Rahelron

Still don't get why there are all these romance haters. Chill out, if you want your character to be a mysanthropic loner just roleplay as such and avoid falling in love with anyone.

Two requests ofr your dungeon designers: 1- Please design multiple-paths maps. I hate linear dungeons. Let us explore. 2- Please design believable dungeons. Give a function to every room and put all the needed rooms in every dungeon. If I go into a mage tower I want to see the kitchen, the food storage room, the bedroom etc, not just the laboratory. And please connect all those rooms in a plausible way. Noone would ever put a storage on the 4th floor for example.

Thanks a lot! Can the mods stick this topic so that we can come back and see the videos in different sessions?

If project evernity goes very well (let's say 1 million copies sold) chances are that Obsidian will be able to self-publish the sequel.

I'm from Italy, European Union.

We should give them time and let them focus on the game development, not on updates, demos, videos and stuff like that. They are an indipendent company, let's not force them to apply some bad practices of the mainstream industry. http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/working-conditions

You are right. What makes me happy is that we menaged to fund every single feature they (and we) wanted to include. If cutscenes and complete voice overs had been a stretchgoal it would have been something north 10 million dollars, too far for any kickstarter project, at least in year 2012. So we don't have to regret not being able to fund other 200-500k dollars: it would have changed nothing.

Thank you very much. You highlighted some very useful piece of information!

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Ok now you are trolling. I ignore the other two, but with these ones no one with a brain should take you seriously. You don't have to like their storylines, but Tali and Merrill had their own problems that were not linked with the main character in any way. Tali had the difficoult relationship with her race and her father, Merrill had her quest for the Eluvian. I hate Merrill and I consider her a childish emo girl that does nothing else but cry around and complain that no one wants to help her, but this is just a personal judgement. Facts are that romancing her is totally optional, her storyline goes on with or without you by her side.

Nice passive aggressive kung fu. Do you have other tricks up your sleeve? (cit.)

You are making things uglier than they are. Writing and text implementation are some of the least time consuming tasks that you have to perform to develop a game. As long as you don't have to do full voice overs and cutscenes adding a romance plot (which doesn't even require specific dungeons or locations like a normal quest) is a piece of cake. Feargus said that it takes Avellone to write a single companion 2-3 months, and since there are 8 companions, and Ziest will probably half of them, it takes them 8-12 months to write them, not to mention the rest of the dialogue which isn't for companions, lore, the story, descriptions etc. and how that exactly wouldn't take lot of time? I think that Josh Sawyer will help too. And even if we don't take him into account let me say that romance subplots usually don't eat up entire characters. Look at Morrigan in DAO: she had a full blown and interesting storyline that spanned for the whole game. Romancing her was just a plus. Other examples can be Merrill (DA2), Tali (Mass Effect), Jaheira (BG) and so on. Ok sometimes there are character that don't have much depth other than what is included in their romance storylines. I'm thinking about Aerie from BG2 and Isabela from DA2, but those are just exceptions.

You are making things uglier than they are. Writing and text implementation are some of the least time consuming tasks that you have to perform to develop a game. As long as you don't have to do full voice overs and cutscenes adding a romance plot (which doesn't even require specific dungeons or locations like a normal quest) is a piece of cake.

There are pretty much no novels about evil characters. Why then giving the player the chance to perform an evil playthourgh has become one of the core features of nowadays RPGs? There's no serious fantasy novel which has a love story as its main focus. But novels don't need to be about love to have a romantic subplot inside them. Project eternity doesn't need to focus on love, but it would be great if allowed the player to live a love story (if he wanted to obviously, I'm all for player freedom). What about A Song of Ice and Fire? Those have lot of evil characters. There are pretty much no novels about evil characters. Why then giving the player the chance to perform an evil playthourgh has become one of the core features of nowadays RPGs? There's no serious fantasy novel which has a love story as its main focus. But novels don't need to be about love to have a romantic subplot inside them. Project eternity doesn't need to focus on love, but it would be great if allowed the player to live a love story (if he wanted to obviously, I'm all for player freedom). Let me quote you: "And let's say that pretty much every fantasy story contains a love story too." So now you're saying there are no fantasy books with romance in major part? Yeah, I do. Most of average fantasy books and movies are about some hero that defeats some bad guy. The love story is something more which is almost always included but is not the main focus of the plot. You could ask: how can a book be about two different things? One of the core characteristics of novels is that they can't feature just one storyline, they must have more than one to be full blown novels and not just tales (or stories, I don't know the technical english term). That's why more than one storyline can coexist in the same book. Obviously the same goes for games, which are even longer than books. I hope this makes my reasoning clearer.

There are pretty much no novels about evil characters. Why then giving the player the chance to perform an evil playthourgh has become one of the core features of nowadays RPGs? There's no serious fantasy novel which has a love story as its main focus. But novels don't need to be about love to have a romantic subplot inside them. Project eternity doesn't need to focus on love, but it would be great if allowed the player to live a love story (if he wanted to obviously, I'm all for player freedom).

Let me extrapolate from your words. You are pretty much saying: "If an RPG includes romance stories than it lets the player indulge on hedonistic love fantasies (or, even worse, sex fantasies). This might be good to make horny teenagers buy the game, but since this is a Kickstarter fund project we want something more mature." Let me give you the news: pretty much every story driven game contain some sort of hedonistic gratification for the player. An example? Call of Duty is built around the purpose of making the player feel like a badass, the only one who can save the world. Ok, if we talk about the shooters genre that is pretty obvious, but I can assure you that you can apply the same kind of reasoning for each and every storydriven game, even the most mature. Every western RPG is centered around making the player identify himself with the main character of the story. It's done mostly with customization: you can choose your character's race, its appearence, what he is good at (his class and attributes) and so on. Then you take control of it, it does exactly what you tell him to do. This strengthens the identification even more. You become the character you're playing and that character in some way becomes you. So you end up projecting yourself in a character that is able to take control of his life, overcome the odds and, in the end, reach his goal, whatever it is. This is a great way to give the player gratification, to make him feel good with himself and to increase his self-respect. And the interesting thing is that the game doesn't need to be a power hungry fantasy to exert this effect on the player. Every goal can be good, even becoming a chef in a resturant or helping someone win his struggle agains alcohol. So: you think that romance stories in videogames are childish? Know that RPG games are childish as a whole. And they couldn't be different, because it's enbedded in the relationship between the player and the character he controls. Videogames are interactive experiences and the very core of story-driven interactive experiences is the identification between the player and the character he controls. Developers can try to make this relationship less intimate by forcing the player to control different characters during the course of the playthrough, or by forcing the player to control a party and not just one single character, but this doesn't prevent the ego-stroking gratification effect from happening. In those cases the identification process stops but then the player fstarts feeling like a deus-ex-machina, able to make things right by controlling the actions of a bunch of characters, just like a puppet-master would. Don't blame romances for being an way to give ego-stroking gratification to the player. Blame the RPG genre as a whole. ...eh, what? You are doing it wrong, i think. Women appriciate men who are slightly dominant, like taking the lead and showing them that you are really interested. Talking about jungian gratification of the ego might be an interesting ice-breaker but it wouldn't go anywhere on a base level. This thread is still about dating right? I am beginning to be slightly confused by the responses here. Two options: 1- You have completely misunderstood the goal of this thread (and I've seen in your words more than they actually say). 2- You are trying to troll me.

Because this is not a book. I'm sick of railroaded stories in videogames. If Project Eternity is going to be like that then the developers should warn us. At least I would stop worrying about this game and I'd look somewhere else for a real role playing experience. Since this is an RPG I want to be in charge of what my character does and feels. I want to be able to decide if a love story fits the character I'm playing or not, exactly like I want to be able to decide if I'm good or bad, chaotic or lawful, altruistic or individualist etc. Let's say that in the beginning of the story my character is happily married. The plt starts and after a painful event my wife gets killed. I want to have the chance to decide if my character finds the strength to move on (and finds another one to love) or keeps mourning his true love forever. This is roleplaying, not some ready-made experience you have to swallow as it is or screw off. You know, I find this hilarious and indicative of this thread: Jarpie actually started off claiming that there are books without romance in because proromancers were saying all good stories had romance in them, now we are at the stage that its reversed and people are arguing that just because some books don't have romance in doesn't mean it can't and that its a game not a book and so shouldn't be compared. This argument truly has come full circle, hilarious really... Let me put an end to this circling around then. CRPGs are not P&P RPGs. They don't have the luxury of a master that can interact with the players in real time and adapt the story taking every action into account. If I'm playing D&D and I say: now my character goes to a tavern and tryes to pick up some chick at the bar. The master can make up something on the spot or tell me: "Just wait until the next session, I'll prepare something". He doesn't need to make me find the love of my life (or even someone to have sex with) at the first try, but as long as I keep up looking for love someway somehow he must make something happen, just like it would happen in real life. As we said CRPGs don't have a master. The developers might try to give the player as much freedom as they can but they obviously can't cover everything. They have to make choices, which have to comply with the available development time. Some examples: Should the player be able to become a nobleman and rule a country? Should the player have the chance to play a musical instrument and become a famous bard? Can we afford to spend time in developing a full blown naval and underwater combat system to let the player explore the oceans? Do we need a stealth system to let the player be sneaky and avoid combat when he wants to? Do we need to give the player the chance to play the game as an evil character? (it means at least one more branch for every quest) Can we afford to spend time writing the senes and the plot of one or more love stories? Obviously each and every feature would enhance player freedom and would add at least one roleplay option. But the developers have a limited amount of time and resources so they have to make choices. Now the question is: what is important and what it's not? To me romances are a great roleplaying tool and are one of the main feature that a true roleplaying adventure should add. They aren't the most time and resource intensive feature to add too. Strongholds, Stealth system, and evil storylines are much more expansive. And let's say that pretty much every fantasy story contains a love story too.

Let me extrapolate from your words. You are pretty much saying: "If an RPG includes romance stories than it lets the player indulge on hedonistic love fantasies (or, even worse, sex fantasies). This might be good to make horny teenagers buy the game, but since this is a Kickstarter fund project we want something more mature." Let me give you the news: pretty much every story driven game contain some sort of hedonistic gratification for the player. An example? Call of Duty is built around the purpose of making the player feel like a badass, the only one who can save the world. Ok, if we talk about the shooters genre that is pretty obvious, but I can assure you that you can apply the same kind of reasoning for each and every storydriven game, even the most mature. Every western RPG is centered around making the player identify himself with the main character of the story. It's done mostly with customization: you can choose your character's race, its appearence, what he is good at (his class and attributes) and so on. Then you take control of it, it does exactly what you tell him to do. This strengthens the identification even more. You become the character you're playing and that character in some way becomes you. So you end up projecting yourself in a character that is able to take control of his life, overcome the odds and, in the end, reach his goal, whatever it is. This is a great way to give the player gratification, to make him feel good with himself and to increase his self-respect. And the interesting thing is that the game doesn't need to be a power hungry fantasy to exert this effect on the player. Every goal can be good, even becoming a chef in a resturant or helping someone win his struggle agains alcohol. So: you think that romance stories in videogames are childish? Know that RPG games are childish as a whole. And they couldn't be different, because it's enbedded in the relationship between the player and the character he controls. Videogames are interactive experiences and the very core of story-driven interactive experiences is the identification between the player and the character he controls. Developers can try to make this relationship less intimate by forcing the player to control different characters during the course of the playthrough, or by forcing the player to control a party and not just one single character, but this doesn't prevent the ego-stroking gratification effect from happening. In those cases the identification process stops but then the player fstarts feeling like a deus-ex-machina, able to make things right by controlling the actions of a bunch of characters, just like a puppet-master would. Don't blame romances for being an way to give ego-stroking gratification to the player. Blame the RPG genre as a whole.

Because this is not a book. I'm sick of railroaded stories in videogames. If Project Eternity is going to be like that then the developers should warn us. At least I would stop worrying about this game and I'd look somewhere else for a real role playing experience. Since this is an RPG I want to be in charge of what my character does and feels. I want to be able to decide if a love story fits the character I'm playing or not, exactly like I want to be able to decide if I'm good or bad, chaotic or lawful, altruistic or individualist etc. Let's say that in the beginning of the story my character is happily married. The plt starts and after a painful event my wife gets killed. I want to have the chance to decide if my character finds the strength to move on (and finds another one to love) or keeps mourning his true love forever. This is roleplaying, not some ready-made experience you have to swallow as it is or screw off.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST A DISCUSSION POST, IT'S NOT MEANT TO DICTATE DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES TO THE GUYS @ OBSIDIAN. This is an article that appeared on Kotaku abouth three months ago (july 25, 2012). I think it gives some insight about the development process behind Project Eternity. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Avellone Teases Planescape: Torment Successor Like its nameless protagonist, Planescape: Torment might come back from the dead. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview posted today, Obsidian co-founder and Planescape: Torment creator Chris Avellone said he's "very tempted" to start a Kickstarter to revive his beloved classic role-playing game. Although he'd ditch the D&D—and maybe even the setting, too. "I think the challenges we've spoken about would all have to be considered and to be honest I don't know if I'd want to do it as a Planescape game - I think a better approach would be to ignore the D&D mechanics and respect what Planescape was trying to do and what the game did and see if you can do what Fallout did when it became the spiritual successor to Wasteland," he said. "I think if you made a game using some of the concepts of Planescape, the metaphysical ideas and the plane travel, without using the D&D mechanics, you could actually come up with a much better game. With Torment, I'd argue that the D&D base actually, in places, got in the way of the experience. It was a lot harder to make a game with those ideas in it with D&D mechanics. So much that we had to break a lot of them. We had to ignore certain spells, change up the class mechanic so that you can switch at any time you like by remembering abilities. "That was stuff that D&D didn't allow for, it was [too] restraining in some respects. If we did do a spiritual successor, then I don't know if we'd use the Planescape licence or attach the mechanics, perhaps something that has a different feel to Torment." If we get characters as awesome as Morte the talking skull, I'm cool with whatever. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What I want to ask you is: would you like to see the main story elements of Planescape Torment inported into Project Eternity? I mean: to me Planescape was one of the best RPG ever because of its features. I'm talking about the user interface, the possibility to "use objects", the factions system, the variable alignment system, the way stats were used (If you were very intelligent or very stupid you had different dialogue options) and so on. What I didn't like was the PT's narrative thematics and setting. It was a really sad story, set in a strange, violent and unforgiving world that I didn't particularly enjoy. It's just a personal opinion of course, but I think that setting up an entire saga upon those themes would end up being pretty harsh. Reading the article I noticed that what Chris Avellone wants to keep of Planescape Torment are some elements of the plot and the main themes of the setting. He talks about ditching the D&D mechanics and the Planescape setting to better deliver on those themes. What are your thoughts about that? Would you enjoy or hate if PE story was a sad and introspective experience and the classical fantasy themes were set to a bare minimum? I mean: I think that everyone here is pretty sick of playing the hero and of slaughtering hordes of monster just because they are bad. I want Project Eternity to be a more complex story with dark and even sad chapters. But do you think that centering the story around the main character's sorrows is the right think to do? (of coure if it's what the developers are planning to do... we don't know much about that).

Well, if we want to be bitchy that is the right number only if you want to play with a full party. If you want to bring with you... 4 companions then it's 70 combinations 3 companions then it's 56 combinations (yes, the same number you'd have with 5) 2 companions then it's 28 combinations 1 companion then it's 8 combinations and since PC + Companion A + Companion B is different from PC + Companion A + Companion B + Companion C (because of the possible interaction between them) you end up having quite the number of possibilities. Yes, I was bored and went looking for the formula of the Binomial Coefficient (since I had forgot about it). Sue me. I don't think party combinations is what we should look at. Ok, we are shurely going to miss some party banter unless we play the game 56 times, but I think that we can run through most of the companions-related content in just two playthroughs. If Obsidian decided to implement a plarty management system like the one used by bioware (you leave your companions in the camp / in the normandy and you can swap them every mission) we could see all the content in just one playthrough. Some more companions (one or two) would have been great but, as you all said, the developers should focus on quality over quantity. And by the way: the characters don't need to have companion-status to have complex storyline and a big impact on the main plot. I hope to see many more interesting characters than just my companions.

I agree with you. If you decide to develop a party based RPG you have to take into account that the players are going to ask you well developed relationship between the party members, with a particular focus on the relationships between the main character and its companions. Being love one of the most important feelings in the world you can't avoid takling that topic either.

I love the Baldur's Gate series. BG1 was the first RPG I ever played, at that time I was in Junior High School and noone wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons with me... the BG series was my salvation XD. I don't think Planescape Torment is better than Baldur's Gate. They are 2 different games. BG for example is the one and only RPG where in the first episode you don't become a god-like character, so that in the second one you can start from where you finished. What other RPG does that?

Let's keep raping out of the picture please. I agree with everything else you said.

My pledge has already been processed (I recieved a text message about 8 hours ago), so my money should be in your bank account right now! Good luck guys, I hope this turns out a awesome game!