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toblix

Torment: Tides of Numenera

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I'm mad this thing got two million dollars in two days and Wildman couldn't get half its funding in one month.

 

Well I'm not actually mad I just wish people were more open to things that weren't giant nostalgia bombs. Not that I have anything against nostalgia bombs; I've backed quite a few of them myself. But goddamnit.

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I'm mad this thing got two million dollars in two days and Wildman couldn't get half its funding in one month.

 

Well I'm not actually mad I just wish people were more open to things that weren't giant nostalgia bombs. Not that I have anything against nostalgia bombs; I've backed quite a few of them myself. But goddamnit.

 

That was pretty much Chris Taylor's criticism of Kickstarter in a nutshell. A lot of people thought it was sour grapes, but I'm becoming more inclined to believe he hit the nail on the head. It's weird to me that people with drop $100 or more on experimental hardware like the Occulus Rift or the Ouya, but seem to turn their nose up at funding a game for $15-$30 if it's not a retread of an earlier game.

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That was pretty much Chris Taylor's criticism of Kickstarter in a nutshell. A lot of people thought it was sour grapes, but I'm becoming more inclined to believe he hit the nail on the head. It's weird to me that people with drop $100 or more on experimental hardware like the Occulus Rift or the Ouya, but seem to turn their nose up at funding a game for $15-$30 if it's not a retread of an earlier game.

I partially agree. It's much harder for new games to get funding but there's still stuff like FTL, Sportsfriends, and Kentucky Route Zero that managed to get funding, even if it wasn't in the millions. But it makes sense, people are more likely to fund something that is likely to be good and it's harder to predict that when it's something new or an unknown developer.

That said, I think Wildman mostly failed because it wasn't that great of a pitch and Taylor announced a couple of days in the kickstarter that he had to lay the team off and he could only hire them back if the kickstarter was successful.

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I listened to the 3MA interview and Wildman just sounded weird, and not in any way that was interesting. After listening to the guy talk for an hour, he seems like a nice guy and his heart's certainly in it, but I never understood why I should have wanted to play that game.

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I like to think Wildman failed because it looked too much like a power fantasy for teenagers. That kind of content may work with publishers, but it turns out people who are passionate enough about games to pay for them sight-unseen may not be as into violence and competition as you may think!

 

Torment's pitch video cracked me up. "Months? For writing?!"

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The thing about Wildman is that the pitch wasn't good. It looked and felt rushed.

 

The great thing about kickstarter is that it vetts ideas, which it isn't perfect as, but ideally a bad idea shouldn't get funded. Wildman wasn't a good enough idea to get funded.

 

A follow up of Torment seems like a good idea and presented a good pitch. I'm sure there is a science to these kickstarter videos, that add up to pitch, idea, and developers history/attitude. Seems like Fargo has that mostly figured out; it'll be interesting to see if he can do it again in the future with a new IP.

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You guys do make good points about the quality of the Wildman pitch vs. other Kickstarters. I've played so many Chris Taylor games that what I saw there instantly clicked and made sense to me, but going back and watching that first video again, it seems like they weren't as clear on their design goals as they could have been. They were obviously up against a wall financially as well; that didn't help the situation. Anyway, enough derailing on Wildman.

 

I don't know that I'm going to pitch in on this Kickstarter, but I'm glad to see them get funding. I backed Wasteland on impulse, but epic-length RPGs aren't really in my wheel house. If I had to do it over again, I would have taken my Wasteland money and backed FTL or something else instead. 

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The thing about Wildman is that the pitch wasn't good. It looked and felt rushed.

With the first video, sure. But every subsequent update revealed more and more of the ideas driving it and showed more and more real, actual stuff. Barring the initial hiccup (and the atrociously-timed layoffs, man that was awful), I believe the Wildman Kickstarter was doing it RIGHT. Every update got me more and more hyped.

 

But okay, temporarily ignoring Wildman, how about the more recent Death, Inc? They had a good start, and it looked pretty far along, looked like it could be a lot of fun, etc. I mean, I could list a ton of examples.

 

The great thing about kickstarter is that it vetts ideas, which it isn't perfect as, but ideally a bad idea shouldn't get funded. Wildman wasn't a good enough idea to get funded.

Sure, Kickstarter is great, but it's definitely absolutely 100% true that nostalgia is an almost-universal key element to getting way more money than you ever dreamed. Also, I feel like Wildman WAS a good enough idea, it just wasn't, you know. Nostalgic. It was too new. Had it been branded Dungeon Siege: A Sequel with a Twist (which he didn't have the rights to, obviously), I'm willing to bet it would've at least reached its funding. Probably wouldn't have been a Torment - Dungeon Siege has never had that kind of fly - but man.

 

Like I said... I just wish people were more open to NEW SHIT. I've looked at the top funded Kickstarter video game projects more than once, trying to convince myself that maybe there is some hope, but no, nostalgia is easily the number one common factor.

 

If there are two legitimate criticisms about the Wildman pitch, it's that:

1) He was shooting too big. I feel like the project could've been scaled back to a much smaller idea, and then built on from there in the future, if the base game proved successful, and

2) Unfortunately, he was betting the success of his company on the success of the Kickstarter. That was a foolish thing to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sorry for derailing i'll shut up now yay torment boo the majority of kickstarter backers U:

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As I understand it, Monte Cook is responsible for the "ivory tower" design school that made D&D 3.x such a divisive product. That is to say, many of the mechanics and systems he helped create for the new edition were intentionally obscure, obtuse, or nonsensical to prevent exploitation by advanced players, even though it made the game unplayable to newbies. Some people, especially on gaming forums like /tg/, think of his designs as fundamentally wrongheaded and have no faith in his abilities anymore. I guess Tibbles is one of them?

 

A lot of his work also laid the foundation for the decades of caster supremacy that many people think ruined D&D.

 

My understanding is that he later went on to regret not more clearly communicating to players that real essential utility of some feats and abilities. I think that's what his whole "ivory tower design" rant was all about. I do recall that in 3.x it was quite possible to create a rather worthless character.

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Monte Cook will definitely be on board as the setting of Torment will be based upon his Kickstarted project that helped design this new torment world in the first place : http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1433901524/numenera-a-new-roleplaying-game-from-monte-cook?ref=live

 

If you can make that many people make a pledge to your not yet imagined world, I suppose you can also make a game around it. So I pledged. 

 

Wildman had an image problem. I was something 'in between', and not really something that blew you away. Chris Taylor disappointed me in this although I will forever be a great admirer of his TA series.

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I mean I'm no pen and paper RPG aficionado or anything but the criticism about Monte Cook's game designs that I recall where the he designed dense systems that required lots of dice rolling (which is a non issue for video games), that he pretty openly just implements the D20 system in everything he does (which doesn't really surprise me, I believe he helped design the base D20 system during the D&D 3.0 design?), and that his systems are rule heavy and can create situations where the power range of characters at a given level is tremendous (ranging from unplayable to almost absurdly powered) depending on the amount of care put into the build. 

 

I don't think any of those criticisms outside of the last one really worry about a game system. They have the engine to take care of all their rolling and stat checking and etc. 

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I'm trying to cut down on my negativity in the wake of the whole Feminist Frequency business, but indulge me for just one second. They just announced the new stretch goals, up to $3.25 million, and the crown jewel is Patrick Rothfuss as a writer on staff.

 

The prospect of this makes me want to unfund the game. I've read the first two books of the Kingkiller Chronicles (mind you, the only work of his that's been published) and found them some of the worst "good" fantasy I've ever had the questionable pleasure of finishing. Sure, his craft on a sentence-by-sentence basis is incredibly deft and polished, but the books as a whole totally fall apart. His characters have no interiority, existing only to flatter various aspects of the self-insert protagonist, who is shallow and petty and loved by all good people, with the plot likewise a series of improbable events that highlights the exceptional worth of said self-insert protagonist. It reads like fan fiction -- exceptionally competent and savvy fan fiction, but fan fiction nonetheless, written to show off a badass character concept.

 

I don't know, I'm sure plenty of people here love Name of the Wind, for perfectly good reasons, but I don't think Rothfuss is a particularly good author and have no idea where he belongs in a team of writers on a game. Maybe they'll keep him from his more egregious indulgences. I certainly hope so.

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I like P Rot more than probably any other modern fantasy author, though I personally wouldn't care for him working on this, and if he did it wouldn't make me want to play it more.

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I like P Rot more than probably any other modern fantasy author, though I personally wouldn't care for him working on this, and if he did it wouldn't make me want to play it more.

 

Yeah, I guess that's more to my point. I can't think of any fantasy author, even ones that I feel would be better suited to the Torment universe like R. Scott Bakker or Joe Abercrombie, to whom I would credit the power to improve upon a video game's writing in any appreciable way.

 

I mean, you'd be seeing the polar opposite tone in my post above if it were R. Scott Bakker being brought onboard, but I'm not sure it'd change my feelings, just the way I'd express them.

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I'm trying to cut down on my negativity in the wake of the whole Feminist Frequency business, but indulge me for just one second. They just announced the new stretch goals, up to $3.25 million, and the crown jewel is Patrick Rothfuss as a writer on staff.

 

The prospect of this makes me want to unfund the game. I've read the first two books of the Kingkiller Chronicles (mind you, the only work of his that's been published) and found them some of the worst "good" fantasy I've ever had the questionable pleasure of finishing. Sure, his craft on a sentence-by-sentence basis is incredibly deft and polished, but the books as a whole totally fall apart. His characters have no interiority, existing only to flatter various aspects of the self-insert protagonist, who is shallow and petty and loved by all good people, with the plot likewise a series of improbable events that highlights the exceptional worth of said self-insert protagonist. It reads like fan fiction -- exceptionally competent and savvy fan fiction, but fan fiction nonetheless, written to show off a badass character concept.

 

I don't know, I'm sure plenty of people here love Name of the Wind, for perfectly good reasons, but I don't think Rothfuss is a particularly good author and have no idea where he belongs in a team of writers on a game. Maybe they'll keep him from his more egregious indulgences. I certainly hope so.

I'm 60% sure you're right and 40% sure that the third book is just going to be all about what you refer to as the "self-insert protagonist, who is shallow and petty and loved by all good people" fucking everything up in the most horrific way imaginable, turning him into a monster and then, eventually, a sad, worthless, broken man. In one sense Rothfuss hasn't set that up very well at all - Kvothe does come off as the most insufferably ridiculous Mary Sue to ever exist. But on the other hand, there are three things that make it seem like book 3 will turn it around. First, it's pretty explicit that something bad happened, so it's not like the series can continue to be Kvothe the Amazing Fighter of Evil and Lover of Women Except for One Woman Who He Really Just Creepily Longs for and Puts on a Pedestal Because He is a Fucking Creep - eventually Kvothe fucks up. Second, the entire story so far is Kvothe narrating everything, so it could just be one big "this guy is making himself sounds way better" (and, simultaneously, way worse, because the ego oh my god) than he actually is. This is his chance to set down his legend for the rest of history so he's just pulling out all the fucking stops and using the only real expertise he has (as a masterful storyteller) to make himself out to be the fucking Ubermensch when in reality he's just an asshole.

Third (spoiler):

He talked to the evil tree! The tree that exists for no purpose other than to literally ruin in the worst way possible anyone who talks to it. So if that doesn't mean book 3 is Kvothe getting the shit pounded of him literally and figuratively until it's clear that anyone with half a brain should think he's a piece of shit, then I don't know what does.

So yes, I hold out hope.

As for writing for this game, Rothfuss writes extremely evocative text, his dialog is not at all bad, and he has a great imagination and a feel for narrative. I have no problem with him contributing to the game and I imagine between editors and the limited nature of his involvement it will be all the better for it. The possibility of his joining the team has made me more likely to fund rather than less, regardless of whether his Epic Fantasy Trilogy turns out to be a horrific paean to how awesome Imaginary Patrick Rothf- er, sorry, Kvothe is.

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Yeah, I guess that's more to my point. I can't think of any fantasy author, even ones that I feel would be better suited to the Torment universe like R. Scott Bakker or Joe Abercrombie, to whom I would credit the power to improve upon a video game's writing in any appreciable way.

 

I mean, you'd be seeing the polar opposite tone in my post above if it were R. Scott Bakker being brought onboard, but I'm not sure it'd change my feelings, just the way I'd express them.

I basically hate Bakker and Rothfuss, but given that the Numenera setting is supposedly inspired by Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe I can understand why they want to involve active fantasy writers. 

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I'm 60% sure you're right and 40% sure that the third book is just going to be all about what you refer to as the "self-insert protagonist, who is shallow and petty and loved by all good people" fucking everything up in the most horrific way imaginable, turning him into a monster and then, eventually, a sad, worthless, broken man. In one sense Rothfuss hasn't set that up very well at all - Kvothe does come off as the most insufferably ridiculous Mary Sue to ever exist. But on the other hand, there are three things that make it seem like book 3 will turn it around.

 

....

As for writing for this game, Rothfuss writes extremely evocative text, his dialog is not at all bad, and he has a great imagination and a feel for narrative. I have no problem with him contributing to the game and I imagine between editors and the limited nature of his involvement it will be all the better for it. The possibility of his joining the team has made me more likely to fund rather than less, regardless of whether his Epic Fantasy Trilogy turns out to be a horrific paean to how awesome Imaginary Patrick Rothf- er, sorry, Kvothe is.

Interesting thoughts, but I'd say that doing a multi-volume unreliable narrator double-cross is a pretty bad concept. There's just no way that any eventual payoff will be able to make up for the overall crappiness of the voyage. The second book was so unpleasant, dull, and embarrassing that I have no interest in finishing the series. 

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Yeah, I'm not sure how on board I am for anything people like Rothfuss can contribute. He's written some really good material, but The Name of the Wind (I haven't read Wise Man's Fear yet) is largely, unless it's intentional, about how awesome he wishes he was. It's Casanova plus Romantic poetry set in a Renaissance-like fantasy world. Unless it's intentional and the Truth is Eventually Revealed .

 

I'm 60% sure you're right and 40% sure that the third book is just going to be all about what you refer to as the "self-insert protagonist, who is shallow and petty and loved by all good people" fucking everything up in the most horrific way imaginable, turning him into a monster and then, eventually, a sad, worthless, broken man. In one sense Rothfuss hasn't set that up very well at all - Kvothe does come off as the most insufferably ridiculous Mary Sue to ever exist. But on the other hand, there are three things that make it seem like book 3 will turn it around. First, it's pretty explicit that something bad happened, so it's not like the series can continue to be Kvothe the Amazing Fighter of Evil and Lover of Women Except for One Woman Who He Really Just Creepily Longs for and Puts on a Pedestal Because He is a Fucking Creep - eventually Kvothe fucks up. Second, the entire story so far is Kvothe narrating everything, so it could just be one big "this guy is making himself sounds way better" (and, simultaneously, way worse, because the ego oh my god) than he actually is. This is his chance to set down his legend for the rest of history so he's just pulling out all the fucking stops and using the only real expertise he has (as a masterful storyteller) to make himself out to be the fucking Ubermensch when in reality he's just an asshole.

 

In fairness to Rothfuss, Kvothe does get called out on his bullshit on at least one occasion. Doesn't he describe a woman as very beautiful, and then get interrupted by someone who points out that he just said she has a beaked nose? And it's not like that's part of the appeal. Kvothe gets defensive about it.

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I thought it was pretty obvious that the King Killer Chronicles are stories with an unreliable narrator. Even if they're not I do find them to be an extremely well realized world. It's a like an almost scientifically realized version of Earthsea! 

 

The "current" version of Kvothe doesn't possess anywhere near the skills that his storied version does. He can't really do magic. In the second book he gets handily beaten and robbed by some soldiers after showcasing only marginal martial skill. I've always thought of those books as mysteries not really straight up fantasy books. The world is rich with songs and poems with metaphorical meaning that are all inter related and seem to be pointing at the ultimate ending.

 

I'd actually be really happy to see him sign onto this project. 

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