Development Info Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #53: More on Monsters

[Infinitron]

Tags: Bobby Null; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity

This week's Project Eternity Kickstarter update, written by designer Bobby Null, is all about monster design. It presents Obsidian's design goals for Project Eternity's monsters, describes the pipeline for adding a new monster to the game's bestiary, and introduces a new monster from the game - the Cean Gúla ("Blood Woman"). Check it out:

One of my responsibilities has been creating the bestiary for Project Eternity. I'll admit, it's been a lot of work, but it's also been a lot fun. Like most of the things we do here at Obsidian, the process has been very collaborative. We have a few high-level goals regarding this process on Project Eternity.​

• Creature Variety - The goal is to have a large library of creatures to use for the final game. Thus far, we're on track to meet this goal. The concept artists, modelers and animators have been tearing through the bestiary and delivering quality assets at a rapid pace.

• Recognizable is Good - We don't want to try to reinvent the wheel with every single monster. As we've shown in an earlier update, we feel some classic monsters, like the ogre, are essential to capture the adventuring feel we are aiming for. Moving forward, we are committed to including monsters that we feel fans will appreciate, while giving the beasties flavor appropriate to the world of Project Eternity.

• Different if Cool - We've already shown one of the unique creatures for Project Eternity in an earlier update, the skuldr. We will continue to create other unique, and often times bizarre, creatures to populate our world, but unique doesn't always need to feel bizarre. Different because it's cool is the goal.

So now that I've briefly discussed our high level goals, let's talk about a new creature: The Cean Gúla (KEN GOO-lah, "Blood Woman", Glanfathan), and the pipeline we use to get it through the concept phase.

• The creature idea is added to our bestiary document.

• Members of the team can comment on the document and share their thoughts/concerns on any given creature.

• The bestiary is updated based on feedback from the team. Some creatures get the thumbs up, while others get cut.

• An approved creature is then assigned to a concept artist. In the case of the cean gúla, Polina Hristova was in charge of this crucial step.

• The concept artist does a first pass, creating a series of thumbnail sketches (image below).

• The leads of the project review the thumbnails, choose a favorite, and provide the artist with feedback.

• The artist creates a final concept based on the feedback received (image below).

Once approved, the creature continues down the pipe as it is now ready to be modeled by one of our character artists. We'll save the rest of the creature pipeline for another update.​

The update also contains an endorsement of Full Control's Jagged Alliance: Flashback Kickstarter, which is a pretty BRO move by Obsidian.

 

[Bluebottle]

Recognizable is Good

I know that's certainly what I look for in my fantasy. Shit I've seen before. Please don't scare me with the thrill of exploring different worlds, or the shock of experiencing different cultures. No, what I want is familiar things, but modeled differently enough that it doesn't infringe on anyone's intellectual property rights. I hear all this talk about out-there fantasy as seen in games like Torment, but I don't understand what it is about the word fantasy that makes people associate this with removing me from my soft, downy comfort zone of predictable experience. If there was one word that I would use to surmise the experience I look for when embarking on a fantasy journey, it would almost certainly be: routine.


Blah, blah yeah of course the proof will be in the execution, but I can't help but being disappointed that this is what they came up with after the near carte blance of creating their own setting. That, after years of slaving over other peoples intellectual property, with all the frustrated ideas bubbling under the surface that you'd think any remotely creative person would be harbouring in such circumstances, this is what they came up with. Ah well, I guess there's still a risk and yadda, yadda BG spiritual successor and all that shit, but fuck me if I don't hope this is successful enough (and the setting flexible enough) for them to give the sequel or expansion to Zeits. Even something like Rashemen, which isn't exactly revolutionary, was a breath of fresh air when compared to everything else.

 

[Infinitron]

I was waiting for somebody to be butthurt about that

Yeah okay but come on, they followed it up with "Different If Cool" right after that.

 

[861129]

That's a cool, uh, banshee concept though.

When's the next Arcanum LP?

 

[Bluebottle]

I was waiting for somebody to be butthurt about that

Well, you've got to be butthurt about something. With all these potentially decent Kickstarter projects, the lack of decent setting in any of them seemed to be the next best thing.

Yeah okay but come on, they followed it up with "Different If Cool" right after that.

Yeah, it's still the 'if' in that statement that gives me pause. Just seems like the recognisable point is still the overriding creative impulse when creating creatures (and looking over the rest of it, pretty much most of the lore seems to follow a similar trend).

Really, it just seems like Obsidian have the potential to do better. I'm not in any way butthurt about the tongue-in-cheek high fantasy world that Larian are producing, because that seems to fit their remit and their strengths - In fact Original Sin is probably my most anticipated of these projects. Obsidian, on the other hand, have a decent number of creative people on board who should be able to come up with some amazing things. Compared to that potential, this just seems so pedestrian.

 

[Roguey]

Josh loves his Wailin' Virgins.

 

[tuluse]

Well, you've got to be butthurt about something. With all these potentially decent Kickstarter projects, the lack of decent setting in any of them seemed to be the next best thing.

You don't like Wasteland, Shadowrun, or Numenera?

 

[Bluebottle]

Well, you've got to be butthurt about something. With all these potentially decent Kickstarter projects, the lack of decent setting in any of them seemed to be the next best thing.

You don't like Wasteland, Shadowrun, or Numenera?

Obvious joke is not so obvious.

There is still a grain of truth to it, but yeah Numenera does look very interesting, in this regard. Shadowrun I'm on the fence whether they'll actually pull it off - and a decent setting is nothing without a game. Wasteland - to be honest I'm more interested in the gameplay than setting. PA is okay, but ain't setting my world on fire.

 

[tuluse]

PA is okay, but ain't setting my world on fire.

Well at least I got this one.