Torment: Tides of Numenera Interview

We are being asked to do an interview for Torment.
What questions would you like to see answered?

If there is interest, some brave member of the Watch can also volunteer for doing a Skype interview with one of the devs (or more, that's not clear) and ask the questions.
The result can still be a written interview if you like.

Torment hit it's funding goal in hours. The website is showing over $5 million in pledges and, judging by dollars pledge per donor, is not being funded by a few Planescape fans with deep pockets. Yet the trailers make it clear that the game is turn based, set in a very strange environment, and will be getting into some philosophy with the "what's one life worth" question. You might as well put a "your IQ must be *this* high to play this game" sign out front!

So is this saying something about some untapped market? If so, just what is this market looking for? Are we going to be seeing Plato: The Roleplaying Game soon?

And just for a laugh at the end…

I've played men and women in RPGs. I've played characters both young and old. I've played as every race under the sun plus several that aren't. A few games have even let me play as a mentally ill character! Yet 12% of the population is completely ignored. Tell me inXile, just how do you expect left handed people to identify with their character when you refuse to make it an option in character development!?

P.S. Please remember the response Assassin's Creed: Unity got when "animation time" was used as an excuse.

P.P.S. No, Morte was NOT left handed!

1) Do you want to make more Torment games and are you open to a Torment game in a different setting such as Dark Sun?

2) Would you ever consider a direct sequel to a Torment game or are they one shot deals?

There has been some recent controversy regarding some stretch goals being either cut or delayed.

1) What exactly has been cut, reduced, or delayed?

2) What went into the decision-making process for what to remove? In particular, many fans are disappointed by the supposed removal of The Toy.

3) Are there any plans to include these stretch goals after release through patches?

I understand that these are sensitive topics and the game is close to release, but transparency is a virtue that gamers hold very dear and it would mean a lot for everyone if you cleared up the air nicely.

As an add-on to Meldinor's question:

Some backers are unhappy about the decision to cut stretch goal content from the game. Stretch goals are announced for the purpose of securing additional funds to implement them, so many backers view this as not meeting a commitment. Presumably, some content, such extra companions, was cut due to insufficient time to "do it right" prior to the scheduled release date. But once the release date is behind you, does InXile have any specific plans to continue development to provide any of the cut features post-release?

(If they respond with something vague and non-committal like "if the game does well enough, maybe we will do some patches", ask the follow-on questions below):

What will need to happen for you to continue development on cut content after release? And which cut content would you consider providing following release?

How long will this game take to complete?
How large is the map the game takes place in?

Originally Posted by SMcM
How long will this game take to complete?

From here…

According to the Kickstarter update @Kamigoroshi posted on the 5th page, the beta is supposed to be 10 hours long, and George Ziets during the IGN stread said that the full game will be 40-50 hours total, so this indeed illustrates the beta is about a fifth of the game.

The game has A LOT of text, however, so I'm not sure what those 40 to 50 hours entail. Does it mean if you only read the story critical texts? Or does it include exhausting all dialogue options and lore texts? Is it that long for a slow reader, average, fast reader or a skimmer?

Personally, it sounds too short to me. Torment is not easy reading if you are not familiar with the setting since it is all a little unusual and weird and difficult to wrap your head around the peculiarities of the setting at first. There is kind of a learning curve until you understand certain things. So if you do read up on everything to truly understand the world, the characters and the setting then it will probably take quite a bit longer is my subjective feeling from playing the beta (exacerbated by the fact that English is not my first language so with text of Torment's style I'm a fairly slow reader).

Some story/writing based questions:

1) The original Torment saw a much more literary and philosophical tinged narrative that arguably gave a new found depth compared to most western cRPGs that came before it. Could you speak generally about being conscious of this heritage and of the challenges to maintain and deepen this literary tradition?

2) Philosophically speaking, we had the very memorable quasi-buddhist/Schoepenhauerian Dustmen faction in Torment. Could you perhaps elaborate on some of the philosophical influences found in the various factions and quests in the new game? What types of over-arching questions will the player be encouraged to interact with?

3) Could you describe the process of maintaining writing consistency and coherency within your team writing framework? How difficult is it to edit work for a setting so profoundly open to the imagination?

Will we see the interview in time for the release today? Really looking forward to it.

It may be too late but if so, maybe this has been answered somewhere:

Are there any plans for a sequel?

Originally Posted by Ploppy
Will we see the interview in time for the release today? Really looking forward to it.

While waiting for it, Eurogamer made a review, they're pretty positive about Torment2:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20…es-of-numenera

Grain of salt in your hand? Good. Because Eurogamer hates everything PC. So it might easily be that the game is far better then they experienced but they can't admit a PC game is a masterpiece, or it sucks but they might like if it's phonefriendly too much.

Any updates?