Wasteland 2 - Post-Funding Update #43

[Couchpotato]

nXile Entertainment has released a new post-funding update for Wasteland 2 with a look at the enhanched game inventory system.

Re-Sorting Inventory

Development at this point is going faster than ever! Now that we have all of our tools in a great place, we’re spending most of our time making the experience better. You might have noticed that we haven’t updated the beta code in a while and there is a good reason for that. The next update contains some major upgrades almost across the board. We’ve made some huge leaps in optimization and reducing our memory footprint. With your help, we’ve killed over 200 bugs in this update and implemented some great reactivity and conversation suggestions that we received from the community. The inventory system has had an exciting overhaul (more on that later) and a new town (Prison) is being added. The Prison used to be Ranger Center until they took over the Guardian Citadel and made it their home. The OSX build has been in testing and we’re fixing some compatibility issues so there is a good chance it will be ready when the next code update is live. Linux has not been forgotten and will follow after OSX is released.

Because of the scope of the update it's taking a little longer than anticipated, we'll keep you posted on its status as we keep working on it. Last update we talked about offering a one-time chance to get into the early beta for only $10 to all our backers. The timing of this promotion will coincide with the update going out, so it is not yet available now. It will be a short run promotion so we’ll make sure to notify everyone in an update when it has started.

More information.

 

[mercy]

Very nice update! Didn't think them able to actually manage this. The best part of the game is the UI now. 3D models doesn't look too superb, overall noticeably lover quality than Fallout 1-2, but at least they are working at their peak performance and trying very hard, which is commendable.

 

[CraigCWB]

Very nice update! Didn't think them able to actually manage this. The best part of the game is the UI now. 3D models doesn't look too superb, overall noticeably lover quality than Fallout 1-2, but at least they are working at their peak performance and trying very hard, which is commendable.

Well, I guess it's pretty subjective. Fallout 1 & 2 used sprite animations, though. Wasteland 2 models look fine to me. A bit like Fallout tactics, only better. They seem to reflect what the characters are actually equipped with, too. Is that not so?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHDmFalG5MA

 

[Voqar]

Hurray for selling beta! Hurray for the early access price on this game. It's good to see that kickstarter has helped bring in a new way of thinking vs corporate greed. Or...err...

I'm going to be very interested to see how the kickstarter thing gets looked at over time, because to me it's a bit interesting to have your game be community funded then to have so many different ways to charge people money on top of that. Seems like there's a lot of potential for abuse and to really use the community funding as a basis for corporate-like profiting.

Anyways - always good to see development look forward even if this is one of the few indie style games I want nothing to do with until it's finally releases, in part because of the way they are handling it financially vs the MANY other indie/early access titles I've bought and/or follow that seem much less greed driven.

 

[Drithius]

Seems like there's a lot of potential for abuse and to really use the community funding as a basis for corporate-like profiting.

Well, that's built into the Kickstarter model from the start… you effectively become an investor with no [capital] return on your investment. If you pledge, you need to ignore that side of it in favor of the fact that you get what otherwise would likely not have been possible.

 

[CraigCWB]

How many times have games left beta testing early, if they even made it that far before shipping, because developers ran out of money? Or publishers/investors ran out of patience? Seems like if there are people willing to pay for early access to an unfinished game, that's a good thing. Long as the developer isn't just milking it for some extra cash

 

[ChienAboyeur]

They left in beta because they could leave in beta. It has little to do with running out of funds, much more with the possibility of applying patches on a large scale and easy (one of the reasons brought up by developpers for the success of Steam)

People do no buy to play an unfinished game but to try and influence an unfinished game. Very different.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Well, that's built into the Kickstarter model from the start… you effectively become an investor with no [capital] return on your investment. If you pledge, you need to ignore that side of it in favor of the fact that you get what otherwise would likely not have been possible.

Better to call that a donator.

 

[CraigCWB]

They left in beta because they could leave in beta. It has little to do with running out of funds, much more with the possibility of applying patches on a large scale and easy (one of the reasons brought up by developpers for the success of Steam)

It's been happening since long before Steam, and it usually involves companies and products without enough name recognition or market share that they'd ever damage their reputation so badly on purpose. Reviewers almost never go back and re-review low budget games after they've been patched, nor does word of mouth accomplish much when it's a small game. Even Rome II was a disaster due to its state on release, and that's a major league franchise with an enthusiastic fanbase.

I've always thought the reason developers like Steam was that it cuts out the middle-man. More profits for them. Less work, too, since they don't have to provide any meaningful support except via Steam.

People do no buy to play an unfinished game but to try and influence an unfinished game. Very different.

That's probably one reason.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

It's been happening long before Steam. But Steam added value to it by making it even simpler.

In those times of declining computer litteracy (as people are generally much less versed in computers than they were in the 1990s), Steam made the process of patching even simpler by taking it from the hands of the user and more than anything , by enabling the developper to code the patch only. The formatting, the distribution etc, Stream covers that angle.

Additionally, Steam enables to set a dead line for a release version on the release day. It is enough to send the release version on the aggreed release day so that Steam processes it and distributes it.

Even more incentives to send out betas.

The come crowdfunding and its monetization of beta releases. So far, the industry was used to release betas as release versions. But they were not monetizing the access (games were sold on gold versions status)

In these conditions, why should a studio not run out of funds if running of funds means even more funds? Even more incentives to release betas.

Of course, Steam caught up and went for their Steam Early Access in order to tap in the market of monetized beta accesses.