What do you want/not want in Wasteland 2

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What with Brian Fargo getting the old Wasteland team back together to work on a sequel as their Kickstarter project,
I figured I'd make a thread where we could compile all our thoughts and ideas on it. Once it gets enough replies, I'll
send a link to it to Brian Fargo on twitter, so please don't let this thread go off topic and fill up with spam or flames.

I'll go ahead and get the discussion started with some stuff I'd like to see.

* Full party creation with detailed character portraits and backgrounds. Want I want to see the most. I
want to create a full party of my own unique characters, I do not want something like a Bioware
game where you only get to make the protagonist and recruit a bunch of emotionally immature crybabies
along the way.

For a bit of added depth, you could give us various character portraits to choose, as well as optional
backgrounds that give several bonuses and penalties to stats/skills, like the traits and background
stories in Fallout and Arcanum.

*Big party size, maybe 6-7 members as max size, no 3 party member bullshit.

* Tactical turn-based combat with full-party control. I don't want to only be able to control one while
the AI does the rest.

* Permanent death, maybe with bleedout system. Say, if a guy loses all hp, he starts to bleed out. You would
have a limited number of turns to get your first aid specialist over to him to patch him up, but if you
fail to reach him in time or an enemy finishes him before you reach him, he dies and is gone for good. Alternatively, just have someone get blasted into a billion gloriously violent pieces upon a critical hit, a la Fallout.

* 2D isometric visuals. Isometric angle is my favorite for these types of games. 2d is just my
personal preference, although 3D is fine too so long as the camera doesn't suck.

* No filler combat encounters. Fighting legions of trash mobs is never fun. Use a variety of different
enemy types and take time to handcraft fights that will be fun and challenging.

* Smaller amount of loot, but more customizable and varied (weapon mods, ammo types, etc). I do not like
the Diablo-style loot system where you find a new and better weapon/armor every five minutes. When I find a cool
new weapon I want it to feel like I've just gotten my hands on something special that will last me quite a while.

* No voice acting, I'd much rather just imagine the characters' voices myself and have longer
dialogues.

* Well designed dungeons. Something like Fallout's Glow would be a good example to follow with
places to put various skills to good use, and the dungeon provides good backstory. For something
more combat-centric, Icewind Dale's Dragon's Eye and Severed Hand dungeons could provide some
inspiration. Unique non-linear dungeons with multiple floors, full of varied enemy encounters and
ambushes, traps, etc; something that would really allow you to get the most out of the tactical
turn-based combat and your party's skills.

* No romances. Doesn't really need explaining on this one.

* Appropriate soundtrack. It's a sci-fi/post-apoc game so something ambient or lo-fi would be
appropriate. No orchestral shit. Maybe get Mark Morgan, he did Fallout 1-2 and Planescape's osts.

* No collect-a-thon/fetch quests. Quests like "Collect 15 Robo-Scorpion Tails" or "You found 6/30
hidden whatevers" or "Deliver a meal to Smitty" are boring as fuck. Please don't include them.

* No morality system nonsense. Just give me some options to take and I'll do the rest from there,
and live with the consequences. I don't want a post-apoc game lecturing me on good and evil.

And last but certainly not least:
* Killable children. Because why not?

:yawn: here's a ~ :yawn: , a Kodex Kool Kredit. Now run along.

After reading your post, one question comes to mind: Have you actually played Wasteland?

I don't know though, what would be the critical element that made Wasteland Wasteland. Since the original is not really coherent neither in setting nor mechanics, it's mostly a mishmash of everything that works in the end. So I can't really point out what I'd want from a sequel, other than that the execution of whatever it tries to do is good. Beyond the obvious elements of having a party and some non-combat skills, in a PA setting, but that's kinda it.

What I want in Wasteland 2:

What I don't want in Wasteland 2:
Wasteland 2

What I want in Wasteland the Second:

Reinventing the wheel, too many developers tried and failed - expand on what we know not make something completely different. yeah, yeah I know... I'm too optimistic.

OPs list isn't too bad.

Personally I would prefer they keep it 2D top-down perspective, but that would be suicide in today's candy console market...even though it works just fine in games like KoTC.

What would I like to see in Wasteland 2...fun question...I'm bored...let's see:

• Close adherence to the post-war mid 80s setting. Culture stopped when the bombs dropped, so everything should still be frozen in that era.
• Correct period weapons like Kalashnikovs. No .50 cal sniper rifles that hadn't been in service yet.
• ...

Hmm, you know...the more I try to make this list, the more I agree with this:

One reason Wasteland was so great was the element of mystery and surprise. When you start the game, all you know is that you're entering into a post-nuclear wasteland...you have no idea what to expect. You start the game in the most mundane of settings, gradually transitioning from kids with sticks, to mutated animals, to farmers, to bums with revolvers, to thugs with chains, to cops and mob guys, to deadly robots, to cyborgs, to aliens. It was great discovering that stuff along the way, incrementally, because the game kept increasing in awesomeness.


Now after:

• Fallout
• Fallout 2
• Fallout 3
• Fallout: New Vegas

(which rehash and expand on all of the ideas from Wasteland), what would 'Wasteland 2' offer by way of new lore? How can you surprise the player with something new and interesting, and yet have that new thing 'fit' in the Wasteland universe? If it's too absurd you break immersion, too vanilla and it's expected and boring. The biggest challenge by far is writing and story, and I honestly don't have a clue how I'd approach it. It's an inexpensive part of game development...but it's the part that's most often fucked up. And in the case of Wasteland, you can't win because the lore has been so exhausted. Someone who has never played any of the fallouts, or wasteland, or read a sci-fi novel, or watched TV would be blown away by a rehash...because it would be their first exposure to such things...nowadays however, you have to be a creative genius to write a story/setting that can produce that same kind of 'wow' effect on today's players.

Great, now I want to erase my memory and replay the classics again.

I want to see some fresh ideas and a clear vision behind the game. I don't really care about the details. What I don't want to see is the devs playing it safe and just making an "old school RPG" for "the fans of the original Wasteland" because that would most likely end up in a total failure.

THere were 2 things that really set Wasteland apart from other contemporary RPGs:

1) The adventure game mechanic, IE the Use Skill/Stat on Object mechanic, that allowed you to solve problems and find secrets

2) Gore, violence, dark humor, etc.

These were basically the same things that survived into the Fallout Series and made it the "spiritual successor" to Wasteland. So I am not sure if anything we're going to get here could really be better than classic Fallout, unless they really try to exceed it in other ways.

So really what I'd like to see is super-detailed tactical combat, not something like you have in Fallout, where they try to balance bare-knuckles fighting with .50 cal machineguns and plasma-blasto rifles and so on. I'm talking, Jagged Alliance 2 combat, line of site, interrupts, multiple Z-levels, wounds and lighting that affect performance, different stances, a obsessively accurate projectory and cover system, all of that. This is the only thing that could make me really look forward to the game. If it doesn't have a combat system like this, we might get something AS good as FO1, but it won't be novel at this point, so even fans of FO might find it a bit underwhelming since they've already played a very similar game before.

Agree w/1980s pop and Cold War culture as a background narrative for the game world. Definitely need a Ronald Regan surrogate, as to this day he is what I think of when I hear the phrase "Cold War".

Also needs: scorpitrons, proton axes, crazy old people with anti-tank weapons, radiation cults, desert survival, jeeps, haywire killer robots, medic skills instead of retarded magic potion bullshit, etc.

I'm pretty sure that's an RPG mechanic.

It's an adventure game mechanic that a many roleplaying games have. Other roleplaying games (dungeon blobbers like Bards Tale and games descended from this line) do not have this at all.

In fact, Wasteland was probably the first RPG that used it extensively, and RPGs and adventure games had been around a long time before this. So I say, it's an adventure game mechanic because before Wasteland it was not really a feature of RPGs (ie a computer game that basically a computer emulation of a PnP roleplaying game), and it was a feature of adventure games. The player has to conceive of novel ways to interact with the game world that do not only involve fighting or speaking to NPCs.

Maybe cross Wasteland with JA2 and [in the later parts] RW2000.

The Barret .50 came into service in 1989, but was available earlier.
Just control it with ammo scarcity.

Could go Alternate 80s/90s, which would make more sense, as Wasteland came out in 1988 but had the war happen in the late 90s IIRC. That gives about a decade where things could have unfolded differently in the interim than happened IRL. For instance, in the Wasteland Universe, the Soviet Union was still there in the late 90s- so maybe the 90s could have had a survivalist renaissance, etc. (on top of the millenial preperation stuff that happened in "our" dimension).


PS:
In the Wasteland walkthrough book, there was something about an android uprising in Australia, but that would be too cliched.
Maybe make it like the Sub-Aquan Base in Gamma World's Legion of Gold module- set as a network of underwater domes/tubes in the Great Barrier Reef.
Maybe not, or as one of the end-game sections.

I meant pen and paper RPGs. Like I use my strength to break down this door kind of thing. Or I use my intelligence to translate these runes.

Brian Fargo is going to take the money and then port this to Windows 7.

It's still better than Fallout 3. Plus, I already did this gag in a previous thread.

What I don't want:
Anime or "humorous" (like Frayed Knights) art style
Behind-the-ass-camera view
An interactive movie
Romances
Having to play through a third party platform like Steam

"Great minds think alike."

I don't really need much Wasteland in my Wasteland 2.

I'd rather have a serious Fallout type setting. And I'd rather have JA2/Fallout Tactics style combat instead of Wasteland style combat.

And I really, really don't want to have to wander around trying to guess what items I can use stats/skills on.

I also don't want any humorous elements, with the exception of black humor.

I want a game so bad that it would make DA2 look good by comparison.

As much as I love blobbers (as Wasteland was), I really like the idea of a JA2 1.13 combat style, as well as the gear variety and modifiable weapons, load out bags, vests, helmets, etc.

Very good points.

Skill/attribute checks aren't an adventure game mechanic, though.

One word:

Howitzer

In a fantasy world where a JA2 combat system isn't exceptional even to games in its own genre yeah, that's possible.

So you wont be looking forward to this if it had a combat system as good as fallout's. What are those rpgs you recently played with good TB combat that hasnt been released in the 80s or 90s again? Cause I'd love to play them, too.

Some minor stuff I really want is...

Proper Item descriptions, not just "Gun" and "+10 damage".

The option to "Examine" stuff, and get a description.

Situational text, like the the Original Wasteland.
Here are two Examples:

On entering abandoned building.

In combat.