Project Eternity Interview

RPGFrance is offering a new Project Eternity interview with Chris Avellone and executive producer Adam Brennecke. Not much news in this, but still a pretty interesting read:

Can you tell us when you will be ready to give some us the first screenshots ?

Adam Brennecke: Well, the image that we showed during the Kickstarter was our first “environment screenshot”. That screenshot was created using the same techniques that we are using to make the game – it’s a prerendered 2D image with a few hand painted touch ups. Our visual target for Project Eternity is to reproduce that scene running in game.

Since we are still in pre-production, we are working out towards building all the technology and tools to recreate that image in game with all the bells-and-whistles. 3D characters will be able to walk around in the environment, and the waterfall, trees, and stream will animate. We hope to have something to show you once it’s put together and jaw-dropping awesome.

Our weekly updates on eternity.obsidian.net show work in progress screenshots of a few different locals that we’ve been building in preproduction. The screens won’t drop jaws, but are used to test out different tech features (like doors). If you are interested in the steps involved with making Project Eternity check it out.

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Why do you give access to the beta at such a level (for those who pledged 50$) ? Did you fear there would be too many players on this phase ?

Adam Brennecke: During the Kickstarter process many of our backers requested that we have a beta that they could participate in, and they expressed that they would happily increase their pledge if we offered a restricted beta at a higher tier level. We thought that $110 would be a good tier to offer the beta reward. It strikes a good balance for the amount of people that have access to beta keys. We discussed the possibility of having too many players in the beta, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t a big concern of ours.

Is Project Eternity just a temporary name or is it definitive ? Why did you choose this name ? What is the importance of the ouroboros symbol in the game ?

It’s a temporary name, although if it establishes roots, it could become the fixed title. We chose it because it was reminiscent of the old Infinity Engine games, and it felt in keeping with the goals of the title. In addition, the symbol was chosen to represent the life-death-reincarnation cycle of the world.

Is coming back to an old-school way of making games sort of regressive or do you feel like modern RPGs can’t provide players with the true essence of what you think is a good RPG ?

There’s a lot of innovation you can add to a seemingly (old school) model, and I think Wasteland 2 and Project: Eternity will prove that out. For one, it’s easier to add reactivity and consequences in a title where there’s not so much $$$ tied to the voice acting, cinematics, and bells and whistles of dialogue interactions when you can achieve the same effect and a wider range of reactivity than with the conventional modern-day RPG model. Also, the ability to rely on the control scheme of a mouse and keyboard also allows interface interactions you couldn’t normally do with a console model.

Spotted on the Obsidian Entertainment forums.