Brian Fargo on "social" features

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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In a new blog update, Brian Fargo talks about the response to the "social features" idea for Wasteland 2, though he doesn't say much that's really new.<blockquote>And to repeat… this is an old-school RPG and nothing is going to make us deviate from that experience but there could be some options to consider that make it more fun. In fact, the reason we are not doing multi-player is because it would have affected the narrative. Keep in mind that this game is pre funded, so I don’t have to use clever buzzwords to get attention or convince people to buy it. My thoughts on additions are pure in the sense of whether it would make it more fun to play. Period.

I clearly made a mistake in throwing out an idea before I communicated a cohesive vision document on the overall game. At two million in funding we will be doing the top things everyone wants anyway: a larger world and more content, more character dialog, more graphics across the board, and more audio. I should not have thrown out any fringe ideas this early on… but live and learn.</blockquote>
 
At two million in funding we will be doing the top things everyone wants anyway: a larger world and more content, more character dialog, more graphics across the board, and more audio.
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I'm not a graphics whore by nature, but I'm so curious as to how the game is going to look. Only time will tell.

I wonder if they are tempted to use the same engine they used in Choplifter HD. If that is the case then Wasteland 2 will be a 3d game.

choplifter_hd_screen_1.jpg
 
I wonder why everyone is so nagging on a mod-kit. Just a mapper and easy access to the rest of the files would be totally enough. No need for extra fancy tools. Somehow I have the feeling that people are expecting Bethesda Creation Kit and stuff, which I find totally not feasible if you don't use such a tool for creating the game in the first place.
 
Lexx said:
I wonder why everyone is so nagging on a mod-kit. Just a mapper and easy access to the rest of the files would be totally enough. No need for extra fancy tools. Somehow I have the feeling that people are expecting Bethesda Creation Kit and stuff, which I find totally not feasible if you don't use such a tool for creating the game in the first place.
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Yeah, to quote myself on the other thread...
Mod tools can be as simple as a good file system that allows extending it and doesn't have anything hardcoded, and some not so hard to use file formats(xml or anything else text-based for example for NPC configurations, lua text scripts for world/npcs behavior, etc). And reverse-engineering a 2D tilemap shouldn't be that hard anyway.

My point is just good design on the engine from the start would be all the mod tools you need.
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As long as stuff isn't hardcoded, and the formats are easy enough to guess. And seriously, what reason could they have to not use something text-based to make their lives easier with so many parsers on this era?
 
It's obvious that Brian Fargo will not drop his social idea and i was not expecting it.
He just doesn't share the same vison of what it seems to be the majority.
So let's hope that he doesn't focus too much money/time on this thing at the expense of the rest like he ensures us.
I doubt we will see any official poll about it as long as no more details are revealed.
Yep, Bethesda influence about the mod kit is obvious.
I guess it's very important for some because they see W2 as a huge sand box game where they should be able to easily and extensively mod.
I would like it more like the size of fallout 2, quite small if you compare it to Bethesda games but much more tight.
 
I'm glad I won't follow development too closely. I think there will be way to many instances of: "I put out $1000 for this game and now you are ruining it and I want my money back." Or some such feeling.

I think this has the strong potential to get REALLY ugly....
 
Well, ruining what? There wasn't much said in the beginning and what was said is still true.
 
"I put out $1000 for this game and now you are ruining it and I want my money back" kind of threat is quite unecessary/disgracefull and should be avoided.If something is really a deal breaker it will quickly become obvious.
On the other hand it's a good thing backers can voice the kind of features they like/dislike and influence the design. It is the goal of this kickstarter project after all.
The thing is to stay polite.
Of course things have the potential to get ugly if nobody is mature enough to accept compromise.
I can understand you don't want to follow the development too closely, it's a wise decision.
I suggest you to vote in the google moderator poll they have created though.
It should keep you away from the "heat" while still giving your input.
 
.Pixote. said:
I wonder if they are tempted to use the same engine they used in Choplifter HD.
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My humble guess is so they will stick with UE3 engine, which was used recently in the Hunted: Demon's Forge.

edit:
Yay! Just googled it, UE3 was used even in the Choplifter HD. Silly me! :)
 
That's not good at all. UE3 was designed with console corridor shooters in mind. Most open world games made with UE3 have horrible performance and bugs.
 
Yup, also there should be additional license costs, which would fuck shit up.
 
It's 2012 y'all, I'll be real disappointed if I can't sync up wasteland 2 with my farmville world.

faran brygo said:
And to repeat… this is an old-school RPG and nothing is going to make us deviate from that experience... I clearly made a mistake in throwing out an idea before I communicated a cohesive vision document ... I should not have thrown out any fringe ideas this early on
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Sobboth said:
It's obvious that Brian Fargo will not drop his social idea
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???

I don't like the idea of being able to have any real impact on one of my friends games or vice versa, but there are plenty of fun and interesting ways some social aspects could be incorporated. Stuff like gravestones and graffiti wouldnt tear down the fourth wall, things like that could be a lot of fun.
 
All I hope is that it looks and feels like old school Fallout (except for the things that made wasteland what it was and have to be in, like the ranger squad instead of a single protagonist, etc). Other than that, I'll wait and see.
 
MrBumble said:
Lexx said:
Yup, also there should be additional license costs, which would fuck shit up.
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How ?

It costs way less to use an engine than to develop one.
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I hate the day the word 'engine' became a common term for gamers.

This is a 2D isometric RPG. You could probably develop the whole engine base with several open and free libraries(which are cross platform anyway, and that's their focus at the moment). Given that the solutions to these kind of games don't need researching anything new whatsoever, I'm pretty sure some competent coders could pull it off in some weeks. :roll:

(I mean a single hobbyist with no direction whatsoever could get close anyway in 1-2 months)
 
fedaykin said:
That's not good at all. UE3 was designed with console corridor shooters in mind. Most open world games made with UE3 have horrible performance and bugs.
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Still, they're used to working with it.

They'll definitely license something, they're not building an engine from scratch with this short dev time. I don't think they've settled on an engine yet, though I definitely expect it to be 3D. We'll see though.
 
fedaykin said:
That's not good at all. UE3 was designed with console corridor shooters in mind. Most open world games made with UE3 have horrible performance and bugs.
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*loads up Unreal Tournament 3*

*runs a game with 32 bots on one of the large open-air maps with vast distances and high LOD*

Totally.
 
Corridor Shooter engine sounds more like id Tech 4 than UE3 considering how many indie games use the UE3 to great affect as well as the aforementioned running smooth on large Unreal 3 maps.
 
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