Mole204's Wasteland 3 Construction Checklist

[Gizmo]

But I see no reason to just wait for the game to come out and _then_ complain about the errors I saw being put into the game.

This never works. A small legion of fans tried desperately to explain the folly to Bethesda, and they aspersed them—even banned them all eventually.

I just saw Robocop 2014. Forgot it existed, until it came up in the thread.

It was crap; just like everything else this century.

[Drool]

That may seem true, Drool, but only through programs that identify the OS and are programmed to go on the fritz if it isn't Win10.

...what?

Look at it objectively- there's nothing that Win10 does that Win7 or 8 can't or couldn't do. Even the creation of new file types should only require a route command to a program that can handle it, or at worst a new video codex or text program.

Well, hell, then I guess we should have stopped at Windows 95.

Now they're just screwing around because everyone thinks Microsoft equals Windows.

That's their flagship product and something that runs on roughly 80% of all computers in the world.

Of course this opinion doesn't seem to cover the XBoxes and whatever OS they use.

No. They just sell you an entirely new machine for 400-600 bucks. When I built my computer last year, I think I spent about $80 on a new key for Windows 10.

And XBoxes use a custom OS that's... based on Windows.

[Mole204]

That may seem true, Drool, but only through programs that identify the OS and are programmed to go on the fritz if it isn't Win10.

...what?[/quote]
Planned obsolescence is not the same thing as forced obsolescence, and can be made worse when the motivation is sales numbers and not clear improvement.

Look at it objectively- there's nothing that Win10 does that Win7 or 8 can't or couldn't do. Even the creation of new file types should only require a route command to a program that can handle it, or at worst a new video codex or text program.

[/quote]Well, hell, then I guess we should have stopped at Windows 95.[/quote]
Windows XP or 7 seems to be the leveling out point. That there is a trend, doesn't mean that you have to join that trend.
(This is not meant to make programming more difficult, but easier, as a smaller and better known OS is aimed to be compatible with as well as the OS who's only claim of reliance is it's "New!" label on it. Besides, anything that the first OS can do the second OS can do as well, right?)

But I see no reason to just wait for the game to come out and _then_ complain about the errors I saw being put into the game.

This never works. A small legion of fans tried desperately to explain the folly to Bethesda, and they aspersed them—even banned them all eventually.

I don't know what the problem was, but some people just refuse to be told their grand artistic work is actually a bit of a bore.

I just saw Robocop 2014. Forgot it existed, until it came up in the thread.

It was crap; just like everything else this century.
[/quote]
It wasn't too bad. It could have been turned into a passable 60 minute movie. I guess the same could be said about the last 20 years.

But on to things more wl related? I still think the swearing should go. Not everyone out there has the fluency or tolerance for "angry retard" that you do. I say they should admit the mistake, cut it out of the text and rewrite it.
I wonder if it's too late to include "Squirrel In Colorado Tests Positive For Bubonic Plague." in wl3?
Wl2 did not prove to be weird enough, twice so when compared to wl1. I just think it'd be fun to throw in a few bits and pieces from the wl1 paragraph book. Though some of them might be totally Arizona-related, there's still room for Serpoids, Shadow Government bunkers, more sci-fi weapons and the labs they were researched in. It's too bad that development is likely due to be or has been wrapping up around now. Gotta get the boxes on shelves, after all. For all the good that does these days. It's too bad 1) it's too late to backer goal 2) the ridiculous amount of inspections Inexile would have to undergo to approve it 3) Fallout got the helmet seen popular first, but a Wasteland custom hazmat helmet would be more in vogue right now. Though I wouldn't think that anything like a Ranger Star pin would be approved to go with it.

[Mole204]

many would swear (exasperated, or for stress relief, or frightened, or for social posturing), and some people swear in EVERY situation—that's just how they are

Yeah, so there's "a range" from animals to brain damage. That doesn't excuse that it's applied wrong.
I still say that they should dial that back entirely, and dial up other things to make sure! This is Wasteland, not the verbal dribbling of some idiot who was raised on the phone sex line. You want swearing? Do without! The effort to use your brain and put it under the radar is the effort I'm asking for. And the team sorta botched a few points in wl2- specifically the Fuk Shak and maybe the pig boy in the Prison level outer farm.
There was a lot of fun parts too, the cowboys the 3 Amigos Costumes, Brother Heston, etc. But upping your game is not the same as upping the "What the hell, man?!" parts.
I know you're a forum guy and not one of the programming team, but you can agree that there's a few places that needed improvement. And to me the swearing is the only nail visible. They haven't shown anything more horrible in the wl3 trailers- because they know they might drive away customers -before- the money is separated. Some from disgust, some from "oh, it's that again" boredom. I'm just some one-off customer, I can't very well email Fargo or someone, and they'd ignore the point anyway. I shouldn't want to bother any of the Inxile team, but a mistake is a mistake. You can't add a boot to a cake.

Bethesda's Fallout games do not facilitate the series' gameplay or the experience that generated the series' reputation—that they exploit

And that's is what I'm trying not to look directly at about Wl 2 and 3.
If you don't want negative feedback, then don't directly insult the audience.
I don't know the Fallout games, but even I heard about some of the complaining. And yes, I knew that Fallout was the "law dodge" version of a Wasteland sequel.

Yeah, those Fallout/Wasteland pics are both comparisons, and are yet generic designs.
Part of me still thinks in "If they have the rights for the game, then it should be easy to create that game." I admit that those Fallout caps looks a bit better than Wasteland1. But change a few colors, change a few kibbles, change a few textures and you've got a new game. Apply to new map, write up a bunch of townspeople text, then add the story progression. Bam you're done the big strokes. Whether it's done in DOS or Unity, all game programs are the same- sequences with random bits at points. So the swearing has no excuse. It's not part of the game, it's not part of the genre', and it's not part of the fun.

[Gizmo]

Nobody in this thread will find those quotes, or know who it is. *[it's me]

Fallout though, did have an optional language filter, as I am sure must have been suggested here... That's one of the advantages of a mostly text game, rather than voice. Still... it's not impossible to mark the start & end times in the audio files for content filtering.

You want swearing? Do without!

Actually the need for swearing is wholly dependent upon the kind of personalities they write for the game. Even the utterly evil ones need not swear—if they make it a point of pride, or of relative moral high-ground not to... but not every good or evil PC is that disciplined. No one is asking for even their Fred Rogers style NPCs to swear like sailors because it's edgy, or cool, but if they write a personality who would quite obviously often swear, then they should often do so—to be believable...or it's simply not.

[Mole204]

So let's take a look at that:
-A personality who's whole one-beat gimmick is swearing: Only exists to be bullet sponge. Doesn't amuse in any way. Examples: Victory, who's whole gimmick is to be annoying until someone kills him. Fargo mentioned that there would be reaction changes for NPCs if Victory was added to the player's party but that's looking like a waste of time and branches.
-A personality, but not the swearing: Often interesting. Whatever they're up to you may want to pay attention to catch whatever name-drop, worldbuilding, or clue they're there for.
Examples: The Crusher. The blood dancer man. Charlene the nuke priestess. The Fish obsessed woman. Lucia, the woman who wanted to join the rangers for the garden mission.
Those are all reasonably interesting characters who probably have done something cool and would likely do something cool. Swearing isn't necessary, and they are more entertaining without it. No, any added swearing would have just been pushing them to being boring. There's no point to what they're babbling. Yes, the no-swearing may have been done accidentally, but removing the previously stated "one-beat gimmick" means the game developers have to come up with something higher quality then that crutch. If the programmers want to "push the envelope" let them work on adding something fun. Characters saying "bad" words doesn't amuse. Are you trying to aim for the RPG audience, or the Jersey Shores audience, because you can't get both in the same frame.
Besides, the JS crowd complains of headaches when they have to focus enough to use a keyboard.

[Gizmo]

The problem is not the swearing—per se. The problem is that you are demanding that it to not even be the writer's option; that's simply incredulous for a rated M game; a rated EA game won't have those kind of characters... or much of the other content, for that matter.

There is also a (potential) humor aspect to be lost by such restriction.

EG. Monty Python's "Cheese Shop"
Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3OQECSDoQ
Studio/audio (best): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5JLAPoOzeg

Censored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1JWzyvv8A

The second (censored) one just doesn't have the same comedic punch to it; for lack of the single (and well placed) expletive.
______________

*Sketch Trivia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x2yvK4gbjM

[Drool]

Planned obsolescence is not the same thing as forced obsolescence, and can be made worse when the motivation is sales numbers and not clear improvement.

I mean, that's not at all what's happening, but I guess you got a nice discount on that tin foil, so...

(This is not meant to make programming more difficult, but easier, as a smaller and better known OS is aimed to be compatible with as well as the OS who's only claim of reliance is it's "New!" label on it. Besides, anything that the first OS can do the second OS can do as well, right?)

I guess if you think that nothing at all has changed in computing in the past 11 years, then sure. There's a vast gulf between change for change's sake and neo-luddism.

[Mole204]

The problem is that you are demanding that it to not even be the writer's option

I see it as the merest of quality control. And that's aside from the potential being wasted in talking up some character or aspect of the game.

I thought the punchline was surrealism. That and Cleese shooting the cheese merchant and talking to the camera. And no, having seen both versions, I think the set version is better than the live version. Even the camera angle is better. Cleese doing that hop was unexpected, but that's live theater for you.
The point is that there were quite a number of put-downs and snappy lines that didn't involve swearing, and are better for the lack of it.
"It was an act of pure optimism to pose the question in the first place."

Perhaps I've narrowed my point down too far.
No one needs uninventive idiot-characters with a three-word vocabulary. This is a combat rpg. We need evil pure and simple. Evil red 'lectroids from the 8th dimension. (red serpoids in this setting, I guess.) Victory the slasher brings nothing new, but if he's entertaining enough he'd get a pass on that. Too bad that "crack addict" and swearing just aren't amusing to see.
And computers certainly have changed, but no matter what, a poorly balanced program will still botch things.

[Mole204]

So (I finally saw), on the 16th, the Steam wl3 beta posted a page about feedback.

My feedback-
The beta all looks good. No crashes, no immediate problems. Though that'd likely wait until the rest of the game is shipped.
What I'd like done though...-
-I haven't had any problems with firing modes. Mostly because if I don't want it, I don't use it, so haven't encountered every wrinkle that's lying in wait.
-Custom Portraits look good, and is a feature I'd like to use.
-Animal companions- It needs a "stay at the base" function. With all the focus that there's been on team building, the programmers seem to have neglected to give us a way to tell the animal to stay where we want it to, in safety. Instead we can only Permanently Dismiss the animal. This causes party planning problems. I don't need Major Tom to be the next Wl2 fragile Vax.
-The language needs a severe cleaning. There's no reason for any of the swearing to be in the game. Whoever was writing this, and whoever approved this needed to be reminded that your paying customers are here to have fun, not to be insulted. And not to have our intelligence insulted. You could have done better. You could have been entertaining. You wanted to try for a age rating? You could have done that without profanity. WL1 managed it, why are you so far less?
-Windows 10? There's many who prefer to avoid some of Microsoft's sketchier operating systems. It should be backwards compatible to Win7 and so anyway. Win10 wasn't needed by anyone other than MS's sales department.

[Gizmo]

I thought the punchline was surrealism. That and Cleese shooting the cheese merchant and talking to the camera.

''Punch" and 'punchline' are not the same thing.

And no, having seen both versions, I think the set version is better than the live version. Even the camera angle is better. Cleese doing that hop was unexpected, but that's live theater for you.

But of course (we agree on this)...and yet it's not relevant to my point.

The point is that there were quite a number of put-downs and snappy lines that didn't involve swearing, and are better for the lack of it.
"It was an act of pure optimism to pose the question in the first place."

Also true (it's a great sketch), but it's better for having the expletive, and Cleese knew it.

*Note: I was not suggesting the writing in WL3 would improve merely for adding gratuitous cursing—that never improves anything, I was giving an example of when it works well to use it; as it definitely does in the Cheese Shop sketch.

[Mole204]

*Note: I was not suggesting the writing in WL3 would improve merely for adding gratuitous cursing—that never improves anything, I was giving an example of when it works well to use it; as it definitely does in the Cheese Shop sketch.

Even if that's true, agree to disagree, I disagree with all gratuitous cursing being gratuitous cursing swearing.
Lucky Day : You dirt-eating piece of slime! You scum-sucking pig! You son of a motherless goat!

Out of all the bomb-hole, invisible radiation, growing crystal, blood temple, nunner gunner, droid sprinting, quark exploding, party killing, Tronodile hunting, fainting goat, Zipperboy, Scotchmo soaked text descriptions of the various Wastelands, you cannot convince me that someone can't, couldn't, or shouldn't think up something snappier than the easily avoidable swearing.

[Gizmo]

Out of all the bomb-hole, invisible radiation, growing crystal, blood temple, nunner gunner, droid sprinting, quark exploding, party killing, Tronodile hunting, fainting goat, Zipperboy, Scotchmo soaked text descriptions of the various Wastelands, you cannot convince me that someone can't, couldn't, or shouldn't think up something snappier than the easily avoidable swearing.

I would never try that; I wasn't trying that. Of course a clever writer can invent clever, better, wittier dialog instead of using swears... but my point is that not all characters are clever, and giving clever dialog to all characters is sometimes—out of character. Writing dialog for a role-playing game requires a bit of role-playing itself; you write what they would say... not always to entertain the player—sometimes to even disgust or shock them.... it depends on what the character would say, and how they would say it.
____________

Example: If you write clean dialog for Bricktop, you are not really imparting his personality in the text.

Language warning —— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcG3JRIF05w

The use of swearing can be an indicator of social standing/position/power/...menace. Here (where he definitely has the upper hand) Bricktop speaks as he wishes, speaks very comfortably. He speaks this way to them, but would (probably) not speak this way in court to a magistrate, or the Queen—if doing so could reasonably cause him harm & inconvenience. Notice that the others do not swear at him. Also notice that he doesn't swear indiscriminately... He deliberately does not swear at all during his lecture about the pigs—until the very end.

[Mole204]

Of course a clever writer can invent clever, better, wittier dialog instead of using swears... but my point is that not all characters are clever, and giving clever dialog to all characters is sometimes—out of character. Writing dialog for a role-playing game requires a bit of role-playing itself; you write what they would say... not always to entertain the player—sometimes to even disgust or shock them.... it depends on what the character would say, and how they would say it.

Yeah? And robots don't talk, they beep. You can write for charging bikers/ Leather Jerks all you want, but your realistic view of them and their point of view is not just your individual fantasy- it might be going too far in a few matters. Focus on what the real point is. Is there a "crux of the matter" as the saying goes? I assume it's the ranger team, and not your overly focused roleplaying of humans that bark.
If Fishface is trying to scare off the rangers in his appearance, he clearly was too stupid to live. In any era without civilization, swearing at someone might be what's enough to have savages kill you. Having enough brains to have some manners would be the difference between a death wish, or seeing another day. So there's your role play argument gone.
Your argument for "Writing dialog for a role-playing game" was already defeated. And your "sometimes to even disgust or shock them" is just you defending bad planning. Something truly disgusting would be enough to make people turn away from the game, and you shouldn't want that. Plus the people who have pre-ordered except one thing, and you shouldn't try to turn up the repulsiveness and give them what they did not want and were not lead to believe WL would be like.
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MATURE CONTENT DESCRIPTION
The developers describe the content like this:
Wasteland 3 is a mature game that regularly depicts violence and gore through combat, strong language, and adult situations.
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I find "Strong language" to be suggestive of a bracket, not to mean that there's only swearing to be had. "Quarks stream out and blast the raider into ground round." just does not mean the sort of language that Fishface, or Dorsey Guy, etc have been shown to be written to say in the Beta.
That I am disappointed by such hack writing does not mean that I'm expecting this to be child friendly. Bring on the guns, bring on the Threshing Crawler. And bring on something better than that boot-scraping of an excuse for attacker dialog.
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Even amongst barbarians there's a level of behavior. In one of the Conan books there was something like "Barbarians have better manners than city-folk, for amongst barbarians you're more polite lest your ill tongue cause someone to split your skull for disrespecting them." But that's not an exact quote.
-
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Now, back to a bit of checklist, since I don't want to argue the areas where wl3's sad lack of talent shows. And it _is_ in the thread title.

Pre-order to receive the in-game Ranger Hat and Glasses, Polished Ranger Badge, and Snow Camo Weapons for a head start in the wasteland.

I do hope that's still going to happen in-game. (And a nice cheap Wasteland Rangers star would make for a good pin. In the classic tin, of course.)

The Bizarre Bizarre backer level has been reached

Looking forward to finding that, and hoping there's enough stuff there to be worth the wait!

The Beta will take you through the opening of the game, including a meeting with The Patriarch

The Patriarch has not disappointed. I'm hoping that he doesn't become the usual unhinged madman enemy that's such a predictable staple of "we need a twist? What a twist!" fiction these days. You can do better, and there's clearly enough factions in Colorado to do that to someone else too.

One of the most common requests from Beta participants was bringing back firing modes for automatic weapons.

I don't get that, but I might not have to. I never really used much beyond choosing between single shot and full auto. I'm sure it will work out.

Yes, we will indeed have a sell junk button when visiting merchants.

Now that's something I don't trust. I got more Colbucks in selling junk where I wanted to, like selling scrap to the garage, then I did using any Sell All button. There's the very strong probability that some of that junk is going to be quest-requested by an NPC.
5 and a half weeks to go!

[Gizmo]

[Mole204]

Are... you well, Gizmo? Do you have brain damage?
Soooo I'm not going to get the pre-order in-game-loot? I missed the point of the Bricktop clips? They're not going to insane the Patriarch, are they?

Bricktop explaining just how much trouble they were in via pigs is more unsettling than him swearing. I'm not saying make everyone Mannerites, I just say the game dialog would be better if it's cleaned up a bit. It'd make for a better product, too.

Polite confusion is still confusion.

[Gizmo]

I'm not saying make everyone Mannerites...

Yes you are.

*But if true, know that you have made everyone in this thread think that you are; whether or not you intended such.

[Mole204]

So a game-maker called Nexon went out of business. Brian Fargo, or whoever is running the twitter page, crossposted the Inexile Careers Open link.
Would you want to see a Wasteland spin-off done in the style of Maple Story? Or Godzilla Defense Force? Myself, I don't think that screentapping is all that good a control button gimmick. Maple story's side scrolling might be suitable, and it'd make a easy transition to the wl1 combat pictures.
I preferred wl1's combat system. It was streamlined to perfection.
-Wl2 and 3 are ok, but the save function still needs to be executable in combat.

[Stuurminator]

Would you want to see a Wasteland spin-off done in the style of Maple Story? Or Godzilla Defense Force?

Forget the swearing hang-ups. Forget the Serpioids. This has to be the most mystifying suggestion you've ever made.

[Mole204]

-The wl3 song "Down to the valley" is ok I guess. It probably works well with whatever setting happens at the time. Yes, there was an update. Check your Inexile link on youtube or twitter.
-The release date is apparently set on August 28th.
Here's the Factions of Colorado link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI19a_UWvcU

-So the beta is over, but they shut down the beta, so we who paid to get the beta can't play it.
Did anyone open the door by the stairs in the New Base medical room?

I can't believe you kids are still going it at
wow

"I can explain it to them, but I can't make them understand it."

-They've been unable to answer the question "So why is there swearing in this game?"
If they wanted to have text and speech in a game, don't complain that I expect someone to come up with some good text and speech for their game.
-They had a bunch of characters they could talk up instead of swearing in the dialogue. Instead we get this garbage. I don't care how "biker threatening" they tried to make Doresy or Fishface sound. With language like that it just doesn't work.
There was all that stuff about a church in Wl2, is there going to be no callback to that? Or anything about the worshipers of a nuclear power plant in Wl1? Would there be anything like that in wl3? Granted, Wl3 is set in a different place, but even set after the fall of civilization, there are limits to what a game should have. Just a fix-up, just a little removal of swearing, doesn't sound like a bad idea. They could have said things that were so much more entertaining, after all. Why should I, we, settle for such poor content? I hope the combat is better then the "character interactions." If that quality level of work is the same for all of the interactions, that's a heap of the game's time and construction that's going to look messed up.