HungryHungryOuroboros

So you're sitting on the equivalent of a trip-and-a-half at Starbucks, you've got a game that would retail for more than twenty bucks and you're whining? Sheesh. I'm not whining. I'm happy with what I have. I'm happy to, in some small way, support this project. Obsidian wants to make me happier enough with something more that I give them more money. Not me specifically, obviously, but the larger base of backers as a whole, most of whom are in that lower set of tiers. I'm just saying that, for someone from my position, there's nothing enticing within $50 of where I am, and if they want people in my position to upgrade they should have something in there that makes it easier to think of it as "only $20 more for this" and "only $15 more for that". If they don't do anything in that regard I'm still happy to sit on the $20 tier and just get the game and have great fun with it when it comes out. I'm not sitting here with a sense of entitlement. I'm just reasonably stating that they're lumping a lot of stuff into an already top-heavy $250+ area, which is an unreasonable leap for most of their base. They're giving people in the digital $110 tier a chance to give $55 more. That's less than 500 people in total who might upgrade to the new one. They have 25,000 people sitting at $20. 11,700 at $25. These are people who don't need to be told a reason they might be enticed by something more than $200 away from them. Eternity right now has a lower pledge per backer than Wasteland 2 did, and I feel like this is largely because Wasteland 2 had a far better "staircase" effect with their pledge amounts. I feel like Obsidian could do better in this regard.

This campaign is too top-heavy and has been from the start. There is almost no value in the range between Now, I know Kickstarter isn't a store, Kickstarter isn't something you're "buying from", etc etc and so forth. But their goal is obviously to include new incentives to raise pledges, and they're doing absolutely *nothing* to make it enticing for people on the lower end to raise their pledges a moderate amount. I'm sitting on $20, and the next tier that seems at all tempting is $120 away from my starting point. They really need to build a staircase of value between the two to try and make the climb seem less arduous. I'm not saying this for me, as stuff I want. I'm saying that if they want to actually raise a larger number of their pledges, for the game's sake they have to look a bit lower.

It seems that Eternity's logo has undergone something of a redesign, and I think I like it. Though the Ouroboros is hardly owned by Zenimax, I think it's nice that Eternity now has a logo that doesn't invoke something currently being done by another major RPG company, but I'm not sure a circular design by itself represents the "eternity" theme as well as an ouroboros does. What does everyone else think?

Wait, mages DON'T store all their magic inside giant floppy triangle hats?

I'm prety sure they weren't "random" in Fallout. Weren't the gorey death animations the result of landing a killing blow with a critical hit? Obviously this means that it was aided by a dice roll, which you could call "random", but that means it would also be weighted by your critical chance.

Would I like an Infinity Engine-style game, but designed from the ground-up for groups and multiplayer? Yeah, that sounds like it could be great fun! But that's not what this project is. Do I want multiplayer tacked-on to an otherwise single-player, narrative experience? No, not really.

If I had more money. ...also, to be honest, I'm sitting at $20 and seeing nothing in *immediate* reach that is exciting. I'm $5 further away from later tiers than someone at $25, and a cloth map at $140 is way higher than the Wasteland 2 cloth map at $50. The thing keeping me from climbing up on this one, relative to others, is that it's not a climb so much as it is a massive leap.

Yeah, there is, and given Bobby Null's response in this thread and the fact that Obsidian is very aware this is a Kickstarter venture means extremists should stop being hyperbolic whiny drama queens and trust Obsidian to balance the difficulty appropriately given their own goals in relation to the IE games. This thread is over--it's solely up to Obsidian to temper the difficulty range to the target audience they actually want when they're fully aware of the dilemmas surrounding this. The only thing extremists should be worried about in this KS is dumping more of your pocket money to make 2.3 happen. Full respect to Bobby Null, but I have to in some ways disagree on the expressed ideas, if not with the core principle. Unlike in a tabletop setting, single-player RPGs are...consumed media products, basically. When people form a tabletop group they decide what kind of campaign they're running and what their individual rules are, and when that's all set you can't have another type of player walk in and try to play a different way(see: Munchkin, Chaotic Stupid). While Bobby Null talks about different groups doing different things....an *individual* GM has to shape his campaign to his group, or find a group that fits into his campaign. We're basically looking at the concept different. Bobby Null looks at the GM's role to cater to the group, recognizes that the video game can't know what the "group"("player") wants or is, and takes this to meant that the campaign has to be designed in such a way that "everybody" has something they can enjoy. The way I see it, because the "group" is such an unknown quantity, you have to look at the other "groups" are offering and see who doesn't have a game they can play. Ultimately, I don't think one game can be designed in such a way as to equally please hardcore RPG min-maxers AND Dave Grossman's mother-in-law equally.

There comes a point where, if you're redesigning your project to hit a wider "set" of people, the thing gets so redesigned that what they end up getting isn't the core thing you were trying to make in the first place. At that point, you're just doing this for them so you can get their money. There's a difference between making something "accessible" and catering something to someone who does not know how to play and frankly has no DESIRE to know how to play.

Considering what we've been told, I'm pretty certain that there is going to be one. I don't really see anything on the map that would lead me to believe that. What have we been told? It's entirely possible I'm jumping the gun on this, actually. I've been going off the line from the Souls update: "Through a variety of techniques (e.g. martial training, meditation, ritualistic evocation, mortification of the flesh), some individuals are able to draw upon the energy of their soul to accomplish extraordinary feats." And thinking that accessing a universal spiritual energy through martial training and meditation sounded a *lot* like some people in this world would fit cleanly into the Wuxia genre. It's also obvious that they're allowing for different "religious" interpretations of the souls and the spiritual realm, which means that tapping into world religions and spiritual philosophies is pretty much necessary.

Considering what we've been told, I'm pretty certain that there is going to be one.

Spells. ....really *cool* spells.

I actually feel like a lot of the issues could be "side-stepped" by using an upgrade system similar to what was used in KOTOR II. Base weapons can essentially be "types" that have different "feels" to them, with the actual stats handled by slotted-in upgrades. Granted, unlike lightsabers or blaster rifles a massive warhammer is hardly "modular", but I figure something along the lines of enchantments, runes, sigils, etc could make even the most singular item into a modular thing.

I don't know about you, but I would be upset if the *core game* wasn't "hardcore mode". It seems to me that the "Hardcore" designation was just there because they had to ship a mass consumer-friendly product.

These concepts are actually not the core issue. The core issue is that the player and the character are treated as valiant and amazing for their participation. I do wonder what it might be like to have a deeply disturbed and dysfunctional romance in an RPG. Instead, we get what is VERY wrong and dysfunctional in normal, real-life romance and it gets treated as not only normal, but abnormally great. That's just....it gets creepy.

The metaphysics of the world seem to be based on a mishmash of various religious concepts. The update about culture seems to imply that, though the source of all the powers is the same observable THING, philosophy differs enough to cause conflicts, so obviously we have people tapping into the energy in different ways. You have Gods which have a very Greek-feeling nature to them, you have reincarnation, meditation, and a spiritual path defined by martial training. It's obvious that they're going to pull from as many religious sources as possible, so it would be a sorely missed opportunity if they did not look into various cultures' supernatural religious figures(and popular depictions thereof) and ripped some cool narrative and gameplay/power concepts from them.

I cold live with a mage or Shaolin Warrior type who has an out of combat power to hover and move faster. Mechanically the same as walking but with a magical hovering animation.

Actualy, there are very easy ways within this lore to expand out. We're obviously throwing in a lot of Eastern religious ideas, and they've already talked about martial training. What about various types of Wuxia warriors? Wouldn't it be cool to see a culture of people whose powers seem defined largely by an understanding of souls that takes from Hong Kong action films? It's a silly thought, but it's a fun thought experiment, I think.

I don't think this request is as unreasonable as everyone is making it out to be. Digital software is making a jump from being "products" to being "services", in terms of how they're treated. The Humble Indie Bundles have taught consumers that they can get DRM-free and Steam copies for the same purchase, AND they can pay as little as one dollar for that privilege(previously one cent). Buying through Steam nets a person both a PC *and* a Mac copy, sometimes with shared cloud saves! Many boxed PC games that have a Mac version simply provide the Mac version on another disc in the same box! That's TWO COPIES in a very literal sense of the word! Apple and Google are using the ability to install apps on a universal account that unlocks on phones, tablets, and as far as I understand even computers(in Apple's case) as a core part of their service. Streaming services like OnLive are mutable across multiple devices now. Video services like Netflix migrate from TV to phone to tablet to PC without a hitch. Even Cable TV providers, the sluggish dinosaurs averse to change as anyone, are starting to expand their offerings to some limited forms of easily movable media. Like it or not, movable media by and large is a service that people are being trained to expect more and more from things that they just purchase in the usual consumer sense of the word. Cross-platform in one charge is becoming a core important feature of consumer-friendly companies. And another thing: We're not buying a game. Without us, there would be no game. Even if every single backer gave an extra copy to a friend....that's still more money than Obsidian would have without us. Ultimately, people going against this largely are treating customers as some vile things that will exploit anything they can get their hands on. It seems to me, with all the trust we are putting in Obsidian, it would be nice to see Obsidian put a little trust in us. ...or at least toss in an extra copy at the $140 level, since that seems to be the one they really want people to jump up to.

I suppose all you need is one dickish God feeding a line to his own cult about the Gods being mortal beings who just happen to have a really cool spaceship or a more advanced knowledge of magic or something. Hell, they may very well be?

Atheism seems silly when there are observably meddlesome Gods, though I suppose they could be the weird cult-like fanatics acting against observable reason in this world. I personally would prefer to see characters who hate the Gods rather than ones who don't believe in them despite their obvious visible presence. Traya-like characters.

I'm going to say "Yes" because I'm selfish. If Obsidian decides it's not feasible/worthwhile, they can keep things the way they are and I won't fuss, but hey, if your'e asking "do you want the paper book cheaper somehow", then I will say yes. I'd also say yes to a "Backer Store" like Wasteland 2 added in for its backers that would allow me to donate more after the fact for higher-level tiers.

I got the impression that warriors could "cast spells", but these spells would come in the forms of buffs or very impressive melee moves or like, being able to jump really far.

An inside-out, organic Beast Tower, whose silent undulations are its wholly insufficient attempt to communicate the constant, mind-searing agony of its existence.

Definitely not an "indie company". Every game they've made before DFA was financed by some big publisher. They made Psychonauts, which had a budget of $11 million. They're definitely a smaller mid-range developer, but they're not "independent".