Tonight's Q&A:
Feargus: We have been having some problems with the updates and using Amazon for storage. When we edit an update it does something strange and deletes but then adds the image again. Amazon thinks it is deleted and then scheduled it to be deleted. So, we are going to start storing everything on our own stuff.Question: Hi feargusaurus, give us stronghold and Chinese translation please!
Feargus: I'm not so sure about the Chinese translation. We will see what we can do though, we have been contacted by a couple of Chinese companies.
Question: You've done a great job of fielding questions and many topics have been exhausted or told to hold off questioning for later. So, what information do you want to share with us that we just don't know to ask for at the moment?
Feargus: Good question. I asked a lot about the documentary last night. So, I'll ask something much different tonight. What do you all think is the most important aspect of an RPG?
Question: The most important part is a compelling story
Feargus: What makes a story compelling to you?
Would you all say that for the most part, what really separates an RPG from most other genres is choice? I can choose to develop my character this way or that way. I can choose to participate in the story this way or that way. I can choose to go explore over here or go on a quest over there. I can choose to follow the main story line or go off somewhere else. I must choose how I want to deal with a situation, because he game will react based upon my decision.
Question: Yes thats sure bring it to a point. But for me as soon the Character development shrinks down to much I see it more like Genere X with RPG elements.
Feargus: I agree. I can be a real min-maxer and when I feel the system is just not giving me any return for my time thinking about it - I get a little frustrated.
Question: Personally I've had so many discussions about that subject that I've finally come to the conclusion that what makes a great rpg isn't any one system, but the way all the systems (story, graphics, combat engine/other gameplay) all come together to make an experience... or perhaps a "world to live in" would be a better phrase. So, my answer would be: There is no one most important part.
Feargus: Good point.
Question: Choice is subjective. What i would Like to see os That of if i offened someone alot, That That person isnt going to be happy the rest of the game . Or Like in skyrim That after 10 hours people still dont recognise me.
Feargus: That reactivity is cool as long as it doesn't have the game degenerate too much.
Question: Choice can be in games that are clearly not RPGs. Just like story can. While so many will complain that BioWare has damaged RPGs with cinematics and romances... I really feel that if they did any damage to RPGs it was by helping convince people that a good story and many choices (some pretty false, but that's a different issue) makes a game an RPG.
Feargus: How about what it is all about is really "meaningful choice".
Question: and I mean character and story choices, not just like which weapons to use or such.
Feargus: Gotcha.
Question: I would like to add to your list the freedom to choose how to solve a given problem. For example, to get an item you may bribe it's guard, sneak behind him to steal, or to kill him. Well, an RPG is all about developing your character and to have fun, and that's usually a freedom of choice (much more in Pen and Paper).
Feargus: Tim Cain and Chris Taylor were very behind that concept on Fallout - I'm not sure if it was that game that really started that or something later. But, they made it a point that many parts of the game you needed to be able to Fight, Steal or Talk your way through them. If I remember right it was Stealth Boy, Charisma Boy or Action Boy - maybe that was Combat Boy. Been a long time.
Question: Let me try this. The most important aspect of a role-playing game is the control the player has over his character's development, interactions, and choices in the game. The game story can be simple, or linear, or offer none of the branching choices we've come to expect from most RPG's. The character can be pre-defined for us, or let us only tweak around the edges. The interactions can be very limited. But as long as the player feels like he is making decisions for the character, as long as the game give the player the agency to be able to inhabit the persona of said character and feel like the player can make decisions for the character based on said character's make-up, and the game reacts to and acknowledges the decisions and choices the player made... I think then it is a role-playing gme.
Feargus: Good way of saying it. In the end it is about the perception of what you can do and the impact.
Question: so what's the schedule look like for tomorrow
Feargus: Update will be at 10AM PST - really this time, we talked about it a lot tonight and most of the stuff we need to do for it is already done.
Question: Are you planning on having non-obvious, non-combat usage of spells and other skills for problem solving? For (a bad) example, casting fire to burn off an otherwise unreachable rope. More generally, will combat skills be combat only and non-combat skills non-combat only? I love when you have to think about ways to utilize your abilities like that, both in and out of combat, in an almost adventure game way, but I can also see if it doesn't fit the scope of the game.
Feargus: That is a really good question. I know that we want to include puzzle elements in the levels (fun ones), some of those could involve using spells from time to time. However, we also don't want to have you try to figure out the one time you use this one spell in the whole game - unless we lead you up to it right. So, if we do have spells used in puzzles, we will want to make sure that they are all used often enough (not every four minutes to make it tedious) that it occurs to everyone to use them.
Question: It may be too early in development to answer this, but are there plans for creatures analogous to demons and angels?
Feargus: Josh likes to include themes like that, and the gods, so I there is probably a good chance of things like that.
Question: I wanted to ask if there will be "natural" affinity for magic in some races. Like elves is some roleplaying systems are natural magicians, and some other races can't use magic at all, but also very resistant to it?
Feargus: Josh is working a lot on the races right now and I heard Tim and him talking about them just the other day. I know we want them to all feel different not just based upon how they look, but how their race both effects their starting statistics and statistics as they grow. Having said that, we want to be careful about having a race have too much of an affinity for a certain class. If we do that, then we really create the situation where everyone builds the same characters.
Question: did You have time to Check my question via email ?
Feargus: The mercenaries that you create and hire from the Adventurer's Hall will have the normal NPC voice set - charging in to combat, getting hurt badly, scoring a really good hit, etc... But, they won't involve themselves in the story - I don't think.
Question: Soooo... close.... Someone was musing earlier today that there might be an inverse correlation between interest in old school rpgs and facebook @Feargus Do you think the facebook likes contributed to the huge funding upswing we've seen since the weekend?
Feargus: We are just trying to do everything we can to get the word out - and the Facebook likes, I think, are totally helping that. Chris did about six or seven interviews over the last couple of days at the Austin GDC - those should all hit over the next day or two, which should help as well.
Question: Just a minor concern I've been reading elsewhere some comments about the introduction of Paladins as a potential class for PE. Some people are worried that Obsidian have compromised their vision by offering this as an option and they are worried that you guys feel in someway beholden to vocal elements of the fan base and are shoehorning in elements that you don't really want to include at their behest. Rest assured they are coming from a caring place and just want to feel that Obsidian is make the game that they want to make. This worried me a little because having been outspoken I'd hate to feel that we were affecting your companies vision. How do you feel about this?
Feargus: I like to play Paladins.
Question: With all the big rewards for this project are you guys making any money for the game? I'm asking this because I remember that for DFA the rewards took a considerable portion of the money. On the other hand they were 11.5k for the collector's box so that would have been pretty expensive to fulfill.
Feargus: We are watching all the numbers very carefully and when all is said and done, we are confident we will end up with a good amount of money to make the game.
Question: Do you think the success of the Kickstarter will make publishers take you guys more seriously at future pitch meetings?
Feargus: We continue to talk to publishers all the time (well not much the last couple of weeks). The best way of looking at PE is, agreeing with Telix here, it's just not their business. Will they listen more - I think so, but I don't know if it will be enough more to make them want to make PE like games.
Feargus: Almost at 16K on Facebook - nice! Share'em if you got'em. 
$41K and 960 people in Paypal.
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