they all play completely differently.
Re:Well no shit (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I just bought 'Eschalon Book I' for Linux a few hours ago out of pure curiosity, very surprised I was at the quality of this RPG. I'm gonna buy Book II and Book III when it arrives, I'm just overjoyed that the old style RPGs are still being made by a small company that cares.
Tides of Numenera was pimping Linux support also, so that's a good thing, thumbs up.
Re:Good luck (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, when I tell people to play it, I'm always a little stumped when they ask what makes the gameplay so good... frankly it isn't: it has a lot of bugs, the graphics are less than impressive, the controls are far from ideal, the magic system borders on useless, the combat is unchallenging, and NONE OF THAT MATTERS AT ALL.
The point of Torment isn't any of those things, the point of Torment is the chill that runs down your spine during conversations with Ignuus, the point of Torment is feeling you heart race as the Lady's shadow falls over you, the point of Torment is the soul crushing revelation of What Can Change The Nature Of A Man. None of those things make any sense in a 30 second demo, or even in a 30 minute demo.
Re:Well no shit (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree with your characterization; I have been playing CRPGs since the 1980's and some of the best ones I've played have been relatively recent. Fallout 3 (ok, not SUPER recent) and Mass Effect for example. In fact, when I compile my list of the best CRPGs made they are spread widely through that time period. I think why people want a Planescape:Torment-style game was because Planescape:Torment was quite simply the best computer/video game ever made, not because it was representative of a larger group of games. It was a unique achievement.
The fact that Chris Avellone isn't involved and that it can't use the Planescape universe does not fill me with undue optimism, but I do trust Brian Fargo (I consider the original Wasteland in my Top 5 of All Time as well) and I will definitely try the game.