Update #13: 50K Backers Brings New Mega Dungeon, Stretch Goals, and More! (PayPal too!)

[The Guildmaster]

Happy Monday! We've reached 50,000 backers, and have a special reward for everyone. Details below. Also coming this week, we have more updates about the development and creation of the game. Tomorrow, Justin Bell will discuss the process for composing the music for our trailer video. On Wednesday, Josh will update with more details about the game's design, and we are going to unveil a awesome art piece that we’ve been working on.

 

Oh, PayPal is also coming on Wednesday!

 

The 50,000 Backer Reward

We are very excited to announce a reward to all backers that have helped us come this far. Today we are introducing The Endless Paths of Od Nua - a new dungeon experience for Project Eternity:

 

In the western reaches of the Dyrwood lies the Endless Paths, an ancient network of cobbled trails that wind through arches of dense overgrowth, twisting within the confines of a high castle wall as they make their way to the gates of iron-shuttered towers that jut forth from the interior. In ages past, the towers rising from the gardens to pierce the canopy of the forest once marked the dominion of the castle's relentless, crazed builder: Od Nua. But the courses of Od Nua's madness run far below the surface, stretching forever deeper into wandering catacombs and bone-cramped oubliettes unseen by living eyes for centuries. The Endless Paths, as the old Glanfathans call them, cannot be walked by the living, but the storytellers say with certainty that many strong souls have found a permanent home beneath the grieving creator's estate.

 

Most else that is said and written of the place is fiction or conjecture, more likely to have sprouted from the svef-enhanced imaginations of bored and boasting mercenaries than from any seed of truth. Hosts of lost souls that relentlessly stalk the living, cathedral-sized tombs overflowing with the restless victims of a horrific plague, lightless chambers sealing in the remnants of Od Nua's failed experiments. Most legends converge on a common theme: that under the castle rest myriad forgotten vaults of death and darkness glittering with Od Nua's enchanted creations and the abandoned treasure of ill-fated interlopers. So great is the fear of the castle's denizens that even drunken and drug-cheered adventurers do not joke of setting foot on the paths, lest their souls join the eternal ranks of those that have gone before them.

 

The current plan is to make The Endless Paths with three subterranean levels, but it can grow larger with your help. For every 2,500 additional backers, the depths of Od Nua’s castle become deeper, which means one additional level will be added to the vaults. Continue to spread the word about Project Eternity, and let's see how big we can make The Endless Paths!

 

Crafting and Enchanting at $2.4 Million

We also have a new stretch goal at $2.4 million dollars to announce: Crafting and Enchanting!

 

Crafting and enchanting in Project Eternity will allow players to use objects and materials they find during exploration to both create consumable items like potions and scrolls as well as give their gear custom upgrades that can't be accomplished by other means. This system is intended to be easy to use and very flexible, allowing players to customize many aspects of what they can create or alter. Whether it's brewing basic potions from herbs and minerals commonly found throughout the world or upgrading a humble broadsword into a custom-named, magically-imbued weapon of distinctive and legendary power, we want to give players the ability to make it. On the development side of things, we also want to make the system as data-driven as possible, allowing us to easily extend our list of recipes in the future.

 

Each stretch goal we hit not only adds new features to the game like crafting, but also makes the game larger by adding more content, quests, dialogue, and characters. Together, we've already added two new races, companions and classes, along with a player house. $2.2 million is very close which adds a new faction and region, and there are more exciting stretch goals planned if we make it past $2.4 million and beyond.

 

New Add-Ons

Additionally, we have two new add-ons for you:

• Add an Early Access Beta Key for $25. The beta key is the same reward at the $110 and up levels, but now you can add it as an extra at the lower tiers.
  
• Add a Digital Strategy Guide for $7. The digital strategy guide is also included in the $80 and up levels, but now you can add it as an extra at the lower tiers. This will cost more when we ship the game, so get in on the opportunity to save!
  

As a quick tutorial on how to add add-ons, go to the Project Eternity Kickstarter site and hit the Manage Your Pledge button. The reward tier you had already picked will still be selected and the amount will be in the big box at the top. All you need to do is add the dollar amount that covers the add-ons you would like to your pledge and enter the new total number. For instance, if you are at the $35 Pledge level and want to add the Beta Key, you would enter $60 as your total pledge. We’ll send you a fulfillment survey after the Kickstarter period is over and you can specify what you wanted to do with any excess monies added.

 

Thank you!

 

Update by Adam Brennecke and Josh Sawyer

[Piccolo]

Great news! I've been hoping for a mega dungeon.

[ogrezilla]

good stuff.

[Uncanny Danny]

Hitting it out of the park again, guys. I'm glad to see more crafting - it adds something to the world if you can keep it down to size. And the growing dungeion that scales with however many backers we have? Smart move. I'll try to spread the word more.

[C2B]

Not as exciting for me as I hoped. Still neat.

[Ieo]

Interesting, interesting.

 

A new dungeon--yay--though I hope the backstory is as interesting as Durlag's Tower for me, with puzzles to boot. If it's a pure tactical experience with minimal story, though (Watcher's Keep paled in comparison to DT in this regard), eh.... Well, good for some replay.

 

Crafting and enchanting sounds interesting, though (if it got into the game) depending on the complexity and necessary "materials" (inventory management) I may or may not ignore it. Hmm. Maybe more enchanting than consumables since enchanting is low maintenance.

 

Early Access Beta Key for $25? Hmmm. Not sure how I feel about that, especially since I upped to $140 for that reason, but eh.... You're going to get a loooot of beta "testers." I may need to stay off the internet to avoid the crap that will probably come forth from that. Spoilers, whiny complaints, etc.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Ieo

[Longknife]

Not as exciting for me as I hoped. Still neat.

 

Depends on what exactly they mean by the crafting system.

If it's something like New Vegas, where you can simply use everyday clutter to make useful items if you simply know the recipe, then I love this.

If it's just basic enchanting or weapon smithing like in Skyrim (get iron, find forge, rinse repeat), then yeah that's kinda bleh.

 

Iunno, I really liked how practically every "junk" item in New Vegas could have purpose if you simply bothered enough to learn it's purpose or try to put it to use. A system where there's just a basic need for iron to craft weapons and....yeah you just need iron basically (or other things you can buy from literally any merchant), then it's kinda tedious and pointless. As dumb as it may sound, I did enjoy going "YES A GLASS PITCHER FINALLY," whereas "k gotta buy some more iron" is just....yeah as I said: tedious and boring.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Longknife

[dmautz]

I got the very last of the 25,000 level $20 pledges. Looking forward to following the development.

[rjshae]

Sweet! Undead dungeon crawls can be a lot of fun. Hopefully they have some variation in form and function so it's not just armies of clones.

[Voror]

That backstory for the place alone sounds pretty neat and it's nice to see a bit of lore from the game world as well.

[Arkeus]

Kinda disappointed that there STILL isn't a big ass stretchgoal for the 4million+ mark, so that people feel a need to pledge. Right now, the stretchgoals are all in the "they'll happen anyway" range, so people really don't find a reason to up their pledges.

[moridin84]

Dungeon sounds cool.

 

Didn't realize that they weren't going to put in Enchanting/Crafting, assumed it was already in since they've been in pratically every RPG made in the last 10 years ago. Not normally a fan but it might end up being interesting.

[IchigoRXC]

This fulfils my earlier post topic about legendary weapons created by you. This is a goal we need to meet. :D Loving it, need to check my funds before i boost another level of funding :D

[Kage Tempest]

I like the new dungeon idea and as a means of growing it I hope each level is quite large, because if I am understanding this correctly, we are currently at 3 levels right? Realistically speaking I think we might get another 20k backers by the time this is over so we are looking at maybe another 8 floors for a grand total of 11?

[MarkWallace101]

I love the idea of adding crafting and enchanting, but can we keep it simple enough that you don't need a book to be able to figure it out?

[Methuseleh]

That sounds... really impressive!!! Still, don't over-commit. I'd rather play Eternity sometime in the next 14-18 months, then have an expansion shortly thereafter than have to wait almost 6 years for a game I want to play right now.

 

Reloaded TOEE last night to soothe the jonesing. Better hurry though...

[sesobebo]

do extra game keys (1 for $25, 3 for $60 etc) count towards the megadungeon's size?

[RosesandAshes]

Thanks for including the strategy guide add-on! I was flip=flopping between the digital-only tier and the one with the box, now I can have my cake and eat it too!

[aratuk]

I got the very last of the 25,000 level $20 pledges. Looking forward to following the development.

 

Not to burst your bubble… but, well, okay — to burst your bubble: Every time someone in the early bird tier increases their pledge, and thus their reward tier, it opens back up again. Last week I was the "very last" (I even used that same phrase) early bird, and mentioned it in a comment, only to have this pointed out to me. There have probably been a lot of us. We should form a club.

 

It makes sense that this happens as people have a chance to think more about how much they like this project and want to see it succeed. I'm probably going to promote myself to another tier before the Kickstarter is over, and there can be another last early bird.

[NOK222]

Interesting, interesting.

 

A new dungeon--yay--though I hope the backstory is as interesting as Durlag's Tower for me, with puzzles to boot. If it's a pure tactical experience with minimal story, though (Watcher's Keep paled in comparison to DT in this regard), eh.... Well, good for some replay.

 

Crafting and enchanting sounds interesting, though (if it got into the game) depending on the complexity and necessary "materials" (inventory management) I may or may not ignore it. Hmm. Maybe more enchanting than consumables since enchanting is low maintenance.

 

Early Access Beta Key for $25? Hmmm. Not sure how I feel about that, especially since I upped to $140 for that reason, but eh.... You're going to get a loooot of beta "testers." I may need to stay off the internet to avoid the crap that will probably come forth from that. Spoilers, whiny complaints, etc.

 

Yes but at least release will have less bugs

[Technatorium]

I love the expanding Dungeon idea and I hope it continues to grow with the paypal pledgers as well.

I hope they will consider adding other languages to the list but maybe they have some kind of idea to help make that happen in the future.

 

I mean for crying out loud they still have till 2014 to make the game and I know they aren't sitting on their butts waiting for the money to be ready before they work.

I hope they give the community some teaser screens soon.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Technatorium

[Voror]

Kinda disappointed that there STILL isn't a big ass stretchgoal for the 4million+ mark, so that people feel a need to pledge. Right now, the stretchgoals are all in the "they'll happen anyway" range, so people really don't find a reason to up their pledges.

 

We do need some sort of big goal and I seem to recall Feargus I think saying that they have been discussing it quite a bit, though I can understand wanting to be completely sure on what you want to do and all that.

[Piccolo]

Kinda disappointed that there STILL isn't a big ass stretchgoal for the 4million+ mark, so that people feel a need to pledge. Right now, the stretchgoals are all in the "they'll happen anyway" range, so people really don't find a reason to up their pledges.

Agreed. Even upto the 3mil mark would be great.

 

Surely the whole idea of a stretch goal is to really try and motivate people to pledge / raise their pledges, and to spread the word. People aren't going to be as motivated if they see the goals as being easy to reach under the normal rate of pledges coming in.

 

I guess it's not the easiest thing to gauge though. They probably don't want to get too far ahead of themselves and start getting peoples hopes up about new features for goals that might not be reached.

[Starwars]

I'm very keen on a big dungeon, with many (hopefully) optional areas in it, some very challenging. And hopefully many opportunities for non-combat skill usage, as well as an interesting story/lore surrounding the whole place.

Please, please, please make it feel like a real challenge to go through.

 

Not too attracted by crafting personally (though I do enjoy it) but a welcome addition still I'd say.

[TimMc]

Erk I can think of nothing worse than beta testing a story driven RPG. Will spoil the story many times over as they gradually refine it and tweak it.