Wasteland Wasteland 2 Pre-Release Discussion Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Blaine]

Blaine, keep your librulism to GD please

Referring to Brian Fargo and his team as "immature, cowardly and ludicrous" because they chose to portray a dramatized Christian cult rather than idealized Christian propaganda is a little too much to take without injecting a dose of reality. The last thing I want is for the developers of a game like Wasteland 2 to start worrying about whom they might offend. There's nothing liberal about it—feminists and white knights can fuck right off as well.

The actual "tenets of Christianity" are more along the lines of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.

 

[Saduj]

The game takes place in the US. "Rapture porn" is pretty popular in the US these days. There are plenty of "Christians" eagerly anticipating the End Times and some of them are preparing for violence. Many of them tend to be heretical and cultish, which is why I used quotes around the word "Christians". There is nothing unrealistic or particularly provocative about portraying them in a post apocalyptic game. It only seems natural to explore how these people will react when they wake up after the apocoalypse and they discover, to their great dismay, that they weren't the only ones spared.

I have no idea why it is "liberal" to acknowledge that these people exist or why any real Christian would feel their portrayal in a game reflects on real Christians in any way. If anything, real Christians should enjoy the opportunity to blow away the noisy heretics....

 

[Surf Solar]

This shit is now even spilling into Grpg? Inbefore HHR

 

[Ulminati]

In one post he says old school CRPGs are "distancing themselves from the true definition of an RPG", as defined by Gygax, etc.

I'm just going by what was quoted. Sure as hell am not subjecting myself to Watchwitz or the official Wasteland 2 forum willingly. I already had an incident this evening when I saw people who actually liked Black and White. I'm getting a case of the vapors even remembering it!

I have fond memories of black & white and teaching my cow to fling its own poop at the enemy grain stores.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Oh jeez... in before christian pride.

That's what we need, another group of braindeads whining that they're not portrayed enough or correctly in games.

 

[LundB]

I don't care much one way or another, but it is true that Christians have been portrayed as pretty much uniformly evil or aggressive in games to an extent few other groups have.

Though the 'portray X group more/better' social justice BS is irritating, to be honest I'm pretty bored of crazy Christian cults (almost as boring as every single game/film using PMCs as villains). A Canticle for Leibowitz style faction would be much more interesting, and is actually just pretty cool in general.

 

[Blaine]

Fallout's Brotherhood of Steel was clearly inspired by (though only very loosely based upon) A Canticle for Leibowitz, and it was a pretty interesting faction.

I'm lukewarm on the "Christian cult" concept myself, mainly because 1.) Western culture is saturated with Christian trappings, meaning they're overly familiar; and 2.) I doubt the developers will be willing to take the cult to extremes shocking or thought-provoking enough to be truly entertaining. They may use the cult, but they probably won't do anything too offensive with it, I'm betting. Knowing this, it's difficult to get excited about it.

If the devs do pull off something exciting and original with the cult, I'll worship the ground they walk on.

Spoiler

Which puts me one step ahead of Christians, since the developers actually exist.

 

[BobtheTree]

I hardly think one cult, which is clearly a radical spinoff, can be representative of a anti-religious view that the game might have. From the dialogue and the portrait we saw, it's clearly over-the-top and not meant to be a realistic or critical portrayal of the Christian faith and/or religion in general.

 

[MisterStone]

The reason it is common to see the insane Christian thing in settings like this is that groups like this actually exist in the U.S., and in many cases they also encapsulate survivalist ideas. Although it has sort of become a cliche in post-apocalyptic settings, it's a fairly reasonable extrapolation that something like this could exist.

Seriously, I'd be surprised if civilization collapses and there aren't a lot of organizations like that. Of course they would not necessarily be expansionist or murderous, but this is a game after all...

BTW, were the monks and nuns in the citadel in WL1 Christians? I can't remember what their back story was.

 

[Baron]

Keyword-based dialogue system = awesome, fuck dialogue trees

Noooo Dialogue trees are life!

Keywords... shiiiit. When's the last time you went up to a woman and said, "Root?" The narrator just explained they have the freedom of text, given the lack of voiceover, so why not go crazy... Dialogue trees. In Dialogue forrests. Glorious words wrapped in sentences. Keywords are. Uncouth.

The game looks fantastic, no denyin'. The overhead fans look great. Please please have smoke grenades on the battlefield and let them be useful. I like my cleaver wielding crazies to run out of the mist from a few feet away to put the fear of their mad god in me.

I know it's just a demo but I can't stand Dragon Age monster placement... two goblins here, three over here, two goblins here neatly within spell/molotov radius. Nice safe extermination blows. I hope that it's worth scouting areas and just cutting your losses and avoiding some parts of the map, regardless of the locked safes and the treasure within, because some monsters on the map being just too dangerous to risk taking on (like the one at the end of the clip). I also hope even scouting some areas is too big a risk... leave SMALL clues in the area about what monster is present. If the players/characters miss them, enjoy the rapture of a sudden bloody death.

I hope the Player also is encouraged to split his team up, strategically moving his team about the board from cover position to corner to sniper nest so that when ambushes come from behind that they are protected. I hate games where the Player should group 4 units together, inch forward, and blast each unsuspecting enemy. I loved splitting up my Syndicate agents, making lovely little kill zones... even though crowding four of them in a doorway with shotguns was often more effective. Give monsters plenty of grenades to wipe out cowardly Players who group their team in every encounter.

Have bashing open doors come with penalties, like drawing additional monsters, or triggering far more traps. Bashing should be easier, but a stealthy approach should always be encouraged, because, quite frankly, the Rogue is a gentleman's class. It takes skill and patience and a deeply anti-social personality to scout, ambush, slash a guard's jugular like one was playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons on the violin. Soldiers who knock over doors and the owners within are for those new to gaming. Please punish loud looting.

Kathy has a potty mouth and was trying to fucking hard to be fucking mature. Less is fucking more, ffs.

 

[SearchEngine]

I personally like Daggerfall's dialogue system. It seemed like a good way to bridge the gap between dialogue trees and keywords, and I find that adding your own attitude was a nice touch.

 

[Cosmo]

I find that adding your own attitude was a nice touch.

Definitely.
For that matter keyword systems (and the way NPCs react to word input) should permit the use of a fixed list of adverbs. Example : "politely/menacingly/etc ask about X". Means you character(s) have a purpose in the game world, and not just in your imagination.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I find that adding your own attitude was a nice touch.

Definitely.
For that matter keyword systems (and the way NPCs react to word input) should permit the use of a fixed list of adverbs. Example : "politely/menacingly/etc ask about X". Means you character(s) have a purpose in the game world, and not just in your imagination.

Dare I say that this addition of Adverb was just another step towards a finished sentence?

 

[Broseph]

Noooo Dialogue trees are life!

Keywords... shiiiit. When's the last time you went up to a woman and said, "Root?"

When was the last time you were in a fight and the other guy waited for you to take your turn?

 

[Cosmo]

Dare I say that this addition of Adverb was just another step towards a finished sentence?

How can ity be a "step" towards anything if i use the solution in the entirety my game ?
So you could just as well say that between using keywords and full sentences there's a whole range of possible designs that can combine the advantages of the two (the abstract and the descriptive one).
Both options aren't closed to one another, and i don't reckon some god of CRPGs would pop up and smite me if i decide to marginally step away of any of those models.

 

[Captain Shrek]

You could also say that between using keywords (abstract side of things) and full sentences there's a whole range of possible designs (descriptive side).
Both options aren't closed to one another, and i don't really think a god of CRPGs will pop up and smite me if i decide to marginally step away of any of those two models.

Jokes aside, what is really wrong with full sentence dialogues? I have nothing against Keywords, but for the life of me I can't see why are they not going for sentences.

 

[tuluse]

You could also say that between using keywords (abstract side of things) and full sentences there's a whole range of possible designs (descriptive side).
Both options aren't closed to one another, and i don't really think a god of CRPGs will pop up and smite me if i decide to marginally step away of any of those two models.

Jokes aside, what is really wrong with full sentence dialogues? I have nothing against Keywords, but for the life of me I can't see why are they not going for sentences.

A full sentence has a tone, keywords dont.

 

[Captain Shrek]

You could also say that between using keywords (abstract side of things) and full sentences there's a whole range of possible designs (descriptive side).
Both options aren't closed to one another, and i don't really think a god of CRPGs will pop up and smite me if i decide to marginally step away of any of those two models.

Jokes aside, what is really wrong with full sentence dialogues? I have nothing against Keywords, but for the life of me I can't see why are they not going for sentences.

A full sentence has a tone, keywords dont.

Errr... So?

Is that not better?

 

[tuluse]

Not if you don't want the tones offered.

 

[Cosmo]

Jokes aside, what is really wrong with full sentence dialogues? I have nothing against Keywords, but for the life of me I can't see why are they not going for sentences.

Nothing's wrong with any end of the spectrum, nor has anything has to be. It simply depends on the goals you set for a game.
Here it's true that we deal with a squad-based game, with so many possible backgrounds for your characters that maybe don't want to force whole sentences on them. But problem is, the way it's been sold on kickstarter, i think only having keywords falls a little short on the NPC interaction side of things. So adding a level of player input (like adverbs) could do the trick while respecting first limitation.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Jokes aside, what is really wrong with full sentence dialogues? I have nothing against Keywords, but for the life of me I can't see why are they not going for sentences.

Nothing's wrong with any end of the spectrum, nor has anything has to be. It simply depends on the goals you set for a game.
Here it's true that we deal with a squad-based game, with so many possible backgrounds for your characters that maybe don't want to force whole sentences on them. But problem is, the way it's been sold on kickstarter, i think only having keywords falls a little short on the NPC interaction side of things. So adding a level of player input (like adverbs) could do the trick while respecting first limitation.

You can always go for multiple options even in sentences like in "Adverbs" example. Nothing stops you from that. But. That can increase the amount of interactions that can happen and then I would expect more reactivity (compare to biowarian choice). But I *want* that reactivity and there is NOTHING wrong in wanting it.

tuluse

This also answers your 'question'.

 

[tuluse]

I didn't have a question. My point is mainly about LARPing. Not the bad terrible kind, but the fact that when playing and RPG one does like the tone of their dialog to be contrary to what they want to say at that time, even if it is just a Bioware style dialog where every thing leads to the same place.

Using keywords bypasses this problem entirely. You can LARP in any sentence you want.

 

[Captain Shrek]

You can LARP in any sentence you want.

Why should you? This is not a PnP.

 

[Duraframe300]

Using keywords bypasses this problem entirely. You can LARP in any sentence you want.

Yeah, and THAT'S the problem.

YOU can larp in any sentence. The writer CAN'T. He has to write an answer. So, he can't really build up a decent conversation, but instead has to be a neutral as possible. Of course he can ignore that, but depending on what sentence you made up the answer will sound wrong.

That's a major flaw with keyword systems.

 

[Temaperacl]

Using keywords bypasses this problem entirely. You can LARP in any sentence you want.

Yeah, and THAT'S the problem.

YOU can larp in any sentence. The writer CAN'T. He has to write an answer. So, he can't really build up a decent conversation, but instead has to be a neutral as possible. Of course he can ignore that, but depending on what sentence you made up the answer will sound wrong.

That's a major flaw with keyword systems.

It may not the approach I take with keywords, but if you really want to be doing it that way (coming up with specific sentences that you imagine the character is saying) with the keywords, just make up your sentence after you see the response - that way it will always match up.