[Aptorian]

Quote

What's Next? Stretch goals and an update from Obsidian
Update #2 · Sep. 15, 2012 · 158 comments


We are excited to announce the first stretch goals for Project Eternity!

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.

2.4 million and beyond! Coming Soon!

We've been listening to your feedback, and have the following announcements:

DRM Free: We are looking into it! Please check back for updates.
Digital Only Tiers are coming!
PayPal is coming asap. Please be patient!
New $5k Tier. We are looking into a new $5k tier since it sold out so quickly! We are looking into equivalent alternatives.

Thank you fans!

Obsidian

Honestly, I think they are going to blow past these stretch goals in a matter of days.

[Khellendros]

Any chance that one of the further stretch goals will be a console version?

[Aptorian]

The problem with consoles is that they are locked and controlled by the company that owns them. They will want their cut. I am sure they , Microsoft especially, would have problem with releasing free games that they don't get a cut of. Additionally any updates to the game or patches would cost the developers 50,000 dollars a pop in the case of Microsoft. PCs are much better to develop a game for in regards to distribution.

Also, how well does isometric point and clicks work with a controller?

This post has been edited by Aptorius: 16 September 2012 - 07:38 AM

[Macros]

isometrics (rpg and rts) are the hold of the pc imo. consoles are for fighting, sports racing and shooters (i know hardcore gamers disagree massively on the shooter, but for me the ps controller with 2 analogs is far easier to control than mouse and keys)

[rhulad]

Fuck I want this game to be done already. I'm going to be so impatient waiting for this.

[Aptorian]

Less than 24 hours to go. If you're interested in the game but haven't pledged anything now is the time. Go tell your friends!

If it reaches 3,5 million they add a second "big city" to the game. All though with the Paypal funding on top they may have already reached 3,5 million.

[rhulad]

There is 10 hours left and they currently sit at 3.49 million. 10k more and we get a second city. 8 more backers and we get another level of the mega dungeon.

[Aptorian]

I believe that they announced they'd recieved over a hundred thousand via paypal a while ago so, assuming every pledge goes through, it looks like the extra big city is funded.

I think they could have earned a lot more money if they'd added more and bigger goals early on. To me it looked like all they really needed and had planned for was around 2,000,000 and they didn't really know what to go for from there on, hence the somewhat random last goals.

[MTS]

I still can't believe that so many people have pledged over $1000 for this game.

[rhulad]

If I could have afforded to throw $1000 away, I would have pledged that much. Bauldur's gate is one of my all time favourite games and I can't wait to have another out that is like it.

[cerveza_fiesta]

I'm in for $25 (earlybird was sold out). Screw you guys for making this thread and forcing me to spend it.

And you did force me to spend it (before you get all up in arms)...how can any self-respecting computer gamer look at a kickstarter for a project like that and not kick in for at least a digital download???? $25 is a pittance for a modern computer game and guaranteed this one is going to have 10x the content and depth of even the biggest modern RPGs (like Skyrim), which currently go for $70 in Canada.


Very much looking forward to this. I'd actually like if one of the stretch goals was a tablet/phone version that syncs saves with your computer at home. That would totally rule!

[Aptorian]

cerveza_fiesta, on 16 October 2012 - 03:35 PM, said:

and guaranteed this one is going to have 10x the content and depth of even the biggest modern RPGs (like Skyrim), which currently go for $70 in Canada. That would totally rule!

How on earth do you make sense of that? Its budget as of now is probably 5% or less than the budget of a game like Skyrim. I haven't had time to play Skyrim yet but that game is huuuge. Ain't no way they will be able to trump AAA games in terms of content and quality. It's not going to happen, it's not that kind of project. Depth is another matter though, but that depth is more likely to come from the lore than the actual game mechanics which sound like they will be a return to the classics.

This game is going to be niche and fan pleasing but I doubt we should set our hopes for a game that is capable of beating the biggest and best games ever produced. To me I am looking for a game that doesn't try to be a block buster but rather seeks to make an homage to the ancestors of the RPG genre.

EDIT: Just to clarify. 3,5 million sounds like a lot of money but in the games industry it is a shoestring budget.

This post has been edited by Aptorius: 16 October 2012 - 04:14 PM

[Macros]

I think what he is saying is that its story and depth will be far greater than the AAA games running around now.
Why? Because they won't have to spend millions on flashy graphics to please the masses to gaurantee sales. They can focus on actual content over visual appeal.
Which would be my preference for virtually every game.
DO and SotHR kick MoC's ass up and down the park, point and case of the wastage on prettifying.
Give me playability and story line over graphics any day of the week
Any
Day

Even a sunday

[cerveza_fiesta]

You are right macros, maybe content is too vague a descriptor.

After playing through BG2, and slowly picking my way thru skyrim, I find there is a lot of great content in both. The difference, as macros says, is depth. Skyrim has a lot of content and a big world to be sure, but in essence it's a lot of repetitive content. I mean, there are like a dozen dragon overlooks where you can slay dragons, and every single town has a "kill the dragon that is plaguing the town" quest. Every town likewise has 2-3 "kill the bandit leader at location x" quests. Lots of bandit leaders to kill, no real reason to feel one way or the other about doing so.

The contrast would be if the same dozen slay-the-dragon quests were strung together into a winding questline that takes you to many different points around the province, where you rid the skies of the leader dragons culminating in some big ass boss fight, having conversations with each, and picking up items that reveal lore about the province of Skyrim and its history with dragons along the way. The contrast in the "kill the bandit case" would be breaking up a massive organized smuggling ring, solving a bit of a mystery along the way and improving the life of the small business people of skyrim, with measurable effect on your relations and trading ability.

The former case adds content for sure, but it's content in the form of "things to do". The latter adds content and gives the player a reason to want to complete the quests. Even without nostalgia blinders, I think it's fair to say that BG and its contemporaries, despite being "smaller" games have just as much content as their modern counterparts - even a top-tier game like Skyrim or Fallout 3. Their heavy dependence on conversation and dialogue choice made the story an unavoidable part of every quest rather than quests being check boxes on the way to completion of the game.

Not saying the modern games have no story whatsoever, and no depth whatsoever, they just don't do it as well as the older ones.

In that light, I think it's fair to say that a new top-down-iso-tactical RPG in the spirit of BG, with a $3.5M budget to work with (and not being slaved to scripting of flashy visuals) can have 10x the *actual* content of a game like skyrim.

[rhulad]

Agree 100% with cerveza about the difference between content in BG games and Skyrim (and its like).

[POOPOO MCBUMFACE]

Aptorius, on 16 October 2012 - 04:09 PM, said:

but that depth is more likely to come from the lore than the actual game mechanics which sound like they will be a return to the classics.

I fail to see how a "return to the classics" means the game mechanics won't be deep. Quite the opposite.

The majority share of most game budgets go towards graphics, voice acting and - by far the largest single area - marketing, not depth of content or gameplay. Games haven't improved as budgets have soared; they've changed, they've become more polished, but it's a matter of opinion as to whether they offer a better gameplay experience now than they did 10-15 years ago. I don't think they do. Apparently, neither do Obsidian, or InXile, or many others. And I get the impression they're finally making the games they've wanted to make for years.

Not that this will necessarily be the case with Project: Eternity, given how little concrete information we actually have on it. I'm far more excited for Wasteland 2, Dead State, Chaos Chronicles, Age of Decadence and Grimoire. But it all looks good so far

This post has been edited by POOPOO MCBUMFACE: 16 October 2012 - 06:12 PM

[Mentalist]

upping pledge from 20 to 50. ought to be a good game.

[Stalker]

_{Yup, I threw in too. Thanks for the reminder.}

[Messremb]

20 to 50? Should have gone 20+20 for the expansion...

Kickstarter closed at $3,986,929, with Paypal added this'll push it well over the $4M. Woo. Now to wait well over a year before I can play, damn.

[POOPOO MCBUMFACE]

So the Kickstarter ended with a livestream in which, to live up to Obsidian's pedigree, they all got so drunk they accidentally muted Urquhart's closing speech and had a thumb war competition instead. Good stuff.