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[Sharp]

https://github.com/Whales/Cataclysm2 - Git Repository
http://whalesdev.tumblr.com/ - DevBlog/Ask Questions
https://twitter.com/whalesdev - Social Medium

So many of you already know that Whales (not the animal or the country) the creator of the brilliant RL game Cataclysm is making a sequel. This is separate to Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead which Whales's Cataclysm is a foundation for.

The game is not a sandbox survival game like it's predecessor (although there is a sandbox mode) but more like a survival game with an end goal and victory condition, there are multiple factions with their own ideology and motives which tend to be mutually exclusive with other factions. You can choose to align yourself with a faction and then help complete their objective. The overall objective of each faction is different but they are all accomplished the same way by controlling a lab on the island.

Cataclysm 2 is a game set on our Earth, near the end of the 21st Century.  About 50 years ago, a massive apocalyptic event tore the world apart.  Strange spatial anomalies caused wanton destruction, unearthly monsters began appearing all over, and perhaps worst of all, anyone who died after this event promptly returned to life as a zombie.  These are the events of Cataclysm 1.
You were born after the apocalypse, and havenever known anything more than the shadows of civilization.  You lived out the first part of your life in a coastal farming and fishing town, mostly safe and happy.  But one day, disaster struck.  The perimeter defenses of your town were breached, and a horde of monsters started tearing the town apart.  You raced to the docks, collecting a few personal possessions before setting sail on a boat, the ocean the only safe route out of town.
You quickly collapsed due to exhaustion, and when you awoke, you were adrift at sea, no land in sight.  GPS technology failed long before your time, and without a skilled navigator you were hopelessly lost at sea.  You carefully rationed your supplied, surviving for several days before a storm struck, tearing your ship apart and casting you overboard.
Just when you were certain that your die was finally up, you awoke to find yourself on a beach, the wreckage of your ship - and some of your supplies - scattered around you.  This is where Cataclysm 2 begins.

Features (different to Cataclysm)

• NPC Factions
• Z-Levels
• Increased Social Interaction with NPC's and Factions and Missions
• Victory Condition
• much more

No official website or forum yet and the old ones are defunct but will update post once they are up.

[a1s]

I'm guessing from proper spelling and lack of name calling you're not the Cata:MGS guy?

[Sharp]

Why would you even bring that up, if he comes back im blaming you for jinxing it.

[lastverb]

The only way it is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is if he hacked Whales' github account.

[scrdest]

I'm guessing from proper spelling and lack of name calling you're not the Cata:MGS guy?

He's not even the dev, should have been a tip-off enough.

[Mindmaker]

Wait, it's working now?
I mean I knew it was being worked on, but I thought release was going to be "someday".

Other than being more objective based and having proper NPC and faction interactions, is it still like DDA?
Randomly generated world, all features intact? Anything missing?

[DeKaFu]

From what I can see, the difference between this and DDA is that Whales isn't impressed with the whole directionless "add everything cool we can think of at once" approach that DDA has taken, so he's planning on making a much more stripped-down and focused game experience with things like balance, game flow and world-building taking the lead over extra content and side-features.

Pretty sure the ridiculously in-depth vehicle-building system from DDA isn't going to be in, for example, because he thinks it's overcomplicated and detracts from the atmosphere of the game.

It could potentially end up being a very different game from DDA, such that there will still be merits to playing both.

[i2amroy]

Wait, it's working now?
I mean I knew it was being worked on, but I thought release was going to be "someday".

Other than being more objective based and having proper NPC and faction interactions, is it still like DDA?
Randomly generated world, all features intact? Anything missing?

Depends on how you define "working"; and it's a brand new project that Whales is working on, which means that unless he recreates a feature from C:DDA it doesn't exist in Cata 2. Last I heard (which was about a month ago) the level was more that of a tech demo/extremely early alpha as opposed to an actual working game.

And I might as well drop the sort of standard dev response from C:DDA:
It's a completely new game, and one that we aren't interested in helping with (and it doesn't seem that Whales want's help either). If we're going to spend time working on a game it's going to be the one we've already invested in. We wish Whales the best, and from the sounds of it it will be different enough that you can play both, one being a "capture/defend the bases"-type island warfare and the other being an open-world survival simulation.

Personal opinions:
1) Even with the speed Whales is working at, IMO, it's going to be another month or two before he even hits the Cata 1 level of development, and with the speed C:DDA is developing at I'm not sure he will ever be able to "catch up" to it in terms of features (though he will certainly have an edge in some of the bigger ones due to not having to tear through all the old code).
2) I'm skeptical about following the game of someone who has already dropped a game because they didn't want to work on it anymore. I maintain high hopes, but I'm skeptical.
3) All that said I still look forward to playing it if/when it gets more complete! It definitely looks like a fun concept, and I hope that Whales does as great of a job at implementing it as he did with coming up with the concept in the first place.

[Mindmaker]

Well I thought since a thread was made the game was being released or at least close to it.
Haven't played any DDA or paid attention to it for the least couple of months, so I wouldn't know.

Still, I haven't gotten all that far in the game, so I might play it a little more after I'm back home.

[Sharp]

Cataclysm 2 and C:DDA can co-exist and shouldn't be direct competitors (other then the way that all games compete with each other).

Cataclysm 2 is less sand-boxy and more like having an objective and having choices you make influence the world around you while C:DDA is like a zombie filled playground of destruction. Both games have overlap and both will split at different choices.

Luckily both are completely open source so if there is a good idea/code in DDA that Whales wants in Cataclysm 2 then he can use it, likewise if there is good idea/code in Cataclysm 2 then the DDA developers can use it. I'm sure pull requests by either parties for either repositories will be considered even though neither parties are inclined to do so.

Cataclysm 2 is not in an ideal state yet and more development needs to be done before an alpha version is released so this thread is more about an official place (on Bay12) to discuss the game and get excited for it's development.

[Robsoie]

I'm interested to see the direction this will take, especially regarding npc.

[Nighthawk]

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Already looks like it's going to be a heck of a lot more polished, and being from the person who brought us Cataclysm to begin with, it definitely has tons of promise. Will be watching.

[WealthyRadish]

When I heard whales was making a new Cataclysm, it sounded cool enough, but I'm glad he decided to have it go in a different direction from the original and DDA. Having both be sandboxes wouldn't benefit either, and this sounds like it'll be great if it gets finished.

[Mesa]

I'll stick with DDA, but it's good to know that the sequel is not meant to be "DDA+1" but rather something different that coexists with the original.

[Sharp]

I am indeed excited for the game but I still play some DDA, although the more I say DDA the more I think it's supposed to be something like Dance Dance, Anarchy.