Wasteland 2 Kickstarter is Go

[MagGnome]

Yeah...that might back-fire. Obsidian has a very mixed reputation among gamers.

[Jackel]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

Yeah...that might back-fire. Obsidian has a very mixed reputation among gamers.

I'm excited to see Obsidian involved. I love their story telling. QA is typically done by the publisher so hopefully we won't have the bugs seen in F:NV.

[MagGnome]

But who is the publisher in this case?

[J Arcane]

How do I pledge so that Obsidian is prevented from going anywhere near it?

[Jackel]

No one, so the developers would do QA instead. Bethesda would have done QA for F:NV.

[Widgetcraft]

My assumption was that it was going to be self-published... which, to me, seems like it could be disastrous if Obsidian is involved. People used to write off their problems as the publisher rushing their projects out the door, but they've gone through at least three publishers, and generally all of their games suffer from a severe lack of polish/completion, so I think the blame is squarely in their court at this point.

[Farsight]

Obsidian's console efforts have MS/Sony in a QA role as well. I've had no problems with any of their console releases.

On the PC side... well, maybe they could add a Kickstarter fee to add testers?

[Grifter]

This is the email I received from the Wasteland 2 Kickstart project.

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

When put like that I'm ok with the collaboration, as long as Obsidian isn't involved directly in the core game creation I think they could be a useful asset.

[Hawkzombie]

I am for it. I think it'll turn out for the best, in all honesty. As long as Obsidian is there as a helper and not a driving force (which from reading that e-mail is the feel I get) then it can only turn out good things. Especially in a story-sense.

[muddi900]

Avellone alone is great

[MagGnome]

That e-mail sets my mind totally at ease as well. I'm looking forward to this game so much!