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

[Old One]

I prefer to limit it to only one skill, and have that one skill be redundant.

 

[Metal Hurlant]

Do you prefer games with more character stats, skills, attributes, etc. even knowing that some of those may be less comparatively valuable, or redundant with each other? Or do you like it when games have perhaps a smaller set of those, but those stats, skills and so on are more unique and more consistently useful?

lol

sea asks the hard questions. Do you want something we don't want to do because it's like totally shitty or do you want the actual good thing?? Eh, eh? A smart person would choose the correct answer!

Well, shit, Sherlock, with the right wording, you can (and I'm sure Brother None would agree with me) even make going to Hitler's holiday camps sound like a good idea, after all people don't want to feel stupid by choosing the bad answer!

Reminds me of this...

 

[Haplo]

Lets see, Wasteland 2: 29 skills, of which at least 10 are redundant and should be merged. Not a good statistic.

 

[Zombra]

From user Lix on the official forums:

New feature in Games™ magazine:

Hope somebody has a copy.

Got it. This is the Wasteland 3 part:

What is your biggest ambition with regard to Wasteland 3?

Fargo: I’d like the post-apocalyptic RPG crown back [laughter]. I think there is an opportunity with what we are doing with the Wasteland series to really cement our affinity to that little genre, which I grew up with and loved. I think the Fallout series has perhaps become a little too monster oriented. With me, I’m more into The Road, Swansong and The Stand; I like those aspects of civilisation breaking down and what it means from a real personal, human level, I find that fascinating. And so Wasteland 3 is more focused on that than, say, monsters – and of course we do have sci-fi elements because that’s what the Wasteland series is about. Then we have the multiplayer aspect, which is going to be great and we are going to do some super clever stuff with that.

The multiplayer in Wasteland 3 looks like it has the potential to be incredibly mischievous…

Fargo: What we find is that most people, when they play with a friend, don’t want to destroy the experience for the other person, they just want to tweak it a little–maybe get them arrested or thrown in prison or something, but they don’t want to kill them off.

It would look like that RPG crown you want back is very much within your reach then?

Fargo: We are really trying to deliver on [Wasteland 3] and, like I said, isometric is great for combat but it…in our reveal trailer, you’ve seen that conversation [in first-person] with Fish-Lips and it changes everything. Your connection to that guy changes everything and sowhen combat goes back [to isometric], that person is farmore real now that you’ve seen themup close and heard their voice; that changes the dynamic and that’s what the immersion aspects of first to third person does for you. It’s the same reason that Blizzard spends millions of dollars on those opening movies, because its characters become more real… they have a whole different vibe having seen [them] in the opening movies.

The tradition with sequels has always been to go bigger and go bolder, but is there a risk of a shortfall when you’re relying so heavily on crowdfunding to dictate a budget?

Fargo: I think that a lot of things go wrong with [sequels] when they try to go bigger… I think that a lot of projects can go sideways in this [mentality]. With Wasteland 3, we aren’t making it as big as Wasteland 2; only like five per cent of players finished Wasteland 2, so I’d rather have less maps and go far more detailed and tighter than I would to go bigger and bolder, I don’t think that buys you anything. But the bigger part for us is the visuals and that is things like the camera coming down for conversations, but that’s sort of a different attack.

I think the mistake people often make is that they say,“Well now we need twice as many weapons, twice as many maps, twice as many…” But it’s the personality that you remember, it’s the moments and the charm; it’s the craft that makes these things special, not the size. We are going much narrower, tighter and smarter.

How important do you think visual fidelity actually is? It seems to be a big focus for your next three games?

Fargo: [There is] a new generation of people, that’s why we need to improve the visuals. They aren’t going to be all nostalgic about it, they aren’t going to give us a pass; we better show some better stuff because all they are going to know is Witcher or Dark Souls. They will allow a certain amount of variation – visually speaking – but the closer the gap the more we are likely to get the audience to want these things. We want to sell the most units, and why do we want to sell more units? So that we can make more products! This was one thing that happened with our crowd early on, where we asked what was important and they said, “Well we want a lot of attributes, conversations and depth, etc,” and they’ll put visuals at the bottom. But as soon as we ship the game, the first thing they complain about is any visual problems, and the graphics. It’s always there, even if people won’t really admit it.

Do you think the renewed success of classic isometric RPGs is simply a current trend in gaming or an inevitability?

Fargo: I don’t see these going away; clearly we have tapped a nerve. I think Larian Studios has had the most success, I think they have sold over 1 million copies of Divinity: Original Sin, and I don’t see any end in sight. Clearly they are a fun experience and I don’t see that dropping off; the only reason they ever went away is because the publishers wouldn’t fund them, not because the audience didn’t want them– that was the whole premise for us wanting to do this. They’ve never gone away. We just had a moment where there were people like myself, and Obsidian, who wanted to make the games and we had a whole bunch of consumers who wanted the games, but then you had either a retailer or a publisher standing in our way.

Thankfully, digital got rid of the retailer and crowdfunding got rid of the publisher; now we are back in business.

There's also this:

 

[Ivan]

so, 2019 then

 

[Iznaliu]

so, 2019 then

No, the release will be pushed forwards to this year, and then pushed back again to 2018.

 

[Sigourn]

I think the Fallout series has perhaps become a little too monster oriented. With me, I’m more into The Road, Swansong and The Stand; I like those aspects of civilisation breaking down and what it means from a real personal, human level, I find that fascinating.

we better show some better stuff because all they are going to know is Witcher or Dark Souls.

Right in the Bethesda.

Fargo: I think that a lot of things go wrong with [sequels] when they try to go bigger… I think that a lot of projects can go sideways in this [mentality]. With Wasteland 3, we aren’t making it as big as Wasteland 2; only like five per cent of players finished Wasteland 2, so I’d rather have less maps and go far more detailed and tighter than I would to go bigger and bolder, I don’t think that buys you anything.

The problem wasn't Wasteland 2's size, the problem was that it was fucking boring. Plenty of locations looked cool, but they boiled down to combat and not much more (the airplane graveyard, for example).

 

[commie]

This was one thing that happened with our crowd early on, where we asked what was important and they said, “Well we want a lot of attributes, conversations and depth, etc,” and they’ll put visuals at the bottom. But as soon as we ship the game, the first thing they complain about is any visual problems, and the graphics. It’s always there, even if people won’t really admit it.

Codex in a nutshell. Brian knows it all too well

 

[Roguey]

A distinction must be made between "good art direction" and "spending a lot of time and money making high poly models."

 

[Goral]

Plus if the rest was great no one here would complain about graphics, just look at SitS, AoD, Underrail or Neo Scavenger. And BTW, Wasteland 2 would be much, MUCH better if it had better combat. The more pros a game has the less relevant are the cons and most people stop noticing flaws or just ignore them.

 

[Achilles]

A distinction must be made between "good art direction" and "spending a lot of time and money making high poly models."

Tapping the "agree" button isn't enough to express how much I agree with this.

 

[Rev]

Tapping the "agree" button isn't enough to express how much I agree with this.

Spoiler: I know it may be a shock, but there are also the "salute" and "brofist" buttons exactly for that.

 

[Sigourn]

A distinction must be made between "good art direction" and "spending a lot of time and money making high poly models."

What's funny is: did Wasteland 2 even have art direction?

Honestly, I didn't notice.

 

[Jarpie]

Plus if the rest was great no one here would complain about graphics, just look at SitS, AoD, Underrail or Neo Scavenger. And BTW, Wasteland 2 would be much, MUCH better if it had better combat. The more pros a game has the less relevant are the cons and most people stop noticing flaws or just ignore them.

What was the problem with WL2 combat? I haven't really played it for like a year or so.

 

[Goral]

Plus if the rest was great no one here would complain about graphics, just look at SitS, AoD, Underrail or Neo Scavenger. And BTW, Wasteland 2 would be much, MUCH better if it had better combat. The more pros a game has the less relevant are the cons and most people stop noticing flaws or just ignore them.

What was the problem with WL2 combat? I haven't really played it for like a year or so.

I'm not saying it was awful (it was definitely better than combat in Tyranny for example) but besides the cover system and it being turn-based it didn't offer many tactical options. Oh, there was also high-ground advantage and that's about it. What's more it wasn't properly balanced, the key to victory was to have high initiative by investing in Speed and Awarness and then it would become trivial. Assault Rifles were also most powerful I think.

 

[Jarpie]

Plus if the rest was great no one here would complain about graphics, just look at SitS, AoD, Underrail or Neo Scavenger. And BTW, Wasteland 2 would be much, MUCH better if it had better combat. The more pros a game has the less relevant are the cons and most people stop noticing flaws or just ignore them.

What was the problem with WL2 combat? I haven't really played it for like a year or so.

I'm not saying it was awful (it was definitely better than combat in Tyranny for example) but besides the cover system and it being turn-based it didn't offer many tactical options. Oh, there was also high-ground advantage and that's about it. What's more it wasn't properly balanced, the key to victory was to have high initiative by investing in Speed and Awarness and then it would become trivial. Assault Rifles were also most powerful I think.

Ah yeah, did some checking and someone has made a weapon rebalance mod, I wonder if it makes the combat better. I also remember that AI was pretty damn stupid.

 

[Haplo]

It was... well, not interesting. Fallout 1 had more engaging combat. Character building and development too, btw. Tyranny? Tyranny runs cirles around W2 combat.

 

[Doma]

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3?update=255#updates

 

[Infinitron]

Our Vision for the Apocalypse
POSTED: 02/06/2017
Hello Rangers,

It is time to give you all another status update on Wasteland 3! As we mentioned previously, we are deep in our pre-production phase. We have a set of core team members working to build out the vision for the game. In the coming months we have a set timeline to ensure our future team members will roll onto the project smoothly. Lead Designer George Ziets and the content team are hard at work hammering down the overall storyline, as well as working on area design and coming up with all kinds of quirky characters and companions to populate Colorado.

Beyond area and system designs, a key goal for our pre-production period is to get working prototypes for our internal use. These are focused on major gameplay elements, such as combat, missions, exploration, skill use, and so on. A lot of those designs are heavily rooted in Wasteland 2, which gives us a firm basis in the kind of rich reactivity and systemic depth we want. Our prototype work will focus on answering larger questions about new gameplay elements, such as vehicles, multiplayer, and ice and cold. We showed some of this prototyping work in our crowdfunding campaign, but for pre-production it is essential to create prototypes that explore the riskiest gameplay elements, and this will be our focus in coming months.

Since we now have a good idea of the basics, our humble team has been growing. The art lead on Torment, Charlie Bloomer, has begun work on Wasteland 3, and will be concepting and prototyping scenes to figure out how we can maximize the aesthetic of our unique, wintery setting. Dan Jenkins and Chris Wiedel, engineers who worked on Wasteland 2 and Torment, have started exploring Wasteland 3's programming needs, such as integrating useful code from Wasteland 2 and Torment, as well as investigating our requirements to get multiplayer off the ground.

Vision Document
But that's not all we have to share. Dating back to the Interplay days, our studio philosophy is to create a vision document for each of our projects. This document contains the game's core elements and features, and serves to remind us of our high-level goals throughout production, as well as to give new team members an introduction to the game’s core features. On Wasteland 2, we shared our vision with you early in the development process, and we're continuing that tradition with Wasteland 3. To read up on it, please click below:


(Click image to view Vision Document)

Beautiful Desolation
As you may recall, our previously released concept renders were done by the highly talented duo of Chris and Nic Bischoff, of The Brotherhood studio. Although they've been a great help to us in these early Wasteland 3 days, they've also been hard at work on their own projects. First, they followed up on their critically acclaimed STASIS adventure game with a free isometric horror adventure game titled Cayne, available on both Steam and GOG.com. "Give away a game for free, are they mad?" you ask, to which I answer "that's not a very nice question, but yes, quite likely they are, and also you should probably play it!"

But there's more! They've also been building their own post-apocalyptic adventure called Beautiful Desolation, a stunningly beautiful game featuring a unique African setting. Not too long ago, this project hit Kickstarter, and with less than two weeks to go, is closing in on its funding goal! If you like what you see, we encourage you to take a closer look and consider supporting their efforts.



Until soon,
Thomas Beekers
Creative Producer

 

[FeelTheRads]

Upgraded from a nondescript "designer" to Creative Producer.

Well played, Oberfuhrer, well played.

 

[Infinitron]

A couple of sea posts: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=17072&p=179865#p179865

Speaking personally (which does not necessarily reflect on the game), ammo types are one of those cool features that I like a lot in single-character games, but also feel it gets to be a bit much to micromanage in a party-based game.

There are some combat changes we're planning for the game over Wasteland 2, and while I don't know if that includes ammo types, some of what we are thinking about could help fill a similar utility.

About the recent interview: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=16909&p=179694#p179694

What Brian is talking about specifically is our experience in Wasteland 2, where graphics and polish were sacrificed to other elements to what was perhaps too great an extent. We had good intentions with that, but when the game released, one of the first and most predominant critiques of it was that the graphics weren't as good as they could have been, and that came from both press, new players, and backers alike. This also likely did affect sales, and I can tell you that our sales figures absolutely do affect the polish and detail of our games.

Are we suddenly going to make games that are mechanically shallow? Of course not. Brian isn't saying we're going to flip that scale and put gameplay on the bottom of our list. But we do want to make a better game that is more visually refined, and has more tightly and smartly built systems and scope. With the Director's Cut we made some of those strides - we improved the graphics and added gameplay depth. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive goals.

 

[FeelTheRads]

some of what we are thinking about could help fill a similar utility

Or, you could say, they're thematically consistent with different ammo types.

 

[ColCol]

There are some combat changes we're planning for the game over Wasteland 2, and while I don't know if that includes ammo types, some of what we are thinking about could help fill a similar utility.

Skill: Fire Bullets

Load your gun with a special incendiary round and let her rip. Does 12 fire damage with a chance 2 continuous fire damage per turn (for three turns). Three Turn cooldown.

 

[cruelio]

A couple of sea posts: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=17072&p=179865#p179865

Speaking personally (which does not necessarily reflect on the game), ammo types are one of those cool features that I like a lot in single-character games, but also feel it gets to be a bit much to micromanage in a party-based game.

There are some combat changes we're planning for the game over Wasteland 2, and while I don't know if that includes ammo types, some of what we are thinking about could help fill a similar utility.

About the recent interview: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=16909&p=179694#p179694

What Brian is talking about specifically is our experience in Wasteland 2, where graphics and polish were sacrificed to other elements to what was perhaps too great an extent. We had good intentions with that, but when the game released, one of the first and most predominant critiques of it was that the graphics weren't as good as they could have been, and that came from both press, new players, and backers alike. This also likely did affect sales, and I can tell you that our sales figures absolutely do affect the polish and detail of our games.

Are we suddenly going to make games that are mechanically shallow? Of course not. Brian isn't saying we're going to flip that scale and put gameplay on the bottom of our list. But we do want to make a better game that is more visually refined, and has more tightly and smartly built systems and scope. With the Director's Cut we made some of those strides - we improved the graphics and added gameplay depth. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive goals.

Where do you guys think all the Wasteland 2 money Brian Fargo conned out of you idiots went to. It wasn't the graphics which weren't even iphone tier on release. It wasn't the writing because no one in history has ever said "I really enjoyed Wasteland 2's writing and all the great characters they made." It wasn't the mechanics unless they really put a lot of thought into "lets make the only good combat weapon assault rifles and then include a bunch of useless skills that are only good for opening doors which players will just save scum anyway." So where did the money go?

 

[undecaf]

There's a PC Power Play Interview with Fargo and Keenan that doesn't really hold anything new, but I'm tired and bored and have a heartburn so I'll put it here inspite of everything.

https://www.pcpowerplay.com.au/feature/interview-brian-fargo-chris-keenan-on-wasteland-3,451094

Some quotes because why not.

“From a gameplay perspective, when we started talking about a variety of different locations, we kept riffing off of interesting things with snow. Thinking about fighting other guys on a frozen lake, and what sort of things can happen from that if potentially things break through, or explosives go off. Or guys hiding within snow, that have camouflage suits and are jumping out. It really opened up a lot of fun design possibilities for us.”

“One of the things from the Director’s Cut, moving forward, is we’re really looking into having a nice, fluid combat system. Turn-based combat, in itself, can get a little bit slow sometimes. And we really don’t want to have that wait time be on the player’s end. We want them to really act when they want to, to have that combat feel nice and quick and peppy.”

“I think we very much speak to the fans of the original Fallout series. 1 and 2. The series has taken a very different approach in the last few years, in terms of action and monsters and things like that. I think ours is much more akin to what people loved about it. Which is, again, a very brutal, human-oriented, apocalypse for which cause and effect is very meaningful.”