The game is set in an alternate history timeline, in which the nuclear holocaust took place in 1998 in relation to an impact event involving a cluster of meteors that sparked a global nuclear war. On the day of the cataclysm, a company of U.S. Army Engineers were in the desolate southwestern desert constructing bridges in an area with a number of small survivalist communities and a newly-constructed federal death row prison with light industrial facilities. The soldiers sought shelter in the prison, expelled the inmates and invited nearby survivalists to join them shortly thereafter. Years later, together they formed "the Desert Rangers, in the great tradition of the Texas and Arizona Rangers", to help other survivors in the desert and beyond it.
Wasteland 2 will be a turn-based and party-based role-playing game with tactical combat and an isometric view. The player's party will feature seven characters, split up into four player characters (Rangers) and three non-player characters. The Rangers will be highly customizable and the player's choice of statistics, skills and appearance will give the Rangers an individualized personality. The party will also include non-player characters, each with their own personality, motivations, opinions and agendas.
One example of some “fat” we’re attempting to trim is the wait time you have during the enemy turn. If multiple enemies are in the rotation to act before a players character is, they will all move and attack together. We also hate being forced into a fight with enemies that you can mop the floor with.
Slowing down the experience for an incredibly easy combat encounter doesn't really add anything to the game. You’ll be able to resolve that combat encounter quickly without it dragging the game down.
Well, when you start the game, you will create four rangers that you spec with the attributes and skills you want. Along the journey, you’ll also run into many other companion NPCs that can join your party.
Each of these NPC’s has a different personality and will have their advantages and disadvantages. Some might be incredibly annoying but have an useful skill that you might not want to live without. It’s all about choices and trade-offs in Wasteland.
We will indeed have perma-death in the game. If you make a bad decision and get a party member killed, they won’t come back. We committed to creating an old-school RPG experience and we are definitely looking to make this a hard core experience.
Once you’ve recruited a companion NPC into your party, you now control them in combat along with your other rangers. We have over 30 skills that can be acquired in the game and no one ranger will be able to be effective in all of them.
Success in the Wastelands is centered around creating and using a team that works well together based on the strategy you’re using. I might also add that many of the choices the player make might not be felt for many hours later. This is another way of making the decisions in Wasteland 2 permanent as players have to live with the outcomes they create.
The Kidnapped Wife:
The rangers come across a man whose wife has been kidnapped by raiders. He asks them to help him get her back, but these raiders bear the Mark of Titan, marking them protected by the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud. If the rangers attack the raiders, they will anger the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud and possibly jeopardize their main mission on the map, but if they don’t rescue the woman, she will be enslaved and endure a fate worse than death. Adding to the dilemma is that without the rangers’ help; her husband is going to get himself killed trying to save her on his own.
The easiest and most loathsome way to deal with the dilemma is to ignore the man and leave the woman to her fate. It’s also easy to go in guns blasting, but that will piss off the Servants and turn the map hostile, putting the Rangers overall mission in jeopardy. It is much more difficult and time consuming to find a middle path, trying to steal her away without the raiders knowing, trying to buy her from them, or stealth killing them all without the servants catching on.
This example illustrates two things that are of major importance to us in the development of Wasteland 2. First, having moral dilemmas that are more than just good versus evil, and second, having multiple solution options to any scenario. Setting up scenarios that tug on your emotions of right and wrong is what makes for the experience we are trying to deliver. We also want to allow people to play the game the way they want. If they choose the evil path, then we need to let that happen. You might feel a little guilty when you hear about the havoc you are causing to innocent people but we don’t make the game impossible due to your play style. It is all about the player having a choice of and having multiple ways to solve any problem.
There are currently over 15 main areas that the player can visit along with many smaller maps that they can explore.
Customization is huge in the original Wasteland and in RPGs in general. Obviously you can customize your abilities, but we also are allowing people to import their own character portraits if they’d like.
Taking a page from the customizable UI on games like World of Warcraft, the player will be able to modify the main HUD elements to place them where they’d like on their screen. We are also including a mod kit shortly after the initial release. We feel that this type of game can be easily modded by the community to create tons of extra content that will live on after we’ve finished with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX6MA7WF8YA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPiVe3li6ew
Still a looong way to go.
Cool thread, thanks. Subscribing.
Still a looong way to go.
I don't really have any grand expectations for this game. A post-apocalyptic, turn based game is kind of like pizza to me. It's hard to fuck up.
First, here is the list of attributes you can expect to find in Wasteland 2. Attributes are the starting values for your character traits. These are established when you create your character and can be different for each member of your party. Attributes are all passive, meaning that they won't be actively used in the world to solve issues.
Strength
Perception
Luck
Intelligence
Charisma
Expertise
Speed
In our previous updates we mentioned our end-of-April milestone: “having all level geometry blocked in and all encounters and interactions scripted”. We’re happy to say we've pretty much hit that milestone. "Pretty much?” you ask? We hit what would satisfy the letter of that milestone. While we had all encounters blocked in, there were still issues that needed to be cleaned up and sorted before a full playthrough was really possible. For that reason, we set an end of May milestone to clean up the block-in pass for a true beginning-to-end playthrough from a conversation and mission perspective. This means Wasteland 2 is in a fully playable, “alpha-ish” state. The beta is still months away, and we’re tracking well towards it.
inXile Entertainment and Deep Silver today announced a distribution deal for inXile’s upcoming cRPG Wasteland 2. Deep Silver is a veteran publisher and already a long-standing partner for inXile.
Can Deep Silver make any changes to the game?
No, we’re retaining creative control. Thanks to our backers, we’re fully funded and free to implement our own creative vision, and directly communicate with our backers and crowdsource ideas.
Does this change anything about inXile’s plans in DRM or DLC/expansions?
Not at all, that too remains in our control. Deep Silver is a perfect partner for this: they have no interest in interfering with our promises when it comes to DRM-free release or any future plans we may have for expansions, all our previous promises on these stand. So the only real impact for our backers is that the physical goods fulfillment is in good hands.
Wasteland 2 isn’t coming out when we thought it was coming out. That’s probably the greatest tragedy of modern times, maybe of recorded human history. But the reasoning behind it is actually far more interesting than inXile’s original blog post let on. Yes, yes, polishing up the rusted over cessparadise is a big part of the developer’s reasoning, but even once it’s feature complete, creative effort will continue right up to the last second on one key portion of the game: choice and reactivity. Think less Mass Effect, more Witcher 2 with a hint of Deus Ex. And maybe even more than that.
“We’re really hanging our hat on reactivity,” inXile CEO Brian Fargo told RPS during a recent studio visit. “Reactivity and choice. The scope and scale of the game, and the reactivity part is an absolute part of [the delay]. The levels are all fundamentally in, and all we’re doing is sitting around all day saying, ‘What about this? What about this? What about that?’ We watch people playing the game, and they come up with a clever way to do something, we want to accommodate that. That’s why with role-playing games, we can do difficult puzzles. It’s not like an adventure game where you hit a stop and you’re just done. I can level up and get around something. Brute force it. Blow it up. Find another route.”
“We want to make those changes all the way to the last second. Some of that requires dialogue. I think that’s why you’ve seen some role-playing games become more cinematic. They’ve got to lock and load the audio five or six months before it’s done. So you can’t make changes like that. For us, we’ll be making those changes until the last second.”
But just how far-reaching can differences between different playthroughs be? Well, you know how Witcher 2 received 427 Nobel Peace Prizes for its billion-headed hydra of a second act? Think that, but in many, many, many more locations.
“We aren’t shy about shutting off entire levels of gameplay,” said project lead Chris Keenan. “We really wanted to make that happen.”
“We have so many sequences,” added inXile president Matt Findley. “About half the game, most people will never see. We’re not afraid at all to create content that’s off the critical path or can be closed off permanently.”
Quite the contrary, actually. Fargo and co are embracing their newfound ability to create with one hand and destroy with the other. Unlike many developers who want to wrestle control away from your hands so they can [Aladdin music] show you the world, the entire point of Wasteland 2 is that you’re in the driver’s seat.
“On the biggest level,” Fargo continued, “there will be areas that will be completely different. Gone, destroyed. There’s not one just like it to make up for it. It’s just gone.”
“And we show the reactivity,” Keenan said. “If you go to one area, you start to hear radio calls from the other. They’re getting taken over, and if you try to veer back, you see the destruction from that, and they’re in a completely different state. For instance, if you’re too late to a call, maybe robots took it out. If you go there, you’re gonna see carnage. Piles of dead bodies. No robots left to kill because they’ve moved on.”
The fact that Kickstarter chipped in nearly three times the game’s original budget hasn’t hurt, either. In fact, it’s enabled Fargo and co’s “risky” behaviors in multiple ways, allowing for a rather massive boost in scope and ensuring that the game’s already paid for. Sales are just an (admittedly very nice) bonus.
“We over-funded,” Fargo boasted, beaming. “I don’t make any money from this. Me, I want to make a game that people talk about the way they do Fallout and Wasteland, 10 or 20 years from now. I’m only focused on that and what I have to do to make sure it hits all the points I know work for the game.”
He then fast-balled further examples. What if, for instance, you disobey Ranger orders to the point of becoming a liability? You become a pariah. Your own organization turns on you, hunts you. The entire game changes. And then, of course, there’s the extra-colossal, radiation-mutated elephant in the room: you can kill anyone, anytime. And sometimes – for example, if a party member won’t stop selling your stuff for booze money – you might have to.
“Remember: you can shoot or kill anybody in the whole game,” Fargo interjected. “That in itself [is huge]. If someone joins your party, you can kick them out, kill them, whatever you want. There’s whole sequences you’re not gonna see later because you offed the guy. We just deal with it. There’s no replacement – no NPC that joins you and acts just like him functionally. He’s out. You’re just not gonna see it.”
It’s an approach that’s definitely ambitious, to say the least. One that could even outstrip the games it’s most indebted to – the Fallouts and Wastelands of yore – in some ways. Of course, it’s all just talk until we have proof in our starving claws, but inXile’s message is clear: no illusions. Just a world that’s crumbling, and you can either duct-tape it back together or help knock it down. Or you can just do your own thing and leave no one happy. At the end of the day, it’s your call.
“It’s not real reactivity unless we do that stuff. Otherwise it’s just a magician’s trick. You’re getting the same thing. It’s not that. It’s a virtual impossibility for two people to have the exact same experience of the game.”
“I’ve felt the pressure of this since the beginning and I’ve just pulled out all the stops to make sure that it’s hit every single point that anybody’s going to want to see in these classic games. But not to let myself get locked in the past. I’m not trying to re-create what it’s like to be in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s.”
So this isn't coming out in October?
Good day to you, Rangers,
It’s Chris again to talk some Wasteland 2. We received a lot of feedback from the demo video of the Prison with many strong and important opinions that continue to help us craft Wasteland 2.
Our philosophy on this project is to put out videos when we have a decent amount of new features to show off. That way, we can follow the discussion threads and see what elements are working and what needs improvement. It allows us to see the most hotly discussed topics and react before the game is too far along to modify systems that might not be as good as they could be. Sometimes this means we aren’t able to iterate and polish as much as we want before it goes live, but we feel it’s well worth it for the valuable feedback you’ve all provided.
We will note a few below and let you all know our plan of attack for the ones that received the most comments.
Graphics and Animation
First and foremost, many of you had notes on the graphics, or more specifically animations. There were some obvious issues that we fully plan on fixing. We have to balance the trade-off between showing something that looks good enough while not impacting our schedule and production pipeline negatively. In a normal game production process, there is a HUGE amount of time wasted creating demos. We opted to instead show an actual snapshot of the status of the Prison map. Our fans were clamoring to see another update which means we weren’t able to get to some of the more detailed polish items. We know they’re there and we will continue to iterate and polish.
The floaty look of the rangers running was oft-noted. This is a height mesh issue that we are taking care of. We identified this as a risky item to fix prior to the demo as it affects multiple areas and didn’t want to slow down the teams working on other areas. The choice was made to not delay the video for some of the graphical fixes. In a wider sense, these aren’t “final” graphics. The Prison is a more polished area relatively but we’re still several passes from “final” on geometry, normal mapping, textures and post-processing.
As for the UI, the main game HUD is on its fourth pass and we will continue to make improvements. In particular the AP counter is a point we agree needs some work and it has already been updated. Other UI elements will get some work too. Consistency amongst menus is something we are working on right now. The dialog UI in particular is a work in progress. In the last video we showed, it didn’t have a field to type in keywords yourself, but be assured that mechanic is still in.
Combat Systems
On to some of the gameplay points. One often seen discussion was the change from hex grid to squares. This is one of those points where crowdfunded games are unique; in a standard development cycle you would not get to see how mechanics like that work until they’re fully tested, iterated on and polished.
Here is a little backstory on the change. Originally, we didn’t intend to have any hex or square grid during combat. It was going to be more free form movement. One of our engineers added a hex grid as a debug test to approximate spacing of characters in combat encounters. When we saw that grid turned on, our mouths watered. A few days prior to recording the first video, we made some tweaks to get our movement working with the hex grid. It worked great for our early combat. One unfortunate side effect was that since it wasn’t in our original design, we didn’t account for it from the beginning of development. We had already done tests and created our tile set sizes, including doors and surrounding props. We could have redesigned the size of the tile sets and doorways (which would have been a huge amount of work since we had grey boxed many of the levels) or look into other options. Squares came next. We had introduced cover at this point and squares lined up nicely with the doors and cover.
Of course, while the advantage in positioning, production time and map layout is there, many of you justifiably pointed out you’re losing flexibility in movement, from a grid’s six-way movement to a square’s four-way movement, and that creates undesirable situations where you move four squares east and four squares south to move to a relatively close position. With the help of backer suggestions, here are two points we have already implemented to improve the mechanics and feel:
Moving around the world in combat is much more free form. Your player won’t just follow the exact grid, which created an unnecessarily artificial look. They will take the shortest unblocked distance from the point they are standing to the point you are moving to. Movement is still calculated based on an underlying (optional on/off) grid and is displayed to you in your AP cost.
Moving diagonally in the calculation costs 1.5 times as much as a straight movement. Do note that your speed attribute changes the AP cost used as movement for all characters, so the calculation is never very simple.
Another pattern we saw discussed had to do with stances as a tactical choice in combat. Stances may not seem like a big deal to implement, but it is a deceivingly large amount of work to do correctly in our game. There are a few issues to consider when evaluating this as a feature. First, is the amount of work necessary to get it done vs. how much it will add to the game as a whole. It involves additional code to simply implement the base feature, UI work to get the HUD elements, a large amount of AI to have enemies react to it differently (assuming we don’t just have the rangers use it…which would be lame), design work to fit it on to all applicable humanoid enemy NPCs, gameplay balancing, bug testing and the finally largest risk comes from animation. Our animation system is pretty robust. We’d essentially be adding 2 additional states (crouching and prone), which need to have our full suite of animations related to all weapon skills. 9 skills (or 7 without melee skills) doesn’t seem like a lot but when you break them down, it gets unwieldy quick. Each weapon has firing, jamming, equip/unequip, reloading, aim up/down, multiple player damages from that pose (i.e light, medium, heavy, crits) plus all of the blends in and out that make them smooth from different player states. In all it turns into around 15-20 animations per skill, per stance. Finally, there would be visual issues from our 6 foot tall rangers with a 3 foot long sniper rifle lying prone. Weapons would clip through the world props all over the place. As we continue iterating and polishing, we will evaluate all options as they are available, but as you can see, this is not a particularly easy decision to make.
Exploring Environments
And as a final note, a few said that this early part of the Prison in the demo gave an impression of linearity. This is mostly due to it being a demo run, with us having a specific path and sequence in mind. Wasteland 2 is incredibly varied in regards to the feel of the levels. Some are more town based, others are underground maze/cave-like areas. We have large interiors of buildings, huge canyon areas (like prison) and more desolate plains. There is no template that is universal to Wasteland 2.
We’ve made sure to design a ton of missions that will take you all over. Many are optional, meaning that you will be able to do them or not do them as you wish. Others will open up (or be shut down) based on decisions you’ve made before. There will be no lack of exploration and discovery.
And more!
I’m going to link to this page on our tumblr, where you can find all the GamesCom previews rounded up as they come in. GamesCom is a very international event so you can find previews in a huge variety of languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Danish, Japanese and Dutch!
And finally, we’re still loving what Mark Morgan is doing for the Wasteland 2 soundtrack, so here’s a new piece we wanted to share.
Chris Keenan
Project Lead
Survival
The Wasteland is a dangerous place, and there are several threats that can end your Ranger career prematurely.
Dying of Dehydration
In Wasteland 2, water management is challenging and important. Your water supply is based upon the number of rangers in your squad and the number of canteens among them. Depending on the type of terrain you are traversing, your water supply is consumed at varying rates. Desert terrain requires the most water, while grassland and highland are more forgiving.
If you run out of water on the world map, you do not immediately die, but over time your rangers will begin to take damage from dehydration. You will eventually die if you do not find a new source of water. Your Outdoorsman skill adjusts the overall water consumption rate as well as the length of time your squad can last without water before suffering from dehydration.
You will find water at hidden oases throughout the region. Oases are discovered as you travel the 3D map; you will discover them from greater distances with a higher Outdoorsman skill. Like settlements and sites, oases will reveal themselves in the 3D world map as they are scouted.
Other water sources are also available throughout the game, inside of major locations, such as Ranger Citadel and Highpool. These in-level water sources are automatically accessible if the level is a friendly location. Water sources in neutral or hostile locations generally require a mission or task to unlock. Once such a water source is available, it is always free.
Dying of Radiation Poisoning
You'll want to pay attention to your Geiger counter. Clouds of deadly radiation, remnants from the war, drift throughout the American Southwest. Your Geiger counter measures the radiation level in your immediate surroundings in Sieverts (Sv).
You will encounter varying levels of radiation. The lowest rad levels do not damage you, but rather warn you that higher levels are likely near. Damaging levels of radiation poisoning begin at 500 mSv and can reach exposure levels that are instantaneously deadly. Except in these extremely high doses, radiation will not immediately kill but it definitely packs a bigger punch than dehydration. Saving is recommended when exploring the unknown, far reaches of the region.
Equipping your squad members with rad suits will allow them to survive certain levels of radiation. You can also upgrade your rad suit later in the game to a higher quality version to survive higher doses; but remember that there are pockets of radiation in The Wasteland that are at such high levels that no one can survive, regardless of a rad suit. Proceed carefully.
Dying of Murder
Our random encounter system will throw a wide variety of dangerous animals, mutants, raiders and robots at you. Encounter chances are based on an overall percentage depending on terrain type and the general level of danger in the zone you are travelling.
Certain parts of The Wasteland are populated by particularly dangerous enemies. You are more likely to trigger high-level encounters while travelling in those areas. We do not conduct any form of level scaling in this regard; so if you wander off the beaten path you better be ready for a tough fight.
When a random encounter begins, you will have the option to either attack or attempt to run away. Your chance to successfully flee the fight depends on your Speed, Luck and Outdoorsman skill.
Random encounters draw from a wide pool of scenarios. Animals, mutants, raiders and robots will attack from a variety of positions and depending on your skills and abilities your squad may possess the high ground, if any, or your opponents may begin in an advantageous position.
Random encounter zones will match the terrain type you are travelling through and each terrain type has several different encounter layouts. Encounters generally consist of between one to six enemies, though that does not necessarily inform you of the difficulty; one Slicer Dicer will tear through your ranger squad well after you get to the point where six Supaflies are merely an inconvenience.
You’re all no doubt anxious to get your hands on the Early Beta and we’re anxious to get it to you! We’re now in the stage where we have distributed standalone copies of the Early Beta to a small group of external individuals as a test run. This is the final stage where we ensure it is up to our standards and runs on a variety of machines, and we’ll then be ready to get it to you.
It's not Jagged Alliance or 7.62
Alright Joe, we all know you bought it. Go ahead and give impressions as well.
We are very happy to announce the ship date for Wasteland 2: the game will be coming to you at the end of August of this year!
Anyone here play the original Wasteland or the pseudo-sequel Fountain of Dreams? I did and they were pretty fucking cool back in the day. I was a kid but Wasteland was one of the first games that genuinely scared me. The game was goofy but the story and premise was unsettling and the difficulty turned ever encounter into genuine survival. I kept wanting to explore since the world was so interesting but I always had some trepidation before launching the game, lol.
I'm sure no one who skipped W1 is going to give it much of a go.
It feels like a euro jank rpg.
I heard there's a ton of battle filler and it slows down the game. Like you get into town and have to fight 5 battles before anything happens just because.
Camera probably my biggest complaint so far. No matter how I turn it, or zoom it, it always feels like I might be missing something. Though if im being honest idk if that's the camera, or just how everything from background to characters all blend together.