Game News Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #23: Gameplay Video!

[Comrade Goby]

PE better be better

Looks decent but that dialogue system is trash.

Also I'm assuming there won't be much story and instead it'll be a low rent XCOM?

 

[Rivmusique]

Looks quite nice, though all enemies seem to be deaf to character movement right now I guess? There seemed to be a toggle for sneak/walk/run but the guy mostly stuck to walk and the enemies could not hear shit. Also, enemies perception should probably be wider, seemed weirdly narrow. I'm also not a fan of the keyword system, I hope at least some dialogues have response lists.

 

[circ]

I wish they'd gone the route of longer PC questioning too but honestly most RPG questioning amounts to:

1) So, what the heck is the deal with these Ranger guys anyway?
2) Who the hell are the Rangers and why should I care?
3) Tell me again about the Rangers.
4) I bet the Rangers love hockey, right? <-- crappy attempt at humor for charismatic dump skill

So I'm not that broken-hearted about it anyway.

I'm more bothered by the stupid looking interface for that. But it's hopefully a placeholder and will see some polish from the current Windows 3.1.

 

[Metro]

Game looks great.

 

[The Bishop]

I'm for one looking forward to the dialog system. I tend to dislike too fleshed out dialog options as they tend to constrain player agency in dialogs. Too many times I'm forced to choose a line which I really don't mean to say but it's functionally closest for getting the result I want. Of course keyword system isn't perfect for any kind of cRPG, because it makes it difficult to arrange NPCs being active part of conversation: it's hard to answer questions directed at you with just one word all the time. But for the open world/exploration kind of game W2 is aiming to be it seems like a perfect fit.

 

[Moribund]

I agree with The Bishop.

I really hate when I read some nonsense I would supposedly say as a response.

It's telling it's mainly people like Volourn who are very upset about this. The only way I might change it is to make it more like Darklands [Ask about Dog Cave] instead of Dog Cave!

 

[Shannow]

Looks very good overall.
Hopefully:

• I can reduce the size of the UI.
• Scroll dialogue.
• Not all areas have the same greenish tint. It's nice for a "plant area", but it would get old fast.
• Music + more sound effects.

Didn't like:

• Having to rotate the camera.
• The enemy's perception cones. Far too slim. If there is no resource needed to use skills (like stamina or something) then I'd prefer if perception were possible to toggle to auto-on.
• And simply right-clicking on stuff should give descriptions (alternatively right-clicking should open a context menu that gives all the option that can be applied, eg. lock-picking, bashing, investigate, etc.). Havig to click the skill, then the items, then back to normal movement commands...just seems more cumbersome than neccessary.
• Animations for lockpicking and bashing are too long. Unless they're planning to make time of the essence in many situations I'd prefer a toggle that halved the animation time or even made it instantaneous. (Toggle so that story/immersion-fags don't have a reason to whine)

 

[Excidium]

And simply right-clicking on stuff should give descriptions (alternatively right-clicking should open a context menu that gives all the option that can be applied, eg. lock-picking, bashing, investigate, etc.). Havig to click the skill, then the items, then back to normal movement commands...just seems more cumbersome than neccessary.

 

[Crooked Bee]

LOOKS LIKE ONE OF THOSE MILLIONS OF RUSSIAN JA2/FALLOUT CLONES BOO.

What are those JA2/Fallout clones? Any of them any good?

 

[Excidium]

LOOKS LIKE ONE OF THOSE MILLIONS OF RUSSIAN JA2/FALLOUT CLONES BOO.

What are those JA2/Fallout clones? Any of them any good?

Planet Alcatraz, sis. Or Brigade E5, 7.62, etc. 1C alone seems to have published a billion of those.

Fuck there's one I'm trying to remember, it has some hilariously terrible leaning animations...

 

[Burning Bridges]

Should it be that Unity was the other miracle needed with Kickstarter to bring back the incline ?

Have you actually played a single Unity game?

 

[Abraxas]

A context menu with the skills that can be used in objects would be great. But I would prefer if there were also some non-obvious skill uses that were left out of it, so the player can come up with his own solutions to problems.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What are those JA2/Fallout clones? Any of them any good?

Planet Alcatraz, sis.

 

[Surf Solar]

The music/VO ...

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Hopefully: I can reduce the size of the UI.

Already confirmed.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Shit looks good.

 

[Infinitron]

It was listed as a skill in a previous update. Then again, attributes were supposed to be passive (I think) but in the video they still use Perception the same way they use lockpicking, so maybe they've changed things since then. Maybe Brute Force has other uses aside from breaking stuff, and bashing locks is a 50/50 check between the skill and the character's strenght, or something. Maybe Infinitron knows more?

Perception isn't a stat in Wasteland 2. There is an "Examine" skill, but I don't know if that's what was used here. It could be that the "perception check" was a direct check of the player's Awareness stat, or maybe they've changed up the skills since the last update about them, just as they changed the stats from SPLICES to CLASSIC.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Looks good. Despite looking a bit cheap the game manages to create a nice atmosphere. I can understand VD being cautious though. Keep in mind that what we're seeing is basically an advanced tech demo. What we know from that the video is that they got the "tools" (combat system, graphics engine, dialogue system etc.) alright, but we don't know yet what they will accomplish using those tools. We don't know anything about the world size, quest quality, nonlinearity, reactivity, encounter design etc in the game. Implementing all those things is time consuming, and having a working engine with art assets and combat mechanics is really just the first step. We'll see how this turns out, I'm hoping for the best.

 

[Crooked Bee]

One thing I'd like them to implement is attitude in conversations. Something like aggressive/apologetic/rude, etc. Ideally, you should be able to choose an attitude + a keyword, i.e., "rude" + "help", and the NPC would react accordingly.

Hey Brother None, do you know if something like that is in the plans? If not, can you maybe influence them to implement it? That would be a pretty much perfect conversation system.

Planet Alcatraz, sis.

Haha, well it doesn't look a lot like Planet Alcatraz thankfully, that much I can say. I remember that game from an LP over at SA -- that was hilarious.

I was just wondering if there are maybe any good Russian JA2/Fallout clones that I've missed. But if they're all on the same level as Planet Alcatraz, then I'm sure W2 is going to be better - which isn't saying much, of course. It ain't hard to be better than utter garbage.

 

[Infinitron]

One thing I'd like them to implement is attitude in conversations. Something like aggressive/apologetic/rude, etc. Ideally, you should be able to choose an attitude + a keyword, i.e., "rude" + "help", and the NPC would react accordingly.

Hey Brother None, do you know if something like that is in the plans? If not, can you maybe influence them to implement it? That would be a pretty much perfect conversation system.

I'm fairly certain it's too late to implement something like this now. It would require overhauling every single conversation in the game, and if they're not lying about how huge this game's script is, there's a lot of them.

I'm sure the keyword system as it exists now is more diverse than what we saw in the video, though.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I'm fairly certain it's too late to implement something like this now. It would require overhauling every single conversation in the game, and if they're not lying about how huge this game's script is, there's a lot of them.

Yeah, I get that. It was just this glimmer of hope I had.

 

[Zeronet]

My inner graphicwhore is stirring , can't help but feel it'd be better in 2D or with higher resolution textures. Sometimes everything looked really blocky and undersized compared to say Krater. I'll reserve judgement on the dialogue system, i'm not too familiar with a keyword system, could be good if it can still players a choice of options and attitudes.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Sure there's stuff that needs changing or improving - Like the UI, combat result, dialogue, camera and such.
All that is minor compared to what i really find important.

For the first time in very long time i'm feeling excited about a game.
I think the atmospere is great, and i want to dive head first into the world of Wasteland2. Love the settings.
The music, text descriptions, graphics and radio messages all come together to give me a sense of a harsh hostile world, where you have to consider your every step. A world i'd love to explore though.
It seems fresh while still having "old-school" qualities.
Hurrah!

 

[Dexter]

My inner graphicwhore is stirring , can't help but feel it'd be better in 2D or with higher resolution textures. Sometimes everything looked really blocky and undersized compared to say Krater. I'll reserve judgement on the dialogue system, i'm not too familiar with a keyword system, could be good if it can still players a choice of options and attitudes.

Yeah, if they want to start that Numenera: Torment KickStarter, they better promise Pre-Rendered 2D. It also took me some time to get over the fact that it looks like one of them cheap Eastern European games at first and I hope that is due to a lot of graphics systems not being implemented yet

 

[Infinitron]

My inner graphicwhore is stirring , can't help but feel it'd be better in 2D or with higher resolution textures. Sometimes everything looked really blocky and undersized compared to say Krater. I'll reserve judgement on the dialogue system, i'm not too familiar with a keyword system, could be good if it can still players a choice of options and attitudes.

Yeah, if they want to start that Numenera: Torment KickStarter, they better promise Pre-Rendered 2D. It also took me some time to get over the fact that it looks like one of them cheap Eastern European games at first and I hope that is due to a lot of graphics systems not being implemented yet

If you want prerendered 2D, then you'd better pay up: http://www.formspring.me/ksaun/q/415986235991938682