Where and when in the world is Ranger Sandiego?

[RangerBen]

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[Where should Wasteland 2 take place? And how far into the future, or the past, should the game be set? Or should the game take place at the same time as the original Wasteland?]

-Ranger Ben

[cloudyrains]

I honestly do not know the Wasteland world well enough, but my vote is for either the West coast/mid west or even somewhere outside of America. Canada or hell, even Europe would be interesting. would be interesting to see a Post-apoc game take place literally right after the fall of the nukes, but I doubt that would be very realistic or offer much storyline options. Or maybe it would? I don't know

Now I just need to hunt down a Wiki on this game...

[Finster]

Because I would really like to see this take place right after the events of Wasteland it would be nice to be in the general area. It would be fun to see SOME of the old area's again but mostly just for nostalgia perhaps? Somewhere warm and sandy would be preferred.

[Gamma]

I've played Wasteland as a kid and that was loooong time ago, it would be great to see some of the old locations though. But to be honest, Fallout was the game which defined the "where and when" for me, and had a larger impact on my "rpg experience". So it must be a desert for sure (US midwest?), maybe not "just after" the bombs fell, but the radiation is still here, human outposts are scarce, much of the population still lives underground (safer there) and so on. Fallout had *that* feeling, you came out from the Vault and the world wasn't on it's knees. The world was GONE, and "humanity" was nowhere to be found too.

[Lexx]

I'd like Wasteland 2 to be set where Jason Anderson and / or Brian Fargo have imagined it the last time they worked on it. In fact, I'd like to have all such details like they imagined it.

[Ausir]

AFAIK, they have retained much of what Jason Anderson came up with for the project. However, I'd also love to see what the other creators of Wasteland (Michael Stackpole, Alan Pavlish, Ken St. Andre) can come up with for it.

[TellarHK]

Growing up in a part of the world completely unlike the deserts of Nevada, I was always enthralled by the desolation involved even in pre-apocalyptic settings. Now that I live south of Reno, however, and with Wasteland and Fallout all having told stories in this area - even though I might use it myself in some writing, I'm torn on this front. It would be nice to see some of the elements of Wasteland revisited, but I really don't know if I need to see a devastated Vegas. It's been done. It's played.

On the other hand, the writers already do have a ton of information and material from the earlier design ideas for Wasteland 2. We'll just have to see how they adapt that, considering how heavily the area has been covered in games and fiction that were inspired by the original Wasteland.

One geographic area that I think would be interesting would by the Northeastern US. Fallout 3 hinted at maybe sending people up that way with all the talk of the "Institute", but perhaps Wasteland could do something with a forested sort of wasteland. Mutant moose? Sign me up.

(To run away quickly, mutant m00se bites kan be very nasti.)

[Flamekebab]

I didn't properly play the original Wasteland, the graphics and interface were just too antiquated for me. What I know about the game is mostly second hand. That said I rather like what I've read of the setting but these days with the revival of Fallout by Bethesda and Obsidian it might be worth relocating a little just to avoid reinventing the wheel.

I think staying in the US makes sense as, to be frank, you've got much more space to work with. It's more of a blank canvas than Europe, for example. I would suggest perhaps shifting somewhat further towards the mid-West.

[Brother None]

One thing I think is absolute key is to not set it too long after Wasteland. Fallout 2 jumped 70 years and that was a mistake, within no time the setting had its back to the wall chronologically, it's now centuries after the apocalypse and becoming more and more implausible. Since Wasteland was in 2087 (IIRC), Wasteland 2 should be somewhere in the 2100s or 2110s, not much more than a generation after Wasteland 2.

There'll be some overlap with the Wasteland map, kind of in the style of Fallout 2 to Fallout I expect, and that's fine by me.

[Flamekebab]

A valid point. Don't handle the timeline like the many developers of the Fallout games have. Keep things tighter.

It would also mean that future games, either sequels, DLC, or spin-offs can share the universe without needing lots of half-hearted rewrites and retcons.

[TellarHK]

Usually when someone's working on thinking up a sequel or spinoff from something, the best idea is to try and find an aspect of the original game that left players wanting more and expanding outward from it. Other methods of spinning off, like the "Let's do the same kind of thing, only in Florida!" or "Let's take this character nobody really thought much about, and..." just don't seem to work.

When it comes to areas of Wasteland that I always wanted to know more about, it was the Sleeper Base.

Who were the sleepers there before the base fell? We know names, we know injuries and probable causes of death - but they had cloning machines. Were the dead just clones? Were there clones that survived? Where did they go?

This is the kind of connection I'd love to see to Wasteland, something that maybe involves you in the story of the people who once lived in the sleeper base, and maybe take a trip back there in the new game to explore it in a way that wasn't technically possible in 1988.

[Flamekebab]

I'm liking the sound of this.

I do really enjoy it in a game where I walk through an area in silent, solemn awe thinking "What happened here..?"

[DeusExNoctis]

Fortunately or unfortunately, if you keep to the same idea of "Desert Rangers", then you're more or less limited to... well... the desert. Somewhere. Probably in America, though rangers wandering the Saharan wastes would be kind of cool. (Although African geography is probably not most peoples' strong point, so locations would not have much significance.)

I would like to see a Wasteland game set in the jungles of Central and/or South America. This obviously negates the idea of a "Desert" Ranger, but nothing to prevent another US Army unit from being stationed in that area and left to its own devices. To my knowledge, this setting is not largely explored in most post-apocalyptic fiction, and I think it has a lot of potential. Mutated jungle animals, native tribes to either befriend or defend against, strange abandoned temples and lost cities (allowing for a bit of a mystical connection, if you like), and even secret hidden underground military bases (those work anywhere). Would also allow for some different skills ("Jungle Survival", "Reptile Wrangler", "Improvised Boat Building" etc...) and weapon types (not a ton of energy weapons in the jungle, I'd imagine, but maybe some creative types of explosives or melee).

Timeline-wise, I liked the original game -- close enough to the blast to ensure desolation, but far enough to allow some large-ish communities to emerge (and some fringe encampments as well).

I honestly like the desert, but after Wasteland, Fallout, Fallout 2, and New Vegas... I'm a bit tired of it. Fallout 3 had a neat idea in principle (urban metropolis after the blast), but for some reason I just didn't find it as engaging as I had hoped. Maybe it seemed too artificial; there's something about the idea of mankind being returned to a pseudo-primitive state and having to survive against nature as well as the new threats.

[DeusExNoctis]

"Let's do the same kind of thing, only in Florida!"

I thought FoD had great potential, but was terribly terribly executed.

[John]

A bit into the future (of Wasteland). Location, eh, come up with something interesting.

[Sharkyzero]

I don't really want real time combat. Turn-based only. If there are issues with combat taking forever, possibly make the appropriate combat speed ramp up to compensate for those void turns. /shrug

I loved how FO1 & 2 worked. I didn't really enjoy Fallout Tactics that much at all though. >_>

[Gregz]

Colorado and New Mexico would offer great settings. Plenty of mountains, desert wasteland, and plains.

Colorado has Cheyenne Mountain (NORAD, featured in the film War Games), the Air Force Academy, and many other military centers located in Colorado Springs, Denver (Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production facility), Boulder (hippy communes, luddites, new world cults, potential oasis/utopia), etc.

New Mexico has military testing facilities, bases, observatories, science labs, etc.

The timeline could be parallel to Wasteland, but I'd prefer a post-Base Cochise setting. Vague rumors about what happened out west could be peppered around as lore and would be fun to see referenced.

[Flamekebab]

I'd like to see a vehicle graveyard in the game. Just throwing it out there.

[Delmarey]

i think Utah and Arizona or Grand Canyon is not bad, although VB cant reborn, at least we can go to discover those unknown secert.

[Tanglebones]

I really like the idea of an "eighties retro-futurist" setting that some previous posters have been floating. I'd say take some inspiration from 80's sci-fi, which really tends to be kinda dark and grim (Blade Runner, Terminator, RoboCop), but also take some inspiration from cheesy sitcoms like Full House, Family Matters or the Fresh Prince (I don't mean for jokes or style! I mean for "attitude" ...if that even makes sense?), and of course, New Wave culture.

As for location, I think that Southern California is seeing a lot of action in post nuclear apocalypse role playing games these days. Of course, due to the fact that that's where the original Wasteland was set, but I think for the sake of not (ironically) looking like a Fallout clone, "somewhere else" is a good place to set Wasteland 2. How 'bout Canada? I'd love to see mutated lumberjacks and hockey players... and beavers... and moose. You could subtitle it "Nuclear Winter Wonderland" (okay, that's probably going a little to far on the silly scale).