Why do they do it without a publisher if they create a game every publisher would let them do gladly? This game is shaping up exactly like the first BG. Mass market RPG for everybody and his dog. No challenge, nothing new or interesting. Like vanilla ice. Everybody likes it but it is totally superficial.

This is not what a Kickstarter should be about. And especially not from Obsidian.

Oh, and for the record. Baldurs Gate is not old-school RPG!

(Maybe, like with Spec Ops: The Line, it is a ruse to deconstruct the genre masterfully. But considering how the masses are actually cheering for this blandness I doubt they will).

I'm not even going to speculate on that, especially given that how long an RPG is compared to more linear corridor game can vary greatly, you can measure exactly how long some modern games are because they aren't much different than movies, but a non-linear RPG with a big world, lot of complexity, managing the skills/inventories/spells of 6 party members constantly, not to mention side-quests in addition to the main story. Game-time can vary radically from player to player. I remember trying to get my sister to play Planescape Torment last year, and despite playing it every day almost for hours it took her like three weeks to get 1/3 of the way through the game (and she gave up anyway).

Also, don't quote me, but I believe Fallout 1 had a budget of 1.5 million, Baldur's Gate 1 had a budget of 3.5 mill.

Simple answer: they want their own franchice in which they call all the shots. If you do D&D game you do it by their rules, if you do a Star Wars game you do it by the Lucas's rules.

Sure, there's producers, who would have willingly poured money to them,but at the same time Obisidian would have lost control of the intellectual rights as well. It's really hard to eat the cake and save it too, but Kickstarter at least gives an opportunity to try that.

15 years ago. Inflation is a bitch.

A lot of those Kickstarters people are cheering for will be glorified indie games when they are done. I don't care, as I expect that and I still want it. But there will be a lot of sobering up once the first Kickstarters hit the shelves.
*Ahem*, you do know that you can come up with your very own intelligent world and franchise. Like, I don't know, Fallout, Arcanum, Alpha Protocol.

All of which where developed by Obsidian (staffers) and amongst the best out there. Why did that quality suddenly stop?

"Expansion Pack" is a historical term from before digital downloads. Calling something an expansion pack *now* >implies it's beefy enough that it would have been sold on disk separately in ancient times. But of course it's marketspeak.

Being a bit of a negative nancy aren't we? They are going to be "indie" because Obsidian is an independent developer (not owned by another group) and this game is not being funded by a publisher. There's no reason "indie" has to be mean platformer games.

And in a way I do agree with you, there will be a lot of sobering up when the games come out, but not in the way you're thinking. I think it'll be more along the lines of some butthurt from our newbie friends who donated to Wasteland 2 hoping for a new Bethesda-like Fallout game, or to Project Eternity for a Biowarian Dragon Age-y adventure (you think I'm joking, take a look at the WL2 forums, or see how many "Romance" threads are on the PE Obsidian forums).

Not that I care, if there is some butthurt from next-gen kids who stupidly pledged to RPG Kickstarters for games they end up hating because of complexity, it will personally provide me with enough entertainment for many hours.

Because big producers started to think games same way as movies. It's safer to produce games that have a specific, large audience rather than small one, especially when the budgets keep going up. This also means, that it's easier to get money to do establishes brand than a brand new one.

Wan't romance introduced in BG 2 and re-established in the most favourite BG 1 mods? Next-gen Kids are for me people who think BG was a proper old-school RPG. Because Bioware is doing exactly the same ever since. Except that I like the newer stuff a lot more.

But vanilla ice cream is delicious when served with various liqueurs, so why not give them the benefit of doubt and see if they can create something out of the ordinary (even though the sketchy details revealed so far look very generic). Maybe they will craft their own distillery (and include a bottle of liqueur in the collector's edition!). Of course, people pledging $100+ might not be as laid-back about the possible outcomes. Feargus appears to be answering an awful lot of questions, so why doesn't someone bring this up?

Also, is all that talk about expansion vs DLC really necessary? Nowadays, the scope and type of DLC varies extremely (horse armor, map packs and tons of skins and wargear vs Episodes from Liberty City, Old World Blues and so on), so it seems perfectly fine to clarify what kind of DLC they are talking about. Their choice of words may have been somewhat populist, but I still don't get the outcry.

Like Dragon Age, Kingdom of Alamur, Dead Space, Alpha Protocol (again). Publisher also want new franchises, because they are cheaper.

Obsidian is doing with that Kickstarter exactly what any big-ole publisher would be doing. Except they do it with a much smaller budget.

Yes, but in BG 2 the presence of romances wasn't as overbearing as it has been in their more recent games.

I don't know about romance mods being the "most favorite mods". They have their fans, to be sure. However, as far as I can tell, most of these NPC romance mods are either terrible or even downright creepy. If Obsidian keep the romance element to a minimum, I'd be ecstatic, because I for one can do without screwable companions.

You recall that Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate II both had romance options in them?

[ninjad!]

I agree with SimonG; people complain about how big publishers stifle creativity, and it turns out that when you take the big publishers away, you still get Baldur's Gate 3. It might turn out to be a great game, but what are they doing with their new-found creative freedom?

Yes, that is what I am saying. Obsidian is behaving exactly like a boring big publisher who is playing it safe. Not what I'm willing to dump 100$ in.

Text-based semi-platonic love talks =/= Fully-rendered 3D gay elf sex

And regarding the fantasy setting, Obsidian are playing it safe. Troika took a huge risk when they made Arcanum because the setting and concept was so utterly alien to gamers, and the game sold badly because of "judge a book by it's cover" impressions (not to mention the bugs).

Also, from a purely business perspective, Obsidian are probably in danger of bankruptcy because they don't get any royalties from sales for any of their games except Neverwinter Nights 2. New Vegas, DS3, Alpha Protocol, South Park currently, the publishers paid Obsidian a lump-sum payment to make those games, but they get no money if anyone buys the game on steam or anything. The only exception to this is Neverwinter Nights 2, but sales from that are split between Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, the distributor (Steam or wherever), and Obsidian. And you'll notice that NWN2 got removed from online stores after the Hasbro/Atari thing.
A man has to eat you know.