Rabain

It is highly unlikely the stretch goal funding will be through Kickstarter, that would be like saying they made a mistake about the amount they wanted even though they got 3million+ that was way over the base amount they required during KS to make the game. I don't think a KS for stretch goals would actually garner any positive feedback from the media. They'd jump on it as money grubbing regardless of what a "fan poll" said but open up a webstore on your own site and continue to sell game packages similar to the KS tiers and most people are fine about it. To me all this stretch poll is asking is if the majority of existing backers are in favour of allowing funding to continue via selling packages or what not through their portal, allowing existing backers to upgrade for cash and allowing new backers to come on board. Basically following the model a lot of recent kickstarters have used; continue funding after the KS on your own website. It seems to me all they are really doing is testing the waters for a ****storm that might happen if they just opened it up without asking anyone what they thought.

I think the safest assumption is to expect it to be like BG1 and BG2, there are companions, you pick them up, they interact with each other and you. This is the primary party setup expected. The Adventurers Hall is a nice nod to IWD style party setup as well as those people who used multiplayer saves in BG games to create their own party. All Obsidian has done is take the knowledge of that and put it into PE as intended design. They talk about restricting access to the Hall and cost of npcs within the Hall because their primary expectation is that you take the premade NPCs they have slaved over to create. The last thing they want is you complaining at the end of the game there wasn't enough interaction after you take 4 Hall npcs on your first run. By the time you play through the game a few times and use up most of the companions maybe you want to start trying specific setups, cue the Hall and/or any mod npcs that might have come along by then.

While many people consider the Walking Dead series very good one of the main problems during release was delayed release. Just like the crying that happened here when the "big announcement" didn't come there was a lot of crying by fans of the Walking Dead when some episodes didn't appear when expected or were outright delayed. Telltale lost a lot of good will with fans who had purchased a Season Pass as they had effectively paid in advance for something that didn't materialize, of course it all arrived eventually but once that good will is gone it is very hard to rebuild it with those same fans, no matter how good your game is. So some people are not sold on the episodic release model. I understand that making something episodically involves working on the next episode during and after the release of the last one but it doesn't bode well for that model in the future if fans are going to get frustrated with it and bring their frustrations from one episodic game to another. Personally the idea of a 50 or 60 hr game sounds good, it is about the average for a decent game. However playing 10hrs in April and then having to wait until June for another 10hrs just doesn't seem attractive and that is without considering any delays. I'd be more likely to wait until the entire series is released and get it then or not get it at all. It took Telltale 8 months to release 15hrs of gameplay, imagine trying to stay interested in a 60hr game release episodically. Also it would seem to me that the model only really suits some game types, like linear story, a more open world would be a total joke as an episodic release.

The problem with a more polished game is for most people they just read that as a delay that should never have happened. If Obsidian say they really need an extra month or two to polish the game even without added content how many people will riot on the forums? Personally I wouldn't mind if the game was delayed 3-6 months extra content or not, so long as work continues on it. Part of the reason so many of the kickstarter projects are being funded is because publishers won't fund that type of game yet there is a relatively large (small in a publishers eyes) audience who want them, yet most players are just acting like publishers crying about release dates and even update release dates. We want information, of course but really can people not appreciate what they are getting and just let it happen? I'm pretty sure Obsidian could have picked up another game from a publisher instead of doing PE, it might not have been what they wanted to do, it might have restrictions and deadlines they just have to live with but it would probably be as profitable as PE, if not more. I want PE, but I want the best version of it I can get on release day. I can only play this game once for the first time, I want that BG experience back, I can wait for it.

I don't know about other folks but I always did the upper levels of Durlags Tower as soon as I possibly could, the tomes, the weapons, the XP! It was a magical place! Of course the process of learning just what you needed to have to get in and out in a reasonable time involved a lot of dying practice. Anyway I much prefer Durlags Tower over Watchers Keep. Maybe it was just that I was much lower level and the risk made for a more exciting adventure.

There will be an Adventurers Hall in the game where you can create your own party members. It won't be available at your own character creation but should be fairly early in the game, probably in one of the first towns or cities you go to. I doubt it will be more than 30 minutes or an hour into the game or all that will happen is someone will mod a shortcut to it. Obsidian know what they are doing, at least it is being kind of incorporated into the lore of the game, a bit more immersive than just rolling multiple characters before you press Play.

I'd rather see a new IP, one not rolled out as a "spiritual successor" to anything else. I think we'd see far more from Obsidian with that than if they try to do another "same but not the same" project like PE.

I'd guess that at the price of $20 we are more likely to see something between Heart of Winter and Tales of the Sword Coast. Maybe a dozen areas altogether with a decent background story for the various locations. Not just some random wilderness thrown in to make the world bigger. Tales of the Sword Coast brought both Durlags Tower and Baldurans Isle (werewolf island) to the game, tied loosely together by Ulgoths Beard. I'd pay $20 for that.

Sorry but I'd laugh if they put numbers only in for health and stamina. Numbers would not serve the purpose that the bars or overlay does. With a bar or overlay, and I'd even go as far as to say overlay (blood on the portrait) is actually more intuitive, the purpose they are designed is to give you an easy peripheral indication of current health levels, if you want exact numbers you mouse over. You can see someones health go down much easier via a bar or overlay than you can by a number without taking your focus off what you are doing, that is the purpose of them in the first place. This is why the majority of games use bars and overlays and not just numbers. The number obviously gives you exact information but it isn't the most intuitive thing to use. In BG I could see the current health levels of my whole team out of the corner of my eye without ever taking my focus off the combat. If all the portraits had numbers on them I'd be constantly switching back and forth between looking at combat, the numbers (and separately for each character). It would be a terrible design decision to only use numbers.

Opinions vary, I prefer that over the blue and red bar any day of the week. Fortunately for most people neither you nor I are in charge of development.

Personally I prefer my dungeons to be in wilderness areas...like Firewine or Cloakwood. Wilderness areas do not necessarily have to be just a field with some trees and a river running through it. For example the journey to Durlags Tower and the outside area to enter it are half of what makes it awesome, I felt Watchers Keep was a loot piñata in comparison.

Aren't you going to frame your shirt and hang it on the wall?

It could work for both even on the same portrait, blue for stamina, red for health or pick a colour set. The stamina is really only going to be seen in combat because it refills fairly quickly outside combat so displaying it as an additional overlay should not be hard for people to grasp. Personally I'd prefer the portrait covered in blood to the little red and blue bars that to me just look really dated to be honest. They could even put a border around the stamina / health to further visually separate them. This would be a really easy thing for them to do, all it is really is the existing blue and red bars, stretched over the portrait with some transparency value.

Sometimes I wonder if getting the game "on time" is a good thing, it doesn't guarantee quality just because it gets released on schedule (we've all seen that with any number of games from various developers). Isn't half of the benefit of no publisher that the developer doesn't have someone standing over them telling them to release now or no monies? I think most people here would be happy for Obsidian to polish the game to the level of something they considered acceptable even if it meant delaying a few months. We could get more areas, more NPC's AND an even more polished game BECAUSE the game is delayed with added stretch goals (as far as I was aware the idea was for these stretch goals not to greatly impact the release anyway, extra money means extra resources not just more time tacked on so people already on the project can add stuff to the end of their list of things to do). Of course what will happen will be that people will blame the stretch goals for the delays, then blame Obsidian for the stretch goals, then blame each other for wanting more, then blame themselves for pledging, then whine about it incessantly on the forums. I've waited 10 years for something like the old IE games to come along, a delay of 2, 3 or 6 months is not going to cause me to go into whine mode and cry like a baby all over the internet. I want a good game, I'm willing to wait for it, stretch goals or not.

I seem to be missing my K too. Have completed the pledge management process.

This is exactly what InXile did. Think about it. At a certain stage of production on a project some of your team is no longer required, concept artists, some of the designers etc. People roll off projects at various stages of every development. InXile opened up their Torment kickstarter once they had reached a certain stage of their Wasteland 2 development so as not to waste their staff or have to let people with experience go, especially maybe some of the contractors they might have brought on board in the early stages. This is what Obsidian are probably thinking now, they need to start thinking about what the guys rolling off PE will be doing...if not just being let go out of the company or sitting on their asses doing nothing (and costing money). Another KS is not going to detract from PE, it could possibly leverage the work done so far on PE and keep quality people at the company. I'm interested in hearing what it will be if nothing else, I have zero fear of it detracting from PE development.

It probably would have been a good idea for them to just copy paste from the tumblr for the Backer site, it seems they are working off a list of items that is from Day1 of the KS campaign and is missing a number of items in quite a few tiers.

I'm even more convinced now that we need those extra wilderness areas. After JE's comment in one of the interviews about aiming for a size between BG2 and BG1 I'm stoked for that. BG1 had a lot of fluff wilderness areas but without those areas in the early game the game would not have been half as good in my opinion. Once you got through Cloakwood and into BG city most of the areas were plot relevant. That was one of the things I missed in BG2. Irenicus dungeon felt really cramped and just got worse with each succesive playthrough, requiring a mod to skip it because it was so long and repetitive. Athkatla gave you a lot of options once you were outside even if they were mostly restricted to the city. I would have liked a few more wilderness areas in BG2 around the city and Trademeet. One of the interviews also said the mega dungeon would be the kind of place we would have to visit and leave and come back to simply because of the scale of difficulty over several levels. What I wouldn't like is to have to go back out and do half of the main story to level up and then backtrack (sidetrack) to the mega dungeon for some more levels, I'd rather have random wilderness or other minor dungeons to do instead. Maybe its just me but that would make the world so much bigger rather than feeling like being forced forward and then back in order to see the whole of the dungeon. I'm loathe to mention DAO here but when I played that I always felt it could have been 100 times better if there was more random adventuring to do, a lot of that came in DLC but by then for me it was way to late. The lack of choices in that regard really hurt the replayability of that game for me. If with the options of different origins once you were past that and out into the world it was pretty much the same. Add a half dozen wilderness areas to DAO and for me it would be a very different game (better).

I think the Badges on the forum could be a bit smaller, if they could make them about a third the size of the portrait and arrange them horizontally side by side then we could get 3 badges under Location without widening that column and also leave room for future badges on a second row. I copied out the list of items listed as part of the $250 tier and compared them to the list of items shown in the image of the $250 tier rewards at the bottom of the main KS page, here ae the things I couldn't match up: The Backer Site lists Cloth patch and Elite cloth patch / the KS page lists only Cloth patch (bonus?) The Backer Site lists Printed Collectors book / the KS page says Hardcover collectors book (small difference, important to some) The Backer Site lists: Digital Game Map. Digital Concept Art, Wallpapers and Ringtones / i assume these are part of the KS listed Digital Fun pack? What is not listed on the Backer Site but is listed as part of the $250 tier on KS are the following: Wasteland 2 Digital Download Thank You postcard KS In game Item Digital Fun pack (see above) Collectors Hardcover (see above) Cooking with Tim (digital recipes?) Expansion Digital Download Digital Strategy Guide Campaign Almanac I'd advise anyone with time and the other tiers to go to the Backer site, copy out the list of items in their tier (https://eternity.obsidian.net/backer/tiers) and then go to the KS page an scroll down to the images of what is in each tier (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity). Compare the two and list any differences.

I think the stretch goals they have listed are actually well thought out ones. The wilderness areas especially can be farmed out to some of those external people mentioned before, they would just make the world larger. NPC's are more complicated as they require much more integration with the entire game. Anyhow I think more cash to Obsidian should be a good thing, after all they probably didn't need to do a KS project, they could have just picked up some random game from a publisher. If more money into PE means they really consider this as a good long term investment for the company, we all win.

I agree with Boox. Also when developers try to use facial expressions they usually get half of it wrong and end up conveying some creepy looking leer rather than a smile or a wink. That whole Uncanny valley thing going on. If you can use your imagination then immersion isn't about better graphics, it's about good storytelling.

Deep breath, enjoy the holidays and look forward to updates whenever they come. I'd much rather have a polished update that has gone through a few revisions rather than just get some stuff rushed out the door to meet a schedule. Isn't that one of the reasons people like this no publisher thing? Instead of publishers pushing for updates and for deadlines to be met it's backers? @C2B; don't you feel like you are over reacting a bit?

Choice. In BG1 and 2 I always felt I was making choices. Party composition, which quest lines to pursue first , being nice or being bad etc. In other supposed RPG's since I've kind of felt railroaded down a specific path with regard to one thing or another. I'd like some freedom back to actually RP the G.

The current look is perfectly fine for a troll, it is actually better if things don't look like other games trolls. All I ask is that I can see the creature. Hunched over with head down is not a good angle for an isometric view. I understand many of the creatures in IE games were like that but it could be better (can anyone honestly say they know what an Umberhulk face looks like from IWD?). The picture on the previous page of the troll from Snow White and the Huntsman is actually a decent representation of what I'd like to see though obviously the size is a bit big. If you viewed that head from an isometric angle above you'd get a decent view of the creature. Current PE trolls seem a bit camera shy. Anyway I can live with it and appreciate the new artwork rather than having creatures plucked straight out of DnD.

There is human hunching and then there is troll hunching. Bend the legs a bit more and the spine would be straighter with the face more horizontal than pointing downwards. Trolls should be looking at each other rather than the ground. I guess you could say it gives a better view of their prey which is usually smaller than them but it is a game after all and I'd prefer to see the monster than have it staring at the ground where I only see half its face or the back of its head. Opinions may vary. Humans are fine, we usually end up staring at the back of our parties heads for most of the game anyway...why we have portraits I guess.