Monthly Archives: March 2017

Trove World Tour: Console Impressions

By Jason Parker (Ragachak)

 

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It’s been a while since I’ve really focused on Trove!  Mostly because I think your average Voxel game is garbage. They’re just building simulators, and that’s boring. Trove is definitely not an average Voxel title. It’s got the grinding, exploring, and making new friends that I enjoy about MMOs, with a cute, colorful setting that doesn’t wind up looking like an MMO. You know what I mean. Everything else is the same damn, boring, gray color. Or in the case of World of Warcraft, green. Bright, sickening green. I love that color, but not when it’s everywhere. I enjoy Trove immensely, but I’m not so sure it felt right on PC. The PC always felt like a summer home, a beta test for what Trove was truly meant to become. When I was at PAX South, I saw the demo for PS4, and got to play it a little while I spent my time at the Trion Worlds booth. And I tell you, honest as can be: It felt perfect. Playing with a controller made it feel right at home. So today, I downloaded Trove on my PS4 and met up with a few of their developers [Andrew Krausnick, Executive Producer and Ted Sanger, Lead Animator] who took me around, and at first were going to give me the rundown of what Trove is. However, I’ve played before, and even recently! So we got to skip all that stuff, and get right down to the nitty-gritty. The parts that matter to me the most.

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There will be no wipe for the Open Beta to Launch transition, and anyone who spends any money during the Open Beta will get a cool Legendary Dragon, Disaeon the Immortal, which is just a cool name to me. There are also Trion Worlds employees giving out cool unique mounts to PS4 and XBox One users. The thing I found that was interesting is that they’re playing on the servers with all the regular players, getting feedback, and looking at the game from the same eyes as the players. Some creations of the players even get into the regular PVP rotation. Speaking of which, you’ll be able to build PVP arenas inside of your clubhouses, and there will also be a cheaper clubhouse to build for those of you who want one just to store items.

Trove Tour Impressions 2

There’s a lot of changes coming to Trove too, such as improvements to inventory [more space I assume; God knows I need it], but that’s not the real big worry I had. One of the issues with games that are on both console/PC [MMOs in particular], is that content comes out earlier on PC, then a few weeks later on console. Trove’s launch on console will admittedly start behind PC. A late 2016 patch is where console starts. But there’s going to be a tremendous, gigantic, enormous patch to catch it up to the PC users. From there on, it will be content at the same time, and this is great. Now players who play on console won’t feel like they’re being ripped off, or behind.

Trove Tour Impressions 3

I had another query, but it wasn’t a worry, but a curiosity. The nature of cross-platform. Sadly, no, there will not be cross-platform, between PS4-PC, or Xbox One-PC. Instead, all Xbox One players and all PS4 players will be together on their own servers, playing with the same amount of progression. I think it’s for the best, though. They probably don’t want PC users giving an unnecessary advantage to a console or another if such a thing can even happen. Being able to explore, create classes [yes, that is a thing we discussed in the demo! Class creation is on the radar!], create my own dungeons, houses, or even worlds, and explore the works of others, that really appeals to me.

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It’s going down in March, and I could not be more excited! Attendees at PAX East 2017 will be able to play the game for themselves, meet the developers, and score some sweet loot. Trove hasn’t been on my radar in a long time, but as soon as I played it on my friend’s Steam Machine [during PAX South], I knew that it would be perfect on a console. Between playing at PAX South, trying it on a Steam Machine, and then again on my PS4 at home? It is my expert opinion that the definitive version of Trove will be on the console. When I play an MMO on a console, I want it to be something I can just pick up, play, and then go do something else. I had a blast with the Trove team, and look forward to sitting down in my chair and playing Trove a lot more frequently. I think the current-gen audience will love it as well, whether they are veterans or new to the game!

A Taste of Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch Impressions

By Jaime Skelton (MissyS), Senior Editor

 

Though many remarkable roleplaying games stuffed my shelves in the late 1990s and early 2000s, none lingered in my memories quite so strong as Planescape: Torment. In retrospect, I’m not sure why: the setting was more grimdark and sci-fi than I cared for at the time, and the writing was equally as eloquent as the Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate series. My best guess is that it was the first game that managed to worm past my defenses and find what little sense of humor I had at that age. All the same, “Torment” stuck with me and many others who cherished video games with a focus on narrative storytelling and complex decision mechanics that eventually fell out of favor in the mainstream.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsThis thing is hunting the Last Castoff. It’s pretty badass.

Naturally, when inXile Entertainment (the studio behind the original Bard’s Tale, another fantastic RPG of the era) announced its desire to create a new game based on all the goodness of the original PlaneScape: Torment, I began salivating nostalgically. Of course, there were many things to be concerned about, including the developer’s choice to look to crowdfunding on Kickstarter. I’ve seen some amazing things come out of Kickstarted projects, but I’ve also watched projects crumble through silence, deception, and poor planning. Torment: Tides of Numenera has survived the entire process and now launched a game that has been earning great acclaim as an homage to that bizarre narrative landscape of Planescape: Torment.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsYummy.

Tides of Numenera is not a remake of Torment; it’s only set within the same Dungeons & Dragons: Planescape universe. All the same, there is a hint of déjà vu as Tides of Numenera begins with a protagonist who, like the original, suffers from a hard case of amnesia. Rest assured, this is a different story. It’s just that PlaneScape games appear to have a fondness for hunting for memories in a thick, murky soup of character introspection and expositional revelation.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsThis place teaches you the basics. And it’s shiny.

The truest connection between Tides and Torment lies in the narrative, verbose and rich with depictions of nightmare-inducing creatures and haunting thoughts on the nature of reality. There is no sacrifice to the storytelling, whether it be through small things in the environment that can be examined to the multi-threaded dialogue that changes based on your interactions, influences, and character skills. Your choices in conversation, for instance, can influence the Tides, a special ‘force’ that represents five aspects of self, so to speak. More than that, however: the power of conversation allows you to find multiple paths through situations, including avoiding combat or earning special boons.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsThis is how you do dialogue choices, BioWare!

In fact, combat is sparse, limited to a handful of encounters – some of which are entirely avoidable. There are far fewer encounters than you would expect in a more modern RPG like Dragon Age, which means the combat hungry will walk away feeling starved. However, these encounters also play out far more like a tabletop experience, offering opportunities to utilize the environment and engage enemies in more ways than simply bringing down a maul on their heads.  Known alternatively as a “Crisis,” the encounter system features turn-based movement and action. Each character has the chance to both move and act in a single turn, utilize character skills, or simply pass and hope no one notices them lurking in the corner. These encounters are also integrated as part of the area the party is in, which means that other nearby NPCs may react and dead bodies will linger. Unless you throw them into a canyon, of course.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsCharacter Sheet. Looks D&D enough.

Almost all actions in and out of combat rely upon an effort system. Instead of the traditional D&D stat system, each character has three stat point ‘pools’ – Might, Speed, and Intelligence. During actions, characters can spend points from these pools to enhance their chance of success (or, in the case of combat, the damage they deal). These points are then spent until the party rests. Of course, resting can also forward the plot as some events are time-based, a lesson that cost one of my favorite NPCs their life.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsPress and hold tab to target — ohhh. Maybe not here.

As with any good RPG, there is equipment and loot to be had. In Tides of Numenera, there are two crucial forms: weapons and cyphers. Weapons are assigned classes based on one of the three primary stats, making it easy to differentiate which of your characters should get the big smashy hammer and which should get the little pointy daggers. Cyphers, on the other hand, are a special form of equipment. These often have limited uses, although some permanent boosts do exist. Many offer powerful attacks that can severely cripple and wound enemies, which is perhaps a boon considering how little combat experience your party would otherwise earn.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsOther characters may have other choices.

Your characters do gain experience, however, though it comes unevenly in tiny dialogue skill checks interspersed with occasional hefty experience dumps meant to actually progress the party. Characters level up in segments called ‘Tiers.’ Each level within a Tier allows the character to choose one enhancement from a select list, but only once per tier. This means that you can choose which enhancements are most beneficial to you first, giving a little more choice in character growth.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsOne area map. They look smaller than they are.

There are, of course, other little systems that I can stop to explain, but they do little to add to the core experience of Tides of Numenera. Instead, let’s move on to discuss the game’s flaws and concerns.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsWeaponized memes are a serious threat. #yolo

It’s been four years and $4 million in Kickstarted funds (only part of the total funding) since Torment: Tides of Numenera was posted on Kickstarter. As can be expected, there are dissatisfied backers who have brought legitimate concerns to the table. Of the nine promised companions to the Last Castoff, only six made it to the game. Likewise, though more Foci were planned, no more than the original three from alpha were ever added. Areas shifted and changed in focus. These, of course, were all viewed as ‘promises’ from inXile based on their Kickstarter campaign, and changes are made over the course of time. inXile stands behind their choices, although they have seemed to admit their lack of communication to backers about certain choices.

Torment: Tides of Numenera Launch ImpressionsBlobby faces, dull tones.

However, I find Tides of Numenera’s greatest flaw to be how aged the game feels. Looking past the niche gameplay of an RPG that more often than not plays like a D&D visual novel, T:ToN offers a certain low-fidelity and lack of crispness and detail in character models and environment. A few hours in, I realized how disappointed I was that the world not only lacked the dark, gritty atmosphere of Planescape: Torment, but how low resolution and indistinct the characters felt in their world (see above). And while the sound design of the game itself is fantastic, the sparse and unpredictable voice acting leaves much to be desired.

All in all, Torment: Tides of Numenera is a great game for what it aspired to be: rich in story-telling and true to the Planescape setting. True, it lacks the charm and wit that the original had (we’ll never forget you Morte), as well as innovation. While it may not live up to the pen and paper rulebook, and may fall short of backer expectations, Tides of Numenera still stands as an excellent tribute to the CRPG.