1774 réponses à ce sujet

[Giggles_Manically]

Oh thank the lord its not "times a day"

Still though it makes magic a bit more strategic then quick cool downs since you have to pick from a list.
No more rest spams after getting into one fight either.

Overall it makes me glad I dropped 25 bucks.

[Yrkoon]

It seems they've decided to use Dungeon Siege 1's Magic-in-your-inventory, spell book system. It's not strategic at all. These Grimoirs serve no purpose but to add an organization mini-game to spell casting.

For example,  say you have 3 spell books. They can each hold 10 spells. What do you do? Well, I'll tell you what most people  do. They'll put all their "nuke Spells" in one, All their "projectile spells" in the second, and all their "summon spells" in the third. etc. You'll have to do it this way. if you don't,  you'll find yourself in a mess. You won't remember where you put which spell and why. You'll be in the middle of a fight and notice that the spellbook you chose to equip is the wrong one. It has fireball, but not heal. or it has summon fiend  but not  protection from evil etc.

So basically, it *won't* solve the "I'm a mage and I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs because I have no spells for the situation" problem that you guys seem to hate so much about Vancian. It will have this problem and worse:  You'll be in a situation where you're at full energy/Mana,   none of your  spells are on cooldown, and you STILL can't  cast that  perfect spell at that troll because... oops! you've equipped the wrong book.

Modifié par Yrkoon, 06 octobre 2012 - 08:02 .

[bussinrounds]

Giggles_Manically wrote...


No more rest spams after getting into one fight either.
.

   Why would you even do that ?

[Yrkoon]

I wish people would stop using that retarded "rest spam" retort. Since you can easily do the same damn thing with a cooldown system. No, no worse. With a cooldown system you don't even have to rest. You can just stand and wait for the timer to run out. Seriously. Wanna breeze through all 3 maps of the deep roads in DA:O? Wait-spam your Storm of the Century combo. Use it in every encounter. Do the same thing with Mana Clash, and Blizzard, and crshing prison.

[Morroian]

bussinrounds wrote...
 Come on Timmy, you're free from the friggin publishers and you still decide to go softcore wth the damn magic system now ?  First RtwP and now this:pinched:.   Oh well, I guess it was too much wishful thinking to expect great story elements and a great combat system in the same game.   

  Not like I'm gonna remove my pledge or anything, and I still think they're gonna make a good game (especially compared to the stuff of today), but def a little dissapointed.

Too many people don't want a vancian system. Thre are big debates on it on their forum. Seems to me that they've tried to come up with a compromise system.

[azarhal]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

I'm kinda dissapointed with the whole "soul" bit.
The way they describe it, it looks like every class will have DA2-like special "magical" moves.
I hate that.

Rouges getting a magical posion created by the "soul"..and agian being backstabbers
Fighters geeting area knockdown with super-smash and stuff
No paladins....
No fatigue.
Makes me a sad panda

The soul bit is no more different than 3E fighters using power attacks. In PE setting, power attacks are powered by the fighter's soul.

[Eurypterid]

Another Q&A session with Feargus:


Question: Just what were you thinking? This pet, because it is cosmetic, and has no real value should not even be in a tiered pledge. Give it to all, or make it a pledge goal and make it worth pledging for.
Feargus: We were working on giving something a little extra to the people who have pledged a little higher in appreciation for that. We looked at a lot of games and how for the CE versions of the games, they would offer a special pet that you got with that. The pet goes to everyone who has pledged $50 or more. We will get all the tiers updated.

Question: Haha, I forgot about mods. Mods do solve everything. I predict non-combat scripted pets (by script I mean they occasionally chip in dialogue at various parts of the story or in response to certain events like your hp getting low) within a month of release. Probably actually less if a modder gets their hands on a beta copy and starts modding early.
Feargus: We spent a ton of time talking about supporting mods, there were a lot of concerns - but in the end it really is just fun to see all the stuff everyone can do with our games when we open access to them

Question: As a sidenote, you guys should totally add actual ingame pets you can get that don't count towards party size that have script involvement (but are probably non-combat). Ranger pets, pixies, whatever.
Feargus: Absolutely - those might be called Animal Companions, but I didn't just say that.

Question: I know most of you don't agree with me, but I just believe everyone should get the same game. I realize that it's just a pet and that it will have little or no impact on game play, but I feel that even those who pledge less than I should benefit from the exact same experience. After the pet, what's next? Additional skins for the $110 tier? A new class at the $250 tier? A new region for the $500 tier? Where do we draw the line?

I associate this type of practice with the big publisher tactics we're trying to get away from and it's definitely disappointing to me. That is all I have to say on the matter.
Feargus: The line was already drawn. We talked before this all started and told ourselves we would not offer any game affecting content that only some people would get. Actually, that is not true. We have talked about giving the higher level tiers - $250+ free copies of the expansion pack (full adventure like Sword Coast). Haven't decided on that one. An expansion pack that would come out months after the game

Question: Ahh, in which case would those who pledged the highest digital only tier also possibly get the planned expansion? As in 2 digital expansion copies?
Feargus: We are still toying with a higher digital tier. If it had something like the expansion and another digital item worth as much as the game - what amount do you think makes sense?

Question: About the update graphic- the one for the MegaDungeon in Update #16 was wonderful. Please put something like that on the main page, drawing each level as it's added .
Feargus: Thanks! Adam and I are going to be working on the main page a lot today in preparation for the next week - where I don't think he and I will be sleeping much.

Question: Sorry for bugging you, but I guess you missed my question.
The problem: As of now, there are 25k backers at $20. This is the single largest group, and thus the most important one to encourage to raise their pledges.Some campaigns I've taken part in had a really neat way to encourage early backers to up their pledges. The question: would you consider sending an email to us at $20 and offering us to get higher levels at an $5 discount, not by switching pledge level but by adding the amount to our present pledge (eg adding $25 to get to the $50 level)?
That way...
a) people at $20 don't have to pay relatively more to get to a higher level than those at $25 = rewarding early backers AND encouraging the single largest group to up their pledges
you don't loose out, since as the system stands, most vacant $20s are probably taken by those at $25
Feargus: hat's really good idea. The tough thing is how Kickstarter works. The only way we can do that is by offering more tiers that would get gobbled up before you guys could get them. Hmm.... We could offer something that was worth $5 for you guys, but I don't know if Kickstarter keeps a record. If we offered something else that was worth $5 to everyone at $35 and above? Just thinking here, trying to work through how the system works.

Question: Roughly what would the scale of each level of the Mega Dungeon be?
Feargus: A good size? If you played IWD, the levels of Dragon's Eye or thereabouts is what we are thinking. Maybe a bit more as well.

Question: I haven't yet played IWD. I'm a young gamer(the age at which I started gaming, not my actual age. .), and I just picked up the D&D collection on GOG a few weeks back.. Playing BG right now.. Others are queued up..
Feargus: Ok, I can give an example. The largest map in BG is an 8x8 map, with each square being a 640x480 screen. Each level in our dungeon will be, most likely, between a 6x6 and 8x8 BG dungeon level.

Question: Another question. Would it be possible to add $ 140 to my pledge to get a second collectors edition? I'm thinking about gifting one to my brother but I don't want to pay additional $ 30 for international shipping.
Feargus: Let me get that on the list, I'm not sure just yet.

Question: Hi there, regarding the $1k tier, any chance we can get more info regarding the level to which our items/NPCs can be customized, what the process will be, etc?
Feargus: Shoot. That was what I was going to do this week. I'll be in the office in a few hours talking with Adam and we will make sure to talk about getting info out on that. Sorry for the delay.

Question: Are you counting the donors on Paypal towards the dungeon level? How many donors do we have via pay pal now?
Feargus: We are internally and are going to get the art updated today with all the PayPal info.

Question: Will the loot improve the deeper you go into the dungeon? Will there be mini bosses or even an end boss?
Feargus: Better items as you go deeper - definitely. Mini-Bosses - yep, we often call those Lieutenants. Big Boss at the end - why spoil the surprise?

Question: Yeah..Saves question: for instance you make char A.. you see saves A-Z.. then you select char B and you see save A-H specific for that character.. I personally find that you see character a-Z's saves all in one list is very annoying.
Feargus: Gotcha - I agree and on the list. High up.

Question: When possible, can you give us some information regarding the differences you anticipate between high-end items we help design prior to release compared to the player-created items WHEN that stretch goal is met? Obviously there will be backstory for static items that ship with the game, but will one be "more powerful" than the other?
Feargus: Very qood question. Let me check with Adam to see what he was thinking. We don't want to restrict data, but the items you guys create will be powerful in the game and matter. One thought is that we want to associate the designed items with quests.

Question: can you elaborate more about the mod support? we're obviously not talking about a game editor a la nwn here so what? forum support? guides? download sites? (add anything else you want here)
Feargus: We are going to work on releasing as much as we can. I don't mean for that to sound ambiguous, we are still early in working with Unity and figuring out what can be released with it (taking into account what the different versions of Unity allow people to do)

Question: I have three questions for you:
1. you mentioned briefly in the initial video for this project that you wanted to add things to the game that you were never able to add before because of the publisher. What sort of things do you mean?
2. do you plan to have the ability to have your own character bio, similar to that of BG and BG2?
3. where do you plan to release this game, outside of Kickstarter? (GameStop, Best Buy, etc.)
Feargus: (1) I don't have specifics other than the game in general is one that is a very hard proposition with publishers at this point.

(2) Yes, we are going to have a place where you can put your character bio in.

(3) Not sure yet. We are going to talk to distributors about that and see if we can get it into stores as well. However, that might not happen - which means the boxes that from the reward tiers in KS might be the only ones.

Question: I know you've decided against full voice acting - does that apply to the companions as well? Or will it be as in NWN2 where the companions were fully voice acted (which I personlly think is great)? Thanks :-)
Feargus: I think the companions will have more voice compared to other NPCs in the game, but I don't think we will be voicing every line. We want to give the writers the ability to "go nuts" and not worry about bleeding into another voice session (300 lines = $3K to $5K with SAG, director, studio, etc...).

Question: wow thats mighty expensive.. someone asked this allready once.. but do you know the budgets BG and BG2 had?
Feargus: I do. That was when I was at Interplay and there are these pesky confidentiality agreements. Sorry.

Question: Will the encounters in the mega dungeon be scaled according to which floor of the dungeon you are on (e.g. instead of 5 ghouls you encounter 5 ghouls and a lich on a lower level)? Or will each dungeon level have a fixed level (e.g. the first floor has level 5 monsters, the second floor has level 8 monsters, and so on)? Or a combination of both?
Feargus: It will get harder as you go down into the dungeon with each level. The one thing we have been talking about is if different dungeon tiers (every two or three levels) are a bunch harder than the last tier, so you have to come back after you have gone up levels. Not sure yet.

Question: on the progress chart you see a castle ontop of the dungeon.. will that be there? so x layers + a castle ruin layer?
Feargus: You know it might - I'll have to go back and look. The castle is ummm... artistic license... Rob liked putting it up there to give context to the dungeon. However, castle ruins would be cool. He might just have created more work for himself.

Question: My question was about the possiblitiy of wearing capes above armor....
Feargus: Honestly, I don't know. I would say we would want to make sure we had plenty of armor / clothing variations for classes, races and NPCs - after we have a good number of those, we would look into doing stuff with capes.

Question: So you can only get the game right now if you pledge? As of now, it is up in the air whether it will be released outside of Kickstarter?
Feargus: Yes, we need to figure out if we can find a distributor who will want to take the game to retail.

Question: people wondered earlier today whether the dungeon, if deep enough, would become like an underdark or ultima underworld with it's own cultures and subquests, ones unseen on the surface
Feargus: We had talked once about adding a stretch goal ( really high one ) to add in the "under-dark" equivalent for the game as a while, not just the dungeon, can't remember where that idea went.

Question: Capes are hard to do. In ToEE, they had alot of clipping but they were flowy. In games where there is no clipping, they too stiff and look bad. Best just not to show them.
Feargus: We got them to work in KOTOR2, because your "armor" under them didn't change much, so we could use 3D Studio MAX to render out the animation for every single frame of every single animation. Ugh... It took months. If we had lots of armor variations it wouldn't have worked or every time you changed armor we would have had to load all 300 to 400 animations again.

Question: How functional and customization is the Player house going to be? Will there be shops, storage, etc?
Feargus: t will have elements of those, but it will still be a house. When we get to a stretch goal that turns the house into a Stronghold the size of Crossroad's Keep, then it will have multiple versions of all that stuff. Wait, what did I say?

Question: Will I get pet to my add on copies of the game or is it limited only to those copies which come with my CE edition?
Feargus: Good question, let me see how that would work.

Question: Why was the Project Eternity logo changed?
Feargus: Rob worked on another logo and we stated to like the direction it was going.

Question: 1.would all the stuff we are wearing change the look of the character doll in the inventory scene and would that propagate to the game play character doll?
2.would armor look unique on the character doll or would it it be like in BG were all of them looks like the generic base armor with different color like plate mail, chain mail etc.?
Feargus: (1) Changing your armor will change the look of your character.

(2) We are going to mostly have armor that everyone can wear, since we want to create as many sets as we an. We will, most likely, create some armor that is special / unique to a character, companion or class.

Question: Since DaBlue has just given your artist some extra work for the dungeon, I have a suggestion to give a story in the game lore for the Castle and it's dungeon. Keep some journal pages or parchments on the Castle Ruins, which tell a part of the castle's story.As you descend, you find more pages which flesh out the story... The Boss has the final page, of course..
Feargus: Cool idea!

[Eurypterid]

More....


Question: About the pet. 
Would you consider instead, to add in a non-combative companion, a spite/spirit /soul/whatever (fairy sized) that essentially follows you around and acts as a live journal? Talking to her, you can check on your quest status, or even get hints or prompt as to where to go next. The thing is, even for a cosmetic pet, I would like to see them make their presence felt and have a reason to have them around. Even if only to carry on in a banter with our companions.
Feargus: We will talk about that a bit more. Everyone will get pets, but the special KS pet is for the $50+.

Question: Regarding the pet, what kind of size are talking about here? I'd like a red fox, or something similar if there are no foxes in the world of Project Eternity.
Feargus: It will be something small, but not tiny.


Question: Will we be getting more information about the $50+ KS pet before this is over? And don't you dare says it's a cosmetic paladin pet.
Feargus: Artists are working like crazy on stuff ( the ones not working on South Park ), so we will see what we can do.


Question: the player's house right now is just a place for your characters to be picked from and maybe rest at safely and free of charge but has no quests or developments such as BG2 and the stronghold does?
Feargus: The house currently is a light stronghold, so a bit more than a straight house - but not a full stronghold.


Question: Feargus; If I pledge $50 but am not at the $50 tier (maybe $25 dollar tier + $25 for beta access) do I still get the pet?
Feargus: That is a good question. Let me talk it over with Adam.


Question: "Everyone will get pets, but the special KS pet is for the $50+."
You know that completionists won't care about that but about the fact that some content is forbidden to them (not enough pledge or coming after the Kickstarter). I'm quite sure that you know that it's impossible to please everybody. And quite sure that you know that the KS pet will be modded for "commoner use". Maybe "KS of 50+ get a exclusive pet unlocked by default, the rest must complete the game at leastonce"? Being vanity, I don't care about pets being exclusive but at the same time I can understand people like WIzard Ham (and also been burt by the stupidity of preorder bonuses)
Feargus: Not a bad idea. Putting on the list.


Question: Will we be able to hire npc guards etc to protect our stronghold, and maybe even have a battle or 2 defending it.......
Feargus: If there was a Stronghold at a certain stretch level then that might be something we were considering.


Question: Any ETA on the update for today?
Feargus: I'm your update for the day. I'll be on every other hour or two until about 1AM PST. The Friday and Tim update got put into one update and we put up at midnight PST.

Ink Blot Note: Feargus, you're killing me trying to keep up with these Q&A sessions!


Question: I'm pretty sure you won't give this question a straight answer, and you've probably heard it before, but ... ... Have you guys discussed the possibility of having George Ziets onboard? Maybe as a stretchgoal? (like WL2 did with Avellone)
Feargus: Yes we have talked about it.


Question: I'm glad people keep mentioning George Ziets, means i'm not the only one who thinks he'd be brilliant for this project
Feargus: We think he is brilliant as well.


Question: Have you considered doing a reddit AMA (Ask me anything)? That has helped alot of other kickstarter projects get their viral load up to critical mass in the past.
Feargus: Planning one for next week. Either Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Question: Is the mega Dungeon designed to be just hack and slash to the bottom? Or do you play to create a story that ties the dungeon to the main quest? The reason I ask is that unlike an MMO or Diablo type game where the main focus is loot, I would like to have an important story driven reason for wanting to complete the Mega Dungeon in PE
Feargus: There will be lore and story behind the dungeon. It will probably be a little more action focused then the more story areas - but we always work to put story and meaning in every part of our games.


Question: I heard there was an internal screenshot. Will you guys consider releasing a screenshot towards the homestretch to get more folks to pledge?
Feargus: We are working on it. Hoping it is at the level we want for the game by next week.

Question: Screenshots are really advanced stages, you need to have an engine, background, characters, whatnot to freeze a frame.
[/b]Feargus:[/b] PE is a bit different when it comes to screens, since the backgrounds are pre-rendered.

Question: so you have finalized characters and backgrounds inside of an envrionment that will look like the one we'll play in when the game publishes?
Feargus: Hopefully a finalized background. Not characters yet.

Question: Will we be able to make our pet(s?) stay at the player house if we don't want it to follow us?
Feargus: We hadn't talked about that - so I'll put it on the list.


Question: In one of the interview articles there was this awesome artwork of a mage character... don't remember his name. Something starting with A?
Anyway, could we get a full version of that artwork with the next update maybe? That would be cool.
Feargus: We will be releasing the high resolution mage artwork early next week

Question: I'm not sure if this has been answered yet, but will there be regenerating health in this game?
Feargus: Yes and no. Josh has some cool ideas for that.

Question: Hi guys, you are speaking a lot about game mechanics, classes, etc.
But what about the life in the world ? Will the NPC have something to do or will they stand there waiting for someone to speak ?
Will we get across some others adventurers' groups that may be helpfull (ie: we have to go in the same dungeon but have different objectives) or will try to kill us ("hay lads ... nice stuff ya got thar") ? Will animals/creatures interact with each other in random/procedural events (ie: wolf hunting for food or a Horde of orcs ambushing a merchant's caravan) I think it would be a really cool addition to the background, you will not be THE Aventurer but a group in a world that could live without you
Feargus: We are working on a system that has the NPCs do more than stand around along with reacting to you and reacting to the state of the world and the story.

Question: will you use a karma system like the one in fallout? I thought it worked better than alignment
Feargus: Something very much like that, but you'll have various kinds of karma/reputation that better simulates your actions locally, globally and with specific groups.

Question: Does WotC have the rights to the Lim-Lim pet seen in the Planescape: Torment, or was it an original creation? Something really odd like that would be a great pet.
Feargus: If it's in Torment it is either owned by WotC or Interplay. Forgot about the Lim-Lim!

Question: Yes, i have read it and let's say it made me very curious. I am digging those ideas about non-combat. I think the question I have, is how much can be done to avoid repetition of solutions to avoid combat.
Let's say, finding a secret passage to espace a combat is fun and very rewarding but not so if that solution is repeated many time. Do not take this as a critic, I am just wondering as personaly I have no clue on how to do it.
Feargus: Our goal with the non-combat skills is to have them keep you engaged.

Question: I have one more question before bedtime... Do you think you'll release a screenshot before the KS ends?
Feargus: Possibly. It needs to be amazing, so that is what will make it happen or not.

Question: Might i suggest getting Chris, Josh and everyone at Obsidian with twitter to tweet about facebook?
Feargus: That's a very cool idea. I'll get the word out.

[Eurypterid]

Oh, Obsidian are doing a Facebook 'like' drive as well. If you're a Facebook user, they'll add another level to the mega dungeon if they get 20,000 'likes' on Facebook. I believe they're also tweeting and setting up something on Tumblr.

[Chromie]

Eurypterid wrote...
Question: How functional and customization is the Player house going to be? Will there be shops, storage, etc?
Feargus: t will have elements of those, but it will still be a house. When we get to a stretch goal that turns the house into a Stronghold the size of Crossroad's Keep, then it will have multiple versions of all that stuff. Wait, what did I say?

That would be the best thing ever. Crossroads Keep was big and had a lot of content Obsidian could go crazy with it.

Modifié par Skelter192, 07 octobre 2012 - 01:28 .

[KT Chong]

Video interview: Josh Sawyer on Project Eternity (20 minutes,in-depth)

Modifié par KT Chong, 07 octobre 2012 - 12:43 .

[Jim Darksworn]

Folks just a heads up, Obsidian are now willing to add another level to the mega dungeon if we can get 20k likes on their facebook page. Normally i'm not a big fan of attempted viral marketing, however this game has no massive publishers marketing department to back it it.

As such word of mouth is a big help. please hit like here if you are willing www.facebook.com/obsidian

Thanks in advance.

Modifié par Jim Darksworn, 07 octobre 2012 - 04:52 .

[Giggles_Manically]

Oh poopy this is only after I deleted my facebook account.

[Eurypterid]

Update on last night's Q&A:


Question: Oh, and something that came up on the forums earlier... people were asking whether the boxed copy of the game would be DRM-free or Steam-only?
Feargus: For the box, we are either going to give someone the option or it will be DRM free.

Question: Will there be intoxication effects in PE?
Feargus: Not sure. I'll put it on the list.

Question: Feargus: any chance we could get a glossy paper map at the 65 box? Really want a map, but don't want to go to 140 for the cloth map
Feargus: Talking to Adam more about rewards and add-ons, I will put that on the list.

Question: Are there any detailed plans for the economy system in PE yet? Will it be very simple (just buy and sell) or more sophisticated with things like volatile prices and proposals, external shocks, limited merchant budgets, specialized merchants,bargaining merchants and so on?
Feargus: The plan right now is for a fairly standard economy. However, we do include in our stores (normally) specific, to the store and controlled by variables being set externally, mark-ups and mark-downs. So, we can simulate some things changing or being different in stores. I don't think we will write an algorithmic based economy though - more state based.

Question: will there be bikini armor for the barbarian class?
Feargus: Josh has a lot of opinions about armor that makes sense and doesn't.

Question: Will there be pickpocketing in game? And I don't mean only from player's side
Feargus: We have not talked about you getting pickpocketed.

Question: What are the special behind the scenes things going to entail in the book? Will they be substantial? I originally was confused and didn't know what exactly was meant for the $35 tier.
Feargus: We are going to put some info in there about the development of the game. Some pictures of us doing our thing, what our crazy whiteboards look like and the myriad of hats that Rob and Avellone buy and then walk around in.

Question: I think people would up their pledges if you promised to sign the CE boxes along with the rest of the team. What's carpal tunnel syndrome when you're getting closer to 2.5 million in funding?
Feargus: I'm going to sign the boxes as well. My name isn't in there because we were worried all the rewards were getting way too long. Kind of silly looking back at it now.

Question: How's the paypal side of the drive going?
Feargus: It's at $22K - so that means - $2.4M is done folks!

Question: Do you know the dimensions , size, pages of the book ?
Feargus: Sorry, we don't yet. It will be cool though.

Question: Then it all will be old-school - player-thief and not a single pickpocket around it. Cool. But at least NPCs in game will be angry when you taking their possessions when they can see it? Oh, but don't overdo it. I'm just got tired from the way in Oblivion stolen things seemed to have @STOLEN@ written on them - because I couldn't explain how "law enforcers" can identify stolen silver fork among two others
Feargus: From my perspective as a game maker (nothing I've ever talked with Bethesda or Todd about), they did that for balancing reasons and to make being a thief cool (getting access to more places you can sell stolen things). For balance reasons if everything can just be taken then you could just rip off a whole town and immediately sell it. Less of a big deal later in the game, could maybe hurt the early game a bit. Maybe.

Question: Any ETA on when you'll have the next (and probably last) set of stretch goals for us? I wanna know when I can stare longingly at the goals we might not be getting to.
Feargus: Soon....

Question: about a possible add-on: a picture of you, josh, chris, tim and whoever else is in the top level of the development of you guys just goofing off or something, and signed by each of you. seems like a fairly minor thing that could possibly drum up a decent amount of add ons.
Feargus: That would be a pretty minor thing. We are looking at some other Physical Goods that we can put up as add-ons that could also be stuff to sign. I'll talk with the guys about it tomorrow (Sunday).

Question: oh yes, a signed cloth map would be amazing.
Feargus: I'll definitely talk to the guys tomorrow about signed stuff. TBH - I hadn't thought of that aspect of adding things.

Question: Feargus, anyone mentioned about featuring a "pet" that is really functions as your "live journal"?
Essentially you get a soul / conscience that follow you around that you can talk to, to have her (or him if you so choose) repeat what was last said by which npc, follow up on your quests and give hints as to where to head to next if needed, and participate in banter with you and your companions. She is however a non combatant, and doesn't take up a companion slot. Kinda like Morte form PST.

It would have cool to have a journal to be like that, to be "alive" but ah well.
Feargus: Definitely a cool idea.

Question: I just really hope you don't have spell casting done using a "Latin Incantation" system. I have always hated that sort of thing, I mean, Latin was not the first spoken language and if the "Spirits" are even halfway intelligent they would know modern languages. If you have vocal spellcasting, especially since it is Soul Power based, please just let it be a sort of personalized "Focusing Ritual" for people to put their concentration into form, and let the words used for the casting be modern laguages. I know if I was a Wizard I'd rather chant, "Let my anger be as cold as the arctic! Ice Javelin!" or "Let the fickle goddess guide me to a better end! Blessing of Fortune!" than "Bastardized-ium Latin-is!" It would also be more interesting to see "focusing rituals" for different cultures than have a single archaic language for all spells. Know what I mean?
Feargus: Josh is the guy designing that aspect and I'm sure he will come up with something that makes actual sense and not just a standard fall back. In college he studied history and all of that is very important to him. Things making sense, not the use of Latin just because it is "historic".

Question: Have you guys considered writing a PnP system for playing in the Eternity world as a backer reward?
Feargus: We've talked about it a lot. Nothing definitive yet

[Eurypterid]

And some from this morning:


From this morning:

Morning everyone - we have $26K in the PayPal account now and almost 7K people liking us on Facebook. So that is 13K more people to another dungeon and $80K to our next stretch goal. -Feargus


Question: could you tell us the number of paypal backers?
Feargus: Darren and I are going to work on figuring out how to get that out of PayPal. Looking at the screens, it's hard to see where you can get a number. Dumb reason, but we will get it figured out. We just see the list 20 people at a time and they don't list out the total number of pages.

Question: Wait, do you mean 13k more for the Endless Paths or what are you talking about?
Feargus: 13K more likes on Facebook for the Endless Paths. $80K more for the next stretch goal.

Question: quick question on the facebook likes... is it EVERY 20k likes, or just the first?
Feargus: Hadn't thought about every 20K likes. I think we are going to stick with 20K likes and then see where we are - I get in trouble when I start offering things. Oh, and remember: It's likes on Obsidian, not PE - that's not our site actually.

https://www.facebook.com/obsidian…

Not that it's different info, but I think I got the tumblr page looking ok.

http://project-eternity.tumblr.com/

Question: now with Crafting and Enchanting being included, could we have a little more information on the crafting and enchanting systems?
Feargus: The guys are all working really hard right now on foundation stuff with the game - and doing updates here. We will get info out on the crafting and enchanting - but it will, most likely, be after the KS. Josh, as an example, is doing a lot of race, culture and class work right now.

Question: Revolution somehow found a solution to show these Paypal numbers. I think they are nice guys.
Feargus: We will contact them and Darren has looked at the code already (so he understands it). We wanted to get the translated sites up first - with Spanish being pretty much done. Darren's wife is 8.5 months pregnant, so he's on a couple of deadlines right now.

Question: I have to ask - when is the next update?
Feargus: It will be tomorrow morning PST. Hoping to get it out fairly early. My Sunday is about getting that put together.

Question: Do you have an opinion on why in over 20 years of RPG development, no one has dared to create a playable Deity. D&D games are chock full of these entities meddling in the affairs of mortals, yet no developer has been able to dream up a fun way of including them in a game. {They would not even try) This question as puzzled me to no end can you help?
Feargus: I'm guessing here, however a lot of RPGs are about growth. Growing from someone of little consequence to someone of consequence. We probably focus more on the former than the later, so we don't think about the player playing the final incarnation of their character as much.

Question: OK, now I have posted to all my friends about the Faceboom thing but still I agree, you really should get the word out more.
Feargus: Thanks, we didn't want to spam people with updates until the last week. We did tweet it and the front page of our KS site has it up at top. But, you guys are right - will work on getting the word out. You know what, I'll put a Facebook post about it together and then see if everyone can share that across their groups.

Question: How did you manage to keep Tim Cain at Obsidian? I remember an interview where he said it would be only a temporary job and now he's working on PE.
Feargus: He's having fun and, I think, some of the reasons he left Black Isle don't exist anymore. We are all working towards making great games and he gets to do that every day. Plus, well, I'm there of course... why wouldn't anyone want to stay.

Question: You can see where pledges are coming from on the KS dashboard, right? What sites are most people coming in from? Or is it a lot of twitter type links.
Feargus: The largest amount is where they don't have information on where the person came from (20%), then about 15% from Kickstarter and then the biggest external site is Rock, Paper, Shotgun at 5%.


Feargus posted this just before signing off:

Ok, I added a post to the Obsidian Facebook. If you guys and gals are up for sharing with your groups, that would be awesome. Thanks!

"Fun new backer goal for Project Eternity, if we can get to 20,000 likes on Facebook for Obsidian, we will add another level to the Mega Dungeon the Endless Paths. So, please share and get the word out!

https://www.facebook.com/obsidian… "

[Eurypterid]

Some more from Feargus:


Hoping to have a better visible way of tracking the PayPal stuff by Monday. And, we are at $27.5K over there, but I still don't know the number of backers there - sorry, we will figure that out.

Question: we will have a digital-only tier with the future expansion too?
Feargus: Working on coming up with that one.

Question: Any chance there will be random encounters much to the likeness of Fallout 2?
Those were awesome!
Feargus: You know we haven't talked about that, but we probably will because of the random encounters that were in BG/BG2/NWN2 - it's a fun system. Although I don't think you'll see a crashed Star Trek lander in PE.

Question: calvin wanted to know if alchemy is included in the crafting stretch goal?
Feargus: Crafting potions is included with Crafting.

Question: Any further info on in game itemization? In particular to loot drops especially if we do have random encounters? Items off loot table, or random generator like in Borderlands
Feargus: I don't think we are going to go with a purely random system. So, I am pretty sure that most items are going to be more designer created than algorithmic.

Question: are whips being considered as being an available weapon/tool type? I'm at the EPIC tier and have been thinking designing a whip would be good
In general terms, will there be (or has there been) general guidance on the weapons system yet?
Feargus: I talked with Josh about the suggestion, so it's on his list. We will have to figure out in the end if they make the list or not.

Question: The unique pet at the $50 tier. How is that going to be delivered? It seems like extra work to restrict something like that to only a specific subset of players. I figured there isn't a final answer yet, I just wondered if thought was put into that yet. I figure it could be a different copy of the game, or online authentication, or maybe even a serial number that is used. Any ideas yet?
Feargus: We will talk about the suggestion and figure out how it is all going to work. We have to create different packages of things already with the different tiers, so it will get included that way (I'm guessing)

Question: Ever thought of tiers thst only contain 1, one, license copy of the game but cones with the extras including planned expansion?
Feargus: We will work on that idea. Not sure how to word it just yet without having it included at every tier above whatever we would introduce it at. Could cause a lot of confusion.

Question: isnt there anyone you dont know in the bizz?
Feargus: Well after 21 years, you end up knowing a lot of people. It helped that when I got started the industry was probably 5% or 10% of the size it is now. I also got lucky in that in Orange County, CA a lot of companies started up and then exploded - so that helped me knowing people all over the world in games. So, it was a lot of luck - as an example my first job as a tester was to test a game by Silicon and Synapse when they were a very small company of maybe 10 or 15 people. Now they have between 4,000 and 5,000 employees.

Question: we will have some "subverted" monsters in PE like the cranium rats in Planescape Toment?
Feargus: I don't know on that one. The guys are going by the goal of having each element have the familiar with a slight twist, some things that are very new but fit well into the world and then a small amount of the "wacky". So, we shall see.

Question: Which 5 classes were the original 5 in PE, and which 2 were added by the 1.4m and 1.8m stretch goals?
Feargus: Not Paladins. I need to go look and then we'll call them out in an update.

Question: What do you think about having some live recorded music for the score of Project Eternity? Not an expensive orchestra, but maybe just some things by soloists or small ensembles? Judging from his comments on the forum, Justin Bell thinks that could be a good idea.
Feargus: I have been talking with Josh about that - particularly since Project Annihilation had that as a stretch goal - he is wondering if our soundtrack will be about big bombastic stuff, so that's why we haven't done that. As for using a smaller set of players, Justin has been looking at that.

Question: I believe Feargus said a few pages back (sometime yesterday) that a new level will be added to the mega dungeon for every 20k and not just for the first 20k. I will ask him when he is online.
Feargus: Haven't decided what to do on the 20K per level of the dungeon yet. Might want to make each dungeon of Facebook likes a bit more of a stretch.

Question: So when are we going to get the full sized concept art of Aloth?
Feargus: With my update tomorrow. Which I guess I am now spoiling.

Question: I know you can't give too much away but are we going to see the extreme stretch goals in this next update? All stretch goals that we've seen to date have been relatively shoo-ins for the final build especially if kicktraqer is to be believed. I want to see the goals that will cause people to buckle down and raise more support because we're unsure we'll be able to reach it.
Feargus: Very soon....

Question: How does it feel to be the saviors of WRPG gaming?
Feargus: I don't know about saviors. It's just good to be able to go back and make one of these great games. They were really fun to make back at Black Isle.

Question: Do you have any more information regarding the "Design a X" pledge level rewards? There was a mention of a forum set up for it at some point, but how prominent will these creations be compared to Obsidian's own? I.e. from BG2, I'd be unable to remember more than 5-10 awesome items, while 50 are available for backers in this project. Basically, how epic and high level can/will these things be?
Feargus: I'm sorry I still don't. We really focused this weekend on getting a lot of stuff setup for next week. Adam and I know it's going to be a ton of fun, but it's going to be a marathon.

Question: Are meetings specifically regarding the Kickstarter and those more focusing on the game seperate from one another usually? Odd question I suppose.
Feargus: Yep, we separate them quite a bit. The design meetings that occur right now are mostly between Tim, Chris and Josh. Adam and I jump in, but we are handling most of the KS stuff, so that those guys can focus more on the game. As for agendas - he KS ones have agendas to a point. The design meetings have a topic, but not a list of things to discuss about the topic necessarily. After KS and when there is another designer or two, the meetings will get a bit more agenda driven. However, early on we try to be careful about being too structured meeting heavy.

Question: I watched the Youtube about the creation of Fallout, what was your role at that point?
Feargus: I took over the RPG division in 1996 and Fallout was absorbed into it, so that I could help Tim to make sure that he was able to focus purely on the game. The team needed to ramp up at that time, so I worked to get people moved over from other projects. On the game itself, I helped to design SPECIAL - I needed to completely re-design the Hub (so a lot of the Hub stuff is design that I fixed and made work). I then needed to do that with the Boneyard and Adytum as well. One cool quest I did was the one where you get the Blade Runner gun. One quest I did wrong, was to give players the Turbo Plasma rife, which was sort of game breaking. On Fallout 2, I was the Lead Designer, so I did a lot of different things on that game - but an area I did a lot of work on was Vault City.

Question: Is there any chance you might do an RPG in a more contemporary setting in the future?
Feargus: That's a hard one. We would like to explore other settings, but we have to be careful. There are ones that people seem to gravitate towards and ones that they don't. Back at Black Isle, us and Bioware really wanted to make a Kung-Fu RPG called "Five Fingers of Death" but there just wasn't a lot of support for doing it - and I don't think Brian and others were necessarily wrong about being concerned about the reach of it.

Question: A kung-fu RPG ... like Jade Empire?
Feargus: Kind of. The pitch that they had put together used the Infinity Engine but zoomed in more and then the cutscenes were re-dubbed old Kung-Fu movies. We thought it was hilarious and fun.

Question: I've been playing RPGs since i'm 7 and seeing the fall of bioware is a really sad moment for me and all RPG players.. That's why i'm looking forward this game A LOT. PS:T is still my favorite WRPG for a very good reason. How much leeway does Chris have for the storyline?
Feargus: Chris is going to have as much leeway as he wants. That's how he and I work together.

Question: Similar to Theo's question, I was curious how far on the story side of things are. I'd imagine it's still very early with it mainly revolving around the concepts and themes that you guys want to tackle.
Feargus: Exactly, first we are building up the world and then the story will get crafted within that.

Question: Are any of the updates next week themed around factions in the game?
Feargus: I don't believe they are - however I don't know what Josh's update or updates are going to be about yet. He was thinking over the weekend about what stuff he would like to talk about next.

Question: If the custom party creation idea is on the cards, you might really REALLY think about adding it early if the stretch goal isn't met. Extreme replayability (and therefore desirability to purchase) right there. Not to mention the hordes of internetizens who are DETERMINED to ONLY do things THEIR WAY.
Feargus: I think the Adventurer's Guild does that - doesn't it?

Question: well yes, but I thought that was a stretch goal?
Feargus: Gotcha, but I think we have a pretty good chance to get to $2.6M. Since with PayPal, we are $157K away from it. I don't want to count the chickens yet though.

Question: Will there be any cannons in the PE world? Not carryable or course.
Feargus: I don't think so, but it's something Josh might add based upon it fitting into the story / scenario of an are.

[Eurypterid]

Another short Q&A with Feargus:


Question: Are you planning to give the ability to craft spells with the crafting system?
Feargus: We talked about that, but decided that we were not going to include spell crafting. We want the spells in the game to be more unique and make sure the balance worked.

Question: Feargus, you mentioned yesterday or the day before about possibly adding the (possible) expansion as a reward bonus for the $250 and higher pledge tiers. Is that definite or still being bandied about?
Feargus: We'll have an update soon on changes and additions to the tiers.

Question: Is Obsidian planning to run a similar live stream event during then last hours of the Kickstarter as Brian Fargo did with Wasteland 2?
Feargus: That's the plan. Quick announcement of that in our next update tomorrow morning.

Question: Any hint as to how far the stretch goals will go? We're getting awfully close to the end, and the last three days are the most exciting in a kickstarter campaign, fretting about the last stretch goal. I for one am saving upping my pledge for those last days to add to the excitement.
Feargus: We have talked about at least four or five more, maybe six. Plus a couple of ideas for farther stretches.

Question: would it not be cathartic to encounter a despicably evil publishing house in game, and be tasked with... taking care of it. =P
Feargus: I can't confirm nor deny that - the press goes through these comments.

Question: One aspect the old IE games were famous for, was the almost epic length of gameplay (80h+) in comparison to more recent games (20-40h). Where is Project Eternity aiming at?
Feargus: Our goal is to hang in there with the old games.

Question: As to the basic spells that a wizard can cast without limit, does the current vision for that system have a fixed, predefined selection of spells that any wizard can cast without limit, or will that selection expand with the level progression of the character to the point where an extremely powerful wizard might have "mastered" the equivalent of 5th or 6th level D&D spells and can cast them without limit?
Feargus: I am pretty sure, and I can check with Josh and Tim, that mages will get strong spells as the progress.

[Morroian]

Interesting (and good news) about the length. I would have thought that was something they would have to compromise on.

[Yrkoon]

Thing is, with the exception of the BG games, the IE games were not all that long. Without rushing, you could easily finish either of the Icewind Dales in about 30-40 hours, and Planescape Torment could last you anywhere from 30-60 hours depending on how fast you  read.  And even the non-IE games from that time were short.   Temple of Elemental evil was tiny (2 towns and 2 dungeons)...  about 20-30 hours for a full playthrough... and that's despite the fact that it was a turn based dungeon crawler.  Fallout 1 and 2 were  really short games as well.  You can do the first one in 15-20 hours.

Exagerated Gameplay length is probably the single biggest  mental distortion that occurs in Nostalgia

Modifié par Yrkoon, 08 octobre 2012 - 09:37 .

[Yrkoon]

Also, Kudos to Feargus for coming online every single day, including weekends to field questions on kickstarter's comment section.

[TheRealJayDee]

Yrkoon wrote...

Also, Kudos to Feargus for coming online every single day, including weekends to field questions on kickstarter's comment section.

Yeah, seconded. This guy seems dedicated!

Also, kudos to Eurypterid for summing the discussions up in this thread - much appreciated!

[Fast Jimmy]

I had to stop reading all those Q&A updates from yesterday. So much information!

Looking at this whole production so far, I am ashamed I haven't been able to pledge to this yet (going to before the cut off!). It's funny - when Dead State, Shadowrun and Wasteland 2 all first showed up on Kickstarter, I (and others here) suggested the concept of Bioware doing a Kickstarter, or even seeing if features like multiple playable races could be funded by a Kickstarter and people said it would be impossible, since they are already an established developer.

Looks like, a year later, Obsidian has come over and kicked that whole sandcastle down.

[chunkyman]

Thanks for putting those Q&A's together for convenient reading! I'm glad they're trying to make the game fairly long.

[Eurypterid]

Woah! Update #17 is up. New $165 pledge tier, which gets you Wasteland 2 as well as the expansion they have planned for PE.

[c_cat]

I found it impossible to resist that new pledge tier. My wallet is trying to tell me to avoid all new updates but I'm so curious about what new stretch goals they have planned.