Rumor: New Torment Game in the Works

[sXeth]

With Wizards taking the D&D franchise backwards trying to emulate WoW and Guild Wars, they had basically eliminated the Planescape setting and retconned most of the setting into obscurity. It's great to see there's a possibility of it coming back.

Maybe this positive force of Baldur's Gate, Planescape, and Ravenloft resurgence may also convince Wizards to sway away from this silly Neverwinter (not Neverwinter Nights, it's a marginally related D&D v4.2) push they are stumbling through and just get back to producing great campaign settings like Planescape, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft.

I hate to be "That guy", but there's a staggering level of misinformation here.

Planescape got canned with 3rd Edition, eons before the "vidya-game friendly" 4e rules got anywhere near it. (Elements of it got attached to Forgotten Realms, along with Al-Qadim, and Oriental Adventures, while Ravenloft got a tie-in with both FR and Dragonlance. Spelljammer was Planescapes spiritual precursor, as I recall, with spaceships isntead of planar portals)

Baldur's Gate isn't an equivalent to Planescape or Ravenloft, the equivalent would be Forgotten Realms, which also includes Neverwinter (Both the Nights, and that horrid-ass Diablo clone thingy). None of these really dictate the style of a game either (Or well, Ravenloft sort of pushes into survival horror), they're just settings.

 

[Absolutionis]

With Wizards taking the D&D franchise backwards trying to emulate WoW and Guild Wars, they had basically eliminated the Planescape setting and retconned most of the setting into obscurity. It's great to see there's a possibility of it coming back.

Maybe this positive force of Baldur's Gate, Planescape, and Ravenloft resurgence may also convince Wizards to sway away from this silly Neverwinter (not Neverwinter Nights, it's a marginally related D&D v4.2) push they are stumbling through and just get back to producing great campaign settings like Planescape, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft.

I hate to be "That guy", but there's a staggering level of misinformation here.

Planescape got canned with 3rd Edition, eons before the "vidya-game friendly" 4e rules got anywhere near it. (Elements of it got attached to Forgotten Realms, along with Al-Qadim, and Oriental Adventures, while Ravenloft got a tie-in with both FR and Dragonlance. Spelljammer was Planescapes spiritual precursor, as I recall, with spaceships isntead of planar portals)

Baldur's Gate isn't an equivalent to Planescape or Ravenloft, the equivalent would be Forgotten Realms, which also includes Neverwinter (Both the Nights, and that horrid-ass Diablo clone thingy). None of these really dictate the style of a game either (Or well, Ravenloft sort of pushes into survival horror), they're just settings.

When I said 'resurgence', I meant Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (video game), Planescape: Torment's successor (this game), and Castle Ravenloft (the board game).
No misinformation, just miscommunication.

As an aside, the 'horrid-ass Diablo clone thingy' was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, not a Neverwinter Nights spinoff.

Planescape established not only Sigil, but an entire cosmology from Limbo, Mechanus, Abyss, Celestia, and the like. Planescape also introduced the Factions (Dustmen, Sensates, etc) that featured prominently in Torment.

The Planescape cosmology became D&D proper canon in 3rd Edition. "Manual of the Planes" even described Sigil and the planes in their Planescape form essentially making the campaign setting of Planescape unnecessary because it was assimilated into D&D proper. The only thing that got 'canned' were Modrons, and that made me really sad. The cosmology otherwise was pretty much untouched.

It was 4th edition that wrecked the cosmology and all of what Planescape made. Limbo got jumbled with the Abyss in the Elemental Chaos. Mechanus was gone. Celestia was in Spelljammer-land in the newly-made Astral Sea. Eladrin were shoehorned in everywhere they could. The Planescape setting, in it butchered and barely recognizable form was highlighted in 4e Manual of the Planes and DMG2.
The factions are also listed in some 4thEd adventures and Dragon "magazine".

If you're that interested in D&D settings, you should check them out sometime. You may learn a lot. They're not bad.

 

[Lunar Templar]

I never actually played Planescape: Torment (don't kill me!), but I have to admit that the design philosophy sounds interesting so far.

that's no reason to hide ....

I played and thought it was 'eh' put it down, and never looked back.

I might be able to enjoy it now, but i don't have the money or the inclination to give it another chance

THATS a reason to hide. But I shall not!

Anyway...

Good for them. Now if they can make it into the ... what ever it was ... that made the first one 'this great thing' they'll have another hit.

 

[VoidWanderer]

When I saw "Torment Game" in the title I thought: "Oh God not another article about Battlefront 3"
But this... I like this.

Huh, my thought was "Oh look! Even more daft Half-Life 3 conspiracy theories"

Thing is, while I never finished the game, I did watch a friend finish it, and there is no real logical sense for a sequel. Only if it is like NWN 1 and 2. Just further down a timeline.

 

[Ieyke]

Planescape established not only Sigil, but an entire cosmology from Limbo, Mechanus, Abyss, Celestia, and the like. Planescape also introduced the Factions (Dustmen, Sensates, etc) that featured prominently in Torment.

The Planescape cosmology became D&D proper canon in 3rd Edition. "Manual of the Planes" even described Sigil and the planes in their Planescape form essentially making the campaign setting of Planescape unnecessary because it was assimilated into D&D proper. The only thing that got 'canned' were Modrons, and that made me really sad. The cosmology otherwise was pretty much untouched.

It was 4th edition that wrecked the cosmology and all of what Planescape made. Limbo got jumbled with the Abyss in the Elemental Chaos. Mechanus was gone. Celestia was in Spelljammer-land in the newly-made Astral Sea. Eladrin were shoehorned in everywhere they could. The Planescape setting, in it butchered and barely recognizable form was highlighted in 4e Manual of the Planes and DMG2.
The factions are also listed in some 4thEd adventures and Dragon "magazine".

If you're that interested in D&D settings, you should check them out sometime. You may learn a lot. They're not bad.

Aye, the Planescape campaign setting was, for most intents and purposes, almost totally subsumed into the Greyhawk Campaign Setting as the Great Wheel Cosmology.
Or perhaps you could say the entire Planescape Campaign Setting was primarily appended to the Greyhawk Campaign Setting, with Planescape's Great Wheel representing Greyhawk's "local planar neighborhood" layout, and Greyhawk representing Planescape's most closely linked Prime Material Plane.

Technically, all of the different Prime Material Planes (The Forgotten Realms, DragonLance, Eberron, etc etc etc) are all connected to some part of the Great Wheel, in some way, but they all tend to have their own more closely connected "local planar neighborhoods"

DragonLance, for example, is connected more closely to The Abyss than anything else, but in the end it's the same Abyss as the one found associated with the Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk. The same Infinite Abyss of Planescape's Great Wheel.

D&D gets more and more complex as you zoom out further and further to try and comprehend the fuller scope of the multiverse, and how all the various cosmologies fit together.


In the end, Planescape IS still around....it's just not actively supported ATM.

 

[Kekkonen1]

I'd rather just have a re-release alá Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition. Don't think Planescape Torment needs a sequel.