Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #42: Twitch Livestream + Strategy Informer Interview
Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #42: Twitch Livestream + Strategy Informer Interview
Game News - posted by Infinitron on Fri 17 January 2014, 21:43:20
Tags: Brian Fargo; Chris Keenan; inXile Entertainment; Matt Findley; Wasteland 2inXile just put out a little Wasteland 2 Kickstarter update linking to a Twitch livestream of the game they're doing with an "Internet personality" by the name of DJWheat. Not exactly big news, but it's actually kind of interesting to see Brian Fargo, Matt Findley and Chris Keenan in the same room talking about the game:
Strategy Informer also published an interview with Brian Fargo today, in which he spoke a bit about his vision for the game. Here's an excerpt:
Update: The livestream is over. The recording can be viewed here.
Strategy Informer also published an interview with Brian Fargo today, in which he spoke a bit about his vision for the game. Here's an excerpt:
Strategy Informer:How different is your dev process now compared with back in the day?
Brian Fargo: The biggest difference is this transparent development process. When you hire a QA department they aren’t necessarily all hardcore role-playing gamers. But now we’re getting expert feedback from people who’ve been playing these types of games for 20 or 30 years, and it’s been very helpful. There’s no way we could have done what we have without this kind of transparent process.
We’ll get people saying that there should have been more reactivity here, this area seems a little empty, or that it’s too bad there are not two or three more quests going on here; and then we put all that stuff in. Even though we’re in beta it’s not that we’re just refining combat and balancing, we’re actually adding content. Not just isolated things like a new area you can go to, but real integrated content.
Strategy Informer:Games like Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment were legendary for their depth and replayability. How will WL2 match up to that?
Brian Fargo: Wasteland 2 will be the most replayable role-playing game I’ve ever made in my life. I’ve never put this much subtlety and detail into a role-playing game. There’s lots of content many people won’t ever see and we’re ok with that. The game is so intricate that I think there’s no way you could see everything in the game no matter how many times you played it.
With Torment, the goal is to make it the deepest most reactive conversation game which has ever been done. There’s so much there with the different NPCs in your party and the different alignments. So that’s very reactive in another kind of way. They’re very different games.
Strategy Informer:Not just in styles but in the things you just talked about. That Torment is much more dialog based, but I suppose Wasteland 2 is more based on skill-use and interaction with the world and combat.
Brian Fargo: That’s exactly how I would describe it.
Strategy Informer:What part of the dev process do you find most enjoyable?
Brian Fargo: It’s all the little moments to me; the clever little ideas no matter where they came from that I get excited about. You start off the game at Ranger citadel and the other day as I walked out and now there’s three guys sitting on the ground, and I asked why we put those in there. They said that these guys are there as trainees. Then there’s a scenario later on where you can bluster these other guys into not attacking the rangers, you mention that Ranger citadel are looking for new recruits and then they immediately run out of combat. When you later go back to Ranger citadel those guys you told to run away are sitting with those three trainees.
Those reactive moments like that – I love that stuff. It’s the little subtle stuff that not everyone will see, that’s what I love the most. I love knowing that there’s this deep subtly and when it happens for people and they see it they’re really going to appreciate it.
Big promises. Let's hope the execution matches up with the vision.Brian Fargo: The biggest difference is this transparent development process. When you hire a QA department they aren’t necessarily all hardcore role-playing gamers. But now we’re getting expert feedback from people who’ve been playing these types of games for 20 or 30 years, and it’s been very helpful. There’s no way we could have done what we have without this kind of transparent process.
We’ll get people saying that there should have been more reactivity here, this area seems a little empty, or that it’s too bad there are not two or three more quests going on here; and then we put all that stuff in. Even though we’re in beta it’s not that we’re just refining combat and balancing, we’re actually adding content. Not just isolated things like a new area you can go to, but real integrated content.
Strategy Informer:Games like Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment were legendary for their depth and replayability. How will WL2 match up to that?
Brian Fargo: Wasteland 2 will be the most replayable role-playing game I’ve ever made in my life. I’ve never put this much subtlety and detail into a role-playing game. There’s lots of content many people won’t ever see and we’re ok with that. The game is so intricate that I think there’s no way you could see everything in the game no matter how many times you played it.
With Torment, the goal is to make it the deepest most reactive conversation game which has ever been done. There’s so much there with the different NPCs in your party and the different alignments. So that’s very reactive in another kind of way. They’re very different games.
Strategy Informer:Not just in styles but in the things you just talked about. That Torment is much more dialog based, but I suppose Wasteland 2 is more based on skill-use and interaction with the world and combat.
Brian Fargo: That’s exactly how I would describe it.
Strategy Informer:What part of the dev process do you find most enjoyable?
Brian Fargo: It’s all the little moments to me; the clever little ideas no matter where they came from that I get excited about. You start off the game at Ranger citadel and the other day as I walked out and now there’s three guys sitting on the ground, and I asked why we put those in there. They said that these guys are there as trainees. Then there’s a scenario later on where you can bluster these other guys into not attacking the rangers, you mention that Ranger citadel are looking for new recruits and then they immediately run out of combat. When you later go back to Ranger citadel those guys you told to run away are sitting with those three trainees.
Those reactive moments like that – I love that stuff. It’s the little subtle stuff that not everyone will see, that’s what I love the most. I love knowing that there’s this deep subtly and when it happens for people and they see it they’re really going to appreciate it.
Update: The livestream is over. The recording can be viewed here.
