Game News Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #49: The End is in Sight - Final Early Access Update and Release Date

[Rake]

Daedalos
There are perfectly valid reasons, for example Wasteland 2 doesn't have soul, just like NV doesn't have muh atmoshpere. That may seem retarded to you but it's a very real thing to me.

The problem with the soul arguement is that no one can defend against, nor you can explain precicly why it lacks soul. Plus it can be said for every game ever made.
If you say that you found Fallout or PS:T had no "soul", there is no way someone can prove you wrong. If you say they don't have creativity, you are objectivly wrong. But Soul? It means nothing to anyone except you

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Rake you're right in that such a phrase is too esoteric to use in a debate, but you're wrong that it's an uninterpretable term. I know right away what he's referring to. Games like Fallout, Planescape, Underrail, Blackguards, D:OS have soul. They feel crafted with a very solid sense of creative vision whereas WL2 feels lovingly slapped together in a frantic, desperate frenzy. And I don't think there's anybody among us who've been there from the beginning moments of the KS who haven't felt this...and painfully so. Just look at the UI and its "would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic" many horrible iterations which inevitably had to be saved via fan support (and still looks fairly meh). Look at that font. Look at the book covers using Chiller font. This is not the work of a collective group of people with a brilliant unified creative vision. It's a glaring jumblefuck and will only be saved if the writing and mechanics indeed turn out to mirror Fargo's braggadocio.

Anyway.

 

[Athelas]

I've heard of graphics wores, but UI whores?

 

[Rake]

Rake you're right in that such a phrase is too esoteric to use in a debate, but you're wrong that it's an uninterpretable term. I know right away what he's referring to. Games like Fallout, Planescape, Underrail, Blackguards, D:OS have soul. They feel crafted with a very solid sense of creative vision whereas WL2 feels lovingly slapped together in a frantic, desperate frenzy. And I don't think there's anybody among us who've been there from the beginning moments of the KS who haven't felt this...and painfully so. Just look at the UI and its "would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic" many horrible iterations which inevitably had to be saved via fan support (and still looks fairly meh). Look at that font. Look at the book covers using Chiller font. This is not the work of a collective group of people with a brilliant creative direction. It's a glaring jumblefuck and will only be saved if the writing and mechanics indeed turn out to mirror Fargo's braggadocio.

Anyway.

I don't realy disagree. I get what he is talking about as well, and i even agree with him. Still feel that using it in a debate it's meaningless, nor can it be used as criticism against a game exactly because it's too vargue.

Athelas UI is way more importand than graphics

 

[Infinitron]

people who don't spend time creating the perfect UI for their buggy and unfinished games lack souls

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

obviously people who don't spend time creating the perfect UI for their buggy and unfinished games lack souls

Yes, that's obviously the point being made, you fuckwit.

 

[Infinitron]

You really do overreact to minor stuff, though. "The UI sucks and my savegames got corrupted, THIS GAME IS A DISASTER FARGO LIED". I don't think you even got to the stage where you could meaningfully criticize the gameplay. This was in the very first version of the beta back in December.

(BTW, does Pillars of Eternity have soul? You were pretty pissed off at that game too, IIRC. I think you cancelled your KS pledge when they said there were going to be cooldowns (which was later retracted)?)

re: "soullessness" Terms like that can be a double-edged sword. I think there might be people who would describe D:OS's WoW-ish aesthetic in those terms, for instance. It really is better to avoid it.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

You really do overreact to minor stuff, though.

You have absolutely no idea what we're talking about when we use the word "soul", do you? None of what you just commented on is touching the heart of the matter. Herein, I suppose, proving Rake's point (which I agreed with in the realms of debate) though I'd have thought you smart and intuitive enough to interpret it correctly. And yes, PoE has soul, for that matter...albeit a fairly generic and cliched one.

UI is a symptom, not the disease. And one symptom of many, but the easiest to point out as it has been obviously problematic. The disease here is a lack of an overarching cohesive, unified and consistent feeling of artistic direction. Most games have this. WL1 had this. WL2 does not. It's fairly simple. Whether it's the direction (or lack of), mismanagement, lack of proper talent, who knows. But WL2 is an aesthetic mess, both in the visual and literary sense.

And no, the heart and soul of a game is not minor stuff.

Bonus fuck yous:

Yes, I'd gotten to a stage where I could criticize everything. I got to the last bit of content in the game at that point, being the Rail Nomad camp. And yes, criticizing a game which was far beyond it's promised due date (say what you like about promises, etc) which wasn't even stable enough to load games? It wasn't about MY problems, it was about the principle (i.e. shouldn't we be further along than this?).

I cancelled my PoE because it was looking like an uninspired bit of genre-placation. Which it still is. But I re-pledged at the last minute because I have at least enough faith in the developers to produce a professional product.

D:OS actually HAS an aesthetic though. And it flows, naturally. This isn't about whether you prefer the artistic direction of a game but whether or not one even has one worth speaking of.

 

[Infinitron]

...

...

It looks fine to me.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

No surprise. You tend to have p. shit taste. To me it looks and feels like a fan mod of a game which doesn't exist.

Anyway, I don't really care enough to keep repeating myself and I actually am fairly curious to take a look at this new update. Summoning Zed as he has done a good job expressing, dissecting and mirroring the problems I personally have with WL2.

 

[Davaris]

You really do overreact to minor stuff, though.

You have absolutely no idea what we're talking about when we use the word "soul", do you? None of what you just commented on is touching the heart of the matter. Herein, I suppose, proving Rake's point (which I agreed with in the realms of debate) though I'd have thought you smart and intuitive enough to interpret it correctly. And yes, PoE has soul, for that matter...albeit a fairly generic and cliched one.

UI is a symptom, not the disease. And one symptom of many, but the easiest to point out as it has been obviously problematic. The disease here is a lack of an overarching cohesive, unified and consistent feeling of artistic direction. Most games have this. WL1 had this. WL2 does not. It's fairly simple. Whether it's the direction (or lack of), mismanagement, lack of proper talent, who knows. But WL2 is an aesthetic mess, both in the visual and literary sense.

And no, the heart and soul of a game is not minor stuff.

The outcome of W2 and PoE will come down to a difference in philosophies. Using the crowd vs everything made in house.

 

[tuluse]

The outcome of W2 and PoE will come down to a difference in philosophies. Using the crowd vs everything made in house.

I'm not following. Most of the bad stuff in W2 was developed in house with no word about it until the beta was made available. I'm pretty sure I've seen almost entirely positive changes made since then.

 

[Davaris]

The outcome of W2 and PoE will come down to a difference in philosophies. Using the crowd vs everything made in house.

I'm not following. Most of the bad stuff in W2 was developed in house with no word about it until the beta was made available. I'm pretty sure I've seen almost entirely positive changes made since then.

The assets come from many different sources.

 

[tuluse]

The assets come from many different sources.

Ohh, just the aesthetics.

 

[Yuri Gagarin]

I don't have good arguments left to support my pet Kickstarter project, therefore I'm going to use the smug emoticon as a cheap attempt to provoke those who are making criticisms.

Spoiler

 

[Davaris]

The assets come from many different sources.

Ohh, just the aesthetics.

If "looks didn't matter", indie games would sell as well as AAA games.

I haven't followed developments since the beta release, but Unity store has lots of code assets as well, so they could be using those. Some programmers will use a lib for everything, some won't use anything unless they wrote it themselves, because it causes problems down the road. Everything in house is about quality control.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

The outcome of W2 and PoE will come down to a difference in philosophies. Using the crowd vs everything made in house.

This also does not reach the heart of the matter. Underrail, until recently becoming a three piece, was a one man project with perhaps the best example of "soul" as pertains to this discussion. In house, crowd-crutch, random numbers assigned to arguments be damned. None of it has fuckall to do with vision and execution.

P.S. Played a bit with the new beta version and while miles better I still came away with the distinct impression of a polished turd.

 

[Norfleet]

I am baffled by the notion of "Brute Force" as a skill. Isn't the use of brute force the exact opposite of a skill?

 

[undecaf]

I am baffled by the notion of "Brute Force" as a skill. Isn't the use of brute force the exact opposite of a skill?

It can be somewhat odd, but you could interpret it a concept of technique in applying your strength towards the object for the best result and without hurting yourself. I don't remember though if strength even modifies the skill (I have a faint recollection of there being a debate about that some months ago).

 

[Infinitron]

They were saying something about making Strength cap the skill's maximum level. Don't think it's implemented in this version.

 

[Smejki]

So, another KS before Xmas?

 

[Kem0sabe]

I hope it's a clean release without a bevy of patches following. It seems a bit too ambitious.

 

[Athelas]

So, another KS before Xmas?

I don't see how. When they kickstarted Torment, their pitch was 'Wasteland 2 is being released in 6 months and we want to immediately carry over the design team to Torment'. That turned into...what, a year and a half? They would be better off launching the Kickstarter after the inevitable release of the Torment alpha beta.

 

[Norfleet]

It can be somewhat odd, but you could interpret it a concept of technique in applying your strength towards the object for the best result and without hurting yourself. I don't remember though if strength even modifies the skill (I have a faint recollection of there being a debate about that some months ago).

But then it's not brute force anymore! Trying to apply your strength towards an object for best result is no longer brute force. The entire point of brute force is that you lack the knowledge and/or inclination to try anything like that, so you just apply your strength crudely and hamfistedly in an attempt to overcome inefficiency by, well, brute force.

 

[Athelas]

Get out of here, you simulationist scum!

Although I guess I agree: I personally would've gone with a simple Strength check for that sort of thing.