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

[Zer0wing]

I'll say it again. If Beamdog is still alive, then inXile who did two more crowdfunding campaigns while developing Torment and earned over 10 million dollars from Wasteland 2 sales sure as hell will be too. It's not that easy to kill a small game developer that's even just moderately successful.

Not that it's really needed. InXile shoot themselves in a foot with new Torment game on all fronts, including financial, and two other campaigns (W3 & Bard's Tale) didn't go as smooth as expected.

 

[grotsnik]

Originally, I was looking at the basement of the hotel as the home to a dimensional rift, and it was voices from the rift that spoke to the caretakers of the hotel, exhorting them to murder/“preserve the spirits of the lost”. The first comment on this plan was, “This is Wasteland, not Torment.”

OK, fine. What if instead of an actual rift, the caretakers just believe there’s a hole to another world there? That’s still cool, but now we need to explain why it is that they’d believe such a thing. The easiest solution to that? Mass hallucination and charismatic cult leaders.

They have, over the years, altered their philosophy. They have built the idea of the Everest into something more than an old building. They believe they must fill its halls with spirits to protect it - and that it, in turn, will protect those spirits from the frozen wastes outside.

...but this is all just nonsense.

Like, actual, absurdly high-concept, Scooby Doo-level character motivation, narrative nonsense.

 

[Lacrymas]

I didn't actually read the update, so I didn't catch that. Yes, it's ...unbelievably bad and illogical writing, I can't even.

 

[Zewp]

Yeah, no. It's a big nope for me. I never bothered to finish Wasteland 2 because of the bad writing and from the sound of the above, I wouldn't finish Wasteland 3 either.

 

[fantadomat]

Wasteland 2 was the only bigger rpg that i didn't finish.Huge boring maps filled with pointless things.

 

[grotsnik]

I'm not even sure which idea I hate more.

The final concept is just this weird, over-complicated, tail-swallowing attempt at a collective motive and a theme (why do they assume they're successfully turning people into spirits? Where would that idea even come from? Why do they think they need to create more of these ghosts, if the hotel has remained safe up to this point no matter whether they find fresh travellers to kill or not? Are they killing people primarily to keep the ghosts safely in the hotel, or to protect the hotel? Why would it be both? If we accept all of the above, wouldn't these people all just have killed themselves, to remain safe for eternity in spirit form and to more effectively protect the hotel they care so much about?)

But then when the original concept is, 'they're killing people because for no rational reason their cult leader is feeding them a hallucinogenic fungus that makes them all believe there's a transdimensional portal in the basement that tells them to kill people for no rational reason'...

...cannibals, dude. Just make them cannibals. They invite travellers in, kill them and eat them, because there's no other food. That's *fine*. That works. Stop being incomprehensible in the drive to be original.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm not even sure which idea I hate more.

The final concept is just this weird, over-complicated, tail-swallowing attempt at a collective motive and a theme (why do they assume they're successfully turning people into spirits? Where would that idea even come from? Why do they think they need to create more of these ghosts, if the hotel has remained safe up to this point no matter whether they find fresh travellers to kill or not? Are they killing people primarily to keep the ghosts safely in the hotel, or to protect the hotel? Why would it be both? If we accept all of the above, wouldn't these people all just have killed themselves, to remain safe for eternity in spirit form and to more effectively protect the hotel they care so much about?)

But then when the original concept is, 'they're killing people because for no rational reason their cult leader is feeding them a hallucinogenic fungus that makes them all believe there's a transdimensional portal in the basement that tells them to kill people for no rational reason'...

...cannibals, dude. Just make them cannibals. They invite travellers in, kill them and eat them, because there's no other food. That's *fine*. That works. Stop being incomprehensible in the drive to be original.

I think the idea is that it's basically a hotel run by an entire cult of Jack Torrances.

 

[Lacrymas]

...cannibals, dude. Just make them cannibals. They invite travellers in, kill them and eat them, because there's no other food. That's *fine*. That works. Stop being incomprehensible in the drive to be original.

It's a bit too obvious and easy. I don't know what's so special about the Everest hotel, but I assume it's somehow protecting the people staying inside? If that is so, they could make it so the technology powering this special quality is somehow using organic material as fuel. As in corpses, the bigger the corpse the better. This includes animal corpses which they breed in the hotel (this is mainly done for sustainability, the machine could be eating only human corpses, but since this is in literally mount Everest, I doubt they could get a steady enough supply of guests to kill, but it depends on for how long one kilogram of organic material fuels the machine), but the food and water for them is understandably limited, so they can't go all out and become a farm and have to conserve them as much as possible (space is also an issue), necessitating killing other humans. They can't simply order more animals from outside because A) the transport to the hotel is dangerous and very difficult, so not many people will be up for rearing animals up the mountain; B) Domestic animals are valuable for food, manual work and are rare in general, this being the post-apocalypse, so even fewer people will be willing to sacrifice them in such a way; C) The money they get from guests (if they even get any money from them) won't be enough and will mainly be used for food and water.

This can lead to natural tension between the residents when the animals become too few and have to be kept alive for breeding, so they are willing to backstab and feed each other to the machine, as well as become desperate for more guests to invite. It also isn't as "morally easy" as just being a sect which kills randomly for whatever reason or as stereotypical as being cannibals. Not to mention that cannibalism is not healthy as it can transmit the so-called prion diseases and wipe them all out. If they can get guests frequently enough to keep themselves alive off their meat, they can get frequent deliveries of food and water off the money they make/steal from the guests. It also places the burden of choice on them, they could leave the safety of the hotel, as they aren't deranged cultists or have degenerated from brain diseases, but they (understandably in the context of the post-apocalypse?) choose not to. This can lead to even more tension between the usual residents as some people might be advocating for leaving and stopping the murders.

 

[Zombra]

Bah. Ridiculous cults and shit harks back to Wasteland 1988. You guys are mad that this isn't down to earth and sensible enough? Fuck you.

 

[Janise]

BG1EE has sold around 600k copies

j f c

 

[Roguey]

Bah. Ridiculous cults and shit harks back to Wasteland 1988. You guys are mad that this isn't down to earth and sensible enough? Fuck you.

Blood Cults were all in goofy fun, Colin here is being way too serious about all this which is the problem.

 

[fantadomat]

It will be fun if there is a SJW cult.

 

[Jaesun]

We sure have a lot of new retards here lately.

 

[grotsnik]

Bah. Ridiculous cults and shit harks back to Wasteland 1988. You guys are mad that this isn't down to earth and sensible enough? Fuck you.

I'd put it this way: there's goofy, and then there's dumb.

Goofy is straightforward, easy to grasp, and fun. Usually, it's set-up or just plain window dressing. Dumb is giving your player an in-depth, plot-based problem to solve and presenting a solution that's tortuous, unclear, or just plain dissatisfying. (Sure, I haven't played W3. Maybe they'll make something great out of this.)

Goofy sets the tone. Dumb veers wildly.

Goofy is 'you're being attacked by an 80s robot called Turbo Cybertrike'. Dumb is 'in this version of Fallout, it turns out there are mass-produced humanoid robots for some reason and they want to be free and they're being attacked by humans because, you know, Blade Runner, I guess, isn't this series all about the homages? Anyway, pick a side.'

Goofy is 'a tribal village that basically worships the PC from the last game'. Dumb is 'OK, so one of these tribals has one arm...and you get the other one to dramatically cut off his own arm...it's a symbolic gesture, I guess, but then they all get on a train together and the quest ends.'

Goofy is 'these monks worship the atomic blast and suicide-bomb themselves in honour of it'. Dumb is 'you betray them all and then the monks' wise old leader uses his dying words to say "You suck!".'

Goofy is 'a Stephen King hotel filled with murderous, crazy caretakers'. Dumb is 'a Stephen King hotel that's filled with murderous caretakers, because you see, all along it turned out that *insert complicated explanation about ghost-powered belief systems or hallucinatory fungus or dimensional portals that actually just comes down to 'they're crazy'*'

Goofy is...whatever, you get the point. I don't think that's just semantics.

 

[YES!]

Bah. Ridiculous cults and shit harks back to Wasteland 1988. You guys are mad that this isn't down to earth and sensible enough? Fuck you.

They just hate rpgs that aren't Oblivion or Undertail.

 

[santino27]

We’ve recently changed the name to “the Everest Hotel” - in part, because I wanted a name that fit the function of the hotel better. See, not only is this hotel up in the mountains (thus "Everest"), but it's also a place for a guest to sleep forever, or Ever-rest.

 

[J_C]

Oh, right, inXile still exists.

:D

I've been amazed at that for a long time. What's also weird is where they get money from, and who gives it to them, to continue their schemes. That Kickstarter money should've run out a long time ago.

I wouldn't surprised if it turns out that most codexers are closet backers.

You don't have to be surprised, many Codexers backed inXile in each of their crowdfunding campaigns.

 

[Iznaliu]

You don't have to be surprised, many Codexers backed inXile each of their crowdfunding campaigns.

The whole anti-InXile thing really only flared up after their last campaign (Wasteland 3).

 

[YES!]

You don't have to be surprised, many Codexers backed inXile each of their crowdfunding campaigns.

The whole anti-InXile thing really only flared up after their last campaign (Wasteland 3).

It happened after WL2 came out, flared up after TToN, and continues to now. Granted WL2 and TToN are no Minecraft or Undertail or FO4 or Pokeman but this is definitely the same rants and anger these same kinds of idiots destroyed Troika with.

 

[Haplo]

No wonder. inEptile included many retarder design decisions in WL2, so it was a shit game and major wasted potential. MMO-inspired tiered weapon scaling, random junk loot, nonsense chest/loot placement (with master class booby traps in random muddy fields). Shit Attribute balancing, skills severed from attributes. Lots of redundant skills (like seriously, cut their amount in half). Skill challenge progression depending on game advancement stage, rather then logical; anything other then min-maxed skills pretty useless. Weapon categories (very poorly) balanced with each other - rather then the natural progression pistols -> rifles/shotguns/SMGs -> assault rifles -> Energy. Weaker weapon categories could still have their niche/special application, mind.

WL 3 shares many sins with the Witcher 3 in fact. But at least W3 is a joy to look at, has a vast and atmospheric world, some awesome side quests and great dialogue.
Wasteland 2 has... simplistic turn-based combat. Which, admittedly, is a pretty big advantage, but it's sad how poorly even this has been done compared to something like Underrail.

 

[Lacrymas]

Wasteland 2 is the nu-RPG (the "AA" ones, not indies like AoD) I dropped the fastest. The only one I managed to force myself to beat was PoE and that's because I was expecting something awesome to happen sometime, oh, how naive I was. They are all mired in nonsensical design decisions, so much in fact that they feel like "baby's first design" as opposed to being made by industry veterans with 20+ years of experience.

 

[Haplo]

I actually liked PoE a lot despite its very bad pacing and disjointed main quest / story / focus.
This comes from someone who didn't even particularly like the IE games it was inspired by (apart from PS:T). Sure, mage combat was pretty awesome in BG2, but the rest I've found a bit tedious. Other classes being relegated to meatshield roles was perhaps the charm of old AD&D, but not for me. I like PoE balance and rich character building and development options better. Each class can fulfill various builds and 2 different characters can both be very different - and very effective at what they do. Things like defensive Barbarians actually work. Or two-hander Rangers. The varied and unique mechanics for each class.
Also I like the faster combat pace more, even if it's sometimes honestly a bit much (mainly due to active skill spam).

Wasteland 2... was just bland.

 

[Zewp]

Wasteland 2's writing was just really boring. Somewhat bland gameplay could still be carried by good content, but Wasteland 2 didn't have that either. Halfway through Wasteland 2 (around about the part about native american tribes fighting or some shit) all I wanted was to go back and play Fallout 1 and 2 instead.

Which is not to mention how inept the devs seem to be. Wasteland 2 simply stopped working after a specific update on my PC and the devs never bothered to fix it, despite a number of people complaining about the same error. I bought TToN and it gave the exact same error upon launch with no workaround and no useful advice from the devs. I simply refunded and wrote the studio off. Not that it sounds like I missed out on much with TToN.

 

[Haplo]

Wasteland 2's writing was just really boring. Somewhat bland gameplay could still be carried by good content, but Wasteland 2 didn't have that either. Halfway through Wasteland 2 (around about the part about native american tribes fighting or some shit) all I wanted was to go back and play Fallout 1 and 2 instead.

Yeah, exactly my feelings. Playing WL2, I kept wishing I was playing Fallout 1 or 2 instead.

 

[Daedalos]

WL2 was good, and I hope WL3 will be, too.