Torment:ToN - Review @ RPGCodex

Did someone upset him, and he defected?

Perhaps he merely found more like-minded souls at the Codex and found more conversations and topics to his liking? There are numerous possibilities.

I haven't bought this game yet - although I did very much enjoy the original Planescape: Torment back in the day. I'll no doubt return to this review when I inevitably do pick it up and play which won't be for awhile - as I don't generally play games upon immediate release. That said, I'm naturally looking forward to Corwin's review too. :)
 
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The opposite I think. They act like 12 year olds and think only their opinion matters, so I think they come large city.

Heh-heh, this is universal in pretty much every hardcore niche forum I'm in.
The same trolling goes at wargamer's (grognards if you like), flight sim nuts, etc.

I guess this is not juvenile action. I think this is more like old farts (like me) who just simply cannot accept that times they are-a changin', and therefore stick to the "old values" no matter how ridiculous it seems today (unlike me, bless whoever in charge).
 
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My review is based on only one play-through. At my age, I don't have time for two!! :) While different ways of playing would certainly alter a number of the side quests and your 'endings' would differ, I think the main quest would remain fairly much the same, except for how you might choose to go during the end-game. Obviously, there would be several differences in your dialogue options!!

To busy spending 2 hours getting up from your chair and hobbling over to the pension booth to cash your retirement check, huh. :D

Ah well, I look forward to the review, though I'm pretty sure you'll just repeat the same thoughts everyone else who quite liked it had, though I stand ready to be surprised, I dunno, you might have not taken the child with you, you might have chosen the warrior path and always taken the fighting option, you might have chosen the non-diplomatic dialogue choices, etc etc.

I guess the point Junta was making was that differences in dialogue options come from individual choice rather than character build, because of the team pooling of character traits, so when you say that "obviously, there would be differences in dialogue options", that's the part that's not strictly true, you still get [mostly] the same options, it's just up to you whether you take them. A small and nit-picky point that means nothing to a single play-through, but something that's quite important for a review if discussing replayability, character builds and all that meaningless stuff.

Do you think many people will replay the game as intended, or do you think it's mostly a once-through kinda thing?
 
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Do you think many people will replay the game as intended, or do you think it's mostly a once-through kinda thing?

I've recently talked to an EA rep, and she complained to me that based on their internal metrics, only a surprisingly small amount of players finished Mass Effect or Dragon Age twice or more. Alarmingly, many players never finish it at all (especially true for Dragon Age). So, no surprises that the average gameplay time is way below the hyped 100+ hour mark.

Go figure :)
 
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I've recently talked to an EA rep, and she complained to me that based on their internal metrics, only a surprisingly small amount of players finished Mass Effect or Dragon Age twice or more. Alarmingly, many players never finish it at all (especially true for Dragon Age). So, no surprises that the average gameplay time is way below the hyped 100+ hour mark.

Go figure :)

What's that got to do with the price of fish? Are you seriously comparing Mass Effect or Dragon Age with Torment?

Torment is a short game who's length depends entirely on how quickly you can read, it's short because they put the content into depth [supposedly, no-one's really tested this out yet], the point being it's designed primarily for replayability (?). Both Mass Effect and Dragon Age are the traditional epic format where one play is expected and part of the design, but with light branching here and there to provide a sense of player choice and offer some interest for replayability.

Further, the denizens of this site are not some accumulated mass of every person who buys a game, we [royal we] are the exact people who are likely to replay these games and take an interest in this topic, particularly with regard to such angles as full price or wait for a sale, or buy now or wait for the additional content etc.
 
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Just over 100K copies activated on Steam after more than two weeks since release (with about 80K backers, mind you).

This is the only number that means anything. You can talk about metacritic, Steam reviews, Codex reviews, grudges and whatnot all day long. The reality, the only thing that really matters for Fargo & C. is that, with two studios full of people to pay, Torment has been a failure.
 
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Well, to be fair, 'we' don't really care if it's a 'failure' or not, 'we' just want to know more about the game [preferably as much as possible without spoilers].
 
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"Official" reviews, yes. Steam reviews, not so much.

I had to pass. Too much reading without enough non text-based interactivity to balance it out. Although I don't like action-RPGs, this sounds like there's not enough combat as well. And, cut graphical content just sounds disappointing. Finally, the super serious tone sounds like a drag. The sex and wit found in Witcher games needs to pervade other RPGs more.

Some patches and a 75% off sale sometime in a year, then maybe.

Its also possible that the issue with the score is somewhat tilted because those who really like it aren't counting due to being backers and those not counting anymore towards the Steam Reviews. There are 1,292 reviews, of those only 588 got counted into the review score as keys redeemed no longer count on Steam reviews and this may be the first time we're seeing it really hurt a game that wasn't just

Of those 1292, 925 are positive and 367 are negative, which would be 71% positive which would boost it to Positive on Steam.

Just mentioning it here as it seems a bit relevant to the 'Steam Reviews are worse' aspect.
 
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What's that got to do with the price of fish? Are you seriously comparing Mass Effect or Dragon Age with Torment?

I was telling an insider anecdote about two high-profile games that are heavily marketed for multiple replays, and their problem sorta related with your question.
I found it very interesting that these game failed their mission, hence I decided to share this info with you.

Any conclusion is yours (royal yours) only.
 
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I was telling an insider anecdote about two high-profile games that are heavily marketed for multiple replays, and their problem sorta related with your question.
I found it very interesting that these game failed their mission, hence I decided to share this info with you.

Any conclusion is yours (royal yours) only.

Provide proof that those games were "heavily" marketed for multiple replays. If we're going to derail with complete nonsense, might as well go the whole hog, eh.
 
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Provide proof that those games were "heavily" marketed for multiple replays. If we're going to derail with complete nonsense, might as well go the whole hog, eh.

Google is your humble servant, My Liege. ;)
 
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Google is your humble servant, My Liege. ;)

I did and found nothing. I must have googled wrong. I guess since you're the expert and since you made the claim you must know where to look, right? ;)
 
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The reality, the only thing that really matters for Fargo & C. is that, with two studios full of people to pay, Torment has been a failure.
The reality, the only thing that matters is that the game had an "investor". That was all of us who backed it.

Torment was never supposed to be a mainstream game. 100K copies on Steam for a game that requires from it's audience learn to read first? In A.D. 2017 it's a success.

If Torment was published by EA/Ubi/Konami, then we could talk about failure. But their CEOs would never fund such game.

In any case, I'm enjoying the game immensly, found only one utter annoyance so far (presence of timed quests). There are some quirks too (example, through dialogue with priest wannabe you give +2 cyphers item to Rhin, but it still drops in your protagonist inventory), but that's nitpicking.
 
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Absolutely agree.

Sad, really ... as soon as game companies realized that gamers were looking at Metacritic, the push to 'game Metacritic' was on, always making it harder to be an informed consumer ...
 
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A fair review for a subpar game made by an incompetent developer.
The line about aping PST's forms without understanding its substance rings especially true - TToN just plain isn't a spiritual successor to PST (and I don't think it's a good game regardless).

And then there is another one about the soundtrack. Most cRPG's I play don't even have soundtracks, that is how little I care about them.
Lmao, do you want a medal for that or something?
Soundtrack is a part of the provided experience when it comes to this game and as such it certainly deserves a mention in a review. Moreover, soundtrack of PST was one of the keys to its success and an integral part of the emotional delivery, so a comparison was due.

…Mass Effect or Dragon Age… Alarmingly, many players never finish it at all (especially true for Dragon Age).
Those are pretty bad examples as Mass Effect and Dragon Age series have some of the higher/highest completion rates among cRPGs, Mass Effect 2 in particular (56% according to devs).
 
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TToN just plain isn't a spiritual successor to PST
As I've just started it, can you please be more specific on why?
I can't be sure until I finish it so a detail or two would be nice.
 
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Torment is a short game who's length depends entirely on how quickly you can read, it's short because they put the content into depth [supposedly, no-one's really tested this out yet], the point being it's designed primarily for replayability (?)...

Right, and I've no problem with that design approach at all. I can beat Morrowind in 6 minutes, or discover new caves after 15 years. Or join factions I didn't get to play.

Maybe some people are trying to finish the game too hard, instead of going into depth? I don't know how many optional stuff there is, though.
 
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Somehow I missed those games, what were they called?

Tyranny (short, story-focused, lots of branching depth)
Age of Decadence (short, story-focused, lots of branching depth)
No Truce with the Furies (short, story-focused, lots of branching depth)
Undertail (short, story-focused, lots of branching depth)
Driftmoon (short, story-focused, no idea about branching depth)
Warlock of Firetop Mountain (short, story-focused, lots of branching depth)

I don't know how you can have missed this 'trend' clearly dominating the RPG discussions the last couple of years.

Right, and I've no problem with that design approach at all. I can beat Morrowind in 6 minutes, or discover new caves after 15 years. Or join factions I didn't get to play.

Maybe some people are trying to finish the game too hard, instead of going into depth? I don't know how many optional stuff there is, though.

I have no idea why you're bringing Morrowind into this, but I agree with the second sentence, that basically sums up the reason for most of all my posts in this thread.
 
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