Wasteland 2!!!!!!!!!?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:43 pm

Malcolm wrote:Interview with Faran Brygo.
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.

Think I found the first instance of this. In the Ag Center, there's a 5.25" shoved in the computer in the basement. Says "EMERGENCY OVERRIDE urab****" I know what the last four letters are, but they don't seem to do anything when I type them in. Google returns nothing. I may hits the boards.

Also, the lack of keyboard shortcuts is fucking killing me. I'm not talking VM-like functionality, here. I'm talking arrow keys, Y/N, shit like that. The number keys when I'm trying to transfer 17 of 48 bullets to some one instead of using a fucking slide bar.

Edited By Malcolm on 1412444843

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 11:56 pm

Unreal. Found a bug that ought to allow for duping of any item you currently have if there's a locked and unlocked container nearby.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 2:00 pm

Back to the point where the Ag Center is cleared and I'm moving on to Highpool. Latest group of rangers seems to be working out better than the last one. Different weapon mix, different skill layouts, different attributes. 4 rangers: leader (for NPC control and conversations), goon, surgeon, thief.

Leader and surgeon are the medic-surgeon combo, so they generally hang back on the flanks and snipe. It's a bitch to find enough rounds to keep their rifles full. Up close, it's SMG and pistol (insanely overpowered against unarmoured opponents). Goon and thief are there for crowd control. Assault rifles by default, shotguns for up close. The cone radius of the shotties is awesome for multi-kills and makes them perfect to fill in the two slots in the firing line between leader and medic. Got a NPC goon and surgeon for backup.

Finding vendors with decent items is nearly impossible. Got about $1K to spend, but the nearest shop is forever away. Ammo management is still simply fucking stupid. That has to get patched at some point. Spend anywhere from 10-25% of each session making sure everyone's guns have enough bullets.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 2:52 pm

As an aside:

Your ranger team is Echo. Ran into Team Able last night after clearing the Ag on a supply run back to Ranger Citadel. Four members: Peppard, Benedict, Schultz, and Tureaud. Fucking awesome.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 11:56 am

Thinking again about the weapons balance. The melee skills (brawling, blunt weapons, edge weapons) are all damn near useless. Used them in WL1 to deal with shitty random encounters without using bullets, because bullets were finite in the world. Also got double XP. WL2 doesn't suffer from limited ammo and the XP value for shooting is the same as melee. Bet the vendors just restock.

New philosophy:

1) Everyone needs energy weapons ... for heavily armoured opponents like robot death machines.
2) Everyone needs assault rifles ... for any non-robotic foes at anything besides close range.
3) SMG, pistol, 2 shotguns for close range.
4) One sniper, more or less to start off combat with a free hit. Not enough rounds to keep two of them fed.
5) One heavy weapons dude.

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Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Oct 17, 2014 2:25 pm

Huge patch. Tycho weighs in.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Oct 18, 2014 2:29 am

Most noticeable differences:

1) Some UI changes, especially the world map interface.
2) Text during loading screens.
3) Numerous gameplay issues that didn't break anything, but didn't make sense.

Annoying thing I found out is that the second quest is governed by triggers and not timers. Allow me to explain.

You're given the choice of going to Place A or Place B. Both come under attack at the same time. It doesn't matter if you go to A or B first, soon as you leave, the other one falls. Two minutes or two hours. Doesn't matter. Well hell, why not split off a couple rangers and go for both at once? Nope, can't do that. Fucking what? WL1 let me do that. Your rangers all have some invisible, indestructible tethers that keep them together on the world map. Enemies at both places are pushovers. The NPCs ought to have a fighting chance, or so you'd assume so when you see the state in which you can recruit them. Fully armed. Oh, and you're the only fucking squad available in the entire Arizona-California region in spite of a minimum of three dudes at a higher rank than you sitting on their ass back at the ranger citadel just inside the gates.

"Hey, you three, some guys just attacked the place that we get all our food from. We're going to check that out but some other assholes are trying to take out the place we get all our water from. Seeing as how we're in a desert, and we've got some shit to do already, and you're all ... literally watching a goat chew a tin can in the sand, and you know, you've got all your guns and armour and gear with you. Just wondering if you could find the time to go there, check that shit out, and hold down the fort until we show. Dying of thirst doesn't sound better than dying of hunger and we can't be two places at once."

"No."

Just fuck you.

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Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Oct 20, 2014 11:01 pm

Hit another big-ass bug. Combat happened. Half my team didn't go into combat mode, so I was firing with 50% of my guns. Wtf?

EDIT: The hell. Another big-ass bug. Like a bridge that's crossable outside combat but not during. Come the fuck on. This execution is starting to lack.

Edited By Malcolm on 1413862698

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:00 am

Scoped out the area around Ranger Citadel to locate more shrines (freebie skill points and XP). Enemies have gotten a noticeable uptick in difficulty.

Good news: you can scrap weapons and make decent cash. Like enough to make it worth buying them from a vendor at a sizable markup.

Bad news: There are never enough weapons and you can't buy enough ammo. Armour is expensive. Hoping that clearing out the prison is going to give me enough money to upgrade weapons.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Jan 03, 2015 2:29 pm

After a long-ass time, the collector's edition arrived today.

Except mine's autographed, kind of like this.

Got to get back to playing this and Thief again.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:52 pm

PC World names WL2 GotY for 2014.

Post by **Leisher** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 4:28 pm

There's an upgraded version coming out soon and according to Brian Fargo "PC owners will get it 100% free."

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 10:56 am

Leisher wrote:There's an upgraded version coming out soon and according to Brian Fargo "PC owners will get it 100% free."

Confirmed. Director's Cut coming out. If you already own WL2, you get the DC as a free PC update.

We have some big news to share with you today, so we'll just cut right to the chase. Wasteland 2 Director's Cut will be releasing digitally on PC on October 13th, 2015!
...
For those of you who are still curious about the Director's Cut contents, features, and changes, or may have missed our discussions on them previously, here are some links that go over some of those new elements in detail.

Quirks, a new set of gameplay-modifying personality traits and characteristics for your squad.
Perks, new bonuses you will be able to pick for your characters as they level up.
Precision Strikes, a combat technique allowing you to you target enemy body parts to inflict debilitating effects and injuries.
Upgraded to Unity 5, featuring redone environments, lighting, and character models.

And those do not even fully cover all the new additions, like new and expanded voice-over for many of the game's key NPCs and companions, as well as our extensive rebalancing of virtually every combat encounter, loot drop, and item you'll find in the game.

Post by **Leisher** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 11:25 am

I'm waiting for my free copy from the BT4 kickstarter.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Jul 31, 2015 11:27 am

Leisher wrote:I'm waiting for my free copy from the BT4 kickstarter.

Betting they're waiting for the port of BT1-3 to get done before they let the rewards out.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 4:12 pm

Leisher wrote:There's an upgraded version coming out soon and according to Brian Fargo "PC owners will get it 100% free."

Should release 13-October in the US.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 9:51 pm

Backer site is up. Important because...

So how do you get your hands on your backer bonus rewards? You will need to create an account on the backer web site, although if you already have a Torment account, you can use that on the Bard's Tale site as well (Ranger Center accounts for Wasteland 2 don't carry over).

Post by **Leisher** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 1:26 pm

I have signed up, but shouldn't this be under Bard's Tale 4?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 8:53 pm

Leisher wrote:I have signed up, but shouldn't this be under Bard's Tale 4?

Goddamnit. Yeah. Fucking "Ranger Center" in the link overrode my brain.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 2:14 pm

Director's cut drops on Steam tonight at midnight.