Kickstarter Drive Update #6

[DreadWolf7]

I agree with you Emissary. I really didn't have an opinion one way or the other on the four letter word with extra letters nor do I on modding. I just want a big world to get lost in and spending time on modding tools would be as much or more of a sink for dollars than the four letter word. But I didn't get fired up. People came to the project because of Brian's name, reputation and love of the original. Let him make the game he did well enough without all of us last time. Lets stop the covering our ears and stomping our feet like two years olds. We cannot get everything we want but I am sure we will get a good game. Lets come back together as backers of a great initiative and push for $2M. I would love to hit that $2 Mil mark ....

I Agree on that. I may want things you and others don't as well as the other way around but we are all here for the same thing.

[Brother None]

A blog update from Brian Fargo

[Signal]

A blog update from Brian Fargo

Here's what I took away from that:

"Whoops! My bad. I should have kept discussing the core elements rather than start tossing fringe ideas out there. I want to cater this game to the backers and nobody else."

Sounds like the social/multiplayer idea is dead in the water as of here and now.

[krellen]

Here's what I took away from that:

"Whoops! My bad. I should have kept discussing the core elements rather than start tossing fringe ideas out there. I want to cater this game to the backers and nobody else."

I heard "I should have made concrete and transparent what the core elements were BEFORE discussing fringe elements outside that core, so that we'd all be playing from the same rule book when we get to discussing these new ideas."

[mindx2]

This was the best part to me:

At two million in funding we will be doing the top things everyone wants anyway: a larger world and more content, more character dialog, more graphics across the board, and more audio.

That is what should have been said from the start and it seems he understands that now !

I do disagree with him about this part:

I would be curious to see my friend’s stats when playing: how many kills he had, ammo used, his level and other various non-spoiling information.

This would just jarringly pull me right out of the game world and I want to get lost in it!!

[EcoGuy]

All I can say is mind to that is don't look. If it's in anyway a reference to his early brainstorming it would be optional. It's kind of like the cheats and game walkthroughs I never understood anyway. Why buy or play a game if your going ot cheat to do so or use a book to walk you through. Just ignore it and get lost and enjoy.

Its been a long time since I got so lost in a game that I lost track of time and didn't realize what time it was till I saw the sun coming up ... I hope this will be the one to bring that back ...

[mindx2]

Its been a long time since I got so lost in a game that I lost track of time and didn't realize what time it was till I saw the sun coming up ... I hope this will be the one to bring that back ...

Would be nice wouldn't it . However, not sure my wife, or for that matter my boss, would be as forgiving of this type of youthful behavior from the past

[EcoGuy]

Its been a long time since I got so lost in a game that I lost track of time and didn't realize what time it was till I saw the sun coming up ... I hope this will be the one to bring that back ...

Would be nice wouldn't it . However, not sure my wife, or for that matter my boss, would be as forgiving of this type of youthful behavior from the past

I hear you there have to start saving up vacation days when the delivery date comes around. I hope they do it on a holiday weekend ... LOL

[Merin]

I said it in the comments on Update #6 on Kickstarter, and I'll repeat it again here -


Please no social aspect. I don't personally find multiplayer ever adds to my fun with cRPG's... and even "no balance altering" message and item sending is turning me way off. With one update I've gone from unbelievably euphoric to suddenly cautious. PLEASE if social stuff is added, make a toggle or some such so we can completely remove it from being noticeable for those of us "Luddites" who don't use Twitter, Facebook and who still get together, OFFLINE, with friends to socialize and play multiplayer games (table top.)

The update doesn't mention Facebook or Twitter (or any other social tools), no, but most often interactivity with such tools are what developers mean. And even if inXile means using the Wasteland 2 forums or some in-game method of connecting with friends, I DON'T WANT IT.

Again - I don't play cRPG's to interact with other players. I listed the common ways games do this - Facebook and Twitter integration, social games on social networks or forums ... I hold that multiplayer really doesn't mean what it used to, and now any game where you interact with other players in ways beyond maybe just leaderboards and forums should be considered multiplayer (Mafia Wars, Dragon Age Legends, Farmville, etc... you play largely by interacting with others... MMO's, deathmatches for shooters, Dark Souls, Mass Effect 3... if interacting with other players will change the single player experience, then it's multiplayer as far as I mean)

So, yes, I read the vague "social" mention and the update to the update - and I'm still meaning what I initially said. If there MUST be some ability to interact with other players, I IMPLORE INXILE to make it able to be completely shut off so I never have to see "Joe is now playing Wasteland 2" nor "Naomi sent you a sub-machine gun!" nor "Brian has sent you a friend request." I'm not on Facebook for a reason. If there's anything I despise about Steam and XBOX Live, it is this default crap.

Give me a toggle to turn that off completely, make me invisible to others who ACTUALLY ENJOY that stuff, and then I'll be tolerant of it existing in the game. I don't want it, I vote it's not included period, but I can tolerate it if I NEVER HAVE TO SEE IT.

cRPG's, for me, are solo gaming experiences. Period.

[northrop]

A blog update from Brian Fargo

Good for Brian. Kinda sucks that the handful of outraged zealots are dictating the rules, as if they fucking own everything, but I guess that’s the name of the game. Whereas the 99.9% of backers have faith in Brian making a good game, this right here is evidence that the .1% will try to nuke anything that falls outside of what they consider is best for the game.

This is going to be one hell of a ride for people at inXile, and I don’t envy any one of them.

[flang]

After reading his latest blog post, I just feel like I need to emphasize again that I and probably most others who have protested here were not mistaken in what he meant by "social" features. We know he's talking about connectivity in the manner of Demon's Souls and not "casual" as in Facebook or Twitter. From what he wrote though, it sounds like he believes this was all just a misunderstanding. It isn't.

My fear is that if the game is developed for the purpose of being an online single-player game as he seems to want to do, then he will be creating an inferior experience for those those who play offline, as well as an inferior experience for everybody in 10 or 20 years when the servers are completely abandoned and the game can no longer be experienced "as it was intended."

I just hope that this is not the last post he will make on the subject, and that he will further clarify just how he intends the online portions of the game will work before the Kickstarter deadline is up. I'm grateful for the update, but all of the concerns I had before are still there and I'm not sure he understands what those concerns are.

If I could boil it down to one question that I hope he answers at some point, it would be this:

"Will Wasteland 2 be a game that is designed primarily to be played online, or offline?"

If he could answer that question, it would give me enough of the information I would like to know even if the subject never came up again.

[Elwood36]

After reading his latest blog post, I just feel like I need to emphasize again that I and probably most others who have protested here were not mistaken in what he meant by "social" features. We know he's talking about connectivity in the manner of Demon's Souls and not "casual" as in Facebook or Twitter. From what he wrote it seems like he believes this was all just a misunderstanding. It isn't.

My fear is that if the game is developed for the purpose of being an online single-player game as he seems to want to do, then he will be creating an inferior experience for those those who play offline, as well as an inferior experience for everybody in 10 or 20 years when the servers are completely abandoned and the game can no longer be experienced "as it was intended."

I just hope that this is not the last post he will make on the subject and that he will further clarify just how he expects the online portions of the game will work before the Kickstarter deadline is up. I'm grateful for the update but all of the concerns I had before are still there and I'm not sure he understands what those concerns are.

If I could boil it down to one question that I hope he answers at some point, it would be this:

"Will Wasteland 2 be a game that is designed primarily to be played online, or offline?"

If he could answer that question, it would give me enough of the information I would like to know even if the subject never came up again.

don't think of it as if i don't use this feature i won't get the most out of my game, If you don't use the feature then guess what you are playing the game you wanted anyway without any outside source interference. Think of using the feature as a bonus to the game something that adds to it without detracting from it. Here is a bad example: You play fallout 1 normally then somehow the game gets patched to include this note dropping feature, now when you get to the glow there is a note outside that warns of radiation. how is this feature going to create an inferior experience if you don't use it? basically you could play it how most people complaining here would want it or you could get a little bonus to your gameplay by using this feature.

[flang]

don't think of it as if i don't use this feature i won't get the most out of my game, If you don't use the feature then guess what you are playing the game you wanted anyway without any outside source interference. Think of using the feature as a bonus to the game something that adds to it without detracting from it. Here is a bad example: You play fallout 1 normally then somehow the game gets patched to include this note dropping feature, now when you get to the glow there is a note outside that warns of radiation. how is this feature going to create an inferior experience if you don't use it? basically you could play it how most people complaining here would want it or you could get a little bonus to your gameplay by using this feature.

I hope that's all it ends up being in Wasteland 2 - just a bonus feature as you described, but for what has been said about it so far it seems to be more likely designed as an somewhat integral part of the game.

Hopefully it will get cleared up before long.

[Greenpee]

I do like sharing my experience with my friends when I play a game—be it conversation or leaderboards. I would be curious to see my friend’s stats when playing: how many kills he had, ammo used, his level and other various non-spoiling information.

When the right time comes, why not invest into this forum? If not cash, then enthusiasm and skill. I know these are just examples, but everything mentioned can be achieved here. You can have conversations, I'm not sure what to think about leaderboards, and as for stat exchange, say someone was into sharing, they could potentially export their party stats into a certain file and then they could upload that file here (incorporate it into their profile).

Kinda sucks that the handful of outraged zealots are dictating the rules, as if they fucking own everything, but I guess that’s the name of the game. Whereas the 99.9% of backers have faith in Brian making a good game, this right here is evidence that the .1% will try to nuke anything that falls outside of what they consider is best for the game.

Faith will only get you so far. Sometimes you need an Uzi.

[God is Dog backwards]

If it's just stats, that can be done in a game launcher or on a webpage, can't it?

What really concerned me was balance-altering messages from players being left in the world; balance-altering trade facilities between players, a world that's been designed to be populated by other players (or their corpses), taking up the 'game space' where otherwise we would have had more NPCs or special encounters, etc. For example: I much prefer the devs taking time to create the body of a ranger with a diary (ok, it's a cliche, but still) that talks about the gang of mutants hunting out of the caves up ahead, RATHER THAN designing the game so that sort of information is provided by the community in the form of totally inexplicable notes written by other players appearing from the ether.

So I know what Brian is talking about when he mentions the Souls games. I'm a fan of them. And I still don't think Wasteland 2 needs that sort of funtionality.

EDIT: So now that Brian Fargo has posted his update on the issue, can we create a poll and vote on it... ?

[The_A_Drain]

I'll be interested to see how this pans out, I've got very little to add to the pot I haven't said already except to say that there's one thing I find a bit bewildering. "Nobody asked for this" implies two things, A) An optional component effects your enjoyment of the game and B) Brian Fargo, the guy who's freakin' name will be on the box, didn't ask for it. Neither of which are true.

I'm not gonna use the feature if it makes the game, but I do think people need to step back a little and not maintain such a narrow perspective. I've not personally seen zealotry like this outside of several fundamentalist religious groups. Phrases like "noone asked for this", when it's clear that even if that number is one, somebody did. And "it doesn't BELONG" when you wouldn't know because you aren't willing to give it a chance. These phrases I find pretty unnerving in respect to the future prospects of this community. I sincerely hope that the devteam will decide on what they feel is best for everybody and not just the view of a small handful, not just on this issue, but on future issues as well.

I eagerly await more news and details

[The_A_Drain]

Faith will only get you so far. Sometimes you need an Uzi.

I know you said it in jest, but still. Quotes like this... They kinda put me off.

Faith is perhaps the wrong word, in the same way 'social' was the wrong word for a tiny ancillary feature that sounds nothing like the doomsday scenario forum goers would like people to believe.

There is viable, peer-reviewed evidence supporting the assertion that Brian Fargo + Team can make a great game. You don't need 'faith' to assert that idea. We're not talking about lying down and waiting until we get whatever is pooted out the other end, but equally we shouldn't be looking at a design-by-committee product, especially when that committee is composed of a large number of Uzi wielding people who think they are the 0.1%.

There has to be a decent balance and while others disagree, which is good because it gets this discussions rolling in-spite of the bad side of it, I do not think such a small feature as this crosses any sort of imaginary line in the sand people seem to have drawn. The game will still be as pitched, additional features that we have asked for have already been included in the budget, and now the team is beginning to think about that else they can add to make the product even better, and an even more robust experience.

To me this is nothing more than a poker mini-game, or a darts mini-game. It's entirely optional, cost very little to get a junior programmer to put together, and doesn't even begin to effect me or the game I want in any way whatsoever. If I don't want to use it, I will never even notice it because you can turn it off.

[Slargos]

And let me guess, A_brain: You're that balance.

[The_A_Drain]

And let me guess, A_brain: You're that balance.

No, not at all. But at the same time constantly taking any argument to it's logical extreme is not an easy habit to get out of with some people, so it's no surprise the mere mention of the word 'social' led to several peoples brains imploding.

[Ichkannnichtmehr]

.... I do not think such a small feature as this crosses any sort of imaginary line in the sand people seem to have drawn....

But for some people this is the imaginary line in the sand.

Everybody has something they feel should not be included in this game, and they voice their opinion about it.