Wasteland 3 Update 17: Our Vision for the Apocalypse

[Brother None]

Hey everyone,

There's a new update for Wasteland 3 on Fig, with a status update on pre-production and sharing our vision doc for Wasteland 3.

But that's not all we have to share. Dating back to the Interplay days, our studio philosophy is to create a vision document for each of our projects. This document contains the game's core elements and features, and serves to remind us of our high-level goals throughout production, as well as to give new team members an introduction to the game’s core features. On Wasteland 2, we shared our vision with you early in the development process, and we're continuing that tradition with Wasteland 3. To read up on it, please click below:

[Zombra]

Weird, I didn't get an email about the Fig update. Oh well, I heard about it somehow!

The Vision Document is looking good. Excitement.

[Grohal]

A good read - thanks BN.

[Gizmo]

The Vision Document is looking good. Excitement.

The vision document practically describes the FO3 with multiplayer that was often discussed early on at the Bethsoft forum [2007/08]; albeit that the multiplayer aspect was seen as "well if it has to have it, have it be done this way". Based on the document, WL3 looks to be pretty sharp indeed. ...And (not surprisingly) seems like what the blueprint for a superb official Fo3 should have been; with a Diesel Punk fiction change... instead of what we got from Bethesda.

My question is, can the one player explore the game world in secret, and in opposition to the other? [Even set traps, and loot a place before the other player even arrives. Or perhaps bribe their rangers away from them?]

Can they take the opposite quest? [ie. be offered to protect the town mayor, or asked to eliminate the mayor... and with the possibility that each player took the opposing side.]

[Grohal]

My guess would be once one player takes one side the game closes the other side off for both players. They wrote something like "closing one door and opening others", which makes perfect sense.

[Zombra]

My question is, can the one player explore the game world in secret, and in opposition to the other? [Even set traps, and loot a place before the other player even arrives. Or perhaps bribe their rangers away from them?]

Can they take the opposite quest? [ie. be offered to protect the town mayor, or asked to eliminate the mayor... and with the possibility that each player took the opposing side.]

Well, Chris Keenan said that there will be no multiplayer-exclusive content. I think that means we won't see special conditions like being able to set traps for each other, or battle each other to save/kill the mayor and so forth. I would certainly think that a player could loot stuff before the other player shows up. Player 2 will just find an empty safe.

They can still screw things up for each other, like Player 1 could kill half the town, then when Player 2 shows up, people go, it's the Rangers, they're murderers, stuff like this.

[Gizmo]

...or battle each other to save/kill the mayor and so forth.

In this particular scenario I was thinking that the option would be there in the single player game, to choose either side, and face an enemy force; but that if the other player happened to choose the other side, that their rangers would be that enemy force; and make that quest noticeably [and unexpectedly] more challenging to both. (And preferably with more than two outcomes.)

As an aside: There were two other examples I recall from FO3 speculation back then, one was interconnected factions, like each NPC could be of the town faction, but some could also be of the smuggler faction; and as such, even friends of the party might change behavior when the party treads on faction interests... IE. A farmer asks them to clear his fields of varmints, and later asks them to repair his barn... even lets them stay in the barn, but when they discover a smugglers den under it ~that's when he burns it down with them in it.

The other example was that the party sets out to clear a bandit cave, and the player uses stealth to infiltrate the cave, and fill it antipersonnel mines while the bandits are out on a raid... Effectively ending the bandit problem; but the player did not clear the cave of the many mines that were placed, and so the next time they pass through the nearby town, there is a funeral in progress for residents that explored the bandit cave.... perhaps even with the sheriff asking them to clear the cave of mines, and investigate into who might have set them.