Obsidian Reveals 'Project Eternity' - Kickstarter Live
Obsidian Reveals 'Project Eternity' - Kickstarter Live
Game News - posted by Zed on Fri 14 September 2012, 19:05:06
Tags: Kickstarter; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of EternityLink: Project Eternity Kickstarter
EDIT: Kickstarter fully funded in a little over a day! Party time!
Project Eternity is the (working?) title of Obsidian Entertainment's next game, an isometric party-based CRPG set in a new fantasy setting (hooray for new IPs!).
Here's the run-down:
Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.
Combat uses a tactical real-time with pause system - positioning your party and coordinating attacks and abilities is one of the keys to success. The world map is dotted with unique locations and wilderness ripe for exploration and questing. You’ll create your own character and collect companions along the way – taking him or her not just through this story, but, with your continued support, through future adventures. You will engage in dialogues that are deep, and offer many choices to determine the fate of you and your party. …and you'll experience a story that explores mature themes and presents you with complex, difficult choices to shape how your story plays out.
We are excited at this chance to create something new, yet reminiscent of those great games and we want you to be a part of it as well.
Click here to go to the Kickstarter page and read more about it. There will probably be a ton of interviews and stuff during the next 30 days, so stay tuned for all that.
Update
Gamebanshee has an interview up with Feargus Urquhart already! It might offer a little more in-depth information than the Kickstarter page. For instance:
EDIT: Kickstarter fully funded in a little over a day! Party time!
Project Eternity is the (working?) title of Obsidian Entertainment's next game, an isometric party-based CRPG set in a new fantasy setting (hooray for new IPs!).
Here's the run-down:
Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.
Combat uses a tactical real-time with pause system - positioning your party and coordinating attacks and abilities is one of the keys to success. The world map is dotted with unique locations and wilderness ripe for exploration and questing. You’ll create your own character and collect companions along the way – taking him or her not just through this story, but, with your continued support, through future adventures. You will engage in dialogues that are deep, and offer many choices to determine the fate of you and your party. …and you'll experience a story that explores mature themes and presents you with complex, difficult choices to shape how your story plays out.
We are excited at this chance to create something new, yet reminiscent of those great games and we want you to be a part of it as well.
Click here to go to the Kickstarter page and read more about it. There will probably be a ton of interviews and stuff during the next 30 days, so stay tuned for all that.
Update
Gamebanshee has an interview up with Feargus Urquhart already! It might offer a little more in-depth information than the Kickstarter page. For instance:
Buck: What can you tell us about the entirely new fantasy world you're building, and would you categorize it as high/low magic or high/low/heroic fantasy? Why did you decide to go with fantasy instead of a lesser used theme, and what are some unique elements that set your world apart from the many others already out there?
Feargus: We talked a lot about the genre and to be honest we kept on coming back to fantasy. With all the experience we have had with a lot of varied fantasy settings, we are really looking for to taking our unique approach with factions, characters and mature themes to the setting. Ultimately, we really feel that what an RPG is about is the characters and the story – not the setting. Hit points are hit points whether you are killing past, present or future zombies. What engages and what keeps you going in an RPG are characters that you love and hate and story lines that tug at your emotions.
Buck: You stated that you're shooting for a mature game with themes that treat players as adults. Does this mean that there will be difficult choices with harsh consequences, realistic scenarios of repression, racism, and survival, bloody and ever-present war, shocking dialogue, or all of the above?
Feargus: Chris Avellone said it best when he talked about how we want tackle Mature subject matter. We are already getting to make South Park which gets all of the “dick and fart jokes” out of our system. In Project Eternity, we want to tell a story that treats players like adults. Does that mean sensationalistic topics – potentially. It means more that if a story is going in a direction our designers don’t need to shy away from how it concludes.
Buck: Speaking of dialogue, are you also using the Infinity Engine games as a source of inspiration for how to handle dialogue trees and voiceovers? Will there be voiceovers for major cutscenes and for flavor at the start of a conversation, but vast branches of dialogue that are text-only? Will our attributes, abilities, or previous actions affect our dialogue choices?
Feargus: Our goal is to use voice over as flavor and not as something that exists for every written word in the game. We don’t want to cut down on the depth of dialogs or the number of choices that players have because we are counting voice over dollars. That means, like practically every Obsidian project to date, we are going to push the boundaries of reactivity in our dialogs. And, the more we get funded the more we can do that.
Feargus: We talked a lot about the genre and to be honest we kept on coming back to fantasy. With all the experience we have had with a lot of varied fantasy settings, we are really looking for to taking our unique approach with factions, characters and mature themes to the setting. Ultimately, we really feel that what an RPG is about is the characters and the story – not the setting. Hit points are hit points whether you are killing past, present or future zombies. What engages and what keeps you going in an RPG are characters that you love and hate and story lines that tug at your emotions.
Buck: You stated that you're shooting for a mature game with themes that treat players as adults. Does this mean that there will be difficult choices with harsh consequences, realistic scenarios of repression, racism, and survival, bloody and ever-present war, shocking dialogue, or all of the above?
Feargus: Chris Avellone said it best when he talked about how we want tackle Mature subject matter. We are already getting to make South Park which gets all of the “dick and fart jokes” out of our system. In Project Eternity, we want to tell a story that treats players like adults. Does that mean sensationalistic topics – potentially. It means more that if a story is going in a direction our designers don’t need to shy away from how it concludes.
Buck: Speaking of dialogue, are you also using the Infinity Engine games as a source of inspiration for how to handle dialogue trees and voiceovers? Will there be voiceovers for major cutscenes and for flavor at the start of a conversation, but vast branches of dialogue that are text-only? Will our attributes, abilities, or previous actions affect our dialogue choices?
Feargus: Our goal is to use voice over as flavor and not as something that exists for every written word in the game. We don’t want to cut down on the depth of dialogs or the number of choices that players have because we are counting voice over dollars. That means, like practically every Obsidian project to date, we are going to push the boundaries of reactivity in our dialogs. And, the more we get funded the more we can do that.
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