Sordel

I'm sure that the devs will be able to think of their own Easter Eggs without being enslaved by a bunch of "inside" internet memes. To be honest, they could have got me to up my pledge by promising never to invent another "cake is a lie" or "arrow to the knee".

Bedtime here in the UK. See you tomorrow in the post-Kickstarter world!

I didn't pledge at all until a couple of days ago. I kept an eye on the tiers over the course of the Kickstarter and only decided very late whether I needed the physical goods or whether digital would do.

No, you're fine. Go back to page 9 of this thread and you can read all about it. It's not a big deal, just something that happened.

I agree, and I hope so too, but we've had 24 updates and it's unreasonable (I think) to hope for more than one a week. It's true that the devs can do a lot to keep us feeling involved, and I hope they will, but if their every update is greeted by group of fans that microscopically examines every single comment, I guarantee that they will lose enthusiasm for the task. Also, like every Kickstarter project, this one will be monitored by a lot of people hoping to see it fail. The backlash against Amanda Palmer was pretty strong, and she wasn't even dealing with gaming fans!

People fleshed out in their own minds what wasn't in the original video, and we've seen over the course of the campaign that people had strong ideas about every aspect of this game; some of them were very disappointed when things that they hoped would be in the game were not. We even had rage about the foreign language options! It's a given (hey, we're on the internet) that arguments are going to come up further down the line, but if these particular forums are going to continue to work to all our benefit, we're going to need to focus more on the things that unite us, such as our desire that the devs make the game they planned to the best of their, and our, satisfaction. Otherwise the devs will end up avoiding these forums almost as much as the massive percentage of pledgers who aren't even members here.

I am interested in why you feel your order should get any recognition above anyone else who has contributed financially towards PE? I am not being funny, I am genuinely curious. There are many people who are not part of your order that have paid good money towards KS Are ardent fans and believe in PE Promote the game on all forums they can So what makes you guys special? Yes, this is a good point. Although I've joined the OO, they don't deserve more recognition or fan service than other fans of the game. There's a danger that people are going to end up thinking that the $8 bought them a lot more than the name. That said, of course I'm very happy for the devs to recognise any fans that they feel have made a contribution to the project, irrespective of their membership of any particular group.

Since the Kickstarter phase of the project is about to end, and we've just had a fairly high-profile departure from amongst the backers (dlux) it seems to be about time to start thinking about the months ahead for our little community, so maybe people should start giving their ideas. Personally, I think that we've maybe got a bit too used to announcements from the development team on a frequent basis, and it's going to take people a while to calm down from having stuff to react to every day. Also, I think for the time for wishlists of features is maybe past: I'm sure that devs will ask if they need any more ideas, but they seem to have about as many as they can possibly deliver on. There'll be plenty of time to complain about development decisions in 2014 ... and I'm sure that we will, because we all had different ideas of what this game was going to be when we started. Until we at least see some alpha footage, though, it's only going to spoil the atmosphere here if we get daily ragequits over how this game is going to suck worse than DA2! (To be honest, I liked DA2, although I know I'm in a minority.) Finally, the point of crowdfunding a game is not just to buy the game ... we could all simply have bought it on release, since it hit its funding on about the first day. The point is to be on the journey, and any journey is going to be more fun if we pass the time pleasantly along the way. Maybe a few less polls and a few more games and general discussions? I'm looking forward to the journey, maybe more than the game itself. In the immortal words of The Carpenters, "we've only just begun".

Yes, in principal a pledge can end with a 5 or a 7, so it would be possible to get an 8 at the end without pledging 8 for the Obsidian Order. I would think that Obsidian will just check that there is an 8 at the end of the final pledge to confirm OO membership, but they might also check that there is a full $8 over everything else asked for. Of course, if they do, then the pledger loses his or her title and gets exposed as a cheating d-bag as well. I've got a feeling that the honour system will probably keep this nice 'n' friendly.

At the time I quit WoW I had about thirteen characters between level 80 and 85. For me, having more content just means having more ways to explore the gameplay systems, and that's what I like about RPGs in the first place, whether it's battle mechanics, dialogue options or side quests. I've sunk hundreds of hours each into the last three Elder Scrolls games. There are loads of games I've never finished, and a few that I loved and couldn't bring myself to finish, but I've never met a game I liked where I wouldn't have wanted it to have more content.

I'm not sure that my OO title has been granted yet (guess I'll find out when I post) but anyhoo: I don't think that it's practical for the devs to do anything more than put a mention of the order in the lore. A complete faction would be very cool, but completely unnecessary work for them and, although we're up to about 500, that's still a very small number of players to cater for, especially since the entire funds raised by the order is only going to amount to a tiny percentage of the total budget. I think that the vanity forum titles are quite enough for the $8. Any little easter egg that gets added to the game is a pure bonus.

Quake, puny mortals, beneath the lash of: Sordel, Exultant Pragmatist of the Obsidian Order

o/p makes a good point, and with the huge number of classes I am concerned that they will not be able to flesh out the talent trees fully: I don't like to make one character decision (when I roll it) I like to make more decisions along the way. Breadth can get in the way of depth. Still, I assume that Obsidian know what they're doing. They've gone pretty far into their wish list for this game, but maybe not so far that they've bitten off more than they can chew.

You need also to bear in mind that the devs are painting on the bullseyes after the arrows land. They wanted Ziets, they've had the discussion, they know that the project is going to hit 2.8 million, because Kickstarter projects have an arc and momentum of their own. While stretch goals are incentives to spend money, they are also slightly artificial and a way for the devs to communicate their evolving vision for the game to backers. Don't get too hung up about what comes in at any particular tier.

If I'm being honest, my best moments in RPGs were probably MMORPGs, so I don't know how that helps Obsidian with this game. They were moments when we lost a tank, a healer (or sometimes both) and still managed to complete an instance despite it. Much as I love SP games, nothing beats there being some total stranger in some distant corner of the Internet who is on your wavelength, enjoys doing the material and is willing to work a bit for the glory of pulling off a win against the odds. I suppose slightly more helpful to Obsidian would be the example of trying dungeons in WoW with just hunter and pet. Hunter was actually one of the last classes I levelled, but you can have a lot of fun with it if you're willing to go very, very slowly. In late tier Wrath of the Lich King it was actually possible to "solo" normal dungeons from that expansion. In terms of purely SP games, I suppose it's the standard moments for me, like the twist in KotOR, the death in FFVII, the first time you see the Ghostgate with no blight storm in Morrowind etc. I tend to think of plot points rather than mechanics for highlights in a standard RPG, and I suppose that is a help to Obsidian. No amount of work on mechanics alone can equal a good plot point.

I still haven't pledged at all, but I expect to pledge somewhere between $35 and $200 ... I'll decide later. The key issue for me is not the game, which is not going to change much in planning, but whether there's a good reason to get the physical version with its high shipping charge across the ocean. Some more swag in that would get me to pledge at the higher level.

I think Project: Eternity is a dreadful name, so hopefully that changes, but then: I think Planescape: Torment is an awful name. Here's some thoughts: 1) With Soul in the title. Others in the thread have come up with those, and they all end up sounding like some other game. 2) With a place in the name. Only Obsidian knows what the place is called, so we can't really help with that. 3) With Eternity in the name. Sounds to me like a kid's JRPG: all pastel colours and cartoon shading. 4) Working from the theme of persistent souls. Maybe something with Revenant or Incarnation in it? (Shame The Nomad Soul has been taken!) 5) Or how about a completely non-genre title? Instead of making this game sound like an RPG, why not go for something completely neutral in the same way that the developers have with Hawken and Dishonored?

Personally I loved the gambits in Final Fantasy XII ... I can't believe they did away with such a subtle system of AI for companions. Unfortunately, too much automation in your party can result in the sense that anyone can get through the game just by copying down the optimal tactics. That said, I generally hate games that demand a lot of real-time combat (such as Action RPGs). I'm more of a turn-based type, and I think in any case that's closer to P:E's influences. I don't mind clicking through each party member's action screen on pause ... that's very much what I've used to from JRPGs.

To be honest, I had only expected something like a Mog House: i.e. a single decoratable space where you can store your loot. I like the ideas in this thread more, but, like others, I find the idea of a castle to be too much. It constrains your roleplaying: what use, for example, would a Bard have for a castle? The way I would do it is this. There's a house that you visit fairly early on in the story while doing part of the Main Quest. That house, it later turns out, has a side-quest of its own, and if you complete that quest you get the house. Then there are some simple upgrade quests, but once you've done those you find that the house has secret lore associated with it, and by following clues you can do other quests or locate loot. It could even have a major optional dungeon in the cellar. This way you end up with a decoratable house, but the house isn't so much a thing in itself where your character is expected to settle down. There would be no management of it as such, although certainly you could meet your out-of-party companions there if you wanted, and display armour etc.

I like to decide whether my character is the Chosen One or not. Some of my characters in Skyrim are The Dragonborn, but most of them are not. There's nothing worse than being pushed through a role-playing sausage machine.

I think you maybe missed my point. My point was that Nataly asked for less than she thought she needed: people do that, it's part of the system. Your original claim was that if a Kickstarter project was funded that the project that it funds was completely paid for. I gave you a counterexample (and there are loads of them). Kickstarter can pay for everything, but with an expensive project and an unproven level of support most Kickstarter projects are going to use the money as part funding to kick-start the project. It says it right there in the name! Another example: the Cerebus audio-visual project just posted actual expenditure of $32K on a project that only originally asked for $6K. That may sound like a crazy overspend to you, but they never expected to cover the cost of the project with $6K. These projects are not funded on the basis of what they make from Kickstarter but on the basis that you yourself have already mentioned: there are future sales, and the future sales make up the shortfall. The basis of most business is not to use only the capital available (which is nearly always very small) but to leverage that capital. We might be buying Obsidian house, but we might alternatively be giving them a deposit to secure a mortgage. We don't know, because they haven't told us.

No one wants to see Kickstarter fail, but the gaming gold rush is going to stall, whatever Obsidian does. I don't think people are really ready to wait years to see their games developed: I think we'll see a reality check, especially when it turns out that some of the Kickstarter-funded games are not as good as their backers hoped. Moreover, I don't think that games companies are really to blame for this, since backers like to believe that their pet projects are awash with cash, when that simply isn't true. Not everything in every Kickstarter game is going to be funded as the developers would like; even games companies such as Blizzard that could afford to make any game they wanted to can't get everything right. Now, I agree that Obsidian is not going to take the money and not deliver anything on the pledges. (I think that has more to do with its reputation in the marketplace than because it cares massively about Kickstarter's future but, whatever, doesn't matter.) But I also think that Obsidian will want to create a viable market product. I don't think they got together to devote a couple of years to a hobbyist game here, so they will definitely want to have their mind on the wider market rather than just the Kickstarter backers. People say 'this isn't a AAA game" and of course, that's true. It doesn't have a mass marketing budget, or a license etc. and its sales are capped to the people who care about a traditional RPG. But, there's a huge distance between a game that's AAA and a game that has no marketing spend and only costs $3 million to develop. Moreover, marketing spend is not lost money: you can pretty much guarantee a level of sales based on marketing, which is why Bethesda spent a fortune on advertising Skyrim despite the fact that it already had massive market awareness. My view is that you have to trust the devs and let them run with the ball. Personally, I don't want this to go down in history as a successful example of crowd-funding ... I want it to go down as the game so successful in the open marketplace that every other major developer started work on a traditional RPG off the back of it.

This is not true. From Nataly Dawn's Blog: Now you may say 'This is a professional games studio, not some flakey indie singer' but the point is: Obsidian may have made a number of reasonable assumptions demanding additional scale. It's cheaper per unit to manufacture higher numbers of boxes, maps and manuals, for example, so it may well be that the amount they raise through the Kickstarter at the original funding target would not actually cover the pledge costs on those items. Moreover, if Obsidian wanted to make a game costing $10 Million then it is better to get $2 million through Kickstarter than to get zero through Kickstarter because they asked for $10 Million and failed to hit their target. The fact is: Kickstarter projects may cover the full cost, or part of the cost, or the full cost plus a handsome return. We just don't know.

No, we're not the financiers of the game. No, Obsidian is not accountable to us. This forum is called 'Speculation and Discussion', not 'Manage Your Investment' ... all your Kickstarter pledge buys you is your pledge reward, which Obsidian can fulfil in any way they please. They can develop the game with $100K if they please and pocket the rest, or they can spend $50 million on it and put in a load of stuff that you don't want or need: a pinball mini-game, an Angry Birds clone puzzle system, a My Little Pony race mode. Pleasing US should be a low priority because we are not future purchasers of the game ... Obsidian already has our money. I don't care about language support or modding, but Obsidian will have their own ideas about both, and I certainly don't object to either. I voted against multiplayer because when I see the word multiplayer I think of PvP, which means that they have to spend masses of development time on class balance. I actually don't mind so much if we're talking about PvE multiplayer ... could be cool.

I think you're wrong. Don't forget, the Kickstarter community have all prepaid for their copies, so Obsidian just lost probably in the region of 50K sales to their key demographic: 'hardcore' RPG fans. On top of which, we all told everyone who would listen to us. That means that in order to turn this game into a profitable proposition, they are going to have to advertise, otherwise they just lost a lot of money. That's why they're making the collectors' book & edition: to get eye-catching stuff into retailers etc. They don't want to prove that this game can satisfy 50K people .... they want to prove that they can get sales for this genre of game that stack up against AAA titles.