Wasteland 2 Forum Developer Q&A #1

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on December 18th, 2012

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Ah, yes... now this is a fascinating topic of great depth with no simple answer! Let's have at it! I'm the team leader for the scripters. It is our job to translate the design documents and volumes of written dialog into the physical form of the game. So, let me give you my impression on the task we face. First off, there is a difference between size and depth that we should highlight. You can have a large game in size, relative to number of locations, but have a shallow game play experience. Conversely, you can have a small game with few locations, but each location be filled with great depth and dimension. The combination of these two things create the overall "size" and it's the balance of these two that game designers strive to achieve when building their world. I believe Wasteland 2 is far deeper than most RPGs. Of actual playable zones, we are looking at around 15 major locations. The size of each location varies, and the activities you will mostly engage in vary as well (conversation/quests, exploration, combat, etc). However, the volume of conversation and location description is on a scale that is... to be honest... absolutely, insanely awesome. We had nearly a dozen writers build out an incredibly large world with numerous cause and effects that don't just change the attitudes of the people in the area, but we have whole maps adjust based on your choices. Specifically, it is FAR larger than the original Wasteland. However, keep in mind that when you consider the size of other classic RPGs, you should also be aware of the scope of their development budgets. For example, Baldur's Gate was developed over a four year period with a budget that was around $25 million. Now, to be fair, there were many influences to this budget that we don't need to deal with, like the cost of developing the Infinity engine, but with our modest $3 million fan funded project to bring Wasteland 2 to life, it would be extremely difficult to duplicate the scale of some of these beloved RPGs... the scale... not the awesomeness, though. ;) However, we can leverage conversations, descriptions and scripting in the world to flesh out a far larger environment in a smaller space. We also have a system for random encounters that will create a larger world from just the core 15 zones. So, when judging the size of the world, do keep in mind that most RPGs nowadays have budgets in line with that of small movies with teams of developers ten times our size. However, we have made very strategic choices to leverage our nimble size and lack of an oppressive publisher to create the largest world we can with the greatest depth we can deliver. We definitely have our job cut out for us! :)

Hi Mandemon,

It will not be possible to play the game all the way through without some type of combat. While we wanted to make conversation a big part of the game, it wasn't our intention to have a completely peaceful playthrough in initial design meetings. Sometimes the Rangers will have to use force to solve situations. There are many areas of the game that you can solve non-violently though, whether this is through conversation, skill usage or puzzle solving.

What is your current take on this matter ?
- A la Fallout, with the whole map layout visible from the get go, but not the NPC and items?
- Red Alert - like, with the map blackened till you reveal it, and athen fog to hide what's out of your field of vision ?
- The omniscient way, where you can see everything upon arrival in a map and doesn't account for any FOV?
- The Omniscient way, but with a restriction in the camera movement so that the FOV of the party is simulated by the camera?
- None of the above ?

Although we are still tweaking and testing different options, as of now we are leaning with the Red Alert style. Your visibility is completely obscured until you adventure through the area. Anything you've seen, but is currently outside your parties visibility, will become slightly "grayed" out and you wont be able to see NPC or enemy movement in those areas.

Hi Ffordesoon,

CNPC's play a pretty big role in the game. Some more than others. We have reactivity built in to the game based on the CNPCs you have in your party so some will trigger specific quests or impact conversations in a positive or negative way.

Ahh, the annoying CNPC... The CNPCs in the game will have their own personality. In the example below with the klepto, yes they might steal things from you along the way. They might not want to give it back to.

We are balancing this in a few ways. First is player choice. You are not required to take any of the CNPCs with you. They are optional. Many of them will have different attribute and skill layouts, which should add some strategy to who you choose to bring along the way. You're capped at 7 total slots so you will be forced to make decisions on leaving some behind. If the CNPC keeps stealing from you, it's your choice how to handle it. You can disband them and leave them to venture alone, you can kill them and take your items back or maybe you decide to deal with it because they are a complete dead eye with the sniper rifle. Also, the leadership skill ties into this. If you're a player who thinks the idea of an CNPC having their own personality sounds like it will ruin your experience, you can put more points into the Leadership skill, reducing the amount of times they will go rogue on you.

Hi AtomBomb,

Most of the dialog in Wasteland 2 is text based. There are very few actual voiced roles in the game. This was something we decided early on for a few reasons.

1. We missed the emphasis on awesome descriptive text from older games. They had to do it out of technical necessity, but as an industry, we've pushed towards more graphical means to show off the world. Wasteland 1 had tons of text that gave you great details on the environment...even more than would be feasible to show with art.

2. During the Kickstarter campaign, we asked our community what they would like to see as stretch goals. Overwhelmingly the answer came back with bigger world, more content and deeper story. VO was very low on the list

3. Part of what's allowing us to continue to create deep interactions is not having to worry about VO. Costs aside, it is a production nightmare to do proper VO work. There are so many variables that tie into it. You have to lock down the script quite a bit before release. This really limits the changes you can make at the end of the game when you're tuning all systems.

4. With a game this large, the total cost for VO work on all characters would likely exceed the entire budget we got from our Kickstarter campaign.

Hi WorstUsernameEver,

We are retaining much of this. You will be able to start the game with fewer than 4 individuals. The game will be balanced for most encounters with the player expected to have between 4-7 rangers, but if you'd like to give it a go with a single ranger, good luck!

We've discussed getting additional rangers back at HQ if/when one dies along the way and are currently thinking this will be available. Starting them at the lowest rank might not provide a good play experience and we aren't fully decided on this yet.

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