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

[GloomFrost]

What game is this?
Because I want to play it.

Wasteland 3 duuuuuhhhhh

 

[Infinitron]

Brian Fargo and Tim Campbell on German IGN:



https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/08/23/wasteland-3s-giant-car-is-my-favorite-party-member

Wasteland 3's Giant Car is My Favorite Party Member
Role-playing + turn-based combat = tactical vehicular manslaughter.

Trading in the dusty barrens of Arizona and the like for the snow-swept passages of Colorado, Wasteland 3's apocalyptic vision may not be the prettiest looking role-playing tactical game out there, but it is looking a whole lot sleeker and more detailed than its predecessor. Instead of moving a dot on a line across a barren map, I was able to snowplow an armored transport vehicle through winding sleet-heavy roads before finding the target of my objective: an old resort turned into a base filled with drugged up psychopaths. My job was to find their leader - Victory Buchanan - and take him out.

In my first combat experience going hands-on with Wasteland 3's demo that went out to backers this week (the full experience should arrive sometime in Spring 2020), I was given four different characters to control: My main character, Banshee the sniper, Doc Nails the medic, and Scotchmo the shotgun-toting alcoholic. Each had a specialized role to fill that made them instantly unique from the others, like Scotchmo's shotgun displaying a large cone of fire instead of targeting single opponents. The overhead view of the arena seamlessly transitioned from exploration into a grid-based map featuring a much more slick and streamlined interface than we've seen in Wasteland 2. I was a bit sloppy entering the fight, and had to rush to find cover after taking fire that felt very reminiscent of X-COM's tactical battles (even featuring their own version of ambushing overwatch strikes that could activate during an enemy's movement). I appreciated all the clever visual cues - like being able to see my movement range with different colored borders marking how far I could run and still have action points leftover to shoot. I was also happy to find that you could swap between characters on the fly during your turn, rather than having to fully complete a character's action one after other, which meant new strategic opportunities for setting up attacks.

It wasn't until the battle was underway that I realized I had a fifth character to control: my team's giant heavily fortified and armed vehicle, named Kodiak. The huge armored behemoth was still parked not far from where I had begun my exploration, and took up a massive 5x5 set of tiles on the battle grid, and had its own set of action points to use. As my team moved to the left to take cover behind a watchtower, many of the post apocalyptic crazies I was facing had hunkered down by some barrels and barricades opposite from my car. Like any tactical genius, I put ol' Kodiak into drive and used up every action point I could to move the mobile fortress to slam through the pathetic obstacles and straight into my enemies. They were instantly turned into red paste, much to my satisfaction. Kodiak also came equipped with its own mounted turret, which I used the next turn to plug an enemy who thought himself lucky to avoid getting bulldozed. It was a very fun experience, and highlighted some interesting ways to use the transport to my advantage either as defensive cover or an offensive ramming tool.



Beep beep mother-

Of course, you won't be able to use Kodiak to end every encounter so quickly. Once the fight was over, my party was forced to cross a narrow bridge and leave the hulking car behind, which then gave me interesting choices on how to proceed. Wasteland 3 feels like its as every bit a role playing game as it is a tactical shooter, and you're able to choose how best to approach a scenario. I was able to take a path to the right into a heavily defended area which meant more prolonged firefights without my trusty armored car. Instead, I opted for a path to the left, which was entirely devoid of psychopaths, but instead littered with assorted traps and grisly displays of carnage from those who came before me. Navigating these traps relied on full use of Wasteland 3's RPG mechanics - and by interacting with certain elements I was able to engage in lockpicking, disarming, and repairing with characters who boasted a high enough skill. Again, a streamlined system meant less hassle for me trying to find the right character for the job and look for the right abilities in tooltips. Just by clicking on the object, if a party member had the skills, they'd go for it. If one of my team failed to perform, it would have either meant taking a ton of damage, or backtracking towards hostile territory.

Eventually I came to the last trap, where several caged bears sat between me and the final encounter. Had I explored around enough, I could have located a valve for a gas line to explode the bears into little chunks, but instead I opted to fight them head on. Doing so was tougher than I expected, but also provided me with an unexpected surprise as I noticed a docile bear cub in the corner of the cage. I found that one of my rangers could tame the bear and send the little guy into battle, which could only have been possible if I didn't blow them all up in the first place. Regrettably, the little bear never got to charge into battle on my behalf, as he was taken out by a poison gas grenade I was hit by only a few minutes later. I never even got to name the poor guy.

After retaliating by lobbing grenades, sniping gas tanks, and unleashing a powerful energy rifle I found looting some chests, I was finally able to take out the tough crazies guarding my target. It was nice to see the game try to seamlessly zoom right from exploration into a more cinematic conversation (the build was still in alpha so some stuttering was to be expected). At this point, speaking with the drugged up man known as Victory, I found that I had several ways to resolving the conflict. Shooting him in the face was on the table, but so was using my skills to try and find a peaceful way to convince him to join my team - but it required my characters to learn the right skills and attain a high enough level so that the dialogue options would succeed. I ended up trying to lie to him to get him to surrender, which backfired into a silly conversation that quickly turned deadly, only for Victory's plan to backfire as well. Job well done?

Having all of the dialogue voiced went a long way into making these interactions a lot more entertaining, and the amount of pathways that one conversation with Victory included was a good indicator of how varied everyone's playthrough could be, and I'm interested to see how my particular choices would affect my relationship with the people who gave me the task later on in the story.

http://www.gamingtarget.com/article.php?artid=18540

Wasteland 3 Preview - Can You Survive Colorado’s Perpetual Nuclear Winter?

Gaming Target was recently invited to meet with Deep Silver to check out one of their upcoming titles, Wasteland 3. The original Wasteland was released more than 30 years ago with it finally receiving a sequel back in 2014 and now, a third iteration of the franchise is currently slated to arrive in Spring 2020. The Wasteland franchise is an RPG series set in a post-apocalyptic world. Wasteland 3 specifically takes you from the American Southwest to the perpetual nuclear winter of Colorado.

During my time with Wasteland 3, I came away impressed with the different options that I was presented with as I was playing through the demo. The lead level designer of Wasteland 3, Jeremy Kopman, was there to answer any and all questions I had during my journey. There were branching paths to take and my decision could potentially affect what happens next. For example, there was an instance where I had to choose whether I headed north or east. I chose to go down the east path. After a little while, I came across some enemies. Now I could either go in guns blazing and try to quickly eliminate everyone or try and defuse the situation. The problem with just attacking without thinking was that there were some turrets set up (that I didn’t see at first) that most likely would have taken me out if I had acted aggressively. Fortunately, I had chosen the peaceful option and I was able to proceed without engaging in combat in that instance. If you will recall, I had that choice of whether to go north or east earlier. If I had decided to go north instead I would have arrived at the same place with the same interaction, however, things could have gone very differently. If I had decided to go north I would have come up behind these potential enemies and, among other things, I could have deactivated those same turrets before any battle started. Then, if I had decided to be more aggressive, I would have had a much better chance at success.

The branching parts of the game don’t only have to do with what path you are going to go down though. Soon after the above encounter, I caught up with the person I had been chasing. Someone had been kidnapped and it was my job to bring them back. After talking with the criminal a number of different options presented themselves. I could always just attack him if I wanted to. I could arrest him and turn him over to the authorities. Another option that popped up was that I could recruit him into my team and instead of being an adversary, he could be an ally. The potential problem with that option is the person that hired me to find the kidnapped individual probably wouldn’t be very happy that I now that had some criminal in my party. The story can branch off in a number of different ways just based off those decisions I make during that segment. I asked about the number of different endings that Wasteland 3 will have and while it was confirmed to me that Wasteland 3 will indeed have multiple endings, they declined to give me an exact number. While they didn’t tell me this specifically, I had the feeling they might not have that completely locked down yet since the game is still 8-10 months away or so.

The combat in the game was like a strategy-RPG. It was on a bit of a grid system where it told me how far I could go in one turn. I only had so much energy to use in any given turn and I needed to plan my moves out ahead. I would often try to find cover as one of my first moves and then with my remaining energy try and attack the enemy. You will have to try and monitor your energy to try and make sure you have enough to do what you have in mind, however, there is a fairly easy way to do that. When I would try and get behind a piece of cover it would glow either blue or orange. If it was blue I could do that and still have more energy afterward. If it was orange I might be able to do it but my energy would be completely drained and I wouldn’t be able to do anything else for that turn. I had four members in my party so be sure to plan accordingly. Different party members have different skill sets as well so you want to keep them together as much as you can.

To summarize, here are some of Wasteland 3’s key features:

• A party-based roleplaying game with a focus on complex story, reactivity of the characters and world, and strategic combat.

• Vehicles and a revamped, more fluid action system are some of the new features evolving on Wasteland 2’s deep tactical turn-based combat and unique encounter design.

• Play single player or with a friend in story-driven co-op. Choices open (or close off) mission opportunities, areas to explore, story arcs, and more.

• Set up a base of operations to help the local people and establish your reputation with them. Quests and narrative choices will force you to make difficult decisions on how to lead.

• Set in the savage lands of frozen Colorado, where survival is difficult and a happy outcome is never guaranteed. Difficult moral choices and sacrifices will challenge the player and change the game world.

Check out the trailer that was released at Gamescom for Wasteland 3 and tell us what you think. Wasteland 3 is currently slated for consoles and PC in Spring 2020. Will you be picking it up?

 

[Quillon]

MS boosting the development with cash but Deep Silver's still the publisher?

Also forgot about this being a co-op game...

 

[Duraframe300]

MS boosting the development with cash but Deep Silver's still the publisher?

Also forgot about this being a co-op game...

Microsofts getting money from its sales unlike let's say Outer Worlds. So, why wouldn't they?

 

[Quillon]

Yeah, thought of DS as a funding publisher for some reason.

 

[Infinitron]

Retcon Raider playthrough:

 

[Quillon]

We see climactic armor designs in concept arts then in the game armors are over the top tech-y and full plate-y and shit

Is this wasteland or some clean sy-fy setting?

Goes for Outer Worlds too, from what we saw so far there too looted armor looks like shit/full plate-y, when equipped turns you into the generic enemy NPC you've just killed completely.(tho default outfits for companions are noice & detailed)

Altho I haven't played them at all, partial armor over casual outfit design in the Division games looks the best for games with modern weapons, they make a visual difference when equipped but don't erase the character visually in the process. This woulda been a perfect fit for especially a Wasteland game.

New X-com games also uses this to some extent...till you very quickly unlock the shitty looking high level gear that make every soldier look to the same with slight color difference.

 

[Bohr]

Not the Borg, the other guys

 

[rusty_shackleford]

And after spending time with Wasteland 3 at Gamescom, it’s already clear to see that money is being well invested to ensure the standard of quality going forward liberates studios to create the best possible versions of their games.

I have been hearing this for a while now, that big corporate publishers are going to give newly acquired studios the opportunity to make the best versions of games as possible. In this case a title that don't seem to focus mostly on what big publishers think are essential now in current day game design; multi player and additional micro transactions.

Wasteland 3 may be a bit more streamlined in order to appeal to the average or common gamer but I still do not see this being a major hit.

Nor do I see the quality of gaming actually going to improve after a large portion of it was turned into a generic mess with some genres being watered down or completely disappearing (true, some really have had declining sales over the years). Not to mention what reboots did to some classic IPs, removing them from their roots or turning them into a series of cliches and tropes glued onto a generic FPS or third person shooter.

Developers left big publishers and studios to have more independence and make the games they wanted to make and now they or at least their studios end up being part of a big publisher again, telling us that this will help make games better.

meh
Microsoft pretty much throws money everywhere just to try to expand into any market they can. If someone told me they were dropping massive amounts of money to attempt to takeover a niche market I'd believe it.

 

[Dodo1610]

Probably because Wasteland 3 is crowdfunded while Outer Wolds is a traditional game both funded and greenlit by a publisher. Which means their publishing contracts are most likely very different.

Or MS just has very different plans for Obsidian so they do not want to be connected with that game.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I chose to ignore this thread so far but the gameplay video looks surprisingly good, nothing groundbreaking but it looks like a good TB cRPG which can appeal to the masses, which is good in my book.

 

[Adidas-Clichèd Cringe]

So is Wasteland 2 actually worth playing through? I've had it since release, and played through a few major locations before giving up. Perhaps some of the mechanics were unbearably shitty or something, can't remember anymore.

Those new gameplay videos do look somewhat promising.

 

[undecaf]

So is Wasteland 2 actually worth playing through?

Sure. It has its own set of shortcomings and you won’t get an ”instant classic” out of it, but it is very much worth at least one runthrough.

 

[Darth Canoli]

So is Wasteland 2 actually worth playing through? I've had it since release, and played through a few major locations before giving up. Perhaps some of the mechanics were unbearably shitty or something, can't remember anymore.

My advice, skip Ag Center and pick the other distress signal early on, railroad camp is underwhelming too, skip it if you like, Red Scorpions is really good, try to get through the first half of the game as fast as possible, set aside the few good locations (Red Scorpions, the other distress signal ...) and the second part is better.

Use the Director's Cut version and check for the mods you might like in Nexus.

 

[Stavrophore]

Wasteland 2 combat is atrocious, if you thought fallout tactics combat was bad than wasteland 2 is even shittier xD For combat fag, really really avoid this title.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Wasteland 2 combat is atrocious, if you thought fallout tactics combat was bad than wasteland 2 is even shittier xD For combat fag, really really avoid this title.

Seriously ?
What would be your references then ?

 

[Tigranes]

I don't think Wl2 combat is stellar, but if you aren't going for the combat then you really shouldn't bother with the game. There's a lot of it, and it's a core part of the appeal.

I'd say it's good enough to dabble with if you're bored and running dry on turn-based CRPGs. Which was very true of many of us when it came out, but today...

 

[Darth Canoli]

I don't think Wl2 combat is stellar, but if you aren't going for the combat then you really shouldn't bother with the game. There's a lot of it, and it's a core part of the appeal.

I'd say it's good enough to dabble with if you're bored and running dry on turn-based CRPGs. Which was very true of many of us when it came out, but today...

You have a point but the DC version is even more worth it today because it's better than all the half-baked RTwP turds we're left with, it's also better than DOS1/2 cooldown fest.

 

[Zombra]

The setting is what a twelve year old would think a fallout is

Uh .... you didn't play Wasteland 1, did you?

 

[fantadomat]

The setting is what a twelve year old would think a fallout is

Uh .... you didn't play Wasteland 1, did you?

Nope,i haven't played it. Still the games have evolved quite a bit. I doubt that it is wise to market a post apocalyptical game with cannibals and shit to 12 year olds. On another had i doubt that there are many adults that will have fun playing a game filled with toilet humour for 50 hours. It feels like the devs never grew out of their teens. Zombra do you find this shit humourful?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Cannibals are cool.

 

[Zombra]

Gameplay by Drool from the inXile forums

Drool is prestigious as it gets. Any tl;dr of what he said about it?

 

[Mud']

WASTELAND 3 TAKES THE BEST PARTS OF WASTELAND 2 AND PUMPS IT UP TO 10

https://cogconnected.com/preview/wasteland-3-preview/

I dont remember Wasteland 2 having anything good.

 

[Orma]

Finished the alpha demo just now, wasn't bad at all

Combat seems much improved since wl2, and they removed some redundant skills and merged some of them with others.
For example you open safes with the lockpick skill now and energy weapons skill was removed completely. Energy weapons rely on other weapon skills now instead, depending on the type of the particular energy weapon
haven't noticed a separate damage type for them either, instead they seem to have a 25% chance to shock

Spoiler

There were some performance issues in the world travel screen (cuz unity I assume) and out-of-combat controls still kinda suck and are clunky

 

[Kem0sabe]

Finished the alpha demo just now, wasn't bad at all

Combat seems much improved since wl2, and they removed some redundant skills and merged some of them with others.
For example you open safes with the lockpick skill now and energy weapons skill was removed completely. Energy weapons rely on other weapon skills now instead, depending on the type of the particular energy weapon
haven't noticed a separate damage type for them either, instead they seem to have a 25% chance to shock

Spoiler

There were some performance issues in the world travel screen (cuz unity I assume) and out-of-combat controls still kinda suck and are clunky

1. Do skills use still take an absurd amount of time? i.e opening a safe in wasteland 2
2. Why do you think combat is better?
3. Loading times?
4. Writing and dialogues quality? the videos showed less dialogue options