Interview Tim Cain Talks Project Eternity at Eurogamer

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Obsidian Entertainment; Project Eternity; Tim Cain

Eurogamers offers a narrative interview with Tim Cain, focusing mainly on Obsidian's new project, Project Eternity. Let me quote the most interesting parts for you:

"Work has already begun on [Project Eternity]," Cain explained, "but the advantage of doing the Kickstarter this early in its development is that we can be guided by the feedback from our fans. We are reading the forums and noting what features people think are most important in the game, and then we are revising our work schedule accordingly."

[...] My main concern about Project Eternity is that fans expect too much. While $1.55 million - or $2 million, or $3 million - may seem like a big wad of cash, it's nowhere near the budget a team like Obsidian usually works with. [...] "Those budget numbers are just right for what we are trying to make," Cain answered. "We have an engine already, and we aren't using an established IP with pre-defined game mechanics and an art style that we have to mimic. Both of these things save us a lot of time, because we are now free to make those elements ourselves."

[...] The Project Eternity Kickstarter blurb mentioned taking your hero character through "future adventures", which seemed to back this theory up. "Yes," Cain answered, "we are hoping to make additional content for the game which you can explore with the same characters." [...] Team size on Project Eternity depends on final budget and feature set. "I'm the most comfortable with teams between 20 and 30 people, so that everyone knows what everyone else is working on," Cain responded, "but if we need to pull in more people to make this game as big and as high-quality as we want, I am sure we will do that."

Gameplay length of Project Eternity, again, "completely depends" on funding. "Adding new content is one of the most time consuming aspects of the RPG development," Cain stressed. There are stretch goals on Kickstarter that will add new races, characters and even entirely new areas.

[...] Cain is excited about developing mature themes for Project Eternity. "To me, a mature game deals with some issues of a serious nature," he elaborated. "Moral choices are a perfect topic. For example, is killing always evil? Is the act of sacrificing someone for the greater good a good act in itself? Does doing good things make a person good? Torment explored these ideas in exquisite detail, and we'd like to do the same." [...] Also, Project Eternity will be a more traditional fantasy game, whereas Torment was almost surreal. Nevertheless, Eternity "will have its own special twists"; "It is definitely not going to be a standard, cookie-cutter fantasy realm," Cain stressed.

[...] Project Eternity won't be built on Dungeons & Dragons rules. "We are making our own RPG mechanics," Cain revealed, even though D&D has been "a huge influence" on them.

At the core of the rules will be souls. In the Kickstarter video, Josh Sawyer said a character's soul was tied to the magic system. Cain expanded: "No, you don't have to be evil to access any abilities. They aren't categorised like that. Instead, in this world, your soul is connected to your power. Simply put, people who have whole, unbroken souls are more powerful than those people who just have fragments of souls. The nature of these souls, and how they might break, is something we will explore in the game.

"While there are social concepts of good and evil," he added, "the game does not track an alignment for the player. Instead we will use a reputation system to keep track of what different groups in the world think of you. Consequences of your actions will matter in Project Eternity." [...] Cain told me Obsidian plans to have unique traits for races "so that playing an elf doesn't feel like playing a human, even if they are both the same class".

[...] Multiplayer isn't ruled out. "Interest?" Tim Cain mulled. "Yes, but not if it risks reducing the scope or quality of the single-player game in any way. Single-player gaming is our focus."

Oh, and Project Eternity "will have guns", Cain told me, "but we are not going into their details right now".​

Click here to read the article in full.

 

[Don Peste]

Do what he says.

 

[Rivmusique]

"While there are social concepts of good and evil," he added, "the game does not track an alignment for the player. Instead we will use a reputation system to keep track of what different groups in the world think of you."

Good, I much prefer this. Definitely did not want an alignment bar, they tend to encourage extremes.

 

[Mrowak]

"I like turn-based combat too," Cain remarked, when I told him I'd rather have that. "I like the tactics involved in the precise movement, orientation and use of abilities. But it can tend to be slow with a large party of character. Real-time-with-pause is faster and can feel more engaging, but I have found the abilities to be harder to use well. One reason for that is because many RTWP RPGs were made based on paper-and-pencil games that used turns, and their abilities were made for opponents that were not moving. I feel that RTWP can be an excellent combat model if the abilities are designed with respect to that model, and not converted from another system."

Finally, a developer who understands that. The question is: will he deliver? M:

 

[SuicideBunny]

Oh, and Project Eternity "will have guns", Cain told me, "but we are not going into their details right now".

a ray of hope appears.

 

[Roguey]

Since Cain says they already have an engine, Avellone said Onyx's middleware makes it too expensive as an option, and for the past few months Sawyer's been tweeting about how amazing Unity is when it comes to quickly iterating new concepts, I'm predicting Unity as the engine. Poor Knotanalt.

"I like turn-based combat too," Cain remarked, when I told him I'd rather have that. "I like the tactics involved in the precise movement, orientation and use of abilities. But it can tend to be slow with a large party of character. Real-time-with-pause is faster and can feel more engaging, but I have found the abilities to be harder to use well. One reason for that is because many RTWP RPGs were made based on paper-and-pencil games that used turns, and their abilities were made for opponents that were not moving. I feel that RTWP can be an excellent combat model if the abilities are designed with respect to that model, and not converted from another system."

Finally, a developer who understands that. The question is: will he deliver? M:

Bioware "understood" too with Dragon Age.

 

[Stinger]

All of that stuff is great to hear.

Like Mrowak I'm glad they're going to try and build a system from the ground up to make RTWP work. I really hope they can pull it off, I actually want to see what RTwP done right would actually play like.

Since Cain says they already have an engine, Avellone said Onyx's middleware makes it too expensive as an option, and for the past few months Sawyer's been tweeting about how amazing Unity is when it comes to quickly iterating new concepts, I'm predicting Unity as the engine. Poor Knotanalt.

This is going to sound really silly, largely because I don't know shit about game development or engines or anything else.

Is it possible for the team to strip away all the expensive middleware stuff and replace it with their own custom software or open source software? At which point it becomes a different engine and that's what Chris Avellone meant?

 

[Mrowak]

"I like turn-based combat too," Cain remarked, when I told him I'd rather have that. "I like the tactics involved in the precise movement, orientation and use of abilities. But it can tend to be slow with a large party of character. Real-time-with-pause is faster and can feel more engaging, but I have found the abilities to be harder to use well. One reason for that is because many RTWP RPGs were made based on paper-and-pencil games that used turns, and their abilities were made for opponents that were not moving. I feel that RTWP can be an excellent combat model if the abilities are designed with respect to that model, and not converted from another system."

Finally, a developer who understands that. The question is: will he deliver? M:

Bioware "understood" too with Dragon Age.

As much as it pains me I must admit that the combat system in DA:O was mostly fine. It was the encounter (and enemy) design where they dropped the ball (oh, the derp roads). I agree that among many challenges encounter design is the one which will be the most difficult for Obsidian to tackle.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Sounds good.

 

[Zed]

Hopefully guns will be restricted to.. muskets, or something.

 

[FeelTheRads]

"but the advantage of doing the Kickstarter this early in its development is that we can be guided by the feedback from our fans. We are reading the forums and noting what features people think are most important in the game, and then we are revising our work schedule accordingly."

Focus on butt-sex romances confirmed.

My main concern about Project Eternity is that fans expect too much. While $1.55 million - or $2 million, or $3 million - may seem like a big wad of cash, it's nowhere near the budget a team like Obsidian usually works with.

So it will be even crappier that the usual Obsidian offering.

 

[Infinitron]

Stinger
At this point I believe that they've forked a new engine off of Onyx, and are calling it a new engine, for branding purposes.

 

[Rivmusique]

As much as it pains me I must admit that the combat system in DA:O was mostly fine. It was the encounter (and enemy) design where they dropped the ball (oh, the derp roads). I agree that among many challenges encounter design is the one which will be the most difficult for Obsidian to tackle.

Not really. Weird, slow melee engagement, mana/cooldown system, health regen etc. I agree that the encounter design was definitely its biggest problem though. Hopefully Obsidian won't just throw hundreds of easy trash packs at us, with maybe 2 interesting encounters.

 

[Gozma]

Like Mrowak I'm glad they're going to try and build a system from the ground up to make RTWP work. I really hope they can pull it off, I actually want to see what RTwP done right would actually play like.

Brigade E5 and 7.62mm are absurdly superior to all mainstream RPG Rtw/P implementations to date, but they are not compatible with endless RPG lawnmowing shit combat so I expect MMORPG-with-pausing design. At least there won't be turns under the hood - just a bar of cooldowns.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Hopefully guns will be restricted to.. muskets, or something.

that female archer concept pic has a strong native american vibe, imo, so anything from arquebuses to revolvers would go well with that.

 

[MicoSelva]

If I am going to see one ability cooldown timer in this game, I swear I'm going to kill someone.*

* No, I'm not. But I will be very, very disappointed.

 

[Fens]

Brigade E5 and 7.62mm are absurdly superior to all mainstream RPG Rtw/P implementations to date, but they are not compatible with endless RPG lawnmowing shit combat so I expect MMORPG-with-pausing design. At least there won't be turns under the hood - just a bar of cooldowns.

didn't play E5, but there's a whole lot of lawnmowing shit combat in 7.62

 

[Gozma]

Brigade E5 and 7.62mm are absurdly superior to all mainstream RPG Rtw/P implementations to date, but they are not compatible with endless RPG lawnmowing shit combat so I expect MMORPG-with-pausing design. At least there won't be turns under the hood - just a bar of cooldowns.

didn't play E5, but there's a whole lot of lawnmowing shit combat in 7.62

It's the system, the "content" stuff is very weak, pretty typical of Russian developers (sorry bros)

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Is it possible for the team to strip away all the expensive middleware stuff and replace it with their own custom software or open source software? At which point it becomes a different engine and that's what Chris Avellone meant?

CDProject RED did it with Aurora for the first TW, even then they still called it a "heavily modified Aurora engine".

 

[nihil]

Fuck yeah. Everything sounds great.

Also: Tim Cain is back in cRPG design.

 

[Volrath]

My main concern about Project Eternity is that fans expect too much. While $1.55 million - or $2 million, or $3 million - may seem like a big wad of cash, it's nowhere near the budget a team like Obsidian usually works with.

So it will be even crappier that the usual Obsidian offering.

Cain didn't say that bro. That was the interviewer's opinion.

 

[nihil]

Cain didn't say that bro. That was the interviewer's opinion.

Which Cain counters convincingly in the next sentence.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Not sure it's convincing, though.

save us a lot of time, because we are now free to make those elements ourselves.

Is it really a time saver if you have to build an RPG system by yourself instead of using an existing one?

And no, the cake analogy does not work (LOLO I WANT CAEK). An RPG system is way more complicated, and using an existing one is not based on looking at a fucking picture.

 

[Jarpie]

Not sure it's convincing, though.

save us a lot of time, because we are now free to make those elements ourselves.

Is it really a time saver if you have to build an RPG system by yourself instead of using an existing one?

And no, the cake analogy does not work (LOLO I WANT CAEK). An RPG system is way more complicated, and using an existing one is not based on looking at a fucking picture.

They probably need to get OK from the holder of the IP for almost everything and fine tune it again, show it to them again and so on which takes more time (and money) than just doing them yourselves.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Torn with guns D: