Evil Avatar - Brian Fargo Interview

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Ripten has an interview with Brian Fargo about Wasteland 2. They discuss Fallout (how Fallout was inspired by Wasteland, and in turn how Wasteland 2 may have influences from Fallout), bad experiences with publishers, and the negative fan reaction to his statement that the game could include online social features.

Quote:

MF: Along those lines, you’ve very recently mentioned that if the project hits $2M, there will be some social features. The fan reaction… well, there’s been a lot of confusion around that.

BF: Yeah. Yup. Right before you called I was working on a project update to give that a little more color. I’ve read all that. I think… I already know what they want at $2M. We have forums out there. It’s larger world and more content, more dialog, more audio, more NPC portraits. I’m going to do all that stuff! I… and I shouldn’t have done it… I threw out a fringe idea for discussion, because people keep asking, “what else are going to do?” I was focusing on the “what else.” “Social” is a four-letter word with extra letters. I understand.

People have been burned by a lot of these games that try to be “social.” So, I’m clarifying that. As much as it was like, “Whoa! Slow down, guys! We’re not getting away from this core RPG,” I still prefer this kind of communication. I prefer to know. You might go down a path… in the past, when I made all these other RPGs, I was flying by the seat of my pants, using my instincts as a gamer. Sometimes, you have to be careful. For me, this really helps close the loop, making sure that we’re working on the things that people want. The last thing that we want to do is go work on a feature only to find out that no one wants it. I don’t want to do it either, if no one wants it.

MF: There seem to be two halves of the gaming universe. Old guys like me who grew up on Fallout. I remember pouring over decisions and redoing combat, just because an NPC died. I loved that dog too much to let him go. The other half, though, are much younger. Their first introduction to the universe was Fallout 3 and New Vegas. How are they going to be able to relate to this game having no real frame of reference for these classic, wonderful RPGs?

BF: The thing about this project being fan-funded is that I’m not worried about this new group of people and how they might get it. This is being made for people like yourself that grew up playing Wasteland, Fallout and Fallout 2. These new people, who have never played these games, I think they’re going to check it out and have a great time. I’m simply not going to worry about how I get these console guys to come over and like it, because there is no reason to. We all know the experience that we grew up with. We all loved it and we’ve all been wanting one, so that’s what I’m going to bring. It’s not a putdown on the console product, it’s just that I’m not going to worry about how to get them.

You can read the entire interview here.