Game News Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #31: OMG DISTRIBUTION DEAL, also new HUD screenshots

[Curious_Tongue]

I like the new one

 

[Rake]

The old one at least looked coherent. Way better.

 

[Zeronet]

Are you fucking kidding me? Who has better concept art, inXile or Obsidian?

Commissioned portraits mean nothing to me or the games themselves, except when they're used as in-game portraits. The in-game Eternity screens shown so far make Wasteland 2 look like amateur hour.

You said:

inEPTile continues to employ the worst artists

So yeah, no.

Also, what's wrong with Wasteland 2's in-game screens? You'll notice that this thread is full of people whining about the UI, not what's above and around it.

I don't know just how much polish some of the visuals are going to get, but at the moment a lot of them look rather low resolution in terms of textures. Maybe it's a matter of budget, and that's fine but i remember back
to Van Buren and that had a similar viewpoint and visually looks superior. That said, the latest screenshot looks a lot better than the others.

Part of it might just be a bias against 3d graphics, i'd still rate Fallout Tactics as the best looking fallout game, over 3 and New Vegas which now only a few years after release, look awful. Fallout 1 & 2 have aged really well thanks to the pre-rendered backgrounds, as have other 2D Isometric RPGs.

But at the end of the day, i'd rather have a deeper RPG than a prettier one.

 

[Brother None]

I haven't see much praise for their UI design.

You might want to look outside the Codex. This isn't the only place we look to for feedback.

I suspect that's not going to be the case after this.

Why's that?

The thing that strikes me about the WL2 UI designs is that the artists seem to be complete consoltards with no sense of function and form and instead go about thinking "what would be cool". And we've seen the videos; most of the developers were rather young, relatively speaking. I think Fargo desperately needs some design veterans on the team.

Like this guy?

 

[Excidium]

I haven't see much praise for their UI design.

You might want to look outside the Codex. This isn't the only place we look to for feedback.

Wasteland forums and other places that just gobble up everything don't count.

The thing that strikes me about the WL2 UI designs is that the artists seem to be complete consoltards with no sense of function and form and instead go about thinking "what would be cool". And we've seen the videos; most of the developers were rather young, relatively speaking. I think Fargo desperately needs some design veterans on the team.

Like this guy?

Redneck Rampage had a better UI than this, that's for sure.

 

[villain of the story]

Oh yeah, chiefly a veteran of First Person games.

I don't know if that is the guy responsible but one thing that everybody can see is clear: all the interfaces we have seen so far are rather silly looking.

 

[Infinitron]

Why's that?

Because in addition to all of these complaints, in this case you're also making a sequel to a game that had a particular type of UI.

That said, Wasteland 2's UI isn't that bad and all the EdgyDexers in this thread will eventually learn to love it irrationally if the game is good, just like with Fallout.

 

[Brother None]

Wasteland forums and other places that just gobble up everything don't count.

So basically...no place except for the Codex? Only on the Codex and NMA have the negative voices dominated. Anywhere else (our forums, Kickstarter comments, Facebook, NeoGAF, SA, GOG, RPGWatch, Canard PC, GameStar.de, it has been positive-to-mixed).

I don't know if that is the guy responsible but one thing that everybody can see is clear: all the interfaces we have seen so far are rather silly looking.

No, different people.

Anyway, the UI is still WIP. I wouldn't imagine we'll turn away from our flexible design philosophy so don't expect it to turn into a single bar at the bottom of the screen, but the criticism of inconsistent style has been interesting. I would figure it's intentional, since it's repeated in the inventory and HUD, and is meant to give everything a cobbled together look, but we've seen the feedback disagreeing with it. Still WIP, still plenty of passes to do. It'll look much better once it's actually implemented in-game rather than pasted on, too.

Why's that?

Because in addition to all of these complaints, in this case you're also making a sequel to a game that had a particular type of UI.

Outside of the Codex there really isn't a dominant sense of displeasure. Just giving a frank appraisal there.

Also, Kevin has already said he wants the same flexibility in HUD in Torment as we have in WL2.

 

[FeelTheRads]

That said, Wasteland 2's UI isn't that bad and all the EdgyDexers in this thread will eventually learn to love it irrationally if the game is good, just like with Fallout.

Yeah, at least it has the skills as buttons all the time on screen so you're not confused and kill everything instead of using skills.

 

[Infinitron]

Also, Kevin has already said he wants the same flexibility in HUD in Torment as we have in WL2.

ksaun Is that so?

 

[boltrek]

I think the text log on the right is definitely an improvement over the old UI, it's more readable and actually stands out like I WANT TO BE READ. What annoyed me about Fallout text log was the contrast of black screen and green text, it was like they were trying to hide the good work of the writers.

So screw anyone complaining about the "paper" look, when you're talking about text descriptions we're talking about the work of all the writers, that shit NEEDS to be as visible and readable as possible.

 

[tuluse]

Good thing you never had to use a computer in the 80s.

 

[Brother None]

Also, Kevin has already said he wants the same flexibility in HUD in Torment as we have in WL2.

ksaun Is that so?

I misremembered, not Kevin (who, after all, wrote the book on UI), it's in the vision doc. Page 24
The power of player choice doesn’t stop with the story. We’ll be leveraging the versatile user interface (UI) framework we’re already developing for Wasteland 2, modifying it to suit Torment specifically.

Torment’s interface will do what you want and then get out of your way. And if you don’t like where it goes, you can move it. You’ll be able to resize and relocate each component of the interface. An autohide function will bring nonessential UI elements on the screen only when they’re needed, or you can get rid of them entirely. Customizable pop-up menus and keyboard shortcuts will get more unnecessary elements off the screen and keep you immersed in the game. A variety of text sizes will be available.

 

[villain of the story]

Anyway, the UI is still WIP. I wouldn't imagine we'll turn away from our flexible design philosophy so don't expect it to turn into a single bar at the bottom of the screen, but the criticism of inconsistent style has been interesting. I would figure it's intentional, since it's repeated in the inventory and HUD, and is meant to give everything a cobbled together look, but we've seen the feedback disagreeing with it. Still WIP, still plenty of passes to do. It'll look much better once it's actually implemented in-game rather than pasted on, too.

Style doesn't need to be non-monolithic or inconsistent to be modular. Maybe we should run a UI thread here, dedicated to UI mockups.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I honestly don't get the need for a modular interface in these games, but eh. Any other reason besides that if people don't like it you can say "well, change it lol"?

Same with minimap. As someone already said it, it's pretty useless in this kind of games. It's not like you really need to check it all the time, it's not a dungeon crawler.

 

[Brother None]

Style doesn't need to be non-monolithic or inconsistent to be modular. Maybe we should run a UI thread here, dedicated to UI mockups.

I know, I'm saying the thrown-together style is a choice. I haven't discussed it in-depth tho.

But go for it, mockup away.

 

[Monty]

Only on the Codex and NMA have the negative voices dominated

I wouldn't say this thread consists entirely of irrational flaming though. A couple of posters have come up with fairly detailed and constructive critiques.

 

[Rake]

... and keep you immersed in the game.

Will you provide the option to have all the parts maximized and in the screen all the time or the "autohide" can't be disabled?

 

[Brother None]

Only on the Codex and NMA have the negative voices dominated

I wouldn't say this thread consists entirely of irrational flaming though. A couple of posters have come up with fairly detailed and constructive critiques.

I wasn't saying so either, I've read the feedback with interest and forwarded some ideas or broadstroke feedback to the team. But Rake's claim that started that thread was that "he hasn't seen much praise" for the UI design, which is certainly true here, but if you venture outside the Codex (horrible I know), it's really not the case, the feedback has overall been positive, even really positive.

 

[tindrli]

Screw the UI..IMO the best and the right thing would be to make entire game heavily moddable.. the community will do the rest.. end of story

 

[Excidium]

Wasteland forums and other places that just gobble up everything don't count.

So basically...no place except for the Codex? Only on the Codex and NMA have the negative voices dominated.

Must be a coincidence that those are the only two good RPG communities out of all the websites you listed.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I wasn't saying so either, I've read the feedback with interest and forwarded some ideas or broadstroke feedback to the team. But Rake's claim that started that thread was that "he hasn't seen much praise" for the UI design, which is certainly true here, but if you venture outside the Codex (horrible I know), it's really not the case, the feedback has overall been positive, even really positive.

K, so then after release the Metacritic score will be an accurate representation of the game's quality?

 

[Brother None]

K, so then after release the Metacritic score will be an accurate representation of the game's quality?

Screw Metacritic.

I do generally weight the opinion of Codex/NMA higher since I know they're critical communities whose sensibilities are very close to ours, though the same is obviously true for our own forums. But it's not the only place we get feedback from, or important to the exclusion of all others, as much as I know you guys like to think so

 

[St. Toxic]

I could live with the general look they were going for, but that solid chunk of shit on the left is just too much. The printer log is fine in theory, even though it currently looks like it's being shoved out of a marble toilet-paper holder. Game looks nice.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Screw Metacritic.

Just mentioning it so you forget no to take the "most people say it's good so we must be doing awesome" path every game company seems to take.

Edit: If you beat Larry's score (http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/leisure-suit-larry-reloaded) I'll buy another copy of your game.