Theobeau

How that close already?! Kicktraq marked a spike in pledges from two days ago; isn't that when Ziet's stretch goal was first announced? http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/#chart-daily GZ sure has a lot of dedicated and cash ready fans out there (you can count me as one of them)!

Small game related art such as post-card sized lithographs or prints. Putting the game aside, the one that came with ME3 was actually quite a nice piece of art. Aside: International shipping is a kicker, making non-US pledge even more expensive. Do US courier companies really $20-30 to ship a plastic (or cardboad) box with DVD, t-shirt, mouse-pad and book?

As you push out towards the end of the 15thC you start heading into the reign of the Tudors. They had quite a look for their plate armour........ This should be a mandatory look for the the higher class paladins of PE; after all this one was good enough for a future King of England!

A degree of weapon juggling gives a sheen of strategy for weapon-specialist classes, which nicely balances off the tactical element in choosing which spell to memorise/branch of magic to specialise in for the caster classes. Having a warrior carry three different weapons (range + 2 melee) isn't unrealistic or immersion breaking. That said, outright immunity for common enemies is annoying. Many posters have mentioned differing damage resistance as a better option. Perhaps reserve immunities for well telegraphed powerful monsters or bosses.

Obviously MoTB and its writing team are really inspiring the base. It must be gratifying for the writing talent of OBS (including Ziets obviously) to be so readily and openly appreciated. One small point to make is that they could have considered doing this earlier. An earlier thread suggested that the writer was willing quite early in the piece but hey, perhaps it was a tactical move on OBS part. Certainly seemed to have worked as I'm sacrificing a fair bit of my coffee money for this one!

Re: above posts It is worth getting at least a little enthusiastic about.....the exact amount perhaps proportional to how much extra pledge one can put in! If someone is willing to do Ramen for lunch to up their pledge, I should at least be able to sacrifice a few weeks worth of my morning coffee money (which is not to say sacrificing coffee entirely....no one is worth that!)

As someone who only discovered who George Z was through this thread's early days (page 2 or 3 I think) and then realised he was the lead behind the expansion pack that redeemed NWN2 and which stands out as one of OBS' more impressive works, I'm very excited that he could become involved in PE. Kudos to the people behind this thread who have been agitating to get George involved. Now have to work out how much to increase my pledge; a little or go the who damned hog and up it to the next tier? How much is it worth to have George involved ?

@ImRhoven, As someone in a similar situation, completely concur with your post. Can't quite justify to myself the $250 tier (+30 for int. shipping) but would definitely consider a tier between 150-200 that still had the $140 tier physical rewards. Lets hope OBS are listening.

Very excited that OBS have committed to an expansion rather than than the cut-out from main game and repackage or charge for a few costumes and weapons DLC model. OBS have a track record of producing expansions of a good length and interesting content. I for one really enjoyed the new worlds, cultures and changes in style from FNV's different DLCs. I know they were called DLC but 10-20hrs of extra game play in a world separate from the main story line sounds like an expansion pack. Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road were all excellent athough Dead Money, while interesting, was a bit of a grind in the middle. (NB: I'll concede that Gun Runners and the Courier's stash definitely follow the newer DLC charging for extra stuff model). And obviously, not much needs to be said as to how excellent the BG expansions and MoTB were. I have faith that PE's expansion pack lives up to the pedigree of their previous expansion work.

Sure, happy to support an element that harkens back to the PnP days. Some like me think that critical hits and critical misses are a reminder of the antecedents of the cRPG genre but why not make them optional for those who don't like the feature?

@Sugarjaye, Great looking symbol, +1 support from this end. Re: Third thread Congrats to all the instigators of the order for doing such a damned fine job !

The mechanical dog of ME3 added (a very, very) little colour to the game so if PE's pet follows that model, there shouldn't be much to worry about. However in the unlikely even that it follows the Day 1 DLC model used in the same game then I imagine quite a few people could get very p**sed off. That said, by starting a Kickstater project and interacting with the fan base as constantly as they have been, I'm fairly confident that OBS know which model better reflects the collaborative approach to game design that they have been advocating.

Late to this very interesting thread but my 2c: Make culture matter. The roughly equivalent period of time that PE is supposed to be set is the 14thC which witnessed the decline and fall of Byzantium, the rise of the the great Islamic powers, nation states in Europe asserting themselves against the papacy, the overthrow of Mongol rule in China, the Black death and the beginning of the renaissance. A grand sweep of history that is filled with cultures and civilisations of different levels interacting with, trading with and in conflict with each other. Draw on some of that culture and history in the world of PE. Imagine what it would have been like to travel from Constantinople to France; through a decaying Empire, feuding proto-states in middle Europe, the papal states of Italy and up into the supposed safety of a more civilised French state but only then to encounter a group of marauding English knights. Give us a real sense that the cultures and places are different in their dress, their language (idioms, accented text etc...), their cultural mores and importantly in how they view and treat you rather than presenting it as some generic Middle Ages-lite culture. After all, this is a world of dwarves, elves, god-like beings and unknown other races. Their cultures should look and feel as different as it did during the period when you could have lived in the era of the Ming Dynasty, the Ottman Turks or under Plantagenets Kings of England.

Re: recent discussions about Ziets; that's really great news! The potential end product from the leads for PST and MoTB working together could match or even exceed the authors' previous highpoints. Potentially a truly amazing piece of gaming / art and perhaps worthy of the term "artistic integrity..." ?!

True_Spike quite well summarised my thoughts on DAO Not too bad but could have been a lot better

Thanks for pointing the interview out. Avellone makes interesting comments about different dialogue options for hi and low attributes being written into the game (will increase re playability) and the use of a hidden mortality and reputation index a la FNV. The latter managed to track reputation and quest effects across 6 (?7 ?8 groups) quite well without being intrusive or too obvious. Aside: OBS are really working the gaming sites hard aren't they? Into the final 10 days and one huge push for pledges etc....

Another saying thanks for pointing this out. Must pay more attention!

On the main point you certainly imagine parts of the narrative working over themes such as how religions interacted a la C1400's Europe. Whether we see something like the cycle of violence that was the Protestant-Catholic conflicts or the viciously brutal treatment of the remaining Muslims and Jews in Spain by the victorious Catholic Spanish monarchy remains to be seen. Likewise plague on a scale like the Bubonic plague could be a feature of places you visit without necessarily making it so realistic that 1-2 of your party of 6 adventurers die. I guess the extent of realism depends on whether it helps or hinders the narrative. Aside: The devs have suggested late medieval/early Renaissance which fits somewhere around C14-15th. There are such a large range of societies in that period; Byzantium reviving and then declining, city states in Europe rising in power, nations developing, Imperial China etc... It gives the develops a large palate of cultural, religious and political systems to model the PE world and given the talent involved, the end result should be very interesting.

The developers have a track record when it comes to clever uses of the undead. Witness: -PST's take on the undead that was the Dead Nations section: unexpected and poignant. -Bodhi and her coven were well handled and damned scary in part Agree with the others though that at times, high level undead such as Liches and powerful vampire lords just became monster mobs for the high level adventurer. I hope that this is avoided in PE. Use them as high level manipulators behind the scenes with the final confrontations difficult and challenging, not just fodder for level 25 fireballs or sunstones. PS: Agewisdom's comment about the soul-less becoming like the undead is clever and hopefully something that may be used in the final game!

@Ink Blot Many thanks for putting this great load of new (for me anyway) info together!

Predictable cliches for NPCs and races: - stoic and inexplicably scottish dwarves - in decline but still glorious elves (who are welsh?!) - hobbits halfings with furry feet who claim to be home bodies but really like travel and taller women - the noble Paladin, the power mad wizard, the in conflict with his faith priest etc.... No more than one example of breaking the fourth well please Magic becoming a overly complex chess game of breaching that defence and dispelling this buff a la BG2 ToB Certain weapon types being almost immediately useless from the get go Loot drop that becomes magic weapon candy land Clunky inventory UIs with really small stacks or worse, no inventory system (ME 2 and 3 anyone?) Too many companions for the player to really use * That said, I've got a fair bit of confidence that OBS will not make these mistakes or errors and make in PE a really great cRPG.

MoTB redeemed NWN2 for me. However, while all the NPCs from MoTB are really well written, Fall From Grace wins. Must be Jennifer Hale doing an English accent! Bumping this thread again.....

I'm a huge fan of PST as many others out there and was a little disappointed that OBS Kickstarter campaign was for the spiritual heir of PST rather than PS 2. That said, the centrality of the soul in PE is something that is potentially as clever if not more so than the centrality of identify, memory and regret was for PST. As other posters have said, with the talent that OBS possess, their pedigree and the fact that Avellone is intimately involved with this project makes me more than hopeful that the end product will be Planescape Torment's spiritual successor, just as was promised. (warning gratuitous BW bash) Plus, even the worse scenario should see a game better than DA2.

Intrigued by this KS campaign but like others tentative about pledging until I see more info on their KS page. In addition, while I liked Wizardary, for me that series didn't have the inspired writing and emotional pull of the BG series or other OBS games. For me, this is a watch and see. Plus am holding off additional pledges until I see how OBS revamp their reward tiers (hint, hint)....

Like most of the other posters here, prefer cardboard b/c of the old school cRPG/IE game feel to it. LordCrash made the good point that standard edition plastic, collector's cardboard as we are pledging a premium. Aside: Is cardboard that much more expensive to process than plastic that it would justify an upped pledge?