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

[Daedalos]

As much as I somewhat agree with Felipeppepepepepezzz posts, I still reserve final judgement and keep my hopes up, until the game is in release state in 5 months time.

Only then will we be able to tell if it's truly a great or mediocre game.

 

[garren]

About the whole tunnel map design in the previous page.. D:OS is much better in terms of map openness design than what I've seen from wasteland 2, but still in places I feel it kinda deteriorates into tunneling you into one direction too much. The beaches for example, you can "explore" the area and find a crate or two (and the talking clam and stuff) but there's really no way to go except where one direction if you want to advance. The forest area east of Cyseal also is just a path or two with really no way to go off the beaten path and explore deeper, the pathways just take you to cave with the giant goblin or whatever it was, or northwest towards the more open area.

It's a shame because dungeons by their nature are more "linear" in their design in RPG's (of course you can make them as open as you want too) and it makes sense there but when above ground the world has the unique ability to be as open as you design it.

 

[Volrath]

Is there any redeeming qualities on this turd?

I think that the graphics are great (especially since the patch), the portraits are cool, and that are some rare glimpses of greatness, like the giant frogs that swallow guns, or the caution they had to make the Highpool maze solo-able. But that's it. For all the heritage, promises, developers and hype that Wasteland 2 carries, it is just too little.

I wouldn't call it a turd... In many ways, it is like Legend of Grimrock: it takes a kind of game that hasn't been made in ages and brings it to modern audiences, but it is very shallow and uninspired next to its peers. All production, no soul; the right elements are there, but the game doesn't do anything clever with them. The combat is simplistic, skills aren't interesting, quests are boring, exploration feels dull, and the tone is a mess between grimdark post-apoc and pop culture references & dadjokes. The "desert-police" approach makes the game feels more like Fallout Tactics than F1 or W1, where you do a mission, report to base, then get another mission, without being able to do stuff on your own. And the setting as a whole feels underplayed; they could have thrown ANYTHING at you, yet the most "creative" thing you face are killer bunnies, that overused Monty Python joke that every game ever already did.

In the end, it will probably sell well, score a 7.5-8 average on metacritic and be a success for inXile... but for most Codexers, I think that all it offers is the fact that it is a new full party creation turn-based game, and perhaps that someone else might see that there's a market for this and develop a great game. But with Divinity:Original Sin probably being released before W2, I'd say that not even that is a given.

Damn... Is it really that shit?

 

[MapMan]

So how are the graphics shaping up on this one?

 

[DosBuster]

Moderate. Some areas look nice, some areas look ok. You know what you're looking at most of the time so it's ok, camera can be a bit annoying in places like Ag Centre with overgrowth fucking everywhere. But all in all. Nice game.

 

[Infinitron]

But with Divinity:Original Sin probably being released before W2, I'd say that not even that is a given.

If you think D:OS is going to outsell WL2 I'm afraid you're likely to be mistaken. The Anti-European Bias Is Strong.

And then there's the question of profit. D:OS has a much higher budget that it needs to earn back. There's a reason why Swen is getting kind of worried.

 

[FeelTheRads]

The Anti-European Bias Is Strong.

From who? Roguey-likes?

 

[Infinitron]

The Anti-European Bias Is Strong.

From who? Roguey-likes?

Among others.

It's not just not that, though. I mean, for fuck's sake, do I really need to explain how "high fantasy is played out" on the Codex, of all places? Have we suddenly forgotten all the butthurt that was thrown at Obsidian when they chose to make their game high fantasy?

Let's face it, for a lot of players, THIS:

it is very shallow and uninspired next to its peers. All production, no soul; the right elements are there, but the game doesn't do anything clever with them.

...is going to seem very untrue simply on account of WL2 being a post-apoc RPG and not a fantasy RPG.

 

[Athelas]

This isn't 1997 (when Fallout was first released). People have already seen the RPG motif applied to non-fantasy environs, it's not something new or groundbreaking that will wow people. I also fear full-party creation is something that will alienate a lot of players.

Divinity: Original Sin will sell less simply because it has received far less attention and hype (in part because of its Euro-origins).

 

[hiver]

Oh, sure... high fantasy is so unwanted, gee.. look at those pages of PoE thread compared to W2 and OS.

 

[Xeon]

I think that's probably because Sawyer is kinda of open about his design decisions so it makes an interesting discussions or something.

None of the other projects does that so not really much to talk about I think.

 

[hiver]

oh, and that thing , the new Torment... imagine, it got more money then w2.

 

[felipepepe]

Seems a bit too early to form such a strong opinion on how the game will turn out. This beta is more of an alpha and I expect significant changes as they fine tune the game.

When the beta was released, it had 30% of the game. Now with the new areas, it should be ~40%. That's a lot of the game, more than enough to understand the design behind it. I don't bite the "40% of the game is linear and bland, but precisely the reamining that we didn't show you is amazing!" excuse. And even if true, that still means that 40% of your game is boring.

And it has been already 3 months since they alpha/beta started, and they now have 3 more months to add in all the remaining features & levels. Seeing how they still don't know what to do with Charisma, are still missing various skills, haven't decided on aimed shots and many other stuff, I doubt they will have time to rework the released levels until they are great.

Expectations were too high. It was the most anticipated of the "incline" games on the codex, and we went in expecting Fallout 1 when Wasteland is its own universe with a different tone.

The promises were too high. There's no way in hell that this game will live to even half of what Fargo sold us on. And I'm not talking just about stuff like "more replayable than Fallout", but it fails even to its own Vision Document:

Spoiler

They [party-menbers] don’t always blindly follow you into radiation-infested buildings, they may quietly hoard drugs and money that they find, or even possibly decide to borrow things from you as needed. They may have a childhood fear of rats that causes them to burn SMG clips in fury whenever those creatures appear. If they don’t like someone in the party, they won’t be shy about it – or they may actively encourage you to send certain characters on solo missions provided they leave their canteen and supplies behind.

we allow you to explore the Wasteland at the pace you want. Go anywhere you want, test the limits, test your enemies and gauge their strength

The world reacts to who’s in your party, your appearance, your choices, your health – and more. It’s a world that’s watching you and reacting in ways you would expect the inhabitants of the world would… encountering a horde of Leather Jerks shortly after being bloodied and out of ammo from an unexpected Reagan Hover Tank fight is going to spark a much different reaction that rolling onto the scene with upgraded automatic weapons and proton axes while riding the same Hover Tank you were fighting previously. On the flip side, entering a room with security robots while wearing normal clothes and no weapons displayed may allow safe passage where a fully-tricked out party bristling with weapons may trigger a much different experience…

now your Rangers have the task of dealing with it, from the freaks, to the mutants, to the cultural debris and menagerie of bizarre opponents that treat trinkets of the past like a religion. It's evident all around you in the hulks of Trans Ams, towns of freakshows and drooling mutations, or even in the howls of a crazed cultist screaming for his allies to charge in the name of their god, "the Gipper."

Wasteland also draws strength through its visual style. We don’t want continual stretches of barren, desolate, single-color landscapes – we want green, vibrant overgrowth crawling across the terrain and over buildings and skyscrapers, colorful patchwork signs and facades dotting the horizon, river-cut canyons, and other environmental lures intended to draw you forward.

Flank opponents, switch gear, learn to use fog of war and line of sight to outflank opponents and go for quick kills before an alert can be sounded… or you can approach a combat simply and aggressively, taking a lot more damage and damaging your gear but reaching your objective quicker.

If that’s not to your liking, use patience and demolitions to lure your opponents into a prepared kill zone of traps, explosives, and sniper bullets that can cut through opposition like a proton knife through butter. It’s your call, your choice, and your risk – and enjoyed through your game-play style, not ours.

Clearly not the game I have in my hard-drive. And I'm trying to judge it on it's own merits here, not as "sequel to Wasteland" or "Fallout 3", but no matter how you look at it, it's just mediocre, uninspired and forgettable.

I encourage anyone to play the original Wasteland for a bit, to get a sense of the tone, then replay the beta.

Have you done so, really? Go to Las Vegas, see a goddamn city with open map, loot the houses, run from a Scorpitron and fight Radiation Angels on the Temple of the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud. Or use a robe to disguise yourself as a cultist, infiltrate the Temple of Blood hidden beneath a village and steal the Bloodstaff. Or maybe grab the head of a dead cyborg, hook it up your brain and explore a mindmaze full of challenges and puzzles. And then tell me how the hell W2 is aiming for that tone.

If you think D:OS is going to outsell WL2 I'm afraid you're likely to be mistaken. The Anti-European Bias Is Strong.

Not outselling, but "leaving its mark". You have two isometric, turn-based party RPGs coming out in the same year, after many years without one of those (closest thing was Dragon Age 1). Most players and reviewers won't even know how to judge it. If W2 came out first, it would be the standard to measure up D:OS, but with the opposite happening, W2 will have a much harder time.

it is very shallow and uninspired next to its peers. All production, no soul; the right elements are there, but the game doesn't do anything clever with them.

...is going to seem very untrue simply on account of WL2 being a post-apoc RPG and not a fantasy RPG.

Even Dragon Age: Origins, a mediocre fantasy game full of romances, has more soul and creativity into it.

 

[Infinitron]

felipepepe You're increasingly reminding me of this famous old Sawyer post:

The point, in case zealots ever want to accept it, is that your tastes are not the only tastes in the world. Really, I know this may be hard to believe, but if you like playing a turn-based game set in three counties of Utah in 2242, and you like miniguns but don't like lasers, and you like the ratio of combat to dialogue to be about 4:1, and you like cars that look more like Buicks than Pontiacs, and you think 50s-style monsters are okay but 50s-style aliens aren't, and you think Max's jacket from Mad Max is okay but the football pad armour isn't, and you don't like it when italics are used in dialogue but you do like it when boldface is used, and you want it to be longer than 100 hours but no longer than 120 hours, and like games to be non-linear but only to a point, and like big cities, but only two because four is too much BUT HEY NOT THAT ONE, and you like the desert but don't mind a little grass BUT HEY NOT THAT MUCH BECAUSE IT'S NOT FALLOUT...I am terribly, terribly sorry, because we are not going to make a game just for you. We're not trying to make a game for everyone. Really, we aren't. But we're not making a game just for you and ten other angry guys with tastes that are narrower than a hallway in a camp of pygmy dwarves.

"I want skill checks...but NOT LIKE THIS!"

"I want reactivity and choices...BUT NOT LIKE THAT!"



Look, you've got three games.

Pillars of Eternity is being designed by J.E. Sawyer, who has obviously been thinking about how he would "fix" D&D for years.

Divinity: Original Sin is being made by Larian, who have been planning to make their "Ultimate RPG" for years. (Although I would note that even so, it's clear that in terms of system design they're very inexperienced - look how much the game has changed.)

Wasteland 2 was preproduced by a hastily assembled team of inexperienced greenhorns, out-of-touch old fogies and one distracted Chris Avellone in all of six months. A team that probably never thought they would ever get to make a game like this.

Adjust your expectations.

 

[felipepepe]

What's your point? That I shouldn't expect much from Brian Fargo, Chris Avellone and various other people that made Fallout raising 3M dollars to make a old-school, turn-based RPG? That they get a free pass because MCA didn't do his job right? That they making a game that's inferior in almost everything to Underrail, that game made by ONE FUCKING GUY, is ok? That Fargo can spend the day making empty promises? That somehow I can't compare it to Larian's D:OS or PoE, because they actually have a design plan?

You could as well use that Sawyer quote to defend Oblivion and Fallout 3. Or say that Dragon Age 2 is great because the team only had one year to make it.

 

[Infinitron]

What's your point? That I shouldn't expect much from Brian Fargo, Chris Avellone and various other people that made Fallout raising 3M dollars to make a old-school, turn-based RPG? That they get a free pass because MCA didn't do his job right? That they making a game that's inferior in almost everything to Underrail, that game made by ONE FUCKING GUY, is ok? That somehow I can't compare it to Larian's D:OS, because they actually have a design plan?

Oh, you can definitely compare it. I'm sure even some people at inXile think that D:OS will be an altogether more impressive title than WL2. D:OS has more budget, more development time, a wider scope. Why wouldn't it be better?

It just seems like a dumb thing to be so upset about.

You could as well use that Sawyer quote to defend Oblivion and Fallout 3.

Not really. Sawyer's complaint was basically about people who complained that "this game is trying to be oldschool BUT IN A WAY I DON'T LIKE which is why it'll SUCK". Oblivion and Fallout 3 weren't even really trying.

 

[Akratus]

Even Dragon Age: Origins, a mediocre fantasy game full of romances, has more soul and creativity into it.

Pillars of Eternity is being designed by J.E. Sawyer, who has obviously been thinking about how he would "fix" D&D for years.

Divinity: Original Sin is being made by Larian, who have been planning to make their "Ultimate RPG" for years. (Although I would note that even so, it's clear that in terms of system design they're very inexperienced - look how much the game has changed.)

Wasteland 2 was preproduced by a hastily assembled team of inexperienced greenhorns, out-of-touch old fogies and one distracted Chris Avellone in all of six months. A team that probably never thought they would ever get to make a game like this.

Adjust your expectations.

 

[Infinitron]

Even Dragon Age: Origins, a mediocre fantasy game full of romances, has more soul and creativity into it.

That sentence should tell you more about felipepepe than it does about Wasteland 2

What would you have said if Wasteland 2 had done something equally as drastic as changing from a mana-based spellcasting system to a cooldown(!!)-based system in the middle of development, felipe?

 

[Zero Credibility]

felipepepe You're increasingly reminding me of this famous old Sawyer post:

The point, in case zealots ever want to accept it, is that your tastes are not the only tastes in the world. Really, I know this may be hard to believe, but if you like playing a turn-based game set in three counties of Utah in 2242, and you like miniguns but don't like lasers, and you like the ratio of combat to dialogue to be about 4:1, and you like cars that look more like Buicks than Pontiacs, and you think 50s-style monsters are okay but 50s-style aliens aren't, and you think Max's jacket from Mad Max is okay but the football pad armour isn't, and you don't like it when italics are used in dialogue but you do like it when boldface is used, and you want it to be longer than 100 hours but no longer than 120 hours, and like games to be non-linear but only to a point, and like big cities, but only two because four is too much BUT HEY NOT THAT ONE, and you like the desert but don't mind a little grass BUT HEY NOT THAT MUCH BECAUSE IT'S NOT FALLOUT...I am terribly, terribly sorry, because we are not going to make a game just for you. We're not trying to make a game for everyone. Really, we aren't. But we're not making a game just for you and ten other angry guys with tastes that are narrower than a hallway in a camp of pygmy dwarves.

Wow, did he also use all those wikipedia links as well in the post? If yes, I just have to reconsider my feeling towards him. Where previously it was only a dislike over seeing reverence of him by certain people here and a disagreement with his design decisions, I now fucking hate him.

 

[Infinitron]

felipepepe You're increasingly reminding me of this famous old Sawyer post:

The point, in case zealots ever want to accept it, is that your tastes are not the only tastes in the world. Really, I know this may be hard to believe, but if you like playing a turn-based game set in three counties of Utah in 2242, and you like miniguns but don't like lasers, and you like the ratio of combat to dialogue to be about 4:1, and you like cars that look more like Buicks than Pontiacs, and you think 50s-style monsters are okay but 50s-style aliens aren't, and you think Max's jacket from Mad Max is okay but the football pad armour isn't, and you don't like it when italics are used in dialogue but you do like it when boldface is used, and you want it to be longer than 100 hours but no longer than 120 hours, and like games to be non-linear but only to a point, and like big cities, but only two because four is too much BUT HEY NOT THAT ONE, and you like the desert but don't mind a little grass BUT HEY NOT THAT MUCH BECAUSE IT'S NOT FALLOUT...I am terribly, terribly sorry, because we are not going to make a game just for you. We're not trying to make a game for everyone. Really, we aren't. But we're not making a game just for you and ten other angry guys with tastes that are narrower than a hallway in a camp of pygmy dwarves.

Wow, did he also use all those wikipedia links as well in the post? If yes, I just have to reconsider my feeling towards him. Where previously it was only a dislike over seeing reverence of him by certain people here and a disagreement with his design decisions, I now fucking hate him.

No, that's a copy-pasta from Wikipedia. I'll remove those.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Oh good. Downgrading my hate again. You win this time Sawyer.

 

[Athelas]

What's your point? That I shouldn't expect much from Brian Fargo, Chris Avellone and various other people that made Fallout

They didn't make Fallout.

 

[felipepepe]

Oh, you can definitely compare it. I'm sure even some people at inXile think that D:OS will be an altogether more impressive title than WL2. D:OS has more budget, more development time, a wider scope. Why wouldn't it be better?

It just seems like a dumb thing to be so upset about.

Because the moar production time, budget and scope the game has, the better it is, always. So obviously W2 is vastly superior to Underrail and AoD, right?

And I simply can't be upset about a game being bad if it had less budget than a good game.

What would you have said if Wasteland 2 had done something equally as drastic as changing from a mana-based spellcasting system to a cooldown(!!)-based system in the middle of development, felipe?

You mean like going from a hex grid to a square one? :3 I would bitch and moan, but still judge the game for what it is on release. Dragon Age's mana/cooldown hybrid system actually works well, the same way that W2's square grid is not a problem (although is retarded that only enemies can melee on diagonals).

 

[Infinitron]

You mean like going from a hex grid to a square one? :3 I would bitch and moan, but still judge the game for what it is on release. Dragon Age's mana/cooldown hybrid system actually works well, the same way that W2's square grid is not a problem (although is retarded that only enemies can melee on diagonals).

That was actually a reference to D:OS: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ut-the-alpha-here.72670/page-188#post-3007561

Because the moar production time, budget and scope the game has, the better it is, always. So obviously W2 is vastly superior to Underrail and AoD, right?

AoD-style indies actually have the largest production times of all because they don't really have budgets in the first place.

Look, I too wish that WL2 had a full year or more of preproduction and design like Torment is getting. I too wish they'd hired on people like Brother None and sea earlier, and thought about their game mechanics and quest design a bit more deeply.

But the fact is that back in March 2012, the "resurrection of oldschool RPGs" was by no means an assured thing. The RPG Kickstarter fad could have died down, just like it did for adventure games after the one big success of Double Fine. Fargo made the right choice by not letting the game get too ambitious and getting production online ASAP. And his quick release of that gameplay video back in February 2013 was part of what made the Torment Kickstarter such a huge success. (In contrast, Obsidian have had a much longer time by now and they still haven't put together a decent video for Eternity.)

And I simply can't be upset about a game being bad if it had less budget than a good game.

...but I don't think the game is bad. I just think it could be better. It helps that I don't think of the Fallout series as the end-all, be-all of RPGs. I look at Wasteland 2 and see a game that's like Fallout, but has better combat, a better UI, full party creation and, if Brother None is to be believed, more C&C. Those things just aren't "bad", no matter how you look at it.

 

[Grotesque]

I guess Kickstarter money can't buy also talent.
Bringing that Sawyer quote into ecuation is retarded beyond measure because the game's flaws are too generic to make the quote relevant.

Fallout, a game with many flaws, managed to widely be acclaimed by all those zealots Sawyer is blabbering about.
What makes a game to bypass these boundaries that involves many player tastes and ideologies?
Not money.