Wasteland 2 - Update #7 - Chris Avellone to Collaborate

Dhruin

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Brian Fargo has kicked up Update #7 for their Wasteland 2 Kickstarter campaign and it's a big one - if they reach $2.1M (currently $1.72M, 17 days to go) Chris Avellone will collaborate on design. Brian also notes they plan to use Obsidian "tools" to "get assets into the game faster":
We have announced a major piece of good news today that inXile has reached an agreement with Obsidian for potential design assistance for Wasteland 2. What that means is that Obsidian’s Chief Creative Officer, Chris Avellone, is going to work with our team on the design and writing of the game! It is important to note that we say "potential" as they will come aboard assuming we hit $2.1 million in funding. The good news is that we have already seen a spike in just the few hours since this was announced in a press release this morning.
For those of you who don't know who Obsidian or Chris Avellone are, they are the bulk of the brains who worked on Fallout 1&2, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment when I was back at Interplay. More of the band is back together to make sure we bring you a fantastic RPG. Chris is going to help push the density and literary content of the game.
The original Wasteland was an important game to Chris as he recently stated, "Wasteland is one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and when Brian asked if I wanted to work on the sequel, I jumped at the chance. While I've worked on Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas, getting the chance to work on the spiritual predecessor to the Fallout franchise is a honor."
While the programming work will remain with us here at inXile, we are looking to use a host of tools that Obsidian has created which will help us get assets into the game faster. The faster we can implement and iterate on content, the deeper the game and the more varied choices the gamers can make.
That’s more good news for all of you that put your faith in us.
Brian Fargo
Thanks also to the host of people who sent this in.
More information.
 
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Wow, that's great, it really is. Obsidian's tools and Avellone's game design help would be a huge boost to getting Wasteland 2 jumpstarted.

I'm expecting the announcement they're using Obsidian's Onyx engine shortly. :)

I just picked up DS3 (Onyx engine) and the game ran great and looked great and I encountered no bugs whatsoever but I really didn't play it much either because the game itself kinda sucked.
 
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If they use the DS3 engine, I certainly hope they tweak it so the camera doesn't suck so horrendously!

All in all, you have to admit that you could do far worse than having Feargus as a boss over at Obsidian. For the guy to go along with this and have part of his team work with InXile shows great freedom in the company.
 
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If they use the DS3 engine, I certainly hope they tweak it so the camera doesn't suck so horrendously!

If they're planning on a top-down or isometric viewpoint wouldn't the camera be in a fixed position? Just set it at an appropriate angle above the party leader and lock it there forever.
 
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If they use the DS3 engine, I certainly hope they tweak it so the camera doesn't suck so horrendously!

All in all, you have to admit that you could do far worse than having Feargus as a boss over at Obsidian. For the guy to go along with this and have part of his team work with InXile shows great freedom in the company.

From the press and blog entry it's only about getting a paycheck for Avellone. No Feargus, no Sawyer, no other Obsidianite. And they were not talking about graphics engine. They mentioned tools for getting things faster into the game.
 
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"Paycheck for Avellone" is harsh, or was that not intended? inXile need to balance the costs and Obsidian still have other projects, plus Avellone has been the most vocal about his love of Wasteland. Besides, inXile have a lot of design documents already done and they have Stackpole and Pavlish - I'm not sure they need a bunch of Obsidianites.
 
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I agree with Dhruin on this one - I don't see how it would work otherwise. Besides, it's a great idea to bring Avellone on-board because he has stated many times in interviews over the years that Wasteland was one of his biggest inspirations for getting involved in playing and eventually making RPGs, and Fargo knows CA very well from their previous time working together and what he can bring to the table - not to mention his resume, which includes two post-apoc RPGs inspired by Wasteland (Fallout 2 + New Vegas). At the very least, he would be a good fit for helping with dialogue and "old-school" quest design, and i doubt he will be much more involved than that (which is good - I think Obsidian needs his leadership and talents far more than the Wasteland team at the moment). This announcement is much, much better than the alarming "social" slip-up.
 
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I'm SO excited about this.

I also think there's a good chance we'll see some of Obsidian's tech involved in this. Still, yeah, I think this is 99% about CA.
 
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Obsidian Entertainment has Chris Avellone and Fallout programmer Tim Cain!
 
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Indeed! I most certainly would not mind old Tim poping in there... Might even be that little extra that would induce me to jump in with that kind of team on board...
 
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This is big news and it looks like the funds are flowing in nicely in the last 24 hours, lots of people raising their pledges.
 
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I'm still not convinced that this whole kickstarter thing is going revolutionize the RPG genre, but I have to admit - this does sound rather interesting.

Also, whatever time MCA spends on Wasteland 2 obviously has to be compensated, as it's time he won't be doing anything for Obsidian. That's probably where the extra money is going.
 
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As much as I love Chris, I wish there was more mention of Tim Cain in these proceedings. Tim and Chris Taylor basically gave us what we consider to be Fallout and I would love for some of their ideas to be developed into Wasteland 2.

Where is Chris Taylor these days anyway? I can't imagine he's still on Interplay's ethereal Fallout MMO.
 
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I remember Cain once said in an interview that he left Interplay because it was not the place it used to be and he was not satisfied with the company's new strategies. If he left Interplay because of disagreement with the management (including Fargo), I suspect we won't see him on Wasteland 2 team. Besides, Cain works in Obsidian as a programmer and Obsidian is not going to do the programming for wasteland, so…
I hope I am wrong and Cain joins the team.
 
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I remember Cain once said in an interview that he left Interplay because it was not the place it used to be and he was not satisfied with the company's new strategies. If he left Interplay because of disagreement with the management (including Fargo), I suspect we won't see him on Wasteland 2 team. Besides, Cain works in Obsidian as a programmer and Obsidian is not going to do the programming for wasteland, so…
I hope I am wrong and Cain joins the team.

He probably won't. Because as you said, he's a programmer first and foremost, and inXile is not looking for them. This is really pretty strictly about MCA joining.

And yes, Cain did indeed leave out of unhappiness with the up-high policies including Fargo. But time heals all wounds, I doubt he's still holding a grudge.
 
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