RipTen: Project Eternity plays on the things that gamers who grew up with Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment and other Infinity Engine titles love. Obviously, there is a lot of support (hitting your $1.1 million goal in just over a day is proof). What about those games allow them to stand the test of time, and are there elements that will be upgraded/enhanced/tweaked based on contemporary sensibilities/trends?
CA: I suspect people miss having a large party of individuals (and colorful personalities) to control in a tactical encounter. Most D&D bands in the pen and paper days were approximately five or six heroes tackling a dungeon. In addition, the characters and storylines of the IE games were always strong… this, coupled with the great environments and dungeons players could explore (Icewind Dale had some of the best dungeon ideas, and we just had fun creating them for the sake of cool visuals). While making these dungeons weren’t necessarily easy, the fact you could paint dungeons and create beautiful vistas without too much worry about memory management made for some wondrous dungeon ideas.
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RipTen: What arrangements, if any, needed to be made to balance publisher-funded projects (like South Park) with Project: Eternity?
CA: Not a one. They’re two separate projects, with separate staff. We have gotten a lot of requests from the other team to volunteer their off-duty time, mostly because everyone’s pretty excited about the chance to contribute to a world and game of our own.
Jeez, all they needed to do was create another GOOD top down action RPG. Not like the crappy Dungeon Siege 3, but more like Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Champions of Norrath, and Fallout Brotherhood of Steel... then put it on consoles. Then PROFIT.
