Is there going to be any continuity between the original and Wasteland 2?
A tremendous amount of continuity. Nothing makes me more upset than when I watch a movie sequel, read a book sequel or play a game sequel and think “Did they even play the first one?” Right off the bat, in the opening you’ve got General Vargas, who was Snake Vargas in the first game; Angela who was Angie. You’re familiar with the characters. The locales are there. It’s call-back city. There are even areas where, if you’ve played the first game and happen to remember a password and type it in, it’ll still work 25 years later. We love that stuff. We are chock-full of it.
One of the funnier bits I like is that in the first game, there was something called the Paragraph Manual. We had a lot of text that couldn’t fit on the floppy disk so when we ran out of space for something we’d put it in the manual. We had a story about a Martian invasion there. It was a hilarious story about the aliens coming in their Verchitin armour. It never happens in the game but we had people running around looking for the Martians. So in [Wasteland 2], we’ll reference the Martian invasion, how one guy went crazy because he never found the Verchitin armour. So anybody who played the first game but cheated and read the paragraphs out of order will get a kick out of that.
Awesome.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
I'm a huge fan of that, but I remember basically nothing from the original game as it's been 20 years...
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
Leisher wrote:I'm a huge fan of that, but I remember basically nothing from the original game as it's been 20 years...
I remember everything except that one chessboard map in the Temple of Blood and a few bits about Base Cochise at the end. Play the original about every other year.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Beta access had. Downloading from Steam. Also got a couple Wasteland novels in the deal.
Edited By Malcolm on 1402540375
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
I've contributed enough to the WL2 kickstarter that I get a mention in the "special thanks" section of the creds. I get a decent amount of space. I'm thinking of my name plus "Damn the Man and Pass the Beer" in the middle. Suggestions?
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.” - Dr Thomas Sowell
Means mine ought to be shipping soon. Think I also get a download, too, so I can probably start this weekend.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
I got the original Bard's Tale with my digital copy.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Malcolm wrote:I got the original Bard's Tale with my digital copy.
Check that. Not the original. Some weird version I vaguely remember seeing years back.
Thoughts on WL2:
1) "Supreme Jerk" difficult may be a tad much. Even the weakest enemy in a random encounter has a chance to one-hit any of my team. I'm pretty much stuck in one spot at the beginning because I can't last against one of the gatekeeper critters. That said, all my dudes made it to level two before I hit a wall.
2) World map travel has at least one issue that's semi-annoying.
3) Friendly fire is going to get annoying real fast.
4) Healing appears to be limited to one-time use items. Drag. Time doesn't do anything?
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
As a backer, you can activate a unique skill in the game. This is our special thanks to all our backers. To do so, type in "61290" when in dialog with Cpl. Solveig Sefors, the supply officer standing outside at Ranger Citadel. Thank you for your support!
And double fuck. InXile has a position open that's right up my alley. Except for the "located in California" part. Current job is getting insane enough for me to consider it. Fuck.
Awesome. Name made it in the backer credits. "Damn the Man" is a part of it.
Edited By Malcolm on 1411692601
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
WL1: Pistols, carbines, SMGs, assault rifles, energy weapons ... in that order, period. You could skip the carbines and SMGs if you had good enough armour and tank it out.
WL2: All weapons available from the get go. Don't be shocked if the cells for your energy weapon cost a testicle, though.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Got a few levels under my belt after reading the manual, lowering the difficulty, planning skill picks, and way better weapon choices. Much easier.
Got past the "tutorial"-feeling area. Back at the Ag Center. One of the old WL1 characters is a perma-NPC. If you remember...
... this area from the original, they do something similar in the starting area and rattle off a few more names you ought to recognize.
Game starts off with Ace (dude from WL1 that fixes the jeep) dying on a mission. You have to go investigate. By "you" I mean "4 premade or custom PCs." I was semi-bummed there's no random number generation during character creation, but point assignment is much quicker. One of the best bits is the "Southwest Folklore" skill, aka the Cliff Clavin skill. If you backed WL2 on Kickstarter, you get it. At various points in the game, it prints trivia to the display regarding the surrounding area you're in, mainly for atmospheric reasons.
So far, so good. Inventory management could use some tweeking, as could the world map's travel features. By far, the most tedious thing is combat. WL1 was renown among myself and my buddies because it's combat system was a Ferrari whereas the one from the Gold Box series moved at about the same speed as Gary Busey's brain after his motorcycle accident. It was the same combat engine as The Bard's Tale. Limited yet speedy. WL2 decides the opposite is required and it's wholly due to the friendly fire issue. Much like reality, crossfire is deadly even when coming from your allies. And there is nothing your NPCs like more than going rogue and completely fucking up your carefully planned layout. Fucking seriously. It's just annoying.
X-O-X
If your two rangers are Xs and the giant mutant rabbit they're attacking is the O, you'd better be going melee because missing the rabbit with a projectile weapon means a good chance of hitting your teammate. Then there are the matters of crouching v standing, setting up ambushes (so you can shoot critters that try to charge you before they rush), getting correct lines of fire and tactical groupings, and triggering the fight in the proper way. If it's melee-only enemies, set the ambush and have your sniper get their attention. Shooters? Cover and flank. AI is usually dumb enough to try to come at you anyway.
Edited By Malcolm on 1411925888
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
As someone on the InXile boards put it, "How about a mini-map with important objects a la Borderlands or at least putting mission objectives on a map overlay?"
That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't coupled with time sensitivity. Example:
Two towns are under attack at once. You have to make the decision to save one before the other. Longer you take on the first one, the shittier the second one gets. You think the devs would make it blatantly obvious where to go to complete a given objective. Nope. You will be object hotspot hunting unless you consult a visual walkthrough. Also getting in a habit of leaving the more willful NPCs at the entrance. Beats them fucking up my firing line.
Strangest thing so far: an energy weapon called "Herbicide" that does not in fact shoot chemicals and has no effect on the giant, indestructible vines that wrap every door I want to enter. I have fucking TNT. Come the fuck on.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
1) minimap with dynamic objects (like BL) ... The "highlight all hotspots in sight" key makes this less of a thing now.
2) automatic loot distributor ... There are various types of bullets/ammo. Why can't there be a way to divvy type X among groups of characters I define? For instance, if one dude picks up 9mm rounds, it should get divvied evenly to the rangers using 9mm-fed weapons. If I find sniper rounds, it goes to the dude with the sniper rifle. Nope. Manual distribution. The numeric sliding bar has no concept of a keyboard interface, so anything other than all-or-nothing trades means dragging and sliding. Every. Fucking. Time.
3) ability to group rangers in player defined tactical configurations ... So I don't have to set up a firing line for every fucking fight. Moving in formation is too difficult a thing to manage, I guess, so all your dudes will converge on a single cell on the map grid. If you want a proper ambush set up, you have to move them into position one at a time.
Edited By Malcolm on 1412000369
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Hitting up the Ag Center. Cleared out half the basement plus most of topside. Ammo is coming along at just enough of a rate for me to gradually stockpile a few more bullets every area. At level 5 plus the L14 NPC. Been going through lots of ammo since 50% of my enemies have a self-destruct tendency.
First boss fight in the Ag Center ... NPC crits the dude for half his health. My goon (a Mr. T lookalike) then crits him for another 25%. A few bullets more. Done. Had a sweet pistol. Finally got enough scrap to buy armour for my two frontliners.
Edited By Malcolm on 1412049366
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Ag Center cleared. Level 6, getting close to 7. Picked up a doctor NPC. Thinking I may have to do some serious number crunching regarding skills, in particular the weapons. Skills are rated from 1-10 and the weapons ones really affect combat. There are also 4 support skills you won't be able to loot without, too. 3 conversation skills to open up dialog options. 2 medical skills. And others. 29 in totals, some notably worthless (I'm looking at you, Animal Whisperer and Brawling).
Each of my PCs has 2 weapons skills, one for range and one for up close. Will need to pick up energy weapons eventually and 1-2 folks will need heavy weapons for the Ma Deuces I'm finding. That's 4 weapons skills for some characters. With the level cap and average number of skill points/lvl, you're talking:
3 skills at L10 + 18 points extra
4 skills at L9 + 18 points extra
5 skills at L8 + 12 points extra
6 skills at L7 + 18 points extra
9 skills at L6
Thinking the 6 at L7 layout works best. The extra 18 points let you boost 3 of them to L8. Can probably pick out the worthless skills and let them sit at L5, reallocate. Absolutely frustrating looking at the gun that'll blow a hole through the boss and knowing you have approximately 0% chance of hitting him you got no skill points left to fucking spend.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Crunched numbers. Possible to cover 36 skills among 4 party members.
A word on character creation in WL2. You have 7 attributes that start at 3 points each. You can shuffle those around plus add in seven bonus points. If you raise your INT to 8, you get 4 skill points/lvl to spend. Skills trump attributes for everything except carrying capacity and armour usage. That gives you 212 points total throughout the game.
Everyone will have a melee weapon skill (to save ammo), one long/medium weapon, one medium/short weapon, some energy weapon skill, and finally one lucky PC will be getting the heavy weapons skill.
EDIT: Son-of-a-bitch. Also skill books to factor in that'll boost skills levels by 1.
This brings up another issue. Character advancement in WL1 was all about attributes because you increased skills by using them. Seems to make more sense to me as opposed to radioing in and suddenly getting better at something.
Edited By Malcolm on 1412392484
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
