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Torment: Tides of Numenera gets its first screenshot
This is your first screenshot of Torment: Tides of Numenera, the Planescape: Torment-inspired RPG which is already up to $3.2 million in Kickstarter funding with four days left to go. What you're looking at, project lead Kevin Saunders tells us, is an environment called The Bloom, which also happens to very much be a living creature. Yes, it's both a bustling commercial hub and a "semi-sentient predator" - sounds like Manhattan to us.The Torment Kickstarter washed past its $900,000 goal, amassing $1 million in just 8 hours. The campaign for the PC, Mac, and Linux game has broken more than a few stretch goals since then, unlocking everything from new areas, character companions, and novellas to developer inXile bringing in a live orchestra for the music. The traditional late Kickstarter surge should see the fundraiser past the $3.5 million stretch goal, at which point Obsidian's Chris Avellone, who was the lead designer of Planescape: Torment, will join Torment's design team.Click here for a larger look at Torment's first screenshot.
'Torment: Tides of Numenera' meets Kickstarter goal, raises over $900K
Well, that was fast. After its launch this morning, the Kickstarter campaign to finance Inxile's latest endeavor Torment: Tides of Numenera has reached its goal of $900,000. Funding will be open for potential backers until April 5, 2013.Torment: Tides of Numenera is a sequel inspired by the classic game Planescape: Torment, a single-player RPG game set in the Numenera role-playing system created by Monte Cook. Inxile's first Kickstarter campaign was a success, and the studio is currently working to produce a sequel to another classic IP, Wasteland 2.
Spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment in 'very early' stages
While many have anxiously awaited a sequel to Planescape: Torment, it's not the pipe dream it once was. Brian Fargo – the InXile Entertainment founder who has the Torment rights and once ran the original game's developer, Interplay – has said a successor is in the works, though there are a few caveats fans should consider.For one, the sequel will ditch the Planescape setting for the Numenera role-playing system, the Kickstarter-funded brainchild of Monte Cook blending together sci-fi and fantasy elements to emphasize "story and ideas over mechanics." Cook should be a memorable name to those who played the Planescape pen-and-paper campaign setting, having helped design and write that series and numerous other games for Wizards of the Coast back in the day. "The more we explored the Numenera setting, the clearer it became that it's a natural fit for a Torment game," Fargo told Rock Paper Shotgun.And with the new setting, Fargo suggests that this sequel will be less so in the literal sense and more so in the ideas Planescape: Torment presented to players. "Rather than overt links, we are trying to recapture the feeling that players experienced through PST –both while playing it and after having completed a playthrough. We will remain true to the essence of PST, but we'll also be looking for ways to improve the areas in which PST could have been even better."The new Torment game is still a ways off, "very early" in the pre-production phases, Fargo says. "We have a basic story outline, design sketches of the major characters, and thematic concepts defined," Fargo said, adding that with Wasteland 2 in full production, InXile can't focus too great of resources to working on this new Torment game.However, with writers and concept artists finished their early stages work on Wasteland 2, they're freed up. "There will be some other surprise talent that I'll announce later on but I thought it important to stress the heritage of the great team we have." As for funding this sequel, Fargo is unsurprisingly considering Kickstarter.
Planescape: Torment writer ponders sequel, Fargo owns Torment IP
Planescape: Torment designer and writer Colin McComb recently had his hands full with Wasteland 2, but now that his job there is done, he's looking to make a new game in the Torment vein.McComb outlines his initial thoughts on creating a new Torment iteration in a lengthy blog post that poses the game's grand question, "What does one life matter? ...and does it matter at all?" This is a departure from Torment's question of "What can change the nature of a man?" (McComb has a degree in philosophy, if you were wondering.)McComb's new game wouldn't necessarily reside in the Planescape universe, but he says he has an "in" with the Torment IP – which is owned by Brian Fargo, founder of Interplay, RPG Codex finds. Interplay published Planescape: Torment in 1999, from developer Black Isle Studios."I have a lot of ideas about what to put into a new Torment game, but my primary goal would be to help the player tell a story that was evocative of the original Torment without aping it," McComb writes. "To be faithful to the odyssey of the Nameless One, and to recognize that it has ended, and that stories of Torment are ongoing."
Demonology 101: the Voidwalker
The big blueberry, a Warlock's most lovable pet. Obtained at Level 10, the big blue is usually a Warlock's favored solo leveling companion because it can tank, having a hefty amount of health and the taunting abilities Torment and Suffering. Out of combat, it can regenerate lost health quickly with Consume Shadows, and in a pinch can be Sacrificed to grant a Warlock's version of Power Word: Shield. It isn't specialized for any tree, although a Demonologist will get the most bang for the blueberry buck. The reliable Voidwalker won't be changing much in Wrath of the Lich King, but will be getting a few improvements with some talents from the Demonology tree such as the consolidated Fel Intellect and Fel Stamina, now called Fel Vitality, which rightfully increases Stamina as well as Intellect. Along with all demons, it also gains Avoidance, a baseline ability that helps it mitigate AoE damage by a massive 80%. Improved Voidwalker has not been changed, but a key talent that used to be perfect with the big blueberry -- Soul Link -- was reduced to a 15% damage absorption and no damage bonuses. The good news, however, is that Soul Link is now a Tier 3 talent, allowing almost any Warlock to pick it up for more survivability.
Player buys bear mount from guild for 20,000 gold
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/WoW_player_buys_bear_mount_from_guild_for_20_000_gold'; How much would you pay to be guaranteed a Zul'Aman bear mount? Five thousand gold? Ten thousand? If you're Kharmen from the European realm of Talnivarr, you reportedly paid twice that -- according to the forum thread, Kharmen paid 20,000 gold to the guild Torment to take her into Zul'Aman and get her a bear mount from the timed event rewards.As some players in the thread are saying, the mount isn't actually that hard to get, and in fact, many guilds who can raid fast enough to get it will sell it off for much less. But the more interesting story here is just the sheer amount of money involved. Kharmen says that she farmed the money herself, which may be true, but it seems surprising that players can pass that much money around without raising some eyebrows at Blizzard. Just what does it take to become a suspected gold farmer?At any rate, Kharmen is thrilled that she got her mount, and supposedly Torment is thrilled that they're funded at least until the expansion (unless I'm completely miscalculating the amount it takes to keep a guild raiding -- just how much money do you need for elixirs and buffs these days?). Spending 20,000 on a mount doesn't sound like anything I'll be doing anytime soon, but then raising all of that money doesn't sound that appetizing either.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
