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Wasteland 2 - Interview @ Gamestar.ru

The Russian Gamestar has interviewed Brian Fargo about Wasteland 2 and Kickstarter.

Quote:

What are some major differences between development process of Wasteland 2 and your work on the original game with Alan Pavlish, Michael Stackpole and Ken Andre? And what are the similarities? Maybe atmosphere or your approach?
The tools are so much better and more varied today that it is hard to know where to start. In many ways the first game had to be hand built from scratch. It was like inventing a camera and making a movie at the same time. We made more progress in 90 days on Wasteland 2 than what took well over a year on the first one. The writing is much more difficult on the sequel as our audience is older and demands more nuance and content. Things have progressed quite a bit from back in the day. One medium size map for Wasteland 2 has more writing than the entirety of Wasteland including the paragraph book. I also have a far bigger writing staff on this version to have yet more content and pick up the slack for anyone who is slipping in delivery.
Is there a reason why you are not going to port the game on consoles or at least iOS, which is suitable to say the least for a tactical RPG? Aside from your nostalgic feelings for PC-gaming. Don't you think that by denying the right of players preferring consoles to see Wasteland 2 released on their favourite platform, you're probably acting not that different from a publishing companies that refuse to make a PC verison of some of their titles?
That is a very unique perspective but my reasons for not considering them for now is so that we are focused only to deliver on the core experience. I don't want my team to be worried about alternate platforms or memory footprints right now as that could compromise something. Publishers may not support PC due to economics but I am holding off considering console and tablet for quality considerations. They are not ruled out but I don't want to spend any time with us worrying about them right now. We must not forget that our 65,000 backers paid for PC, Mac and Linux versions.

More information.

Glad to see Russian game journalists aren't as timid as their western counter-parts. Really aggressive questioning. Though they took it too far. Sounded almost hostile at parts.

Here's a google-fu link, at least I hope this is the correct interview. ;)
Wasteland 2 - Interview @ Gamestar.ru

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwmeep (Post 1061172852)

Glad to see Russian game journalists aren't as timid as their western counter-parts. Really aggressive questioning. Though they took it too far. Sounded almost hostile at parts.

Yeah - maybe the translation doesn't reflect the original tone accurately - but the question about platforms sounded downright accusatory. It was as though they were suggesting the decision was motivated more by denying console gamers something than it was a decision based on technical aspects of development and what people had actually paid to receive.

Link was excluded.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwmeep (Post 1061172852)

Glad to see Russian game journalists aren't as timid as their western counter-parts. Really aggressive questioning. Though they took it too far. Sounded almost hostile at parts.

Hard questioning is good. I don't even mind a hostile tone. I think the problem here is that a lot of the questions seem to stem either from language barrier misunderstandings (badass = bad) and you can tell Fargo is often confused as to what they mean, or it stemmed from them simply not being that informed (questioning if MCA is working on the title at all). I blame language barriers mostly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother None (Post 1061172867)

Link was excluded.

Forgot to add it. Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother None (Post 1061172867)

Link was excluded.

Hard questioning is good. I don't even mind a hostile tone. I think the problem here is that a lot of the questions seem to stem either from language barrier misunderstandings (badass = bad) and you can tell Fargo is often confused as to what they mean, or it stemmed from them simply not being that informed (questioning if MCA is working on the title at all). I blame language barriers mostly.

Yeah that would make sense as most of the hostility seems to come from the connotations of words used - something that is difficult to preserve across translations at times even for a modestly skilled linguist. It is however something that's very easy to get wrong and accidentally insert insulting or accusatory connotations when none were there in the original language.

I liked Brian's comment that "We must not forget that our 65,000 backers paid for PC, Mac and Linux versions." That's right — we did.

I don't care if inXile ports the game to other platforms after it's done. I do care very much that the design not be compromised in any way to help enable such hypothetical future porting. No artificially small maps to fit inside a tablet memory footprint. No dumbed-down controls to stay within the constraints of a console controller or a touch-screen. Make us the hard-core PC game we were promised, ship that, and *then* figure out if it's possible to slice-and-dice it onto more restrictive platforms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brother None (Post 1061172867)

I think the problem here is that a lot of the questions seem to stem either from language barrier misunderstandings (badass = bad) and you can tell Fargo is often confused as to what they mean, or it stemmed from them simply not being that informed (questioning if MCA is working on the title at all). I blame language barriers mostly.

True enough. Real journalists are supposed to ask hard questions, but yeah, possible translation issues.