Planescape: Torment - EE Release Date: April 11

[Caddy]

It's actually a trait of normal, intelligent humans i.e. customers capable of simple deductive logic.

However, due to some horrific genetic mutation, such trait is absent in naive fanboys with low expectations. (emphasis on boys)

^ These are pretty much the majority of the posts he makes, btw. Welcome back.

 

[Ivanwah]

Or maybe gaming is just a hobby for some and they enjoy the products of those companies. If I get my money's worth from a product (and then some) it doesn't mean I'm a fanboy if I say I'll buy the next one. Skyrim entertained me for more than 1000 hours since it came out and I paid like $40 for it. BG EE, I'm enjoying right now, almost as much i enjoyed the originals back in the day. It too was something like $40. I only tried Wasteland 2 but it too seems like it will entertain me fo a while. I don't know its price, but I'm sure I can get it for 10 to 15 bucks on a sale. I spend more every Friday at the pub, and some nights I don't have that much fun, just hanging out with friends, talking about stuff.
My point is, for some of us there are more important people not to trust than game developers. We are not fanboys if we don't think EEs are a cash grab.

 

[NewDArt]

^ These are pretty much the majority of the posts he makes, btw. Welcome back.

Thanks

Yes, I noticed that very quickly. Seems a few Codex guys can't get enough of the Watch. Can't blame them!

 

[JDR13]

I thought this was a joke. Judging by the answers from others guess I was wrong. Full voice overs would be horribly annoying (hearing the first two words spoken at the same time as I'm reading the entire sentence). But I guess it would be fine ifI could disable it, I've never seen that option though. I'm currently playing WL2 DC and the full voice overs are the only thing annoying me with it…

My thoughts exactly. Most of us read much faster than the time it takes for voice to be spoken. In a game with as much writing as PS:T, we'd probably end up constantly clicking past the voice overs if they were present.

 

[NewDArt]

Or maybe gaming is just a hobby for some and they enjoy the products of those companies. If I get my money's worth from a product (and then some) it doesn't mean I'm a fanboy if I say I'll buy the next one. Skyrim entertained me for more than 1000 hours since it came out and I paid like $40 for it. BG EE, I'm enjoying right now, almost as much i enjoyed the originals back in the day. It too was something like $40. I only tried Wasteland 2 but it too seems like it will entertain me fo a while. I don't know its price, but I'm sure I can get it for 10 to 15 bucks on a sale. I spend more every Friday at the pub, and some nights I don't have that much fun, just hanging out with friends, talking about stuff.
My point is, for some of us there are more important people not to trust than game developers. We are not fanboys if we don't think EEs are a cash grab.

Once you've spent a little time on gaming forums - you start noticing certain words being used in place of substantial arguments.

These include fanboy (or the more edgy spelling: fanboi), hater, troll and derp

It's essentially the same as saying you can't be bothered to support your position.

Which is fair enough. The Watch was always a tolerant bunch.

 

[Caddy]

Once you've spent a little time on gaming forums - you start noticing certain words being used in place of substantial arguments.

These include fanboy (or the more edgy spelling: fanboi), hater, troll and derp

It's essentially the same as saying you can't be bothered to support your position.

Which is fair enough. The Watch was always a tolerant bunch.

How dare you use truth and logic. It has no place on this forum!

 

[Pappy]

I'm sure all the hard work Beamdog has put in the engine makes it possible for them to make some improvements to Planescape: Torment, but nobody really needed this version.

 

[Deleted User]

I did.

 

[Vindicator]

…I would settle for average voice acting. Avellone is the king of pretentious verbosity anyway…

For a $20 game, they couldn't even hire bad voice actors to read 100+ hours of dialogue. I would suggest locking Chris Avellone in a closet until he has finished recording all 1M words… It might teach him to be less verbose in the future.

 

[pibbur who]

I'm sure all the hard work Beamdog has put in the engine makes it possible for them to make some improvements to Planescape: Torment, but nobody really needed this version.

I guess I'm nobody, then.

pibbur who in general makes his own decisions about what he needs or does not need.

 

[azarhal]

I'm sure all the hard work Beamdog has put in the engine makes it possible for them to make some improvements to Planescape: Torment, but nobody really needed this version.

People with widescreen that aren't 16:9 do.
People with large resolution or with issue reading small text do.
People who want to play the game on mobile do.

It also pack the "fan fixes" into the game, along a bunch of other fixes.

 

[pibbur who]

Or maybe gaming is just a hobby for some and they enjoy the products of those companies. If I get my money's worth from a product (and then some) it doesn't mean I'm a fanboy if I say I'll buy the next one. Skyrim entertained me for more than 1000 hours since it came out and I paid like $40 for it. BG EE, I'm enjoying right now, almost as much i enjoyed the originals back in the day. It too was something like $40. I only tried Wasteland 2 but it too seems like it will entertain me fo a while. I don't know its price, but I'm sure I can get it for 10 to 15 bucks on a sale. I spend more every Friday at the pub, and some nights I don't have that much fun, just hanging out with friends, talking about stuff.
My point is, for some of us there are more important people not to trust than game developers. We are not fanboys if we don't think EEs are a cash grab.

Well put. I agree completely.

pibbur who in general values putting things into perspective.

 

[SpoonFULL]

I enjoyed the EE feature in IWD (text size scaling, auto loot, zooming .. etc.), and it was not taxing on my old laptop.

So I pre-ordered PS:T EE on GoG (seems cheaper than advertised price) - I would have been happy tinkering with mods and fixes for the original 20 years ago, now I don't have time.

 

[NewDArt]

For a $20 game, they couldn't even hire bad voice actors to read 100+ hours of dialogue. I would suggest locking Chris Avellone in a closet until he has finished recording all 1M words… It might teach him to be less verbose in the future.

It's not the price of the game so much as the relatively large segment of the core gaming community they're targeting here. Something like this could easily sell 100K copies or more.

I'm pretty sure they could hire a bunch of average voice actors for a modest fee - but I guess a lot of the fans would consider that sacrilege. Hehe, personally, I'm actually a very fast reader - but I prefer voice acting because then I can focus on playing the game, rather than reading it.

That said, your plan does sound deliciously appropriate

I know I give CA a hard time. He's obviously a talented writer - it's just a matter of not being a fan of his style.

 

[Deleted User]

No, please no full voice acting for games like this. To be honest, I much prefer a limited greeting that is voiced, like Morrowind or Baldur's Gate, something to just set the tone, then the ability to read the rest. It's not so much that I'm in a hurry when I play RPGs (quite the opposite, really), but since I read way faster than the voice actors speak, it just becomes tedious to sit there and listen while I've already read what they had to say.

I'd say voiced dialogue works well for occasional "quick" party banter in combat. A little "Go for the eyes, Boo!" and what not. It also works well for games that don't have a lot of text and don't use subtitles. Then I can just listen and pay attention to the voice acting rather than trying to read ahead of it since there are no subtitles (or I disabled the option in the settings.)

 

[purpleblob]

Quite the Codexian trait

You know DArt, labelling someone codexian in that sense does not sound any better than calling someone a troll or fanboi etc.

I for one agree with both luj1 and Archangel and I also hang around Codex. So I guess you will label me as a typical codexian as well?

Like I stated in other posts before I view Beamdog *enhancements* mediocre and cash grab and prefer originals. Yes, they are business, they are allowed to be greedy but I also have a right to complain as a customer.

But anyway, back to topic. Its good that there is an option to turn off *enhancements* in PST:EE. I would kill for that option in previous EEs.

Also, I am in a camp for no full voice acting. I much prefer the partial voice actings in IE games - best of both worlds. You know what each character sounds like but there is also room for imagination how some lines are said in your head

 

[Vindicator]

No, please no full voice acting for games like this. To be honest, I much prefer a limited greeting that is voiced, like Morrowind or Baldur's Gate, something to just set the tone, then the ability to read the rest…

Yes, sometimes limited voice acting is better… Ultima 7 is a perfect example; Including the intro, there was probably no more than 10 minutes of voice in the whole game. U7 would not have been as memorable without The Guardian's booming voice, which could be chilling at times, yet more voice overs would've only diminished its impact.

However, for a text heavy games like PS:T, I am guilty of sometimes skimming or skipping dialogue that is not particularly interesting to me. Full voice overs would encourage me to replay it and pick up things I missed the first time. I would pay twice the price for quality voice acting throughout… but it would have to be optional, maybe with a mute button on the dialog box.

 

[NewDArt]

You know DArt, labelling someone codexian in that sense does not sound any better than calling someone a troll or fanboi etc.

I for one agree with both luj1 and Archangel and I also hang around Codex. So I guess you will label me as a typical codexian as well?

I didn't call them typical Codexians - I said mistrust of the companies mentioned is a Codexian trait.

If you share that mistrust, then yes, you also have a Codexian trait.

That's not tantamount to being a Codexian, though

However, IF I called a Codexian a Codexian - that would be 100% accurate, wouldn't it?

Not quite the same as calling someone a troll because you have no arguments.

Like I stated in other posts before I view Beamdog *enhancements* mediocre and cash grab and prefer originals. Yes, they are business, they are allowed to be greedy but I also have a right to complain as a customer.

Oh, I completely agree with that. I believe I've said as much several times.

Well, except about the complaining. Sure, we all have a right. We don't even need a right.

But I don't understand people who complain about something that's 100% optional when they're not actually entitled to a SINGLE thing from the company in question.

It's like me complaining about a girl kissing me when what I really want is sex, you know?

She's hardly obligated to please me.

 

[DeepO]

I wonder if Mark Morgan was involved somehow in the remastering process for the soundtrack? Very curious to hear some track by track comparisons for this. Mark's Vault Archives recordings for the Fallout soundtrack were most excellent and Torment perhaps represents his next most fondly remembered work.

Mark Morgan is not involved, but they had access to the uncompressed audio files which were remastered. The soundtrack is available in FLAC from Beamdog directly and is also on Steam.

For what it's worth, they've released a trailer for the soundtrack album (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=927MdAFHQ-Q) and the featured snippets feature the same mastering as the GOG version of the OST, at least according to a quick comparison I did by ear/Wavelab. If there are any mastering differences they're reeeally subtle.

Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean the soundtrack actually used in-game wasn't remastered, but considering the above + what seems like a generally fairly hands-off approach when it comes to creative meddling, I'd wager a guess the newly remastered in-game music is actually just a new encode of the uncompressed files Beamdog had at their disposal, perhaps with some minor tweaks to account for the existence of other in-game sounds. Well, at least I'd hope so .

Anyway, primarily just wanted to point out that the Beamdog OST seems to feature the same mastering as the old GOG version.

 

[purpleblob]

I didn't call them typical Codexians - I said mistrust of the companies mentioned is a Codexian trait.

If you share that mistrust, then yes, you also have a Codexian trait.

That's not tantamount to being a Codexian, though

However, IF I called a Codexian a Codexian - that would be 100% accurate, wouldn't it?

Not quite the same as calling someone a troll because you have no arguments.

My skeptism towards Beamdog roots from my assessment of the quality of their previous EE products. From my view, its justified.

Oh, I completely agree with that. I believe I've said as much several times.

Well, except about the complaining. Sure, we all have a right. We don't even need a right.

But I don't understand people who complain about something that's 100% optional when they're not actually entitled to a SINGLE thing from the company in question.

Also explained in other thread but my complains roots from Beamdogs EEs forcing up the price and making it difficult to obtain originals. Erm the company have some sort have obligation to meet customer expectation. Ofcourse, Im not the only customer and reading this thread there are plenty of fans of EEs. However, my complain = feedback to Beamdog. Like I said in previous post its good that enhancement is now fully optional. Glad they are listening to feedback