Shades

As everyone else has already mentioned, Steam seems to have more of a social aspect to it, whereas with Gog you can happily grab your game and skip off, no strings attached. I too prefer Gog because I hate DRM of any kind and Gog often offers a lot of extra things to optionally download along with the game (maps, sound tracks, manuals etc). I don't really care about achievements and don't have many friends who game so there isn't any point in that for me either. I also like having a choice about installing patches/updates, that way I have versions of previous ones so I can easily go back to an earlier patch if I need to.

As far as I know at the $250 tier you get one physical boxed copy of the game (on disc), and one digital copy of the game (which you can redeem on Steam or Gog). I don't think they're the same thing and I'm guessing they would use different codes, though I may be wrong. At a guess I'd say perhaps the digital tier gets two because the 250 tier essentially gets two as well? No idea about swapping parts of your tier that are not add-ons though (I also already have 2 copies of Wasteland 2 coming, and I'll end up with a 3rd one here so I wouldn't mind a second digital PE instead either).

Hmm... I'd prefer something that mimics the way things work in the IE games but gets around the resting problem by say giving you a number of spells, you cast them and they all have a cooldown that will last until you've finished the battle (however long that might take, perhaps they could have a 1 or 2 minute short cooldown that only triggers after you've finished combat). Basically something that means if you have 30 spells all up you can only cast those 30 spells during combat, once combat is over after a short wait your spells will all be back. This way you wonn't be trying to cast all your spells at once so you can get more than one of a certain spell cast in a single fight. Out of combat spells may have to work differently however, on longer cooldowns perhaps. I'm curious about the casting 5 other spells to unlock your locked spells thing and I wonder what the per-rest resources would be (I'm guessing higher level spells that wouldn't be on the same cooldowns and lockdowns as lower level spells?). Having two different ways for lower and higher level spells to work is a bit confusing.

So the dwarf finally has a name. Always good to have more info, can't wait to see what the next stretch goals will be. I'm not sure where the interviewer was getting all this design an enemy monster stuff from though (they mentioned it at least twice), far as I know none of the tiers offer that. They must have been thinking about a different project. It makes me think though, by the time this finishes we will potentially (in the best case scenario where everything sells) have 3 inns/taverns, 6 groups of enemy adventurers, 20 portraits, 50 high level items, and 200 non-companion NPCs... Seems like an awful lot and it could end up a little bit squished (I'm thinking in terms of the IE games), however they could be planning quite a large world for us, in which case there might be plenty of room. I'm hoping for the later, I cannot wait to see how this game turns out.

That's a good point. With 10 companions I could play through the game twice without having any of the same companions in either of those playthroughs. And then on subsequent playthroughs I could mix them up more. Hmm.

I wouldn't mind another companion or two, but I realize that such things end up being a lot more work. (Dialogue with PC, reactions, banters etc... ) ... Didn't they mention a giant marshmallow that eats people (paladins?). ... Nope, my mind is refusing to come up with anything else.

At a guess I'd say that sometime after they have started making the expansion they will open pre-orders for digital and physical copies of it.

Hooray, another goal down! Good to see all those reward tiers and achieved stretch goals in lists like that. Seeing the t-shirts though I'm now curious. Project Eternity is the temporary name (or project name) until a suitable title is decided upon, correct? So won't the t-shirt designs end up being different in the end?

You will probably have to add shipping on too though, depending on whether you are in the US or not.

nicely. The thing I always wanted from DA:O was a finely bound version of Brother Genitivi's travel journal. I would have (probably still will) paid a stupid amount of money for that. So... Kinda like the Diablo 3 Book of Cain? I think it's written from a characters perspective (Cain), explaining a lot of the bits and pieces of lore in the world. And it has detailed sketches throughout it too. I love the idea of something like this, though I don't think it would be wise for the player to need it to play the game. It could be something that you could use to find out extra and read up on the lore more. I'd certainly prefer something like that to an in-game codex, DA and ME smothered me in so much information that I just stopped reading it all. The downside to another book of course is it costs money to make, and we already have a Collectors book which will probably serve much the same purpose. And the Book of Cain for example didn't come with Diablo 3 at all, you bought it separately from the game. Though with mentioning physical stuff that can be used in game... That brings to mind the old... What were they called, key wheels? The things with a whole lot of numbers and several wheels that you turned around to figure out the code to put in. They were a form of copy protection I think (in Star Control 2?), Ultima 7 had something similar asking for specific words also as a form of copy protection. But I think one of the Ultimas may have had a rune system of writing that it either gave you in the box so you could translate stuff yourself, or you might have had to figure it all out yourself completely. I can't remember.

I could see this being incredibly annoying if you have a situation where you want to swap stuff around and some items can't be used by some characters. It'd be like playing musical chairs or the towers of hanoi with equipment. Granted, that could be a way for them to include that damn ubiquitous towers of hanoi puzzle without it being obvious. :D Hmm, what if as soulmata mentioned they had default equipment that you couldn't strip off them. But, that default equipment kinda didn't count as an item. So when you stuck a new item like armour on top, you didn't get their default armour (it just kinda... vanishes, let's say they stash it away somewhere that you can't find it), but if you took that new armour off they would go back to their default armour. That way they'll always have something, but you can also swap things around as much as you like. As a random idea, speaking of paying wages and leading expeditions... When they're in my party they reasonably expect me to cover all their equipment needs, food rest etc without taking a share. Maybe if I come across a particular item they want when at a shop they'll mention it, bother me endlessly about it, or just go ahead and buy it without my permission if it's that important to them (I don't mind them pestering me if it's 1 or 2 specific things that are really important to me, I just don't want to end up haggling over every single magical item I happen to come across). But how about they take a percentage of the partys earnings/gold when they leave? For example if I went through BG2 and ToB with a set of companions, then after the end they all or one or two of them split. I'd imagine they would divide the total amount of gold between them so as they left they each got a share. You could base it on party numbers, though they might end up taking quite a lot that way (6 people in your party, one leaves and they take 1/6 of party gold, 2 people in party, they take 1/2) so perhaps percentages could work better (maybe say the leader is entitled to a bonus and the party itself needs a certain amount left to keep them going). Though it would kinda act as an incentive to keep people in your party, not swap them about, which might mean any companions beyond the first 5 you find would have a smaller chance of being used by the player. Hm, just a thought anyway.

Fellow ranter! (Or rambler in my case) So, in summary you're saying that you like creating characters. Lots of them. You're not too fussed about character appearance, in terms of raising eyebrows and shrinking noses anyway. In fact you'd prefer something less detailed so you can fill in the gaps yourself. But primarily you like to have a lot of room to experiment and poke around with classes, abilities and all those sorts of things. You like having the freedom to be able to try a lot of different combinations, and you've found that NWN2 has been an ideal game for this if not other things. But you'd like it if PE could offer you that same kind of freedom too if possible. Is that sortof what you mean? If so: PE will be isometric, so you won't be seeing characters very close up. They will be 3D, but I doubt we'll even have different faces to choose from since as mentioned they'll be quite small and it won't make a difference. You will however have portraits, and I'm assuming that means we will also be able to have custom portraits, hooray! As for classes, I'm not completely sure (I don't keep track of all the details mentioned everywhere) but I think from what the devs have said they will be quite versatile and flexible. Meaning you might have room to make several different types of one class for different characters depending on how you distribute things. I'm not sure if they've mentioned whether multiclasses are in or not yet (I hope they are, because I'm greedy and always like more options). It might pay to check out a lot of the various class specific topics floating around, they may have tidbits of extra information about how things might work.

Control freak that I am, I prefer having full control over the inventory of all my party members I do however think that making it so you can't take an item off someone (weapon and armour) and have to replace it instead is a good idea to at least stop NPCs being stripped completely (of course then you could just kill them/let them die... ). The having their own share of the loot/gold... I'm not so fond of. I remember when I played ToEE years ago, I found out that the followers took some of your loot/gold... And I didn't take any of them. Just used my own 4 character party for the whole game. I understand the concept of wanting them to act more like people (it's a little similar to having them respond in combat to you yelling commands like NWN vs having full control of them like BG), I guess I just assume my party has some sort of agreement that they come to regarding these things. Yes I take all the money and items. But I also distribute those items among everyone, and in the interests of making the whole party useful I will give them the best I can. I spend the gold on more equipment and staying at inns. It isn't as if I hoard all the gold and only spend it on my main character. I like to think of the way the player acts in distributing loot as kinda like the whole party acting and agreeing on who gets what (not just my character) without me actually having to see or put up with all the bickering that may be involved. I mean what if you had it so this NPC is that class and so wants all items related to their class. And my character happens to be the same class as that NPC (let's say I want to try a party with two of the same class, or maybe I just like that NPC a lot), will the NPC still grab all of that item? I imagine my character wouldn't be too pleased about that. It's certainly a very interesting idea, it's just I imagine it would end up causing a lot of bickering in the party more than anything. Which kinda means a lot of pointless dialogue where I'm sitting there going 'NO, I want the giant marshmallow. You can have the gummy bear.' over a fair number of items. I like the idea of companions having some things that are theirs. It would be a way of letting them possibly have specific looks for their armour and the like too. Kinda like PS:T except perhaps it could let you take their special armour off (swapping for something else), but you had to keep it in their inventory. I think Valen in NWN:HotU had his own special armour and weapon as an example, and you could choose to keep him in that, or give him something else. And as an incentive to keep him in his own stuff I think it was upgradable at some point.

I'd like to see something like the BG series and MotB where I can grow my character over several games and expansions, watching them increase in power until they truly are a force to be reckoned with and then ending it with a satisfying conclusion (MotB would have been great if we had actually been able to take down the wall). I don't expect to be able to kill gods or anything, but I want my character to be nearly there by the time their story is done. And then I want do the whole thing all over again with more games set in the same world possibly with different titles or something. Me? Demanding? Never I really do like building my characters up and sticking with them though, but I realize having choices carrying over between games can end up being quite a huge pain (unless of course you go the Kotor2 way and let the player decide what happened at the start). I do like expansions to have their own smaller stories (I actually liked the DA expansion Awakening for its story and interesting characters. Ignoring everything else, especially some of the conversation changes, I liked it more than Origins), and by smaller I mean obviously they can't be the same size as an entire game. I think it works well when you can play them from any point in your current game like TotSC, though when they focus heavily on story like MotB it can work if they continue from the end of the game too.

Thinking about it, I wonder how they're going to do the inventory paperdolls? Because I think the BG2 ones were art? While the BG1 ones were the sprites (I think, been a while), and ToEE of course uses the same 3D character models that you wander around with. I think perhaps going with slightly larger versions of the 3D models (like ToEE did?) might be easiest and would still look good.

I know the feeling, I love getting artbooks for things but am fortunate enough to be able to afford this one. There is the possibility that they might let you upgrade pledges after the Kickstarter has ended like Wasteland 2 did. I don't think we've had any official word on that yet. So if they did you could probably increase your pledge a bit at a time until you finally got what you want. And they did recently change the 250 softcover art book to hardcover, which may mean that the softcover will pop up in a lower tier. Or maybe they did that because they couldn't create the softcover version or it would be too much trouble. Not sure, would be nice if we could get confirmation on some of these things.

I only noticed the 2 digital versions of the game at the $250 level recently. At first I thought, what am I going to do with two digital versions of the game, as well as the physical one? One I can use for gog so I have a nice backup, but the second... Then I later realized that I could use the second digital version to grab a steam version too. Sure I don't like steam and wouldn't install that version, but it adds to my poor little list of steam games So I'd like to politely request that we still get 2 digital versions in this tier, if only to satisfy my odd collecting tendencies. Very happy with this update though. I already have Wasteland 2 coming my way so that doesn't make any difference to me, but the expansion... To me that indicates that they think this will be successful, which is a great thing. And as for working on it too early? I think it can help a lot to be thinking of these things while the main game is still being made (or before), it means that things can be woven together better, and as someone else mentioned things that cross over between the two can be used. It just makes a lot of sense to me and I'm thrilled that it looks like PE will extend beyond this first game. I'll probably end up buying a physical copy of the expansion if they have one as well anyway. I"m not sure about expansion add-ons, seems like it would be a bit of a hassle and I took the inclusion of the expansion in the higher tiers to be a kind of thank you for contributing so much. And it isn't like the expansion will only be for the people on these tiers in the end. It will be available for everyone and probably have some sort of pre-order of its own at some later point too. At the moment putting add-ons for it seems like it would just eat away at the potential profit of the expansion. I do think a $190 or $200 physical tier that just has the expansion popped in sounds like a good idea though for those who don't want to go digital only and can't afford the $250. Lower level tier incentives sound good too, but I'm just not sure what else they could add to those that would get people to up their pledges (physical soundtrack? More digital rewards?). Put it this way, Obsidian is a decently sized company that have made a number of games and expansion packs over the years. I think they know what they're doing by now I trust that they know enough about game development to not go in over their heads and promise things that they can't deliver on.

Actually, it would be quite neat if you had guards that patrolled towns, cities or whatever. And as mentioned if the NPC ran out of the house in the direction of the nearest guard... Or perhaps just towards the guard station (since they have no way of knowing where the patrolling guards are) and patrolling guards nearby will move towards them because they heard the yelling. Maybe cities would have a number of guards patrolling, while a small village may just have one. And depending on his enthusiasm he may just be sitting around or dozing. I like the idea of having a variety of reactions too. And jumping off the idea of a profile of you being built up if you commit crimes, perhaps there could also be a profile built up of someone else committing a crime that they happen to think you match (say you've been in a number of the areas specific to these crimes). So you have to prove that you didn't do it (and probably find out who did along the way). And maybe when authorities are after you when you have done something, you can plant evidence, frame other people, bribe or trick others into being in places that will make them or someone else appear to be guilty of the crime. Might end up a bit complicated though.

A lim-lim! I'd like something specifically from the world like the lim-lim was.

Being isometric even if you were able to create a wonderful face for your character you wouldn't actually be able to see it that close at all in the game. I think it's been established that we're getting portraits like those in the IE games. As for the characters themselves, we know they'll be 3D (but again, they'll be small, expect something more like Temple of Elemental Evil than Dragon Age) and I think we can assume that each race/gender combo will look different. Beyond that it's unclear. I would like to see something like ToEE where you could also adjust your height (I think they had a few different hair styles you could pick too), and being able to alter the body width in a similar way would be handy as well.

This sounds suspiciously like Diablo. I love being able to save as often as I like, wherever I like (aside from in combat/too close to enemies, though NWN even let you do that). I dislike not being able to save at all. For save points... I've experienced them in Final Fantasy, it means you have to run back and forth to specific points. So what if I need to leave right this instant? Say I've just spent ages trying to defeat this non-boss creature and am a fair walk from the nearest save point. With save points I'd need to either abandon my progress and go through whatever I had been doing again the next time I play, or trek all the way back to the nearest save point (using time I don't have and ending up late for whatever required my attention). With save on exit if I made a wrong choice or decided I wanted to do something differently then too bad, I can't. So yes, I want to be able to get new equipment and have all my party members nicely sorted out, then save. I want to save before conversations in case I want to try out a couple of different responses because I'm stuck on two choices, I want to save before any battles, I want to save before entering a new area in case I run into random encounters on the way. I want to save after I just finished unlocking a particularly difficult or annoying puzzle, I want to save after I've won a battle. In other words, I want to save a lot. And I want to have an unlimited or very high number of slots available so I can keep a decent number of saves around too (I'm looking at you Mass Effect). Because reloading isn't just about failing or ending up dead (and if save points were used for these it would involve a lot of repeating things you'd done before). Sometimes I'll load old save games because I want to see this or that thing happen again. Perhaps I want to see a certain speech from Irenicus, or I want to watch an end of chapter scene again. If you want to save infrequently or only use the autosave, fine. If you want to have some sort of option in to limit saves, sure. If you want to play in ironman mode, wonderful! If you want to try and limit saves to change the way I and other people play the game then I'm going to have to turn into a rabid fish and slap you.

I did the same thing, for me the tactics just meant when I wanted to use an ability or item chances were the character had already used/wasted said ability/item because of their tactics. When I am in complete control it means I choose when they use this or that thing, I can figure out what they should be focusing on or do first depending on the type of enemy, etc. I like knowing exactly what my characters are doing, otherwise you might as well have a system like NWN1 but with the tactic slots added. This is a party-based game, so I want to control my whole party. I just... Don't see the fun in letting the battles automate themselves for you. To me the fun of these games is micro-managing the battles and yes, pausing often to do so. I can't stand playing games that don't let me pause. To me not being able to pause isn't fun, it's stressful. But if things like game speed and tactics slots could be added in without impacting on other ways of playing the game then I don't see a problem with them.

I loved having these too, it worked well with the old paper background. One thing that might be a problem though: Crafting. If you had any choice over bits and pieces of say armour you wouldn't be able to get art to match it. But since we're dealing with isometric here I'm guessing maybe you would have a set look/piece of concept art for each different material (steel, giant fish tail, whatever) or perhaps you can just choose which piece of concept art you want to use with a crafted item.

No man, 8 hours full game. Or something along those lines. I've got lot's of other time consuming stuff to do besides gaming so I really appreciate being able to play stuff through. Is my expectations really off? How much do you want in scope? 200hr? Yes, I want a 200 hour long game. I will not be seen for a number of weeks until I have finally finished it, and then I will hibernate.

Well, the idea I and others posit is to burn that GOG download to disc to keep in the box... The only issues with this route brought forth so far are (1) don't want to buy the blank and do the actual burning, and (2) GOG may not distribute to all countries. But...! It won't be installing off the nice shiny actual game disc! Hm, that raises another question. I wonder if the boxed versions will require the disc to play, or if it'll just be a one-off install and you won't need it again until your computer explodes you need to install again.