Robsidious

This thread reads like an exhibit at an EA board meeting used to justify streamlining... aka dumbing down... aka decline . Just kidding, sort of. I too need to balance my gaming with more responsibilities and commitments these days, which makes it harder to get into or complete games, especially deep RPGs. In fact, I mostly only play RPGs, in large part because my time is precious. I also don't like snatching just an hour or two here and there, I like to get really immersed in them, so if I can't find some regular decent blocks of time (hello weekends) then I just won't play or will end up abandoning a play-through. However, I can't say that this really bothers me. I care far more about the quality and depth of RPGs than I do about the time available in my diary or my ability to finish them. If I fire up an RPG... taking my sweet time in character creation and then setting out on a grand adventure into the exciting uncharted territory of a previously unplayed game *heavenly sigh*... then for me the journey is far more important than the destination. I want the game to be as rich and satisfying as possible to play, when I am playing it, even if that is only for a little while. I want the game to have a depth and integrity that doesn't cater to my convenience. Besides, I kind of enjoy getting into an epic battle just to finish the damn thing lol. That said, if Pillars of Eternity turns out to be as good as I expect hope it to be, then I will most likely play and finish it at least once. ... 'if you make it good, they will play'.

Spiritual successor to the Troika games. Would be a bold move, trying to distil the great things about those games (while going one better and not creating another 'flawed gem'), into a coherent and pitch-able vision. Not sure if it would be popular enough, but I'd back it. Steampunk. Rich turn-based combat from ToEE, depth & reactivity from Arcanum, diverse gameplay mechanics from Bloodlines. Probably too ambitious, kind of like declaring you want to make the greatest RPG ever made... on a kickstarter budget. Yeah, dammit, probably won't ever happen, but it should.

Fixed

Good advice in the OP, though the pacing of character development isn't something I'm overly worried Obsidian would overdo. I liked it at lot though. Funny how such a post can seem so profound in this crazy awesome button world. Good question too. Are Obsidian planning on making this into a series in which we can import our characters?

Why so cynical? Ubiquitous trolling in the internet not withstanding. Personally, I think the harp is one of the most beautiful and evocative instruments in the world, and I surely hope it features in PE. Harp, violin, piano, guitar. The harp is probably most suited for PE out of all of these, though also the least versatile to my layman's ears.

I think TUN confuses realism and maturity in his video, which undermines the coherence of his argument and leaves me wondering what his point is, beyond expressing his desire for more maturity and novel story arcs in games. Realism and maturity are two completely different things, though they are related. The world as it is, is real, yet we would not describe it as mature. However, a person may grow over time to develop a mature way to relate to the world. You could describe maturity as the ability one develops to relate to reality in an appropriately intelligent way, accounting for the nuance and complexity that life entails. Too often the term maturity is used merely to refer to things we find difficult to deal with, eg sex and violence, rather than the manner in which we deal with them. So yeah, the witcher games may be more realistic than some other games, but this in itself doesn't make much of a case that they are also mature. Neither does simply diverging from the classic monomyth hero's tale by itself equal maturity. To make the argument for maturity in the witcher, he would need to talk more about the development and interaction of the characters, the complexity of the setting and the treatment of the themes in the game. I liked his video and agree that maturity in video games is good, but I didn't think he actually said much. What exactly is it he wants to see in other games? I hope Pillars of Eternity will be mature by treating its themes bravely and with enough depth to make me think and question my beliefs, telling a rich story that I co-create for a personal journey, and that it will present believable, complex settings and characters to inform this story. I would like to grow as a person by playing it.

I actually find this a really interesting question. I think both. Personal maturity will help you to more fully appreciate a mature game, yet you don't necessarily need to be mature to have a better experience from a mature game than an immature or shallow one. Yet I'd suggest that if someone is faking maturity (ie not being honest with themselves in terms of their nous), then they will have a diminished chance to appreciate a game's maturity. I can't really back this up with an actual argument off the top of my head, it is more an instinctive and educated assumption based on my observation that closed-minded people who think they know it all have a harder time grasping/accepting new concepts that challenge their world-view.

Just seeing this thread for the first time, made me laugh Maybe they will be released with the game and all the other goodies. Chris has his hands in so many pies I wouldn't hold my breath. Try posting again in another 8 months ;-)

Yep. Half of everything* on video game forums is about fans wishing and expressing their dreams and desires. Though it also wouldn't surprise me greatly if in announcing some new scheme to add these two new stretch goals, they included one or two other minor things as a sweetener. *Approximation pulled out of my arse.

Wait, so there's still time for me to help make this game more like CoD?

I put down a fair chunk of cash to help make this game a reality, much more than I'd ordinarily spend on a game, and I wouldn't hesitate to put down some more for further stretch goals. Obviously we'd need some clarity and explanation in how it would work and how things stand regarding the expansion, but Eternity is pretty special to me and I'd like my initial experience of it to be as rich as possible. Lots of great goals already in this thread though I don't know how many Obsidian would be willing to go for if they choose to do this. I would mainly like some more companions and wilderness areas, beyond that just further enhancing/polishing the game would be fine, which is I suppose what they would be doing with any late backer funds anyway. I think I'd actually prefer if Obsidian suggested things as they would know what would best fit into their overall design and development schedule. I'd wager they have a list somewhere from the kickstarter with as many stretch goal ideas as you could think of.

I want to get my grubby mitts on the manual, almanac, novella & collector's book and dive into the lore to inspire me. I don't know what I'll feel like when the time comes and I love musing about chargen so will want to savour the experience. I couldn't hazard a guess at this point but I love these sorts of threads. Does anyone know if there will be class restrictions according to race?

We backers are insatiable aren't we? WE always want more, moar, MOAR info about everything. The poor devs must feel a bit under siege at times. Like zookeepers trapped inside a small building within a lion reserve experiencing a famine, throwing the occasional chunks of meat out to sate the restless, prowling hordes, then slamming shut the door with their backs against it panting as the lions ravenously and noisily devour every last scrap and morsel. Yet the hordes are never sated, always prowling and are growing ever larger, circling the building, always watching, waiting... But yeah, I'd like some info on this too. Hopefully at the same time they explain the new stretch goals and such. They are going to do this, right? We are going to get more companions and wilderness areas right?

I'm not sure, though I think it may be exclusive to those who backed during the kickstarter. Maybe wait until the new year and ask Obsidian about it. If they are worried about undermining their promise to kickstarter backers they could provide a different icon for late backers. This would be a good compromise I feel and might even entice some new late backers to click on the dotted line. I'm personally in two minds about this sort of thing. On one hand, I like that people who backed the kickstarter get some recognition, and it's fun to have these little icons as an expression of passion and support... but on the other hand it feels a bit unfair to those such as yourself who would've backed at the time but missed out for whatever reason. Not to mention it feels a bit flaunty, as you say 'strutting around in' lol. I have access to both a kickstarter and gold backer icon, but my feelings of unease about them have contributed to my waiting to fulfil my pledge (I've mostly been waiting for the dust to settle and any problems to get ironed out). I don't want to wave in people's faces that I could afford such a high pledge, yet I also want to express that I like Eternity & Obsidian this much and want to display my support proudly. I suppose it's a fairly trivial thing and doesn't really matter that much, though I would happily trade both my badges in for one single one that says something like Eternity Backer, that every backer gets whether late to the party or not.

What I took away from that article... it was all too vague to get excited about anything. After all, Feargus was just kicking around a few ideas. Though I really like the sound of creating a series of 'Eternity Engine' games. An open-world Skyrim Baldur's Gate building on Eternity's tech sounds pretty appealing, however without more information we have very little idea what that would look like, but it seems too costly. Episodic content would be a pretty hard sell, I can't imagine myself pledging to something like that though I'll keep an open mind. And I'm not sure I want them to move away from the pre-rendered stuff - Eternity looks so very beautiful, I'd like more of that. Though again I value an open mind, and besides this isn't THE vision but simply one of many options they are exploring. There is also the mystery licensed property and the less likely proposal they received, at the very least. I'd hesitate to believe that these are the only ideas Obsidian are contemplating; Feargus is not the entirety of Obsidian and that article wasn't exactly informative, more of a PR stunt. I am happy that Obsidian seems pretty sure to kickstart again; I want to help them become independent and I doubt they'll be able to do that off the back of Eternity alone, though that would be truly awesome.

Frankly, this amazes me.

I voted yes because it appears Obsidian wants this. If they say that some more companions and wilderness areas would greatly flesh out the world, then I really hope we get them. If these are the primary things Obsidian thinks the game would benefit the most from, then doubly so. My reasons; 1) I trust their judgement/ability to balance polish with these additions and budget for scope, as I have been impressed with their professionalism so far, and besides I am hardly in a position to make the call myself. I trusted Obsidian’s management expertise when I pledged to their Kickstarter and I have seen nothing so far to suggest that trust was misplaced, to the contrary. And let’s not forget that the last stretch-goal from 3.5M to 4m and beyond (ie more than $500K!) was essentially to enhance and polish the game. So it’s not like they didn't have some significant leeway to begin with, as they stated all previous features and stretch goals were budgeted for, including ample QA. Indeed, Obsidian has declared their determination to shed their buggy reputation, being free from publishers for this project. The stability and polish of Dungeon Siege 3 at release (opinions regarding quality of gameplay aside), was a significant step in this direction. I am happy to give them the further opportunity to prove themselves with Eternity. 2) Given the game has two big cities, a stronghold and megadungeon, some additional wilderness areas would really help provide location variety and open up the game to make it feel more like a living world. This also provides the possibility of adding new monster types, secrets and places of interest; exploration, travelling and random encounters could all be greatly enhanced. Josh said they would be aiming for a wilderness scope (and content density) midway between BG1 and BG2... this sounds pretty damn good to me. 3) Even a few more companions would greatly enhance replayability, our party options, and would contribute to the world feeling more populated and alive. Eight companions is significantly less than in either Baldur’s Gate games, which Eternity is a spiritual successor to, particularly regarding companions. As it currently stands there are only three companions you can leave on the sidelines (assuming you roll with a full party of six). That is not an overabundance of options for exploring party composition and the many various classes, unless you use generic ‘personality-less’ characters from the Adventurer’s Hall. Not to mention role-playing options for good/evil play-throughs, or if you happen to dislike some of the companions as invariably happens for one reason or another. Some more companions would be greatly welcome. 4) There is clearly a lot of interest in having these stretch goals according to this poll & thread. There is also a strong call for more information and clarification, with (I think) the primary issue being the trade-off between adding more funds to enrich & polish the game generally and adding additional content. I too would welcome more information, yet I trust Obsidian’s judgement in this regard. Some people have expressed reservations that the game may suffer or be delayed as a result, however neither of these concern me as I do not think Obsidian would entertain this idea if they thought it would compromise the quality of the game, and a slight delay hardly bothers me. To sum up, Obsidian is in by far the best position to make decisions regarding their budget & scope, and what the game ‘needs’ most. They have stated how they would like to enrich the game and the reasons for doing so are compelling. I am more than willing to trust Obsidian knows what they're doing and help them make this a better, richer, more complete ‘infinity’ game, and I welcome a slight delay to do so. To me this is the beauty of crowdfunding.

This is an interesting discussion though I don't feel like I know enough about the narrative of Project Eternity to state a clear preference for it. As others have noted, there are many options that Obsidian could explore along the [blank slate] <->[set protagonist] continuum and any approach can be executed well or poorly. The basic premise of *witness supernatural event that envelops you in the plot* is indeed pretty wide open, hence the speculation in this thread. I can say what I'd like in general terms, but would hesitate to claim that I definitely wouldn't want something in PE. I'm also not full bottle on the information we already have about the game so take my musings for what they are. I would enjoy at least some recognition of my choice of race, ethnicity and class in dialogue, even if it's just for flavour rather than affecting quest-lines and narrative. I do like the idea of getting to select from a few key options at character creation regarding specific traits; such as spiritual/religious inclination or certain personality traits, that would influence how some npcs react to us, affecting quest options and branching, or even allowing us to roleplay our character's development by changing our inclinations over the course of the game. However this seems like it could become a lot of work to do meaningfully, so I'm not sure how worthwhile it would be beyond giving us flavour dialogue and enabling us to 'roleplay' outside of the game's reactive systems. There does appear to be a significant constraining dichotomy between freedom of character backstory creation and reactivity, in contrast to the reactivity for in-game decisions and role-play. The more freedom and variation you give players in their backgrounds, the harder it is to provide meaningful reactivity to those choices. Whereas it appears easier to just provide gameplay scenarios and dialogue options for player choice and character expression solely in-game. So I don't think I would like my character creation choices to substantially affect the main plot, as I imagine this would require fairly highly prescriptive backgrounds and I would like a lot of freedom in character creation, so I guess I lean more towards the blank slate side of things for Project Eternity there. That said, there could be ways to do so that I haven't experienced or can't envisage, which brings me back to my original point that this poll is great for stimulating discussion ;-)

I assume it's to help give the universe of Eternity its own fresh flavour and identity, distinct from the infinity engine games that inspired it. Plus artistic creativity, as in they think the new trolls and such look cool! The devs have talked about trying to find a balance between creating a sense of the familiar and the new, the usual suspects and the bizarre. If I recall correctly there is also a copyright issue with certain monsters like the beholder which belongs to the D&D license, so they can't use those or something (not sure, maybe someone could verify this)??? So it makes sense to create their own bestiary with a touch of the familiar but with new and exciting monsters and monster redesigns. It would be interesting to hear a bit more from the devs in an update about the process they went through in monster design, and how their monsters reflect the overall style, aesthetics and themes of the world they are creating. I think they may have already done this to some extent, I can't remember :-P I'm getting wary of too many spoilers at this point but hearing some more about the artistic process stuff would be nice.

The ONE thing? In an RPG? I want all the things.

Hi Adam, I don't post much but just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work making this game and no sweat about the delay. I know you know this, but people really love Eternity. To me that's beautiful. Bringing back the infinity engine magic... It's a very special thing that you are doing and yes my heart is bound up in it too, even if I don't follow development as closely as others. Best of luck and godspeed.

You know, it's funny how the internet can amplify or distort people's tone and intent. I'm not seeing any outrage or crying in this thread. I'm hearing C2B going hey i feel like Obsidian has lied to us here a bit, I don't like that, honesty is important in the backer-developer relationship - which seems like a reasonable conclusion to draw based on those two messages (again with the limitations in text) if in hindsight premature. So Adam explains what happened and C2B goes oh that's understandable, thanks for alleviating my concerns. Sweet, this seems fine to me. C2B raises a legitimate concern and it is promptly addressed to his satisfaction. Perfect. What interests me about this whole exchange is the focus on supposed outrage rather than truth and the importance of honesty. Where did that come from? It's probably best to just let this thread die but I was here and felt drawn to comment. You see so much snark all over the internet and it troubles me.

I am lost for words... Carry on Obsidian, carry on...

I appreciate your work in this regard (though I didn't follow some parts of what you said here). That sounds reasonable; I have no problem with questioning the value of ethics or the foundations of beliefs, that’s what epistemology is for. I don’t know that ethics are valuable, although I believe that they are. I would argue that human rights make the world a better place, even if they haven’t been (and maybe can’t be) satisfactorily justified. I take the view that I don’t know anything, and go from there. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was trying to imply that I didn't think that the deontology-consequentialism distinction was very relevant to resolving the dispute about PC motivations, yet it was not crazy to try thinking that way as it helped illuminate the situation, at least it did for me. I was hoping to show that it is worthwhile to consider lines of reasoning that aren't logically 'air-tight' so to speak, which you seemed to me to be dismissing. However, I don’t think that many of the epistemological questions underlying ethical considerations can be solved. Yet I maintain my belief that ethics are still relevant and applicable, deontology included. Call me crazy if you will. P.S. Apologies for going off-topic. I'm good now, I just felt like I needed to defend ethics. Yesterday was a difficult day and I got all fired up.

Some people do care about the whys. Those people are crazy, because the whys aren't ever knowable. I have a degree in that crap. I know exactly how baseless most of Ethics is. Ethics has serious epistemological problems, and this is one of them. I agree with you that NPCs can't know the PC's motivations, heck I couldn't even say that I absolutely knew the full extent of my own motivations. Having NPCs react to what the PC says are her/his motivations actually happens in games, yet doesn't negate the fact that NPCs don't actually 'know' with certainty what those motivations are. I don't think that making the distinction between Deontology and Consequentialism was helping argue against this. However, saying that people are crazy for caring about 'the whys' seems disingenuous to me, and I don't think any branch of ethics deserves to be described as crap. I don't often post in forums yet this has motivated me to respond, probably because I'm normally such a big fan of what you say ( mostly ;-) and I care about ethics. Yes ethics has epistemological problems, so does pretty much all of philosophy, hell, human rights are especially problematic, but they are valuable all the same. And caring about the questions is hardly crazy, even if those questions aren't really relevant to the topic at hand. The only way to find that out is to ask them. * Incidentally, would it be better to role-play a character as if you know what your motivations are (because you the player have determined them), or to role-play as if the PC doesn't know the full extent of their motivations because that's not possible?