Got a question for Brian Fargo? Ask it here!

Post by **King of Creation** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:14 am

[ Person -> Interview ] - News related to <a href="http://www.duckandcover.cx/archives.php ... y=133">Top Story: Got a question for Brian Fargo?</a> | More info on <a href="http://www.falloutwiki.com/Brian Fargo">Person: Brian Fargo</a>

Do you have a question you'd like Brian Fargo to answer? Want to know more about the new Wasteland sequel? Or maybe you want to ask something about the old Interplay days!
Ask it here! Post a comment to this thread with your question, and then Brian will try his best to answer all of them.

Althalos · Post by **Althalos** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:24 am

Are you surprised with the response you received with the kick starter project? and do you think many other developers will choose this path over publishers?

Thanks

Username · Post by **Username** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:44 am

Cheers Brian, we appreciate this!

I really have alot of questions: Some that you probably already have answered, like if it will be top down or isometrict; some that might be touchy like the sincerity behind the release date.

But one that I think is neither and perhaps a unique is the following: How do you and your team plan to develope Wasteland 2 beyond its nostalgic roots?

I'm really hoping that this is something more than a great theme/story in an indie-RPG package. That it will also (despite the difficulties of doing this) feature new or simply well developed gameplay features in such a way that say Fallout introduced or say Planescape Torment.

Road Warrior · Post by **Road Warrior** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 1:19 am

Will Wasteland 2 have a large world and a huge amount of content, as for example Fallout 2? 100+ hours of gameplay?

Sorry for my English, and thanks for your reply.

Hakkunen · Post by **Hakkunen** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:04 am

You've said that fan feedback will be important to the creative direction of the game, what avenues will you have to receive this feedback? Is there going to be any way that doesn't involve braving the... "extremely forthright" forums and competing to be heard over the more prolific posters?

Alternatively, will you be creating (and enforcing) any rules on the forums in order to make it more welcoming for all backers?

These questions inspired by the wasteland 2 forum posts comparing gay people to pedophiles and necrophiliacs.

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:55 am

Brian, do you think you and your team are still capable of making a good game? The games that Inxile has made so far haven't really been of anything worth noting and it's not a new company any longer.

How large is inxile and what has the company been currently working on?

nelson · Post by **nelson** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 3:34 am

Too many to ask

SenisterDenister · Post by **SenisterDenister** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 3:59 am

Was it truly the success of Double Fine and Tim Schafer's Kickstarter campaign that spurred you to start your own or had you been considering its use beforehand?

groundwalker · Post by **groundwalker** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:04 am

Brian. Love your work, super excited about Wasteland 2.

Would you consider releasing your team's source code for Wasteland 2 (potentially after some delay, eg 1 year from release) under an open source license which disallows commercial use? Is there a level of funding on kickstarter that might lead you to be comfortable considering this (I'm not asking for a promise)?

**EDIT: Hopefully these haven't been submitted yet. I just want to make clear that I'm not asking about giving the game away for free. Rather what I'm suggesting is something along the lines of people who buy the game get a copy of the source code for modding/unofficial patching/learning. Sorry if that wasn't clear before. **

Thanks for your time.

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:52 am

Have you contacted Todd Howard about his availability as a consultant?

Tofu Man · Post by **Tofu Man** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 6:33 am

There seems to be a lot of genuine excitement surrounding at least your and Schafer's Kickstarters and I can't imagine "the industry" is all too pleased, not only with how you portrayed them (I laughed, though), but with how projects like these seem to point out how irrelevant they've become, not to mention how they won't be getting a piece of the pie if you prove successful. Having been head of a major publisher (and cheers for OK'ing some of the weirder Interplay-published games, btw), what kind of backlash can you imagine having to face from the EAs, Bethesdas and Ubisofts of the world and do you feel these projects can hold their own against it? Conversely, if you were in their place, what would your response be, seeing former subsidiaries strike deals with fans whilst ignoring your company?

Oh, and now that you're not working with the Bethstapo anymore, could you humor DaC in telling us what you really thought of Fallout 3?

Cimmerian Nights wrote:Have you contacted Todd Howard about his availability as a consultant?

Best post '12. Srs, I think I dislocated my jaw lol'ing at this. Bravo, old chap.

Brygo · Post by **Brygo** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 6:52 am

How much are you planning to make survival itself a challenge? Managing food, clean water, radiation, healing, armor breakage, and so on - both in terms of buying the stuff, and managing your carrying capacity on longer desert treks? It's probably an easy pitfall to make these things too trivial and therefore just a mindless chore, though the concept is interesting in itself.

...

How are you planning to differentiate between humans, mutants, animals, robots, cyborgs, etc. so fighting different types of enemies changes more than just a reskinning, to provide varied battles? Thoughts on having the option to have non-humans as joinable NPCs, like you had Vax in the original, or dogmeat and Marcus in Fallouts?

...

Your thoughts on having a dynamically changing world not just in response to the players actions, but also with just the passing of time with either scripted or random events? To think if implemented in the first WL, if the robots would eventually take over Vegas, and/or start attacking the settlements south of it? Or NPCs who travel from location to location as the time passes, for another example, or setting timers to quests.
Or totally random-made quests like in Mount & Blade or Pirates!, for example.

...

Are you planning to have different difficulty levels, and if yes, how to differentiate between them? Harder difficulties featuring more enemies, tougher enemies, or through other approaches like limiting where you can make reloadable saves on higher difficulties? Also thoughts on how to keep different approaches balanced between each other in different difficulties are appreciated.

TK6530 · Post by **TK6530** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:10 am

I understand this is going to be a top down, role playing game in the style of the big rpg's from the late 80's and 90's.

But regardless of specific camera angles, game mechanics and tactical views with global maps, area maps and such, is the game engine going to be 3d, 2d or a combination of both?

SenisterDenister · Post by **SenisterDenister** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 9:37 am

Gonna be a lot of one-time posters for a while, I reckon.

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 4:20 pm

I guess I don't really have a question, but would love to know more on the mechanics/stats/skills, choice & consequence, effect of decisions on the world etc.

POOPERSCOOPER wrote:Brian, do you think you and your team are still capable of making a good game? The games that Inxile has made so far haven't really been of anything worth noting and it's not a new company any longer.

How large is inxile and what has the company been currently working on?

Hakkunen wrote:You've said that fan feedback will be important to the creative direction of the game, what avenues will you have to receive this feedback? Is there going to be any way that doesn't involve braving the... "extremely forthright" forums and competing to be heard over the more prolific posters?

Alternatively, will you be creating (and enforcing) any rules on the forums in order to make it more welcoming for all backers?

I like the sentiments in both of these, on the one hand, I hear that the Inxile forums are kind of hysterical, and I'd rather let the professionals do what they do best instead of pandering to the rabble. On the other hand, as a long time Fallout fan, after getting burned so many times, it's only natural to be skeptical about a product sight unseen. I cut my cRPG teeth on Wasteland and Bard's Tale way back when. That was a long time ago. The Bard's Tale remake sounded like a great idea too...

That said, I plopped down my $50 because I support this project, but there seems to be like this Obama like hysteria where people are superimposing whatever their internal idea of "hope" or "change" is on something that we all know very little of at this point.

How will you avoid making backer references (locations, NPCs etc) too intrusive?

Good question. I liked the idea of a Codex statue when I first heard it, but now it sounds like others are pooling together for in-game locations with some of them included, seems a bit much. I'm cool with an in-joke here or there, but as above, there has to be a way to limit this so as not to shatter the Fourth Wall.

Rough idea of game-length? I'd love a game with as much content as Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate 2, for instance (though I'm not a fan of BG2). Is that a possibility?

I'd like to know if replayability is a consideration in this. Clearly a game like Fallout 1 was shorter, but tighter, and more conducive to replays with different builds. Whereas a BG or IWD is more narrative driven.

Ovocean · Post by **Ovocean** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:00 pm

Do you plan to have the boxed version distributed in stores or sold online ?

What's the approximate cost of production for the box and its contents (dvd, map, manual) ?

Mismatch · Post by **Mismatch** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 6:18 pm

Sheep or realdoll?

Post by **Retlaw83** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 9:32 pm

Aside from a desire to turn out product as cheaply and efficiently as possible, do you feel there are any other major industry factors as to why virtually every game hitting the market now is a first or third person shooter?

SenisterDenister · Post by **SenisterDenister** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 10:52 pm

Addendum to Ret's question if he'll allow it: Why are RPG's having genre defining mechanics, like skills and attributes and perhaps even turn-based gameplay itself, taken out of the equation? Is it as simple as developers continuing to dumb down or "streamline" their titles for wider audiences or is there more to it?

Post by **King of Creation** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:44 am

I think I'll leave this over the weekend, and then send Brian the questions on Monday. That cool with everyone?