Torment:ToN - Sales Disappointing but Why?

Regarding Torment: Probably one of the best endings in an RPG ever - but, as to the quality of the rest of the game, it was pretty inconsistent. What raised it up was the different setting; in a time when RA Salvatore, The Forgotten Realms, and all their inherent clichés reigned supreme, Planescape was a breath of fresh air.

As to the sequel, I have yet to finish it. It just didn't grab me in the same way as its predecessor. As has been stated, it was overly verbose and the action that took place was sparse and lackluster. Reflecting on the text in the game, I'm not against a lot of reading but Numenera seemed to have a lot of text for the sake of having a lot of text - the stories told just meandered all over the place and failed to intrigue me.

I wish to eventually finish it, but it's not a priority at all; it plays out more like an Adventure game and I don't typically find interest in those games.
 
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Yeah, I loved PS:T because of the ending, learning of the multiple incarnations, and the sad relationship with Deionarra. It was very moving for me. I'm not grandstanding just for the hell of it. I agree the gameplay was nothing special, but some of those ultimate spells were pretty far out, and over the top funny. And the music. Really nice.



Despite all that and my being a very early backer I have yet to play Tides. Why? Just not in the mood for a lot of reading lately, I suppose.
 
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The ending was pretty badass. I have to give it that. :)

I haven't done a full playthrough in 15 years, yet I can still remember that final cinematic quite clearly.
 
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joxer said:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
Windows 7 64 bit 64.90%
Windows 10 64 bit 28.81%
Click to expand...
WTF!? Win7 up 22% and Win10 down 17% in one month!? Those have been moving in the opposite direction (with very small numbers) for a long time now. And suddenly a fifth of users switch to Win7?? I think the survey broke.

Or maybe not... Simplified Chinese is now the most popular language - up 27%. China showed up.

Anyway, that's another topic…
 
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Wished linux was gaining greater adoption. Yea it looks like china added 20% of win 7; was thinking of switching to win 10 (I'm on win 7 64) by end of year. Not sure now.

Zloth said:
WTF!? Win7 up 22% and Win10 down 17% in one month!? Those have been moving in the opposite direction (with very small numbers) for a long time now. And suddenly a fifth of users switch to Win7?? I think the survey broke.

Or maybe not… Simplified Chinese is now the most popular language - up 27%. China showed up.

Anyway, that's another topic…
Click to expand...
 
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joxer said:
By now? Man, I thought you switched 3 years ago already… Anyway, last statistics on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
Windows 7 64 bit 64.90%
Windows 10 64 bit 28.81%

Makes it 93.71% total.

No, I won't bother adding x64 win8 and similar trash, those are definetly not gamers.
Click to expand...

Does there exist a page like that showing the data they collected over the last years ? I'm curious now …

Zloth said:
WTF!? Win7 up 22% and Win10 down 17% in one month!? Those have been moving in the opposite direction (with very small numbers) for a long time now. And suddenly a fifth of users switch to Win7?? I think the survey broke.

Or maybe not… Simplified Chinese is now the most popular language - up 27%. China showed up.

Anyway, that's another topic…
Click to expand...

I saw that now, too. There is currently more Win 7 64 bit added than Win 10 64 bit added ... Where do all these Licenses come from ?


Another point could be that there is indeed much Reading involved … Unlike in Action-RPGs …
 
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you said:
...was thinking of switching to win 10 (I'm on win 7 64) by end of year. Not sure now.
Click to expand...
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. ;)
 
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Zloth said:
WTF!? Win7 up 22% and Win10 down 17% in one month!? Those have been moving in the opposite direction (with very small numbers) for a long time now. And suddenly a fifth of users switch to Win7?? I think the survey broke.
Click to expand...
For gamers Win 7 is still a great choice because developers didn't embrace dx12 (nor vulkan to be honest) because… Don't ask me why. I've expected at least AAA going into that direction, seems I was wrong.
Win 7 has no silly M$ shop, no suspicious telemetry and everything (still) works on it.
So nothing is broken.

I'm more confused that win8 still didn't disappear from that statistic.

you said:
was thinking of switching to win 10 (I'm on win 7 64) by end of year.
Click to expand...
No reason to ditch win7 x64 IMO. Unless you bought some brand new hardware where win7 driver doesn't exist.
 
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joxer said:
For gamers Win 7 is still a great choice because developers didn't embrace dx12 (nor vulkan to be honest) because… Don't ask me why. I've expected at least AAA going into that direction, seems I was wrong.
Click to expand...

There is a lot of complexity involved with proper DirectX 12 programming when it comes to an emphasis on multithreading and "closer to the metal" coding.

Most AAA devs simply lack the talent and training to do this in a proper fashion or would have to spend lots of time (time = money) to train on the job and for what? For 10% to 20% PC sales?
Yes, I know that the Xbone also supports DX12 but the PS4 doesn't so it is easier to manage a more unified code base by forgoing DX12.

We can call ourselves lucky nowadays if the keyboard commands in the PC version are fully customizable which is extremely trivial to implement compared to a proper DirectX 12 render path or developing the game from the ground up with Vulkan in mind.

So at least for multiplatform AAA games it is usually well within the realm of a fantasy world to be dreaming of a publisher funding more than the absolute bare necessary features for the PC version.
As we all know, many/most AAA devs even fail at that very basic stuff like fully customizable controls, support for more than two/three mouse buttons, FoV settings, 21:9 support, proper AA etc.

It will either take a lot of time until the expertise to develop proper DirectX 12/Vulkan games spreads around among the AAA studios through training or it will take a new version of the API (DirectX 13) by Microsoft with simplifications or more automation to make the programmers' life easier.
Well, or new hardware (gfx cards) with all new features that would also serve the purpose of reducing the "manual" programming workload.

Until then DX12/Vulkan will remain a niche simply because the effort far outweighs the (at this point in time) meager benefits.
 
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Moriendor said:
There is a lot of complexity involved with proper DirectX 12 programming when it comes to an emphasis on multithreading and "closer to the metal" coding.

Most AAA devs simply lack the talent and training to do this in a proper fashion or would have to spend lots of time (time = money) to train on the job and for what? For 10% to 20% PC sales?
Yes, I know that the Xbone also supports DX12 but the PS4 doesn't so it is easier to manage a more unified code base by forgoing DX12.

We can call ourselves lucky nowadays if the keyboard commands in the PC version are fully customizable which is extremely trivial to implement compared to a proper DirectX 12 render path or developing the game from the ground up with Vulkan in mind.

So at least for multiplatform AAA games it is usually well within the realm of a fantasy world to be dreaming of a publisher funding more than the absolute bare necessary features for the PC version.
As we all know, many/most AAA devs even fail at that very basic stuff like fully customizable controls, support for more than two/three mouse buttons, FoV settings, 21:9 support, proper AA etc.

It will either take a lot of time until the expertise to develop proper DirectX 12/Vulkan games spreads around among the AAA studios through training or it will take a new version of the API (DirectX 13) by Microsoft with simplifications or more automation to make the programmers' life easier.
Well, or new hardware (gfx cards) with all new features that would also serve the purpose of reducing the "manual" programming workload.

Until then DX12/Vulkan will remain a niche simply because the effort far outweighs the (at this point in time) meager benefits.
Click to expand...

Pretty much sums up what I have been hearing on the subject as well.
 
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