Project Update #13: Mega Dungeon! <blockquote><b>Posted by Obsidian Entertainment</b> Happy Monday! We've reached 50,000 backers, and have a special reward for everyone. Details below. Also coming this week, we have more updates about the development and creation of the game. Tomorrow, Justin Bell will discuss the process for composing the music for our trailer video. On Wednesday, Josh will update with more details about the game's design, and we are going to unveil a awesome art piece that we’ve been working on. <i>Oh, PayPal is also coming on Wednesday!</i> <b>The 50,000 Backer Reward</b> We are very excited to announce a reward to all backers that have helped us come this far. Today we are introducing <i>The Endless Paths of Od Nua</i> - a new dungeon experience for Project Eternity: <i>In the western reaches of the Dyrwood lies the Endless Paths, an ancient network of cobbled trails that wind through arches of dense overgrowth, twisting within the confines of a high castle wall as they make their way to the gates of iron-shuttered towers that jut forth from the interior. In ages past, the towers rising from the gardens to pierce the canopy of the forest once marked the dominion of the castle's relentless, crazed builder: Od Nua. But the courses of Od Nua's madness run far below the surface, stretching forever deeper into wandering catacombs and bone-cramped oubliettes unseen by living eyes for centuries. The Endless Paths, as the old Glanfathans call them, cannot be walked by the living, but the storytellers say with certainty that many strong souls have found a permanent home beneath the grieving creator's estate. Most else that is said and written of the place is fiction or conjecture, more likely to have sprouted from the svef-enhanced imaginations of bored and boasting mercenaries than from any seed of truth. Hosts of lost souls that relentlessly stalk the living, cathedral-sized tombs overflowing with the restless victims of a horrific plague, lightless chambers sealing in the remnants of Od Nua's failed experiments. Most legends converge on a common theme: that under the castle rest myriad forgotten vaults of death and darkness glittering with Od Nua's enchanted creations and the abandoned treasure of ill-fated interlopers. So great is the fear of the castle's denizens that even drunken and drug-cheered adventurers do not joke of setting foot on the paths, lest their souls join the eternal ranks of those that have gone before them.</i> The current plan is to make The Endless Paths with three subterranean levels, but it can grow larger with your help. For every 2,500 additional backers, the depths of Od Nua’s castle become deeper, which means one additional level will be added to the vaults. Continue to spread the word about Project Eternity, and let's see how big we can make The Endless Paths! <b>Crafting and Enchanting at $2.4 Million</b> We also have a new stretch goal at $2.4 million dollars to announce: Crafting and Enchanting! <img src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/187/171/3e92858f946d1553164a19b11c1d1164_large.jpg" /> Crafting and enchanting in Project Eternity will allow players to use objects and materials they find during exploration to both create consumable items like potions and scrolls as well as give their gear custom upgrades that can't be accomplished by other means. This system is intended to be easy to use and very flexible, allowing players to customize many aspects of what they can create or alter. Whether it's brewing basic potions from herbs and minerals commonly found throughout the world or upgrading a humble broadsword into a custom-named, magically-imbued weapon of distinctive and legendary power, we want to give players the ability to make it. On the development side of things, we also want to make the system as data-driven as possible, allowing us to easily extend our list of recipes in the future. Each stretch goal we hit not only adds new features to the game like crafting, but also makes the game larger by adding more content, quests, dialogue, and characters. Together, we've already added two new races, companions and classes, along with a player house. $2.2 million is very close which adds a new faction and region, and there are more exciting stretch goals planned if we make it past $2.4 million and beyond. <b>New Add-Ons</b> Additionally, we have two new add-ons for you: Add an Early Access Beta Key for $25. The beta key is the same reward at the $110 and up levels, but now you can add it as an extra at the lower tiers. Add a Digital Strategy Guide for $7. The digital strategy guide is also included in the $80 and up levels, but now you can add it as an extra at the lower tiers. This will cost more when we ship the game, so get in on the opportunity to save! As a quick tutorial on how to add add-ons, go to the Project Eternity Kickstarter site and hit the Manage Your Pledge button. The reward tier you had already picked will still be selected and the amount will be in the big box at the top. All you need to do is add the dollar amount that covers the add-ons you would like to your pledge and enter the new total number. For instance, if you are at the $35 Pledge level and want to add the Beta Key, you would enter $60 as your total pledge. We’ll send you a fulfillment survey after the Kickstarter period is over and you can specify what you wanted to do with any excess monies added. Thank you! <i>Update by Adam Brennecke and Josh Sawyer</i> <a href="http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60861-update-13-50k-backers-brings-new-mega-dungeon-stretch-goals-and-more-paypal-too/">FORUMS: Join in the discussion for Update #13!</a> <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/319868?ref=email&show_token=eb0f16ca4741eb64">http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/319868?ref=email&show_token=eb0f16ca4741eb64</a>
Personally I'm not a fan of big dungeons; I'm quite completionist when it comes to games and like to explore every inch of a map - large dungeons usually aren't rewarding enough to satisfy the waste of an hour or two of my time going through them. Plus the fact on re-playing the game for the 4th or 5th time that dungeon is going to be tedious no matter how much you liked it first time round. Even so, the setting of the dungeon sounds cool so I'll hold off on full pessimism just yet. I also don't really feel like the option for crafting should be a stretch goal - it should already be in the game. It should certainly have ranked lower than $2.3 million when there's still things like extra difficulty settings they're going to add which are fine but not half as important. I guess hopefully the addition of a cheap beta key will make them get to $2.3 million, because it seems like new support is starting to lag a bit - though it might play against them as if the only reason someone went for the $110 tier was for the beta key now they can dial that back to $50 for the same effect.
Yeah, I was also surprised at the crafting bit. It's been a staple in CRPG's since the days of Arcanum, for crying out loud. I have mixed feelings when it comes to huge dungeons. There are some shining examples of mega dungeons done right, but they have a regrettable tendency to devolve into abominations such as The Dredge and the BMC mines, the only things I hate about Arcanum.
Mostly linear experiences like the BMC mines aren't so bad, but total fuckfests like the Dredge are painful. That's right, I've been as far as the dredge! Once or twice anyway.
Any big dungeon I've experienced I'd rather have chopped into quarters and served as four separate locations. The frustration of getting lost and/or taking minutes to just watch my character backtrack is simply not worth it for me. Also, I don't like that how the update comes with a message saying "the initial $1.1 million goal? Not even half enough for us to include a crafting system".
I'm confident that this is going to be a robust role-playing experience, with or without crafting. Personally, I prefer to pilfer my epic loot from the bodies of my slain foes.
I suppose realistically they're making people pay for things that will actually take time or money to implement so the tiers do make more sense from a practical stand point. I guess that's why they listed translations as quite a high tier - though they're not particularly wowing it will be more costly and time consuming to implement than say the player house; a crafting system will be much more involved then either of those things, at least I'd imagine it would.
With crafting there's always balancing to consider. Look at Skyrim. I'm pretty sure Bethesda never intended for players to be able to max out Enchanting/Alchemy/Smithing and craft swords that can one-shot dragons with a glancing blow. It takes more manhours to make sure you've avoided such exploits than it takes just designing a house.
The enchanting/alchemy/spell crafting system of Elder Scrolls games have been exploitable since Morrowind, maybe before but I wouldn't know. So I'm not convinced that it wasn't intended to be that way with Skyrim.
Well then, let's hope that Obsidian do not adapt their crafting system to the crowd who cannot play a game without game-breaking skill synergies.
