1774 réponses à ce sujet

[Jozape]

Yrkoon wrote...

Where is this poll, exactly, I can't seem to find it anywhere on the first 3 pages of the PE forum.

It's on the main page of Obsidian.net, on the right. Not the forums.

[FedericoV]

So, I've listened to Josh Sawyer KS's video. Must say that the hook of the story remembers very closely his ideas for BG3 The Black Hound.

[Cimeas]

Yrkoon wrote...

Cimeas wrote...

Update 7 sounds way too ambitious. What, like 30 different ways of getting out of a situation? Most fights avoidable by conversation? (do they have any idea how much dialogue that is to write?)

 I'm sure they know exactly how much 'dialogue' to write.  Since they've done it before.  Obsidian pulled  this off with a cheap expansion  a few years ago that took them less than 6 months to make.  Have you Ever played NWN2  Storm of Zehir?  If they use that model  (which I hope they don't actually, since it was boring) it won't take much dialogue at all to talk yourself out of a fight with, say,  a pack of Ogres.  Here's how the confrontations usually go.

Ogre Chief:  Grr!
You:  :::offer them 300 gold to walk away:::: Diplomacy check:  success
Ogre Chief:  Me accept shinies.  Bye.

And the different skills?  even easier.  Doesn't take  much dialogue to successfully pick a lock, or do alchemy, or craft a sword, or examine  footprints in the dirt. 

Not to mention a dozen ways to get around the world map, what seems like hundreds of random encounters, different routes

If by "dozens of different ways", you mean, different travel speeds with a  fast travel perk achievable  at higher levels, then yes.  Not really a profound undertaking.  Again, its not like they're doing anything innovative.

Then there's the crafting, but wait, that's not all! He goes on to promise that there'll be some whole npc loot crafting system that means we don't even have to get stuff from chests/enemies and crafters will make stuff for us. Then he hints at multiple resource meters, so what, will there be like health,mana and energy? Finally they seem to think they can perfectly balance these skills so they're all equally useful.

 Again, SOZ did it.  Pulled it off in 6 months on a shoestring budget.    I'm sure Balance will indeed be an issue though, as it is with Every. Single. RPG. Ever. Made. 

Welcome to Gaming.

They are setting themselves up here people. 2 million is nothing compared to the scale of their ambition.

LOL

Me'thinks someone here is underestimating three of the most celebrated legends of the RPG Genre.    Josh Sawyer by himself could probably successfully design all of the above.  But with PE,  he'll have the benefit of Tim  Cain and Chris Avellone working along side him, two guys who  ALSO could pull all of the above off by themselves.  The fact that they're working together just means  the systems will have a little more depth and  be made in a little less time.

SOZ probably had a budget of about 3 million.   And for SOZ (which I have played many times), they already had ALL the animations, graphics, much of the environment art, levelling systems and SOZ also didn't have complex characters or storylines.   

Finally, SOZ was hardly the pinnacle of RPG.  Yes it had all those classic features like the overland map, but to do that they cut the interesting story and deep companions that Obsidian promised, and that made Mask of the Betrayer one of the best RPGs since Planescape. 

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm getting the impression that a bit of you wants this to fail....

[Yrkoon]

Cimeas wrote...

SOZ probably had a budget of about 3 million. And for SOZ (which I have played many times), they already had ALL the animations, graphics, much of the environment art, levelling systems and SOZ also didn't have complex characters or storylines.

Finally, SOZ was hardly the pinnacle of RPG. Yes it had all those classic features like the overland map, but to do that they cut the interesting story and deep companions that Obsidian promised, and that made Mask of the Betrayer one of the best RPGs since Planescape.

SOZ was a Bore-snore, I agree. But its Overland map was something they had to build from scratch and the humongous skills-based mechanics that are weaved into it (every single 3.5ed skill in NWN2 had a function while you were traveling.  Mind Boggling.).... it probably ate up half of the development time on its own.

The fact that they still managed to squeeze in a main story (two main stories in fact), hire a top end music composer,  use a ton of voice acting, as well as design  a completely seperate trading minigame, and  create an Elderscrolls-like open world with a hundred locations, a few of them being sprawling dungeon types..... and to do it without Tim Cain and Chris Avellone.... and to do it in 6 months..... and to have to share production costs with 1)Atari; 2)Wizards of the Coast; 3) Hasbro....

It was a small Miracle. They're in a much much MUCH better position with Project Eternity.


But none of this really matters. You were wondering how they could ever pull off the stuff they cited in Update 7.(which in my opinion doesn't appear to be all that ambitious anyway, just really cool). My only point is to assure you that it can be done. They've done it before.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 23 septembre 2012 - 10:03 .

[Gatt9]

Cimeas wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

Cimeas wrote...

Update 7 sounds way too ambitious. What, like 30 different ways of getting out of a situation? Most fights avoidable by conversation? (do they have any idea how much dialogue that is to write?)

 I'm sure they know exactly how much 'dialogue' to write.  Since they've done it before.  Obsidian pulled  this off with a cheap expansion  a few years ago that took them less than 6 months to make.  Have you Ever played NWN2  Storm of Zehir?  If they use that model  (which I hope they don't actually, since it was boring) it won't take much dialogue at all to talk yourself out of a fight with, say,  a pack of Ogres.  Here's how the confrontations usually go.

Ogre Chief:  Grr!
You:  :::offer them 300 gold to walk away:::: Diplomacy check:  success
Ogre Chief:  Me accept shinies.  Bye.

And the different skills?  even easier.  Doesn't take  much dialogue to successfully pick a lock, or do alchemy, or craft a sword, or examine  footprints in the dirt. 

Not to mention a dozen ways to get around the world map, what seems like hundreds of random encounters, different routes

If by "dozens of different ways", you mean, different travel speeds with a  fast travel perk achievable  at higher levels, then yes.  Not really a profound undertaking.  Again, its not like they're doing anything innovative.

Then there's the crafting, but wait, that's not all! He goes on to promise that there'll be some whole npc loot crafting system that means we don't even have to get stuff from chests/enemies and crafters will make stuff for us. Then he hints at multiple resource meters, so what, will there be like health,mana and energy? Finally they seem to think they can perfectly balance these skills so they're all equally useful.

 Again, SOZ did it.  Pulled it off in 6 months on a shoestring budget.    I'm sure Balance will indeed be an issue though, as it is with Every. Single. RPG. Ever. Made. 

Welcome to Gaming.

They are setting themselves up here people. 2 million is nothing compared to the scale of their ambition.

LOL

Me'thinks someone here is underestimating three of the most celebrated legends of the RPG Genre.    Josh Sawyer by himself could probably successfully design all of the above.  But with PE,  he'll have the benefit of Tim  Cain and Chris Avellone working along side him, two guys who  ALSO could pull all of the above off by themselves.  The fact that they're working together just means  the systems will have a little more depth and  be made in a little less time.

SOZ probably had a budget of about 3 million.   And for SOZ (which I have played many times), they already had ALL the animations, graphics, much of the environment art, levelling systems and SOZ also didn't have complex characters or storylines.   

Finally, SOZ was hardly the pinnacle of RPG.  Yes it had all those classic features like the overland map, but to do that they cut the interesting story and deep companions that Obsidian promised, and that made Mask of the Betrayer one of the best RPGs since Planescape. 

You're making alot of assumptions.

Your very first assumption is that they have to figure out how to create a balanced RPG system.  After a couple of decades playing them,  many things become very elementary.  It's highly likely they already have the fundamental system hashed out,  and are just working on the higher level stuff. 

Your second assumption is that you know how some of the things they described works.  It's *really* trivial to setup an NPC that takes item X and returns item Y.  I could write the code for you in a couple hours at most.  Fast travel is just timePassed = (baseTime x Speed).  Teleportation is just LoadMap(mapToLoad,  pcCoords).

Further,  they're using Unity.  Which means they don't have to write the engine.  Which significantly reduces effort.

Finally,  they're stripping the development effort down to what is needed,  eliminating all of the Publisher overhead.  Which is generally dozens of people who don't actually contribute any work to the product.

Alot of what Publishers spread around as the "Cost" of the game is baked numbers,  they neglect to mention that alot of the "Cost" is people who don't really contribute.  For example Marketing and PR,  neither or which really works,  as the best Marketing and PR campaign in the world doesn't make a bad game sell.

[Jozape]

Cimeas wrote...

SOZ probably had a budget of about 3 million.   And for SOZ (which I have played many times), they already had ALL the animations, graphics, much of the environment art, levelling systems and SOZ also didn't have complex characters or storylines.

Really? I didn't get far in SoZ(about an hour or two), but I don't recall the environments and graphics being all the same as NWN2 or MotB. In fact, I recall reading that one of the purposes of Storm of Zehir(and Mask of the Betrayer) was to add new environments and features for the modders to work with.

[Cimeas]

Publishers provide money. Money allocated by the publisher to a developer is separate from the money the publisher spends on marketing etc... There is marketing/PR budget, and then development budget.

Allan, I don't 'want' Eternity to fail. In fact, the team at Obsidian have made some fantastic games, including Mask of The Betrayer and Alpha Protocol, which I have very much enjoyed. I simply think that if they didn't try so hard to make a game stuck in the past, if they conceded a few 'modern' features, then they could easily have gotten much more money from a publisher, especially after the story-driven RPG resurgence with ME3, DA:O/DA2, Deus Ex and The Witcher 2 over the past three years.

I don't really want to play an RPG without any voice acting or without an optional 3rd person perspective in 2012 (or 2014 as the case may be). I feel that with a bit more creativity and the willingness to learn from more recent RPGs instead of discarding them entirely and going back to 1997, the Obsidian team could build something special, rather than a budget rehash of a 1990s Infinity engine game.

Essentially, something like DA:O but with a better story, the logical evolution of PS:T and BG2.

[Cimeas]

Jozape wrote...

Cimeas wrote...

SOZ probably had a budget of about 3 million.   And for SOZ (which I have played many times), they already had ALL the animations, graphics, much of the environment art, levelling systems and SOZ also didn't have complex characters or storylines.

Really? I didn't get far in SoZ(about an hour or two), but I don't recall the environments and graphics being all the same as NWN2 or MotB. In fact, I recall reading that one of the purposes of Storm of Zehir(and Mask of the Betrayer) was to add new environments and features for the modders to work with.

The first section of SOZ is new, but then you go back to the Sword Coast and it's the same tilesets as the NWN2 basic campaign. 

[Yrkoon]

In other words, you want a game based on the spirit of modern RPGs. That's fine, but that's not what PE is about, and even if some publisher were to approach Obsidian and hand them a $50 Million check and say: here you go. no strings attached, they STILL wouldn't turn PE into a DA:O clone.... because that's not the point of the game!

Project Eternity is being designed to recreate the magic of the old IE games. Nostalgia IS a major, and deliberate element here. And Personally I wouldn't have bothered donating a single penny if they had announced PE as the Next hot and sexy evolutionary big thing.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Jozape wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

Where is this poll, exactly, I can't seem to find it anywhere on the first 3 pages of the PE forum.

It's on the main page of Obsidian.net, on the right. Not the forums.

Voted Call of Duty jk lol!

I voted Baldur's Gate 1 or 2. Like D&Ds with companion conversations. But I like it with ToEE graphic or better.

[wsandista]

Cimeas wrote...

Publishers provide money. Money allocated by the publisher to a developer is separate from the money the publisher spends on marketing etc... There is marketing/PR budget, and then development budget.

Allan, I don't 'want' Eternity to fail. In fact, the team at Obsidian have made some fantastic games, including Mask of The Betrayer and Alpha Protocol, which I have very much enjoyed. I simply think that if they didn't try so hard to make a game stuck in the past, if they conceded a few 'modern' features, then they could easily have gotten much more money from a publisher, especially after the story-driven RPG resurgence with ME3, DA:O/DA2, Deus Ex and The Witcher 2 over the past three years.

I don't really want to play an RPG without any voice acting or without an optional 3rd person perspective in 2012 (or 2014 as the case may be). I feel that with a bit more creativity and the willingness to learn from more recent RPGs instead of discarding them entirely and going back to 1997, the Obsidian team could build something special, rather than a budget rehash of a 1990s Infinity engine game.

Essentially, something like DA:O but with a better story, the logical evolution of PS:T and BG2.

The problem is that people don't want another cinematic game with RPG elements which is what ME(whole series), DA2, TW2, and DE:HR are(I'd argue that DAO is an RPG with cinematic elements, so I didn't include it). While some of these games can be top notch, they are flooding the market right now. Obsidian is doing something different and shouldn't try to make Cinematic game with RPG elements #482.

[slimgrin]

I think there is risk in making it too old school. I'm not lobbying for VO's but the occasional transition cutscene, even if it's flash art like TW2 flashbacks, is an effective story telling device and I doubt it'd take up much in resources. There's other things as well, like navigating the terrain of the map, character movement, animations, etc that will be held to a much higher standard nowadays. I'd hope they're looking to innovate as well as recapture the classic RPG experience.

And this 'cinematic game with rpg elements' is a useless generalization and pure bollocks.

Modifié par slimgrin, 23 septembre 2012 - 10:41 .

[Brockololly]

Beerfish wrote...

Funny thing about this whole system, the same people that totally decry day one dlc are in effect paying more to get things day one, in effect day one dlc.

Really, its more akin to an inverse free to play game. With free to play you can play for free and then spend as much as you want on microtransaction stuff after the fact. With Kickstarter, to have developers get the game off the ground you need to spend as much as you want to make sure the game gets funded, but the developers can be more open with what they want to make and not need to cater to a mainstream audience, so long as they get funding. And presumably once its funded, as a backer, you'll get a complete game at launch.

As far as I know, there haven't been any Kickstarter games that have been released that have tried day one dlc on launch and hopefully there aren't any, or at least it would be free to backers if they did so.

Cimeas wrote...
 I simply think that if they didn't try so hard to make a game stuck in the past, if they conceded a few 'modern' features, then  they could easily have gotten much more money from a publisher,  especially after the story-driven RPG resurgence with ME3, DA:O/DA2, Deus Ex and The Witcher 2 over the past three years.

One of the recent interviews with Avellone mentioned how they were alreayd pitching more modern RPGs to publishers and none were willing to back them. So they jumped on Kickstarter with Eternity.

Cimeas wrote...
Essentially, something like DA:O but with a better story, the logical evolution of PS:T and BG2.

And as you've seen with BioWare transitioning from Dragon Age Origins to DA2, that kind of successor to Origins or Planescape or BG2 isn't going to happen.  Yes, I'd love to see the kind of game you're describing but given how expensive games have gotten with all of the requirements publishers probably want to have in terms of presentation for a "AAA" game, you're simply not going to see something in the vein of Planescape with flashy graphics and voice acted everything. I think Origins is as close as we'll get to a modern BG2 or Planescape for the forseeable future, sadly.

slimgrin wrote...

I think there is risk in making it too  old school. I'm not lobbying for VO's but the occasional transition
cutscene, even if it's flash art like TW2 flashbacks, is an effective  story telling device and I doubt it'd take up much in resources. There's other things as well, like the terrain of the map, character movement,  animations, etc that will be held to a much higher standard nowadays.  I'd hope they're looking to innovate as well as recapture the classic  RPG experience.
 

If you go over on the Obsidian forums, there was a thread where Sawyer mentioned liking certain intro type cutscenes like at the beginning of Icewind Dale with a narrator to set things up. Or kind of like how Baldur's Gate has the narrated transitions.

I'm basically expecting Infinity engine but better in terms of presentation. Those games like BG2 hold up pretty well visually, outside of the characters being so blurry. The 2D backgrounds still look great. If they just make all that stuff work at higher resolutions and improve the character models, I'll be happy. More than that, the sound and music can really make or break this type of game.

Modifié par Brockololly, 23 septembre 2012 - 10:43 .

[Sister Goldring]

Cimeas wrote...

Publishers provide money. Money allocated by the publisher to a developer is separate from the money the publisher spends on marketing etc... There is marketing/PR budget, and then development budget.

Allan, I don't 'want' Eternity to fail. In fact, the team at Obsidian have made some fantastic games, including Mask of The Betrayer and Alpha Protocol, which I have very much enjoyed. I simply think that if they didn't try so hard to make a game stuck in the past, if they conceded a few 'modern' features, then they could easily have gotten much more money from a publisher, especially after the story-driven RPG resurgence with ME3, DA:O/DA2, Deus Ex and The Witcher 2 over the past three years.

I don't really want to play an RPG without any voice acting or without an optional 3rd person perspective in 2012 (or 2014 as the case may be). I feel that with a bit more creativity and the willingness to learn from more recent RPGs instead of discarding them entirely and going back to 1997, the Obsidian team could build something special, rather than a budget rehash of a 1990s Infinity engine game.

Essentially, something like DA:O but with a better story, the logical evolution of PS:T and BG2.

Thing is it seems Obsidian WANTS to make a story heavy, isometic, old-school game.  I'm sure that if they wanted to get funding for a more 'modern' project they would go get lots of cash from a publisher as you suggest.

Fortunately for them there is a community of people who want to play these old school games and we're throwing as much money at them as we can manage.  It's a win-win situation so far. 

[SOLID_EVEREST]

They seemed to have hit a plateau at the ~2 million mark. I hope this game beats Double Fine's record.



I was looking through the forums. I just had to post this picture. That is some beautiful 2-D art. A game called Stasis or what the poster said. Now, this is freaking gorgeous. I'd love to see that level of detail in Project Eternity, if it does turn out to be 2-D isometric.

Modifié par SOLID_EVEREST, 23 septembre 2012 - 11:49 .

[Phoenix_Fyre]

Ok since I can't scroll through 30+ pages... do we have PC specs for this yet??

[twincast]

LOL, no.

[Eurypterid]

Phoenix_Fyre wrote...

Ok since I can't scroll through 30+ pages... do we have PC specs for this yet??

No, not yet.

[Allan Schumacher]

Cimeas wrote...
Allan, I don't 'want' Eternity to fail. In fact, the team at Obsidian have made some fantastic games, including Mask of The Betrayer and Alpha Protocol, which I have very much enjoyed. I simply think that if they didn't try so hard to make a game stuck in the past, if they conceded a few 'modern' features, then they could easily have gotten much more money from a publisher, especially after the story-driven RPG resurgence with ME3, DA:O/DA2, Deus Ex and The Witcher 2 over the past three years.

This is what I like about Kickstarter.  Obsidian DOES want to make this game.  The best developers are the ones making the games that they want to make, because you bring in that passion.  Furthermore, there appears to be a market for it too!

[Allan Schumacher]

Yrkoon wrote...

In other words, you want a game based on the spirit of modern RPGs. That's fine, but that's not what PE is about, and even if some publisher were to approach Obsidian and hand them a $50 Million check and say: here you go. no strings attached, they STILL wouldn't turn PE into a DA:O clone.... because that's not the point of the game!

Project Eternity is being designed to recreate the magic of the old IE games. Nostalgia IS a major, and deliberate element here. And Personally I wouldn't have bothered donating a single penny if they had announced PE as the Next hot and sexy evolutionary big thing.

To be fair, nostalgia is a driving factor in providing motivation for people to contribute the kickstarter.  For all we know they have had other ideas as well, it's just that the Infinity Engine style of game doesn't restrict the goals they have for the game, while appealing to those that want a game more like the older games.

[In Exile]

Here's a question for the uninitiated (i.e., me). Since the parallel here is to PS:T and BG2, is it right to say that the story/companion approach is to have the PC + actual companions as opposed to IWD's create-your-own party?

[Morroian]

Sister Goldring wrote...

Thing is it seems Obsidian WANTS to make a story heavy, isometic, old-school game.  I'm sure that if they wanted to get funding for a more 'modern' project they would go get lots of cash from a publisher as you suggest.

Like Brock said above you they have actually tried and haven't been able to get funding.

In Exile wrote...

Here's a question for the uninitiated (i.e., me). Since the parallel here is to PS:T and BG2, is it right to say that the story/companion approach is to have the PC + actual companions as opposed to IWD's create-your-own party?

Yes, PC plus actual companions. 

Modifié par Morroian, 24 septembre 2012 - 02:40 .