Chris Avellone's Blog

A spiritual successor to Torment (although not a direct sequel) would be the way to go, I think.

Hi,

 

Please make Fallout on the high seas. Think Raft in Snow Crash, or Waterworld but with rad-sharks, and no Kevin Costner. (And by Fallout I mean wasteland-style isometric single-player RPG.) Thanks!

Personally, I am sick and tired of (rpg) fantasy settings. They're dime a dozen, no matter how well done.

 

What I'd like to see is either a feudal space sci-fi setting like Dune and Fading Suns, or some kind of cyberpunk setting a la blade runner.

 

No magic or steampunk!

Definitely an original IP, due to the likely problems of using an existing one.

 

As for features, turn-based isometric RPG, lots of dialogue choices and a story you can actually affect. Anything inspired by Planescape or Fallout would be amazing.

These are just suggestions of course, but the second one is really important to me.

• Turn based or turn-based hybrid. As long as I can order the party around while "paused" I'm happy.
  
• If you give me a party of 20 people, I want to be able to have all of them with me. Why would I leave 14 of my dedicated warriors back at camp when I am already facing impossible odds? Is it because I'm stupid? Yeah, must be.
  
• Magic is magical and weird and awesome, not a replacement for grenades and napalm.
  
• Lean more on tactics and interesting character builds than on fancy equipment. If I am a superlative warrior, I should still be formidable while naked and angry.
  
• Classes a la carte.
  
• Stabbing enemies in the eyes is a viable and hilarious tactic.
  

I joined the forum just to post this.

 

Anything but your typical fantasy RPG.

Isometric, a real time RPG that you may pause.

Strong, complex, playable female characters are critical.

 

No one dimensional good guys or bad guys - the game must have flawed, interesting and well-intentioned characters in different stripes of grey.

 

No false choices. No options like "give the begger a coin" (good) or "kill her" (bad). The game should be imbued with a strong sense of nuance and complexity.

 

Real-world consequences - taking food from people's houses, robbing bodies - things that would make you look like a **** in the real world should piss people off in the game.

 

Invent a new mechanism for in-game trading that isn't reliant on making your character a glorified scrap-armor and scrap-weapon merchant.

 

A mature RPG made for adults - this is a kickstarter campaign, after all. Don't go with the lowest-common-denominator marketing guff aimed at teenage boys, you need to go with something that wouldn't make its way through the marketing department of a major publishing house... otherwise, why bother?

 

Again, this is a kickstarter campaign - take a risk and push the boundaries. Pitch an idea that's not yet proven to be commercially successful, and therefore that would be hard to sell to a hard-nosed bean counter.

 

Avoid multiplayer gimmics like the plague.

You will see a lot of people suggesting 3D RPGs, perhaps in the vein of Alpha Protocol and Mass Effect, but I'm sure you will also see very strong support for an

 

OLD SCHOOL TOP DOWN ISOMETRIC (SIC) RPG.

 

That's exactly what I would like Obsidian to do.

 

It can be in any setting you wish, because I know Chris Avellone's writing skills shine through no matter what.

 

A Planescape sequel / another game in the setting would be most welcome, but any other setting or space time combination would be great. Just make sure to include Sawyer, I love that guy as well!

Please, make the spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment in a new IP. It doesn't need to be the same setting at all, but the same type of "deep" questions and that feeling of humanity.

What I would really like to see is a game with no combat (or very little if absolutely necessary), where you use other gameplay elements to progress. What I'm trying to get at is that the story needs to be the main focus of the game, and that combat is just distracting and actually kinda off-putting for many people (including me, even though I am a huge fan of old-school RPG's).

Just make something that is beautiful, and something that you really want to make.

A futuristic cyberpunk RPG with lots of cyber implants, guns, urban level architecture, megacorps, drugs, loud music, neon lights, deep story, charismatic characters, rainy weather...

 

Either FPS or turn based.

 

And NO MAGIC !

Doesn't have to be DnD, but something like Planescape Torment and the Baldur's Gate series, just no sequels.

 

There's probably better ideas to start from, but I just love those games.

 

 

Just one thing though, get the voice acting done good, if it's one thing I've always loved and remembered about those two games it's the voice acting. It's just so.. perfect.

Setting,not another Tolkien knock-off or space opera #137

 

Combat Something like the infinity engine games or even better turn-based.Not more awesum action were something awesum happens every time you press the awesum button!!!!!

 

Choises and consequences where something more that someone's hair colour or wardrobe changes because of you

 

Graphics probably isometric 2d

 

Interesting mature characters and story,not a dating sim

You guys have got the RPG storyline down. Give us a good RTS like Planetscape or Baldur's Gate!

What I'd love to play is something that goes back to Black Isle's/Troika's genius philosophy of RPG design. Thoughts:

- isometric,

- preferably a party-based dungeon crawler in the vein of Temple of Elemental Evil

- obligatory turn-based combat !!! (excellent examples of amazing TB combat systems: ToEE, Jagged Alliance 2, Silent Storm if you're looking for inspirations)

- deep mechanics, allowing for great replayability

- plenty of choices and consequences

- dialogues with skill checks

- multiple ways to solve quests, factions to join

- inspired, interesting setting (Fallout's 1950s vision of the future, Arcanum's Steampunk/Magic mix, ToEE's Greyhawk)

- beautiful art direction and artwork (Arcanum, ToEE)

 

It'd be wonderful if you also looked at these games and drew inspiration from them:

- Darklands (choices&conseqences masterpiece),

- Realms of Arkania 2 Star Trail (items which matter and influence how you interact with the game world, excellent world map travel system)

- Wizardry 8, which achieved incredible depth because of its balanced classes and races, so balanced, every combination was viable and interesting

 

Thank you very much for asking everyone, MCA!

A turn-based isometric perspective roleplaying game with a proper system for character customization and a great focus on choices and consequences, dialogue and a reactive world that hasn't already been done a thousand times. (i'm looking at you Nth iteration of vaguely Tolkensian ripoff settings)

Everything after that is gravy.

 

Some good inspirations have already been mentioned in this thread, Darklands being prime design idea material in particular.

As for world ideas even in just the fantasy genre there's a lot of untouched stuff to take inspiration from.

The Sword & Sorcery genre with it's Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & The Grey Mouser, Clark Asthon Smith's Zothique, Hyperborea and Averoigne, Lord Dunsany's Pegana, REH Howard's Hyperborea, Jack Vance's Lyonesse and Dying Earth, the list goes on.

SF have several genres/tropes no one seems to have touched on in games very much, like the possibility of First Contact.

Supernatural Modern World but with your own take might be interesting seeing as Vampire: Bloodlines still has a pretty huge following and making all those myths and silly ideas be true can be fun in it's own right. Just a Modern world or Historical setting could be pretty great as well, even if it might bring in the ol' "let's debate realism!" crowd.

 

Well done 2D with hand-drawn backgrounds and all seem to age better and certainly calls out the nostalgia of the genre a bit more. If not that then perhaps 2D backgrounds with 3D models might be an idea?

 

As much as people are calling for a sequel I can't help but feel it's a bad idea. The licensing concerns alone would probably eat up the kickstarter budget and more, and doesn't it pretty much kick the entire Kickstarter appeal of not being at a publisher's yoke and call to the curb?

I'd like to see Obsidian develop its own style, which I assume has always been the plan but has been difficult to do. That would probably, but not necessarily, involve an original IP.

 

More specifically, I'd love Alpha Protocol 2, but that's not suitable as a Kickstarter project. So a turn-based squad-combat RPG of some sort would be nice and probably fit the scope best. Maybe if ideas like the Defiance pitch aren't getting traction with publishers it could work here.

I think that the biggest advantage of this model, is that the game doesn't have to cater to the mainstream audience, but you can make game that are aimed at the dedicated few. What this means to me, is that you won't have to spend money on things like voicing every line in the game, porting it to consoles, making it accessible to a wider audience, using top of the art graphics etc. I guess my point is, I'd be more than happy with the production values of the early 2000s games.You can instead focus on what us, the dedicated few can appreciate - Excellent story, deep and words-heavy dialogues and texts, isometric tactical combat, getting down and dirty with stats... What made old school PC RPGs great!

I would happily pledge 100$ or possibly more (which is saying a lot, as I'm a rather poor animation student!) for a game like that. All I want is for the classics such as the Baldur's Gate series, Planesace: Torment etc. to be the inspiration, the game to largely based on the Infinity Engine gameple-wise and for the game to be PC-centric (Sorry, console-folks, but I believe this kind of game should be PC centric, beside, consoles RPGs don't really need any Kickstarting!)

The setting should be unique and interesting and the story should to be something a little more interesting than "save the world", the characters shouls to be more than "elf wizard". Basically this game should have Romancing, reading, imagining and most of all - Role playing!

 

My dream project would be a having the game set in the Dark Sun campaign setting. How amazing would that be?

I understand if that could never happen due to licensing costs though.

Greetings Mr. Avellone.

 

Before daring to make a petition from you, I'd like to thank you for all the wonderful experiences you're partly responsible in sharing with me. Like all others in these posts I am a fan. So much that I made an account just to write this. I also confess that I've played Planescape: Torment around... sixteen or seventeen times and dug around the infinity engine files. With that being said...

 

**** the fans.

(gently)

 

We are not game developers. If we knew what makes a good game and how to make it, we'd be making it ourselves, instead of asking it from you. I am not sure what's your thought process (immaculate and glorious as it must be) behind asking what sort of things the audience wants to see funded. The consensus seems obvious, a high concept WRPG that evokes to the novel, immersive experience from Black Isle times. Well, that may seem appealing, but part of that quality is well, the novelty. Planescape 2 would not alienate and awe us as we once were. Hell, whatever we ask for would not do such a thing since it'd be present as an idea-seed in our brains.

 

So I believe the best way to give fans what they want is to ignore them and do your own thing.

 

I trust you, Mr. Avellone. I consider your plume a sure sign of divine spark in games and writing. You do not need to ask what we want, what we want is for you to work in a censor-free, wild environment that allows you to produce something new and refreshing. Even if that isn't a high concept WRPG.

 

Out of curiosity, could you risk a budget estimate for a low-end WRPG? Do you think an isometric view is still viable?

I'm sure everyone at Obsidian must have a dozen ideas in their back pocket that they've always wanted to pursue, but could never sell to a publisher. I say indulge yourselves. Find something you really want to make and just do it.

 

If I had to express an opinion, than I'd say that anything in the neighbourhood of "oldschool" deeply non-linear isometric RPG would make me very happy.

Idea 1: Turn-based robot RPG in which the player is a "AI Master Program" implanted in some lowly maintenance robot.

 

Throughout the game, you can have your AI core extracted from one robot body into another, more advanced one, with each body being fully customizable and upgradeable.

 

Every major situation or combat encounter can be tackled in different ways depending on what body you're installed in, be it some robo-puppy, a 12' military-grade juggernaut, or an android love-bot. Object of the main quest: cross the galaxy, kill the baddy/deliver the package/attain self-awareness?.

 

Overall motif of the game world: depressed, fractured, but increasingly eccentric humanity that has almost forgotten how to build or even maintain its technology. As a robot, you're either worshiped or hunted down for your parts. Many pop-cultural references to robots of movies, literature, etc.

I want Plancescape Torment 2!!!!!!

Forget 3D.

 

Assuming your artists can create beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds of the quality of the Infinity Engine games I'd prefer a large quantity of beautiful, unique, 2d maps over maps with recycled 3d assets.

 

As for setting, don't listen to us. Pick whichever setting interests you. We want you inspired, not rehashing old ideas to satisfy the fans.

I think the time has come for RPGs to expand beyond fantasy and sci-fi worlds, especially given the abundance of historical settings that would be just as novel to most players. Personally, I would love to see an adaptation of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, since all the elements of a great story are already there- ambition, avarice, betrayal, violence and tragedy. The interaction between two groups of people who each view the other as impossibly alien would allow players to experience events within the game with an entirely different perspective depending on their chosen faction, building on the NCR-Caesar's Legion conflict in New Vegas. Also, the tension between the Aztecs and the subjugated peoples of their empire (many of whom allied with the Spanish) offers the possibility of recruitable factions similar to the Brotherhood of Steel, Boomers, etc.

A spiritual successor to Torment (although not a direct sequel) would be the way to go, I think.

 

Agreed. A new IP is fine, just nail the story and characters like you did in Placescape (no big deal, right?).

I just had to make an account to comment on this.

 

For me, I think you guys should do a passion project that you've always wanted to make. Now I realise with a kickstarter project the scope will still be limited, for example I'd LOVE to see another Alpha Protocol style game but that would just be out of scope though I'd still love to see that wonderful cause and effect branching dialogue system.

 

Basically, don't listen to us because we're not designers. That sounds harsh as we'd be paying for the project as such but I'd rather you guys go for broke and do what YOU want to do. Afterall, what's the point on doing this if you're not passionate about the project itself ? I'm more of a real time kinda guy for combat rather than turn based but I'll happily put money towards whatever it is you want to make. I'll play anything Obsidian makes. You guys have earned it from your history and from what you have previously made.

 

Basically, do what you want to do, I'll put up some cash and smile knowing that you don't have some rubbish publisher breathing down your neck with demanding deadlines or wanting you to change things to their way.