Why Wasteland 2 Is An RPG That Lets You Kill Absolutely Everybody

I was particularly intrigued by Chris' sentiment that a "good/evil" mechanic distracts from role playing. He wants Wasteland 2 to be more of a pure role playing experience, in which the player makes decisions and then events unfold naturally.

Fine. That is the goal of role playing, after all. But where I take issue with his response is where he attempts to distinguish between the role playing system in Wasteland 2 and the lightside/darkside system in Kotor 2. Isn't the idea that "Wasteland 2 won't have a good/evil system" just a way of saying that the decision trees governing NPC behavior in Wasteland 2 will be hidden from the player?

Does obscuring those decision trees from the player significantly improve the CRPG role playing experience? I'm not sure that it does. The paragon/renegade system in ME2 and 3 was essentially the modern re-implementation of Kotor's lightside/darkside system, and I didn't have a problem with that either. Consider, also, the two most recent installments of the Fallout franchise. FO3 was criticized (rightly) for its take on morality, which often felt arbitrary and primitive. But replacing FO3's morality system with the faction reputation system in FONV didn't make things seem any less artificial. Instead of NPCs generally reacting to whether you were a savior or a devil, they instead reacted generally depending on whether you had chosen to help the NCR or the legion.

I'd love for Wasteland 2 play like an RPG personally DM'd by Chris Avellone, with a scenario tailor-made for each player. But whatever it ends up being, I'm looking forward to it.

Aside from discussing the way pure role playing has been abstracted to fit the modern CRPG medium, I would also have loved to hear Chris' thoughts on balancing storytelling vs game mechanics in CRPGs. i.e. Should a CRPG be a game first, and a story second? What does he think is the biggest distinction between a CRPG and a novel? Between a CRPG and a film?

It's shocking how many people don't relate to isometric turn based games anymore. This looks right up my alley and can wait till the full version.

Well I personally am looking forward to playing this as I love RPG's like this. I used to only care for RPG's like STALKER, Skyrim, Mass Effect, The Witcher  and some Japanese RPG's. That was until I tried games like Torchlight2, Magicka, Path of Exile , Diablo3 and realised how great they are. This game will be a slow tactical cerebral affair which makes a nice change from games that are inspired by Michael Bay or Paul WS Anderson Hollywood style lol

Another turn based game… FUCK, i wish it was real time like in baldur's gate

What a load of shit game.

This is the game equivalent to people in the comments going "I'm 16 and I love these games more than any of the crap my generation play."

Video game designers, RIGHT HERE.

"Why Wasteland 2 Is An RPG That Lets You Kill Absolutely Everybody" 

Horseshit, more like "Why if You Kill Any Rangers in Wasteland 2 the Game Becomes Unwinnable"

Pc gamers are never satisfied with anything, they hate console gamers for no reason , just let us play our games and leave us alone

This game is amazing. I have owned it for a very long time and finally started playing it today. FO2 RP the GOAT IMO so this game really is a true gem.

Except if you kill everyone the Citadel sends a super murder squad after you.

That game was a steaming pile of shit.

Don't rob yourself of the experience this game delivers, it's an amazing game.

I was never interested in crpg's but decided to try it and can't stop playing.

The presentation I thought was something I was never going to get used to and automatically lost interest in the open world travel function at first but I quickly overlooked this when missions kept piling up or being added on, the audio, voice acting, writing, combat, customization, squad abilities, perks, loot, consequences, tactics, discovery are really well done.

It has depth and challenges that keeps you thinking and squad tactics once you figure them out, work really well and it becomes less like a game of chess and more like open combat.

I now understand what people meant when they say Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 is so shallow compared to wasteland and the first two Fallouts.

Only gripe so far… I'd love the ability to sneak and infiltrate locations without being seen… As an RPG, you can't remain undiscovered n avoid confrontation by being a stealth character, I'd love that challenge to be in the game, especially with lockpicking, hacking, safecracking, defusing bombs, disarming alarms… Would make a great assassin or thief build.