No Mutants Allowed

[Brother None]

Novelist and Wasteland 2 writer Patrick E. McLean posted a write-up two months ago about the Wasteland 2 writer's meeting that took place in November. He was very positive about the experience.

3 – Everybody was Good

Sadly, this is not always the case. One of the primary reasons there’s not more great books or movies is that there is a shortage of talent in the world. People who are both talented, hardworking and play well with others aren’t as readily available as you might think. How wonderful it was then, that everybody involved had real talent, regardless of what they had or hadn’t done.

4 – Everybody took it seriously

I’m not going to say that we didn’t have fun. We did. In fact, we laughed our asses off. But throughout all of it, everybody had the sense that we engaged in the making of something that is going to be both good and (in the sense that this word can be applied to an entertainment product) important. The nature of the game and the kickstarter funding gives a tremendous freedom from corporate bullshit and a tremendous responsibility to the fans themselves. The people who funded this effort are the smartest, best, most demanding audience for this kind of game there is. To his credit, Brian Fargo takes this responsibility very seriously. And so did everybody else.

RPGCodex newsposter Infinitron also pointed me to other months-old news of this sort, with Liz Danforth talking about her exact role on Wasteland 2 in this update on her blog.

My deadline for the Wasteland work is next Monday, October 15th. After that, everything is in the hands of the InXile folks. What I’ve been writing is far deeper than they asked for (or even wanted, I have to say). I put 4-5 maps worth of work into one single zone — by analogy, writing half a novel instead of 4-5 short stories. That’s been both a good and a bad thing for me, but in the end it is my hope that players enjoy the hell out of it when it eventually reaches their hands.

In more recent news, writer Colin McComb gives us this description from inXile prez Matt Findley on Wasteland 2's writing, on his Formspring.

"We are really going for a literary feel for Wasteland, but it goes a lot further than the dialogs. Our keyword system means that every NPC that you converse with has significantly more text than they might in a normal dialog tree system. Our people need to know a lot of information about a lot of things to make their dialogs work and be meaningful. In addition to that we are really trying to paint a picture with words with all of the description text and the examine object text. The sum of all of this writing is an old school literary feel to the game that is our primary point of difference from other products. We also have the other things you mentioned, but the style and depth of the writing is our primary unique selling point.

It is also safe to say that those of us writing Wasteland have been heavily influenced by the original Torment as much as the original Wasteland. The depth of our Wasteland writing is really a nod to both products."

Also, the first J!nx-produced Wasteland 2 merchandise is now available: Wastelands 2 Desert Rangers Premium Tee and Wastelands 2 Desert Rangers Women's Tee.

[Gnarles Bronson]

Ugh. Keyword system?

Has there ever been a game that successfully integrated a keyword system in a meaningful way? Seemed anachronistic even when I replayed the old wasteland.

[mobucks]

Systems like that never bothered me. At least the way it was when it was used in old adventure games. The only RPG I can think of that used keywords is morrowind. WL used an open parser or something.. right? Yeah thats keywords but I doubt WL2 will use open parser. A list of topics in a gui is more likely.
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[Brother None]

[Lexx]

i was thinking about a more complex version of the ja2 dialog system. The npc talks normal and the pc can chose from a list of topics, etc. I wouldnt mind this at all.
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[4too]

One WORD To Rule Them ALL

[Gnarles Bronson]