Game

[Howard Alan Treesong]

It says April 2014.

[Human Snorenado]

It says April 2014.

Ok, so 85% finished product released in Nov. 2014

[Great Rumbler]

It says April 2014.

Ok, so 85% finished product released in Nov. 2014

At least this time they don't have a publisher to appease and can release fully fleshed out mod tools!

I guess this is the 2nd? time that a major non-indie developer is using kickstarter to fund a game.  Doublefine made a ton, but it was also the first of the wave.  A half year later, will be interesting to see if Obsidian can get similar results.

The Kickstarter for Plantery Annihilation is within minutes of closing above $2.2 million. This ride definitely isn't over yet.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I think this is gonna do north of $2.5, possibly $3.0. People like Obsidian and PC RPG fans, as a rule, are white one-percenters in their 30s. The demographics, team, and promised game all add up to a really great value proposition. Other Kickstarters fail because they are lousy games turning to Kickstarter in a desperate attempt to happen at all. This one feels ... there's more ownership, more originality, more drive behind the motivations for starting the Kickstarter. It will do well.

[Great Rumbler]

I think this is gonna do north of $2.5, possibly $3.0. People like Obsidian and PC RPG fans, as a rule, are white one-percenters in their 30s. The demographics, team, and promised game all add up to a really great value proposition. Other Kickstarters fail because they are lousy games turning to Kickstarter in a desperate attempt to happen at all. This one feels ... there's more ownership, more originality, more drive behind the motivations for starting the Kickstarter. It will do well.

Yeah, it definitely will. Wasteland 2 proved that fans of hardcore PC RPGs and old school PC franchises still constitute a large group and are willing to put up money. And this was for a sequel to a 20 year old game by a studio with limited recognize/praise. Obsidian has shipped half a dozen well-liked products [in certain circles] over the past 8 years and have another big game out in a few months. They've definitely got much greater awareness and support, and the prospect of setting them loose on a brand new world of their own creation is something that's going to get their fanbase really excited.

[Human Snorenado]

Cleared 300k, with 24 backers at the $1000 or more level (including 20 10k backers)

[Great Rumbler]

It's moving along really good, should hit it's initial goal sometime tomorrow [or earlier if lots of people getting off work open up their wallets]. I'd really like to see what kind of stretch goals they have planned for this.

[Bebpo]

I will donate $1,000 if they make Michael Thorton a stealth/spy class complete with unique dialogue choices where he can troll everyone he meets and then punch them in the face.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Still really want spiritual successor Alpha Protocol 2 kickstarter!

[close]

[Great Rumbler]

Alpha Protocol 2 would cost A LOT more than $1.1 million.

[Bebpo]

Not if it's an isometeric game in the vein of Crusader: No Remorse!

[Bebpo]

But really, since this is self-financed, what is stopping them from putting "Michael Borton" an optional recruitable party member from a distant dimension who wakes up one day to find out that he accidently teleported himself to the game's world during an explosion at a scientific research facility and is ready to party up with the group to sneak around middle earth and punch, kick and shoot people in the face with his assortment of guns he brought all while being a hilariously written member?

[Great Rumbler]

It will hit $1.1M in no time.

No time = about 24 hours, apparently. It's over $900k in just 20 hours.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Too bad you can't Kickstart projects through Steam. I'd Kickstart something if I didn't have to sign up to yet another thing.

[Great Rumbler]

Too bad you can't Kickstart projects through Steam. I'd Kickstart something if I didn't have to sign up to yet another thing.

You can log in to Kickstarter with your Facebook account.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Cool, but I don't want to link that stuff to my CC

Still thats a good option.

[Great Rumbler]

Some new info about stretch goals:

1.1 million,   Base Goal – Achieved!
Base game includes three races, five classes, and five companions. We have ideas for these, but we want to hear your opinions on what you'd like to see. Stay tuned to Kickstarter, our website, and our forums to join in on the conversation.

1.4 million, New Playable Race, Class, and Companion!
Expands your options for character creation and adds a companion of the new class.

1.6 million, a Mac Version of Project Eternity and The Story Grows!
We've listened and we’ll make a Mac version of the game at this tier. We're also going to add a new major storyline along with new quests, locations, NPCs, and unique loot (special histories everyone?).

1.8 million, New Playable Race, Class, and Companion!
The options grow for your main character and the roster of your motley crew expands with the addition of a new companion from the selected class.

2.0 million, Player House!
Get your own house in the game that you can customize, store equipment in, and where your companions hang out, or, as the elves say, "chillax".

2.2 million, a new Region, a new Faction and another new Companion! And, dare we say it... ? LINUX!
Great news, everyone! For the Tarball Knights of Gzippia out there, we'll be adding Linux support!
Also, the world of Project Eternity grows in a major way with the inclusion of a whole new faction and the territory it holds. This adds new NPCs, quests, magic items, and hours of gameplay. And yes, you got it, another companion.

[pilonv1]

@ putting Linux support on the highest tier.

[Great Rumbler]

Got the first stretch goal already, with the current take at just shy of $1.5 million.

[Great Rumbler]

Some details:

Your Party
The maximum party size is the player's main character (PC) and up to five companions for a total of six characters. This does not preclude the addition of temporary characters in special circumstances. Companions are never forced on the player. Players can explore the entire world and its story on their own if they so choose. We feel companions are excellent sounding boards for the player's (and other companions') actions, but the story is ultimately about the player's personal conflict among the larger social and political complexities of the world.

Formations
A key element of the classic party-based tactical combat that we are developing is the use of party formations. As in the good ol' games, you can arrange your party in a large number of set formations. You can also construct your own formations if you want to get fancy. When moving companions, you have the ability to rotate formations for more precise positioning.

Character Creation
At a minimum, players will be able to specify their main character's name, sex, class, race (including subrace), culture, traits, ability scores, portrait, and the fundamental starting options of his or her class (gear, skills, and talents). We have not worked out customization details of character avatars, but we believe those are important and will be updating on these specifics in the future.

[Human Snorenado]

Six characters 

[pilonv1]

Hopefully it's like BG where you can wander into areas that are way above your level, no scaling please!

[Great Rumbler]

Hopefully it's like BG where you can wander into areas that are way above your level, no scaling please!

Considering that most serious RPG players hate level-scaling, and what you describe was highly common in the Infinity Engine days, I suspect they'll make sure it's the same here.

[Great Rumbler]

More updatering:

Souls

As we hinted at in our pitch videos, souls are A Big Deal in Project Eternity's world. The mortal world has not unlocked all of the secrets of how souls "work" and differing schools of metaphysical philosophy can be found in virtually every culture. What is known is that sapient souls move through an endless cycle of waking life and purgatorial slumber among the gods. Often this slumber lasts for years of "real" time, but occasionally it is brief, with a soul immediately moving on to a new life.

Far from being a flawless process, souls are subject to "fracturing" over generations, transforming in myriad ways, and not quite... working right. Some cultures and individuals place a high value on "strong" souls, souls with a "pure" lineage, "awakened" souls that remember past lives, "traveled" souls that have drifted through the divine realms, or those that co-exist with other souls in one body. However, the opposite is also true, resulting in negative discrimination and sometimes outright violence.

Through a variety of techniques (e.g. martial training, meditation, ritualistic evocation, mortification of the flesh), some individuals are able to draw upon the energy of their soul to accomplish extraordinary feats. These abilities range from the mundanely superhuman to the explosively magical. Having a strong soul seems to make this easier, but sometimes even people with fragmented souls are able to accomplish the extraordinary. The individual's body seems to act as a conduit and battery for this power, drawing in replenishment from seemingly omnipresent "fields" of unbound spiritual energy in the world around them.

Thinkers, spiritualists, and scientists of the world have theorized for thousands of years about the nature and purpose of this process, but others have turned to prayer for answer. Rather than illuminate the presumed higher purpose of this cycle, the gods have obfuscated the truth, at times spreading cosmological lies, pitting believers and empowered chosen agents against each other, and tacitly approving the prejudices of their followers to maintain power.

Whatever the fundamental nature of mortal souls is, the people of the world accept the reality of what they have observed: that all mortal bodies contain perceptible energy bound to the individual, and that once they die, their energy will move forward in the eternal cycle that they are all a part of -- that as far as they know, they have always been a part of.

Technology

The cultures of Project Eternity are in a variety of different technological states. Though some remote civilizations are still in the equivalent of Earth's Stone Age or Bronze Age, most large civilizations are in the equivalent of Earth's high or late Middle Ages. The most aggressive and powerful civilizations are in the early stages of what would be our early modern period, technologically, even if they are not culturally undergoing "Renaissance"-style changes.
 
For most large civilizations, this means that all of the core arms and armor of medieval warfare have reached a high level of development: full suits of articulated plate armor, a variety of military swords, war hammers, polearms, longbows, crossbows, and advanced siege weaponry. Architecturally, these cultures also employ technologies found in Earth's Gothic structures, allowing them to create towering vertical structures.

The most recent technologies seeing use in the world are ocean-going carrack-style ships and black powder firearms (notably absent: the printing press). Cultures with large navies and mercantile traffic are exploring the world, which has led to contact with previously-unknown lands and societies and settlement in new lands. Despite their intense drive, these explorers have been restricted from aggressive long-range exploration by monstrous sea creatures that pose a lethal, seemingly insurmountable threat to even the stoutest, most well-armed ships.

Black powder firearms are of the single-shot wheellock variety. Largely considered complex curiosities, these weapons are not employed extensively by military forces. Their long reload times are considered a liability in battles against foes that are too monstrous to drop with a single volley, foes that fly or move at high speed, and foes that have the power of invisibility. Despite this, some individuals do employ firearms for one specific purpose: close range penetration of the arcane veil, a standard magical defense employed by wizards. The arcane veil is powerful, but it does not react well to the high-velocity projectiles generated by arquebuses and handguns. As a result, more wizards who previously relied on the veil and similar abjurations have turned to traditional armor for additional defense.

Next update will discuss non-combat skills and the nature of character classes.

[tiesto]

Reading the above: thank god... I thought this was gonna be another western RPG stuck in dullsville Lord of the Rings land.

[Human Snorenado]

Reading the above: thank god... I thought this was gonna be another western RPG stuck in dullsville Lord of the Rings land.

Well it doesn't sound like it, but from the look of things there will be no either, so you might still want to steer clear

[Damian79]

.  :ignorethispost

[Great Rumbler]

Reading the above: thank god... I thought this was gonna be another western RPG stuck in dullsville Lord of the Rings land.

Well it doesn't sound like it, but from the look of things there will be no either, so you might still want to steer clear

NO UGUU WAIFUS?!

That's it, you just lost a sale, Obsidian!

[Great Rumbler]

Another update:

Non-Combat Abilities

Let's talk first about your goals as a player, about the things you would like to do besides fighting. Then I'll talk about our design goals and explain how we are putting the non-combat systems together.

Player Goals

When you are not fighting, that's when non-combat abilities come into play. We plan to add abilities that will let you become better at achieving four different non-combat goals.

Learning new things. This includes finding out previously unknown information, like the location of town or a hidden door, or uncovering secret knowledge, like a potion recipe or the true name of a demon. Or maybe you just want to know a good place to gather materials like ore or herbs. We will make abilities that let you find things out.

Traveling around the world. You will want to improve your movement capabilities (such as sneaking around some ruins), or traveling across the world map faster or more safely, or even teleporting directly to your destination. And sometimes movement requires removing barriers like locks or traps, so you will need some way to unlock and disarm. We'll add abilities for these actions.

Getting new items. If you are not going to kill a creature to take its things, then we will give you the means to make new items, buy them, or steal them. Or maybe you will choose to support NPC's by bringing them the materials or the recipes needed to make new items for you. We congratulate you on your non-violent and cooperative plans of wealth acquisition, and we'll give you the means to do it.

Interacting with companions. Once we have added many interesting and useful NPC companions, we will have to give you ways to recruit them, improve their usefulness, and keep them from dying (or even worse, disliking you!). We will make non-combat abilities that interact with your companions, so you can keep them alive and filled with a grudging respect for you.

Now each of these goals represents a whole slew of related non-combat abilities. For example, for player traveling, we could have all kinds of abilities, including stealth and teleport abilities, as well as abilities to make world map travel faster, less likely to have encounters, and able to make use of alternate transportation routes such as over mountains using passes or over water using ships.

Design Goals

In putting together our non-combat system, we have made a list of goals for the design of these skills and the rules they need to follow.

Non-combat skills are gained separately from combat skills. You shouldn't have to choose between Magic Missile and Herbalism. They should be separate types of abilities, and you should spend different points to get each one.

Non-combat skills do not use the same resources as combat skills. You don't spend the same stuff for a non-combat skill as you do for combat skills. Some don't use anything at all to use, so you will never find yourself unable to blast an opponent if you get caught sneaking.

All non-combat skills are useful. If we add lockpicking to the game, we will make sure that there are locks to pick and worthwhile rewards for getting past them.

All non-combat skills can be used frequently. If you take disarm traps as a skill, you should expect more than two traps in the entire game world. Frequency of application has a large impact on how useful something is.

Combat can be avoided with non-combat skills. There will often be ways to avoid fighting. Yes, we will have the standard methods of talking your way out of a fight or sneaking around an encounter, but there will be other ways too. Perhaps you can re-sanctify a desecrated cemetery to prevent any further undead from rising, or maybe figuring out a way across a ruined bridge will always avoid the bandits on this side of the river.

Avoiding combat does not lead to less experience gain. You shouldn't go up levels any slower by using your non-combat skills rather than your combat skills. We plan to reward you for your accomplishments, not for your body count.

[Damian79]

Gameindustry.biz interview

Q: Why Kickstarter?

Feargus Urquhart: A lot of it is what crowdfunding is all about. It's an opportunity to go to fans with something and ask for their opinions, their help, their money to make something you believe in. And we really believe in our role-playing games. We love making the big ones, but we believe in this old school, harder core RPG, and some of those things that are a little bit harder to get funded in the traditional publisher model. That's nothing against publishers. This is just a different model, and it's great to go back to something that is our roots.

Q: Did you try to pitch Project Eternity to publishers before you Kickstarted it?

Feargus Urquhart: We've talked with publishers a lot over the years and the last six months. We never went in with a Powerpoint and a proposal and pitched the full thing or anything like that. It's just different. It's not retail, but maybe we'll have a retail SKU after the game comes out. It's digital, but not a little digital game. It's weirdly in the middle. It falls into a no-mans-land a little bit about how products are being considered.

Q: Were you worried about backlash to Kickstarter projects, especially from established studios?

Feargus Urquhart: I'll be honest. We didn't really think about that. Maybe a part of it is we think a little too highly of ourselves… We go into things like this with the best intentions. We truly want to make this, so we didn't question whether someone would question if we were doing it for alternative reasons.

Q: What happens if development hits a snag and the game takes longer or costs more than expected?

Feargus Urquhart: There are a couple different ways. We're going to be careful with the money because all game development hits snags. So a portion of the money will be set aside. Think of it as something like an escrow account. As development goes and goes, we'll spend more of that money because there's only so much development left where we could hit snags, so we don't need to reserve as much. And at the end, we've spent all the money and made a great game.

Q: How important is transparency in the process of explaining to your backers how the game's coming along, the creative decisions you're making, even with the budget?

Feargus Urquhart: I think we have a lot of responsibility to keep people apprised. They've given us a lot of trust, and we take that very seriously. Our biggest responsibility is letting people know what's going on that's good, what are some challenges we're having and how we're dealing with them. I think it's like anything in life where you're kind of invested in something. It's when you get your periodic updates as to what's going on and you feel better that progress is being made. We understand it's a big responsibility and we can't just disappear off into the ether.


Obsidian is also currently working on South Park: The Stick of Truth for THQ.

Q: Do your stretch goals threaten your game design? Like instead of making the right number of character classes for the game, you have to make X number of them to fulfill a promise to backers?

Feargus Urquhart: Well, when you're making an RPG, that makes stretch goals easy in some ways. RPG campaigns and games are all about adding more stuff, in a lot of ways. It's about more choices, and having another class to play is a great thing to have in an RPG. But there's a certain point at which there are just too many and they're not impactful anymore. So we're not going to continue to just add another race every X hundred thousand [dollars]. There's not going to be 17 races in the game; we're going to think of other cool things to add in that expand not only what the game is, but potentially what our high level backers are getting.

Q: How do publishers feel about studios who Kickstart projects?

Feargus Urquhart: I think publishers are curious about the model and curious about what that can do. I think ultimately publishers are looking for good developers to make great games for them. They have their internal staff to make great games, and sometimes they need a particular type of developer to make a particular game for them. So I don't know if that changes things a whole lot on the bigger console level. On the smaller level, I think some publishers may really like the model. It's pretty scary when you're a publisher and you have to fund games because that's what you need to go ship. But now maybe some titles can come to you secondarily, or for distribution, or something like that where you don't have to worry about a cash outlay so much.

Q: Do you think Kickstarter is changing the balance of power between publishers and developers now that smaller studios just have other options?

Feargus Urquhart: I think so, but it depends on which part of the market you're talking about. For the $20-40 million, multi-SKU console game, that's not the Kickstarter world. I think what Kickstarter gives developers the capability to do-and this is how we're looking at it-is we're getting the opportunity to go build a brand, and it's a brand that we own. And that's what changes the power a little bit. Now I have a game that we're going to go make, and I have a brand. And I own that brand. And it's now something that if I go talk to a publisher to talk about doing something different with a brand-and this is years from now-they're not going to get to own that brand. That definitely changes whatever you call it, power or leverage… it changes the discussion. Absolutely.

Q: Recent years have seen Respawn, Bungie, and Insomniac get a little bit more ownership over their games. Could things like this have been possible 10 or 15 years ago?

Feargus Urquhart: I think ownership of your IP was easier to actually arrange 10 or 15 years ago. When the numbers weren't so high, when publishers weren't paying $25 or $30 million, the IP was more on the table as to whether you could own it or not. Over the last five or six years, it's gotten harder and harder. Bungie and Respawn and Insomniac, with such a track record, it's a value proposition for the publishers. "We want the next Call of Duty. Hey, these guys made Call of Duty. We're willing to give up some aspects of ownership because we're not in this segment of the market to the extent we want to be, but we'll trade what we would want normally to get into it." It's really become harder and harder for independent developers to own IP when you're talking to a publisher about $20- $30- $40 million.

Q: You mentioned in the Kickstarter project page that a publisher proposed you raise the money and they would publish the game and keep the IP. Was that just an overly aggressive business play, or do publishers fundamentally not understand Kickstarter?

Feargus Urquhart: I think the publisher understood, but I don't think it was aggressive, and I don't think it was even spiteful or something like that. Everybody has to walk in everybody's shoes, you know? Right now, publishers have a huge amount of pressure as it relates to the money going out and coming in. And there's a console transition, and console transitions are hugely scary. So a lot of them are looking at how they protect the cash they have and not have more cash outlays. That's just first and foremost in their mind so much right now that they're just looking at all the possibilities. And what comes out of that is that they might not think of what they're really asking of the developer. It's possible one of the publishers who approached us that way was thinking, "Could I get away with it?" But I don't know that at all. Most of the people I know at publishers aren't bad people by any stretch of the meaning. They're trying to do the job the best they can within the scope of what they have.

Q: You've essentially got 40,000 preorders for a game targeting a niche audience. Do you worry at all that the addressable audience for the game will have already been addressed once you launch?

Feargus Urquhart: I'm not, actually. And that's entirely Feargus data. It's my own way of looking at the world. Baldur's Gate sold between 2-4 million units, and that was 10 years ago. It still sells today. The GOG guys put up packages of sales for the D&D games because they still sell. I think there's absolutely a market for them. I don't know what that market is. I couldn't tell you if it's 200,000 or 300,000 or 400,000, but there's definitely a market and it's hopefully more than the number of backers we'll have.

Q: Are you surprised publishers don't back projects like these considering the millions the previous ones have sold and their longevity?

Feargus Urquhart: How do I put it? It's like we all need to really do the numbers. Any publisher can ship N games every year. If a publisher normally ships 50 games or something, it's very hard to ship 100 games because they're not going to increase the number of people they have for a year just to ship 100 games or something. So publishers have to make sure they're shipping the right number of games at the right level. It takes a lot of effort to support a big console game; it takes much much less to support an XBLA game. And a game like this falls in some weird middle. Do we take it to retail? It's not just a download. But it's not a $500,000 budget XBLA game. It's niche… And it's hard for them to evaluate the upside and where to put it. And I think that's what's hard. It's not anything negative or bad; it's a question of what to do with it.

Q: Are consoles or tablet versions on Project Eternity's stretch goal list?

Feargus Urquhart: No they're not. It's a game that goes back to the roots of the great RPG games of the past and the focus of those was keyboard and mouse. Not that console games aren't great; they're just different. There's a big difference between Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance [for consoles] and Baldur's Gate II [for PC]. And we don't want to create some camel in the middle to try to straddle a line. It's do one thing or another, and we're going to try to do the PC and do that right.

Q: Thanks again for the interview.

[Himu]

this game sounds like hot shit.

[Great Rumbler]

Difficulty modes/options and the Godlike race:

We love giving players options: character build options, personality options, story options -- all the options you might want to play around with. We recognize that many players also want to play the game their way and have an experience that matches their particular RPG tastes. RPG fans share a lot of common ground, but on matters of visible mechanical feedback, complexity, and the overall level of punitive face-punching a game provides, there's a big spectrum of opinions. In a lot of cases, it's not too hard for us to provide options to turn an individual feature on or off, so we want to make that possible when resources permit us to do so.

Additionally, even among the ranks of RPG superfans, there exists a subset of players who can't get enough challenge. They want all of the difficulty features set to "I am pro." Collectively, we've worked on a bunch of these challenge modes in the past and enjoyed the results. Project Eternity seems like a very appropriate place to highlight suites of these difficulty options as distinct gameplay modes that players can opt-into at the beginning of any game. We've come up with three modes we'd like to support, which also includes the ability to turn many of their sub-features on and off on an individual level in an ordinary game: Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, and Path of the Damned.

Expert Mode will disable all of the common ease-of-use / in-case-you-missed it gameplay elements like the display of skill thresholds, influence/reputation modifiers, and similar "helper" information. In a fashion similar to Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode will also enable more punitive and demanding gameplay elements, in and out of combat. We're not saying we're going to have weighty gold (for real, we're not saying that), but if we did, you can bet that would be automatically turned on by Expert Mode.

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!

Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved.

The first question you may have is, "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.

Along with these modes, we also want to introduce the Godlike races. These folks have been described previously as being similar to the humanoid "planetouched" in D&D: aasimar, tieflings, and genasi. That is a good high-level description of them, but they are viewed differently by various factions, faiths, and cultures in the world of Project Eternity. Godlike were "blessed" before birth by one or more of the meddling deities of this world. Though their appearances vary, they are unmistakeably otherworldly when anyone gets a clear look at them. Sometimes, the reaction they get is overwhelmingly positive. Many times, the reaction is overwhelmingly not. For better or worse, the physical "gifts" that mark them as Godlike always come with supernatural blessings (and curses) of their own.

The first question you may have after reading this may be, "Hey, what about the other races that have already been funded?" Those races are in the process of being fully designed and concepted -- and they can't be summarized quite as simply as "sort of like planetouched". We'll have more for you on those guys in the not-too-distant future. Thanks again for your support, your patience, and your questions.

[Great Rumbler]

Soundtrack update:

Souls, the supernatural, a fantasy setting, mature themes... These are just a few of the big ideas behind Project Eternity's story and world. As with any great CRPG story, music plays an important role in communicating those ideas. This was true for the Infinity Engine games as well. Looking back they all had one thing in common with regards to music: all are known for having strong and memorable soundtracks that drew you in as a listener and set fire to your imagination. That's exactly what we're aiming for with the music for Project Eternity.

So what will the music sound like? Great question! Describing music with words alone can be a tricky thing to do because so much of that is subjective and wide open for interpretation. Even still it's important to have some sort of plan in place before writing a single note. You need an idea that will guide you towards creating an effective score. To help paint that picture more clearly, here are three words that we believe best describe what the score will ultimately sound like:

Mystical

Ancient

Emotive

Now you might be wondering, out of all the possible descriptive words, why these three? The answer to that goes right back to those big ideas mentioned above.

We chose mystical because of the importance of souls and the supernatural in Project Eternity's world. Ancient because we want the music to be grounded and appropriate to the setting. Emotive because the role of music in any game is first and foremost to provide dramatic and emotional context for the player. At the end of the day, that's what we want out of Project Eternity's score. We want you to be swept away by the music and the imagery it evokes. By keeping these three descriptive pillars in mind while developing the score, we’ll be able to support and enhance the narrative goals of our game.

Of course these three words are not all the music will ultimately be. It'll also be adventurous, ethereal, and wondrous when appropriate. Ominous, dark, and mysterious when called for. Scary and horrifying at just the right moments. And yes, driving, bold, and colossal when absolutely necessary.

Along with defining what we do want the score to sound like, there are also some things we know we don't want it to sound like. It won't be overly heavy or oppressive, nor will it be bombastic and grandiose from beginning to end. We want the score to be as dynamic and nuanced as the story it serves, and the last thing we want to do is weigh that story down with leaden music.

As you can see Project Eternity's music will be many things when all is said and done. But perhaps most importantly, its music will have a unique and original voice that we hope will leave a lasting impression, the same way the music of those awesome Infinity Engine

And some music samples:

http://soundcloud.com/obsidian-entertainment/sets/project-eternity/

[Great Rumbler]

Some new stuff today:

-Reward tiers at or above $165 will also receive Wasteland 2
-20,000 likes on the Obsidian Facebook means an additional level in the mega dungeon: https://www.facebook.com/obsidian
-A full expansion is planned for six months after the release of the game [which will be included at or above $165]
-Project Eternity now support Kicking it Forward [meaning a portion of the profits from the finished game will be put back into other Kickstarter projects]
-Reward tiers at or above $50 will get an in-game pet of some kind
-Flanking, opportunity attacks, and charging will be part of combat, but not prone attacks and grappling
-Mod-support will happen
-Concept art for a character:

[Great Rumbler]

A screenshot from a Project Eternity environment:

[archnemesis]

That's real pretty!

[pilonv1]

That looks awesome

[Great Rumbler]

[Great Rumbler]

It's looking fairly likely that Project Eternity will end up being the highest grossing video game Kickstarter, passing Double Fine Adventure's $3.3 million. At $3.5 million they add a second major city, which I desperately hope they manage.

[Himu]

omg that environment

[Great Rumbler]

omg that environment

I know what you mean, it's like it's 1999 again.

[Great Rumbler]

With regards to that background image posted earlier:

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.

And there's also this:

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.

[Fifstar]

The art for that mega dungeon looks hot as does that bg image screen, I really hope they pull this of.

[Cerveza mas fina]

They just need mega dungeon, screw the rest of the game.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I wish the background was just CG stills

[Great Rumbler]

[archie4208]

$3.35 mil with 21 hours to go.

That new city is going to be sweet. 

[Great Rumbler]

That new city is going to be sweet. 

There's actually going to be TWO giant cities! I can scarcely contain my excitement.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

one more level and we can see the statue's wang

[Human Snorenado]

We do know this will be a 75% completed bug filled jankfest, right?      I'm not trying to kill the buzz, just temper it some.  I mean, I'm still going to play the shit out of it.

[Great Rumbler]

We do know this will be a 75% completed bug filled jankfest, right?      I'm not trying to kill the buzz, just temper it some.  I mean, I'm still going to play the shit out of it.

They've already committed to fan tweaking/patching, so we're good to go.

[Human Snorenado]

Was New Vegas a "75% completed bug filled jankfest"?

Get the f outta here old man.

My bad, that was a 90% completed bug filled jankfest.  Did you try playing it at launch, dipshit?  Do I even need to bring up fucking Alpha Protocol or every other Obsidian game ever made?  Go ahead and drink the kool aid if you want.  I mean, fuck I kicked in money and you probably didn't you dirty fucking polish racist, I don't even know why I'm seriously trying to talk to you.

[Human Snorenado]

We do know this will be a 75% completed bug filled jankfest, right?      I'm not trying to kill the buzz, just temper it some.  I mean, I'm still going to play the shit out of it.

They've already committed to fan tweaking/patching, so we're good to go.

Should make for an awesome first couple of months for the game.

[Human Snorenado]

You're right, a simple google search of "fallout new vegas bugs" returns only 971,000 hits.  Clearly there was nothing wrong.

I'm calling you full of shit.

[demi]

What's "fine" to Borys (and many other Polish developed games) is horrendously unfinished to us with standards.

Its why they love their EuroJank RPGs

[Steve Youngblood]

My biggest complaint about New Vegas was shitty performance on the PC. I remember having to paste an old DLL file in the directory in order for the game not to be a slideshow with more than 4 characters on screen.

As for quest related bugs and whatnot, I don't really remember much. But then again, I tend to get kind of lucky with these games to never really notice anything showstopping. It could be that I progress through slowly though and stuff gets patched before I encounter it.

[Great Rumbler]

Alpha Protocol [on PC] didn't have very many bugs and Fallout: New Vegas [on PC] had a few bugs at launch at most of those were ironed out with a patch after a few weeks [don't say that around Eel though ]. Also, Dungeon Siege 3 was pretty much bug-free, as well.

And there shouldn't be as much of problem with Project: Eternity since they won't have to worry about a console dirt person version.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Alpha Protocol [on PC] didn't have very many bugs and Fallout: New Vegas [on PC] had a few bugs at launch at most of those were ironed out with a patch after a few weeks [don't say that around Eel though ]. Also, Dungeon Siege 3 was pretty much bug-free, as well.

And there shouldn't be as much of problem with Project: Eternity since they won't have to worry about a console dirt person version.

You joke, but console RAM issues are a confirmed major cause of bugs in all WRPGs. And those bugs make it back into the PC version.

[Great Rumbler]

512MB of RAM

[Great Rumbler]

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I am getting one of the Obsidian Loot Bags lol.