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Keep this in mind: The Kickstarter is already successful. To repeat the gist of my other post: Edit: Coming off way cranky late at night, maaaan.

If you're going to quote me, at least read what I wrote. I think you'll find that the word "Failure" doesn't appear anywhere in my post. I think you'll find that the message in my post is that they could be "More successful", which is completely different from "Failure". I also suspect you're overestimating how much can be achieved with 1.1 million. Fine, then adjust my response as--"but thinking that the Kickstarter's current state is somehow 'really hurting' (your exact words) is rather silly." My point still stands, and you still missed the point of the KS in its entirety. You do not have the wherewithal to question Obsidian's own calculations of their work product. I don't either. So between the three of us, who do you think is really in the best position to properly estimate what can be achieved with $1.1m?

The thread What do you want to see as stretch goals? is far better for discussion than this silly thread....

Because Obsidian is already successful. Your last bit makes no sense at all. Some people are misunderstanding the Kickstarter goal; "get as much money as possible no matter what" is not the purpose, nor is the juvenile "we need to beat X project and look at how much Y project made." "Get enough money to make a business proposal happen" is the purpose. Obsidian may actually feel that the current funding covers all their intended content and then some, so any subsequent bonuses must be weighed carefully to avoid introducing burdensome and unnecessary feature creep or painting themselves into a corner with a promise that may not work out in development. A good example are mod tools. Obsidian is aware of the desire for such tools and would rather wait a year into development (U12) before committing to that or not; this has to do with a lot of behind-the-scenes balancing against content and funds and other variables the players simply do not know. Because the folks at Obsidian has way more game development experience than, well, everyone here, I must trust their judgment on that matter. I have no doubt that Obsidian will advertise more stretch goals soon, but thinking that the Kickstarter's current state is somehow a failure is rather silly.

Don't even try, bub. My monitor is armed and ready. Anyway, I hadn't meant that these nations were freed by any nation but themselves. If we disagree on a political term, that belongs in another discussion entirely. As to getting computer games to Central & Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, etc. I think it would always be worthwhile IF it's affordable. These people deserve good computer games and I think Obsidian could bring good computer games to the world. Yep. No. You're being missionary about it. This is a niche entertainment product--good business decisions for such a product only exist as a matter of projected ROI. Full-net marketing for audiences known to lack interest is naive at best and very wasteful at worst. Possibly even offensive.

Well, Planescape: Torment did have some epic items, but really not all that many, and it certainly didn't have a lot of (mandatory) fighting. Considering the striking number of PS:T fans hanging around here, I'd argue such a request isn't really a very recent thing.

Wait, when did the Kickstarter end?! WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME? WHERE IS MAH SWAG??

There's no "None of the above" option... I agree with others that it's pointless to spread marketing resources to other regions where it very likely won't do well anyway. It makes sense that 'Europe' already has an audience interested in PE because... medievalist fantasy is drawn from Europe. The "Middle Ages" refers to Europe. Tolkien was a Brit and the stuff he drew from was folklore across Europe. We don't draw medievalist fantasy from the Americas because the history is unrecorded by the losers, and the period ends roughly with Columbus' voyage that started the conquest and wholesale rape and slaughter of millions of people. With the exception of the United States, where current media barely go back to the "cowboy" days anymore because people are uncomfortable with the truths above and the fact that sad remnants are still around, a society with a generally monolithic culture is more interested in 'period' content (including fantasy) derived from its own history. In the Far East (interestingly, you forgot the entirety of China unless you edited it out), that means dramas and martial art fiction are set in dynasties or shogunates and the like. Fantastical elements might include martial arts and samurai and local folklore and gods and clergy and so on. Example: Journey to the West. Never mind the very distinct philosophical differences that run so deeply that Western 'period' and Eastern 'period' entertainment are mutually unintelligible in many cases (honor, filial piety, religion, etc. etc. etc.). OP, I'm sure you posted with the 'best' of intentions in relation to spreading the word of Project Eternity, but this thing is worded as an ignorant, culturally distasteful, missionary exercise. Better to concentrate on the target markets PE already has. Per translation, let's just hope for a mod toolkit.

I think it would make more sense if deadline push-back were included in the higher stretch goals themselves. But that's mainly assuming the staff remains static; it's entirely possible and may be necessary to hire more devs to cover certain additional content to cut the linear timeline feature creep. The real trick is all the dialogic/text content--Avellone would end up being the bottleneck regardless. No pressure.

The $65 contribution level states that it will include a "boxed version of the game". Therefore they will have to produce a boxed version. If they don't, then controversy will ensue.... I think AwesomeOcelot meant on Obsidian's official website, not as part of the Kickstarter levels on the KS website. Selling off the official website saves on retail costs but there's still the balance of manufacturing enough for demand but not too much that they're sitting on a stored loss. This is talking about a regular box, though--a limited edition anything is far easier to manage with a small run and much higher potential for significant ROI. Maybe eBay. I meant that in the developer/publisher relationship, it's the publisher that takes care of both marketing/distributing whether or not outsourcing the distribution to a true distribution company. The largest publishers cover all those aspects, exactly like your EA example. Obsidian shouldn't and probably won't risk it. Despite the KS success, this is still very much a "niche" game.

True, it's way early, but I'd like to get started with my idea/lore. On one hand I'd like to make something folks will want to use, yet not have it be the most popular mainstream choice. I also am a fan of the negative effect idea to balance the positives. However, one has to step lightly here. I don't want folks to use it situationally, either-- I want it to be a primary item they feel they can use for a significant period of time. Well, true, if something is too situational--and our inventory is limited--then it'd be annoying to keep around "just in case" (although 90% of the potions in BG fell under that category, I feel). The "negative" may not be truly negative either--in the Otiluke's Resilient Sphere example I gave, it's really a "true neutral" kind of application, quite different from a "benefit/curse" balance.

Except that there is an understood and explicit "release date" by virtue of placement on the Kickstarter page; while it's not a legal contractual agreement by any stretch, the fact that it's placed on the KS page is an implication that any backer can/"should" expect that release date. I'm personally quite mellow about this, but I can see how the actual April 2014 may be a problem further down the line.

I want to be the sentient weapon that constantly harasses and influences the main character.

Except I argue that the party NPCs should be as complete as possible already in the ship game--see Planescape: Torment (Dragon Age was never remotely spoken of as a model for PE).

So I ended up giving my input anyway, since this is in the interest of the $1k backer level (I just noticed the tags, none of the other forums I visit have tags, oops). I'm more interested in an artifact, I guess, probably because that has the most ability to be very "unique" compared to the usual gear slots (Hand of Vecna or Eyeball of The Nameless One ). In the third part, 4-5 go together for me--if the lore is interesting, I will keep it even if my party can't use it (especially true if I managed to win it through questing instead of a random find). In BG2, I remember the interesting and very unique figurines that summon a helper for combat--unfortunately those weren't terribly useful for me, but I thought they were interesting nonetheless (similar to Drizzt's planar panther figurine). I'm interested in a different kind of spell application, though; the only problem is that we have no idea what kind of spells are going to be in PE at this point. For example, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere has a simultaneous positive and negative application; it'd be nice for a storied artifact to do something like that, perhaps on a daily charge or so.

I'm of the same feeling. Obsidian has been very accessible so far, lots of interviews, Q&A, dev presence on the forums and comments in KS, etc. There will always be that line of accountability versus vision, but it's not unmanageable or anything. I mean, keeping the stretch goals mundane is one way for Obsidian to "keep it real"---look at how ridiculously high expectations are already.

I perked up instantly. Buuuut I shouldn't pledge more money, honest... I understand your point but an origin would determined only some of the background of the character (for example where he lived, in which conditions, etc.), things that are usually given anyway in many rpgs that won't let you choose an origin. And you would still be able to play the character how you want, or if you find that particular origin not fitting your pc choose another one that is more according to what you have in mind. I ended up despising the DA:O 'origins' as precisely being too restrictive, railroady and long (not conducive to replay value at all)--granted, the entire game was railroady, so... I definitely would not be on board with a DA:O execution. Something much simpler could be implemented for flavor--for example, your chosen race starts out in a small training area on the border of your racial land with only a few optional class training quests and one quest that sends you out into the world (e.g. a much smaller Candlekeep -> leave Candlekeep) to experience the "horrific" thing Obsidian mentioned. That way, you can easily skip the entire thing if you wanted to, or you can stay briefly to try out the mechanics in an immersive setting. Uh, I guess that counts as an optional little tutorial thing, now that I think about it. One reason why the stretch goals seem mundane as they are is probably because Obsidian can't release too much specific information or spoil. I'm trying to imagine what PS:T would have been like on KS. One more party NPC! (Vhailor) One more region with quests and stuff! (Curst) I for one want as little information about the storyline specifics as possible, and none on the characters besides maybe their portraits that indicate race and sex (yeah, this forum is kind of a landmine ). Of course, the other side is that Obsidian may not know either, but I highly doubt that. Edit: To be clear, I don't mind the mundane-sounding stretch goals, but for marketing purposes I can see how they'd be problematic. Mod tools would be great, but Obsidian explained why that was sketchy in U12, so I understand the different pressures on either side for that. MP is a no-go. Romances? Umm..... $8m, sure, but Avellone has to make them all unrequited or tragic, and stipulate an additional year on the release date. LOL

A related thread that ties in an actual stretch amount: http://forums.obsidi...e-refined-game/ I personally think Obsidian should have just left it at "2014" instead of the month; a month or two can significantly impact a project management timeline. I'm not in favor of DLC games. By their very nature, a company isn't pressured to include as much as possible--as much as 'promised' or 'intended'--on release. "Oh, we'll just patch it later. Oh, we don't have time to test this region so let's make it DLC." I honestly feel the mentality has gotten out of hand (yes, abused) and has led to the current "live beta testing" state for quite a lot of different things. I do not feel that a self-contained SP game harkening back to the old school IE CRPGs should have DLC at all, which is more of an MMO/Steam/whatever thing to me. (Note: I'm using 'DLC' in opposition to 'expansion' as a matter of scope and intent, but I think the definitions are fuzzy around the edges. It's entirely possible to have a 'DLC' so large and extending the storyline that it ends up being an 'expansion' by old school definition. And bug patches aren't 'DLC' at all, so I'd be fine with a bug patch later if it's not ridiculous.)

So many things wrong with this, LOL... Xbox = Mentioning a console for PE to emulate, which Avellone derided as "dumbing down," is quick poison for your entire stance. Why not = Way too many things can fall under "if it doesn't hurt dev/if you won't use it, why not," which is the lamest argument for content inclusion in SLDC. But that's entirely up to Obs. RP = Really? You think metagaming is actually role-playing? LOL. Even if Obs were to implement this, which I think is a waste of resources as explained by others in this thread, having metagame UI element pop up during play is actually immersion-breaking. A toggle off would be absolutely required, otherwise by their very metagame nature, the achievements do harm the RPG environment. Can't say anything about FO.

Ohh. Wait, are you talking about the $1k Kickstarter level? That would make much more sense now. I think your OP originally sounded more general or something. Why not something that you particularly fancy? I think the problem is that no one knows what exactly what gear slots/weapons/artifacts will be in the game at the moment.

Retail distribution and the related marketing are also under the purview of the publisher, which kinda defeats the purpose of the Kickstarter--avoid publisher oversight and cut, so an additional retail cut doesn't make sense.

Obsidian already said they're not doing MP/co-op (interview). You can also read Bobby Null's explanation that, except with a "very large amount of money," you can't have good MP and good SP together, and trying for good MP requires concessions on SP.

I wouldn't worry about devs paying close attention to polls; I expect they can spot the loaded ones and badly worded ones and whatever--not to mention forum polls are terrible statistical indicators with self-selecting samples. I wish there was more unique gear slots, really. There are the usual.... chest, legs, shoulders, wrists, fingers, blah blah blah. In PS:T you had tattoos and an eyeball slot!

Meh, the issue is closed. Obsidian already said they're not doing MP/co-op (interview). You can also read Bobby Null's explanation that, except with a "very large amount of money," you can't have good MP and good SP together, and trying for good MP requires concessions on SP.

Well, there are a couple other polls: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60261-how-should-magic-work/page__hl__vancian http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60372-vancian-magic-system/page__hl__vancian I don't think polls can be merged, though.