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  1. In today's update we ask the Lead Animator on Project Eternity, Mark Bremerkamp a few questions about being a game developer. Mark hails from Detroit, Michigan, and he has been with Obsidian for eight years. He is a man of few words - everyone give a warm hello to Mark. Q: Hello, Mr. Bremerkamp! What is your job on the Project Eternity team? A: Lead Animator Q: What are you working on this week? A: Initial attacks for the light spear (1h thrust) and the pike (2h thrust) Q: What is your typical work day like on Project Eternity? A: First drink coffee then check my e-mail and look to see if there are any meetings that I need to prepare for. Then I usually look over the work from the day before. I like to always go back with a fresh set of eyes to see what worked and then I'll make some notes/changes. After all that I get to animating the fixes or I'll move onto a new animation. Q: What are you most looking forward to on Project Eternity? What are you looking forward to animating? A: That’s an easy one...Creatures. It's always fun to animate strange and creepy critters. Q: What other games have you worked on? A: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Alpha Protocol, Fallout New Vegas, and New Vegas DLCs. Q: What do you like to eat for lunch? A: Well I usually brown bag because I head over to the gym at lunch. When I do go to a restaurant my first choice is Yard House at the Irvine Spectrum. Q: OK. So, what is your favorite beer? A: On a special occasion I like to drink Gulden Drook. Q: What do you like to do when you aren't animating? A: When I'm not animating I love to spend time with my wife and two children. Q: Do you have a favorite animator or artist? A: Chuck Jones is an animator that I really looked up to when I was younger. Richard Williams and the "Nine Old Men" are also high on my list. Some contemporary animators that I really enjoy are Carlos Baena (Pixar) http://www.carlosbaena.com/ Victor Navone http://blog.navone.org/ and Keith Lango http://keithlango.blogspot.com/ Q: And where do you draw your inspiration from? A: Movies, music, games and other animators are all part of it. But really life in general. All the world's a stage... Q: Are you excited that the NHL is coming back? A: Yes. It about damn time. Go Red Wings! Q: What's your favorite game? A: OK well...that's a really big question because like many different games for different reasons. Old school games are really near and dear to my heart. When I say old school I'm talking about Intellivison Games like the Treasure of Tarmin. As for the newer games.... God of War, Batman, and Uncharted Series. I'm also playing a lot of games with my kids. A recent game that my 4 year old son and I both enjoy is LEGO Star Wars Battle Orders. Q: Anything else you would like to share? A: Nope. Thanks Mark! Next week Josh is planning to have another game mechanics update for you. Steve, Tim, and Josh have been working on attack mechanics over the last week and are currently planning abilities for classes. I don't know what Josh has planned to write about, but I'm sure it will be interesting! Until next time.
  2. Let's be serious; all the good RPG series (The Old Republic, Elder Scrolls, etc.) these days are being made into fancy, newfangled MMO's. It practically goes without saying that the MMORPG model is proven to offer the benefit of a greater social gaming experience with absolutely no costs with regard to narrative depth, mechanics, graphics, or any other measure of quality, so what's there to lose? Should Project Eternity be next?
  3. Hello, friends. The elves have been hard at work on Project Eternity, and we would like to show you our fine goods. This is a long update, but we wanted to give you more information than usual since it's the end of the year and we will be in our elfhomes for the next few weeks. First, I'd like to talk about what we've been doing with the engine and second, I'd like to talk about some of the design work we've been doing. Resolution and Scaling - We want to run the game at various resolutions and scale properly. We've been talking about our target resolutions and looking at the best way to implement scaling. If you've played any of the Infinity Engine games lately, you may have noticed that running at high resolutions can make the game look like an RTS. Though it's nice to be able to scale up and see more of the environment, at a certain point dungeons start looking like ant farms. That's what happens when you take a game designed for 640x480 and run it at more than double the resolution. It is now the year 2012, so we're looking at supporting a range of resolutions that runs from modest laptops to Macs with crazy Retina displays. To do this, we're going to render the game out at a target high resolution and a target low resolution. Currently, we're looking at a base resolution of 1280x720. A large number of laptops run at this resolution or its slightly bigger brother, 1366x768. It's not quite twice the resolution of the original games (640x480) due to the 16:9 aspect ratio, but pretty close. We believe that this base resolution will scale well up to 1920x1080, which would be roughly equivalent to going from 640x480 to 1024x768. In the old IE games, this gave you a slightly larger view of the world, but didn't get too crazy. For our higher resolution, we are likely going to render out to a ~2560x1440 screen size, as we did with our environment during the Kickstarter campaign. We will likely downsample these to run at 1920x1080. With resolutions above "mere" Retina displays, we will zoom out, which should allow the backgrounds to scale into outer space (close enough, anyway). Movement and Combat Feel - We've been working on implementing all of the basics of party selection, movement, and combat. This includes working on personal space, ally and enemy pathing, friendly "bumping" during movement, ranges of melee attacks, attack timing and delays, target selection, and response time. A lot of work goes into making these elements feel good and feel "IE-ish" (while excluding the IE-ish things we didn't like). We’ve also been building block-in weapon meshes and putting them in the game to see how they look in terms of scale. This has gone well, but we're still working on proportions. Some thin weapons, like stilettos, rapiers, and estocs, can be very difficult to discern, especially at lower resolutions. Their thicker cousins, daggers, swords, and greatswords, need to be "beefed up" a small amount to help distinguish them. Even though we need to make a few slight adjustments, our overall approach of making weapons with realistic... ish proportions is working well and feels similar to the characters and weapons found in Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. Along with implementing the visuals of the weapons, we're experimenting with weapon statistics and mechanics. Weapons are currently classified as slashing, piercing, or crushing, which is a pretty common division of types. We're not currently using damage types vs. armor types in Project Eternity, but the damage types all have properties that suggest a certain type of usage. Slashing weapons do the most damage when compared to their counterparts from other categories. E.g., if you compare a greatsword to an estoc to a maul, the greatsword does the most damage. When targets have little to no armor, slashing weapons are the ideal choice. Piercing weapons negate a fixed amount of Damage Threshold, which is the primary way in which armor reduces damage. Though they don't do as much damage as slashing or crushing weapons, their ability to ignore even moderately heavy armor means that it is superior to other weapons in those circumstances. While armor can negate a large amount of damage, there's always a small amount that gets through. Crushing weapons do much more through armor, which makes them the best choice when dealing with very heavily armored targets. So far, this works well on paper, scales well, and seems to hold up in the game, but it is very "mathy" and not necessarily intuitive because you can't always guess a target's Damage Threshold simply by looking at them (as opposed to armor types, which are usually visually apparent). We will continue to experiment with this to see how it feels in the long run. Our goals are to provide tactical challenges to the player and give them to feedback and tools to adapt and overcome when they're in a difficult spot. UI Design - Tim and I have been talking about our user interfaces recently. We want to make sure that we improve the functionality of the original designs without completely losing the feeling of those interfaces. One thing we want to avoid is making the UI too "minimalist". We don't want it to feel bloated, of course, but we also recognize that the IE games had "solid" interfaces. They looked like they were made of materials -- wood, stone, and metal -- and had substance to them. When you look at the interfaces for the IE games, they help immerse you in each setting. We'd like to do the same for Project Eternity. Functionally, we're using Icewind Dale II as our starting point. We've been looking at inventory recently. Tim and I have designed a system that uses three types of gear storage: equipment, top of pack (this name may change!), and stash. Equipment is what your characters are currently using and have ready to use. This includes weapon sets that you can swap between during combat. "Top of pack" is a finite amount of gear that you can access outside of combat for a variety of purposes: replenishing consumables, checking out a shiny new sword you picked up a while back, etc. The top of pack cannot be accessed during combat, but is present as a strategic pool of items that you can access while exploring. The stash is where all of the "other stuff" goes: things you aren't using, items you want to sell, and various doo-dads you'll be looking at later. When you find gear, you have the option of placing it wherever you'd like as long as there's room for it. You can use it immediately, put it in your top of pack, or just chuck it in the stash. Once an object is in the stash, you can access it at camps, your home, and similar locations. We've created this division of inventory space to add strategy to your gear loadout decisions instead of having a weight limit, while also allowing flexibility for backup equipment. Most importantly, it doesn't prevent you from doing what adventurers love to do most: loot everything they find that isn't bolted down. Core Four Class Design and Advancement - We want our classes to feel familiar but flexible, so we've designed our "core four" (fighter, priest, rogue, wizard) to reflect traditional D&D roles and allow you to build outside of them. In our current design, each of the classes starts with two active use or modal abilities and one passive bonus. Fighter Defender (Mode) - In the Defender mode, fighters' melee attack rates decrease while their melee defenses increase. This is a particularly useful mode to enter when a fighter is blocking a route of attack to protect other party members. Surge - This active ability allows fighters to rapidly regenerate Stamina for a short period of time. Melee Accuracy - Fighters have inherent skill with melee weapons that is reflected by a small accuracy bonus. Priest 1st Level Priest Spells - Priests gain access to all 1st level priest spells. Priests can cast a fixed number of 1st level spells before they must rest to recover their uses. They can cast any combination of different spells up to the per-rest limit. As priests gain levels, their 1st level spells will eventually become per-encounter resources. Recovery - The Recovery ability regenerates a modest amount of Stamina for allies (including the priest, if in range) in a Medium-sized area at Short range. Sacred Circle - All allies standing within a Small area around the priest gain Accuracy bonus. This bonus does not include the priest unless there are no conscious allies in range, in which case it applies to the priest. Rogue Escape - The rogue may hop a short distance away and all hostiles lose him or her as a direct target for 3 seconds. After the 3 seconds are up, enemies can target the rogue normally. Reversal - Reversal prepares the rogue for the next melee attack against him or her. When it hits, the rogue takes reduced damage and instantly rolls to the opposite side of the target and executes a powerful melee attack. This will even allow rogues to move past enemies that are fully blocking a path. Sneak Attack - This damage bonus applies whenever the rogue "flanks" an enemy or when the rogue is hidden from an enemy. Flanking means that the rogue is within a short distance of the target and on the "opposite" side of that enemy from an adjacent ally. Wizard 1st Level Wizard Spells - Wizards can access all 1st level wizard spells immediately. Unlike other wizard spell levels, the wizard does not need to find scrolls or grimoires to use any 1st level spells. Wizards can cast a fixed number of 1st level spells before they must rest to recover their uses. They can cast any combination of different spells up to the per-rest limit. As wizards gain levels, their 1st level spells will eventually become per-encounter resources. Blast - When wizards use any implement (i.e. a wand, rod, or scepter), they generate a Blast on the target. The Blast does a modest amount of damage to all enemies in a Small area around the target (excluding the target). Familiar - All wizards can summon and dismiss familiars. Familiars are mobile "totems" for the wizard, providing defensive bonuses to allies near them and inflicting defensive penalties to enemies near them. Players can also access the master's spell list through the familiar, though casting a spell through the familiar still requires the master to physically cast it; it's simply targeted from the familiar. Familiars are weak and fragile. If a familiar is killed, the wizard takes damage and is unable to summon his or her familiar until he or she rests again. As players advance their characters, they have the ability to choose class-specific abilities and more class-neutral talents (more like perks or feats) to customize their character capabilities. If you want to keep your fighters very low maintenance, there are a large number of passive fighter abilities and combat-oriented talents that you can buy. If you'd like to make a fighter that's much more "active-use" (more like a 4E fighter), you can choose to buy more modal and active abilities. Similarly, while all wizards gain additional spells, you can use talents to boost a wizard's damage with implement weapons and Blasts, making them more useful when you're not having them chain-cast a series of limited-use spells. The same also applies to skills, which are used for a variety of non-combat purposes. All classes start out with bonuses in the skills that their classes most commonly use, but players can choose to reinforce or play against that top. If you want to make a paladin who delights in picking locks, you can do that and get a lot of utility out of the skill -- though the character will never be quite as good as a rogue who specializes in it. We hope that these approaches use the strengths of a "role-ready" class system while allowing players a large amount of helpful flexibility in how they develop characters over a (hopefully) long and fruitful adventuring career. That's all for this week, and this year! We'll be back in January with more details on what we're up to and where we're going in the months to come. Thanks for reading! Update from Josh Sawyer
  4. Chris Avellone is playing Arcanum to raise funds for the $4.0 million dollar stretch goal you helped us reach for Project Eternity. It's installed and he’s ready to start playing – we here at Obsidian wanted to know how you’d like it played! Let's Play Document/Blog 10 minute Let's Play Youtube video bites Streamed on Twitch Format doesn’t matter to me, just enjoy it. The poll will close on Wednesday (1/23/13) at 6:00PM Pacific Time. Thanks for you feedback!
  5. Hello World and Happy 2013! Looks like we all survived (hopefully) the Mayan Apocalypse. That was a close one. Woooohooo! We hope you enjoyed your holiday and wish everyone the best for 2013. The team has returned from our cozy elfhomes, and we are re-energized and excited to get back to work on Project Eternity. Without further ado, we had promised backer details in this update, so let's start off with those. Thanks to all of your extremely generous donations, our final backer numbers for our crowdfunding phase are: $3,986,929 from 73,986 Kickstarter backers and $324,650 from roughly 5,698 unique PayPal backers (not including the almost 500 slacker backers who have contributed since the crowdfunding phase ended!) For the phase, we earned about $4,311,600 before any fees from Kickstarter and the payment services. (This does include some losses from failed charges, returns, etc.) We are continuing to work on fulfillment and are slowly getting in contact with our backers about specifics. The last of the $350 tier loot bags are being sent out this week, and Chris Avellone is starting to draw Troll Avatars for the $750 tier backers. As we continue forward in pre-production, we will have more information for the higher tier design and art related rewards and how backers will be able to participate in designing your items, NPCs, adventuring parties, etc. The backer site is coming together and the plan is to have it up and running by the end of the month. Thank you for your patience and for those of you who will be designing goodies for the game, we’ll be in touch once we’re ready with your templates to fill out. For the PayPal backers out there, we should have updates coming to you via e-mail shortly as well. In the meantime, updates will come out on Tuesday evenings Pacific Time, so make sure and check eternity.obsidian.net weekly for the latest news and updates. Obsidian's Facebook and @Obsidian on Twitter are good places for the latest on Project Eternity news as well. Before we left for our homes, the office had a treat exchange at the office. Obsidian The team signed Obsidian games for the Loot Bag $350 tier backers. The plague struck and some of us are sick at home with colds. Even developers get sick: We’ll be continuing with our weekly updates from the art, design, programming, and production crew. If you have things you’d like to see or learn more about, swing on by the Project Eternity forums and let us know! Update by Adam Brennecke
  6. You all probably remember this PE wallpaper? I sort of liked it, but it was still missing Sagani, so I figured I'd add her to it. The result wasn't half bad, so I'm going to share it with you... think of it as an early present. Happy Holidays! 1920x1200 - Click: 1920x1080 - Click:
  7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qto3oORvRf4&feature=youtu.be Today's update isn't about lore as much as it is about the focus and process of developing our central plot. I'm not going to spoil any details of the story, but I do want to share what we're working on. When we develop stories at Obsidian, we often ask ourselves (and each other), "What's the conflict and why do I care about it?" and, "What is my range of roles in resolving the conflict?" "RPG" means a lot of different things to different people. For us, it's important to let the player decide who he or she is in the story. That means when you set aside class, race, magic missiles, and all of the other goodies, the player needs to be able to define his or her own motivations, attitudes toward others, and ways of resolving problems in the story. Finding the right level of player freedom and clarity of purpose can be difficult. It's tricky to develop scenarios that can convincingly motivate characters of many races and classes, many backgrounds, and many moral and ethical stances. A conflict that is too "hands-off" or impersonal (e.g. a political conflict that doesn't directly involve the player) can make it difficult for players to connect to it. A conflict that is extremely personal may rub players the wrong way if it assumes too much about their character or if it feels like their choices don't have a large enough impact on the world around them. Because this is the first story your characters will shape in this world, we want to start with something small that grows into something larger. As we have hinted before, the story opens with the player's character witnessing a supernatural event that puts him or her in a difficult situation. The full ramifications of what you become a part of are not immediately apparent, but you quickly become aware that you have... new problems. Dealing with these problems makes you realize that resolving your situation is inexorably linked to the fates of many others. In some cases, these "others" are individuals. In others, they are much larger groups of people. You will get to interact with them all in various ways over the course of the story. If we do a good job in developing these groups and characters, the decisions you make in the course of resolving your problems will be interesting and difficult to make. That's what we're aiming for, but that doesn't necessarily tell you what we've been doing. On this project, the process started with a rough idea for a story and a theme that went along with it. The story itself wasn't that important; it was just an idea to get us moving. What followed were critiques of the story's premise, the unfolding of the plot, the player's motivation and involvement, and the scope of the conflicts the player faces from the beginning through the end. For the past few weeks, we've been exchanging various small ideas, big ideas, minor tweaks, radical overhauls, and brand new storylines. Through it all, we regularly return to the questions I posed up above: "What's the conflict and why do I care about it?" and, "What is my range of roles in resolving the conflict?" We can (and do) write about all sorts of character and location ideas, subplots and interesting takes on themes, but until we answer those questions in a way we believe will be compelling to your characters and all that they may be, we still have work to do. We like to develop fun ideas we come up with and every once in a while we delight at some clever character or situation we think of, but for us, it's more important for you to feel clever, for you to feel like you can take control of a situation -- by whatever means you see fit. Until we believe we have a few gems on our hands, we'll keep the Story Gnomes digging in the mines on your behalf. Thanks for reading. Update by Josh Sawyer PS: Chris says he will start playing Arcanum mid-January.
  8. I mentioned in the P.E. Kickstarter threads that my husband is an artist and crafter RL, at what you'd call a 'Master' level. I think I should back that boast up... This is a custom made 5-Bottle winechest with an infinity celtic knot on the top. I wanted to show off his amazing work to y'all... BTW - these are hand-made to order and Yes, you can buy one if you're interested by PMing me... Also if anyone at Obsidian wants to buy one with a company logo engraved, you're welcome to PM me too. :D
  9. Hi, I know I will probably be ignored, mostly because this is my second/third post here, but I would like to ask you some help: I am an journalist-in-learning (a university in Poland, a field of study called "Journalism and social communication") and I created a blog in which I will write in english about games and anything gamish in nature. I would ask for help in two ways: 1) Just come in time to time and give me some constructive feedback on what and how I wrote. Also, comment on my english, it's not my main language, as you can see. 2) Give me some ideas on future articles. Because after writing a sort selection of indie games, and a review of Baldur's Gate: Enchanted Edition I will be out of them... :/ Any help will be very much appreciated. The address of the blog is http://gamingbyyeti.blogspot.com/ Pretty please, I will give you a cookie for help (or some leftover steam keys the next time I will have some :< )
  10. Today we have a meet the developer update with Dimitri Berman, Lead Character Artist on Project Eternity. We are planning for a design update next week, and then we will be going on hiatus for two weeks due to the holiday break! Q: Hi Dimitri! What do you do on the Project Eternity team? A: Hi everyone! I make sure all characters and creatures meet our set quality bar as they enter the game, this includes creation of high poly and low poly models, textures and materials, and occasional skinning and rigging. I work closely with animators, programmers, and designers to make sure our stuff looks and behaves as best it can, and also prototype new systems if we find something particularly cool we can do that the players will enjoy seeing. Occasionally I will jump over and help out the environment guys if they need help with complex set pieces. Q: What are you currently working on today? A: Today we're doing a couple of things. Firstly, we're getting our first weapons into the game, properly equipped by characters. And oh boy, there are going to be a lot of weapons, you can thank Josh for that! And then I am working with Antonio, our character TD to prototype the character rigs for other playable races. Different races in Eternity will be different scales and this poses various challenges to making their equipment and animations. Q: What's your typical work day like on Project Eternity? A: Usually when I get in I make a cup of coffee. And then another. Then I usually Facebook until it is lunch-time. After lunch I take to Twitter like a madman, Pinterest and Instagram my fingers off, and then after more Facebook it is time to go home! In all seriousness, I usually check my work email, and get to work on our current goal. Right now we are not creating content, we are figuring out our pipeline for building every single thing in the game, so when the time comes to creating art (during Production), we can focus on the art itself and not fighting technology to make it all work. RPG's are really complex especially when it comes to characters and there are a lot of things we always keep track of, so players in the end can have a wonderful, bug-free experience. Q: What are you most looking forward to on Project Eternity? A: It's exciting that it is a brand new IP, which allows us to put creativity into characters and art that we would normally not be able to do due to IP constraints. Eternity is also going to be a really big world, with lots of stuff in it - it is going to be rewarding in creating so much art for our fans. Q: What other projects have you worked on at Obsidian? A: I have worked on Neverwinter Nights 2, its expansions, Dungeon Siege 3, and sadly a couple of cancelled projects. Aliens 4EVER. Q: Where do you like to eat for lunch? A: Southern California has cuisine from everywhere, so I like to mix it up, be it Thai, sushi, or In-n-Out. But I think I eat more Mexican food than any other. It all started with me living in New Mexico for 10 years and then moving to San Diego. Q: What do you like to do when you aren't making art? A: What? Q: Who's your favorite artist? A: I would say HR Giger and Zdzislaw Beksinski are two of my all-time faves. Q: And your favorite Ninja Turtle? A: Leonardo, hands down. He is the true ninja. Q: What about Rafael? A: I find his equipment lacking. Q: What's your favorite game? A: Oh god, I don't know where to begin. There are tons of good games, I don't know if I have a favorite. I've always been a PC guy, and I grew up on first person shooters (Dooms, Quakes, ROTT's), RTS games, and of course old fashioned RPG's. I would play Eye of the Beholder non-stop, drawing out my own map by hand because minimaps weren't invented back then. But with games like Shadow of the Colossus, Dark Souls, and Journey, there are jewels in the modern console world that I really, really enjoy. Q: And finally what's the best brand of Vodka? A: Vodka is vodka, can't go wrong. I've heard about these two being good, but I've yet to try them - пять озер or зеленая марка (Five Lakes, supposedly Siberian, and Green Mark) . Honestly lately I've been drinking Absinthe. Thanks Dimitri! If you have any questions for Dimitri post them in this thread!
  11. The economy of a game is, in my opinion, one of the least discussed and thought, but in many ways perhaps the most important element of maintaining the fludiity and enjoyment of early, mid, and late gameplay. This is for a number of reasons, but it really boils down to the fact the economy of any RPG is dependent on two factors: 1. The player and his current state in the game 2. The world and how dynamic or static it is I'm no economist, and I do not have a formal education in economics, so I base my ideas and concepts on my experience of playing many games and RPGS, MMOs, etc. with good / bad economies and my understanding of how economics should work to maintain the most important factor: An enjoyable game. First, let's make something clear. Gameplay in an RPG is exponential, so the economy must be respectively exponential to ensure a fun experience. Many games fail to realize that not only item stats need to be exponential, but the opportunities, costs, and circumstance of an economy must be equally exponential to keep the game's economy exciting and interesting for those who get involved within it. Second, the economy must remain in a good balance between fluidity and static "constants". This means that the economy should be flexible and dependent on what players (or even NPCs) do, but needs to have a baseline - think a floor and a ceiling, but with plenty of room for excitement along the way. In the long run, the game's overall economic pulse will be going up, but should keep some proportional floor and ceiling to ensure things remain enjoyable. Lastly, the player should actually have an influence on the economy. It is so depressing when the majority of games ignore the player's input. If he spends two straight days selling gold on the national exchange, the price is going to go down. If he buys every last turtle beak for his strength potions, the prices will go up. In retrospect, NPC agents should have similar influences to make the game exciting. A lot of fun "Space-esque" freelancer games (Evochron Mercenary to name one) that were popular in the late 90s and recently have gained hype focus on the idea of utilizing and manipulating an economy in your favor. I'm not asking for insane dynamics, just a fair balance between exciting economic events (floods raising prices, etc) that will make the player feel like they are in a real, more dynamic, and enjoyable universe that is actually effected by their actions more distinctly. To recap - Make an economy that is dynamic, fluid, and ever-changing within a proportional ceiling. Let the player figure out, if he really wants beets, that buying them in a desert will cost more (or sell better) than in the farmlands. Let the economy be unique to every play experience and let the player get as much or as little involved as they want. Most of all, the economy needs to grow with the player. Money should have real value, and I should be constantly deciding if an item is worth selling, keeping, or even looting, beyond the simple fact that money becomes an irrelevant element in many late-game experiences. I'd like to hear other people's input and thoughts on how the economy should operate at this fundamental level. There are more in-depth and concrete ways of approaching this, but I'm trying to stay mostly theoretical with respect to how the game should operate its currency and process of handling funds in a very complex, but rewarding way. If the player feels they are really engaged with the economy there is a lot to be gained in playability. Skyrim sucks in a way because it's got a low ceiling, and no dynamic economy. Sorry this is a bit of a brain-fart and thus poorly structured and organized, but there are a few truths within it worth reading.
  12. Today's update is different from what we've done so far, and is to give you a look at what's going on at the studio. During the making of Project Eternity we want to give you an idea on how our games are made. Making games is not magic - game development just boils down to a lot of work from a lot of talented people. I would like to pull back the curtain, and give you the who (the talent) and the what (the work that they do) to make Project Eternity a reality. The Stuff RPGs are large and complex games that have a ton of stuff, and much more stuff compared to most games. Characters, companions, dialogues, areas, monsters, abilities, spells, items, weapons, armor, sound effects, visual effects, interface art, music, crafting recipes, animations, textures, crates and quests are the bits of stuff in Project Eternity... and the list goes on and on. At the time that we finally ship the game, we will have hundreds of thousands of bits of stuff in the game. Managing and creating this stuff is one of our major problem when creating RPGs. Our task is to make all of the stuff as efficiently as possible with a high level of quality. Right now we are knee deep in pre-production. Pre-production is the period of time at the beginning of development where everything is planned and prototyped, production schedules are made, and pipelines are constructed. I'm not talking about oil pipelines here - I'm talking about asset pipelines. An asset pipeline can be described like an oil pipeline - First the asset is made by a content creator (like an artist), next the asset is processed by a tool so that the game understands what the heck it is, and finally the asset is placed into the game world in its final location. All of the different types of assets (stuff) require a custom pipeline. Pipeline creation is one of the many problems we are tackling right now in pre-production. The Team We have many different roles (sometimes called "hats") on the Project Eternity team. Most of the team fall into three categories: content creators (makers of stuff), programmers (making the stuff work), and production (making sure the stuff gets made). Our role percentage breakdown is a bit different than what we typically have on a project. If you look at my fantastic pie-charts below, you can see that we are content focused because we have larger design team, and since our team size is small we don’t have the need for a large production staff. All of these roles are equally important and are all vital for making the game great: Art Animation: Animation adds life and movement to the game. Every moving object in the game requires an animator to be involved. Effects Art: Spell effects, sword swings, fire, smoke, and blood are animated and designed by an effects artist. Environment Art: The environment artists make the world look beautiful. They do a pretty good job at it. Character Art: Character artists create the characters, companions, and monsters. They also model and texture all of the weapons and armor. Concept Art: Concept artists paint and illustrate environments and characters that fit within the art and design vision. Their art is used by the rest of the team for reference on style, mood, color, size and proportion. They also paint the 2D portraits and touch up the 2D pre-rendered environment scenes. User Interface Art: All of the buttons that you push, the interfaces that you interact with, and all of the mouse/item/weapon/spell icons in the game are designed and crafted by the UI artist. Audio Audio Design: Audio design is responsible for any and all of the audio that comes out of your speakers. This includes the creation and production of all of the music and sound effects, and making the character voices sound great. Design Area Design: All of the cities, towns, dungeons, and wilderness areas that you can explore are designed by area designers. They take the environments and characters made by the artists to construct a rich and believable world. They also fill the game with quests and combat encounters. Narrative Design: RPGs contain thousands of lines of branching dialogue and huge non-linear storylines. The world, story, companions, factions, lore, and themes are created by the narrative designers. System Design: Rules and systems specialists. They like numbers and spreadsheets. Combat, abilities, spells, non-combat skills, and items are designed by the systems designers. Production Production: The producers organize the team. They make sure everything is running like a well-oiled machine. Producers have the responsibility for making sure the game is delivered on time, on budget, and is awesome when it's shipped. Programming Engine Programming: The engine programmers deal with system, rendering, and physics code. Unity handles a lot of our engine-level programming for us, so we can focus our programming time and energy on gameplay. Game Programming: The game programmers implement the game design including the rules, combat, and abilities. They also code up gameplay systems like dialogues, quests, stores, and create artificial intelligence for monsters. Tools Programming: Pipelines and tools used by the team are made by the these programmers. Most of their code lives "outside" of the game code. Quality Assurance Quality Assurance Testing: The QA tester reports in-game problems to the rest of the team. They make sure that all the stuff is working together and functioning properly. We want to go into more detail on what each person does on the team in future updates. A two sentence description trivializes the responsibilities for each team member, so in the future we will dig deeper and take a closer look into the disciplines. Next week Josh has an update with lore and other fun worldly things. Update by Adam Brennecke
  13. Hey everyone! Back again this time with another interview with Feargus on the game- Really a must listen for everyon who contributed....He talks about what they're steps are going forward and give some insight into RPG making. HERE is a link to the story with transcript: http://www.puresophi...e-rpgs-forever/ Below is a direct youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2ZeTKc7Cyc&feature=g-all-a Follow us on twitter for more! @puresophistry
  14. Hey everyone- I had the great pleasure to talk to Feargus Urquhart about Project Eternity, Obsidian in general and the gaming industry. An amazing experience, not one you'd want to miss! Here's a tease You’ve had great success in the past, now you’re jumping into Kickstarter with your new game, “Project Eternity” What exactly is Project Eternity? Feargus: A lot of us before we worked for Obsidian, we worked for another company called Internet Interplay, which had an RPG division “Black Isle Studios” which I was the founder back then we worked with a developer called Bioware on games like Baldur’s gate and the sequel and internally, Icewind Dale 2. A lot of people called these games the resurgence of sort of PC role playing games. They were fun games that people loved to play, but they sort of stopped being made and we were having a real challenge getting publishers funding and people interested so when Kickstarter came out we realized this was the perfect way to recreate the games people remember fondly again. You mentioned Bioware, with the recent news that the Docs in charge are retiring- What’s your opinion on that? Feargus: Well Ray and Greg are great guys and still very much my friends, I talk to them frequently and I wish them all the best. They put an immense amount of time trying to build the RPG brand at EA up and I think that sometimes you need to take a break…If you work so many years so intensely you tend to burn out and sometimes you just need to take a brake. But you’re not at the “Taking a Break Stage” just yet? Feargus: No maybe I’m just more of masochistic then they are (Laughs) I still love making role playing games. It’s kind of hard for an independent developer- for those who don’t know what that means. We kind of work for people who are going to pay us, which is a challenge but also means we have more options. If we don’t want to make a certain style game- we don’t have to pitch that. Which puts us in a very different position. Of course the challenge is then getting that funding- which is why Project Eternity was a hard sell.
  15. http://www.sorcerers...ead.php?t=58248 Lovely little nuggest of information here about a character (possibly a companion?). Pretty cool!
  16. Hello all, I was motivated to post this because of unfair lack of left handed adventures and NPCs in RPGs. As a member of the left handed community, I find it offensive and rude on the parts of game developers that leave out the option to be left handed. It limits the realism and variety in combat and takes out any chance we will ever have at handedness quest lines. Considering all of the other requests that I have seen on this forum, you should find my request no less absurd. If a man can make a request for obesity, there is no reason that the fat man can't also be left handed. Considering the fact that you would most likely not even have the choice to be fat in a medieval society, what with severely limited food supplies and all, I think it is all the more reasonable to include left handedness. Now I admit, this would be no small task for the game developers. I'm asking that a second set of animations get made for everything so that the 7-10% of left handed people can feel good about themselves and not ashamed of their disability. It takes a lot of bravery on my part to even bring this to your attention. I'm sure people will congratulate me heartily for it. If I had a dollar for every time people brought this lack of detail to my attention, I would still be a poor and dollarless man, but I think it should still receive some consideration. Personally, I can't wait to finally have handedness included in combat mechanics. Your thoughts? p.s. I'm as serious as an opera singing ostrich
  17. What We're Up To http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlfO8y-Ax3s Thanks to you, we're funded. Now the work begins. At this stage of the project, we are still in pre-production, so at Wednesday morning's team meeting we started talking about the passion-stirring topic of logistics. Before we start scripting quests and writing dialogues, we need to understand the full scope of what we're setting out to do. In some ways, the basics stay the same for us as they did a decade ago. But we have new problems to solve and we need to have them all worked out before we enter production. The key elements we have been focusing on are: The size and structure of the world - This game will be... large. And it will have two big cities, exploration areas, and a 15-level mega-dungeon. Ensuring that the world is planned properly requires examination of what has worked for us in the past and what hasn't. The original Baldur's Gate had a number of wilderness areas, but low density of content in many of those areas. Baldur's Gate II had much greater content density, but fewer wilderness/pure exploration areas. We'd like to make sure we have pure exploration areas while still maintaining good content density. Dynamic environment integration - Animated objects, interactive objects, ambient visual effects, water, dynamic lights and shadows -- all of these elements can be featured even within a "2D" world. Our goal is to strike a good balance between visual fidelity, performance (including memory on disk), and the amount of time environment artists have to spend setting up their areas. We prefer dynamic solutions that are relatively easy to author, as we want our environment artists to maximize their efficiency. Lore and story - What we've developed so far has been the result of a small number of impromptu discussions and high-level efforts. Last week, we (including George -- thanks!) had our first meeting to increase development of the setting and story. We discussed major themes we'd like to explore, the order in which we'd each like to develop aspects of the lore and characters, and what elements we each were having trouble wrapping our heads around. Our immediate focus is on the central conflict of the story and the various factions that have a stake in it. As the song goes, we've only just begun, but the team is excited and determined to make a game that lives up to your, and our, expectations. You've put a huge amount of trust in us, and we want to repay you with the best RPG we can. Next week, we'll be talking about system design and how we're approaching mechanics like class design, advancement, and the role of equipment. We're also working on fulfillment of some of the Kickstarter pledges and we'll have more info on that in the next few weeks. Finally, if you missed our D&D session from last week, we have it up on the for your enjoyment! Update by Josh Sawyer
  18. Well hello everyone! It’s the day after our Kickstarter here at Obsidian, and while a few of us are a little rough around the edges right now, we’re already busy working on Project Eternity! In this update, we’ll go through a number of frequently asked questions we’ve received in the last day or so. If you have any problems with anything, please always feel free to head over to our forums, or reach us on Facebook, Twitter, or via support@obsidian.net. So… onward! Kickstarter and PayPal Stats So as of about 1:30 PM PDT, here’s where we stand funding-wise: Kickstarter Backers: 73,986 Pledged: $3,986,929 PayPal Backers: 3,681 Pledged: $176,279 Totals Backers: 77,667 Pledged: $4,163,208 Stretch Goals So that means we hit the 4M stretch goal, right? Yes! How do PayPal backers affect the Mega Dungeon size? It counts toward the Mega Dungeon! We hit fifteen (15!!!!) levels! Will Facebook Likes still count to a larger dungeon? Yes, for now they do! Come like us quickly and maybe we can hit the 40,000 likes for one last dungeon level. But it’s for a limited time, so… like us! Please note: If you clicked Like on our Eternity home page, that doesn’t qualify – we need likes on Obsidian’s Facebook page! Kickstarter / Amazon Payments / PayPal OK, so now what happens? If you backed us on Kickstarter, Amazon will begin processing payments and will contact you. This process takes place over a period of 14 days. If you encounter any problems with this process, never fear about losing your pledge. We’ll work with you to work out any payment issues so you don’t lose out as long as you were a part of the crowdfunding phase. Once payments are taken care of, we’ll start collecting information from you guys, and we’ll do that a few times. More info on that below. If you backed us on PayPal, and everything went through OK, sit back and relax and we’ll be in touch soon! Speaking of PayPal, I noticed PayPal tiers are still up. Will I get the same rewards for the tiers if I donate now? Yes! For as long as we have the listed options available on http://eternity.obsidian.net, you’ll get the same rewards. This is for a very limited time though, so don’t delay if you’re going to get in on Project Eternity! Oh no, I don’t think I added shipping! How do I add international shipping? There’s two ways to handle international shipping. You can: Go to http://eternity.obsidian.net: Along the right side, choose the Donate button under the “Donate Your Own Amount” section. It’s at the bottom of the Tiers just before Addons. On PayPal in the Donation Amount field, enter the desired amount and click Update Total. Log in to PayPal using your email and password. On the “please review your donation” screen, click the Add special instructions for Obsidian link. Describe what your donation is for (international shipping, top up, etc.) Change any other relevant details and then click the Donate USD Now button. [*]Hang tight for now. Once we get all of the information from PayPal and Kickstarter and then get it organized, we’ll be reviewing each and every order to make sure we know how you want your funds allocated. We’ll handle that directly with you via e-mail (please make sure the e-mail you used on Kickstarter or PayPal is accessible to you! If you have any concerns about that, e-mail us at support@obsidian.net) I would actually like to upgrade to another tier – can/how do I do that? For a very limited time, you can use the process described above in “How do I add international shipping” and specify to us what you would like to do. You can do this even if you first contributed to Kickstarter. Just include the difference. (Disclaimer: This does not apply to tiers that were sold out.) Video Streams Where can I see Adam’s Icewind Dale II playthough? Unfortunately it’s not available. Where can I see the D&D game? Here it is! Where can I see the last few hours of the party stream? Swing by Twitch TV at http://www.twitch.tv...ian/b/335806140 When is Chris Avellone going to stream playing Arcanum? We’ll be in touch soon with details on that. It might be a Holiday Special stream. Rest assured he’s going to do it - you guys hit the $4M marker! What’s the next step? OK so now what? First, come sign up on our Forums if you haven’t already. That’s going to be the best place to connect with us throughout the development of the game. We’ll also be up on Facebook and Twitter too. Backer badges will start rolling out in the next few weeks. If you have any problems signing up on our forums (our anti-spam can be rather aggressive sometimes, we apologize!), e-mail us over at support@obsidian.net and we’ll get you all set up. A survey will be coming in the next few weeks to ask you how you want to allocate funds. For those of you who are getting physical goods, before we ship anything, we will notify you and reconfirm at that time to make sure we have the latest physical address on file. If you have any other questions, feel free to swing by the forums or e-mail us! Fulfillment Some of you have been wondering how we will be offering keys for the game. You will be able to select one of the choices below for each key. Steam: Steam currently supports Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. We will be offering you a SteamPlay key. This means with one key, you can play the game on any supported platform of your choice! The Steam version will also offer in-game achievements and we are going to look at adding Steam cloud support for an even better multi-platform experience. Please note that Steam uses DRM (digital rights management) however. DRM comes with this platform and is not something we can disable. If you want a DRM-free option, please see GOG.com below. GOG.com: We will be offering DRM-free options based on the platforms that GOG supports at the time of us shipping the game. Currently, this means you only have a Windows DRM-free option, but apparently some big news for Mac users is coming… tonight, and hopefully good news for Linux users too down the road. You may have noticed that there isn’t a DRM-free Linux version listed; that’s true today, but by the time we launch, we’ll have one available. Thanks again everyone, and we’ll be in touch! Update from Darren Monahan
  19. Hi folks, PayPal is now available! Please visit the Project Eternity web page for more details. If you have any problems or questions, feel free to respond here or e-mail us at info@obsidian.net. Thanks! -TG
  20. Sorry if this has been asked before, but one of the main things I'm curious about is the visual functionality and presentation of the game. I'm very curious as to whether this is going to be a purely isometric, top-down affair like BG, Icewind Dale, PlanetScape: Torment, Fallout, etc. or whether it's going to have a more dynamic camera that allows you to play isometric, but also zoom in closer, such as Dragon Age: Origins PC, NWN2, The Witcher, etc.? Personally, I'm hoping for the latter. While I mostly play with the camera pulled out during combat in the likes of DAO and NWN2, it's nice to pull it in for more personal matters and nice to have the more cinematic angles during conversations. I think DAO and NWN2 got the perfect mix of classic RPG and the more cinematic nature of modern games, and I hope this is what Project Eternity employs. I feel my character becomes more personal when I can get a good look at them up close and see them interacting more directly. I'm curious as to what other people feel about this? Has there been any direct indication as to what Obsidian are going for here?
  21. As I read the thread about armor and weapon design, I wondered: "What will the women in PE be like?" I don't know if it has been discussed already. But I am fairly sick of the standartised perfectly proportionated women (ppw) in most games. It is simply unrealistic, especially if it involves breast-formed armor, total lack of armor or a fantasy-version of stilettos. That does not mean that I don't want good-looking women, as there are well-proportioned men in any fantasy universe as well. I only ask two things: 1.) An average distribution of the population in regards to beauty and body-size and yes, that should go for companions as well, especially the romanceable ones. Reducing every warrior women to her looks first and her skills second is kinda primitive - and i dont want to go into the average muscle mass (or the unrealistic lack thereof) of a standard ppw. 2.) A new definition of beauty in games, less fixated on the body proportions and more focused on character, all in all. Top models may be good-looking, but not the kind of women you want to spend your life with. Stop regarding minor fallacies in looks far more important than intelligence, character and the likes, dear co-gamers! The weather after this post could turn definitively ragey, with a chance of ****storm, so let me clarify: Yes, as a male I am attracted to ppw. But as an intelligent human I like women with "a special something", or character, or whatever you call it far more. And I certainly do not want all women in PE to be "ugly, but with character" or "fat, but with personality" or whatever crossed your mind while reading this. I just wished that the gaming community, developers and players aside, would expand their definition of beauty. And maybe in this game, which does not need to show screenshots of ppw anymore to find interest, it will finally be possible.
  22. The past month has been absolutely incredible. You have blown away our wildest expectations and we are so excited about starting the journey of creating this game for you. The Kickstarter site will be closing down here in the next few hours – 6 PM PDT to be exact. I would like to remind you that you can watch us at the studio for the final countdown beginning at 12 PM (Noon!) PDT. We will be streaming live on UStream and Twitch.tv. Final Fun and Silly Reward Tier - Obsidian Loot Bag Our final fun reward for you is what we are calling the Obsidian Loot Bag at a $350 tier with a limit of 30. The Loot Bag contains an AMD Processor donated by our incredible friends over at AMD (you rock Steve Bell!), a signed Obsidian game (not Project Eternity), and a random assortment of Obsidian loot such as pens, coasters, t-shirts, game patches, doodles, etc. The AMD Processor is an A10, does not have a heat sink attached, and will be shipped OEM style. The Loot Bag includes everything in the $250 tier level too. Since we are shipping computer parts, we can't ship outside the USA with this one. Here are links to the final complete Add-On List and Reward List: Add-On List Reward List Big Big City #2, What Now? We dreamed the impossible dream, and hit our stretch goal of the $3.5m mark with Big Big City #2. Because we have another big city in the game, and by popular demand we are adding two additional slots at the $5000 tier for two more taverns. As a recap of our stretch goals, here is what you have added to make Project Eternity bigger and better: 11 classes 6 races 8 companions A huge mega dungeon of at least 10 levels (and possibly 11 or 12 by the time this is done!) Player house A stronghold Two big cities And much more. This will definitely keep us busy over the next 18 months working to bring you Project Eternity. Early this morning, we took a poll on what you would like to see via Twitter, Facebook, and on our Kickstarter Comments page for remaining stretch goals. Our first reaction is that we want to make the game better instead of just bigger; however we are currently discussing it at the studio right now. Thank you again from everyone at Obsidian Entertainment. We will see you on the live stream for the final hours of this crazy adventure. The art team put this together to show you a behind the scenes look on how the amazing screenshot was constructed. Click here for a larger version. Update By Adam Brennecke
  23. We’ve hit the $3M mark now on Project Eternity and it’s on to add another Big, Big City to the game! We have less than 50 hours to go before the Kickstarter ends! Before we announce some new stuff, some quick housekeeping is in order. If you are looking to add anything on to your pledge, check out our Project Eternity Add-On List page. This includes instructions on how to add on other options, as well as what our current offerings are. Also to reduce some confusion in finding what each tier contains (we’re no longer able to update some of our posts on the Kickstarter site), we have a comprehensive list of the Project Eternity Reward Tiers up as well over on our Tumblr site. Two last items, we’re hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) tomorrow on reddit. A number of Project Eternity staffers will be on hand at 10 AM PDT / 1 PM ET to answer your questions about the game! Then at 5 PM PDT / 8 ET, watch us on Ustream play some D&D in the studio! Project Eternity the Documentary The big news for the day is that we are adding a documentary covering the development of Project Eternity. After getting a lot of requests to do a documentary, like the Double Fine Adventure, we started looking into it a couple of weeks ago. We talked about it more last week and decided that we don’t have a visual history of one of our games, even after almost ten years as a company. We felt it was something we should just do and do it without it being a new stretch goal. So, we are happy to announce that we are going to include a stream, download, or physical copy of the documentary in all of our Kickstarter reward tiers. At the $20/$25 level you will be able to stream it, at the $35 level you will be able to download it, and at the $140 level (and physical tiers above) we will include a DVD / Blu-ray. We are not going to use the Kickstarter funding to do this however, since this is something we decided to do anyway. To us, it is a thank you to all of you for supporting us over the last month in making Project Eternity a reality and a historical record for everyone at Obsidian as well. Project Eternity Playing Cards Add-On As a fun new add-on for Sunday, we are now offering Project Eternity playing cards for $10. Designed by Scott Everts, one of our longtime technical artists who worked on Black Isle’s Infinity Engine games, and does a lot of work on board games, he designed this beautiful set which will feature characters and maybe critters (Kerfluffleupogus, Devourer of the Faithful anyone?) from Project Eternity. Check out the Project Eternity Add-On List on how to add-on items to your pledge. (Please note: Playing Cards only available to tiers including physical items. For digital tier folks, we’ll hopefully sell these as a future store offering.) New Wallpaper Last, but not least, we’ve received a lot of great feedback on the concept art for some of our first key characters. So here is a new wallpaper with each of the characters that we have released so far. Might we be releasing more art soon? Stay tuned… 1920x1080 | 1920x1200 Tomorrow, we will be updating everyone with a schedule for Tuesday and another fun add-on. Oh and we have some plans for a crazy new reward tier for Tuesday morning. Thanks everyone! Update by Feargus Urquhart Like us on Facebook! Next goal is 40,000 likes for another Mega Dungeon level. We're also on Twitter: @Obsidian. We announce ongoing PayPal figures there too.
  24. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpBqLbyR7o8&feature=player_embedded This week we announced our Mega Dungeon, our base classes, the cipher and barbarian classes as stretch goals, and the Adventurer's Hall as another stretch goal. We are coming up on our final week of the Kickstarter, and we have exciting stuff planned for you in the coming week including new rewards, a special inside peek into Obsidian, and a first look at Project Eternity. Exclusive Backer Pet, Hardcover Books for $250 and Name in the Game for $500! At the $50 tier and up we have an exclusive in-game pet for you! The pet is optional and will not have any in-game function besides being a quiet companion that will never leave your side. We are looking for ideas on what the pet could be, so let us know what you would like to see in our forums. We have great news for $250 and up backers! We are upgrading the Collector's Book at the $250 level to a hardcover at no extra charge. The Collector's Book is a full-color book that includes concept art, our monster manual, information about the campaign setting, and a special behind the scenes look at the making of Project Eternity. Additionally for our $500 backers and above, we will let you put your name and a personalized message on a memorial stone in game. Your unique message will be encoded into Glanfathan runes, and can be decoded using a unique in-game ring. It's a way for all of us to remember your large contribution to Project Eternity. Tim Answers Your Combat Questions from Reddit Kaboom asks: Hi Tim! I'm curious how the close combat in P:E will turn out. Will the melee of P:E encompass stuff like reach weapons, opportunity attacks, flanking, grappling, charging, prone/standing-modes and so forth? Tim: Yes, we are looking to include many of these features into our close combat system. Specifically, opportunity attacks and flanking are definitely in, as well as charging. We're not sure about reach weapons yet (we need to figure out if that attribute on a weapon will be worthwhile enough in combat and will supportable with the appropriate UI), and while we will support prone positions, you won't be able to attack while prone because the animations involved are too different from attacks while standing that we would have to make every animation twice, once for standing and once for prone. This limitation also means that grappling abilities will not be included. There are too many new animations needed and special case limitations that apply, e.g. how does a human grapple a centaur or a dragon or an ooze?). Tim answers more of your questions in the video and the text version is on our forums. Also check out the Project Eternity reddit group. Mod Support From Neverwinter Nights 2 to Fallout: New Vegas, we've enjoyed supporting the mod community, and we are continuing that with Project Eternity. It is awesome to see how you extend the worlds we make. To make getting mods easy, we are excited to announce that our friends at the Nexus will be the official spot to download Project Eternity mods once the game is released. They have been a great host for mods for our past games, and we want to continue the trend with the Project Eternity Nexus. Check out the Nexus Network at www.nexusmods.com. Our plan is to release our file-format information and expose as much of the data in the game as possible for you to extend and edit. We traditionally do not "hard-code" numbers so that our designers, and you, have the power to easily change and iterate on RPG data. We also plan on releasing localization tools to let communities around the world create localized versions for languages we are not translating Project Eternity into. As we get more familiar with Unity during production, we will be extending Project Eternity even more for mod makers. Look forward to announcements in the months ahead as we make further progress and can provide you with more information about tools and mod support. The Endless Paths Grows! We've passed 52,500 backers! The Endless Paths of Od Nua Mega Dungeon continues to grow larger! The next level will be added at 55,000 backers. Thank you for helping us to spread the word about Project Eternity! Kickstarter Comments and Kerfluffles! Lastly, if you haven’t been attending all of the fun in the Comments section of our Kickstarter, you’re really missing out on some fun conversations. From the Obsidian Order of Eternity representing in full force, to one of our favorites, the Kerfluffle Marshmallow lady, Spring Barnickle, who asks: Hmmm... how many marshmallows indeed. Beware paladin-types... beware! Until next time... Update by Tim Cain and Adam Brennecke (You can also discuss the entire Reddit Q&A part 2 in this thread.)
  25. Everyone here at Obsidian is thrilled that the feedback to the first look at Project Eternity was so overwhelmingly positive. Thank you for all the encouragement - It really means a lot to our artists and the rest of the team. The outpouring of support and donations over the last day has been amazing. Thank you! Over the next five days we have a lot of fun things planned to wrap up the Kickstarter campaign. First, crowdfunding and Kickstarter has allowed us to open up our doors to you, literally. Today you can spend a few hours with me at the Obsidian Office, and you will get an inside look into a development studio. Check out what an atypical day is for me at the office (running the Kickstarter is pretty atypical for a game developer). I promise to wear pants! We plan on doing more of these live events at the office during production. Tomorrow I plan on playing Icewind Dale II by Interplay and Black Isle Studios. Icewind Dale II was the last Infinity Engine game to be released a decade ago in 2002. Before production starts on Project Eternity, I want to revisit some of the magic that Project Eternity aims to bring back. Join the stream and have some fun! Special Obsidian guest developers will join in on the fun, and you can heckle me while I try to make my way out of Targos and through the Dale to Kuldahar. How long will I play? 8 Hours? 12 Hours? 20 Hours? Longer? Watch and find out. Be sure to check out tomorrow's update with Tim Cain. He is going to answer more of your questions in a special video update. Here's the rest of the scheduled events for the next 5 days: Friday, October 12 11:00am PDT - Inside look at a not so typical day with Adam Brennecke - UStream. 3:00pm PDT - PC Gamer Live Chat with the Project Eternity Team - PC Gamer. Saturday, October 13 10:00am PDT - Adam plays Icewind Dale II all day - UStream. Monday, October 15 10:00am PDT - Reddit AMA with the Project Eternity Team - Reddit. 5:00pm PDT - Game night at Obsidian. Watch us play D&D at the studio! - UStream. Tuesday, October 16 12:00pm PDT - The final countdown starts at the Obsidian Office - UStream. 6:00pm PDT - The Project Eternity Kickstarter ends! Updates to the schedule will be sent via Twitter, Facebook, and posted to our forums. New Novella Audio Book Reward and Add-on We have a new digital add-on for everyone. For an add-on of $20 you will receive the digital Audio Book of the Project Eternity Novella by Chris Avellone narrated by a professional voice actor. If you already pledged at the $165 tier and above you will receive it for free! Two Stretch Goals Hit and The Endless Paths is Larger We've hit the $2.7M stretch goal, which means Paladins and Chanters are added to the game, and I'm happy to say we just hit the $2.8M stretch goal in record time! George Ziets will be joining the team! The team is very excited to have the opportunity to work with George again. One more level has been added to The Endless Paths because of your help. The depths grow deeper by the day, and we are getting very close to 20,000 likes and 60,000 backers. 2 more levels incoming! Our next Facebook goal is to hit 40,000 likes - if we can reach that milestone it means we will add one more level to the dungeon! How low can we go? And last but not least, I leave you with a new concept art piece of Forton the monk. Thanks, and see you on the live stream! Update by Adam Brennecke Like Obsidian On Facebook - Help grow the Mega Dungeon!
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