# Wasteland 2 Sammelthread



## LordCrash (4. Oktober 2013)

Sammelthread für alles, was das Ende des Jahres oder Anfang nächsten Jahres erscheinende old-school RPG Wasteland 2 der Fallout-Macher betrifft, das mittels Kickstarter finanziert wurde




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Im Heft hat Wasteland 2 in der Vorschau vom Peter zwar nur ein "gut" bekommen, aber das Spiel war ihm wohl einfach nicht AAA genug....

Das sollte RPG Fans aber keinesfalls abschrecken. Wasteland 2 ist eben old-school durch und durch. Händchenhalten, leichtes Casual-Gameplay und High-End Grafik sucht man hier vergeblich, dafür bekommt man aber richtiges RPG Futter: massig interessante NPCs mit vielen Dialogen, ein Entscheidungssystem, das tiefen Einfluss auf das Spiel nimmt, richtig herausfordernde und taktische Rundenkämpfe mit old-school Skill- und Attributsystemen, skurile, humorvolle und interessante Entdeckungen und viel spielerische Freiheit....


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## Gast1669461003 (4. Oktober 2013)

Gibt es schon einen voraussichtlichen Release-Termin? Einen ungefähren Preis? Early-Access: ja/nein/vielleicht?


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## LordCrash (4. Oktober 2013)

*[FONT=&quot]Honing Our Skills[/FONT]*

  Hello fellow Rangers!

  Chris Keenan here to talk about the most recent progress on Wasteland 2 and what to expect in the upcoming months.

  We last spoke about skills in Update #20 in December of last year. Since then, our team has made incredible progress on all fronts. I can say, without a doubt, that we’ve been more efficient as a team than on any project I’ve ever worked on. Much of this has to do with a clarity of vision and getting feedback early and often to make sure we’re focusing on the most important things.

  Now is a good time to talk about the core character systems (attributes and skills) since in the very near future, you will be playing with them during the early beta. Some functionality of the attributes and skills have changed during the iterative process and will continue to do so as we get more feedback from you, once the playable is in your hands.

 *[FONT=&quot]Attributes[/FONT]*

  Attributes are the starting values that define your character. You allocate them at character creation and while they can be upgraded during the course of the game, opportunities to do so are sparse. Attributes are key in determining the core characteristics of your ranger. They affect things like how many action points you have, how much movement each action point allows, how many survival points you gain per level, your carry weight, and many other variables. We’ve always said choices and trade-offs are a main design focus and character creation certainly supports this. Attributes have a cap of 10 and you will start with a smaller attribute pool than you may be used to. Each attribute point has a dramatic effect on your ranger, which leads to some very different feeling rangers based on how you distribute them.

  If a specific attribute is very low, that may cap the related skill or could mean the character is incapable of using some items with attribute requirements. Of course, we will be balancing attributes and skills throughout beta, so some of these might be modified further. Outside of the core uses, NPCs in the world will react to specific characters based on their attribute make-up. 

The attributes are (with some but not all uses listed):


*[FONT=&quot]Coordination (CO)[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot]: General coordination and ability to operate firearms.      Determines action points (AP) and increases your critical hit chance at      range.[/FONT]
*[FONT=&quot]Luck (LK)[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot]:      Luck of the roll. Improves crits with weapons, gives you a chance to get      an additional AP during your turn and affects many other interactions      throughout the wasteland.[/FONT]
*[FONT=&quot]Awareness (AW)[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot]:      Ability to notice events happening around you. Increases initiative in      combat (turn order), increases evasion rate.[/FONT]
*[FONT=&quot]Strength (ST)[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot]:      Pure physical strength. Increases your maximum constitution earned per      level, increases close combat damage, increases carry weight.[/FONT]
*[FONT=&quot]Speed (SP)[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot]:      Physical speed and movement rate. Increases movement per AP in combat,      reduces length of skill usage progress meters.[/FONT]
*[FONT=&quot]Intelligence (IQ)[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot]: Knowledge, wisdom and general problem-solving.      Increases skill points gained per level.[/FONT]
*[FONT=&quot]Charisma (CHR)[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot]:      Charm, personality and swagger. How NPCs perceive your likeability or      persuasiveness.[/FONT]
  Also making a return from Wasteland 1, but still not exactly an attribute, is maximum constitution (MAXCON), or the maximum number of hit points. MAXCON is derived from strength and upgradeable when you level-up.

 *[FONT=&quot]Skills[/FONT]*

  After selecting attributes, you will be able to place Survival Points (SPs) into your many skill options. Skills start off at a zero value, meaning they are unusable. After unlocking a skill with SPs, you can place additional SPs into the skill to increase its level and functionality. Skills have a maximum cap of 10 similar to attributes. Skills are upgraded in tiers, with a total of 10 skill levels. Roughly speaking, skill levels 1-3 mean novice, 4-6 mean competent, 7-9 mean proficient and 10 means expert. Each skill level allows you to take on more significant challenges, increasing your chance of success and level of rewards as you use the skill. Skills can also be increased from use. Some skills provide additional bonuses as you reach the various levels of competency.

 *[FONT=&quot]Combat Skills[/FONT]*

Increasing skills here will increase your chance to hit with that specific class of weapons. In addition, mastery of those weapons increases with your skill level, allowing you to manipulate and clear it quicker when jams happen.


[FONT=&quot]Blunt      Weapons: Generally have higher damage but a tighter damage range.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Bladed      Weapons: Have lower damage but a greater range and higher crit max.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Anti-Tank-Weapons:      Generally do massive explosive damage but ammo is rare and blast radius      makes them hard to use in certain combat situations. Can also be used to      get through some pesky doors.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Submachine      Guns: Have a lower range and lower critical chance, for a more      hail-of-bullets approach. Ammo tends to be cheaper and more plentiful than      for the higher caliber automatics.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Shotguns:      Have shorter range but great stopping power.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Energy      Weapons: Usefulness varies based on your opponent, as energy weapons are      less effective against flesh. If your opponent is heavily decked out in      metal armor the weapon heats up his gear. The higher the armor of your      target, the more damage it will deal. Think pressure cooker. It’s nasty.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Assault      Rifles: Are very versatile and powerful weapons, but ammo is harder to      find. Assault rifles use higher caliber rounds with more penetration value      than smaller arms.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Sniper      Rifle: Ideal in open fields due to their long range and heavy damage, but      not necessarily stellar in cramped corridors. Ammo is very expensive. Make      your shots count as the AP cost is very high.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Handguns:      Includes pistols and revolvers. Like SMGs, ammo is common enough to make      this the go-to weapon for many rangers, but they are single shot only,      trading that for a higher crit value.[/FONT]
 *[FONT=&quot]Information / Knowledge Skills[/FONT]*

Your chance of success with non-combat skills depends on the difference between the challenge and your skill level. For an expert at lock picking facing a door with a very simple lock, there is almost no chance to fail. A novice surgeon may find it very hard to remove the effects of a dangerous strain of toxin or a serious injury that renders your ranger in mortal condition. If the skill difference is too significant, especially for untrained rangers, it may simply not be possible to accomplish the task.


[FONT=&quot]Picklock:      Chance of success and speed at picking conventional locks.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Safecrack:      Chance of success and speed at picking safe locks, including on vault      doors.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Alarm      Disarm: Ability to disarm alarms, but also to fix faulty wiring on      security doors and open them directly.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Toaster      Repair: Fix broken toasters and who doesn’t need that?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Computer      Tech: Skill at hacking computers, which gives access to a variety of      possibilities. You can gain information you couldn’t otherwise, or      remotely activate a security system or camera. Some computers may give you      the ability to activate or reprogram security doors.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Synth      Tech: With synth tech you can repair and reprogram synthetics and other      robots, turning them to your side in combat.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Demolitions:      The ability to use demolitions in and out of combat. Out of combat, its      most common use is to break down doors or clear barriers that do not give      way to picklock or brute force, but this unsubtle means of entry is sure      to be noticed. In combat, lots of destruction.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Brute      Force: Determines your skill at applying your raw strength to break some      things. Lacks the subtlety of picklock and the raw force of demolitions.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Move      Silently: The ability to sneak around unnoticed.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Salvaging:      How effective you are at finding usable items in what would normally be      considered piles of junk. A ranger who is good at salvaging can find many      useful items that might be skipped over by a normal person.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Kiss      Ass: Dialogue skill involving flattery, seduction, and well… ass kissing.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Hard      Ass: Dialogue skill involving intimidation and aggressive speech.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Smart      Ass: Dialogue skill involving persuasion. ***The “Ass Trio” names are      placeholders but somehow they’ve taken hold around the office.***[/FONT]
 *[FONT=&quot]General Skills[/FONT]*

General skills have a variety of uses. Some involve breaking down materials that you find in the Wasteland, while others provide much needed medical care. These tend to be support skills and help you manage and solve problems.


[FONT=&quot]Barter:      Ability to negotiate for better purchase prices and higher sales prices      for your goods.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Outdoorsman:      Primarily used on the world map to determine your ability to conserve      water as you travel, as well as expand your options for when you spot      random encounters.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Leadership:      The ability to lead a team, best used by a single PC who gives a buff in      combat to PCs and friendly NPCs around him. Multiple leaders around the      same skill level can cause a negative reaction. Also determines how much      companion NPCs will listen to you vs. doing their own thing.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Cliff      Clavin Backer Skill: The skill exclusive to the early backers of this      project, it adds flavor text to the game world.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Animal      Whisperer: The ability to influence animals into staying passive, running      away or following you.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Field      Medic: This skill lets you quickly patch up guys during combat, recovering      some CON by using medical equipment.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Surgeon:      Allows you to provide help to rangers who have major status effects or      have gone unconscious or worse. Can be used in combat but due to the      amount of time it takes, will force you to protect your surgeon from being      overly exposed.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Weaponsmithing:      The ability to craft and mod weaponry to increase its performance.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Field      Stripping: The ability to strip weaponry you find into parts to use for      improving your own weapons.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Perception:      Can be used actively to notice enemies through thin walls, uncovering them      for a short period of time. The skill also shows you the perception cone      of enemies to help you sneak or get to a better starting position prior to      combat. As a passive, it helps to identify things that might be out of the      ordinary, including finding booby traps.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]??????      - A few other skills that can be unlocked throughout the game.[/FONT]
  What may stand out to you is the variation in the perceived level of usefulness of skills; animal whisperer is unlikely to be used as much as handguns. We purposefully designed skills that would not be used universally. Each skill has a variety of uses throughout the game and various levels of rewards. Lockpick might more often used, but you never know when something like Alarm Disarm will give you a huge advantage (or reward) that would be otherwise unobtainable. This level of granularity is an advantage of party-based systems and we fully intend to exploit it. We want you to build a varied, multi-skilled group of rangers who play off each other’s strength to become a kick-ass team.

 *[FONT=&quot]New Screenshots[/FONT]*

  Here’s a few more screenshots we wanted to share with you. As you can see, there is a wide variety of diversity amongst the environments you will travel through, both in aesthetic and environment design (full size here and here).




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​ *[FONT=&quot]Early Beta[/FONT]*

  It is now October and we are close to getting this game into the hands of our beta-eligible backers. We’re currently cleaning things up, fixing the largest issues and working on a first pass of balance across Arizona. Have we mentioned that this game is massive?
  The short-term plan is to continue iterating and fixing bugs found by our internal QA until the game is stable and playable through the sections we are opening up for early beta. This process will take a few more weeks. Once we get there, we will have a very small group jump in to get a feel for if it’s ready to release to our patiently waiting beta backers. The plan is to distribute the beta for Windows PC, as we know we can get standalone builds to work in Windows. We have not forgotten about our Mac and Linux backers and will soon do some tests to try to get a standalone executable for those versions as well. Many months back we tried a Mac test in Unity and it built great with about 30 minutes of clean up. If history repeats itself, those versions will be available as well for the early beta (what’s the worst that can happen, right?).

  To prep for early playable, let’s talk a little bit about what we hope to give and get from you. The game will be in an early beta. Much of the systems and content will be in and working but it will be crude in some areas. Some systems won’t be fully polished, there will be weird bugs, and balance will be far from final. We will be fixing these things throughout the beta – we promise the game won’t be released before the game plays beautifully. It’s been difficult for me to get used to personally, but we’ve fully embraced getting screenshots and demo videos out before we feel they are truly ready and polished. I’m much more at peace with it now as this has helped us get great feedback early, and give us time to pivot when necessary. This early beta is no exception.

  There are two major goals for us here; bug-hunting and gathering feedback on everything from mechanics to mission design to level design. We’ve enlisted the help of the great people at CenterCode to facilitate this process and make sure that we get the best feedback possible, and are able to effectively cull the large amount of information into an actionable format. It won’t be mandatory for you to opt-in for generating feedback, but we hope that you will participate as it will only improve the final product. More info on that will come as we get closer to the early beta launch.

  For us, the most important thing you can do is provide us feedback. What elements do you like? What things need more work or, in your opinion, just aren’t fitting properly? We want to know what you think of our game, the writing, the flow, the mechanics…everything. We will be updating the game on a consistent basis (approximately every 2-3 weeks) and continuing to improve Wasteland 2 throughout this process.

  Initially, we will be releasing the first 4 large areas and all associated COPS maps. COPS maps are smaller scenes that can be accessed through the world map and tie into the main areas. We won’t be putting the full game into beta to prevent spoilers that would become widely known before Wasteland 2 is finished. We’ll implement game-wide changes stemming from your feedback from the first areas, and continue our extensive internal bug-testing during this period.

 *[FONT=&quot]Ranger Center[/FONT]*

  We surveyed all our backers for their addresses soon after the Kickstarter, but a lot of you have moved or are moving since that day. We also received messages through Kickstarter about address changes. Please be aware we do not change our address listings through Kickstarter messages. All backers, whether through the late backer store or Kickstarter, have an account on our Ranger Center pledge management system. You can keep your address updated there, and the address listing on your account at the time of shipping is where we’ll ship to. We’ll send more reminders about this, but please make sure to check your address and make sure it’s up to date as we get closer and closer to release.

  If you’ve gotten this far in the update, thanks for giving us your time! We will provide more info on when the early beta will be ready in the near future. The team is excited to get the game in your hands and show off what we’ve been working on!

  Chris Keenan
Project Lead


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## LordCrash (4. Oktober 2013)

dsr159 schrieb:


> Gibt es schon einen voraussichtlichen Release-Termin? Einen ungefähren Preis? Early-Access: ja/nein/vielleicht?


 Der Release wurde erst kürzlich etwas verschoben. Entweder es erscheint noch dieses Jahr oder Anfang 2014.

Wasteland 2 kann man immer noch "slackerbacken" für 25$ (bzw. vorbestellen): Wasteland

Es gibt eine Beta, die bald startet, für Backer. Ob es auch einen öffentlichen Early-Access auf Steam o.ä. ageben wird, weiß ich nicht. Allerdings muss man kickstartertypisch davon ausgehen, dass Early-Access deutlich teurer ist als das Spiel an sich, siehe Planetary Annihilation. Die digitale CE samt Beta-Zugang kostet im Onlinestore (link oben) 55$


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## Hawkins (4. Oktober 2013)

Ich hoffe das Game wird mehr in Richtung Fallout 1+2 gehen und nicht so eine 0815 Gurke wie Shadowrun Returns.

Die bisher gezeigten Gameplay Videos waren schonmal ganz nett.


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## Shadow_Man (5. Oktober 2013)

Einer dieser Titel, auf die ich mich am meisten freue. Es wird ja sogar eine Retail-Version geben, die von Deep Silver veröffentlicht wird


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## Lightbringer667 (6. Oktober 2013)

oh, ich glaub das wird grandios. Hab das auch gebackt und verfolge die Entwicklung mit großem Interesse. Ich glaub da kommt was ganz großes  Ich fand das "gut" von Peter auch etwas tiefgestapelt, aber nunja ^^


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## LordCrash (7. Oktober 2013)

Alpha Gameplay Video vom August (wurde auf der Gamescom Journalisten gezeigt):





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## Peter Bathge (7. Oktober 2013)

Lightbringer667 schrieb:


> oh, ich glaub das wird grandios. Hab das auch gebackt und verfolge die Entwicklung mit großem Interesse. Ich glaub da kommt was ganz großes  Ich fand das "gut" von Peter auch etwas tiefgestapelt, aber nunja ^^


 
Lag hauptsächlich dran, dass man es noch nicht ausprobieren konnte. Wenn ich es auf der Gamescom hätte anspielen können, wäre vielleicht ein "Sehr Gut" dabei rausgesprungen. Spätestens seit Shadowrun Returns trete ich mit einer gesunden Portion Skepsis an die Kickstarter-Spiele heran.


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## Kaisan (16. Oktober 2013)

PeterBathge schrieb:


> Spätestens seit Shadowrun Returns trete ich mit einer gesunden Portion Skepsis an die Kickstarter-Spiele heran.


 
Komm schon, so schlecht war Shadowrun Returns nun auch wieder nicht  Wie dem auch sei: Freu mich wie ein Schnitzel auf das Teil und kann den Reales (welcher hoffentlich in einigen Monaten folgen wird) kaum erwarten ...


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## LordCrash (21. Oktober 2013)

* Kickstarter Update #37: Revealing the Map *

*The World Map *

Like Fallout or Arcanum, the basic experience on the world map is one of exploration and discovery. 
Your  travel on the world map is limited by both physical geography and  clouds of deadly radiation. Within those constraints, you can travel  anywhere in the region depicted on the map. You have two alternative  means of exploration while in this game mode.




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Primary exploration occurs in a 3D map that shows your immediate  surrounding environment with representative scale and geographic  features of the region. Significant locations, settlements and sites  reveal themselves as you scout around. The 3D exploration is in the same  style and pattern as Mount & Blade and Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm  of Zehir.




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While in the 3D world map, you can press “M” to bring up a  2D map displaying the entire region.  This 2D regional map automatically  updates with locations you have either explored yourself, or have been  informed of by another Wastelander. The regional map has been handed  down from ranger to ranger over the previous century, each adding their  own details to what was originally an old-fashioned roadmap from the  1990s.

As you discover radiation zones they are marked on your map In Arizona, locations generally match their canonical layout from  Wasteland 1. The map is filled with key locations you will discover  through regular playthroughs; but significant sections of the map are  side exploration opportunities. There is plenty of space to wander  around, discover hidden resources based on your character’s build, fight  random encounters and discover minor sites that may be explored in  normal game mode.

*Exploration*

As you explore the  region, you’ll discover three primary things on the world map:  settlements, sites and resources. Settlements are major locations, such  as Ranger Citadel and the Ag Center. Sites are minor locations such as  an abandoned mine or a highway roadblock. Resources include oases where  you can refill your canteen and hidden caches where previous  Wastelanders have stored ammunition, weapons or other goods. 

Exploration is the primary activity; but survival will demand some attention as well. 

*Survival *

The Wasteland is a dangerous place, and there are several threats that can end your Ranger career prematurely.

_Dying of Dehydration_

In  Wasteland 2, water management is challenging and important. Your water  supply is based upon the number of rangers in your squad and the number  of canteens among them. Depending on the type of terrain you are  traversing, your water supply is consumed at varying rates. Desert  terrain requires the most water, while grassland and highland are more  forgiving.

If you run out of water on the world map, you do not  immediately die, but over time your rangers will begin to take damage  from dehydration. You will eventually die if you do not find a new  source of water. Your Outdoorsman skill adjusts the overall water  consumption rate as well as the length of time your squad can last  without water before suffering from dehydration.

You will find  water at hidden oases throughout the region. Oases are discovered as you  travel the 3D map; you will discover them from greater distances with a  higher Outdoorsman skill. Like settlements and sites, oases will reveal  themselves in the 3D world map as they are scouted.

Other water  sources are also available throughout the game, inside of major  locations, such as Ranger Citadel and Highpool. These in-level water  sources are automatically accessible if the level is a friendly  location. Water sources in neutral or hostile locations generally  require a mission or task to unlock. Once such a water source is  available, it is always free. 

_Dying of Radiation Poisoning_

You'll  want to pay attention to your Geiger counter. Clouds of deadly  radiation, remnants from the war, drift throughout the American  Southwest. Your Geiger counter measures the radiation level in your  immediate surroundings in Sieverts (Sv).

You will encounter  varying levels of radiation. The lowest rad levels do not damage you,  but rather warn you that higher levels are likely near. Damaging levels  of radiation poisoning begin at 500 mSv and can reach exposure levels  that are instantaneously deadly. Except in these extremely high doses,  radiation will not immediately kill but it definitely packs a bigger  punch than dehydration. Saving is recommended when exploring the  unknown, far reaches of the region. 

Equipping your squad members with rad suits will allow them to  survive certain levels of radiation. You can also upgrade your rad suit  later in the game to a higher quality version to survive higher doses;  but remember that there are pockets of radiation in The Wasteland that  are at such high levels that no one can survive, regardless of a rad  suit.  Proceed carefully.

_Dying of Murder_




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  You’re not the only survivors in The Wasteland.

Our random  encounter system will throw a wide variety of dangerous animals,  mutants, raiders and robots at you. Encounter chances are based on an  overall percentage depending on terrain type and the general level of  danger in the zone you are travelling.

Certain parts of The  Wasteland are populated by particularly dangerous enemies. You are more  likely to trigger high-level encounters while travelling in those areas.  We do not conduct any form of level scaling in this regard; so if you  wander off the beaten path you better be ready for a tough fight.

When  a random encounter begins, you will have the option to either attack or  attempt to run away. Your chance to successfully flee the fight depends  on your Speed, Luck and Outdoorsman skill.

Random encounters draw  from a wide pool of scenarios. Animals, mutants, raiders and robots  will attack from a variety of positions and depending on your skills and  abilities your squad may possess the high ground, if any, or your  opponents may begin in an advantageous position.

Random encounter  zones will match the terrain type you are travelling through and each  terrain type has several different encounter layouts. Encounters  generally consist of between one to six enemies, though that does not  necessarily inform you of the difficulty; one Slicer Dicer will tear  through your ranger squad well after you get to the point where six  Supaflies are merely an inconvenience.




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*Skill and Abilities*

Your rangers possess a variety  skills to help you brave these many dangers. Outdoorsman is the most  important for the world map, affecting water consumption, dehydration  survival distance, scouting range for new settlements and sites,  starting position for random encounters, your chance to run away from  said danger, and more. Outdoorsman is the key skill for travel, but you  will find uses for it in various other areas of the game as well.

Luck  is likely the second most important ability or skill while travelling  on the world map. Luck impacts what kind of hidden caches you discover  in The Wasteland and how much loot they contain, as well as your  likelihood of escape if you try to run away from a random encounter.  There are also certain resources and events on the world map that you  will only be able to discover if you are extremely Lucky.
Finally,  Speed has obvious impact in relation to random encounters, as mentioned  above, and several of your other abilities and skills will reveal  hidden caches, high value items, unique encounters and undiscovered  oases with greatly increased water supplies.

*Difficulty *

As with all of the challenges facing a ranger on the wastes,  we modulate difficulty according to your settings. We provide a specific  Travel Difficulty slider, which controls the overall challenge of the  world map as well as the level of hinting and signposting present in the  HUD and on the map. In easy mode, navigating The Wasteland is simple  and does not require much thought. In hard mode, a simple factor like  water management can be brutal and challenging. Medium strikes a  balance; challenging but with enough freedom to wander and explore.

*Early Beta*

You’re  all no doubt anxious to get your hands on the Early Beta and we’re  anxious to get it to you! We’re now in the stage where we have  distributed standalone copies of the Early Beta to a small group of  external individuals as a test run. This is the final stage where we  ensure it is up to our standards and runs on a variety of machines, and  we’ll then be ready to get it to you.
Early Beta will only be  distributed through Steam, as called out in the original Kickstarter  reward tiers. The final release will – of course – be available through a  wide variety of channels; but running the Early Beta through Steam is  the optimal option. Any other solution would require a non-trivial  investment of resources into Early Beta distribution; we feel those  resources are better spent on the general quality, stability and scope  of the game.

Quelle: Wasteland 2 by inXile entertainment


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## LordCrash (29. Oktober 2013)

*Brian Fargo*     ‏@*BrianFargo*  1m 
                Ok the beta for Wasteland 2 is really close but I'm not quite comfortable releasing it in its current (technical state).

*Brian Fargo*     ‏@*BrianFargo*  1m
I'm excited to get it in your hands but we want to give a little more love.  Stay tuned!


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## LordCrash (7. November 2013)

*Update #38  Almost there, Almost there… *

  Hello Rangers,

Chris here to announce that our re-release of Wasteland 1 - The Original Classic has gone Gold and has been submitted to GOG.com and Steam  for platform approval. If somehow you’re unfamiliar with Wasteland:  this critically acclaimed post-apocalyptic role-playing game was first  published in 1988, and broke new ground as one of the first cRPGs to  have an open, reactive world with persistent consequences to your  actions.

The year is 2087, eighty nine years after an all-out  nuclear war transformed the Earth into a hellish landscape where  survival is a daily struggle against thirst, hunger, radiation, raiders  and mutants. You take control of a band of Rangers, sent out to  investigate a series of disturbances in The Wasteland and soon uncover a  vast threat to all that remains of mankind.

This old school cRPG  offers turn-based combat and top-down exploration, as well as tons of  mood-setting texts and a colorful variety of enemy portraits. As we talked about before,  we have enhanced the re-release, first and foremost ensuring the game  will run on modern machines and higher resolutions. Furthermore, the  game has been expanded to offer a music track from Wasteland 2 composer  Mark Morgan, integrated texts from the paragraph book and manual, and  additional save game functionality. It also offers many optional  overhauls such as uprezzed portraits, paragraph voice-over and a choice  of playing the game upscaled, smoothed or in the original resolution.

All our backers – whether through Wasteland 2’s Kickstarter, as a late backer through Paypal,  or if you got Wasteland 2 through your Torment pledge – will be getting  a copy of Wasteland 1 for free. You will receive your key by logging  into your account on the Ranger Center (or the equivalent Torment pledge management system).  They will be available as soon as the game goes live on GOG.com and  Steam, which could happen as early as Friday, and we'll email our  backers then. Access will be limited to backers only initially. You will  be able pick between getting either a Steam or GOG.com key, whichever  is your preference.

To briefly elaborate on our last update’s  notes on this re-release, we got a ton of feedback based on what we  showed you about our Wasteland 1 tweaks.  We spent some time  implementing a number of the changes our community suggested; a toggle  to turn smoothing off, implementing swappable portraits, tweaking  portrait art options, in-game manual text on abilities, stats and skills  and ensuring it works on Mac and Linux.

*Beta*

The Early  Beta is not quite ready yet, but we are almost there.  We’ve received  countless messages from backers telling us not to release the game until  it’s ready.  Even though it’s an early beta, we feel the experience has  to be at a base level of satisfaction to us before we release it.   There will still be plenty of time for you to give input and help us  craft the game once the early beta is released.  We are focused on  getting it to a state where we can give you a meaningful impression of  the game and allow you to give useful feedback.  We’re working hard to  get it there, but it does need a bit more love, and we’d rather get it  right than rush it to you. As the beta progresses, we’re also testing  distribution mechanisms with an external set of users via Steam, all in  preparation to get the first playable in your hands.

Speaking of preparation, the official forums  are being restructured and reorganized to support the Early Beta  launch. We are also about to roll out the Early Beta issue reporting  site, which will use the CenterCode platform. This way community members  will be able to directly report issues into our internal bug tracking  database. While CenterCode will be our main method of gathering bugs,  you guys will of course want to discuss your experiences, share  different Ranger builds, help each other out with possibly technical  problems, and the official forums will provide the platform for that.  We’ve expanded the moderator group with volunteers that have been on the  forums a long time, and they will help ensure a smooth experience and  assist in ensuring feedback comes through. On top of our existing  moderators, RangerBen, Sxerks, SuAside and Tagaziel, we’d like to  welcome Zombra, ffordesoon, Drool, paultakeda and Woolfe.

For quick updates, we launched a Wasteland2Beta twitter account,  which will keep you posted with news and status updates pertaining to  the beta until it is ready for launch. As always, you can check Brian’s twitter, my own twitter, and the Wasteland 2 tumblr for our most important updates.

*Cries of a Dead World*

And  finally, to share something that’s just cool, gaming song maker  extraordinaire Gavin Dunne AKA Miracle of Sound contacted us, interested  in doing a fan made song for Wasteland 2. We put him in touch with Mark  Morgan for some pointers, and he came back to us with this cool song:





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Australian fans will want to keep their eyes peeled for issue #222 of PC PowerPlay, a survival-themed issue with one sweet-looking cover.

Thanks,

Chris Keenan
Project Lead


----------



## LordCrash (11. Januar 2014)

*Get Back to Work!*

I hope you all enjoyed your holidays and got time to relax and spend time with the people you care about. I know we here appreciated the break and have returned with our batteries charged; attacking our to do lists with vigor.  

Wasteland 2 has been in beta for around a month now, and it’s been a hectic but great time. The initial beta feedback from our backers has been amazing, not just in that many people are loving what they’re seeing so far, but also in that you guys have been terrific in giving feedback: we have around 8000 suggestions/bugs/comments (with many redundancies as you can imagine) reported directly through the CenterCode bug feedback site, and over 500 new discussion threads on our official forums. All the suggestions and bugs from CenterCode have been processed generating approximately 1800 tasks for our team, of which roughly 500 have already been resolved in the first two weeks of work on this backer beta (in the current internal build).

One of the things that makes this process unique is having an open beta for a narrative driven RPG. Typically we find that beta programs of this size focus on multi-player aspects of games so that the developer can hone in balance, server capacity and features related to multiple people playing a game. In our case we are looking at ways to improve the reactivity of a story driven game in material ways. It is a key tenet to an RPG of this style so expect to see continued changes and additions to areas you have already visited. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly and materially things evolve. We continue to learn from your feedback and apply these lessons to both the beta areas and the ones we haven’t released yet. The final version of Wasteland 2 will be a game that could not have been created in a vacuum.

If you can’t tell, we have been really happy with how well this process is going. There has been a lot of great criticism on how to make the game better, and we’ve been very excited to see the majority of this criticism agrees with our internal evaluations of what we need to improve on and focus on, such as amount and depth of reactivity, or complexity of combat. In other words, we’re in agreement on the direction this game is heading in!

As I said blocker bugs are our first priority but we have a long list of various smaller and larger changes we want to make, many of which were on our lists and were reaffirmed by our community and directly inspired by backer feedback. For example, we’re working on significant improvements to combat. Destructible cover was part of this last update as a first pass with more fine-tuning to come; we will likely add a crouching stance with a variety of tactical applications; we’re going over a lot of the encounter design to more carefully detail tactics-changing factors like ladders or destructible cover; and we’re in the first testing stages to explore adding a special attack system that’ll allow you to invest AP to make specific kinds of attacks based on your weapon types and the skill levels you’ve achieved in those weapons…things like spread shots or steady shots. Keep in mind the combat you see in the beta is only the earliest levels in the game, where enemies are more straightforward and do not have the wide variety of special moves, AoE attacks and more advanced AI of later-game enemies. The enemy AI is quite varied as you get into the later stages, once you’ve sufficiently learned the base controls and rules of the experience.

Additionally, let me give you a peek at some of the things we’ll focus on as we continue production: improving the messaging of the game’s interface and systems significantly; doing several balance passes on everything in the world from economy to combat to the whole character system; overhauling the minimap; fixing font issues; working on the field stripping and weapon modding functionalities; tweaking shotguns so they properly provide spread shots rather than work just as rifles; improving the barter, inventory and character system UIs; fixing pathing; improving the balance and functionality of energy weapons; adding additional satisfying death animations; implementing outfit functionality; adding touches and small scenes to make towns and the world feel more alive and much more. That is just a short list of what is in reality a much longer to-do list, so don’t worry if you don’t see your own suggestion in there: everything our backers put into CenterCode is read by multiple developers so nothing is lost.

One last major thing I wanted to talk about has to do with reactivity and town connectivity. Let me reiterate from our last update, this is our greatest area of focus when we look at videos of people playing the game or read their game impressions on forums or CenterCode. We are constantly adding smaller touches in map passes but also have plans for significant increases in reactivity, both for our existing maps and for the rest of the game. This is another place where backer feedback shines, as we get feedback from people playing through the game and wondering why this one event isn’t a more complex mission or why we don’t add more choices to another. With your help, the game is constantly improving in this field.  

As this process goes forward, we are constantly tweaking features, or adding and removing them, but that does not necessarily mean any of those changes are permanent. The “healing over time” mechanic is a good example of this: We initially put it in primarily as a counter-balance to a lack of reliability of healing items from the random loot tables and an unbalanced economy meaning not enough merchants to buy those items from, and it would have caused an unnecessary delay to implement this before beta release. When we put out our first major update the loot system became more balanced, and we pulled healing over time to see how that impacted the experience of our backers. That is the quintessential beta iteration experience, you never quite know how a feature change works out until you have people playing it. Many like the extra challenge it added and the thoughtful use of healing items it now necessitates, but others were unhappy with the way this impacted game balance or felt healing over time was needed because it is a Wasteland 1 feature. We’ll be curious to see how this is impacted by the upcoming overhaul on field medic and surgeon (yes, we know surgeon is confusing as hell) as well as putting in more friendly doctors and merchants for healing supplies. The game is one of scarcity and the mechanics should support that. We will continue to monitor the discussions on these elements and course correct along the way as necessary.

These next few paragraphs will be primarily of interest to our existing beta backers: we want to thank you for your detailed descriptions of your problems, along with the error logs, save files, and information on what PC specs are running into problems, as they are invaluable resources at this stage, so thank you all so much for your contributions. If you haven't joined us yet on our bug reporting site see this thread, which also contains information on what kind of files to attach (and, as a general request, to please not .zip or .rar them up).  

With the help of all this information we have been doing some major work on our game, and in a short timeframe put out a big update to the backer beta on Steam. You can read the (lengthy) full patch notes over on our tumblr, but be warned there will be a few spoilers at the end of those. Since coming back from our holidays we updated the beta again with a smaller update, primarily to improve performance for specific video cards, patch notes here.

We will continue to update the beta build, first focusing on blocker bugs (crashes, problems with savegames, etc) in the coming few weeks, and then working our way through to major and minor bugs. The blocker bugs have highest priority and as I mentioned have been sorted out to our programmers. We won’t have an exact update schedule here but we should have word on the next update soon, and hope to address the majority of remaining blocker issues. We will continue to focus on optimization for specific hardware setups, and again your reports have been invaluable information for us to work from.  

Expect an update to the early beta code in the not too distant future with an additional area and many reactivity changes. This version will NOT be compatible with current save games, so we’ll give due warning when it’s coming. However, there will be plenty of reasons to play the game from the start, as there will be significant changes to existing areas, and tie-ins between all the beta areas that are worth exploring. New content is not just a matter of pasting a new area to the end of the beta, when we unlock that area we also unlock the tie-ins and NPCs and locations it is tied to.  

Also we were able to get an OSX version of Wasteland 2 up and running fairly smoothly and it is currently in QA. Creating an OSX port of the game is easy thanks to Unity, but such ports do need to go through testing and as we collectively have much more experience with Windows we are being more careful in our approach to the OSX and Linux versions, and are engaging an external testing group to help us get them right. This unfortunately does mean these versions will take a bit longer to release than we anticipated, but on the plus side this experience is invaluable for when we approach the final release. Once the Mac version is up we'll let you know, we will turn our attention toward the Linux version.

*Jumping on board
*
We’ve heard from a lot of our current lower tier backers who still want to jump into the beta, as it was not a part of every tier during the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter or for late backers. We offered a Wasteland 2 beta add-on in our store but closed it as the beta launched, and eligible backers have been able to play this beta for a month now. *However, we want to give our existing backers one last chance to jump into the beta, so AROUND THE END OF THIS MONTH we’re going to offer a limited-time add-on option only through the Ranger Center backer store*; for $10 you will be able to add-on beta access to your existing pledge, getting your Steam beta key as soon as the add-on is registered by us. Please note this add-on will only provide access to the Wasteland 2 beta, it will not include the digital extras of the earlier add-on or the $60 Steam Early Access version. This deal will also be available for Torment: Tides of Numenera backers who are due Wasteland 2 from their tier, when it launches and if you have Wasteland 2 in your tier you'll be able to get it through Torment's pledge management system. We will let you know exactly when it’s up.  

*Novella*

The first of our Wasteland 2 novellas is getting close to completion, and will be arriving to backers within the next few weeks. All Bad Things is a novella that previews one of the cults you can find in Wasteland 2, written by the excellent Stephen Blackmoore. Here is a look at a candidate for the novella’s cover:




			Dieser Inhalt steht nur eingeloggten Mitgliedern zur Verfügung.
        



We do need to make a change to our novella roll out plan as it relates to Michael Stackpole as we have not been able to finalize his story. We will continue to work with Michael to deliver his novellas, but we can’t promise if that will happen.

Because of the uncertain status of Stackpole’s novellas, we engaged Stephen to write this novella for us, which will serve as a replacement for the "episodic novella (part 1)", so it will go to all backers of tiers $50 and above. I think you will be very pleased with Stephen’s work and he does a wonderful job of setting up the backstory for one of the powerful LA cults.

As for the promised third novella, Nathan Long is offering his services. Nathan Long is one of the main writers on Wasteland 2 and his work on our game has been nothing short of excellent, and he is one of the writers on Torment: Tides of Numenera. Nathan also has a long list of books to his name, having written a large number of Warhammer tie-in novels as well as his own "Waar" series. With his experience and knowhow of the game I have no doubt he'll deliver a top-notch novella for our backers.

Chris Avellone has been working on his novella, but he’s gotten a little carried away. He’s been so happy with how the tale has been unfolding that he asked us if he could take more time and revise and expand it to be a FULL BLOWN NOVEL. We excitedly agreed and are thrilled to do something extra for our backers by delivering a much longer story, though this means it will likely still take a few months to complete. It will be worth it when we get it to you.  

We’ll shout out on social media when Stephen’s novella is ready. It will be downloaded automatically as an update for anyone who has Wasteland 2 installed on Steam, but we will also be offering redemption keys via your Ranger Center account.  

*Coverage & Shout-out*

We’ve had fun watching twitch streams and YouTube videos of the backer beta. If you’re not averse to a few (mostly mild) spoilers and want some first impressions of the game, there are many let’s play videos available on YouTube, for instance the impressions videos of Force, MaskedGamer, or TGN, the twitch streams from Theadrain or Dansgaming, or the multi-part let’s player series from sloshworks, CulveyHouse, TheApocalypticStudio, or HDPLAY Gaming Channel. The videogaming press is also starting to weigh in, we round up their previews under the beta preview tag on our blog, including sites such as GameBanshee, Eurogamer, Strategy Informer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Speaking of Twitch TV, we will be joining djWHEAT on Friday the 17th at 12:00PM PST for a live broadcast of us playing the game. It should be a lot of fun and insightful for people that want to know more.

And finally, we wanted to give a shout-out to RETRO Magazine, a Kickstarter-funded print and digital magazine that focuses on classic games and systems as well as newer games, so well worth a look to many of our backers. Wasteland 2 will be featured in a future issue!	  

Brian Fargo,
Leader in Exile


----------



## LordCrash (11. Januar 2014)

*Get Back to Work!*

I hope you all enjoyed your holidays and got time to relax and spend time with the people you care about. I know we here appreciated the break and have returned with our batteries charged; attacking our to do lists with vigor.  

Wasteland 2 has been in beta for around a month now, and it’s been a hectic but great time. The initial beta feedback from our backers has been amazing, not just in that many people are loving what they’re seeing so far, but also in that you guys have been terrific in giving feedback: we have around 8000 suggestions/bugs/comments (with many redundancies as you can imagine) reported directly through the CenterCode bug feedback site, and over 500 new discussion threads on our official forums. All the suggestions and bugs from CenterCode have been processed generating approximately 1800 tasks for our team, of which roughly 500 have already been resolved in the first two weeks of work on this backer beta (in the current internal build).

One of the things that makes this process unique is having an open beta for a narrative driven RPG. Typically we find that beta programs of this size focus on multi-player aspects of games so that the developer can hone in balance, server capacity and features related to multiple people playing a game. In our case we are looking at ways to improve the reactivity of a story driven game in material ways. It is a key tenet to an RPG of this style so expect to see continued changes and additions to areas you have already visited. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly and materially things evolve. We continue to learn from your feedback and apply these lessons to both the beta areas and the ones we haven’t released yet. The final version of Wasteland 2 will be a game that could not have been created in a vacuum.

If you can’t tell, we have been really happy with how well this process is going. There has been a lot of great criticism on how to make the game better, and we’ve been very excited to see the majority of this criticism agrees with our internal evaluations of what we need to improve on and focus on, such as amount and depth of reactivity, or complexity of combat. In other words, we’re in agreement on the direction this game is heading in!

As I said blocker bugs are our first priority but we have a long list of various smaller and larger changes we want to make, many of which were on our lists and were reaffirmed by our community and directly inspired by backer feedback. For example, we’re working on significant improvements to combat. Destructible cover was part of this last update as a first pass with more fine-tuning to come; we will likely add a crouching stance with a variety of tactical applications; we’re going over a lot of the encounter design to more carefully detail tactics-changing factors like ladders or destructible cover; and we’re in the first testing stages to explore adding a special attack system that’ll allow you to invest AP to make specific kinds of attacks based on your weapon types and the skill levels you’ve achieved in those weapons…things like spread shots or steady shots. Keep in mind the combat you see in the beta is only the earliest levels in the game, where enemies are more straightforward and do not have the wide variety of special moves, AoE attacks and more advanced AI of later-game enemies. The enemy AI is quite varied as you get into the later stages, once you’ve sufficiently learned the base controls and rules of the experience.

Additionally, let me give you a peek at some of the things we’ll focus on as we continue production: improving the messaging of the game’s interface and systems significantly; doing several balance passes on everything in the world from economy to combat to the whole character system; overhauling the minimap; fixing font issues; working on the field stripping and weapon modding functionalities; tweaking shotguns so they properly provide spread shots rather than work just as rifles; improving the barter, inventory and character system UIs; fixing pathing; improving the balance and functionality of energy weapons; adding additional satisfying death animations; implementing outfit functionality; adding touches and small scenes to make towns and the world feel more alive and much more. That is just a short list of what is in reality a much longer to-do list, so don’t worry if you don’t see your own suggestion in there: everything our backers put into CenterCode is read by multiple developers so nothing is lost.

One last major thing I wanted to talk about has to do with reactivity and town connectivity. Let me reiterate from our last update, this is our greatest area of focus when we look at videos of people playing the game or read their game impressions on forums or CenterCode. We are constantly adding smaller touches in map passes but also have plans for significant increases in reactivity, both for our existing maps and for the rest of the game. This is another place where backer feedback shines, as we get feedback from people playing through the game and wondering why this one event isn’t a more complex mission or why we don’t add more choices to another. With your help, the game is constantly improving in this field.  

As this process goes forward, we are constantly tweaking features, or adding and removing them, but that does not necessarily mean any of those changes are permanent. The “healing over time” mechanic is a good example of this: We initially put it in primarily as a counter-balance to a lack of reliability of healing items from the random loot tables and an unbalanced economy meaning not enough merchants to buy those items from, and it would have caused an unnecessary delay to implement this before beta release. When we put out our first major update the loot system became more balanced, and we pulled healing over time to see how that impacted the experience of our backers. That is the quintessential beta iteration experience, you never quite know how a feature change works out until you have people playing it. Many like the extra challenge it added and the thoughtful use of healing items it now necessitates, but others were unhappy with the way this impacted game balance or felt healing over time was needed because it is a Wasteland 1 feature. We’ll be curious to see how this is impacted by the upcoming overhaul on field medic and surgeon (yes, we know surgeon is confusing as hell) as well as putting in more friendly doctors and merchants for healing supplies. The game is one of scarcity and the mechanics should support that. We will continue to monitor the discussions on these elements and course correct along the way as necessary.

These next few paragraphs will be primarily of interest to our existing beta backers: we want to thank you for your detailed descriptions of your problems, along with the error logs, save files, and information on what PC specs are running into problems, as they are invaluable resources at this stage, so thank you all so much for your contributions. If you haven't joined us yet on our bug reporting site see this thread, which also contains information on what kind of files to attach (and, as a general request, to please not .zip or .rar them up).  

With the help of all this information we have been doing some major work on our game, and in a short timeframe put out a big update to the backer beta on Steam. You can read the (lengthy) full patch notes over on our tumblr, but be warned there will be a few spoilers at the end of those. Since coming back from our holidays we updated the beta again with a smaller update, primarily to improve performance for specific video cards, patch notes here.

We will continue to update the beta build, first focusing on blocker bugs (crashes, problems with savegames, etc) in the coming few weeks, and then working our way through to major and minor bugs. The blocker bugs have highest priority and as I mentioned have been sorted out to our programmers. We won’t have an exact update schedule here but we should have word on the next update soon, and hope to address the majority of remaining blocker issues. We will continue to focus on optimization for specific hardware setups, and again your reports have been invaluable information for us to work from.  

Expect an update to the early beta code in the not too distant future with an additional area and many reactivity changes. This version will NOT be compatible with current save games, so we’ll give due warning when it’s coming. However, there will be plenty of reasons to play the game from the start, as there will be significant changes to existing areas, and tie-ins between all the beta areas that are worth exploring. New content is not just a matter of pasting a new area to the end of the beta, when we unlock that area we also unlock the tie-ins and NPCs and locations it is tied to.  

Also we were able to get an OSX version of Wasteland 2 up and running fairly smoothly and it is currently in QA. Creating an OSX port of the game is easy thanks to Unity, but such ports do need to go through testing and as we collectively have much more experience with Windows we are being more careful in our approach to the OSX and Linux versions, and are engaging an external testing group to help us get them right. This unfortunately does mean these versions will take a bit longer to release than we anticipated, but on the plus side this experience is invaluable for when we approach the final release. Once the Mac version is up we'll let you know, we will turn our attention toward the Linux version.

*Jumping on board
*
We’ve heard from a lot of our current lower tier backers who still want to jump into the beta, as it was not a part of every tier during the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter or for late backers. We offered a Wasteland 2 beta add-on in our store but closed it as the beta launched, and eligible backers have been able to play this beta for a month now. *However, we want to give our existing backers one last chance to jump into the beta, so AROUND THE END OF THIS MONTH we’re going to offer a limited-time add-on option only through the Ranger Center backer store*; for $10 you will be able to add-on beta access to your existing pledge, getting your Steam beta key as soon as the add-on is registered by us. Please note this add-on will only provide access to the Wasteland 2 beta, it will not include the digital extras of the earlier add-on or the $60 Steam Early Access version. This deal will also be available for Torment: Tides of Numenera backers who are due Wasteland 2 from their tier, when it launches and if you have Wasteland 2 in your tier you'll be able to get it through Torment's pledge management system. We will let you know exactly when it’s up.  

*Novella*

The first of our Wasteland 2 novellas is getting close to completion, and will be arriving to backers within the next few weeks. All Bad Things is a novella that previews one of the cults you can find in Wasteland 2, written by the excellent Stephen Blackmoore. Here is a look at a candidate for the novella’s cover:




			Dieser Inhalt steht nur eingeloggten Mitgliedern zur Verfügung.
        



We do need to make a change to our novella roll out plan as it relates to Michael Stackpole as we have not been able to finalize his story. We will continue to work with Michael to deliver his novellas, but we can’t promise if that will happen.

Because of the uncertain status of Stackpole’s novellas, we engaged Stephen to write this novella for us, which will serve as a replacement for the "episodic novella (part 1)", so it will go to all backers of tiers $50 and above. I think you will be very pleased with Stephen’s work and he does a wonderful job of setting up the backstory for one of the powerful LA cults.

As for the promised third novella, Nathan Long is offering his services. Nathan Long is one of the main writers on Wasteland 2 and his work on our game has been nothing short of excellent, and he is one of the writers on Torment: Tides of Numenera. Nathan also has a long list of books to his name, having written a large number of Warhammer tie-in novels as well as his own "Waar" series. With his experience and knowhow of the game I have no doubt he'll deliver a top-notch novella for our backers.

Chris Avellone has been working on his novella, but he’s gotten a little carried away. He’s been so happy with how the tale has been unfolding that he asked us if he could take more time and revise and expand it to be a FULL BLOWN NOVEL. We excitedly agreed and are thrilled to do something extra for our backers by delivering a much longer story, though this means it will likely still take a few months to complete. It will be worth it when we get it to you.  

We’ll shout out on social media when Stephen’s novella is ready. It will be downloaded automatically as an update for anyone who has Wasteland 2 installed on Steam, but we will also be offering redemption keys via your Ranger Center account.  

*Coverage & Shout-out*

We’ve had fun watching twitch streams and YouTube videos of the backer beta. If you’re not averse to a few (mostly mild) spoilers and want some first impressions of the game, there are many let’s play videos available on YouTube, for instance the impressions videos of Force, MaskedGamer, or TGN, the twitch streams from Theadrain or Dansgaming, or the multi-part let’s player series from sloshworks, CulveyHouse, TheApocalypticStudio, or HDPLAY Gaming Channel. The videogaming press is also starting to weigh in, we round up their previews under the beta preview tag on our blog, including sites such as GameBanshee, Eurogamer, Strategy Informer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Speaking of Twitch TV, we will be joining djWHEAT on Friday the 17th at 12:00PM PST for a live broadcast of us playing the game. It should be a lot of fun and insightful for people that want to know more.

And finally, we wanted to give a shout-out to RETRO Magazine, a Kickstarter-funded print and digital magazine that focuses on classic games and systems as well as newer games, so well worth a look to many of our backers. Wasteland 2 will be featured in a future issue!	  

Brian Fargo,
Leader in Exile


----------

