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Development Info Wasteland 2 Progress Update

Crooked Bee

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Tags: Brian Fargo; InXile Entertainment; John Alvarado; Wasteland 2

Brian Fargo and InXile's technical director John Alvarado have put up a new Wasteland 2 update. Among other things, it has a new sample of music by Mark Morgan. Have a snippet:

Beyond tone it is the individual moments I remember most when playing a great RPG. The curiosity of wondering how things might have changed based on my actions kept me engaged and wanting to re-play. And our job as designers is to make sure that the different scenarios that play out based on your choices cause real consequence. There is a small moment in the new Rail Nomads camp in which you hear a boy calling out for help as he is drowning. This time it would be a lack of action that could cause his death. Do you swim out to middle of the lake and save him or ignore his plea? And what happens when you are spotted ignoring his plea by a local resident? Do you shoot him before he can let others know of your behavior? These are situations that play out in the Wasteland. Each area has so many combinations and permutations of playing that it is almost statistically impossible for two players to have the exact same experience playing through the game for the first time. This design philosophy is what made the first Wasteland so great and why people continued to play it decades later.

[...] The composer, Mark Morgan has now turned his attention to the music that the player hears while exploring in the Southwest. We asked for the music to have that bleak, edgy, lonely vibe mixed in with a dark western ambient. It's unusual to be working on music this early in the process but once again it allows for iteration time and for us to be as creative and nuanced as possible. Another excellent benefit of having fans fund the game.

The sample of the music is at the bottom of this update.

We have been very focused on getting the writing wrapped up by end of October so that we can do a table read of the entire game. Things are on track for about 95% of it which will allow all of us to get in a room for days on end to step through the game play. We look for flaws in logic, world consistency, keyword consistency, adding personality, adding ways to solve problems, creating visual cues, extra word descriptions, etc. It is quite a bit of work but it is a process that creates cohesion so that it feels like one world. There is so much content that the only way to grasp it all is to sit in a room for days for everyone to absorb. And quite often the best moments will come from the random ideas that spring forth from it all.

One of the qualities that makes for a strong technical director is their ability to build systems around the philosophies and aims of the game itself. John Alvarado has done an excellent job for us in the past and continues to do so for Wasteland 2. At the end of this update is a write-up by John that dives a bit deeper into the programming side of creating a deep RPG.​

To listen to the music sample and read John Alvarado's technical update, click here.

Thanks Kahlis
 

shihonage

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There is a small moment in the new Rail Nomads camp in which you hear a boy calling out for help as he is drowning. This time it would be a lack of action that could cause his death. Do you swim out to middle of the lake and save him or ignore his plea? And what happens when you are spotted ignoring his plea by a local resident? Do you shoot him before he can let others know of your behavior

#petermolydeux
 

Cosmo

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Wow, Morgan is clearly beginning to get back on top...
 

piydek

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That piece of music is brilliant. Reminds me heavily of Lustmord (his records like "Metavoid", for example). Mixed with a bit of newer Earth records, such as "Hex...or printing in the infernal method". A brilliant mix of post-industrial drone and weird doom-country. Just completely right and perfect for Wasteland's setting.
 

Bulba

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I'm glad everything is going smoothly. Who knows, maybe there is an off chance the game will be made on time.
 

J_C

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There is a small moment in the new Rail Nomads camp in which you hear a boy calling out for help as he is drowning. This time it would be a lack of action that could cause his death. Do you swim out to middle of the lake and save him or ignore his plea? And what happens when you are spotted ignoring his plea by a local resident? Do you shoot him before he can let others know of your behavior

#petermolydeux
And that "moral" choice is completely retarded. You shoot a guy who saw you not helping the boy? So there will be psychopath traits in the game.
 

DwarvenFood

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Bulba,
Don't really care about that, the idea that we will have a good turn-based cRPG and a good RTwP cRPG in the coming years is good enough for me, I'll feed on lesser products until then.
 

Grunker

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Hmm didn't consider Chaos Chronicles and Shadowrun Returns in the equation..

I don't consider Shadowrun Returns in the equation either since we know next to nothing about how that game will actually play... one of the few reasons I didn't donate to that one.
 

DwarvenFood

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Hmm didn't consider Chaos Chronicles and Shadowrun Returns in the equation..

I don't consider Shadowrun Returns in the equation either since we know next to nothing about how that game will actually play... one of the few reasons I didn't donate to that one.
Well, at least they confirmed turn-based combat from the start,
"The way that we've chosen to approach this is as a tactical turn-based game"
We don't know much about how the game will play, true, but I donated mostly because of the excellent setting and promise of 2D graphics (well, technically they should not call it 2D I suppose but what matters for me is that it's not first person/over the shoulder).
 

nihil

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The music is good. Otherwise not much of interest, but the important thing is they're on track.

And Shadowrun will rock.
 
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There is a small moment in the new Rail Nomads camp in which you hear a boy calling out for help as he is drowning. This time it would be a lack of action that could cause his death. Do you swim out to middle of the lake and save him or ignore his plea? And what happens when you are spotted ignoring his plea by a local resident? Do you shoot him before he can let others know of your behavior

#petermolydeux
And that "moral" choice is completely retarded. You shoot a guy who saw you not helping the boy? So there will be psychopath traits in the game.

Yeah, sure, abundance of options and C&C is a bad thing. :roll:
 

shihonage

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There is a small moment in the new Rail Nomads camp in which you hear a boy calling out for help as he is drowning. This time it would be a lack of action that could cause his death. Do you swim out to middle of the lake and save him or ignore his plea? And what happens when you are spotted ignoring his plea by a local resident? Do you shoot him before he can let others know of your behavior

#petermolydeux
And that "moral" choice is completely retarded. You shoot a guy who saw you not helping the boy? So there will be psychopath traits in the game.

There are too many worms under this tiny can, and all for zero emotional payoff - intentional emotional stuff like this does not work in a game, only on pages of a design document. Worse of all, a ton of scripting loose ends to control for a quest which will take moments to complete.

W2 is still in honeymoon planning phase. Someone supposedly as "experienced" as Fargo should stop promising and start working on delivery at this point. His examples will change then, not for the worse, but they will have the air of being realistically implemented and being a thought-out part of a larger whole plan - and it will be evident.
 

Vault Dweller

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There is a small moment in the new Rail Nomads camp in which you hear a boy calling out for help as he is drowning. This time it would be a lack of action that could cause his death. Do you swim out to middle of the lake and save him or ignore his plea? And what happens when you are spotted ignoring his plea by a local resident? Do you shoot him before he can let others know of your behavior

#petermolydeux
And that "moral" choice is completely retarded. You shoot a guy who saw you not helping the boy? So there will be psychopath traits in the game.

Yeah, sure, abundance of options and C&C is a bad thing. :roll:
If the options and C&C are nothing but a gimmick, yes, it is a bad thing.

So, you hear a boy calling for help. Why wouldn't you help him? Is the player given any reasons, other than "I'm a psychopath", not to save the boy, which should be any normal person's first reaction? Then we're told that there was another resident and that you'll have an option to kill him too - psychopath++ - because he would have ratted you out? Why wouldn't he swim to the boy if he was close enough? Why can't you simply say that you can't swim? Why does it have to be so black-n-white and what exactly is the choice here? Be a savior of little children or be a monster who let them drown and possibly kill people who see you jerking off?
 

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