Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General RiftRunner vs Planescape: Torment

Check this out.Polish site of Planescape:Torment
Planescape:Torment

I love those pics <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

"The punch daggers of Shar

These daggers were once wielded by the assassin Shar, the mage-slayer. Shar specialised in the removal of mages. To further this goal she commisioned the creation of these blades by the mage Thex Voorton. With these daggers in her hand she was quite adept at her craft.

Shar met her demise when she accepted a contract on the maker of her knives. To her surprise they did not harm their maker, or provide resistance to his spells"


As with DD its the little things that count. I wonder how low the intelligence of this thief was?

Any games like Planescape is rare and it is a masterwork. Planescape is a great achievement in rpg computer games branch because of its unique interacitive world and npcs it is MUCH daring and unique engine and stat system are one of the few thigs that make the game such a success. I usually tend to dislike things which people find satsifact&#305;ry enough and as in Planescape the world was I think too small and your option to travel around was strictly limited abd you had to follow a certain path over all. I think that is the only thing I find weak in Planescape. Certainy unlike riftrunner that is it will me much like an Ultima or Morrowwind style game where travelling anywhere is up to you ( I hope ) and all that I wish of riftrunner devs to create a more interactive world and npcs and put some graphical fun details like cloaks etc.

??? Please explain ???
Planescape had the same old Infinity Engine as the rest. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Hi DeathAtTheDoor,

I loved P:T mainly because I was not very familiar with the Planescape universe (or should I say "multiverse" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ). I was particularly attracted to the cosmology of all the factions in Sigil, their views regarding the purpose of existence. Yeah, the dialogues seemed melodramatic at times, some aspects of the plot were plagued by loopholes, but for those of us with the urge to travel and meet new people and explore different cultures, this game definitely took me on a virtual journey of sorts. I chuckled when I learned about the "Blood War" (really the only thing preventing the Batezzus and the Tannaris from invading the rest of the multiverse, if you think about it....), had fun romping with the Anarchists (how do you counter hegemony without any organizational order or hierarchy? I don't think even the Anarchists in Sigil knew the answer <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> I must confess I had a constant urge to hand them a copy of one of Grampsci's works...).

I assume you have played P:T but did not find it as appealing as it did for me. I played Arcanum, but found the game immensely boring. I am guessing that my negative experience was in no small part influenced by the broken combat system (firearms seemed virtually useless...and suicidal to use if one had selected real-time combat....). But the plot just didn't interest me until near the end (the little cutscene with the villain--whose name I forget--explaining his motivation was instigating the destruction of the world, was definitely interesting). Neither did I find the setting itself (a world where magic is dying to incremental technlogical advancements, if I recall correctly) unique. Everytime I read about how much someone enjoyed Arcanum (and it is quite evidently a popular game with many rave reviews), I too am left wondering if I missed something or was just too harsh in my judgements. I've come to the conclusion that it's no big deal. People are individuals, not clones, so we won't always like the same RPGs just because we are RPG enthusiasts <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well, I loved the setting in Planescape, it's what I really liked in that game, but 2 things I just hate in computer games:
- Dungeon Crawling
- Undead.
I was tired to see skeletons and zombies in every possible RPG. Hell, even games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein have the undead and have a lots of dungeons. Those 2 factors can ruin the game for me. DD is action, so I can forgive it to that game, still I can't stand the first dungeon, I would've liked to rush trough but if I don't level up, I will miserably fail.

Your point about Arcanum is exaclty what I have against Planescape Torment [Except for the firearms, yeah, the firearms in Arcanum were ridiculously under-powered, somebody made a mod which improuves damage for them. Still I finished the game with a plasma rifle which was pretty powerful]. I found P:T incredibly borring, and the setting was used several times before. But indeed, people are different and if everyone were alike, there would've been no progress at all. I agree with your post <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/alien.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

*shrugs* I guess people who actually loved the dark, bizarre atmosphere are in the minority, and any game where you can actually initiate dialogue with zombies has something going for it. (As opposed to: Charge! Hack the undead to pieces! Now!) The Mortuary is one of my favourite areas in the game (...and it's not much of a dungeon). It's all about spooky fun.



What? The setting used several times before?

To my knowledge, PS:T is the only CRPG to use the Planescape setting. And you said that it's more suited to an adventure game rather than hack'n'slash - I couldn't disagree more. Planescape isn't just the CRPG; the setting itself is so open that anything is possible. An action-packed campaign, with all the cliched, obligatory fantasy elements. A bizarre, story-driven campaign like PS:T itself. Or a mix of both - anything.

I disregard the 3rd ed. cosmology, so as far as I am concerned, if you're playing in any of the D&D setting, you can cross over to Sigil to other worlds and back again. It just begs to inspire interesting plots.

Yeah, the zombie-talk was interesting, can't deny that.


I am not talking about CRPG. Like EVERY D&D setting, Planescape was formed by dragging bits from media: books, comics, movies...
Same with Arcanum. I mean I don't know many CRPGs with magic and technology at the same time. After Arcanum was created, Blackisle also tried to make a game with magic and tech: Lionheart. I have no idea what happened to that game.


Planescape: Torment is a CRPG, Planescape is a setting, what else? An "action-packed campaign, with all the cliched, obligatory fantasy elements. A bizarre, story-driven campaign like PS:T itself. Or a mix of both - anything" can be made in any setting. It depends on the story-teller, not the setting. There can be horrible plots set in Planescape as well as good stories can be set in Forgotten Realms.


Planescape is a fine idea from Wizards, I am not arguing.

I never really liked Planescape...I played it, finished it, and moved on. The game has a nice storyline, tons of text, nice NPCs, but I felt it was more of a boring chore than exciting. I am not a Diablo freak but there is a limit to how much I want to read. Plus the Planescape setting has never really interested me as much as games like Fallout.

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/offtopic.gif" alt="" />

CGDreamerX!? Now there's someone I would never expect to find here! Welcome, mate!

Cough... Hi ... cough.

What happened here? It seems I was away for too long.

There is nothing to argue about.

Some people like cheese, some people hate it.

I found PST the most intriguing, drammatic and interesting game to date. This looked like not a entertaining-program, but like a whole virtual world with it's unique phylosophy, creatures, atmosphere, moral if you want.

Sure, there are people, who will never (or just not now) understand PST. But this doesn't bother me.

Yes, this is a book where you can take part of a main character and live through it.

I loved the game and I will be more than happy if Larian attempts to make a game as deep as PST. But, I am not sure if this is possiblle though.

I like cheese. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/freak.gif" alt="" />

Yes, I agree, PST has it's own philosophy, athmosphere, moral... Every faction has it's beliefs and such... Can't argue, the atmosphere is excellent.
After all, maybe I didn't play PST enough to witness the best parts: I got it from some store for 50 cents canadian 2 or 3 years ago. I played for a while, then someone asked me to try that game, I lend it to him, then when he brough back I didn't want to play it anymore and sold on Ebay for 10$ US...

That's how I felt. Some RPGs I would play over and over, but with PST I felt once was enough.

BTW, hey Death, now that I am getting DD I may as well join the forum world <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />.

I realise that, bro, though it's the 3rd time you say that, no :P?

No I haven't...what makes you think that?
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shhh.gif" alt="" />
*Dang, I have been caught!*

for a skull, mort shure could pack around a lot of inventory. i allways wondered how he managed that with nowhere to store it.....

Well, he used to be the Head of Vecna, after all. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> (I know he may or may not have been, but okay...)

PST still stands as one of the best RPGs I ever played (at the top somewhere along with Fallout2). My girlfriend on the other hand, thinks it's nothing special. So as you can see, it's perfectly possible to unite both sides heh. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

To her the problem is that she can't be female (argued in one of the first posts in the thread). So overall, we can say that the lack of female character sort of turned off quite a few potential players.

Some people could argue there's not enough classes, but that's kind of a weak argument since if you played a low intellingce character, you missed over half of the story. Besides, the spells were too nice to ignore, so really, mage is the only true class you can play PST with and have the full game experience.

The NPC's all actually have characters. You can say what you want, but very few games actually have that. Most NPCs are just there with a flimsy background, rarely doing something new. In PST however, the NPC's had a deep background, some of which isn't uncovered until a stat was high enough, or you entered a certain area.

Of course, you had to read a lot. It's one of the main downsides of the game for many who didn't like it. The odd thing is, I usually don't like reading entire novels either, but the story was solid enough for me to be entertained throughout the game. A newer game, Neverwinter Nights, bored me to death with it's dialogues. They were shorter, but done in a such a way that they felt "dead" to me. Yet everybody praises NWN, whereas I actually see nothing special in it. Such is PST a jewel to me, underrated by the majority (it sold pretty bad overall, even Icewind Dale, also made with the same Infinity Engine, but more hack&slash and less story value sold better).

I have this odd thing though: I play games for their story. If I get stuck in a game, I mean, really stuck, I'll go for a guide or cheats (never online, only singleplayer). Why? Because I want to know the story. PST went well though, until the ending part with the shadows that kept getting to me. I forgot the piece of the negative plane - that costed me heh. Similarly, I also played IWD for the story, but I only ever played it twice, whereas my count of PST stopped somewhere around 6 I think...

All in all PST is a rock solid game to me and you can't do anything about it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

As for the original topic: <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> being similar to PST, if it is, it'd be a good thing for me. Though it would be even better if the game was solid on it's own, without needing to borrow from PST <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Dear friend,
Yes, one thing I cannot argue about are P:T's NPCs.
In Baldur's Gate and may other games, NPCs had the same graphics and models as any others. In P:T, however, More, Dacon (sp?), the burning mage, Fall From Grace, the thiefling... All of them were unique, with their own animations and weapon preferences... Also P:T had an excellent paperdoll: there were so many different slots... Tatoos and such. And P:T allowed you to talk to your NPCs: they weren't just paws you can make fight your enemies: they were what NPC are:
Non-Player [color:"red"] Characters [/color].
This is what I would like DD2 or <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/riftrunner.gif" alt="" /> to have.
Thank you for reminding me that.

Morte, Dak'kon, Ignus, and the tiefling is Annah.

Well, you sort of asked for it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />