Rostere

And you're confirming the silliest prejudices against nationalists. "United"? "powerful"? At what cost to our intellectual integrity? What ultimately caused the war was the raw deal given to Germany when WW1 ended. A democratic, prosperous Germany would be in the best interest of the victors, instead they just left Germany to rot - and look what happened. For how to really conclude a peace, see the Marshall Plan. Japan was it's own separate story, and Italy was just a rowboat towing behind the cruiser Germany. Just look at demographics. In Sweden, nationalism is overwhelmingly found among the unemployed. As the EU crisis has worsened, so has nationalism grown. The more miserable, scared people there are, the more the nationalists get, because they're the same crowd. Is it a coincidence that the two advocates of nationalism in this topic are both from Russia, while it's detractors are from prosperous and modern countries? I think not They're just shades of the same idea. There is no constructive nationalism, only more or less destructive nationalism. Take football hooliganism for example - essentially the same phenomenon as nationalism. Take a few miserable people with inferiority complexes and group them together at a football stadium, and there you got it, it works exactly the same as nationalism. They will find out that they come from different places and then they will (of course) cheer for different teams (why exactly it is so important to football supporters that "their" team wins, even though they stand to gain/lose nothing from it, I don't know). Eventually (if they are miserable enough), they are going to fight with each other, because nationalists always do. Now, some people like to go to football games to cheer for their team and don't fight with other supporters, some people like to wave their flag on national holidays without thinking a second about the deeper meaning of that, these are small indulgences we can afford. Teaming up with other people is after all a human instinct, even if the criteria for the team are superficial and illogical. It is however important for us to understand that nationalism is fundamentally an instinct that is a limit to peace, understanding and social advancement. Just like the colours on the shirts of the football teams is the only thing that separates them, so are the colours of our skin and our looks and superficial customs the only thing that separates different nations. Sure, some nations have more primitive cultures than others - but tribal, corrupt and/or authoritiarian societies will over time inevitably become liberal democracies, as the people are empowered and gain access to knowledge. No nation has any meaning in itself, the only thing that has any meaning whatsoever is our moral differences. To try to construct any other barriers is an offence to our intellectual integrity. Let everyone judge each other solely on their moral convictions and realize that any other artificial or imagined differences are just illusions conjured by miserable and scared people who are afraid to be judged in the same way as the rest of the world.

Nationalism is an illness that comes to sick societies. Whenever people feel the need to blame someone, or feel shame because of how they compare to other nations, nationalism appears. Nationalism is an easy way to create a false sense of pride for people with an inferiority complex.

This.

Truly one of the mysteries of the world...

you have no clue how business works, do you? they're digitally sending review samples all around the world so (online) game mags can score what they've done, not talking about buzz marketing. if there are no proper translations this will eventually result in worse sales numbers. we are talking about a text heavy game with tons of stuff to read and the majority of people, whose mother tongue ain't english, simply won't buy such a product because they would feel uncomfortable. you can't deny this... and it would be suicide to ignore those markets. while gog.com only offers just a few games with native language support, steam offers even translated clients and easy to use language switching. btw the only thing you do is ranting about localization without using arguments. why this hatred? if it's a stretched goal this won't burn budget which could have used somewhere else. if they don't reach the goal, fine - if they do, even better. As I would have preferred it, localization would be made possible through officially sanctioned fan translations. Also, we're talking about an indie game project. I'm not so sure who's going to write about it. Besides, my guess is that the sales after the release will only be an afterthought to the amount of money gained though Kickstarter. How are they supposed to buy the game if they don't know English? Essentially, we're only talking about translations for whoever would buy the game from Steam. Unless we have solid evidence of there being a demand for the game from people who don't know English (and therefore, can't use Kickstarter or post on these boards) I can't say translations would be worth the investment. So far, I've seen zero (0) interviews with any of the Obsidian team from non- English gaming sites or magazines regarding Project Eternity. As far as I know, the hype for this game is zero outside the English web. Are you sure you know how stretch goals work? Most of the people pledging money are probably not even looking at the stretch goals. Adding translations as a stretch goal would neccesarily deprive other areas of resources and there is no way to check which amount of money was actually "earmarked" towards translations - unless you make a new Kickstarter project. Just look at this topic: http://wasteland.inx...22a157e377b2c9. Why should Obsidian devote money towards translating the game when us fans can do it just as well? EDIT: Yeah OK, so there are some articles. Sorry! But most arguments for translations are still along the lines of "it would be suicide to ignore the market of Taiwan" and do not talk about how this would immidiately raise funds for the Kickstarter. Why not crowdsource the translations? I agree that playing a text- heavy game and posting on a forum requires different levels of English competency, however I believe those levels are closer to each other than you think. The Paypal option is by far superior to most people in Europe, but where I live, the conversion rates are not that horrible.

You guys need to think about how this game is sold. If we were talking about an AAA game that's sold on the shelves of stores, you would have gained from localizations of the game. This game is being distributed through gog.com and through Steam. gog.com, probably the preferred supplier of these two, usually only offers their games in English. If you don't know one iota of English you won't even know about the game. This is NOT some AAA game release which can afford marketing in several languages. Take a good long look at the "Where is everyone from?" poll. It's obvious that non- English speakers are a negligible force on the Internet. Non- English speakers will probably read their gaming magazines and look at the shelves in their stores, and they won't ever even hear about Project Eternity. Why should the game then be translated?

If they can't even navigate this forum, how are they supposed to use Kickstarter? How are they supposed to know about it?

I'm all for this. Use the enthusiasm created by the game to contract some free translators from the fan audience.

why should they come here and complain about a game they have no interest right now because there's no stretch goal advertising these features? and as i said before they want this game to become a huge success, which will be difficult if there're none other languages supported. they don't have to record the lines, just translate the text. nobody is able to foresee the impact on the pledging rates but this will eventually help to advertise it later on. Because they are interested in the game? If I only knew Spanish and had played the IE games and Obsidian's earlier titles in Spanish, I would come here and be angry that the game would not be available in Spanish so that I could play it. I don't think the Kickstarter is directed at people whose primary criterion for choosing games is the language the games is in, as opposed to the game itself, which seems to be what you're implying.

Let's just all hope Project Eternity turns out so well we'd rather have a sequel to it than Arcanum 2. For this to be, I think Obsidian will really have to nail the game world correctly. Arcanum felt like a dynamic, living world and the many issues we were confronted with in the game, we could easily relate to issues during comparable time periods of our own history. Giving all the traditional fantasy races a sensible place in this was the crowning achievement. I've yet to play a game with a world that felt so "mature" and thought out as Arcanum. I hope Obsidian can replicate this, even though the time period is a slightly different one and this game has a slightly more pronounced focus on theology/ metaphysics (taking that cue from Torment).

it doesn't matter how you feel about that but like drm, mac and linux support there're lots of people out the not willing to support a fan funded game without localization. a toolset also helps to increase pledges because it sends the signal that there will be mods in the future which increase replayability and the possibility to change the game to your liking. you should also not underestimate the fact that all these features help obsidian to sell their game after release. in the end they want to score a hit with this crpg and establish their ip. Yes, but where are they now? If they can't find their way to this board to complain I doubt they will be able to use Kickstarter. I've nothing against a toolset however and even as I hate the Mac, I think it might be a sensible goal to have the game released on that platform.

Blizzard/Acti. Oh, I hear Boyarsky was working there on a new unannounced game

Yes, but most people know English anyway. Maybe if the target audience of the game was 10- year olds who have yet to learn a second language, then yes, translations would be appropriate. Maybe Obsidian could look at making a Spanish translation, considering how few posters there seems to be from Latin America. On the other hand, I am all for Obsidian making it easier for fans to translate the game (DO YOU HEAR THAT, DEVS?) Maybe they could even collaborate with fans to make translations of the game before release.

Cowmeat.

What the title says. When do I get to decorate my desktop with Project Eternity goodness?

I like the FR approach to gods. Also, I think gods should be mysterious and even if the greater part of the population believes in them I would like there to be some room for exploration - that it's not just possible to see a list of deities in the world in, say, character creation and then that's it, you know it all. There should be lesser deities, dead deities, "lost" or "sleeping" deities, deities only known in certain geographical regions, and so on.

LOL, please include a cat! The internets will go crazy. And also, yeah, Visas Marr was a great character.

Technically it only means that the self-selected demographic of people answering a poll on Obsidian's forum (which may or may not be representative of the donor base) are largely from Europe. However, given what I've heard about the gaming market in Central and Eastern Europe, it would not surprise me in the least to learn that the poll reflects the actual demographics of Obsidian's fan base. Which makes the importance of greenlighting a German, Polish, or Russian translation of the game more obvious. I don't know. English is not my native language and I would feel insulted by a translation into my own language. Maybe they should consider a Spanish translation though, given the complete absence of Southern American backers...

I want an animal as a companion. Preferrably an intelligent talking pack mule. EDIT: Or maybe a cow. A mighty warrior reincarnated in the form of a cow!

That's funny, the large majority of Obsidian's target group (per definition, since Kickstarter) of the game are from Europe, not from the US. Also, what the **** happened to South America?

If only... But I suppose it's close enough. Especially after we get Leonard Boyarsky doing part- time work on the project (OK, just my imagination there ).

I think it's a great idea to make NPCs truly unique. If NPCs are exactly the same as a player- generated character, this will destroy replayability. I would give all NPCs modified classes not available to the player.

I agree with that there should be more consequences for stealing. When you choose to kill certain people this can sometimes have profound consequences on the game, however when you steal something nothing will happen. There should always be bad consequences for these kinds of actions.

To maintain power? Power from/ over what? How? Over the people. They are probably either powered by faith (like in Discworld) or just powerful who are very mortal and need followers because of their limitations. So, somehow they can gain power (probably indirectly) through the "prejudices of their followers". The question also is whether or not they need their followers for exerting mundane influence. If they need power then they probably also have an agenda regarding the use of that power. The most obvious way I see this making sense, is that they gain power through their followers' souls somehow, and that they need this power for some higher purpose not obvious to mortals.

So basically a witch hunter. My name is Matthew Hopkins...