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

[Daedalos]

New fig update:

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3/updates/761

 

[Infinitron]

You Reap What You Sow
POSTED: 07/18/2018

Wasteland Turns 30
Hi everyone,

Paul here with the latest from Wasteland 3! First off, please join me in wishing the original Wasteland a Happy 30th! As many of you know (particularly those of you who helped crowdfund Wasteland 2), it has been a long and winding road for the series, and we couldn't be happier that we're here making a new Wasteland game.

We're celebrating the anniversary in a few ways, and one of those was by sharing with you the first piece of Mark Morgan's music from Wasteland 3, titled "Frozen Waste". We hope you enjoy it! If you haven't heard it yet, check your email inbox for a download link from CrowdOx! We sent it out a few weeks back.

Another way that we're acknowledging the Wasteland legacy is by continuing to work toward fully realizing our vision for Wasteland 3. On that note, you may remember around this time last year we shared an update with the team huddled together in New Orleans, planning the way forward as the game moved from pre-production to production. This past week, the team met again in NOLA for another milestone - they played areas on the critical path, taking notes on all elements of the game so they can refine their work toward future builds. Were the story beats hitting? Was the co-op clicking like we want it to? Were the audio and visuals helping to tell the story when and how they needed to? These and many other questions were on the table, and the team took the time they needed to answer them.

Now, we've got a few treats for you - a quick early look at one of the locations in the game (and some discussion on combat) courtesy of George Ziets and Eric Schwarz, as well as a Q&A with the team!

Garden of the Gods first look
Ziets here with a little setup on the Garden of the Gods.

In the real world, the Garden of the Gods is a park in Colorado Springs, famous for its towering red rock formations.

In our post-apocalyptic version of Colorado, the Garden still exists, but now it’s the site of an eccentric science project. The aim of the project is to grow crops at the tops of the rock towers by collecting and focusing sunlight, since food production is a major challenge in frozen Colorado. (You can see the solar collectors and other devices in the image below.) Until recently, the experiment was going well.

Then, just before the start of the game, Colorado Springs was infiltrated by the Dorseys, one of the savage Plains gangs who’ve declared war on Colorado. The Dorseys hold a particular grudge against Colorado Springs and its leader, the Patriarch – their ancestors were one of the Hundred Families who founded and built the city.

The Dorseys follow a bastardized version of the local religion, believing that by destroying the last vestige of America, they can bring about the “Final Deluge” that will renew the world. During their attack on Colorado Springs, a group of Dorseys took hostages and are now holed up in the Garden of the Gods. It’ll be up to the Rangers to root them out, recover the hostages, and avoid crippling the city’s food supply in the crossfire.





Implementing Combat
Eric here to do a dive into how I approached combat design in the Garden of the Gods - and more generally, throughout the rest of the game. Just a disclaimer that I'll be talking some specifics about combat encounters below, but keep in mind that these details may change before final release as we continue to tweak and tune the game.

When I begin with the design of combat in a location, I will use the story, characters, and other details of a scenario as a starting point. Who are these people? Why is the player fighting them? Are they an organized force of mercenaries, some killer machines gone rogue, or a bunch of punks? What kinds of weapons do they use? Do they have any special abilities? Do they rely on animals or robots to help them out? I try to factor it all in when it comes to conceptualizing the gameplay, as I've found it's often the best way to start building the encounter. It's always a collaborative process between the higher-level narrative and gameplay vision, the level designers working on each scene, and myself on the gameplay systems end.

In the case of the Garden of the Gods, the area is inhabited by the Dorseys that George discussed above. When you encounter them in the game, they've only been in the Garden a short time, so haven't had a chance to set up permanent fortifications. Although this is a relatively early-game location, I still wanted the Dorseys to be enough of a threat to deter a completely fresh team of Rangers. They dress in animal skins, and use mostly conventional weapons geared towards the outdoors - improvised bladed and blunt weapons, sniper rifles, assault rifles, handguns, and occasionally, larger machine guns and grenades. However, these early Dorseys aren't necessarily experienced soldiers either – they're bloodthirsty fanatics – so that means they don't have access to military-grade equipment, heavy armor, and they don't fight using lots of advanced techniques.

Once I've got a sense of what types of weapons the enemies will use, what their abilities are, and what their place in the game world is, and have spent some time building the NPCs in a sandbox test scene, I'll start working on the individual encounter design. The easiest way to start is to simply play through the level, getting a sense for the overall flow – where is the player likely to visit, and in what order? I generally try to scaffold the individual fights so that players get introduced to a specific enemy faction or type, and then we build up from there over the course of the scene. Having a good introduction not only makes the scene flow and play better for players, but it also lets us as designers ramp up the challenge and complexity.

That said, we always want to do what we can to give you more than "just some guys" to kill. In each location, I try to vary things up by using turrets, environmental objects like explosive barrels, elevation like watchtowers and cliff ledges, hostile robots, and more. In the case of Garden of the Gods, the Dorseys are not a brand-new enemy when the player encounters them, but as it's a few hours into the game, we want to start ramping up the complexity and difficulty of the encounters.

For instance, the first fight against the Dorseys is a mid-sized group with a mix of weapon types, and players are able to approach from a couple of different routes: they can either take the frontal assault, or look around to find a way up to the high ground overlooking them for a tactical advantage. The second, larger group the player finds later on has set up tripwires to keep out any pesky intruders, but observant players might be able to find a flanking route. They're also backed up by a mini-boss who makes use of pets – ones which the player might be able to turn back on their master, provided they have the right skill set.

Last, but not least, cover placement is a big part of combat design. Wasteland 3 uses a cover system just like Wasteland 2, and many design points inform how cover gets arranged, including the enemy weapon types, whether a location is indoors or outdoors, and the kinds of tactical opportunities we want to provide. The environment also contributes to how we design the layouts of our combat spaces. In an outdoor space like Garden of the Gods, you probably aren't going to find many heavy fortifications, but there's plenty of more spread out, natural cover, like rocks, snowbanks, and tree stumps that have you leapfrogging from point-to-point. Additionally, most cover in the game is destructible, so the type and relative strength of cover is also a factor for players to consider. All of these produce different combat dynamics.

That's just a taste at the kind of process we have when building combat in a scene. Of course, we continue to iterate from there many times over for just about every fight in the game, and we'll be balancing and polishing everything throughout development.

Q&A
Hi all, Paul here again for the rest of the update. Thanks to those of you who submitted questions and thanks to the team for taking the time to answer these!

Q: Could there be an update concerning the multiplayer portion? I'd just like to know how the homebase would be shared - companions, items? Are we playing separate squads that impact each other or two halves of a whole? If wanted, can I load up and walk through the whole game with my friend, or will there be times we can't be in the same location at once?
A: When playing multiplayer, your party is split between both players, with each player controlling a number of Rangers. The details may change as we continue to play and iterate, but right now, players can freely allocate party members between one another, with the only requirement being that each player must have a minimum of one player-created character in their party.

Q: What will the Rangers look and sound like in dialogue? Will I see my cool Rangers with their custom appearances close up, "Mass Effect" style? Will the Rangers be voice acted? If so, will the player have a number of voice packs to choose from, or will it be more like "You are Troy Baker, deal with it"? Can the player choose which Ranger is speaking? Can they change which Ranger is speaking mid-dialogue like in Wasteland 2? Or is there a permanent "spokesman"?
A: For regular conversations, you will see your party members from the normal top-down camera view. For cinematic conversations, we're still experimenting, but at this time we're not planning on voice-acting your player characters during conversations. Different party members will be able to speak during conversations, but we've streamlined the interface so that you don't need to pick a specific character - the game will pick the most appropriate character for each line if you meet the requirements. Of course, the companion NPCs who join your party will be able to interject during conversations as well, and they might sometimes surprise you with their insight.

Q: How will vehicle combat work?
A: You'll be able to use your vehicle to fire on enemies, as well as a mobile cover point you can place to maximize your tactical advantage. There's more to vehicles, of course, but we'll talk in more detail in a future update.

Q: I know it's early days yet as far as fleshing out characters go, but do you have any favorites or characters that really stand out?
A: Our characters are continuing to take shape. While we can't talk too much about many specific ones just yet, you can expect to see a commanding presence from Colorado's leader, The Patriarch, as well as a bunch of our various faction leaders and companions. The writing and design team have had a lot of fun trying to add all sorts of personality quirks and moments throughout the game.

Wasteland 2 - Now in Handheld Form!
Finally, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that our original crowdfunded title, Wasteland 2, is making its way to the Nintendo Switch. If you've been planning on playing/replaying the game and have a Switch, keep an eye out for when the game releases later this summer!

That's it for now! Thanks to everyone for reading along!

Until Next Time,
Paul Marzagalli
Public Relations & Community Manager
@phimseto

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[Zombra]

They answered one of my questions! I'm famous!

 

[Infinitron]

So, anybody want to try to read George's email?

Also, the glimpse at WIP gameplay is interesting:

 

[Daedalos]

From: Brian Fargo
To: George Ziets

Hi George, please don't fuck this up!

From: George Ziets
To: Brian Fargo

Don't worry, Brian, this ain't gonna be another torment! ;-)

 

[Quillon]

From: Brian Fargo
To: George Ziets

Hi George, please don't fuck this up!

From: George Ziets
To: Brian Fargo

Don't worry, Brian, this ain't gonna be another torment! ;-)

Screenshot suggests they have been too verbose for only that convo, it doesn't bode well for the game.

2 million words hype!

 

[Bohr]

Probably just a quick note from McComb asking if he's seen the red stapler he left behind.

 

[Zombra]

For a second I saw those big floor labels and thought Prison Architect ... "There's going to be base building??" Then I came to my senses.

 

[fantadomat]

This looks pretty meh for a command center.

 

[Infinitron]

I can make out some of the sender names on those emails. The one that's open is from Chris Keenan. I think the three others are from Aaron Meyers, Eric Daily and Charlie Bloomer.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

No, this cannot be true.

No, this cannot be.

No, I refuse to believe it.

They just

Spoiler

cannot

Spoiler

be

Spoiler

fucking

Spoiler

using

Spoiler

a god damn MICROSOFT EDGE

Spoiler

 

[fantadomat]

No, this cannot be true.

No, this cannot be.

No, I refuse to believe it.

They just

Spoiler

cannot

Spoiler

be

Spoiler

fucking

Spoiler

using

Spoiler

a god damn MICROSOFT EDGE

Spoiler

Are we supposed to know what microsoft edge is?

 

[Spockrock]

the icon gives its roots away

 

[CyberWhale]

Those WIP screenshots look fucking terrible. I hope they change the UI, because this seems like WL2 all over again.

 

[toro]

Those WIP screenshots look fucking terrible. I hope they change the UI, because this seems like WL2 all over again.

There is a chance this will be worse than W2.

They have shown too little that would inspire confidence in the final product. In fact, I think they already spent their Fig money on Bard's Tale IV and if that shit doesn't deliver some money then they will have 1 year to scrap something for W3.

Honestly I would be shocked if W3 development went without a hitch.

 

[Background Character]

I warned you about Fargo, bro. I told you, dog!

You have let me punch him

 

[Grotesque]

The expectations for Wasteland 3 are pretty low so maybe this will allow a small group of people with a laser focused vision to make a glittering gem of exquisiteness of a game.

 

[Infinitron]

Garden of the Gods with user interface:

 

[Roguey]

That's an extremely Modern UI and sadly looking a lot better than what they usually do.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I'm looking forward to 10 changes to the interface.

Also lol at the consoletard interface.

 

[Squid]

Why show the controller layout?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Why show the controller layout?

Know your audience? inXile are particularly good at that.

 

[Squid]

Why show the controller layout?

Know your audience? inXile are particularly good at that.

Wait, they really have a lot controller users? I'm out of the loop I guess, I would have guessed most sales would be on PC by users who don't like controllers.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I was sarcastic.
Though honestly I don't really know how many consoletards bought their games. Might as well be a lot.

But replace "audience" with "target audience" and it's probably true, it seems to me like they really want the consoletard money. I guess you can exile out of Interplay but you can't exile the Interplay out of you.

 

[Zombra]

"Not bad" news for Wasteland 3 - W3 will not be adopting Bard's Tale 4's awful system of forcing you to use premade characters before having a chance to create your own.