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Interplay Ex-CEO Brian Fargo Kickstarts Wasteland II
New submitter 0111 1110 writes "Attempting to emulate Double Fine's success to fund another currently dead genre of computer game, Brian Fargo of Interplay fame has started a kickstarter project for a sequel to Wasteland, his1988 post-apocalyptic RPG which inspired Fallout. It will be turn-based and party-based, with a top-down perspective and 2D graphics. Fargo has managed to attract many of the original developers, such as Alan Pavlish and Mike Stackpole, as well as Jason Anderson, who was a designer for Fallout, and Mark Morgan, who did the music for Planescape: Torment and both of the original Fallout games. Fargo's goal has been set at $900,000. Anything above that will be used for additional game content. At $1.5 million he will offer an OS X version. An interview with Fargo by Rock, Paper, Shotgun provides some additional insight into what he and his group are planning, as does a video interview with Matt Barton."
Attempting to emulate Double Fine's success to fund another currently dead genre of computer game...
Considering Double Fine were only after $400,000 and they've already passed the $3,200,000 mark, I'd say point and click adventure games aren't dead in the eyes of their customers.
Anyone who's not familiar with Matt should definitely check out his podcast. He has a lot of great interviews with real elders of gaming. The names range from Scott Adams to John Romero. And he just lets them reminisce. If you're interested in the development of your favorite classic games, or the personal histories of game design greats, or way the game industry has changed over the past 30 years, you'll get some great perspectives from watching Matt Chat.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
it seems that in american games anyways, the true RPG has gone the way of the dodo, and all we get now are FPS-RPG hybrids. while fallout 3 was fine, it was no fallout 1 or 2. i LIKE turn based top down gameplay. It's relaxing, and i can see everything thats going on easily.
i am VERY interested in seeing where this goes.
There is a reason that Starcraft 2 took about 12 years to show up.
Any given game (and this probably applies to movies and to TV to some extent) will have an initial title that proves the concept as being worth pursuing, followed by a title that effectively represents the pinnacle of the genre. For 3d Shooters you had Wolfenstien which led to Doom. For MMO's you initially had Ultima online, which gave way to Everquest, and in turn gave way to World of Warcraft. And for RTS games you had Dune which led to Warcraft 2 which led to Starcraft.
Once you have that definitive product, competitors start to back off, realizing that they have no chance to dethrone the reigning king of the genre. The expectations of the fans keep escalating, and since you can never please everyone, you have fans of the genre start to splinter off, or perhaps just get bored. Since sales fall off, the resources for sequels fall off, and that basically buries the genre.
The endgame is that the creators of the 'pinnacle' product eventually stop making new iterations, and that the competitors have usually abandoned that pursuit some time before that point. Eventually no one is making new games in that genre. Metaphorically, the challengers stopped playing the game when it was too difficult to win at it, and the champion stopped only because the rewards for victory were no longer enough to justify the effort.
But the market for that genre still exists, and after about 10 years, a new generation is available to exploit. If the original concept was strong enough, the fans are probably hungry enough that a new iteration should be successful.
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Hear hear!!
I miss good ol' fashioned turn-based role-playing games, like the old SSI ADnD-based games (Pools of Twilight, Pools of Radiance, etc).
"RPGs" nowadays are more hack'n slash, mouse-button mashfests than anything else (WoW, Diablo, Icewind Dale, etc).
I don't want to play a twitch-reaction game. I want to control a party of characters and take my time thinking about how to use their various skills together against large groups of enemies. I want turn-based action.
If I wanted a FPS (which I don't, can't stand them), I'd buy one. But I want an RPG. When was the last time you played a paper-n-pencil RPG where it was "whoever can roll the fastest gets to attach"? It's all turn-based.
Bring back the turn-based RPGs!!
I miss the writing from Fallout 2, the presentation was secondary for me, though I did like turn based combat over twitch/Diablo mashing. That said, when I hear "Interplay" I hear Python's "Run away! Run away!" line. They run projects like everyone at the top has the programming skill of Jobs, the design asthetic of Gates and the management style of a helicopter parent.
Better than isometric is the upcoming XCOM from Firaxis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uHHmTSDCvA
You might also be interested in my short post on Temple of Elemental Evil the other day:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2719507&cid=39323731
Going by the total payments chart, they should primarily develop for Windows first since it's nearly 3/4 of the payments. After Windows, they should develop for Mac since it's slightly more than half of the non-Windows payments. Linux, even though it's more than 1% of the total payments, should still be dead last in their list of priorities since the evidence given suggests that it will give the lowest return on an investment.
And that's pretty much what they announced, isn't it? Windows first, Mac of funding reaches X amount, "other platforms" if funding allows.
Look at Civ or Galactic Civilizations. Those non-FPS/RTS games were turn-based and required thought and planning. Old RPGs are the same way. People like me who grew up with Wasteland and its contemporaries miss the engagement and cleverness. I'm not interested in a fast twitch game and am willing to pay for a game that makes me think and spend time to beat. It's merely a bonus that it's a sequel to one of the all time greats that we're talking about. I'm contributing tonight and then I'm going to fire up my old copy of Wasteland and go see how little firepower I can beat Guardian Citadel with this time. Exploded blood sausage ftw!
From the Wiki page: "It was originally intended as a follow-up to Wasteland, but neither Interplay nor any of the creative team that created Wasteland worked on it".
In other words, no, it wasn't.
For one, I'd say that this concept of the second game being the "pinnacle" is very flawed. The best example is MMOs. Ultima wasn't the first MMO, nor was EQ the pinnacle. If anything is to be called the pinnacle it would be WoW. Also it isn't like all genres die out either. Turn based strategy games are still going strong. Heard of Civilization 5? AAA title, released last year. How about Total War: Shogun 2. It is not nearly as large a genre as shooters, but it isn't dead by a long shot, and isn't even a "just indie" market.
For that matter sometimes things will have a pinnacle, and then another later. Many TBS fans said Civ 2 was the pinnacle. They didn't care for Civ 3 as much, nor many other games that came after Civ 2. Then Civ 4 hit and man. Best. Civ. EVAR. Another pinnacle, better than the last. It isn't as though things peak and then are on a death spiral after that.
Some genres die out, but often that is just due to the companies that are involved in them sucking. Many companies will have run off to some new things ignoring it. The companies that stay and try for the niche do a shit job, release games nobody likes, and that leads to a feedback cycle where nobody wants to back the projects because they perceive them as making no money.
In terms of this game, I think it has quite a good chance at success. People have shown a love for old school type RPGs, and for TBT games (Frozen Synapse did quite well, indy TBT title all combat). The people behind it are people who know what they are doing, they are people with real successful games to their credit.
Also Starcraft 2 took so long because:
1) Blizzard is really slow at development, for a number of reasons.
2) They got even slower because of WoW, which was all consuming with them for awhile.
There have been a bunch of RTS games since Starcraft 2, many of which have done real well.
God knows you would not want to develop a cross platform game from the get go and save on the porting fees to almost double you revenue over Windows... That's just crazy talk...
Also, I (and I am really not that special in this) will no longer spend money on a promise. When it has Linux support, I will consider spending money. If they say it might if we reach some goal we will not tell you about, nope... Seen that lie a few too many times.