Build a Business

[phanax]

In addition to the colony post I made earlier, I would also love to be able to create a business in the game. I'm not sure how to implement it but I've run several business campaigns in D&D which is very fun and it opens up a whole new dimension to the game.

I'm a bit of a micromanager and entrepreneur and would love to be able to create for example a caravan business, expand this business and be able to eventually see my own caravans randomly while walking the wasteland.

I would also love to see a certain questline connected with the business, depending on the freedom to create the business. I would also like to see the possibility of failure and crashing the business with bad choices and not enough attention.

What do you think? Any other ideas?

[happy04]

imho there is no way the main character of any traditional CRPG would ever own a business and have it fail because of the major influx of random shit that the main character obtains in his numerous outings slaying every type of evil one can think of. The business, at the very worst case, would become a money sink.

[Delicieuxz]

It would be neat to run your own hired hitmen business too, when you send out one of your rangers to pull of a job, and while they're working they're also absent from your party.

[Hasenklein]

What do you think?

Honestly?

If there is a god in the world, he won't let it happen that building "colonys" and "building a business" will become features of Wasteland 2, and I find it at best very, very, very unlikely that the devs will integrate these features, basically because it doesn't advance what's the core of a post nuclear RPG which is the successor of Wasteland.

I'm a bit of a micromanager and entrepreneur and would love to be able to create for example a caravan business, expand this business and be able to eventually see my own caravans randomly while walking the wasteland.

You want the Desert Rangers to be able to create a caravan business? I do not know in which world you live in, but even assuming the possibility that this could happen in Wasteland 2 seems to me pretty, well, odd.

It would be neat to run your own hired hitmen business too, when you send out one of your rangers to pull of a job, and while they're working they're also absent from your party.

No, it wouldn't. Sending hired hitmen to accomplish missions in an RPG that will be largely about, well, accomplishing missions is pointless.

[Delicieuxz]

No, it wouldn't. The missions, or jobs, which they were sent on would obviously not be, or affect, the missions which the player encounters or deals with. The idea that having game characters do anything which the player also does is pointless, is without logic.

[Sub-Human]

I think it'd be a fun as something really small. For example, you may choose to invest into a merchant company after having guarded several of their caravans/got rid of competitors etc. and you may choose to come and collect the payment every week in-game or so.

But then again, it doesn't make much sense because you're working for the Desert Rangers. I'm pretty sure that if you need some money desperately, they'd be able to supply you with something. If you chose to invest into a business, it should be the Desert Ranger HQ collecting the payment, not you.

[ButchinMelancholy]

No, it wouldn't. The missions, or jobs, which they were sent on would obviously not be, or affect, the missions which the player encounters or deals with. The idea that having game characters do anything which the player also does is pointless, is without logic.

And what's the logic behind using your characters as pawns and building an "economic" empire in a RPG? I know that it's kind of what RPGs are becoming all about, just consumption, of stats, objects and whatever, but that's a deviance, like in the real world...

[ffordesoon]

Yeah, a simple investment and collection mechanic would be as far as I'd personally like for them to take this feature, assuming it's in there at all, which it probably shouldn't be.

This feels like something best addressed in a mod to me. I'd be more than happy to play a grim post-apocalyptic version of Reccettear, but it's not something the developers themselves should spend time on. If done properly, it affects too many other aspects of the game, and if it's done in a superficial way like the investment-collection mechanic mentioned above, then it's just this vaguely intriguing feature that makes you wonder why they didn't do more with it - and that's if you're into the idea. A lot of the people here would just be annoyed.

[Ronin73]

Yeah because I totally wanted to become a pimp in my spare time so I can corner the market on 3 legged prostitutes...

It's suggestions like this one that makes me question whether some people have any clue on what type of game they are actually backing.

[SniperHF]

It's suggestions like this one that makes me question whether some people have any clue on what type of game they are actually backing.

I don't think it fits wasteland, clearly. Setting up an enterprise doesn't sound desert rangery

But It's not SO far outside the realm of possibilities as to be laughable. Fallout had Caravans, and one of the more recent actual CRPGs Storm of Zehir had you run a Caravan business.

OP should just play that though. The only thing it really doesn't have that the OP wanted is a chance to fail, it will just stagnate.

[Ronin73]

It's suggestions like this one that makes me question whether some people have any clue on what type of game they are actually backing.

I don't think it fits wasteland, clearly. Setting up an enterprise doesn't sound desert rangery

Yeah pretty much this. My comment is probably a little bit harsh in hindsight, but it is something I really don't want to see InXile wasting their time on and before someone comes back with something like "it would be easy to implement"...yeah pretty much everyone says that about their idea.

[phanax]

Okay, I can see there is quite a bit of discontent (or possibly even irritation) due to my proposal. I agree that it shouldn't be the major focus area for InXile, the main focus of the game should as always be the main story, the characters and the general infrastructure of the game as well as other important points to create a great game, but I love it when developers create in-game story lines that go about rebuilding or colonizing the world, and we've seen from other games as mentioned here that it is possible.

It's probably a little quirky but as a bastion of civilization I find that it is the duty of the rangers to repopulate and reconstruct the world, therefore I find it to be reasonable that any individual ranger may own and run a business aside from his duties as a ranger, and it is very reasonable to me, from a human survival standpoint, that humans constantly need to expand, thus my focus on colonizing new areas. I think with the budget they ended up with, and probably other things, with the vast world they are promising (they promised at 1.5 million it would be the biggest world, that leaves 1.4 million for extras in the development) they can probably stand to add a few extras such as business and colony.

I understand that there are different kinds of RPG players, and if this is a large as RPG as promised then maybe we will have time to do many many different things still without doing any business or colony part of the game. For example I've probably put a 1000 hours or more into Morrowind, but I have never completed the main quest or all of the different questlines, I hope this will be possible for Wasteland 2 as well.

I am very happy with the main part of the game being establishing a ranger outpost in California, that broods well for my own desires, hehe. I'll also be sure to try out the game with the caravan company, thanks for the suggestion, I'm still holding that it would be fun to do something along those lines in the game as well though

[Edit: Typing too fast with a nagging girlfriend and dog]

[SniperHF]

I'll also be sure to try out the game with the caravan company, thanks for the suggestion,

Keep in mind that it's actually a quite mediocre game. It just has some relatively interesting/unique elements.
And it's D&D Forgotten Realms fantasy so that may not float your boat.

[Zombra]

This is another good idea that I would like to see in some game that is not Wasteland 2.

[GodComplex]

This is another good idea that I would like to see in some game that is not Wasteland 2.

Recettear did it and was entertaining for a bit. But for the love of all that is holy, no business ventures in the wasteland. It detracts from killing mutants.

[Woolfe]

This is another good idea that I would like to see in some game that is not Wasteland 2.

Recettear did it and was entertaining for a bit. But for the love of all that is holy, no business ventures in the wasteland. It detracts from killing mutants.

Indeed, business should be looked after by business people. Mutant killing should be looked after by Rangers

[phanax]

I tend to disagree with most of the simple comments in here that Ranger business is solely mutant killing, that implies Wasteland is a hack&slash game (or the gunner-equivalent).

Rangers are a bastion of civilization, their task is to restore order and civilization to the world. I can see how business can become difficult in a hardcore ranger's life with all the trouble in the wasteland, but parts of civilization in the wasteland is rebuilding, expanding and surviving, I find that running and maintaining a business or a colony in that regard makes sense.

I'd like to see some logical explanation as to why this shouldn't be included in a Wasteland game.

In the baldur's gate II game my favourite part of the game was the stronghold quests and owning and operating those strongholds, that added a great dimension to the game for me. I believe that is part of a real RPG, having elements that allows you to roleplay the kind of character you want to be, and if you want to run a business or create a colony, isn't that part of the experience?

[ButchinMelancholy]

I tend to disagree with most of the simple comments in here that Ranger business is solely mutant killing, that implies Wasteland is a hack&slash game (or the gunner-equivalent).

I think that it was more of a metaphor than litteral, just to say that the game is not about that kind of business...

[ffordesoon]

@Phanax:

The problem is not that it's a bad idea. The problem is that it's completely out of the scope of the main game, and requires a whole lot of extra system design, writing, art, etc. to work properly. If the devs had an infinite amount of time and money to make this game, and if we were all immortal, and if they could somehow forgo sustenance and sleep with no ill effects, and if it didn't affect the release date, and if about a thousand other things, then I'd be all for it.

The Wasteland 2 of the Best of All Possible Worlds certainly has this feature in it, as does every game in that world, and we're all immortal and have time to enjoy it and nobody works and everybody gets paid and nobody gets sick and blah-de-blah. But alas, we do not live in the Best of All Possible Worlds, and so there are limits to which we must adjust.

As I said before, this is absolutely worthy of a mod, but it's a needless distraction for the dev team.

Also, you asked for a logical explanation of the omission, so: the party is presumably not composed of a bunch of expert merchants, because why would Ranger Center send them out to explore a hostile wasteland before, you know, the ones who are good at defending themselves? There's a reason why all the merchants in the Fallout games travel around with armed guards.

[ButchinMelancholy]

nobody works and everybody gets paid

In the Best Of All Possible Worlds money doesn't even exist.