Development Info Project Eternity Kickstarter Update #43: Godlikes and Animation

[Infinitron]

Morrowind was pretty standard medieval overall with wizards and orcs and elves (~gasp!~) ~_~

Oh wait, you're trolling, right?

 

[Surf Solar]

More original ideas http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11iox8/we_are_chris_avellone_tim_cain_and_josh_sawyer/c6mty3k

JESawyer: Personally, there are two settings/ideas I'd like to explore. One is a setting called Antebellum that is an alternate Earth stuck in the late 19th century at the outbreak of the Civil War after spirit armies swarm over the American South, Ireland, India, and a variety of other places. I'd mostly like to explore the idea of different power groups (e.g. slave owners and slaves) being paralyzed by inaction due to the thread of reactive spirit groups coming to the defense of any party being victimized.
The other game I've wanted to make for a long time is one in which you play a player-defined St. George in the 3rd century Near East who enters a land terrorized by the Dragon. All conversation is abstracted into incomprehensible foreign language and the entire game looks like it is a moving Greek Orthodox icon painted on wood and plaster. As George suffers in the world, the icon fades, cracks, and chips away over time. I'd want it to be more about mood, atmosphere, and subtle body language/character interaction than a scripted narrative and fierce gameplay.

Both sound incredibly boring. "Spirit armies"?

 

[Studio Fawn]

Oh wait, you're trolling, right?

I said overall The elder scrolls have some cool stuff, but, overall it isn't really that ballsy in terms of design

But, it was never meant to be. If you played daggerfall, you can see where it was coming from. Standard fantasy setting that they tried to expand over the years under the general medieval context.

 

[Infinitron]

Why don't you guys present your super-original and non-boring ideas for a CRPG, then?

 

[Surf Solar]

Why don't you guys present your super-original and non-boring ideas for a CRPG, then?

Is this another one of these "you must have developed a game/written a book/made a movie/misc before you can criticise this!" "arguments"?

 

[Studio Fawn]

Why don't you guys present your super-original and non-boring ideas for a CRPG, then?

Uhh.... www.studiofawn.com ~flex~

 

[Infinitron]

Why don't you guys present your super-original and non-boring ideas for a CRPG, then?

Is this another one of these "you must have developed a game/written a book/made a movie/misc before you can criticise this!" "arguments"?

Nope. I said "ideas", not "finished games".

 

[Harold]

This covers like 500 years

Further more, P:E is clearly Renaissance new world.

The cultures of Project Eternity are in a variety of different technological states. Though some remote civilizations are still in the equivalent of Earth's Stone Age or Bronze Age, most large civilizations are in the equivalent of Earth's high or late Middle Ages. The most aggressive and powerful civilizations are in the early stages of what would be our early modern period, technologically, even if they are not culturally undergoing "Renaissance"-style changes.

Infinitron DA was the first spiritual succesor to BG so you're just proving my point Seriously though, the ethnical/cultural stuff will make PE more similar to DA than any other FR computer game as far as setting goes, which is what you asked me about in the first place anyway

 

[Infinitron]

Seriously tough, the ethnical/cultural stuff will make PE more similar to DA than any other FR computer game as far as setting goes, which is what you asked me about in the first place anyway

Yes, well, that's hardly the worst thing about DA. I don't really have a problem with the Thedas setting at all. It's all about execution.

There is a certain contemporary tendency here to focus on "political stuff" which I'm not entirely at ease with, but that's something that goes beyond Dragon Age.

 

[Harold]

Yes, well, that's hardly the worst thing about DA. I don't really have a problem with the Thedas setting at all. It's all about execution..

I never said Thedas was uneinteresting. I just feel that, just like the DA games, PE will play it safe and the more interesting parts of the setting will remain unexplored or be explored later, which is why I'm sure the expansion will be more interesting. It's all Feargus' fault for being a scaredycat and insisting on playing it safe anyway.

There is a certain contemporary tendency here to focus on "political stuff" which I'm not entirely at ease with, but that's something that goes beyond Dragon Age

true dat

 

[Rake]

Seriously tough, the ethnical/cultural stuff will make PE more similar to DA than any other FR computer game as far as setting goes, which is what you asked me about in the first place anyway

There is a certain contemporary tendency here to focus on "political stuff" which I'm not entirely at ease with, but that's something that goes beyond Dragon Age.

Blame Game of Thrones for that

 

[Lancehead]

Yes, well, that's hardly the worst thing about DA. I don't really have a problem with the Thedas setting at all. It's all about execution..

I never said Thedas was uneinteresting. I just feel that, just like the DA games, PE will play it safe and the more interesting parts of the setting will remain unexplored or be explored later, which is why I'm sure the expansion will be more interesting. It's all Feargus' fault for being a scaredycat and insisting on playing it safe anyway.

If their words were to be believed, they weren't completely sure they'd reach even the initial $ 1 m funding target. Makes it obvious why they played it safe.

 

[Irenaeus]

JESawyer: The other game I've wanted to make for a long time is one in which you play a player-defined St. George in the 3rd century Near East who enters a land terrorized by the Dragon. All conversation is abstracted into incomprehensible foreign language and the entire game looks like it is a moving Greek Orthodox icon painted on wood and plaster. As George suffers in the world, the icon fades, cracks, and chips away over time. I'd want it to be more about mood, atmosphere, and subtle body language/character interaction than a scripted narrative and fierce gameplay.

I wonder how that part of the game would play out:

George loudly renounced Emperor Diocletian's edict, and in front of his fellow soldiers and Tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian and declared his worship of Jesus Christ. Diocletian attempted to convert George, even offering gifts of land, money and slaves if he made a sacrifice to the Roman gods. The Emperor made many offers, but George never accepted. Recognizing the futility of his efforts, Diocletian was left with no choice but to have him executed for his refusal. Before the execution George gave his wealth to the poor and prepared himself. After various torture sessions, including laceration on a wheel of swords in which he was resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia's city wall, on April 23, 303. A witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra and Athanasius, a pagan priest, to become Christians as well, and so they joined George in martyrdom.

Fun times.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

That's the standard, vanilla orc, but orcs have been "reimagined" so many times that now their role is basically just to exist as something humanoid, but not-human-looking, so people can comment on how the game/novel/movie/whatever is either totally subverting what we've come to expect from fantasy or reverently returning to the roots of classic fantasy.

Just forget the name, I'm really talking about the concept of the barbarian horder made up of sentient, bestial and stupid creatures. That's what the Witcher lacked and that I really appreciated, and that Dragon Age had with the Darkspawn which made me a tad mad.

Yeah, I can see that. I'm talking about the name, you're talking about the original archetype. At this point, I would say the proud-warrior race Orc is as much an Orc archetype as the semi-sentient marauder. It's funny that the bestial humanoid menace archetype and the word "Orc" have been separated, to the point where they are both mind-numbingly common in contemporary works, but yet they seem to rarely appear together. When a race is called Orcs (outside of DnD), they seem to be ground-Klingons. Meanwhile, the slavering barbarian horde mantle will be taken up by a race that the creators "invented", but which are bog-standard Orcs in every way except the name and, maybe, a new, but equally monstrous, appearance.

 

[CappenVarra]

Well, duh: it's only an orc if it has a piglike snout

 

[tuluse]

Seriously tough, the ethnical/cultural stuff will make PE more similar to DA than any other FR computer game as far as setting goes, which is what you asked me about in the first place anyway

There is a certain contemporary tendency here to focus on "political stuff" which I'm not entirely at ease with, but that's something that goes beyond Dragon Age.

Blame Game of Thrones for that

More like blame it for being interesting. What's the point of all these different races, if they don't also have their own cultures and what's the point of separate cultures if they don't cause tensions?

If DA now has a monopoly on using fantasy as a backdrop for racial and/or cultural politics fuck me I quit the world. I mean fuck, Arcanum has it beat by 8 years and that's just in video games.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

The problem with Dragon Age isn't that it mimicked GRRM's stuff, its that it mimicked the superficial form without fully understanding the substance of what made ASoIAF great. Its not just a plot driven by politics, it's a deconstruction of the standard fantasy story that refuses to whitewash the brutality inherent in a feudal aristocracy whose idea of heroism is a willingness to wage war for honor. The Stark's principles not only lead them to personal ruin, they lead to a war that is incredibly destructive to the commoners, the people for whom the question of whether the King is actually the son of the man who took the crown by force is utterly irrelevant. Compare Robb Stark to Beric Dondarion for example.

Dragon Age was just another heroic fantasy with political machinations as a plot device - instead of criticizing heroic fantasy, it just gives you the option choosing antiheroic fantasy, which is just heroic fantasy + edginess.

 

[Roguey]

GRRM writes grimdark sexist garbage. I actually haven't read any of it, but I trust Lesi's opinion on this since she's a former fan.

Both sound incredibly boring. "Spirit armies"?

Still incredibly different from ye olde phantasie RPG with swords, elves, orcs, undead, platemail, and so on.

Josh Sawyer is p. pretentious so you'd have to like pretentious games to get into them though probably. The St. George game could be the Braid of RPGs.

 

[Rake]

GRRM writes grimdark sexist garbage. masterpiece

Still incredibly different from ye olde phantasie RPG with swords, elves, orcs, undead, platemail, and so on.

Fixed

 

[UnknownBro]

Osidian is obviously not only targetting at the IE crowd but also to the D&D fans. This godlike race-thing is a complete rip-off of the D&D's planedouched planetouched race, at least graphically.

Personally I pledge to their KS to see a game similar to BG, with similar mechanics and a similar setting or feel to FR/D&D but come on guys, this update is quite lame, at least with an unique race bring some some new concepts to the table.

Meh

 

[Sannom]

I don't quite understand the safe approach... they already made 4 MILLION dollars. Throw the D&D guide out the window and really get creative to make something new?

They gained those millions from appealing to a form of nostalgia from the community, so I'm not sure doing something entirely 'new' would be safe or honest.

You shouldn't have announced this. It has no creative touch to it at all.

That wasn't the announcement, the plant-girl with the estoc and green armor was the announcement. Those are just the same face with different effects on it, for all we know they might be much earlier material than plant-girt with the estoc and green armor.

Both sound incredibly boring. "Spirit armies"?

Neither of those are boring, but the second one definitely sounds 'conceptual'. With a pitch like that, they might as well launch a Kickstarter for a limited amount of money with the pitch being only 'personal project from JE Sawyer'.

Yeah, I can see that. I'm talking about the name, you're talking about the original archetype. At this point, I would say the proud-warrior race Orc is as much an Orc archetype as the semi-sentient marauder.

Oh yeah, definitely. But I don't think we know enough about the Amaua to safely say that they belong to that archetype either. They've got no close relationship to 'elemental spirits' that we know of, they don't live in hostile environments, they're just humanoids who are bigger on average than humans. I'm not even sure they're big enough to fit a special role in society like the cyclops from Dungeon Siege 3.

 

[Excommunicator]

That wasn't the announcement, the plant-girl with the estoc and green armor was the announcement. Those are just the same face with different effects on it, for all we know they might be much earlier material than plant-girt with the estoc and green armor.

Meanwhile I found some more concept art of this plant-girl.

Spoiler

 

[Irenaeus]

Meanwhile I found some more concept art of this plant-girl.

Spoiler

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

JESawyer: Personally, there are two settings/ideas I'd like to explore. One is a setting called Antebellum that is an alternate Earth stuck in the late 19th century at the outbreak of the Civil War after spirit armies swarm over the American South, Ireland, India, and a variety of other places. I'd mostly like to explore the idea of different power groups (e.g. slave owners and slaves) being paralyzed by inaction due to the thread of reactive spirit groups coming to the defense of any party being victimized.
The other game I've wanted to make for a long time is one in which you play a player-defined St. George in the 3rd century Near East who enters a land terrorized by the Dragon. All conversation is abstracted into incomprehensible foreign language and the entire game looks like it is a moving Greek Orthodox icon painted on wood and plaster. As George suffers in the world, the icon fades, cracks, and chips away over time. I'd want it to be more about mood, atmosphere, and subtle body language/character interaction than a scripted narrative and fierce gameplay.

Jesus fucking christ he couldn't be anymore hipster if he tried...

 

[Cosmo]

I don't know, but there's something off with the proportions of every female Polina draws : legs too thick, heads too small and arms too thin, weird torso shape, etc.
And by her portfolio, she seems to usually specialize in monster and alien design (and she's really good at it). Strange that they picked her for human and humanoid characters...