Update #9: The power of MODES and Godlike Races: Our $2.3M Stretch Goal

[evdk]

 

@Reddie:

Why would you even play RPGs if you don't like combat. If you want plot and nothing else read a book.

We've been over that, you can't LARP Commander Flash Shepard, Saviour of the Universe while reading a book.

[BasaltineBadger]

How can you roleplay saviour of the universe if you skip the whole "saving the universe" part.

[Nakia]

How can you roleplay saviour of the universe if you skip the whole "saving the universe" part.

 

I appologize but I can't resist. Play Skyrim.

[SqueakyCat]

Edit:

 

Please allow me a 'senior moment'. Posted in wrong thread.

Edited September 27, 2012 by SqueakyCat

[Maurdyn]

To the naysayers who think this is only good for "body count" play-throughs, who's to say that your non-combat skills would be ineffective in these modes?

 

I mean, maybe talking your way out of combats and hostile situations would make these modes even easier than slashing your way through.

[Reddie]

@Reddie:

Why would you even play RPGs if you don't like combat. If you want plot and nothing else read a book.

 

I am amazed how you "hardcore" crowd project your own reasoning onto others. That many of you want gameplay and as little of possible of this all boring kind of "distraction" doesn't mean every other one has similar views. First and foremost I want a story. If There is combat but story is still more important and has more attention given - fine. It's a matter of priorities, not how exactly one would rate game as having too much combat or too little.

 

And if you're telling me to read a book for story, I'll tell you to go play World of Warcraft or whatever MMO for combat. It fits to just the same degree.

[BasaltineBadger]

@Reddie:

Why would you even play RPGs if you don't like combat. If you want plot and nothing else read a book.

 

I am amazed how you "hardcore" crowd project your own reasoning onto others. That many of you want gameplay and as little of possible of this all boring kind of "distraction" doesn't mean every other one has similar views. First and foremost I want a story. If There is combat but story is still more important and has more attention given - fine. It's a matter of priorities, not how exactly one would rate game as having too much combat or too little.

 

And if you're telling me to read a book for story, I'll tell you to go play World of Warcraft or whatever MMO for combat. It fits to just the same degree.

 

But IE games are vastly superior to WoW in terms of combat, while plots in RPGs are not that good when compared to books. RPGs are usually stories about combat. You go to one place, defeat enemies and proceed. If you remove combat you also remove a vital part of the story. Without the combat you just go from location to location and hear bits of the story which is just a book that's annoying to read, you would be much better of playing a classic adventure game. And there is nothing "hardcore" about actually playing the game.

[rjshae]

I wonder, will these divinely-touched characters come in particular types, or will each one be a "one off" with unique features? I.e. if it's meddling by a specific deity, wouldn't the characters look and powers depend on the deity and what they want to achieve? Will we have characters like Shandril in Spellfire?

[evdk]

 

. If you remove combat you also remove a vital part of the story. Without the combat you just go from location to location and hear bits of the story which is just a book that's annoying to read,

So it's like playing AoD!

[Nakia]

Most of the IE games I played on normal. When it came to other games such as Oblivion and Skyrim I found I had to push them to the difficult level, add mods that eliminated the over done hand holding in Oblivion. I spent hours playing those games and enjoyed them but they do not hold a handle to the IE games. The IE games had story, combat, non-combat, depth, challenge and were just plain fun to play. I still confused about this hardcore vs non-combat issue. The developers are giving us options as to what we want to play so where is the argument?

 

We will be able to choose the way we want to play. So what is the problem?

[Kira]

Wow, I can honestly say, I don't care much for difficulty choices. But obviously, there are people out there that do, so go wild with it. Wonder if they won't add those choices, will the game be easy as hell, or only have like 1 or 2 options to choose from.

 

Would love to see some story update next, I'm a lore freak, and maybe have Chris tell us more, about the world, species/races, characters and hopefully the MC.

Edited September 27, 2012 by Kira

[Jasede]

There really ought to be an update talking about the lore and characters for a bit. Give a hint that we'll get quality characters like Kreia and Dak'kon and the money shall flow, hopefully.

[ogrezilla]

There really ought to be an update talking about the lore and characters for a bit. Give a hint that we'll get quality characters like Kreia and Dak'kon and the money shall flow, hopefully.

I have a feeling this is in too much flux to give a good update on at this point.

[Wombat]

I'd refrain any judgment on "the deities", for the time being. As long as there are various interpretations for them, there shouldn't be much problem. That said, I've gotten an impression that "godlike races" may not be able to join a certain factions. If so, is this same for some other races and other backgrounds? Also, do "godlike races" have choices in terms of their own faiths/beliefs even if they are regarded as sacred/cursed from a certain factions/religions?

[Lulla-Isra]

Not sure if I'm misunderstanding about the Godlike races (probably am, need a coffee) but are they going to be a species, or a sub-species of humans/elves/etc. that were "blessed" by the gods?

[ddillon]

IWD and ToEE are mentioned in this announcement and in the stretch goals section of the Kickstarter page for Project Eternity:

 

"Remember the Heart of Fury challenge mode from the Icewind Dale series? How about Ironman Mode from Temple of Elemental Evil?"

 

Does the addition of the announced challenge modes include the option to custom design as much of the party as desired as in IWD and ToEE? Some of us want this feature in addition to (NOT in place of) the confirmed PS:T/BG-style NPC companions, and it would complement these challenge modes.

Edited September 28, 2012 by ddillon

[Pixelperfekt]

It´s great to hear that all these modes will be optional if it´s in the final game. Every kind of RPG´r will be happy. And I love the idea of the godlike races since I have a burning love fo everything that´s Planescape and similar. Can't wait to hear more about this!

[Keyrock]

I will definitely be playing the game in no hand-holding (Expert) mode. I'm really glad this option will be in the game. I've often been a fan of games like the Gothic/Risen series where you just get dropped into the world and the game doesn't coddle you. I like to figure things out for myself rather than having a giant arrow constantly pointing me in the right direction, the game explicitly telling me which dialog options are good or bad or giving me a percentage value of a persuasion check succeeding, or a flashing button on the screen with the words "Click to auto-complete quest".

[Inertia]

J. Sawyer said "And when it comes to the idea that today's audiences don't like to read text, or that communicating a story through prose rather than through gameplay automatically represents some kind of narrative failure, Sawyer isn't sold. The idea that all players should like the same things, or that players can be segregated into "ones that like story" and "ones that like combat" seem equally fallacious to him. "

 

"This has been bugging me a lot lately," he says. "In the past few years there's been a trend toward designing games with mechanics for people who don't like those mechanics, and it blows my mind... I look at a lot of mechanics, like 'hey, let's write dialog for people who don't like to read!' You were writing with the assumption that they do want to read some of it, right? If people don't want to read, why are we writing? And if people don't like combat, why do you have combat in it?"

 

Which again i think he responded in a similar way in this thread already just wanted to say thanks the gods he feels this way.

 

Source http://gamasutra.com/view/news/177011/Project_Eternity_What_it_really_means_to_make_the_game_you_want_to_make.php#.UGYsKFH2Zhd

[Streamlock]

I like the idea of a balls hard difficulty level, not really the one save thing. At least not in something I might drop 150+ hours into one gameplay.

 

I do understand that people that like that level of hardcore are an underserved market, and koodos for Obsidian in servicing them, I do think it is somewhat of a niche of a niche though.

 

That being said, playing around with that FTL indie game, I forgot just how rewarding and fun not having a ring of save game can be. Though at most I'm losing what, an hour of gameplay?

[tamimh]

Do what you do best. Just dont forget why people back this project:

Its because we LOVEd PST, BG, IWD and the rest of the games you introduced on the first promo for the project.

THAT is what drove us to spend the money.

We want to revive the experience we had with these games.

Its that "simple" .

 

 

T.

Edited September 29, 2012 by tamimh

[Gyor]

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! So that makes 6 races if we make it to 2.3 millions, rite? Amazing, now if we could only get to 8 like in Arcanum, with even more reactivity and variety... Whoah!

 

Also, the modes, THE MODES.

 

No they refer to the Godlike in the Plural, so it'll more likely be 8 races, three of which will be Godlike.

[martix]

You know the old [Diplomacy]/[bluff] and [success]/[Failure] and the like mechanics. Expert mode could disable those.

There is something to note though - without an engaging story and EXTRA EXPRESSIVE characters(you know, body language, the look in their eye, tone of voice, etc), this would not work, because that textual info basically takes over the role of the sensory cues you'd otherwise have.

 

So yea, it's a nice idea, but you need to have something that provides the information that you take out to players in a different way.

 

Otherwise - YAY!

[Mor]

If you guessed that Trial of Iron is like Temple of Elemental Evil's Ironman Mode, you guessed right. When you start a Trial of Iron game, you have one save game that persists for the entire campaign... or until you die. And if you die, your save game is deleted. Enjoy!

So autosave after every combat turn, entering new locations and or some interactions? Also Save and Load options will be replaced with 'Save and Quit'?

 

 

"Can I enable multiple challenge modes at once?" Yep, you sure can. They have to be selected at the beginning of the game, but if you want to play with two or all three at the same time, you can certainly can do so. If you're not quite sure you want all of the elements that come along with a given mode, this funding level will also cover implementing the ability to enable and disable the individual sub-features

Just to make sure, those modes will come on top of the more traditional difficulty setting(easy/normal/hard) or their replacement? Edited November 18, 2013 by Mor

[Sensuki]

Modes are separate from difficulty. They're challenge modes/flavour modes.

 

You could play "Easy & Expert Mode" and "Hardest with no modes" - for example. Path of the Damned however might be a difficulty setting as it enables all creatures in encounters and scales their level (the only mode that has level scaling).

 

Trial of Iron will probably just save at the normal auto-save points, it's just like any other game except you only have one save slot (instead of potentially unlimited) and if you die in the game it gets deleted. The game may have auto-save settings in the options though. The IE games saved on exiting master areas and on exiting specific child areas in the game (mostly main plot stuff) and storyline save points.

 

You could probably back up your Trial of Iron mode to circumvent the save deletion ... but then what's the point ?

Edited November 18, 2013 by Sensuki