Is the Voluminous Codex still in the game?

[kilobug]

I still think that this has everything to do with porting this game to console.
You can't easily type with a controller. So they just removed the entire codex and mainstreamed it for controllers.

I'm highly doubtful it has anything to do with consoles. There are many ways to make such a codex without requiring much typing, just using hyperlinks and indexes. And even if they wanted typing, I don't think having the (fully optional to playing the game) codex being a bit awkward on consoles would justify removing it.

Often the given explanation is what makes more sense, not weird conspiracy of "they made it for consoles !" and explaining everything from that. They didn't have time/resources to do it properly, so they took the text they have written for it and made a PDF out of it. Makes much more sense than twisted explanations around consoles.

[SagaDC]

I would assume that translation would be one of the biggest hurdles that might slow the implementation of such a feature into the game. They're already facing some challenges due to the massive word-count in the game, and adding something like the Voluminous Codex would presumably increase that word-count by a rather substantial amount.

[Lord of Riva]

I would assume that translation would be one of the biggest hurdles that might slow the implementation of such a feature into the game. They're already facing some challenges due to the massive word-count in the game, and adding something like the Voluminous Codex would presumably increase that word-count by a rather substantial amount.

hrm, that is a good point but that would mean that the codex is not translated in its external form either.

Which again would somewhat suck for those not that skilled in english, i am just saying that the rants may get even louder here.

good thinking but i hope you are wrong hah.

[zalak]

How will a pdf work, say I take one branch in the game how will I find that section in the pdf? Wont it just be chalk full of spoilers and hard for us to navigate. Unless I guess they plan on doing a choose your own adventure lol.

[Luckmann]

they are right, if the codex exists outside the only thing remaining is implementing it. It may even be "easy" compared to other things but the time/effort may still be an issue.

That's not how programming ever works in practice. Things that should be easy, or should be quick almost never are.

No, but I want to stress that the operative word here was comparatively.

[anonymous6059]

I still think that this has everything to do with porting this game to console.
You can't easily type with a controller. So they just removed the entire codex and mainstreamed it for controllers.

I'm highly doubtful it has anything to do with consoles. There are many ways to make such a codex without requiring much typing, just using hyperlinks and indexes. And even if they wanted typing, I don't think having the (fully optional to playing the game) codex being a bit awkward on consoles would justify removing it.

Often the given explanation is what makes more sense, not weird conspiracy of "they made it for consoles !" and explaining everything from that. They didn't have time/resources to do it properly, so they took the text they have written for it and made a PDF out of it. Makes much more sense than twisted explanations around consoles.

Voluminous Codex: We always intended for Torment to have a journal that would log your discoveries within the Ninth World. Not the kind of Journal that tells you exactly where you need to go next and what you need to do – you are an RPG connoisseur after all, and don’t need us to hold your hand. But what you might like is a journal to catalog your travels and discoveries, one to which you might refer when some past details elude you....

One of the main aspects of the codex is the ability to make notes... You can't easily make notes with a controller.
Instead of being hand fed you're supposed to be able to use the codex to plot your way through the world. Therefore, they cut it because they knew early on this game would be released on console. That really is the simplest explanation. If you've played PST you'd know that. That is the only reason that would explain why they'd of cut it, at least the only one I've heard so far. This feature isn't something that is costly or difficult to implement. It does clash with using a controller.

Anyway, with all the crap Inxile has been pulling I think it is safe to assume they are lying about everything they can get away with. Every day we find out something else they have been either keeping from us or lying to us about. So excuse me for being skeptical and looking for a more realistic explanation.

Look around the forum. Inxile hasn't been very straightforward now have they?

[Infinitron]

Uh, I really don't think's that a correct understanding of that sentence. The journal "would log your discoveries" - meaning you don't have to log it yourself by typing.

I mean lol, do you really think they would have expected you to type your own journal entries? Have you ever actually played a console RPG? Console RPGs have journals, often quite elaborate ones.

[anonymous6059]

Uh, I really don't think's that a correct understanding of that sentence. The journal "would log your discoveries" - meaning you don't have to log it yourself by typing.

I mean lol, do you really think they would have expected you to type your own journal entries? Have you ever actually played a console RPG? Console RPGs have journals, often quite elaborate ones.

I'd highlighted the wrong part.

Voluminous Codex: We always intended for Torment to have a journal that would log your discoveries within the Ninth World. Not the kind of Journal that tells you exactly where you need to go next and what you need to do – you are an RPG connoisseur after all, and don’t need us to hold your hand. But what you might like is a journal to catalog your travels and discoveries, one to which you might refer when some past details elude you....

Making it sound like you document what takes place instead of having it done for you. Similar to the way it was done in PST. Lots of lore and details would be revealed, but you'd be responsible for unraveling the mystery. Instead of just following the yellow glowing line to the next quest. Basically they originally intended to give us an actual journal that you could take notes with.

[kilobug]

One of the main aspects of the codex is the ability to make notes...

That's not at all how I understand that quote, and I don't seem to be the only one. I understand that as the Codex will autofill with new data the more you discover things, not that you have to type them in the Codex yourself. I know I would never do that (I'm old school enough so that when I need to take notes playing a CRPG I use a pen and paper) and probably very few players would. The only note-taking in a CRPG that seems really useful to me is the ability to add markers on maps, as there was in PsT, but that's not related to the Codex.

Instead of being hand fed you're supposed to be able to use the codex to plot your way through the world. Therefore, they cut it because they knew early on this game would be released on console. That really is the simplest explanation. If you've played PST you'd know that. That is the only reason that would explain why they'd of cut it, at least the only one I've heard so far. This feature isn't something that is costly or difficult to implement. It does clash with using a controller.

That still doesn't make any sense. First because I think you clearly misunderstood the quote, but even if that were the case, it would not have prevented them to release with the Codex, and if console players don't take much notes in it, too bad for them, but it's not crippling. It's just twisting things to blame consoles because some people love to blame consoles, motivated cognition at it's worst...

No, the most plausible explanation I've seen by far, both simple and completely coherent, is the one regarding translations - if it's in the game, they need to translate it to several languages (which is very expensive in both time and money), if it's a .pdf or an online wiki released outside of the game, they can "dodge" the effort for translation.

That, plus the fact that binding all the text to in-game events adds a significant burden on all quest scripting (and testing) which they probably wanted to avoid due to budget and planning constraints.

Anyway, with all the crap Inxile has been pulling I think it is safe to assume they are lying about everything they can get away with. Every day we find out something else they have been either keeping from us or lying to us about. So excuse me for being skeptical and looking for a more realistic explanation.

I still have to see them lying about anything. They have been withdrawing information, much more due to "lack of time", "being underwater" and "communication is complex" than to any will to hide things, but lying, no. And it's never safe to start with such assumptions, nor is it realistic in any way, it can just lead to endless speculation and conspiracy theories, and we know far from the truth those can lead.

[Lord of Riva]

im with infinitron and kilobug on this, im pretty sure you misunderstood what the codex was about.
Also yes, InXile hasnt been lying per se (well the explanations as to why could be lies, but really going that far is only an assumption and is bordering dangerous territory) they have just not told anyone about this. If this is better or not is questionable to say the least but still its not the same.

I have heard the word "lying" way to often recently and i often wonder if the people use it correctly.

[Luckmann]

im with infinitron and kilobug on this, im pretty sure you misunderstood what the codex was about.
Also yes, InXile hasnt been lying per se (well the explanations as to why could be lies, but really going that far is only an assumption and is bordering dangerous territory) they have just not told anyone about this. If this is better or not is questionable to say the least but still its not the same.

I have heard the word "lying" way to often recently and i often wonder if the people use it correctly.

Saying that you're going to do it, and then not do it, is lying. That's completely beside the issue of them not telling us about it - that just makes the act of lying even worse.

[SagaDC]

Saying that you're going to do it, and then not do it, is lying.

Only if they never end up doing it at all. It's entirely possible that they are/were hoping to implement it as post-release content.

[Serjo]

Saying that you're going to do it, and then not do it, is lying.

Only if they never end up doing it at all. It's entirely possible that they are/were hoping to implement it as post-release content.

Well, they've decisively ruled out the crafting system already. Let's see what they wrote about that stretch goal originally:

Crafting Numenera: The numenera may be beyond our understanding, but they aren’t beyond our use. This Stretch Goal allows you to learn the tricks to combining the numenera into your own custom cyphers and artifacts. This would not be a rote crafting system, but one that includes some puzzle-solving elements (though not what you’d call a mini-game) and that is tied into the world and narrative. This is yet another idea we started to explore early on for the game, but that felt out of scope for our original budget. But at this Stretch Goal, we can confidently commit to restoring this aspect of our design vision as well.

http://tormentrpg.tumblr.com/theksstretchgoals

Going from "we can confidently commit to restoring this aspect of our design vision" to "Rather than adding an element that felt tacked-on (and worse, out of place for Torment), we repurposed those resources" is pretty heavy. But you're right, this kind of behaviour is not technically lying; they just made a promise and then broke it.

[kilobug]

Saying that you're going to do it, and then not do it, is lying.

No, it is not. Circumstances can change, you can be wrong of good faith, ... If I say to my boss "I'll finish that feature tomorrow", and tomorrow I'm in bed with a 40°C fever, or tomorrow there is a major emergency on another project that prevents me from working on it, or I just underestimated the difficulty of the task, I didn't lie. I was wrong, I broke a promise, but I didn't lie.

Lying implies knowing, at the time you say it, that what you say is not true. It implies the will to deceive. An honest mistake (such as falling to the planning fallacy) or changing circumstances (which is bound to happen in 4 years) is not lying.

[Jernaugh]

Gonna chime in here as well. I don't feel like the the ability to make your own notes was a core aspect of the Codex either, and that quote doesn't change that impression in me. The more I think about it, the more I find it likely that the scripting challenge of making the Codex granularly reactive to what you actually discover in the game was the real rub here. I also think the translation point is plausible, although I seriously hope that whatever document they do release will be properly localized.

With regard to the overuse of "lying" - yes, I think that word is overused. A developer can't commit to specific content features at the same time as they commit to making a highly narrative-driven game if both the narrative and the content features haven't been developed yet. Expecting them to do so is a bit ludicrous. All they can realistically commit to at that point in time is to giving elements that might go into the game serious consideration and trying to make them fit. The language in that quote even reflects this: "restoring this aspect of our design vision". Of the vision. When somebody says to me "this is my design vision", I look at it as an idealized version of what will actually happen. Things will change during implementation. So if an aspect of the "design vision" is restored after being cut, it means that this will ideally be implemented, barring circumstances that speak against it.*

Now, all that said, inXile did make people feel like these were more than just design visions. The expectation that this content would be in the game was raised. How disingenuous that was is very much worthy of discussion and opinions will diverge. Should they have known better? Probably. Were the circumstances of the KS such that they might have been particularly prone to some bad communication decisions? Undoubtedly - time pressure, lots of work being done to contact new team members, come up with new goals etc.. Should they have noticed this during development and communicated then? Again, probably. Were there a lot of understandable psychological factors that likely played a role in preventing that? I would say so. Escalation of commitment, cognitive consistency... Is this lying? That strikes me as a very subjective judgment, but I'm not sure some people have put in the time to consider this. Many are reacting out of bad feelings and reducing the issue. You can reduce the issue, I think that's totally valid, but for me personally? I don't think they lied.

Should they do better in the future? Indubitably. Should we be angry now? That's up to each one of us to decide.



_____
* As a side note, things like the Italian localization are not "content features" in the sense I'm using the term here. There was an absolutely legitimate expectation that this should have been available and it was fully justified that inXile eat crow about this. Whether they have done so sufficiently is again subjective, of course.

[Luckmann]

Saying that you're going to do it, and then not do it, is lying.

Only if they never end up doing it at all. It's entirely possible that they are/were hoping to implement it as post-release content.

Games like these are not the ones to get heavy rules- and content-revisions post-release. This isn't Skyrim or Fallout 3, where they just sorta plop on something on the side and call it a day.

Adding the Codex would involve going through the entire game and adding the correct triggers at the correct times for unocking sections, and there's every indication that the 9th CNPC never even made it past pre-production, there never being any intention to actually make good on the promise of having 9 CNPC:s. Adding things like this post-release without it feeling completely out of place and artificial is something I've never seen any game do, let alone RPG:s or even more "basic" RPG:s.

Saying that you're going to do it, and then not do it, is lying.

No, it is not. Circumstances can change, you can be wrong of good faith, ... If I say to my boss "I'll finish that feature tomorrow", and tomorrow I'm in bed with a 40°C fever, or tomorrow there is a major emergency on another project that prevents me from working on it, or I just underestimated the difficulty of the task, I didn't lie. I was wrong, I broke a promise, but I didn't lie.

Lying implies knowing, at the time you say it, that what you say is not true. It implies the will to deceive. An honest mistake (such as falling to the planning fallacy) or changing circumstances (which is bound to happen in 4 years) is not lying.

Failing is different from reprioritizing. You speak as if content was cut because everyone got dysentery, which is false.

[kilobug]

Failing is different from reprioritizing. You speak as if content was cut because everyone got dysentery, which is false.

No, but because of other priorities (new ideas that they evaluated were more important to making the game great) and variations over the planning fallacy (underestimating the cost/complexity of some features). It's pretty much common in any project for the final set of features to vary significantly from the initially set of features, that's true in every 3-6 months projects I've worked on, it's even _more_ true on a 4-years project, without any "lying", intention to deceive or bad faith from anyone involved.

And overall I would say it's good for the creative team to be able to follow their evolving creative vision, to not be stuck in following the letter of what they imagined 4 years ago, because that's just not how creativity works, you keep getting ideas which replace or conflicts with already planned ideas, and you need to be able to chose freely what will work out the best.

That's how creative works are made, always. The only difference with Kickstarter is that, due to the way crowdfunding works in general and to stretch goal mechanism in particular, they are "forced" to give out much more details on what they think they'll do very early during the project life, so we backers can see those evolving, changing goals, something we don't usually see.

And some people, not understanding (or not wanting to understand) how creative projects work, feel betrayed and call "lies" when they, naturally, evolve their vision and re-adjust priorities as they work on the game.

It is a problem, because some people end up being frustrated and angry (a small minority of backers, sure, but even one angry/frustrated backer is a problem), but what is the solution ? If you look at BT4 and WL3, inXile gave much less details out during the campaign, I believe (but I don't read their mind) it was in huge part to avoid some backfiring from (a few but vocal) upset backers - but that's not really a solution either, we got plenty of people complaining they didn't give enough details and not backing because of that.

If you've a magical solution allowing them to give many details during the crowdfunding campaign, and yet keep the creative freedom to adjust priorities when they get new ideas or when an idea once prototyped doesn't work as intended or when they felled (they are only humans after all) to the planning fallacy, I think everyone would be interested to hearing it.

[Serjo]

If you've a magical solution allowing them to give many details during the crowdfunding campaign, and yet keep the creative freedom to adjust priorities when they get new ideas or when an idea once prototyped doesn't work as intended or when they felled (they are only humans after all) to the planning fallacy, I think everyone would be interested to hearing it.

Do the crowdfunding campaign after doing the prototype and limit the stretch goals to content you are sure you can implement.

[kilobug]

If you've a magical solution allowing them to give many details during the crowdfunding campaign, and yet keep the creative freedom to adjust priorities when they get new ideas or when an idea once prototyped doesn't work as intended or when they felled (they are only humans after all) to the planning fallacy, I think everyone would be interested to hearing it.

Do the crowdfunding campaign after doing the prototype and limit the stretch goals to content you are sure you can implement.

Do you know about Hofstadter's Law ? Hofstadter's Law states that "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."

You can never be _sure_ you can implement something before actually implementing it, nor you can be _sure_ that it'll work out well (be interesting, fun, and melds well with the rest of the game) before actually doing and testing it.

I do agree that for companies like inXile, who have already a back catalog and some capital, it would probably be better to do like Obsidian or Larian are now doing, to implement a first version of the game on their own funds, and then go to Kickstarter/Fig once they have a working prototype to improve/expand it. But that's not a general solution, many smaller studios don't have that ability, and I don't think inXile had it back then when they went to Kickstart TTON.

[anonymous6059]

Anyway, with all the crap Inxile has been pulling I think it is safe to assume they are lying about everything they can get away with. Every day we find out something else they have been either keeping from us or lying to us about. So excuse me for being skeptical and looking for a more realistic explanation.

I still have to see them lying about anything. They have been withdrawing information, much more due to "lack of time", "being underwater" and "communication is complex" than to any will to hide things, but lying, no. And it's never safe to start with such assumptions, nor is it realistic in any way, it can just lead to endless speculation and conspiracy theories, and we know far from the truth those can lead.

When you say you're going to do something and don't do it we call that lying.
They may have good reasons for not holding up their end of the promise. I'm not going to withdraw my part of the deal. Why? well, because I promised to give them money. If I withdrew those funds that would make me a liar. I'd of promised to do something and then lied about it. I understand that they had to make changes. They can do that and I'll accept it, but it still doesn't mean that they didn't lie. When you say you will do one thing and then you do another you have lied. You might have the best intentions in the world, but you are still a liar anytime you go back on something you agreed to do. We are just getting into semantics now.

LIE- to create a false or misleading impression.