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

[felipepepe]

My point is InXile wasn't RPG developer and i bet ton of people from that studio probably didn't even play any RPG before that, i sure people there are learning stuff and as they will release mediacore to good game they will have chance to improve and polish their skill for Torment and next games.

Just to recall:

For Wasteland 2, we’re getting the band back together again!. Brian Fargo who Executive Produced both Wasteland and Fallout will be heading the team. Alan Pavlish and Mike Stackpole—the original game’s primary designers—are coming back to put the project together, and we’re rounding up as many of the other designers, like Ken St. Andre, as we can. On top of that, we’ll have music by Mark Morgan of Fallout 1 and 2 fame. The storyline for Wasteland 2 was written by Jason Anderson who was the co-creator of Fallout. We have also enlisted the help of the amazing concept artist, Andree Wallin to help craft the Wasteland 2 world.

Obsidian’s Chief Creative Officer, Chris Avellone, is going to work with our team on the design and writing of the game!

While the programming work will remain with us here at inXile, we are looking to use a host of tools that Obsidian has created which will help us get assets into the game faster.

This isn't a bunch of amateurs making their first game; or at least, it shouldn't be. And they definitely don't have a amateur budget.

 

[Infinitron]

Ironically, in the move from BG1 to BG2, maps become more linear and tunnel-ish, yet few people complained.

Same for NWN2 and MotB, now that I think of it. You brought this on yourself, Codex!

 

[tuluse]

i bet ton of people from that studio probably didn't even play any RPG before that

 

[Lancehead]

Ironically, in the move from BG1 to BG2, maps become more linear and tunnel-ish, yet few people complained.

Same for NWN2 and MotB, now that I think of it. You brought this on yourself, Codex!

BG1 is not open world. MotB is story focussed. WL2 was pitched as an open world game.

 

[Athelas]

Same for NWN2 and MotB, now that I think of it. You brought this on yourself, Codex!

I'm pretty sure MOTB has better level design than the NWN2 OC, where almost every map was a singular corridor. Not that this is much of an achievement (and MOTB just has more corridors instead of one).

Besides, what's your point? 'This game has a weakness but is otherwise good, let's copy that weakness instead of designing it better' is what you're basically saying.

For Wasteland 2, we’re getting the band back together again!. Brian Fargo who Executive Produced both Wasteland and Fallout will be heading the team. Alan Pavlish and Mike Stackpole—the original game’s primary designers—are coming back to put the project together, and we’re rounding up as many of the other designers, like Ken St. Andre, as we can. On top of that, we’ll have music by Mark Morgan of Fallout 1 and 2 fame. The storyline for Wasteland 2 was written by Jason Anderson who was the co-creator of Fallout. We have also enlisted the help of the amazing concept artist, Andree Wallin to help craft the Wasteland 2 world.
Obsidian’s Chief Creative Officer, Chris Avellone, is going to work with our team on the design and writing of the game!

I see a bunch of names (some irrelevant: music, executive producer)...how much they were actually involved with the game's design is anybody's guess. I mean, the game doesn't exactly look like the much-touted concept art of Andree Wallin, does it?

 

[Rake]

Ironically, in the move from BG1 to BG2, maps become more linear and tunnel-ish, yet few people complained.

Same for NWN2 and MotB, now that I think of it. You brought this on yourself, Codex!

Yes but BG2 was a huge imrovement over BG1. Same with MotB and NWN 2 OC.
In what ways W2 is a huge improvement to Wasteland/Fallout? Honest question. I haven't played the beta, but while i have read a lot of negative critisism, the defender squad doesn't come up with praises for the game, just "it will get better", "it didn't aimed for that from the start", "this bad design is intentional because reasons" etc.
From what i undertand, for every minor improvement, there is a huge drawback.

 

[Infinitron]

Yes but BG2 was a huge imrovement over BG1. Same with MotB and NWN 2 OC.

That's what people say, yeah.

What I'm trying to say is that the "flat open map" thing was never really a dealbreaker for anyone.

Alas, this is the Codex - sudden and unpredictable obsessions r us.

the defender squad doesn't come up with praises for the game

I don't like talking out of my ass about games that I haven't really played extensively.

Of course, Wasteland has some advantages over Fallout that are pretty self-evident even if you've only fiddled with it for five minutes, but those are too obvious to mention. Play it yourself if you're interested.

 

[Perkel]

Sure, getting people who once worked with each other to entirely new team of people which consist also from people that didn't work on RPGs and with either of those people don't create any problem in team workflow...

As i said dev team is a team of people that needs to work on game equally and all of them need to do excellent work not just few people. People have this crazy idea that you can make team out of nowhere and everything will work like intended from start to finish. Problem is that dev teams needs to mature even if they have best designers ever, they need to work on their workflow, technicalities of engine they are using and so on.

Most of people here probably don't know that to create robust RPG you need to create tools which will help you with work. I mean did you see Obsidian quest like designer ? Those kind of tools helps a lot designers and designers thanks to those tools can work better, faster and do more iterations of their systems and so on.

If they will fuck something up with Wasteland 2 i am sure they will learn a lesson and fix that in Torment and so on. That is how studios grow and if game is in Beta there isn't really much you can change since Beta is mostly for Bug fixes and polishing game not adding features or changing them.

Obsidian probably has even more talent and they still fucked up camera and UI in NWN2 games


edit:

as for BG. BG open world map was potatoland designed by dart game not actual designers.

 

[Rake]

the defender squad doesn't come up with praises for the game

I don't like talking out of my ass about games that I haven't really played extensively.

I wasn't talking about you as you made clear you didn't play it very much. But i find curious that people who teared the game apart like felipepepe and hiver and zed are so negative, while i haven't seen someone who played the game to reply "you guys are idiots, the game is great because that and that and that". Most of the "defenders" are people like you and Dedalos who didn't even finish the game.
If the only people that are optimistic are those who didn't play it and go on hope, while the ones that played it are unimpresed (and sometimes downright negative), it isn't exactly reasuring.

 

[FeelTheRads]

What I'm trying to say is that the "flat open map" thing was never really a dealbreaker for anyone.

You do realize that all your W2 defenses are along this line? This wasn't a dealbreaker in that game, this was already that game and you liked the game etc. Cool stuff that W2 is made of the worst parts of all those games, huh?

 

[Infinitron]

If the only people that are optimistic are those who didn't play it and go on hope, while the ones that played it are unimpresed (and sometimes downright negative), it isn't exactly reasuring.

The Codex isn't exactly known for being a reassuring place

Obviously nobody is going to go OMG NO IT'S THE BEST GAME EVER over a beta that many are saying is really an alpha. The people who did play the game and basically liked it like Micoselva are just waiting for the final release so they can determine if it's just okay or really good.

And you know, I hate to bring up this kindergarten type bullshit, but peer pressure is a thing. Unlike most "edgy hater" types on the Codex, felipepepe isn't a shitposter or a crank so people take him seriously. How many people would even want to get into an argument with him and his little crusade against Wasteland 2 in this cesspit of a thread?

It's not worth the effort, so we wait until the game is released.

You do realize that all your W2 defenses are along this line? This wasn't a dealbreaker in that game, this was already that game and you liked the game etc. Cool stuff that W2 is made of the worst parts of all those games, huh?

Well, I am not sure that BG2's more linear map design is universally considered to be a bad thing. A lot of people seem to have thought BG1's maps were boring (not me)

 

[Rake]

Well, I am not sure that BG2's more linear map design is universally considered to be a bad thing. A lot of people seem to have thought BG1's maps were boring (not me)

There is a scale here. More linear =! corridor. BG1 were boring because they were empty wilderness areas. Fallout (this is what felipepepe asked for) had open maps, but no one considered them boring because they were full of content. Same with BG2.

 

[felipepepe]

Sure, getting people who once worked with each other to entirely new team of people which consist also from people that didn't work on RPGs and with either of those people don't create any problem in team workflow...

Have you ever worked in a actual company? Do you think you're hired and then spend a year going to movies with your new co-workers, listening to music, chatting and getting to know each other, so you may someday work together and perform well? That when a producer assemble a team to make a movie, they all go camping together for a week first, so they may share experiences by the bonfire and really connect as people?

I'm a freelancer bro, I get hired to go into a advertisement agency with 200 employees I never seen before, sit down and work there for 2-3 weeks, on a campaign that I have no previous knowledge about and is worth millions for the agency and the company. And they keep hiring people like me because we do a great job. Is called being a goddamn professional.

As i said dev team is a team of people that needs to work on game equally and all of them need to do excellent work not just few people. People have this crazy idea that you can make team out of nowhere and everything will work like intended from start to finish. Problem is that dev teams needs to mature even if they have best designers ever, they need to work on their workflow, technicalities of engine they are using and so on.

Most of people here probably don't know that to create robust RPG you need to create tools which will help you with work. I mean did you see Obsidian quest like designer ? Those kind of tools helps a lot designers and designers thanks to those tools can work better, faster and do more iterations of their systems and so on.

Do you know what is a producer? He's the guy that looks at a job & budget, then gather the right team, get the right tools they need and point them in the direction they should go, making sure they keep on track. Brian Fargo is probably the most experienced producer in gaming EVER, with more than 50 titles under his belt. I gave my money to this man because he said he was going to assemble a great team, with veterans from Fallout and Wasteland 1 plus tools from Obsidian and make a fucking great RPG. Even more, myself and other fans gave him three times the money what he asked for. He don't get to deliver a shitty game and say "oh guys, making games is hard, I need more experience on this".

And stop with pointless PR-speak like "they have tools to do more iterations", it only makes more obvious that you're the alt of someone tied to the project.

If they will fuck something up with Wasteland 2 i am sure they will learn a lesson and fix that in Torment and so on. That is how studios grow

No, this is how studios close down. This isn't happy dream land, you can't keep releasing shitty games and hope that people keep buying then and paying you for more games, so that one day you might make something decent. In fact is the opposite, the first job is where a company must shine the most and prove their right to exist. InXile already has 10 years as a studio, and wasted huge opportunities like Bard's Tale and Hunted: Demon's Forge. They had A LOT of time to learn their lessons, failed and were rightfully cast down to iPhone games limbo... that is, until a guy called Brian Fargo learning of a way to take money directly from nostalgic fans.

and if game is in Beta there isn't really much you can change since Beta is mostly for Bug fixes and polishing game not adding features or changing them.

Well, good thing then that game will be feature complete only in 3 months, meaning we are still in alpha.

Obsidian probably has even more talent and they still fucked up camera and UI in NWN2 games

And do you think they got a free pass for that? They started with KOTOR 2, a rushed game with no budget that was already great (disproving your entire point), and even after such a good start people still bashed the shit out of NWN2's OC, especially the camera.

 

[Servo]

This isn't happy dream land, you can't keep releasing shitty games and hope that people keep buying then and paying you for more games, so that one day you might make something decent.

This might be true if the video games industry wasn't funded by a bunch of ADHD riddled media addicts and fanbois spending their parents' monies.

 

[felipepepe]

This might be true if the video games industry wasn't funded by a bunch of ADHD riddled media addicts and fanbois spending their parents' monies.

You're mistaking shitty games for games you don't like.

Hunted: Demon's Forge is a shitty game that no one cares about; Call of Duty, Skyrim and the likes are dumbed-down games, but they still have a massive following and sell millions, more than enough to guarantee countless sequels. No amount of hype can make up for shit like StarWars: The Old Republic or Aliens: Colonial Marines.

 

[Servo]

You're mistaking shitty games for games you don't like.

No, games I don't like are shitty games period.

 

[J_C]

InXile already has 10 years as a studio, and wasted huge opportunities like Bard's Tale and Hunted: Demon's Forge. They had A LOT of time to learn their lessons, failed and were rightfully cast down to iPhone games limbo... that is, until a guy called Brian Fargo learning of a way to take money directly from nostalgic fans.

I will play and probably enjoy W2, but I was always vary of Inxile developing the game and I have a great fear for Torment. I've just never seen Inxile as a good studio. Sure, there is Brian Fargo and some veterans, but the rest of the studio is just not that talented. It is not a coincidence that they haven't produced a good game so far.

 

[Perkel]

Calm down. No i am not connected to any of Wasteland devs.

Great by your points they should make Fallout 2 killer just like that from start. It's not like there must be something else beside great producer. You know like experience of workers, talent, workflow and so on. And they have 2mln $ !! Such amount of money surely will give him key to open door of all best workers and so on...

As for Wasteland 2 game is looking far from being mediacore so i'll wait first to review it before actually calling it shit.

 

[DeepOcean]

The Codex isn't exactly known for being a reassuring place

Not sure about this. Man, if you go to threads about good games you are going to see: the everything is shit crowd that you usualy ignore unless they have a decent argument, the apologists that you usualy ignore unless they have a decent argument and people that judge things on a more reasonable way. When the game is good, the apologists and the everything is shit people go on a contest to see who can be the champion of autism but the reasonable people watch their points and see that the game is good enough to play even if not perfect.

This thread is really one sided and that is because the apologists don't have anything to really defend the game but just the usual butthurt and it isn't even their fault as nobody knows who is the responsible for this game and much less where it is going. There isn't a real debate going on, just people pointing that the game range from mediocre to crap right now and the apologists can't even defend it on a decent manner as no one has any idea where the game is going.

 

[hiver]

1) inXile designed Wasteland 2's maps this way because they wanted to, because that's how they thought maps in 3D games were supposed to look like, not because they have no conception of what a flat open grid looks like.

As I've mentioned before, Hei$t was open-world.

Different kind of game, different kind of open world. Wasn't it supposed to be some kind of GTA clone?

If you look at the way that 3D top-down RPGs have evolved, they've clearly gone from trying to ape the griddy look of 2D RPGs (NWN1) towards the more organic appearance of NWN2 and DA:O.

Actually, a "griddy map" and an "open world" are two completely different things so I'm not sure why you would even bring that up.

Why is this mass market shill not banned already? Why is this shill in the codex staff? What? Because he seems "nice"?

 

[felipepepe]

Why is this mass market shill not banned already? Why is this shill in the codex staff? What? Because he seems "nice"?

Let's be real, Infinitron News™ is like 2/3rds of the Codex content.

 

[Oesophagus]

This isn't happy dream land, you can't keep releasing shitty games and hope that people keep buying then and paying you for more games, so that one day you might make something decent.

Really? Well let's just see how much precious next DA accumulates, after the universal disdain for DA2, the utter ballsing-up of TOR, and the hatred towards the ME3 ending. All it took was a few screenshots of DAI and some hype-speak and the fanboy fruit flies forgot about "I'm never buying anything from Bioware again, evar!"

I mean, FFS, Nintendo could release a mario game that gives you cancer, fucks your mother and kills your dog, and it'd still sell like hotcakes. Or how about Final Fantasy, when was the last good one released?

 

[Perkel]

The Codex isn't exactly known for being a reassuring place

Not sure about this. Man, if you go to threads about good games you are going to see: the everything is shit crowd that you usualy ignore unless they have a decent argument, the apologists that you usualy ignore unless they have a decent argument and people that judge things on a more reasonable way. When the game is good, the apologists and the everything is shit people go on a contest to see who can be the champion of autism but the reasonable people watch their points and see that the game is good enough to play even if not perfect.

This thread is really one sided and that is because the apologists don't have anything to really defend the game but just the usual butthurt and it isn't even their fault as nobody knows who is the responsible for this game and much less where it is going. There isn't a real debate going on, just people pointing that the game range from mediocre to crap right now and the apologists can't even defend it on a decent manner as no one has any idea where the game is going.

wait mediacore to crap ?

So what is going on with game to get such low previews ? Some TLDR would be nice

 

[Infinitron]

Not sure about this. Man, if you go to threads about good games you are going to see: the everything is shit crowd that you usualy ignore unless they have a decent argument, the apologists that you usualy ignore unless they have a decent argument and people that judge things on a more reasonable way. When the game is good, the apologists and the everything is shit people go on a contest to see who can be the champion of autism but the reasonable people watch their points and see that the game is good enough to play even if not perfect.

This thread is really one sided and that is because the apologists don't have anything to really defend the game but just the usual butthurt and it isn't even their fault as nobody knows who is the responsible for this game and much less where it is going. There isn't a real debate going on, just people pointing that the game range from mediocre to crap right now and the apologists can't even defend it on a decent manner as no one has any idea where the game is going.

The real "autists" are waiting for the game to come out. Have you seen DraQ posting in this thread? Roxor? Vault Dweller? DalekFlay? Sceptic? Heck, even people like Roguey aren't interested in mouthing off in this thread anymore. The full Codex Consensus is yet to come.

 

[felipepepe]

I mean, FFS, Nintendo could release a mario game that gives you cancer, fucks your mother and kills your dog, and it'd still sell like hotcakes. Or how about Final Fantasy, when was the last good one released?

Why? Because they released fantastic games in the past and people hope they do once again. They feed on fanboyism, goodwill and hope. You don't have that if your first game is already shit.