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Another one who signed up just for this thread. I used to post on the BIS forums though. I would support any game that Team Torment would have made before all the financial pressures at BIS/Interplay forced them to make action games like Icewind Dale II (and to a lesser extent IWD). IMO, Obsidian has only made two good games since BIS. MOTB and FONV. I never liked the KOTOR series or Alpha Protocol for some reason. Not because of the writing, which I'm sure was great, but because of the combat mechanics which I found unbearably dull. I would love to see a PS:T 2 in spirit. To some extent MOTB was like that. Except the story, although excellent, was not nearly as good. In fact I'd also love to see an MOTB sequel in spirit. Of those of us who worship MCA as a god among men I think it is nearly always due to the genius that was PS:T. It wasn't merely a game. It managed to transcend game-ness into something that was more like a wonderful novel. It was the story that continuously pulled you through the game. I really wanted to solve the mysteries of the story. I think the way to repeat that is just to write a good story again which would intrigue the player and make the player want to discover whatever tantalizing secrets you've set up. Unfortunately great stories like that tend to be associated with a lack of replay value. Even FONV suffers from that. It's the inherent trade off I think you always find in CRPGs between story and strategic combat. Although I think it might be possible to write a compelling story for a game like BG2 which I still replay due to its fun combat. Bioware was never able to write, but Gaider and company definitely knew how to design a fun combat system. Then after you finished the story you could replay just for the strategic fun of the battles. I did like the Planescape setting, but it sounds logistically impossible to purchase a license for it. Why not simply take most of the things that were great about the setting and use those? I liked the Planescape setting because it seemed like an interesting and complete world. Things like the lady of pain and made up words like 'birk' etc. It was wonderful. But you don't need Planescape for that. All it takes is some imagination to make up your own unique setting for the game with its own gods and mythology and little sayings and way of speaking. So the perfect game would have a suspenseful/philosophical/thoughtful story like PS:T (and to a lesser extent MOTB) and the strategic battle mechanics of something like BG2 or TOEE. Battles should be sufficiently difficult and complex that they would be pretty much impossible to play in real time. You have to pause and think and micromanage your characters to win and even then you should not always win. That obviously implies either RTwP with an autopause as in the IE games or true turn based as in the Fallouts. I don't personally have much preference between the two. As others have said you don't need any voice acting at all. Good voice acting is wonderful but its not essential. Of course if you could find voice actors who were competent and very cheap or even free well..., but that's the kind of thing you'd want to just tack on at the end if you had the time and money to do so. You can also skip the soundtrack. A good soundtrack can definitely add to the emotional punch, like Deionarra's Theme in PS:T, but getting someone like Mark Morgan is probably too expensive for a project like this. Although it is possible to find skilled, unknown composers who will work for peanuts or even free (for the credits). The only aspect of sound that I think is essential are the sound effects. Those are critical. One game that had particularly good, even memorable, sound effects was Arx Fatalis. As far as graphics, as others have said, I don't want that to be the focus. As long as the graphics are as good as any of the Infinity Engine games that is more than sufficient. The focus on graphics should be adequacy and cost, not supremacy. In most modern games 90% of the focus is on the graphics and 10% on everything else. I would hope for something more like 80/20 in the other direction. Iron Tower Studios has even gone so far as to use the awful Torque3D engine and yet it looks like their game is shaping up to be wonderful. I don't think it matters whether the graphics are 2D or 3D. Just do whatever is the most cost effective. Probably that will come down to what your artists are actually better at and what graphics engines you have available. I guess you don't have the license to the Infinity Engine anymore, which is too bad because it was perfectly adequate. Maybe you could figure out a way to adapt the engine from the latest action game you made. Just make sure to remove any somersaults and other console kiddie 'ooh shiny!' and silly, unrealistic, fighting moves from it. Everyone is making games for them. Including you. They don't need to fund a game like this. Publishers already love the kiddies. You'd also have to convert it to turn based or RTw(a)P. As far as deciding on a setting. I don't think the setting should be a primary consideration. I think the great Master Chris Avellone should let his imagination do its thing and come up with a story first. The greatness of the game hinges on that. You are the only game studio that has someone like you: a good, perhaps even gifted, writer. As a studio that's your greatest strength. Any publisher who doesn't realize that is a fool. If you come up with a good story idea in a futurustic Blade Runner-esque sci-fi setting go for that. If you come up with a good high fantasy story involving dragons and wizards and magic go that way. Or maybe multi-dimensional or time travel fantasy like Time Bandits or A Wrinkle in Time or something. I think one of the great things about the story in PS:T was that it had some some tragedy mixed with philosophy that really made you think. So maybe a story with some great tragedy at its center. One story that reminds me of the tragedy at the center of PS:T was the film A Tale of Two Sisters. In that film there was a ghost who didn't realize she was a ghost and when she did realize it she discovered that she was already dead. Another way of choosing the setting is based on what engines you have available. Obviously a Scifi setting probably isn't going to work with your Dungeon Seige engine. Or maybe it could be adapted. I don't know. I think it would be great if you and Feargus could come up with various price points and what it would buy us. How much extra money would it take to get at least some area-focused game music? How much extra money for this kind of setting or that kind of setting? How much to finish Torn or other projects you started but didn't finish? That sort of thing. That might give us various levels to shoot for. Although ultimately each of us can only contribute what we can afford. Also is it possible that you could find a publisher or other investor who might be willing to meet whatever you can raise with crowd-funding as an investment? If you could raise, say, $500,000 with kickstart that would give you a million to work with.

Yes! Grim Fandango, Planescape, the Final Fantasy series (for all their other flaws, FF games do great music, especially the earlier titles). Not to mention good sound effects in general. Good audio immerses you in the game and makes you think the graphics are better than they are.... Also sound doesn't age as quickly as graphics do. System Shock, Thief, Bioshock, to mention a few standouts. And now that think about it, those games are all Looking Glass/Irrational series. I guess they are to good audio what Black Isle/Obsidian are to good storytelling.

You have to monitor RPGCodex? You poor bastard.

Whoa, thanks for reading it ALL. This is why we wuv MCA and several other developers, they just keep the good ole 'By Gamers, For Gamers' spirit alive. Here's hoping for kickstarting success, cheers! (Another thing I forgot before is the music! A nice (even if little) score can make a game! Nowadays its all "epic" (and sadly generic) giant orchestra themes, we don't need those. Arcanum had very nice, violin-led rather quiet and emotive music, Fallout had a very fitting techno-tribal (?), heavy-on-drums score, System Shock 2 had a nice mix of atmospheric and techno tracks...)

I would much prefer a completely new IP than them working on an existing one. That is to say, while I wouldn't say no to a "Planescape 2" or a spiritual successor to PST, I'd rather explore new things in a completely new setting and in the same spirit as PST did for its world and characters (and with turnbased and more focused combat, though not combat being more central).

100% agree. Both the originals were diamonds yet undervalued in their time. Their world is much promising and had really memorable characters that could have lesser or bigger roles in subsequent games. It is not necessary to make them full 3D, or 1st person like Fallout 3 was as compared to the 2nd. An isometric world with today's effects and gimmicks, as well as clever storywriting and gameplay could do wonders.

Definitely Planescape Torment 2 or a spiritual successor.. My other choice would be Arcanum 2.. Anyway, an old school isometric turn based/pause RPG would gladly have my support!

I guess many things have already been said, and you probably already have an idea about what you want to do. That said I can't really keep quiet when I hear that people that made my favourite RPG's of all time want to make a game funded by gamers. So here is what I would like to see: I, like most people here, would like to see an old school RPG with turn based/active pause combat. It would be great if you could avoid most fights altogether with a proper character build like in Fallout or Torment, and have a chance to resolve most confrontations with dialogue. But above all, don't make a sequel. There will be too much nostalgia involved that would likely dissapoint most fans. That said I would really like to see some adult, dark and violent themes, preferably in some setting that is not used much today, like steampunk, but I'm not forcing my opinion on anyone and trust that you will make a good decision. In short - just make a good old school RPG that older gamers know and love. If you do that, you have my blind support and I'm sure about your success.

No he doesn't have to - it's his choice to frequent forums full of trolls, racists and nazi-wannabees.

Even though I'm capable of filling your inbox and blog responses with my ideas and preferences with hundreds of messages, I believe that whatever choice YOU guys at Obsidian make would be the right one. We have faith in you, otherwise we wouldn't be posting here and everywhere on the internet. Now, get this **** kickstarted!

Here is the game you need to make-- HELLO KITTY 40K: IN THE GRIM FUTURE OF HELLO KITTY THERE IS ONLY WAR It should be a game to serve the underserved 12-18 yo male console demo, an FPS with cinematic cutscenes, qte execution sequences, on rails gameplay, bogus rpg elements, online multiplayer killfests, borderline retarded story, zero difficulty, and a $129 CE (preferably with a hideous plastic statute). Oh, don't forget the really expensive swag gifts/vactions to game journos, and the purchase of expensive ads on gaming webzones. srsly though, good luck and I'm down for $40 bucks whatever it is you guys might do.

Thank you very much for asking and taking the time to read through all the responses, I appreciate that kind of communication-based relationship between a developer and cRPG fans. Here's hoping something will actually come out of this, preferably that isometric party-based turn based cRPG so many people asked for. Good luck!

Avellone himself is an owner, too. Apart from him it's basically all guys that were around from the beginning of Black Isle.

Was our pleasure! Though, don't overwork yourself. Looking through and sort all this is quite the feat.