Update #50: So... Project Eternity!

[Osvir]

Great update <3

I am very excited about the not-yet-revealed Aumaua companion as well as the Godlike one (I'm pretty sure that the 2 will be those races~).

Animancy! I want to see more! :D how do they draw on the power, where do they draw the power from? (Environment/from within?) Are there gadgets that simulate spirit magic? (alchemists/physicians/scientists who try to imitate~). Visual examples, spell concepts. Elements. Cipher, Wizard, Chanter, Priest magic. War Magic? (Barbarian/Fighter). Shadow Magic? (Rogue) What has a soul and can every soul be manipulated? Does shadows have "spirit"?

As seen on the wiki, about ethnicity:
1. Forton is savannah.
2. Sagani is boreal.
3. Cadegund, Aedyr (coming from the North). I base this on her faith in Magran. Okay okay, it is speculation but I'm reasoning that it's "probable"

Speculation:
4. Detective Orlan, Hearth or Wild (Is this character named yet?). I suspect Hearth.
5. Altoh, I'm guessing Pale (The picture on the Wiki seems to be down... is Aloth artwork being reworked?)
6. Edair. Meadow?

Furthermore, are all the revealed characters to date Companions or are some of them "V.I.P"? In essence: Integral for the story, not necessarily part of the "Recruitable Crew". Just curious, I remember some discussion about it in the past but I don't think anything was "set in stone". I mean, it is an on-going project so... nothing is perhaps necessarily "set in stone". I'm just curious.

In fact, I'm super curious about everything x.x

Edited April 18, 2013 by Osvir

[RabidRatMonkey]

 

I find it to be a positive that Josh openly criticizes aspects of Baldur's Gate.  Obsidian is making a spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine games (not just Baldur's Gate), they are not recreating the Infinity Engine games themselves.  All those games, as great as they were, had many problems with them.  I, for one, am glad Josh is open about things he finds faults with and is striving to do better.  For me that's much better than ignoring the faults and being doomed to repeat them.  You can like something and still criticize it.  If you like something and are blind to its faults, that's, by definition, called fanboyism.

What better way to capture the magic of the Inifinity Engine games, by having a lead designer that hates the most popular of them, i.e. the Baldur's Gate series.

 

So that only leaves IWD and Planescape left. Does this mean we will be getting a dungeon crawler with a fantastic narrative? lol

 

I guess this is a Kickstarter's dark side: a backer acting as a big ol' .... editor.

As it has been explained, no one ever promised a spiritual predecessor of BGII, just to recapture the spirit of the IE games (all of them). I myself LOVE BGII, but I agree in some of his points. I mean, why the hell would my neutral/evil assassin give a damn about Imoen's sorry ass? Why does the winged elf (I don't remember her name) even exist? Constructive criticism is what pushes us forward, pal.

 

Or perhaps you are just craving for a response from Josh to show your friends, who knows.

[Sensuki]

Early on it was said that Edair will have an integral role in the story.

[Ineth]

Have you played the Baldur's Gate games recently?  Both Baldur's Gate games are incredibly annoying.  From the emo npcs to the stupid fed-ex quests to the kill a basement full of rats trope [...]

The Icewind Dale series got it mostly right [...]

 

Well, as much as I like the IWD games, they had a much higher percentage of stupid fedex quests than BG2.

 

At least in BG2's "fetch item X" quests, you sometimes had to actually investigate and interview people like a detective and combine knowledge given previously, or even use deception/intimidation, in order to procure the item in question (e.g. the "Procuring illithium" quest).

 

In IWD1+2, it was either all spelled out as in "Please go back to the previous map and fetch me some arrows from an NPC you already met!", or quests of the form "I need rare item X, if you ever come across it bring it back to me!" where you would always automatically come across said item without any additional effort while following the game's critical path.

[Sensuki]

I think the nature of those quests in IWD1 suited the dungeon-diving style of the game tbh. Certainly didn't take anything away from the game for me.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Sensuki

[Osvir]

Early on it was said that Edair will have an integral role in the story.

 

Yes, I pretty much did a copy+paste on Edair from the wiki (that's what it says "integral to the story"). But does that mean he will still be a recruitable companion (permanent party member), or does it mean he is just important to the story?

[Gfted1]

I find "spiritual successor" to be a misleading term. I mean, (almost) all quality RPG's offer party members, (almost) all quality RPG's try to tell a strong story and (almost) all quality RPG's have an engaging combat system. So if you gut (almost) every single mechanic and remake them, what does P:E bring to the table from previous IE games? From what I can tell, only the isometric view. This is also being done in Shadowrun Returns and Divinity. Are they now "spiritual successors" to the IE lineage?

[Monte Carlo]

 

And an emotional/philosophical exploration based narrative like Planescape Torment...

 

[Osvir]

I find "spiritual successor" to be a misleading term. I mean, (almost) all quality RPG's offer party members, (almost) all quality RPG's try to tell a strong story and (almost) all quality RPG's have an engaging combat system. So if you gut (almost) every single mechanic and remake them, what does P:E bring to the table from previous IE games? From what I can tell, only the isometric view. This is also being done in Shadowrun Returns and Divinity. Are they now "spiritual successors" to the IE lineage?

 

Additionally and some analytical pondering~:

 

Spiritual successor = It has the soul/spirit, concept, the idea, the nostalgia, a tribute, honoring of what it is successing. Sawyer has said that he is getting that "nostalgic feel" from the builds he has played. Heck, looking at the pictures and the updates we've seen (specially #49 showing off some player movement, lighting and such), it looks and I am getting nostalgic the same feel I get when I look at Baldur's Gate and other isometric RPG's.

 

A good example I can think of would be Legends of Grimrock, a modern game that is using the dungeon crawler mechanics of old. Probably a "spiritual successor" to Dungeon Master. LoG is still its own IP. 

 

Physical successor = Mass Effect 2, following up on Mass Effect 1. It's the same story, it is a follow-up.

 

Project: Eternity has never been said to be, in any way, "Baldur's Gate 3" or "Icewind Dale 2" or "Planescape 2" or "Temple of Elemental Evil 2" etc. etc. that has been people who have mislead themselves or given in to their own desires.

 

Calling something a "spiritual successor" isn't wrong or misleading by itself, but it can cause people to confuse themselves or give in to "hope" and "expectation". I do think that people might (perhaps maybe lol) look at it like this:

 

spiritual successor

 

Same thing happens when there's big news in the media, lots of people zoom in on the context and only listen to what they want to hear and everything else (the "truth") is just "annoying buzzing noise".

Edited April 18, 2013 by Osvir

[Elerond]

Thinks that are taken from IE games are:

Axonometric (like IE games use) perspective.

Pre-rendered high resolution backgrounds to make artistic style resample that what was used in IE games

Six member party system (one that was used in IE games)

Real-time with pause combat system (one that was used in the IE games)

High fantasy setting (like in IE games)

Art style mimic style from IE games

 

More generic things that are also common with IE games

Area exploration

Story that evolves around and react to your character and how you play the game

Reactive and intresting companions

Tactical combat

Multiple solutions in problems represented to your character

[Gfted1]

Calling something a "spiritual successor" isn't wrong or misleading by itself, but it can cause people to confuse themselves or give in to "hope" and "expectation". I do think that people might (perhaps maybe lol) look at it like this:

 

spiritual successor

 

Same thing happens when there's big news in the media, lots of people zoom in on the context and only listen to what they want to hear and everything else (the "truth") is just "annoying buzzing noise".

I feel its misleading because of the reasons you describe above. It so nebulous, so open to interpretation, that's its virtually meaningless. Its a carefully constructed term designed to evoke positive responses yet leave so much wiggle room as to not mean anything. I didn't expect the same mechanics because Obsidian doesn't have the DnD license, but I also didn't expect for most mechanics to have a random turd (a "twist" specifically designed to discourage use) attached to each either. So, for me, "spiritual successor" just turned into throwing $52 bucks in the toilet. No biggie, but lesson learned.

[Amentep]

 

 

And an emotional/philosophical exploration based narrative like Planescape Torment...

 

 

 

 

I was trying to come up with some way to describe PST that I could then combine it with elements from BGII and BGI and not come up with IWD.  Forgive the word choice, as its not really the point of my statement.  I was merely trying to counter's argument that Josh hating (elements) of BGII meant that PE was IWD + PST /= BGII with a similar comparison that BGII + BG1 + PST =/ IWD; in essence there's no transitive property with this type of equation.

 

 

 

 

 

Calling something a "spiritual successor" isn't wrong or misleading by itself, but it can cause people to confuse themselves or give in to "hope" and "expectation". I do think that people might (perhaps maybe lol) look at it like this:

 

spiritual successor

 

Same thing happens when there's big news in the media, lots of people zoom in on the context and only listen to what they want to hear and everything else (the "truth") is just "annoying buzzing noise".

I feel its misleading because of the reasons you describe above. It so nebulous, so open to interpretation, that's its virtually meaningless. Its a carefully constructed term designed to evoke positive responses yet leave so much wiggle room as to not mean anything. I didn't expect the same mechanics because Obsidian doesn't have the DnD license, but I also didn't expect for most mechanics to have a random turd (a "twist" specifically designed to discourage use) attached to each either. So, for me, "spiritual successor" just turned into throwing $52 bucks in the toilet. No biggie, but lesson learned.

 

 

 

Eh, if someone said they were doing a spiritual successor to Wizardry I'd expect magic, variety of classes, party based and a 3d view with turn-based battles.  Beyond that...well here's the thing, I care about the mechanics being fun rather than some absolute position.  I haven't liked or agreed with every design choice I've heard but (and its a big one) if the game ends up being fun and balanced, IMO, how the game does it is irrelevant.

 

PST didn't do inventory the same as BG1; IWD2 didn't use the same rules as BG1; IWD had little character interaction, BG2 did.  The IE games in between themselves gave a wide variety of options and implementations.  Heck, IWD2 tried to address a lot of the inventory issues people complained about in the other games by adding a lot of containers so people could get around various inventory limits.  I'm not surprised to see some of these things being looked at for another "IE like" game.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Amentep

[Monte Carlo]

No 'Tep I got your point. It's just that the overly wordy cod-philosophy of PS:T is my own personal gaming version of Room 101. Heresy 'round these parts, I know, but I cannot tell a lie.

 

At this point the usual disclaimer about appreciating the other cool bits of PS:T is entered in mitigation.

 

I have form on this one - until New Vegas my favourite Fallout game was Tactics.

[Gfted1]

Eh, if someone said they were doing a spiritual successor to Wizardry I'd expect magic, variety of classes, party based and a 3d view with turn-based battles.  Beyond that...well here's the thing, I care about the mechanics being fun rather than some absolute position.  I haven't liked or agreed with every design choice I've heard but (and its a big one) if the game ends up being fun and balanced, IMO, how the game does it is irrelevant.

I agree that at the end of the day that's whats important but for me, how I get from A to Z (and how painful it is) is a big influence to my enjoyment. I fully expect a great story, engaging NPC's and beautiful graphics, but since Im going to be pummeled into submission by the bread and butter mechanics I have a strong suspicion that my enjoyment wont be everything it could have been. I hope Im wrong.

[Greensleeve]

 

Eh, if someone said they were doing a spiritual successor to Wizardry I'd expect magic, variety of classes, party based and a 3d view with turn-based battles.  Beyond that...well here's the thing, I care about the mechanics being fun rather than some absolute position.  I haven't liked or agreed with every design choice I've heard but (and its a big one) if the game ends up being fun and balanced, IMO, how the game does it is irrelevant.

I agree that at the end of the day that's whats important but for me, how I get from A to Z (and how painful it is) is a big influence to my enjoyment. I fully expect a great story, engaging NPC's and beautiful graphics, but since Im going to be pummeled into submission by the bread and butter mechanics I have a strong suspicion that my enjoyment wont be everything it could have been. I hope Im wrong.

 

Honestly, I don't really feel it's possible to make a decent judgement on how the mechanics of the game will actually turn out yet. We have some idea of a few things, but I don't feel that we've enough information to call how the game itself is actually going to play. Saying that you won't enjoy at this stage feels more like "determined not to like it no matter what" rather than "somewhat cautious regarding the path currently taken."

[Woldan]

So, this fine lady here is actually an Aumaua-godlike? Nice.

[Keyrock]

I've always thought of this whole project less as "Hey, there are these old beloved games that people always wax on about, let's make a game like that, but we have to make sure we use mechanic A from game Z and mechanic B from game X." and more "Hey, remember those old games everybody waxes on about?  They were great but far from perfect.  We've learned a lot since then and we can do a lot better.  We'll build it from the ground up and use all the knowledge we've gained to make a much better interface, better mechanics, and an overall better playing experience, while still trying to recapture the look and feel of said games."

[Greensleeve]

I've always thought of this whole project less as "Hey, there are these old beloved games that people always wax on about, let's make a game like that, but we have to make sure we use mechanic A from game Z and mechanic B from game X." and more "Hey, remember those old games everybody waxes on about?  They were great but far from perfect.  We've learned a lot since then and we can do a lot better.  We'll build it from the ground up and use all the knowledge we've gained to make a much better interface, better mechanics, and an overall better playing experience, while still trying to recapture the look and feel of said games."

 

Yeah, pretty much this.

[Tsuga C]

So, this fine lady here is actually an Aumaua-godlike? Nice.

Is she aumauan? Must've missed that tidbit of information. Regardless, Woldan, just grab those ears, bark "Giddy-up!", and hang on for a heck of a ride!

[Hormalakh]

as someone who's spent countless hours playing bg2 (most hours spent on a game) and finding many other games lacking the abilty to surpass it, i have to say i couldn't agree more with josh sawyer's criticisms of baldur's gate 2.

 

it was good, but those parts of it didn't make it good, when you come down to it. frankly, the goggles of nostalgia play a big role here. and i just finished playing it again from start to finish not less than a year ago.

[PrimeJunta]

Wow, I'm still amazed at the levels of butthurt certain people are able to maintain. Carry on...

[Tamerlane]

 

So, this fine lady here is actually an Aumaua-godlike? Nice.

Is she aumauan? Must've missed that tidbit of information.

Kinda hard to tell, but her face sorta looks like it.

 

[rjshae]

Update by Josh Sawyer, Project Director

 

All of the races have different ethnicities from which the player can choose.  For elves, Wood and Pale, for dwarves, Mountain and Boreal, for orlans, Hearth and Wild, and for aumaua, Island and Coastal.  Humans have three ethnicities: Meadow, Ocean, and Savannah.  Godlike can be found among any race and their appearance always sets them apart from their parents.

 

This part interests me: the fact that human ethnicities are being based upon the same parameter types as the other races. It feels more consistent that way, and I hope that more diverse human archetypes are presented than are currently "permitted" in our PC-sensitive culture. (After all, it is a different world with unique evolutionary pressures... or possible 'divine intervention'.) I'm not sure what is meant by the human 'Ocean' ethnicity though. Do you agree that suggestive of a merman/mermaid ethnicity? Or does it just cover coasts and islands?

[Helm]

as someone who's spent countless hours playing bg2 (most hours spent on a game) and finding many other games lacking the abilty to surpass it, i have to say i couldn't agree more with josh sawyer's criticisms of baldur's gate 2.

So you hate Baldur's Gate 2 also? Just like the lead designer of Project Eternity? Makes sense that you agree with Sawyer then.

 

Wow, I'm still amazed at the levels of butthurt certain people are able to maintain. Carry on...

 

Just wait until the people actually play the game.

 

I can hardly wait for peoples reaction when they find out that P:E is anything and everything but Baldur's Gate. Hell, while they pitched this game they should have just called it a "spiritual successor to Darklands", or "help Josh Sawyer, the guy who hates Baldur's Gate, make an isometric (not necessarily classic) game". Those pitches would have been much more approriate - and more honest too.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Helm

[Tsuga C]

Kinda hard to tell, but her face sorta looks like it.

I don't quite see it. To me she looks caucasian infused with the godlike characteristics of a brahma bull-like goddess such as Hathor from the Egyptian pantheon--fair skin, light hair, brahma horns and ears. If I had to make a call on class based upon that portrait (flowers in her hair, green leather armor with a tree motif), she's a ranger or druid.

 

As an aside, her face reminds me of those drawn by Phil Foglio, the guy who draws Girl Genius, albeit much more nuanced.