Wasteland Wasteland 2, what gone wrong? [SPOILERS]

[rezaf]

Wasteland 2 is still an OK RPG compared to trash that comes out nowadays especially considering its modest budget and small developers team size.

I may be alone there, but to me, an important part of designing a game is taking into account whatever limitations you're constrained by (such as budget and team size) and make sure you can develop a good game DESPITE these limitations.
Many of our revered classics faced MAJOR limitations. Just think of hardware limitations.
For example, Ultima 7 crammed so many things into a game that shipped on a couple of floppies and ran on a system with 33MHz and 4 megabytes of RAM - yet few games since managed to match or even surpass it in how alive the world felt.
Jeff Vogel's games - and I'm not really a big fan of them and consider them fairly dull for the most part - are pretty darn good if you consider that everything has basically been created by one single guy.


ShadowRun cut a lot of corners and the core campaign was horribly constrained in a lot of ways (starting with the lack of a proper save system), but still, I feel these guys did a much better job at cutting things they knew or felt they couldn't deliver and make sure what they delivered was at least reasonably polished.

WL2 failed completely at this. Some folks have described this better than I could, so there's no need to repeat it in detail, but it's evident when playing the game that there was a general directive at play one could sum up with "this will have to do".
And that's just not enough for a good game.
_____
rezaf

 

[GloomFrost]

Wasteland 2 is still an OK RPG compared to trash that comes out nowadays especially considering its modest budget and small developers team size.

I may be alone there, but to me, an important part of designing a game is taking into account whatever limitations you're constrained by (such as budget and team size) and make sure you can develop a good game DESPITE these limitations.
Many of our revered classics faced MAJOR limitations. Just think of hardware limitations.
For example, Ultima 7 crammed so many things into a game that shipped on a couple of floppies and ran on a system with 33MHz and 4 megabytes of RAM - yet few games since managed to match or even surpass it in how alive the world felt.
Jeff Vogel's games - and I'm not really a big fan of them and consider them fairly dull for the most part - are pretty darn good if you consider that everything has basically been created by one single guy.


ShadowRun cut a lot of corners and the core campaign was horribly constrained in a lot of ways (starting with the lack of a proper save system), but still, I feel these guys did a much better job at cutting things they knew or felt they couldn't deliver and make sure what they delivered was at least reasonably polished.

WL2 failed completely at this. Some folks have described this better than I could, so there's no need to repeat it in detail, but it's evident when playing the game that there was a general directive at play one could sum up with "this will have to do".
And that's just not enough for a good game.
_____
rezaf

All "classics" including Ultima had proper budgets and therefore could hire enough of qualified programmers to take care of "hardware limitations". For example Fallout 1 budget (back in the day) was a lot bigger then wastelend 2. Also how can you speak about cutting corners and mention Shadowrun as an example. The original Dead man switch campaign was God awful and to make things worse you can find online all the things that developers have promised but never included in the game. Gameplay wise DMS is a lot simpler then even Genesis version despite that developers collected a lot more money then they originally asked for.
And finally what exactly WL 2 fails at?? Fargo in his kickstarter video said that it is going to be a post ap, turn based, party based, combat heavy RPG, sequel to Wasteland. And that is EXACTLY what we got. Yes it does have some major flaws, it is far from perfect. You say its not enough for a good game, fair enough but I on the other hand completed it twice and going to play it again after the rebalance patch comes out. Matter of opinion really.

 

[rezaf]

The original Dead man switch campaign was God awful and to make things worse you can find online all the things that developers have promised but never included in the game.

Well, I played through it and didn't think it was aweful. It was unbalanced and generally "weak", but far, FAR better realized than WL2 - in my opinion, of course. But you won't find me heralding ShadowRun as a shining beacon of gaming in general, I just think they coped with their limitations far better than InXile. I heard much whining about their broken KS promises, but not having backed it, it's not much of an issue to me. Likewise, I judge WL2 by what I have in hand as opposed to what InXile might or might not have promised it to be at some point in the past.
In essence, the point of the comparison was that ShadowRun threw stuff out rather than implement it in a half-arsed fashion whilst WL2 tried to keep all the crap despite being full aware they couldn't properly fill/balance/polish things.

I may be particularly sensitive to this, but to my eyes, 3D only looks good if a LOT of time is spent with it. ShadowRun's 2.5D looks much more pleasing than WL2 to me. Heck, even the original Fallout looks more pleasing.
You don't have the budget to do state-of-the-art 3D assets? Fine, go 2.5D, then. If you REALLY must, even go top-down 2D if the choice is well-done 2D vs. amateurish looking 3D.
Warhammer Quest looks sooooo much better to me than Wasteland 2.

And finally what exactly WL 2 fails at??

That was the whole point of my previous post - it failed at taking into account the limitations at hand (budget and team etc.) and scaling down it's ambitions accordingly so it can still deliver a polished product.

Matter of opinion really.

Sure, that's always the case. If you can forgive WL2 all it's quirks, flaws and warts, it's ... kinda solid, I guess?
I know the drill, I occasionally dabble a bit in Dwarf Fortress, but for a commercial product that aimed to revive a true classic of the genre, I'm a bit underwhelmed.

As I wrote, I wouldn't be surprised to hear I'm alone there, but I think a WL2 with much more fleshed out content, but a still simple 2D engine (like the one Warhammer Quest uses), polished and with a modern, equally polished UI might have been spectacular.

WL2 isn't horrible, but it's deeply average. I can only repeat - it's a game made of "this will have to do".
_____
rezaf

 

[Blaine]

There are other reasons I liked Fallout 2 but the plot wan't one of them and besides... Fallout 2 doesn't nag you saying you belong to a military organization that for some reason doesn't help you at all.

Persons in creative positions who haven't been part of a military organization—this tends to apply to computer game developers, especially contemporary ones—are generally extraordinarily bad at portraying what it's like to be in a military.

This is why many successful science fiction authors who've delved into military sci-fi (which is what Wasteland is: sci-fi, with a military theme for the protagonists) tend to have served in the military. Arthur C. Clarke served in the Royal Air Force; Jerry Pournelle (who collaborated with Larry Niven to write the all-time classic The Mote in God's Eye, which is why that novel's Imperial Navy is portrayed so realistically) served in the US Navy; Heinlein served in the US Navy; Gene Roddenberry (TV shyster, of course, not novelist) was an Army Air Forces (US Air Force) bomber pilot; and in the realm of fantasy authors, Tolkien and Gene Wolfe served in their respective nations' armies.

You can't expect latte-swilling Californian hipsters to understand military organizations. They tend to treat them like clubs with slogans and insignia that donate some guns and shit that explodes to your party at the beginning of the game.

 

[Blaine]

Infinitron I never necro threads; all of a sudden, the above post has received three new ratings within half a day, after a six-month hiatus.

I presume someone moved, merged, un-merged, pruned, or otherwise manipulated one or more threads, simultaneously returning the post to reasonable visibility again while somehow giving the impression that I necro'd a five-year-old thread last year.

 

[Volourn]

WL2 is great. If you dislike it you are dum dum.

 

[KeAShizuku]

I liked Wasteland but

1 never played the 1980s game

2 never hyped the games or funded KS

3 got them cheap- they quickly went bargain bin tier on Steam and were even given away for free numerous times

4 played them when they were thoroughly patched- including a very extensive fan patch

NEVER PLAY GAMES ON RELEASE

 

[Yoomazir]

2 > 3