"We can say that any DLCs or expansions that we put out will always be free to our backers of that game, so there is no need to worry about paying for any additional content in Torment."
Backers will get it for free. Not so sure about normal buyers.
inXile admit that Torment stretch goal content has been cut, including companions
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The Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter campaign in 2013 was a merry affair, with numerous stretch goals fulfilled. Now, nearly four years later and with indications that the game's development may have been troubled, some people have begun to wonder about the state of those stretch goals.
It started when local inXile sceptic Fairfax claimed earlier this month that The Toy, a unique "living ball of goo" companion who was a $2M stretch goal, had probably been cut from the game, based on its near-total absence from decompiled beta files and promotional footage. Another companion named Riastrad had also probably been cut. These claims were strengthened by the absence of said companions from Torment's Playstation 4 trophy list (spoiler alert). Faced with this evidence and the subsequent unrest on their official forums, inXile's Eric Schwarz was finally compelled to respond a couple of days ago:
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Hi guys,
The companion roster has been slightly reduced from our initial plans. Throughout development on Torment, our philosophy has always emphasized depth and reactivity in our storyline and in our characters. We know you would not be satisfied with anything else. During development, we found that the more far reaching and reactive our companions were, the better they felt and the more justice it did to the original Planescape: Torment. This trade-off meant we were able to add more companion conversations, banter, voice-over, quests, and story endings. We did not want to leave some companions feeling shallow, with storylines that felt incomplete, or be forced to shove them into the late game.
That said, we certainly haven't shut the door on Torment’s development. We still have a lot of early work done on other companions and are open to continuing to work on the game. We can say that any DLCs or expansions that we put out will always be free to our backers of that game, so there is no need to worry about paying for any additional content in Torment.
But before that happened, Fairfax raised the possibility that another piece of content, the Oasis of M'ra Jolios, had also been cut from the game. The Oasis was to be Torment's "second major city" and was a $4M stretch goal. Unlike The Toy, areas from the Oasis had appeared in recent promotional material from inXile, but it was still suspiciously absent from beta files and the PS4 trophy list. To this claim, Thomas Beekers responded on the inXile forums:
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Hey everyone. The Oasis is still represented in the game, and as some of you have pointed out, we've shown it several times before in screenshots and media.
You may have noticed we've been showing off the Bloom a lot lately, and that's no coincidence. Despite being one of the earliest locations we showed, the Bloom was originally intended to be smaller than it ended up being. Though we initially planned for the Oasis to be our second major story hub, over time our fascination with the Bloom's darker, more Tormenty feel, led to it being recast as the game's second major city hub instead. We felt creatively this was the right thing to do, and the change did not shorten the gameplay experience.
As a result, the Oasis ended up taking on a smaller role, but you will still be able to visit it during the game.
Finally, realizing that something was up, a user on the inXile forums asked about the state of yet another piece of stretch goal content - the Voluminous Codex, a kind of fancy customizable in-game journal/lore compendium that was added to the game when the Kickstarter campaign reached $4.25M. Eric Schwarz replied briefly:
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We're still going to release the Voluminous Codex, but we're now planning to offer it as a separate lore compendium outside of the game.
Regardless of how you feel about their responses, it's now clear that despite an extended development cycle, a ready-made engine from Obsidian, an existing ruleset and a simple, restricted combat model, inXile have had significant issues with the management of Torment's development. There's no telling which of the game's many other stretch goals they may have also backed out of. I would strongly recommend that they publish a Kickstarter update clarifying this matter. People paid money for these.
That's definitely awkward, I wonder if there is another (real) reason behind it, like being pushed to release the game now at all costs or other business schemes from today's bizarre industry.
One thing is for sure, judging from the responses my fellow countrymen are absolutely furious.
The top one is golden:
Spoiler:
Literally "It's the moment to throw a pig" which translated is ~"It's the moment to say god is a pig (porco dio)"
That's why stretch goals are bullshit - even though they take that extra money (it's above what was "needed" to finish the project, right?) specifically for said features, absolutely nothing happens when they either fail to deliver on said features altogether, or drastically cut them down.
When a project reaches its funding goal on these crowd-fund sites, it needs to be locked down (no more pledges). And when they fail to deliver said project, charges ought to be filed.
That'd clean that Kickstarter and Fig shit right up. Well, maybe not Fig, since that has so much legal foot-work and back-peddling and ass covering behind it it's more or less a legal ponzi scheme.
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That's what happens when you set the funding goal at only a 1/5th or 1/6th of what you actually need. You just make up a bunch of extra shit to milk the extra money that now is once again less than you actually need because you just added a bunch of extra work. So you either have to go into an endless Star Citizen loop where you keep promising extra shit to get more money to pay for the previous shit you promised, or you weasel out of some of your promises to get the thing finished and out the door.
Not that it should be any excuse. You'd think this sort of thing should trigger some sort of false advertising or other consumer protection laws, but maybe they are just weak in the US where most of this stuff is done. Or maybe games consumers are so used to bending over and taking it like a bitch that not enough people complain.
i think stretch goals shouldnt be considered as promises (and developers shouldnt state them as such)
if a game gets X-amount, then its POSSIBLE this new feature can be added... but who in their right mind wouldnt rather the excess money go into making sure the core game (that you actually pledged for) isnt the best it can be? As long as devs are open on how the money is being spent, and the end result LOOKS worth the amount they received, i wouldnt get that caught up on stretch goals being met. At the end of the day, youre not paying for features, youre paying to help a dev make their game.
inXile admits that crafting is cut from Torment: Tides of Numenera
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In addition, the crafting system has been completely removed from the game. As inXile’s sear claimed, the crafting system did not fit Torment’s gameplay, which is why inXile decided to completely remove it, despite the fact that this system was promised via another stretch goal.
“The main one that I haven’t seen mentioned, but should address, is crafting. During development, it became very clear that a traditional crafting system wasn’t meshing. We had some early design done, but everything ended up feeling like an MMO-style system, and that just didn’t fit Torment’s gameplay. Instead, we repurposed those resources, adding significantly more and better Cyphers and Artifacts to the game.”
Or better yet, just be fucking honest. If you know you need 5 million dollars, then ask for 5 million dollars, not 900K.
Looking at Fargo's house I bet he could've funded the game himself, or at least the stretch goals. But then again...never spend your own money when you can spend someone else's.
Well he is the descendant of the guy that co-created American Express and founded what is now the 2nd or 3rd largest bank in the world (Wells Fargo). I'm sure he isn't short of a quid.
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
Everyone I talked with about Beta (I have access but I don't want any spoilers) said that the game seems really good. It's that rare kind of RPG like PST where dialogues and choices come above anything else.
But ofc, if you listen to the opinion of current generation of gamers, the verdict can hardly be positive.
Last edited by Nodrim on Sun, 29th Jan 2017 11:30; edited 2 times in total
I played a bit of the beta and it DOES have the Torment vibe: lots of choices in solving problems and tackling situations and consequences that arise from them. While I'm disappointed that they cut content from the game it remains to be seen is if we'll actually feel that content is "missing" while we're playing it. They did imply backers will get any content released afterwards for free and that the groundwork for the missing companions has been done so we may get them post-release. Pity about the Italian localization, though. Guess Techland didn't fancy paying for it. Costs for translating game that is mostly about reading are likely huge.
I'm also hearing/reading a lot of VERY positive feedback. Choice&Consequence, writing, dialogues and problem solving being much more important than combat and terrific atmosphere, for example (very slight spoiler from one of the hands-on)
Spoiler:
The big, Sigil-like hub city is actually a giant living creature. And just like Sigil, there are many portals that lead to different places, but they're this creature's... well, maws And there's always a price, since it feeds on different things, like emotions and so on - that sounds really weird and cool
So, while all this stuff about cut content is sad and regrettable, it looks like the actual game really might be great. I remain cautiously optimistic.
It was difficult since I tend to be nosey with stuff that particularly interests me, but so far I've managed to stay away from any kind of information/opinion this time around, planning to experience the (iso)game black box_mode.
My expectations are..not that high to be honest, simply because I genuinely believe that it's impossible to create something as masterful as Planescape Torment again, but I'm (naively perhaps) hopeful that at least we'll have a game with enough fascinating lore and depth to be enjoyed without raising too many eyebrows. *Acceptance +150xp*
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