Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[tuluse]

I don't get it. Why are the play modes a target for kickstarter?

What is the real cost of implementing tougher gameplay????

It's a marketing gimmick, dumbass. None of these stretch goals actually cost the amount of money the Kickstarter is asking for them.

I'm guessing this is going to cost a pretty penny in testing to make sure the modes are actually doing what they think they are.

 

[Excidium]

Why the hell would you hide information in "Expert mode"?

Also, one save game in an Obsidian game is some seriously hardcore shit.

Path of the Damned does sound p. cool.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I don't get it. Why are the play modes a target for kickstarter?

What is the real cost of implementing tougher gameplay????

It's a marketing gimmick, dumbass. None of these stretch goals actually cost the amount of money the Kickstarter is asking for them.

I'm guessing this is going to cost a pretty penny in testing to make sure the modes are actually doing what they think they are.

Which they should be doing anyway. It is not your job to pay them for quality control.

 

[Infinitron]

QA isn't free, bro. We're funding full-scale game development, not just "content creation".

Oh what the fuck ever you're just trolling

 

[Captain Shrek]

 

[tuluse]

Which they should be doing anyway. It is not your job to pay them for quality control.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Which they should be doing anyway. It is not your job to pay them for quality control.

What exactly are you paying for, retard? The whole thing is based on donating so they do the best game they can do. That includes testing too.
If you don't think they can do a good game, you don't donate.

 

[CappenVarra]

Why the hell would you hide information in "Expert mode"?

Because it's like turning off the quest compass or skill tags in dialogue options - it's turning off handholding or "handholding", not some crucial information. A preference more than a higher difficulty, really. Remember people bitching about skill tags in AoD dialogue? This effectively means "sure, we'll implement it as a toggle so both sides are pleased". Or that's how I see it.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I am paying for content. QA and assurance of delivery are integral to development and they are not paid for separately. This is exactly why I am not complaining about other tiered goals since they add content.

 

[CappenVarra]

And more gameplay modes isn't more conte... - nah, not worth it.

 

[Volrath]

High magic??? In my Baldur's Gate/ID/Torment inspired fantasy game? I'll go shoot myself now.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Turning off quest compass and other help-factors is certainly welcomed. You guys are so goddamn used to decline you don't even recognize incline anymore.

 

[Jarpie]

UPDATE, with new Josh video: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/316398

Update #9 - The power of MODES and Godlike races: Our $2.3M Stretch Goal

Update #9 · Sep. 26, 2012

We love giving players options: character build options, personality options, story options -- all the options you might want to play around with. We recognize that many players also want to play the game their way and have an experience that matches their particular RPG tastes. RPG fans share a lot of common ground, but on matters of visible mechanical feedback, complexity, and the overall level of punitive face-punching a game provides, there's a big spectrum of opinions. In a lot of cases, it's not too hard for us to provide options to turn an individual feature on or off, so we want to make that possible when resources permit us to do so.

Additionally, even among the ranks of RPG superfans, there exists a subset of players who can't get enough challenge. They want all of the difficulty features set to "I am pro." Collectively, we've worked on a bunch of these challenge modes in the past and enjoyed the results. Project Eternity seems like a very appropriate place to highlight suites of these difficulty options as distinct gameplay modes that players can opt-into at the beginning of any game. We've come up with three modes we'd like to support, which also includes the ability to turn many of their sub-features on and off on an individual level in an ordinary game: Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, and Path of the Damned.

Expert Mode will disable all of the common ease-of-use / in-case-you-missed it gameplay elements like the display of skill thresholds, influence/reputation modifiers, and similar "helper" information. In a fashion similar to Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode will also enable more punitive and demanding gameplay elements, in and out of combat. We're not saying we're going to have weighty gold (for real, we're not saying that), but if we did, you can bet that would be automatically turned on by Expert Mode.

If you guessed that Trial of Iron is like Temple of Elemental Evil's Ironman Mode, you guessed right. When you start a Trial of Iron game, you have one save game that persists for the entire campaign... or until you die. And if you die, your save game is deleted. Enjoy!

Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved.

The first question you may have is, "Can I enable multiple challenge modes at once?" Yep, you sure can. They have to be selected at the beginning of the game, but if you want to play with two or all three at the same time, you can certainly can do so. If you're not quite sure you want all of the elements that come along with a given mode, this funding level will also cover implementing the ability to enable and disable the individual sub-features.

Along with these modes, we also want to introduce the Godlike races. These folks have been described previously as being similar to the humanoid "planetouched" in D&D: aasimar, tieflings, and genasi. That is a good high-level description of them, but they are viewed differently by various factions, faiths, and cultures in the world of Project Eternity. Godlike were "blessed" before birth by one or more of the meddling deities of this world. Though their appearances vary, they are unmistakeably otherworldly when anyone gets a clear look at them. Sometimes, the reaction they get is overwhelmingly positive. Many times, the reaction is overwhelmingly not. For better or worse, the physical "gifts" that mark them as Godlike always come with supernatural blessings (and curses) of their own.

The first question you may have after reading this may be, "Hey, what about the other races that have already been funded?" Those races are in the process of being fully designed and concepted -- and they can't be summarized quite as simply as "sort of like planetouched". We'll have more for you on those guys in the not-too-distant future. Thanks again for your support, your patience, and your questions.

Update from Josh Sawyer

In addition to today's update, we've got a few backer badges for you, including one for the fantastic Obsidian Order of Eternity!

FORUM THREAD: Join the discussion on Update #9!

 

[Volrath]

MCA should put dialogue in the game to flirt with NPCs and everytime you do they reject you. They say they have a boyfriend, or they're gay, or you're not their type. Anyone with some sense will ignore those options while the romance crowd will choose them everytime and wonder why they can't get laid in the game.

The butthurt from that would be glorious.

Didn't New Vegas already do something like this with Veronica? Or am I remembering it wrong...

 

[Jaesun]

Awesome update! <3

 

[Duraframe300]

We've come up with three modes we'd like to support, which also includes the ability to turn many of their sub-features on and off on an individual level in an ordinary game

Massive

 

[DraQ]

An attractive (to a typical biowhore player) NPC that rejects you on the basis of being gay if you're of opposite sex, on the basis of being straight when you're the same.

Forever Avellone

This new unique writing trick deserves to exist, somebody post at Obsidian or make MCA know. Glorious idea.

It's like bioware party members from a mirror universe.

 

[tuluse]

An attractive (to a typical biowhore player) NPC that rejects you on the basis of being gay if you're of opposite sex, on the basis of being straight when you're the same.

Forever Avellone

This new unique writing trick deserves to exist, somebody post at Obsidian or make MCA know. Glorious idea.

It's like bioware party members from a mirror universe.

Bizzaroware

 

[RedScum]

Upped my pledge to 80 jewdollars.

 

[DraQ]

An attractive (to a typical biowhore player) NPC that rejects you on the basis of being gay if you're of opposite sex, on the basis of being straight when you're the same.

Forever Avellone

This new unique writing trick deserves to exist, somebody post at Obsidian or make MCA know. Glorious idea.

It's like bioware party members from a mirror universe.

Bizzaroware

But that would be our...

 

[Semper]

wasted money... better to donate for the codex party!

 

[Black]

On a scale from 0 to 10, how bad will it be? 0 being terrible and 10 almost skyrim-like.

 

[kaizoku]

This update is full of win ^_^

Fred just now

Nothing for me here. I don't care for difficulty modes in RPGs, I find them kind of pointless.
Why can't the next stretchgoal be customizable housing? That is to say, the more you invest in your house, the bigger it grows.
Start out with a cottage, put enough money into it and it becomes a castle or something.

growing house: the RPG

Heart of Fury mode... You mean the one they had immense stat-bloat on fucking goblins so you had to kite them in full plate magical armour? Yeah, that's sounds promising. Wake me up when they add extra layers of tactics, and improved AI.

The rest sounds ok, I guess.

Who is to say it isn't what they'll be doing?

Why the hell would you hide information in "Expert mode"?

The same reason people asked that to be removed in AoD.

LARPing

High magic??? In my Baldur's Gate/ID/Torment inspired fantasy game? I'll go shoot myself now.

where is the high magic?

 

[evdk]

Expert mode sounds nice, i would pledge more but I'm broke and saving up for fucking up the game codex adventurer band.

 

[Volrath]

where is the high magic?

It would be naive not to expect it, but I was just responding to Captain Shrek's retarded post.