Wasteland Wasteland 3 Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Jimmious]

Which makes me wonder how many of WL2's encounters were not handcrafted.

Dude you possess some of the most elegant and subtle trolling skills I've ever met online.
I admire them especially in the WL3 forum of InXile

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Nobody’s going to get fatigued from making money

- Brian Fargo


What an unlucky quote!
http://www.pcgamesn.com/wasteland-3/brian-fargo-inxile-kickstarter-interview

 

[LESS T_T]

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/usgamers-rpg-podcast-welcomes-rpg-legend-brian-fargo



USGamer RPG podcast interview with Brian Fargo. Starts in 32:36.

 

[Roguey]

Which makes me wonder how many of WL2's encounters were not handcrafted.

• Similarly, encounter design and enemy behavior in combat is solid. There is good variety in enemy weaponry and types, and different enemies have different abilities that can change how you will fight them. Right now I think that enemies could do more with stuff like area effects (grenades, toxic gas, whatever) but I don't think grenades are implemented yet, so that might be why.

Age of Decadence requires near-total mastery of its combat mechanics and is exceptionally tactical and number-crunchy. Wasteland 2's combat is more accessible but still challenging. It's less punishing of mistakes and therefore more straightforwardly fun. I don't think combat should be rated purely on the complexity of mechanics or the sheer challenge level, but on how well it "works" and in some respects Wasteland 2 is actually better than Age of Decadence that way (which could be described as too fiddly, too slow-paced and calculated, and too punishing for many). In the context of a CRPG, the combat is pretty damn solid. I don't think the two games can be directly compared though, nor should they be.

Balance in the backer beta is ~2 months out of date and not final. We're doing further balancing and tweaking based on feedback right to the end. Generally a lot of people found things too easy, especially if they didn't stick to the critical path and did a lot of side quests, so "make things harder but still fun/fair" is on everyone's mind. One of my many jobs right now is doing a full run through the game doing as few side quests as humanly possible to see how much combat is possible vs. impossible vs. avoidable, and we have other people doing different types of runs to find a good medium, whether that's changing base enemy types/stats or tweaking existing encounter design.

 

[Old One]

I've just been playing AoD and noticing how much better the combat is than...well, most crap.

Trying to sell WL2 combat on the basis of it being "less punishing of mistakes and therefore more straightforwardly fun" compared to AoD is not influencing me positively.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/usgamers-rpg-podcast-welcomes-rpg-legend-brian-fargo



USGamer RPG podcast interview with Brian Fargo. Starts in 32:36.

Finally listened to this. Chris Keenan is also there.

There's not really any details about the game that haven't been in a Fig update already, but some of the more personal stuff in the second half is interesting. I found it funny how they spend a bunch of time talking about multiplayer without anybody mentioning D:OS (although Brian does finally give Larian an off-handed mention near the end). The interviewer even mentions Ultima Online but not D:OS.

 

[Zombra]

I don't know what's new and what's not, but here's the hardest Wasteland 3 info I got from the interview I didn't know from elsewhere:

* You can "peel off" a saved game from a multiplayer game and make it into a single-player game. Like if you load a game and find that your "friend" blew everything up and you don't want to play with them any more, you can say to hell with it, load an earlier save, and shut them out of it.

* Base building will be a story-driven thing, not a minigame city builder or RTS. Choices & consequences will let the base develop kind of like a character. "Do we let the refugees move in or not," and repercussions down the road. Sounds almost more driven by dialogue choices than "systems".

* Brian was disappointed that Gippers faction didn't make it into W2, we will definitely be seeing them in W3.

* Vehicles were on the table for W2 but didn't work out. They really want them so they thought a lot about how to make them work for W3.

* Visual armor upgrades are being hyped too. Sounds like they're not considering cosmetic overrides so I hope you like space marines.

* Brian cited a planned 36 month dev cycle.

* Unrelated to Wasteland 3, but Brian said that after this he wants to look at a new property instead of another sequel.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't know what's new and what's not, but here's the hardest Wasteland 3 info I got from the interview I didn't know from elsewhere:

* You can "peel off" a saved game from a multiplayer game and make it into a single-player game. Like if you load a game and find that your "friend" blew everything up and you don't want to play with them any more, you can say to hell with it, load an earlier save, and shut them out of it.

Mentioned in multiplayer Fig update: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10434

* Base building will be a story-driven thing, not a minigame city builder or RTS. Choices & consequences will let the base develop kind of like a character. "Do we let the refugees move in or not," and repercussions down the road. Sounds almost more driven by dialogue choices than "systems".

Mentioned in Ranger base Fig update: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10442

* Brian was disappointed that Gippers faction didn't make it into W2, we will definitely be seeing them in W3.

Are you sure? I don't remember him saying they'd be in Wasteland 3.

* Vehicles were on the table for W2 but didn't work out. They really want them so they thought a lot about how to make them work for W3.

* Visual armor upgrades are being hyped too. Sounds like they're not considering cosmetic overrides so I hope you like space marines.

OK, these might actually be new information.

* Brian cited a planned 36 month dev cycle.

See estimated delivery dates on the Fig campaign page.

* Unrelated to Wasteland 3, but Brian said that after this he wants to look at a new property instead of another sequel.

Mentioned in an interview from Gamescom: http://www.gamereactor.eu/articles/453153/Brian+Fargo+is+swinging+for+the+fences+with+Torment/

 

[Zombra]

* Brian was disappointed that Gippers faction didn't make it into W2, we will definitely be seeing them in W3.

Are you sure? I don't remember him saying they'd be in Wasteland 3.

47:12
"What other kind of things didn't make it into W2 that you want to make sure make it into W3?"
"Well, there was the Ronald Reagan cult ... I love the idea of cults ... the Gippers is something we wanted to get with Wasteland 3."

Not exactly an announcement, but yes, I'm as sure they'll be included as I am of anything with this campaign.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

* Brian was disappointed that Gippers faction didn't make it into W2, we will definitely be seeing them in W3.

Are you sure? I don't remember him saying they'd be in Wasteland 3.

47:12
"What other kind of things didn't make it into W2 that you want to make sure make it into W3?"
"Well, there was the Ronald Reagan cult ... I love the idea of cults ... the Gippers is something we wanted to get with Wasteland 3."

Not exactly an announcement, but yes, I'm as sure they'll be included as I am of anything with this campaign.

I see you are all good at reading updates.

Instead, we are envisioning the Ranger Base as more of a quest hub that you can return to throughout the game, where interesting events and incidents will arise for you to resolve. You can think of our goals as something along the lines of de'Arnise Hold from Baldur's Gate 2. Far from being a game system where you need to look at graphs, charts, and numbers to balance your budget, the HQ in Wasteland 3 will present you with events, ethical dilemmas, and quests based on your choices, and those choices can have world-spanning consequences.

For example...

During the game, you might return to the Ranger Base after a long trek, only to find representatives from two different factions - the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud and the Gippers. Both have recently discovered a disused oil refinery which dates from before the apocalypse, and blood has already been shed over control of it. The Servants want to make use of the space to start developing explosives, hoping to entrench themselves in the area, but their fanaticism means they are eager to keep the area free from nonbelievers. The Gippers, on the other hand, are interested in taking over the plant to refine their oil reserves, convinced it will help them provide power and fuel to the people in the area.


In both cases, there might be some common benefits (such as access to an additional source of income or a new ally for the Rangers), but your decision will ultimately depend upon what you value as a leader. Do you want to better keep the people in the area secure by granting control to a heavily armed faction, knowing that it also comes with the risk of the Servants introducing the populace to the Great Glow? Or do you value the improvements to quality of life and trade the Gippers might provide, at the risk of making the refinery a tempting target for savage warlords from the Plains?

You'll have to make decisions and deal with the consequences arising from such situations. These consequences will affect the story, but there may also be considerations that are more material. For example, putting the Servants in charge of the refinery might grant you easier access to explosive weaponry, while the Gippers might give you a discount towards fuel and services for your vehicles. And given the tensions between the two groups, you can safely guess that there might be more violence later - with the Rangers now caught in the crossfire.

But judging from the description those cultist behave different than, I imagine, reagan cultist would.

 

[Infinitron]

Whoops!

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

 

[Zombra]

I see you are all good at reading updates.

Bah, I read that weeks ago as an example of how a base event might work. None of it is gospel.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

It feels so nice to remove yourself from the hype and just not give a shit. I think I'm finally at the point where I've completely moved on from inXile.

 

[Infinitron]

It feels so nice to remove yourself from the hype and just not give a shit. I think I'm finally at the point where I've completely moved on from inXile.

What hype?

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3?update=204#updates

Designing an RPG Town
POSTED: 10/31/2016
Ziets here. First off, we have another concept render to show you from the Bischoffs. Here, the Rangers are exploring the desolate snowscape and happen upon a ruined building and the wreck of a somewhat familiar-looking machine…



Click for a larger version.

As you may know, I’m currently the Lead Area Designer on Torment: Tides of Numenera, and I’ve also done writing and design work on a number of other RPGs, including Neverwinter Nights 2 and Fallout: New Vegas. Today I’m going to describe my approach to designing a city or town in an RPG (and along the way, reveal some of our initial design thoughts for WL3).

At the start of the design process, the first order of business is always research. I try to find out as much as I can about the town’s existing lore, dig up any maps that might exist, and search out preexisting stories, characters, and landmarks that could spark fun ideas for quests. For example, when I designed the town of Mulsantir in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, I delved into some really old Forgotten Realms sourcebooks, looked for references to the town, and jotted down notes on everything that sounded interesting. Partly this is to reward fans of the setting and surprise them with references to people and places they know and love… but it’s also an effort to gather as much creative ammunition as I can. I find that my imagination works best when I have plenty of disparate elements that I can fit together in interesting ways.

In a game like Wasteland 3, the research phase will be a bit different from something like Neverwinter Nights because it takes place in the real world. We’re tentatively planning to use the city of Colorado Springs as our primary urban hub, filled with interesting characters and quests (though of course this plan may change over the course of development). We’ve already started some initial research on the city and its surroundings, and we plan to send some team members on a trip to visit Colorado and see the place up close. But the underlying creative process will be the same – we’ll be looking for the most interesting stories, locations, and oddities that we can use as inspiration in the game. For example, we already know that Colorado Springs is located very close to interesting locations like Cheyenne Mountain, the Air Force Academy, and the Garden of the Gods, which could play a role in the game.

Once I’m satisfied that I have enough research material, I move on to the brainstorming phase, when I start jotting down tons of ideas for characters, quests, locations, and ways to tie them all together. Usually these are based (in some way) on the things I discovered during the research phase, but not always – sometimes they’re just fun ideas that happen to fit the setting.

In the best case scenario, I have a few weeks or more to brainstorm in my downtime. I find that my best ideas often arrive when I’m doing other things, like cooking or brushing my teeth (which seems especially effective for generating ideas, for some reason). But sometimes deadlines dictate otherwise, and the brainstorming phase happens over the course of a few focused days at the office.

By the time the brainstorming phase is finished, I’ve hopefully got enough ideas to fill up the town, at least for a first pass. If the city is large enough to have multiple districts and interior locations, I typically have ideas for most of them at this point. The third phase is getting everything down on paper, old-school, Dungeons-and-Dragons style. I start drawing overview maps of the city and the districts, noting where important characters, locations, and quests could be.

Here’s an example of an early map I drew of the Underbelly from Torment: Tides of Numenera:

And here’s how the Underbelly appears in the game:

A critical element during this phase is the main story. I need to know what story events take place in the town so I can decide where to place them. The main story should help guide the player through an RPG city. It should never lead the player by the nose to every point of interest, but major story events should be placed in different districts, giving the player a gentle nudge to explore at least some of them. Beyond that, it should be up to the player to explore and discover the rest of the content on their own.

If the city does have different districts, I try to give each one a unique flavor of its own. I ask myself about the kinds of people who live there (e.g., social class, native vs. immigrant), the purpose of the district (e.g., industrial, mercantile, residential), architectural style, and unique locations and monuments. The latter are especially important. When placed strategically around a scene, monuments, unique locations, and other visual features can help the player orient themselves and navigate through the area.

For example, in a district dominated by the Gipper faction, we might use landmarks like an old oil drilling tower, a statue of President Reagan, or a tall flagpole with Old Glory flapping in the wind. In a city like Colorado Springs, we’d also try to include real-world landmarks in scenes, like the Olympic Committee Headquarters and its unique metal sculptures, pictured below.

Photo by David Shankbone.

Narratively, I try to give each district a primary story (and sometimes a secondary story as well), just as I would for an adventure area out in the world. What are the main concerns of the people in the district? What problem (or problems) are they facing, and how might the player get involved? Not every NPC needs to be focused on the district’s main story or stories, but they should at least make reference to them, and their stories and quests should make sense within the larger context so that the area feels like a unified whole.

As a hypothetical example, imagine a secluded district of Colorado Springs that has become home to several retired or displaced warlords from the Plains. One of those warlords wants to take back his former territory, and he’s begun hiring thugs to build an army. The other warlords want to live out their retirements without attracting attention, so they’re trying to stop him, one way or another. Meanwhile, NPCs in the district are all affected by this story. Local people are being harassed by thugs who want to join the new army. Old enemies and aggrieved victims are constantly arriving in the district to exact their revenge on one warlord or another. A hotel manager is trying to evict a warlord who has run out of money (without getting killed by his bodyguards). And so on.

If the city is a hub – someplace the player will revisit multiple times over the course of the game (like Athkatla in Baldur’s Gate 2) – I need to think about how it will change as the game progresses. What events will take place later in the game? What stories will develop further, based upon the player’s actions? How will the city change? What characters will arrive in town? Usually, changes to the town should be visible from major pathways that players are likely to use. If they’re hidden in corners the player has no reason to visit again, they may never be seen (unless the player is pointed to them by some other NPC or quest). In WL3, Colorado Springs will probably be a hub city that the player will visit multiple times, so when we design it, we’ll be thinking carefully about how its content will change over the course of the game.

The final design phase is writing the design document and finishing the detailed maps. These usually include lists of characters (including notes on physical appearance for the artists), quest outlines, and descriptions of all the dialogues that need to be written. Lots of things will change and improve over the course of implementation – artists will create cool assets that will inspire new ideas, designers and writers will expand upon quests and create new ones - but the design document and maps provide a foundation for everything to come.

I’ll stop there, even though I could say a lot more. If you’ve stayed with me this far, you have a pretty good idea of the steps I take when bringing an RPG city to life. This is exactly what we’ll be doing for Colorado Springs in the not-too-distant future. Stay tuned!

George Ziets

 

[Roguey]

Gipper faction's going to be pretty awkward if the election doesn't go the way Fargo wants it to.

 

[Infinitron]

Free Dragonfall if you pledge $40: https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3?update=206#updates

3 Days Left, and Another Free Game!
POSTED: 11/01/2016


Hey Rangers,

We’re in the last 3 days of the Wasteland 3 campaign! Your support throughout these weeks has been incredible and we want to thank everyone for getting us this far. We still have a few more stretch goals left in the last few days, so let’s all push together to make the final days as huge as they can be!

As part of our final push, we have another promotion for you guys! Thanks to our friends at Harebrained Schemes, we’re offering a free copy of Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall to all backers $40 and above. This applies to everyone who pledges during our campaign as long as your final pledge is $40 or more – either through a reward level like Wasteland Scout, or by adding add-ons to an existing pledge!

Of course, part of our final push are our Ranger Team Missions on social media, where you have brought the Rangers far. We've already passed sixteen stops, which means we’re adding the unique pistol called The Emancipator to the game! But what awaits the squad as they get closer to the end?

• At twenty stops, we enhance and expand our death animations, so you can watch your enemies die the inglorious deaths they deserve.

As part of our social media missions, we’ve also been receiving tons of great fan art and cosplay entries from everyone showing their support for the game. We’ve been going through those as the campaign progresses, and we wanted to highlight a few of them…

We've posted the full galleries for cosplay and fan art on our Facebook page, so take a look for the rest!

Last, we wanted to highlight a couple of interviews we've done in the last few days. To start, there's one with Brian Fargo available at PCGamesN where he speaks about Wasteland 3 as well as the state of crowdfunding. And, USgamer's RPG podcast also featured Brian and Chris Keenan as special guests recently, where they spoke about Wasteland 3 (you can check it out around the halfway mark).

That's all for now, but we'll have more soon. Remember to show your support by sharing and letting your friends know about Wasteland 3. Let's keep things going through to the end!

Thomas Beekers
Designer

 

[Jimmious]

If someone doesn't have Underrail (or Stasis) and Shadowrun... it's quite a nice deal for 40 bucks to get 3 games. Even if WL3 turns out to be completely shit.
The best part for me is that they seem to target the right audience by offering such games

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

If someone doesn't have Underrail (or Stasis) and Shadowrun... it's quite a nice deal for 40 bucks to get 3 games. Even if WL3 turns out to be completely shit.
The best part for me is that they seem to target the right audience by offering such games

Yes. Very informative crowdfunding campaign. Reading through the lines is a game in itself. What a splendid feat of gamification!

 

[Jimmious]

Hahaha no the campaign sucked and it was the opposite of informative.
I'm just saying that by offering good turn based RPGs at least they seem to know to which people they want to appeal to.
I would be worried if they offered BioShock or sth

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3?update=208#updates

A Coiled Story
POSTED: 11/02/2016
Howdy Rangers,

We’ve got a bit of everything for you today! First off, just like to remind you that we're offering a free Steam or GOG copy of Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut from Harebrained Schemes to all backers who have pledged $40 or more. If you've already pledged that amount, you don't need to take any additional action, but once the Wasteland 3 campaign is over, this special offer will be gone! If you would like to check out their critically-acclaimed cyberpunk RPG while supporting Wasteland 3, now is your last chance to do so!

Mister Funtimes
You might remember the Mister Funtimes model we showed you in an earlier update. We have something cool to share with you today: we put the 3D model (in T-Pose) up on Sketchfab so you can view it from every angle and take a look at all the details. Click below:



Dunes of Thoughts
I also have another lore writeup from the inimitable George Ziets, detailing another area we've been concepting for Wasteland 3:



[From the letters of Doctor Ellen Buchanan, dated 2022 - twenty-five years after the bombs fell. Housed in the Patriarch’s personal archive, Colorado Springs.]

I’m writing this from the passenger seat of an old, prewar pickup, not far from the ruins of Fort Garland. It’s April, I think… almost two years since we embarked upon this project to survey what’s become of our world.

My driver is a silent, pale-skinned man, his bald head mottled with scars and radiation burns. His coveralls have been mended so many times that I’ve taken to calling him Patch. He never speaks, so I don’t know if he minds the name, but I hope he doesn’t. Ever since the death of Dr. Herrera, he’s been my sole companion and friend.

A few days ago, Patch and I reached the edge of a barren expanse. Sand piled in vast, sweeping dunes at the edge of the mountains. This was once a national park that had been turned over to a group of scientists – not university professors like I once was, but a private foundation. They’d fenced off the whole area, and no one was allowed inside.

Of course, my curiosity immediately got the better of me. I told Patch to stay with the truck, and I set off alone.

At the edge of the dunes, I found toppled fences and guard towers, probably abandoned when the bombs fell. As I climbed over the ruins, I saw flickers of blue light from the sands beyond.

Sitting amongst the dunes were dozens of massive globes, like giant crystal balls strewn around a beach. Each of them was about twenty feet in diameter, though some were larger than others. They were filled with intricate networks of transparent fibers, so complex that the human eye couldn’t follow all their connections. Tiny blue-white sparks moved along the fibers at an incredible speed. Every so often, an arc of electricity jumped from one of the globes to another, setting off a chain reaction that sliced through the air and unleashed a burst of thunder.

I watched, mesmerized, for who knows how long, trying to understand what I was seeing.

“The Storm-in-Chains,” said a voice beside me. “Preserved minds from before the war.”

I leaped in surprise. A hairy little man stood close by, nearly naked, with metal rods strapped to his back. Startled by his sudden appearance, I asked who he was.

“Sparksinger,” he said. “First of my name. The Storm called me hence.”

Instinctively I edged away from him, but he grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the lightning globes with a wiry strength. He put his mouth close to my ear. “Hear me, Dr. Buchanan - you are an echo, nothing more. All those you studied are dead. All those you taught are dead.”

How he knew me, I cannot guess. I was so shocked by his words that I didn’t resist, and he dragged me closer to the orbs. Before it even occurred to me to shout for help, Patch was running toward us, mouth set in an angry line. The little man looked at him with horror.“

I know what’s under your skin, dissembler. Get you back!”

For a moment, the Sparksinger let go of my arm. Patch and I broke away and raced for our truck…

[Beyond this point, the letter is torn, and no further record of the story has been found.]

Successes From Our Friends
We couldn't let our campaign run out without congratulating some of our friends on some pretty amazing success stories. Those of you who backed in the first 48 hours (and that's a lot!) will get a free copy of Stygian Software's UnderRail or The Brotherhood's STASIS. Both of these studios had some awesome news come out in the last month.

First, Stygian announced they are doing an expansion to UnderRail, titled Expedition. This expansion offers a new twist on the metro and cave-crawling of UnderRail by letting you take a boat out to the Black Sea, a massive underground body of water. With over 100 new areas and expansion to items, skills and factions, this is a massive addition to an already great game, releasing in the first half of 2017.



The Brotherhood has a couple exciting things going on. First off, they're releasing a FREE game (these guys sure are generous) entitled Cayne, an adventure game like STASIS with stories tied to that game, but playable as a stand-alone game. So it won't even require you to own STASIS - anyone will be able to grab this adventure for free come January 24th!

On that same day, they will be launching a Kickstarter for their next game, beautiful DESOLATION, an adventure game set in a post-apocalyptic Africa, with very unique and stunning visuals. Just look at the mutated giraffes below, as well as other stunning art on their website. Mark your calendars!



Thomas Beekers
Designer

 

[Zombra]

"A bit of everything" except ... well yeah.

 

[Bubbles]

This is all they have.

 

[Morkar Left]

Yeah, cancelled my pledge. It's sad I have to go without a collectors box but I want to see the game first.

 

[Bubbles]

On its penultimate day, the WL3 campaign has made nearly 16k in funds. Custom insignia will require another 4k, but that should only take a couple of hours at the current speed.

The real question is whether they'll be able to raise the 125k for the bazaar within the remaining ~24 hours. Infinitron, last chance for a Codex fundraiser!