Wasteland 3 - Crowdfunding Campaign Underway on Fig!

Wasteland 3 crowdfunding campaign to commence on the 5th.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ctc-40aVMAADVU-.jpg:large)

More info here.

*added to favorites*

They should have stuck with Kickstarter instead of a service no one has ever heard of.

Brian Fargo is a founder of Fig, which is probably why he's going that way instead of KS :). I think its big concept was that people could also invest in it and get returns on their investment.

Given how much I enjoyed WL2, I'm willing to navigate a new thing.

Some more stuff outlined in this Polygon article.

Bah. Multiplayer.

Guess I should get around to playing WL2. Right after BioShock 1, 2, 3.

The multiplayer sounds opt-in, and I actually like these ideas. I'd happily play this concurrently with one friend - it isn't like there will be hordes of strangers ruining my single-player campaign.

Kotaku also has some coverage up.

Running Man wrote:

Guess I should get around to playing WL2. Right after BioShock 1, 2, 3.

Wasteland 2 is better than those pale imitations of System Shock.

It looks like they are licensing Obsidian's Eternity Engine again or whatever Brotherhood Games uses (their upcoming game looks beautiful). Either way, it's a good thing since Wasteland 2 looked pretty bad visually. It's clear that inXile has learned and grown a lot from developing Torment.

The multiplayer stuff sounds interesting as it's going to be mostly asynchronous stuff and could help with replayability. I just hope there isn't a huge emphasis on it since while it sounds interesting, I'll be more interested in the singe player.

And breaking the isometric camera for convos and probably XCOM style flavor cams sounds great. Hopefully they have some footage for the crowdfunding launch.

I f*cking love this cRPG revival.

...I should get around to playing 2, then.

I got real excited until I realized that's the kickstarter date. Still excited. I loved Wasteland 2 and I played it before the end game got major patches. The big hope is that Wasteland 3 comes out more polished.

Edit: Oh, this is on Fig? That puts my contribution very much in doubt.

Yeah, it is Fig. Is Fig hard to donate through?

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Yeah, it is Fig. Is Fig hard to donate through?

Not sure if this is Vector's issue but I've seen some people giving it a lot of flak because of Double Fine. I didn't have any trouble donating to Psychonauts 2, no more painful than KS.

I've never used Fig and I'm a little weary of spreading my credit card information all over the internet. It's part of the reason I like using Steam and try to avoid other services as much as possible. It's really just a personal preference thing. I'll have to take a long look at what the options are, the benefits, and whatever else comes with donating on Fig.

Vector wrote:

I've never used Fig and I'm a little weary of spreading my credit card information all over the internet. It's part of the reason I like using Steam and try to avoid other services as much as possible. It's really just a personal preference thing. I'll have to take a long look at what the options are, the benefits, and whatever else comes with donating on Fig.

Get one of those credit cards where you can make virtual cards with a spending limit. My Bank of America card has this.

That's still too much work just to crowdfund a game that I know will get funded anyway.

Vector wrote:

That's still too much work just to crowdfund a game that I know will get funded anyway.

If it fails to meet some awesome stretch goal, I am holding you accountable.

Sweet. I never finished 2. Got half way through, but I still enjoyed what I played.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

The multiplayer sounds opt-in, and I actually like these ideas. I'd happily play this concurrently with one friend - it isn't like there will be hordes of strangers ruining my single-player campaign.

That isn't my concern. I'm more worried that the game will be balanced so that it's an impossible slog unless I can somehow coordinate schedules with someone else who just happens to be going through the game at the same pace I am.

Maybe they're taking that into account, but I don't want to get stuck at some point in the game and get told "you just need to team up with another player to do that". Us unrepentant introverts don't like that.

Wasteland2 was rough around the edges, but the alpha/beta/whatevs-I-last-tried for Torment:ToN has me interested. Depending on how they do with that and Bard's Tale I might have an eyebrow raised towards Wasteland3. That said, I'll likely cave and back anyways. Wasteland2 showed good starter promise for inXile. Not sure about this whole Fig thing yet. Brian Fargo is about as good as it gets with the suit side of things I reckon though.

As to Fig, the whole investment angle for games is interesting in concept. I'd probably be more enthusiastic if it was Obsidian. Or if Chris Avellone circles back hard into game dev and ever opens up his own little shop for small scale, quirky little indie projects. I'd toss money at my screen for about anything he wants to try if he has some creative control.

My take-away is that InXile is very much specialized in the single-player experience. They built their success on appealing to a very specific niche - namely the old school single player party based RPG.

I'm not at all worried that they'd balance the game towards multi-player at the expense of single-player. I'd think they'd be more likely to make the mistake in the opposite direction (ie the multi-player balance is off because the game is designed towards single-player.)

That said, Wasteland 2 definitely has some difficulty spikes and challenging set pieces (my favorite being Duran Duran) so I have no doubt that there will be some tough as nails fights that are made easier with assistance - but I don't think that'll be a normal thing. It sounds more like they want to experiment with world states and narrative impact of character decision, which I'm all for. That's also a really smart evolution of that choice & consequence experimentation they started in WL2 and iterated on in Torment. What happens when someone else's party is also affecting the world? That's a unique multi-player option that I haven't really seen anywhere else, so I'm cautiously optimisitic. They'll pull something interesting off at best, and at worst I think the idea doesn't quite work but doesn't detract from the single-player campaign.

BNice wrote:

Either way, it's a good thing since Wasteland 2 looked pretty bad visually. It's clear that inXile has learned and grown a lot from developing Torment.

The Wasteland 2 Director's Cut has greatly improved visuals. I believe it's free for anyone who owns WL2, in case you're interested in revisiting it.

Serengeti wrote:
BNice wrote:

Either way, it's a good thing since Wasteland 2 looked pretty bad visually. It's clear that inXile has learned and grown a lot from developing Torment.

The Wasteland 2 Director's Cut has greatly improved visuals. I believe it's free for anyone who owns WL2, in case you're interested in revisiting it.

Director's Cut is really Wasteland 2 becoming a finished product. DC is the state WL2 should have released in, but WL2 was the studio's first project since pivoting to CRPGs and crowdfunding, so I understand if maybe they couldn't do all they wanted to do before release, and had to wait to polish it up the rest of the way. Now that they've got a steady pipeline of projects, hopefully they can release the rest of them at that level of quality.

It sounds like they're doing multiplayer for the right reason, because they think it will make the resulting game more interesting. It doesn't sound like they're doing it as a hook to get people to buy early, or to tie anyone into their server infrastructure, or as a DRM move, they're doing it because they think they can make a great game that way. I'm fairly optimistic about the results on the game's overall plot and experience, although I'm rather pessimistic about its effect on development time and (possibly) game stability.

WL2 was not in good condition when it shipped; the first half was fairly well debugged, but the second half (California) was a mess. I was able to finish it anyway, and had a good time with it, but it really needed more time in the oven.

I keep meaning to play the DC version, but I haven't gotten around to it, yet. I have, however, looked at it, and I don't think the character graphics changed any.... they were never very good.

*Legion* wrote:
Serengeti wrote:
BNice wrote:

Either way, it's a good thing since Wasteland 2 looked pretty bad visually. It's clear that inXile has learned and grown a lot from developing Torment.

The Wasteland 2 Director's Cut has greatly improved visuals. I believe it's free for anyone who owns WL2, in case you're interested in revisiting it.

Director's Cut is really Wasteland 2 becoming a finished product. DC is the state WL2 should have released in, but WL2 was the studio's first project since pivoting to CRPGs and crowdfunding, so I understand if maybe they couldn't do all they wanted to do before release, and had to wait to polish it up the rest of the way. Now that they've got a steady pipeline of projects, hopefully they can release the rest of them at that level of quality.

I don't have WL2 but this seems to be an increasingly common trend with many indie games I've followed. Especially KS funded ones.

Some new info from this interview:

- It's not using the Eternity Engine like Torment but rather an updated version of the Wasteland 2 engine.

- They are using the Eternity/Obsidian dialogue system editor that was in Torment.

- They want WL3 to have more reactivity with decisions that have larger consequences.

- No plans for mod tools.

Sounds pretty good.

Even if they don't want to make mod tools, I hope they document the file formats and layouts, so that modders have an easier time of things.

27 comments in and no one mentioned that this is coming to console, too. Buncha PC gamers.

I'm considering pledging, although the tier necessary to get a console copy ($25 + $18) isn't much of a discount on waiting for the game's release and buying it at the expected $50. I suppose I could sell the PC key when it launches, as that wouldn't be worth anything to me.

Just got an email that because I supported Torment, I get $5 off Wasteland 3. There's a quantity limited $25 Early Backer tier so... $20? Yeah, that's a no brainer for me.

LockAndLoad wrote:

Just got an email that because I supported Torment, I get $5 off Wasteland 3. There's a quantity limited $25 Early Backer tier so... $20? Yeah, that's a no brainer for me.

Yep, I just backed on that deal. No-brainer, even if I haven't (yet) finished Wasteland 2 (got about half way before I got distracted by shiny objects). Maybe I'll give that one a Director's Cut replay after I finish my traditional hundred-hour tithing to Civ VI.