Planescape: Torment - Retrospective @ Play.tm

On the other hand, a game like FO3 worries me because some would say its massive sales validate the argument that it was done properly; "it was evidently what the market desired". I was hoping for a game that was much more like the first two.

You can very much say the same for everything Blizzard does.
 
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You can very much say the same for everything Blizzard does.

Very true, but there are some notable differences.

Firstly, Blizzard haven't - as of yet - degraded an established license they didn't originally own. That said, it's pretty obvious what franchises Starcraft and Warcraft were based on, and I believe they DID try to purchase one of them at one point.

Secondly, Blizzard (at least pre-WoW) don't really compromise their game designs - because their artistic vision actually corresponds to mainstream targeting. They're passionate about pleasing the casual audience and have always been that way. I suppose it sounds odd to some, but there actually is a difference between adapting your design to fit a larger audience - and having a larger audience in mind at the very spark of the first ideas.

Last, but not least, Blizzard are simply masters of their craft. I don't know of anyone who understands the mass market better than they, and you can't point a finger at anything in a technical sense. They have some of the very finest craftsmen in the business.

Bethesda have too many second-rate people working for them, and it's not hard to spot if you look at stuff like animation or writing.

That's how I see it, anyway.

I'm no big fan of Blizzard designs - but I gotta respect their ability to flawlessy accomplish what they set out to do. To put it another way, they're not pretentious developers - they're just not very ambitious in a creative sense and they're fine with that.
 
That said, it's pretty obvious what franchises Starcraft and Warcraft were based on, and I believe they DID try to purchase one of them at one point.
Yep, Warhammer, when they built Warcraft I. But they didn't get the licence at that point.

They're passionate about pleasing the casual audience and have always been that way.
I think "casual" is not the term that should be used in that case. "Casual" is the family guy who wants half an hour of stressless entertainment after work, without studying a manual and sticking to lenghty storyline or gameplay. The one who would also play the windows games instead.

Imho the term "casual" doesn't fit to the games that Blizzard created in the past. It is clearly mainstream, but for core gamers. Easy to access but hard to master. Starcraft wasn't an easy thing for newbies. Also Warcraft III. And all games have good storylines, even WoW (if one is willing to read the descriptions).
 
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And all games have good storylines, even WoW (if one is willing to read the descriptions).

While playing up to lvl36 I read everything in wow including every quest description and I wouldnt call it much of a story. The mainstory was thin if not nonexisting and the quests almost boring to read. Most players dont even read them - they are that bad. If you want good stories LoTR and guildwars are the way to go - they both have actual mainstories even.
 
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Yep, Warhammer, when they built Warcraft I. But they didn't get the licence at that point.


I think "casual" is not the term that should be used in that case. "Casual" is the family guy who wants half an hour of stressless entertainment after work, without studying a manual and sticking to lenghty storyline or gameplay. The one who would also play the windows games instead.

Imho the term "casual" doesn't fit to the games that Blizzard created in the past. It is clearly mainstream, but for core gamers. Easy to access but hard to master. Starcraft wasn't an easy thing for newbies. Also Warcraft III. And all games have good storylines, even WoW (if one is willing to read the descriptions).

You can limit or stretch the concept to whatever degree you wish, but since most people commonly operate with the two "opposites": casual and hardcore, sometimes you have to choose which one fits the best.

When I say casual, I don't exclude people who're actually passionate about gaming - no, I'm simply talking about the people who, for one reason or another, can't or won't invest heavily in gaming. This can include former hardcore gamers who're now unable to dedicate themselves to the extent they could in the past, maybe because of family or work obligations.

I don't really have the perfect word for the kind of people I'm talking about, but I'm open to suggestions. But to my mind, Blizzard games definitely do NOT scratch my particular itch, and to me it's because their games are too conservative and derivative. I respect their craft, but I don't think highly of their creative ambition. Sadly, not a lot of developers are into actually evolving the industry - and I long for the time when evolution was a natural part of making games. Where are you Looking Glass, SimTex, Gollop Bros? - come back!
 
Very true, but there are some notable differences.

Firstly, Blizzard haven't - as of yet - degraded an established license they didn't originally own. That said, it's pretty obvious what franchises Starcraft and Warcraft were based on, and I believe they DID try to purchase one of them at one point.
.....

Exactly.

I used Fallout 3 as the example because it's a modern game that significantly strayed from roots that are very similar to PS:T in order to appeal to more people. So if I were to hypothetically ask a developer to make a game like PS:T now, I'm afraid I'd be told, "people don't want THAT anymore, they want THIS. Our sales prove us to be correct, so expect more of THIS in the future as opposed to THAT."
 
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So if I were to hypothetically ask a developer to make a game like PS:T now, I'm afraid I'd be told, "people don't want THAT anymore, they want THIS. Our sales prove us to be correct, so expect more of THIS in the future as opposed to THAT."

Hasn't it always been like that though? It's probably just the natural order of things, like entropy. Let's say it takes a new, preferably independent and self-funded developer with an original thought, creativity and optimism to make a really special game. Over time, more people get involved, like publishers, who muddy the waters; over time, a once solid and well defined vision fades to something more digestible for more consumers.

I imagine that people never wanted something like PS:T in the first place, because mainstream games before already showed what people wanted, which was very different and tried out. PS:T was just a fluke, which could have been even better from what I've heard. What's depressing about it is that flukes are so rare.
 
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Well, I am encouraged by seeing a number of recent indie projects apparently succeed. Both Eschalon and Depths of Peril were apparently successful enough to allow their developers to continue. Spiederweb is still going strong. MotB and Witcher showed that in-depth RPG design can still be successful even for mainstream releases. There seems to be every indication that AoD and Eschalon book II are bound for success. Call me a hopeless optimist, but as the base of gamers in the world broades, so does the niche for unusual games, and if there is such a niche, it will eventually be filled. Therefore I think we WILL eventually see other games like (or better) than Ps:T, Fallout or other classics. And new classics with a completely different approach as well. But one simply can't expect a classic any other year - doesn't happen with movies and books either.
 
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I'm surprised by some of the comments on the original site for the article:

I hate this game so much i once went to its Wikipedia page and everything that said "RPG, Role playing game, etc" i renamed to "Point and Click adventure game" because it has puzzles and text... and the combat sucks ass, come on, you can go threw the whole game with only going through one fight, ONE

Since when has it been a bad thing for an RPG to give people a path through the game that doesn't involve endless violence?

Anyway, I'm feeling quite hopeful. The Witcher has shown that major studios are still capable of occasionally producing a real gem (at least if they take their approach of building what they want to build without focus groups). MoTB has shown that once an established engine has been made and the investment recouped from a bland vanilla mass market release then the numbers for making a deep, story driven, niche market game are suddenly viable. Spiderweb have been showing for years that indies can compete on story, gameplay & depth and that looks set to be surpassed by AoD and SoW in the coming years.

The only real disappointment is Atari's handling of Mysteries of Westgate, I think that's set back the hopes for a technically fairly amateur modding community to get the high profile support and involvement needed to tease out quality writers and designers who could really add value in a major studio but lack the employment background and technical qualifications to have a natural route into the gaming industry.
 
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Hasn't it always been like that though? It's probably just the natural order of things, like entropy. Let's say it takes a new, preferably independent and self-funded developer with an original thought, creativity and optimism to make a really special game. Over time, more people get involved, like publishers, who muddy the waters; over time, a once solid and well defined vision fades to something more digestible for more consumers.

Same goes for the music bussiness.

On closer thinking, I'd say this applies to ALL kinds of art "combined" with business ...

In the end, it's like greed trying to find itself a way of exploiting people and their works. Because "greed is eternal", people will always want something more.

Since I found this Star Trek (?) saying "Greed Is Eternal", I'm heavily thinking on its complications on the world. Not only business, where it's more than apparent (banking crisis).
 
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... Anyhow, always glad to see PS:T getting some attention. It will probably always be remembered as one of the greatest cult classics of the RPG genre.
 
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I don't think it's possible to have another PS:T, for several reasons.
- Production costs: Making a game today costs a lot more than at the time of PS:T. If they lost or didn't make money off it then, today would be just an economic disaster.
- Production specifications: I'm sure making PS:T took a long time to develop because of all its intrincacies. Well, that would be dwarfed by how long it would take today. To what they did, you now have to add: 3D modeling, 3d exploration, voice overs, more complex special effects, etc. What they did with 30 people now would take 100. To recover that you would have to be sure that you have a huge ...
- Audience: For the game to even break even, considering the costs, it would have to sell like 5 times more than what the original sold... and I would be surprised if it even matched the original's number. Let's face it, gamers today want more flash than content, and PS:T was all about content. It would also be a poor candidate to go cross platform because their audience is even worse in that aspect.
 
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I don't think it's possible to have another PS:T, for several reasons.
- Production costs: Making a game today costs a lot more than at the time of PS:T. If they lost or didn't make money off it then, today would be just an economic disaster.
- Production specifications: I'm sure making PS:T took a long time to develop because of all its intrincacies. Well, that would be dwarfed by how long it would take today. To what they did, you now have to add: 3D modeling, 3d exploration, voice overs, more complex special effects, etc. What they did with 30 people now would take 100. To recover that you would have to be sure that you have a huge ...
- Audience: For the game to even break even, considering the costs, it would have to sell like 5 times more than what the original sold... and I would be surprised if it even matched the original's number. Let's face it, gamers today want more flash than content, and PS:T was all about content. It would also be a poor candidate to go cross platform because their audience is even worse in that aspect.

I don't know if I agree.

Production costs can be pretty low these days, modding opportunities and commercially available engines have come on so much that a large part of the production costs can be cut.

Planescape never went crazy on special effects or technology for its time either. It got good artists to create consistent art resources, good composers and good writers. It wasn't a technical masterpiece or anything that pushed the boundaries, and nor would a modern day version need to be.

Audiences as well are bigger than back then. Most people who were younger gamers then are still gamers and new people have joined them. The internet also changes promotion completely, word of mouth on games is more powerful than ever, online gaming orientated communities are bigger than ever. There's a bigger and better connected audience than ever before, and as far as i can tell it's worked well. Look at the Witcher, unknown IP (to the english speaking world), unknown studio and before it hit the scene the promotional impact was no bigger than for many other games that have flopped, but because it was a high quality product it sold and kept on selling. Same for Kings BOunty.

I also don't think gamers today want more flash than content. I think that's a marketing fallacy and a large part of the poor sales of many AAA releases. Flash only sells over content when market information is poor and nobody can tell the difference between good content and poor content so they go on pretty pictures. Market information is better than ever, even with the shitty back scratching nature of most mainstream reviews.

Personally I reckon a game of planescape's quality can easily be produced, and don't think the Witcher or MoTB were actually far off it. Indeed take off my rose tinted die hard affection for Ps:T and they were right up there (better gameplay compensating for a plot and writing that weren't quite as stand out amazing).
 
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Hasn't it always been like that though? It's probably just the natural order of things, like entropy. Let's say it takes a new, preferably independent and self-funded developer with an original thought, creativity and optimism to make a really special game. Over time, more people get involved, like publishers, who muddy the waters; over time, a once solid and well defined vision fades to something more digestible for more consumers.

I'm sure it has always been like this, hence the saying "A camel is a horse designed by committee." Fallout 3 is a camel. Planescape: Torment is a horse.
 
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I agree, PS:T is in a way like David Lynch's work: it's so clearly not for mass consumption that noone major wants to finance it these days. Oh the eternal issue of art vs. art as business. :)

I will spare you my opinion of Lynch's work :)

But your point is solid, all the same.

My opinion of Lynch is evident in my avatar and sig :)
 
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