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July 11th, 7:30pm-8:30pm The day after Fargo and Feargus do their talk. Anyone going?

Fellow RPG fans, hello! My name is Felipe, and I'm currently working on a crowd-sourced book on cRPGs. After organizing the RPG Codex's Top 70 list, I decided to expand that into a full blown book. The idea is to feature in-depth reviews of over 250 great cRPGs in chronological order, from Akalabeth to Might & Magic X, plus interesting articles on the genre and interviews. All that written by RPG fans from all over the world, compiled into a beautiful book with big a colored screenshots. It is a book showing what the genre has best, and how people enjoy them. A book that every review that you read you will see that it was important for the reviewer and want to play the game he just talked. So far I've got some big developers in, like Tim Cain, Chris Avellone, Josh Sawyer (Obsidian has been very supportive ), Ian S. Frazier and Colin McComb. I also got full support and access to the content of forums like the RPG Codex and RPG Watch (including some stuff from RPGdot), DJ Old Games, some indie developers like Iron Tower Studios, Sinister Design and Rampant Games, as well as bloggers such as cRPG Addict and modders like Durante and Wesp5. Here's a small WIP preview: The entire project is entirely non-profit, so the final e-book will be freely available for download, under Creative Commons and all that. And if everything goes well I intend to make a paperback print also available, fully colored and in high-quality print, for those that want one. Non-profit as well, of course, sold at cost price. My call for aid Here's the list of games that will be in: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t-49SyrsdP0M5re68sDH9cB2MrPqVKwQQiFF_54VibI/pubhtml I'm looking for fans willing to write a review of one or two of the listed games still unassigned. You can, of course, also suggest games that should be added. The reviews specifications: There are two kinds of reviews, the ones with one page and the ones with two. These are displayed on the list. If you think that the game you're writing about needs 2 pages instead of 1, contact me and we'll discuss it. But please note that not every game needs two pages, ok? One Page reviews have up to 2000 characters, one header image and 2 screenshots + descriptions. And they have room for one short side blurb or info-box. Here's an example of a 1 page review: http://i.imgur.com/AKINvJj.png Two page reviews have up to 4200 characters, one header image and 3-4 screenshots + descriptions. They feature a developer's quote and they have room for two or three short side info blurbs or info-boxes. Here's an example: http://i.imgur.com/LfZfHEw.png You can, but don't need to provide the screenshots (in .png if you do, please), just be sure to say what you think is important to show and write the descriptions for the images. They are a good place to point out things that won't fit the main text. The developer's quote will be handled by me (unless you know a good one already). The tone can be somewhat personal, talking about how you stayed up for a whole night trying to map that dungeon in Wizardry 4, but it’s very important that a reader that knows nothing about the game is able to understand what the game really is, its strong points and occasional flaws. Don’t say that “it has great combat”; explain why it’s great. BEFORE starting to write, please post on the thread about what will you do, PM me or send an e-mail to crpgbook at gmail.com. Someone might have already taken the game, or I might have extra details to discuss. Thanks all for your time and sorry for the massive 12/12 Wall of Text.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbyFqrEYSFw Tim's Q&A This week's Q&A is a little different. I spent some time reading the questions that people were asking in various Project Eternity forums, including our Kickstarter comments, our Project Eternity Facebook page, the RPG Codex forums, the reddit Project Eternity group, and our own Obsidian forums. I have picked five questions to answer, one from each of these forums, and I have answered them below. For each question, I have included the forum poster who asked it, along with his original question text. Let's start with Facebook. Facebook Ockert van der Westhuysen asks... Will back for psionics. Any hope? I think you might find our cipher class to your liking, since their method of using "magic" is quite different from wizards and clerics and is instead tied to mental abilities. They feel a lot more like psionic abilities from earlier D&D editions. You can read more about the cipher class in Josh's update #15, which you can read here: http://www.kickstart...ty/posts/321413 RPGCodex Wise Emperor asks Is there any confirmation that Eric Fenstermaker will be involved in PE? Obviously it would be cool if yes. Eric is currently working on another project at Obsidian, but there is a good chance he will move over to Project Eternity when that first project is completed. Until the Kickstarter campaign is over and we know the full scope of the game, the assignment of particular people to it will not be completed. Obsidian forums rjshae asks... Back in the BG series, experience growth was relatively slow and it felt like an accomplishment to reach a new level. Since then, D&D v3.5 rules came out and level up began to feel almost like a cheesy accomplishment that didn't require much effort. That has become the trend in modern games: leveling up after every few battles. I have to wonder how this will be handled in PE? It sounds like Obsidian wants to return to the style of the BG series, which would seems to entail a return to slower level progress. If they do allow a more rapid level up, I hope they tone down the power growth rate so that lower level monsters remain a challenge for longer periods. We are working hard to make Project Eternity revive the spirit of the older IE games, and this includes making leveling up an important accomplishment, one that makes your character feel substantially more powerful afterward. I agree that frequent level-ups make the event feel less special, so we plan to space out these events over the course of our storyline. The first few level-ups will occur relatively early in the game, but the pacing of the subsequent level-ups will be much slower. For people who enjoy level-ups, they are free to use our Adventurer's Hall to swap out new companions frequently, so they are always leveling up new characters to use in later parts of the story. For people who aren't sure what character classes they will want to have available in the end game, it's always nice to have the choice of having all of them. Kickstarter Stephen P asks... After seeing this screenshot my anticipation for the game has spiked considerably, but it left me with a few questions. I understand the 2d portrait background concept, but will there be any overlapping animation with the river to make it appear flowing, even if the actual image doesn't move? The same question for the flowers? trees? will wind be simulated somehow? We will certainly be adding animations to our backgrounds. The trees should sway, there will be birds or butterflies or insect clouds, depending on where you are, and the water in rivers and waterfalls will flow. We are using a rendering technique similar to the one we used in Temple of Elemental Evil, where the background is a pre-rendered 2D image and the characters and some props are 3D objects. This gives us the advantage of exquisitely detailed environments without the polygon cost, along with lots of animation without the memory cost that 2D sprites would entail. Reddit Mirokunite asks... Will there be low intelligence/charisma dialog? Yes, we will have these dialogs. They are a great deal of work, since it means writing two versions of every dialog in the game, but I am sure that our wonderful writers are up to it. I really want these dialogs too! I find it fun to replay the game with a low intelligence character, just to see how the NPC's react to my slow-witted attempts to help them. And there we have it! Five questions answered from five sites. Again, thanks for your support of Obsidian and Project Eternity. There are just a few days left before the Kickstarter campaign is over and we enter full production of this game, and we are all very excited about the prospect of working on a classic CRPG again! RPG Eats! Do you like to eat? Do you like RPGs? I am going to give out my favorite RPG themed recipes to all of our backers! The Project Eternity Cooking with Tim Recipe Book will contain 10 delicious recipes in PDF format. Enjoy the good eats while you play Project Eternity when it's released! Troll Portraits by Chris Avellone Chris Avellone has graciously volunteered to draw a custom troll portrait for you to help raise additional funding towards our last stretch goal target of $3.5m for Big City #2. Chris will number and sign the portrait, write a humorous message to you, and a print will be physically and digitally sent to you. This is a limited run of 30 at a $750 tier (includes all the goods in the $500 tier), so get in quickly. If you are above the $750 tier and would like a custom troll by Chris Avellone please contact Obsidian and we will work with you. Adam is currently live streaming all day long today at UStream. Join in on the fun and watch him play Icewind Dale II. We also hit 60,000 backers! Again, one more level to the dungeon is added! Update by Tim Cain

So Avcon is apparently a gaming/anime convention in Adelaide July 18-20. I was asked by a friend to attend with them, at first I wasn't too interested as I didn't think there would be anything/one worth seeing(who comes to Adelaide?). However when checking the guest list, I saw the Mr Chris Avellone is a guest and is holding a Q&A. So surprise I'm now going. So my question in this? Anyone have any good questions they would like me to ask? (Assuming I get the chance)

Update by Rob Nesler, Art Director and Brandon Adler, Producer We showed you this concept that Polina Hristova had developed, back in Update #55: And here is the in-game level--about to get violent--as developed by environment artist Sean Dunny: We think it looks pretty good. Thoughts? -R Arcanum Playthrough This week, we have the second part of Avellone's two hour playthrough. Chris explores the Shrouded Hills Mines and dies to bandits along the road... multiple times. Obsidian Jobs Obsidian is putting the call out to enthusiastic game developers who are interested in working on Project Eternity. To be eligible, you must be in the Southern California area willing to make the daily trek to Irvine, California. If you or anyone you know fits the description and would be interested in joining the Project Eternity team, follow the links below. QA Lead The Lead QA Tester position requires managing a team of testers, delegating testing tasks, tracking tester performance, providing guidance as well as coordinating with department leads and owners to ensure all aspects of the project are bug free. The Lead QA Tester position requires a strong knowledge of QA methodologies and practices, as well as an ability to handle and act upon high volumes of information and responsibilities. Contract VFX Artist Obsidian Entertainment is looking for a talented self-motivated VFX Artist to create a range of 3D effects and animations for a 3D world. This artist will be responsible for creating both ambient effects (such as smoke, fire, and lightning) and more detailed prop animation (a tree limb breaking, a glass shattering, etc.). These effects will be created using Maya, but experience with comparable programs is acceptable. Stop by our forums and let us know what you think. See you in a couple of weeks.

Update by Chris Avellone This week? Companions. I have been designing companions. I lucked out, because I got to do companion design work for BOTH Eternity and Torment, so two birds, one stone. Or three companions, one lodestone? I don’t know. Eternal Companion Facts Some facts from our Eternity design documents that I wanted to say up front before going any further: thanks to backer support, Eternity supports 8, yes 8, pre-made companions and 8 hired adventurers (16 total). You can have up to 5 in the party at any point in time (the 6th/1st role is your player character, who, well, sort of has to be there, you know, because it’s your game). It’s a lot of writing. We want to allow you to encounter all companions before the mid-point of the story. One issue we’ve found with introducing companions too late is that it doesn’t give players enough time to bond with them, and/or the player may have already formed a strong attachment to their other allies so much so there’s no physical or emotional room for more party members in their lives. Each companion also has their own mini-arc and quest woven into the game as well, so be prepared - they have agendas of their own. You know, like real people. Lastly in the fact train, we don’t force you to take anyone in your party. If you want them, take them. If you want to go to the Adventurer’s Hall and make your own, do it. Go solo. We don’t own you. We’re not trying to control you. Play how you want. Narrative Update... So a narrative update related to companions... Eric Fenstermaker (designer, Fallout: New Vegas, also responsible for Boone and Veronica and worked on NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer and... and... oh, just Google him) has been hard at work on the narrative, and it’s reached the point with the arc and themes that now seemed like a good time to introduce the companion supporting pillars to the process to take the story higher (...not necessarily in a “Can you Take Me Higher” Creed sort of way, since it’s not really a question, it’s more like, “yes, we will take you higher.”) Over the past few months, I’ve been scrutinizing the systems and story documents for Eternity (and Torment), the themes, and also checking out the other companion briefs from the other designers. Aside from the companion designs I wrote, feedback has been wildly traded in the interests of making companions even better than their core concepts. It was my goal to read EVERYTHING about the narrative I could, even brainstorming - and in Torment’s case, novellas as well. Now it was time to work on the structure of the individual companions. ...and now on to Companion Design We discussed companion design (http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/1/entry-168-project-eternity-and-characterization/) way back at the start of Eternity, so some points in this update will callback to this. There shouldn’t be a need for a refresher read unless you want to. The process for Eternity (and Torment) has followed these bulletpoints, and we’re holding true to our goals as well as expanding the design methodology as we go ahead. The first and best place to start with companion design is the game systems. For companions, this means considering race, class, and their role in the conflict mechanics of the game. Knowing what class of character you’re making is key to building their history and personality. For example, in the case of Gann in NX1: Mask of the Betrayer, knowing his class before writing was a big help, and I can use that class’s list of abilities, class focus, and the abilities the class specializes in and weave it in with the backstory. The Eternity designers have been good about indicating the spread of classes and races for the companions and rationing those out during the process. For Eternity, since combat is the primary challenge mechanic, one major goal is to make sure the companion is combat effective. Why would you take them in your party? How are they useful? In other instances of conflict mechanics (for example, dialogue or Tide reactivity in Torment), we also examine how the character is useful in terms of these challenges as well. A Note About Challenge Mechanics Really quick, I want to clarify what I meant about “challenge mechanics.” That doesn’t always mean combat – it’s whatever the primary challenge in the game is. If we were doing a Thief-style RPG, then stealth and avoiding detection becomes the primary challenge mechanic, not combat. Depending on the RPG and its range of challenges, a character can still be fairly weak in combat, but if that’s the case, we try to think of how they’re helpful with regards to the game’s other challenges (giving an edge in dialogue, healing, fast travel). For all the characters I’ve seen or designed for games that don’t cater to at least one of the game’s primary challenge mechanics, those guys are often unpopular or unused because they’re not helping out with the systematic gameplay, regardless of how cool they might seem. And the more actively these characters can participate in the mechanics (vs. passive), the stronger their appeal. Also at the same time, I try to be careful that the companion's skill set doesn’t overlap with the challenge roles of the other characters. We try to indicate in the companion briefs how each companion's challenge role is intended – one thing I learned as a pen-and-paper Gamemaster is you want to be careful about two players sharing the same role (Tank, Mage, Priest, etc.) – if one is clearly stronger than another, then the second one needs something else to make them stand out and be “special” in the party and fulfill an equally cool role in the party dynamic, otherwise one ends up getting upstaged by the other. And feelings get hurt. Which isn’t something you want in a game designed to entertain. For Eternity, we’re setting it up so even if players choose the same classes as some companions, the companions are designed to assist those character types and make them more special (ciphers, for example, can chain, and even priests with the same religion can discuss theology and combo attacks). In addition, we wanted to be careful about personality overlaps as well. I wanted to make sure any companion design didn't overlap with ideas or “concepts" of the other characters (or across projects – so for example, while I’m doing a Glaive for Torment, I’m not doing any fighters for Eternity) ...and that extends to personalities as well. As an example, I told Colin for Torment it might be a good idea if I didn't do a female rogue with a ruthless hidden agenda who can shape-shift according to your personality and have her/it be redundant with the Toy or the Cold, Calculating Jack in Torment. So knowing the general class-focus, role, and personality for each, as well as ones that would be useful, we try to include in the character briefs and get that info to people as quickly as possible so everyone can get a sense for what direction to take their characters. As for me, after much begging for the class itself and begging for the specific companion, I asked for the cipher. The cipher is near and dear to my heart, it felt like the first brand new class we were introducing that was tied into the soul mechanics of the Eternity world, and the freedom to explore it is a great opportunity. Character Freedom Both the Eternity and Torment leads have been strong advocates about letting designers channel their characters. If you are excited about an idea, they are willing to work with you to help realize that idea and help it fit into the world, without giving barriers to entry. In my opinion, the best GMs do this – rather than give you character sheets, they help you make a character you care about. In essence, companion design is a designer’s chance to design their very own player character that fits in with the world and the theme. On Eternity, Eric has a strong theme for the story already. While not the original theme, Josh was accommodating and we all recognized that if another theme came to the forefront naturally through the writing process, it’s fine to alter it to make a stronger design. Having this theme clearly identified and supported in the narrative is good, but we’re taking care to make sure the companions can provide direct examples of the theme at work (or present counters or alternate viewpoints to it) - and the more, the better. The companions cover a good range of culture and religion and factions in the game, which we hope to showcase more of in the future... the machinations of the world and the politics are prominent in the story (along with the magic system), and the characters showcase these elements very well. Companion Iteration There’s still plenty of work to do – like all design, iteration is key, and we have been doing passes of the characters to make them stronger. While the companions exist as individual entities, we also feel it’s important to do a pass of the companions to show how they relate to each other, which we feel is an important part of making the game Infinity Engine-esque, and it was a big part of the dynamics in Baldur’s Gate and Torment – describing how companions relate, fight, argue, or even act as sounding boards for both your character and each other’s viewpoints is an important part of creating a living world – and your party is very much the living world that follows you around. The work doesn’t stop there. A pass of the companions asking “why the players should care” is also something we like to make sure we have an answer to for each companion. While the answer of “good fighter” is an answer (and one that’s worked well for a number of companions in the past), we prefer to add more layers showcasing how they’re specifically adding to the player experience. Companion Nuts and Bolts There are other finishing touches we like to add. The companions have unique signature items (very Torment and Baldur’s Gate) in addition to their personalities and strong visual signatures as well. One comment we’ve always tried to include in these visual hooks is that because of the camera angles in the game, we want to make sure these visual hooks are easy for the players to see in the environment as well. Also we’re doing what we can to get the area designers involved with not just the story, but companions as well. A good chunk of the game is dungeon exploration, and we felt that what the designers had done in NX1: Mask of the Betrayer in making sure that each companion had a significant interaction in a specific area was important for the story – and having areas that revolved around companions as well gave them and the dungeon design more strength. Right now, the companions already have strong internal conflicts (and religious and faction, if not inter-party), now tying those more to NPCs and dungeon explorations is one of our next targets. With the companion design, we also tried to include narrative samples of analogies to that character that we’ve seen in other media or fiction that we feel help capture the character’s essence. Also, as we’re designing the characters, we include sample lines of dialogue when we can as another layer in the process so audio and other designers can get a sense of how the character sounds (both spoken and text-wise). That’s all I can share about companions for the moment, and we’re looking forward to elaborating further as the game progresses. If you have any thoughts or ideas on companion design, specific or general, feel free to post in our forums, we look forward to hearing from you! Arcanum Last but not least, we have the first of two blocks of Arcanum playthroughs in Shrouded Hills for you... from bank robberies, to mine plundering, to death, to dealing with telepathic bridge bandits. We’re releasing one with this update, and then (cross your fingers) the second will be part of the next update. It’s all recorded, production just wants to put some touches on the audio. Possibly to strip out my voice. And my breathing. And screams. Also, I may end blogging critiques of the game as well, just to distill the game critique information. It’s a little hard to get the design critiques during the playthrough – if that’s something you’d like to see in addition to the videos, I’ll try and make time for it. Check out the first video at: http://youtu.be/MNOJ5DRO7uQ. Kickin' it Forward: WARMACHINE: Tactics Do you like turn-based strategy? Do you like giant steam-powered robots? Then our friends at WhiteMoon Dreams and Privateer Press Interactive have the game for you - WARMACHINE: Tactics. Go support their Kickstarter and help bring the award-winning WARMACHINE miniatures game from the tabletop to your desktop PC or Mac. Click here for more info.

Eurogamer has just published an article-style interview with Chris Avellone based on a Q&A with him they had at Rezzed. A few quotable snippets on Aliens: Crucible, given many here still mourn the project's cancellation: Also deals with Dwarves, Project North Carolina, the future of the company, publishers' interest in old-school RPGs and all the usual Avellonian stuff.

Chris Avellone Got to tear into Arcanum today in the first of our Let’s Play videos – for all the supporters that were willing to pitch in to see the gameplay footage, . I wanted thank everyone that were willing to up their donation to make it happen, and I also wanted to thank RPG Codex for sending me a copy of Arcanum in the first place from GOG.com. Currently I’m playing it without any fan patches, I want to play the release version. Part of me wants to contrast and compare if I do a second modded version (probably doing a tech-focused run). If that ends up being problematic, I’ll add the mods and then do a rush playthrough to get back to the point I was at so you guys don’t have to sit through the second playthrough. Well, unless you want. Feel free to post suggestions for how you’d like me to play it on our forums or in YouTube's comments for the video – for right now, I’m just playing it as I would normally, which makes it a lot more relaxed. Hopefully, my in-game reactions and critiques should be enough if you’re interested on my RPG takes on any elements in the title. If you have any questions about how I felt about certain elements (aside from Virgil’s sass), feel free to drop me a tweet at @ChrisAvellone and I’ll do what I can! Many thanks to Adam Brennecke, our Executive Producer, Carter Thomas, our production intern, and Justin Bell and Austin Shannon, our audio duo, for getting me all set up and good to you, and to all of you backers for making this happen in the first place. This is a rare opportunity for me, and one that I certainly appreciate – thanks.

Hey folks! Had the chance to talk to Chris Avellone on everything Obsidian! Here's the link and the transcript to the Project Eternity stuff. “I LOVE working on Kickstarter Projects, first of all, you get to share a lot of stuff with the fanbase (design documents, how you build levels) some of that stuff when working with a normally publisher model is allowed, with Kickstarter you know take player feedback iterate on it and make them part of the process. The other thing is, it gives you 30 days to see if your idea is something that the public wants to buy in the first place. I think that’s a much better funding model rather than building the game for two years and then trying to market it at the end. It lets you know if you’re idea is good right out of the gate”

Interesting read. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/04/obsidians-avellone-on-torment-kotor-2-alpha-protocol/

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!

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.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS JUST A DISCUSSION POST, IT'S NOT MEANT TO DICTATE DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES TO THE GUYS @ OBSIDIAN. This is an article that appeared on Kotaku abouth three months ago (july 25, 2012). I think it gives some insight about the development process behind Project Eternity. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Avellone Teases Planescape: Torment Successor Like its nameless protagonist, Planescape: Torment might come back from the dead. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview posted today, Obsidian co-founder and Planescape: Torment creator Chris Avellone said he's "very tempted" to start a Kickstarter to revive his beloved classic role-playing game. Although he'd ditch the D&D—and maybe even the setting, too. "I think the challenges we've spoken about would all have to be considered and to be honest I don't know if I'd want to do it as a Planescape game - I think a better approach would be to ignore the D&D mechanics and respect what Planescape was trying to do and what the game did and see if you can do what Fallout did when it became the spiritual successor to Wasteland," he said. "I think if you made a game using some of the concepts of Planescape, the metaphysical ideas and the plane travel, without using the D&D mechanics, you could actually come up with a much better game. With Torment, I'd argue that the D&D base actually, in places, got in the way of the experience. It was a lot harder to make a game with those ideas in it with D&D mechanics. So much that we had to break a lot of them. We had to ignore certain spells, change up the class mechanic so that you can switch at any time you like by remembering abilities. "That was stuff that D&D didn't allow for, it was [too] restraining in some respects. If we did do a spiritual successor, then I don't know if we'd use the Planescape licence or attach the mechanics, perhaps something that has a different feel to Torment." If we get characters as awesome as Morte the talking skull, I'm cool with whatever. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What I want to ask you is: would you like to see the main story elements of Planescape Torment inported into Project Eternity? I mean: to me Planescape was one of the best RPG ever because of its features. I'm talking about the user interface, the possibility to "use objects", the factions system, the variable alignment system, the way stats were used (If you were very intelligent or very stupid you had different dialogue options) and so on. What I didn't like was the PT's narrative thematics and setting. It was a really sad story, set in a strange, violent and unforgiving world that I didn't particularly enjoy. It's just a personal opinion of course, but I think that setting up an entire saga upon those themes would end up being pretty harsh. Reading the article I noticed that what Chris Avellone wants to keep of Planescape Torment are some elements of the plot and the main themes of the setting. He talks about ditching the D&D mechanics and the Planescape setting to better deliver on those themes. What are your thoughts about that? Would you enjoy or hate if PE story was a sad and introspective experience and the classical fantasy themes were set to a bare minimum? I mean: I think that everyone here is pretty sick of playing the hero and of slaughtering hordes of monster just because they are bad. I want Project Eternity to be a more complex story with dark and even sad chapters. But do you think that centering the story around the main character's sorrows is the right think to do? (of coure if it's what the developers are planning to do... we don't know much about that).

Happy Birthday Chris!! May you have a great year ahead and all your wishes come true. Thank you Obsidian and you for giving us fans such memorable gaming experiences! *throws confetti & lights sparklers*

We are still going strong over here on Kickstarter and we wanted to thank everyone that has been here since the beginning as well as those of you who have come on recently to back us with your pledge. With such great support, we want to thank everyone with a new addition to the $50 and later tiers, a new $110 digital only tier, and a big change to our $2.2M stretch goal. Oh, and what are we doing this week as to updates you might ask? Josh Sawyer, Tim Cain and Chris Avellone will be posting updates and videos all this week starting on Sep 26 with Josh, Sep 27 with Mr. Avellone and a great one from Tim over the weekend. French, German, and Spanish Translations added at $2.2M We are glad to announce that we will add text translations for French, German, and Spanish when we reach this goal. As we hit more of our stretch goals, we hope to be able to add even more languages as well! Novella by Chris Avellone added for $50 and Up! Chris Avellone has been so thankful for everyone's support that he himself has pledged to write a novella in the world of Project Eternity. We are adding that to everyone who pledges $50 and up. New $110 Digital Only Tier Thanks to popular demand, we are adding a new digital tier at $110 that has early beta access to the game, thanks in the credits, a postcard thanking you for your pledge (sent physically) along with all the other digital benefits of the $140 Tier. Since we added the new novella written by Chris Avellone at the $50 reward tier - that is in there as well! Oh and we have a little piece of artwork to share as well. The following is one of our traditional race and class combinations - the Human Fighter - but he's not just any Human Fighter. He has an integral role in the story that we will be hinting at soon. Don't worry, we will also be sharing more and more of the non-traditional options in the days and weeks to come. (See the official Kickstarter post for art)