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arbyday Given your past experience with making wonderful RPGs, what are the most important (or were the hardest for you to master) skills you think you bring to development of this title that another dev team might not have? Obsidian_Ent[S] Tim Cain: I can answer that in one word. Editing. It has taken me a long time to learn that I don't need to add every feature I could possibly think of to all of my games. You need to learn what is possible to add and what would take a long time to add, and then prioritize your features so that the best ones get the most time allotted to them.

Woo... we're getting a lot of answers today, this is nice. Just wish he'd answer my question about the 4,000,000 stretch goal for cats

milath First, Chris, as an aspiring writer myself I just wanted to tell you how much I admire your work and the fact that you (and your compatriots as well) have given gamers something to point to as examples of truly great writing in games over the years. My question: As the developers of yet another successful Kickstarter campaign, and ones who usually deal with publishers, do you guys have any insights with respect to how the high-profile Kickstarter movement is changing the way the industry is looking game development in general? For example, are publishers becoming more receptive to smaller non-AAA projects with more niche audiences at all? Are developers perhaps gaining a bit more of a say in their projects? Do you believe there will ever be a day game publishers might not be needed anymore at all thanks to digital distribution and crowd-funding sites such as KS? Thanks guys! I look forward to 2014-ish with great anticipation. Can't wait to see what you all come up with! Obsidian_Ent[S] Chris Avellone nods and says: I don't think publishers care about the amounts being donated on KS right now. What they will likely care about is if the titles that get financed go on to sell a million units, and THEN I think we'll get a sea change in terms of them being open to certain submissions. Then again, it will likely fall into the same trap of only accepting games that are similar to the original KS project rather than niche projects in general. Still, if it makes for more RPGs, all the better! I don't know how the industry will shake out. I do like working for fans, overall, and I like the Kickstarter process because we're allowed to be in more direct contact and share design ideas.

deonisius So far everything I'm seeing here sounds great, but here is a very important question I have: Does the game scale to your level (eg: Fallout 3/Oblivion) or is it set more like Fallout 1/2? For me personally (and some might disagree of course) level scaling kills the entire fun of exploring and finding good loot. And of course the lack of challenge on scaled mechanic is also ever present and makes me not care about side quests (who cares at which point of the story I am and how leveled up I am since everyone around is pretty much the same). So what is your guys plan on this? Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: Scaled content will be used minimally, and almost entirely on the critical path. We don't want to push players to grind to make their way through the game's central plot. Side content will probably not be scaled at all. This includes wandering off in a random direction in the wilderness. It should feel dangerous and risky, IMO.

squiddybiscuit You mentioned in an interview that there is no resurrection, and very little healing, in Project Eternity. What exactly does that mean for the Priest, who is traditionally very big on those two things - will he basically be a combat focused class? Also, assuming there are "undead" in the game, will there be a "soul" twist to them? Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: It means the priest can focus on party buffs and being directly involved in combat instead of being a healing battery. Also, priests can restore Stamina, but several classes have similar abilities. Health is the statistic that requires rest to recover. There's a little bit about undead and necromancy in today's update.

inertiax Will there be Heroic epithets or history feat bonuses? extra perks/stat bonuses you get through gameplay? (Expert Excrement Expeditor) or perhaps some for completing the game with the hard modes turned on? Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: We think it's good to reward players for playing the game "their" way, so we do plan to give bonuses that fall outside of strict level-ups.

sensuki There was concern raised on the forums about the proposed health system based on Darklands. If a character is knocked unconscious from running out of endurance, would you program enemy AI to strike down said character, or ignore them and attack your remaining characters that are not unconscious? Would this be related to difficulty level / expert mode Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: We'll have to see, but generally speaking, spending time finishing off an unconscious foe while able-bodied combatants continue to pose a threat is not tactically wise.

tur22 Can we expect to see more artwork like the dwarven ranger portrait before the kickstarter ends? There's been a lot of discussion on the forums about portrait artists for PE with names like Justin Sweet coming up often, but I would really like to see more examples from whoever produced the dwarven ranger. Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: That artist is currently working on another piece, but I don't know if it will be ready before the end of the KS.

Captainbob83 Will there be gender specific dialogs/interactions with certain npcs? (For example seducing a guard to gain access to some restricted area if you're a woman). Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: We'd like to do that when it's appropriate, yes.

fallenninja666 Ive been following your kickstarter with wide eyed interest and one thing really caught my eye, you said that you were going to be able to include many more "mature" themes in this game, and I was wondering if you could elaborate on what exactly that means? P.S You guys ROCK for doing project eternity. I mean it. Obsidian_Ent[S] Tim Cain: by saying we want to add mature themes to our game, we are talking about issues that are commonly ignored in other games, issues that bring to mind questions of relative morality or life-and-death choices. Remember in Fallout 1 when you had to decide whether to look for an alternative water source for Necropolis or just steal their water chip to give to your Vault? That was a choice where you could decide that a lot of "monsters" would die so that your people would survive, or you could race against time to see if everyone would survive or if everyone would die. We want more quests like that.

lobotomy42 Are there any new gameplay elements from Obsidian's non-D&D games (K2, F:NV, AP, DS3) that you're considering bringing into Project Eternity? Or, for that matter, are there any elements from someone else's RPG you'd like to steal? Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: F:NV's reputation system is something we definitely want to bring over in some form. We feel that it allows the world to react to the player in ways that the player understands. Instead of making the game be about arbitrary good and evil actions, the player becomes concerned (or chooses to not care) about the reactions of individual characters and factions. Personally, I think AP's dialogue system did a lot of things very well. Specifically, I really liked the idea of tying attitudes to responses and being very consistent with rewarding and penalizing each way through a conversation in equal measure. I'd like to emulate that level of free player choice in PE.

WarderDragon Another question, not related to Project Eternity! The Infinity Engine games and Fallout - and Chris Avellone and Josh Sawyer in particular - were a huge influence on my decision to study interactive design which included game design at a university level - I was determined to become a game designer. However, I was subsequently warned off by friends in the industry, who told me about the atrocious working conditions and terrible job security a lot of developers have to suffer through to do what they love. Most recently, I saw a friend of mine lose his job when BHG/38 Studios went under during the Amalur fiasco. Although I would've loved to create games, and my education still helps me with both my current job and my hobby projects (which are about gaming), I'm not sure it would've been worth the heartache and looming stress. So, my question is: Is it worth it? And is the industry climate too harsh on newcomers? Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: The game industry can be harsh, but I don't know if it's any worse than the corporate world. I guess the difference is that in many corporate jobs, you're surrounded by people who care as little about what they're doing as you do. Big companies tend to be more machine-like and bottom-line oriented, often grinding people up in the process. Even though it sucks that so many big companies have been ditching divisions and laying people off left and right, there's been a surge in the creation of small companies focusing on PC, mobile/tablet, or XBLA/PSN games. If you're worried about going to work for a huge company that will crush you with its machinations, see if there are smaller companies nearby that can allow you to get your feet wet with focused projects.

DNAvenger What can change the nature of a man? (Other than a turkey sandwich?) Also, limited voice acting is nice and all that - but will PE feature Josh singing? I have to know this. Obsidian_Ent[S] Chris Avellone cites: The high WIS option at the end of Planescape is the answer. Which is, of course, "turkey sandwich." I'll leave the singing part of the answer to Josh. Considering he's sung for Eternity and for the Ultimate Edition trailer for New Vegas, there may be more in the future.

SuperSpaze Will the game be based around player prototypes like the original Fallouts? Tech-boy, mech-boy, steath-boy etc. Obsidian_Ent[S] Chris Avellone ponders: That's a good way to approach some quest design, although we want to make sure we know what archetypes are present (for example, it may not fit into the Fallout archetypes), and that's dependent on the mechanics and builds that shake out.

Himntor How large will the Exploration/Random Encounters (By random I don't really mean random, more like mini-quests that you just run into like in Baldur's Gate) factor into the game? Just little NPC's in the middle of nowhere doing who-knows-what and stuff like that. Portalbendarwinder in the first Baldur's Gate for example, though he doesn't tie into any quest related things, having random stuff like that is still hilarious. As a side question, what are your guys' favourite colours? (You did say I could ask you anything) Obsidian_Ent[S] Tim Cain: We are planning a healthy mix of storyline quests and side quests. We want enough side quests so that if you replay the game, there will be a lot of stuff that you didn't see the first time around, and we also want to reward exploration. If you find a high mountain plateau or clearing in a deep forest, we want stuff there for you to find (and post about!). As for my favorite color, I am full-spectrum color-blind, so I would have to say "gray".

hansel4150 3 points Hi guys, just want to say I loved New Vegas. So my question is, are there any Easter Eggs the community has yet to find in NV? Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: I don't think so. People are pretty thorough. Even if they didn't catch them in the main game, modders will root through everything using the GECK or FNVEdit. They found Meat of Champions pretty quickly, for example. I always wanted to put an Easter egg in at Mojave Outpost if you brought Mutfruit or some other fruit into the station... a challenge achievement like REBEL FRUIT BEARER or something. California border stations make you paranoid about bringing fruit into the state... even after the apocalypse.

NudoJudo Alongside low intelligence dialogue options, could there be low/high charisma "****" conversation choices, that say the exact thing, but are responded to wildly differently? The high charisma **** being seen as confident and charming, the low charisma **** just being an unlikable ****. Obsidian_Ent[S] Tim Cain: that's an interesting idea, and I think that Mirokunite was asking that when I did update #22 (sorry that I missed that, Mirokunite!). We are planning to support attribute-based dialog, meaning that any attribute of the character (a stat, a skill, a trait) could be used to determine a response. Most of these will be INT based (the wonderful dumb dialog) but anything else is possible too. Just keep in mind that each time we add one these responses, we have to write a new dialog subtree, and it really adds up to make a lot of these. Personally, I'd rather write more dialogs with some attribute-based responses than fewer dialogs with lots of attribute-based responses. And by saying "I'd rather write", I really mean "I'd rather Chris write" because he is WAY better at writing than I am.

FalkonSwiftblade will the character progression be tied to the loot they find, or the skills they pick? I'm trying to figure out if all classes are basically be the same, such as if I had 2-3 wizards in a group if I could kit them differently for different strategy's or replay value. Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: Character progression will be done through skills and gear, but more on the skill side than the gear side. If you have multiple wizards, we want you to feel that you can build them differently and have them play differently based on your choice of skills/spells/gear.

escozzia It's probably too early, but do you folks have any plans for this going forward (post P:E)? You've already pretty much announced an expansion pack, are you planning on doing a second? How about sequels? On a related note, this campaign has clearly been a success, are you planning on Kickstarting any future games? Obsidian_Ent[S] Chris Avellone states: Our hope is that Project: Eternity is first in a series of titles, and we can keep expanding the lore and the world. We see this as the first step, and based on fan reaction, we may have a much brighter future than we may have first thought (we weren't sure if we'd get funding).

trucane How does it feel to have been a part of games that are loved so much and has been for such a long time? Did you ever imagine people would still love and be playing these games 10+ years later? Obsidian_Ent[S] Chris Avellone shifts nervously: I don't think I've worked on a game where I thought people would love it, I mostly get terrified before release that the game going out is going to be the nail in the coffin of my career. I definitely thought Torment would fail, and I also thought Old World Blues would crash and burn, among others, even if I thought there were good design principles and themes in both.

TheAberration You said that HP will be divided into Health and Stamina and that Stamina will regenerate on its own quickly. Does that mean it'll regenerate on its own even in combat? Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: We'll have to see, but possibly. I like the idea of making a tactical retreat specifically to rest for a few seconds.

What the you talking about. How are you reading out of that, that xp-gaining options are limited? He says that NOWHERE. Yeah not sure how they read that, he said you could do it by combat but you're not forced to, there's alternate ways to get exp without combat.

perkel666 What are you thinking now ? You project will get funded in few hours. Also do you plan some party ? Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: It's pretty exciting and yes, we will be having a little party tomorrow! I think we're going to stream it and I'm sure Feargus and Adam will do some embarrassing things!

LinkOnFire What overhauls to the combat system of Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate series are you thinking of including? Obsidian_Ent[S] JESawyer: We won't be using a strict round-based system, so the timing of actions will be much more flexible for us to tune. That will help a lot. Also, we don't necessarily need to base our number values or modifiers on dice or "addition/subtraction-friendly" math. I think this will help us tune damage values and modifiers much more. Finally, we'd like to ensure that a) non-casters have more things to do more often (e.g. fighters knocking dudes down, self-replenishing Stamina, etc.) and b) that casters have low-level abilities that come back without needing to rest -- basically, to mitigate the desire to rest-spam.

hoboninja My roommate wanted me to ask you guys about internships I guess? He interned at Thomson Reuters this past summer but really wants to try and get into the game development field. He absolutely loves Obsidian, he has played every game you have ever made, and then like every game back from Black Isle/Interplay. He has a huge nerd boner for the Baldur's Gate series, and keeps bugging me to go and play them, I started the first one but haven't gotten around to playing it. He saw that you have some internship positions available, what are the requirements for that kind of stuff? Like would a Computer Science senior with a past internship and like a 3.5+ GPA qualify for that? What type of stuff does an intern do there? (I won't qualify for anything lol I have like a 2.5 GPA and no internship experience... :/ ) Edit: Answer this one instead,http://www.reddit.co..._sawyer/c6mu4wj It's more general and applies to anyone instead of my kind of specific question. Obsidian_Ent[S] Chris puts hiring shirt on and takes off pants: Applying to jobs@obsidian.net generally is the best way to go, the type of internship varies according to project. One piece of advice I can offer is for anyone looking to break into the industry, volunteering for a Kickstarter you like doing minor tasks is a great way to get experience and help out a cause you really believe in (I've been trying to play matchmaker with Eternity and Wasteland 2 and with other projects, with some success).