Preview Wasteland 2 Beta Preview at GameBanshee

[sea]

(the Hub)

Why is this any less lazy and/or better than what inXile did with the Rail Nomads Camp? Of course the two locations have little in common (comparing an optional town area to the largest city hub in Fallout), but... mind explaining in detail and using specific examples, rather than just linking an image that's apparently supposed to do the work for you but doesn't actually explain anything?

That said: the Hub is a great town area with a few quests, interesting NPCs and several things to do and see, even some hidden stuff. I think it's just a better area than RNC and in some ways a highlight of Fallout, maybe the highlight as far as towns go. But it's arguably as much a "theme park" as RNC is - division of the city into districts, one entire district devoted to a side-quest, specific points of interest split up into buildings, some large expanses of nothing (near the entrance and water merchants), etc.

Let's take a look at the Hub in detail:

Entrance

Caravan at the top (quest), bunch of empty houses with nothing of interest or value other than maybe a single NPC to talk to.

Downtown

Better. Shop area in the middle (4 buildings), Iguana Bob, the Maltese Falcon, the farm guy near the bottom, etc. Definitely the hub (oh ho!) of activity here.

Old Town



Couple of shops, and a few completely empty buildings with nothing in them except for the entrance to the Thieves Guild.

Water Merchants

Cathedral and the water merchants' offices. Both are pretty secondary locations which, while they have a role in the game, are nothing extremely important and you will probably only visit here once or twice.

Heights

Here we have the final area, with only one building of interest, which also has zero function outside of the Thieves Guild quest.

All in all, it's a great location, with a ton of quest content and lots of NPCs to talk to, plus some interesting stores to shop in, but... honestly, basically all the areas have the same design: flat open space with some walls around it and a couple buildings in the middle. Each building can be seen as a "theme park" attraction just as easily. I guess it's "less linear" because you can walk around the buildings a bit more, and because they're larger (due to building interiors being rendered on the same map as the town itself)?

Really, all it's missing compared to RNC is the "hallways" between each district, and it's a little larger overall, but not by much if you factor in Fallout's marginally faster walking speed and larger buildings - which are arguably a necessity of the isometric camera, with the walls obscuring part of the interior. You can clearly see how Fallout here would look huge and sprawling when played at the game's native 640x480 resolution, but the magic starts to wear off when you see the whole thing at once. The biggest "real" difference I see is that RNC has more clear natural barriers around the edges of the map - which, surprise surprise, is necessary for a 3D engine with rotatable camera - while Fallout just sort of has the maps... end.

I guess what I'm saying is that content-wise, the areas are very similar in scope (except for there being more to the Hub due to it having more quests), and each is affected to a degree by the properties of the visual style (3D with variable terrain height vs. flat 2D, rotatable vs. fixed camera). And arguably Fallout's placement/use of exit grids to link areas is less effective than the "hallways" of RNC, because it isn't always intuitive to find them tucked away in tiny corners, and takes players out of the game using load screens - though I admit that those load screens help give a sense of a larger location than what actually exists.

 

[Excidium]

The thing is that it looks like an actual town. Though it's unfair to compare to a canyon.

 

[Davaris]

Why is this any less lazy and/or better than what inXile did with the Rail Nomads Camp? Of course the two locations have little in common (comparing an optional town area to the largest city hub in Fallout), but... mind explaining in detail and using specific examples, rather than just linking an image that's apparently supposed to do the work for you but doesn't actually explain anything?

The picture was meant to indicate that a town doesn't have to be a game level. It can just be a town.

Less or more effort is not relevant, if the result feels artificial. If you design a town like a game level (trying to direct the path the player travels though it), it doesn't feel like a town anymore, it feels like a game level. The Hub layout lets you go anywhere you like, doing any quest in any order, because its laid out just like an ordinary town. The Hub feels like a real town, because it was designed like a real town. Some times less is more.

 

[felipepepe]

Besides, when looking at this map, I can't but think of the developers looking at what they wrote for the map and just making a side-pocket for everything that doesn't go together... feels lazy, bro. =P

So what's not lazy? Making a big open field with a bunch of buildings and NPCs strewn around?

How about making the quests fit the location? If you need to "hide" a mushroom, just creating a side path to said mushroom and placing 4 enemies on the way is lazy as fuck. In that quest, you're just randomly find it there by following the paths, and kill the enemies in the way because they're hostile. That's popamole FPS level of quest.

Good RPGs use their locations for quests. Since you're in a town, you could go around asking for it, find a guy called Bob that has one, but wants his stolen mcguffin in exchange. He points you to the junkies that stole it in a house. You can then just kill Bob and get the mushroom, kill the junkies and trade with Bob or pay the junkies and then trade with Bob. All that happened inside the town, with the player fully aware of what he should be doing, not just wandering around, hoping to find one lying just 100m from the quest giver.

 

[Tigranes]

I have to say there is some truth to this complaint. RNC initially does a great job of making you feel like you're hading into a large and complicated area, seemingly divided into a 'jungle' (one imagines a train graveyard) and the town, but soon finds that it's actually one town hub plus a few random dead ends. Highpool feels cool when you approach it and it reallyf eels like you're heading upt he arse end of a post-apocalyptic siege, but it then opens out onto... a really long linear corridor (which you can't skip when you return to town, can you?) then a tiny little 'town' with about 5 NPCs.

 

[sea]

How about making the quests fit the location? If you need to "hide" a mushroom, just creating a side path to said mushroom and placing 4 enemies on the way is lazy as fuck. In that quest, you're just randomly find it there by following the paths, and kill the enemies in the way because they're hostile. That's popamole FPS level of quest.

Good RPGs use their locations for quests. Since you're in a town, you could go around asking for it, find a guy called Bob that has one, but wants his stolen mcguffin in exchange. He points you to the junkies that stole it in a house. You can then just kill Bob and get the mushroom, kill the junkies and trade with Bob or pay the junkies and then trade with Bob. All that happened inside the town, with the player fully aware of what he should be doing, not just wandering around, hoping to find one lying just 100m from the quest giver.

That's a fair point. But, I thought we were talking about theme park/corridor-style level design, not crummy fetch quests? The two are linked/related to one another but not necessarily dependent on one another. In other words, I get what you're saying but now it seems like your complaint isn't the level design itself, it's the content populating it. Would this sort of thing be fine if there was "something worthwhile" filling those little canyons and valleys?

 

[Blaine]

The picture was meant to indicate that a town doesn't have to be a game level. It can just be a town.

Less or more effort is not relevant, if the result feels artificial. If you design a town like a game level (trying to direct the path the player travels though it), it doesn't feel like a town anymore, it feels like a game level. The Hub layout lets you go anywhere you like, doing any quest in any order, because its laid out just like an ordinary town. The Hub feels like a real town, because it was designed like a real town. Some times less is more.

Spot-on. I personally feel that monocled developers strive to build worlds, rather than to build games that appear to be worlds; this hearkens back to the old Origin Systems tagline. The game is simply the framework upon which the world is being built.

Practically speaking, the "framework" has to be built too, and its workings are of course absolutely vital to the endeavor, but nonetheless I feel that "let's make a game" isn't quite the correct mindset. That may be what you're doing when your fingers actually hit the keyboard, but your creativity should be on a higher level, for lack of a better term.

 

[Turok]

The game is awesome, i think i am going to enjoy it ( i kickstart it). Some people here take games like a life matter... Just sit and wait the final product.

 

[Infinitron]

Interestingly, inXile's The Bard's Tale actually had "Fallout-style" town design.

Houton

Kirkwall

Finstown

Except for the big city of Dounby, where they got lazy (perhaps not coincidentally, this is the point when the game starts becoming boring IMO):

The Bard's Tale also has a Wasteland 2-esque world map (though without the water, of course). In general, as one of the few people here who played inXile's first game from beginning to end, it'll be interesting to see how it compares to the final Wasteland 2.

 

[FeelTheRads]

it'll be interesting to see how it compares to the final Wasteland 2.

Hopefully it doesn't, in any way. Game is popamole of the lowest kind. Yes, I played it too. For the songs, of course, I'm certainly no popamoler.

 

[Infinitron]

it'll be interesting to see how it compares to the final Wasteland 2.

Hopefully it doesn't, in any way. Game is popamole of the lowest kind. Yes, I played it too. For the songs, of course, I'm certainly no popamoler.

I thought the first half of the game had the beginnings of an interesting tactical combat dynamic with its creature summoning mechanic (summon different creatures for different tactical situations) but at some point it just loses all coherence and the game becomes a trash mob killing slog. Another victim of the "neglect the late game" school of RPG design.

 

[crawlkill]

What I am talking about is that feeling of openness that lacks in a map we saw in the prison demo

it's kind of hilarious that you're criticizing a demo that's literally set in a confined space for containing people as "lacking openness"

 

[Elthosian]

I have to say there is some truth to this complaint. RNC initially does a great job of making you feel like you're hading into a large and complicated area, seemingly divided into a 'jungle' (one imagines a train graveyard) and the town, but soon finds that it's actually one town hub plus a few random dead ends. Highpool feels cool when you approach it and it reallyf eels like you're heading upt he arse end of a post-apocalyptic siege, but it then opens out onto... a really long linear corridor (which you can't skip when you return to town, can you?) then a tiny little 'town' with about 5 NPCs.

Highpool would be much better if we had the capacity to enter all of the houses to explore them at our leisure, while totally linear the level does manage to feel like a half-decent town in its structure.

Btw, damn camera, exploring the Ag Center after going to Highpool is a freaking mess, almost got a headache trying to click the safe in the second floor.

 

[felipepepe]

That's a fair point. But, I thought we were talking about theme park/corridor-style level design, not crummy fetch quests? The two are linked/related to one another but not necessarily dependent on one another. In other words, I get what you're saying but now it seems like your complaint isn't the level design itself, it's the content populating it. Would this sort of thing be fine if there was "something worthwhile" filling those little canyons and valleys?

Here they are one and the same bro. That's why I said it was lazy design, because for each quest/location they thought of, they just created a theme park ride and place it somewhere alone, with no connection whatsoever to anything around it.

Here's an example, if Fallout 2 used the same logic as Wasteland 2 to design their maps, it would be like this:

 

[Infinitron]

felipepepe Ignoring the fact that you removed some houses in the right-side image, it's a bit weird to look at it that way. I mean, in the end, it's the same game with the same quests in both images! The only difference is in how far you need to walk to get from point A to point B. It would be a bit odd to say that Fallout has suddenly become a "shitty Fallout 3 theme park" only because of that one change.

Sure, it's definitely not as immersive and aesthetically pleasing, but the core content is fundamentally the same.

 

[cherry blossom]

I know that many people consider FO1 the best and FO2 too lulzy and lacking in focus, but they are wrong.

LOL when exactly have you become so obnoxious?

 

[Grotesque]

What I am talking about is that feeling of openness that lacks in a map we saw in the prison demo

it's kind of hilarious that you're criticizing a demo that's literally set in a confined space for containing people as "lacking openness"

Maybe that's true but it seems the maps in Wasteland 2 use pretty much the same template.

but this screenshot makes me optimistic as I see this map stretching in the far distance.

At first I thought they make the maps like canyons ( corridors & pockets) to limit the stress on hardware if you bring the camera to see the horizon line. But from what I've seen in the streams you can't do that in the game.

 

[Grotesque]

Sure, it's definitely not as immersive and aesthetically pleasing, but the core content is fundamentally the same.

Games are also remembered for how immersive and aesthetically pleasing they are, how unguided you feel and how much sense of freedom you have.
One of the things Avellone is so fond about is the fact that this from kind of freedom a game can convey, player related stories arise from the type/style of gameplay.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Indeed. Core content is not everything. You have to wrap it up nicely not spoon feed it to the players.

 

[skuphundaku]

I know that many people consider FO1 the best and FO2 too lulzy and lacking in focus, but they are wrong.

LOL when exactly have you become so obnoxious?

Wow! Disagreeing with people and saying that you consider they're wrong is being obnoxious nowadays...

 

[felipepepe]

felipepepe Ignoring the fact that you removed some houses in the right-side image, it's a bit weird to look at it that way. I mean, in the end, it's the same game with the same quests in both images! The only difference is in how far you need to walk to get from point A to point B. It would be a bit odd to say that Fallout has suddenly become a "shitty Fallout 3 theme park" only because of that one change.

Not a "shitty Fallout 3 theme park", but definitely a theme park. It kills any sense of exploration, and throw in your face the mechanics behind the game. You look at the picture in the right, you know how many quest there are in the area, you don't even consider that there might be anything else to do. And if you ever revisit the area, you'll never see the "side-NPCs" ever again... Hakunin thanking you for the garden, the guy for saving his dog, you aunt bitching, your cousin crying (ok, I placed him in the middle, but imagine he was in the corner)... they would all be in the corners of the map, never to be seen again.

Also, note that we're comparing one of the smaller & simplest hubs in F2 with the largest & most complex area in W2's beta. Imagine how that design would work on Klamath... or Tarant!

Sure, it's definitely not as immersive and aesthetically pleasing, but the core content is fundamentally the same.

Translating, it's bad, or at least worse design. Now replace F2's core content with the shallower W2 content. Now is mediocre content made obvious by mediocre design.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, I thought "theme park" was a description of game content itself, not the way you explore it. Fallout 3 is after all more wide open than FO1 and FO2. Still a theme park.

 

[Roguey]

The corridors could be a performance related issue. After all this is a game that recommends 8 gigs of ram.

 

[felipepepe]

Well, I thought "theme park" was a description of game content itself, not the way you explore it. Fallout 3 is after all more wide open than FO1 and FO2. Still a theme park.

I think it's a expression that convey things being placed at the designer's convenience, without any care of how it fits the rest of the world. To avoid conflicts, they usually place them isolated, and it doesn't communicate with its surroundings in any way.

To me, the paths are the biggest giveaways. Just like in a park, you take wiggly paths to reach attractions, play on the and then go to others. While you're on the paths walking you're not "playing", you're just going from one place to another. Take the example of the Arroyo pics above; say you're going from the giant head to the well... in F2's map there's a lot of stuff around, you're IN TOWN. Now in the "W2 map", where the fuck are you? You're in transit, between Ride A and Ride B.

The corridors could be a performance related issue. After all this is a game that recommends 8 gigs of ram.

Could be in fact, I have a very powerful PC that can maintain 60 FPS most of the time, but if I zoom out in crowded areas, it slugs down to 50-40... if they were larger & more crowded, even my i7 + GTX 660 wouldn't handle it.

 

[SCO]

Fargo does it again. Not backing Torment until i see improvement in Wasteland.


And jesus, compare the streamed maps of D:OS to this segmented stuff