Same here. What's up with that, how and why does it prevent alt-tabbing out of the game? I'd actually like to play it in a window, I don't recall if there was an option for that.

The original game running in DOSBox alt-tabs fine, of course. And runs in a window.



About this new WL2 Director's Cut:

1. Does it include also the original non-Director's Cut version?

2. If not, are the PC requirements increased due to the new graphics engine?

Really interesting, it appeared on my account as its own separate game. Hope the issues for backers get sorted out soon. Wasteland 2 has a slow start, presenting the player with a multiple choice mission. One is a small simplistic town that operates like baby's first RPG, the other a slog through hordes of enemies. I'm not surprised players bounced off those initial hours. After you get past them the game really starts to shine.

Noice! Now I've got something until Divinity Original Sin Enhanced comes out. :)

1. I can see two separate products in my library and devs say it would be that way for everyone
2. Probably, since devs did say that they wanted to avoid the possibility of low end systems not working properly with Director's cut

Also, this FAQ kind of covers many topics related to Director's cut.

So, should I be seeing it as a separate game? If so, it's not there. Might it be somehow because my Wasteland 2 was a gift I only got and redemeed yesterday?

Blues already figured out the problem. It's with Kickstarter WL2 Digital Basic Edition. Contact support to get it immidiately or wait till blues fix it for all.

And yes, you should have both Orginal WL2 and DC in your library.

Thanks. I'll wait patiently then. I've waited this long to play it after all :)

Trentonlf. I really recommend giving it some more time. I actually was un-enthused and disappointed by it for a while before it started to grow on me. I think one of the things that made it better for me was just getting used to it in many different ways, because it is quite different than most games (different interface, gameplay style, controls, mapping, etc. Skill selection is crucial.)

It also got better for me when I switched it to Ranger difficulty. Ranger difficulty makes you think about your actions more, and is ultimately much more rewarding. Combat starts to make sense as opposed to just being kind of an non-tactical mess in the lesser difficulties. I found the combat system something you learn more and more as you go, and to be very fun and rewarding once you understand it better (I think it is a BLAST!) I also think this learning curve makes sense because at the start you are just ranger recruits with not much experience but as you go you learn more and more and become more refined, the progress/experience actually works within the game better than most games I've played where it is almost arbitrary that you "level up" and it is just an excuse to let you do more cool things because hey who doesn't like to do that? In W2 you feel like you are learning as you learn, if that makes sense.

Things that also made it get better for me:

I kept restarting the game and played the beginning a good number of times (the radio tower and a good portion of Ag. Center) to try and do better than I was pulling off in my first attempts. I restarted a few times re-tweaking my characters to get their skill sets fine-tuned, and then I even restarted once and played through Highpool to see how that was before restarting a final time to complete the Ag. Center with the party I had finalized.

After time, the controls became second nature, every command is hotkeyed and actions are fast-paced and second nature (see something that needs a skill, F-select the party member, # the skill on their hotbar, boom boom task accomplished.) Skill in combat really started to feel like a team-coordinated effort where I knew what I had to do most of the time it was just a matter of pulling it off effectively, and it was very rewarding once I started to get the hang of it. more and more.

Some situations call for certain tactics, others for others. Each encounter is unique and hand-crafted, I think, to be a fun combat experience to unfold and win.

I find W2 to be one of the few RPGs where I actually get into the mind of my characters on a deep level. I find myself having to think as the leader of team of rangers out in the wasteland. Each map, encounter, and situation unfolds as if we are actually a group of people with our relative skills out there trying to accomplish tasks, find people, investigate areas, and be the team that you are.

I also really love (at first I hated it!) how the camera works. You pretty much actually have to look for things, you don't just enter a location and are able to quickly ascertain all of the things there are to click on, you have to turn the camera, spot things with your eyes, listen to your perception meter and then actually be perceptive at times to figure out what it is that you "saw." Something is in the building you are in, but it is around the corner, chances are you have to, in a way, look around the corner to see it. Most isometric games just have the stuff "right there" and sure you might have to pixel-hunt for the location of things, it doesn't really feel like you're searching a room for something like it does in W2.

I'm not a fanboy or anything either, and at first, as I said, was pretty disappointed in the game. It was really only after spending about 10-20 hours replaying the beginning to tweak my characters that I really started to enjoy it.

****SPOILER+TIP******

I found it very useful to look at a guide and figure out what companions you will want to have join you as you go through the game. Decide those, and create your starting party's skills to compliment the companions you will have.

Along with this, since I played Ag. Center a handful of times, I knew that I would pick up Rose and that she could Field Medic/Surgeon for me if I just gave it some time. So I created a team that didn't have anyone use field-medic or surgeon skills, waited until I got her and was able to level her up before I really had healing for my party. This was difficult because then you just have to survive on the mundane healing things you can buy/you start out with to keep you alive until you get her and get the field medic skill, but it is VERY MUCH worth it to do because it saves you a ton of skill points.

Make sure to spread out your social skills among different party members. 1 person can't be a kiss-ass, a hard-ass, and a smart-ass all in one, it just doesn't make sense. Or work very well!

You could also just watch a let's play of W1 like i did. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL74BAB66E726A508F

I've played WL2 past Ag (full) and Highpool (short version) before learning that the DC was arriving, and interrupting my game. I never re-roll my chars no matter my mistakes and misconceptions at creation, but, still, unlike Pillars of Eternity, WL2 levels you very quickly, so it allows you to adjust your skills on the go and correct these beginner's mistakes very easily. What I've learnt is :

1) Field Meds are important. I played most of this part without any Field Med skill, so I had no way o heal except levelling. I think one point should be given to everyone. Seems more important than Surgeon (I had gone immediately for the more radical sounding Surgeon, but healing is very kit-dependant and surgeon kits are more rare). So, this.

2) Attributes impact levelling, so I might put more points into wisdom/intelligence/whatever, at the expense of strength and awareness and such. It's a shame, but I think it may be important on the long term, for such a fast levelling game with so many separate skills (four or five "thief" skills, three or four "diplomatic" skills, etc). I still intend to re-do my former team as it was, mostly (I even used a WL2 save editor to dig up their forgotten names from my old now-useless saved game), but with this slight difference.

3) I adored the tactical fights, even as I was (progressively less and less) scumsaving to learn how to not get slaughtered immediately. I still have one question, though. I used to position and crouch my team members individually, before firing the first (sniping) shot at the enemies, and have them run at me. This meant that I had only one surprise shot available (from the character who opens the fight). Is there no way to set the other characters to "opportunity shot" mode before starting the fight ? That is, to switch to turned-based combat mode before the enemies run at us ?

4) It's one of these games where I got overwhelmed by the accumulated loot. I stopped playing before understanding what should or shouldn't be re-sold where (in particular all the organic trash, pods, etc, that i gathered beyond the bring-ten-back mission). Am I worrying too much ?

W2 is one of the games I found where I am not okay living with the mistakes I made and fixing it as I level up, which is one reason why I restarted so many times. It took me a bunch of times to figure out I wanted this character to use these stats and this character these stats, etc. so I had it all divided up as functional as I could make it. Yeah, it is a forgiving skill system, but, it is also more rewarding the more precise you are, which is another reason I love it so much, you can really feel the difference between pretty-good, good, quite-good, very-good, exceptional etc. A few more points is worth a lot, IMO.

I don't know what else you've figured out. It doesn't make much sense to create any characters that have anything but 4 or 8 intelligence. I guess you can go below 4, but I think you are just screwing yourself out of valuable skill points if you do that. 1 character with 8 INT and you will have a good number of extra skill points and be able to cover all of the skills in the game with your team.

I like having my field+medic and surgeon as the same character. I also really like having my sniper by my animal whisperer because it keeps the animals out of the combat zone/line of fire/harms way almost all of the time.

If you want to have Scotchmo in your party, wait until you get him to train any lockpicking, and then go back and lockpick the things you missed once you have him. Also, you can give him a trinket that lets him animal whisper, and then have him animals whisper the rat statue and get +1 to his INT and then he will be gaining more skill points per level than he would with his 3 INT. Once you get him to level 10, you can give him his 1 point in INT to up his skill points per level, then drop the trinket+rat and give him a better trinket, if you want to do it that way.

Don't underestimate luck, power gamers will tell you it is a dump stat, but I've found it to be extremely useful and rewarding. It might also seem that things like combat initiative are of primary importance, where I don't really think they are. Pay attention to all of the influences stats give on character creation. From 1 level to the next might not be worth getting opposed to a different stat. And it is also the sort of game that doesn't reward jack-of-all trade types. Okay, it might work a bit for 1 character, but it is much more beneficial to have certain characters built 1 way with stats, and another character built completely differently. It's all about character planning, know who you want to do what and start them off accordingly.

As far as starting combat with sniping, etc. I've found it depends on the encounter, what is best to do. Some encounters having every single one of your rangers in a good position is crucial, sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes it makes sense to start with everyone in a designated position and get 1 snipe shot off on 1 target, sometimes it's best to focus-fire with everyone shooting at once to start the encounter, and then run a few of them back into the position you want them in once their turn is up. Sometimes it's best to "pull" enemies with a melee/close-range character back to where everyone else in your party is positioned. Each encounter has different things going for it. Some it is best to focus on different targets, some ti is best to eliminate a certain target first.

I think the best tactic to get more "opportunity shots" is by starting the encounter farther away than you might think to normally. Keep your rangers at a distance, go up close with 1, run them back, and you will get a turn in which to "pass" with your awaiting rangers, essentially. Use this opportunity to put them into ambush mode, and, when you get the enemies back to them, they'll open fire. You just need to create your puller character to have a lot of movement speed. I made the mistake of not thinking my melee character would need to move around a lot because she'd be in the front lines, but it actually hinders her more than I like because a lot of time she's missing out on the fight because enemies have moved past her and she can't catch up.

There are so many tactics (it's not like JA or anything, but, still pretty great and accessible more than a lot of heavy-tactics games.) Sometimes it is best to use burst fire for 6APs, run 3 spots for cover (9AP.) Sometimes it is best to do two standard shots for 4APs a piece (8AP) and save the last AP for the next turn. Those are just random examples of course. I find it useful to have multiple weapons of the same type for each character, each with different AP useage, that way you can really fine-tune AP optimization and get a variety of tasks done.

So we are actually stuck in that odd alternative : either have everybody shoot at a same target, or have one person shoot at a target and the other team members getting all surprised by the counter-attack ? In many games/movies/reality situations, you can set up a "each one picks their own target" surprise attack, but the WL2 mechanism doesn't allow this, right ? I wasn't sure if there was some interface thingy tht I had overlooked for that.

Also, I've never paid attention to the animal whisperer skill at all. Maybe I should look up in the manual what it does. One of these days.

Yeah, it is a bit odd that you can't set each ranger to attack an individual target on command pre-encounter. I wonder if that has changed in the DC. Usually what I end up doing if I don't want to use the pull/ambush technique is put everyone into position individually, have 3 or 4 of them that are definitely in range selected (you can shift+select any combination of rangers) and have them shoot at 1 target. This allows them to keep their tactical position but doesn't just get me only 1 shot from the sniper either.