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

[Infinitron]

Camping:

 

[PorkaMorka]

Indeed, shit jokes, ghosts, aliens, pinky and the brain, scientologists with celebrities , bruce lee, talking plants, sex stats, porn collect-a-quests, more references to monty python than you can count, yakuza with samurai swords, king-fu fighting town, tribals, drug dealers, talking deathclaws, entire Temple of Trials, cheating chess-playing radscorpion with fucking glasses you can steal, ass-raping mutant with a ball gag, knights on a quest for a Holy Hand

Many of you guys are expressing that you're OK with the stuff in the above quote.

Does that mean you are also OK with the next logical step; games where everything is played for laughs, such as Dungeons of Dredmor?

I await your responses with bated breath.

 

[Surf Solar]

Just wanted to chip in and give a to the people "fighting the good fight" against those individuals on the W2 forum. Even though I am registred there aswell, I have no energy and will to talk with those people bringing in ridicolous suggestions.

Oh and btw Brother None : could you make it so that more posts appear on one single page on the W2 forums? It's a pain to have to click so often to the next page (well atleast for me).

 

[General Maxson]

Indeed, shit jokes, ghosts, aliens, pinky and the brain, scientologists with celebrities , bruce lee, talking plants, sex stats, porn collect-a-quests, more references to monty python than you can count, yakuza with samurai swords, king-fu fighting town, tribals, drug dealers, talking deathclaws, entire Temple of Trials, cheating chess-playing radscorpion with fucking glasses you can steal, ass-raping mutant with a ball gag, knights on a quest for a Holy Hand

Many of you guys are expressing that you're OK with the stuff in the above quote.

Does that mean you are also OK with the next logical step; games where everything is played for laughs, such as Dungeons of Dredmor?

I await your responses with bated breath.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Jesus, I really wish people would stopped pretending that F1 didn't have Robin Hood character with British accent on top and that you couldn't ask your adversary for a sandwich in what was supposed to be one of the most memorable encounters in the game. And these were seriously integrated into the game, not easter eggs like Dr Who or Hitch-hiker's Guide references which of course also don't exist otherwise F1 is stupid lolololo. Yes, F2 has stupid shit for the lulz. And yes, F1 has it as well. You can argue about the amount, but please take proportions into account as F2 is a much bigger game whereas you can complete F1 in 1-2 days and I mean complete, not do a speedrun.

Also, when it comes to world per se, F2 towns have actual purpose and intertwining agendas that are reflected in quests. There isn't much of the former in F1 (apart from "this is farmer town", "that is trading town") and virtually none of the latter. I know what I prefer.

Goddamn settingfags.

 

[Infinitron]

http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=289

Your own village/town.

ASDJasdjhfeauhafhafd ENOUGH ALREADY

 

[commie]

Indeed, shit jokes, ghosts, aliens, pinky and the brain, scientologists with celebrities , bruce lee, talking plants, sex stats, porn collect-a-quests, more references to monty python than you can count, yakuza with samurai swords, king-fu fighting town, tribals, drug dealers, talking deathclaws, entire Temple of Trials, cheating chess-playing radscorpion with fucking glasses you can steal, ass-raping mutant with a ball gag, knights on a quest for a Holy Hand

Many of you guys are expressing that you're OK with the stuff in the above quote.

Does that mean you are also OK with the next logical step; games where everything is played for laughs, such as Dungeons of Dredmor?

I await your responses with bated breath.

I think you are exaggerating a bit though I do agree with you in part. Much of that stuff you complain about are kind of like non-hidden easter eggs. In many cases they should have been more obscure or toned down but to make it seem like the majority of the game was full of this isn't correct. Tell me all about Vault City and Lynette. How many pure yuks did you have there?


Much of the rest was just a small part of the area it was in: Kung Fu fighting town? I remember one ring where you did Kung Fu in SF and nowhere else did you kung-fu.

Drug dealers in a post apocalypse world are out of place?

Guys with samurai swords are 'bad' but Mad Max leather wearing goons with machetes(as in FO1) are 'good'?

What is wrong with tribals? There were tribals in Mad Max and everyone seems to take that as a bible on post apocalyptica.

It DID of course break immersion to various degrees and at first it annoyed me a bit compared to the more 'serious'(serious being relative as Zboj Lamignat pointed out) nature of FO1 but after a while it provided relief and I found it fun to discover such things. They barely take up maybe 10% of the game and are mostly optional anyway. Don't like the radscorpion? Don't go into that building!

Again I have to say that they should have been more obscure, but honestly I'd be pedantic. I had a great time with FO2 with the sheer amount of content that I didn't really notice these things all that much by the end.

So if I find Fallout combat to be shitty and doubly so around useless trash mobs like rats or ants, and prefer the more interesting multi-solution questlines of FO1, I don't like RPGs?

Eh, I dunno, depends on how you feel about non-Fallout RPGs. The combat is indeed crappy so I imagine most people who like FO like it because of what the game does well.

I'm tired of the 'combat is crappy' bit regarding Fallout. It was badly balanced with the eye shooting, but apart from that what about it made it 'crappier'( as opposed to simple) than 90% of other RPG's? Tactics added welcome depth to it but it was more or less the same basic thing. Having Tactics combat would help a lot but if you're expect JA2 combat I think you expect too much. It's unfair to compare anyway as no other game has JA2 style combat either.

 

[CappenVarra]

Sweet zombie hey-Zeus, when did so many people contract 1eyeditis? Anybody expecting Wasteland 2 to be a tasteful, intelligent game made of noble materials is setting themselves up for future butthurt; I expect it to be lulzy, semi-coherent and corny - are we in the 80s or what? That said, my main expectations are: being able to create a party of lovely multi-numerical ubermenschen and guide them around from a sufficiently aristocratic perspective without any damn camera controls (zooming, rotating etc. are all verboten). Also: sci-fi gunporn.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I'm talking about the ability to rescue a village or create one from scratch and become some sort of mayor.

"I, TwinkieGorilla, mayor of this village I have rescued, declare from this day on, the official language of said village will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old!"

 

[catfood]

I'm talking about the ability to rescue a village or create one from scratch and become some sort of mayor.

"I, TwinkieGorilla, mayor of this village I have rescued, declare from this day on, the official language of said village will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old!"

+

= ?

 

[sgc_meltdown]

bros aside from the simwasteland shit which tbh I would play as a full fledged game with the required double headed mutant rapist attacks and so on

I think great positive change to a community should not be implemented ingame

part of the theme of post apocalypse genre is how it takes great effort and time for something good to arise, and how something good can irreparably lost in a matter of minutes

leave the feelgood stuff for the epilogue, let the people mention how they're are doing better now that you've killed the raiders or whatever ingame sure, but change the city immediately? Piss off! One visiting trader at most!

Think about how cheap that kind of instant gratification would be, seriously. Like planting magic radiation seeds and next day boom WHITE TREE OF GONDOR IN MAH WASTELAND
your actions become cheap, the results become cheap

in contrast, saving a young girl who likes gardening, all you get is some thanks from her parents but in the epilogue it mentions how as an adult she brought delicious fruits back to the cities

If you somehow become leader of a base ugh I've yet to see that stuff really, really work, I guess if you want another BG2 style stronghold thing with decisions and minimal changes besides monsters out and people in it'll be okay

To want to see a slum turn into a bustling trading post or whatever would be silly as shit and work better in fantasy games where variety of experience and events is the norm anyway

even new vegas had apartments and shit bros you can't stop the houseaboos now

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I'm tired of the 'combat is crappy' bit regarding Fallout. It was badly balanced with the eye shooting, but apart from that what about it made it 'crappier'( as opposed to simple) than 90% of other RPG's?

I said "crappy", not "crappier". Just because I'm not attracted to some girl in a party doesn't necessarily mean I think the others are hot.

As for why it was crappy, yeah, too simple. Pew pew pew. The game does well in other areas like dialogue, feeling of progress and atmosphere, I don't see a need to convince myself the combat is good too.

Tactics added welcome depth to it but it was more or less the same basic thing. Having Tactics combat would help a lot but if you're expect JA2 combat I think you expect too much. It's unfair to compare anyway as no other game has JA2 style combat either.

Didn't say that. After playing FF Tactics, I learned strategic / tactical combat doesn't necessarily improve games when coupled with RPG staples. I don't look forward to taking 30 minutes to fend off random encounters.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I'm talking about the ability to rescue a village or create one from scratch and become some sort of mayor.

"I, TwinkieGorilla, mayor of this village I have rescued, declare from this day on, the official language of said village will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old!"

"Also, even though I am the mayor, don't expect me to live here and do mayor things - gotta go on adventures across the country. But I will still be the mayor! And the Archmage! And the Legate! And leader of the vampire clans! And-"

 

[Alex]

Well, to be fair, it works in Pendragon, where the characters are both questing knights and feudal lords.

 

[commie]

Tactics added welcome depth to it but it was more or less the same basic thing. Having Tactics combat would help a lot but if you're expect JA2 combat I think you expect too much. It's unfair to compare anyway as no other game has JA2 style combat either.

Didn't say that. After playing FF Tactics, I learned strategic / tactical combat doesn't necessarily improve games when coupled with RPG staples. I don't look forward to taking 30 minutes to fend off random encounters.

Was talking about Fallout Tactics where the few extra options would help flesh out the basic combat without exaggerating. You could still have a small map for random encounters and the major combat can be on a bigger scale. It doesn't have to consist of massive maps like in games with particular combat encounters as the entire premise.

 

[deus101]

Not sure where i could post this, but i just had to:
http://www.google.com/moderator/#11/e=1f7176&u=CAIQoMul-5331qpa&q=1f7176.65c50c&v=4

Alot of encouraging suggestions but this just stuck in my craw, and the fact that it wasnt thumbed down to oblivion is like salpeter acid inside a plastered arm.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

You seemed to be obsessed with Tim Schafer but cool on Fargo's project so where does that put you?

Wait, what? I didn't even donate to Double Fine yet I've sunk $150 into WL2 so far (included at tO and Codex). Are you thinking of somebody else?

...

Hmmm. I'm not sure we're disagreeing on anything here. I'm not even sure what I was responding to which you've quoted. Was very likely drunk.

 

[Stelcio]

In a real RPG system they recognize it for what it is and call it fluff. Even if you hate the fluff you can ignore it and have a good time.

Not true. Maybe you and your party did so but that doesn't mean everybody does. My experience in this matter is very different. And so we (me and parties I played with) can expect something else from cRPGs than you. Like engaging story in which we can actively participate and not necesarilly balanced tactical challenges or deep, sensible mechanics. If we get it from playing P&P RPGs, having the same from cRPG makes it fulfil it's objective - to reflect P&P RPG experience in a computer game.

 

[PorkaMorka]

I think you are exaggerating a bit though I do agree with you in part. Much of that stuff you complain about are kind of like non-hidden easter eggs. In many cases they should have been more obscure or toned down but to make it seem like the majority of the game was full of this isn't correct. Tell me all about Vault City and Lynette. How many pure yuks did you have there?

Well, I don't want to defend every item in likaq's list, I just saw it as a decent summary of the theme park atmosphere in Fallout 2.

A story for a game should be like music for a movie. Once in a while it's really great and almost overwhelms the movie but generally it's just ambient.

I agree with you so far, but this statement seems to contradict much of the rest of your post.

Story and atmosphere are elements that are present in the majority of games that follow some variation of the classic CRPG formula. They can be beneficial, neutral or harmful to someone's enjoyment of the game.

Since we all agree that video game writing is usually mediocre, it probably makes sense for it to be less of a focus and for gameplay to be more of a focus. But the mediocrity of video game writing isn't limited to the serious writing; video game humor is painfully mediocre as well. And failed attempts at humor tend to irritate.

I would prefer the plot and atmosphere in my games to be unobtrusive and inoffensive (in the sense of the word that means non irritating, not the sense of the word that has to do with political correctness). The theme park elements of Fallout 2 fail to meet that criteria. They're in your face and prone to irritate. It wasn't a huge problem for me in FO2, but it is certainly a questionable design decision.

Even if you hate the fluff you can ignore it and have a good time.

Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. Constantly having failed nerd humor rubbed in your face is up there with anime cliches in terms of irritants, probably worse for most people.

 

[PorkaMorka]

But you're just saying you don't like fallout 2. PorkaMorka doesn't like Fallout 2. Ok, so what?

Fallout 2 is OK, I'm just saying that there are some potential downsides to excessive nerd humor in a game.

And arguably Fallout 2's references to

Star Trek, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Monty Python, Lassie, Star Wars, Terminator, the Wizard of Oz, Silence of the Lambs, Magic the Gathering, They Live, KFC, South Park, Short Circuit, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Wallstreet (the movie), Mike Tyson's Punchout, Back to the Future, Final Fantasy 7, Big Trouble in Little China, Pinky and the Brain, The Blues Brothers, Scarface, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Starship Troopers, Pulp Fiction, the Simpsons, Goodfellas, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Austin Powers, Wargames (the movie), Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, Gen Con, Full Metal Jacket, Dirty Harry, Bugs Bunny, Lost in Space, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Street Fighter, Sharpe's Rifles, Jerry MacGuire, MASH, Sanford and Son, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, Dan Quayle, etc.

may have been a bit... excessive.

YMMV.

 

[Oriental European]

I hope there won't be any civilized talking bipedal lizards, like in FO2 or Arcanum. Hate that stuff, such an immersion breaker.

 

[Alex_Steel]

I want to be a mayor of my city!

 

[circ]

Since we are discussing FO2. Ok, I didn't mind Reno all that much. Lots to do and lots to see is probably the main thing, but it was just all too clean considering the surroundings consisted of mutated tentacle rapists. Porn star was ridiculous, and when you were boxing, you'd think you were in some beat down suburb of Chicago and not in a post-apoc setting.

Anyway, SF was just the last straw. A massive city and all they could think of was its China Town and more gangs fighting against each other?

 

[mondblut]

Many of you guys are expressing that you're OK with the stuff in the above quote.

Does that mean you are also OK with the next logical step; games where everything is played for laughs, such as Dungeons of Dredmor?

I await your responses with bated breath.

That depends. To start with, I *am* a settingfag actually. All those blasters and ninjas and spaceships that plagued Ultima, Wizardry or M&M had always made me cringe. There is a reason I value Goldbox series above all of them combined, and that goes beyond them having a good combat engine: they had a developed, coherent, solid setting and were 100% serious about it. So I guess Knotanalt bro can accuse me of being a storyfag too No ninjas and blasters in my fantasy, please.

On the other hand, I have nothing but contempt to this whole "post-apocalyptic" crap. The basic Fallout setting is gutwrenchingly bland and boring, with nothing to stand out from the great gray mire of grimdark shit (and yes, it did pioneer that "shades-of-brown-grimdark" you all complain about nowadays). The lulz liberally thrown about is the only entertainment their setting can offer, as far as I am concerned. So, when it comes to "the spirit of the Wasteland", its Monty Python references are its only saving grace. It was those easter eggs I searched the "wastes" for, not another shitbrick village populated by shit hobos who sustain themselves on harvesting shit in the shit fields. Going fulltime parody would only improve it.

 

[Johannes]

What? There's dozens of pre-Fallout RPGs with next to none silly easter-egg content. Enough that I really shouldn't need to make any lists of such.