Leferd

It's pretty shady though, and underhanded. In essence using a proxy to fund the games they want to publish at zero to little cost to themselves and reaping the benefits while taking advantage of the actual developer.

And here I thought I was somewhat indirectly protecting Electronic Art's honor... it's Interplay dammit! Lolz.

Sure. It's conjecture on my part, but the pieces seem to fit. It is a fact that Interplay has attempted to run a kickstarter campaign via proxy. It is a fact that an unnamed publisher has contacted Obsidian to run a kickstarter campaign as their proxy.

Remember this quote about a month back? “We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter,” Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart revealed in a Q&A on the Project Eternity Kickstarter page. “I said to them ‘So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for, using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don’t get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits.’ They said, ‘Yes’.” So there was a lot of speculation on who this mysterious publisher was. Lots of talk about EA, Activision, Bethesda, Take Two. etc.,... Now what really struck me about that quote was the incompetence behind it. Not on Uncle Feargus' part. But from this alleged publisher. Can't be any of the big players. For all their faults, none of them would steep this low, and would be so delusional, so clueless. So who could it be? My first obvious guess was...Interplay! Afterall, they are barely hanging on by a thread. They have tendencies of incompetence. They are trying to hold on to their past legacies. They are run by Herve Caen. They are attempting to bring back Black Isle Studios. So I checked them out. Lo and behold: http://interplay.com/games/battlechess.php The smoking gun: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1354795482/battle-chess?ref=live You see...this makes sense from them. In fact, it's a SLAM DUNK. They want to bring back Black Isle. What bigger PR impact can they have then to say they are collaborating with the folks who were the former Black Isle? Have Obsidian run a Kickstarter campaign, and we'll take in the profits, IP, and publish the game, with little or no cost to -ourselves since it will be crowd funded. A win-win SLAM DUNK! Quote from Interplay's website: What do Bioware, Blizzard, High Voltage, Planet Moon, Shiny, Snowblind, Treyarch and Volition have in common? They were all once published by Interplay! If you have developed a game, Interplay is interested in becoming your publisher. Click here for submission details. http://interplay.com/games/submission.php Lolz.

Maybe a brawling or fighting pit mini-game, but not anything too intensive that it would take away resources from core gameplay.

Another thing that needs to factor in is whether Obsidian will go the route of the Screen Actors Guild.

I think it's a good assumption to make. But then again, during K2's development, we saw images of Atris dueling with Darth Nihlus, and many assumed that she was going to be the Bastila of our party.

Therein lies the rub. Strong gameplay and strong writing in rpgs shouldn't be mutually exclusive. The original Fallouts and Infinity Engine games had strong elements of both. The dichotomy has shifted with modern RPGs in which presentation has trumped solid tactical gameplay, in favor of cinematic, and watered down tactics -posing as gameplay. The writing remains strong, but actual gameplay has suffered as a result.

I actually list VtMB as one of my all time favorites. The RPG mechanics were superior in that game, but combat was pretty weak. I liked the improvements of NV over FO3, but I just couldn't get past the game design elements already embedded by Bethesda. I hated the user interface. I hated the perspective. Faults of Bethesda, not Obsidian.

Question for the writing preference folks, I'm not sure why you are more excited about this game than other Obsidian/Bio games? Is it guaranteed that the writing will be improved over their past games? I expect it to be roughly the same as any other Josh Sawyer, Tim Cain, Chris Avellone, George Ziets game. It's not the writing that is the problem from Obsidiand and Bio. The focus for PE lies in bringing back the hardcore rpg elements, tactical combat, and superior user interface of The Infinity Engine, and modernizing it. I'm hooked by the promise of gameplay reminiscent of the classics.

The rpg mechanics in ME2 was inferior to ME, but the combat was definitely a huge improvement. I haven't gotten very far in ME3 yet, so can't comment on it. I agree with the sentiment that gameplay is more important than story as far as gameplaying is concerned, but a great story will take the game to the next level. However, my point is that, I think what got us really excited about PE is because of the promise of gameplay similar to that of the IE games. Most of us trust Obsidian, or even Bioware to deliver strong writing, but lately, it is the lack of strong gameplay, and tactical combat, that has us waxing nostalgia over the good old days of IE.

The documentary better show footage of Ron Pearlman recording lines while a drunk Avellone directs him.

Kuroiryuu, what are some examples of "modern" RPGs with great gameplay? Kotor Kotor2 VtM:B Mass Effect Alpha Protocol New Vegas NWN2 HotU Dragon Age MotB The above games had good stories but subpar gameplay. What are some examples of the inverse?

Longshot but what the hell: Ron Pearlman.

Gameplay. As much as I loved these games' story and characters, I couldn't finish New Vegas or MotB. NWN and FO3 were dreadful on both counts as well. There are some exceptions to that of course. PS:T being notable in that though the combat was relatively weak, the story was so amazing, it trumped any deficiencies it had. Plus, it was an IE game, so overall, the gameplay wasn't that bad.

Hmmm...a female Aumua Rogue probably won't fit the most orthodox of archetypes.

Didn't Obsidian purchase the art assets of IWD? Couldn't they conceivably make these available for use in PE?

No.

Sorcerer's Place is pretty old school. Used to go there back in the day when playing The BGs for tips. Nice That they are continuing the tradition.

Hungry Self Eater, that's way too extreme. You should get yourself checked out. Simple phone call to the lawyer you have on retainer should suffice. Sue them for $4.1 million for emotional duress.

US treasury Agents have been working with/ negotiating with Swiss Banks on these secret accounts. I feel so betrayed. They'll catch 'em! That'll teach Feargus though. It's not the Slam Dunk swindling scheme he thought it'd be.

Thieving Ne'er-do-well. A Rake.

Sawyer's always been pretty forthcoming and an active participant in the forums, going back to the BIS days. I'd expect we'd see him more often as development plods along. MCA was relatively active during and after K2. I'd prefer this kind of interaction as opposed to posted updates, though these are good too. Hopefully, the dev post function makes a return.

I doubt they are going to move away from the interface mechanics found in the IE games. Plus quite a few Total War fans in the development team.

Wow. You can't really get any more divergent within the non-action rpg genre than that...