Carlo

I think Gromnir's suggestion is moot, since those will already be included in the base game. More seriously, I took the survey and thought it was reasonably well constructed to see how excited people are about particular types of "extras" (not whether they want them for free, of course they do). The survey however wasn't constructed to be able to offer negative feedback on highly desired items for PoE1 (e.g. the cloth map - I love maps and the poor quality, washed-out one included showed zero quality control and was highly disappointing from my perspective as a backer).

Thanks so much. Am a backer who has put off playing the campaign until the right time, given other distractions and waiting for the right bugfixes. Now I feel I can do it legitimately and live the experience to its fullest.

Cover art can actually take quite a while to execute properly, so it depends on when it was first sent to the artist. Of course the novella doesn't exactly seem like a priority, but one would hope that, as a promised Kickstarter benefit, in the end it will in fact surface. Perhaps in time for a PoE2 announcement...?

Please don't feed the trolls.

Regarding the BG comparison made at the beginning of the topic, I think it's apt, although perhaps not as originally intended. At least on my first playthrough, I maxed out the possible levels before the final fight with Sarevok, and was not trying to be a completist. The TotSC expansion pack welcome level expansion extras / xp cap relief (which I expect will also be the case for PoE). BG2 started the party at the mid-levels and therefore had much more content/scaling flexibility from the beginning. In the context of putting out the first installment of a new epic world/game series, believe the XP gain / scaling issues raised above are both valid and, unfortunately, more or less inevitable given different playstyles and balance issues. The best fix would be to simply have the extra content available at start, but this is not really viable from a commercial perspective. It would also require that much more dev time, which people don't have the patience for either. I haven't started PoE yet and at this point I'm tempted to defer gaming gratification until the release of the expansion pack, for the fully enhanced experience. We'll see. There seems to be plenty of replayability, both in terms of content and difficulty level, so people of differing styles (or those who like to change them up) can still have a good experience.

If people can't figure out what the "M" rating means, then surely they will be offended by *something* in the game. Also, reading optional content is optional.

KOTOR 2 with the Sith Lords Restored Content Mod. Since the main game came out on GoG and the mod team just released an updated version, I figured it was time to try it; I gave it a skip the first time around due to the buggy reputation and too-early release. The modded version has not disappointed, especially on the story and roleplaying aspects.

Since patching/updating is an ongoing process and any physical product will go out of date (usually sooner rather than later), I'm happy getting game version 1.0 in a physical delivery - that's barely done at all these days anyway, so I consider it a bonus. If I need to reinstall later or move computers, that'll help save the dl'ing time. Last time I remember seeing something with a separate physical patch version, it was a 3.5" floppy one included in the box I got for "Blood Bowl" (the original computer version).

Conceptually I don't believe the idea of modding for PE has changed much since this past topic, which is still relevant: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/59988-modding/

Outstanding update on the state of the project. As a content backer I was particularly happy to see Josh Sawyer's subsequent posted confirmation that most of the backer contributions have already made it in. Will be very interested to see what the PE version of my NPC, who has appeared from time to time in my weekly NWN campaign, turns out like in-game. As a late adopter type I'll cheer on the beta stage, but still plan to savor the complete flavor during my virgin run-through of the final release.

Nice idea (and picture) for the tavern banter. In the BG series, party chat triggers as I recall were fairly evenly spread, with some in taverns as well. In multiplayer games it's always a great place to share camaraderie and gripes or just see what's going on in the area. Along similar lines, for flavor purposes in the Neverwinter Nights campaign I run, automated NPCs in various cities have random speech based on current local events and rumors, including some that reflect party actions. It's very simple to set up - all that's necessary is to have each NPC roll a virtual d20 against a selected text list when speech is triggered - but adds a lot of flavor to the game world and lets the party know what's trending via word of mouth.

That's the basis for the Shannara series, actually.

The main point of a "Mature" rating is that the designers and those who create the dialog and action don't have to censor themselves for the industry ratings agencies, therefore giving them more creative freedom. Nasty people can do nasty things both on-camera and off-camera, there may be a range of sex and drugs available in the world (who knew), etc. Doesn't mean your character has to participate or that these themes completely dominate, just that it won't be a Disney-esque world. See for reference the Fallout series, among others.

I gave up on Arcanum about a dozen hours into it because of the combat system (and a non-optimized for combat character). I don't blame him.

As one of the backers with an NPC to create, I've eagerly awaited this announcement and was happily surprised for the holidays. Although the site wasn't completely functional on launch, today all of the NPC survey elements were in place and I was very happy to be able to complete my submission; for anyone else with the same issue, things are now working. As a more general comment, I also thought the gameplay video showed Eternity to be everything that I'm looking for out of this CRPG, with the look and feel giving me goosebumps from Baldur's Gate - but not just a knockoff version, something that reflects the epic fantasy genre but is its own entity. I'm in it for the story and roleplay elements - if my main concern was bleeding edge visuals I'd go somewhere else - and I think what was shown will bring the world to life quite well in its final version. Thank you Obsidian for delivering.