Q: Beyond what you're currently hard at work on, is there any other IPs out there that the team would absolutely love to get their hands on?
Chris: There’s a few: The Wire, Archer, Ultima, Chronotrigger, Deus Ex, Arcanum, Star Wars, Firefly, and Doctor Who, to name a few. I think Star Wars is pretty high on people’s lists here at the studio. Personally, I’d love to do an Eberron D&D game as well, I love that universe.
Q: The David Tennant Doctor or the Matt Smith Doctor?
Chris: Any doctor in the next generation (including Eccleston) and Tom Baker of the old generation would be my preference. But I wouldn’t be the only one working on it, so it’d be more of a discussion beyond that, I expect... I will say the idea of making a brand-new Doctor that has to face off against the older Doctors (next generation or old generation) I think would be an awesome “season arc” for a game title. After all, I think the toughest adversary a Doctor could face is himself.
Q: Speaking of which, how's it coming along? Have you guys locked down a title yet?
Chris: It’s coming along great, we’re building cities and districts and dungeons for players to explore, and it’s all looking beautiful – we’re currently tackling the first major city in the game, Defiance Bay, and it’s shaping up great. It’s not often that people can come into work and say “well, today I’m building a city,” but that’s the kind of workplace we have here at Obsidian. And that’s just the start – it’s not just the city itself, but the locations throughout the Eternity world (above and below) are shaping up beautifully, and the designers are adding a lot of great quest lines and content to thread them all together.
As for the title of the project: We have not resolved the “lock down a title” quest line yet. So no XP for us.
Q: You guys have stated that Eternity will be a pretty mature and dark-themed game. Slavery, drug use, etc. Are you afraid that might turn off some potential fans, or cause some unintended controversy within the gaming media?
Chris: If it’s true to the story, we’re afraid of nothing. There are a lot of elements we’ve often wanted to explore in previous titles that we haven’t had an opportunity to do, and Eternity gives us free rein to deal with those subjects. We don’t include elements like these for shock value – if they fit in with the game’s themes and if they add weight to the player’s moral choices for the player, then they are absolutely worth adding to the world. Similar themes worked well in interesting ways in Fallout 2, for example, and seeing some of those same evils explored in Eternity from a different perspective is something we’re looking forward to - and that’s only a small part of what we have planned.
We're still developing magic. I can say that wizard spells are the most expansive of any class' Abilities. Wizards currently have a 4th level spell called Minor Arcane Reflection that is effectively Spell Turning. They also have a 4th level spell called Minor Grimoire Imprint that allows them to temporarily "steal" spells from an enemy's grimoire and cast them for free. We'll probably be implementing more wacky wizard spells as time goes by. We started with the classics like Spell (Magic) Missile, Fireball, Crackling (Lightning) Bolt, etc.
and other stuff (Chanters are not Wizards)
<Other words that are not modding related>
Oh happy day! Magic Missile! Fireball! Stealing THEIR Fireball etc... so you can dual wield Fireballs and/or Fireball/Magic Missile and/or FB/Crackling Bolt and/or MM/CB...wait, CB. First you have have CB then you have 2CB, or C2B. So better be able to dual wield spells or they've blown an easter egg. But the stealing is a good idea, regardless. Major Grimoire Imprint will of course allow you to cast all their spells at once, yeah?
And I approve of Stars Wars and Bloodlines finally being challenged in the colon wars. Lets see if they make it official.
Xeddicus on
"For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men. Not women. Not beasts...this you can trust."
Still doesn't hold a candle to The Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 - Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie - Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa.
Still doesn't hold a candle to The Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 - Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie - Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa.
In fairness, nothing will ever hold a candle to that.
We will probably have three casting/ability use durations: immediate, short, and long. Those will be set to specific intervals and will be consistent between characters. E.g. a fighter's "short" ability use is the same as a wizard's "short" casting time, etc.
50+? 50 of those are being designed by fans, I expect at least 100, nay, 1,000 so there are no common items found ever and... OK, so maybe 75 if all the submissions are horribly dumb and require massive changes and they have no time to whip up their own. But then that's what the toolset will be for, I suppose.
"For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men. Not women. Not beasts...this you can trust."
It said you could make an "Artifact" so someone better make artifacts that spew out gold, teleport you, shoot out all the elements at once and make you invisible. To start with. I hope we get to see the first draft of the player submitted items.
"For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men. Not women. Not beasts...this you can trust."
"Once upon a time, somebody found a pointy stick, stabbed a monster with it, and decided that doing so was an awful lot of fun. People have been doing similar things ever since."
Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
An agent of Dunryd Row attempts to perceive a "housed" soul within a piece of evidence.
Hello and welcome to today's class update! We'll be discussing some newcomers to the Dyrwood's "magic" scene, the enigmatic and deadly soul-manipulators known as ciphers. Read on to learn how ciphers went from being an animancer's theoretical possibility, to the feared foes of Dyrwoodan settlers, to an integral part of Defiance Bay's secret police, Dunryd Row.
Cipher Mechanics
Contemporary ciphers are fighting casters, like the Glanfathan "mind hunters" who invented the discipline. When engaged in physical combat, they use an Ability called Soul Whip to contact and drain the psyches of their targets. Recognizable by the purple flames that engulf a cipher's weapons, Soul Whip generates a Focus resource that ciphers can use to power their abilities. Though ciphers begin combat with a modest amount of Focus, their more advanced techniques demand large expenditures of Focus. Additionally, repeated uses of even minor powers will quickly drain a cipher's Focus, requiring them to dive into physical combat to generate more.
Cipher powers are not limited to mental manipulation. They have abilities that allow them to use a target's soul energy to "leak" and burst into flame, to generate a physical shockwave of that knocks down everyone behind the target, or even to bend back toward the cipher, creating a field of protective energy around him or her.
With the exception of Soul Whip, all cipher powers require Focus and a nearby target other than themselves, one with a "housed" soul. In practical terms, this means that ciphers must always target a nearby ally or an enemy with their powers. It is impossible for them to target themselves, a distant target, or open ground.
Here is a sampling of some of the cipher's abilities:
Soul Whip (Modal) - At close range, the cipher's weapons generate fields of parasitic energy that lash out at a target's soul. The Soul Whip mode reduces the amount of damage caused, but each successful hit briefly lowers the target's Psyche defense and generates Focus for the cipher (attacks Psyche).
Mind Wave - The cipher violently intrudes into an enemy's mind, Stunning the target (attacks Psyche) and generating a cone of concussive force behind him or her that can knock down anyone in its path (attacks Fortitude).
Soul Shock - The cipher causes an ally's soul to "crack" and violently release energy into the physical world. The resulting explosion of electrical (Shock) energy damages everyone nearby except the target (attacks Reflexes).
Psychovampiric Shield - The cipher drains Intellect from enemies and uses it to temporarily increase his or her Deflection. The increase in the cipher's Deflection is dependent on how much Intellect he or she successfully drains from victims (attacks Psyche).
Mind Blades - The cipher uses the souls of nearby enemies to generate attacks against the subjects themselves. Each target is attacked once by a slashing "mind blade" which then moves on to the next nearest enemy up to a maximum of five targets (attacks Deflection).
Recall Agony - The cipher causes the target to re-experience the pain of a wound moments after the target originally suffered it. The damage is a percentage of the original value, but it ignores the armor of the target (attacks Psyche).
Ectopsychic Echo - The cipher and an ally generate a bolt of psychic energy that periodically rebounds between them, causing Crush damage to anyone caught in the area (attacks Reflexes).
Cipher Lore
Many classes have abilities that allow the user to channel the power of their own soul or ambient soul fragments to produce incredible effects. Paladins ignite their souls to produce auras, wizards draw soul fragments into grimoires to shape and cast spells, and monks use personal suffering to focus energy through their bodies. While these classes often develop abilities that allow them to affect the minds and souls of others, the power is always generated by the user.
Feared for their mental powers and extreme hostility, the vithrack were once eagerly pursued by animancers for research purposes.
In the field of animancy, which focuses on the study of souls, researchers wondered for centuries if they could develop a discipline or technology that would allow people to connect with the soul of another living thing -- not just reach or strike out toward it. Wizards and priests had developed abilities to overwhelm or inspire the mind, but not to connect with it. Animancers theorized that it could be possible for one soul to reach out and connect to another, but they had no proof. Animancers studied folk legends about figures called Watchers who reportedly were able to see lost souls and perceive an individual's ancestral lives, but claimants to that title were typically charlatans at best or mentally unstable and violent at worst. A few intrepid animancers attempted to communicate with the reclusive spider-like race known as the vithrack. The creatures, obviously of advanced intelligence and extraordinary capabilities, seemed to possess the ability to connect to an individual's soul -- albeit with horrifying consequences. The dangerous nature and rarity of the vithrack combined with their inhuman physiology have still proven to be insurmountable obstacles in understanding how their powers work. Still, the animancers had a few other leads to follow.
Over a century ago, during the Broken Stone War, soldiers in the Dyrwood reported wild tales of having their minds invaded, of seeing comrades lose control of themselves, of orlan and elven Glanfathan warriors wielding knives engulfed in purple flames that "cut away" the souls of their victims. The war was a new experience for everyone involved, so many Dyrwoodans dismissed many of the more outlandish tales over time. But over the decades that followed, more settlers reported similar violent encounters with Glanfathan guerilla fighters. In the War of Black Trees, Dyrwoodan animancers confirmed many of these experiences across a wide number of soldiers and settlers. However, with Dyrwoodan settlers in a state of war with the population of Eir Glanfath, the researchers couldn't find many Glanfathans who were willing to talk about it.
After the Dyrwoodan revolution for independence, the Dyrwood officially stopped the Aedyr Empire's practice of exploring and plundering Eir Glanfath's sacred ruins -- the practice that had ignited the earlier wars between Dyrwoodan settlers and Glanfathans. In the years that followed, the tribal princes of Eir Glanfath allowed Dyrwoodan animancers to speak with some of their brîshalgwin ("mind hunters"), the elite warriors that had terrorized Aedyrans and Dyrwoodans in past wars. From the brîshalgwin, the animancers learned that Glanfathans had developed mental abilities that allowed them to perceive and contact what animancers categorized as "housed" souls, i.e., souls held within a physical vessel. They initially developed these talents in an attempt to communicate with souls held in the Engwithan ruins they were sworn to protect. When the tribal princes outlawed this practice as disrespectful and dangerous, their councilors advised the princes to turn the efforts of the brîshalgwin towards protecting the ruins and developing new methods of warfare.
Standing stones of adra like these were carelessly knocked down by early Dyrwoodan colonists, starting a conflict with the local Glanfathans that erupted into what became known as the Broken Stone War.
Excited by these revelations, animancers in Defiance Bay began working with the brîshalgwin, whom the animancers had previously described as "ciphers" due to their mysterious nature. Given Dyrwoodans' general discomfort with the Glanfathan language, the cipher name stuck and continues to be used in everyday conversation. For decades now, the ciphers and animancers have worked together, each generating new ideas and expanding their collective understanding of soul manipulation. Today, Dyrwoodans and foreign visitors from Aedyr, the Vailian Republics -- even distant Rauatai -- have learned and expanded the ciphers' growing field of techniques. Recently, encouraged by the potential the ciphers have shown and dismissive of the superstitious concerns of locals, Lady Webb, a prominent noble and advisor to the duc, petitioned the Dyrwood's erls to create a spy service in Defiance Bay consisting primarily of ciphers. The erls approved, creating what would become known as Dunryd Row, a respected, if somewhat feared and mistrusted, organization that operates out of an old, vine-covered house in the city's Brackenbury District.
Though ciphers' powers are still being explored, unlocked, and debated across the civilized world, most people recognize that their abilities hold great potential -- for good or ill -- in the cultures that develop them.
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
What's that other game I'm thinking of that had a similar system. Where you had to melee attack to build magic to use on spells. It wasn't exactly the same but reminiscent at least. I've heard of something like that before, definitely, but I can't put my finger on it.
Either way, it sounds super interesting. I'm always a fan of the front line battle mage type class.
Posts
http://www.holdtheline.com/threads/a-date-with-eternity-my-interview-with-obsidian.6345/
Oh happy day! Magic Missile! Fireball! Stealing THEIR Fireball etc... so you can dual wield Fireballs and/or Fireball/Magic Missile and/or FB/Crackling Bolt and/or MM/CB...wait, CB. First you have have CB then you have 2CB, or C2B. So better be able to dual wield spells or they've blown an easter egg. But the stealing is a good idea, regardless. Major Grimoire Imprint will of course allow you to cast all their spells at once, yeah?
And I approve of Stars Wars and Bloodlines finally being challenged in the colon wars. Lets see if they make it official.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Seriously Square, fix yo shit!
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
In fairness, nothing will ever hold a candle to that.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
http://provideocoalition.com/cmilby/video/transvergence-summit-josh-sawyer-project-director-obsidian-entertainment
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
EDIT: BTW, you now need only to write the link of the tweet for it to be embedded in the post.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
42 years old.
I just wish, that for once the longsword would be called a longsword, and sidesword a sidesword.
Fuck you D&D for calling a sidesword a longsword.
I'm almost hoping it'll be a Fighter update simply because I have trouble imagining "Fighter lore" without veering into "Barbarian".
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
IT'S ONLY ONE O'CLOCK
i GOT THIS
War only changes on a natural twenty. Do you want to use your cloak of renewal to re-roll your war check?
Hahaha.
Watch out, those energy drinks ain't good for your health.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
I'll take 10.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
all will sleep soundly once i'm through with them.
Either way, it sounds super interesting. I'm always a fan of the front line battle mage type class.