Feedback on Wasteland Remastered

[Bartmoss]

In no particular order. Context: I played the original in the late 80s/early 90s on a C64 and beat the game twice. Also played the PC version but never beat that one (too many other games).

- A bunch of minor bugs. Nothing too serious.
- Graphics: Beautiful. I love all the detail everywhere, even if it's not "functional".
- Sound: Beautiful
- Happy to see you included a modernized version of the C&4 intro. I think the pacing and design are a little off, but I'll only pick those nits if you really want me to. Including the original game map in the ranger intro scene was an awesome idea.
- The little animated scenes are a very nice touch, too.
- It's a bit sad that the music pauses when you go into the journal etc
- Likewise, when you come across a journal entry, it'd be nice if the VO plays automatically - or at least the paragraph number in the "you record this as journal entry XYZ" acted as a play button for the audio
- The constant "enter location X yes/no" popups are dumb. Takes longer to answer the question than to just enter and leave again.
- I would have preferred for the inventory GUI to be a bit modernized, but it works well enough and it's a TON better than the "we think everybody should be in pain because some people use controllers" GUI of Bard's Tale IV.
- I do like the Paragraphs GUI.
- It should be possible to auto-fill a password from the journal into an input box. Failing that, at least make it so I can switch to the journal and back mid-input to make sure I got the password right. (Bomb disarm sequence in Quartz is where this was an issue for me. It's minor, I do have paper.)
- Ranger Center should have a "rest until healed" option or at least a cheap doctor or something. I can rest in safety in high pool, right next door, but hitting the "C" key fifty-seven times is kind of lame. I am aware the original didn't have this, but hey. It's okay to add that little bit of convenience.
- For the life of me I can't find the cave in Highpool. I'll look it up, but if there's a visual cue or something then it needs improving. If there isn't, there probably should be.
- Using F1 ("Pause") to get to the main menu is unusual. Escape would be the standardized way. Still kept tripping me up after ~6h of gameplay.
- Saveslots that I can't name? Meh.
- It occurs to me that, with a little GUI work, this might play really well on tablets. Just saying.

Might have more as I continue to play. Overall I really love this remaster. Honestly made me smile, so, thanks to everybody who worked on this!

[Drool]

- The constant "enter location X yes/no" popups are dumb. Takes longer to answer the question than to just enter and leave again.

Aside from "it was like that originally", there's actually a good reason to keep those: the game autosaves when you change maps. Without that prompt, you could save unintentionally. Also, I just quickly hit spacebar, since it defaults to "yes".

Ranger Center should have a "rest until healed" option or at least a cheap doctor or something. I can rest in safety in high pool, right next door, but hitting the "C" key fifty-seven times is kind of lame. I am aware the original didn't have this, but hey. It's okay to add that little bit of convenience.

Highpool doc is cheap? I eventually just switched to melee and camped on the world map where it's 4 minutes/tick. Full rest in the Center isn't a terrible idea, though.

Using F1 ("Pause") to get to the main menu is unusual. Escape would be the standardized way. Still kept tripping me up after ~6h of gameplay.

Yeah, but passing time is bound to ESC, so...

Saveslots that I can't name? Meh.

Agreed. I'm hoping that's in a future update.

It occurs to me that, with a little GUI work, this might play really well on tablets. Just saying.

Or portables. I'd love to have this on my DS.

[Mole204]

I got my Interplay 10 year anth. manual. I got the new WLR, and I got about an hour afer work to kill. Let's do this.
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I had to turn the music off because that's just not what I'm listening to.
The menu screen seems OK, and the choice selection is impressive. Both the straightforwardness of it, and the array of options to use on Wasteland.
(shadows and bloom off)
Looks great. Let's see how badly it plays.
Snake Vargas's reading the intro was a nice bit.
Turning the Rangerman icon into a Green ArmyMan... Well, I _guess_ I have to put up with it.
I, of course, used the preset party, and arranged the order into the old order I had.
I don't trust any of the rubble objects in the desert. (paranoia) Why are they there?
After all this time, I just don't know what to do first. Quartz! Needles! And then I got everyone irradiated.
I guess the f2 paragraph book works. Audio versions! An interesting addition. As in addition, not change. You don't have to if you don't want to.
The new portraits manage to be both the traditional, and a few new touch-ups. I think that describes WLR, too. I'll figure out how to turn off the combat animation splashes later. I like the Batman 60's Pow! Sock! of it, but would rather turn it off. I suspect there are many more changes that I have not encountered that I would not like the redesign of, but am not there yet.
I guess it's OK. I always held up WL as a example of correct streamlining improving a game's play. I know I'm going to be playing the heck out of this. I have yet to plumb the depths of the game, or the program. There are several additional pages of menu screen and such, but all in all it looks like it's good. There's a few things I'd turn off, and there's a few things I should stopwatch to see how long it take until someone makes a patch that does The Thing to it. (Batman Pows instead of bloody fangs, retroizing the GI Joe figure back to the original Ranger icon, etc.) I like it and am cutting this short so that I can go and play it now.

[Mole204]

Feedback- with all the menu changes I still question if I missed something.
I can't find the combat speed function. In the old manual that's the up and down arrows on the kb or the 'fast' command on the screen with the mouse. I don't see it. There's nothing in the wlr manual pages about it. What is it in WLR?
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The power of the force stopped you, you hoser.
Yay!

edit
Thanks Drool. It's back up to a proper speed. It is a decrease in the game control, though, as a player will need to go to that menu to adjust something that was a _button function_ 30 years ago! Maybe it'll be patched?

Glad you're going into this with an open mind.

I am! "Pessimism and optimism are not the same thing, but pessimism and realism are."

The missions menu literally gives you three places to start.

Yes, it's just ... back to a favorite game, not played for so long. Ride all the rides impulse, you know?

I... so all new art except the icon?

Well, I already broke it, you see...
It resets when I load up the program, anyway. There's nothing wrong with it, I just prefer the old style.

[phimseto]

Excellent Strange Brew reference, btw.

[Drool]

Looks great. Let's see how badly it plays.

Glad you're going into this with an open mind.

I don't trust any of the rubble objects in the desert. (paranoia) Why are they there?

They're just art assets to break up "giant field of yellow".

retroizing the GI Joe figure back to the original Ranger icon

I... so all new art except the icon?

After all this time, I just don't know what to do first. Quartz! Needles! And then I got everyone irradiated.

The missions menu literally gives you three places to start. Also, the opening cinematic tells you where to go.

I can't find the combat speed function.

Settings -> Gameplay -> Text Speed

[Bartmoss]

Highpool doc is cheap? I eventually just switched to melee and camped on the world map where it's 4 minutes/tick. Full rest in the Center isn't a terrible idea, though.

Yeah this is mostly an early game issue. Like in all RPGs, you'll eventually swim in money anyway I guess.

Yeah, but passing time is bound to ESC, so...

That's not really an excuse to do things in a weird way

Saveslots that I can't name? Meh.

Agreed. I'm hoping that's in a future update.

More feedback on this:

- The out of actual gameplay GUI is a tad ugly. Especially the fonts could do with some work. I am also not a big fan of the main menu screen colors, but then I am colorblind. Wish it had a bit more contrast.
- Saveslots are ordered oddly, it seems quicksave/autosaves go first, then actual saves? Anyway, it's a table with headers. Make them sortable.

Highpool:
- The visual indicator for the cave seems to be a swarm of fireflies/glowy sparkly bits. Not a great choice but in the end it worked I guess.

General:
- It's easy to accidentally skip in game "paragraph videos" if you're in the midst of moving while they trigger. Limiting skipping them to escape/spacebar/enter might be a good idea, or prevent skipping for a small amount of time to let me react and get my fingers off the keyboard.
- The game doesn't seem to add "fake passwords" to the passwords in the journal. I am not quite sure how I feel about this, but I did notice this.

[Drool]

The passwords look to be only passwords you get in game. You only get the fake ones digging through paragraphs.

That's not really an excuse to do things in a weird way

That was something I pondered, but the other option would be to move/eliminate the pass time button, which would have caused complaints too.

[Bartmoss]

The passwords look to be only passwords you get in game. You only get the fake ones digging through paragraphs.

That's not really an excuse to do things in a weird way

That was something I pondered, but the other option would be to move/eliminate the pass time button, which would have caused complaints too.

Yeah I guess. Space seems intuitive as a "pass time" key. Or could have used F1 I guess.

I do think it is fair to switch some keybinds 30 years later. Or if you wanna go all out, allow us to rebind some of the keys.

I played Wasteland on the C64 and I don't even remember what the "pass time" button was...

[Drool]

The backarrow key, to the left of 1. On my emulator it's the ` key.

[Mole204]

Having the wlr prog open while doing other things does cause a slight lag, but it's nothing problematic for me.
The game locks up from time to time, but I close the game and open it again. The macro function of the old game seems to have been removed. Some of the vegas robots, warroid tankbots, don't 100% match the picture, wheels becoming two prong fittings, etc, but that's just nitpicking. You get a badge for the crystal ball but not for killing the Scorpitron? shrug. The board game figures look for the people look ok. Yes, I noticed separate figures for Snake and Angela. I thought the Vegas sewers would be cleaner, as it helped the sense that something was wrong. As they look now, yuck. I'm sure that somebody was going for that, but again, I preferred it the way it was before. The green tiles there were my favorite looking background tile of Wl.
Oh well. I hope sales reach quota! I've been getting steam badges for wlr and man am I getting some small "percentage of players have got this" numbers.
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I found Faran Brygo, got the quest hook, but no "you found FB" badge.
I did the Rail nomads quest, got the shovel and where to dig, but no quest finish.
I don't know why AD has taken off her power Armor for at least the third time.
Invisible door segment after using the secpass in outside Cochise.

[Drool]

wheels becoming two prong fittings

Huh?

I thought the Vegas sewers would be cleaner, as it helped the sense that something was wrong.

Sewers being known for the cleanliness and psychotic murderbots being known for their rigorous cleaning regimens. I personally quite liked their interpretation of the sewers. I also quite liked the sound design.

I found Faran Brygo, got the quest hook, but no "you found FB" badge.

Did you "ask how you can help him" to get the cut scene? Just seeing him and leaving, or killing him won't get the achievement.

I did the Rail nomads quest, got the shovel and where to dig, but no quest finish.

You need to loot everything from the cache and from the ambush to finish the quest.

I don't know why AD has taken off her power Armor for at least the third time.
Invisible door segment after using the secpass in outside Cochise.

Known bugs.

[Mole204]

"Did you "ask how you can help him" to get the cut scene? "
I did. #7. But something must have gone wrong somewhere. I'll have to look into that, because I'm not allowed to see FB when I went back to the place.

"You need to loot everything from the cache and from the ambush to finish the quest."
Ah. Yes. That was exactly what I hadn't done yet. Thank you. Just got the Major Trouble badge, too.

Known bugs. OK. Wlr seems surprisingly bug free. Wl was too, but programs these days seem to have more significant problems.
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[MihaLbl4]

I was hoping the Wasteland remaster would be similar to Wasteland 2: / because the gameplay of Wasteland 1 is old for its time and is designed for an old school.

Maybe one day....

[Drool]

It's also one of the greatest games ever created. It would be a poor remaster if it was gutted and completely remade in WL2's image.

[MihaLbl4]

She will remain the greatest game. But the world is changing like the gaming industry. Example: RE 2,3 and RE 2,3 Remake.
If it were like Wasteland 2, it would be accessible to large masses of people. Moreover, take as a basis the map of Wasteland 2 and add the missing locations.

[Grave]

It's also one of the greatest games ever created. It would be a poor remaster if it was gutted and completely remade in WL2's image.

+1

Shame WL2 won't be remastered in the image of WL1 Remastered, but I digress...

[MihaLbl4]

Need help! Where to find the chemical from an ugly john?

[Drool]

Probably could have been its own thread, but the chemicals are in the room north of the area where you go to rescue Ace. Some of the tables in that room should have chemicals. There's also one in the Housekeeping room in the Stagecoach Inn.

[MihaLbl4]

but the chemicals are in the room north of the area where you go to rescue Ace. Some of the tables in that room should have chemicals.

I found it here! Thnx!