Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #43: Re-Designed Inventory

[Brother None]

Wasteland 2's latest update has some tidbits on the novella (now out) and beta status, but mostly it's about showing off the new, grid-based inventory.<blockquote>Long gone are the days of hitting the backpack button and having 4-7 packs pop open. By selecting the party member along the side, you can see the contents of their pack. If you select the “All” button, it will show you the contents of all packs in one easy to read space. Hovering over an item in this mode will highlight the party member on the left to show whose bag it’s in. Drag it to the PC you want to have it and you’re good to go!

When you mouse over the item, you will get all stat and useful information displayed in a small pop-up. You also can further examine the items by double clicking to read the details and see any additional description information.

This grid-based inventory is not limited for space. You can manually keep it sorted yourself under the all items tab if you have your own system in mind, or have the game auto-sort it under one of the other tabs (which will not re-set your manual sorting).

At the same time, we’re also updating the character, attribute, skills and dossier screens. No longer will they be full screen but instead a more compact window, which gives us space to combine it with another screen. Additionally, dropping items in the world, adding them to hotkey bars, and trading becomes much easier when you can move this compact window around to the most convenient screen spot.</blockquote>

 

[Buxbaum666]

The new inventory is p. cool.

 

[Mr Fish]

I really don't like the window within a window menu's for everything. Why is it so important to show the background anyway? I'd rather the entire screen be covered by the menu so that we can have less tabs to sort through. Hell, done right we could have all 7 characters inventories up on one single screen and we could easily distribute items to the characters that need it rather than how we right now need to shift between characters to view each individual inventory. I do think that this looks more appealing than the previous inventory system though.

I just don't get it. What is so good about window within a window inventory/menu/character screen?
I could understand the reason for it if we are in battle and we want to open the inventory for whatever reason and look around the battlefield at the same time. But other than that I just don't see the point to it. Window within a window is just impractical and inefficient to me.

So yeah, better than before but still shitty IMO.

On the novella thing for Steam Early Access, anyone know when we'll get it? Steam hasn't downloaded it yet for me so I'm wondering what they mean about it coming "shortly".

 

[tekhedd]

The new inventory is very pretty, no denying that. But does it make inventory management even a tiny bit easier? Except for the all-important feature of making it easy to drop things onto the ground?

I am not convinced that everything needs to be configurable. Floating, moveable windows are only a useful feature if you're planning to combine/overlap windows with a different app that has not yet been defined. When all of the possible uses for a window are predefined (ie coded within the game), this is a step backwards. In this case you're better off with predefined application-specific layout. For examples, see pretty much any game. I think of the simple inventory management of Diablo or the trade/swap layout of Fallen Enchantress.

The only thing I can think is that with the addition of icons, the new layout is too compact need the whole screen, but not quite compact enough to have all seven inventories visible at once. So they tried this.

I love the art, though.

My biggest beef with this layout is that it only has icons for the characters. If you have difficulty telling the characters apart from their portraits (say, you have two that are the same portrait as I did in one game by accident) it's really going to slow you down.

 

[FearMonkey]

I really don't like the window within a window menu's for everything. Why is it so important to show the background anyway? I'd rather the entire screen be covered by the menu so that we can have less tabs to sort through. Hell, done right we could have all 7 characters inventories up on one single screen and we could easily distribute items to the characters that need it rather than how we right now need to shift between characters to view each individual inventory. I do think that this looks more appealing than the previous inventory system though.

I just don't get it. What is so good about window within a window inventory/menu/character screen?
I could understand the reason for it if we are in battle and we want to open the inventory for whatever reason and look around the battlefield at the same time. But other than that I just don't see the point to it. Window within a window is just impractical and inefficient to me.

So yeah, better than before but still shitty IMO.

I think it's because of people who play MMOs who are used to that sort of inventory system.

I personally like the full-screen inventory too.

But I can deal with anything I suppose. I'm flexible. *shrug*

 

[mobucks]

I like the It's Always Sunny reference.

 

[Sduibek]

@Brother None I think this should say #43, not $43. Also, hi!

 

[Grotesque]

lived to see the day...

 

[baszermaszer]

I really don't like the window within a window menu's for everything. Why is it so important to show the background anyway? [..].

+1 on that one!

Also the new inventory looks a lot nicer than that soulless crap they were using.

Surprising confirmation:

The inXile team, if they ever had, lost their best graphics artist before they began W2. This graphics looks crappy. Especially the rotatable characters in the inventory look ridiculously bad.

Also the icon graphics is way way worse than in Fallout 1 or 2. It seems 14 years was needed to create a game that looks worse than Fallout 1.

The only reason inXile cannot do great in-engine 3D art and 3D art design is the lack of talented people there.

 

[Akratus]

I would agree, based on all the other screenshots I've seen. They included very low polygon objects with horrible textures. But in the second screenshot, if you follow the op link, there's a very nice scene with fog and fire. If that simply obscures the less than fashionable surroundings that would be too bad.

 

[naossano]

Surprising confirmation:

The inXile team, if they ever had, lost their best graphics artist before they began W2. This graphics looks crappy. Especially the rotatable characters in the inventory look ridiculously bad.

Also the icon graphics is way way worse than in Fallout 1 or 2. It seems 14 years was needed to create a game that looks worse than Fallout 1.

The only reason inXile cannot do great in-engine 3D art and 3D art design is the lack of talented people there.

Do you imply that Fo1 graphics were bad ?
I understand that 3d models have a better definition, less pixel, and allow more freedom to edit, but sprites often had a better style, and in the Fallout case, a better dirtyness that fitted with the setting.
3D looks sometimes far too clean to be enjoyable. Of courses there are many exceptions. Also those 3d have improved, but if you look past games, sprites games still look good while early 3D became awfull.

 

[tekhedd]

Do you imply that Fo1 graphics were bad ?

No, I think he's just trying to find a poetic way to say he thinks the Wasteland graphics are bad, or at least not at all what he was hoping for.

I understand that 3d models have a better definition, less pixel, and allow more freedom to edit, but sprites often had a better style, and in the Fallout case, a better dirtyness that fitted with the setting.

And this is really the point. I played Fallout (about a billion times), and I've played a lot of 3d based top-down games in the interim, NWN2 etc, and it's (obviously) much, much more difficult to convert artistic vision into a 3D simulation that you can freely pan about. Relative to the current state of the art, Wasteland looks fine.

I might have some criticism of Wasteland's style, but it wouldn't be that it "looks terrible" or any arbitrarily dismissive trolling BS. I'd say perhaps that it still lacks a distinctive signature that carves it into your memory forever.

Wasteland does have its own artistic style, which has not fully gelled yet, but is congealing into a gritty, not-quite-mercenary perspective. It's dark and kind of awful and I like where it's headed. The GUI and characters really have to carry the "post-apocalyptic rangers" style, because the locations have unique flavors, and strongly contrast the main party, rather than reinforcing the same repeated vision. This is different from the Fallout series, where fake-future-50s America had given all of the locations common themes. In Wasteland, isolated areas have developed unique solutions to the problems they face.

The GUI, as we know, is still being tweaked, and a good thing. GUI design is discovered as much as designed, and it may or may not exactly hit the mark by the end of beta. Depends on the designer, really. We'll see how good (s)he is soon enough, and whether the team/management will let that designer's vision come together or ruin it by trying to impose some sort of "please everyone" or "I had this vision" override. And whether, if it does come together, whether that vision sucks.

Outside of the GUI, the art style is "201x era 3d top-down RPG" and that's what it is. The technology is limiting, but it sure looks excellent within those constraints. That will never, ever be able to compare to nostalgic memories of 199x era hand-made bitmaps. I assume it's getting a bit of love and polish before it ships, but lord, it's not *bad*.