Pop

I guess another question I would ask is: Is natural selection at play in this setting? Would all bipedal (assuming all major races are bipedal) races share a common ancestor? Might there be races that are drastically unrelated from an evolutionary standpoint? Keeping in mind that sentient beings are animals too, would you have different diet requirements between races? Different climate preferences? Different mating rituals and family / group dynamics? Could there be races that prey on one another for food? If you hit high stretch goals, and the setting allows for it, would you consider a sentient construct race, without a soul, or possessed of some strange artificial one? Perhaps with entirely different abilities, requiring a unique playstyle.

I am a real sucker for hand-to-hand martial arts, so a class that could provide some sort of specialization in said would be great, for me at least. My gut tells me that it might be a good idea to spread buffing ability around - away from just the pure casters - and just in general make party composition a little more fluid and less rigid.

I have no fundamental compunctions about standard fantasy "type" races. I would ask only that their design avoid the trappings of D&D fantasy. That is to say, I don't want humans to be the "neutral", jack-of-all-trades race, with other races being largely defined by one or two physical / temperamental traits. That means elves who aren't natural bowmen or druids but comparatively poor front-line fighters, dwarves who are natural fighters but poor mages, etc. Essentially, I want diversity of character types to be encouraged, not discouraged, by the races and their attributes. I would rather see fllavor differences at character creation be provided by background traits and the like, Arcanum-style. I would prefer that race instead affect the game experience in other ways - change the way people react to you, change quest options, block off opportunities and create new ones, etc. Essentially make races in the setting comparable to races in real life - naturally equal in ability, but subject to different treatment, different opportunities, and different hardships, and joined to different cultures. This is also something that Arcanum sort of hinted at, if a bit crudely, through its point-based NPC disposition system. Simulated racism! Marvelous. Depending on how the character creation system and skill-building works, you could have race-specific skills that you can learn or earn, either naturally through a leveling process or through NPCs, but none of them would explicitly push the choice of race as a whole toward one sort of character or another. While you're at it, try and avoid making factions or kingdoms / states in the game into homogeneous, thinly veiled analogues to real-world historical European nation-states. I find it to be generally dull.

This project is.

It's a low number if you're using the BG games as a benchmark, but the BG1 companions didn't require a whole lot of capital investment and the BG2 companions were made with a pretty considerable budget. Mask of the Betrayer had significantly fleshed out companions and they totaled 5 in number, though in reality you only had a choice of 4. Given the amount of NPC-specific content and the like that will probably be included, the minimum of 5 could turn out to be a perfectly sufficient number of potential companions for a full game. And depending on how the class system works, we might not even get "must-have" CNPCs who we wouldn't otherwise take with us. I wouldn't worry too much.

- Can having a soul be dangerous, beyond the simple fact of potentially being able to use powerful and dangerous magic / abilities? Are Big Soul folk susceptible to certain personality flaws, or certain illnesses? Do they have a tendency toward schizophrenia, or violent bouts of rage, when their size 10 soul stirs within them? Can they start to affect other people's souls at will, or by their mere presence? - Can a particularly big soul exert influence over mind or body, changing it? Can it turn you into a monster? A God?

Interesting idea, HangedMan. Are the denizens of Eps (Eternity Project Setting = EPS = Eps) blissfully unaware that the dwindling potency of soulstuff is bringing the world to a crisis point? What is to be done about these "Thinsouls"? - Keeping with the multicultural discussion in the "Breaking the mold" thread, would we see different societal perspectives on this whole "soul" business fin different cultures? Would the nomads living in the Windswept Marsh Plains venerate their Big Soul folk as wise men and natural leaders? Would the elves of Wise Haegan's Pit of Darkness fear and revile Big Souls as potential dangers, exiling them into Certain Death Cove? Do the inhabitants of Pinkwipe Citadel give up their Big Soul infants to the State Ministry of Deadly Assassin Training? - Moreover, if you can cultivate a soul toward some specific purpose, do different cultures do so? Are the Big Soul gnomes of Tinpan Alley the best musclemages in the world? Can your PC learn the secrets of musclemagic soulcraft from them? - Is there some special technique to seeing / reading souls? Do Big Souls know each other on sight? Is this actually the Highlander? - Is all this soul business part of some sinister plot?!?!

Good questions! Remember that characters who are bound together by metaphysical forces are a recurring theme in a lot of Chris Avellone's work - it appears prominently in PS:T, KOTOR2, and MotB.

I have no doubt there is a guild or union of voice actors, and Obsidian would more than likely run into a lot of trouble were they to solicit uncompensated VA without at least making a good faith effort to procure professionals. They probably get offers of free work all the time but at best, they rely on themselves for VA (Brian Mitsoda, for example, did a lot of VA work in Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines and Neverwinter Nights 2) Besides, it's just a bad idea. Not enough volunteers with their professional audio recording equipment, too many potential script leaks, and just plain bad acting.

I'm no philosopher, but generally all talk of the soul and of things that are purported to exist despite not having any physical substance, all of it is metaphysical talk, yeah.

More! - Are these "souls" in the commonly understood way? Are they quintessentially "you" in a way that your mind and body are not? - Where do they go when you die? Are they born in a new body? Can souls persist in the absence of a living vessel? Can a persistent soul be malevolent (ghost) or benevolent (angel)? - Can one's soul mismatch with their physical body or their mind?

So in the pitch video, Josh mentions that magic in the setting is going to revolve around characters' souls (this will also play heavily into the game's plot, allegedly). Not only is this a potentially interesting point of origin for magic, but it establishes something like a system of metaphysics for the game's setting, something that can be explored in interesting ways. Some examples: So people in this setting have souls. Therefore we can ask: - What is the substance of a soul? Is it connected to the mind, or the body, or both? How can you even read a person's soul? - Does one soul differentiate from others based upon someone's characteristics? Do different races have demonstrably different souls? Do different genders? - Do one's actions affect his/her soul? Does experience in the world foster soul growth? If I commit senseless violence, does my soul reflect that as well? - Can a person's soul be damaged, removed, controlled or captured? If so, what happens to that person? Can that malady be mended? - Do all creatures and living things have them (failing that, a "spirit")? - It's already been said that the PC and his companions will have "high-quality souls" (paraphrasing here). How does one make that determination? Is a high quality soul born or made? - What of people with "broken" or "anemic" souls? Are they naturally incapable of the things that people like the PC can achieve? Do strong-soul'd individuals pass on that trait to their progeny or is it random? Would we see social caste systems emerge from this "natural order" favoring those with better souls?* What if a race does not seem to have a detectable soul? Are they thought of as monsters, as animals to be exploited at the whim of the soul'd? - Can one's soul be sick, or abnormal? What terrifying or intriguing ways can that manifest? Just riffin' here, but I think there's a lot to explore here! * - I don't much like the show and I think it completely squandered its potential w/r/t exploring this sort of thing, but Last Airbender: Legend of Korra touched on this sort of dynamic with the whole "bender / nonbender" political subplot.

Regarding things like discrimination (Legion antagonizing female PCs, etc.) I think it is important to retain those elements in games because I just happen to ascribe to a sort of post-structuralist orientation w/r/t power. I have an intense dislike for the power fantasy aspect of most recent RPGs, in which your character might be of some sort of minority group but you as an individual are able to bypass all the structural barriers that members of your group face daily (Dragon Age, etc.) Games like Fallout 2, though they aren't perfect by any means, serve an important functions. You enter the testosterone-drenched crime family strongholds in New Reno and you will be continually disrespected, maybe even turned away outright. That's something that happens to be people all the time, but it makes gamers uncomfortable. I played it as an 11-year old and that was the first time I realized that it might severely suck to be a woman a lot of the time. I know Josh is up to the task with this stuff though. He's gonna blow some minds.

Agreed. It was especially impossible for me ever to make a female character that'd side with the Legion; not that I couldn't think of reasons why one would, just that they weren't the sort that resonanted with any female characters I'd ever create, because they generally would make her out to be a victim going along with the stronger, male-dominated society. I want my major options to feel attractive to me both in themselves and because my character thinks they'll make them better (whatever that means for them) both immediately and after the game's ended. Something where you start off, say, as a discriminated-against character helping the racist faction because it's your only option and can later jump ship to something better, or stay because you see hope to change how you're viewed and gain greater rights for yourself/your kind is fine. Knowing that 6 months after the curtain drops on the game your character's going to meet with an unfortunate accident because their success is inconvenient to their faction's philosophy isn't. Re: Factions, I thought Obsidz did a pretty good job in FONV. Yes, the Legion was more or less abominable for female characters (or for any character / player with a principled opposition to slavery) but the faction's philosophy was internally coherent. There were reasons they did the things they did - it wasn't necessary that those reasons actually justified their actions, just that their actions made sense (and the Legion's did, ultimately). That's the difference between, say, the Master's Army and some random D&D orc tribe - the Master sought domination for reasons, the orc tribe seek domination because that's just the way orcs are. They're just violent. That's not compelling. Likewise, the NCR was meant to elicit a reflexive, sympathetic response from most players in the same way the Legion is meant to be repulsive and frightening - their ostensibly republican values are common first principles among players, especially in America. But like the Legion, as you go through the game you learn that they aren't just "the way they are". They're intemperate, greedy, wasteful, and immensely dysfunctional (like some western democracies you'd care to name). Your preference for them might not change, but you don't have to do a 180 on a faction in order for that faction to be well-realized.

What are you on about man If we made him a Noober rehash would that satisfy you

That's real solid of you, Shadowstrider

mac and linux ports have already been announced, but modding tools may be far off, depending on what making them will cost.

An optimal thing would probably be to find someone who can afford something south of a $1,000 donation, someone who wouldn't be ruined or go hungry. Assuming regulars could chip in $10 at least you could probably get about half of that reimbursed. It's definitely possible, it just depends on the will of the forum. I'd be willing to throw in $40 or so on top of my personal pledge, for old times' sake.

Well the bots certainly are doing a rudimentary job of masking themselves Sawyer said over at SA that the countdown is managed manually. So we'll probably get a reveal in 6-9 hours

I'm into it

The general trend of most Kickstarter funding, when planned out on a graph, seems to be roughly logarithmic. That is to say, campaigns peak early and then slowly deflate in terms of the amount of money coming in every day. The faithful put their money down right at the outset, media attention and PR then yields however many pledges were out there but unaware of the project when it started. A lot depends, then, on what the initial goal is. A lot of projects will make their goal early (particularly those with a massive, hardcore cult like Homestuck) but even for those that don't, there's evidence to suggest that a Kickstarter Project's chances of success skyrocket if it is within closing distance of the goal within a few days of the deadline. People who were on the fence, or skeptical of the project's chances of success, will say "what the hell" and push it over the line. This seems to happen pretty frequently, and not just with games. People like drama, I guess. Anyway, the smart fundraiser will do their damnedest to prop up that middle period between the peaks as much as possible. Brian Fargo was really good at this, partly because the man's a born entrepreneur (notice how often he didn't sell Wasteland 2 so much as the idea of a sunny new future for niche gaming outside the stifling purview of major publishers) but also because he was smart with regularly parceling out new, attention-grabbing incentives (announcing a new, prominent collaborator like MCA every few days). He kept people talking, consistently. Stretch goals are another thing. Even if you don't set your initial goal at the bare minimum needed to realize your project, there's always more money to be had and more / better features to implement. There are a lot of good examples of this, and they're effective because they make concrete offers for things that backers say they want but aren't accounted for in conservative budgeting - a mac/linux port, multiplayer, more weapons, more characters, more diverse game areas, etc. You can go a couple of routes with this. Some Kickstarters will state up front what they'll do if they go past the finish line, but when you've got a long goal it's probably smarter to only reveal your stretch objectives when the finish line's in sight but things are slowing down, as they often do. They could be the shot in the arm you need. It's also been my general experience that potential backers like to have some firm idea of what they're getting for what they're putting in. Asking for another $200,000 to "add multiplayer" is nebulous, and people will question whether that feature really requires that kind of money. Asking for $20,000 to hire another full-time designer or artist for a year's work is concrete (also kind of ****ty, considering how meager that salary is). Short incremental goals (high 4 or low 5 figures) will also probably be more fruitful than long ones (high 5 or low 6 figures). Observe Dead State and the way they promised a new, enticing thing with every stretch goal - when they listed "city maps", it was only a matter of time before they cleared a few extra bars. Those are things that I think.

If it is a WH40k game, it would have to be licensed through THQ to Obsidian. If that's the case this won't be a Kickstarter project, because as Tigranes (?) said in the KS thread, the allure of KS is launching IPs in which you have 100% control and reap 100% of profits. Beyond that, my nerds are telling me that all the supposedly referenced stuff is not official WH40k lore. I don't know if that's actually the case. But it would preferable to WoT.

Why are people so hung up on "Defiance"? Has it just become a replacement for "Every not picked up Obsidian game"? We only heard from it in ONE interview, talking about something that happened in 2008/9 and IIRC we had no indication that it was even a Sawyer related project. When the Microsoft project was cancelled it was hinted in the press that it was a dark fantasy IP, IIRC. This is definitely not the sci-fi property that Fader et al were working on.

You're all bastard people

The nice thing about dev-owned IP on a KS project is that there's no publisher-imposed timetable for information parceling, nor are there hard-set barriers on what can or should be revealed early on in development.