Entrevistas
Entrevista en Kotaku (Chris Avellone)
Entrevista en GameBanshee (Feargus Urquhart)
Entrevista en Time (Chris Avellone)
Entrevista en VG24/7 (Chris Avellone)
Radio-entrevista en Pure Sophistry (Feargus Urquhart)
ActualizacionesUpdate #1 - We are funded, 1.1 Million! Thank you!!
Project Eternity is going to be a reality because of you. We've hit our goal quicker than anyone expected, and the last day has been overwhelming. We are in the office discussing stretch goals right now! Stay tuned for another update today.Update #2 - What's Next? Stretch goals and an update from Obsidian
1.1 million, Base Goal – Achieved!
Base game includes three races, five classes, and five companions. We have ideas for these, but we want to hear your opinions on what you'd like to see. Stay tuned to Kickstarter, our website, and our forums to join in on the conversation.
1.4 million, New Playable Race, Class, and Companion!
Expands your options for character creation and adds a companion of the new class.
1.6 million, a Mac Version of Project Eternity and The Story Grows!
We've listened and we’ll make a Mac version of the game at this tier. We're also going to add a new major storyline along with new quests, locations, NPCs, and unique loot (special histories everyone?).
1.8 million, New Playable Race, Class, and Companion!
The options grow for your main character and the roster of your motley crew expands with the addition of a new companion from the selected class.
2.0 million, Player House!
Get your own house in the game that you can customize, store equipment in, and where your companions hang out, or, as the elves say, "chillax".
2.2 million, a new Region, a new Faction and another new Companion! And, dare we say it... ? LINUX!
Great news, everyone! For the Tarball Knights of Gzippia out there, we'll be adding Linux support!
Also, the world of Project Eternity grows in a major way with the inclusion of a whole new faction and the territory it holds. This adds new NPCs, quests, magic items, and hours of gameplay. And yes, you got it, another companion.
We've been listening to your feedback, and have the following announcements:
DRM Free: We are looking into it! Please check back for updates.
Digital Only Tiers are coming!
PayPal is coming asap. Please be patient!
New $5k Tier. We are looking into a new $5k tier since it sold out so quickly! We are looking into equivalent alternatives.
Thank you fans!
ObsidianUpdate #3 - Game Basics - Your Party, Your Characters, and Races
We've hit our first stretch goal and surpassed $1.5 million! Thank you to everyone who has made this all possible. And now, some info...
Project Eternity is still early in development and we are still working on many of the cultures, factions, and ethnic groups of the world and debating many of the system concepts. However, there are certain fundamental things we want to let you know about the game and the setting for Project Eternity.
Your Party
The maximum party size is the player's main character (PC) and up to five companions for a total of six characters. This does not preclude the addition of temporary characters in special circumstances. Companions are never forced on the player. Players can explore the entire world and its story on their own if they so choose. We feel companions are excellent sounding boards for the player's (and other companions') actions, but the story is ultimately about the player's personal conflict among the larger social and political complexities of the world.
Formations
A key element of the classic party-based tactical combat that we are developing is the use of party formations. As in the good ol' games, you can arrange your party in a large number of set formations. You can also construct your own formations if you want to get fancy. When moving companions, you have the ability to rotate formations for more precise positioning.
Character Creation
At a minimum, players will be able to specify their main character's name, sex, class, race (including subrace), culture, traits, ability scores, portrait, and the fundamental starting options of his or her class (gear, skills, and talents). We have not worked out customization details of character avatars, but we believe those are important and will be updating on these specifics in the future.
For the full run-down, please see the rest of the text on the Obsidian forums here:
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60221- ... and-races/
That's all for today's update. We'll have more information on the world and systems in the near future. Please give us your feedback and thank you for all of the ideas and support you've given so far!Update #4 - Digital Tiers, DRM, and Add-Ons Update
Well you all did it, you helped us get to $1.6M and we now have a Mac version and are adding more story into the world.
We have also been listening and reading your feedback on Kickstarter and have some changes that are happening as soon as this update is posted. One thing, we are not updating just yet are the stretch goals, but don’t worry those are going to get updated very soon. Oh, and we are putting a schedule together for updates that will include guest stars almost every day – Josh will be talking more about the design tomorrow (Sep 20), our unflappable CTO Chris Jones (architect of the Fallout and Arcanum engines) on Friday (Sep 21), and I think we will be able to squeeze one in from Mr. Tim Cain over the weekend.
So, what are those changes?!?
DRM Free Option
You asked and we are delivering. In conjunction with GOG, we are going to offer a DRM free version of the game for our Kickstarter Backers. When the campaign ends, you will be able to choose whether you would like a key from GOG or Steam. For our Mac friends, we are still working on a DRM free option, since GOG does not currently support the Mac. Oh, and the great guys at GOG are having a special right now on all of the great Infinity Engine games, so check that out as well.
New Digital Tiers
We are adding a $50 and an $80 digital tier. The $50 tier will get you the digital version of the game, the soundtrack, the digital version of the Collector’s Book, a collection of wallpapers made for multiple resolutions and multiple monitors, high resolution concept art, a high resolution version of the map, and ringtones. For the $80 tier, you will get all of that plus a digital copy of the strategy guide, and a second digital download of the game.
Add-Ons
This is a short list for right now, but we will be adding more as the days pass including some pretty swank Obsidian-wear.Add a Digital Download of the Game +$25
As a quick tutorial on how to add add-ons, goto the Project Eternity site on Kickstarter and then hit the Manage Your Pledge button. The reward tier you had already selected will still be selected and the amount will be in the big box at the top. All you need to do is add the dollar amount that covers the add-ons you would like to your pledge and enter the new total number. For instance, if you are at the $35 Pledge level and want to add one Digital Download, you would enter $60 as your total pledge.
Add Three Digital Downloads of the Game +$60
New for our Collector's Edition Box Level ($140)
Lastly we want to announce that we are going to give our backers at the Collector’s Edition Box Level ($140) a little extra today and that is Beta access to the game! That’s just a little taste of what we will be adding into tiers in the coming days and weeks through stretch goals and the occasional random act.Update #5 - Souls, Technology, and Adventuring Companies
Developing setting and atmosphere are very important to us at Obsidian. We try to build worlds that are believable even when they are fantastic. To do that, we strive to create people, cultures, and conflicts that are both strongly defined and heavily interconnected. In observing community discussion about the game, we've noted two recurring requests for more detail: on the nature of souls and on the level of this world's technology. This update deals less with culture details and more specifically with those two topics since they are fundamental to the way the world works. There's also some information at the end about a new $5,000 backer tier we're excited to introduce. Thanks for reading!
N.B.: I know I said I'd talk about mechanics today. I forgot that I had already said I'd talk about technology earlier. Sorry! The next update I do will talk about non-combat skills the nature of classes in Project Eternity.
Souls
As we hinted at in our pitch videos, souls are A Big Deal in Project Eternity's world. The mortal world has not unlocked all of the secrets of how souls "work" and differing schools of metaphysical philosophy can be found in virtually every culture. What is known is that sapient souls move through an endless cycle of waking life and purgatorial slumber among the gods. Often this slumber lasts for years of "real" time, but occasionally it is brief, with a soul immediately moving on to a new life.
Far from being a flawless process, souls are subject to "fracturing" over generations, transforming in myriad ways, and not quite... working right. Some cultures and individuals place a high value on "strong" souls, souls with a "pure" lineage, "awakened" souls that remember past lives, "traveled" souls that have drifted through the divine realms, or those that co-exist with other souls in one body. However, the opposite is also true, resulting in negative discrimination and sometimes outright violence.
Through a variety of techniques (e.g. martial training, meditation, ritualistic evocation, mortification of the flesh), some individuals are able to draw upon the energy of their soul to accomplish extraordinary feats. These abilities range from the mundanely superhuman to the explosively magical. Having a strong soul seems to make this easier, but sometimes even people with fragmented souls are able to accomplish the extraordinary. The individual's body seems to act as a conduit and battery for this power, drawing in replenishment from seemingly omnipresent "fields" of unbound spiritual energy in the world around them.
Thinkers, spiritualists, and scientists of the world have theorized for thousands of years about the nature and purpose of this process, but others have turned to prayer for answer. Rather than illuminate the presumed higher purpose of this cycle, the gods have obfuscated the truth, at times spreading cosmological lies, pitting believers and empowered chosen agents against each other, and tacitly approving the prejudices of their followers to maintain power.
Whatever the fundamental nature of mortal souls is, the people of the world accept the reality of what they have observed: that all mortal bodies contain perceptible energy bound to the individual, and that once they die, their energy will move forward in the eternal cycle that they are all a part of -- that as far as they know, they have always been a part of.
Technology
The cultures of Project Eternity are in a variety of different technological states. Though some remote civilizations are still in the equivalent of Earth's Stone Age or Bronze Age, most large civilizations are in the equivalent of Earth's high or late Middle Ages. The most aggressive and powerful civilizations are in the early stages of what would be our early modern period, technologically, even if they are not culturally undergoing "Renaissance"-style changes.
For most large civilizations, this means that all of the core arms and armor of medieval warfare have reached a high level of development: full suits of articulated plate armor, a variety of military swords, war hammers, polearms, longbows, crossbows, and advanced siege weaponry. Architecturally, these cultures also employ technologies found in Earth's Gothic structures, allowing them to create towering vertical structures.
The most recent technologies seeing use in the world are ocean-going carrack-style ships and black powder firearms (notably absent: the printing press). Cultures with large navies and mercantile traffic are exploring the world, which has led to contact with previously-unknown lands and societies and settlement in new lands. Despite their intense drive, these explorers have been restricted from aggressive long-range exploration by monstrous sea creatures that pose a lethal, seemingly insurmountable threat to even the stoutest, most well-armed ships.
Black powder firearms are of the single-shot wheellock variety. Largely considered complex curiosities, these weapons are not employed extensively by military forces. Their long reload times are considered a liability in battles against foes that are too monstrous to drop with a single volley, foes that fly or move at high speed, and foes that have the power of invisibility. Despite this, some individuals do employ firearms for one specific purpose: close range penetration of the arcane veil, a standard magical defense employed by wizards. The arcane veil is powerful, but it does not react well to the high-velocity projectiles generated by arquebuses and handguns. As a result, more wizards who previously relied on the veil and similar abjurations have turned to traditional armor for additional defense.
New $5,000 Tier
Bam! We started with a $5,000 tier that allowed the backer to set up an inn and receive some additional items. Fortunately or unfortunately, that sold out almost immediately. We've come up with a new tier that is aimed toward (but not limited to!) the forum communities that have shown (and continue to show) us so much support. Some of the most fun we've had as players, DMs, and game designers has happened when we got to deal with a group of enemy adventurers -- mercenaries, thugs, whatever you want to call them -- squaring off against the party. This new tier allows you to build a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude to throw at the player. We've also switched around a few of the bonuses in this tier, giving out more digital downloads. We can't wait to see what you come up with.
That's all for this update! Tomorrow we'll have some words from Chris Jones about the technology we're using to build Project Eternity.Update #6 - Choosing the Best Tool for the Job
At Obsidian, we have always tried to choose the engine and toolset most suited to the game we are making. When making a sequel to an existing game, we use the engine from the original game so that we don’t waste time recreating the inner workings and gameplay behavior in a new engine before we can even start developing new content. When creating a new game from scratch, we evaluate the options available to us and choose the one we think fits best. In the case of Project Eternity, we feel the best fit is Unity.
Unity enables small teams to be very productive. Unity has an amazing development environment that makes it very easy for programmers, artists and designers to work together to build great games. In a very short time we have already made great progress prototyping some of the core functionality for Project Eternity.
We do intend to use some of our in-house tools in conjunction with Unity where it makes sense, such as in the case of creating conversations and editing some of the RPG-specific game data. Unity makes it very easy to extend not only the game engine but the development tools as well, and we feel integrating some of the tools that have already proven effective on previous Obsidian games will get us off to a great start on the development of Project Eternity.
Unity also supports a wide range of target platforms. We knew that a likely request from the community was going to be support for Mac and Linux versions of the game, and we wanted to make sure we were in the best position to do that. While we could have ported Onyx, our internal engine technology, to those platforms, the time and effort required to do so would reduce the budget we have to make the game and result in less of the awesome gameplay and content our fans desire. Mac and Linux will still require time and effort from us to test, maintain and support but Unity gets us most of the way there. In fact, our experience with Unity so far has made us confident enough that we have decided to remove Linux support from the stretch goals and just commit to providing a Linux version right here and now! Of course, we can’t take something away from our stretch goals without putting something else in its place, so what is that going to be?
The $2.2 million stretch goal will still include a new Region, a new Faction, a new Companion and all the hours of additional gameplay, quests, NPCs and items that go along with those things. But we’ve also got something new coming to this stretch goal, and it’s big enough that it’s deserving of its own update to talk about it! So tune in this coming Monday, September 24th where we will reveal our new stretch goals, unveil a fun new tracker for them, and announce our schedule of guest stars for the week!
Thank you for supporting Obsidian and Project Eternity!
Chris Jones
CTO, ObsidianUpdate #7 - Non-Combat Abilities with Tim Cain
We are over 1.8 million dollars and climbing! I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to make this dream possible, and in return we promise to make you the most amazing game we can. I know you all have asked for more details about the game, so let's talk about non-combat abilities.
Most role-playing games can be divided into two sets of mechanics: those rules you use in combat and those you don't. For many people, an RPG is really defined by its combat. These people spend most of their time killing things and taking their loot, and leveling up is just a means to kill bigger things and get better loot. But for other people, an RPG is about the elements of the game they experience when not in combat. It's about the NPC's they talk with, the places they travel to, and the choices they make, including the choice to avoid combat altogether.
Non-Combat Abilities
Let's talk first about your goals as a player, about the things you would like to do besides fighting. Then I'll talk about our design goals and explain how we are putting the non-combat systems together.
Player Goals
When you are not fighting, that's when non-combat abilities come into play. We plan to add abilities that will let you become better at achieving four different non-combat goals.Learning new things. This includes finding out previously unknown information, like the location of town or a hidden door, or uncovering secret knowledge, like a potion recipe or the true name of a demon. Or maybe you just want to know a good place to gather materials like ore or herbs. We will make abilities that let you find things out.
Traveling around the world. You will want to improve your movement capabilities (such as sneaking around some ruins), or traveling across the world map faster or more safely, or even teleporting directly to your destination. And sometimes movement requires removing barriers like locks or traps, so you will need some way to unlock and disarm. We'll add abilities for these actions.
Getting new items. If you are not going to kill a creature to take its things, then we will give you the means to make new items, buy them, or steal them. Or maybe you will choose to support NPC's by bringing them the materials or the recipes needed to make new items for you. We congratulate you on your non-violent and cooperative plans of wealth acquisition, and we'll give you the means to do it.
Interacting with companions. Once we have added many interesting and useful NPC companions, we will have to give you ways to recruit them, improve their usefulness, and keep them from dying (or even worse, disliking you!). We will make non-combat abilities that interact with your companions, so you can keep them alive and filled with a grudging respect for you.
Now each of these goals represents a whole slew of related non-combat abilities. For example, for player traveling, we could have all kinds of abilities, including stealth and teleport abilities, as well as abilities to make world map travel faster, less likely to have encounters, and able to make use of alternate transportation routes such as over mountains using passes or over water using ships.
Design Goals
In putting together our non-combat system, we have made a list of goals for the design of these skills and the rules they need to follow.
Non-combat skills are gained separately from combat skills. You shouldn't have to choose between Magic Missile and Herbalism. They should be separate types of abilities, and you should spend different points to get each one.
Non-combat skills do not use the same resources as combat skills. You don't spend the same stuff for a non-combat skill as you do for combat skills. Some don't use anything at all to use, so you will never find yourself unable to blast an opponent if you get caught sneaking.
All non-combat skills are useful. If we add lockpicking to the game, we will make sure that there are locks to pick and worthwhile rewards for getting past them.
All non-combat skills can be used frequently. If you take disarm traps as a skill, you should expect more than two traps in the entire game world. Frequency of application has a large impact on how useful something is.
Combat can be avoided with non-combat skills. There will often be ways to avoid fighting. Yes, we will have the standard methods of talking your way out of a fight or sneaking around an encounter, but there will be other ways too. Perhaps you can re-sanctify a desecrated cemetery to prevent any further undead from rising, or maybe figuring out a way across a ruined bridge will always avoid the bandits on this side of the river.
Avoiding combat does not lead to less experience gain. You shouldn't go up levels any slower by using your non-combat skills rather than your combat skills. We plan to reward you for your accomplishments, not for your body count.
We are still in the early design stages, but our plan is for non-combat abilities to make the game as fun and enjoyable outside of combat as it is in the heat of battle.
Thanks for keeping up to date with Project Eternity and stop by the Kickstarter site or the Obsidian Forums for all the latest information. Next update will be on Monday!Update #8 - New Digital Tier, Novella by Chris Avellone, and Translations at $2.2M
We are still going strong over here on Kickstarter and we wanted to thank everyone that has been here since the beginning as well as those of you who have come on recently to back us with your pledge. With such great support, we want to thank everyone with a new addition to the $50 and later tiers, a new $110 digital only tier, and a big change to our $2.2M stretch goal.
Oh, and what are we doing this week as to updates you might ask? Josh Sawyer, Tim Cain and Chris Avellone will be posting updates and videos all this week starting on Sep 26 with Josh, Sep 27 with Mr. Avellone and a great one from Tim over the weekend.
French, German, and Spanish Translations added at $2.2M
We are glad to announce that we will add text translations for French, German, and Spanish when we reach this goal. As we hit more of our stretch goals, we hope to be able to add even more languages as well!
Novella by Chris Avellone added for $50 and Up!
Chris Avellone has been so thankful for everyone's support that he himself has pledged to write a novella in the world of Project Eternity. We are adding that to everyone who pledges $50 and up.
New $110 Digital Only Tier
Thanks to popular demand, we are adding a new digital tier at $110 that has early beta access to the game, thanks in the credits, a postcard thanking you for your pledge (sent physically) along with all the other digital benefits of the $140 Tier. Since we added the new novella written by Chris Avellone at the $50 reward tier - that is in there as well!
Oh and we have a little piece of artwork to share as well. The following is one of our traditional race and class combinations - the Human Fighter - but he's not just any Human Fighter. He has an integral role in the story that we will be hinting at soon. Don't worry, we will also be sharing more and more of the non-traditional options in the days and weeks to come.Update #9 - The power of MODES and Godlike races: Our $2.3M Stretch Goal
We love giving players options: character build options, personality options, story options -- all the options you might want to play around with. We recognize that many players also want to play the game their way and have an experience that matches their particular RPG tastes. RPG fans share a lot of common ground, but on matters of visible mechanical feedback, complexity, and the overall level of punitive face-punching a game provides, there's a big spectrum of opinions. In a lot of cases, it's not too hard for us to provide options to turn an individual feature on or off, so we want to make that possible when resources permit us to do so.
Additionally, even among the ranks of RPG superfans, there exists a subset of players who can't get enough challenge. They want all of the difficulty features set to "I am pro." Collectively, we've worked on a bunch of these challenge modes in the past and enjoyed the results. Project Eternity seems like a very appropriate place to highlight suites of these difficulty options as distinct gameplay modes that players can opt-into at the beginning of any game. We've come up with three modes we'd like to support, which also includes the ability to turn many of their sub-features on and off on an individual level in an ordinary game: Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, and Path of the Damned.
Expert Mode will disable all of the common ease-of-use / in-case-you-missed it gameplay elements like the display of skill thresholds, influence/reputation modifiers, and similar "helper" information. In a fashion similar to Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode will also enable more punitive and demanding gameplay elements, in and out of combat. We're not saying we're going to have weighty gold (for real, we're not saying that), but if we did, you can bet that would be automatically turned on by Expert Mode.
If you guessed that Trial of Iron is like Temple of Elemental Evil's Ironman Mode, you guessed right. When you start a Trial of Iron game, you have one save game that persists for the entire campaign... or until you die. And if you die, your save game is deleted. Enjoy!
Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved.
The first question you may have is, "Can I enable multiple challenge modes at once?" Yep, you sure can. They have to be selected at the beginning of the game, but if you want to play with two or all three at the same time, you can certainly can do so. If you're not quite sure you want all of the elements that come along with a given mode, this funding level will also cover implementing the ability to enable and disable the individual sub-features.
Along with these modes, we also want to introduce the Godlike races. These folks have been described previously as being similar to the humanoid "planetouched" in D&D: aasimar, tieflings, and genasi. That is a good high-level description of them, but they are viewed differently by various factions, faiths, and cultures in the world of Project Eternity. Godlike were "blessed" before birth by one or more of the meddling deities of this world. Though their appearances vary, they are unmistakeably otherworldly when anyone gets a clear look at them. Sometimes, the reaction they get is overwhelmingly positive. Many times, the reaction is overwhelmingly not. For better or worse, the physical "gifts" that mark them as Godlike always come with supernatural blessings (and curses) of their own.
The first question you may have after reading this may be, "Hey, what about the other races that have already been funded?" Those races are in the process of being fully designed and concepted -- and they can't be summarized quite as simply as "sort of like planetouched". We'll have more for you on those guys in the not-too-distant future. Thanks again for your support, your patience, and your questions.
Update from Josh SawyerUpdate #10 - Characterization with Chris Avellone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o8GTA8-EPU
Today's Project Eternity update is shorter and sweeter than usual (at least on the text side), and instead is a fun video from Obsidian's creative director, Chris Avellone. In the video, Chris talks about birthdays, gratitude for fan gratitude, his one really @$!$ messy desk, and some extrapolation of characterization in Project Eternity.
The video is a follow up to his Project Eternity and Characterization blog post over on the Obsidian forums from a few days ago. We encourage you to check it out first if you haven't already, particularly if the process of character design interests you, and then watch the video!
Our next update coming this weekend. Oh, and for those of you who might not know, we successfully hit the $2.0M stretch goal, so chillaxing (that is, chilling and relaxing, in elvish) with some of your favorite companions in your player house is now one more thing you can do in the game!Update #11 - Reached $2.1 Million and Getting Close to 50k Backers!
It's been an amazing week and we are getting close to doubling our initial goal of $1.1 million. The next stretch goal at $2.2 million adds a new region, faction, and companion along with French, German, and Spanish translations.
We are also getting close to 50k backers! We have something fun and special planned for all of our backers when we hit this milestone, so keep a look out for an update on Monday about it.
Every pledge means that the game will get better and the world of Project Eternity will be larger. We understand that many of you are already pledging as much as you can. We are sincerely grateful for your contribution to the project, and we couldn't have made it this far without you. Another way to increase the funding and to hit our stretch goals is for you to spread the word about Project Eternity to your friends and family. Share your excitement with your favorite internet community, and tell your friends about Kickstarter and Project Eternity. We know that there are more than 50k people that would like to contribute, so we are reaching out to you to help us promote and reach out to other fans that may not know about the game yet. Tweet about the game, and share the project updates on Facebook. We are all in this together, and we all want the game to be as best as it can be.
Thank You!
Update by AdamUpdate #12 - Reddit Q&A with Tim Cain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uyzap5FcgI
This update is going to be a little different. Instead of doing an update on a topic that we chose, we asked readers on reddit to submit questions and vote them up or down, and on Friday we took the five highest scoring questions to answer here.
You can visit the Project Eternity reddit group here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/
and the Q&A subgroup is here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity ... swered_by/
Let us know if you like these Q&A updates, and we can look into doing more of them.
Tim.AtheistBots asks...
Class vs. Classless systems You're most famous for classless systems involved in Fallout and Arcanum. It sounds as if Obsidian will be using a class based system. What do you see as being the advantages of a class based system that you're hoping to leverage in Project Eternity?
Answer: We are designing a class-based system because we want the different characters in your party to fill different roles, and classes are the best way to achieve this goal. In a skill-based game, it's harder to tell if a companion gives you the skills you are looking for, especially before you recruit them. In a class-based game, you know what each class can do, so you can decide that you want a particular class even before a potential companion offers to join you. And when you have a lot of companions and can choose which ones you want to take on a particular adventure, classes make it easier to form the group and be assured that you have your skillsets covered.
Bonus question: Are you considering multiclassing?
Answer: Bonus questions are cheating…but yes, we are considering adding multi-classing to the game. A better way to put this answer is that we are not ruling them out at this time. If they work well with our final system, we will offer them.Kaaaboom asks…
I was a bit discouraged when I heard that the combat was going to be RTwP (real time with pause), myself being a big fan of TB (turn based) and the possibility of tactical combat that it lends to a game. My question is then: how are you going to make the combat in P:E tactically interesting despite it being RTwP?
Answer: Hmm, this is a bit of a loaded question, as it implies that real-time games aren't tactically interesting while all turn-based games are. Believe me, I have played plenty of dull turn-based games with very few options on what to do on each turn, and there are lots of real-time games that are incredibly tactically rich. Look at all of the real-time strategy games out there!
So to answer your question, we are going to make sure that the distinct abilities that our classes will have will each provide different roles to those characters in combat, and that you will always have choices to make in combat about how to best position yourself and use your attacks. In addition, we are going to design the enemy encounters to be ever-increasing challenges, so that one way of fighting won't carry you through every encounter. You will be forced to mix it up a bit, tactically speaking, and use all of your combat skills to make it through to the end of the game.
Let me add that as an Infinity Engine inspired game, our pillars of design include isometric exploration of a fantasy world, a reactive storyline with interesting and believable characters, and real-time with pause combat. Those elements are expected in our game, and we feel strongly about providing them.Elthosian asks…
How much reactivity can we expect from the world based in our character's race and sub-race?
Answer: We will provide a lot of reactivity in our game to your choice of race. We are planning on giving each race a set of traits that the player can pick from, and those traits affect everything from dialogs choices to skill bonuses to what kind of options you will have to finish some quests. There probably won't be quests that are just for one race, but one thing we are not going to do for certain is make race-restricted items. While many items have a cultural connection to some races, they will still be useable by members of other races. It might be unusual to see humans in elven chain, but they can wear it.NeuroArcanist asks…
What aspect of cRPGs missing from modern games do you most want to recapture with Project Eternity?
Answer: I can answer that in one word: parties. I like playing cRPG's that allow the player to control big parties of characters, and by control, I mean you can pick the actions of each party member if you want. We will have lots of pause conditions in our combat, and if you want to have the game pause whenever a party member can perform a new action, you can do that. Most modern games only let you control one character, or if they give you a party, you only control one member of that group. In this game, I want to control all of them.Zinicel asks…
Will there be modding capabilities for this game? I know it's a tall order for this style of game, but I've wanted a definitive answer to this question. Knowing Unity, I know it's somewhat unlikely to offer this. But it'd still be nice to know for sure.
Answer: That is a very good question, but unfortunately, I don't have an answer for you. We are still looking at Unity and how it bundles up content in the shipped game, and we will have to see how much of that we can make available to the player. I can say that we want you to be able to mod the game, and if it's possible, we will allow you to do it. It's not our primary focus, which is to give you an amazing single player experience with our game, but we know a lot of people will want to tinker with the game and make their own content, so we will let you know how this objective is faring when we are further along in development.Update #13: 50K Backers Brings New Mega Dungeon, Stretch Goals and More! (PayPal Too!)
Happy Monday! We've reached 50,000 backers, and have a special reward for everyone. Details below. Also coming this week, we have more updates about the development and creation of the game. Tomorrow, Justin Bell will discuss the process for composing the music for our trailer video. On Wednesday, Josh will update with more details about the game's design, and we are going to unveil a awesome art piece that we’ve been working on.
Oh, PayPal is also coming on Wednesday!
The 50,000 Backer Reward
We are very excited to announce a reward to all backers that have helped us come this far. Today we are introducing The Endless Paths of Od Nua - a new dungeon experience for Project Eternity:
In the western reaches of the Dyrwood lies the Endless Paths, an ancient network of cobbled trails that wind through arches of dense overgrowth, twisting within the confines of a high castle wall as they make their way to the gates of iron-shuttered towers that jut forth from the interior. In ages past, the towers rising from the gardens to pierce the canopy of the forest once marked the dominion of the castle's relentless, crazed builder: Od Nua. But the courses of Od Nua's madness run far below the surface, stretching forever deeper into wandering catacombs and bone-cramped oubliettes unseen by living eyes for centuries. The Endless Paths, as the old Glanfathans call them, cannot be walked by the living, but the storytellers say with certainty that many strong souls have found a permanent home beneath the grieving creator's estate.
Most else that is said and written of the place is fiction or conjecture, more likely to have sprouted from the svef-enhanced imaginations of bored and boasting mercenaries than from any seed of truth. Hosts of lost souls that relentlessly stalk the living, cathedral-sized tombs overflowing with the restless victims of a horrific plague, lightless chambers sealing in the remnants of Od Nua's failed experiments. Most legends converge on a common theme: that under the castle rest myriad forgotten vaults of death and darkness glittering with Od Nua's enchanted creations and the abandoned treasure of ill-fated interlopers. So great is the fear of the castle's denizens that even drunken and drug-cheered adventurers do not joke of setting foot on the paths, lest their souls join the eternal ranks of those that have gone before them.
The current plan is to make The Endless Paths with three subterranean levels, but it can grow larger with your help. For every 2,500 additional backers, the depths of Od Nua’s castle become deeper, which means one additional level will be added to the vaults. Continue to spread the word about Project Eternity, and let's see how big we can make The Endless Paths!
Crafting and Enchanting at $2.4 Million
We also have a new stretch goal at $2.4 million dollars to announce: Crafting and Enchanting!
Crafting and enchanting in Project Eternity will allow players to use objects and materials they find during exploration to both create consumable items like potions and scrolls as well as give their gear custom upgrades that can't be accomplished by other means. This system is intended to be easy to use and very flexible, allowing players to customize many aspects of what they can create or alter. Whether it's brewing basic potions from herbs and minerals commonly found throughout the world or upgrading a humble broadsword into a custom-named, magically-imbued weapon of distinctive and legendary power, we want to give players the ability to make it. On the development side of things, we also want to make the system as data-driven as possible, allowing us to easily extend our list of recipes in the future.
Each stretch goal we hit not only adds new features to the game like crafting, but also makes the game larger by adding more content, quests, dialogue, and characters. Together, we've already added two new races, companions and classes, along with a player house. $2.2 million is very close which adds a new faction and region, and there are more exciting stretch goals planned if we make it past $2.4 million and beyond.
New Add-Ons
Additionally, we have two new add-ons for you:
Add an Early Access Beta Key for $25. The beta key is the same reward at the $110 and up levels, but now you can add it as an extra at the lower tiers.
Add a Digital Strategy Guide for $7. The digital strategy guide is also included in the $80 and up levels, but now you can add it as an extra at the lower tiers. This will cost more when we ship the game, so get in on the opportunity to save!
As a quick tutorial on how to add add-ons, go to the Project Eternity Kickstarter site and hit the Manage Your Pledge button. The reward tier you had already picked will still be selected and the amount will be in the big box at the top. All you need to do is add the dollar amount that covers the add-ons you would like to your pledge and enter the new total number. For instance, if you are at the $35 Pledge level and want to add the Beta Key, you would enter $60 as your total pledge. We’ll send you a fulfillment survey after the Kickstarter period is over and you can specify what you wanted to do with any excess monies added.
Thank you!
Update by Adam Brennecke and Josh SawyerUpdate #14: The Music of Project Eternity
We hit our stretch goal of $2.2 million which adds a new faction, a new companion, and French, German, and Spanish translations!
We’ve gotten many requests for more details about the game's music, so in this update we'll discuss our current plans for that. There's also a surprise buried deep within the update for all you music lovers out there, so read on to find out what it is!
Music with Soul
Souls, the supernatural, a fantasy setting, mature themes... These are just a few of the big ideas behind Project Eternity's story and world. As with any great CRPG story, music plays an important role in communicating those ideas. This was true for the Infinity Engine games as well. Looking back they all had one thing in common with regards to music: all are known for having strong and memorable soundtracks that drew you in as a listener and set fire to your imagination. That's exactly what we're aiming for with the music for Project Eternity.
So what will the music sound like? Great question! Describing music with words alone can be a tricky thing to do because so much of that is subjective and wide open for interpretation. Even still it's important to have some sort of plan in place before writing a single note. You need an idea that will guide you towards creating an effective score. To help paint that picture more clearly, here are three words that we believe best describe what the score will ultimately sound like:
Mystical
Ancient
Emotive
Now you might be wondering, out of all the possible descriptive words, why these three? The answer to that goes right back to those big ideas mentioned above.
We chose mystical because of the importance of souls and the supernatural in Project Eternity's world. Ancient because we want the music to be grounded and appropriate to the setting. Emotive because the role of music in any game is first and foremost to provide dramatic and emotional context for the player. At the end of the day, that's what we want out of Project Eternity's score. We want you to be swept away by the music and the imagery it evokes. By keeping these three descriptive pillars in mind while developing the score, we’ll be able to support and enhance the narrative goals of our game.
Of course these three words are not all the music will ultimately be. It'll also be adventurous, ethereal, and wondrous when appropriate. Ominous, dark, and mysterious when called for. Scary and horrifying at just the right moments. And yes, driving, bold, and colossal when absolutely necessary.
Along with defining what we do want the score to sound like, there are also some things we know we don't want it to sound like. It won't be overly heavy or oppressive, nor will it be bombastic and grandiose from beginning to end. We want the score to be as dynamic and nuanced as the story it serves, and the last thing we want to do is weigh that story down with leaden music.
As you can see Project Eternity's music will be many things when all is said and done. But perhaps most importantly, its music will have a unique and original voice that we hope will leave a lasting impression, the same way the music of those awesome Infinity Engine games did in the past.
The Road to Eternity
Making the Project Eternity campaign video was the result of an inspiring collaborative effort here at Obsidian. Adam Brennecke, Dimitri Berman, and I worked on it day and night for nearly a month; doing what we could to make the strongest first impression possible. To help accomplish that, I knew I wanted the music to make a powerful statement right out of the gate. I wanted it to grab your attention and keep you mesmerized until the final seconds of the video.
Suffice it to say that when I wrote this music, I never could have imagined the overwhelmingly positive reception it has since received. The support you all have shown Project Eternity and Obsidian has been a stunning, and deeply humbling experience.
Music in the Clouds
And now for the surprise. Since we launched our campaign we've gotten many requests to make the trailer music publicly available. As a huge "thank you" to all of our amazing fans and supporters, we're happy to announce today that the music from the trailer is now available on Sound Cloud for your downloading and listening pleasure. Prelude and Dirge are directly from the video, and Road is an outtake that is partly used in the video. We hope you enjoy it…
http://soundcloud.com/obsidian-entertai ... -eternity/
Look for an update about class design from Josh Sawyer tomorrow, and we are about 1,800 backers away from adding another level to The Endless Paths dungeon!
Update by Justin BellUpdate #15: PayPal, Polish and Russian support, $2.5M/$2.6M stretch goals, new reddit Q&A, classes, and art!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdf2wHt1 ... r_embedded
In today's update, I'll be talking about new stretch goals and the "core four" classes. We also have some fantastic art for you that illustrates five of our adventurers engaged in some classic dungeon exploration. Other great stuff going on includes Tim Cain’s reddit on combat and you can now pledge with PayPal over on the Project Eternity Site.
And, for our Polish- and Russian-speaking fans - we are very happy to announce that distributors in Poland and Russia will be handling localization for these two languages, so we will be able to provide them without requiring a stretch goal!
PayPal
First things first: our PayPal is now set up and ready to use! If you'd like to back the project using PayPal, you can do from the Project Eternity homepage at Obsidian:
http://eternity.obsidian.net/
Please note that pledges made through PayPal will not show up on our Kickstarter page, though we will count them toward stretch goals at the end of the campaign.
$2.5M and $2.6M Stretch Goals - Barbarian and Cipher, Adventurer's Hall with Party Creation
Since the days are counting down, we'd like to introduce two new stretch goals. As you'll read in a few more paragraphs, Project Eternity is currently slated to support seven classes. Our current roster includes fighters, priests, rogues, wizards, rangers, monks, and druids. We believe this represents the common core and several popular secondary classes that many players enjoyed using in the Infinity Engine games. We would like to use our $2.5M stretch goal to include two additional classes: the barbarian and the cipher.
Barbarians come from many of the more remote cultures found across the world. In the Dyrwood, they are commonly found among Glanfathan elf communities. They are distinguished from fighters by their recklessness, ferocity, and their predilection to substitute raw aggression for discipline. Barbarians are a challenge to deal with on a battlefield, though they are vulnerable to exhaustion if they don't pace themselves.
Ciphers are uncommon and often misunderstood individuals with extraordinary mental abilities. Like wizards and priests, they have many talents that draw directly from their souls, but ciphers have the unique ability to peer through the spiritual energy of the world to manipulate other souls. While wizards use complex formulae in large tomes and priests tap into the passion of their faith, ciphers are able to operate directly through the power of their minds... and yours.
But wait, we're not done yet! We've been reading a lot of feedback online about classes, companions, and party composition options. We want to give people the ability to build their parties as they like and we also want to allow people to experience the full spectrum of class mechanics. Companions go a long way toward achieving that goal while also providing a ton of reactivity in the world. Even so, we'd like to do more.
At $2.6M, we will add an Adventurer's Hall to the world. In the Free Palatinate of Dyrwood, adventurers and mercenaries from across the world are often employed as personal bodyguards, elite security, or salvage (plunder) teams that venture into the forgotten corners of Eír Glanfath. A lot of the folks who hang out as such places are robbers and miscreants, but reliable agents can be found and employed with a bit of patience.
What does this mean for you? It means that if you don't like a companion, or if you don't like any of our companions, you won't be cut off from having characters of their classes. Over time, you can build your own custom parties to play through the game. If you want a party of monks or all casters, this gives you the ability to do it within the game while still maintaining the pacing of the standard PC + companions play style.
And now that that's out of the way, let's talk about...
Classes: the "Core Four"
Classes in Project Eternity are meant to provide a general framework for character types. Different classes excel in different areas, but the framework can be extended and elaborated on in a multitude of ways to create characters with unique capabilities. If you see a fighter, chances are good that he or she is going to be able to take a lot of damage, but that's about all you can be sure of. If you see a wizard, he or she probably has some hard-hitting spells that can cover a large area, but his potential list of capabilities is vast.
If you want to create a wizard who wears plate armor and hacks away with a broadsword from behind a heavily-enhanced arcane veil, we want to let you do that. If your idea of the perfect fighter is one who wears light armor and uses a variety of dazzling rapier attacks in rapid succession, we want to help you make that character. So it's good to think of Project Eternity's classes as being purpose-ready but not purpose-limited.
To date, through our Kickstarter campaign, you have helped us fund seven classes. In our design, we started with the "core four" because they are the most broadly familiar and also some of the most versatile: the fighter, the priest, the rogue, and the wizard. To these four, you helped us add three specialized, but popular, classes: the ranger, the monk, and the druid. The design of each class has a solid, distinctive base set of abilities that remain in most builds, but will have a large number of optional specializations and alterations to give players a high level of flexibility in developing an individual character's particular style.
Though we are still early in development, we'd like to let you know the rough ideas on what the “core four” classes of Project Eternity encompass:
Fighter - Fighters are men and women trained to use a wide variety of traditional weapons in brutal combat. They are often put in -- or put themselves in -- harm's way and are built to take an extraordinary amount of punishment. Though not traditionally as mobile as the monk nor as likely to dish out individually withering attacks as a rogue, fighters are dependable and flexible, able to shift between a variety of attack modes that alternate between high damage, maintaining a strong defense, weakening opponents, and dealing harsh retribution to those who attack his or her allies. Some fighters build up arsenals of feints, knockdowns, and special attacks rather than rely on the “slow and steady” approach.
And while fighters are often thought of as being primarily melee-based, they can specialize in a variety of weapons, including bows, crossbows, and even firearms. They're unlikely to outclass rangers at their own game, but fighters can be almost as dangerous at a distance as they are up close. Though it may not look like it to see them in battle next to wizards and priests, fighters are just as able to tap into the power of their souls to devastating effect: accelerating their attacks to a superhuman speed, striking foes with such power that nearby opponents are knocked off their feet, and maintaining a phenomenal endurance that allows them to rapidly bounce back from even terrible wounds.
When they aren't locked in life and death struggles, fighters are, unsurprisingly, often quite athletically capable. Even so, it's not uncommon to find fighters who are stealthy and well-educated. Moving unseen and knowing how to get out of a jam can come in handy even for them.
Priest - In a world with many gods, there are many different types of priests. Though the majority of priests spend their time tending to worshipers or engaged in relatively peaceful pursuits, there are ranks of dedicated adventuring or mercenary priests who have turned the flame of their faith into a spark to ignite the power of their souls. Such men and women have found a divine link to their chosen deity, but their abilities stem solely from within.
Dedicated to spreading the news of their gods' dominions in the realms of mortals through their own deeds, adventuring priests thrust themselves into lethal conflict to prove their worth. Often trained to fight alongside soldiers of their respective churches, priests are capable in the fray (and near the fray, for those who follow less melee-oriented faiths), but their true power comes from their prayers, faith-inspired miracles that aid their allies and punish their enemies. These miracles range from combat blessings, weapon enchantments, and protective barriers to divine summons, sanctified wards, and crippling curses. In many ways, the prayers of priests have almost as much variety as wizards spells, though priests are restricted to invoking prayers that are aligned with their faith. Additionally, priests often specialize in the weapons, armor, and litanies of prayers most beloved by their church. Thus, the multitude of gods produces a multitude of different priests, each with their own unique array of abilities.
Most priests are church-educated and are widely versed in many types of lore. However, some priests get by on pure faith alone, having little knowledge of the world around them. Such battle priests often lean more heavily on their athletic abilities when they are in the field.
Rogue - Contrary to what their name might imply, rogues come from many walks of life. They are cutpurses, thugs, and courtesans but also aristocrats, diplomats, and personal guards. Often separated by station in life, they are united by their reliance on wits, speed, and subterfuge to achieve their goals. The way of the rogue is not to stand toe-to-toe with the biggest brute in the room and exchange body blows, but to glance away in feigned confusion and slip an unseen blade between the brute's ribs as he turns his attention. When a room explodes in a storm of fire, the fighters grit their teeth, the priests pray for salvation, and the wizards fumble to find a spell to protect them, but the rogues just... disappear. They excel at being in the one place where no one's looking, at kicking people when they're down, at taunting a foe into turning its back on the rogue's ally while he or she nimbly skips away, and at being just too damned slippery to pin down.
Whether they pack a pair of daggers, a fine rapier, a slim bow, a stubby pistol, or a brutish club, rogues haul a carnival of pain with them wherever they go. If their natural tendencies weren't dangerous enough, their affinity for skullduggery allows some talented rogues to tap into their souls to perform amazing stunts: fading from view in plain sight, briefly cloaking their allies in a veil of shadow, imbuing their weapons with a soul-eating venom, or even becoming so insubstantial that blades barely hurt them.
While rogues are known for their stealthy nature both in and out of battle, many of them are quite talented with machines and contraptions of all sorts. High-born rogues are often very knowledgeable about esoteric, while many low-born rogues are well-equipped to survive in the wild.
Wizard - Widely respected in most societies, wizards of Project Eternity are men and women of high education and extreme mental discipline, if not always outright intelligence. Wizards are sometimes called navigators of the mortal soul, charting out and practicing the precise ways in which “ordinary” people can unlock the power inside of themselves. Using their knowledge to truly spectacular ends, wizards rely not only on ancient practices but also their own research to propel them forward. Far from being occult or protected knowledge, most wizards' spells are just so incredibly complex and physically demanding that even practiced wizards cannot invoke them without the use of expensive, specially-enchanted tomes.
And what do the tomes contain? Instructions on ways to use one's soul to alter reality, to warp time around enemies, to make skin as tough as stone, to counter even the most powerful magic, to invoke balls of flame, bolts of lightning, gouts of acid, to conjure nightmares out of thin air. Truly, the possibilities open to wizards seem to exceed even those of what priests can call upon through their faith. And though any wizard may prepare several tomes, an inexperienced caster is not capable of channeling power through the log-thick, anvil-heavy, dog-eared grimoires of wizened archmagi. Such novices must alternate between more modest selections, relying on their less demanding spells and talents when they are unable to call upon their tomes.
Wizards are often assumed to be masters of occult lore. While this certainly applies to their knowledge of spells, many wizards are so narrowly-focused that they are ignorant of outside culture and history. It is also not uncommon for wizards to delight as much in mechanical curiosities as rogues. Because their powers make them targets in battle, a surprising number of wizards are quite fit, even if they aren't particularly strong.
That's all for our class update, but we wanted to give you a piece of art to show you examples of characters you may encounter (and adventure with) in Project Eternity. We hope you enjoy this fantastic painting from Kieran Yanner, and we have wallpapers of the art available in different resolutions.
1280x1024 | 1650x1050| 1920x1080 | 1920x1200 | 2048x1536
Thanks for reading!
Update by Josh SawyerUpdate #16 - Reward Updates, Combat with Tim, Mods, and the Mega Dungeon Grows!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpBqLbyR ... r_embedded
This week we announced our Mega Dungeon, our base classes, the cipher and barbarian classes as stretch goals, and the Adventurer's Hall as another stretch goal. We are coming up on our final week of the Kickstarter, and we have exciting stuff planned for you in the coming week including new rewards, a special inside peek into Obsidian, and a first look at Project Eternity.
Exclusive Backer Pet, Hardcover Books for $250 and Name in the Game for $500!
At the $50 tier and up we have an exclusive in-game pet for you! The pet is optional and will not have any in-game function besides being a quiet companion that will never leave your side. We are looking for ideas on what the pet could be, so let us know what you would like to see in our forums.
We have great news for $250 and up backers! We are upgrading the Collector's Book at the $250 level to a hardcover at no extra charge. The Collector's Book is a full-color book that includes concept art, our monster manual, information about the campaign setting, and a special behind the scenes look at the making of Project Eternity.
Additionally for our $500 backers and above, we will let you put your name and a personalized message on a memorial stone in game. Your unique message will be encoded into Glanfathan runes, and can be decoded using a unique in-game ring. It's a way for all of us to remember your large contribution to Project Eternity.
Tim Answers Your Combat Questions from RedditKaboom asks: Hi Tim! I'm curious how the close combat in P:E will turn out. Will the melee of P:E encompass stuff like reach weapons, opportunity attacks, flanking, grappling, charging, prone/standing-modes and so forth?
Tim: Yes, we are looking to include many of these features into our close combat system. Specifically, opportunity attacks and flanking are definitely in, as well as charging. We're not sure about reach weapons yet (we need to figure out if that attribute on a weapon will be worthwhile enough in combat and will supportable with the appropriate UI), and while we will support prone positions, you won't be able to attack while prone because the animations involved are too different from attacks while standing that we would have to make every animation twice, once for standing and once for prone. This limitation also means that grappling abilities will not be included. There are too many new animations needed and special case limitations that apply, e.g. how does a human grapple a centaur or a dragon or an ooze?).
Tim answers more of your questions in the video and the text version is on our forums. Also check out the Project Eternity reddit group.
Mod Support
From Neverwinter Nights 2 to Fallout: New Vegas, we've enjoyed supporting the mod community, and we are continuing that with Project Eternity. It is awesome to see how you extend the worlds we make.
To make getting mods easy, we are excited to announce that our friends at the Nexus will be the official spot to download Project Eternity mods once the game is released. They have been a great host for mods for our past games, and we want to continue the trend with the Project Eternity Nexus. Check out the Nexus Network at http://www.nexusmods.com.
Our plan is to release our file-format information and expose as much of the data in the game as possible for you to extend and edit. We traditionally do not "hard-code" numbers so that our designers, and you, have the power to easily change and iterate on RPG data. We also plan on releasing localization tools to let communities around the world create localized versions for languages we are not translating Project Eternity into.
As we get more familiar with Unity during production, we will be extending Project Eternity even more for mod makers. Look forward to announcements in the months ahead as we make further progress and can provide you with more information about tools and mod support.
The Endless Paths Grows!
We've passed 52,500 backers! The Endless Paths of Od Nua Mega Dungeon continues to grow larger! The next level will be added at 55,000 backers. Thank you for helping us to spread the word about Project Eternity!Update #17 - Brian Fargo from inXile Kicks In, Obsidian Kicks it Forward, New $165 Tier, and Expansion
With only seven days left on the Project Eternity Kickstarter, we want to start the last week off with some pretty incredible things to announce. You might not know that Brian Fargo is the guy who gave many of us our start in the games industry at Interplay – myself (Feargus), Josh Sawyer, Chris Avellone, Scott Everts, Brian Menze, Chris Jones, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan – and the list keeps on going from there. He also gave the guys who started a little company called Silicon & Synapse their first few projects – pretty crazy to think that little company is now Blizzard Entertainment.
Personally, we are incredibly thankful to him and for the second wave of Kickstarter attention he brought with Wasteland 2. But, Brian hasn’t stopped being the great guy that he is, and so, he’s helping us out by letting us add Wasteland 2 as a reward at our higher tiers. So, what tiers will that be? A lot of you have asked for a digital tier after $110, so we are adding a $165 Digital Only Tier. That means Wasteland 2 will get added to this new $165 tier and all the tiers above.
What we are also doing is adding the first expansion pack for the game to the $165 Tier (and above). The expansion will come out approximately six months after Project Eternity is released. That’s right, it’s not DLC, but a real honest to God RPG expansion pack. We don’t have the details on the Expansion yet, but you can bet it will be what you’d expect from an Infinity Engine game expansion.
With all that Brian has done for us in the past and his incredibly generous offer, we also want to kick something in. To do that we are now supporting the Brian's Kicking It Forward initiative. The Kickstarter community is pretty amazing and we want to help whomever we can be as successful as we have been.
For those of you that missed the announcement over the weekend, we will be adding another level to the Mega Dungeon if we hit 20,000 Likes on the Obsidian's Facebook page. We are getting close to halfway there!
That’s a lot for today, and we have so much more coming up tomorrow. Maybe some new stretch goals, maybe some new add-ons, or heck maybe all of that! Stay tuned all of this week as we ramp up to the Project Eternity Kickstarter finish next Tuesday, October 16th with an all-day live video stream from Obsidian. We are trying to get Tim to do the cooking!
Oh, and we also owe everyone an update that goes through everything you get at each of the tiers listed out with a bit more detail than we can squeeze in on the front page of our Kickstarter site. We will get that update out in the next few days, but to tide everyone over – we’ve attached the full concept for Aloth below. (Larger version)
Have a great week, everyone!
Update from Feargus UrquhartUpdate #18: George Ziets, Paladins, Add-Ons, Rewards, and More!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oPKIzyG ... r_embedded
Hey everyone, there's exactly one more week left in the Kickstarter, and we are going to be kicking it up with bigger and better updates every day!
New Add-ons and Rewards
We were looking at the $140 tier and thought it needed something more, so we decided to throw a Project Eternity Mouse Pad into the Collector's Edition. The mouse pad features the painting from Kiernan Yanner. You can also add-on additional mouse pads at any physical tier for $15.
• $140 Reward Tier and Above (excludes the digital only $165 tier) - Now includes a Project Eternity Mouse Pad.
• Project Eternity Mouse Pad Add-On - $15 each*
Also we've been asked if we are going to have more physical rewards and add-ons, and we are listening. Today, we are announcing new t-shirt add-ons for you:
• Obsidian T-Shirt Add-On - $25 each*
• Project Eternity T-Shirt Add-On - $25 each*
For more information on how to add-on rewards, please see Update #4. Sizes will be asked during the survey that will be sent to you after the end of the Kickstarter.
*You must be at a physical goods reward tier to add on any additional physical add-ons.
New Stretch Goals for $2.7m and $2.8m
We are happy to announce two more classes for the 2.7m stretch goal. With your pledges we now have Barbarians and Ciphers as playable classes, and now we would like to add Paladins and Chanters to round out our class selection for Project Eternity, bringing the class total to 11.
Paladins are extremely devoted, often fanatical, soldiers who have pledged themselves to a chosen cause, combining the zeal of a priest with the ascetic discipline of a monk. They have founded many elite fighting forces, from the original Darcozzi Paladini, a two thousand year-old order of palace guards, to the fledgling Fellows of St. Waidwen Martyr, zealous defenders of the Godhammer pilgrim trail. Often found at the vanguard of many conflicts, paladins are natural leaders and have the ability to quickly assist their allies with targeted commands. A paladin's commands can stave off impending death, overcome fatigue, or hasten the charge to close breached defenses. And though they are not always pledged to the service of a god or gods, paladins are so singularly focused on their chosen cause that their souls are continually creating a wellspring of spiritual energy from which they can blast groups of foes in their immediate vicinity. Despite their often stoic presence and explosive combat style, paladins work best alongside allies. When isolated, they can be vulnerable, especially against singular powerful foes.
Chanters can be found in almost any culture, but are most often seen in communities with a strong oral tradition. They are repositories of folk knowledge and common wisdom, tellers of tall tales and hallowed legends. Though chanters have a bit of minor talent in traditional arts of combat and soul-based magic, their true power lies in their chants. Chanters construct chants from individual iconic phrases and rhyming couplets they have memorized from hundreds of stories and poems, creating a chain of magical effects that plays out over time. While chanters do use the power of their souls to work their magic, chants are exhortations to the unconscious memory of wayward souls and the diffused spiritual energy of the world. That is, ambient spirits respond to the evocation of ancient, common story elements and play their part in reconstructing the chanter's tales. While a chanter's magic may seem modest compared to that of a wizard or a priest, chanters are able to recite their chants while occupied with other activities, making them extremely versatile.
It’s our pleasure to introduce our next stretch goal of George Ziets at $2.8m – with your help, we’ll be able to enlist the skills of George Ziets in shaping Project Eternity. For those not familiar with George’s work, he was the creative lead and core writer behind the acclaimed Mask of the Betrayer - the first expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2. George leant his talents to many of Obsidian’s other games including Fallout: New Vegas.
George is gifted in designing lore, levels, and companions for role-playing games, and Baldur’s Gate 2 is one of his favorite titles. His impact can be felt in Mask of the Betrayer, and the character concepts, story, and his narrative decisions to take a disused section of the Forgotten Realms and use it as a backdrop to weave a fascinating story is testament to his design skills. We’ve given him the rundown of Project Eternity, and he’s eager to help shape the lore, design areas, and bring the characters in the world to life.
More DUNGEON!
Yesterday Project Eternity hit 55,000 backers! Everyone loves bigger dungeons, and The Endless Paths Mega Dungeon is now 5 levels deep. We will add another level at 57,500 backers and another level if we get to 20,000 Likes on Facebook.
Don't miss the update on Thursday - Josh will be talking lore, and our first screenshot will be revealed. Everyone at the studio is really excited to show you what we've been working on.
Update by Chris Avellone, Josh Sawyer, and Adam BrenneckeUpdate #19 - $2.6M Achieved! Adventurer’s Hall in! Full List of Rewards at Every Tier, Art for T-Shirts and Mouse Pad
Another stretch goal down! We are happy to announce that we’ve made our $2.6M stretch goal counting both Kickstarter and PayPal backers!
We have a lot of great stuff planned over the next six days. Josh is doing a lore update tomorrow along with some other BIG announcements, we are organizing an AMA over on reddit so everyone can ask Tim, Josh, Feargus and myself (Adam) a ton of questions, and we are getting our crazy ideas put together for the live stream of the last hours of the campaign next Tuesday.
Along with this update, we wanted to get some housekeeping out of the way. First off, we get asked a lot about what is in each of our reward tiers. You can find the full list farther down in this update. We are going to keep this list constantly updated, so if you ever need to refer to it, just come back to this update.
We are also working on our main Kickstarter page to keep things organized and have a new stretch goal image that combines all the stretch goals that have been added.
The Chanter and Paladin classes are up next at $2.7M, and the talented George Ziets will be joining the team if we hit $2.8m! With each stretch goal hit not only are we adding a new feature, we are also making the entire game larger. The additional money raised lets us add designers, artists, animators, and programmers to help build this incredible new world we are creating. This means adding more reactive quests, choice and consequence opportunities, a varied bestiary, memorable characters, adventure areas, and combat abilities.
New Add-On
Due to popular demand and for a limited time, we are offering the ability to add our first expansion pack, due out approximately six months after Project Eternity ships. Any money contributed to add-on the expansion now will be used to make the main game larger. The expansion budget is not being created by money from this Kickstarter.
Digital Download of Expansion Pack + $20 (included in tiers $165 and above)
We will be sweetening the $165 reward tier with something extra in the upcoming days as well.
Add-Ons
If you are at the $20 Pledge level or higher, you can add the following items to your reward tier. Check out Update #4 on more information on how to Add-On rewards.
Digital Add-Ons (Any Tier $20 and Above)Digital Download of Expansion Pack + $20 (included in tiers $165 and above)
Digital Strategy Guide + $7 (included in tiers $80 and above)
Early Access Beta Key +$25 (included in tiers $110 and above)
Extra Digital Download of the Game +$25 (requires a minimum $20/$25 tier contribution)
Extra Three Digital Downloads of the Game +$60 (requires a minimum $20/$25 tier contribution)
Physical Add-Ons (Physical Tiers Only, $65, $100, $140, $250 and above)Project Eternity Mouse Pad +$15 (included in physical tiers $140 and above)
Black Project Eternity T-Shirt +$25 (included in physical tiers $100 and above)
Black Obsidian T-Shirt +$25
For t-shirt add-ons, we will ask for your size at the end of the Kickstarter campaign in a survey sent to you in e-mail.Update #20: Lore Tidbits, Campaign Almanac, Big Ol' Stretch Goals, and... Environment Screenshot!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LtpG02b ... r_embedded
The campaign is winding down folks, so it's time to bring out the proverbial big guns. In today's update, I'm going to be talking about a bunch of lore tidbits, a Campaign Almanac we'll be offering as an add-on, new BIG OL' stretch goals, and finally, a work-in-progress screenshot of an environment we're developing. As a quick reminder, we are getting close to 20,000 likes on Obsidian's Facebook page, which unlocks another level of the Mega Dungeon the Endless Paths – if you get the chance, please head on over there.
That's a lot of stuff, so let's start with the...
Lore
After thinking about a variety of topics for today's lore update, I decided to describe some of the major (and a few minor) people, places, and things in the world of Project Eternity. I hope these elements help frame the landscape of the Dyrwood and Eír Glanfath. Though this corner of the world is not particularly large, the struggles of its residents will surround the heart of Project Eternity.
Aedyr - People from the expansive Aedyr Empire and its former colonies, Dyrwood and Readceras. Aedyr literally translates as "Many Deer", but means "People of the Deer", referring to a 2,500 year-old tribe that became a kingdom 600 years ago. It merged with the elven kingdom of Kulklin in 2399 AI. Among the Aedyr, there is no significant cultural divide between humans and elves. Because of their close contact and integration in spite of physiological differences (such as longer elven lifespans), their culture and legal system have developed a variety of unique concepts such as the haemneg, or ceremonial marriage. Ethnic Aedyr (mostly humans and elves) have fair skin and a variety of hair and eye colors, with blue and green being common. Among other cultures, Aedyr clothing is known for being relatively simple in construction and often using large, colorful striped or checkered patterns for accents.
Anni Iroccio - Year of Iroccio. This is the commonly-used calendar in and around the Dyrwood. It is only 150 years old and Vailian in origin, but has been adopted by the residents of Dyrwood and much of the surrounding area due to the hopeless inaccuracy of the Aedyre calendar. Though the Iroccian calendar replaced earlier Vailian calendars, the inventor, Iroccio, started from the same time as his predecessors. It is currently 2823 AI.
biamhac - The most feared phenomenon of Eír Glanfath, biamhacs are "spirit winds" that rise up in cursed ruins, shearing souls away from the bodies of their owners. They appear suddenly and without warning, leaving victims little hope of escape. Strong-souled people are not harmed by biamhacs, but affected individuals are instantly reduced to a catatonic state. The discovery of numerous biamhacs in Eír Glanfath during its early exploration resulted in thousands of Aedyr deaths.
Dyrwood - Strictly speaking, the forest northwest of the Bael River.
Dyrwood, Free Palatinate of - The independent nation that was formerly a colony and later a large, remote duchy of the Aedyr Empire. Led by their duke, Admeth Hadret, the people successfully fought for their independence over an excessively burdensome campaign to colonize the dangerous ruins of Eír Glanfath. Despite the fact that they are no longer, properly speaking, a palatinate (nor a duchy), the people of Dyrwood continue to refer to their home as a "Free Palatinate" out of pride. Most residents of the Dyrwood are Aedyr humans, elves, and dwarves, but many are also culturally integrated orlans or children of Glanfathan elves. Despite having fought a war with the Aedyr Empire in the past, they are now trading partners and have maintained few grudges. Their one continued point of contention is exploration and colonization of Eír Glanfath, which Aedyr continues to push through official and unofficial means.
Eír Glanfath - The name natives give to an indeterminately old elven kingdom that covered the entire forest southeast of the Bael River. Though they were not technologically advanced compared to contemporary civilizations, they had accomplished a number of architectural and astronomical feats that explorers and scholars are still trying to understand. Whatever the extent of Eír Glanfath's kingdom was, its ruins had been abandoned for centuries, possibly even millennia, before Vailians or Aedyr arrived in the area. The so-called "Glanfathan" elves in the forest seemed to have no cultural connection to the kingdom and were living in nomadic communities instead of the old structures. Eír Glanfath's ruins are not understood by anyone, and early misinterpretations over their significance resulted in two small-scale conflicts: The Broken Stone War and The War of Black Trees, the latter of which ended with a fire that consumed a vast section of the Dyrwood.
Eothas - The Aedyran name for a god of light and redemption. While worship of Eothas is still popular in the Aedyr Empire and Readceras, the faith is outlawed in most cities of the Dyrwood due to events of the Saint's War that culminated at Godhammer Citadel. Though Eothas once communicated regularly with his faithful, he has not done so since the destruction of St. Waidwen at the Battle of Godhammer over 200 years ago.
Hylspeak - An old dialect of Aedyran only spoken by rural communities and older elves in the Aedyre heartlands. It is grammatically almost identical to Aedyran, but contains a large number of archaic words that have either disappeared from contemporary use or taken new forms over time. Speakers of contemporary Aedyran can understand Hylspeak, but it can sometimes be confusing. Hylspeak is only commonly heard in folk songs and poems that have survived over the centuries. Some people associate the spontaneous speaking of Hylspeak with an awakened soul. As a result, superstitious folk are easily angered when they hear it spoken, believing it may cause their soul to remember a past life.
Magran - The Aedyran name for a goddess of war and fire. Her priests commonly employ firearms and some helped construct the "Godhammer" bomb used to destroy St. Waidwen. Following the Saint's War, she became the most popular faith in Dyrwood. In Aedyr, her symbol is a flame, but in Dyrwood, it is a flaming bomb. Worship of Magran is extensively persecuted in Readceras.
orlan - A race of people found mostly in northern, temperate climates but also as far south as the Dyrwood. Physically, they are notable for their small stature, two-toned skin, and exceptionally large, hair-covered ears. Due to their size, orlans have been victimized and marginalized by most of the cultures with whom they have come into contact. As a result, it is rare to find large communities of them and they have progressively retreated into heavily wooded environments over the last few centuries. Many orlan communities have also adopted brutal guerilla tactics including heavy use of traps and poison in the surrounding environment. As a result, even orlans raised in urban cultures often share their rural kin's nasty reputation.
Readceras, The Penitential Regency of - The ecclesiastic nation that was formerly an Aedyre colony and later an independent theocratic dictatorship (the Divine Kingdom of Readceras). Two centuries ago, a popular religious movement took hold in the countryside, in part sparked by the collapse of the nation's vorlas (purple dye-producing plant) market, its resultant poverty, and general civil unrest. The leader of the movement was a farmer named Waidwen who claimed that the Aedyre god of light, Eothas, had appeared to him in the night and told him to punish the colonial governor for leading the people to ruin. Waidwen's success led to his apparent transformation into a living vessel for Eothas, after which he became the first and only "divine king" of the country. His rule produced a subsequent purge of heretics and followers of other faiths across the nation. Events related to this purge led to the Saint's War with Dyrwood, which informally ended in 2618 AI when Waidwen was apparently destroyed by a massive bomb north of Halgot Citadel (popularly renamed Godhammer Citadel).
svef - Svef is the Aedyran name for a potent narcotic produced from the berries of small shrub that grows in the dry, distant mountains of Tal Kness. Svef produces hallucinations and, according to some, allows users to actually see their own soul. The narcotic was introduced to the Aedyr long ago, but it is used more frequently in the Dyrwood due to its heavy trafficking by Vailian merchants.
Vailians - Most Vailians come from the Vailian Republics, a federation of independent city-states made up of former colonies from the Grand Empire of Vailia. They are a powerful mercantile force in the southern hemisphere, trading with more partners than any other nation or empire. Five cities are considered "grand" republics and have greater voting power in their electoral council: Spirento, Ancenze, Selona, Ozia, and Revua. The federation is widely known for its access to most major commodities in the world, including slaves, and for its habit of impressing (abducting) foreigners into service on their naval vessels. Ethnic Vailians (humans and a small number of dwarves) have dark brown skin and tightly spiraled, dark brown hair. They most commonly have brown or black eyes, but occasionally have green, hazel, or grey eyes. Vailians pride themselves on their well-made and intricately-decorated clothing, often made with rare materials and dyes to which they have easy access.
That's a lotta lore! There's more lore where that came from, but to encapsulate all of the things going on in the world at this time, you'd probably need more space, like a book. Maybe a...
Campaign Almanac
Was that an awkward transition? A little. Is this actually an almanac? If you look at a "dictionary" to get "definitions", probably not, but that's what we're calling it. It's a PDF (and other formats) compendium of facts, figures, maps, lore and more about the world of Project Eternity. Looking to run a PnP campaign in the world of Project Eternity or just want even more detail on the world? This will be your first, of what we hope is many, "go-to" sources. And it will be a real (digital) thing that you can add to any pledge for $15. Also, if you've already pledged $50 or more, you get it for free!
Big Ol' Stretch Goals
You've asked for big stretch goals, and we're finally ready to give you some. These are mighty stretch goals, ones we're confident that a lot of people will enjoy but we know require serious funding to do well.
$3.0 Million - Stronghold
At $2.0 Million, your support funded a player house. Inspired by features like The Sink found in Fallout: New Vegas Old World Blues, the house is a convenient place to store gear, interact with companions, craft items (thanks to the $2.4 Million stretch goal), rest, and buy and sell from special merchants. Some of you wanted something that went beyond the standard player house, allowing you to take control of a full stronghold and its surrounding lands. Well-done strongholds provide players with the ability to make large scale changes, undertake special quests, customize the contents of the stronghold and the surrounding environment, and engage in light strategic gameplay between adventures. If we hit $3.0 Million, we will build a stronghold worthy of the title!
$3.5 Million - Big City #2
Baldur's Gate and Athkatla are big cities. Spanning multiple large maps with a ton of interiors, characters and quests, big cities are a lot of fun. Like strongholds, they also take a lot of work to do well. We're going to have one big city in Project Eternity. Would you like two? If you take us on an exciting adventure to $3.5 Million, we will take you on an exciting adventure to another big city.
Environment Screenshot
Project Eternity's team of crazed environment artists have been working hard on developing our first environment for the game. Early on in the Kickstarter campaign, we told you that we wanted to make maps the Infinity Engine way. That is, we wanted to build 3D levels, render them out as 2D images, and then have our artists paint in beautiful details, highlights, and color-tweaks before they went into the game. Looking back at the levels some of us worked on for Icewind Dale, we were still thrilled with the quality that we could achieve with this approach. For Project Eternity, we're using 10 years of improvements in rendering technology and hardware to get the job done, but we still love what we can do the "old-fashioned" way. We hope you share our enthusiasm.
1920x1080 | 2560x1440
That's all for today's update! Thanks for reading.
La cuenta atrás4 escribió:4 escribió:"What do the words mean?
Nothing. The Dirge of Eír Glanfath is sound without form, a lone voice crying out in mourning because it must."4 escribió:<!--. X . X X . X X -->
<!-- To tenderness, fellowship. To fellowship, vigilance. So bring we all to the Night Market. I am the Spindle of Esenath. Know me by my light and stand with me in darkness. -->3 escribió:3 escribió:"The book unread is unwritten. The reason we don´t explain it is the reason we use it. Its power is in ts mystery. That is the Leaden Key, in part, in whole. Is it clear?"
"Diggin for truth buries the seeker"3 escribió:<!--. X . X X . T X -->
<!-- Two centuries ago, your divine champion told the people of Dyrwood to grovel at his feet. If you've come on pilgrimage to the blasted crater that was our reply, Godhammer Citadel is *that* way. -->2 escribió:2 escribió:"I recognize your pain. Your kind must learn it comes from straining against the turning of the world. It spins thus. You cannot stop it. One day, you will wake up. You will stop pulling. The pain will be gone. Until then, all your waking hours are suffering."2 escribió:<!--. X . X X I T X -->
<!-- In time, waves washing against the fingers of Geiran's Grasp will call them back into the sea. The difference between you and the sea is that the sea does not stop. -->1 escribió:1 escribió:It made you a Watcher. No one asks for that. And the weight, that guilt they want to hang around my neck, you don't have to carry it one more step. You think they won't let you rest, but it's not up to them. It never was.1 escribió:<!--. T . X X I T X -->
<!-- There is no sleep for the Watcher. -->
"I recognize your pain. Your kind must learn it comes from straining against the turning of the world. It spins thus. You cannot stop it. One day, you will wake up. You will stop pulling. The pain will be gone. Until then, all your waking hours are suffering."
2 escribió:<!--. X . X X I T X -->
<!-- In time, waves washing against the fingers of Geiran's Grasp will call them back into the sea. The difference between you and the sea is that the sea does not stop. -->
It made you a Watcher. No one asks for that. And the weight, that guilt they want to hang around my neck, you don't have to carry it one more step. You think they won't let you rest, but it's not up to them. It never was.
1 escribió:<!--. T . X X I T X -->
<!-- There is no sleep for the Watcher. -->
Grifox escribió:It made you a Watcher. No one asks for that. And the weight, that guilt they want to hang around my neck, you don't have to carry it one more step. You think they won't let you rest, but it's not up to them. It never was.1 escribió:<!--. T . X X I T X -->
<!-- There is no sleep for the Watcher. -->
El nombre del juego huele a que va a ser ETERNITY.
_Jack_ escribió:habrá que darles apoyo y voto de confianza, cualquier cosa que sea revivir el estilo de los rpgs clasicos de los 90 es bien recibido.
por cierto, a pesar que a mi no me desagrada, dudo que el concepto vista isometrica pueda aplicar hoy en día de cara a querer buscar mas compradores potenciales, para mi un sistema como el de dragon age origins sería perfecto.
aunque, dudo que con un proyecto kickstarter se pueda financiar un juego de la calidad de origins (en tema de gráficos y diálogos) sin contar que para desarrollar un rpgs en condiciones hoy en dia se necesitan varios años de desarrollo.
DDDCocotxo escribió:_Jack_ escribió:habrá que darles apoyo y voto de confianza, cualquier cosa que sea revivir el estilo de los rpgs clasicos de los 90 es bien recibido.
por cierto, a pesar que a mi no me desagrada, dudo que el concepto vista isometrica pueda aplicar hoy en día de cara a querer buscar mas compradores potenciales, para mi un sistema como el de dragon age origins sería perfecto.
aunque, dudo que con un proyecto kickstarter se pueda financiar un juego de la calidad de origins (en tema de gráficos y diálogos) sin contar que para desarrollar un rpgs en condiciones hoy en dia se necesitan varios años de desarrollo.
Respeto tu opinion pero yo no quiero un sistema como el dragon age ni en pintura. Ni Oblivion ni similares. Ni yo, ni muchos.
Si van a hacer un RPG old school 100% ha de ser estilo Baldur y esa es su acertada eleccion, ya que quieren hacer un juego de los de antes.
Y viendo la cantidad de gente que ha donado pasta (en menos de 7 horas lleva mas de la mitad) se diria que ni falta que les hace buscar compradores potenciales... ya los tienen.
Por cierto que vaya trio esta detras de esto; De aqui va a salir algo MUY GRANDE.
Supongo que no tardarán en poner stretch goals y actualizaciones.![[+risas]](/images/smilies/nuevos/risa_ani3.gif "más risas")
![[beer]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/brindando.gif "brindis")
We've hit our first stretch goal and surpassed $1.5 million! Thank you to everyone who has made this all possible. And now, some info...
Project Eternity is still early in development and we are still working on many of the cultures, factions, and ethnic groups of the world and debating many of the system concepts. However, there are certain fundamental things we want to let you know about the game and the setting for Project Eternity.
Your Party
The maximum party size is the player's main character (PC) and up to five companions for a total of six characters. This does not preclude the addition of temporary characters in special circumstances. Companions are never forced on the player. Players can explore the entire world and its story on their own if they so choose. We feel companions are excellent sounding boards for the player's (and other companions') actions, but the story is ultimately about the player's personal conflict among the larger social and political complexities of the world.
Formations
A key element of the classic party-based tactical combat that we are developing is the use of party formations. As in the good ol' games, you can arrange your party in a large number of set formations. You can also construct your own formations if you want to get fancy. When moving companions, you have the ability to rotate formations for more precise positioning.
Character Creation
At a minimum, players will be able to specify their main character's name, sex, class, race (including subrace), culture, traits, ability scores, portrait, and the fundamental starting options of his or her class (gear, skills, and talents). We have not worked out customization details of character avatars, but we believe those are important and will be updating on these specifics in the future.
For the full run-down, please see the rest of the text on the Obsidian forums here:
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60221- ... and-races/
That's all for today's update. We'll have more information on the world and systems in the near future. Please give us your feedback and thank you for all of the ideas and support you've given so far!
Malakun escribió:Leyendo Anait me encuentro con esto:Lo dice Urquhart CEO de Obsidian:
Algunas distribuidoras que querían usarnos para hacer un Kickstarter se pusieron en contacto con nosotros en los últimos meses. Les dije: «Así que quieres que hagamos un Kickstarter para usar nuestro nombre, que luego nosotros cojamos el dinero de Kickstarter para hacer el juego, que tú lo publiques pero luego no nos quedemos con la marca que hagamos y sólo consigamos una parte de los beneficios».
Me dijeron: «Sí.»
http://www.anaitgames.com/noticias/inte ... ickstarter
Y luego le caen palos a Obsidian por recurrir a un kickstarter y no tirar por una distribuidora...
Lo peor es que dice que vinieron a él...eso puede significar que lo vuelvan a intentar con otra compañía que no pueda costearse juegos por sí misma, y tengan que recurrir al crowdfunding, como fue el caso de Double Fine, inXile o, ahora, el de Obsidian.Update #4 - Digital Tiers, DRM, and Add-Ons Update
Well you all did it, you helped us get to $1.6M and we now have a Mac version and are adding more story into the world.
We have also been listening and reading your feedback on Kickstarter and have some changes that are happening as soon as this update is posted. One thing, we are not updating just yet are the stretch goals, but don’t worry those are going to get updated very soon. Oh, and we are putting a schedule together for updates that will include guest stars almost every day – Josh will be talking more about the design tomorrow (Sep 20), our unflappable CTO Chris Jones (architect of the Fallout and Arcanum engines) on Friday (Sep 21), and I think we will be able to squeeze one in from Mr. Tim Cain over the weekend.
So, what are those changes?!?
DRM Free Option
You asked and we are delivering. In conjunction with GOG, we are going to offer a DRM free version of the game for our Kickstarter Backers. When the campaign ends, you will be able to choose whether you would like a key from GOG or Steam. For our Mac friends, we are still working on a DRM free option, since GOG does not currently support the Mac. Oh, and the great guys at GOG are having a special right now on all of the great Infinity Engine games, so check that out as well.
New Digital Tiers
We are adding a $50 and an $80 digital tier. The $50 tier will get you the digital version of the game, the soundtrack, the digital version of the Collector’s Book, a collection of wallpapers made for multiple resolutions and multiple monitors, high resolution concept art, a high resolution version of the map, and ringtones. For the $80 tier, you will get all of that plus a digital copy of the strategy guide, and a second digital download of the game.
Add-Ons
This is a short list for right now, but we will be adding more as the days pass including some pretty swank Obsidian-wear.Add a Digital Download of the Game +$25
As a quick tutorial on how to add add-ons, goto the Project Eternity site on Kickstarter and then hit the Manage Your Pledge button. The reward tier you had already selected will still be selected and the amount will be in the big box at the top. All you need to do is add the dollar amount that covers the add-ons you would like to your pledge and enter the new total number. For instance, if you are at the $35 Pledge level and want to add one Digital Download, you would enter $60 as your total pledge.
Add Three Digital Downloads of the Game +$60
New for our Collector's Edition Box Level ($140)
Lastly we want to announce that we are going to give our backers at the Collector’s Edition Box Level ($140) a little extra today and that is Beta access to the game! That’s just a little taste of what we will be adding into tiers in the coming days and weeks through stretch goals and the occasional random act.
![[plas]](/images/smilies/aplauso.gif "Aplausos")
Les estaban haciendo publicidad "indirecta" poniendo las viejas glorias de Bioware y Black Isle de oferta (otra vez ) y, ya de paso, aprovechando el tirón del anuncio de Obsidian para vender a bastante gente el Planescape. Hi Alberto,
As the funding increases, we are going to continually look at what languages we can support. With all the words in Project Eternity, it's, unfortunately, not cheap. About $65K or $70K per language.
Thanks for the interest,
Feargus
![[poraki]](/images/smilies/nuevos/dedos.gif "por aquí!")
AbueloNemesis escribió:Sobre una traducción, me dijeron esto:Hi Alberto,
As the funding increases, we are going to continually look at what languages we can support. With all the words in Project Eternity, it's, unfortunately, not cheap. About $65K or $70K per language.
Thanks for the interest,
Feargus
No sé, a mi me parece que tienen ya un buen pastizal encima como para al menos poder tener claro este tipo de cosas. Yo no sé otros pero yo seguramente no contribuya hasta que no vea bien claro lo de que habrá traducción, ¿no tienen en cuenta estas cosas a la hora de dar más motivos para subir la recaudación? porque tal como lo dicen pareciera solo un gasto.
A ver si se deciden pronto.
Update #8 - New Digital Tier, Novella by Chris Avellone, and Translations at $2.2M
We are still going strong over here on Kickstarter and we wanted to thank everyone that has been here since the beginning as well as those of you who have come on recently to back us with your pledge. With such great support, we want to thank everyone with a new addition to the $50 and later tiers, a new $110 digital only tier, and a big change to our $2.2M stretch goal.
Oh, and what are we doing this week as to updates you might ask? Josh Sawyer, Tim Cain and Chris Avellone will be posting updates and videos all this week starting on Sep 26 with Josh, Sep 27 with Mr. Avellone and a great one from Tim over the weekend.
French, German, and Spanish Translations added at $2.2M
We are glad to announce that we will add text translations for French, German, and Spanish when we reach this goal. As we hit more of our stretch goals, we hope to be able to add even more languages as well!
Novella by Chris Avellone added for $50 and Up!
Chris Avellone has been so thankful for everyone's support that he himself has pledged to write a novella in the world of Project Eternity. We are adding that to everyone who pledges $50 and up.
New $110 Digital Only Tier
Thanks to popular demand, we are adding a new digital tier at $110 that has early beta access to the game, thanks in the credits, a postcard thanking you for your pledge (sent physically) along with all the other digital benefits of the $140 Tier. Since we added the new novella written by Chris Avellone at the $50 reward tier - that is in there as well!
Oh and we have a little piece of artwork to share as well. The following is one of our traditional race and class combinations - the Human Fighter - but he's not just any Human Fighter. He has an integral role in the story that we will be hinting at soon. Don't worry, we will also be sharing more and more of the non-traditional options in the days and weeks to come.
Y por lo que llevan ahora, no creo que tarden mucho en llegar a los 2.2 millones Update #9 - The power of MODES and Godlike races: Our $2.3M Stretch Goal
We love giving players options: character build options, personality options, story options -- all the options you might want to play around with. We recognize that many players also want to play the game their way and have an experience that matches their particular RPG tastes. RPG fans share a lot of common ground, but on matters of visible mechanical feedback, complexity, and the overall level of punitive face-punching a game provides, there's a big spectrum of opinions. In a lot of cases, it's not too hard for us to provide options to turn an individual feature on or off, so we want to make that possible when resources permit us to do so.
Additionally, even among the ranks of RPG superfans, there exists a subset of players who can't get enough challenge. They want all of the difficulty features set to "I am pro." Collectively, we've worked on a bunch of these challenge modes in the past and enjoyed the results. Project Eternity seems like a very appropriate place to highlight suites of these difficulty options as distinct gameplay modes that players can opt-into at the beginning of any game. We've come up with three modes we'd like to support, which also includes the ability to turn many of their sub-features on and off on an individual level in an ordinary game: Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, and Path of the Damned.
Expert Mode will disable all of the common ease-of-use / in-case-you-missed it gameplay elements like the display of skill thresholds, influence/reputation modifiers, and similar "helper" information. In a fashion similar to Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode will also enable more punitive and demanding gameplay elements, in and out of combat. We're not saying we're going to have weighty gold (for real, we're not saying that), but if we did, you can bet that would be automatically turned on by Expert Mode.
If you guessed that Trial of Iron is like Temple of Elemental Evil's Ironman Mode, you guessed right. When you start a Trial of Iron game, you have one save game that persists for the entire campaign... or until you die. And if you die, your save game is deleted. Enjoy!
Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved.
The first question you may have is, "Can I enable multiple challenge modes at once?" Yep, you sure can. They have to be selected at the beginning of the game, but if you want to play with two or all three at the same time, you can certainly can do so. If you're not quite sure you want all of the elements that come along with a given mode, this funding level will also cover implementing the ability to enable and disable the individual sub-features.
Along with these modes, we also want to introduce the Godlike races. These folks have been described previously as being similar to the humanoid "planetouched" in D&D: aasimar, tieflings, and genasi. That is a good high-level description of them, but they are viewed differently by various factions, faiths, and cultures in the world of Project Eternity. Godlike were "blessed" before birth by one or more of the meddling deities of this world. Though their appearances vary, they are unmistakeably otherworldly when anyone gets a clear look at them. Sometimes, the reaction they get is overwhelmingly positive. Many times, the reaction is overwhelmingly not. For better or worse, the physical "gifts" that mark them as Godlike always come with supernatural blessings (and curses) of their own.
The first question you may have after reading this may be, "Hey, what about the other races that have already been funded?" Those races are in the process of being fully designed and concepted -- and they can't be summarized quite as simply as "sort of like planetouched". We'll have more for you on those guys in the not-too-distant future. Thanks again for your support, your patience, and your questions.
Update from Josh Sawyer
Update #10 - Characterization with Chris Avellone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o8GTA8-EPU
Today's Project Eternity update is shorter and sweeter than usual (at least on the text side), and instead is a fun video from Obsidian's creative director, Chris Avellone. In the video, Chris talks about birthdays, gratitude for fan gratitude, his one really @$!$ messy desk, and some extrapolation of characterization in Project Eternity.
The video is a follow up to his Project Eternity and Characterization blog post over on the Obsidian forums from a few days ago. We encourage you to check it out first if you haven't already, particularly if the process of character design interests you, and then watch the video!
Our next update coming this weekend. Oh, and for those of you who might not know, we successfully hit the $2.0M stretch goal, so chillaxing (that is, chilling and relaxing, in elvish) with some of your favorite companions in your player house is now one more thing you can do in the game!
