I've seen the info about the kickstarted Wasteland 2 and it looks like it is a go. At first I was wondering what the point is, but now I'm more excited about it. Jagged Alliance type combat with Fallout type setting? - yes, please! But I'm still wondering how is it going to distinguish itself from Fallout? Will it have the Retro-future tech? Will it have the 50's camp or will it be more modern? It will probably have ghouls and mutants, but will they be the same with a new paint job? Same with robots. What about games like Rage and Stalker?

What do you think Brian Fargo held back from Fallout that he is saving for Wasteland?

The first Wasteland was released in 1987, ten years before Fallout. Which actually was only created because of some trouble with the fools at EA.

I'd expect a pretty fallout'ish experience, sans Brotherhood, vaults and supermutants. But we'll see.

I'm happy if they deliver a functional RPG where it's fun to blast away at mutants and robbers.
Without turning it into a shoot-em-up or something awful.

Delivering on some humor on the side and not being overly politically corret would be awesome.
Many ways to mess this up, but the concept has all the ingredients for a massively enjoyable experience.

Fallout was the spiritual successor to the old Wasteland,

and it looks to be that Wasteland 2 is to be the physical successor to the old Fallout spirit.

Which is confusing and awesome at the same time.

I'm hoping for a truly destructible 3D enviroment. I want my Rangers to flip a table on it's side to use for cover. I want one ranger to leap over that table and charge the enemies position while the other lays down suppressive fire. I want to have an enemy hiding behind a wall, but it's drywall and I have a .45 caliber machine pistol, so I can fire into the wall and have the bullets go right through into the target.

In Wasteland you could split your group up into smaller parties, I really hope they keep this in Wasteland 2. Think how in Fallout you could tell a companion to "wait here" in some town and then you leave, but at anytime you could switch to that companion and be doing stuff in that town. This would be great for a "grab this character and hold him" type quest. One person goes into town to make arrangements for a safe house while the rest of the group goes on the mission.

Since Wasteland is all about the group you end up splitting skills up so that the whole party is good at everything. It would be interesting to have bonuses when two or more characters are skilled in something like Lockpick or Barter.

I really hope they do some exciting thing with party combat tatics as well. I'm a big fan of Temple of Elemental Evil as well and I'm looking forward to a nice, complex tactical experience.

Since they have done the 1950's style, and 80's style might be a different way to go. When the bomb hits those poor people will have nothing but off-the-shoulder tops and parachute pants to wear. I'm still waiting for my Landmaster vehicle.

ghouls were a big part of wasteland (well, maybe not as big as in fallout) so id imagine we'd see them.

i think location is going to be the most important. if its still in CA/NV, then its going to have to be true to the old game. if its set in the east coast or another coutnry, they can do whatever they want.

robots! im looking forward to the giant robots. thats is what is really going to set these games apart, imo. wasteland had the Scorpitron! that thing took me so long to figure out how to kill!

Guardians! nuns and monks with energy weapons! i assume this is where the Brotherhood of Steel came from.

Well we've already seen the concept art for the the Scrpitron so those will be back.

One more thing that got lost along the way in the Fallouts is rope. In Wasteland you needed rope everwhere you went, but it was only needed a few times in FO1, i believe once in FO2 and was not even in FO3.

I'd also like to see more skills, a lot more. In Wasteland you could get past a locked door by using the Strength attribute, the Lockpick skill, the crowbar or explosives. This meant that you could ignore the lockpick skill completley or just give it to one team member. I would like to see enough skills that you would be hard pressed to get a team that is proficient in every one of them. Skills like Crafting and Repair could be useful but not entirely necessary if you have other skills. Same with vehicle skills like Driving or Flying, or some character skills like Language, Gambling or Musical Ability.

i just foudn that Scorpitron concept art! woo hoo!


i agree on skills!

whats more, make some of the lesser skills more useful, like acrobat and gamble! would have liked more use for them in wasteland (few others i cant remember... been at least 5yrs since my last wasteland playthrough)

I have played lots of games that have Acrobatics as a skill, but I don't think any of them really get it right. Part of my be that after all the effort put into creating game mechanics dependent on Athletics the programmers want to make sure that everyone uses them. I'm not sure that Wasteland is the proper setting for characters with crazy parkour moves, but I would like to see some places where Acrobatics can be used instead of another skill. Maybe some one with high Acrobatic skills can bypass locked doors by climbing on the roof and droping in through a ceiling vent.

Generally if RPG's have like 20 skills, there are a bunch of those that'll be usable exactly once, rewarding you with something entirely insignificant.

I'd love to see some game get it right, but not expecting to.

for skills, I wonder if they will do synergy bonus like DnD. Say you where buying weapons and you use both your Weaponsmith and Barter skill, for example.

I'm looking forward to the new Xcom by Fraxis that is a turn based remake. I hope they get some good ideas from that.