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Torment: Tides of Numenera - Update #8, A Book, A Video and Stuff

Update number 8 for Torment: Tides of Numenera talks about reaching the $2,75M stretch goal resulting in Brian Mitsoda being part of the writing team. Also a comic book is added to the $50 and $75 and up tiers (they certainly have plenty of books in this Kickstarter). With that stretch goal down, it is time for new stretch goals.

Quote:

$2.85M Expansive Epilogue
This Stretch Goal idea had the most supporters (283) of any suggested (even beating out the 2D pre-rendered graphics Stretch Goal in number of supporters, though not in votes). With Torment’s emphasis on reactivity, we had always planned a satisfying conclusion to the game – the details of which would depend upon your legacy and some specific choices – including the fates of your companions as well (at least those you found). But with this Stretch Goal, we’ll take it even further and tie up loose ends throughout the game for many other aspects: regions, cults, factions, etc. The details of what is discussed – and what might not be – will depend upon what we determine is best for the game and narrative, but we will take it as far as we can. The epilogue will be presented through text, combined with 2D art for some elements. And, as with everything in Torment, its level of polish and detail will increase in general based on overall funding – for example, increasing to 11 Legacies at $3M will result in even more variety in the epilogue.

$3.1M Third Cult: Dendra O'hur
At $3.1M, one specific addition will be a third cult: Dendra O’hur. Followers of the Great Queen Sar'lavun, the Lady of Maggots, the Dendra O'hur are a nomadic cult of cannibals and devourers of the flesh. They draw power from their victims, the strength of the fallen meat passing to their limbs and the command of the numenera to their minds. Recognizable from their tattered and moth-holed cloaks and their sharp-but-rotting teeth, the Dendra O'hur have no friends… but they command fear, and this is enough for them.
$3.25M Pat Rothfuss
We are excited to announce that at the $3.25M Stretch Goal, Pat Rothfuss will join our writing team! Most of my fantasy and science fiction reading took place in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that until a couple months ago I was unfamiliar with Pat’s work. Colin is more literary than me and has been targeting Mr. Rothfuss since even before Torment emerged as a real possibility:
“If you haven't heard of Pat Rothfuss or read his Kingkiller Chronicles (The Name of the Wind, The Wise Man's Fear, and the upcoming third book), then what are you waiting for? Go on. Go read them and then come back and finish this Update. Granted, it might take a while, but you'll be glad you did. Actually, it might be a better use of your time to trust me and read the books at your leisure.
I heard about Pat's work years ago, but because the series wasn't complete and I hate being caught between releases, I held off on reading it. Finally, to stop some friends nagging me ('You'll love it, Colin!' 'Colin, have you read it?' 'Colin, I know it's 3:30 am but THIS IS A GREAT READ'), I read the first book and I was floored at the beauty, wit, skill, and sheer audacity of the narrative. I tore through the second book and then went back and re-read them both. So at GenCon in 2012, I heard Pat was there and went to introduce myself to him and thank him for writing such engrossing fiction. It was a tremendous surprise, then, to discover that he was a huge fan of PS:T, and it was a shock to have PAT F***ING ROTHFUSS praise my work instead.
With that in mind, once Torment started rolling I made it my mission to recruit him for T:ToN. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to say: Mission accomplished. From a purely selfish perspective, I'm annoyed with myself for tearing him away from finishing book 3. From a development perspective, I am hard-pressed to imagine a better addition to our writing and story development team, and I am truly excited about the possibilities that have just opened up. This is going to be so cool.”

And in the following video George Ziets explains the importance of the setting on a game's narrative. Through the example of the Bloom, you'll see how the world of Numenera provides an excellent location for Torment.

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Wow! Rothfuss is involved? I'm seriously considering upping my pledge. They've already had quite a few names attached, but I -love- his work.

Yes, mystery! Looking forward to his writing!

Rothfuss is fantastic! Has he done any work on/related to games before?

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Originally Posted by Caidh (Post 1061189300)

Rothfuss is fantastic! Has he done any work on/related to games before?

Not to my knowledge, but he talks about video games a lot. He might be the first major fantasy author to cite video games as a major influence.

With every update and interview I see, the more I like this game as I really dig the weird and surreal stuff and the emphasis on narrative. Of the three "ex-Interplay" Kickstarters, i.e WL2, P:E and T:ToN, this is currently the one I am most excited about, although the other two are not too far behind in my excitometer :).

As for the video with George Ziets, that scene in Mask of the Betrayer of which they show a short clip is one of my most memorable gaming moments.

It seems like a fashion to announce fantasy novel writers as contributors to an rpg, but I fail to see how this can contribute to the game design. I can see that these writers can contribute to the lore, but not to the world design. A clear example is Kingdoms of Amalur with Salvatore's contribution appearing mainly as static lore presentation.

The Gothics, Fallout New Vegas, and the Spiderweb games integrate the story with the NPC, places and gameplay as part of the world and game design wonderfully without the need to static seas of text.

So I don't see the inclusion of a well known authors as an advantage compared to the good game designers which are already present in Torment.

$3.25M Pat Rothfuss: Holy Shit!!!

Better writers means better dialog usually. Designers are not necessarily good dialog writers.

Pat Rothfuss!! That is fantastic. He's going to write an area and consult on character arcs, apparently. Interesting to note how much the KS sped up after that was announced, too. Looks like he brought in a lot of new backers via his blog.

Love to see a Kingkiller game some day, too.

I don't think they will have any problems meeting those goals. This game sounds better and better with every new update. This is a great time to be a RPG fan. With this game, WL2, Eternity, and MM 10, it's going to be an exciting next couple of years.

Hm, dunno whether to be excited or not… Never heard of Patrick Rothfuss, but as I was reading up I got excited, to the point of checking out his books. However, they get trashed in the user comments in Amazon…

So, I was wondering whether any of you read his Kingkiller books and whether they're any good?

His books are fantastic. Go have a look at his reviews on goodreads.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show…trick_Rothfuss

Now MCA is a stretch goal as well, at $3.5m. It just gets better and better.

Pat's books are excellent.
Here's the blog from his site where he talks about getting involved with Colin McComb and Torment- http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2013…sense-of-play/

Quote:

Originally Posted by Badesumofu (Post 1061189493)

His books are fantastic. Go have a look at his reviews on goodreads.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show…trick_Rothfuss.

Eh… Lots of divided opinions there, too. I get a strong Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth series) vibe, here. High praise, "crappy" books.

(I put "crappy" between quotes because I know I am putting it a bit blunt. There was some good stuff, but the totally boring and flawless main character completely killed it for me. Not to mention all the lecturing…)

So far, I've loved his books. They aren't perfect. He's not an innovator or a world builder. However, in terms of straight up writing skills, he's one of the best in the genre.

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Originally Posted by SpoonFULL (Post 1061189352)

Obviously the game is going to have a lot of writing in it. But, that's not all that writers do in video games, they also define the game world along with the direction and mood of the art and everything that constitutes making the game world appear real - you have to invent a world, before you can portray it. That's surely not too different from the role that script writers play in films. And you may not be aware of it, but Fallout New Vegas established a new record for the number of lines of voiced dialogue in a game…

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warmark (Post 1061189496)

Pat's books are excellent.
Here's the blog from his site where he talks about getting involved with Colin McComb and Torment- http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2013…sense-of-play/

Blog and video where interesting to read/watch.I never heard of him before but I am now intrigued going to pick his books one of this days since I am not currently reading anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roq (Post 1061189513)

Thank you, I did not look at the role of writing in this way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roq (Post 1061189513)

Yeah and some of the things Rothfuss specifically told them he felt most able to to help with would be writing characters and helping with character development as well as the structural mechanics of the narrative, etc. These people do seem to understand that writing a book might not translate into being able to write the branching dialogues in game and specific character interactions. They do seem to intend to use some of these writers at least to design parts of the world and fiction more-so than writing lines of dialogue here and there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wiretripped (Post 1061189499)

Seriously, this is an outdated thread and all, and no one will likely read it, but I can't let this pass. Goodkind is crap; utter, shallow, ridiculous, Randian crap. Rothfuss, well, put it this way: I have a large room, there are bookcases in every conceivable spot, filled with books, almost floor to ceiling (the books are also stacked on top). It looks awful. At last count there were over 4K. Out of those, Rothfuss is in the top five authors, for both storytelling and tightness (and by this I mean ne'er a wasted/out of place word, not necessarily conciseness). Where as I have the Goodkind series up on Craigslist (where it has sat for over a year), listed at $30, without a single offer, ever. Think of Rothfuss as the original Torment, and Goodkind as the 2007 Shadowrun FPS.

I resisted Rothfuss at first, because my friends were pestering me so much to read him, much the same way I resisted watching Seinfeld. I have since determined that I am an idiot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Santos (Post 1061189586)

Aha! Thank you very much for that input.

I agree, Goodkind is crap. :) Utter crap. I read the entire Sword of Truth series, and really, I had to *drag* myself through it, forcing myself to finish it.

But anyway, I feel more inclined now to give Rothfuss a shot…
If I may be so bold, what other authors would you list in your top five? As far as fantasy/sf goes, that is… I am just trying to gauge how similar our tastes are. :)

I don't think in terms of "best of the best", which makes this trickier. I tend to appreciate different authors for different aspects of their writing. Having said that:

Peter Hamilton: Great Space Opera (Donaldson's Gap series great too)
Guy Gavriel Kay (esp Lions and Mosaic): Most beautifully written
Steve Perry (Matadora trilogy): most concise series ever (and very well done)
Mickey Zucker Reichert: Best mythology adaptation (Renshai trilogy)
Steven Erikson: Best (dark) epic fantasy (ending left me a little cold)
Charles Sheffield/Ken MacLeod: good hard sci-fi

Man, I could go on all night, I'll just list a few other authors I like, then I gotta go to bed:

Joe Abercrombie, Stephen Baxter, Gregory Benford, Jack McDevitt, Lois McMaster Bujold, Sara Douglass, Alan Dean Foster (most, anyway), George RR Martin, Julian May, Robin Hobb (sans Liveship), KJ Parker (excellent), Harry Turtledove, Vernor Vinge, etc., etc., etc. -I left out a lot of worthy authors, but I need to crash (~3AM)

Good luck; you won't regret Rothfuss- somewhat traditional storyline, he just wrote the hell out of it.

My favourite fantasy authors are: GRRM, Joe Abercrombie, Daniel Abraham, and Patrick Rothfuss. Scott Lynch is very good too, and R. Scott Bakker. I quite enjoyed Miles Cameron's debut fantasy novel The Red Knight.

If you want to read some beautifully written fantasy with great worldbuilding that is very different from the normal stuff, then I must recommend The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham. Rothfuss is also really easy to read, his prose is just outstanding and so lyrical. Abercrombie writes fantastic characters and has built an amazing setting. Abraham does the relationships between his characters especially well. GRRM is GRRM, and you should definitely read Ice and Fire if you have not already.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions, Santos and Badesumofu.
Joe Abercrombie looks interesting, I think I'll be picking up that First Law trilogy, and I'll give Rothfuss a shot too.

My personal favorites include Robin Hobb, Raymond Feist (esp. the Empire trilogy) and, of course, GRRM.

I would have listed Feist, but I find his later work to be too directive of his earlier stuff, sort of like Eddings that way. (Having said that, my first email address was Krondor@…). The good thing about The First Law, is that the trilogy is pretty good (the characters are great), but the books that come after are even better. Hobb is indeed excellent, especially the Tawney Man series (waiting for her to finish Rain Wilds before I jump on that one).

Lynch and Bakker were enjoyable, they didn't make my list because they don't have enough work out there yet to see if they have staying power (though, Bakker is getting there). I have not tried Abraham yet, but the recommend from GRRM makes him tempting to try (GRRM himself would have come with more than an honorable mention, were it not for the Bran chapters :P ).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Santos (Post 1061189949)

Hobb is indeed excellent, especially the Tawney Man series (waiting for her to finish Rain Wilds before I jump on that one).

Oh, Tawny Man's her best. One of my all-time favorite trilogies. I quite enjoyed the Farseer one as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Santos (Post 1061189949)

(GRRM himself would have come with more than an honorable mention, were it not for the Bran chapters :P ).

I feel the same way, but with the Arya chapters. :)

Well then, it's now looking like Rothfuss is less and less of a risk then.

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Originally Posted by wiretripped (Post 1061190137)

I feel the same way, but with the Arya chapters. :)

You…don't like Arya? How can this be D:

Yeah, I don't mind her; but, Bran and Stannis….blah.

I don't care about anyone who's left after book 5 except Daeny and Tyrion.

Spoilers! People! Please!

I just had to come back, and add this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/axisofawesome?feature=watch

(not work safe, with sound up)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother None (Post 1061190179)

You…don't like Arya? How can this be D:

Oh, I like her fine as a character, just her chapters are kind of… eh… boring.

Mind, I am only about 75% through book 3… and it's starting to pick up, finally… Book 3 has been a bit long windy, whereas I felt like 1 and 2 were more action-packed.