By Alec Meer on August 13th, 2012 at 4:02 pm.
The wait for Wasteland 2 will be long, because the promise is great – but so’s the risk. We don’t really know what we’re getting at this stage, or indeed from any of that first wave of Kickstarted game projects, but an announcement that another veteran of the delectably dark Planescape: Torment (plus Fallout 2) has joined the swelling development team at Inxile adds yet greater hope. Chris Avellone is already on board, and now so’s one of his former comrades. Colin McComb was one of the designers on those Black Isle greats, and joins what’s now a dozen-strong writing team on Wasteland 2, reports bossman Brian Fargo. McComb’s also written a whole load of fantasy tomes that I can’t tell you anything about, but you can find out more on here.
There’s not been much news from the Wasteland pipe since the first image a couple of weeks back, but it’s worth a browse of InXile’s Wasteland inspirations Pinterest, which has all manner of post-apocalyptic imagery to hint at where their thinking’s going with this new RPG. WARNING: includes an exceptionally ugly dog.
13/08/2012 at 16:18 Drake Sigar says:
I think it’s just starting to hit some donaters that we won’t be seeing the results of Kickstarter projects for YEARS.
13/08/2012 at 16:23 hatseflats says:
I doubt it. Unlike most people assume regarding Kickstarters, most backers (i.e. people) aren’t stupid.
13/08/2012 at 16:24 caddyB says:
FTL is coming out soon.
13/08/2012 at 20:45 Mr. Mister says:
What it may have an impact on is future non-kickstarted game releases, which will have a drop in threir sales due to people playing the games they kickstarted a while ago, thus buying less games.
14/08/2012 at 03:19 uiasbvbs says:
If the game won’t be at least pretty damn good I will be thinking really hard about what did they do with all the talent on board.
http://www.systemshock.org/index.php/topic,106.0.html
13/08/2012 at 16:29 fiddlesticks says:
Endure. In enduring grow strong.
13/08/2012 at 16:43 povu says:
Updated my journal.
13/08/2012 at 17:48 Ninja Foodstuff says:
I feel stronger.
13/08/2012 at 19:01 RyuRanX says:
Well, looks like another trip to the Mortuary.
13/08/2012 at 19:06 Bhazor says:
I’ve updated my Kickstarter.
13/08/2012 at 20:53 Andy_Panthro says:
You must gather your party to venture forth.
13/08/2012 at 20:57 LionsPhil says:
AAAAAAAAAA.
13/08/2012 at 19:06 pilouuuu says:
Alright.
14/08/2012 at 13:40 Tom OBedlam says:
This is the best comment of all
13/08/2012 at 16:55 wccrawford says:
I expect most of them to miss their deadlines, simply because most games seem to miss their deadlines. There’s no reason a change in funding source should change that.
One thing I think will be interesting is the first project that needs additional funding and goes to a publisher to get it. It’s going to cause quite a stir. But I’m sure they’re rationalize it by saying that their choices were to drop the project and fail, or turn the dark side and save what they can. And who can really argue with them, when the choices are ‘half a glass or none at all’?
Wasteland 2 is the kickstartered game I’m most worried about. I put the most money into it because the original was such a fond memory from my childhood. I’m so, so worried that the sequel will be nothing like it… Or at least, nothing like the parts that *I* liked.
13/08/2012 at 17:33 TillEulenspiegel says:
If they need more money and it’s not a crazy amount, they could just open up pre-orders. Kickstarter captured only a fraction (probably around 10%) of the total number of sales they’ll make.
13/08/2012 at 18:59 InternetBatman says:
Wasteland 2 is also the kickstarter I funded that I’m the most worried about. Brian Fargo has not had a stellar record in recent years and I never got the impression that he could manage money terribly well. But, when a project like this comes along you have to support it, especially since others might be watching.
13/08/2012 at 19:15 pilouuuu says:
In fact I think less bussiness meddling due to the fact of a publisher not being involved could help the project take less time as other non-kickstarter games.
All extra time they make take to release the game will be due to extra polishing, which can only be good. If they were with a publisher then the game would get delayed, because the stupid suits would say let’s wait how X-Com performs before we release this game that’s not an FPS either, wait, Fallout 4 is going to be released now, so let’s wait another year, so we don’t face that competition, let’s wait ’til Patrick Stewart is available for him to speak on the intro. Wait! Let’s release the movie next year just to make it 3d, well that’s not about games, but you get the idea.
14/08/2012 at 03:17 The Random One says:
There IS time pressure. That money goes towards salaries. Salaries are paid for time worked. Hence, if you take your time, you run out of money. It’s like time is mo- wait, I gotta write that down.
14/08/2012 at 10:35 theleif says:
You just blew my mind, man.
13/08/2012 at 19:10 InternetBatman says:
Maybe, but who expects quick production from a huge RPG? On the other hand, the game has to come out in a decent time frame because its not like they have money to burn. If they have 51 employees (minimum on their linkedin) that make an average of $30,000 (a pittance for game devs), then they only have enough money for two years in salaries alone.
13/08/2012 at 19:16 irongamer says:
Not really. I supported FTL and Wasteland. FTL in its current form is awesome and will be releasing soon. I expect Wasteland will take longer, but there are plenty of Kickstarter projects that already have products shipped to supporters.
13/08/2012 at 20:15 abandonhope says:
Having backed a nice sampling of projects, I’m looking forward to a slow trickle, with The Dead Linger alpha supposedly coming up relatively soon.
13/08/2012 at 16:19 TheWhippetLord says:
Nice! McComb worked on a shedload of TSR’s PnP stuff, including a fair few of the superb Planescape campaign books. I approve of his influence on this project. :)
13/08/2012 at 16:24 Vinraith says:
Just don’t let the Planescape vets anywhere near the game mechanics, for god’s sake.
13/08/2012 at 17:36 MistyMike says:
Planescape guys were working with game mechanics entirely inherited from Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale. Why do you blame them? No much they could change given the engine was optimized for emulation of AD&D rules.
13/08/2012 at 18:00 ResonanceCascade says:
Yeah, but the weapons, abilities, and “spells” (or tattoos, as the case may be) were implemented far better in the Baldur’s Gate/Icewind Dale games. Unlike a lot of people, I LOVED combat in BG. But in Torment I spent a lot of time trying to avoid it.
13/08/2012 at 23:51 Vinraith says:
I blame them exactly because they were working with an engine and mechanics set inherited from those great games you mentioned, and despite that managed to so badly mangle the basic mechanics of Torment as to make the entire thing a gruesome chore to play.
14/08/2012 at 12:21 Jason Moyer says:
The Planescape devs were almost entirely the same guys who made the Icewind Dale games, which have the best party-based cRPG combat ever.
13/08/2012 at 16:41 Torn says:
That should probably read ‘and now so’s one of his former comrades’, instead of ‘and how so’s one of his former comrades’.
On a related note, I hope they’ve sorted out the scale problems out from the in-engine screenshot (ladder rungs as big as people, other things being a bit off).
13/08/2012 at 16:53 ninjapirate says:
McComb is on board? Considering his contributions to AD&D’s Planescape multiverse, this is bliss!
Now where’s Monte Cook?
13/08/2012 at 17:45 lobsterentropy says:
On top of an ivory tower somewhere.
13/08/2012 at 18:22 invisible_al says:
He’s running a kickstarter for a new game which looks kinda shiney.
13/08/2012 at 19:14 InternetBatman says:
Wish it was a PC game instead of PnP.
13/08/2012 at 22:23 ninjapirate says:
Awesome, thanks for posting the link! :o)
13/08/2012 at 16:59 GGno says:
The dog is freakin’ ugly.
13/08/2012 at 17:02 CrookedLittleVein says:
Awwwww yeah.
This is going to be sweet.
13/08/2012 at 17:06 lordfrikk says:
If the game won’t be at least pretty damn good I will be thinking really hard about what did they do with all the talent on board.
13/08/2012 at 17:33 Brise Bonbons says:
I’m excited to hear they have such a huge staff of writers. Seriously, graphics are nice and all, but at some point it’s silly when an RPG has dozens of artists for every person involved with dialog and story.
13/08/2012 at 18:20 Dariune says:
In an industry full of dissapointment, in a time when creativity and initiative is starting to bloom again but in a medium still dominated by crappy AAA houses I would say that this is the game that I have the most hope for.
Let hope my faith is not misplaced.
13/08/2012 at 19:09 JackDandy says:
This is sounding better by the minute!
13/08/2012 at 19:12 InternetBatman says:
I have to say Shadowrun has been doing better updates, but it’s the finished product that counts.
13/08/2012 at 21:41 lexoneir says:
Well we know that it’ll be well-written, I don’t think we can question that.
14/08/2012 at 11:47 Lemming says:
If there is any justice in this world, this will outsell mass effect 3