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[marrec]

"Modern dev tools" doesn't solve everything. Bioware already had a well-working engine for BG2, and I assume they were able to carry over certain assets and other aspects from the predecessor.

Art asset creation, writing, creating interesting gameplay, all these things still take a lot of time, and dev tools make very little difference there.

They've given themselves plenty of time and well exceeded their original asking price. The art asset creation is significantly easier with the engine they're using and the writing has probably already been taking place for years.

Obsidian is going to be working with an engine that will allow them a very speedy development process that will not cost them anything (relatively speaking).

You could go out and buy Unity right now for pennies on the dollar compared to other, less development friendly engines.

 

[Fularu]

I wonder if this will reach 4 million without paypal... Mhh this sounds like the kind of project that will get a huge push in the last hours.

 

[Munin]

They've given themselves plenty of time and well exceeded their original asking price. The art asset creation is significantly easier with the engine they're using and the writing has probably already been taking place for years.

Obsidian is going to be working with an engine that will allow them a very speedy development process that will not cost them anything (relatively speaking).

You could go out and buy Unity right now for pennies on the dollar compared to other, less development friendly engines.

I don't doubt the game will be "big" but I think some people forget how massive games like BG2 really were in terms of content.

 

[dionysus]

Just upped from $50 to $135 and I also donated to GAF inn. Who needs money, I am a sucker.

 

[Taruranto]

They underestimated.

We need a 3.8 mil stretch goal.

I propose a Third Big City.

More companions.
You can't go wrong with more companions.

 

[EatChildren]

I hope it's a lot better than Baldur's Gate II!

 

[Dennis]

More companions.
You can't go wrong with more companions.

THIR....

OK, a few more companions can't hurt

 

[marrec]

I don't doubt the game will be "big" but I think some people forget how massive games like BG2 really were in terms of content.

True, but they are going to be able to make a game 'huge' a bit easier today than it was 15 years ago. Development tools have made EVERYTHING easier, not just asset development but also other forms of content creation.

Honestly though, I doubt BG2 is even in their sights. They want to stand on their own and for people to be comparing projects 15 years from now to PE.

 

[dionysus]

More companions.
You can't go wrong with more companions.

No, just go into more depth with existing companions. I love companion quest lines.

 

[Dennis]

I hope it's a lot better than Baldur's Gate II!

I would settle for 20% better.

Legend.

 

[szaromir]

True, but they are going to be able to make a game 'huge' a bit easier today than it was 15 years ago. Development tools have made EVERYTHING easier, not just asset development but also other forms of content creation.

Honestly though, I doubt BG2 is even in their sights. They want to stand on their own and for people to be comparing projects 15 years from now to PE.

Obsidian always complained about lack of proper tools for scripting quests and dialogues and that they only developed them with Onyx Engine and use them for PE as well.

 

[Taruranto]

No, just go into more depth with existing companions. I love companion quest lines.

I'm going to assume Avellone and co. already plan to use as much they can the current companions.

A BG2-level of party roster would be pretty awesome.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

I hope it's a lot better than Baldur's Gate II!

If this game is even 0,00001% better than Baldur's Gate 2 this would become the best WRPG ever made.

I sadly have no chance of pledging at the moment but if this has even a glimpse of the great ones I will definately look foreward to buying this Day -1.

 

[dionysus]

I'm going to assume Avellone and co. already plan to use as much they can the current companions.

A BG2-level of party roster would be pretty awesome.

Well, I believe in the Reddit AMA Avellone said one of the mistakes they made with KOTOR 2 was that they had too many companions and it turned out that they bit off more than they could chew (for the amount of time and budget they had.) From that I get the impression that they want the companions they have to be rigorously developed, and not just have companions for the sake of an arbitrarily large number.

I mean I would love to have 100 companions with deep story lines (Imagine the awesome replays), but we only gave them 3.5 mil+ to do it with.

 

[AColdDay]

Does anyone know the budget for Vampire TMB? It would be sweet if we could get a spiritual sequel to that. I could go for a real-time first person immersive RPG with various supernatural creatures.

One of the lead writers for VTM:B works for Double Bear who just had a kickstarter for Dead State, a zombie rpg.

I really want a real VTM follow up game though. I wish I could throw money at that!

 

[marrec]

Well, I believe in the Reddit AMA Avellone said one of the mistakes they made with KOTOR 2 was that they had too many companions and it turned out that they bit off more than they could chew (for the amount of time and budget they had.) From that I get the impression that they want the companions they have to be rigorously developed, and not just have companions for the sake of an arbitrarily large number.

I mean I would love to have 100 companions with deep story lines (Imagine the awesome replays), but we only gave them 3.5 mil+ to do it with.

Randomly generated companions!

One of the lead writers for VTM:B works for Double Bear who just had a kickstarter for Dead State, a zombie rpg.

I really want a real VTM follow up game though. I wish I could throw money at that!

Nobody wants to give VTM a proper game anymore.

 

[Erethian]

In terms of asset generation and the cost now compared to in the past, at least when it comes to the pre-rendered backgrounds we already know from Sawyer that creating those is much, much quicker than it was back in the day.

 

[Patryn]

True, but the dev tools are pretty much the #1 thing in how efficient you are going to be at making a game vs cost, and there's probably nothing better at that than what they are using for Project Eternity (Unity), so on that front things are perfect.

They also said that they managed to hook up their existing scripting and string engines to Unity, so that's even less work necessary to build up the framework needed.

Also, just over 300 more new backers needed to unlock Level 11.

 

[szaromir]

One of the lead writers for VTM:B works for Double Bear who just had a kickstarter for Dead State, a zombie rpg.

I really want a real VTM follow up game though. I wish I could throw money at that!

Bloodlines was a huge game with very high production values for its time. Spiritual successor would be expensive and won't happen without a publisher backing it.

 

[Durante]

In terms of asset generation and the cost now compared to in the past, at least when it comes to the pre-rendered backgrounds we already know from Sawyer that creating those is much, much quicker than it was back in the day.

Yeah, I think one really important point that people tend to overlook is the speed of the feedback loop. These days, in a modern engine, an artist can tweak some animation or background image, press a button and almost instantly see how it looks in-game. I have no idea of the state of the Infinity engine when BG was made, but I very much doubt that it was as convenient.

 

[dude]

If they an reach the level of BG2, and I have a feeling they just might, this will be one of the best RPGs ever made.

I would have loved to have more companions, but BG2 managed the impossible with having a lot of available companions while also keeping pretty much all of them pretty interesting. This would be hard to replicate with a 3.5-3.7 budget, so I'm fine with 8 companions if it means they're all as deep as the companions in BG2.

In terms of length, I think it's very much possible for them to surpass BG2 - modern dev tools are able to crank up production speed significantly.


And if we're talking about White Wolf... I want an Exalted game! We've had two WoD ones, one of them was even good, now it's Exalted's turn to give it a shot.

 

[marrec]

Yeah, I think one really important point that people tend to overlook is the speed of the feedback loop. These days, in a modern engine, an artist can tweak some animation or background image, press a button and almost instantly see how it looks in-game. I have no idea of the state of the Infinity engine when BG was made, but I very doubt that it was as convenient.

*tweak, click, pray*

"I sure hope that fixes it cause I don't have time to actually check."

 

[Dennis]

Bloodlines was a huge game with very high production values for its time. Spiritual successor would be expensive and won't happen without a publisher backing it.

Is 4 million the max for a game Kickstarter?

What would a new Bloodlines cost?

Would people be opposed to mixed Kickstater/Publisher funding - to reduce the risk a publisher had to take on?

 

[Perkel]

Yeah, I think one really important point that people tend to overlook is the speed of the feedback loop. These days, in a modern engine, an artist can tweak some animation or background image, press a button and almost instantly see how it looks in-game. I have no idea of the state of the Infinity engine when BG was made, but I very doubt that it was as convenient.

From one of interviews we know it was something like few days to render in 3D whole area and convert it to to 2D.
Sawyer lately said that now they can render it in hours or less.

So main problem as of now is amount assets involved in creation of each scene. And then also artists need to hand-paint those 2D backgrounds to enrich fidelity.

 

[superdeluxe]

Can I change the t-shirt to the obsidian one instead of the project eternity one?

Yes I believe all that stuff will be sorted out when they do the survey

 

[Patryn]

Is 4 million the max for a game Kickstarter?

What would a new Bloodlines cost?

Would people be opposed to mixed Kickstater/Publisher funding - to reduce the risk a publisher had to take on?

The problem with something like this is that a publisher would have to balance their own requirements with what the KS promises to the public. I have a feeling that some publishers would feel it somewhat limiting in their ability to dictate the nature of the game.

Then again, we do know that publishers approached Obsidian about running a KS for them with the publisher kicking in no money (but keeping the IP), so I could be totally wrong.

 

[Dennis]

Then again, we do know that publishers approached Obsidian about running a KS for them with the publisher kicking in no money (but keeping the IP), so I could be totally wrong.

lol that was so brazen.

 

[marrec]

The problem with something like this is that a publisher would have to balance their own requirements with what the KS promises to the public. I have a feeling that some publishers would feel it somewhat limiting in their ability to dictate the nature of the game.

Then again, we do know that publishers approached Obsidian about running a KS for them with the publisher kicking in no money (but keeping the IP), so I could be totally wrong.

To add to this, I don't think a VTM kickstarter would even get near 4 mil. While it's a cult success now, Bloodlines is still no where near as known or popular as Fallout 1/2 or Kotor or Planscape. Unfortunately I think the only way we'd ever get a proper Bloodlines sequel is if VTM itself become super popular again.

Even then though, it wouldn't be Troika that was doing it so it'd probably turn out to be crap.

We can only hope that going into the future a different team of talented writers/developers can give us a game that's at least equal to the awesomeness of Bloodlines in that setting.

 

[mclem]

Would people be opposed to mixed Kickstater/Publisher funding - to reduce the risk a publisher had to take on?

I'm not inherently opposed to it, but it'd change how I'd assess the Kickstarter itself, since it's somewhat changing the goals of the project; once a publisher is contributing to the funding, they will be trying to seek out ways to ensure they get a return on their investment. If something is fully-kickstarted, it doesn't *have* to make a profit - although it's awesome if it does, of course! - meaning that it can stay completely true to the designers' vision.

 

[Erethian]

The problem with something like this is that a publisher would have to balance their own requirements with what the KS promises to the public. I have a feeling that some publishers would feel it somewhat limiting in their ability to dictate the nature of the game.

Then again, we do know that publishers approached Obsidian about running a KS for them with the publisher kicking in no money (but keeping the IP), so I could be totally wrong.

It would be extremely difficult to envisage a situation where a publisher was involved in funding and didn't seek to retain ownership of the IP. Which is the exact situation Obsidian wants to avoid.

 

[Perkel]

Is 4 million the max for a game Kickstarter?

What would a new Bloodlines cost?

Would people be opposed to mixed Kickstater/Publisher funding - to reduce the risk a publisher had to take on?

Problem is with IP. If publisher decide to give later IP to developer then i don't see any problem with that funding style.

Problem is publishers want those IPs. They can give some royalty but most of publishers won't give IP even if it is partially funded by them.

Years ago deals were better for devs who created games (not always) because they had right to get back IP after xx years. Now such deals are nonexistent. And since developers are treated as normal factory workers this won't change in near future.

That is why Kickstarter and crowdfunding is such a good thing to gaming industry.

Developers will have IP and will reap full benefits as IP holders. Their future will only good as long as they will create good games. Since each individual developer will have a lot more money they can invest in innovation and try to look for new gaming ideas.

They will be artist again and not factory workers like industry (meaning publishers) tried to fuck them.

This will also change way publishers operate. There will be much more room for negotiations with publishers and they won't try to screw people again because devs wil have other way to fund their ideas.

 

[Grakl]

Only just really looked into this. Sounds awesome, however with an estimated April 2014 release and the potential for it to take longer I personally won't be backing it. I would never prepurchase a game 1.5 years in advance normally, so this is no different. Hoping it ends up to be as good as it sounds though! I'll check back in a years time

This is how I feel about it.

 

[Phandy]

I hope these succeeds and if it did I hope Obsidian would understand why.
I would be perfectly happy if they decided that they would just try to perfect the games and genre they are working with rather than taking the RPG genre forward and basically replicate what happened post-Infinity Engine. Hopefully this sort of retro-success puts things in perspective.

I could see them saying "We are happy where we are" and just continuing to innovate and come up with new ideas for games/rpg's and so on because that's what they love. Rather than going crazy with scope and budget. Sort like those guys at Spiderweb Software who make Avernum/Avadon/Geneforge.

Its interesting that no game developers or publishers really stop wanting to grow in terms of development size/scope/budget and be happy at their size/production level.

 

[marrec]

This is how I feel about it.

Well I don't usually view game Kickstarters as a super-advanced pre-order. I'm giving these dudes money because I feel like they can make a great game, the fact that I also get a copy of the game with a bunch of cool goodies is ancillary.

 

[Patryn]

My only worry is that the KS has already sold the game to the majority of people who wanted it.

I hope it can reach a much larger audience when it releases.

 

[marrec]

Hopefully there will be a bunch of free advertising in the form of gaming press coverage into the future.

But ya, most people who want a game like this have probably already dropped at least $25 on the kickstarter.

 

[dionysus]

Is 4 million the max for a game Kickstarter?

What would a new Bloodlines cost?

Would people be opposed to mixed Kickstater/Publisher funding - to reduce the risk a publisher had to take on?

I'd decline. Because the publisher is an investor, not just a benevolent donor like the kickstarters. Why should the publisher receive financial benefit (or IP) that is superior to the rights of the kickstarters.

 

[duckroll]

My only worry is that the KS has already sold the game to the majority of people who wanted it.

I don't think that's very likely. It's probably going to end with a little over 70k backers. That's really not much at all, even if you think of a genre as super-niche. There's pretty much no question at all that when the game is actually released it will sell much, much more.

 

[wrowa]

Nobody wants to give VTM a proper game anymore.

Obsidian wanted and reportedly was close to signing a deal, when White Wolf got bought by CCP (the EVE developers).

Now all we are left with is a World of Darkness MMO that will probably never see the light of day.

 

[Erethian]

My only worry is that the KS has already sold the game to the majority of people who wanted it.

I hope it can reach a much larger audience when it releases.

There seems to be a broader trend of companies going back to older gameplay styles and finding success, with X-Com being a good example. So I'm not too worried there.

This isn't so much related specifically to Project Eternity, but it seems like things are starting to mature enough where people realised that adventure games or turn-based strategy or whatnot never went out of fashion, people just stopped making them. That and the better pricing scale and digital delivery makes it more viable.

Edit: I guess an extreme example of this is how Nintendo stopped making 2D Mario with the advent of the N64, but that doesn't mean people stopped liking 2D Mario.

 

[Sharp]

I don't think that's very likely. It's probably going to end with a little over 70k backers. That's really not much at all, even if you think of a genre as super-niche. There's pretty much no question at all that when the game is actually released it will sell much, much more.

Yup. Forums like GAF might give the impression that everyone who's into these games will pay up front, but in the real world I think there are a lot of people who will check Steam in a couple of years, see the screenshot at the top of the thread, and be like "whoa, that looks awesome!" There are an awful lot of people who love big Western RPGs, as I think Skyrim demonstrated pretty effectively (and yes, Skyrim was an RPG).

 

[Ledsen]

My only worry is that the KS has already sold the game to the majority of people who wanted it.

I hope it can reach a much larger audience when it releases.

Baldur's Gate series total units sold: over 5 000 000 as of 2006
Number of Kickstarter backers for Project Eternity: 67 359

The situation isn't exactly comparable (BG2 was essentially the Skyrim of its day in terms of public interest and hype), but I don't think you have anything to worry about.

 

[szaromir]

I don't think that's very likely. It's probably going to end with a little over 70k backers. That's really not much at all, even if you think of a genre as super-niche. There's pretty much no question at all that when the game is actually released it will sell much, much more.

Yes, plus these 70k people are very enthusiastic and are going to make a lot of noise about the game, as long as the game matches its legacy it will sell after it release.

Neverwinter Nights 2 sold 2 million units so it's not like people are inherently opposed to buy a fantasy RPG from Obsidian.

 

[HoosTrax]

It's understandable that even major fans of the genre would be hesitant about providing what amounts to something like a two year loan to the project. Hell, I own every game in this genre ever made, and I was still initially hesitant about backing it considering the release date so far off.

I barely knew anything about Oculus, VR, and HMDs before the Kickstarter, but that project was almost more attractive to me despite the $300 price tag because it was something I can hold in my hands in a month or two. (only the developer kit versus ready-for-consumer nature of it caused me to decide against it)

Anyways, I wouldn't read much into the potential customer base size for PE based just on the number of Kickstarter backers.

 

[marrec]

Yes, plus these 70k people are very enthusiastic and are going to make a lot of noise about the game, as long as the game matches its legacy it will sell after it release.

Neverwinter Nights 2 sold 2 million units so it's not like people are inherently opposed to buy a fantasy RPG from Obsidian.

The problem with comparing PE to NWN or BG in terms of potential sales is that NWN and BG are based in properties that are massively popular. Obsidian is a well respected developer, but most of the consumer base doesn't make purchase decisions on the name of the developer.

 

[Durante]

Someone posted a tracking site earlier that provided hourly tracking, but now I can't find the link. Anyone care to repost it?

 

[Azure Dream]

Been putting it off, but upped my early $20 "just in case" pledge to $140. Curse you feelies!

 

[Stripes55]

Less than $10K to go, just through KS alone.

 

[dude]

Someone posted a tracking site earlier that provided hourly tracking, but now I can't find the link. Anyone care to repost it?

http://ruinedkingdoms.com/project-eternity/

 

[Patryn]

Damn, it's been less than an hour, and we only need 47 more backers to unlock Level 11.