Chat Log - First Planescape: Torment Chat Editted by Silverdawn of Baldur's Gate Chronicles (www.bgchronicles.com). This chat on February 10, 1999 was held in the official #torment channel on the irc.dreammyst.net server, port 6667. Official Participants: Striding_Dragon Guido Henkel Senior Producer Torment Strv_Dog Chris Avellone Lead Designer Torment ColinBIS Colin McComb Designer Torment Eric_Black... Eric Campanella Artist Torment Ken-X Ken Lee Line Producer Torment Anomie Aaron Meyers Artist Torment Dan Dan Spitzley Lead Programmer Torment Tim Tim Donley Lead Artist Torment Jim Jim Gardner Programmer Torment Big_Tuna Greg Peterson Marketing Head Black Isle Studios Krys Krys Card Public Relations Black Isle Studios Meghan Meghan Jenks Public Relations Interplay JFinite Jonny Finite Webmaster Interplay Welcome to the Planescape: Torment chat! If you have a question for the team, here's how to get on the list: If you are using an IRC client, type "/msg krys addme" without quotes. NORM! Eric models every character in the multiverse for us. If you're waiting in line to ask a question, now is a good time to type it into a text editor like Notepad, highlight the text, hit ctrl-c to copy it, and when your turn comes up, hit ctrl-v to paste it in. Remember to keep questions short and sweet :) Howdy Folks! Please do NOT ask when the release date is. The information is available elsewhere. Don't ask questions that are answered on the website! Also, please refrain from profanity or vulgarity out of respect for our younger attendees. This is a moderated chat. You won't be able to talk until it's your turn. Please DO NOT change your nick to make a comment or ask a question. Repeated nick changes will get you banned from the chat. Torment team, be sure after answering a question that you give me the "ga" (go ahead) so I know when to voice the next person Let's start at the top - will you guys please introduce yourselves :) Thanks "Ga"? It sounds like we've just been poked with a sharp stick! Colin, hush! hi I'm Guido Henkel. I'm really, really tall. :) Meghan kicks Colin. Shush, Chris I'm Dan Spitzley, lead programmer. I'm Chris Avellone. I'm really mean, yet oddly endearing. Krys smacks Chris upside the head Sorry. No, seriously, I'm Chris Avellone. Lead "Designer" Hi I AM Guido !!! Big_Tuna eats his pizza quietly hoping no one notices Krys notices I'm Colin McComb. Tim Donley, Artist among the cool bunch of artists And what do you do, Colin? Colin tends goats. Chris...... In Chris's backyard. Sorry. Ok! Got everyone? Hey, how do you make those nice blue comments like "a kicks b"? Aaron? Jim? Eric? Me Eric... Art Guy I'm Kenneth Lee, resident of Baator. And I secretly am trying to get my brethren in the game. Oh I'm Line Producer as well:). Ah, the foul Ken-X. I thought I smelled your foul baatorian scent. cer|away is now known as Cerial Meghan, Tuna and I are on the marketing side, Meghan and I are in PR, and Tuna thinks he's in Marketing or something. Aaron, Tim's faithful assistant, and I'm off to escuela :) Short. Sweet. Thanks, sorry for that Ready? Bring it on! First question... Krys has changed the mode in #torment to +v blackEyEz Go ahead, blackEyEz How are you gonna mix the traditional abstract art of planescape illustrations with Torment? Will it be more a mixture of this abstractness and the 'commercial' art of BG, or will it be put to one side? "copied and pasted 1999 (c) blacky"..:) Great question... Timmy? Tim? Eric? We took the Planescape architecture and made it even more twisted. Aaron & Tim can probably answer. Blackeyez : It is pretty absrtact and crazy as opposed to Balders gate C'mon Tim. Tell them about your nightmares.. We don't do "commercial" run-of-the-mill Tudor farmhouses in Torment. hehe Yup. Our geometry is harder to clip... Hopefully you can see from some of the screen shots that we are trying to stay loyal to the feel There is no Run-Of-The-Mill on our art team or our art. Everything is spikey and dangerous looking. ready? And tasty. Only Dan is tasty. And post-modern. And the more good planes will those be pictured too? Thanks, Blackeyez That's Dan. Post-modern Dan. And kind of "out there." Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v blackEyEz Elxalraj Go ahead, Elxalraj Elxalraj checks some of his cards, moving around them and reading them to himself hm... ok are there any taco bells within the game? to that, can players use spoons as weapons? yo no se We'd better let Greg field that one. There's Taco Bell within us. oh... ohh... and and.. and no but there is one down the street It'll be out of us soon too. There are 10 planned fst food chains in torment. can we have the attendant say... Mmmm. Taco Bell. Yo quiero Taco Bell! the place's as clean as a chihuahuans ass Don't make me kick you, Elx! LOL hehe We have a glabrezu tanar'ri as the mascot. Moving on... aw... Hey, wait.. hush, guys, they haven't paid for product placement. *duck* bye guys! Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v Elxalraj FalloutBoy Go ahead, FalloutBoy "All restaraunts in Planescape are aTaco Bell" still lol from last Q... How hard would it be to create a multiplayer, user-modifiable RPG based on the Infinity engine, and have you considered it? Impossible... Aieeeeeeee Extremely difficult. honesty cool Seriously... we thought of it, but multiplayer is just not a thing we want to do! Shi neh! what about the customizable part? It does not go well with the story and we feel it would take away from the actual plot too much... The user-modifiable concept (levels not characters) is very complex and would not lend itself well to public distribution. So we decided to make it a kick-ass single player game instead. cool thx We also wanted to stay consistent with the campaign setting, which would also have been a problem in Multiplayer where people are literally on the loose. We also have to watch that everything we do is constent with the AD&D campaign setting Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v FalloutBoy Mongo Go ahead, Mongo jink jinx In your expert opinion, how close to the published Planescape universe will the game be? The Lady, the chant, the factions...are these accurately (subjective term) depicted? Also, are other PS writers (such as Monte Cook and Ray Vallese) contributing directly to the game? Oooh! Me! Me! Go Colin! ;) Go Colin! Go Colin Yay Colin! Go Colin! go colin Coooolin. Monte? Who's Colin? huraay! Is that Zeb? Mongo, we're adhering to the published material as well as we can. I can say, in all honesty, that Chris has totally grasped the Planescape concept and is doing great things with it. Yeah... right... ;-) Blech All the elements you suggested are in place, and implemented well. :) Sticky, Colin Colin gets a big raise this year. Avellone!!! Woo! Get rid off your PR hat, Colin. Monte and Ray don't have anything to do with this except to say, "Right on!" Just like we can't do anything with TSR's material. :) He's wearing it in an uncomfortable place. Is that where I left that damn hat? Crap. LOL Chris, is that as clean as you wanted it? I need a breath mint. ga Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v Mongo Mark_the_Canuck Go ahead, Mark_the_Canuck Q1: What have you done to improve Q/A since FO2 and DTUM? Given the multiple paths present in this game, it would seem to be a Q/A nightmare and require a top notch Q/A job Q2: Can my woodmuffin wear a pointy hat? Yes. But please, Colin. Speak your mind. I'm not here to judge, just to love. Striding_Dragon pads Colin on the shoulder Mark..... Mark > your woodmuffin IS wearing a pointy hat... can't you tell? YOU KEEP JUDGING ME, DAMN YOU!.. err. Sorry. QA should be considerably easier for Planescape than BG, for instance. Testing a game like Torment is always a challenge. Especially the multiple paths, as you suggest, make it very hard... Sorry that 4 letter word should be left unsaid The reason being, since we are not Multiplayer, there are considrably fewer variables to worry about. We are working on a system that should help us get rid of most problems. Multiplayer would require a few more QA teams. As for the Woodmuffin.... Let's see... we have something better. The Campatuskanella Root Beer However, any RPG is bound to be difficult to test fully, especially if many flags are being used. Mmmmm. I'll pay $50 for one! We are also not using some of the testing shortcuts we used in FO2 ga He's going to eat the Woodmuffin??? Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v Mark_the_Canuck DamirD Go ahead, DamirD Who.. me? The shortcuts made it easier to test, but prevented us from playing teh game like a fan how is navigation through Sigil being worked out, do you have a big map or somethign with few points of interests on it.. or do you get the whole city to explore(I guess not)? Oh, no... Damir. We've also implemented a variable database to ensure proper usage of all globals. Chris: hehe.. ;) You are allowed to visit certain wards in the city. mm..ok..meaning global map thing.. You can't visit the entire city (that's kind of beyond any team of less than 200 members)... Each "area" will have an automap which uncovers as you walk through it. It's a bit like Baldur's Gate... Globals as in variables You will be able to add and modify notes. cool.. thanks.. Thanks, Jim. Portals also can help you get around, too. Who cares about the variable databse... ???? Do I see any hands here? **Snif** Well, shoot. That's what I call fun! Big_Tuna hides his hand Daaaan. Striding_Dragon passes a hanky to Jim You do get a can of spraypaint and can put graffiti everywhere! What was the question? Want it back? Geez. Torment = Top-Notch Organization Striding_Dragon takes the "rozzy" hanky back from Jim And you get a large juggling circus bear on a unicycle that you can send in as your point-man during combat. Thanks, DamirD Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v DamirD Zaxxon Go ahead, Zaxxon What is the estimated play-through time? More or less than that of BG? Also approximately how much HD space will be required, and will there be a DVD version? (please?) It will be shorteter than BG... The reason for that is that we want to ensure... people get the chance to actually play the game to the end... There's nothing more frustrating than creating... a game and then having people drop out... There may be fewer areas, but the gameplay will be different - there will be more puzzles to solve, and a LOT of dialogue for various reasons before they actually see the end. Mmmm. Dialogue. Our current HD footprint is about 65MB. Tasty dialogue. Chris Avellone = dialogue there are also truly different ways to get through the game lots and lots This could increase or decrease depending on how we organize the CD resources. The sound effects in particular will increase it. Your harddisc footprint WILL increase, believe me. And as for DVD? Tuna question? Tuna? Tuuuuna What's in the can? Probably not.... Spam? Not sure about DVD. That's up to Marketing/Sales/PR. I think tuna's in the can, so to speak. Ok. Thanks guys. He IS the can! I'd love a DVD version personally. are yo dolphin safe? But it depends because each month that goes by expands the # of DVD machines out there Oh no... I mean he IS the MAN!!! Dan, not PR :) I Want Divx! NOT!! Stinky fish! Nope.. we're just not that important. *sniff* Oh no.... :-))) It is really driven by what our Sales group asks for - which is driven by what the retailers are willing to stock Somebody hug Meghan. DIVX is not DVD-ROM compatible.... Ha! A DIVX version of Torment. Haha Striding_Dragon hugs Megan Get one party member, and then you have to pay for another one. You pay for each 2 hr session! ROL We can do a virtual walkthrough of Colin's refrig Thanks, uh whomever asked this long-winded answer question... hehe no prob Meghan thanks Striding Dragon. Sorry, Zaxxon! Striding_Dragon hugs Meghan again Easy you two Meghan grins. Dang, gettin' cozy in here... Striding_Dragon grins Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v Zaxxon Yoshua Go ahead, Yoshua Dan takes a big swig 'o water and belches. What improvements (if any) have been made to the Infinity engine in Planescape: Torment. Also will the Infinity engine be going through any rennovations in the not to distant future (for example, getting into 3D would be nice, 2D looks ok but is going the way of the dodo bird and doesn't support fun and intresting actions such as climbing/flying/etc) No burping! Okay, let's see... Bigger characters. One of the improvements is the scale. We have much larger characters and backgrounds... The other one is obviously that we have some amazing animated backgrounds... Bigger spells! Bigger monsters. Can't take you anywhere, Dan I am not talking about some candlelights here. I am talking serious FULSCREEN background animations. Just "plane" big. will the increased scale further restrict spell range ? BISColin slaps Chris Another change would be the usage of special effects that BG did not have. We have those kind of animations. Ug. The scale will NOT inhibt the spell range... As a matter of fact we have been talking about this problem in regards to BG... Sometimes the screen is the spell range. The entire screen. And the next. and have been able to come up with a solution that should work... theoretically. :-) BEYOND the entire screen, and beyond your hard drive as well:) We got a bigger viewport We got bigger ... ah whatever ;-) We have a new translucency system as well, thanks to Rob and Guido. Oh boy, ok How much impact on perfermance will the animated backgrounds cause ? Oh ja, the "Gradient Traslucency".... "Translucency." Mmmmm. How 'bout some Spam? The animated backgrounds hardly hit the system... the framerate goes down by two frames or so, but thats about it. Krys stretches her fingers The backgrounds behave in many ways like a set of characters strung together, so it's no worse than that would be in BG. * Chris practices action scripts ga Thanks. Yoshua Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v Yoshua Raistlin Go ahead, Raistlin Not to mention, the backround anims don't have AI, so you don't have to worry about that overhead. only the question �bout the resolution.. only 640x480 or higher? pleeaassee!!!! i pray for 800x600! possible or not? Eric pictures himself on a boat by a river 640x480... With translucent screens and marlmelade skies Higher resolution would require more VRam I know it's a hot topic, but there's a problem with the system specs... grrrrrr Lady in the sky with switchblades Without redoing all of the art and interface, it's not possible. If we switch to 800x600 there is so much data going down the bus that it would bring... most systems to its knees. It's just not feasible. *pfff* Making it customizeable would create sooo much more overhead... that we decided not even to try. ok, thanx...... *loudcry* Sorry, pla! I mean.. pal. is schon gut! ga Thanks, Raistlin Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v Raistlin WaveForm Go ahead, WaveForm There are LOTS of creatures and races in the planescape setting, and it would be hard to put them all in, so how many different races are we likely to run into? what got left out? I like modrons.... Chris, Colin? You'll run into the basic core creatures. There are modrons. Chris... Colin... Definitely fiends, modrons, tieflings, githzerai, etc, etc We would never leave modrons out. There are a number of creatures that our artists came up with that are totally new. Chris loves Modrons! Chris pretty much got the good ones. Dan: Shhhhssshhh! Plus, Eric made a bunch of new critters, too. Ummmmmm. OK Krys tells Chris to check his messages... You can meet the famous Dan in the game. Yeah, I'm sitting there playing Xenogears. There's a den where you can met Dan... There are waring factions of avellonians and mccombos! Eric has made about eight - ten new critters that'll show up. Watch for them. Oh, we have humans. The time is now 6:30pm Pacific And succubi. They are totally cool and freaky! Real nightmare material. YEAH! Humasn rule! Right. Humans. Lots of humans. And mimirs. Whoa, that's my job, Meghan! We have some really weird people, too. No halflings. "people", I mean. :P They're not really people. But they act like it... at first. No kenders. Yeah, our humans are only humans in the loosest sense of the term. No kenders! The time is now 6:30pm Pacific Kinda like the torment team Don't read too much into that. Plenty of potatoes, though. Striding_Dragon cries because there are no kenders in Torment ga Strv_Dog Chris nearly chokes on potato. Thanks, WaveForm Krys has changed the mode in #torment to -v+v WaveForm blackEyEz Go ahead, blackEyEz Striding_Dragon pads Chris on the back blackEyEz day dreams about a succubi.....................ahum okay...question.... Watch it Chris. Your spud almost hit me in the eye. 1- How will the music give the tone of the planes?, will there be soundtracks/Sound FX for every different plane (included in Torment) 2 - Will there be more sound FX when casting spells both wizard and priest... 3 - Will Noober return !!!!!!!...:)... Strv_Dog Chris mumurs how much he loves potatoes. That's a good one... We just had a meeting this afternoon on the issue. 2: Each spell should have it's own sound effects. I knew #3 was a good one..:) Music will be queued by certain events and people rather than generic localtion tracks. Strv_Dog Chris dreams of Noobers. lol! Strv_Dog Chris picks his Noobers. So, we will have a very wide variety of themes and motifs for the game.... So the silent movie idea is out? which should overall refelct much of the game's and planes' atmospheres. Silent Movie idea is a NO GO! thank you thank you...*drool* Our music will be cool. blackEyEz bows and steps backwards Can we make the game black and white? What about my charlie chaplin model? We have a very cool composer for the music, if you're interested... It is in some places. Are you? Wait, wait... any word on contacting the Iceman, Vanilla? haha charlie chaplin with a crane +3 Yes! Oh, yes! Tell us, Dragon! Tell us! tell us indeed..:) Okay, here it goes... Tell! Tell! He's going to tell! ::He's going to tell:: He's going to tell Yes... I am... lol We have contracted... (Drumroll) ... (Longer Drumroll).... ::drumriff:: Stay here and make sure he doesn't leave the room. ... (It's getting unbearable)... ::solo:: ... We have contracted Brian Williams... ::inagaddadavida:: Strv_Dog Chris picks Noobers No, he's not the son of John Williams... wow!!!!!!!!!! but he's close... whooooohooo! who is he??..;D Wasn't he in the Beach Boys? Devo, I think. He's worked with Graeme Revell Original singer for the Pet Shop Boys? ex-band member from Milli Vanilli :) Created the ambient band Lustmord oooh ..