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Eternity isn't going to use the Infinity Engine. IE was only mentioned as a marketing nostalgia hook in terms of the genre of games that used that engine.

I find it hard to believe that that's the case for the demographic that's demanding a return to the isometric RPG. You would be surprised, for lot of people what they want is to blow up stuff with their fancy powers, not listen to a man whining about his hurt feelings or w/e Considering the target audience and the hooks used, I wonder if you got lost on the Kickstarter page and accidentally clicked the wrong thing? MMOs exist for a reason, it sounds like you're more into that. (Nothing against MMOs, I play one on the side as well when I do want to chop things up with minimal quest text.)

I suddenly thought of Dak'kon and his karach/chaos-matter blade that he altered with his mind.

An odd gun created by a faraway and unknown person named Jan, which uses a particular cultivar of turnip as ammunition.

Read the thread. You may be unable to see problems with it, but that doesn't mean other people don't. If you like it fine, then sure, chalk that up to a vote for DRM.

I'd have to agree with this. I miss EVERYTHING about PS:T. Okay, not some of the initial corpse rooms at the very beginning of the game that actually made me a bit nauseous (srsly). The chant, the writing, the weird world and unique party members, the NPCs including the elderly lady who screamed at me for being a stupid adventurer, the flashbacky little quest things that required you to fill your mind with a creative reading of the text descriptions---okay, it's a game more for people who appreciate books than movies, but there's nothing wrong with that, man! And the philosophy--tell me in what other computer game I can make giant loops of logic to talk another character out of existence. OMG. I suspect PS:T isn't going to run very well on my new Win7 computer, though, if at all, which makes me all sorts of sad. Gonna cry now... As for a sequel... That's tricky. Besides expensive IP licensing, there's the question of whether we'd play TNO with old/new companions or brand new people in the same setting with same writ content and style. Personally, an ideal and more practical scenario is to include all the stuff that was cut/intended, upgrade the graphics and engine (still 2D!), and extend the ending sequences to something that gives a better feeling of closure, like the way BGII did for old party members. (My friends were a bit perplexed by the sudden 'ending' until I explained what really happened with the video.) A spiritual successor--to be honest, this phrase is a giant red flag for me. I did not consider DA:O the 'spiritual' successor to the BG series by a long shot, just too many things wrong with it. (I didn't bother with the DA sequels.) DA:O was just another talking-heads game for me, and I'd have been perfectly happy if they didn't market it heavily in relation to BG. But I digress. The more "Tormenty" Eternity can be, the happier I would be. ^----Okay, that does NOT sound right. XD

6. Fully voiced/cut-scened content is extremely passive and boring (IMO) 7. I absolutely hate it when I can't completely skip (only "fast-forward") talking heads for quests I've done before or NPCs I have to talk to multiple times. AUGH. Also, the amount of comprehensible content one can pack into text is substantially more than in speech within the same amount of time. People read on average around 300 wpm (English) and speak on average less than 200 wpm, with ranges on either end of course, but reading speeds simply outstrip speech/listening speeds. More content is good. Anyway, as for VAs.... Jennifer Hale.

I definitely liked how BG/PST did it, and it's what they're planning here: Initial voiced lines and the rest not voiced, no voiced PC. The initial voiced lines are very important to establish an NPC's voice and verbal carriage, and the rest the players can so easily extrapolate. We're CRPGamers, dammit; we're creative types! I absolutely hated--was it ME1?--I would pick a stupidly short text option on the dialogue wheel and my character would spout off something completely snarky that I didn't expect at all. Gah!

True. I'm being optimistic, though, because there's different DRM-free options they have to look at in terms of distribution as well (Steam or GoG, and whatever else I don't know about). With the disc, I want something very basic if at all. As a dev, it's still a kick in the teeth if the game is heavily pirated. I do agree that a crowd sourced game has less innate reason to have DRM, the irony is that piracy in this case actually more directly affects the developer. It's also important to note that 100% of the funding may not necessarily come from the Kickstarter. Brian Fargo stated in his he was willing to chip in $100,000 of his own money into the project. Yes, absolutely. Maybe I'm just being cynical, knowing DRM really changes nothing (I'll just sit in my corner, continuing to hate on the politicians that Free Traded everything away, don't mind me ). Ah, the large personal backers--forgot about them. There are thus three basic schools of thought about software DRM: (1) Do it. From the business and legal perspective, of course you have to protect your creation. (2) Do it as painlessly as possible. Just don't piss off the users overmuch. But we understand. (3) Don't ever do it. The pirates will always crack it anyway, and you're punishing the legit users, and if it's particularly bad, you'll actually promote bootlegging (see Spore). Removing DRM can promote your business!* I used to be 1 and now vacillate between 2 and 3 depending on the implementation, having been severely burned by a major $$$ software activation failure that cost two solid days with tech support and then being told I had to reformat my freaking drive to use their software. Oh hell no. That's just an average horror story--I don't expect Eternity to ever come close to that debacle. Still. Just thinking about that shifts my alignment to evil sometimes. But in this case, I'm pretty much at 2. *I don't know if this argument really pans out in the real world, as I don't know if any studies/white papers have been done looking at measurable economic effects in a before/after scenario.

From the latest update: Thank you. I'm sure you peeps will do right by us in this regard.

Lore especially helps if this is going to be a moddable game. But I prefer to keep the information in-game. I liked how Baldur's Gate handled lore: Scattered bits attached as descriptions to items, or books you can find in various places, or in NPC dialogue. Sometimes items are hard to find, though, or books placed in weird locations. I loved how PS:T handled lore: Pretty much only through NPC dialogues (banter and quest), and I think the information you could get also depended on your stats. This method is far more "interactive" but still allows the player to skip if they want to, given the right dialogue choices. Personally, a combination of BG/PST interactive lore information would be great. I couldn't stand DA:O's handling---the hidden codex that would pop up half the time while in combat and disappear very quickly leaving a bunch of nondescript stupid icons in the codex UI thinger... I don't remember it very well now, except that I found it terribly annoying. It was a step removed from the game world because the information was hidden in the user interface.

Break the 800,000 "active participation" word count by a parsec. (P.S.: The marketed DA:O word count always pissed me off; half of that was hidden in the codex, not used interactively.)

That's a fair opinion, but I doubt the inclusion of DRM 'allows' games to be made--it's a higher-level business decision that has to do with protecting subsequent IP rights. I'm sure there's licensing to use extant DRM systems and different other costs, like online registration and activation systems that require server maintenance. (snip) Don't get me wrong, I'll still most likely pledge despite this initial imperfect digital offering, maybe even do the box version, but I'm hoping there will be more information about stuff before the Kickstarter end. I admit, I am not well informed about either the technical or economic aspects of DRM today, but piracy is still a huge issue that can severely hamstring game developers--especially piracy outside North America. If anything, larger companies can better afford to absorb losses due to piracy than smaller, independent companies that are self-publishing. I realize that there is debate over whether DRM actually does much of anything to ameliorate the piracy problem, but economic factors are the biggest things that have kept games like these from being made the last decade or so. So if Obsidian looks at the pros and cons and determines that they can be more profitable with DRM, then I'm all in favor because that means more money for development and therefore a better game for us. I don't like DRM either from a practical point of view, but not getting awesome games like Project Eternity and such because piracy makes games that lack mass appeal unprofitable is a much worse option. Certainly there are different types and levels of DRM too, and I'm sure a consumer-oriented company like Obsidian--especially for a crowd-sourced game--will take that into account too. What losses? You need to keep in mind that this is a crowdsourced project, so the "losses" you describe exist only in the traditional publishing systems---physical materials and storage, marketing channels, and the initial private funding. None of those three apply here because (1) nothing should be pre-printed nor brick-n-mortar leased, only post-printed using existing consumer payment; (2) you don't get more "free marketing" than the internet; (3) this is a public venture, and Kickstarters are not beholden to behind-the-scenes investors that funded a startup corp. (Yes, Obsidian is a bit different because the studio existed prior as a/part of a corporate entity, but I'm treating them as a true crowdsource initiative in every sense.) Now, the other side of the coin is "lost potential," and only that argument can make any bit of legal sense; yes, I've seen the numbers regarding bootleggers, and it really sucks. But I'm very familiar with the black marketing in China, the biggest scene for such things, for both professional and personal reasons; let me put it this way: Under no circumstance will any IP protection be effective on a global scale unless federal-level trade initiatives, rife with dangerous econo-politicking, are leveraged against one of the biggest hostile powers (to the U.S., yes). Do you think that will be successful? No, of course not. China in particular already owns, literally, much of the American economy. So in the end, what does DRM really do? From a practical standpoint, only legitimate buyers will ever see and deal with it. This is not an ideal scenario at all. This is also why I refuse to ever buy an Adobe product ever again, but I digress... I'm genuinely curious how you think the business decision-making surrounding DRM implementation has actually prevented game creation in the past decade--were there dev interviews, articles posted somewhere? Because from the business side, the only logical reason I can think of to not invest in a game is the basic economic standard "Will it generate enough revenue to cover initial investment and turn relevant profit?" Same here, I simply refuse to go for the $65 tier and beyond if the boxed version is bound to require a Steam account. I didn't know that was even possible, tying a physical disc to a Steam account. Ew. And good point about the online activation on a disc for future replayability. Considering how long the Infinity Engine oldies have lasted, this is a real issue to keep in mind. In the end, I decided to pledge for the box version. I'm hoping, per Nefastus' assumption as well that Obsidian is a "consumer-oriented company," and that whatever DRM implemented is consumer-friendly*. A simple disc check on the box would be quite tolerable to me. * Of course, some will say that DRM on its face is never consumer-friendly, but that's economic argument when I'm just being practical about game play access.

I definitely favor categorized but open-choice skills (enjoyed Divinity2DKS for that reason), but I've always favored hybrid play like dual/multiclassing. Party NPCs of course could be completely specialized or even partially hybridized. Far more customization options. In relation, it'd be nice to be able to 'undo' skill/trait options as well in case you make a mistake or something. Hmm.

I didn't even know what "stretch goals" were until this thread because this is my first venture into Kickstarter. I personally hope for more content in the way of Planescape:Torment: more party NPC depth and breadth, more and better random NPC interactionss--specifically, not just basic information when talking to quest NPCs but some actual personality (one of my favorite game interactions ever was running into the nameless Elderly Hive Dweller*). Um, it's too late to ask for an embroidered hat like my Baldur's Gate bucket hat, huh... Oh wait, that's not related to development. * "Do ye know where the Holy Flamin' Frost-Brand Gronk-Slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' Woundin' an' Returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-Out-Yer-Bum is?"

Races. Non-Tolkienesque races would be nice.

I want to see Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment stuff. Neither of those were Obsidian titles per se, but homage never hurts, right? THERE MUST BE A HAMSTER. Possibly a floating skull.

Didn't Planescape:Torment include a complete quest dialogue section in the journal? It's been a while (wonder if it'll run on my current computer ... now I really want to play it again /cry). Perhaps---a journal that covers complete dialogue and a tab for "quest objectives," with space next to the objectives for our own notes; a text box with scrolling quest dialogue and the option to place combat and other mechanics items like coordinates in a separate tab (especially if there's a system option to show "rolls" if there's anything like that, since that scrolls so fast and so much during combat, that I remember in BG2).

I honestly think the reason 3d reboots/sequels of 2d games has more to do with business decisions based on market peers ("everyone is doing it") than fundamental development bonuses. Those game firms don't go out of their way to poll players, either. I hate the excess dependency in today's games on cut-scenes and NPC VOs, making play experience PASSIVE and shifting our roleplay PC power to NPC presentation. And there's a better reason not to bother with 3d, cinematics, etc. The kickstarter well ostensibly reach goal in 24 odd hours, showing that the paying players are interested in things beyond those.

Here's the other thread about DRM: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/59936-drm-free/

Yes, you should compare to PS:T, one of the game hooks, not DA or ME. The party NPC implementations were completely different. PST had enough recruitable NPCs to force choices at least.

Actually, no. This is a Kickstarter project, crowdsourced, so they are actually more beholden to fans than after-the-fact consumers because we're initial investors, and the bottom line is a bit different concept in this business model. That said, it would be a bad idea to always listen to us all the time. The ideal scenario is thus the creators wanting to create the very thing players want to play. With wiggle room on the details. And so, since the old school Infinity Engine games were used as marketing hooks, we can and should expect those lines and then some.

Good to know. I'm hovering around the box version myself, which introduces two points of application for DRM. There's over a month left on the Kickstarter page, at least.

The inventory/paper doll system for a CRPG is an area ripe for originality. It could be totally mundane or so unusable that it makes a game difficult to play. This is a part of user interface design, I suppose, and an extremely important one. I don't remember the PS:T inventory system very well, but I do remember that horrible circular widget thing for quick slots. Baldur's Gate was generally fine and made a lot of sense to me, though I always installed that mod that allowed for much higher item stacking. Moving things among party members was such a chore, though. I do remember liking Dragon Age's shared party inventory, which made it easy to quickly move things to another NPC for their usage and you didn't have to worry about splitting stacks of stuff among the party. What other interesting, highly user-friendly inventory systems are out there?

That's one time per instal though! What if you want to install it again 10 years later? Or the company is out of business? To be honest, I was thinking of productivity software--which have constant version updates and are usually from such large companies that they're not likely to fail anytime soon in our lifetimes--and not games. Have there been games that required online activation but the company went defunct--without buyout and parent corp maintenance--and thus players had no recourse? (It's probably happened, just curious which ones.) In general, though, I do a drive image for that kind of stuff. Not to mention 10 years on, well.... if there's a real issue with online activation/registration, then people will find a way. When I saw the Steam option in the Kickstarter, I first assumed it was for the distribution system. In order of my personal preference--- 1) DRM-free 2) Registration code 3) Disc check 4) Online activation (I dunno about 10 years from now, true) 5) Steam (the constant running would annoy me even though I have a great gaming rig) 6) Something else..... less insidious than SecuROM but still quite insidious I do understand the business mentality in protecting IP; I work for a company where IP is extremely valuable. In general, it's a risk either way--but this is a crowdsourced venture, so it's not the same risk as a traditional software release relying on sales to cover initial private funding, marketing, and whatnot. In Kickstarter, this is already marketed, already funded/purchased by buyers. The business model is simply different. We should be trusted because we're making it happen already.