Interview Feargus Urquhart babbles about ideas for future Kickstarters at Rock Paper Shotgun

[godsend1989]

All i want is a big budget isometric RPG Arcanum style made by Obsidian, Dunegeon Siege 3 was a start but i think they can go even deeper with this engine.

 

[Sensuki]

March/April makes sense because that's roughly around when PoE exits production and goes into alpha (as well as giving us a video with a bit more detail).

TBH I don't think they'll be able to drop many people from the project ...

During post, they'll be doing the following:

Fixing up areas: so that's the Environment Artist with a lot of work cut out for them
Fixing up content in areas: that's the Area designer's work cut out for them
Painting over areas, doing portraits, menus and UI stuff - Polina and Kaz booked
Adding options menu functionality and doing bug-fixing, AI, scripts etc - All three programmers booked
Balancing, supervising the overall vision - Josh won't be dropping out 2/3 way through
Mark Bremerkamp will be animating his ass off right until the end, they may even bring on additonals to help
Dimitri and James will be polishing up the char models & creatures
And the writing team will be adding reactivity and C&C, party banter, doing revisions, editing

Who can they drop? Probably a few interns, if that.

What he possibly means is that the pre-production team will be a different team entirely, and they will transition some of the Eternity team over to the new Kickstarter, and keep some (Josh, others) for PE to train more staff up on Unity and the new way of doing things.

 

[Western]

I'm not really interested in Kickstarting a licensed property (unless they're giving it to Obsidian for free).

 

[Roguey]

Hopefully it won't be another fantasy RPG.

I'm going to be pedantic about this issue and insist that "traditional" or "trad" be used as an adjective for fantasy.

What he possibly means is that the pre-production team will be a different team entirely, and they will transition some of the Eternity team over to the new Kickstarter, and keep some (Josh, others) for PE to train more staff up on Unity and the new way of doing things.

Hmm. Well he did say March/April was when they were going to start talking about it, not necessarily when it would start.

Plus since Obsidian's not inXile I trust they're not going to add content in the beta. For example, Fenstermaker was the creative lead of South Park and now he's the creative lead of PoE despite SP not even being out yet. Avellone left AP for New Vegas I think somewhere around July/August 2009 and they stopped work on it in October I think.

 

[crawlkill]

He seems to imply they're gonna use the Eternity engine to make a skyrim-like game. It doesn't compute.

sure it does. Bethesda used the horriblebethesdaengine to create RPGlike games; it's not like that equation can't go in reverse. you could use an IE/Eternitylike engine to create a giant world a lot of the appeal of which isn't about the main quest (see Baldur's Gate 2) and -actually put some fucking care and attention into it.- it's not impossible.

unless he really means changing up the gameplay, in which case I dunno what that even means, yeah.

 

[Jasede]

So whose relative is this guy that he's still working there?

 

[Shannow]

Sure, Guido goes: "Episodic is pretty much the only way we might get our game funded." --> Codex goes: "Hate, hate. Stupid Guido never learns! Hate episodic. Damn indie studio trying to make a hardcore RPG with innovative features can go fuck itself."
Obsidian goes:"We want to make episodic Skyrim." --> Codex goes:"Yeah sure, go ahead. Will probably be roxxors. At least as good as Alpha Protocol and DS3 put together."

Seriously, I didn't expect to be so quickly and thoroughly vindicated. The Deathfire thread literally had two non-hostile posts by page two. This thread had exactly one post hating on episodic content at the time of writing. A few less posts though and a second episodic hating post might come before the end of page two. Thus giving the whole bias a certain form of symmetry... *shrug*

 

[Excidium]

How do you breathe with Guido's cock clogging your throat? Maybe nobody cares about any of those random vague statements, this interview was all hype for nothing.

 

[l3loodAngel]

It’s certainly an intriguing thought, practically a missing link in the RPG food chain. What would’ve happened if CRPGs stayed in the Infinity Engine mold, but pumped resources into size, scope, ambition, and sandboxy-ness instead of graphical fidelity and cinematics? What would the genre have become? Now, finally, we might be able to find out.

I would gladly pay hundred or more dollars for this type of game on KS. It could also be set future/cyber punk or fallout style game and there should be a decent market for it. Just please not a licensed property, as it kinda destroys the whole point of KS, or some extremely small niche game.

 

[Duraframe300]

So whose relative is this guy that he's still working there?

Who?

 

[Infinitron]

To see the depths of the Codex's depraved Obsidian fanboyism, see the first pages of this thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/backspace-obsidians-unproduced-sci-fi-skyrim.84667/

 

[l3loodAngel]

Sure, Guido goes: "Episodic is pretty much the only way we might get our game funded." --> Codex goes: "Hate, hate. Stupid Guido never learns! Hate episodic. Damn indie studio trying to make a hardcore RPG with innovative features can go fuck itself."
Obsidian goes:"We want to make episodic Skyrim." --> Codex goes:"Yeah sure, go ahead. Will probably be roxxors. At least as good as Alpha Protocol and DS3 put together."

Who exactly praised the episodic idea? I kinda had enough of episodic bullshit with Starcraft2. I won't pay a single dime for such nonsense, again.

 

[Roguey]

All the episode hate is in the grpgd thread anyway. In fact I literally referred to it as "Henkel-level idea."

 

[Pike]

Is a Darklands remake being too optimistic? We know Sawyer loves that game and it would be open world yet probably work well in the Eternity engine.

 

[Roguey]

Is a Darklands remake being too optimistic? We know Sawyer loves that game and it would be open world yet probably work well in the Eternity engine.

Yes because that's not a millions dollar idea.

 

[Menckenstein]

 

[PatataFamilia]

That was a terrible oversell at the end of the last interview. I honestly don't even know how much input Feargus has creatively. Either way, the timeline is nice.

I'd like to see some weirder settings. Stuff to rival Geneforge, Arcanum, and Planescape. Hell, even some of the weirder D&D settings like Spelljammer and Dark Sun.

 

[Turok]

I want a Ultima VII game with PE engine.

 

[VioletShadow]

Hopefully it won't be another fantasy RPG.

I'm going to be pedantic about this issue and insist that "traditional" or "trad" be used as an adjective for fantasy.

Nothing pedantic about that Roguey. I was thinking about "traditional fantasy" when I wrote that, should have been more specific. :D

 

[almondblight]

Is a Darklands remake being too optimistic? We know Sawyer loves that game and it would be open world yet probably work well in the Eternity engine.

Yes because that's not a millions dollar idea.

Maybe they're seeing whether calling it isometric Skyrim is.

 

[Sensuki]

Plus since Obsidian's not inXile I trust they're not going to add content in the beta. For example, Fenstermaker was the creative lead of South Park and now he's the creative lead of PoE despite SP not even being out yet. Avellone left AP for New Vegas I think somewhere around July/August 2009 and they stopped work on it in October I think.

I think Eric would stay on this project at least. Chris however, once his companion work is done could probably move off to another if required, and just take a look at dialogs every now and again.

 

[Longshanks]

What would’ve happened if CRPGs stayed in the Infinity Engine mold, but pumped resources into size, scope, ambition, and sandboxy-ness instead of graphical fidelity and cinematics? What would the genre have become? Now, finally, we might be able to find out.

They would have been just as boring and simplistic as all the other RPGs that privilege quantity over quality? Because linking the above with the Skyrim name drop, they're not talking Fallout or Arcanum type sandboxy-ness, but the Bethesda style do anything and everything without consequences or reactivity. No thanks.

Mentioning the similarities between you new prospective game and massively popular game X, usually does make sense in PR. But for a Kickstarted game? Not so sure. Kickstarterers are looking for something different to the AAA norm, not just the same style game with dated graphics. Fargo has certainly understood this and has pretty much done the opposite of what Obsidian has done here with his PR. I don't think Obsidian's approach makes much sense.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Fun fact:
Torr Howard's favourite game is Ultima VII. Later Elder Scrolls games are kinda inspired by it in the environmental interaction department.
So, now instead of mentioning Ultima VII, Feargus Urquhart talks about more known Skyrim. The history goes a full circle.

 

[Jaesun]

Please for the love of all that is Holy make a Sci-Fi game Obsidian.

 

[stony3k]

That was a terrible oversell at the end of the last interview. I honestly don't even know how much input Feargus has creatively. Either way, the timeline is nice.

I'd like to see some weirder settings. Stuff to rival Geneforge, Arcanum, and Planescape. Hell, even some of the weirder D&D settings like Spelljammer and Dark Sun.

I'd love to see a CRPG based in the Malazan world