Wasteland The Wasteland 2 Beta Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Excidium]

I believe all MCA did was the Ag. Center and the novel

 

[tuluse]

I believe all MCA did was the Ag. Center and the novel

He was involved with Highpool too I believe.

 

[Infinitron]

I believe all MCA did was the Ag. Center and the novel

He was involved with Highpool too I believe.

MCA did 6 areas in the game. I think each version of Highpool and Ag Center counts as a separate area, though.

Looks like a less putrified version of the Master. The quote is also pretty much identical to the Master's ideology.

However, unlike the Master, this guy is not the game's "end boss".

 

[Pope Amole II]

Huh. Have you tried it? I haven't played the whole beta, but pretty much my whole team has multiple fighting skills. Keeps combat much more interesting.

Sure it does, but even with 6 int all around, you'll have to sacrifice some skills for that. Maybe not the greatest ones (like perception or demolitions), but still. And it's bad design anyways - for example, people say that critical hits are boring and broken in the Fallout 1-2. But if you play 2 with the flarethrower build, suddenly, this brokenness ceases to be and different targets for the aimed shot (at the very least eyes/head/legs) become perfectly viable, the system begins to work extremely well. But does that mean that the system is not broken?

While you're often forced to do it, in reality, it shouldn't be the player's task to metagame around the game, trying to squeeze fun out of it. It's the game designer's job.

 

[Zombra]

Huh. Have you tried it? I haven't played the whole beta, but pretty much my whole team has multiple fighting skills. Keeps combat much more interesting.

Sure it does, but even with 6 int all around, you'll have to sacrifice some skills for that. Maybe not the greatest ones (like perception or demolitions), but still.

So your contention is that every party has to have an expert in every skill? You're welcome to that perspective, but I would say "You're doing it wrong."

And it's bad design anyways - for example, people say that critical hits are boring and broken in the Fallout 1-2. But if you play 2 with the flarethrower build, suddenly, this brokenness ceases to be and different targets for the aimed shot (at the very least eyes/head/legs) become perfectly viable, the system begins to work extremely well. But does that mean that the system is not broken?
While you're often forced to do it, in reality, it shouldn't be the player's task to metagame around the game, trying to squeeze fun out of it. It's the game designer's job.

I see your point, but I don't know. If you insist on building your characters in a way that is not fun, and doggedly sticking to it even when it continues to be not fun ... come on, man. That's on you.

 

[Pope Amole II]

So your contention is that every party has to have an expert in every skill? You're welcome to that perspective, but I would say "You're doing it wrong."

I've already addressed that - W2 has a rather scarce amount of content and I see no reason to deprive myself of it even further. This is certainly not a game to replay seven times.

If you insist on building your characters in a way that is not fun, and doggedly sticking to it even when it continues to be not fun ... come on, man. That's on you.

Ummm, no. Missing various skill checks that the game provides (and it's quite hard to meet them all, at least without grinding) is as unfun as being reduced to clickety click combat. Probably even more unfun because at least flavor & fluff in this game can be nice, whereas even with extra combat skill or two the combat in this game is still shit mediocre at best. It's the choice between two kinds of unfun, pretty much.

 

[Zombra]

It's the choice between two kinds of unfun, pretty much.

Fair enough, but I repeat that I was able to build a party that's versatile in combat as well as being able to handle many noncombat challenges (although it's true that they can't laugh off every single obstacle as if it weren't there). Maybe I'm just magical, but I was able to make a party that's fun both in and out of combat.

I noticed on your "how to build" page that you min/max to the absolute limit. Are you playing on mega hard difficulty or something?

 

[Pope Amole II]

I'm playing this on Ranger. Apart from the healing factors, don't know how strong the combat/skill penalties are, but my safecracking guy (who is 9 int 10 cha and is now lvl 13 while the rest of the guys are 8-9) always has a tough time with all the safe I encounter, despite having seeminly adequate 3-4-5 in the skill. Maybe it's easier on seasoned - it's pretty hard to choose the right difficulty for this game when the exact info on difficulty is not easy to find.

Also, I'm going AG center first and the early game is much harder when you play on ranger and go AG center first. AG is much tougher than Highpool (though you get better rewards & turn out to be about 2 levels higher). It's too overdrawn, though, and the post-AG "save 3 places" quest is just preposterous - 3 boring locations filled with trashmobs & to complete quest I have to backtrack trough AG entrance+main building+basement+part of the west field only to receive fucking 25 XP and a fucking cheap vest. And then I have to exit that location... Sorry, but after shit like that I fail to understand how anyone can call this game anything but mediocre.

 

[Infinitron]

So your contention is that every party has to have an expert in every skill? You're welcome to that perspective, but I would say "You're doing it wrong."

I've already addressed that - W2 has a rather scarce amount of content and I see no reason to deprive myself of it even further. This is certainly not a game to replay seven times.

This has got to be one of the weirdest arguments I've ever seen on this forum

"This game isn't big enough so I'm entitled to a completionist party." WTF?

 

[Excidium]

I am not sure what is going on here but the Wasteland 2 system sucks

 

[Infinitron]

I am not sure what is going on here but the Wasteland 2 system sucks

What's weird is that the guy says all of these things but also this:

CLASSIC system is really flexible and good, allowing for a variety of party & character builds.

What's good about it, then? The names of the attributes? O_o

 

[Excidium]

Hence my confusion

 

[Pope Amole II]

so I'm entitled

OK, now I know you're just trolling.

 

[Orma]

Goochman looks like Mr. House really :ehue:

 

[DosBuster]

Heh, I have 65 hours in Wasteland 2.. somehow I don't think I've even finished the beta content once..

 

[Pope Amole II]

Since I'm a poor (and also dumb) monkey who asked our research budget to be spent on a Wasteland 2, making me stuck with this hype trainwreck (while everyone seems to enjoy D:OS immensely), I feel rather entitled to bitch about this game some more. Well, in reality, I have two curious observations about it.

First - one of the biggest powers of this "crowdfunding" schtick is that it creates a rather tight community from the get-go. Of course, you can't create it from the scratch, you need some sort of initial boost (in this case - Fargo's old glory) to start the thing rolling, but once it charges in moves to the end. I mean, hell, even if they sell zero copies of wasteland 2 after this point, who cares? They already have enough customers to kickstart their next game (after the Torment, that is - but the fact Torment was started is another proof of this).

I get the really strong "football fans" sense from W2's core fans, with the standard "if we won, we're the best because we've won", "if we lost - we're the best because it's just bad arbiter/field/weather/luck/cheering/whatever and, if you discount all these irrelevant factors, it's obvoius we're the best". I don't want to talk badly about anyone, but people becoming fans of the game before it's even released doesn't sound right to me. And it creates rather harmful feedback, in my opinion - for example, the decline of Vogel (who is, of course, not crowdfunded, so it has happened historically that his fanbase is quite similar) have been caused, in addition to other reasons, by his community being ready to excuse and laud anything he does, no matter how lazy or uninspired it is. Getting praised for nothing has never been helpful creativity.

Another important point here is the "this is not the game people will like, but it's the game WE WANT" style of thinking. Nothing shameful in it, but let's recall our old "never ask that" question - what do you want? At this point, oldschool lost it meaning and became mostly a buzzword. When you say that this game isn't a very good fallout-like game, you'll get rebuffed with "but it's not fallout 3 - it's wasteland 2". Cool, but when you point that it's not very good as a Wasteland, you'll hear "yeah, but what do you expect them to do, a text adventure? no, it's greatly improved because it's fallout-like!" A closed circle. Oldschool sounds more like "AWESOME" at this point with, only with even more amorphous definition. There are people who want W2 to be oldschool and thus be like Fallout, Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale and Borderlands. And that is oldschool, sure (almost), but what about those pesky pre-1997 years? What about the golden era? If fallout is oldschool, then what's that? But then, in the RPG-codex pre-97 games begin only from the fifteenth position, so...

But that's not the point. The thing is (and what I dislike the most about KS) is that it centers a mass of people around some vague kind of promise. And while the promise itself is usually very bright, oldschool and awesome, that doesn't make it clearer (and, therefore, it's really difficult to tell whether or not it was fulfilled). And while you can engage people into discussions about features & stuff, design can't really be done communally.


As for the part 2 of my entitled bitchings, I've had a funny thought yesterday - I've compared Wasteland 2 and Temple of the Elemental Evil. Because, just like the W2's premise, the idea of TOEE was to deliver a decent game in a really short time and on a (relatively small) budget. Almost shovelware, but with a noble purpose. And when we compare all the factors...

1. Budget - even accounting for the inflation, TOEE was cheaper than W2.

2. Engine - W2 has a huge advantage here with its Unity (in terms of ease of development). Compared to Troika's need to rekit arcanum's engine for dnd system, Unity with its tons of detailed tutorials, ready solutions in form of good code&effect packages at untiy store & relatively cheap outsoгrce labor available absolutely kicks ass here. Sure, it gets a lot of flak around the web, but I think that's cause it's too easy to use so lots of bad coders make their games on it, thus creating the illusion that the engine is crappy. It's not.

3. RPG system - CLASSIC is neat and nice in theory, but it's rather simplistic and not nearly as good & entertaining to use as the dnd 3.5. Of course, I won't call dnd immaculate with its crappy balance and so on, but, at this point, CLASSIC is also anything but balanced and, at least, 3.5 provides more party-building options.

4.Combat - combat is incredibly much more fun in TOEE. Sure, bugbears wear you out at some point, but still. In W2, however, combat is just filler and interesting encounters are extremely scarce. Well, what do you expect when your tactical options are mostly about clicking stuff to the death? Whereas in TOEE even boring warriors have trip attacks, whirlwind attacks, attack of opportunity maneuvers, power attack, combat expertise. And any caster gets his spell arsenal which is absolutely ridiculous in terms of flexibility. Even if you prevent yourself from using all the "dumb" aoe spells and broken brokens, you still have enough tricks in your bag to challenge pretty much everything.

5. Quest design - roughly equal. W2 boasts with lot of reactivity, but at this point it's mostly cosmetic and not that mind-awing. It's more for the boast than for the effect. And in terms of general design... Yeah, Hommlet was mostly horrible, but it's not like W2 is devoid of pointless running. It's not, unfortunately. And, just as in W2, there were some nice multi-choice solutions to some of the TOEE stuff, some more or less hidden companions and so on.

6. Writing - ok, W2 wins here. But, considering how dull TOEE's writing is, its not a great feat.

7. Music - I can barely remember TOEE's ost and W2 has Mark Morgan, though not at his finest, but still. Well, ok, that one is easy.

8. Bugs - at this point, rougly equal.

So the point of it all is... Damn, I'm an old and retarded man and I've already forgot what the point was here. But it's ok, it's all ok as long as it's oldschool.

 

[Ninjerk]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...beg-beg-beg-beg-beg-beg-beg-beg-thread.78755/

 

[Jaesun]

7. Music - I can barely remember TOEE's ost

WAT? One of the best Dark Ambient video game soundtracks of all time. Second only to Pagan.

 

[Roguey]

Not every day when I agree with Jaesun about something.

I haven't played it, but I would be shocked if Wasteland 2's combat content was worse than ToEE's. And that's largely on Mentzer and Gygax.

Not that I'm expecting it to be better of course.

 

[Shadenuat]

Since I'm a poor (and also dumb) monkey who asked our research budget to be spent on a Wasteland 2, making me stuck with this hype trainwreck (while everyone seems to enjoy D:OS immensely)

You should also play D:OS. Seems like on kickstarter race dark horses win.

 

[DosBuster]

I'm having and fun, and don't regret it. I can't convince other people to like what I like, so.. yeah all good.

 

[Pope Amole II]

WAT? One of the best Dark Ambient video game soundtracks of all time. Second only to Pagan.

So I've downloaded it and relistened it... It's not that bad (and yes, considering the amount of dark ambient game soundtracks, it's certainly one of the best of them; though I liked the just ambient parts like Hommlet more than the dark parts; Hommlet is rather good - how could I forgot it? getting old, probably), but it's no Oophoi, Raison d'Etre or Tzolk'in (when it comes to combat parts). As a constant listener of the genre, I'm really picky here.

Actually, my brightest memory of the game (a really bright one, almost shining) is tied to playing it while listening to the Maeror Tri's album Mind Reversal, specifically - Fountain of your self track. This album has a rather good development - the start is droning, wordly and weary, but over time a sudden crystallisation occurs, like a breath of fresh wind in a choking-hot industrial city air. And it was a complete intersection of the bright side of life - easy day on the job (that's where I've played the game, lol), but really bright because I was temporarily moved into a room coloured amber & yellow and it was a sunny spring day outside, great game, calm & happy period of life, wonderful music. Yeah.

You should also play D:OS. Seems like on kickstarter race dark horses win.

Yeah, suppose funbuilding about it would've been nice. Well, once our research fund replenishes.

I'm having and fun, and don't regret it. I can't convince other people to like what I like, so.. yeah all good.

Well, this is the Codex and having fun isn't an argument here - half of the world is having fun with the Skyrim, so? Heck, my second best friend enjoys Skyrim immensely (while resisting all my attempts to hook her up on the Bloodlines - she can't kill the fucking astrolyte thieves, for Christ's sake) and, since she knows nothing about decent rpgs, my only argument there is to call her a teenage dumbfuck time after time. Fun, heh - we mean serious business here.

And, well, W2 would've been fun if it wasn't so bloated. I dunno how leve lupe mine, infested farm&village, shiitake farm & wreckers' stronghold, highpool tunnels & half of the AG center can be fun, when they are nothing but empty locations with trashmobs inside. And some of the more detailed locations (rail nomad camp, for example) are so overblown in size that you have to run a lot back and forth to get through them. Which also isn't that fun. I can't cease to repeat that, if the game was gutted to about 25 hours of total playtime, it would be improved immensely. As it is, it's too thin a red paste for my taste.

 

[DosBuster]

I-I- wasn't...arguing?

 

[undecaf]

I-I- wasn't...arguing?

This is the Codex; you're always arguing.

 

[DosBuster]

so this is the place where teenage angst has come to die...