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

[Monad]

You people really are a bunch of sour cunts.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

This pile-up is kind of unwarranted.

It's hardly a pile up, it's certainly warranted...and it's more a pile up on Brian Fargo's big talk than BN doing his job trying to defend...well, his job. So far the game is promising, it is fun and it is a mess. Beta or not. Without even nitpicking design elements I can say the release is a mess in general. I can't even play it at this point because all of my saves become corrupted the minute they're created. Wasn't the full release supposed to be ready by October? I mean, alpha does seem to be the appropriate term here.

 

[Infinitron]

But snark or not, he is still being dismissive of a guy giving genuine feedback.

Isn't this the same thing some people say about Vault Dweller? This is the Codex, anybody can be "dismissive" if he has proof that the person he's replying to is wrong about something.

 

[Grunker]

OK, since I sh
are some responsibility in convincing Brother None to respond to allegations about the game here, I should probably say something.

felipepe pays to test out company's game for them, gives valuable detailed feedback

company representative replies with snarky comeback

10/10 reaction

I think you're overreacting. His post wasn't any more snarky than usual for the Codex. This pile-up is kind of unwarranted.

Sorry, but that's bullshit bro. It's not like BruvNon' engaged felipepe in a back forth, he dismissed every point, adding in detailed feedback like:

Guess we should've provided quest markers.

Come on. Brother None's posts read a lot like fire extinguishing rather than actual conversation - the camera response is just the most blatant. It shouldn't be surprising that the Codex reacts to this.

But snark or not, he is still being dismissive of a guy giving genuine feedback.

Isn't this the same thing some people say about Vault Dweller? This is the Codex, anybody can be "dismissive" if he has proof that the person he's replying to is wrong about something.

You think Vault Dweller's method is the most constructive one from a sales/community management perspective? Or even from the perspective of constructive engagement with your audience for the sake of the game?

Vault Dweller's interactions on the Codex are, more often than not, something VD does for his own enjoyment/sake, not something he does for the sake of company or game.

 

[Lhynn]

confronting a fellow codexer

Its the only way i ever get a brofist, that or stating incredibly insightful but nonetheless trivial and dumb observations.

Anyway, your post actually makes me look the game in a more positive light, all the flaws youve mentioned should be easy to fix. So glad its just a buggy, incomplete, but fun mess instead of the broken abomination i was afraid itd end up being.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I reread Fargo interview for vg247

So one is to get that into their hands so we can start getting feedback, and of course the other half of production is to not slow down so we can keep marching toward getting the product done. But this week is a critical one because it’s the first time people are going to be able to get their hands on it and play it.

The response has been super, and we’d love to add more choice, more reactivity and subtlety, which is what we plan to do. This is a new process to me because I would never put something this early into the public, you know, I’m sort of used to getting things out much further along, but fortunately having gone through this up to date, the positives far outweigh the negatives.”

asked if beta has 95% of mechanics in:

Not exactly. What it is, is about 90% of the game’s underpinning, so all the systems are in place and in some ways it will feel like a finished product. You’ve got combat, UI, inventory, the majority of the skills working, sound effects and you will get a sense of the game.

You’re really kind of getting a snap-shot of the Arizona levels, and there’s four main areas and a bunch of smaller areas that we’re putting out, then through the beta process over the next couple of months, we’ll continue to release a couple more areas for Arizona. But we will hold Los Angeles back.”

(in store it was written about few months)


So Fargo really isnt hiding that they need to give lot of love to the game. Actually after all mechanics are in, building content on them isint so time consuming(Fallout 2 to Fallout 1 Kotor 2 to Kotor 1, New Vegas to Fallout 3)

 

[Brother None]

Wow, this got weirdly antagonistic.

Edit: oh, what Radek just said basically. But:

You really think that's as intended and in line with the game's design so far? That you simply click on a generator for more info, and it blows up and forever locks you away from the most important NPC in the area?

It warns you that it's rigged if you look at it (maybe that depends on your skills? I'm not actually sure). I dunno if it really needs to do more than that in this type of RPG.

So yeah, the area's a mess. Is easily the one I get the more bugs and crashes, all properly reported to the beta website, along with more than 30 other bugs and suggestions. Which makes the all-hating felipepepe responsible for more than 1% of all the feedback you guys got so far from thousand of players. You're welcome, InXile representative.

Thanks. I assumed you were talking design/layout wise as that was the topic, rather than bugs and quest-nodes not closing. Report away. Good stuff.

Note that I provide one example of the lack of reactivity and shitty waste of potential, and instead of telling me how I missed all the reactivity there, you give another example. So we can agree that Ag. Center reactivity sucks?

Ag Center doesn't have a lot of reactivity, no. I don't know that those two early "crisis" maps will ever be a shining example of reactivity compared to later hub locations, but sure, right now there's not much of anything.

You say that I'm overstating things badly and giving people reading the wrong impression, but you're doing the opposite and understating them badly.

Well yes, because I'm correcting the claims that there's "none of that", "no reactivity", and the like, because that's simply not true. That was my main reason for posting, because those claims just aren't a fair representation of the game, and they were getting pushed hard in this thread. Saying it's not doing enough, absolutely. Saying it's not doing anything? Just not true.

The potential for a great game is there, but will all depend on how the feedback is handled and implemented, and I doubt that being overly defensive is of any help.

Just making sure people get the whole picture. We are actively asking for feedback and we already told you reactivity/consequences are a focus there, because we can and need to do better. I don't think it's very fair of you to insinuate I'm a PR guy (I'm not) or to accuse me of being overly defensive/butthurt (snarky, yes, but this is the Codex), I'm not enjoying being made out to be the bad guy here. We all agree the game needs to do more in consequences/reactivity, and it's not where we want it to be yet. If it was at a stage where it shows exactly what Brian envisioned when he made those statements, do you think he would've specifically brought up consequences as a point of improvement in the update? Again, all I was doing was pointing out there are places in the beta where you can see the concept at work, the focus is to do more of that, much more (though of course, judge it for what it is now, I'm just saying, we're all on one line on this topic).

Have you input specific CC feedback where you see the opportunity but it's not utilized, like AgCenter? Notes like that are very useful.

 

[felipepepe]

I don't think it's very fair of you to insinuate I'm a PR guy (I'm not)

What? How come? it wasn't even meant as a offense or snide, just a fact. You're community manager for inXile, you're paid to handle relationship with the public, you're Public Relations Guy™. I really don't get how's that unfair or wrong.

 

[Brother None]

What? How come? it wasn't even meant as a offense or snide, just a fact. You're community manager for inXile, you're paid to handle relationship with the public, you're Public Relations Guy™. I really don't get how's that unfair or wrong.

PR guy to me is someone who just does PR work and gets sent off to manage relations. I write, design, playtest and do production work for Wasteland 2, my job's all over the place (as is usual for low-level producers). I'm not here because my job description includes "post on RPG Codex", I'm here because I like the RPG Codex. Calling me a PR guy makes it sound as if I'm here to sell the game to you. Fuck that noise.

edit: this may well be a simply difference in perspective tho. I'm not fond of "PR guys" from my own days as a fan.
edit2: I do come here for feedback though, of course, and believe it or not, but from that angle I'm pretty happy with what I've been reading. Codex and inXile seem pretty on one line with where this game is at and where it needs to improve in. I like that.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Because you work with marketing yourself. For most people, a PR guy is

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Brother None--> How much of C&C and reactivity are written and planned on the paper but not implemented yet? Have You played non beta maps? If so how much are they completed in comparioson to the beta?

 

[Lhynn]

Never saw BN as the PR guy, just as a biased codexer when it comes to InXile.

 

[shihonage]

IMO they nailed the in-game visuals and ambient music. Dialogue system, however, brought to you by David Cage™.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

So

Spoiler

I realized that I chose the worst possible course of action when dealing with the juvies in highpool, lool all consequence and no gain, but oh well, I'm not sour about it, I like that I had the choice to be a vengeful cunt.

Some feedback on the highpool generator valve quest: Basically, this quest is inane as fuck, the camera is awful to navigate, you can't see anything half the time, it's a challenge just to find a spot that you can actually click. The design itself is flawed imo, I'm fine with forcing you to make a choice on your rangers, that was clever, especially because I left my melee guy behind...(If you've played the encounter you'll know why that sucks lol.) But I see no reason or fun to be gained from manually using those switches, seriously, couldn't you just leave that ranger there and simply have the doors open when you went up to them? Anyhow that's just me, besides being awful to navigate, inane, and being really disappointed at not encountering some sort of

Spoiler

GIANT COCKROACH KING

, there was also a really naggy bug related to going through doors. My rangers would constantly get stuck in doorways and be unable to move, sometimes all of them at once, I'd try putting them through one at a time and still no dice. There seemed to be little consistency in which could and couldn't get through, and after a few minutes they squeezed through. the long path leading to door 10 from 8 was definitely the worst, spent a good 4-5 minutes trying to get through that fucking thing.

Fix it plz. Or just rework that area entirely, it really sucks, only good thing was that ambience , scary as hell, unfortunate that the baddies didn't live up to the atmosphere though.

It's supposed to give some kind of buff to allied characters standing near the Leader in question. That's all I know.

Thanks, would still like to know what buffs it gives specifically to decide if it's worth it. More transparency in the skill descriptions would be nice, still, sounds like an okay skill, good way to make my high iq/charisma diplomat useful in combat.

 

[felipepepe]

Because you work with marketing yourself. For most people, a PR guy is [pic]

Makes sense, in marketing everyone lusts for the PR title, it mostly means high status, easy job, big pay and going to a lot of parties for free...

 

[Deleted member 7219]

IMO they nailed the in-game visuals and ambient music. Dialogue system, however, brought to you by David Cage™.

I was worried this would be the case. Why the fuck did they go for such a shitty dialogue system when they have good writers on the team?

 

[Excidium]

Because they were going to have something cool initially (parser) but had to make a bunch of concessions so that's what they ended up with.

 

[tuluse]

There are times when if you're paying close attention you can write a key word and get more information.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Don't let your rangers ger separated. If battle is initiated while they are, an invisible blue barrier is erected so that your other rangers cannot enter the battle and the game pretty much 'soft locks' if your separated ranger goes unconscious.

Ahaha what

In the Hellhighpool irrigation center, I finished the mission there but didn't clear one pack of radroaches. One of my rangers got separated and aggro'd them while I ordered them to walk to the exit. A blue barrier was erected none of my rangers could walk past while in-combat. The roaches cannot either. Since this ranger was on low health, she went unconscious and I literally could not do anything.

You cannot injure things on the other side of this barrier, all of my ranged weapons were doing 0 damage when they could otherwise 2HKO the roaches. This effectively means anyone trapped in battle has to finish it off. But, if they go unconscious, the roaches will just stand there and you'll have to reload your game.

You must gather your party before fighting forth! Extra retarded edition!

Edit: Is this a beta thing or an innovative awesome feature that's there to stay?

 

[Spockrock]

IMO they nailed the in-game visuals and ambient music. Dialogue system, however, brought to you by David Cage™.

I think the dialogue system is fine. the dialogue window, though, could use some love from a designer. for example...

There are times when if you're paying close attention you can write a key word and get more information.

...I don't quite understand why there's a need to type in keywords that appear in red, but not in yellow. why can't all of them be either red or yellow?

 

[Sensuki]

Come on. Brother None's posts read a lot like fire extinguishing rather than actual conversation - the camera response is just the most blatant. It shouldn't be surprising that the Codex reacts to this.

Agreed on this bit in particular.

I submitted what I think was a pretty good alternative solution to the clunky controls and camera rotation stuff. But I suppose because I made a joke about female models being "en vogue" I can't be taken seriously .

I also have a pretty snarky delivery style when I think things are crap, but it's not like I don't want the game to be better.

 

[Frau Bishop]

9 long years, was about time someone makes The Fall: Last Days of Gaia 2 happen!

 

[Surf Solar]

All the posts so far have been somewhat good and feedback-y ( :brofist: felipepe! ) I am just rather surprised at sea `s obvious brown nosing to the extreme. Fishing for a job there, huh?

 

[bonescraper]

Sea's always like that. He's easily impressed.

 

[Gord]

Didn't get the impression that sea was brown-nosing, he's just not the usual easily offended angry codex zealot.

So far the reaction to the game has pretty much been what I expected. People dreamed of a game with PST-like depth of story, JA2 combat, FO atmosphere and unprecedented amount of C&C (which might or might not be there, the first few hours of a game are usually a bad part to make a judgement unless you are making a CYOA-game like AoD). Surprise, people got disappointed.

I do however get the feeling that the release is a bit too rough for a beta and maybe should have been postponed a bit.