Why do we care?

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

I'd like to find out why all of us care so much about this game.

For me it goes deep back into my psyche because I played Wasteland when I was 14. I think I beat the game sometime when I was 15 or 16, so in like 1990. I started off playing it on my friend's Apple ][ gs (in color!) and later, I played it on an Apple ][ e at my local library (in monochrome). I had printed out lots of my player stats from those games and saved my floppy disks for a long time. But I am not sure I beat the game until I played it on my first PC at home - the first computer my parents ever bought for my family, a 286 computer! That was the start of a long journey of playing early '90s RPGs on pathetic computers and later, in college, learning enough programming to make a mandelbrot set program, but that's another story.

Wasteland and Ultima V formed the basis of what I consider an RPG. This was before I ever played Dragon Warrior (Quest) or Final Fantasy which simplified the formula quite a bit and none of the console RPGs ever matched up to those early games, and after Ultima VI and VII there didn't seem to be any more of those games around anymore. I gave up on Final Fantasy after the first one - I always hated the irritating combat that made you watch a boring animation of your battles. Fortunately I have recently rediscovered this genre of game in the JRPG which has developed into something a little bit more complex in recent years - especially if you count all the indie games out there that are really trying hard to get your attention and ignore the big production houses that suffer the same seeming glut of formulaic fetch-quest RPGs as the 3D action-RPG genre has in the west. But maybe I am wrong about some of that. In any case, there hasn't really been a game like Wasteand ever since, not a single one, not even Ultima V really matched up to it for me. (There was also Wizardry, I played 6 and 7 but I got tired of those pretty fast too.)

The most interesting part of Wasteland was the way your party worked together (or separately). NPCs refusing to work with you really gave them personality. And there were clues you had to hunt down just by exploring, and things you had to gather like the four Guardian rings but you had to figure that out for yourself, nobody was sending you on a quest besides the initial quest to investigate the Wasteland. And skills! Some of them so obscure that they had one use in the whole game and nobody gave you a road map of how to use them, but there were ways to exploit them if you could figure out where to use them which wasn't so easy before the internet. And of course no account of Wasteland would be complete without mentioning the colorful combat descriptions. Later on, I would speed through the text, but initially, when I was fourteen, reading that I had just blasted my enemy into an undertaker's nightmare or sprayed them into a fine red mist just made the game feel ... rebellious!

As a dubious result I have spent a lot of years since then sitting at computers playing games that make me feel vaguely rebellious. But the important part is that I created these characters who I cared about and spent so much time refining and grooming for their survival in this harsh game. (I also cheated a lot too, but it was fun, and made the game more interesting to me, being fourteen and all. *disk-swapping*)

So I would like to know what brings you to this particular corner of the internet at this particular moment in time, especially I want to know what interests you if you are not a middle-aged nerdy white guy like me.

[Dionysus]

Personally I have 2 reasons why I care about this game.

But first of all I have to mention that I never played Wasteland 1 and most likely never will ... (well, maybe if it was released on steam with some updates to make it easier to play ... I'm talking about stuff like window-mode and no need for a secondary program like Dosbox or something.)
So I don't have any nostalgic connection to Wasteland ... further, Fallout is THE post-apocalyptic world for me personally, I just love the lore and world.

But ... I want to see this game become a huge success, mostly because of how the game is created ... for the fans, by the fans, even the budget comes from the fans. This isn't a multi-million dollar production with a huge ad campain ... this game could be an example for the entire video game industrie to finally realize what's important in games ... not super-fancy graphics or mass-appeal, streamlined and dumbed down products by the hundreds, no corrupt corporation bs ...
I don't really know how to put it in words ... I just hope you get what I'm trying to say ... well you pretty much bring up many of the same points.
This game is a symbol of trust between developer and consumer ...

Second ... I just love good games ... really good games ... and while the graphics get better and better with each year and there're some real gems I wouldn't want to miss, I just have to say that gaming isn't what it used to be. It's a slow degradation over a big amount of time ... so you usually don't notice it. And nostalgia propably plays a huge part in this ... but if you look at some older games and with how much effort and care they've been crafted and compare these games to modern ones, even from the same game series ... it's just sad.
And as said earlier ... you pretty much bring up similar points.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Second ... I just love good games ... really good games ... and while the graphics get better and better with each year and there're some real gems I wouldn't want to miss, I just have to say that gaming isn't what it used to be. It's a slow degradation over a big amount of time ... so you usually don't notice it. And nostalgia propably plays a huge part in this ... but if you look at some older games and with how much effort and care they've been crafted and compare these games to modern ones, even from the same game series ... it's just sad.
And as said earlier ... you pretty much bring up similar points.

There seems to be something of a Moore's Law that relates the decreasing proportion of details in a game world to the increasing proportion of details in the visual graphics. It seems it's difficult to afford both, or to hire people with imagination to use both. Indie games with primitive graphics are definitely the way to go! Somewhere along the line we started losing the role playing of the CRPG game which means giving you choices that make each character you play unique. With the more detailed avatars, there is a less detailed, or effectively a single character you can play through the game no matter what your stats are because every character has the same story to play. If you look at the things like dating sims, on the other hand, they give you choices and different character paths, even though there is a strong western bias against girly stuff like that that's popular in Japan.

[Dionysus]

Hm yeah, propably ... it's hard to find modern examples that truly gives you a unique story to play as. Skyrim does kind of a good job at it I guess ... even if you max out all your skills, you can never get all perks ...
Deus Ex 3 on the other hand gives out so many "perk"-points that all player have the same character in the end. And the game rewards you for too much ... like when you need to go through a door and have the option to either crawl through a ventilation shaft or hack the terminal, you will propably do both for the xp ... it's cheapen the unique feeling of your playstyle.
If you cleared an obstacle all other solutions shouldn't give xp.

I just wanted to mention that "Extra Credits" released 3 whole episodes dedicated to western vs. j-rpgs. If you haven't seen that already, check it out, good stuff.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

I just wanted to mention that "Extra Credits" released 3 whole episodes dedicated to western vs. j-rpgs. If you haven't seen that already, check it out, good stuff.

Thanks for this! That was very nice!

Seems like the main gap between the two genres is the combat system. Fans of both genres are hung up on their style of combat and don't want to compromise.

Wasteland is not primarily a tactical game. You could split your characters up but that wasn't usually useful in combat.

I think Wasteland 2 should stick to simple combat with colorful descriptions. It's one of the core elements of Wasteland.

I started a thread on this here:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=760&p=11747#p11747

[krellen]

I just wanted to mention that "Extra Credits" released 3 whole episodes dedicated to western vs. j-rpgs. If you haven't seen that already, check it out, good stuff.

I usually agree with Extra Credits, but I think they got this one completely wrong. I don't think their definition of "RPG" is correct in the slightest.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

I just wanted to mention that "Extra Credits" released 3 whole episodes dedicated to western vs. j-rpgs. If you haven't seen that already, check it out, good stuff.

I usually agree with Extra Credits, but I think they got this one completely wrong. I don't think their definition of "RPG" is correct in the slightest.

Please elaborate, what do you think is the definition of an RPG?

My personal definition which you may or may not agree with is tied up with PnP games A role-playing game is one where you make decisions in character. "Role-playing" is another way of saying "play-acting."

[krellen]

Please elaborate, what do you think is the definition of an RPG?

My personal definition which you may or may not agree with is tied up with PnP games

That is also my definition, except I concentrate on gameplay mechanics; an RPG (when talking about video games) is a game that tries to emulate the rules of PnP games. RPGs leave success or failure up to the abilities of the character, not the abilities of the player.

Non-RPGs can have stories, and choices, and branching paths. A definition of RPG that concentrates on stories, choices and playing a role includes Choose Your Own Adventure books; as I do not consider CYOA to fit the definition of "RPG", I do not support a definition that describes them as such.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Please elaborate, what do you think is the definition of an RPG?

My personal definition which you may or may not agree with is tied up with PnP games

That is also my definition, except I concentrate on gameplay mechanics; an RPG (when talking about video games) is a game that tries to emulate the rules of PnP games. RPGs leave success or failure up to the abilities of the character, not the abilities of the player.

Non-RPGs can have stories, and choices, and branching paths. A definition of RPG that concentrates on stories, choices and playing a role includes Choose Your Own Adventure books; as I do not consider CYOA to fit the definition of "RPG", I do not support a definition that describes them as such.

So, what about a Choose Your Own Adventure that involves you by putting your characters into battles that depend on your character's abilities and your tactical/strategic decisions?

[krellen]

So, what about a Choose Your Own Adventure that involves you by putting your characters into battles that depend on your character's abilities and your tactical/strategic decisions?

I admit that I find the Lone Wolf/Grey Star/Grail Quest sorts of books (which fit your description) to be hard to categorise. I lean towards "not RPG", but I think they exist in the same cusp/grey area as Mass Effect (I consider 1 to still be RPG-enough to be an RPG, but the second two not so.)

[Zombra]

I look back so fondly on Wasteland because ... I don't know. A lot of reasons I guess.

I just love party-based games. Developing a team is always so fun. I always pick (at least) one character who focuses on noncombat skills. My lockpicking guy in Wasteland was my favorite (I don't remember his name). But making the combat monsters is great too. And having them all work together ... it's just so cool.

The variety in enemies and locations was wonderful. Wasteland put Fallout to shame in this department. From nuns and fraters to a dozen different kinds of animated robots to bikers to cultists to lumberjacks to giant lizards and more ... from the empty desert to destroyed cities to cult headquarters to a slick urban environment to mines and caves to old west style towns to a state of the art techno base to primitive villages ... you never knew what was coming next.

The danger and arbitrariness of the world was great. No invincible children here! Grab that mortar and blow up half the town yourself. Get instantly killed when an enemy goes full auto. So much random death, often used for cheap humor value, yet not so often as to lose impact.

So much for being on topic. Here's why I actually posted:

(There was also Wizardry, I played 6 and 7 but I got tired of those pretty fast too.)

I never got far in 6 or 7 either ... but if you never played Wizardry 8, I HAVE to take this opportunity to sell it. It's a huge game, maybe too big to get all the way through if you don't love it, but it's so fun. You have the same party based system as in previous games, but each of your 6 party members also comes with a voice and a personality, out of something like 30 choices for each gender. You pick! Mix and match voices, races, and character classes. I loved my French-sounding halfling ranger and my soft-spoken, scholarly lizard man fighter. And all the rest. I played through the game twice just so I could experience it again with a new cast of hilarious characters. It's by the same developers as the Jagged Alliance series, even with some of the same voice actors. I got so attached to those characters, I can't tell you. And the game is recent enough to hold up to modern standards, in my opinion.

So there you go. Something to do while waiting for Wasteland 2!

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

I look back so fondly on Wasteland because ... I don't know. A lot of reasons I guess.

I just love party-based games. Developing a team is always so fun. I always pick (at least) one character who focuses on noncombat skills. My lockpicking guy in Wasteland was my favorite (I don't remember his name). But making the combat monsters is great too. And having them all work together ... it's just so cool.

The variety in enemies and locations was wonderful. Wasteland put Fallout to shame in this department. From nuns and fraters to a dozen different kinds of animated robots to bikers to cultists to lumberjacks to giant lizards and more ... from the empty desert to destroyed cities to cult headquarters to a slick urban environment to mines and caves to old west style towns to a state of the art techno base to primitive villages ... you never knew what was coming next.

The danger and arbitrariness of the world was great. No invincible children here! Grab that mortar and blow up half the town yourself. Get instantly killed when an enemy goes full auto. So much random death, often used for cheap humor value, yet not so often as to lose impact.

So much for being on topic. Here's why I actually posted:

(There was also Wizardry, I played 6 and 7 but I got tired of those pretty fast too.)

I never got far in 6 or 7 either ... but if you never played Wizardry 8, I HAVE to take this opportunity to sell it. It's a huge game, maybe too big to get all the way through if you don't love it, but it's so fun. You have the same party based system as in previous games, but each of your 6 party members also comes with a voice and a personality, out of something like 30 choices for each gender. You pick! Mix and match voices, races, and character classes. I loved my French-sounding halfling ranger and my soft-spoken, scholarly lizard man fighter. And all the rest. I played through the game twice just so I could experience it again with a new cast of hilarious characters. It's by the same developers as the Jagged Alliance series, even with some of the same voice actors. I got so attached to those characters, I can't tell you. And the game is recent enough to hold up to modern standards, in my opinion.

So there you go. Something to do while waiting for Wasteland 2!

Hey, that's awesome! I actually have Wizardry 8 somewhere around here but never got around to playing it!

And, er, lumberjacks?

[Son of Max]

Something I said in another thread about Wasteland that fits very well here...

In a fascinating way, Wasteland is, in some respects, my favorite 'novel' of all time. The unique way it was put together and it's rich story, PLUS the variable ways in which you could really affect the game world itself made it the first real 'interactive novel' I ever really had exposure to. Some games since then have tried (to varying degrees of success) emulate what Wasteland was to CRPGs in it's day, but none of them ever quite sucked me in like Wasteland did.

I must have played/read Wasteland well over a hundred times over the years, and it's ended up like a lot of novels I've read and re-read over the years; I got to know it so well, inside and out, (Still have the manual/paragraph book that came with the RPG Archive and STILL re-read all of that from time to time) that, over the years, I've pondered just about every aspect of the game like I did for The Lord of The Rings trilogy or The Stand or many of the other regular novels I've read.

Biggest reason I kicked in the amount I did to Kickstarter was specifically to get the Stackpole novella in it's entirety, just to read it. Reading the excerpts from 'The History of The Desert Rangers' in the original manual was one of the most enjoyable parts of the overall experience, as well as reading the paragraph book.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Something I said in another thread about Wasteland that fits very well here...

In a fascinating way, Wasteland is, in some respects, my favorite 'novel' of all time. The unique way it was put together and it's rich story, PLUS the variable ways in which you could really affect the game world itself made it the first real 'interactive novel' I ever really had exposure to. Some games since then have tried (to varying degrees of success) emulate what Wasteland was to CRPGs in it's day, but none of them ever quite sucked me in like Wasteland did.

I must have played/read Wasteland well over a hundred times over the years, and it's ended up like a lot of novels I've read and re-read over the years; I got to know it so well, inside and out, (Still have the manual/paragraph book that came with the RPG Archive and STILL re-read all of that from time to time) that, over the years, I've pondered just about every aspect of the game like I did for The Lord of The Rings trilogy or The Stand or many of the other regular novels I've read.

Biggest reason I kicked in the amount I did to Kickstarter was specifically to get the Stackpole novella in it's entirety, just to read it. Reading the excerpts from 'The History of The Desert Rangers' in the original manual was one of the most enjoyable parts of the overall experience, as well as reading the paragraph book.

I too love the interactive fiction aspect of Wasteland. I'm afraid it's one of the things Wasteland 2 will abandon, because of the perception that it's 'outdated.' But it's really not; I expect interactive fiction to come back in a big way, with the increased prevalence of portable computers. Wasteland was ahead of its time and if Wasteland 2 doesn't pick up the torch (of interactive ficion) then some other game will steal Wasteland's glory.

[Son of Max]

I too love the interactive fiction aspect of Wasteland. I'm afraid it's one of the things Wasteland 2 will abandon, because of the perception that it's 'outdated.' But it's really not; I expect interactive fiction to come back in a big way, with the increased prevalence of portable computers. Wasteland was ahead of its time and if Wasteland 2 doesn't pick up the torch (of interactive ficion) then some other game will steal Wasteland's glory.

Actually, the way Fargo talks about wanting to preserve what made Wasteland Wasteland gives me a lot reason to be optimistic. The biggest reason being that he said he wants to make games in the old style to prove they're still viable and, if he makes Wasteland 2 as much a work of interactive fiction as he can, I believe he'll create a whole new generation of gamers who demand more from a game than just the same old crap that the industry has become.

[wren]

There seems to be something of a Moore's Law that relates the decreasing proportion of details in a game world to the increasing proportion of details in the visual graphics. It seems it's difficult to afford both, or to hire people with imagination to use both. Indie games with primitive graphics are definitely the way to go! Somewhere along the line we started losing the role playing of the CRPG game which means giving you choices that make each character you play unique. With the more detailed avatars, there is a less detailed, or effectively a single character you can play through the game no matter what your stats are because every character has the same story to play. If you look at the things like dating sims, on the other hand, they give you choices and different character paths, even though there is a strong western bias against girly stuff like that that's popular in Japan.

I think the principal reason for the something of a Moore's Law you mentioned is that the demographic of the consumer set has changed. The average late 80's to early 90's computer gamer was simply smarter than the average gamer of today. Computers are far more accessible to the masses today, whereas back then they tended to require a bit more sophistication to use. Just look at the internet as an example: When I used to dial up the net on a 1200 baud modem, it recall finding a community of pretty intelligent people; now I jack into a daily reminder of how stupid the human race is. (present company not included )

[Alcatar]

Hm, a brief reply in comparison to most:

Introduced to pc-games by a 28yr family member at age 9, occasionally played Diablo and Baldur's Gate (etc) with family + family friends for around 5-6 years. Same person introduced me to PnP DnD (2nd ed) at age 14, loved it.
I'm a fan of sandbox and a fan of RPGs.

Resulted in me donating a sizeable portion of my current savings to the project; I recently finished uni.



Honestly though, I dislike Skyrim and such because of the limited actions you can take - these "hits" are linear games, I can play them but they don't enthral me. For example if you play Deus Ex (1) and Deus Ex - Human Revolution, I can't see how you'd PREFER the albeit good sequel.
Limited spells to cast, limited options to choose, limited paths to take, limited outcomes to see - these are the largest-revenue games, categorised "Role Playing Games" yet they have nothing on some older titles. For this, and my hating of it, I despair.

[kasra5004]

So I would like to know what brings you to this particular corner of the internet at this particular moment in time, especially I want to know what interests you if you are not a middle-aged nerdy white guy like me.

.

Well, I think it's a wrong assumption to think a generation of gamers don't like specific genres( I'm 18 so I think i can evaluate a bit more,just like so many other younger backers) The industry went in a direction that killed the hardcore RPG and replaced it with shallow shooters that have some RPG elements. As a result real RPG became rare and hardly accessible to the mainstream which ended up in a generation that hasn't felt the RPG the way the older , more experienced gamers did. But love for roleplaying and rich stories cannot die in a generation.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Actually, the way Fargo talks about wanting to preserve what made Wasteland Wasteland gives me a lot reason to be optimistic. The biggest reason being that he said he wants to make games in the old style to prove they're still viable and, if he makes Wasteland 2 as much a work of interactive fiction as he can, I believe he'll create a whole new generation of gamers who demand more from a game than just the same old crap that the industry has become.

I am hopeful, but skeptical. I want to believe that Wasteland 2 will live up to Brian Fargo's lofty goals, but I don't want to be disappointed if it comes up short. I want to like his new game whatever form it takes, but I also want to keep hope alive for the interactive fiction genre, even if WL2 diverges from it.

Well, I think it's a wrong assumption to think a generation of gamers don't like specific genres( I'm 18 so I think i can evaluate a bit more,just like so many other younger backers) The industry went in a direction that killed the hardcore RPG and replaced it with shallow shooters that have some RPG elements. As a result real RPG became rare and hardly accessible to the mainstream which ended up in a generation that hasn't felt the RPG the way the older , more experienced gamers did. But love for roleplaying and rich stories cannot die in a generation.

Very well stated. I am glad to know there are still fans of roleplaying and rich stories out there! Maybe the industry can catch up with us!

[Mathsorcerer]

I care about this game because Wasteland was created back when games were designed to offer a true challenge and made you work for every victory. Also, there is something about the things you enjoy as a late teenager/very young adult that stick with you through the years.

Currently, I am working my way thorugh Neverwinter Nights 2/Storm of Zehir. My progress is slow because, quite frankly, I find the game boring. Oh, look--another fight with a "monstrous band"...that we defeated relatively easily. Oh, look--another fight with some water elementals...that we defeated relatively easily. Oh, look--the trading post that doesn't have anything I need. Whatever.

That will never compare to the titanic struggle between my high-ST Russian with Brawling 6 and Pugilism 5 versus Brother Goliath, mano a mano in a bare-knuckle brawl to the death.