Wasteland External News Thread

[-Archangel-]

Read more about how and why they went under. Hint: it wasn't because of their RPG section.

[Woolfe]

Who?

Interplay, Bioware or Black Isle Studio?

[-Archangel-]

Interplay. Black Isle was the RPG hand of Interplay and Bioware was an outside company that worked for and with Black Isle.

[Lucius]

What Woolfe said.

Icewind Dale was closer to being a sequel, or spin-off if you like, than a completely different franchise.

They could do that with Van Buren. A lone character RPG set in the Wasteland world. It would have to be thematically similar to WL2 though, being in the same world, which is not what "I want Van Buren" people want. So it'd be pointless.

[-Archangel-]

The fallout people know they cannot get Fallout from anyone but Bethesda. They don't expect that whole world.

They expect story around one individual with no starting affiliations, one open map from the start and joinable NPCs with interesting stories. They expect something similar to SPECIAL with perks and traits and something similar to aimed shots of Fallout. They also expect options to do things around the world be many and complex.

[Lucius]

IGN has a comment from Brian Fargo regarding the trademark filings. Basically says they are concepts he wants to explore at some point.

[Woolfe]

What Woolfe said.

Icewind Dale was closer to being a sequel, or spin-off if you like, than a completely different franchise.

They could do that with Van Buren. A lone character RPG set in the Wasteland world. It would have to be thematically similar to WL2 though, being in the same world, which is not what "I want Van Buren" people want. So it'd be pointless.

I could see that "Van Buren: Wasteland Wanderer".

Using the base of Wasteland 2. Same system etc with some changes for single play. If they do it right they can make it able to then be applied to an eventual WL3. But still allow enough of a separation that if something doesn't work well you can just drop it.

Interplay. Black Isle was the RPG hand of Interplay and Bioware was an outside company that worked for and with Black Isle.

Interplay died mostly because of the Console Boom. They probably would have weathered it otherwise. It was a bad period for gaming, with big publishers acquiring and stip mining legendary companies for IP and talented staff(which is a key reason why I ask about Black Isle v Interplay, in those days there were distinct differences rather than just being a different label). Anything that couldn't be easily consolised, like isometric RPG's were given no support.

So I guess in a way it probably was because of the RPG section. None of the other bits were doing super well, but nobody "wanted" the RPG section that couldn't be consolised.

You can say what you will about Interplay but their failure was as much an aspect of the times as anything. Would they have gone down without that, maybe, but it certainly wouldn't have been as swift. Also don't forget BP was driven out of the leadership of the company. I presume because he wasn't open enough to pure market forces.

[-Archangel-]

This video tells the tale of the fall of Interplay and Black Isle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zY16pKjtlc

[Woolfe]

That was painful to watch.

Seriously I love and hate youtube videos. Having all of it unedited is great, but fuck its boring. And the interviewer is useless based on that single interview, I'll not watch another without a reason.

17:25ish when they start talking about Cash flow issues.
Pretty much what I said, the consolisation of the industry. Coupled with some bad runs elsewhere. Engage and the sports divisions apparently(this is only Feargus' side of the story), both good ideas but they just didn't manage success/timing. Then the publisher types(Not BF apparently) lost the DnD license because of cashflow and then basically shot Black Isle down in flames for no reason. At least from Feargus' point of view. My guess is they simply didn't want to give a successful studio to another publisher, no matter how much they may have gotten doing it.

It kind of shows how much having a working RPG system is important though. All the games they did well where built off DnD, except FO.

[Gruftlord]

Wasteland 2 is 50% off and on the steam front page. It hit the top spot under topsellers within minutes. Congratulations InXile, enjoy your new year's party!

[IHaveHugeNick]

Top 1 now! Pretty cool

[Brother None]

Exciting! Really nice way to end the year with some GotYs and climbing back up to #1.

Hope everyone's having a great holiday season.

[Tets]

http://www.shacknews.com/article/87568/ ... asteland-2

[-Archangel-]

CohhCarnage, a fairly famous Twitch streamer plans to stream WL2 tomorrow morning his time (he is some USA time ).
If anyone is interested to watch it tomorrow, this is his channel: http://www.twitch.tv/cohhcarnage

[-Archangel-]

It seems he rescheduled his WL2 play. He will be doing it in few days.

[-Archangel-]

He has started streaming it now. 3000 people watching WL2 on Stream

[Woolfe]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/s ... s-of-2014/

Article on ARSTechnica where they try and estimate usage/sales etc on Steam.

WL2 turns up on the 2nd page with numbers of hours played. 12.6 million hours played. 69000 per day it has been on the market.

384 000 Owners of whom 332 000 have actually played the game.

Came 56 of 400 releases in 2014. Not too shabby.

[Wyzak]

https://twitter.com/BrianFargo/status/5 ... RfYWN0aXZl

There will be further news today about Wasteland 2 on another format. #obvioushint

[Wyzak]

Wasteland 2 coming to PS4

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/03/ ... ng-to-ps4/

[Brother None]

New interview with Brian with some bits on Wasteland 2 Game of the Year Edition