Wasteland 2 - MCA Interview @ GameBanshee

Chris Avellone has been interviewed at GameBanshee about his involvement in Wasteland 2. Chris confirms he's the only Obsidianite who will be contributing at this stage, inXile won't be using the Onyx engine and the exact scope is up to inXile. He also says Obsidian is following up the projects they were pitching before (the now cancelled) Project North Carolina took up their manpower:

GB: What role will other team members at Obsidian play in Wasteland 2's development? Will Feargus, Tim Cain, J.E. Sawyer, and others be making contributions, as well? Would Obsidian's efforts go beyond story and design, in that you could potentially be contributing art assets and sound effects, or even helping with programming and bug fixing?

Chris: Currently, it’s just me, and I would potentially be assisting with narrative and area design, as well as conversation editor suggestions and structure. Ultimately, we won't know the final logistics for a short while longer, but we'll keep folks updated - right now, it's solely design content work, which is one of Obsidian's strengths.

More information.

Actually to be honest, I'm a bit disappointed by this Brian Fargo Inxile - Chris Avellone Obsidian collaboration. Because I was waiting a brand new crowd funding project from MCA and Obsidian. They have the name rights of Icewind Dale, they can license D&D and Forgotten Realms from WotC (since Overhaul did it), they have an in-house developed engine called Onyx, tons of RPG developing experience under their sleeves and crowd funding is very popular now. It's perfect time for Icewind Dale 3. What are they waiting for?

I'm thinking maybe Fearqus Urquhart lost his interest to old RPG gameplay. Since he stated in one of his interviews last year that party-based tactical gameplay and detailed character creation screens are things of the past. I hope I'm wrong.

For an AAA developer, Feargus' valuation presumably is correct. inXile is a small developer, with WL2 they were aiming for a midsize project. But I' m sure Obsidian is still looking for big budget projects from publishers. And we know reactions of big publishers when it comes to that kind of games… Hey, even Final Fantasy developers are thinking of turning to real time.

I've heard that IWD licence thing a lot of times, but I've never found any proof for Obsidian having that licence. Besides, Atari is still selling the old games. Is there any trustable source for that thesis?

Originally Posted by Gokyabgu
What are they waiting for?

"RPS: I’m glad because he was talking about doing his own thing and I did think “two turn-based roleplaying games at the same time, doesn’t that increase the odds of one of them not coming to pass?”

Fargo: They may end up doing one later, but right now they’re in the middle of a big project that they have to do so the timing is such that I don’t think they were prepared to do something immediately, where I was. So just the timing worked out well."