[Mature themes you'd like to see in the game]

That's right, how'd I forget the City Elf origin?!?

 

That was my first playthrough, and I chose to play a female rogue elf (three things that go against type, the latter two being choices I NEVER make for characters I play) specifically because of the ads for that origin story.

 

Origins was such a great game....

 

no, wait, NOW I remember why I forgot about it.

 

DA2 and ME3. That's why.

 

 

EDIT - and, speaking of BG2, the intro to that and Imoen's memories of her time in Irenicus's care were all about the darkness of being tortured.

[Concept: A more personal quest Journal.]

No, this is one of the better original (at least to me) ideas I've seen in a long time.

 

I like this.

 

If, after events happen, you had a way of chosing how your journal recorded events... imagine how personalized your game experience would feel!

 

I love this!

 

I can imagine a myriad of ways this could be implemented - from somehow the game gleaning from your choices and dialog options a specific style to fill out your journal entry, to after events happen the journal pops open and you select some options that shape how the entry is written, to simply having the normal bullet points but under the bullet points are text boxes for you to fill in your in-character description of the bullet point.

 

Thanks for the idea! I hope Obsidian sees it and considers it!

 

This could be really big - and I think it would be fairly simple, depending on the way they could go with it, to implement. Unless they wanted it very complex - which I'm all for!

[Mature themes you'd like to see in the game]

I'm game for lists of things I don't see media often deal with!

• family vs. community vs. state: is it right for a father to go out and fight for his king, leaving his family behind? is it okay for a mother to steal medicine her child badly needs despite her village having a clearly defined order of who gets the medicine to maintain order and fairness? should the governor be able to enforce strict taxes on a prosperous farming hamlet to help feed the soldiers defending the borders? I don't remember ever seeing a game really dig into this (well, maybe that One Chance flash game)
  
• hedonism vs. purity: sure, you get good vs. evil all the time, and you get certain acts dropped into either moral spectrum... but when have you seen personal pleasure vs. ascetic restraint (and all the ranges in-between) discussed in a game without overt moral or religious overtones? characters who are gluttons, others who refrain from material wealth... just examining the extremes that people can go to based on their own predilictions, urges and personal codes of conduct
  
• science, skepticism and atheism: this is a fantasy game, so possibly a bad place to put this - but I felt like Dragon Age: Origins (despite later protests to the contrary) did an amazing job of letting you play as a character who didn't believe in the gods, and in fact the world played out almost like the real world (short of magic existing) where belief was a matter of faith and spotty historical record, not concrete miracles and proof; also, just once in a game I'd like to see science treated as a way to understand the world and not as a "belief system" or just the way in which you can ENGINEER devices
  
• self-interest vs. sacrifice: inside a game it would be nice to see the idea of "sacrifice" not automatically being accepted by all as good and virtuous; different races and cultures should definitely leave plenty of room for beliefs of a more objectivist bent; moreso, taking care of oneself and wanting to see everyone prosper as much as possible should get equal billing as opposed to constantly saying how much struggle and sacrifice everyone gives is the "right way to live"
  
• "taboo subjects": some things that just won't ever be included - rape, incest, torture... depending on the focus of the game, having these as story points (since they are real things that really happen) and the player character and companions having to deal with these things being in the world would be a very mature game, if handled right.... and this isn't to suggest that players are allowed to rape, torture, or have sex with their parents... but if it's good enough for Greek myths and the Bible, why can't the subject matter be in an M rated game?
  

Those are things I'm always wishing would at least occasionally be in the games I play.

[Missing Stuff is Great! - Replayability and Choice-Driven Content]

I'm a number 6 myself, however just past 5, would be happy with 4 I guess, and don't really want 7 - I do still want a strong story.

[New Tiers?]

I had a longer post on this, but the crash lost it.

 

Long story short -

 

- more tiers should be coming, but should be staggered out to maintain interest in the campaign.

- tiers should be used to increase, not decrease, overall revenue... offering something form a higher tier in a lower-cost tier may well cause many to downgrade their donation

[Update #3: Game Basics - Your Party, Your Characters, and Races]

Info-dump!

 

Thanks for the news update, Josh and Obsidian!

 

[Missing Stuff is Great! - Replayability and Choice-Driven Content]

 

I've seen too often the adage that games shouldn't include stuff that people can't see in one playthrough, or that a majority of players won't pick to see, or however you want to define content that is only available to players who choose to see it. I don't agree with this sentiment, I don't want it influencing cRPGs I play, and I hope that Project Eternity from Obsidian will follow what I feel their track record is of NOT following this industry common wisdom.

 

Replayability is greatly enhanced if the game has different things happen and different consequences based on your actions. But even if you DON'T replay the game, still getting the feeling that things could have been vastly different can make the choices you do make much more meaningful. Even the littlest of things, even when they don't really impact the overall story of the game and have zero impact on the plot, can make the game more enjoyable simply because it reacted to your decision and you got to live with the consequences.

 

 

Let me give some examples -

• class, race and gender choice in character creation (metrics show that "the majority of players pick the human male fighter" so why allow other options for players, right, if you can satisfy that "75%" right there)
  
• quests, missions, locations that are only available to certain characters (rogue-only side quests; NPCs that will only talk to you if you are a female and therefore only female characters get the mission; a base of operations that elves give you if you are an elf or half-elf, but you have a new enemy faction if you are a dwarf)
  
• storylines that only occur if you made certain choices (you sided with the villagers of Red Town, so now Blue Town won't give you any quests and you cannot buy/sell stuff there; you backed the conquering baron who now controls the area where you could have otherwise helped to organize a free state of small hamlets under your leadership; at the start of the game you snuck out of the castle instead of fighting your way out, and as such now there's a whole mess of men-at-arms tracking you down as you make your way through the game)
  

I do trust that this sort of thing, more or less, will be coming from Obsidian. So this may seem like preaching to the choir...

 

But I really would like to push for more of it, a more modular story and game experience, where even the main storyline can have not only the "expected" several endings, but actually several meaningfully different paths to travel to those endings as well. There are examples of great, in-game choices that lead to interesting outcomes ... but too often they don't pay off much later beyond the immediate shown effect. Some extremely promising ones, in fact, in the end can let down when you think "Wait, since I helped so-and-so instead of killing them, why aren't I able to call on them now for help?"

 

With less voice over and cinematics, or at least clever planning and picking what to VO and do cut scenes for, you can have a very diverse game. If you ever played Wasteland (no voice) or Baldur's Gate 2 (limited use of voice) you know what I'm talking about.

 

Most of the games Obsidian harkens to in regards to the spirit of this project have, to some extent more or less, this concept. Some don't (Icewind Dale, which I adore, is excessively linear... that's fine, I love it for what it is, but it's not my preferred way.) But even the ones that do, I'd argue, don't go nearly far enough. They hint at great reprocussions, and give you the bits here and there that can satisfy, but rare are the choices that have big impacts on the overall story in ways that the story will repeatedly remind you of.

 

 

One of my favorite things about Alpha Protocol, for example, is the little things here and there that each new playthrough gave me that I hadn't experienced in previous plays. My least favorite thing about Alpha Protocol, however, was that on each playthrough it became increasingly obvious to me how much of the experience remained almost exactly the same. And that realization comes with me still feeling that Alpha Protocol is one of the best modern examples of actually having great replayability where the player's choices and actions in game matter to how the story plays out.

 

So, I'm curious - what are everyone else's thoughts on this? And do we have anything at all from Obsidian yet about how this concept plays out in Project Eternity yet?

[For devs - bad communication is hurting the project]

The only man focused on word DLC here is you. This thread is not about DLCs at all

 

No, it's about people not understanding what Obsidian is trying to do with it's Kickstarter campaign, and the example given was people thinking that the stretch goals were like DLC and that Obsidian should communicate with people what their intent is.

 

I've watched (and donated to) many Kickstarter campaigns. Obsidian is off to a fine start. Maybe your opinion is different. We'll see here below...

 

 

A parallel for you:

I say: "Guys, remember how racism stuff was written in Fallout 3? It sucked and made no sense. Remeber the depth of racism in Arcanum? When you read about the orc's story in Tarant Library. This I would love in Fallout 4."

You say: "Are you out of your mind? I don't want any orcs in Fallout4!!!"

 

False analogy is false. You are straw manning my retort. I'm not focused on "this isn't DLC" - I'm focused on Obsidian doesn't have to handhold those who just come in out of the blue, not knowing anything, and start making wild accusations based on nothing.

 

Did I use DLC as the example? Yes. Why? Because the OP did. Q.E.D.

 

Man, you are still missing the point. Many people, many hesitating people, describe PE campaign as cold, too fabricated, sometime even as a fraud-ish (and I understand why). And these people, who would like to buy this game, don't want to support it now because it resembles (a little but it does), I don't know... did you see Al Lowe's campaign? It felt so much calculating.

 

Try very hard to correct me here -

 

OP is about "Obsidian isn't communicating enough - people are thinking crazy stuff"

 

Right?

 

My response was -

"Campaign just started. People who don't understand Kickstarter or what Obsidian are doing shouldn't be coddled - they should do their own darn work on learning what's what."

 

Okay?

 

Straw man again if you like, and tell me once more what I don't get

 

I get it. That I don't agree with it doesn't mean I don't get it.

 

People who think Obsidian is running a scam can keep their money. Obsidian's project is already funded, second fasted computer game on Kickstarter... they don't have to bend over backwards for the crazies.

 

And yes I saw Larry returns. Donated to it, thank you very much. His videos were awkward in the way that someone who isn't an actor or comfortable in front of a camera and has not budget for such things looks. That was my take.

[For devs - bad communication is hurting the project]

You still miss the point by several miles. "do a little research" and read the whole topic. And also the OP several times.

 

I am not comparing KS to DLC. I am comparing Obsidian's style of communication to the style of promoting DLCs by big publishers.

How can people ask for old-school RPG when they are unable to read a text and understand it properly?

 

*shakes his head much more than you*

 

It has struck me with uncovering the stretch goals. Writing just "if you give us $0.2 million more we will give you this content" is for a major part of people at the same level as saying "you have a unique chance to get ultra giga super DLC which cointains a key character for the whole universe. Just give us 15 bucks more."

 

To THOSE people I shake my head and say what I said above. That they don't understand Kickstarter, stretch goals, or how pledging to fund-raising drives works AT ALL.

 

The OP is asking Obsidian to cater to the ill-informed, ignorant and lazy who stumble upon the Kickstarter campaign and start mindlessly vomiting their anti-DLC hatred on something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH DLC. Catering to those people, even so much as to gently hold their hand and try to explain to each and every one of them who pops in the comment section to rant-on about how much they damn the man for DLC, is a waste of Obsidian's time.

 

Should they have to explain to all those people how Kickstarter's donation system works? How Amazon works? How you can use Paypal? That no funds are taking if the goal isn't reached?

 

No.

 

People who go to Kickstarter, look at a project, and want to donate money - it's their responsibility, if they want to know more about how it works, to do some research on Kickstarter. It MAY be the responsiblity of Kickstarter to explain it to potential donators, sure. But it is NOT the responsibility of each campaign to reiterate to all the potential pledgers how each part of the campaign works...

like

say

just off the top of my head

STRETCH GOALS.

 

No, I got the OP's point. It's inane.

[Sex and Romance Poll]

All of the above. Just like I never pick pocket, steal or assassinate in role-playing games (unless the story "forces" you to), people who don't want to romance can choose not to. Don't make it integral to the game, just one more aspect of role-playing, and no one should be upset.

[1 PC plus companions, or create multiple characters (plus companions?)]

I would favour at least the option to create more than one character (and so far, that's what I'm expecting Eternity to offer). After all, it's a party-based game.

It's also a roleplaying game, and having multiple PCs isn't very compatible with that.

Nonsense. If you can role-play 1 character, you can role-play 4 like in Wasteland. And Wasteland is one of my favorite RPGs.

I like games with good intra-party interaction, and that's entirely absent in a purely multiple-PC party,

It is if you don't create any inter party interaction yourself. After all, they are your characters. You're supposed to be role-playing them.

 

Yep. Yep. And yep.

 

Wasteland FTW!

[1 PC plus companions, or create multiple characters (plus companions?)]

The traditional approach in modern CRPGs is to have the player create a single character and then collect companions along the way.

 

But some do it differently. Icewind Dale. Storm of Zehir. Wizardry 8. And even BG and BG2 using multiplayer mode. These games allowed us to create the entire party, or multiple characters who together collected yet more companions.

 

I would favour at least the option to create more than one character (and so far, that's what I'm expecting Eternity to offer). After all, it's a party-based game. The entire party is effectively made up of player characters - we just don't necessarily create all of them ourselves. There is, therefore, no reason to limit us to just one player-created character.

 

Also, this would then virtually assure another feature I value, which is the ability to use any party member as party spokesperson. I loathe how most newer games force us to use the player-created PC as party spokesperson, even if there's someone better suited to the job available.

 

We can assign combat roles within the party unconstrained by which character is player-created. We should be able to assign non-combat roles similarly.

 

Thoughts? Should we be allowed to have more than one player-created character in the party?

 

My friend, you KNOW how I feel about this (my group over on BSN is titled Party of Six, after all)...

 

but I'm fairly certain that Obsidian has stated that they are going the "make your main PC, recruit your companions" route. Which is not my preference, but I'm okay with it. Maybe, if they include a co-op mode, we can get that "multi-player forced let you make your own party" trick like in the BG series. I'd be cool with that option as well.

[[Merged] The races of the world, Please something other then Elves/Dwarves/Orcs/Humans?]

Tropes are tropes for a reason, and I'm sure if Obsidian uses them then they'll do a fine job with those well-worn tools.

 

If I were asked, I'd prefer to see them create something original - something they make and are passionate about...

 

but whatever they are doing, I'm excited to see it, whichever way they go.

 

I'm waiting to see what they ask the crowd's opinions on - I think that'll be very telling!

[[Merged] Voice Acting- Suggestion]

Some voice is alright. For flavor, and for scenes where you have no control (preferrably your character isn't there.) Anything where having voice doesn't limit the player's options is fine, probalby even desired.

 

Once you start adding voice to dialogs where you can choose responses, you get a lot of limitations.

 

The second you have NPCs talking to your character, you really lose the ability to name your character. When they didn't address you directly with voice, it's a simply $tring command to get their text to include your chosen name. When they DO address you with voice, then you either have a set name or they call you some generic term (Warden, for example.)

 

That's just one example. Badmojo's excellent post was another.

[Why are resources being spent on a Linux version?]

Nothing wrong with Linux support as a stretch goal.

 

Precisely.

 

On Kickstarter, a Linux stretch goal gives some love to Linux user, who then campaign hard to help said games reach said stretch goals.

 

It's win - win. Obsidian (or any other Kickstarter Campaign for a computer game) looks at what it would take in money and resources to make a Linux version, and they add that amount on as a stretch goal.

 

There is ZERO reason short of selfishness to complain about this.

 

And no, I don't use Linux.

[The Definitive Race Poll]

I don't "hate" them either, but would rather Obsidian use something new. Given my druthers.

 

I'd actually most rather have Obsidian do what they are already planning to do, and give my opinions mostly when they directly ask the community about X, Y or Z.

[For devs - bad communication is hurting the project]

Seriously?

 

This isn't DLC. The game isn't even made yet.

 

Seriously?

 

Stretch goals are part of Kickstarter. Look at other Kickstarter projects.

 

Initial amount asked for is - "here's the minimum we need to do this - please, if you want us to do this, donate and help us reach this goal."

 

Goal reached in a day. People still donating, wanting to be part of the project, to help, to support, or want the swag, whatever - money is rolling in.

 

What does the campaign do, tell people to STOP giving money? Just pocket the excess money with a sly grin? Secretly add more content but NOT tell anyone that they are doing it?

 

OR do they list "if we reach THIS amount of money, we can do this... and if we reach this higher amount, we'll add this"?

 

The latter, what they did, what the majority of Kickstarter Campaigns do, IS communicating. IS being open. And IS piling more work on themselves because they have more money coming to them.

 

Do a little research about how Kickstarter works. This isn't the same thing as DLC at all. Anytime anyone compares any part of Kickstarter to DLC they lose all credibility in my eyes.

 

*shakes his head*