Wolfenbarg

I have a feeling that most people who voted against the Gothic troll didn't play the game. I feel like most trolls are pretty underwhelming, even kind of boring to encounter. But that thing was terrifying. It's an encounter you only face a couple times in the whole game, and it's something that thoroughly kicks the crap out of you if you don't approach it the right way. It's an encounter that actually matches the scope of its design. Ever since playing that game, I don't feel like trolls should be small or easy to kill. I also liked the trolls in the Forgotten Realms games since you needed to finish them off with some other type of move. Adding specific strategies to beating trolls is what I feel makes them unique more than how they look. Appearances aren't as important as applications in play. If those are your trolls Obsidian, then make certain that there is some twist to fighting them that makes them memorable. People still think of Baldur's Gate trolls because they get right back up and swarm you if you don't burn them to death first. That's a cool mechanic.

So it's basically a pre-release cash shop, then? Interesting... If EA did that, people would be frothing at the mouth and recruiting more peasants to take them down. But then if your independently funded game is suddenly pulling numbers that make the next best project look like a joke in comparison, I guess you could say it's worth it. That kind of money is sufficient to develop and distribute a standard game, isn't? That's pretty insane. On another note, does anyone know if we'll be able to back without using paypal when the site is up?

Here's an example of a backer site, that rolled out very shortly after the end of Kickstarter campaign. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/ Take special not about the "funds raised" value EDIT: Backer site is not just for the existing backers. EDIT2: And it's not a stupid question. 33 million?!! What the ****...? How is that even possible? That's more than 15 times what their Kickstarter made... where did all of that money come from? I've never even seen gaming press about this after the Kickstarter...

I'm getting the impression that Obsidian is going for something like Mask of the Betrayer, where circumstances occur which make you unique within the game (or backstory). This excludes a solid origin like Planescape or KotOR and makes the concept of exploring your own origins a bit superfluous. If you're an elf, doing elf things relating to some backstory of yours seems a bit inconsequential compared to not having a soul or whatever narrative push they come up with. That's what I'm more interested in for this game.

I'd like to know as much as possible about how the game plays. Nothing spoilery like certain methods to beat a difficult encounter, but it would be cool to really know the engine in updates. A bit of lore would be fine, maybe some backstory. I don't want to know anything too detailed about the plot, though. Like if there's some big event that sets the game in motion, I want it to be a surprise. I already knew about how New Vegas started from the press info, and that was a pretty big buzzkill when actually playing the game. I think Torment made a pretty big mistake by revealing as much as they have so far. I mean if we were comparing to Planescape, they would have basically given away all of the mystery in the synopsis. If they were willing to say that much, it's probably just a starting point, but another of those buzzkills.

In terms of storytelling, I actually don't think I've been missing much. A sense of scope, emotional connection, banter, playfulness, seriousness, and so on that we got from older games seem to have carried over quite well into newer ones. I guess I haven't played anything that came out in the last couple years that I was really into, but there's still a good catalogue throughout the last decade. The thing I miss the most is tactical combat being the thing that strings encounters together. Even if I still know the game inside and out, I still love playing Baldur's Gate and using my knowledge of the engine to law the smack down on some enemies. Not only that, but the limitations of the engine actually make the spell effects look incredible, better than even more modern games like Dragon Age in a lot of ways. I guess I also see a lot of room for sophistication in a simpler engine. Developers frequently have big ideas that they can't fully execute on because too much variation will create such a taxing workload that it becomes unfeasible. When working with something like Unity, having the world be more responsive wouldn't be as big of a challenge as it would in Mass Effect, for example. But I guess that's more potential I'm seeing than something I missed. The old Infinity Engine games weren't really responsive in that way either.

Honestly, if you specialized in magic at all in PS:T, it was practically a turn based game anyway. And in most of the game, you were plowing through trash mobs where any sense of strategy wasn't even all that necessary. It was the polar opposite of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. I don't need to see a spiritual successor to that. I think PS:T would have been a better game if it were turn based anyway. Now if Project Eternity were going turn based, then I'd be angry. But since it's Torment... sorry OP, voted turn based.

I don't think working from scratch is necessarily a hindrance. Having established lore can be a serious issue. When writing Baldur's Gate, Bioware had to decide which aspects of the lore to adhere to specifically, and which to toss out the window. If they held too tightly, that story couldn't have existed at all, and certainly couldn't have ended with you rising up as a new divinity, at least not one with any longevity. In Planescape: Torment, Sigil is such a strongly defined place that you can't really break the rules or challenge the norms despite being the central thread of a new deity, essentially. In Mask of the Betrayer, the whole theme basically goes out the window because the license doesn't allow you to tear down the Wall of the Faithless or really challenge the divines. Working from scratch, Obsidian can write lore where they can establish a status quo and then completely uproot it by the end. Whatever will best tell the story is completely possible with no strings attached. Bioware has been afraid to do that with Thedas because of their franchising ambitions, but I think Obsidian will actually revel in the opportunity to finally not be bogged down by the rules of existing lore.

Shadows of Amn had a better intro. It was captivating, even if it was just retreading what you already know if you played the first game. I kind of hated Icewind Dale's opening. The art was very good, and the voiceover was fine everywhere else, but I wasn't drawn in at all. The lore didn't even really end up playing a part until the very end of the game anyway. Good style, not so good execution. If they want to do something dynamic, I kind of hope they'll do most of the work in engine. Baldur's Gate mixes and matches to great effect and PS:T rare leaves the in-engine sequences.

Well they did make New Vegas. That game was full of info dumps, but it was all loaded down by perspective. Someone wouldn't just tell you the history of the Legion, they'd just tell you what they knew about the Legion and how it affected them. It was pretty natural for the most part. You see a lot of the things they're talking about too. I saw soldiers getting vaporized by Fiends and innocents by crucified by the Legion before anyone told me these things were a problem, though in an alternate playthrough you could learn about those aspects before seeing them too. How you learned lore had possibilities. That was pretty cool, but I feel like that may specifically be unique to open world games. Anyway, I have faith. PS:T, New Vegas, and Mask of the Betrayer handle lore quite well.

If I can't optionally kill my mentor during the prologue, I'm gonna be pissed.

Not only does it provide a viewpoint that is very conducive to rule based tactical combat, but it also means that instead of being forced to skimp with 3D assets, every single environment that you travel through will literally be a work of art. Don't you remember the first image of this game that they released and how bonkers everyone was for it? That's because it was gorgeous, and it had an aesthetic to it that people have been missing since the isometric age passed us by. I mean the game was billed from the very beginning as a throwback title that would have the same aesthetic as the Infinity Engine games, so why is this disappointing?

March isn't that much of a delay. People must have been crazy hyped if they're really getting so angry about this.

If Eternity does well, then I imagine they'll probably do a boxed version of the expansion plus the original game as some kind of collector's edition. But as far as boxed versions of this game go, there's not really a market for it unless it somehow does well enough for someone to cut a deal with them to sell it in stores.

Planescape: Torment and Mask of the Betrayer have some good examples of how to handle such content. The former has you exploring epic level worlds more than carving your way through them and the latter balances epic level combat with epic level questing/exploration. I am a little curious how they're going to handle it all, since Torment did it all within the confines of a single game, while Mask was an expansion. They did say that there is going to be an expansion, which is a little weird. I kind of preferred Torment since I don't think Mask of the Betrayer reached its full potential simply because it wasn't a full game.

?????????????? I played Dragon Age: Origins on Insane difficulty on my first go and the combat was so **** it made me never play the game again. Pretty much involved cheesing your way through everything. Every encounter was 10 archers with knockdown arrows trolling u hard (yes I finished it). Combat was also ridiculously boring. The hardest fight was definitely against Ser Kauthrien in my opinion, to beat that (insane, v1.0 of the game) I had to cheese the resurrection timer/distance and doorways. In contrast to a game like Expeditions: Conquistador where it actually optimizes your tactical play significantly and is generally fairly enjoyable (even if the combat in the game becomes a bit stale over time due to lack of assets etc) Origins was made to where the more you knew about the game, the better you would do. At first I was getting massacred even on easy, but the last time I played I was on Nightmare and didn't have to cheese the game once.

I remember this well. You know, at the time I was thinking about making a video going over Obsidian's strengths and talking about how they should do something exactly like this. Then the project popped up and I was both shocked and delighted. It's been a good year, still can't wait to play the game.

I'm guessing there will be a lot of stronghold mods based on how much people are rolling with this. Hopefully there are plenty of stronghold related quests that have a satisfying conclusion or inclusion in the events of the story.

If they're as good as Morrowind's skill books, then I will definitely read them. If they're like Baldur's Gate's non-quest related books, then I will probably completely ignore them. However, I will say that I think Morrowind used skill books in order to tell more interesting short stories because at the time, the engine lacked the sophistication to do it through quest lines. Look at dialogue trees in the game and you will understand what I mean. Today in games we have potential for such short stories to play out in quests like Vault 11 or the Survivalist stories from New Vegas. The latter did basically use the equivalent of books, but it was still way more dynamic than just reading words off of a page. Journals and logs should still be well written, but I think I'd prefer if they just intertwined any good short story ideas into quests.

Honestly, Irenicus was a pretty big tradeoff for the storytelling potential Baldur's Gate 2 had. Baldur's Gate left you wondering how your darker nature could eventually corrupt or destroy you, but in the end you never really battle with your own nature, you battle with Irenicus' instead. He completely overshadows your own character's depth and development. Look at Knights of the Old Republic 2 for a sort of counter example of how BG2 could have played out. You spend most of your time in Kotor 2 figuring yourself and your companions out. The puzzle pieces you're linking together aren't the motivations of the bad guys, but the finer pieces of how you and your abilities work and how that is the galaxy's only hope. Baldur's Gate 2 gave up their chance to have an in depth character piece to have a strong villain. That's not a bash on BG2 necessarily since I still find it to be a superb game, but it also loses a lot of its potential by taking the route it did. I personally would rather see a game where my character and the effects of whatever event starts the game are explored more than the psyche of a villain. The music is something I feel is very subjective. The score of the first two BG games were pretty standard fare, with a few very strong tracks mixed with mostly bland ones. Throne of Bhaal had the best soundtrack by a longshot in that series. Music is definitely a high point in games that use it well, though I don't think Baldur's Gate is the best example overall. Icewind Dale had exceptional music that elevated a pretty poor campaign (don't hurt me), so I see your point. I think the real strength of Baldur's Gate 2 was its atmosphere. The majority of locations, characters, and quests were designed and written with a very strong unified vision. Everything from the beginning in Athkatla up to Spellhold are very well designed and varied. The locations are gorgeous, the characters are interesting, the quests are well designed... It's basically an open world game that is far more varied and detailed than anything you'd ever see in an open world game. The only real stock locations and stock villain quests are the de'Arnise Keep and the druid grove. Everything else has twists and turns, crazy extra planar locations or enemies, or just a culture you probably hadn't seen much in similar games. I don't think Obsidian could make a similar game with the budget they have. Honestly, I doubt anyone will ever make that kind of game ever again. Bioware had made their attempts, but ultimately just haven't really come anywhere close. Modern game creation just makes it too hard to put that level of detail into every location like they did in the past. I don't think Obsidian needs to try to replicate Baldur's Gate 2. I think they should be trying to replicate the experience we got from Torment, Kotor 2, and New Vegas. Well built worlds, strong characters, and a central conflict and themes that effect and permeate throughout the world. Create a conflict that you can really explore in depth.

Level caps tend to be more of a problem in massive or open world games where power gaming would put you so far above any challenges presented that they'd hardly be worth your time. This isn't going to be such a game. There's no way they could make the game so large that you'd be over powered by doing everything.

If this is an Obsidian game, the first thing we'd do is talk to the zombies and find out who they are, what they're doing here, and why they're protecting us from whatever is outside.

I don't think Baldur's Gate 2 is a very good example. The modding community for it was so robust just because it was possible, not because it was easy. Modding Baldur's Gate 2 is extremely difficult and time consuming even to add a simple dialogue tree. Just getting character dialogue not to randomly crash out and start over was a pain in the ass. I can't even count how many mods were written and designed, but pretty much fell apart because of coding difficulty. If they want this to be possible, it should come with a toolkit. Though I have to say that's not really something I'm all that interested in. I usually don't add mods to experiences that I feel are complete, and Obsidian/Black Isle games always felt whole to me.

I also immediately thought of Little Buster before I even scrolled down and saw you linked the line I was thinking of as well. New Vegas has a lot of memorable NPCs, Chief Hanlon definitely being my favorite. Despite how much he talks, I actually wish he had more to say about current events in the Wasteland. In a similar vein was Bassilus, I really like the crazy gnome who uses Basilisks to forge a rock garden he wants you to be a part of in Baldur's Gate. It's so ludicrous that it ends up being funny, and the condescending dialogue options you can choose really play into that.

I think it's a little early to say whether or not Eternity is well managed. It's not until production is in full swing that any potential problems will pop up.