A little post-gold
update.
First, some common question we’ve gotten since we went gold.
A lot of people asked about the foreign language versions. As
we speak, programming and QA are finishing up those versions. The
nice thing (for me and the artists) is Bioware made it pretty easy
for us to make artistic changes. Basically, we just replace some
rendered button art and viola! Most translation duties involve
changing a huge ole text file. This file effects everything from
dialogs to descriptions to some of the buttons. The end result is
the French and German versions should be out soon. I’ve heard
varying reports from one to three weeks but that depends on how
smooth translation integration goes.
Some people have asked about the UK release. As of this second,
I don’t know the release date in the UK but I’ve been probing
around for an answer. The date will be posted when the info is
solid. (I’ve heard it could hit very near the US date. hmmmm)
Another question is the minimum spec requirements. Our main
website lists a P200MMX w/32 Megs and a 4 Meg video card as the
min spec machine. That requirement is definitely baseline. I’ve
seen the game running on that and it was playable. It wasn’t as
spanky as a faster machine but playability was there. I guess a
little test for you the player could be to remember the character
animations and spell effects are bigger than Baldur’s Gate so if
your machine was chuggy on Baldur’s it will likely be chuggy with
this game.
I’m sure all you happy people want to know what the whole happy
Torment team has been up to since we went gold. I’ve already
mentioned the programming guys are working on the foreign language
version. Some of the artists are helping with the foreign language
versions. A couple of us are also assisting on Icewind Dale. Most
of our team is decompressing. The last few weeks (or was that
months) were a long stretch. A LOT of people put in 16 hour days
to test and tweak the game. Everybody got a little extra vacation
time to unwind as a result and some people started using it
already.
The future.. good question. Yah there’s something in the works
(that can’t be that much of a surprise). I’m sure you’ll hear
about it soon enough. Till then, give Torment a spin.
Tim
Artist
PS. I’m going to be down at the Irvine Spectrum this week
hunting down the first public copies of Torment. You may see me. I
simply must buy all my Interplay games from outside stores. Yah,
we got a company store but I love the excitement of walking in and
putting down the cash-o-la. Sometimes, I get to hear all those
happy people and maybe meet a few.
