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Tags: Chris Avellone; Feargus Urquhart; Kickstarter; Obsidian Entertainment; Project Eternity
Two more interviews about Project Eternity have popped up. First, Pure Sophistry has a podcast/radio interview up with Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment. They talk about Project Eternity, publishers, BioWare and more over the span of 15 minutes. I have embedded the interview below:
Here's a transcribed excerpt:
You’ve had great success in the past, now you’re jumping into Kickstarter with your new game, “Project Eternity” What exactly is Project Eternity?
Feargus: A lot of us before we worked for Obsidian, we worked for another company called Internet Interplay, which had an RPG division “Black Isle Studios” which I was the founder back then we worked with a developer called Bioware on games like Baldur’s gate and the sequel and internally, Icewind Dale 2. A lot of people called these games the resurgence of sort of PC role playing games. They were fun games that people loved to play, but they sort of stopped being made and we were having a real challenge getting publishers funding and people interested so when Kickstarter came out we realized this was the perfect way to recreate the games people remember fondly again.
Why make the choice of developing this particular project on Kickstarter?
Feargus: That’s a really good question, I think a lot of it is we want to make the game. It’s a game we really want to make and it’s a game we feel that we can really make well. It’s funny, I was just talking to a publisher about an hour ago and he said, “Why didn’t you come and talk to us about publishing Project Eternity?” I said, I’m a pretty good salesmen- but not good enough to come into your office and ask you for money for a PC Roleplaying game. It’s just not something alot of the publishers are built around. It just made sense to “Kick-start it”
And a funny tidbit:
There's also a new interview with Chris Avellone up at TIME. Here's a snip:
Thanks Infinitron and Crooked Bee!
Two more interviews about Project Eternity have popped up. First, Pure Sophistry has a podcast/radio interview up with Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment. They talk about Project Eternity, publishers, BioWare and more over the span of 15 minutes. I have embedded the interview below:
Here's a transcribed excerpt:
You’ve had great success in the past, now you’re jumping into Kickstarter with your new game, “Project Eternity” What exactly is Project Eternity?
Feargus: A lot of us before we worked for Obsidian, we worked for another company called Internet Interplay, which had an RPG division “Black Isle Studios” which I was the founder back then we worked with a developer called Bioware on games like Baldur’s gate and the sequel and internally, Icewind Dale 2. A lot of people called these games the resurgence of sort of PC role playing games. They were fun games that people loved to play, but they sort of stopped being made and we were having a real challenge getting publishers funding and people interested so when Kickstarter came out we realized this was the perfect way to recreate the games people remember fondly again.
Why make the choice of developing this particular project on Kickstarter?
Feargus: That’s a really good question, I think a lot of it is we want to make the game. It’s a game we really want to make and it’s a game we feel that we can really make well. It’s funny, I was just talking to a publisher about an hour ago and he said, “Why didn’t you come and talk to us about publishing Project Eternity?” I said, I’m a pretty good salesmen- but not good enough to come into your office and ask you for money for a PC Roleplaying game. It’s just not something alot of the publishers are built around. It just made sense to “Kick-start it”
And a funny tidbit:
[Feargus:] If we listened to everyone, it would be a Japanese turn-based dating sim with insect people.
There's also a new interview with Chris Avellone up at TIME. Here's a snip:
Pledgers are probably wondering, say you hit all your stretch goals, are there any ways Project Eternity will feel like a “lesser” game than something with a tens-of-millions budget? Should people expect a game world at least as artistically, narratively and mechanically rich as Baldur’s Gate 2 or Planescape?
So here’s my view – I don’t feel Baldur’s Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, or Icewind Dale are lesser games. At all. I feel they allow for more differences than modern blockbusters, and I’d argue they’re more RPGs than a number of triple-A titles on the market, mostly because they allow more freedom for the player to bring their own creativity and voice to the experience. Want your own portrait? Sure. Want your own bio? Sure. Want a spell and combat system that’s not limited to the controller buttons? ‘Twould be our pleasure. Prefer having a world that’s not limited by console memory? ‘Twould be our pleasure x2. We couldn’t have made many of the locations in Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment in a current console-gen title without blowing out the memory or making compromises, but in a game like this, we have more freedom to effectively paint a landscape for a player to explore.
So here’s my view – I don’t feel Baldur’s Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, or Icewind Dale are lesser games. At all. I feel they allow for more differences than modern blockbusters, and I’d argue they’re more RPGs than a number of triple-A titles on the market, mostly because they allow more freedom for the player to bring their own creativity and voice to the experience. Want your own portrait? Sure. Want your own bio? Sure. Want a spell and combat system that’s not limited to the controller buttons? ‘Twould be our pleasure. Prefer having a world that’s not limited by console memory? ‘Twould be our pleasure x2. We couldn’t have made many of the locations in Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment in a current console-gen title without blowing out the memory or making compromises, but in a game like this, we have more freedom to effectively paint a landscape for a player to explore.
Thanks Infinitron and Crooked Bee!
MCA is unleashing his inner Codexer.
of computer gaming but I now have hope. 
