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Game News Wasteland 3 Fig Update #17: Status Report and Vision Document

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Brother None; InXile Entertainment; Wasteland 3

inXile have published the first major Wasteland 3 Fig update since the campaign concluded back in November. It's a brief status report.

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.
It's clear that the game still has a long way to go, but they have put together a vision document for it. It's not quite as detailed as Torment's was, but there are some reassuring-sounding things in there. For example:

Improved Combat System

In Wasteland 2, we created a combat system that allowed for myriad tactics and weapon types, and in the Director’s Cut, we added perks and quirks that let you play through combat your own way. We know that people loved that greater level of depth and customization, and in Wasteland 3 we are planning to push this even further.

Combat Abilities are special attacks, techniques, and benefits that are tied to your characters’ skills and perks, as well as to their equipment. Maybe one character is especially good with melee weapons and can learn to kneecap enemies to knock them flat on their backs. Another might be an expert spotter who can mark targets so the rest of the team gets an accuracy boost. And maybe one character really, really likes to attach portable flamethrowers to their arms. These strategies, and many more, will help you outwit and outflank your enemies, allowing you to dominate the battlefield through smarter tactics and respond to different situations in clever ways.

Encounter design is another place where we want to innovate. Wasteland 2 had a few memorable encounters, such as battles against the Scorpitron, or huge firefights inside enemy bases, and we want to continue making more and more battles you’ll remember. This extends to more careful level design and placement of cover, but it also includes more ways to interact with the environment. Over the course of some encounters, you will be faced with new and daunting challenges, battlefields that shift as reinforcements come in, or objectives that change mid-fight. We want to vary your combat experiences throughout the game so that each significant fight brings something new with it.

Last, the overall look and feel of combat are getting an overhaul. Wasteland 3 will feature faster-placed gameplay with snappier animations, player input queuing so you spend less time waiting and watching, and a new level of intensity in violence and chaos.
I like that "encounter design" has become a thing worth boasting about. Some of our readers (hi, Zombra!) will also be glad to hear that the document explicitly clarifies that "Wasteland 3 will be a party-based game, meaning you play a party of Rangers rather than one individual with followers". Better late than never on that!
 

felipepepe

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I am conflicted... on one hand I always hated how "Game X" is amazing at release but suddenly becomes garbage when "Game X2" is announced.

On the other, why can't InXile admit that their combat & encounter design was terrible? Why is everything they write so full of PR-speak? I swear, BioWare and Bethesda are more straightforward.
 

Roguey

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I am conflicted... on one hand I always hated how "Game X" is amazing at release but suddenly becomes garbage when "Game X2" is announced.

On the other, why can't InXile admit that their combat & encounter design was terrible? Why is everything they write so full of PR-speak? I swear, BioWare and Bethesda are more straightforward.

It did have a few memorable encounters.
 

duanth123

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I am conflicted... on one hand I always hated how "Game X" is amazing at release but suddenly becomes garbage when "Game X2" is announced.

On the other, why can't InXile admit that their combat & encounter design was terrible? Why is everything they write so full of PR-speak? I swear, BioWare and Bethesda are more straightforward.

Insecurity.

Giving way to a prison hard mentality.

Deep down they must know InXile's but a single misstep away from obliteration.
 

l3loodAngel

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Oh yeah Brian I saw those perks and quirks and I can fucking tell you they were nothing to brag about. Especially that clown nonsense. If I would own the studio right now I would make the guy who thought about it to wear the clown costume 24/7 so that everybody would know who he actually is.

A little about combat abilities. Just keep it interesting and simple like FO and AOD. Don't make it over complicated and useless. Ask TC for advice. He build one of the best systems back in the day.
 
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undecaf

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
That "vision document" would've been much better sales pitch than what the Fig campaign was.

Ziets being lead designer gives some hope, but... we'll see.
 

FeelTheRads

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I am conflicted... on one hand I always hated how "Game X" is amazing at release but suddenly becomes garbage when "Game X2" is announced.

On the other, why can't InXile admit that their combat & encounter design was terrible? Why is everything they write so full of PR-speak? I swear, BioWare and Bethesda are more straightforward.

If it comes from BN or sea it's no surprise. Newcomers are always more zealous.

And what's so memorable about the Scorpitron fight? Sure, if you put up a giant 3D model against a party of tiny 3D models it might make it stick in the player's mind for a while... it's just natural, but hardly an achievement in innovation.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
On the other, why can't InXile admit that their combat & encounter design was terrible? Why is everything they write so full of PR-speak?

This is a PR document sent out to tens of thousands of people, not an interview or some forum exchange with a Codexer. I don't like Brother None and sea's corporate behavioral mode but I don't think any big company would have done this differently.
 

Iznaliu

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Combat Abilities are special attacks, techniques, and benefits that are tied to your characters’ skills and perks, as well as to their equipment. Maybe one character is especially good with melee weapons and can learn to kneecap enemies to knock them flat on their backs. Another might be an expert spotter who can mark targets so the rest of the team gets an accuracy boost. And maybe one character really, really likes to attach portable flamethrowers to their arms. These strategies, and many more, will help you outwit and outflank your enemies, allowing you to dominate the battlefield through smarter tactics and respond to different situations in clever ways.

This kind of stuff is needed to stop combat from being monotonous
 

Kem0sabe

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I bet they didn't plan to release this now, only after the accusations of failure to communicate they decided to pull this PR "vision" out of their asses.

Anyways, bunch of lies until proven otherwise by actual gameplay.
 

felipepepe

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I don't think any big company would have done this differently.
I thought the idea was to run away from this "big company" logic, to have open development and all that bullshit...

Which is clearly not the case. There must be a very strict structure and billions of checks if Colim took so long to post that last update talking about removed stretch goals. His interview on the subject was out like a day before the update... imagine how many hands it went through.
 

Ash of Gods

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So this time they are cutting stretch goals before the even start development? :lol:
Why not? Are the main things and you can roughly calculate how much it costs. There are extra - they can do it or not. It is better to count everything before they started development. Moreover, it is not their first game and calculations can be very accurate.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
This game only has one real stretch goal, the talking Reagan car.
 

MrBuzzKill

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Does anybody even trust their so-called "stretch goals" anymore after the TToN fiasco?
 

Ash of Gods

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Thanx Zorba the Hutt. Cut off the localization and all other think. Crap. Your know in russia here one phrase "Ёбаный стыд" ("Fucking shame"). Yes, I think to give them money for the new goals again was weird.
 

Tyrion8338

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I`m so hyped for wasteland 3, now I`m playing wasteland 2 Director Cut and it`s really good game.
 

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