Game News First work in progress screenshot of Wasteland 2 revealed

[tindrli]

uffff. dont like the graphics style at all..too similar to console style

 

[Oriental European]

I want to say two things. Screenshot looks like a sketch, where they put all those things associated with post-apocalyptic desert and the first game, and decided "Yep, that's pretty much what we are aiming for", and if that's the case, it's alright with me.
People who yelled "Awesome!" or "Mods will fix it!" or "It's fucking indie" are pathetic fucks. Drop them already, kids.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The butthurt from VD if they deliver Awsome Oldschool RPG in 18 months will be insane.

I'd much rather play a well done RPG in 18 months than be proven right, which is pretty fucking meaningless.

And I do think that's possible with a decent sized competent team and good tools.

I've yet to witness such a miracle.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I'm not asking why he made action RPGs instead of Wasteland 2 and 3. I'm pointing out that each took about 2 years, which is why I'm having a hard time believing that he can make a much more complex RPG in 1.5 years. It's also worth pointing out that these games were mediocre at best, which raises all kinds of questions, but hey, maybe his heart wasn't in it.

There is a difference between making a console title and the game he's working on now. I didn't play either of the games he made with Inxile, but I didn't hear that they were buggy messes or anything, just professionally made games of mediocre content.

I think he has admitted without words that those two games were not his cup of tea, but the best thing he could get funding for. He has a studio and employees, he can't just sit and sulk.

I also think he has shown evidence that he can put his ego aside and work on mediocre games with a professional attitude and wait for the opportunity to work on the projects he has passion for.

Um, yeah, it's like they are starting from scratch. Thinking about it for years while driving doesn't count.

He's not a newcomer to the industry, I think he knows what he can work on without funding and what he needs funding to achieve. He may have done a lot of the pre-production work in his own time.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There is a difference between making a console title and the game he's working on now. I didn't play either of the games he made with Inxile, but I didn't hear that they were buggy messes or anything, just professionally made games of mediocre content.

I'd rather play a great but buggy game than a solid mediocrity, but maybe that's just me.

I think he has admitted without words that those two games were not his cup of tea, but the best thing he could get funding for. He has a studio and employees, he can't just sit and sulk.

I'm not suggesting that he should have sulked. I'm wondering why they were so mediocre. Surely, the best way to take care of a studio and employees is to make quality games?

I also think he has shown evidence that he can put his ego aside and work on mediocre games with a professional attitude and wait for the opportunity to work on the projects he has passion for.

He didn't work on mediocre games. He made mediocre games (with a professional attitude). He didn't have to, but did it anyway.

He's not a newcomer to the industry, I think he knows what he can work on without funding and what he needs funding to achieve.

Or he doesn't. Remember Interplay?

He may have done a lot of the pre-production work in his own time.

If he did, they wouldn't be in pre-production right now. It's not like they have time to waste.

 

[Ethan Duvall]

So you say Fargo have no idea what he is doing?

 

[Infinitron]

He didn't have to, but did it anyway.

FWIW, I think it's a good thing that Brian chose to remain "in the trenches" even if it meant making mediocre games.

He could have pulled a Richard Garriott after losing his company, decided to leave us mundanes behind and go work on pie-in-the-sky concepts. And you know where that road leads.

 

[Vault Dweller]

He didn't have to, but did it anyway.

FWIW, I think it's a good thing that Brian chose to remain "in the trenches" even if it meant making mediocre games.

He could have pulled a Richard Garriott after losing his company, decided to leave us mundanes behind and go work on pie-in-the-sky concepts. And you know where that road leads.

Guys, what's with the apologist attitude? Since fucking when making 2 mediocre action games is good for anyone? Since when the alternative to making mediocre action games is working on pie-in-the-sky concepts? What, Troika and Obsidian (founded by Fargo's former employees) didn't happen? These companies left a mark and did a lot more for the genre, than Fargo (in the last decade) despite his experience and connections.

I hope he will succeed, but can we please stop screaming like little girls "it's Brian, guys! Brian! He came back! Like Zorro! He hid in the trenches to survive and now he's gonna blow us all away! Old school games are back!"? Can we take less on faith and question more? You know, like we usually do?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Who's "we"? I think there are more doubtful than there are optimistic posters. It just feels weird because under normal conditions the number of optimistic dexers is usually zero.

Also, in before the above post gets fisted twelve times

 

[Infinitron]

Guys, what's with the apologist attitude? Since fucking when making 2 mediocre action games is good for anyone? Since when the alternative to making mediocre action games is working on pie-in-the-sky concepts? What, Troika and Obsidian (founded by Fargo's former employees) didn't happen? These companies left a mark and did a lot more for the genre, than Fargo (in the last decade) despite his experience and connections.

I hope he will succeed, but can we please stop screaming like little girls "it's Brian, guys! Brian! He came back! Like Zorro! He hid in the trenches to survive and now he's gonna blow us all away! Old school games are back!"? Can we take less on faith and question more? You know, like we usually do?

It's not my intention to be apologetic. But the fact is, gaming CEOs have kind of a bad track record here. The path Brian Fargo has taken is pretty bizarre if you look at it in that context.

 

[Davaris]

They are using RPG ready kits like http://rpg-kit.com/

Watched the videos - very, very generic. Good for someone who wants to make a game without delving into programming of more complex tools, but I'd expect a bit more from WL2.

I haven't seen this before. The screenshots looked impressive and I wished I had something like it years ago. Then I tried the first demo...

 

[Vault Dweller]

So you say Fargo have no idea what he is doing?

I don't know. I loved Wasteland but that was a very long time ago. He turned Interplay into a big company, but he ended up mismanaging it and had to seek financial help, which ultimately led to him being booted out. All that drama that caused Tim Cain to quit (rather than work on Fallout 2) highlights the problems and paints Fargo as a bit clueless when it comes to the atmosphere in his own company and not capable of fixing it when it was pointed out.

As mentioned, he didn't impress anyone with his work at inXile, but his Kickstarter performance was absolutely fucking amazing. He played it perfectly. Pulling Avellone out of the hat to drive the crowd wild was pure genius.

That's all we know and it's not enough to say with certainty whether or not he knows what he's doing. He knew how to sell it, that's for sure. Everything else is a coin toss.

 

[Marsal]

I hope he will succeed, but can we please stop screaming like little girls "it's Brian, guys! Brian! He came back! Like Zorro! He hid in the trenches to survive and now he's gonna blow us all away! Old school games are back!"? Can we take less on faith and question more? You know, like we usually do?

Are we talking about Dead State now?

Spoiler

 

[LordDenton]

I hope they switch to more realistic models. Looks too cartoonish for my taste. Take a look at the characters located at 12 and 9 o'clock. Their slim silhouette makes them look like something out of Earthworm Jim.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I hope he will succeed, but can we please stop screaming like little girls "it's Brian, guys! Brian! He came back! Like Zorro! He hid in the trenches to survive and now he's gonna blow us all away! Old school games are back!"? Can we take less on faith and question more? You know, like we usually do?

Are we talking about Dead State now?

I thought the reaction to Dead State was fairly skeptical and cautious (to say the least). I guess you really wanted to post that gif.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

VD, your posts are looking more and more like "I've taken a billion years to produce not a fuck of a lot so nobody else possibly could...etc". Maybe this game will succeed, maybe it won't. Maybe fucking colors matter to some of you drooling retards, maybe not. But maybe also some of you should just shut the fuck up because jesus fucking christ already?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Jealous much?

Why would it be? Of what? Of all that bitching about the colors and saturation in the shot? Yeah, man, I wish the Codex was ripping my game apart again.

It's much different to see some previous unknown who's made a demo that has people largely divisive, or a guy who did maybe 5% of the work on one really cool game and is maybe 10% of the way to making a demo than to see a guy who's been a huge part of gaming history who's at the least on par with richard garriot. Which is why he got 3 million bucks and why this project is the best shot at a truly great RPG coming out in the next couple years by a factor of ten or more (though I'm not sure how good a start it's off to since a lot of people have a lot of criticism).

And?

VD, your posts are looking more and more like "I've taken a billion years to produce not a fuck of a lot so nobody else possibly could...etc".

In case you didn't notice, not once have I referred to my own experience. My opinion is based ONLY on following games for two decades and comments of professional developers like Tim Cain, who have done a lot more for the genre than Brian Fargo.

I don't come here as a developer and I don't post here as a developer, so I would appreciate if you stop trying to see some agenda in my posts.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I don't see an agenda. I see what might be a subconscious death wish for the other side in order to placate your own frustrations. I don't particularly care if that's what's going on or not, just saying...hey, that's what it looks like.

I just read DU's year in review. Honestly. I seriously wonder about this place sometimes.

 

[Menckenstein]

Too early to say much but at least the scorpitron looks rad.

 

[Volrath]

It's funny how VD feels threatened by Wasteland 2.

 

[Morkar Left]

So you say Fargo have no idea what he is doing?

I don't know. I loved Wasteland but that was a very long time ago. He turned Interplay into a big company, but he ended up mismanaging it and had to seek financial help, which ultimately led to him being booted out. All that drama that caused Tim Cain to quit (rather than work on Fallout 2) highlights the problems and paints Fargo as a bit clueless when it comes to the atmosphere in his own company and not capable of fixing it when it was pointed out.

As mentioned, he didn't impress anyone with his work at inXile, but his Kickstarter performance was absolutely fucking amazing. He played it perfectly. Pulling Avellone out of the hat to drive the crowd wild was pure genius.

That's all we know and it's not enough to say with certainty whether or not he knows what he's doing. He knew how to sell it, that's for sure. Everything else is a coin toss.

Your concerns about him as a gamedeveloper sounds legit but comes without prove. I think he's more responsible for the general direction and managing the development as a whole plus throwing in some ideas of his own. I doubt he will sitting there scripting and writing quests etc.
We will know how good he (and his TEAM) is when the game is released. His team has at least proven that they are able to produce and finish games that are more than flash browser entertainment. Can't blame him that it wasn't our favorit genre.

Brian Fargo is foremost a business man. He has talent in managing a business and he is a good salesman. As you pointed out, he made absolutely everything right with the kickstarter campaign.
Telling him out about mismanaging Interplay isn't a sensible observation. Interplay was founded 1983 (!) and was developing really well till early 2000s. That's about two decades. How many other gamesoftware companies achieved this? And the ones who made it that long usually just sold out to a publisher, mostly coming along with just cashing it what they worked for all the years before. Even more common businesses often don't reach the 20 years span.

I'm sure he made failures running the companies, as a ceo, as an employer and probably as a human being. We all do and especially gamedevelopers when you consider the sometimes horrible working conditions employees are kept and the weirdness of this industry as a whole (full of geeks!!!!). What's the point here?

The short development cycle is ... interesting. I'm curoius too how it will turn out. Especially since this is a management decision.

Otherwise what Menckenstein said; it's simply too early to say anything about the quality of the game. We just have to wait till an alpha / early beta is shown and more details revealed.

 

[Brother None]

VD thinks an RPG can't be made in 18 months. A valid concern, though I'm not sure it was necessary to bring up in this thread, but eh. I wouldn't personally be surprised if this gets delayed either. But as I pointed out last time this was brought up, this is a completely unique project. It has no publisher interference, a sufficient budget, and an experienced development team that has worked together for years working on it. Tim Cain isn't talking about that kind of project, because we haven't seen that kind of project before, and comparing it to very different kinds of projects might not necessarily lead to the most accurate results. Is it possible that the 18 month timeframe is simply implausible? Sure. Is it an absolute given because this 3-year rule is scientific fact? No. Not that it doesn't worry me, but I'm not going to jump to conclusions about it, as VD does.

Also, it is interesting how people talk about Fargo. He is the face of the company, yes, but he's not doing the art design or the writing. He's more heavily involved now, during pre-production, but as the project gets rolling he goes more hands-off and just lets the team work its creativity. That's how he will work here, that's how he worked at Interplay. He was more of a developer once, sure, but he's not so much anymore now. He's more the guy who enables creativity than a creative force himself. And he's good at it, looking at the Kickstarter drive's success.

As for inXile's two action-RPGs: The Bard's Tale simply had different goals, it wasn't a real sequel/reboot and it couldn't be (due to licensing issues), so Fargo wanted to make a light-hearted parody. The game's biggest problem isn't that it's bad, it's that it wasn't what people wanted. As for Hunted: The Demon's Forge... I'm not even going to start on Bethesda as a publisher, but suffice it to say that no developer I've talked to who worked with them has any good things to say. If the publishers did it excuse is valid for Troika games, it's valid for inXile and Hunted too. I don't think anyone should be impressed by them, but they were at least competently made and polished, and it does make a big difference that this is an experienced studio we're talking about.

Being critical is always good. Needing to be critical because "that's what the Codex does" is rather weaksauce. If a project looks more promising than most, treat it as such. I'm sure details of gameplay elements will be revealed that the Codex will hate. But until then...

Old school developer revives a classic turn based RPG and Codex proceeds to bitch about graphics (in a pre-alpha build). Carry on.

Heh.

It's funny how VD feels threatened by Wasteland 2.

Hah.

Brother None do you know if it will be possible for characters to take cover behind those debris?

And now I do know. You can use ladders, and you can use cover.

 

[Infinitron]

And now I do know. You can use ladders, and you can use cover.

 

[Davaris]

The short development cycle is ... interesting. I'm curoius too how it will turn out. Especially since this is a management decision.

Fargo is doing the best with what he has got. Everyone keeps saying he's got 3 million, but they are not factoring the costs of the Kickstarter bribes, to get the masses to donate. I have no idea how much of a chunk it took out of that 3 million, but I'll bet it was a sizable amount.

As for VD, I really doubt his concerns stem from jealousy, I think they come from having worked on one of these games. You can't comprehend how much there is to do in an RPG, until you have worked on one.

Speaking for myself, I wasn't concerned until they announced they were using Unity. Like VD, I assumed they would be using a working RPG engine and I think they would have used one, if they could afford it. My concern is Unity is not an RPG engine, it is a game engine. As I have said before, the RPG part is another engine on top.

I will be rooting for them all the way, because I put money in, but I will be worrying as well, because it looks like an impossible task to me. If they do it and it is a great game, they will be the stuff legends are made of. If they fail, well it was an ambitious project, with not enough time and money. At least they tried and we did our part by donating.

 

[Brother None]

The concern here is the assets. FUCK YOU ALL THE RETARDS who want pixel graphics/ consider people asking prettier graphics Graphic whores.

I'm not sure how that is the concern. Do you think those indie games you mention looked better than this two months after picking their engine? I wouldn't be satisfied with these graphics as the final product either. I don't think many people would, including the ones defending it, but we're simply factoring in that they will add and fix assets, scale, color balance and add effects. The final screenshot of an area like this won't look like this. and there are other areas in the game that look much grittier/grimmer as you move west. That's kind of a given, which is why I don't get the need to gripe about this screenshot looking rather poor. Of course it does, it's a pre-alpha. The debate seems to be more between people who get that and people who don't, especially on the WL2 forum.

Not that the style is beyond reproach, though I don't really get how it's cartoony (the smoother textures and bad proportions do cause a bit of that, but I doubt either is a stylistic choice). But it is Wasteland, it will be brighter and more vivid than Fallout.