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WorstUsernameEver
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 Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 17:58 Post subject: EDGE Wasteland 2 Interview |
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EDGE has an interview with Brian Fargo on the upcoming Wasteland 2, the Kickstarter model, and the problems he encountered with publishers (Bethesda included) in the past. Snippets:Those early '90s PC RPGs - Fallout, UFO, System Shock and so on - had so much promise, it felt like technology was the only thing holding them back. Now that side of things has caught up, do you think games have lived up to that promise?
I would argue to some degree no, because it became such a console world, and there was an oversimplification of things at points. I think part of the frustration we've tapped into by doing an old-school RPG is that a lot of people feel like games have been dumbed down, that the audience has been treated like they're not intelligent. Those games had a million words, there was a literary vibe to them.
They've become a little more shooter-oriented, and tutorials treat you are as if you've never played a game before. On console there's no keyboard, which removes a lot - being able to type in something as simple as a noun can really open up dialogue and choice. So I think they've become different, but by getting off the PC, things changed quite a bit.
(...)
Will you delay Wasteland 2 if you need to?
We've committed to try to get this thing done by next October, but if push comes to shove I'm not going to put something out that isn't right. I've come too far, and accomplished too much, to put out a product that isn't right. But you always want to have a stick in the sand that everybody's shooting for, and we'll continue to do that. I've tried to build a lot of iteration time into the schedule and our approach, so it's still quite possible.
Some people forget that Baldur's Gate was originally supposed to make Christmas 1998 - there was a lot of pressure to have that thing make Christmas. I had retailer penalties into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I sucked it up and we didn't ship until January. People talk about quality - it's easy to talk about, but when you've got a gun to your head it's much harder to make that call. I'm glad that no publisher wanted Wasteland 2 because this is the best way it could have been made.
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egalor
Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Joined: 20 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 18:32 Post subject: |
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| I'm in no hurry. I can wait for WL2 as long as it takes. |
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Izual
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| Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 18:39 Post subject: |
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Developers not delaying a game when they should is one of the worst things in video games industry.
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Carnivāle
Hideous Freak of Nature
Joined: 08 Oct 2011
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| Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 19:14 Post subject: |
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| First post nailed it. |
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person
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Joined: 29 Aug 2011
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| Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 19:54 Post subject: Re: EDGE Wasteland 2 Interview |
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| Brian Fargo wrote: |
| I'm glad that no publisher wanted Wasteland 2 because this is the best way it could have been made. |
That's pretty damn exciting. |
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FearMonkey
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Joined: 12 Oct 2011
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| Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 4:22 Post subject: |
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| Brian Fargo wrote: |
| On console there's no keyboard |
PS3 supports bluetooth keyboard and mouse. People seem to keep forgetting that. |
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person
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Joined: 29 Aug 2011
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| Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 4:26 Post subject: |
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| FearMonkey wrote: |
| PS3 supports bluetooth keyboard and mouse. People seem to keep forgetting that. |
I don't think the technicality was what he was getting at, it's that feeling that you're truly engaged in something when you play a game on a PC versus a console. I'd be surprised if you don't feel it. |
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Brother None
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| Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 4:27 Post subject: |
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| That is completely irrelevant, because it doesn't mean you can just start shipping games with only keyboard and mouse support to the PlayStation. I can plug a gamepad into my PC, doesn't mean I'd be happy if a game is released with ONLY gamepad support. |
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FearMonkey
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| Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 4:38 Post subject: |
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| Brother None wrote: |
| That is completely irrelevant, because it doesn't mean you can just start shipping games with only keyboard and mouse support to the PlayStation. I can plug a gamepad into my PC, doesn't mean I'd be happy if a game is released with ONLY gamepad support. |
Depends on the game I think. If it was a PSN-only release I think SCEA would allow it. They have Move-only games. Just need a disclaimer in the store.
Personally, I think Bioware should've released Dragon Age 1 for PS3 with keyboard/mouse support (in addition to controller support). I don't think it would've been that difficult to do. But, of course, I'm not an expert in such things.
Also, what if they decided to include Gamepad support in the PC version of Wasteland 2? Then they could port it to consoles pretty easily, they'd just have to pay the exorbitant royalties for putting the game on that platform. Not that I think it should be a priority. I fully expect [want] it to be a PC-only product.
I'm just saying, in general, a lot of developers just have a carte blanche attitude towards the consoles like they all do the same things. Well, if one of them allows for a peripheral/interface that the others do not, and you think your game will fit that peripheral/interface, well, I think they should consider it.
Portal 2 should've had mouse/keyboard support on PS3. Especially since the PS3 version comes with a Steam download code with it. So there could've been true parity between those two versions (aside from graphics) if Valve really wanted it to. |
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Brother None
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| Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 4:51 Post subject: |
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| FearMonkey wrote: |
| Also, what if they decided to include Gamepad support in the PC version of Wasteland 2? |
Wasteland 2 will not have gamepad support.
| FearMonkey wrote: |
| I'm just saying, in general, a lot of developers just have a carte blanche attitude towards the consoles like they all do the same things. |
That's not what carte blanche means. Also, they have that attitude based on market research. They don't bother with keyboard and mouse on PS3 because nobody uses them. It's nice that it's there, but there's a reason publishers don't invest in it. |
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FearMonkey
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| Posted: Sat May 19, 2012 6:29 Post subject: |
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| Brother None wrote: |
| Wasteland 2 will not have gamepad support. |
It was a hypothetical. I know it won't. |
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Verd1234
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 6:58 Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| tutorials treat you are as if you've never played a game before |
Why is this a bad thing? Actually, I think that every game with a tutorial should be like this. You don't know if a player has necesarily played a game in a certain genre, or even played a game at all, before so why make the assumption?
I mean, all you have to say is "Press this key to move this way" or "Move the left analogue stick to walk around and the right stick to look around." Only a few sentences but you can have many people now understand the game that might not have otherwise... |
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Sub-Human
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 12:20 Post subject: |
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| Verd1234 wrote: |
| Quote: |
| tutorials treat you are as if you've never played a game before |
Why is this a bad thing? Actually, I think that every game with a tutorial should be like this. You don't know if a player has necesarily played a game in a certain genre, or even played a game at all, before so why make the assumption?
I mean, all you have to say is "Press this key to move this way" or "Move the left analogue stick to walk around and the right stick to look around." Only a few sentences but you can have many people now understand the game that might not have otherwise... |
True. Too bad most of the tutorials (if not all) nowdays are obligatory. It becomes boring launching a new game and having to go through movement and camera 'calibrations' over and over. |
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.Pixote.
Half-way Through My Half-life
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Kyuu
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| Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 22:03 Post subject: |
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| Verd1234 wrote: |
| Why is this a bad thing? |
Because most people who play games have played a game before. Some of them have probably been playing games longer than the person designing the tutorial has been alive.
Tutorials are fine as long as they're optional and 100% skippable, or are just so well integrated into the opening level that it doesn't feel like a tutorial. But nothing is more aggravating than having to go through some hand-holding, condescending-feeling tutorial that doesn't teach anything useful for anyone who hasn't been under a rock for the past 20 years when you just want to play the damn game.
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WorstUsernameEver
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| Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:40 Post subject: |
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| Kyuu wrote: |
| Because most people who play games have played a game before. Some of them have probably been playing games longer than the person designing the tutorial has been alive. |
Sure, but "most" doesn't mean everyone. We're used to videogames being like this but some people (not necessarily young or stupid people either) may be picking up a title to approach the medium for the first time. I mean, sure, not every title needs to be catered to absolutely everyone, targeting a smaller audience made of "hardcore gamers" (it's kind of a mythical definition, I'm not really sure what this means exactly, but for now I'll just use it as shorthand for "people who play games regularly and are familiar with their conventions) is absolutely fine but there's nothing horrible or inherently dumb in wanting to make the beginning of a game welcoming.
| Kyuu wrote: |
| Tutorials are fine as long as they're optional and 100% skippable, or are just so well integrated into the opening level that it doesn't feel like a tutorial. But nothing is more aggravating than having to go through some hand-holding, condescending-feeling tutorial that doesn't teach anything useful for anyone who hasn't been under a rock for the past 20 years when you just want to play the damn game. |
This, to me, sounds more like a problem with how tutorials are implemented rather than with the fact they're made. In fact, I think Fargo's attitude points to one of the reasons tutorials are so half-assed: developers don't really want to do them, they're a publisher imposition. Admittedly, that might just be me overreaching with that reasoning, but I can't help but feel that a developer that truly cared about both newcomers and hardcore gamers would actually try to implement them in a smoother way.
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Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
PATROLLING THE MOJAVE ALMOST MAKES YOU WISH FOR A NUCLEAR WINTER. |
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