Macbeth

Indeed: obviously Obsidian still has the last word to say about the designs of these items. To OP: if I were to pledge 1000$ just so I could get the Arcane **** of Instant Gratification into the game, well, I’d end up humming ‘can’t get no satisfaction’, don’t you think? Besides, most people will want to make a truly cool item, not a 1000$ gag gift.

Exactly. The warrior should normally be able to perform skills with his weapon the wizard can’t and in the very least he’ll do a lot more damage; that’s a given. As for plate mails and the like, it’s all about give and take. A wizard will be better protected in a full-blown armour, but I would assume (s)he misses the magical benefits inherent to certain robes – or something along those lines.

Just a few more members and the Order will have raised 2400$ for Project Eternity! By the end of the Kickstarter campaign 3000$ may well be reached! Enough for a custom Obsidian Order portrait?

A sad day for your budget, but another glorious day in the marine corps! Seriously though, kudos for your pledge and welcome to the Order!

I voted unlimited standard arrows and limited specials. To be honest, the way BG handled it, it was a drag having to buy a handful of arrows for 1 symbolic gold piece after every map/dungeon; having to fill your ranger’s inventory to the brim with ‘em and then still having to move them manually to the arrow slots when (s)he ran out. In a sense they were unlimited anyway, except that you had go get them from the unlimited pile every so often – a great bore if you forgot and you ran out in the middle of a dungeon.

Wilkommen Schroedinger!

Lots of huffing and puffing going on in here over what seems to be a very reasonable approach to scaling. Not to mention the Path of the Damned difficulty, which should easily address many of the raised concerns.

Nice update, the mega dungeon especially sounds like a fantastic addition! As far as crafting is concerned: it’s a slippery slope. Any good RPG is the more or less perfect symbiosis between story and character, with both concepts covering a great load of different things. The aspects of an interesting and beautiful game world, intricate quests, moral dilemmas, etc. all fall under the ‘story’ category. ‘Character’ relates to everything that makes the player character fun to play: like level progression, skills, items, alignment, etc. Depending on how much stock you put in the latter, item fever is an important aspect of the character category. The ideal quest or dungeon is therefore the fusion between an atmospheric setting, a good background story, a worthy foe to fight (or overcome through other means) and ... a shiny big reward. It’s this last part that can be ruined by crafting. Why? Because if crafting leads to the manufacturing of the best items in the game, the item fever is, well, cured; and that’s not a good thing. Because what you’re left with is – hopefully – the satisfaction of having played through a great piece of RPG pur sang, but the rather bitter taste of it being pointless from the point of view of what is an integral part of character development. You know that whatever that chest contains, it won’t be as good as the item you’ll be crafting two minutes later. All this to basically ask these few questions: Why have crafting if it means it will potentially destroy item fever? (Skyrim...) And if it doesn’t do this, i.e. the ‘best’ items cannot be made through crafting, then why implement the feature at all? But does it really have to be one or the other? Of course there’s ways of pleasing both those who enjoy crafting and those who don’t. Schematics would go a long way for instance. This would make sure you’re able to craft a specific amount of unique items that are up there with the say, top 5% of the most fantastic items of its sort, but you can still find items that are on par with it in the game world. Having to scour the world in search of parts so that you can later assemble them Cespenar-style is also a viable method. And I’m sure there’s more. So in the end, crafting can ruin a lot of things, but if done right, it can be a neat enough feature. So in the end, we’ll just have to trust Obsidian to implement it well. So in the end, what was the point of this post?

Well spoken!

I’m fine with a fetch quest or two long as they’re ‘dressed’ properly. A few lines of convincing lore can do wonders. Obviously I do hope there’ll be a lot of intricate quests that require the player to think things over a bit, rather than having him follow blinking quest-markers from A to B and back. If there’s one thing I deeply hope is avoided completely though, it’s the bring-me-X-amount-of-Y quest variety. The horror!

A hearty welcome indeed!

+1

It's cool to see something completely different and unexpected once in a while, yes. Like the Planar Sphere in Baldur's Gate II.

Basically north-western Europe! Nordic fjords, snowy tundra and taiga ... Rolling hills of Scotland, wind-swept heaths of England ... The cosy endless plains of the low countries dotted with farms, flanked by poplars ... The great Black Forest of Germany ... The majesty of the Alps looming in the distance ... Come over, devs; we'll show you around!

No one. I was just contemplating the hypothetical. What dlux said probably comes close to the mark.

I doesn’t. But 200 NPCs just hanging around is still a lot!

I was browsing the possible pledges (again) and it struck me that if the 1000$ tier that allows a backer to name and design an NPC sells out, Obsidian will have to put 200 fan-made NPCs in the game. That is a staggering amount; in fact there are many RPGs out there that don’t have as many NPCs in the entire game. I was wondering therefore how they’ll solve this from a design point of view. It seems to me that it’s impossible to create so many unique NPCs and also give them a unique thing to do, i.e. a quest. So will people have to accept that their character will be a villager; a trader; a tavern guest rather than a quest NPC? The alternative is quite impossible unless Obsidian’s developers start replacing all of their own quest NPCs with fan-made candidates that more or less fit the profile. I’m not saying this to question or cast doubt on this pledge reward by the way: if I’d design a character and see him or her end up telling my hero a line or two of lore in some cosy inn, I’d be perfectly contented. After all, expecting them to become a major villain or wise mentor that counsels the player throughout the game just isn’t very realistic. No, I’m just interested to see how these fan-made NPCs will be handled throughout the development of Project Eternity and would welcome your opinions on the matter.

Well in MY dream ... but let's not go into that.

Ave Crassus, consul ordinis!

This dungeon is not about the keeping, but the adventuring. It's a Durlag's Tower; a place filled with death-traps and cunning that only the best and the boldest adventurers will survive! In other words, in RPG terms, it's bliss!

Not really. Many Kickstarter projects make as much in their last day as in their first day. They progress slowly for the rest of the time, but they don't stop. Currently if the project progresses the same way as Wasteland 2, Double Fine Adventure, or Dead State then it will make $5 million. Project Eternity has twice the time to make $2m more ($4m total) as it took to make the second $1m ($2m total). Broken Sword the Serpent's Curse Adventure made about 75% on the last day as the first, but Dead State made about 150% more on the last day. And I hope you're right ten times over!

Hear, hear!

Here's our answer: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60707-update-9-the-power-of-modes-and-godlike-races-our-23m-stretch-goal/

Amazing update! Temptation calls... Wallet cries... Perhaps...

How could anyone want otherwise. Yes, that is what you want to do. But importing characters is fun too. If you don't like a specific feature, just don't use it. But why spoil other people's fun?