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Tags: Eric Schwarz; InXile Entertainment; Wasteland 3
After taking the better part of the week off, inXile have published a new Wasteland 3 Fig update. The topic this time is the Ranger Base, which will have a more important role than the Ranger Citadel did in Wasteland 2. Eric Schwarz explains:
After taking the better part of the week off, inXile have published a new Wasteland 3 Fig update. The topic this time is the Ranger Base, which will have a more important role than the Ranger Citadel did in Wasteland 2. Eric Schwarz explains:
Eric here. In this update I'll be talking to you about one of the more interesting additions we are making to Wasteland 3 – the Ranger Base. You might remember Ranger Citadel from Wasteland 2 or Ranger Center in Wasteland 1. The Ranger HQ has been a recurring idea in the series, and we want to maintain that tradition Wasteland 3.
In Wasteland 1, Ranger Center was the place where you would start the game and create new recruits. In Wasteland 2, Ranger Citadel had a similar function in that it let you drop off your companion NPCs and recruit new ones if any of your original squad-mates had died in the Wasteland. We also expanded it to include more shops, quest content, lore, and some story elements as well. However, it was mostly a starting point, and your reasons for returning were still a little limited.
With Wasteland 3, it's our aim to expand the HQ concept further and make it feel like a more meaningful part of the game. Early in the story, you will take command of a new Ranger Base in Colorado. Unlike Ranger Citadel in Wasteland 2, it won't start out fully staffed and equipped. Instead, you'll be the sole survivor of Team November, establishing a new foothold in hostile, harsh, and unforgiving territory. It will be up to you to recruit promising new Rangers from the local population and decide how to deal with the crises and challenges that are brought to your door.
In Wasteland 3, the Ranger Base is not something we want you to be constantly micromanaging. This isn't going to be a real-time strategy game; you won't be sending peasants to go chop wood or mine coal, or building settlements. How your base changes will be tightly tied in with the game's narrative and will be uniquely Wasteland.
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.
The Ranger Base is also a core part of our multiplayer gameplay loop. It will be your common hub for you and your buddy to refill your supplies, and it will also be where companions are managed... but we'll save that topic for another day.
The campaign is currently in its mid-period doldrums, but it has racked up enough social media achievements to unlock the Spitfire flame weapon described last week. The next reward is another weapon - the Emancipator, a powerful pistol that fires shotgun slugs.In Wasteland 1, Ranger Center was the place where you would start the game and create new recruits. In Wasteland 2, Ranger Citadel had a similar function in that it let you drop off your companion NPCs and recruit new ones if any of your original squad-mates had died in the Wasteland. We also expanded it to include more shops, quest content, lore, and some story elements as well. However, it was mostly a starting point, and your reasons for returning were still a little limited.
With Wasteland 3, it's our aim to expand the HQ concept further and make it feel like a more meaningful part of the game. Early in the story, you will take command of a new Ranger Base in Colorado. Unlike Ranger Citadel in Wasteland 2, it won't start out fully staffed and equipped. Instead, you'll be the sole survivor of Team November, establishing a new foothold in hostile, harsh, and unforgiving territory. It will be up to you to recruit promising new Rangers from the local population and decide how to deal with the crises and challenges that are brought to your door.
In Wasteland 3, the Ranger Base is not something we want you to be constantly micromanaging. This isn't going to be a real-time strategy game; you won't be sending peasants to go chop wood or mine coal, or building settlements. How your base changes will be tightly tied in with the game's narrative and will be uniquely Wasteland.
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.
The Ranger Base is also a core part of our multiplayer gameplay loop. It will be your common hub for you and your buddy to refill your supplies, and it will also be where companions are managed... but we'll save that topic for another day.
