Chalk up another record-breaking Kickstarter… yesterday, Obsidian studios (makers of favorites such as Planescape: Torment, Fallout: New Vegas, and Alpha Protocol) started a kick for a new, original RPG, codenamed Project Eternity. This is perhaps the “spiritual successor to Planescape” project that’s been considered a theoretical possibility for some time in studio interviews.
Given the studio’s pedigree, even with a fairly vague pitch, it’s already gone on to make a million dollars in 24 hours. So, that’s pretty incredible. But not entirely surprising! The highlight for me has really been watching Chris Avellone’s astonishment on Twitter as if he never expected this to happen.
The project will be fully funded approximately by the time I hit “post” on this. But if you want an early-bird backer reward – of which there is 7,200, no sorry 7,100, no wait, um … they’re going fast.
Email the author of this post at aj@tap-repeatedly.com.
I’m very excited about this – I loved Planescape Torment and Chris Avellone’s work (ideally when tied to the work of good coders who make games that aren’t broken out of the box), is second to none. Excited!
One question: is Avellone actually gonna be the one writing this?
And have you played Mask of the Betrayer Steerpike? Avellone wrote a substantial portion of the dialogue, and KOTOR2 excepted it matches the intellectual depth of Torment more than any other game I’ve ever played, and unlike every other Obsidian game you can tell they took the time to tighten every screw in the design and polish it.
Never played it and now I will.
I haven’t talked to Chris about Project Eternity, but to my knowledge it’s largely his endeavor. He’s been making noises about Kickstarting a Torment “sequel,” minus the D&D license.
Thanks for this post, Amanda. I sort of let this slip off my radar and just hopped over and got in on the early subscriber deal for 20.00. I loved Planescape Torment and to lesser degrees, several of the other Obsidian games. Also, thanks Arouet for the tip on Mask of the Betrayer. Will definitely check it out.
MotB does have continuity with NWN2’s much inferior original campaign in that you’re supposed to be playing as the same person for both, but the plot of Mask is a complete standalone, so if you just jump right into it you’ll miss almost nothing. Unless you want to play a little bit of the main campaign to get used to the combat or magic system – MotB has a couple of difficult battles early on.
The one big issue with the game is the spirit eater mechanic which although it fits the story well, and isn’t a horrible idea in concept, is incredibly annoying because the energy bar depletes quickly enough to be distracting while you’re exploring and chasing down plot threads. Fortunately there’s a mod that reduces the rate at which your energy runs down to the point that you can ignore it for long stretches:
http://mods.jo-ge.net/nwn2/index.htm (there’s also the mod that widens your party limit to 4 NPCs so you can take the entire cast with you)
Other than that, same advice as for Torment I guess. I would recommend making a character with either high intelligence or wisdom and decent charisma as they open up additional dialogue and choices as in Torment though unlike Torment they’re not absolutely necessary to get the full story.
I would also recommend playing as a good character for the first playthrough as IMO the story loses some of its power and intellectual depth if your character doesn’t care about morality.
Arouet, you just answered the question I hopped over to ask: Can I skip NWN2 and go straight to MotB? High INT was how I played PS:T after reading I could get more dialogue options that way.
This gives a (mostly spoiler free, early in the game) example of how skills and traits influence dialogue in the game if you want to skim through it:
http://lparchive.org/Neverwinter-Nights-2-Mask-of-the-Betrayer/Update%2006/
His literary analysis of the game is also a fantastic read once you’ve finished the game.
I’ll likely play this, bugs and all, no matter what, but I’d love for there to not be too many, though Obsidian’s track record hasn’t been outstanding on that count. I’m not sure whether Alpha Protocol left more of an impression on me from the cool spy stuff executed pretty well or the fact that the menus didn’t even work correctly. As someone who spent a year coding interfaces…how do you not finish a menu?
Good god, that’s cruel. The 2.8 million stretch goal is that they’ll put George Zeits (Mask’s creative lead) on the project, but at this rate there’s no way they’re making up three million in 7 days. That is torture!