Project Eternity - Update #11, Interview

Adam Brennecke has posted a quick Project Eternity update, promising "something fun and special" when they pass $50k backers (currently $2.1M, 48,666 backers as of writing):

It's been an amazing week and we are getting close to doubling our initial goal of $1.1 million. The next stretch goal at $2.2 million adds a new region, faction, and companion along with French, German, and Spanish translations.
We are also getting close to 50k backers! We have something fun and special planned for all of our backers when we hit this milestone, so keep a look out for an update on Monday about it.

There's also a new article / interview at Gamasutra. Here, Josh Sawyer discusses text versus cinematic animation:

Sawyer recalls a particular element of 1992 MicroProse RPG Darklands, whereby interactions were only subtly illustrated via text against loose watercolor illustrations. The images were enough to suggest key elements, but it was the text that carried the imagery.

Older games with technical limitations had to get very creative about how to immerse players and capture their imaginations, says Sawyer, since they didn't have the option to be literal — and that's something Obsidian wants to keep in mind through the old-school visuals and interface of Project Eternity.

And when it comes to the idea that today's audiences don't like to read text, or that communicating a story through prose rather than through gameplay automatically represents some kind of narrative failure, Sawyer isn't sold. The idea that all players should like the same things, or that players can be segregated into "ones that like story" and "ones that like combat" seem equally fallacious to him.

"This has been bugging me a lot lately," he says. "In the past few years there's been a trend toward designing games with mechanics for people who don't like those mechanics, and it blows my mind… I look at a lot of mechanics, like 'hey, let's write dialog for people who don't like to read!' You were writing with the assumption that they do want to read some of it, right? If people don't want to read, why are we writing? And if people don't like combat, why do you have combat in it?"

More information.

Itīs been an amazing week, alright .
(that said, while the questions are good, the answers are rather sparse on info)

Yeah at this point I would expect an absolute minimum of 2.8 million. A decent final push could put it up around 3.3 million or higher.

I cant wait for seeing what it is coming out of all these KS.

Quite a lot of designers, developpers speak volumes. It will be interested to see if they can deliver.

My guess is they wont be able to escape the evolution in gaming, that certain features that are touted as great are in fact no longer enjoyed by players (even though they claim the opposite)

I expect all these games to include a large number of "modern" gaming features.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
I cant wait for seeing what it is coming out of all these KS.

First game already delivered it's FTL there is thread for it.
Banner saga multiplayer part is nearing release there is impressions on RPS

Originally Posted by DeepO
Itīs been an amazing week, alright .
(that said, while the questions are good, the answers are rather sparse on info)

you're right, because they don't have a clue about the game. The hype is rightly so putting pressure on them. Therefore, I feel thy will hold back what they do have already and be vague about future info. They will try to say a lot of nothing. I fear that the game will take much longer than early 2014 to be released…

Originally Posted by spiraling69
you're right,

Actually, that edited-in comment was meant for the RPG Codex interview (http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8480), somehow I managed to forget this newsbit is about a different interview .
Not that the Gamasutra interview is very informative either.

Originally Posted by spiraling69
you're right, because they don't have a clue about the game. The hype is rightly so putting pressure on them. Therefore, I feel thy will hold back what they do have already and be vague about future info. They will try to say a lot of nothing. I fear that the game will take much longer than early 2014 to be released…

Two years to make games is plenty. If you need three or more there usually is something wrong with your team or design goals. Not all developers have the luxury of having huge cash reserves like blizzard.

Update 12 answers some of the most popular questions, including that they would like to include mod support if that is possible depending on how unity packages up the game content.

Originally Posted by Nameless one
First game already delivered it's FTL there is thread for it.
Banner saga multiplayer part is nearing release there is impressions on RPS

Did they speak as much about their ambitions?

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Did they speak as much about their ambitions?

Banner saga is ambitions and they got good funding and for their first F2P multiplayer part according to previews they will deliver(I assume single player will have same combat).
As for FTL this wasn't that ambitious project(they asked for 10K $ they got 200k)but it definitively delivered review are very good and it's in top 20 most played games on steam since it came out.