Vision Document Feedback

[The Tallest]

OH MY GOD!! I just read through it and I'm so excited for this. It sounds completely amazing.

[Wanderer]

This sounds fantastic! Now make the game as big as possible

[Nanocephalic]

I have a couple of comments:

I really, really want a high-res copy of the WL2 box art and the WL1 box art. Like... if you don't sell them as posters, at least give us desktop backgrounds. Please. Please? Puhleeeeeeze?


Wizard's Crown did the tactical / quick combat quite nicely. Very detailed tactical combat with a simple option for instant combat. Worked really well (especially against wardpact demons, if you ever finish the game). Worth looking at, anyway.


The puzzle at the end of wasteland 1 was the only time you needed to split your party to solve anything (other than silliness like Finster's Mind, or cloning, or helicopter training). I'd like to see more of that as a regular part of the game. At least, run through it for a few puzzles to see how it works. Long-distance party splitting? Mark one party as 'resting'?

Now that I think of it, Finster's Mind was a great example of it: a completely unique side-quest with unusual requirements in an optional zone.

Oh, and please hook us up with that awesome box art.

[Quarex]

Super-excited. Super-profoundly-amazingly excited.

Done reading now, excitement threshold met and surpassed. What really struck me was how well-written the whole thing was, in addition to how amazing the ideas are. The sentence mentioning the 1980s pop-culture-touchstones that will be reflected in the game was so beautiful that I do not even know where to begin. So excited. Also agreed with Nanocephalic that I want a high-resolution version of the box art to place alongside my 2'x2' blowup of the original game's box art

I really like what I read. The only thing I am a bit leery on is

...you can type in keywords as part of your arsenal to unlock secrets and text fragments...

Not a big fan of typing in words, I would prefer my character to have a dialog option popup. Have to see it in action though.

On a side note, there was no mention of cyborg or cybernetics. I think it was mentioned that the first game had cyborgs, so was hoping that you could "upgrade" your characters into cyborgs. Why? Because its cool, thats why.

Firstly, well, the reason that words are part of the design document is precisely because of people like you (no offense, like, people like you are the majority, and your opinions are certainly valid)--who would never normally think/want to type words into their games. As opposed to the group of people who have been salivating at the idea of actually having the ability to "think outside the conversation" for keywords in conversations again since the last game to feature it (probably Fallout 2, as far as mainstream games go?).

Secondly, there were not clearly cyborgs in Wasteland, though there were androids. Obviously, there is a big difference between "people with robotic implants" and "robots that look like people," thematically. It is not really in keeping with the "wild west apocalypse" theme to have robotic implants, that is more cyberpunky. Not to say they will not exist, but they are not a 100% clear fit.

[Hiver]

I would wish to find out more about... everything

No, Dialogue!
So...its going to have option of players typing in their own keywords... which is kinda cool.
But whats the dialogue going to be except that?

Is there going to be a sort of Storm of Zehir mechanics where each ranger could chip in if his own skill set was relevant to some particular discussion? NPC allies interdicting into dialogue? Creating problems for the whole team sometimes?

[vadersson]

Damn I am excited! That was a really great vision document to share.

That said, here are my comments.

Overall, right now I can't think of anything to say to improve most of what was written. if you guys can even do half of what was in that document the game will be amazing. Seems like a tall order, but I love it.

I really like all the references to exploring things and the ancient places. The belly of a cruise ship, ghostly skyscrapers, strange transmissions. All sound wonderful!

I love all the customization for characters. And the stuff about customizing weapons sounds totally awesome. Plus a lot about snipers. It all sound great.

The only Issue I want to warn about is to not make the whole interface customizing thing too complex. I want to play the game, not set my desktop preferences for 2 hours. I think it is cool that the interface can be customized, but too much in that area could be distracting. Heck, I still have not got my interface "properly" set up it SW:TOR and I have been playing for months. So please keep it simple for the gamers, and offer detailed interface customization for people that really dig that kind of thing.

I love the 70, 80, and 90's vibe you guys are going for. Sound great.

Great job guys, I can't wait to play it!
thanks,
Duncan

[Clewin]

I'm a bit skeptical about calling it the "first post apocalyptic RPG" because Autoduel and Roadwar 2000/Roadwar Europa were out before Wasteland and more or less RPGs, but I guess in a sense Autoduel was a action RPG and Roadwar 2000 was a Strategy RPG (with the RPG elements most similar to Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure, because instead of hit points you'd have men[/women]). Wasteland was pretty much all RPG from what I remember, though I didn't play much of it since I had to play it on my roommate's computer and he explicitly told me I couldn't touch his computer (mainly because he was a germophobe - on the plus side, our place was spotless). Every once in a while he'd go home for the weekend and I'd play games on his computer.

Good to see a lot of the same people from that team working on this one and the teamup of two studios that contain them, with Obsidian's assist. You probably can't throw enough asteroids at the earth to knock out every satellite on both sides of the earth, but a giant solar flare might be able to do it as the EM radiation wraps around the earth (and hey, throw in a meteor shower at the same time and who really knows the difference?).

[Motekim]

I hope the use if text plays as well as I imagine it will. I can't tell you how mindless so many games have become. It feels like each new blockbuster is nothing more than farmville with high level graphics. I also am wondering how the choice trees are going to playout. Your vision seems to indicate multiple stories for the game depending on the choices, and I am not sure if that turns into too big of a bite to swallow. Finally, I see a trip back to the citadel in my future.

[Woolfe]

Woot!!!!

[TΛPETRVE]

So wait there was a nuclear war and a bunch of meteor impacts? Double apocalypse!

Well, there wasn't even much of a war, just a series of paranoid preemptive or retaliatory strikes, depending on the perspective. Which makes it one if the most ironic apocalypses in video game history.

[cah]

Are there major spoilers in the vision document?

[Balls Out 3]

The satellite scenario in the vision document reminds me of Kessler Syndrome.

[TΛPETRVE]

Are there major spoilers in the vision document?

Only if you consider the back story a spoiler ...

[Woolfe]

Had that Wasteland 2 image been used before?

I hadn't seen it, I really liked the old style new style crossover

[Semaphor]

So from reading this I get the impression the planned release date is around 2030?

Sounds extremely amazing!

[lomifeh]

The document was a great read and hints at what could be a great game. I hope you guys include some stuff about what happened 15 years before. I'd love to run into some of those NPCs all that time later maybe.

That said I love the idea of customization as long as it doesn't get in the way of enjoying the game. One other thing I hope you add because this can sometimes bite you a way to respec those points if possible. I've always found it's easy to spec one way in a game and realize you went down a dead end.

[Gunslighter]

Feedback from Russian.

Nice document, but prologue is really bad. Not logical and unrealistic. USSR and USA took first places in space. They both had the most advanced space technologies. Even now, without shuttles, you fly on our rockets. Do you really think that USSR couldn't detect some huge meteor? Or a cloud of small meteors attacking their satellites? And Earth is spherical and cloud may attack only from one side! So, satellites cannot be destroyed by cloud in one second! And do you really think that USSR will attack USA because of meteor attack!?

Rewrite please, people in USSR weren't complete idiots.

The last time I remember Russia threaten USA with nuclear weapon was in 90th, during the war in Yugoslavia. Fist Russian president sent squad to occupy airport in capital of Yugoslavia and said: "It seems to me, that my friend Bill forgot that Russia still has the nuclear power"

[kira]

whether you’re reducing opponents to thin red
paste, exploding them like blood sausages, or sending enemies into a spinning dance of death.

Hoping this will be animated as well as displayed in text. A little text feed similar to the one in FO1/2 is an absolute necessity. And since it's 2012 we need animated exploding blood sausages.

[jja]

Like everyone else, I'm getting quite excited about all of this. It's bound to be a tremendous experience.

There is one suggestion that I'd like to make, which I've been thinking about for some time and really think a game like Wasteland 2 could benefit from.

An RPG game is about characters, but it is also about the story that those characters shape. If it were just about the characters, the game would be over as soon as character generation was done, but it is what those characters do, and how they and their world interact, that really builds what the RPG experience is all about.

With that in mind, it would be great if the fact that the characters came to an abrupt and violent end did not mean that the story also had to. After all, with the amount of characters that will populate a world like this, there is no reason to think that the ripples you've created will stop being interesting just because you and your squad just happen to be dead. The way I see it, having the option to continue the story from a different perspective (maybe assuming control of the only surviving NPC in your squar? or of one of the NPCs you met at the last stronghold?) would add value to the death of your characters: making a grave mistake would not necessarily be a reason to instantly hit Quickload, because maybe - just maybe - from the point of view of _the story_, the death of your squad might be the most important turning point.

The only games that I've played that do something similar to this are the Total War games (I'm thinking particularly about Medieval and Rome), in which you played the story of a nation that spanned the lives of many leaders. What struck me when I played those games was how everything seemed to open new possibilities: if there was a civil war, you could choose the side to fight on. If your leader was assassinated, you could continue as his or her successor. My brother once had to bribe the leader of a roving band of barbarians, and to my brother's astonishment - and thanks to some lucky circumstances and strategic marriages - that same smelly old barbarian warlord rose to become the next Caesar.

That sort of emergent storytelling is what really pulls me in. It's those games that I remember not only as an entertaining experience, but as a platform for stories to develop, giving you the possibility to both participate and spectate at the same time. I'd love if Wasteland 2 could capture some of this.

[Gizmo]

Fantastic!

(That image might be my Desktop for the whole year.)