Interview "The story now is 900 pages long": Brian Fargo on Wasteland 2's Progress @ GamesIndustry

[Clockwork Knight]

This place is rapidly becoming an InXile fansite. The apologetic attitude that you see on Bioware or Bethesda boards gave it away.

"Lolo Fargo is just like Todd Howard" = discerning rpg hobbyist

"Dunno bros maybe he's not a complete fucking tool hellbent on ripping us off out of spite" = Inxile fanboy

Such is life in 2012dex.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

I've stopped drinking the last three weeks and I've finally played a lot of popamole, CK. And it's really dumb, you know it: it's vulgar. Western video games have become really vulgar and absolutely horrible. Finally, even if I don't like jrpgs for they're boring, they show a lot more of craft than the western games which have become dumb, deaf and blind teenage power fantasies without any taste. Except for FO:NV which was a bit more intelligent but it's the exception. I was hoping for Fargo and just as I thought, he's showing his true face: a power-hungry guy who's showing his car and his wife and wants to be Michael Bay without even being as crazy and talented as him (and God knows that I DON'T even like Michael Bay movies).

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

I give up for another decade, I still think that video game is the art of the XXIst century, I believe in that shit. I'll see in ten years. GTA lol. It's absolutely horrible. Even rock'n'roll is not as dumb as that. And God knows that rock'n'roll is dumb, I know it, it's my fucking job. But at least we treat it more seriously in general (being aware of the world that surrounds us and blah blah blah, not lost in a fucking big money-fueled hopeless fantasy while dreaming of being Hollywood)

 

[zeitgeist]

If he is making a game for a hardcore set of fans then why bother saying things like this?

Why make a game for people who already paid for it?

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

Bah, I'm just pissed off for certain reasons. I shouldn't spit venom like that, welll... I should stop posting in western RPGs boards and only post in the japanese one for I don't really know about the japanese ones and that'll be perfect, and more over, the japanese board posters are very laid back, it's cool.

Sorry Fargo if you read this. Know that I loved to death all of the 80s Interplay games, they were my favourite. At the tim I was buying EVERY game that was published under this brand for the C64, regardless of the genre.

 

[laclongquan]

In this thread nervous hope drive people insane(r).

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Isn't this the kind of meaningless claim that all the hype machines use these days? "Over a billion possible character combinations"

He doesn't think anyone believes this is 900 pages of high quality work does he? If he is making a game for a hardcore set of fans then why bother saying things like this?

Because this genre needs new blood if it wants to survive, if we want more and better turn-based party-based RPGs the niche must grow. Remember, the oldfarts who played Wasteland in 1988 are dying.

 

[shihonage]

Ah, the honeymoon stage. Eventually, Fargo will realize that the "easy implementation" will dramatically spike in difficulty.

Yeah, coz he's never produced a game before, yeh? It'll totally come as a shock to him that they're complex things.

I don't like this interview much either, particularly citing page-counts as if that means anything other than "we're progressing well", but if we're going to criticize, it should at least make sense, not just be for the sake of criticizing.l

My name may not be featured prominently on the back of an Interplay CD, but I've traced the steps he's going through - writing a Fallouty quest/dialogue system, over many months - and there are no shortcuts in that area. His statements show that his current attitude toward implementation is disconnected from reality.

I recognize this, because mine was. Most everyone who starts writing an ambitious RPG thinks that they can do dialogue/quest branching with a mostly linear series of if-then statements. Or, in worst case, a clearly traceable tree with these obvious branches.

They are, of course, wrong. Even utterly retarded shit like Bioware dialogue(flat structured/same outcomes) and quests(controlled by linear hubs) has a complex internal structure that took serious manpower to maintain.

And Fallout-style structures? A nightmare. It only looks simple on paper, which is where Fargo's still at.

These are the problem areas with Fallouty quest/dialogue design:

• The quest/dialogue variables/triggers/references create a crumbly sandcastle of codependencies. Even with tools, it is challenging to introduce changes. Without automation, it is only possible when you have the kind of teams that Fargo worked with before - sizeable ones. You could offload menial everyday tasks to the software equivalent of those low-wage Disney animators who drew the stuff between the important keyframes.
  
  Changed the location of the macguffin? They'll take care of NPC speech now saying it is in the shed instead of the bedroom. And go over a few dozen script triggers that checked for its presence in the bedroom closet.
  
  Currently Fargo does not have the luxury of offloading such tasks. With a small team, they have to be really, really automated with some serious tools, tools which go beyond token editing and into the territory of intelligent compilation.

• Maintaining sync between documentation and in-game implementation, within an engine that is still being written, is a nightmare. One constantly affects the other, and there's a slew of microupdates bouncing back and forth every day, because the engine never exactly fits the written word. Document dictates changes to the engine(the quest goes like this!), then the engine strikes back (it can't be done this way, so the quest has to be altered!) and dictates changes at the document. Then you realize the document has the same codependency issues as the engine data itself, and changes to documented quests and dialogue affect their brethren...
  
  The correct solution is to use a tool that keeps track of documentation in sync with its implementation in-game. Otherwise, see the aforementioned manpower problem.

I don't know how long it's been since Brian Fargo gotten his hands dirty with actual code, and especially code that involves the kind of mechanics present in Fallout, which, as he previously made clear, he aims Wasteland 2 to be like.

The design, from a narrative perspective, is just a lot of if-then statements. So we can just write our hearts out and it will go in easily.

... but he sounds like he doesn't get it yet.

OR, he understands everything, and already changed his mind about making it Fallouty, instead going for the kind of "procedural non-linearity" that the games he mentions - GTA, Sim City - represent. With a story that is explicitly told to you, rather than being made by you. One that's being measured in "pages".

 

[Haba]

But, actually I don't remember any big fucking choices in Wasteland if I think about it. Fargo kept wanking about it, and I think still does, but what the fuck were the amazing choices and most importantly consequences in Wasteland?

Yeah, you'd have to actually play the game to know them.

Highpool. (Save Jackie, Kill Bobbies dog. Kill everyone and turn Highpool to a ghost town?)
Ugly & Felicia (Let Ugly go or save Felicia)
Mushroom Temple (accidentially cause a reactor breach)
Fat Freddy & Faran Brygo (Kill Faran Brygo (heh heh) or not)

Well duh, Wasteland sure is no mecca of C&C Cultists but you have to be in serious denial if you don't see the fact that it was one of the very first.

You never had to kill the kid, either. He’d throw himself at you, yes, but you’re playing a squad of big strong mega-weaponed Rangers! Grownups! Walk away. It’s not like you were chickenshit for backing down from some evil-hearted final boss bent on scourging the world and all you loved within it. It was a little boy.

Games didn't have that back in the day. You didn't expect it. And that is what it memorable, even in the crude and limited implementation.

Was going to post something of further value, but with BCP crapping all over the thread... bah.

 

[Infinitron]

Holy crap. BCP's brain has melted down from too many groupie STDs.

The reference to GTA is an obvious allusion to the game's implementation of "sandbox" emergent gameplay. Fargo has described Wasteland 2 from day one as a "sandbox game". He's using language that game journalists understand to emphasize that.

Ah, the honeymoon stage. Eventually, Fargo will realize that the "easy implementation" will dramatically spike in difficulty. In-house tools are required to keep track of quests and dialogue codependencies. There will be a lot more of those codependencies in implementation than it ever seems on paper. Someone learn and use those tools.

That someone is Obsidian Entertainment, remember? They're providing tools.

That doesn't really improve things, does it? D:

Actually it does. Their tools are said to be very, very good.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Yeah BCP stopped drinking, but went for drugs instead i guess. Or he has some strange reaction to GTA being mentioned.

I'm trying to not get too excited or hopeful about this project, but it's so hard, Fargo is saying all the right things and I like the way the game is shaping up. By the numerous updates it also gives an insight as to how games are produced. Looking forward to more.

 

[villain of the story]

Dear lord, did Fargo fuck your realdoll or something ?

I wouldn't be mad if I had a realdoll and Fargo fucked it. Realdoll are boring western silicon crap. The Japanese are where the shit's at. They have got petite dolls that look like underage girls.

http://www.kanojotoys.com/love-doll-petite-jewel-p-164.html

Now, if I had that and Fargo fucked that, then I would be pissed.

 

[Oesophagus]

ah, good 'ol codexian arguments from ignorance: Not much is known about the game, therefore it will be shit

 

[Achilles]

Having read the interview I do have a feeling that Vault Dweller is going to be vindicated soon. The game seems like a massive undertaking and it doesn't look all that likely that it will ship 14 months from now. Not that I mind of course, but I do worry a bit that Inxile might have to cut some content if they are dead set on hitting that release date.

 

[Oesophagus]

Having read the interview I do have a feeling that Vault Dweller is going to be vindicated soon. The game seems like a massive undertaking and it doesn't look all that likely that it will ship 14 months from now. Not that I mind of course, but I do worry a bit that Inxile might have to cut some content if they are dead set on hitting that release date.

That is a possibility, so we should come up with some fan initiative to tell Fargo to take his time. Well, not me, I can't be arsed

 

[EG]

ah, good 'ol codexian arguments from ignorance: Not much is known about the game, therefore it will be shit

Emergent forum-play & retardance.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Is it too late to use the "if this was Todd you'd be yelling RETARD by now" argument?

 

[Infinitron]

Is it too late to use the "if this was Todd you'd be yelling RETARD by now" argument?

That's definitely true now. But was it true before Todd released Oblivion?

It's never just about what the person is saying. It's a combination of that and his or her existing track record (inb4 Hunted: The Demon's Forge reference)

 

[SerratedBiz]

Is it too late to use the "if this was Todd you'd be yelling RETARD by now" argument?

That's definitely true now. But was it true before Todd released Oblivion?

It's never just about what the person is saying. It's a combination of that and his or her existing track record (inb4 Hunted: The Demon's Forge reference)

Hasn't it been established that Fargo's not without his own hiccups by way of Hunted and TBT'04?

ETA: That sneaky edit. Still, if you knew it was coming...

 

[FeelTheRads]

Yeah, you'd have to actually play the game to know them.

Hurrrrr. Very clever. Saying "I don't remember" should have hinted you that I did play it.

but you have to be in serious denial if you don't see the fact that it was one of the very first.

I said I don't remember such huge ones the likes of which Fargo babbles about. And from your example... what were the consequences to those? Killing everyone -> ghost town, OK, that's pretty big. Anything else?

I certainly don't remember Wasteland's main attraction being C&C.

 

[General Maxson]

Yeah, you'd have to actually play the game to know them.

Hurrrrr. Very clever. Saying "I don't remember" should have hinted you that I did play it.

but you have to be in serious denial if you don't see the fact that it was one of the very first.

I said I don't remember such huge ones the likes of which Fargo babbles about. And from your example... what were the consequences to those? Killing everyone -> ghost town, OK, that's pretty big. Anything else?

I certainly don't remember Wasteland's main attraction being C&C.

Bro, he's trying to say that for its time (remember it's 1988) Wasteland had a novelty thing called C&C in crpg world. They weren't huge and shit, but it was more than other crpgs of that era had.

 

[commie]

My name may not be featured prominently on the back of an Interplay CD, but I've traced the steps he's going through -

There's a reason your name isn't featured on the back of an Interplay CD....you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. Obsidian managed this entire type of thing from scratch in a year with F:NV and MOTB. They almost made it with KOTOR 2( a couple more months would have been enough as it was originally slated for a Feb release not pre Xmas). Obsidian also didn't/doesn't have a big team. Obsidian is also lending a hand to Fargo. I think MCA will be a lot more valuable as someone that can advise how to manage all this kind of thing in a short time than as a celebrity guest writer.

 

[FeelTheRads]

If Wasteland 2 is to be of the complexity of Obsidian's games then it has already failed.

 

[commie]

If Wasteland 2 is to be of the complexity of Obsidian's games then it has already failed.

Depends what you mean by this.

If you mean that Obsidian games have no complexity well then Wasteland has hardly any complexity in story and c&c at all, yet is regarded as something out of this world. If W2 continues on this low complexity front then it would be a successful continuation.

If on the other hand you mean that Obsidian games are complex and W2 trying to emulate this is somehow a bad thing then I don't think anyone would agree with you. The world moves on man, people don't want 320x200 EGA graphics and looking up a manual for descriptions.

Confessions of a JRPG faggot.

Do please stop.

 

[Jasede]

BCP has seen the truth: the only good games made in the last 3-4 years were KOTC, Crimzon Clover and Dark Souls. All new western RPGs lack love and depth. 99.99% of Japanese ones do as well, see Square-Enix. You can slurp up your Witcher 2 popamole but if you're looking for a well-made experience you won't find it in any western RPG released for console or PC. Your best bet are replaying old games, from better times.

Actually, this isn't just RPGs- this is true for games in general.

And as to OP? We know better than to be optimistic. Show us some writing, then we'll talk.

Edit:

He (BCP) is exactly right: Western (and most Eastern) games seem vulgar and primitive.

You can dislike Demon/Dark Souls all you like- it's your loss. If you can't see past genre, console or hemispherical differences in order to enjoy a game then it's to your own detriment.


Also, you all should be ashamed of yourselves if you really truly consider some horrible slapped together garbage like Witcher, ME or anything "big" that came out in the last three years to be a better game than one made with actual love. Modern games have nothing in common with the games we grew up with. The magic is lost and they won't ever find it again. But rarely, one can find an ember. And if you ignore that one just because of where you found that ember then it is your own loss.

Ridicule all you want. Your tastes are bad, plain and simple. Very few people have good taste. Lyric Suite harps about this all day. Some things are simply "objectively" better than others. Years of popamole, years of garbage have dulled all your senses.

It's time to wake up.