Honestly, it's kinda hard to explain, it's more like a feeling, you know? I can say i like the enemies/environment while i'm not too fascinated by the characters.
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Pillars of Eternity by Obsidian Entertainment (Kickstarter) [Up: Teaser]
- Thread starter duckroll
- Start date
Honestly, it's kinda hard to explain, it's more like a feeling, you know? I can say i like the enemies/environment while i'm not too fascinated by the characters.
Sentenza
Member
Yeah, that's exactly my feeling about it.
I have great respect for both, but they are really pushing my faith with their pitch.
Jon of the Wired
Member
I think the reaction people have had to the art we've been shown, and the updates generally, stem from misaligned expectations on two different axis.
First, there was an expectation that the setting and tone of the game would be more surreal and outlandish, in the style of Planescape. I can understand that desire, PS:T is still my favorite game, but the expectation seems to derive from an assumption that given the chance of course Obsidian would make another Planescape (or Planescape style) game. I don't think that was ever a justified assumption. Black Isle and Obsidian have made a lot of games, and only MoTB comes even close to replicating the fantastic elements of Planescape, and even that was still set in the Realms. You can make the claim that this was due to publisher interference, but the creation of Torment was not due to some sudden moment of publisher passivity. It was a licensed D&D product. Even if you just look only at the Black Isle Infinity Engine games, they made one Planescape: Torment, but they made two Icewind Dales. MCA has said that he would like to revisit a Planescape-like setting, but he's only one voice at Obsidian, and he's not the project lead.
It's clear that the world of Project Eternity is meant to be a much more naturalistic fantasy world. Their approach to world building is to take a few fantastic elements (souls are a source of power, there is this set of fantasy races, gods exist, but are meddlesome and untrustworthy) and to build the world around those elements by basing it on historical analogies and then asking "what if..?". This is a totally valid approach to building a fantasy world, but it is not an approach that gets you something like Planescape. The types of settings give you the opportunity to deal with different thematic elements. In a fantastical setting like Planescape, you can best explore themes that are more metaphysical and existential in nature, questions about the nature of belief and reality. A more naturalistic world, one that has more parallels to the world we inhabit, allows you to better address social and political themes. You can explore issues like discrimination, government, poverty and war in a way that feels relevant to the player. Again, I think both of these are totally valid, and it sucks for people that were really hoping for one and have no interest in the other, but I don't think there's been any misrepresentation on Obsidian's side about their goals for the setting.
From what we've seen so far, I think they are executing well on the ideas they've chosen to explore, but it is still very early in the process, which brings me to the second point.
An important thing to note is that this game has had something like three weeks of very early pre-production, and that's it. The game is not at the point where anyone in the public would even know it existed if it were being developed under the normal publisher model. When a published game releases "early" concept art, that game has probably been in full production for some period of time. The designs have been completely nailed down, and the concept artists have drawn everything in the game a hundred times. Even if they show concept art that is from early in the process, it was cherry-picked from thousands of drawings. It's probably not a good idea to make judgements about how the final game will look, relative to other games, based on comparing this concept art to concept art shown by publishers as promotional material.
Obsidian is in a difficult position. On one hand they shouldn't be showing art to the public that they're not confident in, but on the other hand it's too early for any of the designs to be finalized, and the backers are clamoring to see something. This applies equally to questions about rules and mechanics. They can't release, for example, a walkthrough of character creation, because the character creation system hasn't been designed yet. Possibly Obsidian's real error was not self-funding a longer pre-production period before launching the kickstarter. Doing so would probably have prevented a lot of the blow-back they're getting.
First, there was an expectation that the setting and tone of the game would be more surreal and outlandish, in the style of Planescape. I can understand that desire, PS:T is still my favorite game, but the expectation seems to derive from an assumption that given the chance of course Obsidian would make another Planescape (or Planescape style) game. I don't think that was ever a justified assumption. Black Isle and Obsidian have made a lot of games, and only MoTB comes even close to replicating the fantastic elements of Planescape, and even that was still set in the Realms. You can make the claim that this was due to publisher interference, but the creation of Torment was not due to some sudden moment of publisher passivity. It was a licensed D&D product. Even if you just look only at the Black Isle Infinity Engine games, they made one Planescape: Torment, but they made two Icewind Dales. MCA has said that he would like to revisit a Planescape-like setting, but he's only one voice at Obsidian, and he's not the project lead.
It's clear that the world of Project Eternity is meant to be a much more naturalistic fantasy world. Their approach to world building is to take a few fantastic elements (souls are a source of power, there is this set of fantasy races, gods exist, but are meddlesome and untrustworthy) and to build the world around those elements by basing it on historical analogies and then asking "what if..?". This is a totally valid approach to building a fantasy world, but it is not an approach that gets you something like Planescape. The types of settings give you the opportunity to deal with different thematic elements. In a fantastical setting like Planescape, you can best explore themes that are more metaphysical and existential in nature, questions about the nature of belief and reality. A more naturalistic world, one that has more parallels to the world we inhabit, allows you to better address social and political themes. You can explore issues like discrimination, government, poverty and war in a way that feels relevant to the player. Again, I think both of these are totally valid, and it sucks for people that were really hoping for one and have no interest in the other, but I don't think there's been any misrepresentation on Obsidian's side about their goals for the setting.
From what we've seen so far, I think they are executing well on the ideas they've chosen to explore, but it is still very early in the process, which brings me to the second point.
An important thing to note is that this game has had something like three weeks of very early pre-production, and that's it. The game is not at the point where anyone in the public would even know it existed if it were being developed under the normal publisher model. When a published game releases "early" concept art, that game has probably been in full production for some period of time. The designs have been completely nailed down, and the concept artists have drawn everything in the game a hundred times. Even if they show concept art that is from early in the process, it was cherry-picked from thousands of drawings. It's probably not a good idea to make judgements about how the final game will look, relative to other games, based on comparing this concept art to concept art shown by publishers as promotional material.
Obsidian is in a difficult position. On one hand they shouldn't be showing art to the public that they're not confident in, but on the other hand it's too early for any of the designs to be finalized, and the backers are clamoring to see something. This applies equally to questions about rules and mechanics. They can't release, for example, a walkthrough of character creation, because the character creation system hasn't been designed yet. Possibly Obsidian's real error was not self-funding a longer pre-production period before launching the kickstarter. Doing so would probably have prevented a lot of the blow-back they're getting.
I don't think the issue is that they've shown art too early. In fact, it's been quite effective at conveying what type of setting they're going for, and along with info they've released, the sorts of character types that will be populating that world. Some like what they see, while others are more wary. They've given us a good idea of what to expect, so in that light the concept art has worked well.
I also don't think the notion of a fantastic setting is mutually exclusive to the exploration of various so-called "real world" themes. Many themes are universal enough and can be delved into quite thoroughly in unfamiliar settings. You can effectively depict things like discrimination and war in settings which are otherwise quite unusual, and indeed writers have done so many times, and to great effect.
A setting gives you a visual flavor to work with and some level of context within which the story takes place, but beyond that it doesn't tend to set any hard rules (especially in sci-fi/fantasy) and you are fairly unshackled in what you choose to go into and the themes you wish to tackle. PE is in fact a case in point there, as it seems to be a more naturalistic world that will still delve into heady themes such as the nature of death.
It's why my issue with PE's setting personally is less about what it might mean thematically or as far as character-building, and more about how interesting it's likely to be from an exploratory, aesthetic standpoint. I want to be in an unrecognizable world that breeds familiarity throughout the course of the story. That to me is the essence of the best sci-fi and fantasy - something truly transportive.
Wow, thanks for posting that, one of the best interviews yet! (Sounds like the interviewer has been following this thing as obsessively as, say... me for example, lol.)
One awesome part:
They really need to define the type of RPG they're going for. People in the comments for it are asking if it's going to be on Steam, when they know nothing about the game.
Huh? It seems obvious to me that the more alien the things around you are, the less deep you are able to delve into them. When you have an alien world, it is to emphasize something else beside exploring deeper human interactions and relationships. It is just a different choice. I don't see what you don't understand - You cannot explore deeper feelings or relationships in a slime creature with no ability to see or smell but a unique sense through which is perceives the world because the story would obviously have to revolve for quite some time on these alien aspects before you can even hope to achieve any form of deeper feelings. It's not a bad thing to have such a slime creature, but if you are interested in exploring relationships and interactions, it's often more interesting to have a cast of humans or closely related humanoids. It's pretty obvious.
Every project slows down a lot during the middle. We can expect a 350k to 600k bump during the last 3 days.
Minsc
Gold Member
If you compare Project Eternity to Wasteland 2, you can see Wasteland 2 tracked better overall by picking up steam about 1 week ago at the equivalent point in the kickstarter and holding it at the 50-80K+ level, while this is still around 30K+. I think what duckroll touched on earlier is hurting this now. The honeymoon period is over, time to step up the game with facts that aren't hazed over and actual screens if they have them or perhaps sketches of the different classes or walk through character creation, or introduce goals that really get people interested like releasing full mod creation tools. Wasteland 2's stretch goals were a lot more interesting, these seem like things you'd expect more or less anyway to some extent.
Edit: The different scales of the graphs do hurt the comparison, but you can still see there was a significant boost to a large portion of the end W2 campaign (not just the final few days), that hasn't really come in this one.
Jibbajabbawockky
Member
Yeah, as I recall the thing that really injected some life into Wasteland's Kickstarter in the middle of it was when they announced Avellone would come on board at $2 million or whatever the dollar value was.
I think Obsidian has actually been really good with all of these updates but they just need something really big to shake things up. Whether thats a screenshot or video or some kind of really amazing stretch goal everyone would get super excited for. There will no doubt be a surge at the end as all Kickstarters have, but they need something big to kind of get that surge started or to give people a sense of urgency to increase their pledge or pledge at all. I know several people interested in the game but probably won't pledge since its already funded. Obsidian needs some big stretch goal to get that sense of urgency and enthusiasm back for the end run.
Minsc
Gold Member
Thanks, it puts it in better perspective seeing them all on the same chart. Definitely looks better than I thought in that light being over W2 . The links to kicktraq with the day to day totals do give an easier sense of the momentum which is more interesting to me. Seeing when the funding picks up and drops (and by how much).
Also, I think there is some kind of "fatigue" regarding games on Kickstarter. Basically, there is a lot of projects and not that many backers. I'd be curious to see the overlap between backers from Wasteland, Double Fine and PE.
PE is clearly doing better than Wasteland 2, even without the graph. Wasteland 2 got really slow around the 2M mark, and it barely crawled it's way to 2.9 at the end there. This has seen a dump, but it's still 2.3 with 12 days to go... It's doing much better than Wasteland 2, hell, even DFA was crawling at this point. It only passed the 3m mark thanks to the big push at the last day. I think it just might end up higher than DFA if the last week boost will be big enough.
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
I don't really agree with this.
I don't think we're gonna see 1:1 copies of games from the late 80s and early 90s.
You keep moving the goal posts; nobody is asking for a puddle of slime. "Strange" doesn't necessarily mean "utterly divorced from anything appreciably human-like." This discussion started with Torment, and in that game the majority of the characters are quite humanoid enough, yet still managed to attain a sense of otherworldliness through the strength and uniqueness of the setting.
I'm not sure how Dak'kon, Fall-from-Grace, etc = puddle of slime. The Nameless One is an actual human, albeit a zombified one. Even Morte is human-like in many respects, despite being a floating skull. Yet apparently these things still represent an obstacle for you.
Writers like Mieville have gone to far, far stranger lengths than we see in games in evoking various emotions in the reader, i.e. Perdido Street Station and its bangin' human/insect interspecies romance. Shockingly enough, the insect woman managed to actually be quite easy to empathize with, despite having the head of a beetle. Whodathunkit?
Unusual settings aren't a limitation; they in fact just open things up to allow for greater possibilities that don't feel out of place.
Jon of the Wired
Member
Notably, though, Bas-Lag is far more similar to what we know of the setting of Project Eternity than it is to Planescape.
It was an example. My point was, the more weird elements you introduce, the more you divert attention from other things. Again, this is a pretty intuitive point. PS:T didn't include the complacently weird, but even when you introduce something less alien than a ball of slime you have now a new element you must address fully before you can get to the more mundane things like relationships, interactions and feelings. And my point still stands that no character in PS:T went through the changed and emotional rides BG2 put Anomen through, because you must likely couldn't have experienced anything like it with any of the characters in PS:T.
I also didn't say that unusual settings are a limitation, only that they have limitations, which I've explained. There are many things you can accomplish better with alien words and concepts - But for some goals, a familiar world just works better, it avoids the mess and gets the job done. Which was my point all along. Thinking that a less-familiar setting is always better and always opens up more possibilities is simply wrong, I don't know how else to explain this.
Jon of the Wired
Member
Yeah, I think that article is pretty much nonsense.
There was an amazing four year period, 1997 through 2000, during which Fallout, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate 2 and Deus Ex were all released. It was the best four years of my gaming life, and those are still some of my favourite games. At the time, though, what I was really thinking was "if games are this good now how good are they going to be in five years, or ten years!?". You can imagine how I felt when 2005 and 2010 actually came around.
I'm not funding this kickstarter, or others, to get another PS:T or Fallout. Those games still exist, and I still love them. I want the game that I thought I was going to be playing five years later, or ten years later, before publishers decided that rich, deep RPGs just weren't where the money was.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
"A comic-book-style reboot of the gaming world to 1993"
Holy shit, this quote is amazing for multiple reasons. I honestly hope it's not a reboot like New 52 or Marvel NOW!.
It's just a clear divide in opinions on the matter, ultimately. I don't think there's anything you can do in a 'normal' setting that you can't inherently do in a more unusual setting, while also being able to do more in the latter than you can in the former due to removing various expectations on the part of the audience. In fantasy, anything should be possible so long as there's an internal logic to it, and I think it's less effective when the audience jumps into a fantasy story already knowing what to expect.
Ideally, fantasy should be mysterious and surprising (and fantastic), especially nowadays when we've been continually bombarded with various tropes and cliches in the genre. Can relatively generic fantasy still be fun to experience? It can be; I like Patrick Rothfuss' stuff, but I generally find it far less enticing than the more out-there stories.
Can getting that done be challenging? Sure. In the case of something like a novel, it can ultimately require more work on the part of the writer to create something relatable - and on the reader to relate to it - out of something that isn't immediately so, but in my opinion it's also far more rewarding in the end and gives the writer more room to maneuver. It removes limitations, as whatever neat thing they can conjure up in their imaginations is likely to find some way to fit into the story (certainly, the editor is crucial there so that things don't become too swamped).
I don't feel it's a negative at all for the audience to have to get accustomed to a setting along with getting to know the characters, and that should in fact be much easier to do in an RPG than a novel, since you have visual help for immersion on top of what is often a fairly long playthrough. I think Torment actually did that sort of thing as well as you can do it, as both you and The Nameless One were likely to be completely new to Planescape - the player because in most cases it'd be the first time they've experienced the setting, and TNO because he had total amnesia and may as well have been transported to another galaxy for all he could recall. You were both on a journey of discovery together throughout the game, so TNO made for a very effective audience surrogate.
And you think, when experiencing something incredibly different and foreign for the first time that you can fully comprehend it and understand the depth of its inhabitants feeling, uniqueness, customs etc. like you could in a world where you're more familiar with these things?
What I'm saying is that PS:T is a specific experience, a more removed one, because you're experiencing Sigil as a complete outsider, you must learn about it to great extent to understand where the people who live there are coming from. In a more familiar fantasy setting, you can create interesting and deep plots and character with much less effort. In Sigil, you're an outsider, a tourist even one might say, in Athkatla you're an inhabitant of the world - You easily interact with it rather than mostly observe it. neither of these are bad, they're just different approaches, but if you put the focus on the type on interactions we've seen in BG2, a familiar setting is the much easier way to do it.
If I told you a character did not pass his test to become a Sobul, it would mean nothing to you unless I explain in great detail everything that being a Sobul entails. Endless exposition at every time I would bring up this plot point. If I told you, on the other hand, that he did not pass the test to become a Knight? You may not know entirely what role knights fill in this world, but you understand most of the cultural significance of what being one (or failing to be one entails) - I can now easily delve into the compelling story of a character dealing with disappointment, failure, faithlessness and what not with very minimal exposition. With a Sobul, I would never get the chance to explore it to the same extent I can a knight.
I think it's actually much easier to establish a more different setting in a book - Because there's a larger disconnect between the reader and the story, the protagonist can know things the reader cannot and so on. You can never do that in an RPG video game.
EDIT: I think that's turning out to be a clear case of "agree to disagree".
What you say is true - but only when the writer(s) suck, and/or underestimate their audience. A good writer can convey familiar, "human" emotions through the strangest of settings and characters. One of the joys of escapist fiction is to explore the familiar through the unfamiliar. Take Kaelyn the Dove, from Mask of the Betrayer: I knew next to nothing about the Wall of the Faithless, but her cause immediately reminded me of Antigone's - the clash of personal and traditional values. I needed nothing else; her motivations and feelings were clear and profoundly "human".
That said, I trust Sawyer and Avellone (et al.) to use the classic Forgotten Realms look as a gateway to their strange, unique world. I just don't think "You can't form a full emotional connection without staple high fantasy look and feel" is a good argument.
Never said it. I said you can't explore certain elements to the same depth with an unfamiliar setting - which, again, I think is a pretty intuitive point. You don't have unlimited time, and the more elements you introduce the more you have to work with.
It's not about good writing or bad writing or that you can't relate to non-human characters, it's that you can't explore these characters to the same depth you could if you knew more about where they are coming from. Or rather, not that you couldn't do it in a less familiar setting, but that it would be much harder for no clear benefit. I will again remind that my point is that choosing a familiar setting has many advantages and that it is a better ground to focus on deeper plots and interactions between characters.
Interview and new art:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/05/obsidian-on-project-eternity-old-school-innovation/
Low level intelligence dialog is in!!!!
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/05/obsidian-on-project-eternity-old-school-innovation/
Low level intelligence dialog is in!!!!
One thing I fear is that with the limited resources they have, equipping new armor/weapons won't actually change the visuals on your character. :|
I'm a sucker for heavy armor and I hope I can run around with my character looking like a true knight! Stats are great, but visual cues to show that your character is progressing are also nice.
I'm a sucker for heavy armor and I hope I can run around with my character looking like a true knight! Stats are great, but visual cues to show that your character is progressing are also nice.
Oh well, let's hope they can make the game good anyway
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
i know what you are saying in general but with Obsidian its probably true.
Jibbajabbawockky
Member
Yeah, I guess it depends on what the game actually looks like. I mean, I remember with BG2 that swapping armor and weapons changed the look on characters but then again, the characters weren't much to look at in any event.
I'm just really curious how closely the actual game looks as compared to the old Infinity engine games.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
To all the Obsidian devs reading this:
Ignore what the fans are saying, please
Second-favorite character art so far (Female dwarven ranger was the best).
Does "Aloth" refer to the class of the character, the race, the character's name, or those snakey creatures?
If it is a race, then it looks kinda like their equivalent of drow/night elf (pointy ears under that hood). I also noticed that the insignia on his chest heavily incorporate the design of a key.
Ignore what the fans are saying, please
Second-favorite character art so far (Female dwarven ranger was the best).
Does "Aloth" refer to the class of the character, the race, the character's name, or those snakey creatures?
If it is a race, then it looks kinda like their equivalent of drow/night elf (pointy ears under that hood). I also noticed that the insignia on his chest heavily incorporate the design of a key.
So far all the art in that style have been character art so I would lean towards Aloth being the name of the character.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Mirror's Edge is one of my favorite games ever. So yes.
Reminds me of Kreia.
It's a very ambitious game with brilliant worldbuilding and a fantastic levelling system. But the game is horribly balanced. And the story and the characters are pretty forgettable.
I didn't know this. Hopefully Eternity will have interesting romances.
New guy is better, I like the magic snake stuff, but still pretty meh. I think they should actually put a better guy to do the promotional art. None of what they've shown is exciting in any way, even if it's not particuarily "bad".
edit: still expecting the best of the best from Obsidian. I mean, I've played over 300 hours of New Vegas, I can endure boring graphics...
edit: still expecting the best of the best from Obsidian. I mean, I've played over 300 hours of New Vegas, I can endure boring graphics...
I wouldn't worry about that. They seem to be going for 3D models in 2D backgrounds, so armor swapping seems to be in. I really like that myself, so fingers crossed!
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
How buggy are we talking?
I've heard everything from mildly noticeable to game breaking.
Last Hearth
Member
Looks to me like they were smart to withhold the details when they launched the Kickstarter.
They left a blank canvass so that every fan can project on to it their idealized version of the RPG savior/messiah, and imagine that was the game they were giving money to make.
They left a blank canvass so that every fan can project on to it their idealized version of the RPG savior/messiah, and imagine that was the game they were giving money to make.
Duh. They are masters of DECEIT