Project Eternity - $2M, Hardcore Stretch Goals

RPGWatch · Thu, 27th Sep '12, 5:52am

Project Eternity has passed $2M, unlocking player housing and the additional related content. Josh Sawyer has since posted a new update with a new $2.3M stretch goal tier that offers three different "hardcore" mode features, as well as some brief details on Godlike races. A partial snip:

Additionally, even among the ranks of RPG superfans, there exists a subset of players who can't get enough challenge. They want all of the difficulty features set to "I am pro." Collectively, we've worked on a bunch of these challenge modes in the past and enjoyed the results. Project Eternity seems like a very appropriate place to highlight suites of these difficulty options as distinct gameplay modes that players can opt-into at the beginning of any game. We've come up with three modes we'd like to support, which also includes the ability to turn many of their sub-features on and off on an individual level in an ordinary game: Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, and Path of the Damned.

Expert Mode will disable all of the common ease-of-use / in-case-you-missed it gameplay elements like the display of skill thresholds, influence/reputation modifiers, and similar "helper" information. In a fashion similar to Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode will also enable more punitive and demanding gameplay elements, in and out of combat. We're not saying we're going to have weighty gold (for real, we're not saying that), but if we did, you can bet that would be automatically turned on by Expert Mode.

If you guessed that Trial of Iron is like Temple of Elemental Evil's Ironman Mode, you guessed right. When you start a Trial of Iron game, you have one save game that persists for the entire campaign... or until you die. And if you die, your save game is deleted. Enjoy!

Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved.

The first question you may have is, "Can I enable multiple challenge modes at once?" Yep, you sure can. They have to be selected at the beginning of the game, but if you want to play with two or all three at the same time, you can certainly can do so. If you're not quite sure you want all of the elements that come along with a given mode, this funding level will also cover implementing the ability to enable and disable the individual sub-features.

Marceror · Fri, 28th Sep '12, 12:33am

Trial of Iron is a great idea in concept, but unless a game is very, very stable, this can be a very risky way to play. I don't just mean that if you die, you're done (duh), but if your game crashes or the save game file becomes corrupted, you may be screwed.

ToEE, as great of a game as it was, served as a horrible (but effective) illustration for how an Iron Man mode can really go wrong.

Paracelsi · Fri, 28th Sep '12, 10:14am

Agreed. Wouldn't it be better to offer these improvements in later patch, once the game has already been released? The Icewind Dale series had Planescape and the BG1 to experiment on. Unless this game is using the exact same engine, then I'd worry more about the stability of the game itself.

Stability and ease-of-use are major keywords. It's been so long since I played a good, newly released strategy RPG where the simplest (and usually most effective) tactics, like focus-firing down enemy targets, can be performed in two or so commands (in Baldur's Gate you simply had to select everyone and right click). I have no idea why developers decided to scrap this in favor of ridiculously complex and ultimately buggy/ineffective AI.

Thu, 27th Sep '12, 5:52am	#1
RPGWatch SPS Account Holder Watching... Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 3,285 Like: 0 Liked 3 Times in 3 Posts	Project Eternity - $2M, Hardcore Stretch Goals Project Eternity has passed $2M, unlocking player housing and the additional related content. Josh Sawyer has since posted a new update with a new $2.3M stretch goal tier that offers three different "hardcore" mode features, as well as some brief details on Godlike races. A partial snip: Additionally, even among the ranks of RPG superfans, there exists a subset of players who can't get enough challenge. They want all of the difficulty features set to "I am pro." Collectively, we've worked on a bunch of these challenge modes in the past and enjoyed the results. Project Eternity seems like a very appropriate place to highlight suites of these difficulty options as distinct gameplay modes that players can opt-into at the beginning of any game. We've come up with three modes we'd like to support, which also includes the ability to turn many of their sub-features on and off on an individual level in an ordinary game: Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, and Path of the Damned. Expert Mode will disable all of the common ease-of-use / in-case-you-missed it gameplay elements like the display of skill thresholds, influence/reputation modifiers, and similar "helper" information. In a fashion similar to Fallout: New Vegas' Hardcore Mode, Expert Mode will also enable more punitive and demanding gameplay elements, in and out of combat. We're not saying we're going to have weighty gold (for real, we're not saying that), but if we did, you can bet that would be automatically turned on by Expert Mode. If you guessed that Trial of Iron is like Temple of Elemental Evil's Ironman Mode, you guessed right. When you start a Trial of Iron game, you have one save game that persists for the entire campaign... or until you die. And if you die, your save game is deleted. Enjoy! Path of the Damned is a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale's Heart of Fury mode. In our encounters, we like to turn individual combatants on and off based on the level of difficulty. If you come into an area on Easy, maybe casters are replaced with weak melee enemies. If you come in on Hard, maybe the casters are augmented by a tough melee enemy or two. With Path of the Damned, that goes out the window. All enemies from all levels of difficulty are enabled and the combat mechanics are amplified to make battles much more brutal for everyone involved. The first question you may have is, "Can I enable multiple challenge modes at once?" Yep, you sure can. They have to be selected at the beginning of the game, but if you want to play with two or all three at the same time, you can certainly can do so. If you're not quite sure you want all of the elements that come along with a given mode, this funding level will also cover implementing the ability to enable and disable the individual sub-features.
	__________________ RPGWatch - http://www.rpgwatch.com Last edited by Taluntain; Thu, 27th Sep '12 at 6:15pm.

Fri, 28th Sep '12, 12:33am	#2
Marceror SPS Account Holder Editor Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps Join Date: May 2003 Location: Sword Coast Posts: 2,394 Like: 21 Liked 92 Times in 75 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 5,824 Level: 23 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 66.5% Daily Activity 3.31% Weekly Activity 1.89% Monthly Activity 4.6% Achievements Awards	Trial of Iron is a great idea in concept, but unless a game is very, very stable, this can be a very risky way to play. I don't just mean that if you die, you're done (duh), but if your game crashes or the save game file becomes corrupted, you may be screwed. ToEE, as great of a game as it was, served as a horrible (but effective) illustration for how an Iron Man mode can really go wrong.
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Fri, 28th Sep '12, 10:14am	#3
Paracelsi Gems: 13/31 Latest gem: Ziose Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: East Coast Posts: 598 Like: 5 Liked 32 Times in 31 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 1,385 Level: 12 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 63.08% Daily Activity 3.31% Weekly Activity 1.89% Monthly Activity 11.02% Achievements Awards	Agreed. Wouldn't it be better to offer these improvements in later patch, once the game has already been released? The Icewind Dale series had Planescape and the BG1 to experiment on. Unless this game is using the exact same engine, then I'd worry more about the stability of the game itself. Stability and ease-of-use are major keywords. It's been so long since I played a good, newly released strategy RPG where the simplest (and usually most effective) tactics, like focus-firing down enemy targets, can be performed in two or so commands (in Baldur's Gate you simply had to select everyone and right click). I have no idea why developers decided to scrap this in favor of ridiculously complex and ultimately buggy/ineffective AI.