Continuity Concerns

[RangerBen]

Let's face it, Rangers. Some of us love tributes, homages, references to games gone by. But perhaps some of us would rather see none of these things and have a whole new game, although set in the same universe. What are your opinions on the connections of WL2 to WL? Perhaps the Scorpitron survived Wasteland's events and is still roaming the streets. Should it make an appearance? The proton ax has been carried forward into the Fallout franchise. Does WL2 use it, too? Personally I think we can do better than protons. How about neutrons? "Angela Deth swings her neutron ax, exploding the bot into a shower of sparks and quarks!" Hm... Positron ax? (An ax with an A.I. built in?)

You get the idea. How do you think WL2 should be connected to the original Wasteland?

-Ranger Ben

[BrotherMagneto]

Keep the universe, all of it, even the stuff that didn't make sense or come to pass. Keep the USSR plotline. Part of made Wasteland great was its sense of zeitgeist; for us children of the 70s and 80s whose post-apocalyptic nightmares were the results of the US and USSR's cold war, that spirit is all but lost in apocalyptic literature these days. Keep it! It's why we love it!

[lacroix]

I think wasteland 2 should become retrofuturistic with 1980s/1990s retro style . This is the only way the original Wasteland backstory/lore, with a nuclear war between the US and USSR in 1998, could remain canon without a major lore rape / backstory retcon .

[cloudyrains]

I totally agree. I always wondered what Fallout would be like if it was culture locked in the 80s instead of the 50s. You would probably also get a lot more player connection out of it considering references to past events or people took place in our lifetimes, just giving the game even more atmosphere. There would definitely have to be a careful balance of this though.

[cunningandvalor]

The eighties idea is a good idea, but I'm also one-hundred percent behind sticking with the time and place of the original. Also, regardless of which way you go, there has to be a TON of references to the first game. Of course the Scorpitron survived, and I'm sure there were more of them too.

[Ausir]

Yeah, given that Wasteland was made in the 1980s, there's a lot of that era in the original game's aethetics, and the backstory involves the Soviet Union and a nuclear war in 1998. While the original was not meant to be retrofuturistic, I think a retro setting based how 1980s and early 1990s imagined the future would make the most sense for the sequel.

[TailSwallower]

While the original was not meant to be retrofuturistic, I think a retro setting based how 1980s and early 1990s imagined the future would make the most sense for the sequel.

Yeah, I've got to agree.

If Fallout was game designers in the 90s figuring out what a broken 50s future would look like, then I want Wasteland 2 to be what some game designers now can imagine a broken 80s future to look like.

All that awful 80s style and popculture twisted, mutated and bombed to hell.

[Flamekebab]

I second the motion, TailSwallower.

As for call-backs: plenty of references to Wasteland sound good to me, but as long as it's understood that they'll be lost on a lot of people, myself included. I didn't play the original for more than a few minutes and unless it's re-released with marginally better graphics and a revamped interface, I'm not going to be doing so any time soon. However I liked the setting and concept and so more of the same sounds good to me!

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hello all,

Well as I already mentioned on NMA, I would really like to know what the fate of Citadel Starstation was.
I assumed it had been taken over and destroyed by the base Cochise AI but after investigating Wasteland's dialog I was proven wrong.

So its appearance or a mentioning of what happened to it during or after the nuclear war would be interesting.

For the rest, well the appearance of the Desert Rangers, the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud, and the cyborgs/tronodiles would be nice but its not required.

[Ausir]

I second the motion, TailSwallower.

As for call-backs: plenty of references to Wasteland sound good to me, but as long as it's understood that they'll be lost on a lot of people, myself included. I didn't play the original for more than a few minutes and unless it's re-released with marginally better graphics and a revamped interface, I'm not going to be doing so any time soon. However I liked the setting and concept and so more of the same sounds good to me!

Well, plenty of people have played Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas without the knowledge of the originals, despite these games being full of references to them (especially New Vegas), so I'm sure newcomers to Wasteland will also be fine even if they don't catch all the references.

[Flamekebab]

That's true but timing is a factor here. Fallout and Fallout 2 are from 1997/8 and can still be bought. They're old, sure, but they're only 15 years old. Wasteland is 24 years old and is prehistory compared to modern games.

I can still play games from the late 90s but Wasteland is a bridge too far. I like the graphical style of Fallout but Wasteland just looks too lousy for me. 16 colours is too few for me.

Then there's the size of the market to consider - how many people were playing videogames in the late 90s compared to in the late 80s?

[Ausir]

Well, I'm pretty sure (sadly) that most of the Fallout 3 fans have not played the originals. I don't think references to the previous game are much of an issue - the old fans will get them, while the new ones will just see them as another part of the setting they've just been introduced to.

[Flamekebab]

I was just trying to suggest that a significantly larger number of people have played the first two Fallout games than have played the first Wasteland game. I like references but I'd rather the effort went into making the game's story and timeline fit nicely with that of the original, although fun references are fun too. Hence the name "fun references".

[Bill]

Edit:

I dunn goofed.

[John]

Any homages should just be because the developer likes the idea. There's no 'need' for homages per se, and definitely not good to shoehorn them in.

[Sharkyzero]

I, for one, will have absolutely no idea what's going on. I will want to be brought in quickly. A new story would be pretty nifty seeing as how paying homage to the old will have zero bearing on me. Also, I didn't like Bethesda's Fallout 3 because it deviated so spectacularly into a wall that I couldn't even look at it anymore without rage-vomiting. I don't want the people that loved Wasteland to have the same experience. That said, the game looked TERRIBLE from all I've seen and I won't ever be playing it. I'm stuck not knowing what the hoodley-hey is going on permanently I suppose.

[The Beast Man]

I agree with Sharky. I never played the original (although I could have, but I was just too young to appreciate it at the time). It wasn't until after I played Fallout 1 that I heard about Wasteland, and looking at it graphically, I don't think I could go back to the pre-8-bit era graphics. As far as story line goes, though, it will all be new for me (and probably many others as well), and bring up old memories for those who were fortunate enough to enjoy the game during it's time.

I say keep the continuity intact.

[egalor1]

Yeah right Proton Ax! Not Axe, but AXXXX!! Yeah

As for the continutiy - keep it as much as possible. I would love facing Scorpitron or Brother David again. Or anything else

[Korrvin]

*My first post here, so I want to say before anything else: bloody nice to see that this thing is up and running:) Best wishes. I'll try to contribute to this project as much as my time and wallet allow me:)

On continuity, yup, I'm agreeing with previous post, If that's not essential for a gameplay, references can only add to a experience to players who already played first one. For the rest of players, maybe that could be a reason to try w1. Imo it's somewhat a no brainer point, it should be in, if devs have the way to insert those things into game and not hurt other, more important things in development, which I think could be easily done with no harm for the rest of the game building process. But, priorities are still the story/quest structure, rpg/combat mechanics, world captivation and depth, Choices and Consequences etc...

[bpstrat]

I feel that the continuity should be kept intact. As other people have mentioned, the 80's feel and timeline is an eseential part of what made Wasteland so important when it came out. Of course there should be ways to bring newcomers up to speed on the story and background so they can appreciate where things are coming from. But this is going to be a Kickstarter project after all, so I think we have an opportunity here to keep the unique, niche setting and not worry about pandering to a mainstream audience.