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Sequel To Planescape: Torment Planned
Aglassis writes "Eurogamer has reported that famed D&D and computer game designer Colin McComb is working on a spiritual sequel to Planescape: Torment. The game will be set outside of the Planescape campaign setting due to an inability to come to an agreement with Wizards of the Coast. The lead designer on the original game, Chris Avellone, has apparently given his blessing."
McComb posted recently about the nature of Planescape and what would define a new game. He wrote, "Any setting that rewards the player for internal exploration (certainly deeper than, 'Can I hit it? How much loot does it have?') could host a similar story. As long as there’s a fantastical element to the world–whether straight fantasy or science-fantasy–these questions become possible and desirable. The farther away we stray from comfortable routine, the more likely we are to challenge ourselves, trying to define our place in the world. A boring setting frequently leads to boring questions; we know the drill and don’t have to examine it closely. But a fantastic setting forces us to re-examine the world, to take it in a fresh light, and to see that our fundamental truths may be flawed. That is at the heart of a Torment story."
I'm looking at my mac options from GOG and I'm wondering.. Planescape or Baldurs Gate?
Dear god I just hope they don't fuck it up with a bunch of goddamn cutscenes with mediocre voice acting. This game is why us old school computer gamers act so elitist around consolers. It's not the ability to snipe with a mouse that we're missing.
If you enjoy reading and enjoy gaming and haven't played the original Planescape Torment, go do so right now. It has 800,000 words of written dialog (and in some cases brief description of action.) For comparison, the entire Harry Potter series is around 1,000,000. And it's great dialog, really brilliant and weird and philosophical and transcendent. Play a mage, that's my advice. And make sure your wisdom is high too, so you can talk Dak'kon through his crisis of faith (this is not only one of my favorite parts of the game, but it will help you quite a bit in combat as well. If you even want to fight... I think there are only 4 mandatory battles in the entire game.)
I've played it through twice and still have loads of quests and factions and NPCs I wasn't able to find/join/experience. And I'm still searching for another answer for the question, both in the game and in real life, that you encounter again and again: "What can change the nature of a man?" Near the end of the game another incarnation of the main character will give you an answer. It's a good one, but it feels incomplete...
The flipside of this is if you make it too alien, the players won't have anything to relate to, nothing to grasp and identify with. Finding the right balance is the trick.
Fuck balance, I want to meet more letters of the alphabet. Perhaps in a bar whose mascot is an everburning archmage, a living portal to the elemental plane of fire. And afterwards haggle with the bartender to sell me back my eye, floating in a glass jar behind the bar.
Yes, you do stuff like that (actually, exactly that) in Planescape:Torment.
The game probably failed (commercially) because it required a lot of reading. What are the chances they will risk doing that again?
All I can say from years of reading about these guys is that they are a bunch of stingy, stubborn asshats. They buy the rights to items and then sit on them. They don't improve them, they don't make sequels or prequels for them, they just sit and wait for someone to ask for rights and then say "NO!! :("
This is a quote from a different interview he did:
"I'd put it some place other than Planescape. I'd use a system other than D&D, because I'd want to align the player's story axes along different lines than Good/Evil or Law/Chaos to something more subjective"
So, it's just going to be another RPG then? Hopefully a good one with deep characters and excellent writing - but I'm sure sure how this will be the sequel to Planescape: Torment.
More than half of what made planescape torment was the planescape setting. "$unfamiliar_fantasy_setting torment" sounds less likely to draw my dollars (not that I'd pay for a DRM crippled planescape game anyway).
... while planescape was good for what it was, the huge story emphasis and the old combat system may turn off newer gamers.
Not only that planescape is closer to a visual novel then a game because of its huge over-emphasis on conversations and story, if anything planescape is closer to the cut-scene based dialogue heavy games like Mass effect then it is to oldschool RPG's - true dungeon crawlers, like say eye of the beholder, wizardry, early ultima's, etc.
As far as I'm concerned, PC RPG's from the late 90's like baldurs gate and torment moved away from good dungeon crawling combat of the earliest PC RPG's and their combat systems never felt as well designed as earlier games. I play RPG's for combat, if the combat sucks I'm out. Story is nice to have but I wanted great combat and dungeon crawling before story.
I loved Grimrock for it's attempt to put dungeon crawling back at the fore front (gameplay) over story in RPG's.
http://www.grimrock.net/
Now Grimrocks combat wasn't perfect but I'd love to see new developments in making combat intrinsically rewarding and interesting again, instead of too much resources spent on story/cut-scenes like in modern games and mid to late 90's RPG's like torment. I feel most RPG's over the last 15 or so years have gotten far away from what made old RPG's great - the combat, exploration and puzzle solving. Instead of huge emphasis on cutscenes, story and dialogue.
The original was made in 1999 when games were different, developers were inspired gamers who strived to make their mark and make a game they were passionate about, the entire gaming industry was different and gamers themselves were different. So if people expect this to be good based purely on nostalgia they are in for a rude awakening. Games are a product of their era, a snapshot in time. Sure you can make a game look retro all you want but hardly anyone is able to capture what made the originals so much because things have changed and people changed.
The movie industry is the same way when they ressurect some old movie a decade or more then it always sucks because look at indiana jones and kingdom of the crystal skull, the star wars prequels, rocky 5, blues brothers 2000, and basically every remake of a old horror movie.
But gamers just like movie goers are fucking idiots. They see a name of something old slapped on a new product and a wave of nostalgia washes over them and they get brainwashed into thinking its going to be good just because it bares a name of something from their youth.
Personally Id rather see them make something new, make something their own instead of just trying to stay within the confines of a outdated product created in a different era of gaming by different people. It limits their abilities to be creative by having to stick with something someone else did a long time ago. Im sick of shameless cash ins by developers trying to pander to gamers sense of nostalgia by throwing together a remake or just another sequel in order to get some quick cash. Id rather have new games, games that seem inspired, games that try to have their own voice instead of just shitting out the same old thing.
And thats why I hate kickstarter because kickstarter does nothing but foster this among small time developers. They just do the same thing the big developers do and make the same old garbage only this time its the gamers footing the bill upfront before the product is even created or made. Thats why you constantly hear about yet another kickstarter game that is just a sequel or remake of some old series that isnt around now for a reason. It encourages developers to be lazy by doing another sequel and getting money for it.
Too many kids with ADD who have a short attention span and want instant gratification.
They're not going to click through lines of dialogue text. They'll just scoff it and call it 'boring', ' wall of text' or 'TL:DR'.
They prefer to play hack&slash games or first person shooters.
They don't even read books regularly.
And that is precisely why (real-time and turn based) strategy games have been languishing in the last decade.
I'll give you a good example: Koei would rather ignore its turn-based strategy game 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' for years and instead develop the crappy ''Dynasty Warriors' games. So kids who have zero patience can hack and slash mindlessly on their consoles.
It's a sad state of gaming these days. On one hand, you have the casual game 'freemium' devs who want to monetize everything and apply microstransactions everywhere. On the other hand, you have the graphics whores who put up flashy trailers but it turns out the games are shallow and have next to no replay value, maybe except for 'unlocking' stuff. And if content is lacking in the original game... they'll just put up DLCs which you have to pay for. DLCs which are in the most traditional sense NOT expansion packs.
And that is why EA, despite itself, is doing well.
the audio, the sublime plots, the weird characters, the engrossing environments, the cool ideas
this is really wonderful news
except: this time, ditch the "choose your own adventure" endless dialog boxes, that was the only source of tedium
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One, anytime I hear the term 'spiritual successor' I cringe. Its a crappy marketing term. It means: "we really want you to believe this is like the old game (even though its not). Please suspend any critical thought and gives us your money.
Two, its been twelve years. Do you really think you are the target audience? The people the game is being made for are NOT YOU. Sure, there are some crusty flakes out there that played the old one, but old fans aren't the demographic that is gonna make them money.
Three, its been twelve years! Games are an amalgamation of gaming trends, technology, and the actual people who developed the game. None of these things are the same. Even if someone on the old development team is now involved in the new one, do you really think he or she is the same person or will make the same kinda of game? If you do, you need to watch the latest Indiana Jones film.
If the marketing had been better, it would've crushed. Believe it or not, ppl need to play a game before deciding it's 'too wordy'. The sale comes first, then the 'boredom'.
To whit: "It's clearly the best traditional computer role-playing game of the year and is bound to be an all-time favorite for many of its inevitable fans." ( http://www.gamespot.com/planescape-torment/ )
Nothing wrong with the game, bro.
Don't make a successor like that, I think it will likely suck or at least will be shied away from by gamers. They should upgradet the original game to modern graphics and interface. Keep the original story and characters. (heck even hire the original voice actors) This would be way better
Spritual successor, which doesn't even use the same setting, the setting which was a fundamental part of the success and the reason the game was awesome.
Kinda lika saying kicking around a ham alone would be a spiritual successor to soccer.
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http://www.gog.com/gamecard/planescape_torment DRM free, it appears
http://thunderpeel2001.blogspot.com/2009/01/planescape-torment-fully-modded.html
Platinum rating running under Wine: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=294
If you're ok with 90s graphics and the fact that this is much more an interactive novel than hack n slash, there's absolutely no reason not to check it out.