http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/posts/435142?ref=activity
M.A.D.ness
Update #27 · Mar. 22, 2013 · comment
Let us just start by saying that development of Wasteland 2 has been going really well. We may go quiet at times but please don't mistake our silence for a lack of progress. At this point in the process, the most important thing for the game is focusing on adding all of the content to get it to a fully playable state. Once we’re there, we can iterate and polish each area and feature for the best play experience. Production of the game is the top priority of the Wasteland 2 team right now, and it's all hands on deck on that one!
We recently showed you a first look at Wasteland 2's gameplay, a good glimpse of how the game is shaping up since you helped us make this game a reality almost a full year ago now. We're currently looking to hit a huge internal milestone at the end of April: having all level geometry blocked in and all encounters and interactions scripted. They are currently in various states of completion, but we are tracking well to have them all in a playable state. Meanwhile, we have multiple artists creating portraits, characters and environment models. We are really starting to fill out the world, with a lot of extra credit for that going to...
W.A.S.T.E - Unity Crowdsourced Experiment
A few months ago we launched our Unity Crowdsourced Experiment with the help of Unity and their Asset Store. We had already been using the unity asset store to provide us with additional content that we then modify for our game, but by offering more exact outlines for people to work from, we have been able to take it all a step further. With this experiment, we offer modelers an art guide and a list of assets we're looking for, but don’t overly go into specifics as we like people to be creative and vary things up based on their own style, as long as it fits the style guide. This gives us a rich variety of assets to work with, while the artists retain ownership of their assets. They can put their asset in the Unity Asset Store to make money from other developers and get a credit in the Wasteland 2 credits (if selected).
As with any new process, this one came with its own challenges and hiccups, but we are learning quickly. Submissions go through the Unity Asset Store and then to our artists, and it took some time to get this process in sync. When new batches go up, we’ll reach out through Facebook as well as our official forums, where you can also find our artists to ask any questions you might have.
Now, our senior environment artist Koy vanOteghem will talk a bit about this project...
Hello Backers,
Been cranking away on WL2 for a while now, and so happy to be getting to the point where we are able to have level reviews discussing where we are at on each scene from both a scripting and art perspective. Of course, the W.A.S.T.E. (Wasteland2 Asset Store Threedee Experiment) has been more than great, for many reasons beyond the opportunity to purchase some pretty sweet work from truly dedicated fans and artists. It really has been an unusual and unexpectedly exciting means of connecting with the community. My thanks go out to all of those who have suffered through the sometimes painfully slow start-up process.
As I am sure participants of the experiment know, Batch 4 has yet to be announced. While I cannot go into details, it is due for release soon, as part of a larger plan that I know excites us and should be great for the participants as well. More to come on that in the very near future, for now my lips are sealed. We are sad that it’s delayed our requests for what should be a fun batch of assets, with a few new request types for some of the more experienced environment artists. (Giddy with anticipation.)
So you’ve all seen the video by now, I assume, and I hope that a few of you have had the pleasure to see a few of your W.A.S.T.E. submissions working their way into our scenes. It was always my goal and hope that these assets would slip right in, under the radar, striking the right look without complicated changes on our end. Use of atmospherics (like lighting, fog, post-processes, FX, etc.) always have great ability to unify a scene, but certainly there needs to be a base level of quality and style present for these techniques to be effective. And I think to a great extent this is due to the tone and style that our resident concept artist, Phill Dickenson, has crafted. His pieces have so greatly influenced much of the work that we’ve received when it comes to proportions and the tone that’s struck; a high percentage of deliverables have been employed with little to no extra effort on our part. He has been a great partner in developing this look, so much thanks to him for all of that.
Keep up the fantastic work participants. I eagerly await the launch of Batch 4, and the onslaught of new submissions.
Koy vanOteghem
T-Shirts
Our backer shirts are almost ready! As soon as we get them, we’ll send out requests to have eligible backers select their shirt. We plan to ship them as soon as we get them, and eligible backers will receive their shirts before the game ships.
Novella
Michael Stackpole has submitted the first pass of his novella. It will be given some extra polish and then be released in two parts, eligible backers receiving the first one in the near future, with the second following a bit later for backers whose pledge tier included both parts.
Torment: Tides of Numenera
We launched a Kickstarter for our next game project, Torment: Tides of Numenera about two weeks ago. It was a huge success, reaching its target funding level in six hours and breaking Ouya's record as the fastest Kickstarter to reach $1M (our record has since been tackled by Veronica Mars, but what can you do?). Torment's success guarantees a good production rollover process for inXile, but changes nothing for Wasteland 2's development plan as the Torment pre-production team works separately from the Wasteland 2 production team. Torment has really caught people's attention and imagination. We love the feedback we're getting and are very excited about it, so please check it out if you haven’t done so already.
Once we clear our Alpha milestone, you can expect to see some more screenshots and details on the different areas of Wasteland 2. We will start to showcase some of the cults and their many motivations and cultures.
The M.A.D. Monks
In southern Arizona there are a group of monks that are part of an offshoot of the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud cult from Wasteland 1. These monks worship radiation itself, which they refer to as the Great Glow, as well as their hidden guardian whom the refer to only as Titan. It is the Monks belief that the only way to ascend to the afterlife is to absorb enough radiation into their bodies that they become one with the Great Glow, or better yet, to be destroyed in a nuclear event while protecting the order. This leads their warriors, or M.A.D. Monks as the locals refer to them, to the practice of strapping radiation filled dirty bombs to their chests and self-detonating at the first sign of conflict. The M.A.D. in M.A.D. Monk refers to Mutually Assured Destruction, and if you get too close to them you will find out why.
Have a great weekend everyone!
inXile entertainment
M.A.D.ness
Update #27 · Mar. 22, 2013 · comment
Let us just start by saying that development of Wasteland 2 has been going really well. We may go quiet at times but please don't mistake our silence for a lack of progress. At this point in the process, the most important thing for the game is focusing on adding all of the content to get it to a fully playable state. Once we’re there, we can iterate and polish each area and feature for the best play experience. Production of the game is the top priority of the Wasteland 2 team right now, and it's all hands on deck on that one!
We recently showed you a first look at Wasteland 2's gameplay, a good glimpse of how the game is shaping up since you helped us make this game a reality almost a full year ago now. We're currently looking to hit a huge internal milestone at the end of April: having all level geometry blocked in and all encounters and interactions scripted. They are currently in various states of completion, but we are tracking well to have them all in a playable state. Meanwhile, we have multiple artists creating portraits, characters and environment models. We are really starting to fill out the world, with a lot of extra credit for that going to...
W.A.S.T.E - Unity Crowdsourced Experiment
A few months ago we launched our Unity Crowdsourced Experiment with the help of Unity and their Asset Store. We had already been using the unity asset store to provide us with additional content that we then modify for our game, but by offering more exact outlines for people to work from, we have been able to take it all a step further. With this experiment, we offer modelers an art guide and a list of assets we're looking for, but don’t overly go into specifics as we like people to be creative and vary things up based on their own style, as long as it fits the style guide. This gives us a rich variety of assets to work with, while the artists retain ownership of their assets. They can put their asset in the Unity Asset Store to make money from other developers and get a credit in the Wasteland 2 credits (if selected).
As with any new process, this one came with its own challenges and hiccups, but we are learning quickly. Submissions go through the Unity Asset Store and then to our artists, and it took some time to get this process in sync. When new batches go up, we’ll reach out through Facebook as well as our official forums, where you can also find our artists to ask any questions you might have.
Now, our senior environment artist Koy vanOteghem will talk a bit about this project...
Hello Backers,
Been cranking away on WL2 for a while now, and so happy to be getting to the point where we are able to have level reviews discussing where we are at on each scene from both a scripting and art perspective. Of course, the W.A.S.T.E. (Wasteland2 Asset Store Threedee Experiment) has been more than great, for many reasons beyond the opportunity to purchase some pretty sweet work from truly dedicated fans and artists. It really has been an unusual and unexpectedly exciting means of connecting with the community. My thanks go out to all of those who have suffered through the sometimes painfully slow start-up process.
As I am sure participants of the experiment know, Batch 4 has yet to be announced. While I cannot go into details, it is due for release soon, as part of a larger plan that I know excites us and should be great for the participants as well. More to come on that in the very near future, for now my lips are sealed. We are sad that it’s delayed our requests for what should be a fun batch of assets, with a few new request types for some of the more experienced environment artists. (Giddy with anticipation.)
So you’ve all seen the video by now, I assume, and I hope that a few of you have had the pleasure to see a few of your W.A.S.T.E. submissions working their way into our scenes. It was always my goal and hope that these assets would slip right in, under the radar, striking the right look without complicated changes on our end. Use of atmospherics (like lighting, fog, post-processes, FX, etc.) always have great ability to unify a scene, but certainly there needs to be a base level of quality and style present for these techniques to be effective. And I think to a great extent this is due to the tone and style that our resident concept artist, Phill Dickenson, has crafted. His pieces have so greatly influenced much of the work that we’ve received when it comes to proportions and the tone that’s struck; a high percentage of deliverables have been employed with little to no extra effort on our part. He has been a great partner in developing this look, so much thanks to him for all of that.
Keep up the fantastic work participants. I eagerly await the launch of Batch 4, and the onslaught of new submissions.
Koy vanOteghem
T-Shirts
Our backer shirts are almost ready! As soon as we get them, we’ll send out requests to have eligible backers select their shirt. We plan to ship them as soon as we get them, and eligible backers will receive their shirts before the game ships.
Novella
Michael Stackpole has submitted the first pass of his novella. It will be given some extra polish and then be released in two parts, eligible backers receiving the first one in the near future, with the second following a bit later for backers whose pledge tier included both parts.
Torment: Tides of Numenera
We launched a Kickstarter for our next game project, Torment: Tides of Numenera about two weeks ago. It was a huge success, reaching its target funding level in six hours and breaking Ouya's record as the fastest Kickstarter to reach $1M (our record has since been tackled by Veronica Mars, but what can you do?). Torment's success guarantees a good production rollover process for inXile, but changes nothing for Wasteland 2's development plan as the Torment pre-production team works separately from the Wasteland 2 production team. Torment has really caught people's attention and imagination. We love the feedback we're getting and are very excited about it, so please check it out if you haven’t done so already.
Once we clear our Alpha milestone, you can expect to see some more screenshots and details on the different areas of Wasteland 2. We will start to showcase some of the cults and their many motivations and cultures.
The M.A.D. Monks
In southern Arizona there are a group of monks that are part of an offshoot of the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud cult from Wasteland 1. These monks worship radiation itself, which they refer to as the Great Glow, as well as their hidden guardian whom the refer to only as Titan. It is the Monks belief that the only way to ascend to the afterlife is to absorb enough radiation into their bodies that they become one with the Great Glow, or better yet, to be destroyed in a nuclear event while protecting the order. This leads their warriors, or M.A.D. Monks as the locals refer to them, to the practice of strapping radiation filled dirty bombs to their chests and self-detonating at the first sign of conflict. The M.A.D. in M.A.D. Monk refers to Mutually Assured Destruction, and if you get too close to them you will find out why.
Have a great weekend everyone!
inXile entertainment
I made your mom.
Great update showing some goodies but not spoiling the game. Art direction looks very Fallout tactish which is another 
in my book.
