Ask 'ANYTHING' on Reddit 10AM PDT / 1PM ET Today!

[Gyor]

Thanks for the info, anyone else hate reddit as medium? Almost as much as I hate twitter and facebook.

[Loranc]

Nithrakis

Josh, you name drop MicroProse's 1992 Darklands quite frequently. If you were given the opportunity, would you like to do a direct sequel to Darklands? And, if so, what would you change about it?

Also, what aspects of Darklands can we expect to see in Project Eternity?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

JESawyer: Yes, I would definitely work on a direct sequel/reboot/whatever to Darklands. I would probably want to restructure some of the skills in the system (or adjust the game's content) so players got more use out of the neglected skills like Streetwise, Ride, or Speak Latin. Also I'd like to offer alternatives to being a virtuous Catholic in the game, which was pretty much "the way" to play. Overall, though, I still think it holds up very well.

The aspect of Darklands I'm most interested in trying out in Project Eternity is the manner in which certain non-combat sequences/conversations are presented with an illustrated scene accompanied by text. Performing a ritual, talking with an important character at a specific time/place, or even figuring out how to cross a broken bridge -- those are all things that I could see taking place in such a format.

[Loranc]

NudoJudo

With level growth planning to be slower in PE, will there be leveling mechanics to make each level more meaningful? Eg: feats/perks/talents/skill points/gold stars per level instead of every two or three levels.

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Tim Cain: Yes. Our intention is that you will level more slowly than many modern games, but each level will feel significant in terms of power level and new abilities. If you play like me, you will already be planning where to spend your points when you level up, so when that "ding" happens, you will upgrade your character and immediately look for someone new to fight/talk to/sneak past, just to try out the new abilities.

[Loranc]

cave_rat

Will I be able to pick locks if I play as a barbarian? In other words, will skills in PE be class-specific?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

JESawyer: Skills will not be class-specific, though classes may have inherent bonuses with certain skills. If you want to blast up Mechanics with your barbarian, you can do that. You probably won't be as good as a Rogue who is dedicated to Mechanics, but you won't be restricted from putting points into those skills.

[NerdBoner]

jesus christ, attempting to read that website is like opening the ark from Raiders...

[Loranc]

tentomasz

Hey, first of all: thanks for opening paypal option. Otherwise I wouldnt be able to support you.

Could you please elaborate as much as you can about P:E's story? I guess it's not only me who's hoping it will be the most important part of the game. Please bring back this thrill I could experience during the good old days where it wasn't all about "expand your group, kill the finall boss, boom, end of the story". I'm reaaaaaally hoping for something I will be telling about long after I'll be done with P:E.

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

 

 

Chris Avellone pontificates:

I can elaborate on how we approach the story structure, if that helps, although I don't want to say anything more than that right now. Here's the process we ideally want to follow:

• 
  Understand the core mechanics, classes, and magic systems, as well as the "physics" that underlie the world. This may sound obvious, but when writing for a companion that has a certain profession of class, you need to understand everything about the mechanics of that class to make it work - when I was doing Gann in Mask of the Betrayer, the fact that his class choice didn't mesh well with his character and Kaelyn's did was my fault, and I should have put more effort into finding more ties between Gann and his chosen profession as I feel it would have made his character stronger.
   
  
• 
  Quantify the principle differences/unique elements and themes of the world. For example, the concept of souls in PE is extremely important, and all the players and companions should have opportunities to see examples of the range of soul mechanics and discuss/have quests/gain lore according to it.
   
  
• 
  Nail down your theme. Once the player movement set and toolset is established, the lore is set up, and we have a sense of how the world moves and why, then you place the player and his companions (usually as sounding boards) in the middle of that situation. I don't feel that every game has to have a theme (it should be a game first, and subtext should come second to entertainment) but if you make a strong theme that's developed well, I feel that does make a game more fun and meaningful for a player that's exploring it.
  

[Monte Carlo]

Thanks for the info, anyone else hate reddit as medium? Almost as much as I hate twitter and facebook.

 

Yeah I went on it for the first time today and developed an unusually rapid, and visceral, loathing for it.

[Loranc]

hodnemocpenez

Re: Powder guns. I backed this project because the promise of making BG-type of game was something from a dream. But your plan to include powder guns into the game is taking me down little bit. Can you please explain more in detail how common the guns will be?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

JESawyer: Guns are not particularly common and are universally single-shot black powder weapons. They are powerful (especially against wizards using an arcane veil for defense), but they are so inaccurate and slow to reload that most people would rather use a bow or crossbow, especially at long range.

Side note: similar firearms were actually in the Forgotten Realms following the Time of Troubles. It's just rare to see any character using them.

[Loranc]

MDSVentus

First off, a big thanks to you guys for being interested in creating a game in the form of Project Eternity that is trying to bring something that, in this current industry is distinct and interesting and attempting something different from what you see a lot nowadays.

As to my question, I love what you guys have said so far in regards to the project including creating a great party system with full control and distinct classes. Along with the gameplay-related features, I'm extremely curious as to how personally developed the party characters will be. How well can you get to know them and will there be quests/extensive dialogue that helps develop them? To me, personal relationships with party members adds so much in many of the RPGs that have it, and I was wondering what the focus on that would be in Project Eternity.

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

JESawyer: The companion characters will be very well-developed. It's something we love doing and we feel that companion reactivity can provide a lot of information about the world and a continual criticism (or praising) of the character's actions. Companions will have their own quest lines that you can not only complete, but determine the outcome of. Player choice will be important throughout the game and your interactions with companions will be no different in that regard.

[Loranc]

CZYSTA_WODA

What were your predictions on amount of money from Kickstarter before it started?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Chris Avellone puts on Rasputin hat:

Only our Art Director, Rob Nesler, felt super confident about us hitting our goal and hitting it so quickly. The rest of us felt it was more of a gamble, and we were afraid because of the amount we were asking - but we didn't feel it would be responsible of us to ask for less. Brian Fargo was the same way with WL2 - never ask for less than you need to make the game, be responsible budget-wise and be practical. If you don't get funded as a result, then you don't get funded, but it means you're not letting anyone down on both sides of the Kickstarter.

[Loranc]

]ZyrxilToo

How much overlap is there in the people working on Wasteland 2 and P.E?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Chris Avellone's multiple design personalities give their voices:

There's only me working on Wasteland 2 (I feel so alone snfff snfff), and I'm working on wrapping up the area designs now. It's been a blast, and I'm really enoying working with Brian again - I usually am there 2 days out of the week at the inXile offices and attending design meetings, kicking around WL2 thoughts, etc.

• 
   
  

[Loranc]

JamisonKrig

Tim Cain - Considering how popular steampunk has gotten, have you thought of making a sequel to Arcanum? Would you have the rights to it, or are they held by Activision Blizzard?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Tim Cain: those rights are held by Activision Blizzard, who got them from a chain of buy-sell events occurring after Sierra closed. I have often thought of making a sequel to Arcanum, especially since Troika designed a sequel called "Journey to the Centre of Arcanum" back in 2001, but I don't own the rights and there doesn't seem much interest from the publisher to back such a project.

[Loranc]

[–]H_asardeur

have you already decided if the Aumaua and Orlans are going to be playable races? (selectable by the player at the start of the game?)

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

JESawyer: Yes, we are planning to have aumaua and orlans as two of our playable races.

[Loranc]

tentomasz

Hey, first of all: thanks for opening paypal option. Otherwise I wouldnt be able to support you.

Could you please elaborate as much as you can about P:E's story? I guess it's not only me who's hoping it will be the most important part of the game. Please bring back this thrill I could experience during the good old days where it wasn't all about "expand your group, kill the finall boss, boom, end of the story". I'm reaaaaaally hoping for something I will be telling about long after I'll be done with P:E.

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

JESawyer: We don't want to spoil the story, especially since we're still in pre-production! The story will be a big focus for us, especially allowing players to choose their own way through the story that makes sense for the characters they want to play. When you've finished the story, we want you to feel like you had to make a lot of difficult choices and that the world changed because of it -- both in major and minor ways.

[Loranc]

MatSuta

How do you feel about Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Tim Cain: I am looking forward to it, but I think I will have to buy a new tablet, since I have an original iPad.

[Loranc]

sacklunch

What was the first or most impact-full RPG experience you ever had?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Chris Avellone thinks:

For me it was Fallout 1, when I first started talking to someone and realized that even the dialogues would shift depending on my character build. It changed how I approached the dialogue in Torment, for certain.

I would add Ultima Underworld, Wasteland 1, and Chronotrigger to this list as well. For Ultima Underworld, there were so many quests and twists that I feel have never been replicated (at the end game, the main guy I'd come to for help had NO IDEA how to defeat the badguy and asked ME what I thought we could do - awesome), Wasteland 1 (proof that game mechanics in the right context can make amazing moments, like going through Finster's Android Brain and fighting adversaries with your IQ skill), and Chronotrigger for the brave story choices they took and reactivity to that (no spoilers).

I have a whole bunch of games I consider to be "design document" games because they do a lot of design elements so well - Dead Space and System Shock 2 are among them.

[Loranc]

Enforcer84

Are you the same Chris Avellone who used to do Stick Figure Theater in Champions books? If so, hi!

If not, sorry bout that, but Hi!

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]e has a nostalgia attack:

Yes, and if you want to see more, they're on Twitter (@chrisavellone), too. I doodle on everything when I get restless. Or I'm on the phone. Or having beers and I've brought my sketchbook. I believe I did all the RPG Codex stick figure style trolls while intoxicated.

Um, I mean SOBER. Yes, SOBER. And professional.

[Loranc]

Puistokemisti

I play these games mostly to dress up my characters like beautiful princesses. How fabulous dresses, armors and hats will I be able to find and equip?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Tim Cain: I like lots of variety in armor and clothes as well, so I'll ask Rob to make you lots of them! In the meantime, here is some Princess Chocolate to avoid: http://chocolateihav...chocolate-ever/

[Loranc]

]IceStorm007 -

How are you going to sign 1750+ fysical boxes and are you indeed signing the boxes themself or some inlay?

And I have to thank you for making a CE worthy of the name!

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Chris Avellone responds with a terrified expression:

I have no idea except that IT WILL GET DONE. I believe we'd be signing them ourselves. Expecting hand cramps for a month.

[Gyor]

Arrggg can't take reading through all those crap questions anymore, please tell if they answer any interesting ones.

[Loranc]

cornerbash

What would your dream development project be? As in, if you weren't constrained by budget, time or technology, what would be the thing you'd produce?

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

JESawyer: Personally, there are two settings/ideas I'd like to explore. One is a setting called Antebellum that is an alternate Earth stuck in the late 19th century at the outbreak of the Civil War after spirit armies swarm over the American South, Ireland, India, and a variety of other places. I'd mostly like to explore the idea of different power groups (e.g. slave owners and slaves) being paralyzed by inaction due to the thread of reactive spirit groups coming to the defense of any party being victimized.

The other game I've wanted to make for a long time is one in which you play a player-defined St. George in the 3rd century Near East who enters a land terrorized by the Dragon. All conversation is abstracted into incomprehensible foreign language and the entire game looks like it is a moving Greek Orthodox icon painted on wood and plaster. As George suffers in the world, the icon fades, cracks, and chips away over time. I'd want it to be more about mood, atmosphere, and subtle body language/character interaction than a scripted narrative and fierce gameplay.

[Loranc]

Arrggg can't take reading through all those crap questions anymore, please tell if they answer any interesting ones.

 

I'm trying to avoid the 'really' stupid ones.

[Loranc]

Greenei

How are you going to handle reactions from the world on actions of the Player (like thievery, violence and murder) or events in the world itself? Will there be some kind of legal system? Will NPC remember how you treated them and will there be ways to get on a good branch with them again? Will NPCs be reflective of what's going on in the world and have dialogue about it?

 

jesawyer

We haven't discussed reactions to criminal acts, but we'd like there to be good reactivity to those events. For reputation, we will be using a modified version of the system found in F:NV, which allowed for a broad spectrum of reactions that could shift over time. Not having to worry about full voice acting means we can have even more reactions to player actions from NPCs throughout the world. Overall, this is pretty important to us so we will support it as much as we can.

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Chris Avellone adds:

Josh is right (I almost wrote "write" there). It's often the VO budget, not the will of the designers that limits the amount of reactivity text between NPCs in an area. As an example, the reactivity text in Fallout 2 I felt was far more true to an RPG than other games I've worked on because it was much easier pipeline-wise to implement it and while it wasn't free, it was definitely FAR less expensive than if someone had had to voice it. Also, it was easier to edit.

[Loranc]

Borskey

How would you guys feel about fans volunteering their time to help with the development of the game? 3.5M isn't much of a budget these days, and you've got to do a lot with that. One of the things that has always amazed me is that fans are willing to put weeks of work into making something for a game that they love: fan translations, mods, etc.

So I'm sure that some people would be more than happy to help translate Project Eternity into a language for free- so long as they get credit and get a sneak peek at the game.

And as for modders: I'm sure you've noticed some of the great improvements players have made for your games. For example, when Adam was streaming Icewind Dale 2, he used some Gibberlings 3 mods. Another example- the popular Fallout 3 mod "Weapon Mod Kits" was re-made by you guys and included into New Vegas. It seems to me that modders often come up with great tweaks that improve gameplay, or design whole new areas. One of your stretch goals was a Player House- why bother spending money developing that when there are hundreds of people out there who will do that for free?

I think it would be great if you have mod toolkits available during beta, and then you keep an eye out on which mods the beta testers seem to like the most- and consider incorporating those (perhaps after tweaking them yourself) into the final game. Even if you decide against incorporating anything, the fact that established mods will be available at release will make it a better game. Games like New Vegas get better with age (at least on the PC). Simply making resources available to modders during beta will give Project Eternity a big head start without you having to do any work vetting and debugging their creations.

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Tim Cain: we have been contacted by several fans already about the possibility of translating the game into their native language, and we will talk to them about the seriousness and breadth of their offer (it's a big deal to make the translations correct and complete).

As for mods, we like modding and want to support it as much as we can. We are looking into how to make data formats available, along with tools, if we can.

[Loranc]

Feldoth

This is really good to hear, that aspect of skills has always bugged me. What about people simply acting differently if you have a high skill in (for example) intimidate? Rather than giving you specific "intimidate" dialog choices the NPCs just react to you as though you are intimidating.

 

Obsidian_Ent[S]

Chris Avellone thinks:

We sometimes would assume auto-reactions based on perks and traits, although we feel it's more fair to a player to choose when and where they want to flex their mental muscles. Even someone with Terrifying Presence may not be having a terrifying day or want to role-play that at the moment.

Race reactions and more obivous elements (like in Fallout, people would react to what you were wearing), I feel clicks more with a player and is fine.