[To all of our backers and fans...]

 

 

Hello, everyone. We aren't doing an update this week because the team is hard at work on a very special update for the near future. Can't really talk about it right now, but we think it's going to be cool.

 

 

Oh god, I hope it's 10 hours of MCA playing Arcanum!

 

 

He's probably busy working on Torment, which he seems to be more euphoric than on PE 

[What you did today]

I had Uni at 10 o'clock, so that's pretty dope. Journalistics lecture and then French/English, but our teacher got sick, so I skipped English and went home after only 2 lessons. Wrote a Project Eternity song in the afternoon, talked with a friend about making our own RPG (if you know any modellers and scripters let me know...) and soon I'm gonna eat. It was a good day

[To all of our backers and fans...]

 

Is anyone else starting to worry? It's been a year and we've see so little of the game that isn't just concept. And now it's confirmed that we wont get to see VS and updates have been shut off for 3 weeks? I'd back obsidian again in a heartbeat but I'm nervous. Can we expect to see more official screens at the very least in the near future?

 

There is nothing to worry... It is not like that they are going to run away with all that money to Bahamas or Fiji.

 

Well, at least not until now. Did you really have to put such ideas in their heads?! 

[Fan Art Collecting Tank]

Hey guys!

 

 

I couldn't find a thread about PE fanart, and so I thought I'd create it. Maybe as some kind of "collecting tank" for all things fan art, be it drawn, played, painted, written. This way, no fan-piece is suddenly damned to the higher-numbered sites... 

 

The only fan-art thing I can remember is this guy who made a few "excitement" songs and also this thread - a digital painting of Cadegund.

 

 

My contribution is a short atmosphere song, think of it as a song after a long day of fighting, maybe losing a friend - but camaraderie and fellowship warms you (sorry for the not-so-great quality, I don't have any recording equipment, so I recorded it with a Guitar Hero microphone...   Also, I'm not the best musician, but maybe you can appreciate it anyway)

 

And now let's see your art!

 

(I will update the title post, as more is posted so nobody gets left out or overseen )

[What are you playing now?]

I'm playing Arx Fatalis and Baldur's Gate right now. Well, these are my "main games" at the moment. I jump into other games, of course. Little bit of Dark Mod, little bit of Dungeon Siege, little bit of Arcanum.

[Armour & weapon designs - a plea (part IV).]

Still, I want to have my question answered: Why can't a black person in a game not wear European clothing? What exactly is racist about that?

 

I find this to be the most important post of all in this debate:

 

I also find it a bit pointless to have all of us (presumably) white guys speculating if it's racist or not. Race is a fraught issue though and there isn't going to be any way that's not going to cause some criticism if the people designing the game and writing the lore are mostly white (as I believe is the case here). Don't include non-whites, and you'll be accused of racism. Include non-whites modeled on actual cultures, and you'll be accused of cultural appropriation. Include non-whites but don't base them on an actual non-white culture, and you'll be accused of tokenism or blackface.

 

[To all of our backers and fans...]

Why not? Reasoning?

 

Because we're all expecting a bigger update. Like a big, big milestone. I think from Obsidian's side, it's a bit of a vanity thing. They don't want to show unfinished stuff to the crowds, but they want to wow them.  Well, I hope, at least.

[Project Eternity and Surface Pro 2]

 

 

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.

But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

 

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

 

E: Also our min res is 1280x720.

 

This is a terrible decision. I want to voice my opposition to this sort of mentality.

 

One-button functionality as a design choice limits you and is a slippery slope. As soon as you begin to consider limiting yourself from the availability that is provided with a compter, there is no real reason why you wouldn't continue to limit yourself to "fit" your game to tablets or other consoles. If you allow one-button functionality then soon you will limit your game to the resources found on a tablet to allow for the one-button functionality to continue to make sense.

 

Please do not do this. If you are limiting yourself you one-mouse button, you are putting in a bunch of handicap UI elements and engine modifications that are unnecessary for computers. This is a waste of time/resources in order to appease a market-crowd larger than what you originally intended and sort of goes against what Chris Avellone discussed when he spoke about the benefits of the PC vs the console. One of his gripes was the limitation that lay in joypads.

 

Do not do this. Do not limit yourself to one-button. Make a game for PC/MAC/LINUX and only them.

 

 

I think you misunderstand. One-button-friendly does not mean one-button-exclusive. Even the IE games were One-Button-Friendly with ease-of-use right-clicking and some shortcuts (which have already be confirmed to be in the game).

[The bad things about Project Eternity...]

@Sacred_Path:

 

Do you not care about building good characters or do you only care if others judge them? Mebbe make up your mind.

 

 

I don't really care about a "good character" beyond myself enjoying playing said character. This is maybe a bit simplistic but that's my basis for having fun. I don't really care if my character is built clever enough to give 0.1 points more DPS. I mean if I happen to clevery create a character, that's cool. But it's not one of my core-experiences with a game. 
Or in an analogy: I find chemistry interesting but I don't need to be able to know exactly how many valence electrons every atom has. It's cool to have an intricate system, but nothing more.

 

Also, I'm really not a competitive gamer, so I don't care about people comparing their builds and getting a virtual hard-on. It's just nothing I gain from. But I can understand that building strong characters can be fun. 

 

 

Personally, I care about the time I've invested in a game. There's also something very satisfying when you see that digging into the game has made you become better at the game, rather than systems that accomodate everyone equally from the get go.

 

 

I can understand that, and I can also relate. But I think the system where you cannot build a bad build doesn't automatically mean that it accomodates everyone equally from the get go. You can't build a weak build, yes, but you can always build an even stronger build. Of course that's only my gut, I have no evidence on that. But that's also the feeling I got from D&D next and 4e. 

[Animations, and more!]

 

Also we need a voidwalker-ish thief/wizard class that can blink-backstab. 

Maybe a bit off-topic but you can actually melee with a mage. So maybe...

[To all of our backers and fans...]

There should be terabytes of art and screenshots available. I don't understand why they don't post at least one concept art - even if its still work in progress.

 

Not necessarily though. I would really like some more updates, but I kind of like that they aren't just throwing everything out to us. It preserves some of the "mystery" and excitement

[To all of our backers and fans...]

 

 

 

 

Hello, everyone. We aren't doing an update this week because the team is hard at work on a very special update for the near future. Can't really talk about it right now, but we think it's going to be cool.

 

On our one year anniversary, we really just wanted to thank all of the fans and backers that have allowed us to make the game of our dreams. When we asked for your help in getting Eternity funded, you responded by making it one of the most successful Kickstarters in the site's history. Without your continuous feedback and support this game just wouldn't be possible. So, from the entire Obsidian team we give our most heartfelt thank you to our fans and backers.

 

Stay tuned!

 

-The Project Eternity Crew

 

Take Your time, we're not in a hurry.

 

 

Hey, speak for yourself

 

Patience is a virtue. ;-)

 

 

I'm not a virtuous person. I thiiiiirst for an update.

[Armour & weapon designs - a plea (part IV).]

To be fair, what we've seen up until now from Vailians does not look like moorish spain. It generally looks like early 17th century stuff. A bit like this:

 

 

 

 

 

Albeit with more colour.

The whole "suerior European culture" shebang is absolute bull****. We can also flip your situation around: why shouldn't a black person be allowed to be portrayed in a Venetian style? Why not?

[The bad things about Project Eternity...]

I sort get what you are saying Sacred_Path.  Personally I'm going to wait until I can actually sit down with the game and see how the systems "feel" in practice before passing any judgement, but I do have some reservations about the idea that "no bad builds" will sort of reduce every character into a sort of indistinguishable "mush" from every other build.  For instance, this is the biggest gripe I have with a game system like 4th edition D&D - every class "feels" just about exactly the same no matter how you build a character. 

 

I don't really care about that 100+ hours veteran vs. noob thing. After all it's a singleplayer game and I don't draw my ego out of my awesome character builds. Also I don't really care if I can't make a bad build, because... Who in their right mind would ever want to make a bad build? It's something that only happens by accident and causes frustration and a new character after two hours of playing.

 

What I get though is the skepticism towards the possibility of having "indistinguishable mush". I felt this was already happening in 4E (I may be wrong, I'm no expert), but I only played a  few shorter games of 4E, so I don't know. If Josh can really pull it off and make awesomely customizable characters with no bad builds possible, I will salute him.

[To all of our backers and fans...]

 

They're gonna do the same thing tomorrow guys. Prepare to get trolled.

 

We do not have an update planned for tomorrow. No need to stay up for it.

 

[The bad things about Project Eternity...]

I'll go with the obvious ones

 

 

The attribute system, probably. + standard abilities instead of more player chosen talents, if I got the terminology right. I started out thinking that character building would make this my favorite game OF ALL TIME, but probably not.

 

Care to elaborate?

[To all of our backers and fans...]

Maybe the supernatural event we witness at the beginning of the game is some demon emerging from a portal and bestowing upon some random guy the knowledge of the printing press.

 

Also the guy uses the printing press to massproduce a book entitled Mein Kampf - A Mad Wizard's Way To Power and creates poltical turmoil in all of the world.

[The bad things about Project Eternity...]

So, we know quite a lot of stuff about Project Eternity so far and I guess most of us are equally psyched to delve into Dyrwood.

 

What I'm interested though is: what are the things you've learned about PE up until now that didn't please you or that you did not like at all? Is there anything you wish to be different?

 

I think it'd be interesting to see some critical thinking and maybe we can give the devs a bit of constructive input.

[Your thoughts on multi-classing]

Nah, no Ninja She's the philosophical type of rogue. The Zen master of her martial art. Confident, deadly, doesn't usually have to use her abilities for sheer respect earned. Believes personal skill and mastery of self are what makes her more effective as double dealing backstabbing bastard. Believes the end justifies the means. Takes over the criminal underworld and makes her goons follow a code of conduct because it draws less attention from authorities if you don't sell to kids. Loves Nietzsche.

 

Started out as a clever rogue who suffered from arrogance, and took lessons from a monk-mentor who unexpectedly made her think about how she applied herself. Both in practice and in mind.

 

Well, now I want to play a multi-classed rogue-monk. You're probably the first one that made multiclassing attractive to me :D

[Your thoughts on multi-classing]

@Jarmo, I can definitely see your point. I've never 1st edition D&D. So that's probably the origin of my disliking warrior mages etc. It just doesn't seem right. It's probably just a personal preference, I just can't get over it. The same with Kung-Fu-Monks in D&D. I just... It doesn't work for me. I'm probably a bit close-minded in that regard.

 

I never liked high-fantasy much, I don't like being a jack-of-all-trades like you can be in Skyrim and other RPGs. I enjoy being a "normal" hero a lot more.

 

@JFSOOC, well of course it would be interesting. But it's nothing I'd play on my first playthough. :D Also, is a rogue-monk not just... some sort of Ninja? :D

[Project Eternity and Surface Pro 2]

 

 

I predict yes. Even better, some modders could tweak the UI for Surface Pro 2 screen.

But I doubt Obsidian will modify PE for touch screens, since it's outside the kickstarter scope, they promised a mouse-and-keyboard RPG after all.

 

While it's true that we're not designing the game with touch screens in mind, we have had the game running on a Fujitsu Windows 8 tablet and it worked fine.  We are trying to make the game one-button friendly, so while there is functionality on right-click, it's usually ease-of-use functionality rather than core.

 

E: Also our min res is 1280x720.

 

Probably a dumb question, but by "one button friendly", do you mean one button and keyboard, (e.g., Mac users, tablet+keyboard, etc...) or that you are designing the game to be played with only one button, (tablet w/out keyboard)? 

 

I think one-button-friendly is supposed to mean the same thing it did for the other IE games. It was absolutely possible to play IE games with the mouse alone. 

[Armour & weapon designs - a plea (part IV).]

 

According to Adam in the "to all our backers and fans" thread, there will be no Landsknecht gear in PE

But there will be colorful tabards, breastplates, big hats with feathers, and greatswords. It'll look just like a Landsknecht!

 

 

It never will! A Landsknecht has sliced clothing! Everything is just bogus!

 

Kidding of course

[Lets talk about GUI. Critique mine or post your own!]

I like its simplicity. There's really no need for complicated symbols, I'm glad you left that out. I also like the buttons for the stronghold etc, but I think there are a few buttons lacking, or rather, some things would be too complicated to be reached. How do I get to spells/inventory etc? I think you want to do this via party, but really, I think those "pathways" are too long then. I know you want to make it fully customizable

 

I also dislike the minimap, I'd rather have a see-through-minimap at the top, like in Diablo or Arx Libertatis. I know it's not really beautiful but it does the trick much better. Also it doesn't make the bottom of the screen as crowded as it is now.

 

Lastly, I would put the portraits to the side of the screen, basically the way it is done in BGEE. It leaves much more space for the selected character to be at the bottom.

 

I'm at uni now, so I only have my Netbook with me, but maybe I'll do my own when I get home.

[What do we know about children?]

 

 

It's unrealistic to think that a game could come out now where children can be killed by the player just like that.

 

Would you argue for the ability to molest children in the game? If no, why are you against limiting that evil?

 

 

I don't think that's even relevant. Killing and fighting is a core mechanic of a battle-based game (well, duh, Captain Obvious), raping is not.

 

But honestly, I see no merit in censoring actions in a game. Not because of the whole anti-censor-hurr-durr, but because I believe that within games lie a big potential for reflective art. Just watch Spoony's review of Ultima VII and VIII, when he was kind of shocked that one could kill children. Also he was appalled by the general violence in these games, back then. It really is a powerful tool, an dyou can see that when suddenly you're thinking to yourself: "What the hell am I even doing?"

 

Art is and has to be controversial. Art is about stepping over lines, sometimes. It's about overcoming boundaries, provocating responses. It does not always have to be "good" in order to be of use.

 

In RPGs, look at Inquisitor where you could, as a core mechanic of interrogation, torture people. That spawned interesting discussions about torture in general, about the identification with characters (are you playing yourself or are you roleplaying a totally different character?). 

[What part of P:E has you the most excited for it's release?]

 

Tim Cain Tim Caining.

I initially read "Caining" as "canning" and thought that Tim Cain would be preserving food. That would be an interesting reward tier.

 

To be fair, we already have that reward tier. Tim's cooking book. If we learned how to preseeve food there, I'd be psyched. :D

 

I'm looking forward to the whole game right up to when I have to create my character, at which point I will then enter angst mode and wail about having to choose between things and collapse in a indecisive heap.

Correct. The first day owning PE will probably spent with hours of uncertainty, last-minute-decisions to play something else (repeat 20 times) and then actually playing 2 minutes before having to go to bed...