Game News Dead State Kickstarter Update #31: PAX Demo Screenshots and Q&A

[Metro]

Even on those thumbnails, Dead State looks better. Nice try, though.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I meant the color scheme, you dumbfuck.

I clearly failed to notice how the rich combinations of greys and browns in the one game contrasted with the slightly less rich combination of greys and browns in the other, sorry about that buddy!

 

[Metro]

Yes, nothing but greys and browns:

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Gotta admit that that last in game screenshot is pretty cool. For the other two though, the three games mentioned have it beat in terms of vibrant color scheme and objective goodlookingness!

 

[Misconnected]

I like how they point out there's be lootable bodies, as if that wasn't one of the most obnoxious busy-work things CRPGs just won't fucking stop subjecting their players to. Give me a search roll or something & throw up a list of loot if necessary, but don't make me waste my time by placing loot dispensers every 3 paces in the game space and have me check every single one individually.


... I can't seem to shake the feeling that game devs, generally speaking, never play games. There's just so enormously many little usability things they get repeatedly and critically wrong - things that will bug the shit out of anyone who plays the game. Remember FiraXCOM's functionality-changing hotkeys? Yeah. Not ever going to believe anyone on the dev team played that game for more than 5 minutes.

 

[toro]

Dead State has a better UI but W2 looks slightly better. I call it a draw.

 

[Azrael the cat]

while the zombies (which are never referred to with the “Z” word in-game)

ah, that time honored tradition

The tradition works if you're trying to signal that something is either set in, or a tribute to, the Romeroverse (which didn't use the Z word because until the 1st couple of films in the series, 'Night of the Dead' and 'Dawn of the Dead' had their massive influence on pop culture, 'zombie' referred to the Haitian voodoo concept of a solitary undead golem under the control of a necromancer - the shooting script for the original film actually called them 'ghouls').

Both this and TWD are very much in the 2nd category - they're both playing off the idea of a crisis that is very survivable in itself, but s*** hits the fan when people have to relearn to interact without centralised government. I'm not so sure that idea has much resonance today though - for Romero's orignial series, it worked because they came out during the most cynical era in the Cold War, with Vietnam turning ugly and the Cuban Missile crisis still a recent experience, made by a guy who was entrenched in that (Romero was a vietnam vet, and as a non-conservative liberatarian he was split in 2 by the 60s/70s 'culture war'), and in a world that already felt like things were simmering and about to explode as soon a a crisis - any crisis - hit.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I like how they point out there's be lootable bodies, as if that wasn't one of the most obnoxious busy-work things CRPGs just won't fucking stop subjecting their players to. Give me a search roll or something & throw up a list of loot if necessary, but don't make me waste my time by placing loot dispensers every 3 paces in the game space and have me check every single one individually.


... I can't seem to shake the feeling that game devs, generally speaking, never play games. There's just so enormously many little usability things they get repeatedly and critically wrong - things that will bug the shit out of anyone who plays the game. Remember FiraXCOM's functionality-changing hotkeys? Yeah. Not ever going to believe anyone on the dev team played that game for more than 5 minutes.

It's also somewhat hilarious in a game that's trying to do a modern version of the Romero setting, down to the 'nobody calls them zombies' and 'people theorise, but nobody knows what's causing it' traditions. The centrepiece of the Romero idea - and something that's logically kind of necessary to make it work - is that everyone is rising, not just those bitten by zombies, which is the only reason why the military can't just wipe the zombies out in a few days (the first 20 minutes or so of Dawn are dedicated to the idea that they've already done that a bunch of times, but that's just part of them not realising that it's a 'no going back' shift in environment).

What would be genuinely funny and well-played is if the game spawned a dead lootable body, which then attacks the first character that tries to take something off it, as a way of saying 'we're getting rid of that f***** 'running around clicking on lootboxes' cliche'.

 

[Lady_Error]

Dead State has a better UI but W2 looks slightly better. I call it a draw.

Seriously? W2 doesn't look just slightly better, it looks much better in every respect. The Dead State graphics are just awful. Russian shovelware indeed.

Also, better UI in Dead State?

 

[Misconnected]

Also, better UI in Dead State?

Apropos, isn't it delightfree to see that both games proudly continue the GUI object placement tradition of assuming there'll definitely be more horizontal than vertical pixels to use, as has never ever been the case out in reality?

... Based on three decades of gaming, I predict both games will have shit interfaces. I'm pretty sure game devs have to sign a contract in theor own blood, that if they ever release anything commercially, it has to have an absolute shit interface or they'll immediately burst into flames and die. It has to be something like that. Surely they can't all be fucking retards.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Yes, nothing but greys and browns:

Cannot identify if they are using proper coupling mechanisms now

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

wasteland2 looks 10 times better you blind fucks. i couldnt care less about another game in zombie gener. "emphasis on long-term survival and the psychology of survivors, while the zombies" my ass its still kill fucking zombies and loot the shit

 

[drae]

It's still weird how a lot of upcoming (or "upcoming") bedroom crpg's, like Underrail, Tangut Prophecy and What Remains, look so much better than both these games. But maybe that's purely a 2D thing.

It's more an Anophthalmia thing.

 

[Misconnected]

wasteland2 looks 10 times better you blind fucks. i couldnt care less about another game in zombie gener. "emphasis on long-term survival and the psychology of survivors, while the zombies" my ass its still kill fucking zombies and loot the shit

Visually, sure. DS' super clean low poly stuff looks oddly 50s in a game that has nothing to do with the period in any sense. W2, on the other hand, confidently does the budget video game post-apoc style that several othe games have done less well before it. But I hadn't expected either game to look as relatively good as they do.

Content-wise, I'm expecting the opposite, of sorts. W2 will be yet another post-apoc game where the aftermath of the apocalypse is a breed of MacGuffin. The overall pretext for your exploits in the world will be to rebuild, salvage or similar. But those are the exact things you can't ever do in the game.

DS claims it'll let you do the salvaging, rebuilding & whatnot. And assuming that's true, it's going to be far less endlessly stampeded over ground than W2. Perhaps not original, but at least not done past undeath repeatedly.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

vs.

atmosphere wise ds is shit. genre wise it couldnt be shittier.

and the gameplay we have seen so far doesnt even hint that there will be something groundbreaking

 

[Infinitron]

Codex cannot into judging 3D graphics. I think some people here see that Dead State has simpler, more "crisp" graphics, and they prefer that because it kinda reminds them of 2D graphics.

But as a 3D game and judged by 3D graphical standards, Dead State definitely looks worse.

 

[Misconnected]

atmosphere wise ds is shit. genre wise it couldnt be shittier.

and the gameplay we have seen so far doesnt even hint that there will be something groundbreaking

I completely agree W2 looks better than DS.

The rest, not so much. What DS claims to do is something very, very rarely seen in video games. What W2 claims to do is what a hundred other video games have done. Whether or to what extent either of them delivers remains to be seen, but assuming both games turn out to be exactly what they've been claiming, DS will obviously be a hell of a lot closer to an original gaming experience than W2.

- It's no slight on W2. I kickstarted W2 because I like these sorts of games and want to play many more of them. No need to fix shit if it isn't broken. I'm only trying to point out that your "bleh, zombie game #billion" regarding a game that claims to do what very few games have ever done, and in the context of a derivative-as-fuck sequel, is pretty strange.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Yeah I don't get the "another generic zombie game" complaints either. Forgive me, I don't exactly follow the "Zombie games with base management and focus on human interaction" genre, but I don't assume Dead State has much competition (zero to be precise)? I think people calling DS generic are confusing setting with gameplay/genre

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Codex cannot into judging 3D graphics. I think some people here see that Dead State has simpler, more "crisp" graphics, and they prefer that because it kinda reminds them of 2D graphics.

But as a 3D game and judged by 3D graphical standards, Dead State definitely looks worse.

It's got fuck all to do with nostalgia.

It looks like Inxile has attempted to quickly cook a twenty ingredient recipe, and it's looking like a dogs breakfast imo.

Double Bear appears to have focused on a five ingredient recipe, and I happen to think it looks quite appetizing.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Codex cannot into judging 3D graphics. I think some people here see that Dead State has simpler, more "crisp" graphics, and they prefer that because it kinda reminds them of 2D graphics.

But as a 3D game and judged by 3D graphical standards, Dead State definitely looks worse.

Bro, you suck as an internet psychologist. Give it up, already.

Simple graphics reminding of 2D graphics...
Yes, I sort of understand what you're trying to say, but no. Of course, I don't understand why some would say DS looks better than W2, but the comparison with 2D does not work. DS is a prime example of low budget, shitty, zero style, sterile 3D, which is the complete antithesis of what you're talking about.

 

[Infinitron]

Yes, I sort of understand what you're trying to say

Uh, good?

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Codex cannot into judging 3D graphics. I think some people here see that Dead State has simpler, more "crisp" graphics, and they prefer that because it kinda reminds them of 2D graphics.

But as a 3D game and judged by 3D graphical standards, Dead State definitely looks worse.

It's got fuck all to do with nostalgia.

It looks like Inxile has attempted to quickly cook a twenty ingredient recipe, and it's looking like a dogs breakfast imo.

Double Bear appears to have focused on a five ingredient recipe, and I happen to think it looks quite appetizing.

you are fucking delusional mate

and what is this fuss over focus on humans interaction? so far its just a buzzword like biowares choices that matter. zombie setting is so fucking overused.
i dont have anything against ds creators afterall its brian fucking mitsoda but so far nothing i have seen implies there will be anything than shoot zombies and loot ammo/food/pills.

I don't assume Dead State has much competition (zero to be precise)?

Dont starve? at least it had cool/creepy setting

 

[Elhoim]

If my opinion counts for something, I agree that W2 looks better than DS at its current stage. We didn't devote much time to "pretty up" the levels (lighting, decals for decay, way more, MORE objects, move away from the tidy look, improve textures, add normal and spec maps, etc.), but we focused on creating the basic stuff that's needed for gameplay testing. If I had 3 million dollars I would hire a couple of lackeys to just work on the final look, but well, it is what it is right now.

Long story short, it's very early WIP on the graphical side, and I would certainly love to achieve something closer to what you guys expect.

 

[ghostdog]

Frankly I much prefer Underrail's distinctive 2D visual style to W2 and DS. But if the actual games are good I can live with bland 3D and ugly UI. Anyway, I'm sure all the games will look better when they get near completion.

 

[Monty]

snip

Must confess, I struggle to concentrate on the text in meanwhileInPoland's posts. Something keeps distracting me...