Kickstarter Drive Update #6

[Brother None]

The Kickstarter page of Wasteland 2 has another update in which InXile confirms Mac and Linux are on, and talks about new goals, as well as a new video.

The most common question now is what happens when we hit 2 million and above. First and foremost we hang our hat on the density of the experience the gamers get with a great RPG, and these monies continue to insure that happens. At 2 million we will increase the staff to make the game more social so that it can become a more shared experience. We like the concepts of dropping notes into the world for your friends who are playing the game, or perhaps we may allow you to send an item their way from Ranger center to help them out. We are fleshing out the ideas but intend to increase the social aspects of the game without diverting it from being an old school RPG and without hurting the balance.

We have received many questions about multi-player, and my feeling is that we do not think it would be the right decision for such a heavy narrative RPG. Even in an open sandbox world there are sequences and clues that need to happen in order for things to flow and make sense. This is not an MMO where we create instances of one-off events and scenarios, but it is a deep fluid world in which your actions do matter later. I don't want a game where my buddy triggered an event I didn't know and causes a repercussion for me, and at the same time I don't want to see every little event that my buddy sees to insure I didn't miss it. Multi-player is a design issue and not a technical one in this case. However, we will introduce social elements like I hinted at above so there can be a communal type experience.

More important than multi-player I would prefer to have a robust set of tools so the community can create mods and make the Wasteland world bigger than any one company ever could. Rest assured we are spending our efforts to determine at what tier we can have a team work on this. But keep in mind that making Wasteland 2 a deep RPG experience is mission critical, so even if we make the mod tools they are likely to come out after our ship date.

EDIT: an update

Everyone remain calm....

There has been a lot of panic that any kind of element of sharing will ruin the classic old school RPG. I think some people are overreacting to the word "social" which I can kind of understand. But here is the bottom line. We will post a description of our thoughts in the forums and if YOU the fans still don't want it then we will not fight the majority. We can now get back to our normal shouting.

[mindx2]

Oh no... I really don't like the sound of this "social" aspect their exploring. Wasteland: The Facebook Game? I know I'm overstating that but still....

Brian Fargo:

At 2 million we will increase the staff to make the game more social so that it can become a more shared experience. We like the concepts of dropping notes into the world for your friends who are playing the game, or perhaps we may allow you to send an item their way from Ranger center to help them out. We are fleshing out the ideas but intend to increase the social aspects of the game without diverting it from being an old school RPG and without hurting the balance.

I don't want some "new and innovative" game, I want a good old cRPG that we don't have in today's market!! Leave this social networking CRAP out, please!!!

[krellen]

It's kind of sad that I have incentive now to discourage more donations. I agree: social aspects are not expected.

[zebe]

It's kind of sad that I have incentive now to discourage more donations. I agree: social aspects are not expected.

Don't be silly; by far, the leading option for what to do with more funding is "expanded world and more content". Brian even mentions that specifically in the video. With a bigger budget, that is definitely going to be a priority.

His comments in the update and in several areas make clear that this won't be some horrible Farmville abomination. Obviously, we should make clear we don't want that, but I trust Brian and his team to know that. He was the one complaining in the original video about Farmville requests, remember?

I'm excited to see the number still going up and I hope WL2 can maintain some momentum over the next few weeks.

[Brother None]

I'm excited to see the number still going up and I hope WL2 can maintain some momentum over the next few weeks.

I dunno. I immediately got some negative responses to this. And that's no way to encourage momentum.

I mean, it's a pretty minor feature, but it's kind of like...who was asking for this? I know the fanbase doesn't rule absolutely, but was social integration really something missing from Wasteland?

I dunno. Keep in mind it's pretty minor, shouldn't be too hard to implement, and fully optional. But still, give your feedback please, we want to know. Personally, I'm not too hot on the idea.

[lexicon]

I really don't think investing any money on any social aspect is a good idea.

[Infinitron]

This isn't necessarily bad news, but I do think it's pretty extraneous.

A thought: It might be Brian's way of simulating the first Wasteland's persistent world.

[undecaf]

Not too sure about if the "social" aspect is really worth it. Fargo seems to have his priorities enough in the right place to not have this sort of thing interfere with the developement of the core experience, but I'd still rather they left it out and focused on something that would be of more value to everyone playing the game.

[mindx2]

I'm excited to see the number still going up and I hope WL2 can maintain some momentum over the next few weeks.

I dunno. I immediately got some negative responses to this. And that's no way to encourage momentum.

I mean, it's a pretty minor feature, but it's kind of like...who was asking for this? I know the fanbase doesn't rule absolutely, but was social integration really something missing from Wasteland?

I dunno. Keep in mind it's pretty minor, shouldn't be too hard to implement, and fully optional. But still, give your feedback please, we want to know. Personally, I'm not too hot on the idea.

A poll on this would probably be a good idea Brother.

[God is Dog backwards]

My response, which I've posted elsewhere:

"
"Really not into the multiplayer thing. At $2m I want the single player to be enhanced. i really don't care about multiplayer and don't feel dev time and resources should be spent on it.

Others might disagree but this is the first major thing I'm not into with Wasteland 2. If this is an old school single player RPG, a sequel to Wasteland and spiritual successor to FO1 and 2... why are funds being spent on multiplayer... this has me concerned, to be honest. Sending items to each other? That's so easy to break the balance, making the game harder for people who don't want to play online or with others. The balance will either favour people who play online, or offline -.Look at Dark Souls etc. I just don't want this sh*t in a single player RPG, particularly one I'm funding. Am considering dropping my pledge down to the minimum because of this. This has no place in a single player, old school RPG in the vein of FO and Wasteland, no place at all. If they HAVE to have multiplayer, don't force it into the single player experience. Make it a completely seperate mode.

Multiplayer forced into the singleplayer mode in the sequel to Wasteland. Sounds like the sort of thing a publisher would demand of a developer - exactly the sort of thing that I thought kickstarter was supposed to avoid. If Wasteland 2 goes multiplayer, gotta say, I'm probably dropping my pledge (and possibly dropping out altogether). It's not what I want in a single player RPG, and to be honest I'm really disappointed. Just who has been calling for multiplayer in their single player RPGs?"

Bottom line - if this feature goes ahead, I'm reconsidering my pledge and will certainly drop down a tier or two. I can get dumb multiplayer in the latest EA release. Has ANYONE been saying, 'what's missing from Fallout and Wasteland is some stupid social multiplayer'?

[RangerBen]

Here's my mind.

We want game companies to innovate. Yes, inXile is totally asking us what we want in the game. We're telling them. However, I still want inXile to come up with some awesome bits of WL2 that we never thought of.

Maybe these 'notes' in the Wasteland we can leave to other players (presumably through some Steam hook? How would it even work technically?) seem a little hokey up front. But maybe the trick will be figuring out which are in-game notes from made-up ranger parties from days gone by (Angela Deth!) and which are from live players (Taran Romulous!).

Give us what we want, yeah! But also give us some stuff we never thought of. Of course, the surprise on that is out the bag. I'm sure there are other innovations they're going to surprise us with, too.

[Infinitron]

But maybe the trick will be figuring out which are in-game notes from made-up ranger parties from days gone by (Angela Deth!) and which are from live players (Taran Romulous!).

I don't think you'll convince people here with this line of reasoning

[Kide]

Well, I don't really care for this kind of social aspect, but I don't really mind it either. I personally will most probably not use such a feature, and I would assume many other's would not care for it either. But if Brian want's to bring in this kind of feature I suppose it's fine... But I don't think it is in any way needed feature...

[alexlovesinxile]

Absolutely against this social feature.

The amount of development required at both the back and front ends for the social feature, balanced at that, is totally unjustified for a project already strapped for cash.

And on top of that, from the brief descriptions thus far, it sounds tacked on - insubstantial.

So ...

... If it is a substantial feature, the single player vision of the game suffers.

... If it is not a substantial feature, the substantial (though lesser) amount of development time devoted to getting the system off the ground is unjustified.

Catch 22. Right?

[Nazman]

Why multiplayer??? Please leave any multiplayer aspect out of the game and instead use the funds to increase the size and depth of the singleplayer world.

[Brother None]

A poll on this would probably be a good idea Brother.

Probably later, when InXile has a good idea of the general feedback to this idea.

[The_A_Drain]

Don't want the social stuff. But you know what? Even though I gave as much as I could afford I don't feel like it's my product, I want you guys to make the product you wanted to make and if there's a feature I don't like (such as this one) I can rest easy knowing you made it optional unlike a lot of modern online features.

Congrats on blood sausage'ing 1.5 million guys.

[MapMan]

I'm not to keen on any social aspects of the game. A simple example:
When you think social, you think facebook. None of my facebook friends will ever play wasteland 2 so if inxile would go for this kind of social thing, it would be useless for me. But hey, maybe everyone all over the world might leave notes for you! Yeah, well, if that would be the case, I can already see a dozen of ways how this can be abused.

My opinion? Skip the social aspects.

EDIT: My point is, while this surely wouldn't be an intrusive feature, I just can see the money put into it better spent.

[mindx2]

Here's my mind.

We want game companies to innovate.

Wrong! I want an old school single player Wasteland 2 NOT Wasteland: The facebook game! This online social thing you can leave to EA/ Bioware.

[Wanderer]

Not too sure about if the "social" aspect is really worth it. Fargo seems to have his priorities enough in the right place to not have this sort of thing interfere with the developement of the core experience, but I'd still rather they left it out and focused on something that would be of more value to everyone playing the game.

Agreed. It seems that most fans would simply prefer to get more content for their money, and that old-school gamers don't care much about social / multiplayer features, especially in their RPG.
There should definitely be a poll on this.