Merin

Nope - I said if a Kickstarter project's funding goals is met, it's a success. You listed someone who didn't ask for their full goal, exceeded what they thought they needed, and still failed to have what they ended up really needing, as some kind of counter-example. Your counter-example was someone who 1 - asked for less, as I stated, and 2 - misjudged what they needed. I got your point - and I countered your point by saying that Obsidian DID ask for full funding and should know what they need, if anyone CAN, barring unforeseen circumstances. Again, got the point - and you're point (not all Kickstarters ask for full funding, and sometimes even going over isn't enough) is irrelevant. Obsidian asked for what they needed. So did Double Fine, DoubleBear, inXile, Harebrained Schemes... Other people don't. Some campaigns already have a product and just look to raise money for marketing, advertising. A few try to use Kickstarter as a scam. These are all irrelevant to Obsidian's campaign. And this is where you are just flat wrong - like those other game companies I listed, they explicitly state that they are asking for the amount they need to do their game from scratch - If you need more evidence, their stretch goals are ADDING CONTENT... they aren't saying stuff like "well, we asked for a million, but really need twelve, and each later tier of the stretch goals is that much less we have to raise elsewhere. They don't have an elsewhere - You're examples are of other projects, projects where they state they didn't ask for the full amount.

If games even included manuals worth reading anymore... I still think an optional, separate item on the start menu tutorial is good even with having read the manual... it's a sandbox to get used to controls, hot keys, etc, before diving in... and letting you focus on gameplay and story, not controls and game mechanics.

Hi, I'm Merin. I don't know if you saw my post in the "how old are you" thread, but my ten (twelve) favorite cRPGs didn't include PS:T or Baldur's Gate. Those are both games I never finished. Or the game hooks thread, where I list Icewind Dale, the Fallouts and Arcanum. One that someone else here did mention that I loved - the Bard's Tale remake. Not so much for mediocre gameplay, but because the whole game was a big satire on "the Chosen One" trope.

Come now thats a bit dramatic and exaggerated? BSN also has thousands of people who don't talk about Romance\Sex and contribute constructively towards threads It's a common slur. I won't hide that I've been a member of the BSN for years (since DA:O more or less forced you to join) but I will point out that the people I've friended over there and the conversations and threads I pay attention to almost never have anything to do with romance. There's quite the Project Eternity support over there, and some not-so-gentle rubbing-in-the-face of Eternity's success so far to BioWare. Mock the people who say BioWare can do no wrong ever all you want - apologists fo that extreme devotion can do with a little ribbing. I know I'm biting back snide comments at all the Planescape: Torment worship, too. Here are some very active threads over there as well, to counter someone else's cherry picking - Top 5 things you would like to see in DA3 Inquisition ? (yes, there are people clamoring for romance stuff in here - and many more who's lists don't mention it) Remove conversation icons (strong dislike of paraphrasing is a common complaint amongst many members) Dragon Age III Multiplayer (disdain for inclusion of multi-player is a common complaint amongst many members) Alternative to the Day One DLC Model (BioWare forum goers dislike Day One DLC as much as anyone) What class of character do you plan to play in DA3? (just a discussion on which classes people expect to play in DA3) What could Loghain's role be in Dragon Age 3? (controversial thread as Loghain has many "haters" - though, personally, I love to hate him so...) Put more effort in the ending(s), please (there's no shortage of disappointed (or worse) fans to DA2 and ME3 on BSN) Dynamic Quests (Example- The DAO Quest "Captured!") (this thread is about asking for more quests like the mentioned one, which was GREAT) There. And instead of going three pages deep, those are all page one DA3 conversations. You could also jump over to BioWare General, where it's Off Topic board, alone, has more threads and posts than all of Obsidian's forums combined. And, you know, good luck finding threads about romance in games in Off Topic. Seriously - there IS a lot more to BSN than whining for more romances. Do you find more of it there than other forums? Sure, because BioWare games have more romance than most other game companies. But it's a small percentage of what is discussed.

Many Kickstarter'd games weren't even going to offer boxed versions to save on cost, but there was enough of a groundswell from donators for a reward tier with a boxed version as an option that most changed their mind (some after pretty strongly arguing against a boxed version as being too costly.) Obsidian likely did it's research and knew it'd be a popular reward tier and a good way to raise additional funds (as long as the tier with the physical rewards was significantly large enough of a donation.)

I was tired of "Chosen Ones" back when the Matrix hit theaters. Before that I was indifferent to them. If I'm the guy who wants to make my party of adventurers to control, clearly I'm not projecting myself into one role. And, clearly, I'm not looking to play "the most important person in the universe." Add to this that I personally dislike stories that rely on "prophecy" or "fate" or "destiny"... Well, you can guess my vote at this point.

This is not true. From Nataly Dawn's Blog: Now you may say 'This is a professional games studio, not some flakey indie singer' but the point is: Obsidian may have made a number of reasonable assumptions demanding additional scale. No, what I'll say is - 1 - He set his goal at 20k even though he admits he wouldn't be able to do it without at least 80k. 2 - Turns out he was wrong how much he needed There are plenty of stories of people/businesses doing Kickstarters and not having the money they thought they would... especially those who set up too many physical rewards to have to give out. This is a bunch of game developers with a lot of experience, included in that experience is what their game budgets cost. Unforeseen expenses and delays could happen, yes. But, all things being equal, their KS funds will cover all costs of production. And those costs = all materials paid for, all the people working on the project paid their salary. If the game sells ZERO COPIES, they worked on a game that (hopefully) they are proud of and were paid for their work - as long as the donators are happy, Obsidian could do another Kickstarter, raise the money for another game, rinse and repeat. I'm not in the business, but I would bet good money that a one month KS campaign is far quicker and easier than trying to get money from publishers - ask Brian Fargo if you don't believe me. The reality is that the game WILL sell copies beyond the roughly 40,000 backer's "already paid for" ones. The game is targetting a very niche market, so I'd probably say it would sell (absolutely pulling a number out of almost thin air here) 70-100,000 copies, with MAYBE a ceiling of 250,000 copies. But I'd say the safe bet is like 100,000 copies sold post KS. If all those sales are digital (yes, they almost certainly will be), most of that money goes right back to Obsidian. Even at 70,000 copies that all but pure profit. --- Your example is merely a cautionary tale for those looking to do a KS campaign with little to no business experience. It's important to note, but not really relevant.

We have different definitions of "boring" - slaughtering people does't entertain me.

NWN 2 and KotOR both had great investigative sequences as well. I'm all for them.

It really depends on what the system and game mechanics are... but on a much more simplified, broader level, I'll try and list the "classes" I would like to see. There's a lot of stuff I'd like to see tossed aside and have them build up some more interesting alternatives. For one - get ready to hate me, 3E D&D fans - I want no multi-classing and no prestige classes. Make each class, by itself, worth taking and worth following through. Also, since it's a more limited budget and scope - don't take the time needed to balance multi-classing. For two, continuing the previous thought, make each class it's own interesting and unique thing. Don't make mushy classes that are just kind of mixes of each other. Fighter, fighter/cleric, cleric, cleric/mage, mage, mage/thief... yeah, none of that. A good way to start would be to make at least some of the classes race, and more specifically, culture based. Like that dwarf ranger being based in the region she's from. Oh, wait, ranger... right... I'm fighting a losing battle here... I guess those are the broad strokes. I'm hesitant to even go down a path of "what I'd like to see" more specifically simply because I've no idea what the overall world and game mechanics and story are. I guess, what we know about souls, I'd wager that "soul" will be some kind of measure of options. A resource or meter. So spells will drain it, perhaps, or all characters will get supernatural things they can do. How much that shapes classes, I cannot guess. Clearly they will have the archetypes (again, we've been shown a ranger - of course, that term can just be a descriptive and not a class but still) so we can expect at least a fighter type, a mage type, and a rogue type. Whether there's an actual "cleric" class depends so much on how magic and gods work in the world. Almost as certain is that any more classes you have will be variations on those three types. Beyond that... without more information, I refuse to even try and wish.

People need to understand - If a Kickstarter campaign succeeds, the project is already funded. The only "failure" would be in the devs not finishing the game. Possibly a lesser success would be going over budget. But everyone is paid once the Kickstarter is successful, and there are no investors to pay back. Every game sold after the game is finished is pretty much pure profit. So everyone worried about needing more funding, or Obsidian having to pay their staff, etc. It's covered. As for advertising and marketing... if they were doing their budgeting properly, that was also figured into their goals. AND once they are successful they get pretty much free publicity that the press will give for them succeeded - both at the end of the campaign, and on release of the game. --- Kicking it Forward is voluntary. It's an "on your honor" system. Everyone talking about "guilt" or "required" needs to take a deep breath and ask themselves if they felt "guilted" or "required" to donate to Obsidian's Kickstarter just because they were fans of Obsidian? It's not a perfect analogy, but still. No one is saying they HAVE TO. Some of us think it would be a good idea if they decided to.

Clearly I like it if it's my idea. In fact, the more I've thought about it the more I think things should be broken down even more... but, again, the focus of this is a possibility to address concerns others have. I like the idea of having a skill monkey who barely know which end of the dagger to hold, or a mage who is more sage than battle wizard and is great for lighting up rooms or holding doors shut but is lucky if he can adequately distract an opponent in a scuffle with some confusing sounds. Especially with a party. Especially with a party of NPC, fleshed out companions who might notice how not combat-ready you are and will, in dialog and such, act more protective (or, in some cases, judgmental) of you. Digression aside - I can't imagine that Obsidian won't do some kind of perks / backgrounds / traits system. For their more original worlds / games (those not heavily based on existing systems, like D&D or WoD) it is kind of a staple. And you've had this kind of character tweaking specifically in Fallout... but what I'm suggesting here is both more broadly assigned to all characters as well as more specific on shaping the kind of character you want to make. Honestly, you can make a skill-oriented fighter. It means that, in combat, you uses armor and swords but that, overall, you're more focused on, say, diplomacy, noticing details and maybe repairing arms and armor. If you just step outside of the box, separate combt from non-combat... and then understand a class like fighter or mage as "this is how I handle things in combat" as opposed to "this is how I solve ALL my problems (with a sword or spell, as the case may be)" then I think you begin to get the idea.

I'm for romances if the designers want to include them in their story. I'm NOT for them as a stretch goal. Adding a race or class, alright, that has some affect on story and design, but existing characters and such just need to be adjusted a little. If they have 6 companions already and suddenly feel, despite not writing in romance initially, that they need to shoe horn it in because of donator demand... stuff has to be re-written and original concepts need to be changed and suddenly you worry about each group being represented and.... ramble off. I'm for well written romances. I'm even for PC / NPC interactions (yes, these are different things.) But if the devs aren't wanting to include this in the story they are telling, they should stick to their guns. That said, if they are wabbling and still in the early draft of characters - I'm voting for romance. Of course, Obsidian's record for romances tends to tilt heavily in the prostitution direction... as in they have lots of prostitutes in their games!

Not that reviews matter much, but just for the record - Metacritic: PC Critics - 72, Users - 7.5 Not steller, but not "bombing hard." Bombing hard would be closer to at least Game of Thrones Genesis if not Postal III. Those games bombed hard. It would be more accurate that Alpha Protocol garnered a mixed reception, the median opinions being that it did some things great and some things not well enough for a decent game overall. Given that in modern gaming press 10 means excellent, 9.5 means good, 9 means OK and 8 means that the bribe money got lost in the mail, 7 is pretty bad. In the same way that getting a C on an assignment is bad. If you're a straight A student, or have jerks for parents, that C can be nasty. But you passed. And the 72 or 7 is an average... meaning there are 90's and 9's in there as well as 1 42 and about 43 below 5's. Another way to look at those scores - users were 233 positive, 17 mixed, 43 negative. That's pretty good as far as I'm concerned for "people generally liked the game." Far cry from "no one cared."

Thanks for the shout-out. I tried purposefully to NOT define how those points would be attributed, or even hazard a guess at what Obsidian is going to (or could) chose to do about levels, classes, etc... trying to only focus on the combat / non-combat breakdown of distributed resources for character creation and development. That other stuff is interesting and important too, but I was going for a narrower point. Maybe too narrow? I dunno.

Not that reviews matter much, but just for the record - Metacritic: PC Critics - 72, Users - 7.5 Not steller, but not "bombing hard." Bombing hard would be closer to at least Game of Thrones Genesis if not Postal III. Those games bombed hard. It would be more accurate that Alpha Protocol garnered a mixed reception, the median opinions being that it did some things great and some things not well enough for a decent game overall.

Meh. I thought like that before, but people made me realize she watched over him for twenty damn years at least, and since he was a child to boot. It's on obsession territory, and therefore, it's "stalkerish", on the unhealthy kind. The stalker problem comes from obsession and intent. If simply watching others without their knowledge or permission is considered stalking, you'd find a healthy chunk of the populace as stalkers. There's a line. Elanee, as far as I'm concerned, wasn't even close. Course, I am biased in this situation. I'll just say Mason and see if anyone knows what I mean. I cannot speak for others, but I thought all the characters in AP were great... and I loved Mina, Scarlett, Sis and, yes, even SIE. I'm hard pressed to think of a BAD character from AP, personally.

If there was one thing I didn't like about Bard's Tale and the SSI games was the moving in first person. So I would prefer not. As others have said, it's largely a moot point for Project Eternity anyway.

Yes, a public thanks! Thank you!

There are at least three other threads on this. Just saying. Voted anyway. My preferred option is being able to create my own party.

Obsidian has said that they are going to separate out combat and non-combat skills, so that the same resources are not spent on both. This has lead to some cheering... ...as well as some concern. The concern seems to chiefly come from those people who, at first glance, you would assume would be happy about non-combat skills getting to not be overshadowed by combat skills. I know I was. But it became clear - one cause for worry was the possibility that there'd be no way to make a more non-combat oriented character (or a more combat oriented one, for that matter.) And this makes a kind of sense - that is a possibility, that the character creation becomes so cookie cutter as to be "choose you weapon style, choose your source of power, chose your non-combat skill" generic of a template where the choices are different but the characters are essentially identical sized and shaped lollipops of different colors and flavors. Many players want to have one character a lollipop, but maybe another a tootsie pop, and mayber a third a popsicle... eh, let's abandon that metaphor. The question remains - will players be able to make a more non-combat oriented character now that you can't spend the resources put aside for combat on non-combat? Now this is potentially (in my mind likely) a non-issue - Obsidian will design a great system and we'll all love it. Unless their intent is for combat and non-combat to always play equally. And maybe that's still the problem, especially in getting to design your own character. Balance, I'd argue, is important. Any race or class or combination of such should have the same maximum potential - you don't want one class choice to be gimped as compared to another. Some RP'ers who aren't trying to "win the game at all costs" won't care that their RP choice is not the most effective on a spreadsheet via statistics. But many players will be concerned, and this should be a worry - hence balance. Again, any race or class or combination of such should have the same maximum potential... and I'd argue the same minimum potential. But there's this whole range inbetween for players to customize their character, where you can make purposeful (for challenge or for RP) "less effective" choices. And inside of this thought process I found one (of I'm sure many) potential solution to the concerns of those worried about the dividing of resources into combat and non-combat skills. (yes, here's the point I'm getting to) When creating your character, regardless of race or class, one part of your shaping process could be chosing if your character is combat oriented, skill (what I'm going to call non-combat from this point forward) oriented, or balanced. Think of this like have a choice of one of three traits at creation, a la the Fallout series. If you choose the combat oriented trait, you get fewer skill points but more combat points (however Obsidian is going to divide up those abilities). Your character is now better at fighting but less good at the not-killing-things, not-absorbing-damage. And figure your thief or mage or cleric (or whatever classes) abilities are similarly divided into "fighting abilities" and "non-fighting abilities" for the sake of this discussion. If you choose the skill orientend trait, you get more skill points but fewer combat points (basically the reverse of combat oriented.) And, clearly, chosing the balance (or maybe default or no trait) will keep the distribution of those resources at the base, normal, average level as considered in the game world and mechanics. These traits could even simply be a few of the options in a Fallout style trait mechanic overall, in fact. Well... would this solve those concerns, and would you like this idea implemented (or at least something like it)?

A big old no. Rewards for winning a fight as solving the encounter, yes. Rewards being larger for tougher encounters, the amount based on how challenging the fight was, yes. So, in effect, yes... but in essence, no... and here's an example of the no. You can't try to gain entry to a building (the goal of the encounter), shoot down two guards but flee when four more prove more than you can handle... and still get XP for the two guards. You didn't succeed - killing two of the guards wasn't the goal. No XP. It should be an equal amount for sneaking past the 6 guards, bluffing your way past the 6 guards, bribing your way past the 6 guards, or slaughtering your way through the 6 guards. You, in effect, will almost always get XP if you choose to kill your enemies who are obstacles to completing your goal... but just the KILLING doesn't give the XP. Achieving the goal does. This gets murky when your goal IS killing someone or a group... because, essence and effect, you are getting XP for killing, but I hope the difference is still clear. And it'd be my hope, anyway, that you would still have other options with said target (let them flee and report them as dead, recruit them into your party perhaps instead, or lie to your quest giver convincingly enough after having not even approached the target.)

I don't need slavery in the game... that sounds weird to want it... but if they delve into the subject of slavery in a mature fashion, I'm all for it's inclusion. If it is included I would like to see different cultures different takes and views on it. Ancient Rome's slavery was nothing like colonial America's slavery, the obvious example.

stupid double-post

I didn't think you meant it as an insult... it didn't read that way. Don't worry about it. That line of reasoning you alluded to, in simply trying to rationalize your own lack of desire for the inclusion of romance, is often used as a derogatory comment... but you didn't come across that way.