They just achieved the 2.2M stretch goal

Q: I've been following the updates and (correct me if I'm wrong) it seems like there will be only one companion for each class. While I understand why that would be the case, I would very much like to see more than that. Take Baldur's Gate for example: There were at least 3 companions for each class (eg. Good fighter, neutral fighter, evil fighter). I found that this plethora of companion really helped add immersion as it felt like the world was more realistically populated and the game could be played through several times each with a different party. Following on from that, I would like to see the acquisition of companions handled more like BG than Dragon Age/ Jade Empire, where heaps of characters that you would never use would always be following you around, waiting at a campfire somewhere.

I know this comment was convoluted and didn't actually pose any questions directly, but I would greatly appreciate a reply.
A: We should be talking soon about something that creates a good way for you to be able to do something like that in Project Eternity.

Q: a question I was wondering since the kickstarter announcement: is the PE "small" budget, and I assume "small" developing team, enough to bring back the old Infinity Engine games spirit in terms of lenght and content (given that the big lenght, and not only the game mechanics, had a crucial role creating the memories that brought most of us here)?
A: The original IE teams were not that large and they needed to create a whole new engine with BG. Since we are starting with Unity, our own internal tools (four years of development on our conversation editor) - we feel pretty good about creating a very indepth game for the budget that we end up with on PE

Q: was wondering about the drops system. will it be randomized at all? completely static? some combination of the two?

like you always get lore items period, but if there's say gold to be included it could be in the form of a gem or necklace of equal value, and the armor stats change a bit?
A: The drops system will be semi-random. What I mean by that is there will be specific loot drop lists for things and that loot with be more made loot and not randomly created items. The loot dropped is then picked from the list. Using loot lists, lets us balance the loot that is dropping in specific parts of the game and with specific encounters without having to bring up every single monster and change their specific loot. Although we can still do that for unique things.

Q: can we have a dungeon/backer graphic?
A: Your wish is my command. :) Talking about it with Adam/Rob in just a bit.

Q: Any plans for a tier in between $140 and $250?
A: Sorry to be a broken record here, we are still talking about it and figuring out what to put there.

Q: Something else I would like to ask about: Will changing the difficultly setting alter the amount of experience points (assuming that the game uses XP) acquired? I found this to be an issue in previous RPGs where, if the difficulty was raised, you levelled up faster and so the harder difficulty settings weren't as much of a challenge as they could have been.
A: We generally try to use XP tables that are your "power" vs. the "power" of the things you are defeating. That usually works better than giving extra XP if things are harder. I expect that hard quests will still get more XP, but it will be the same XP no matter what difficultly level you are on.



And more....

Q: Any hope that the Character Creation Tool idea will become a reality?
A: Sorry, don't know right now. Once we figure out where we are going to be with funding, we are going to get all the ideas on the list and start prioritizing. But, I just made sure that is on the list. :)


Q: In the last Tim Cain update, something he said could be interpreted as that there will be per-ability cool-downs a la WoW. Could you confirm/deny this? I personally feel they are bad design, and just a cheap way to nerf overpowered skills.
A: What we are moving forward with right now is a system that does not require a pure round system. In the IE games, each person was running their own six second round and spells were based on whether they were memorzied. How we look at it, rather than going with a memorization system for spells, in particular, we can use a cool down system. It's a similar balancing system without requireing the whole resting for spells. As for ablities being on that timer, D&D also had certain abilities that could only be used a certain number of times per day - again we want to mimic that with a cool down system.

Q: regarding the quest-based crafting, Drakensang had some powerfull items craftable-only, but one ingredient necessary is always a unique trophy (like the best longbow which uses a part of a dragon) and sometimes this unique item can be used in more then one recipe, which forces a choice by the player. What about this besides the reforging weapons from BG2?
A: That's pretty cool and I'd forgotten about that system in Darkensang. I'll put it down as another option.

Q: any Idea on how customizable the player housing will be?
A: Our first goal with the housing is to have a good number of quests and NPCs surrounding it to make getting it and upgrading it fun. After that point, we are still working out the level of customization.

Q: any word on if italian, russian and polish translations will be up for a stretch goal? i know a ton of people have been asking about that, and it'd be nice to have some info for them if you have anything.
A: Might have some announcements on that very soon..... :)

Q: Have you already decided if there will be a big city (or more than one) in the game (like Athkatla in BG 2)?
A: We have not determined that yet. Personally, I like having a big city in our games like BG, Neverwinter, Athkatla, the Hub, Sigil, etc...

Q: An idea for you guys. If you can queue actions (use this skill, then this skill, then go here, then attack this guy), you could do tactical combat pause style, but then unpause and watch the action unfold for a bit.
A: Absolutely, we are going to have a queue system so that when you un-pause your party will follow a certain number of them. Not sure on the number exactly yet, probably around three though.

Q: as a possible stretch goal, or part of one: maybe including exotic weaponry like whips and such? i think that could be an interesting add-on.
A: Added the Exotic Weaponary idea to the list/e-mail I'm putting together here to Adam and the team.

Q: Cool-downs are not real disadvantages that you take into account when deciding what to do next. They are artificial limitations. Each ability should come with real disadvantages (long execution time while you're locked in place, huge mana cost, etc).
A: Gotcha. Personally, I think that cool downs can be used for both good and evil. We would try to stay on the path of good. :)

Q: Question for us $65 tier pledgers.

Is the box version going to be cardboard or plastic?

Will there be a box release after launch?
A: It will, most likely, but something similar to a double DVD case - like you see most games in now-a-days. As for after the KS for a box copy, not sure, but we don't have any plans right now to do another run of them.

Q: I guess my next question is about dialogue. Any chance for Visual Novel style dialogue where the characters talking have potraits appear on the screen that have emotions that can change and stuff while the conversation is happening? It's a fairly cheap but powerful way to show the viewer what is going on without too much cost I think.
A: Cool idea, I'll put on the list.

Q: one last question, more artistic themed, I guess. There was a difference between Tormen and BG II (the most story focused games of the IE), maybe a slight deatil for lots of people, but something I felt very important: the narrative direction. In Torment the narrative was literary, with rich and detailed written descriptions. BG was far more "prosaic", almost a dull movie script. What narrative approach can we hope in PE, more Torment like or more BG like? Wich do you prefer?
A: Best way to answer is that Torment and Fallout designers are working on Project Eternity.


Anything that doesn't make sense is likely my copy/paste error.

This is a horrible idea, and I desperately hope "the acquisition of companions handled more like BG " doesn't actually happen, because character acquisition in Baldur's gate was shit, and only worked (at the marginal level it worked at, i.e. not well) because the characters were so completely boring, you're not missing anything by missing them.. In fact, I actually sent them a message to this effect before I even read this FAQ (uh, worded a little more tactfully), so I can only hope for the best.

edit: On a brighter note, another stretch goal was just reached.

I guess the addition of 'Crafting' hooked more people to this Kickstart project. I still haven't pledged, honestly, I don't know if I will. Real time Kombat with pause is a huge turnoff, unless they actually do it right. I'm still considering it, but I haven't made my mind just yet.

I won't be pledging for this project either. It doesn't interest me a whole lot and they seem to have enough money already. I will save my dollars for a project that interests me more and is more need of some funding.

It's supposed to be like the IE games, which were real time with pause. If you liked those why is it a bad thing? If you didn't like those why would you be interested in this in the first place?

I liked the Baldur's Gate series, what I didn't like was the combat. I guess I'm all thumbs. Great music, story, handicaped by the combat system imho.

Project Eternity will likely play rather differently to the Baldur's Gate series - since they aren't using the D&D ruleset, combat should seem more fluid and (possibly) easier to control without characters being locked into artificial "rounds".

Obsidian has mentioned that they're implementing a large number of auto-pause triggers and conditions - so if you want the game to play a bit more like a turn-based RPG, just activate those.

More from Feargus, as he jumped back on the KS Comments page for a couple hours:


Q: Does the in-game KS item apply only to the backer or also to any extra copies of the game that may be gifted?
A: If the question was about all the copies getting the KS item - they will.

Q: had an idea related to pledges. what if pretty much everything could be done as an add-on? i'm not talking like the make an NPC type thing, but like adding a boxed set of the game, a collectors edition, just the cloth map, etc. i know a lot of people want some of those things, but they don't want to move off the tier they're currently on, or don't want to lose the early bird spot. basically make it possible for them to make a custom tier using add-ons. that way people that wanted more than one of something on the tier their on could do that as well.

for me personally (on the 250 tier), i'd love if i could upgrade the collectors book to hardcover and get the autographs moved to that instead of the collectors box.

i don't know how possible that is, but i know things like that being available (or customizable since so many people love that word in the comments) would help drum up some more pledge money. and i'd think that the more of a specific thing you were printing/getting made, the more costs for said thing would go down. at least that's how i understand things like that to work most of the time.

also, things like signatures on boxes and making characters and things of that nature would only be on those particular tiers, because really, that's what makes those tiers special.

thoughts?
A: We are looking at making the book at the $250 level a hardback. Should update on that soon. As for other physical add-ons we are having the already getting physical goods or not, international or not problem. We might open up our own store that can figure that stuff out more automatically. Darren and I have been talking about it. [Darren - co-founder of Obsidian and forum/web/IT guy]

Q: Hi Fergus. Will the mega dungeon some kind of random generated dungeon that is differnt each time you visit it? The "But the courses of Od Nua's madness run far below the surface" kind of sounds like it.
A: We are thinking right now that it will be a custom dungeon that we create by hand. Partly, so that it fits in with the rest of the game from a balancing and content perspective. We have talked about a random dungeon, but as something we would release (potentially) after the game comes out.

Q: So Chris Avellone is working on Wasteland 2 as well as P:E? Is there one he is focusing more on?
A: Chris is wraping up his work on Wasteland 2 in the next few weeks. He's put in a ton of time on it over the last four or five months. He will still be checking in on Wasteland 2 and helping out a bit here and there, but he'll be primarily on PE.

Q: You might look to the Numenera campaign, and Monte Cook, for book shipping stuff. He had a lot of physical rewards, especially books, that needed pledges increased for shipping.
A: Good idea. We know Monte from our D&D days and also backed Nuenera (under my personal account). For some reason, didn't think about talking to him. We also know the White Wolf guys really well - they haven't been making a lot of books - but probalby still worth a conversation.

Q: ooo... hardback! *drools*

would there be anyway i could get the signatures from the collectors box shifted to the book though? i'd really rather have them on something a bit more sturdy than a game box.
A: That's a thought. Maybe both. I'll sent that along.

Q: I was wondering if the Player House would include the crafting and enchanting. Will we be able to do those things there? That'd be really in keeping with it being our house :D
A: That's the plan, but we want to make sure you don't just have to be there to do it.

Q: Are your prepared to sign off on everyone's medical leave after they develop severe tendonitis from signing all that stuff?
A: LOL, but we are totally living in denial right now about the number of copies that will have to be signed. Although notice how my name isn't on there? :) But.... I will be signing all of them as well. Curse you parents for giving me 15 letter in my name!!

Q: I wanted to say how good the new stretch goal and mega dungeon are :D. I like a LOT you've come up with a tangible and fun thing that more backers will produce (the dungeon :D). And I think of crafting and enchanting as essential; they're more or less a game in themselves; one I'd like very much to play :)
A: Thanks! We have been looking all over the other Kickstarter campaigns and also really trying to listen to everyone. What would really help is that everyone could get the word out that just new backers gets us to new goals.

Q: Will you do the level/power of the creatures scaled? Im really worried about that, I'm playing a new "RPG" (aka hack and slash adventure game) and I hate how the NPCs are harder everytime. Same guys, just more power. I mean, Im a kind of demigod or something, then, the vulgar thief of the town spank me. Thats annoying! Please, say "no level scaling!"
A: We are going to use a number of different systems. Some creatures will be fixed based upon where they are in the world. Some will scale and then be fixed based upon where you go in the world first. Why we do it that way is so we can have the world be non-linear in places. For instance, if you can goto three adventure areas in any order you want, we have to scale them to make sure that they all remain challenging when you get to the second and third ones.

Q: I don't think this has beem asked yet, but do areas re-populate its "mobiles" after a time or do they renain cleared and empty after the adventuring party has cleared it? It would be nice if it remains empty but will respawn after say 12-24hours real time.

Also, will the Mega Dungeon respawn eventually, or remains cleared where our heroes have passed through?
A: That is something that we are still talking about. There are people on both sides of the debate - ones who think we should re-spawn and others that areas should remain cleared. What I can say is that we want to make sure that players don't feel like they have to clear areas again just to get from A to B (can get annoying).

Q: Maybe it would be good if you post at the Update 13 comments also that the Mega Dungeon is handcrafted to have a bether visibility for this answear
A: E-mailed Adam to see how he wants to update the update.

Q: I think it would really help the drive to have about six more stretch goals to reach. Then people can see where the drive is'going' (even if the goals are being invented as they are met!), and decide if they really want to plough in or not. I believe that had a lot to do with Planetary Annihilation's success on Kickstarter :) I mean of course six *above where the project is at any given time*
A: You have just dived into one of the big debates. We have gotten a lot of advice with the stretch goals. Not sure yet what we are going to do.

Q: Since you had to leave earlier, would you now share your thoughts on my two primary concerns with cool-downs, and whether they would apply to your system?

My concerns: 1) Skills need to be balanced, of course, in order to encourage players to use many of them. Cool-downs are a very artificial way to balance skills, that just tell the player "I know this skill is the best, but you can only use it once a minute", which waters down the decision making, imo. I usually find I want to use the "big ones" as soon as they are ready, because often their only disadvantage is the cool-down. 2) Cool-downs are very meta. Why would one skill have a "reload time" of a minute, while another one has one of 10 seconds, with no interference between the two? It's very detached from anything that tries to model an actual world with real rules. A shared resource such as mana makes more sense since it could represent the mage's stamina pool, for example, from which *all spells* are drawn.
A: I totally understand your point. The thought on cool down is that it allows for less powerful and more powerful abilities/spells. Going back to the spell memorization system, the balance and tactics were created by only being able to memorize so many fireballs, while a lot more magic missiles.

Q: It might have other drawbacks, but I think having short stretches (100K or 200K at the most) for several future stretch goals (like quicktooth suggests) will drive current backers to up their pledges, since you're always close to the next level. Plus it feels like a lot is happening, which generates interest. That might be more suitable for the last week of the campaign though.
A: We are going with the $100K levels right now,and for instance we will probably release the next stretch goal when we get over $2.25M. Also, having the backer goals should help a bit as well. Particularly when Rob gets the graphic done.




More on this update at the top of the next page.

Reading through the updates and questions - anyone else think people in general may expect a bit too much from the game ? (everyone seems to want a RPG with everything under the sun), considering its budget is dwarfed by AAA/AA games

Glad you posted, so I can put the rest of the update in here. :P

Oh, and yes, I agree. I'm just trusting that the Obsidian guys will not try to please everyone and just stick with what their vision of the game was/will be.

Anyway, rest of the update:


Q: I wanted to ask you whether you can elaborate more about the contents of the strategy guide.
Funny thought. is it only now that you'll add it to each order or whether each person who joined the Obisidian order basically added himself one?
A: At the end of the campaign, you'll get the survey and can say how you would like to spend that extra $8. Oh, and the strategy guide will be a real strategy guide. Not one of those 8 or 10 page ones that get thrown in with a game.

Q: Since this is a homage to IE games, which one of the weakest element is the animation on the characters during fights and everything else. My question is what are your plans to remedy this with the amount of budget that you got so far.
A: The challenge with animation in the IE games was that the characters were sprite based (2D) so every frame was a piece of artwork and could only be rendered at so many angles (eight I think). For PE, we are using 3D charactes so we can have much smoother animations, not just the eight angles and lots more animation variations.

Q: I'm very happy for the spanish traslation But 25 $ for the Beta access, it's very expensive for me
A: We tried to follow the Planetary Anhilation model for figuring out the BETA/Early Access key amount.

Q: would there be anyway to make the cooldowns influence each other? like with what you're doing making the character more tired. like if you spam a bunch of cheaper actions, it'll eventually make everything else take longer because you're wearing the character out?
A: Interesting idea, I'm wondering if it gets to a point where we are trying to model too many things. For instance, another way to do that would just to make sure the original cost made it so you couldn't spam. Just a thought.

Q: but then you lose the feeling that you're actually effecting your characters. which is really the point of it. do i want to use all these little spells, and possibly make it so i can't use the big one when i need it, or hold off on them and use them at judicious moments, and possibly just use the bigger spells to maximum effect. it adds to the tactics/thinking about the situation a whole lot more, and is really fairly simple/intuitive to understand. everyone gets tired from doing something. think like the way harry gets tired in the dresden files. sure, he can still do more, but it's less effective because he's literally worn himself out.
A: True and gotcha. Need to think about how many different systems though - however, you are right there are systems that use a pool (like mana) plus cooldown.

Q: Hey Feargus, have you guys talked at all about adding a scrolling combat/text log like in Fallout or more preferably Baldur's Gate?
A: We haven't, but getting added to the list right now.

Q: I know strategy guides as explanations of mechanics and revealing every spot in the game. will yours be just that or fill a whole different purpose? like being an encyclopedia for the game lore.
A: The strat guide will be a walkthrough of the game and then information the mechanics and the items as well.

Q: I'm latin, but there are a lot of comments about a Russian translation. I guess you could make something like "if Russia gets 5000 backers, Russian translation!" Even Japanese could be there if there are enough people of Japan interested. That would attract some target people and will encourage the actual backers to find more friends and bring them here.
A: That's true. It's hard to get from people where they are from though. However, we should have something cool to announce on Russian and Polish really soon.

Q: I would say a memorization system has two advantages: 1) less restrictive, you can burn your spells whenever you want, not tied down to a frequence, and 2) you might have a reason to save spells for an upcoming battle. You need to plan ahead.
A: True. Some of that does get handled by a cool down system - not everything and not suggesting that. I'll e-mail the guys and say that this might be something good to talk about in more detail soon.

Q: maybe kind of how skyrim does the respawn might work? it's like every thirty days (in game), and you actually have to sleep in a bed instead of just rest. personally i really liked that because it means if you want things to respawn you can make them, but if you don't then you just don't sleep in a bed.
also, it ties into a bigger question. how do you want to set the max experience, because if things respawn then you can basically grind things if you really feel like it and then make other things easier. in some ways it can be game breaking, but if you limit it the way i said it can work out decently.
or maybe, depending on how time is going to go in the game, have it be every few months that things respawn. that would be a lot more organic i think. like bandits think the spot really was good, don't know what cleared it last time and move back in. same for animals and things like that.
A: Gotcha on the re-spawn comment. I'll put it on the list of stuff for the guys to read.

Q: Any lessons learned while developing Stick of Truth that you could see being used in PE?
A: Hmmm.. That's a good question. Almost all the systems are very different. This is totally a tools thing, but we did change our conversation system a bit. We created a new conversation file that handles all of the branching upon entering the dialog that then branches to individual conversation paths. That helped structure them a little cleaner.

Q: With cool downs, Standing-Still spamming could be worse than rest spamming. With this mega-dungeon, after completing one level you will just Stand-Still spam on every level and never run out of spells, before going down to the next level. In the IE games, the only way to get the spells back is take the chance of sleeping in the dungeon and possibly get attacked. I hope the dev's take this into consideration.
A: Copied a lot of the thoughts on cool-down directly into an e-mail to Josh, Tim and Chris.

Q: cool. but above all, we're just making suggestions, giving suggestions, and trusting you guys to make a great game. i don't think any of us would be here if we didn't trust you guys.
A: Appreciate it, and I really am happy to talk about this stuff. Believe me we have many, many debates about our games at Obsidian.

Q: We got the 2.2mil stretch goal. It adds a "new faction, with its region". So.... What exactly is a "faction" in this game?
A: A good example would be a faction from Fallout: New Vegas like the NCR or Caesar's Legion. They have a very big impact on the game and whole areas that they are found in.

Q: my brother's here, and i just asked him what the one thing he disliked the most about IWD2, and he said it was how you ALWAYS used the same weapons through the game. like how you'd use the widow maker throughout the entire game, no matter what you found. and it was something you could get at the very beginning of the game. it just made things kind of boring. and this is a guy who played heart of fury with level one characters, survived and made it nearly to the end of the game doing this.
A: That sounds really odd about the Widow Maker - I'm wondering if that was a bug. We are generally pretty good about making sure you can't get items that are that powerful very early. Thanks for pointing out.

There are quite a few excellent games that have been made without a huge budget, though that requires a strong dedication "to the cause". I'm not sure Obsidian have that, but if they really believe in the project they should work for "minimum pay" for a while, and then reap the profits if the project does well. Lets say they get $3 million from Kickstarter. To make a top class RPG, everything paid up front, they probably need $5 million or more. If they put up the difference themselves (after all, why should all the proceeds from a Kickstarter project be pure profit?), they should come out on top. The break even point would be around 200,000 units sold (not including the Kickstarter pledges).

Mount & Blade Warband is easily on my top 10 list, and it was made on a low budget.

Update #14:

*** There's also some music embedded, but you'll have to make the jump for that. ;)

Just noticed the update on the KS page. Thanks for catching it, Damuna. DLing the music now...

*edit* Liking the music, especially the 'Dirge' track.