Endrosz

I had my doubts about what can be done with a budget like this. The Twitch interview that Infinitron linked laid my doubts to rest, I pledged after that in-depth talk. Paul said that with the minimum budget they'll be concentrating on making a very solid 10-12 hour game, in the vein of HBS's recent Shadowrun titles. That's exactly what I wanted to hear, a focus to deliver a solid basis, it doesn't have to be long, it has to be very enjoyable. And unlike the SR games, their game will offer high replayability "as is", thanks to the emergent gameplay engine they're building.

Discarding the advice of some ("don't anger the press", I guess), Paul Neurath has spoken against recent press claims of "crowdfunding baaaeeeed". Some paragraphs: One of the updates contains some really interesting info about AR (augmented Reality), which is different from VR. I will quote the entire section, it's fascinating:

Yet another major patch in the works, upgrading to Unity 5. From the update they sent out to backers:

I will take this opportunity to shamelessly self-promote the term I came up with for people who oppose promancers: nomancers. Uh... topic? Line?

Threats of Eternity

I agree with all of Lephys's points. Either all portrait or all model. I've played similar clock-based games like Atlantica Online or the Monster's Den series and everywhere it's fill. A small flash or other visual cue to show readiness, yes again.

My burning question is related: how many outs will be in the game?

Icy is about half funded (which isn't saying a lot with a $2500 target, still...), and they put out an update, and in their FAQ there's something that must quoted for hilariousness. Crowdfunding: second best choice after organized crime at funding a game. Publishers are much further down the list.

^Being familiar with Josh's manner of speaking, I can almost hear his stifled laugh and see his small smirk when I read it, it's his usual brand of self-deprecating humor. I would bet a good sum that it's meant to be a joke.

Excellent, it'll no longer come out 2 days before PoE. I was hoping for this, actually. And before you say "but it's a different market segment!" -- remember how Dvinity:OS's success was helped by no big names releasing near it, and how the reverse was true for Wasteland 2 and (some other AAA game I can't recall). Without big name releases, the wallets are more susceptible to try something else. EDIT: The stars are aligning...

The pitch video is brilliant. "Save an animal, eat a friend!" :D And yes, the game looks quite complete. Plus apparently they're from Italy, Europe. I pledged.

You can send the non-party companions on separate "quests" from the Stronghold, and they get XP from those. Offline adventuring, so to speak.

Did the Aedyr Empire and Old Vailia have contact with each other before the colonization of the Eastern Reaches? If yes, what kind of contact: explorer's stories and rumors only -- private trade -- state-level trade -- political contact with ambassadors -- all-out war -- skirmishes over islands -- proxy war through vassals between them, etc? How far are the two empires from each other, a) geographically and b) in seafaring days?

The wiki is probably right about the Stronghold, I'm sorry for the confusion. The cropped area is correct, though.

(anameforobsidian: How did you upload an image larger than 1 MB as attachment?) We've seen glimpses of the in-game world map in various presentations (Rezzed, GDC) and in the "spoilerish" streams. Based on that I marked the region map's part where Pillars of Eternity takes place. Northwest corner is Gilded Vale, Defiance Bay in the middle-west is the first large city. Twin Elms, somewhat north of the southeast corner is the second large city. The stronghold is not marked on the region map (which makes sense), I marked it with a red circle, it's southwest across the lake near Twin Elms, southeast of Dyrford. I've noticed a few little discrepancies between the region map and the in-game world map, but nothing worth mentioning. This is a cropped version of the in-game map area.

I'm ready to drop this discussion (it's offtopic here anyway), because it's not like I would campaign to remove companions from a game like this, I'm not that stupid. One last thing: Icewind Dale is one of the games namedropped in the Kickstarter pitch video. I've watched that video several times back then, soaking up every sweet word in it, and my ears are still ringing from Adam Brennecke saying "... to bring back the magic of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment." As others have noted, that is an impossible promise, because those games have some key differences, and therefore you can't make a spiritual successor to all of them in one game. One such aspect is party setup. If you mimic BG and P:ST, you create one character with a strong and unrevealed story background and recruit companions along the way. If you mimic IWD, you create a full party with no limitations and no story assumptions and start dungeon crawling for XP and loot. For me, that evokes more nostalgia of my old DnD days than the BG/PS:T approach.

When you were talking about the older games, you conveniently skipped over Icewind Dale 1 and 2. Those are also iconic IE games, had full party creation and zero companions (some joinable NPCs, but no companions), and both of them were created by Black Isle, the progenitor of Obsidian. It's not a necessity to have companions in an RPG, or even in an Obsidian RPG. Sure, it's an extra, I have enjoyed the company of Dak'kon from PS:T very much, he's my favorite, but it's still an extra. I, for one, would have pledged the same amount even if the pitch didn't include companions, and I'm amused when people complain about 8 companions being '"too few". If you ask me, 8 companions is 8 too much, and I would have preferred for the game to have more narrative content instead (locations, NPCs, quests). The second IWD's lead designer is the same person who's the project director of Eternity, a certain J. E. Sawyer. It's not like a companionless RPG is unknown to Black Isle/Obsidian.

Two other reasons one might want to use the Adventurer's Hall: - You grew up with pre-1995 RPGs, where you created an entire party, and don't care about companions that much. - You want to experiment with different builds and party setups, because experimenting is fun. Both reasons apply to me, and that's why the only stretch goal during the Kickstarters that I cared about was the Adventurer's Hall.

I'm really torn on this one. On one hand, it looks like a very simplified version of DnD, built like Diablo 3. Marginal story, the main focus is co-op action and lootsplosion. Which I enjoyed in Diablo 3 and in Borderlands 2 etc., but those games don't have a lot of depth to the gameplay. On the other hand, it's not an MMO like Dungeons and Dragons Online and Neverwinter, where the progress is severely inhibited to tug at your wallet. That's something, I guess. Time will tell.

No, no you're a "fan of this genre" yet. Son, your penitence is: Go play Ultima 4 (it's free!). Until you discover what makes it a classic RPG, you're not allowed to call yourself a fan. Also, "like it's from 2001" will be taken as a compliment by a lot of the Kickstarter backers, including me.

I would gladly be on the other side of that trade, so we're both in theoretical luck.

I'm not sure what your point is. Should the rogue class be removed? Should it have more unique features? Do you want a classless system? (I like classless systems, but PoE's simply isn't.) Yes, and this is true for the fighter. Move fighter talents to general talents, and everyone can be a fighter, including rogues. Losing limitations, what kind of limitations? This isn't DnD, a rogue can wear any armor and wield any weapon. There are many, many games which offer the "basic three" as class choices, which is fighter, rogue, mage. The latest is Underworld Ascendant. Even System Shock 2 offered a modern-day version of the basic three: soldier, hacker, psi-op. Edit: The "entirely artificial seperation" is called game design. Everything is artificial in a game.

Ho-ho-ho-hold your horses, mate. DnD archetypes have solid literary foundations, and the rogue is based on fantasy classics like Fritz Leiber's Ffahrd and Grey Mouser and Jack Vance's Cugel the Clever (the setting of Cugel's saga, Dying Earth also gave DnD the memorization system). Cugel's roguish stories are highly entertaining, I have fond memories of reading the Hungarian translations. Think of the real-world difference between regular army soldiers and the Somalian pirates. Both fight to win, with an assault rifle in hand, but they work very differently. Based on the Let's Play videos, I say Eternity's rogues have enough to set them apart from all other classes. The various Hard/PotD discussions of the classes are proof of that.

Adventurers are just an exp food for our claws and breath weapons, their only function is to die by our hand, so no reason to make them anything more than a paper doll decorations of the inns. Sincerely, The Monsters (I remember my first low-level AD&Đ adventure with an experienced Dungeon Master at the helm. It was difficult, and we found no magical treasure at all, and we all complained about it. He said: "Well, there was healing potion and a wand with 2 charges on the orc shaman. He used them both when appropriate, that was the magical treasure." Lesson learned.)

Sunless Sea is out on GOG and Steam and Humble. It's Sid Meier's Pirates! mixed with Faster Than Light set in a Chtulhu mythos-inspired doomsday environment, and it's delicious. Here's Eurogamer's rare 10/10 review.