Project Eternity Interview

Sorcerer’s Place has an interview/chat with Obsidian’s Adam Brennecke on Project Eternity, with some new snippets of info on the record-breaking Kickstarter-funded title.

Here’s an excerpt:

[Marceror] Pathfinding… the bane of Infinity Engine games. How are you going to make it (infinitely) better in Project Eternity?

At this point Adam walked me across the hall to see a cut out of an apparent superhero that is posted in the window of one of the developer’s offices: The Pathfinder. It seems that The Pathfinder is an inspiration to the developers of Project Eternity to create a game where characters are smart enough to get where they’re going! Conclusion: the guys at Obsidian truly live and breathe this stuff.

[Adam] Unity’s pathfinding is a lot better [than that of the Infinity Engine]. We’ve come a long way since 1998 in terms of computational power on computers. Doing faster and better pathfinding is something that we’re looking forward to. Right now we’re experimenting with what feels right. We’re figuring out how characters can interact with each other. If one character is blocking another’s way, can they push each other out of the way, do they side step, can they share the same space? Does it feel right if they do that? That’s the kind of experimenting that we’re working on right now.

[Marceror] Are you going for a more open feel to the game (ala Baldur’s Gate 1) or will it be more like Baldur’s Gate 2, where you basically couldn’t turn around without bumping into a quest of some sort?

[Adam] We were just talking about this on Wednesday. We definitely want to have wilderness areas like in Baldur’s Gate 1. We want to encourage exploration, but it’s definitely not going to be as aimless it was in Baldur’s Gate 1, or as tedious. We want to make fewer areas, but have more content in them, and make them a bit more focused.

…

[Marceror] Is there any cool detail about the game, perhaps something about a companion, a class or race, a story element or some other detail that you might be able to share with me, to be shared as an exclusive first at Sorcerers Place? Obviously something that you won’t get in trouble for sharing.

.Adam thinks solemnly for a moment..

[Adam] We are developing a character that is an Orlan Cipher, who is a detective (Orlans are a new race in Project Eternity. They are small folk based after the gnome and the Halfling). He isn’t necessarily upper class, but he comes from wealth, so he dresses very nicely. Because he’s a Cipher he has somewhat psychic abilities that help him as a detective, and he uses that to investigate murders and the like. So that’s a character we are developing right now.

Thanks, RPG Codex.