Lovely god damn screenshot. Take my money!

I want this game now, and I want the second city, argh, it's april 2014, damn it.

Awesome screenshot :)

That's a really nice screenshot, I'm happy to see Obsidian's artists know how to use colors other than brown.

The new stretch goals are nice too, I like the stronghold idea when well executed, and I'll admit big cities are always more interesting than the traditional small village present in most fantasy RPGs.

Indeed.

A lot of people seem to be of the impression that Unity games have a certain "look", which just isn't the case. It all depends on what developers do with the engine.

Aaaaand todays' Q&A:

Question: 1) is george zeits going to be involved with the expansion as well, or is he just going to be in the main game? and by extension, is it going to be the same team working on that, or just like chris and tim, or josh and tim? or even just one of them?
2) you have a PM from me on the forums concerning something that probably can't really be talked about here. when/if you get the time to look at it.
3) any word from darren about adding to donations through paypal post kickstarter?
4) and i think i've asked this one... but with paypal you can still add to your pledge, if you used paypal in the first place?
Feargus: For the expansion - I don't know if George will be involved. It's a long way off for right now. As for Tim, Josh and Chris. I would expect them all to be on it for a bit and then at least one of them to be on it for the duration. Like most developers, what we would be doing while we are making the expansion is starting the planning on the sequel - so I would expect, after the expansion is on the right trajectory, that two of them would move to that. Just guessing based upon how we and most developers handle that sort of time in development. 2) I'll take a look. 3) He's looking at it. Want to finish getting the other language pages up first. Taking a little longer than expected. 4) Let me ask Darren about how you add money to your PayPal pledge - sorry forgot to take care of that.

Question: I Guess $20 is also a promotionnal price for the expansion.
Feargus: It is.

Question: No love for 16:10 people? I'll stick with my The Banner Saga background anyway but just saying. ;p
Feargus: There is plenty of love for 16:10 here. We'll make sure that stuff will be both aspect ratios in future.

Question: is the Almanac different from the "Digital Collector's Book" already in the $50 tier?
Feargus: It is - it is an entire book written just to go over a ton of information in the world and history of the game world.

Question: "Also, if you've already pledged $50 or more, you get it for free!" Does this include add-ons? So if I grabbed the $20 expansion and $7 strategy guide, then upped my pledge from early bird $20 to the default $25 to get the total up to $52 instead of €47, would I get the almanac?
Feargus: We need to change that language - you have to select a tier at $50 or higher. Apologies for that not being clear.

Question: Do you guys realize you have released the perfect update? Future kickstarters will speak of this time in hushed tones.
Feargus: We just try to talk about stuff that you all ask to talk about. However, we have gotten some criticism for spamming and being too corporate.

Question: will the exclusive in game kickstarter pet become a "add-on" for something like $10-15 dollars? I can imagine that being popular.
Feargus: We need to figure that out. We want to reward our backers, but not make it feel like someone can't have the complete game. Still scratching our head on that one a bit.

Question: Is there talk about releasing mini-stretch goals from 3.0 - 3.5 but releasing those through the daily updates? To help build excitement and buzz?
Feargus: We are going to stick with the stretch goals we have right now - we think. The 3.5M one was something we talked about a lot and to do a city like that right - it takes a lot of resources.

Question: How much of the environment we see in that screenshot will be moving? The water? Anything else?
Feargus: We will be using effects to show off things like the crashing of the waterfall into the water.

Couldn't find the question associated with this response - Ink Blot
Feargus: When all is said in done with the campaign, and we are into pre-production we are going to look at how many companions we can support and still make sure the game of the whole is full of life. While it's not exactly a trade - a small village can be an equal amount of work as a complex companion. Sounds strange, but I've seen the sweat on Avellone's brow when he's trying to wrangle a companion.

Question: What can we expect from the expansion pack? Will it be connected to the original story and use the same character? New cities, races and classes? I'm curious as to what we can expect given that it's going to cost the same as the original game for early backers.
Feargus: That is how we approach expansion packs. It will plug into the game, but towards the end, so that it is a challenge for people who have played the game. It will also add features that are then fun to bring back into the core areas of the game and give you reason to play the whole game again - like a class and/or a race.

Question: I think the screen looks beautiful, however, am I correct in thinking this is a in game shot, and not concept art?? Only the game is meant to be isometric correct? It kind of looks as if it could be first person, looking at that temple entrance. though I have no idea how big the entrance really is. It might look more natural with the character sprites in I guess, but it doesnt look isometric enough if that makes sense. Either way, thanks for your time, and the shot looks beautiful non the less.
Feargus: That is a game shot.

Question: How married are we to the April 2014 release date? Are you going to release "when its done?"
Feargus: Our goal is April 2014, but we will not release unless it is done, solid and awesome.

Question: Will Chris Avellone be doing an update telling us about the narrative approach?
Many updates seem to adress the BG fans but I am somewhat missing the PS:T side of things.
Feargus: Chris has been at Austin GDC this week and doing a lot of interviews there - some of them have already been posted. We should be doing an AMA on Monday as well over on reddit and he is going up there to answer questions. I'm not sure if we will do a pure story update at this point, because we wanted to get one more Josh lore update in before the end. However, we will absolutely be updating after the campaign and going into that in detail.

Question: Hmmm... I remember BG 2 - player houses were different depending on the class. While new locations might not be necessary, maybe furniture, quests, etc. in your stronghold would be different depending on player-class?
Feargus: We haven't talked about that to be honest. I am guessing that we will want to focus all our resources into a single Stronghold, however it will have things you can do in it that will be based upon your choices. I'll ask about whether we will also do race and class differences as well within it.

Question: Will high DPI displays (specifically the rMBP in mind at 2880x1800, but anything else >200dpi would apply) be supported with some sort of scaling, so that assets are rendered 1:1 but text at 2x or 1.5x?
Feargus: We are going to be supporting up to 2560x1440 - you are wondering if we will then render the text even higher than that if you are on a higher resolution screen?

Question: Whats your aim for the printed collectors book? will it be a nice and thick one?
Feargus: That is the plan.

Question: please offer a physical almanac. Either for high tiers like 500 . Or as an add on.
I don't mind paying $30 more for one.
Feargus: I will ask about that. It might be something we offer later though. Trying to be careful about getting ahead of ourselves with more expensive physical goods. Oh were you thinking soft cover or hard cover?

Question: 1)This may have been asked before, but I would like to know if you guys are considering doing your own Pen and Paper game for your system and world? 2) This may potentially get a backer on board from my D&D group. Is there evil elephants?
Feargus: 1) We have talked about it, but nothing definite yet. Our thought is the Almanac is the first step in that direction. 2) I would love to say yes, but I'll be honest - I don't think so. :)

Question: Although I don't know much about game funding I've gotten the impression that this game is quite ambitious given the level of Kickstarter funding available. As OE are intending to fund the expansion completely from their own coffers, is PE being additionally funded by you with the Kickstarter providing that little extra in order for OE to get the resources to acquire its own IP and establish your own specific direction and fanbase?
Feargus: We are pretty familiar with making these type of games and are confident we can make the game with the funding we are getting. For the expansion, we are going to fund ourselves and then "repay" ourselves with the eventual sales of the main game and the expansion.

Question: Will we be able to design items which can be interacted with outside of combat ($1000 level)? Thinking more like a weapon that isn't just purely a weapon. E.g. spellbook which can be examined for hidden secrets, or be used in special ways in/out of combat to change its stats or behaviour. Or like Dak'kon's circle of zerthimon, which unlocks/alters something for a player/companion.
Feargus: We will probably have to figure out how to dole things like that out in a way that is fair. What we will do is talk with everyone at that tier after the campaign and see what everyone wants as a whole. It may work out that everyone wants items from enough different types that it will just work out. If everyone wants dagger for some reason, then we will have to figure out how to divy things up a little more.

Question: Conserning the screenshot, can we expect some birds, butterflies, fish in the stream? Just to spice the surroundings...
Feargus: Yes, we will be using the effects system to overlay things like that onto the screen.

Question: Feargus: you haven't clearly detailed in the recent updates just how addons work. You should stick "Add +$20 to your pledge beyond the reward level to get the expansion, and we'll send you a survey later" or similar in huge bold letters at the start of the next update.
Feargus: Working on the text in Update 4 to give more and more detail on that. Thanks for pointing out though, we need to make it clearer. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/311594

Question: How long can the memorial stone message be? Can it be a page long?
Feargus: We are going to work with you on it. Since it is text, I think we will be able to have a text pop-up that can contain a fair number of words.

Question: I know you're using effects for things like water splashing on rocks, but can I assume the waterfall itself, and the river below will also have animated flowing water? How far will you take it? Animated grass from the wind? Swaying trees? Too early to say?
Feargus: We are going to try to get as much as we can animating - at some point it will start causing memory and performance issues, so we will work to have the stuff that should really, really animate moving first and then work our way down from there.

Question: are you considering a preset system which configure commands like "if life < 20% uses potion"?
Feargus: A scripting system for the party?

Question: please please put a reference to codpieces in the game. :)
Feargus: Uh........

Question: that aside, you rock, your company rocks and P:E is going to be spectacular. If you get time (lol) consider a quick post about your daydreams where P:E sells the 2 million copies BG/BG2/NWN did and Obsidian gets to self-finance every crazy project its staff has ever dreamed off.
Feargus: I don't know if the world is ready for all of our crazy ideas. :)

Question: Are you looking at adjusting the tiers any further? It's just you've only got .25 of the pledges at the 500 level that you have at the 250. Now to my mind the 250 is a very strong tier but surely some of those backers could be enticed to jump up a rank.
Feargus: We are still talking about it - pretty obsessively. But, we want to be careful and not cause too much confusion.


PayPal is at $46K. 995 backers (or right around there)

With all the extra dungeons, extra castles, extra characters, extra towns etc etc. Do they run the risk of adding too much?

How can we tell? If anyone can deliver, it's Obsidian. They seem to have a lot fleshed out already - some of the stretch goal classes have no doubt been concepted.

Also, omg:
http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/screenshots/0001/PE-TempleEntrance01-1920x1080.jpg

They have their work cut out for them, that's for sure. April 2014 seems like a pretty tight deadline for such an ambitious project, so I hope they take their time with this and extend production time when they need some extra weeks or months.

I hope they can make good on their promises, though. They have proven that they can handle extremely complex projects on a tight schedule, such as New Vegas, so I'm pretty optimistic right now.

On one hand they dont have publishers rushing them, but on the other hand, their fans/kickstarter pledgers might get impatient, lol.
That concept art does look very nice.

Somehow it's looking kind of wierd for me, dunno why :S

Woah, that screenshot. *Drools* I hope we see a character model at some point soon, but that's probably unlikely. Overall, this update made me feel a bit better about the project. Although they're still going straight fantasy, I like the prospect of the cultural differences, and I like that Souls seem very integrated with the game lore as opposed to just being a hand wave for how magic works. See, this is the kind of stuff I want to hear more of. It's great that they're making a Baldur's Gate-esque RPG, but I want to hear what sets them apart and updates the formula, not what sticks to it. Seriously, that screenshot. :D Prerendered backgrounds should make a comeback. Although retro, I guess, that's one of the things that I still feel like it has a place in modern gaming since it can actually create really amazing visuals (and it ages well, see: Syberia). I'm hoping they release more screens as Wallpapers at some point. I hope they do go with swaying grass, that'd look great and help combat some of the flatness prerendered graphics sometimes have.

EDIT: Argh, broke my spacing. X_X

This isn't a concept art but a true in-game screenshot