Continuity Concerns

[Wild_Bill_711]

I 'learned' to make the first 'visit' by traveling 'overland' thru the desert. AFTER its 'destruction' was complete, another 'visit' by using the helicopter 'restored' it 'on the map' as a location players could return to.

[Harpo]

Hm. If it's in the same geographic location (or nearby) and set after the first, I think it would be pretty neat to be able to explore the ruins of Cochise. It'd be like a mini-Easter egg.

I foresee some unintentional overlooks from WL1 that would not make any sense and would agitate fans of Wasteland 1. I also think that having it in the exact same location would restrict the creativity of the writers and game designers. Maybe to the extent that we are presented with a game that is inferior to what we would have had if the kept story, theme and just moved the location (separate ranger faction that also survived or maybe a jump into the future a couple of years and have it play out around a new ranger base established to spread the influence of the base in Wasteland 1). What do you think?

[Son of Max]

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.

THIS!!!

[Breakpoint]

C:\> If Wasteland 2 is set nearly a century after the War, then it should represent a plausible evolution of society in that
C:\> timeframe, rather than have overt references and elements of the 80s/90s just for the sake of retrofuturism.

Hah-- you're forgetting one of the basic tenets of post-apocalyptic fiction: the apocalypse itself is not the only disaster!

Sure, the bombs blow everything to hell, but think about what that implies: food shortages become famines-- MOST of the time. Flu outbreaks become pandemics-- FREQUENTLY. Start cramming people into denser spaces, and both of these things will be serious problems (along with many other things).

In other words, it's easy enough to make this work!

Consider a setting where people have a tendency to presume that the precursor artifacts are better than anything else they can yet produce. About the time they might be catching up, BLAM, some minor plague, bandit group, or famine knocks them on their collective ass again.

What would be the trappings of status, safety, and power?

The artifacts of the old civilization-- the one that didn't fall over every time somebody sneezed. And the more modern (prior to the war, of course) the better-- so that gives you the '80s stuff.

Add rumors, if you like! "You can't catch a cold if you're wearing all Old Time clothes." "Dude, of course I play glam. Those people played for millions of people at once, and look how long their hair is! I have to play glam, mine keeps falling out otherwise!"

"Man... can you believe all this technology?"
"Mad bitchin'... these computers must hold MEGABYTES of memory."
"I know, it's hard to believe. Help me lift this 4K cache module..."

But seriously, that's about what it was. We had NO concept of the scale of computational complexity required to do cybernetics and AI, and enthusiastically assumed our Timex Sinclairs might very well be upgradable to drive our cars perfectly fine in Just Five Years.

The important thing was this:
Technology was CLEARLY ramping up at an insane rate, was OBVIOUSLY going to change everything, but nobody knew how. Because so little of it had really hit yet, we didn't realize just how much of it was going to be overhead. Your PC, running a web browser, does a thousand inane things to ensure you can render your page just perfectly, but in the 80s, every ounce of power went directly to a task. If you presumed that the increase in computer power would simply allow us to increase the complexity of that task one-to-one, without realizing the sheer scale of overhead we were going to add on a thousand different fronts, then yeah, the sky sure as hell looked like the limit!

And, of course, the sky is the limit-- but we can see how we get there a little more clearly now. There's a lot of intermediate steps. Many of them are tedious. They're clearer becaue we can now see the patterns of applying technology to complex problems much more clearly.

In the 1980s, that was obvious to very few people-- sure, things might take a few years, but the number of steps between what we had in hand, and the crazy shit coming of OMNI Magazine and Alvin Toeffler, was felt to be very small.

It was the era where you might feel totally reasonable assuming that you could move ten Apple ][s into a metal shop and have killer robots walking out a few months later-- partly because it was the era of the nerd genius, not the Agile scrum team, etc. We now know the lone gunman only scales so far, even in technology, but that was a lot less clear in those days-- for better and for worse.

So, to summarize:
- The future would be full of lots of lesser disasters that would still have huge impacts.
- Progress would be five steps forward, four steps back, in all but the most isolated and well-equipped communities.
- The most completely recorded era in history would be the 1980s-- you would trip over it everywhere; books, records, magazines, etc.
- It would be remembered as an era of unbelievable potential and awesome power, but nobody would quite know why.
- It would be emulated, because without any other mass media having filled in the gap, and culture being inconsistent from place to place, nothing would really compare with it.
- It would be revered because it was both real and unreachable, in the same way that people fantasize about Hollywood culture, etc.
- Its artifacts would still be in use because many of them would have actually survived, having been mass-produced in great numbers, and would be cheaper due to this high availability than current manufactured goods, and possibly also superior in quality.
- If so, the demand for current manufactured goods would not necessarily be high in any given category, which would slow the replacement of the legacy products.

Just some brainstorming.

Cheers,
Breakpoint
Center for Applied Terminal Ballistics, DRHQ

[nathanknaack]

I would suggest using Wasteland references wherever it doesn't matter to the story of Wasteland 2. That way you get to tuck in all kinds of fun stuff from the original without making it seem like you're just trying to please the fanboys.

For example, if you need some random NPC sitting in the corner of the bar, but he doesn't need to say anything plot-related, why not have it be Metal Maniac or Ralf with a single line statement like "Oh no, I ain't gettin' involved with Rangers again. Almost killed me last time!"

Gamers new to Wasteland think "hmm, what a strange dude." Gamers familiar with Wasteland smile and say "ha, I remember this guy!"

[Hasenklein]

Since I have played Wasteland, Wasteland 2 has to anwer a couple of questions:

- To what extent was Bobby's life shaped by the encounter with the Rangers (they killed Rex, his Dog)?
- Who took over the Guardian Citadel?
- What happened to Sleeper Base, the cloning facility, and Project Darwin?
- To what extent was RC changed by the new weapons, skills and technologies that were acquired by the Rangers (energy weaons, Chitin- and Power Armors, high Medic/Doctor skills, Electronics, Clone Tech, Cyborg Tech, and, of course, Toaster Repair)?
- What happened to Max and Vax?

[Ronin73]

Since I have played Wasteland, Wasteland 2 has to anwer a couple of questions:

- To what extent was Bobby's life shaped by the encounter with the Rangers (they killed Rex, his Dog)?
- Who took over the Guardian Citadel?
- What happened to Sleeper Base, the cloning facility, and Project Darwin?
- To what extent was RC changed by the new weapons, skills and technologies that were acquired by the Rangers (energy weaons, Chitin- and Power Armors, high Medic/Doctor skills, Electronics, Clone Tech, Cyborg Tech, and, of course, Toaster Repair)?
- What happened to Max and Vax?

Yeah they are the main questions for me as well. I'm also hoping Wasteland 2 gives some kind of "What happened to" mention to most of the recruit-able NPC's that were in the first game.

I'm also really curious as to what Mike Stackpole's Novella will contain. I wonder if it will be aimed at filling in the events of 15 years leading up to Wasteland 2?

[Drool]

- What happened to Max and Vax?

Vax died in the explosion.

He always dies in the explosion!

[snakeoil]

I think wasteland 2 shouldn't focus too much on what happened in the first part. It could even be considered to fight against the desert rangers and the hq. Its a sequel, and as such it may surprise us with new stories and just few but punchy backflashes, mostly on npcs and locations every now and then. Just like GTA changed to GTA 3.

[Hasenklein]

- What happened to Max and Vax?

Vax died in the explosion.

He always dies in the explosion!

Yes. I always wondered, though...what if the Ranger who entered the Mind Maze never made it out, and if everything from that point onwards was only part of the Mind Maze, and if the other Rangers who didn't enter, were killed, taken as prisoners or disappeared elsewhere?

[Zombra]

Excuse me ... but the Scorpitron did NOT survive. I blew it up.

Now maybe, maybe it got off one last radio transmission before it was destroyed. Somewhere, in a hidden outpost of the robot uprising, a single, small CPU received the transmission. And resolved ... to rebuild. With one simulated "thought" in its mind. To exact revenge! To destroy the most dangerous, most hated foes of all time ... the terrible Desert Rangers!

As for the continuity, keep it. Neutron Ax? Maybe. Proton Ax? Definitely.

[Ronin73]

I have decided that the only continuity that matters is...

SNAKE SQUEEZINS!

Who invented it and do we want to know the ingredients?

It's actually a crime that a Sand Bum drinking his trusty bottle/flask/canteen of Snake Squeezins was not offered as a piece of concept art. As a matter of fact Snake Squeezins should go into full production and sold in the Wasteland 2 store!

Okay mostly tongue in cheek, but I actually would be interested in a little history on how Snake Squeezins came to be.

[Drool]

I always figured it was the tequila version of bathtub gin.

[Son of Max]

I always thought 'Snake Squeezins' was a clever euphemism for piss water...

[Elexa]

I always thought 'Snake Squeezins' was a clever euphemism for piss water...

omg, you have just ruined a beautiful (but exceptionally violent towards reptiles) memory.

...but yeah, now that you've said something...

[paultakeda]

I always took it to mean some sort of alcoholized snake venom. I remember watching some nature program where snakes were made to bite the lip of a jar such that their fangs hung over and into it so the venom would drip out as the handler squeezed the head. The alcohol part was my tweener mind thinking hobos wouldn't drink something unless it had a proof.

[Haggis3037]

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.

Heretics! Burn them, nuke them 'till they glow!

[Woolfe]

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.

Heretics! Burn them, nuke them 'till they glow!

I believe the original quote is "Nuke em till they glow, then shoot them in the dark!"

I always loved that quote. It was almost a modern equivalent of "Shoot them all and let god sort them out"

[Drool]

I believe the original quote is "Nuke em till they glow, then shoot them in the dark!"

nrk nrk nrk

[Son of Max]

I believe the original quote is "Nuke em till they glow, then shoot them in the dark!"

nrk nrk nrk

Actually, it's NRC.

Got a kick out of that when I got a little older and read an article where they cited a report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"NRC!" indeed...