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A brief note on the latest backer update from Torment: Tides of Numenara

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The latest backer update went into some detail about the way character generation is handled in-game. I like this approach, and it sounds like they're doing it right.

But the tone of the post really annoyed me. The writer acted as if they were inventing all of this stuff new, when in fact what they describe is exactly what pretty much all the Elder Scrolls games have done starting with Morrowind, and is also evolutionarily related to the "fortune teller" character generation used in several Ultimas (though that actually devolved over time; by Ultima 7 it was very perfunctory).

I find it hard to believe that the senior folks at Obsidian are ignorant of two major families of CRPG. I find it more likely that the marketer who wrote the piece was less than fully engaged in gaming. Either way, it's a huge mar on the face of a team and product that I'm eagerly awaiting.

Doing something right, yay.
Acting as if nobody had done it before, boo.

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