You’ve heard plenty about Torment over the last month (pretty amazing, huh?!?!) and now it’s time to bring back the good ol’ Wasteland 2 update! The main reason you haven’t heard from us for a while is because our development team is knee-deep in production to get to our end of April milestone. When we exit pre-production, we have paper design for most everything, it’s just a matter of spending the hours, days, and weeks to build, code, and craft the levels and systems you will ultimately play. It tends to be extremely time intensive, but it is one of the most exciting times of the project as you really get a sense of the game as a whole. A few key production milestones that we’ve hit:

• All 14 major areas have been blocked out with the base level geometry. And yes, this is revealing we will have 14 major areas. 
• We have maps loading (from scene to scene) so we’ve stitched together all areas to form a cohesive flow.
• 95% of all conversation encounters are placed and working. That means you can talk to just about everyone and go through their various states of reactivity based on how you deal with the conversation.
• Our core AI system is built and fully functional. These tools allow the designers to build, modify and tune many of the AI behaviors we need for the game (outside of special cases).
• Our inventory system is fully functional. **We will detail this further in an update within the next month**

Before I continue with this update, I’d love for everyone reading this to check out this link, showing the success of fan involvement with this game. From the first day we were discussing this Kickstarter, we knew we wanted to be directly in touch with our community but I’m not sure we had any idea how much it could change our fundamental process of making games. All of these (and more) fan-created contributions will make it into Wasteland 2. More on the W.A.S.T.E program later…

First, we’d like to talk a bit more on our weapons system and the thought process that led us to the implementation we have now. 

What sort of weapons are at my disposal?

Hello everyone my name is Devin Morrow and I am a combat designer here at inXile Entertainment. I have been asked by the powers that be (read: Chris Keenan, our production director) to introduce myself as well as provide to you, our generous fans and backers, a little insight into our current weapons design progress and philosophy.

This is my first time, so please be gentle.

In the original Wasteland and many other RPG’s, there is a clear weapon progression. As you worked your way through the game, weapons like the handgun became less effective in favor of the larger weapons. While this makes some sense it does limit the ability of a player to choose their favorite weapon type for thematic or role playing purposes. It’s hard to play the part of a wasteland gunslinger when you had to ditch your trusty M1911A1 pistol for an AK-97 because the damage just wasn’t cutting it anymore. In Wasteland 2, we want to give back a little more control to the player over how their characters are built and how they progress. This is something we have heard the community echo many times in conversation and on the forums, so it’s nice to know we are on the right track.

With that in mind, Wasteland 2’s weapons are divided into a number of classes, each with their own progression. We’ve created a system where if you invest into pistols, you can use them from start to finish and be effective throughout. The same thing goes for sniper rifles, sub machine guns, blunt weapons, bladed weapons, brawling weapons, anti-tank, demolitions, energy weapons, and rifles (list subject to change™). We even took this a step further and allowed more specific, thematic progression within the classes. For instance, we have a range of revolvers from starting equipment up to end-game death dealers that are all part of the handgun class/skill. The same is true for semi-automatic pistols if they are more to your taste. Do you like bolt-action or semi-automatic sniper rifles? One-handed or two-handed melee weapons? How about rockets or grenade launchers? Not to worry, we have something for all of you!

That’s not to say that each of these weapons will be as effective as the others in every combat situation. A core design tenet that spans all systems we’re creating has been one of “the trade-off”. We applied this to the weapons system by creating a defined role for each class. Most of these roles you will pick up on quickly. SMGs aren’t as accurate as rifles, don’t shoot as far, and don’t hit as hard or penetrate armor as easily. They do however put out a respectable amount of lead, have the advantage of using pistol rounds which are in greater supply, and require less Action Points to move with. A fast character can be devastating with a SMG, quickly closing in and unloading on an enemy where the accuracy penalty is drastically reduced. On a lightly armored enemy, the damage per action point will be much higher with a SMG versus a rifle (of the same approximate level). Anti-Tank weapons fire and reload slowly, will reduce your character’s speed in combat and are expensive to use, but will do massive damage to a large area. Just make sure you don’t have rangers standing behind your rocket-propelled grenade or the back blast might take them out too.

To keep things fun and allow a little flexibility to the system, we have incorporated weapons within each category that blur the lines between different roles. The perfect example of this is the D18 (totally not the Glock 18) automatic pistol. While not as effective at being a SMG as an SMG, it does allow the player heavily invested in handgun skills a little more flexibility in roles. Some other examples are the shotgun shell firing revolver and the .55 caliber WW2 anti-tank rifle.

Before I go I want to thank the community at Ranger Center. The “Weapons you would like to see in Wasteland 2” thread is one of the largest threads in our forums. You have been a great resource of creativity. I also think you’ll all be pretty happy with the weapon lists we have compiled. We have done our best to incorporate as many of the serious, real world fire arms as we could while still leaving room for some of the crazier suggestions as well (I’m looking at you, welded-together double SMGs). I will hopefully be back soon with an update on our weapon and ammo crafting/upgrade/mod systems and other assorted goodies. Until then please keep the flood of ideas and feedback coming, I assure you we are listening.

W.A.S.T.E. Batch 4

The fourth batch of our Wasteland2 Asset Store Threedee Experiment (W.A.S.T.E.) is now out. After discovering the impressive quality level of assets we received for the previous batches, our art team decided to up the challenge a bit for our contributors. With this latest batch, we’re looking for even more variety and creativity, as many of these props are frequently used and the more varied the set we have to work from, the better the game world will look. We’re also requesting “tile set” meshes for the first time. If you’re interested in contributing, please see the Unity page for more information as well as the gallery of art assets we are looking for.

While our contributors are working on batch 4, we are processing approved contributions from batch 3, as well as reviewing a fresh set of contributions from that batch. While W.A.S.T.E. has not been without its hiccups and delays, we’ve been working to smooth the process, and it’s still exciting to see the high-quality work of your submissions.

DRM-Free Release

We have been getting a lot of questions regarding our plans for DRM-free releases moving forward. To clarify, we are offering the game on as many digital distributors as is viable. Currently we are confirmed on Steam, Origin, and GOG. The Steam and Origin versions will work just like any other games on those services and will not have any additional DRM. The GOG version will be DRM free. We will look at more digital retailers – including other DRM-free ones (such as Desura) – as we get closer to release. As well, we won’t require you to be online to play the game.

We are not currently actively planning any DLC or expansion, since we’re fully focused on delivering our promises with Wasteland 2. It’s not out of the question, but we have made a commitment to 65,000+ people to deliver a fully-complete, bad-ass successor to Wasteland and that’s all we’re concerned with right now. Once the game is released and we can take a deep breath, we’ll evaluate the next best steps for the game and our fans.

Chris Keenan
Production Director

Let us just start by saying that development of Wasteland 2 has been going really well. We may go quiet at times but please don't mistake our silence for a lack of progress. At this point in the process, the most important thing for the game is focusing on adding all of the content to get it to a fully playable state. Once we’re there, we can iterate and polish each area and feature for the best play experience. Production of the game is the top priority of the Wasteland 2 team right now, and it's all hands on deck on that one! 

We recently showed you a first look at Wasteland 2's gameplay, a good glimpse of how the game is shaping up since you helped us make this game a reality almost a full year ago now. We're currently looking to hit a huge internal milestone at the end of April: having all level geometry blocked in and all encounters and interactions scripted. They are currently in various states of completion, but we are tracking well to have them all in a playable state. Meanwhile, we have multiple artists creating portraits, characters and environment models. We are really starting to fill out the world, with a lot of extra credit for that going to...

W.A.S.T.E - Unity Crowdsourced Experiment 

A few months ago we launched our Unity Crowdsourced Experiment with the help of Unity and their Asset Store.  We had already been using the unity asset store to provide us with additional content that we then modify for our game, but by offering more exact outlines for people to work from, we have been able to take it all a step further. With this experiment, we offer modelers an art guide and a list of assets we're looking for, but don’t overly go into specifics as we like people to be creative and vary things up based on their own style, as long as it fits the style guide. This gives us a rich variety of assets to work with, while the artists retain ownership of their assets. They can put their asset in the Unity Asset Store to make money from other developers and get a credit in the Wasteland 2 credits (if selected). 

As with any new process, this one came with its own challenges and hiccups, but we are learning quickly. Submissions go through the Unity Asset Store and then to our artists, and it took some time to get this process in sync. When new batches go up, we’ll reach out through Facebook as well as our official forums, where you can also find our artists to ask any questions you might have. 

Now, our senior environment artist Koy vanOteghem will talk a bit about this project...

Hello Backers,

Been cranking away on WL2 for a while now, and so happy to be getting to the point where we are able to have level reviews discussing where we are at on each scene from both a scripting and art perspective. Of course, the W.A.S.T.E. (Wasteland2 Asset Store Threedee Experiment) has been more than great, for many reasons beyond the opportunity to purchase some pretty sweet work from truly dedicated fans and artists. It really has been an unusual and unexpectedly exciting means of connecting with the community. My thanks go out to all of those who have suffered through the sometimes painfully slow start-up process.

As I am sure participants of the experiment know, Batch 4 has yet to be announced. While I cannot go into details, it is due for release soon, as part of a larger plan that I know excites us and should be great for the participants as well. More to come on that in the very near future, for now my lips are sealed. We are sad that it’s delayed our requests for what should be a fun batch of assets, with a few new request types for some of the more experienced environment artists. (Giddy with anticipation.)

So you’ve all seen the video by now, I assume, and I hope that a few of you have had the pleasure to see a few of your W.A.S.T.E. submissions working their way into our scenes. It was always my goal and hope that these assets would slip right in, under the radar, striking the right look without complicated changes on our end. Use of atmospherics (like lighting, fog, post-processes, FX, etc.) always have great ability to unify a scene, but certainly there needs to be a base level of quality and style present for these techniques to be effective. And I think to a great extent this is due to the tone and style that our resident concept artist, Phill Dickenson, has crafted. His pieces have so greatly influenced much of the work that we’ve received when it comes to proportions and the tone that’s struck; a high percentage of deliverables have been employed with little to no extra effort on our part. He has been a great partner in developing this look, so much thanks to him for all of that.

Keep up the fantastic work participants. I eagerly await the launch of Batch 4, and the onslaught of new submissions.

Koy vanOteghem

T-Shirts

Our backer shirts are almost ready! As soon as we get them, we’ll send out requests to have eligible backers select their shirt. We plan to ship them as soon as we get them, and eligible backers will receive their shirts before the game ships.

Novella

Michael Stackpole has submitted the first pass of his novella. It will be given some extra polish and then be released in two parts, eligible backers receiving the first one in the near future, with the second following a bit later for backers whose pledge tier included both parts.

Torment: Tides of Numenera

We launched a Kickstarter for our next game project, Torment: Tides of Numenera about two weeks ago. It was a huge success, reaching its target funding level in six hours and breaking Ouya's record as the fastest Kickstarter to reach $1M (our record has since been tackled by Veronica Mars, but what can you do?). Torment's success guarantees a good production rollover process for inXile, but changes nothing for Wasteland 2's development plan as the Torment pre-production team works separately from the Wasteland 2 production team. Torment has really caught people's attention and imagination. We love the feedback we're getting and are very excited about it, so please check it out if you haven’t done so already.

Once we clear our Alpha milestone, you can expect to see some more screenshots and details on the different areas of Wasteland 2. We will start to showcase some of the cults and their many motivations and cultures.

The M.A.D. Monks

In southern Arizona there are a group of monks that are part of an offshoot of the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud cult from Wasteland 1. These monks worship radiation itself, which they refer to as the Great Glow, as well as their hidden guardian whom the refer to only as Titan. It is the Monks belief that the only way to ascend to the afterlife is to absorb enough radiation into their bodies that they become one with the Great Glow, or better yet, to be destroyed in a nuclear event while protecting the order. This leads their warriors, or M.A.D. Monks as the locals refer to them, to the practice of strapping radiation filled dirty bombs to their chests and self-detonating at the first sign of conflict. The M.A.D. in M.A.D. Monk refers to Mutually Assured Destruction, and if you get too close to them you will find out why.

Have a great weekend everyone!

inXile entertainment

On Monday we released the news that we would be launching another Kickstarter campaign for Torment: Tides of Numenera today. If your reaction to the news was, “Hell yes, that is awesome news!” you can stop reading this update and head right to the Torment Kickstarter page to check out a lot more detail on the product. There is a ton of information about the team and the project, so please give it a read. We are crazy excited about the opportunity to work on Torment, and the Torment Kickstarter page should be enough to get all of you excited too.

If your reaction to the news about Torment was more like, “inXile, you greedy bastards, why would you launch a Kickstarter before Wasteland 2 is even done!”, then keep reading; we are addressing that point in this update…

 To those outside the industry, it might seem odd to launch another Kickstarter before Wasteland 2 is done. We understand that it raises some questions, and we want our Wasteland 2 backers to understand the decision and to have access to all the information that has led us down this path. The goal of this update is not to convince you to back Torment; the goal of this update is to answer one simple question. Why now? 

One of the keys to success for a small game company is being able to create continuity within the development team. It takes a long time to get a team put together, and it takes an even longer time for a team to settle in to new working relationships, a new engine, new systems, and a new asset creation pipeline. A team’s knowledge and experience grows a lot during a development cycle, and all of that knowledge gained is lost if we let the team break up when a project ships. To address that issue we have developed a very simple strategy that has already worked for us on dozens of titles in the last 25 years. Here is a quick explanation of our development team-structure philosophy:

inXile, with all of our internal employees and outside contractors, consists of enough people to be considered about the size of a team and a half. This is by design. We always want a small and efficient team (the “half team”) to design both our product and our product development plan. This is called pre-production. It is the most important time in a project’s life cycle. This is the time when we want to make sure we slow down and get it right. During this phase we don't need all the engineers and 3D Artists on the project, it is mostly concept art, design and dialog writing. When this process is completed and we are ready to roll into full production we want to have a large team of people ready to make the game. If the planning was done well during the pre-production phase we can be very efficient during production and leave ourselves with plenty of time to iterate and make amazing games. If there is no pre-production done, and the full team is trying to create the design and development plan as they go, months, if not years, are wasted. Having a full team try to start a project when the pre-production has not been completed is like stacking up a giant pile of money and lighting it on fire. This same philosophy served us quite well at Interplay in creating some of the best RPGs of all time.

The “half team” in our team and a half model consists of writers and artists as well as designers and a producer. They are the ones that define the game design, write the dialog, define the combat, the UI, the missions, and even parts of the level design. We spent about 6 months working on this pre-production for Wasteland 2 and we would like to spend even longer doing it on Torment. For inXile, this “half team” that did the pre-production for Wasteland is done, their work on Wasteland 2 is completely finished. We want to get this group into pre-production on Torment to keep them working together on a project we are all passionate about.

Currently, Wasteland 2 is in full production with a team of 15+ people cranking away on it. This is the full team that consists of engineers, scripters, character modelers, environment artists, and animators. This team is implementing the plan created during the Wasteland 2 pre-production cycle. When this full team rolls off of Wasteland 2 at the end of the year, they will need something else to do. Having a complete pre-production plan at that time allows us to roll the entire team onto a finely honed game design. Team continuity is maintained, and efficient production can begin. In a traditional publisher model, now is the time in the project life cycle where we would start to try and sign the next big contract. The best tool we have to get that done is to go back to our new publisher, you, and explain that now is the best time to start the next project.

Our “half team” is ready to start the pre-production for Torment now. They need about 8 months to get this pre-production work done. In an amazing coincidence, in about 8 months I will have a full team that is ready to take that pre-production plan and create a game. The alternative, starting pre-production on Torment after Wasteland 2 is done, increases the cost of Torment production greatly and requires us to reduce our headcount during the process.

Staggering projects like we are doing with Wasteland 2 and Torment is the best tool a single-team company like inXile has to be successful. It has the triple value of making us more efficient, giving us a better game design and making sure we keep our design and art talent working with us.

To make everything as clear as we can regarding the Torment Kickstarter and what it means for Wasteland 2, I will attempt to answer some other questions you might have:

• We do want to be abundantly clear that no Wasteland money is to be spent developing Torment. No Torment money is being spent on Wasteland 2. That said, lots of tools, plug-ins and pipeline processes that have taken man months to create will be shared between the projects if we can keep team continuity.

• The pre-production of Torment is not going to hinder the development of Wasteland in any way. As explained above, they are different teams during the pre-production.

We hope this update helps to explain the logic of why we are launching this Kickstarter now. Based on our experience we know that now is the time to get Torment rolling. We also hope that we can count on your support for Torment, and if not your support, at least your understanding. This system has always served us well so we think it makes sense to try and re-create it with you.

“You kids remind me of us - Snake, Razor, Thrasher and me - back when we were just starting out. Thinkin' we were gonna save the future. Thinkin' none of us would ever die. What a joke. I... I... Aw, don't listen to me. If everybody started out old and jaded like me, nobody'd ever try to change the world. So you kids go ahead and give it a go. Maybe it'll work this time." - Angela Deth

It was very exciting for us here at inXile to see such great reception to our first-look video for Wasteland 2. We made this video so that all 63,000 of you could see what we were up to. As of today the video has been seen over 370,000 times! There was such an outpouring of overwhelmingly positive support it literally took us a week to take it all in. To make sure we’re communicating properly with you all, we thought it would be good to provide a more thorough explanation about some of the systems that seemed to receive the most comments.

Our goal with all of our systems is to allow you to customize them, including their keyboard short cuts, to get the exact input system you want. For all systems we have a default setting that we feel provides the best experience, but knowing that everybody has their own preferences we have implemented a robust settings menu.

Game Camera

One aspect that seemed to get a lot of comments was the camera system. When you are watching a video it is hard to get a feel for how it works, because there is no way to know what the player is doing with the camera controls and what the game is handling automatically. We know that without a doubt, a bad camera system can ruin a game.

There are three main camera elements that we should explain. The first is the camera zoom level. There has been a lot of talk since the start of the project about top down versus isometric. By using the mouse wheel, the player can smoothly zoom from a tight isometric camera back to a wider isometric shot. By further zooming out, the camera moves from the wide isometric to an old school top-down shot. If you are the type of player that doesn’t want the camera angle to change, just leave it alone. If you like to see things from different heights, or from the top down, you have the option of rolling the mouse wheel at any point, in or out of combat, and see the world from the perspective you want.

The second camera function that was unclear in the video is the camera tracking system. The camera defaults to ‘follow mode’, which like many systems in Wasteland 2 can be turned off or on by the player at any time through the settings menu. In follow mode, the camera moves around the world with the party – there is no need to pan the camera to keep your character on screen. If your party is not all together, clicking the portrait of any character not on screen will either pan or jump to them, depending on how far away they are, then lock onto their movements as you walk or run them around the map. You can also override the “auto-follow” by using the arrow or WASD keys to pan the camera around the map. If you don’t like using keys to move the camera, then don’t worry about it – you will have an option to pan across the map by moving the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen. In all of these modes, even the pan speed is adjustable. If you don’t like any of these camera options, simply turn them off.

The last camera feature we want to explain is the ability to rotate the camera to view the scene from any direction. First, you can simply disable camera rotation – the levels have been designed so that you can play the entire game without having to change the camera’s orientation. For those that want to look around more, but don’t want to be burdened by a freely rotating camera, we have a mode that rotates the camera in 90 degree increments. This allows you to very quickly move between the West, North, East, and South views of the scene. If you want more freedom than that, you can unlock the rotation of the camera, which is what we used when creating the game-play video.

Heads Up Display

The second system that seemed to get a lot of comments was the HUD. Our HUD is made up of five elements: Character Portraits, Mini-Map, Action Bar, Hot Key Selector, and Description Text window. You can customize the HUD to create the setup most to your liking. Because we already need to make the HUD work for many different aspect ratios and display resolutions and because even we internally at inXile have different opinions as to how big or small certain elements should be, we are building each element in different sizes and shapes. You can select any of these for your default setup. It doesn’t matter if you want the minimalist version, the long skinny version, the short and wide version, or anything in between. We have it for you. On top of that, the Character Portraits, Mini-Map, and Hot Key Selector also have an Auto-Hide function that slides them on and off the screen as needed.

Keyword Dialog System

The last thing we want to talk about is the keyword dialog system. Many of our systems are designed to be a modern take on systems from the original Wasteland. We started with the Wasteland keyword system and updated it, adding layers of complexity that enable us to increase conversational reactivity.

The foundation of the keyword system is the player building up a keyword library through interaction with NPCs and the world. The keyword list starts out empty, and as you speak with NPCs they will reveal new keywords to you. If the revealed keyword is only of interest to that NPC, it will go into a local list. You can click on words in the keyword list to navigate through the conversation. If the revealed keyword has importance beyond that particular conversation, it is put into the regional keyword list. These keywords are of interest to most of the NPCs you encounter that region. A third option, which is never required, is to type something in – a nod to Wasteland 1’s system.

Keywords are also added to the keyword list through perception skill use and environmental description text. For example, if you use perception to examine an object in the world, your observations might reveal a new keyword. Or, if you explored the level and triggered the descriptor text of some object or feature, it too might unlock a keyword.

The NPC’s reaction to any given keyword can be affected by a number of factors including: the party composition, previous gameplay choices, previously used keywords, previous player responses to NPC questions, character skills, character attributes, item inventory, equipped weapons and armor, prior party actions, and CNPCs in the party. In other words, there isn't a one-to-one correlation between keywords and the NPC’s response.

It is important that the player listens to (reads) what the NPCs are saying, because often you can judge by their tone the right way to approach the conversation. For instance, in some cases using a keyword at a particular point of the conversation changes the NPC’s answer to other keywords, or even ends the conversation all together.

One of the suggestions from the fans was that the Ranger party should deliver a line of dialog instead of just barking a keyword. We really love this idea. Having full sentences creates a natural conversation flow. Additionally, this approach allows us to remove the ambiguity of keywords – holding your mouse over a keyword will show you a preview of the sentence your Rangers will say.

A working example:

NPC Bob, who is guarding some guns, has intro text that reveals two keywords he has more to say about. Clicking on Bob starts the dialog:

>NPC Bob – “Hey strangers, we don’t normally see people out so far into the wasteland. Be careful, it is really dangerous out here unless you are heavily armed.”

This introduces two keywords to the player that they can use to converse with NPC Bob, dangerous and armed. Using the keyword dangerous will prompt NPC Bob give you more information about what is up ahead.

>Ranger Party (keyword = dangerous) –“What is so dangerous about these canyons?”

>NPC Bob – “These canyons are crawling with the outcasts of every crappy society in the wasteland. You had better watch your step.”

Using the armed keyword will have NPC Bob tell you about a possible mission.

>Ranger Party (keyword = armed) –“How do you think we should be armed?”

>NPC Bob – “It is best to have a lot of hollow point ammo out here for all the mutant creatures wandering around. I just came from a cave at the end of that canyon where I found a half destroyed case of ammo. You are welcome to help yourself if you find them. You are going to need all the help you can get out here.”

It sounds promising enough, but if the party heads for that cave they will find themselves in an ambush from the Red Skorpion Militia.

If you had used perception on Bob before talking to him, and you passed the perception skill check, the examine text would have revealed that Bob has the insignia of the Red Skorpion militia tattooed on his neck under his collar. This would put Red Skorpion into your local keywords for your conversation with NPC Bob. Holding your mouse over Red Skorpion, shows the sentence, “I see you are a member of the Red Skorpions.” The Rangers already know that the Red Skorpions are out to get them so calling out Bob as being one can have several effects on the conversation.

For example, if you start the conversation by using Red Skorpion, Bob’s response would be to admit to being a member. Now when you mention armed, which had Bob give you the Trap/Mission before, he no longer tries to bait you, but he doesn’t warn you about it either:

>Ranger Party (keyword = Red Skorpions) –“I see you are a member of the Red Skorpions.”

>NPC Bob – “So what if I am? What are you going to do, shoot me just for having a tattoo?

>Ranger Party (keyword = armed) – “How do you think we should be armed?”

>NPC Bob – “Now that I think about it, I could really care less. Leave me alone and go bother someone else.”

Knowing that the Red Skorpions are your enemy, you might cleverly choose to hold off revealing to Bob that you know he is one. If you wait to use the Red Skorpion keyword until after you had used armed (in which Bob tries to lure you into the trap), Bob would cave and tell you everything:

>Ranger Party (keyword = armed) – “How do you think we should be armed?”

>NPC Bob – “It is best to have a lot of hollow point ammo out here for all the mutant creatures wandering around. I just came from a cave at the end of that canyon where I found a half destroyed case of ammo. You are welcome to help yourself if you find them. You are going to need all the help you can get out here.”

>Ranger Party (keyword = Red Skorpions) –“I see you are a member of the Red Skorpions.”

>NPC Bob – “Okay, okay, you caught me. Listen, don’t kill me, I am only following orders. There is a patrol of Skorpions on the rim of the canyon ahead and I was supposed to send you down there. Meow that I warned you please let me live!”

If you had explored the entire canyon before you got to Bob and you had found some blood stains on the ground you could use "blood stains" as a keyword and get Bob to inadvertently tell you about the cave full of loot he was looking for at the end of the yellow canyon.

>Ranger Party (keyword = blood stains) – “What can you tell us about the blood stains on the trail?”

>NPC Bob – “Oh, that was me. I was looking for a weapons stash I had heard about in that canyon and I was jumped by a pissed-off Honey Badger.”

This essentially gives you a hint to find an inconspicuous cave that you wouldn’t get from just the Bob’s original keywords.

Extending the above example, if your party had Red Skorpion armor equipped when you started that same conversation, it would change Bob’s intro text, and instead of him offering you keywords about dangerous and armed, he would just give you a line about how you are late to the ambush and the rest of the Skorpions are up ahead in the canyon.

If you also had Rick Baychowski, who is on good terms with the Red Skorpions, in your party as a CNPC, Bob would greet Rick in his intro line. He would also reveal the ambush up ahead, and tell the party they can find some ammo in a shed down the path to the right.

Events outside of the conversation can also unlock local keywords. For example, another NPC, Jim, might ask you to let Bob know his sister Sarah had just died. When then talking with Bob, he still delivers his intro line offering up the dangerous and armed keywords, but you also see the keyword Sarah. Holding the mouse over Sarah, you see the sentence “Jim just told me your sister is dead.” Clicking Sarah puts Bob into a panic and he runs away leaving you access to the gun cache. This might have been the only way to get those guns without killing Bob, and you couldn’t have done it if you didn’t talk to Jim first.

Keep in mind that in this example, you still had the option of shooting Bob in the head before any of this dialog happened. This would have had its own level of reactivity. It would have given you access to the guns he was guarding but brought the ambush fight to this location. Meanwhile, using stealth to quietly kill Bob before talking to him gets you the guns without the fight – though you might stumble into the ambush later unless you learn about it another way.

We hope you have enjoyed reading more about some of our systems in Wasteland 2. We want to continue this dialog with you and are always reading what you post. In the coming weeks and months we will be uploading more videos and posting more updates to show you what we’re up to here at inXile.

As always, thanks for your support.

After about 190,000 views our original video was deleted by Vimeo. After two days of back and forth with them they apologized for the mistake and put it back up, but the link that went out with the last Kickstarter update is still broken. 

We have since posted the video to our YouTube account, and there it shall stay! If you have not already seen it, you can see it here:  Wasteland 2 First Look

We have had a bunch of requests this week for an HD version and we are happy to comply. For the full 1080 HD version use this link: Wasteland 2 First Look HD

 The response to the video has been amazing so far, and we have been busy taking in all the feedback. Our goal with the video was to show some game-play and some of the systems that we have working already. It was in no way meant to be a comprehensive explanation of all the elements of the game, the video would have to be 4 hours long to do all that. But judging by your feedback many of you want to see more and to know more about how things work. 

To that goal, we promise to continue to show our progress in both more videos and more blogs giving details about some of the game systems. Look for our next update with more information about the HUD, the camera system, and the dialog system next week. Thank you all for your continued support and enjoy the video in HD!