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Wasteland 2 Kickstarter project by inXile entertainment [Ended, $3 Million Funded]

As someone backing their project to get funded via Kickstarter, I just don't like to see them selling the game directly on their own website before the funding process is even over. It's as simple as that.
Ok, ignoring that then, what is your issue with them wanting to get the most money possible? What is so concerning about this to you?

And does anybody really believe they would 'steal' from the people donating from Paypal? All it would take is one person on twitter not getting a reward because they donated that way for career ending shitstorm to happen to Fargo. It's not even a matter of benefit of the doubt, which I would give him, at that point. Bottom line he is still accountable to the public.
 

duckroll

Member
Ok, ignoring that then, what is your issue with them wanting to get the most money possible? What is so concerning about this to you?

And does anybody really believe they would 'steal' from the people donating from Paypal? All it would take is one person on twitter not getting a reward because they donated that way for career ending shitstorm to happen to Fargo. It's not even a matter of benefit of the doubt, which I would give him, at that point. Bottom line he is still accountable to the public.

I never said anything about stealing though. I just feel it looks opportunistic that they're basically using their Kickstarter success to piggyback a Paypal direct funding drive which they admit would not be possible if it was not already 100% funded (in theory) via Kickstarter. Ultimately, it doesn't mean much as long as Kickstarter is okay with it, and the game comes out eventually. I just don't like the timing.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
I never said anything about stealing though. I just feel it looks opportunistic that they're basically using their Kickstarter success to piggyback a Paypal direct funding drive which they admit would not be possible if it was not already 100% funded (in theory) via Kickstarter. Ultimately, it doesn't mean much as long as Kickstarter is okay with it, and the game comes out eventually. I just don't like the timing.

you seem to fail to understand that this wasn't created to use their Kickstarter succes but just out of necessity. If everybody in the world could use Kickstarter to pay them they wouldn't start PayPal site.
 
I never said anything about stealing though. I just feel it looks opportunistic that they're basically using their Kickstarter success to piggyback a Paypal direct funding drive which they admit would not be possible if it was not already 100% funded (in theory) via Kickstarter. Ultimately, it doesn't mean much as long as Kickstarter is okay with it, and the game comes out eventually. I just don't like the timing.

Except you're projecting this 'opportunistic' nature onto the whole Paypal thing when they've already said it was in response to emails requesting the option. Their word against your assumption, I'll stick with Fargo for now.

The theft comment was in response to another comment on that.
 

duckroll

Member
you seem to fail to understand that this wasn't created to use their Kickstarter succes but just out of necessity. If everybody in the world could use Kickstarter to pay them they wouldn't start PayPal site.

Necessity implies something is required. Double Fine certainly didn't require it, so I don't think it's out of necessity. Anyway, I don't really care to continue arguing about it, since I really don't care THAT much other that I don't feel positive about it.

I'll rather he show us some shit about the game rather than spending time with stuff like this, but whatever. Contributions are really slowing down now. Less than 75k in the last 48 hours.
 

Zeliard

Member
Paypal necessitates that the money be taken out immediately after a payment is made. That's why it doesn't work in conjunction with Kickstarter, which doesn't take money out until the pledge is over and it hit its target. Maybe they'll eventually work something out there.

People who don't have or can't use credit cards aren't able to do anything but go through something like Paypal, since Kickstarter requires use of a credit card through Amazon payments.

Pledges have definitely slowed down massively. I do agree Fargo should show something more concrete. While the funding has already been a success and it's likely to see a boost in the final 24 hours, they should attempt to maximize the money they're getting, and the best way would be to get the hype back up by showing us what they've worked on the past year or so.
 
Necessity implies something is required. Double Fine certainly didn't require it, so I don't think it's out of necessity. Anyway, I don't really care to continue arguing about it, since I really don't care THAT much other that I don't feel positive about it.

I'll rather he show us some shit about the game rather than spending time with stuff like this, but whatever. Contributions are really slowing down now. Less than 75k in the last 48 hours.

I imagine they got comments by people who wanted to donate, but didn't have access to a credit card. It only make sense to find a way to accommodate them.
 
I do wonder if the they're a bit hesitant to share too many details outside of the core design and concept art before the KS pledge period is over for fear that it may cause some to drop pledges or slow down new ones even further. Regardless, they're going to have to share some of it with us before the end if they want to do more than crawl past $1.5M. Start scanning in those notes, Fargo. As for the addition of PayPal, I don't see a problem since KS doesn't accommodate it and many refuse to or cannot use cards directly online.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
I still think they will get about 2 million $.

what concerns me though:

Brian Fargo said:
The key to getting the job done right is in very tight development plan. We believe in a very thorough pre-production. We will spend six months, just in the design and planning phase before any code gets written. A very small team of writers, designers, and concept artists will work out all of the details. At the end of that period we will be able to sit the entire team down and play the entire game from beginning to end on paper. Every NPC, every quest, every item, every enemy will be planned out before the full team is on the payroll. This allows us to make the game very efficiently. Plus we don’t are not putting in the very expensive and time consuming cut scenes which is a big plus and allows for greater gameplay options.

and what if something doesn't work when it's in-game and not on paper? Or may be I don't understand something and they actually make pen and paper RPG first and then just transfer it into digital?
 
Paypal necessitates that the money be taken out immediately after a payment is made. That's why it doesn't work in conjunction with Kickstarter, which doesn't take money out until the pledge is over and it hit its target. Maybe they'll eventually work something out there.
I don't really see what difference 26 days really makes though. Whether it's now or on April 17th, the game is getting funded because it has passed it's goal. I agree it wouldn't work if they hadn't met that goal, but they have so it's merely a matter of time at this point. The concern over this issue specifically seems to be a matter of semantics if anything else.
 

Sentenza

Gold Member
My only problem with their Paypal page is that they shouldn't use the Kickstarter logo on it.
Beside that, I can't see how the idea of them wanting as much money as they can to fund the game could be outrageous to anyone.

EDIT: on a second thought, I just noticed how the Kickstarter's logo is on that page to encourage people to use it as primary option, so I'm fine with it, after all.
 
what concerns me though:



and what if something doesn't work when it's in-game and not on paper? Or may be I don't understand something and they actually make pen and paper RPG first and they just transfer it into digital?

I wouldn't worry, man. WL2 has a group of RPG designers that, combined, have more than a century or so of professional computer and video game development, production, and design under their belts. Then there's the fact that most of the crew are also all notable PnP RPG writers and designers. I'm guessing, but I think Pavlish is the main engineer again. Danforth, Anderson (his prior work with inXile a few years ago, anyway), Fargo, Stackpole are writers and designers, I believe. Then they've got more people at inXile and, perhaps, outside as contractors...maybe some Obsidian folk. I agree with the concept of pre-producing everything, it's just like film and television. They're going to need to outline as much as possible before executing if they're going to stay inside that tiny budget and wrap up in time for a late Autumn '13 release.
 

SparkTR

Member
This is now the second most successful project in Kickstarter history!

The pledge slump isn't unexpected, Double Fine made something like $1.5 million on its last week and had a similar steady growth of 50k a day during the down-time.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
I still think they will get about 2 million $.

what concerns me though:



and what if something doesn't work when it's in-game and not on paper? Or may be I don't understand something and they actually make pen and paper RPG first and they just transfer it into digital?
The way I see that quote, from my tiny game development background, is that they want to avoid overspending by focusing on doing the full design work before they start hiring asset builders. They already hired a concept artist, so it doesn't mean that they won't work on the game's visuals, though, it just means they're gonna design the shit out of it first.

Makes sense, and it's how most of what I did usually went. If you're dealing with limited resource you don't want your artists procrastinating because they don't have anything to do.

Don't worry about it, once the design's settled, I'm sure the game's open to changes mid-development since I guess this is probably gonna be a 10-20 people project.
 

fanboi

Banned
I still think they will get about 2 million $.

what concerns me though:



and what if something doesn't work when it's in-game and not on paper? Or may be I don't understand something and they actually make pen and paper RPG first and then just transfer it into digital?

AGILE development process maybe? I wouldn't think so much about it.
 

duckroll

Member
I still think they will get about 2 million $.

what concerns me though:



and what if something doesn't work when it's in-game and not on paper? Or may be I don't understand something and they actually make pen and paper RPG first and then just transfer it into digital?

Based on other comments Fargo has made about how he wants to manage this project, it seems like he's referring more to the scope than to the certainty of content making the final cut. In other words, before they start making assets and actually going into full production for the game, they want to have a very tight outline of the complete scope of the game, how many characters and areas there are, the size of the roles and areas, etc.

This means that they won't be wasting production costs on making content which might be useless. If something ends up being a shitty idea, I'm sure they won't hesitate to cut it out, but that would be trimming down on poor content, rather than wasting development time without a concise goal.

That's the impression I have anyway.
 
I'm also not 100% happy with the paypal pledging and how its presented. seems to be "we're going to get money out of you one way or another. kickstarter can't be happy about this; on the back of their platform; he's gotten pledges + support, and of course Kickstarters support with "project of the day" which helped to bump up the profile of the WL2 KS project.

This thing seems like an aside and he's plastering the INXILE dev website with a "money here" + KS logo on that page too.

YIKES!
 
I'm also not 100% happy with the paypal pledging and how its presented. seems to be "we're going to get money out of you one way or another. kickstarter can't be happy about this; on the back of their platform; he's gotten pledges + support, and of course Kickstarters support with "project of the day" which helped to bump up the profile of the WL2 KS project.

This thing seems like an aside and he's plastering the INXILE dev website with a "money here" + KS logo on that page too.

YIKES!

Eh, the KS logo is a link to the KS project homepage. You guys are so suspicious, and that's a good thing, but it's a little bit much.
 
and what if something doesn't work when it's in-game and not on paper? Or may be I don't understand something and they actually make pen and paper RPG first and then just transfer it into digital?

Yeah, this was.... weird.

You can't plan anything creative out from day one and have it simply stay stagnant, especially if you involve other people.
 
I think that the complaints about the paypal funding are pretty ridiculous.

It´s only there becasue of requests.
It´s only possible because of them meeting their funding goal early, by a large margin.
They are still promoting the kickstart alternative as the best way to fund the game.
They are very clear about the differences in how the money is handled.
The money is still being used to fund the game in the same way.
 
This sounds interesting, but there is a reason I put money behind The Banner Saga and not this and other kickstarter games. With the Banner Saga I have already seen art, Alpha gameplay (though brief), cutscenes, behind the scenes work, promise of a multiplayer beta soon, and release date later this year.

I'm sorry but I can't put money behind a game with nothing to show for it. Why not create some mock ups or ar at least have some concept art. It sounds like Wasteland 2 doesn't even have a story much less any actual game assets created. Just for me there is too much uncertainty, and wish more kickstarter campaigns would show more of their vision than talk about it.
 

mclem

Member
Success! Managed to secure a copy of Ultimate RPG Archives for a not-insane price, so I'm good to go to catch up on the original.

Regarding the whole paypal thing: I don't really see how they could have handled it *better*. Lack of support for people who can't use Amazon Payments *is* a flaw of Kickstarter; it seems reasonable to provide an alternative option for such people.

All that said: Wasn't one of the (late) DFA videos on the subject of creating a virtual CC for the purpose of backing a Kickstarter? Could have just pointed people at that.

Fake edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbXygxSObUQ&feature=player_embedded
 
Congrats on scoring a copy, mclem. Hope you can acclimate to the ancient controls and interface quickly enough to enjoy the experience from the beginning. Plus you'll have loads of great CRPGs to play now.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
Yeah, this was.... weird.

You can't plan anything creative out from day one and have it simply stay stagnant, especially if you involve other people.
I think you guys are reading too much into that one line. He's basically just saying they're still on a pre-production stage and that we're probably not gonna see anything playable for a while, which is to be expected.
 

mclem

Member
Congrats on scoring a copy, mclem. Hope you can acclimate to the ancient controls and interface quickly enough to enjoy the experience from the beginning. Plus you'll have loads of great CRPGs to play now.

To be fair, I had a lot of the titles on the compilation already; Wasteland just happened to be one that passed me by. Still, given the price it seems that the pack can go for, I'm very satisfied that I got a good deal. Oh, and the titles I don't already own from the pack also includes the Bard's Tale ones, so win-win!

(And ancient controls? I've coped with early Ultima, I'd hope I'd be okay)
 

Ithil

Member
This sounds interesting, but there is a reason I put money behind The Banner Saga and not this and other kickstarter games. With the Banner Saga I have already seen art, Alpha gameplay (though brief), cutscenes, behind the scenes work, promise of a multiplayer beta soon, and release date later this year.

I'm sorry but I can't put money behind a game with nothing to show for it. Why not create some mock ups or ar at least have some concept art. It sounds like Wasteland 2 doesn't even have a story much less any actual game assets created. Just for me there is too much uncertainty, and wish more kickstarter campaigns would show more of their vision than talk about it.

He's already said the story is written and much of the game design is planned already and has been for some time.
 

DiscoJer

Member
Yeah, this was.... weird.

You can't plan anything creative out from day one and have it simply stay stagnant, especially if you involve other people.

Bear in mind, Interplay had their own version of Duke Nuke'em Forever, a CRPG called Stonekeep. It took like 5 years to make and the end result was less than impressive.

So I think he's very, very afraid of feature creep given his limited budget. The game pretty much has to be done when the money runs out.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
RPG Codex

One of the many hot topics on the forum right now is that of quest compasses. Many games that adopt this practice neglect alternative methods of informing the player where to go. If you were to include navigational aids as an option, would you ensure that adequate directions are provided by other means to make it feasible to play without them?

BF: I guess my take on this is that we should design the game 100% in a way that no compass would be needed. It seems cheap to rely on a compass because we forgot to give enough clues. Now MAYBE at the end we throw out the concept of allowing it as an option for players who are a little lazy...MAYBE. This is the kind of broad stroke idea that I would want to throw out to the players I care most about to solicit feedback from.

Another talking point seems to be about the ability to play through Wasteland 2 with just a single player created character. What do you feel about this issue? What development problems can you see arising from trying to support different core party sizes?

BF: Wasteland 1 required a party to survive, and I'm certain Wasteland 2 will be the same. Now perhaps some player may figure a clever way to make it through all alone from a combat perspective, but having the right skills is part of the dynamic. But that said, perhaps a solo character with all NPCs might be able to do it. This is a bit too detailed for me to have total visibility on.

Wasteland enforced a distinction between the core group of player created characters and the companions that could tag along. The companions would largely control themselves and helped to integrate the player's party with the game's setting and quests. Is the autonomy and personality of these companions something you would like to expand upon in Wasteland 2? In what ways?

BF: I absolutely want to expand on the NPCs' self directed nature. I do want control to tell them to move, fire, evade, etc., and probably most the time they will obey. Some NPCs will waste ammo like in the first game, but I want to take it further. Some will steal from you, which will be funny to notice your canteen is missing. Maybe he will return it and maybe he won't. And you may have another powerful NPC in the group, but he just hates bikers. Walk into a biker bar and he starts attacking without regard for consequences. Those are fun moments for me.
 
Wow, I like this initiative.



Gee, I wonder what publisher it was.


It either had to be Bethesda for Hunted: The Demon's Forge or Codemasters for Hei$t. I tend to think it was Bethesda. I heard from someone who worked for Bethesda that after Fallout New Vegas, the plan was to have Inxile to work on the next Fallout spinoff but the struggles they had with Hunted made that impossible.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
This sounds interesting, but there is a reason I put money behind The Banner Saga and not this and other kickstarter games. With the Banner Saga I have already seen art, Alpha gameplay (though brief), cutscenes, behind the scenes work, promise of a multiplayer beta soon, and release date later this year.

I'm sorry but I can't put money behind a game with nothing to show for it. Why not create some mock ups or ar at least have some concept art. It sounds like Wasteland 2 doesn't even have a story much less any actual game assets created. Just for me there is too much uncertainty, and wish more kickstarter campaigns would show more of their vision than talk about it.

I think the talent and people behind the project determine how much can be left unseen to a large extent. Relatively obscure projects with smaller names need to deliver more upfront than ones like the DFA or this, which are building off existing works / credible people.

In some ways, leaving people free to imagine what they feel is possible is better for getting the project backed than showing them something they may not be interested in or prefer.

Edit: For example, if they released a mock-up of the game's combat, and it looked very similar to Wasteland 1, many people would like that, but there may be people who do not, and possibly remove funding.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
I really liked this bit:
Fallout is often cited as the spiritual successor to Wasteland, even though there are some fundamental differences between the two games. A lot of people want to see features closer to those in Fallout. Do you feel that it is important to preserve the differences between the two franchises? Even though it's understandable that many younger gamers missed out on Wasteland, can you assure us that Wasteland 2 will feel more like a Wasteland sequel than an alternative Fallout 2 successor?

BF: There will be zero need to have played Wasteland 1 in order to slide into the sequel. We will obviously take elements of both games into account on the sequel. There are so many similarities in the two worlds that it is difficult for me to say what is spiritual to what. But again I will share more specifics via our vision document soon.
Making the design documents public would be a real treat.
 

duckroll

Member
"BF: I absolutely want to expand on the NPCs' self directed nature. I do want control to tell them to move, fire, evade, etc., and probably most the time they will obey. Some NPCs will waste ammo like in the first game, but I want to take it further. Some will steal from you, which will be funny to notice your canteen is missing. Maybe he will return it and maybe he won't. And you may have another powerful NPC in the group, but he just hates bikers. Walk into a biker bar and he starts attacking without regard for consequences. Those are fun moments for me."

OMG! YES! YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!! OMG YES! That's what I like to hear Mr Fargo! :D
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
It either had to be Bethesda for Hunted: The Demon's Forge or Codemasters for Hei$t. I tend to think it was Bethesda. I heard from someone who worked for Bethesda that after Fallout New Vegas, the plan was to have Inxile to work on the next Fallout spinoff but the struggles they had with Hunted made that impossible.

it seems that Bethesda struggles a lot with devs and it shows in products they publish.

1)Brink - I wonder what went SO wrong there
2)New Vegas - yeah, Bethesda's games are buggy but NV was really a mess in the first few days
3)Hunted - a solid but shallow game

I really like the kind of games Bethesda wants to produce and publish but it seems that devs aren't so happy with them. The guy from Human Head complained that they told him not to make a presentation at GDC, Fargo complaints about wrestling with them and how it has affected game's quality and well, I can't remember any recent Bethesda's published game without some sort of serious issues.

But may be I'm wrong and it's much worse with other publishers. Or may be inXile aren't able to produce a big-budget game.
 
"BF: I absolutely want to expand on the NPCs' self directed nature. I do want control to tell them to move, fire, evade, etc., and probably most the time they will obey. Some NPCs will waste ammo like in the first game, but I want to take it further. Some will steal from you, which will be funny to notice your canteen is missing. Maybe he will return it and maybe he won't. And you may have another powerful NPC in the group, but he just hates bikers. Walk into a biker bar and he starts attacking without regard for consequences. Those are fun moments for me."

OMG! YES! YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!! OMG YES! That's what I like to hear Mr Fargo! :D
Yeah, that's a nice update to the original, but I also would like to see NPCs that have histories that follow them. So, they made enemies or they made friends and those friends have enemies that might stalk your party as a counter to the NPCs skillset and levels. As well, NPCs in the party or simply being seen as a Ranger may prevent access to people with info or even some or all access to locations and their constituent missions and NPCs. Also, it'd be neat to explore meaty intraparty interactions between NPCs that might result in intraparty combat or an ultimatum made by an NPC that another leaves the party or they do. Of course, you could telegraph personality conflict with dialog and event descriptions as well as user-invoked skill checks before recruiting possible enemies or just bad bets for your current party roster.
 

Xater

Member
iBLPh.png
 

horsebird

Banned
I'm guessing the proceeds from the PayPal drive don't show up on Kickstarter? Otherwise, I don't have a problem with this. I get that there's an audience who would like to donate through PayPal, I'd just like those totals to be reflected on the Kickstarter tally.
 

Radogol

Member
I wonder if he still plans to drop $100k if it stops at $1.5M, in order to sate the fees.

OPTION A: He doesn't and adds his own 100K to the budget.

OPTION B: He does and adds his own 100K to the budget, minus Amazon's and Kickstarter's cut.

Since the goal has already been reached, there's absolutely no upside to using his own money.
 
It's limping along, but it's already at $1,497,037... just three thousand more dollars to go before they hit their ultimate goal!!! At this rate it will hit it before Friday (if you live in the western American continents, that is).

I wonder if he still plans to drop $100k if it stops at $1.5M, in order to sate the fees.

I think it would be best if he used that $100k for the initial planning stages to get things rolling. But there are still 25 days left... so I suspect that it will end up being somewhere between 1.6-1.8 million by the end...
 

Zeliard

Member
inXile has some cash on-hand from iOS development and other projects. They may throw some of that in to aid development, based on what they need and what they expect to make off the game.
 
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