Tags: Brian Fargo; Kickstarter; Wasteland 2
Since the official Wasteland 2 forums went up, a lot of people have been wondering just how seriously the good folks at InXile are going to take community feedback. So we've asked Brian Fargo about it, and here's what he says.
How do you strike a balance between a professional design vision and the desires of a diverse audience? Do you believe that the nature of this project will have a significant impact on the game's development process?
BF: Every project that I have managed has started with a vision document that calls out the important things we must deliver on. In conjunction with those call outs I make the team deliver examples of such things. If we say great characters with interesting dialogue then I want to see a sample. If we think gorgeous character portraits are important then I want an artist to show me one. It is one thing to promise a feature, but another to deliver. So instead of my relying on my instincts or team meetings I am able to solicit the feedback from the fans to make sure we nail what is important. The process now is very similar but actually better than ever since I don't have to be flying in the dark. We are not going to try and satisfy EVERY desire of EVERY fan, or it would be a mess. My instincts for this game have been pretty much in line with what I have seen, but there have been new ideas or priorities that were not intuitive to me and I was thankful for having the input that has been supplied. And there will be an extra step soon where I post the vision document based on all these things, but I have not had a second to type something up that communicates well. I don't think there will be any big surprises on it... we all know what we want to see here.
Wasteland enforced a distinction between the core group of player created characters and the companions that could tag along. The companions would largely control themselves and helped to integrate the player's party with the game's setting and quests. Is the autonomy and personality of these companions something you would like to expand upon in Wasteland 2? In what ways?
BF: I absolutely want to expand on the NPCs' self directed nature. I do want control to tell them to move, fire, evade, etc., and probably most the time they will obey. Some NPCs will waste ammo like in the first game, but I want to take it further. Some will steal from you, which will be funny to notice your canteen is missing. Maybe he will return it and maybe he won't. And you may have another powerful NPC in the group, but he just hates bikers. Walk into a biker bar and he starts attacking without regard for consequences. Those are fun moments for me.
Most cRPGs today seem to feature voice acting in some capacity and it has been hinted at that Wasteland 2 will be no different. Many believe that the financial burden and inflexibility of voice acting will have an impact on the dialogue and quest design. Do you share this belief? To what extent would you like to use voice acting in Wasteland 2?
BF: I don't want to give away all my surprises, but people have made an assumption that voice acting is just talking heads or a narrator. There is some very interesting audio bits I have been wanting to try for years that will really up the drama but without the design or cost impacts. The classic RPGs like a Fallout or a Torment had a heavy literary vibe with all the great prose and descriptions, and that is a large element that people liked. I'm not talking about stepping on every square and getting a paragraph, but there is definitely a place for good writing. Also keep in mind that we will design the game as if there was no conversation audio, so we won't even consider that as a limitation.
Be sure to read the full interview here.
We are grateful to Brian Fargo for taking the time to answer our questions!
