Game News Torment: Tides of Numenera Released

[sstacks]

By the way if anyone gives half a rat's ballsack, I'm doing a TTON Let's Play series over in the Shane Plays LPs and Interviews thread.

I still have not forgiven you for pushing that Sword Coast Legends shit...

Still playin' it!

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Not got to the Greek ones yet?

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Looking forward to play this game in a few years after the fully patched director's cut came out.

 

[ArchAngel]

Looking forward to play this game in a few years after the fully patched director's cut came out.

I will repeat my mistake. I will play it now before major patches like I did PoE and then bash it for years to come while fanboys tell me that the XXYY version is completely different and better and that I can trust a word of a fanboy.

 

[supervoid]

There's no launch trailer

totally not late

 

[Lurker King]

Who is the companion wrote by MRY? Is she/he good?

 

[Infinitron]

Who is the companion wrote by MRY? Is she/he good?

MRY didn't write a companion. I believe he wrote some NPCs and CYOA sequences.

 

[sstacks]

Send 'em to the Greek!

 

[ArchAngel]

There's no launch trailer

totally not late

For some reason this trailer makes me hyped to play it today :D

 

[ozymandiusz]

I don't trust reviews anymore (especially greek one, nobody trusts greeks). Most of them were positive when it comes to dragon age inquisition.

 

[Suicidal]

Dafuq, didn't expect it to be released now (then again I wasn't really following the development). So is it any good? Was planning to D1P but I have way too many games to play right now. Should I give trustworthy merchant Fargo my shekels or am I better off waiting for the director/enhanced/game of the year/whateverthefuck edition?

Btw did the game have any pre-release news or hype at all?

 

[Aenra]

In the interest of fairness, i do think the first review must be MRY's. Even before the game launched, he was quick to point out flaw after flaw without ever shying away from highlighting the game's strong points; all in the most fair and objective possible manner.
If possible, after we ascend to tier 1 status again, we should also get Fargo to review MRY's next game. Transparency should be the Codex's motto i always say. Maybe from Thomas Knickers if Fargo is busy, we can compromise if need be.

 

[MRY]

I'm not sure I could write a review of the game. To begin with, despite promising Kevin Saunders some 18 months ago that "I can just stick my old 3D card in this computer and then I can run it," I never actually bothered so I measure seconds per frame rather than frames per second (slight exaggeration). Setting aside technical obstacles, though, I'm not sure I have time. And even given enough time, I would be pulled all over the place in terms of illegitimate influences: a desire to be modest, a desire to protect friends, a desire to seem objective, a desire to highlight my own contributions. Plus I know too much of the plot to be surprised by stuff. Looking at the reviews that are out, it seems the game has been pretty well received. I was a bit sad that the only review to discuss the Meres was the Greek one, which hated them, but that's the story of my life. I'll wait for the Steam ones that say nicer things.

In terms of my contributions:

Spoiler

- My single largest is Inifere, his Mere, and some quest-related NPCs and artifacts, though these latter two I mostly revised rather than wrote from scratch. While I think there are other throwaway things that are funny and clever, basically if Inifere doesn't deliver, then I didn't deliver. Since I see no mention of "inifere torment" in past 24 hours on Google, I think it's fair to assume I didn't deliver.

- I also did three of the tidal meres (Gold [the sick guy], blue [the "puzzle-breaker"], and indigo [the whale hunt]), and did a very quick editorial pass on the others, mostly focusing on the first two or three nodes of each. I think the blue is my favorite, though indigo is the most mechanically interesting.

- I wrote the Mere you get near Matkina, the Kholn Village one involving Tash. IMO, this is probably the least interesting of the Meres I worked on, but it was sort of the hardest for me because it is the most directly linked to the main plot. I also worked (loosely) off an exist design document for it. This Mere had proven a breaking point for other writers, so the fact I was able to get it done meant a lot to me (and I guess to the project).

- I did the Council Clerk in Sagus Cliffs. He's basically the only normal but complex (systematically) NPC that I did. I like how he came out. He's an homage to Jack Vance, although obviously I can't rise to Vance's standard. When I watched an LP, though, I realized that it's very easy to basically fly through his dialogue tree seeing none of the stuff that I worked so long on because a lot of it has to do with the various skill checks you can use to get the character to open in the first instance, and if you just use a bunch of edge to win the first roll, none of that comes through. Still, he has some stuff I like a lot, particularly I like the stories you can get him to tell.

- I did the three philethis (or is it one philethis three times?) you meet over the course of the game. Since philethis in Numenera are transparently inspired by Kosh from Babylon 5, I riff off Kosh (with a few specific references). I like this character but he's basically a gimmick of obscurity. Still, what I like is that if you actually know everything in the game, his obscure references aren't nonsensical, they're just beyond what the player can possibly get at the moment. (Setting aside his pretty on-the-nose hint about a quest.) The thing is, I had this idea about the torment at the heart of the philethis -- why they're asking all those questions -- that I really liked, and I think it might come through, though it might be buried behind the Koshness.

- I did three or four backer monoliths (Ouya, Notch, some Herbert guy). I like the snarkiness of these, though there's none in the Herbert one because he was basically just a good guy. I think they have some neat moments too. The Herbert one has the only express PS:T reference that I remember writing (though I'm sure a bazillion wormed their way in).

- I wrote a character called Loyhan Stohls who's a bit NPC late in the game. That's where the census joke I mentioned elsewhere is. I think he's pretty neat. He connects with the tidal meres. He's a very small character in terms of total nodes though.

- I wrote some miscellaneous text (death slides, item descriptions, merecaster interactions).

I might be forgetting something, but I think that's it.

Incidentally, in writing these characters, "torment" for me was the state of losing your coping mechanism for the inconsistency between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. It is the moment when you can no longer distract yourself from or deceive yourself about or reconcile yourself to the horror of existence. For example, it is not being asked to carry out some loathsome act for the greater good, but carrying out the loathsome act and then discovering there was no greater good or in any event, your act did nothing to advance it. It is realizing that in enduring you don't grow strong, you just get disfigured and beset by old wounds that will make you ache until you finally can't endure any longer. Inifere is probably the most extreme instance of this, but it was my guiding approach with all of them.

 

[Infinitron]

I think Aenra was trying to make a mocking statement about the Codex's journalistic credibility, MRY.

 

[commie]

Not got to the Greek ones yet?

Who gives a shit about a nation of beggars and moochers butthurt that the easy ride is over?

 

[MRY]

You underestimate the power of apologetically credulous sincerity to break the mighty. It was a great policy with Primordia. :D

[EDIT: Incidentally, I'm disappointed no one has used a "Tidal Bore" pun yet. It would be so perfect for a negative review going against the mainstream. Ah well.]

 

[alkeides 2.0]

From what I have seen so far, I really have no issue with the writing. I think it's better than Tyranny or PoE, but it might have to do with the setting too.

But the conbat, the little of it that I have seen, really just sucks. I am at the drone area, it is fucking slow and painful, and keeps crashing.

 

[J_C]

DAT GREEK REVIEW:

Any comparisons to the gorgeous dialogue exchanges of Torment or its sense of immersion in harsh, alien worlds are painfully in the favour of a game now 18 years old. In my 23 hours with Numenera (and that is including all possible side quests) I had the constant sensation of wandering between a super detailed encyclopaedia's pages which ultimately, told no story at all.

A bare bones character creation process with 90% of all skills presented, being completely and utterly, useless. The UI itself looks like it was designed by a Computer Science student on the eve of his thesis deadline, seeing double and being half-crazy with sleep deprivation.

The litany of terrors does not end here, as "Oddities" have been included as well. These are some "super weird" items that come into our possession in the course of our adventure and have the power to do, brace yourselves, absolutely nothing. You read that right. inXile's official excuse on this is that they "add colour and character to the game's world". My soul is broken inXile, I'm off to add cognac to my coffee and I'll be right back to continue writing this obituary.

When Assassin's Creed: Syndicate contains more meaningful character development than a game called Torment: Tides of Numenera, you know that you are in serious, very serious trouble.

When you consider that Pillars of Eternity, with significantly fewer funds at its budget delivered a gorgeous "audio-visual" combo, Numenera is naked and plain inexcusable.

The game's endings are strictly pre-defined and the choice is given to you via a horribly Mass Effect-esque finale sequence that will have purists frothing at the mouth at the sacrilege. We have an extremely linear, short game that may offer the illusion of three or four different choices when it comes to quest resolution but is actually taking us from point A to point B to point C with surgical precision. Compared to Torment, this is infantile.

The only good things I remember from this game are two very well-written side quests as well as the refreshingly well-conceived NPC character of Rhin, who is truly wasted in this irredeemable fiasco

Someone invite this guy to the Codex. This is some 11/10 outrage.

I have a feeling that half of this is pure bullshit. So yeah, this guy fits right in the Codex.

 

[MRY]

Top-seller on GOG and Steam. Is that normal for an RPG on release, or good sign?

 

[commie]

DAT GREEK REVIEW:

Any comparisons to the gorgeous dialogue exchanges of Torment or its sense of immersion in harsh, alien worlds are painfully in the favour of a game now 18 years old. In my 23 hours with Numenera (and that is including all possible side quests) I had the constant sensation of wandering between a super detailed encyclopaedia's pages which ultimately, told no story at all.

A bare bones character creation process with 90% of all skills presented, being completely and utterly, useless. The UI itself looks like it was designed by a Computer Science student on the eve of his thesis deadline, seeing double and being half-crazy with sleep deprivation.

The litany of terrors does not end here, as "Oddities" have been included as well. These are some "super weird" items that come into our possession in the course of our adventure and have the power to do, brace yourselves, absolutely nothing. You read that right. inXile's official excuse on this is that they "add colour and character to the game's world". My soul is broken inXile, I'm off to add cognac to my coffee and I'll be right back to continue writing this obituary.

When Assassin's Creed: Syndicate contains more meaningful character development than a game called Torment: Tides of Numenera, you know that you are in serious, very serious trouble.

When you consider that Pillars of Eternity, with significantly fewer funds at its budget delivered a gorgeous "audio-visual" combo, Numenera is naked and plain inexcusable.

The game's endings are strictly pre-defined and the choice is given to you via a horribly Mass Effect-esque finale sequence that will have purists frothing at the mouth at the sacrilege. We have an extremely linear, short game that may offer the illusion of three or four different choices when it comes to quest resolution but is actually taking us from point A to point B to point C with surgical precision. Compared to Torment, this is infantile.

The only good things I remember from this game are two very well-written side quests as well as the refreshingly well-conceived NPC character of Rhin, who is truly wasted in this irredeemable fiasco

Someone invite this guy to the Codex. This is some 11/10 outrage.

I have a feeling that half of this is pure bullshit. So yeah, this guy fits right in the Codex.

I didn't know Roxor was Greek.

 

[Infinitron]

Top-seller on GOG and Steam. Is that normal for an RPG on release, or good sign?

Normal for any minimally high profile release. The question is how long it stays there.

But you don't need this sort of voodoo anymore, just wait for Steamspy to get accurate numbers.

 

[Moink]

Top-seller on GOG and Steam. Is that normal for an RPG on release, or good sign?

Normal for any big game on release, Steam doesn't count total sales into the top sellers list, just puts whatever has sold the most in the past hour as top. So if I released my amazing game that totally exists and it sold 200 copies in 10 minutes, it would be up at the top next to a game that was selling slightly less per hour but in total had sold more over the past few hours.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

Don't tell me you're letting Darth Suxxor review this.

 

[Geisler]

From what I have seen so far, I really have no issue with the writing. I think it's better than Tyranny or PoE, but it might have to do with the setting too.

But the conbat, the little of it that I have seen, really just sucks. I am at the drone area, it is fucking slow and painful, and keeps crashing.

Decent writing, shit combat, just like PS:T then.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

This pretty decent youtuber doesn't really like it. 'Good but not great, specific set of problems and disappointments too big to overlook in every single department.' Arrr.