Catching up on news, I ran into this article on RPS this morning: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/14/obsidians-bold-future-eternity-meets-skyrim-a-second-ks/
I'll now quote the article, which quotes Feargus , "What I’m trying to figure out is, how could we make something that is more like a Skyrim for PC – forget console for now – with the engine we made in Unity for Eternity? Where we are with our conversation, quest, data editors, and all of that. If we were careful about scope and let Chris Avellone go wild with creating a new world, more of an open world, what could we do?"
Later, "What could we do that would be interesting enough and at the right quality level?” he ponders aloud. “Because the one worry we have about moving away from pre-rendered stuff, is that as soon as we get into first-person or third-person or something like that, the expectation of triple-A-level console graphics comes in. So what can we do for a lower budget but let people still say, ‘Whoa, that’s crazy’?”
Obsidian... Guys&Gals... I have one word for you: MINECRAFT
Seriously, we loves open world and sandboxy RPG settings. Skyrim's success in spite of it's many terrible narratives and even, at times, nonsensical NPC interactions ("Here, take this and hold on to it.") is proof that many of us are dying to play the character we make up as we go along playing. Minecraft's success is proof that people will overlook graphics quality in the face of a great playing experience.
So, Obsidian wants to kickstart an open world RPG for PC with a great story, a rich and detailed world that has "only" Unity quality graphics, holds on to text based dialogue windows and only has voice over for the 10 most important world characters?
I'm IN! Where do I pledge?
EDIT: Just pleaaase make mod-friendly part of the design goals. I was really looking forward to doing something for Skyrim right up until I read about the community content navmesh bug.