Pillars of Eternity - Interview @ Eurogamer

Myrthos

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Eurogamer has made an article style interview with Josh Sawyer on Pillars of Eternity. The first thing they asked was when the game would be released:

When is Pillars of Eternity, your 10th most anticipated game of 2014, coming out? Spring? That's what developer Obsidian said during the game's Kickstarter campaign.

But no, according to project lead Josh Sawyer, who spoke to me recently, "It's not going to be in spring." What about summer? Probably not.

Is it realistic, then, for people not to expect Pillars of Eternity in the first half of 2014? "Yeah," he answered. "It's going to come later."

And then he explained: "We foresaw needing a bit more time when the Kickstarter ended. It's understandable that people don't know this but when you start a Kickstarter, once it goes live, you can't change that [estimated release] date. You're not allowed to change to that date.






"When we started with a million-dollar budget and a relatively modest game with five classes [there are now 11], that was assuming if we get $1m we can make this game and we'll probably get it done by April. We got almost four-times as much money and that's a much bigger game, and that doesn't mean that immediately we just dump four-times as many people on it and it also gets done in April. There's a lot more stuff to do.

More information.
 
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I really don't understand why it took them so long to admit April was not doable. Of course it was assumed, but… it seemed they went out of their way to avoid discussing it.

That's probably because they didn't have any idea of when it might be beside "won't make April" and now "won't make Spring".

Estimating software work is pretty much like invoking rain in real life...
 
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I really don't understand why it took them so long to admit April was not doable. Of course it was assumed, but… it seemed they went out of their way to avoid discussing it.

IIRC the website has been saying Winter 2014 for quite some time now. As for why they never explicitly stated a delay in a KS update... I suppose they figured it was obvious given they got 4 times their funding goal and every KS game gets delayed by at least a few months.

Ah well, all that matters is that they take the time they need to make a great game.
 
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so what decent/major rpgs' *are* being released in the first half of the year? It's looking pretty empty…

When are the final releases of Wasteland 2 and Divinity Origins scheduled? Since both have betas out, I wouldn't surprised if at least one was released.

Blackguards and M&M 10 both came out, and, while neither are perfect, they both seem to have appeal to their respective audiences.

South Park and Dark Souls 2 are coming in March.

I don't know, for the beginning of a year, it seems pretty busy to me.
 
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I'm digging into MMX now and I'm quite enjoying it. It's not perfect but it does feel like an old-school Might and Magic game.

My personal list suggests the following as possible for the first half of this year:

Shadowrun: Dragonfall
Divinity: Original Sin
South Park: The Stick of Truth
Dead State

I think Wasteland 2 is currently aiming for 'summer', and IMHO D:OS is likely to slip out to then as well.
 
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Larian has suggested late spring early summer so I would think end of march to end of june.
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AOW3 (not exactly rpg) is still claiming spring. I hope we don't see verythign bunched up into early/mid summer - kind of prefer they be spread out across the year.
 
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Heh, April 2014 for Eternity? That's been laughable the entire time considering the scope of the game. Obsidian should just take their time, there are plenty of good games this year.
 
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It's the curse of the stretch goals again as they always make the game bigger than intended. I just hope the other kickstarters release this year.

I think the game will be a 2015 release. Well I'm no hurry as they say as I have The Witcher 3, and a few other RPGs to tide me over if it does.
 
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I think the game will be a 2015 release. Well I'm no hurry as they say as I have The Witcher 3, and a few other RPGs to tide me over if it does.

I was just going to say this as well. Sawyer is being evasive about giving a specific release window, but you can tell by his emphatic "no" to the date question that it is still quite a ways off. I'm guessing spring 2015.

Luckily, 2015 is a rich year for RPGs - my wish list is filling fast, so I'm okay with the wait. I'd rather it be done right than fast. From the screenshots it is looking fantastic.
 
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Personally I believe it has to come out 2014, even if they don't want it too. Because longer dev time also means more costs. So if they really would draw this out until 2015, they would have to run out of money on this project. I can't imagine they are too eager to invest too much additional of their own money into this game, so they'll declare it finished before December, one way or the other. Every additional month of dev time ups the costs, while not necessarily more people will buy it. So for the studio, there isn't even an upside to it. As long as most of the game turns out to be polished right away, this won't be bad for us players either. I'm guessing if they should really end up in the situation, that they have unpolished areas shortly before they have to release it, those will be cut out. They kinda already commited to doing a full fledged expansion, so they can even use the unfinished parts later for that one.
 
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There is some upside to continuing the development until the game is done, and that is in setting themselves apart from all the studios who don't do this. I'd think there would be some interest at companies like InXile and Obsidian in developing kickstarter projects this way, since they claimed this was one of the reasons they wanted to use kickstarter in the first place. They wanted to make games without such crude and coercive economic concerns, right? And personally, I'd rather wait until 2016 for 100 hours of legit gameplay than have 20 hours of legit gameplay in 2014. I don't even buy short games anymore unless they have a sandbox, and Obsidian doesn't do sandbox.
 
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Hmm, while I am completely pro on the: "take your time and give us your best" approach, and especially for KS projects, I would like to see them release within 2014 at least, this being one of my most looked forward for games…

It would be funny (and not in a funny way) if a lot of the most anticipated games of this year slipped all the way to 2015 indeed!

I am not too worried though. I believe I will be getting Lords of Xulima and wasteland 2 at least in the next few months and hopefully D:OS in the summer (*). Now if these guys can indeed make autumn that would be just about perfect ;) Autumn doesn't seem too unreasonable does it?

(* and Dead state… Some time within my natural lifespan hopefully ;))
 
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Much bigger game is always good :)
Not sure if the sweeping generalisations are bait, but in case they're not: no. Some games pull off extra content well, using it to add to the feeling of grandure, epicness, scope and so on. Others are less successful. Amalur was fantastic, but it didn't need to be so big. Skyrim is perfect. Ultima 7 is relatively tiny but feels big and epic with the density.
 
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