Eternity Awaits. An quick look to Project Eternity

Kickstarting a project

Some time ago, planing on creating an critically acclaimed game using donations as the only source of funding sounded, let's face it, PLAIN CRAZY. But after Tim Schaffer's success in funding Double Fine Adventure with a whooping result of  3,336,371 dollars, it stopped to look like that.

It set a new record for funding a video game on Kickstarter.

That is quite some cash, isn't it? And more then enough to make an adventure game, especially one that will be probably an old-school one (story gt; graphics and other stuff). 

But the are not the holders of the record anymore. Project Eternity has gathered an awesome result of 3,986,929 dollars. Not counting donations via PayPal. In total, according to the information you can find on their website, they have gathered

OVER 4,3 MILION DOLLARS

And those money will probably bring us something great.  

What we would, and what WILL we get?

Because, as Obsidian declared, all the money beyond the requested 1,1 million will go towards making the game even bigger than it was at the start. Their idea is to create an old-school rpg with an isometric point of view. Sounds like Baldur's Gate

During the start of their funding campaign, the plan was to create a game for Windows with:

• three races
• five classes
• five companions
• a giant hub city akin to Baldur's Gate, Athkatla, Kirkwall or anything along those lines
• an epic story (as all rpg's, but shhhh... :D )

However, the funding went better than they anticipated (4,3 is better than 1,1 milion, right?), and now we have a game for Windows, MAC and, most of all, LINUX with

• five races
• eleven classes
• nine companions
• TWO giant hub cities
• an option to make your own house
• an possibility of becoming a lord of an stronghold
• crafting and enchanting

Technical stuff

We also know a few technical details for sure: the game will use the Unity graphic engine. Thanks to that we will be able to play the game on any operating system. Which is great news for everyone who does not use Windows on their PC. Also, we know that the game will be available on Steam and GOG (the latter offering a standard-for-them DRM-free version of it). That is not everything that we can tell about this game, but now you should know most of the important information. For more, you can always come and visit the kickstarter page for the game. There you can get some inside look on the creation process. And do not worry, I'm observing it, and will post updates anytime something very interesting comes up :)

Legends of old, reborn? Interview with a special person

I think everyone has heard a thing or two about it. An old school cRPG player's dream that will come true.
...

You did not heard about

 "Project Eternity"?

Do not worry, we will fix that soon. A longer article about Project Eternity will come to life after they will end collecting funds for creating the game of our (mine for sure) dreams.

All of us heard about Obsidian Entertainment. At least once or twice. They are the people that created such games as Star Wars: KotOR II, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout: New Vegas.

And they decided to make an RPG with real-time combat with pause, and an isometric view. Smells likes Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale. And is made by people who created Planescape: Torment, for example.

And they gathered all the funds needed to make it happen from gamers around the world (they got mine 35$ too)

A few words from Adam Brennecke from Obsidian Entertainment about how it all happened

Could you be so kind and introduce yourself to our readers?

I am an executive producer and lead programmer at Obsidian Entertainment currently working on Project Eternity. I've been at Obsidian my entire game development career which spans over eight years and five games including Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Fallout: New Vegas. If you haven't heard of Obsidian - we are an independent video game developer specializing in role playing games based in Irvine, California. 

How did the idea to make a game with funds raised by fans came to you?

We joked about the idea for doing a game on Kickstarter a year ago (late 2011) when we saw board-games on Kickstarter break the $100,000 milestone in crowdfunding. We stopped joking when Tim Schafer and Double Fine launched their Kickstarter and really changed our outlook on how our games could be funded. Wasteland 2 and subsequent game launches solidified that crowd-funding is for real and made us seriously consider taking the jump too. 

How did Obsidian prepared itself for the Kickstarter campaign?

We came up with the idea for Eternity collectively as a team, and then I was tasked to put together a pitch plan and video. It took about two months to prepare everything for the launch. The process included a ton of work are effort from our talented artists, sound designer, and game designers. 

When you combine the money from Kickstarter and PayPal, how much funds have you raised? And how many people have pledge their support to your idea?

We raised around $4,200,000 with about 77,000 backers. 

Where you prepared for this kind of attention, where you expecting it?

We raised one million dollars in 24 hours and hit our initial funding goal of $1.1m in 30 hours, which was very overwhelming. We didn't expect it to come so fast. I don't think anyone could have expected it. 

And the amount of feedback from the backers, how much did your initial idea of the game changed thanks to all the suggestions from the forums and the Kickstarter comments?

We stuck to our original ideas for the most part - but we did see how fans reacted to certain ideas and then we discussed it internally. One of the most important things to remember is that nothing is set in stone this early in pre-production and we love reading and hearing everyone's feedback and ideas.
This whole experience with fund raising, being right next to your fans (and future buyers of your game), being independent from developers making you go faster than you would prefer.. Is it very different than your previous experiences with creating cRPG's?

Yes, it's quite a bit different from my past experiences making games. First off we typically don't go public with game details until way later into production; However with the Kickstarter we had to reveal a lot of details to our fans right up front. It's great to include our fans in the pre-production process because we can get immediate feedback on our ideas. 

Will it all go to creating the game? Or will some part of it go towards the rewards given to your backers?

All the money that we raised will go to making the game or will go to making and shipping the physical and digital goods for our backers. We have a few extra costs like the cost of using Unity (the game engine), recording live-music in the studio, hiring voice actors, and other software purchases. Any additional money over our goal really means we can add more people to the development team which equates to more content, game features, and a larger world. 

Did you had all those stretch goals prepared, or did the enthusiasm overwhelm you, and you had to create new ones before you were expecting it?

We did have the stretch goal plan prepared before we launched the Kickstarter, but we were caught off guard by how fast we reached our initial goal. It's a very iterative process, and new ideas for stretch goals were continually brought up by team members or fans - It was important to remain flexible during the campaign. 

Did you tried to ask a producer to produce your game, or you decided just to Kickstart it?

We have difficult time pitching projects that are PC focused and not on a console, and the publisher interest in funding mid-budget games like Project Eternity is small. Going with Kickstarter made a lot of sense to us, and the game we wanted to make really fit with the crowd-funding model. 

Purely hypothetical question: If “Project: Eternity” will be a success, will you think of making another game funded this way? Or another part, let's call it “Project Eternity 2” ?

Yes, we are very interested in continuing making games like Project Eternity if it proves to be successful. Why not continue a good thing? Obsidian owns the world and characters so making follow up games will be our plan if the first release is received well.