Few days left: Project Eternity - old school RPG

[kalniel]

They've released an image:



Hi Res:1080p| 1440p

Along with description of the rendering process:

Project Eternity's team of crazed environment artists have been working hard on developing our first environment for the game. Early on in the Kickstarter campaign, we told you that we wanted to make maps the Infinity Engine way. That is, we wanted to build 3D levels, render them out as 2D images, and then have our artists paint in beautiful details, highlights, and color-tweaks before they went into the game. Looking back at the levels some of us worked on for Icewind Dale, we were still thrilled with the quality that we could achieve with this approach. For Project Eternity, we're using 10 years of improvements in rendering technology and hardware to get the job done, but we still love what we can do the "old-fashioned" way. We hope you share our enthusiasm.

As well a taster of some of the lore on the Kickstater page:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...y/posts/326585

This could be something great.. hope they hit some of the extra stretch fund goals.

edit: General Project Eternity page on kickstarter (more overall info + vid): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...oject-eternity

[scaryjim]

Seriously - a major studio like Obsidian is taking to kickstarter now? I don't know if I admire their guts or I'm saddened that this is what it takes to get a decent PC RPG created.

Well, I say decent - here's hoping that they don't over-concentrate on the pretties to the detriment of the gameplay. Sure, we all like a good landscape, but if I've got a band of gnolls in my face I don't really have time to enjoy it

[kalniel]

Well, I say decent - here's hoping that they don't over-concentrate on the pretties to the detriment of the gameplay. Sure, we all like a good landscape, but if I've got a band of gnolls in my face I don't really have time to enjoy it

I really don't think they'll be over-concentrating on the pretties - this is only 2d after all (a la baldurs gate etc.).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

[scaryjim]

I really don't think they'll be over-concentrating on the pretties - this is only 2d after all (a la baldurs gate etc.).

From that screenshot they obviously are putting a lot of effort into the pretties - that's a pretty fantastic looking scene if that's in-game artwork. The key will be making the character and monster art fit in to that design ethos whilst also making things easy enough to see so the game remains playable. I'll definitely be watching with interest though.

To be brutally frank though, that scenery just reminds me of a better-graphics version of Troika/Atari's ToEE *shudder* As long as they can beat ToEEs gameplay it'll be fine

[kalniel]

From that screenshot they obviously are putting a lot of effort into the pretties - that's a pretty fantastic looking scene if that's in-game artwork.

*shrugs*

For 3d I'd say it was putting a lot of effort in, but given it's a render on commercial tools with artist touch up in 2d I don't think that's a lot of work. Obviously, more than I could ever do, but standard fare for an art team that shouldn't take away from any efforts elsewhere.

[scaryjim]

*shrug* We'll see. I didn't enjoy NWN2 or ToEE particularly, so to find out that the lead team behind this includes 2 designers from NWN2 and one from ToEE doesn't fill me with hope. Then again, they're not making a D&D game, so perhaps that'll help. Hmmm, torn.

[kalniel]

For anyone interested, they finished with a bang, raising $3,986,929 from kickstarter and another $140+k from paypal. Biggest funding for a game on Kickstarter to date, and securing a great bunch of stretch goals such as live instrumentation, developer commentary, stronghold, extra big city, mega dungeon, adventurers hall, mac and linux versions etc. etc.

The figure may dip a little over the next few days if people's payments are declined for some reason, but the paypal contribution should increase as well.