Game News Wasteland 3 Fig Update #21: Getting The Band Back Together

[Infinitron]

Tags: Charlie Bloomer; InXile Entertainment; Paul Marzagalli; Thomas Beekers; Wasteland 3

inXile recently released The Mage's Tale, their Oculus Rift VR game set in the Bard's Tale universe. Although The Bard's Tale IV is still a ways from release, this has apparently freed a number of former Wasteland 2 developers at their New Orleans studio to join the Wasteland 3 team. The game will be co-developed by both of inXile's studios. The new Fig update has the details on that:

Thomas here! We mentioned in our previous update that Wasteland 3 is moving from pre-production to full production. A big part of that is rolling in new developers from projects that are wrapping up. Now that The Mage's Tale is released, that team is dispersing across inXile to our different games. Some developers are moving over to The Bard's Tale IV, others are staying on The Mage's Tale to continue support for that title, and there are some that are joining us on the Wasteland 3 team.

Back when inXile opened a new studio in New Orleans, a number of key developers who played vital roles on Wasteland 2 ended up moving to the new studio. Now that Wasteland 3 is in production, we're very happy to bring some familiar faces back into the fold. Wasteland 2 level designers/scripters Jeremy Kopman, Ben Moise, Joby Bednar, and Zack Vulaj are all back to work on Wasteland 3, as is engineer Jeffrey Corrales. As you can imagine, bringing people in that are so familiar with the tools and setting means we can really hit the ground running. Having this kind of veteran carryover makes us very confident that our team gets what makes Wasteland tick and knows what lessons we want to carry over from the previous project.

As a small studio, we also benefit from being flexible regarding developers moving between projects and we want each of our devs to be on the project that best fits his or her skills. It's a quality of life element that we strive for, too: letting developers be where they can find the ideal professional/personal balance for their goals.

To help with the process of onboarding, last week we had part of the Wasteland 3 team (Chris Keenan, George Ziets, Jeremy Kopman and Alex Kerr) fly to New Orleans to meet with the level design team there, as well as inXile president Matthew Findley. With a solid base of knowledge of the setting and game already there, we could really delve deeply in meetings about multiplayer, the mechanics of our Ranger Base, and more. On top of those were the opportunities to have a number of in-person general meetings on story and level design pipelines, processes, and best practices. It was a real marathon of meetings, but those of you who have been with us longer may recall that we've had similar gatherings for both Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera, and they always pay off in a big way.

A small bit of inXile trivia: the main conference rooms at our Newport and NOLA studios are nicknamed Ranger HQ and Cochise Base respectively! The shots below are from Base Cochise on the NOLA side, and show off the team reviewing the Stanley Hotel's early level blockouts - we'll have more to share about that in a coming update.
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The update also has some details on inXile's initial efforts to implement vehicles, courtesy of art director Charlie Bloomer.

Hi all, Charlie here. Vehicles? In Wasteland 3? Oh it's happening, and we've made some good progress on that front in the past few weeks! We now have a vehicle playground, a test scene in Unity that we're using to drive around in so we can figure out our parameters for fun vehicle gameplay. While we intend to show that at least one faction in post-apocalyptic Colorado is equipped to build their own vehicles, most of the drivable machines you'll find are examples of ingenuity and resourcefulness, with a healthy dose of auto shop and welding skills thrown in. In this world, scrounged materials can make the difference between barely mobile and fortified, armed transport.



The first vehicle you'll acquire in the game is a bit of a beater. We wanted to provide the player with something that is functional - it can be trusted to get you from point A to point B - but that would be sparse when it comes to weaponry or armor. Our beater has nice big tires and some attached armor plating, so it's a whole lot better than walking. On the other hand, the starting place for those modifications is a vehicle that looks like its previous owner might have been a "soccer mom." Not to worry, if you survive with this puppy, you will be well rewarded with the next vehicle, which is a beast!
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It sounds like Wasteland 3 is still just at the beginning of production. It'll be a while before there's a video. How about giving us some more Bard's Tale IV stuff in the meantime?

 

[Grotesque]

There are 0 comments on Wasteland 3 Fig Update #21: Getting The Band Back Together

 

[Morality Games]

Sort of hard to comment on inXile at this point.

I want to say iteration will make Wasteland 3 better than Wasteland 2, since lots of Kickstarters got better with sequels (SR: DF, BS2) or improved with patches (Pillars 3.0 + White March). Divinity: Origina Sin II looks like it will be something special. On the other hand, Torment as an RPG and game failed to rise above Wasteland 2's mediocre elements.

There's just no way to be sure.

Being frank, inXile doesn't seem to have a preeminent designer personality like Shiguru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, or any of those developers whose personalities and values have an obvious and positive creative influence on their work.

Then they have projects/companies spread across countries/continents and quasi laissez faire management, which is to say management that takes a laid back approach until it doesn't.

 

[himmy]

I thought Wasteland 2 was just fine. The DC made it even better. It wasn't perfect, but playing it didn't seem like a hassle and it genuinely made me happy while playing it. If W3 can do the same it will still be fine by me. I get a lot of the criticism against W2, but I think some people around here exaggerate its fault in an attempt to depict their own tastes as being sophisticated and critical and superior.

 

[Morality Games]

I thought Wasteland 2 was just fine. The DC made it even better. It wasn't perfect, but playing it didn't seem like a hassle and it genuinely made me happy while playing it. If W3 can do the same it will still be fine by me. I get a lot of the criticism against W2, but I think some people around here exaggerate its fault in an attempt to depict their own tastes as being sophisticated and critical and superior.

WL2 got better with patches and an expanded edition.

Doesn't do a lot for the majority of fans who sank their 40-70 hours into it in the first week or two.

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

Isn't Ziets the design lead for Wasteland 3?

 

[taxalot]

It's not everyday we have snowy post apocalyptic. I am afraid they picked my interest as soon as this game was announced, considering Wasteland 2 was a great game.

 

[Tigranes]

WL2 was OK, this will probably be a bit better. Torment was a shitshow but I'm pretty confident inXile can pull off a slightly upgraded WL2.

 

[Daedalos]

I dunno, WL3 lost alot of heat for me the past several months. Obviously enough, since there's no real news to be had, but I guess the game itself will be better than WL2 on most fronts.

It's hard to stay interested, when Vince is pumping out dev updates on the regular from TNW lately!

 

[getter77]

They'll get attention again once they lay out even the gist of what is going down in terms of how character/party progression will work this time around vs Wasteland 2's----still boggles the mind that such a critical element never made their funding pitch proper.

 

[l3loodAngel]

They'll get attention again once they lay out even the gist of what is going down in terms of how character/party progression will work this time around vs Wasteland 2's----still boggles the mind that such a critical element never made their funding pitch proper.

Do you mean character systems or something else?

 

[i.Razor]

I'm looking forward to this game. I know TToN was a fuck up, but these things just happen. Even in Interplay, on one hand Fargo sinked the company, but on other we had titles like Fallout and BG.
So..
WL2 is a good game and i'm in on day 1 for WL3 (maybe there will be some story for Angela btw).

 

[cherry blossom]

Will it be 3D again? Or pre-rendered 2D backgrounds like in the concept art or POE?

 

[getter77]

They'll get attention again once they lay out even the gist of what is going down in terms of how character/party progression will work this time around vs Wasteland 2's----still boggles the mind that such a critical element never made their funding pitch proper.

Do you mean character systems or something else?

Pretty much---I don't know that anybody could be reasonably convinced to slog through the system from WL 2 only lightly touched up given how it fell apart come even the mid-game with the Perks & Quirks bolted on at the end being far too little and too late to undo the structurally unsound foundations....they need a massive overhaul or just adapt their own spin on another system entirely for a clean slate to start anew.

 

[vivec]

As someone pointed out, its hard to comment on the possible quality of W3. W2 was decidedly meh. Tworment was terribad. At this point, it is obvious that anyone who contributed to the writing and encounter design of the latter should be fired. Keep the guys who wrote the kid and the mad companion. The rest could be rated from bland to vomit inducing.

W2 is totally fixable and I don't see why W3 with good writing support can't be fixed.

 

[Ulfhednar]

At this point, it is obvious that anyone who contributed to the writing and encounter design of the latter should be fired. Keep the guys who wrote the kid and the mad companion.

Yep, fire everyone except Pat Rothfuss and Chris Avellone... lol!

 

[Imperialist]

InXile makes me nervous when they go dark, no E3, no video updates, a lot of hype but no show.

 

[ArchAngel]

Wl2 was boring, Tton was boring, I expect WL3 to be, well boring.
And as such I didn't support it.
If it does turn out not boring I might "test" it first to be sure.

 

[DeepOcean]

I'm highly suspicious of InXile's ability of delivering something good, while Wasteland 2 wasn't a complete clusterfuck as Tworment, I dunno, I will wait cautiously with this one. I really don' believe on InXile's method of making games, they can prove me wrong with this game of course, and I hope so as good RPGs are a rarity but it is that thing, fool me once, the shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me thrice and I would be a retard for trusting them.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

InXile makes me nervous when they go dark, no E3, no video updates, a lot of hype but no show.

All hype and no show
Makes Fargo a phony boy. Again.

 

[J_C]

InXile makes me nervous when they go dark, no E3, no video updates, a lot of hype but no show.

As they have written in the latest update, they have just left pre-production. I don't think they have too much to show at this moment.

 

[Crispy]

Vehicles? Why?

It's not like in Unity they're going to be able to make maps large enough to justify getting into a vehicle to cut down on walking time. You drive to the edge of the screen and what? You just come to a stop? Do you transition to the next map? Stupid.

What they should have done was to pick one crucial spot in the story in which you have to have a vehicle in order to reach a distant base or some other important locale. You have to spend an appropriately difficult time finding its parts first, leveling up the skills needed to fix it, then depending on those skills and quality of parts you either fare well in the vehicle "section" of the game to come or you don't.

Once you start out, the scene features you and your team riding in/on the vehicle in the middle of the screen with the landscape scrolling by. You encounter several other rival vehicles bent on taking you out, and you fight them in turn-based fashion, possibly with guns that you mounted. If you survive, and you make the 100km trip through the wilderness or whatever, that's it. You all get out, the thing falls apart on you a la the Bluesmobile, and you move on.

Things would be so much easier if they'd just ask me.

 

[Lurker King]

Vehicles? Why?

It's not like in Unity they're going to be able to make maps large enough to justify getting into a vehicle to cut down on walking time. You drive to the edge of the screen and what? You just come to a stop? Do you transition to the next map? Stupid.

They are implementing vehicles for the same reason you had a car in Fallout: entices our feelings of elevated status progression in the game world.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

It's not like in Unity they're going to be able to make maps large enough to justify getting into a vehicle to cut down on walking time. You drive to the edge of the screen and what? You just come to a stop? Do you transition to the next map? Stupid.

They can make regular (or even small) size maps, but make every model super-tiny, tinker a little bit with camera position and movement speed which would create an illusion of HUGE map.

 

[Crispy]

Sounds SOZZY