Sigil

[mikpro1]

Is the only me expected to see Sigil in future game updates? And fortress of regret and some reflection towards nameless? When I see the name Torment ... I really want to see reflection to PLane Scape Torment .....

[Bombast]

Planescape: Torment is owned by Bandai. Creating a 'spiritual successor' with a few 'legacy characters' is one thing. Straight up ripping locations and content from a game someone else owns is just asking for a lawsuit.

[mikpro1]

So why call game Torment and say that? Honestly when i buy game i expect it will have reflection on Planescape Torment...... but this just promotion make different game but partly call heritage of plane scape Torment...

[Bombast]

Originally posted by Capt. Jack Aubrey:

So why call game Torment and say that? Honestly when i buy game i expect it will have reflection on Planescape Torment...... but this just promotion make different game but partly call heritage of plane scape Torment...

They called it Torment because it was marketed as a spiritual successor to Torment: Planescape. Planescape occurs in the DnD universe, howeever, while Tides of Numenera occurs in the Numenera universe.

But yes, they used the Torment title because they thought it would rake in the cash, and low and behold, it did. May have backed them into a corner though... if this thing ever gets a sequel, it's bound to have a weird title.

[strekalalex84]

The use of the Planescape setting or anything resembling an actual sequel to Planescape: Torment was never going to happen because of legal issues.

It's actually for that reason that me and my gaming friends were skeptical about Tides of Numenera the day it was announced. It really shouldn't have Torment in the title.

I was able to set that aside anticipate the game for what it realistically is, I.E. a completely different game in a completely different setting that tries to capture the *feel* of Planescape: Torment. Fair enough to that. But I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me skeptical about the nostalgia they're appealing to. They really are pushing it in that regard.

[wendigo211]

There are a few direct Planescape nods. There's the Changing God's name: Adahn. There's also the character O in the tavern in Sagus Cliffs. There's probably a few more but those are the ones I remember seeing.

[mikpro1]

Adan ye , O ye but still ...... without Sigil and reflection to Unnamed and those locations its not a game.... its just totally out of it. If add this cahracters , so need and locations otherwise its just unconnected MIX,

[strekalalex84]

The loose parallels they went for are pretty obvious.

Main character = Amnesiac thrown into the world who can't die and sometimes has to get themselves killed on purpose to advance a quest

The Fathom = The Mortuary
Sagus Cliffs = The Hive
The Valley = Buried Village and Catacombs
The Bloom = Ravel's Maze, but more expansive
The Maws = Portals with keys
The First Area = Hidden door to the last area

The Changeing God's Daughter = Deonarra
The Changing God + The First + Other Castoffs = Your incarnations
The Sorrow = Toss up between the Transcendent One and the Lady of Pain
The Genocide = Vhailor, except it's not a companion.
Ebb Creakness = The world info character in the bar in Cliff's Edge

The Dendra O'Hur = The Dustmen
The Order of Truth = The Sensates
Cult of the Changing God = The Godsmen

There's a headless man walking around, but you can't interact with them.
O returns in the equivolent of the Smoldering Corpse Bar.

"Updated my journal", except there is no real journal.

[mikpro1]

Deonarra was a daughter of lawyer , who travelled with unnamed with his previus recornation.

[strekalalex84]

The parallels aren't all direct but they're there. The Changing God's daughter functions as Deonarra in that it's a ghost woman, kind of thrown into the story at the last minute.

My point is that they obviously tried to copy the form of Torment in quite a few ways, not just in the form of easter eggs. Perhaps a bit too much.

[Aquillion]

Originally posted by strekalalex84:

The parallels aren't all direct but they're there. The Changing God's daughter functions as Deonarra in that it's a ghost woman, kind of thrown into the story at the last minute.

My point is that they obviously tried to copy the form of Torment in quite a few ways, not just in the form of easter eggs. Perhaps a bit too much.

Er? Neither Deonarra nor the Changing God's daughter are thrown into the story at the last minute.

(Well, it's possible to miss her, I guess? But she's present in act 1.)

[mikpro1]

WE ALL MISS NAMELESS WITH MORTE :( AND >>>>>> UPDATED MY JOURNAL>>>>>

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by Capt. Jack Aubrey:

So why call game Torment and say that? Honestly when i buy game i expect it will have reflection on Planescape Torment...... but this just promotion make different game but partly call heritage of plane scape Torment...

It was meant as a spiritual successor to Planescape Torment. Just as how Bioshock was a spiritual successor to System Shock 2.

Originally posted by The Wikipedia article for Spiritual Successor:

A spiritual successor,[1][2] sometimes called a spiritual sequel, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, yet features many of the same elements, themes, and styles as its source material, thereby resulting in it being related or similar "in spirit" to its predecessor.

Emphasis mine.

I'm staying out of the argument about whether using the name was a cash-grab or not, simply pointing out that it fits the definition of a spiritual successor which TToN was advertised as.

EDIT: And, frankly, of all the possible settings they could have used for such a successor (discounting Planescape due to aforementioned licensing and copyright issues); Numenera was the best one they could have chosen. The tabletop game's books paint a world that is unbelieveably weird and fantasic at times, not dissimilar to how Planescape tends to be when compared with other DnD settings.

[strekalalex84]

I think the Numenera setting is pretty cool actually. My main criticism is two-fold:

(1) Pull up definitions of "spiritual sucessor" if you want, but I don't think there is much of a precedent for a game that explicitly uses the title of another game while completely abandoning both its setting and core aspects of its gameplay. For that reason, I was anticipating this game with a grain of salt as far as its connection to its predecessor.

(1) Given the choice to use Numenera, they did a questionable job of giving you a sense of exploring the setting in the game. A lot is described in text, and you're dropped a lot of hints about people and places you *could* explore, but it's just hinted at and then tossed aside. I wasn't a backer, but to find that some of those places (2-3 more areas) were cut is a dissapointment.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by strekalalex84:

I think the Numenera setting is pretty cool actually. My main criticism is two-fold:

(1) Pull up definitions of "spiritual sucessor" if you want, but I don't think there is much of a precedent for a game that explicitly uses the title of another game while completely abandoning both its setting and core aspects of its gameplay. For that reason, I was anticipating this game with a grain of salt as far as its connection to its predecessor.

(1) Given the choice to use Numenera, they did a questionable job of giving you a sense of exploring the setting in the game. A lot is described in text, and you're dropped a lot of hints about people and places you *could* explore, but it's just hinted at and then tossed aside. I wasn't a backer, but to find that some of those places (2-3 more areas) were cut is a dissapointment.

Fair point on the second, but as for the first one - Bioshock as a name was a pretty blatant nod to System Shock 2 and they made no attempt to hide that connection in the publicity leading to its release. And yet it uses a totally different setting and only a small handful of shared mechanics (beyond the ones that all FPS games share).

[mikpro1]

http://planescape.com