I should have done this a while ago....

I played Star Control 1 on the Sega Genesis.  It was by shear dumb luck that I bought the game when it first came out. I was bored with my current games, went to the store, and saw the clerk put it up on the wall behind the counter.  I asked what the game was, he said "Something like Asteroids...probably stupid".  I bought it anyways after looking at the back.  I was hooked after my first game.

When I heard Star Control II was coming out, I called every single software retailer listed in Computer Gaming World.  ETA, shipping times, if I need my mom to talk to the guy on the phone about her credit card, system requirements, etc. As soon as I got it in my little hands, it was another addiction to manage.  I played Starflight 1 on the sega genesis quite a bit, and this was FAR AND BEYOND a much better experience, and thats saying something since Starflight kicked ass.

I've played the game about once every single year since its come out.  I think I was responsible for most of the "D+" on the class math exams going through school because I recommended the game so frequently.  Even my geometry teacher got hooked on it.

Star Control II is one of my favorite games ever, if not the top one.  Wing Commander and Ultima VII are pretty close seconds.  It helped define my childhood, just as GI Joe, Mario, and the stupid "Where's the Beef" Arby's commercial did.  

I did a review on www.goodolddays.net about the game, and if you go read it you'll know exactly how I feel about this game.

I'm saddened (like everyone) that the game won't continue with the same story line. However, its time for a new generation to grow up with a new story line. 20+ years is just too long to go without a continuance of the original story. New game, new writers, new blood. Just don't make it suck.

I am very excited to hear about the modding tools.  I really can't wait to see what the community does, since there is a lot of talent out there!

Hi all.  I'm Mike.  I've been a big fan of Star Control since I first got it on the Sega Genesis when I was just a kid.  Got 2 and then 3 when they came out.  SC2 would be my favorite and 3 would have been great if it wasn't for the Star System.  But I know they wanted to do it that way to make it similar to SC1.  I actually loved the planet lander feature on SC2.  Being able to land, mine resources, and capture aliens.

Besides SC series, also was a big fan of the Star Flight game.  Anyone remember that one?  Seems that Star Flight and SC 2 had so many similarities.

A little about myself, I'm in my mid 30's and been a fan of Sci-Fi since I first read Foundation's Edge by Asimov when I was 9.  Ever since then, I would read 2 books every summer till I finished all the Foundation Series, Empire Series, and Robot Series by Asimov.  Then moved on to other books, but all were Sci-Fi, I could never get into Fantasy though.  I've tried, but I guess it wasn't my for me.

I think because of Sci-Fi, it developed my great sense of imagination and enhance my knack for sciences.  I truly believe that everything should be explainable and the only faith I have is that everything can be explained eventually.  So when I make a story, I always ensure that there is a reason for it and not just because Magic.  Sci-Fi also nurtured my ability to learn more about science and gain atleast some understanding in many of the science fields ranging from Geology, Anthropology, to Physics and Quantum Physics.  It's funny how they say the best way to lie and make it believable is to tell mostly truth and then add a lie.  Sci-Fi is pretty much that, Science based with a little Fiction added.

Anyways, I'm not just a space freak, I also enjoyed the Shadowrun games (except that xbox 360 one that ended up being a FPS, ughh....) and mostly anything RPG.  Outside of gaming and reading, I'm a project and IT lead.  I also enjoy talking to people and getting to know them.  I'm very personable and with my wide understanding, I can get along with anyone and talk about any subject.  But I'm not a know-it-all either, there's so many I don't know about and I love to learn new things.  Even when I know the subject, I will still ask to learn more of that subject from that point of view of the other person.

Currently as a hobby, since my injury, I've been working on getting a game made using RPG Maker.  I'm not an artist nor do I know how to program, but that engine makes it simple to do things.  Although I'm looking for an artist and someone who can do Javascript.  I'm thinking of going to the Philippines and hire a few of them there, it's a lot cheaper and I can feature some talents from outside the country.

Well, that's me.

I played all 3 Star Controls when they first came out.  I am 47 years old and have played computer games since their earliest days and I have always considered Star Control II to be the absolute best computer game ever made.  But then, I am a sucker for top-down space combat games.  Before computer games existed I had already been a board game junkie and was a member of the Star Fleet Battles staff in a previous century, so top-down space combat is my favorite type of game.  There hasn't been a good one since Subspace (I was Disco Duck... "Quack" and Subspace is almost 20 years old so I am very excited to hear about a new Star Control game.

I was an aspiring game designer for many years and worked at both Task Force Games (publisher of SFB) and as designer on a THQ/GameFX game called "Sinistar: Unleashed".  I was actually what I would call a "rescue designer" on Sinistar, I was only involved for the last 4 months.  One of the programmers put it best when he said "we gave him a shoebox full of unrelated parts and he made us a game in 4 months".  So it was a very different experience from being an actual lead designer.  I was also one of the very first "modders" and, with my brother, created the IKNFL Unofficial Stat Patch for Seirra's Front Page Sports Football in 1994 which most people who played online used and was eventually included on the CD for the 1998 version of the game and may have been the first player created material ever included with a published game.  Hey, my accomplishments are minor, you gotta let me brag about my favorite one... which is the basis for the ratings used in pretty much all sports games to this day.  Before IKNFL player ratings in sports games were wildly random numbers.  I haven't worked on games since the end of 1999, I just play them now.

Today I am semi-retired and babysit a TSA monitored parts warehouse on the weekends.

I'm Gino. A Russian-american immigrant. I came to US when I was 22.

3D modeler in a commercial cladding company by trade.

These panels were modeled by me to as-built condition:

College Football Hall of Fame

National Center for Civil and Human Rights

I played SC2 on 3DO back in Russia. As I remember I was sitting there with English-Russian dictionary trying to catch all the phrases and sentences to figure out where to go next. I was making notes on paper and mapped out quasispace-hyperspace travel map by hand too. I've never finished the game back then, 'cause I couldn't figure out what to do or where to go at around 80% into the game. Kohr-Ah deathmarch killed the reminder of fun and the game was put on shelf. I beat the game here in US a few years later. Then I played Ur-Quan Masters HD couple of months ago under pressure of nostalgia.

Getting into Founder's program would be ecstatic!!

I played all the games in the series at release, like many of you guys.  I am in my 40s now and a big collector of retro systems and games (along with the new stuff).  I have worked as an engineer, both software and hardware, in consumer electronics and now as a sector lead for the last 20 years.  I am pretty much known as Mihos across all my accounts over the years.  My favorite of the series is 2 on the 3DO, and it is still in the drive as we speak. 

My favorite parts of the series by far is the exploration and diplomacy... I could spend a month chasing down Rainbow worlds based on rumors.  Second would be the ship and fleet building

My least favorite was the combat.  I really never got good at it, and basically just overbuilt my fleet to deal with the encounters.  Looking forward to see how this comes out.

Looking forward to the next year!

Hello all, my name is Josh, I am a 15 year old high-school student at Raisbeck Aviation High School (and I'm mighty proud of that) currently residing in Seattle, Washington of the United States of America. Now I know what you're probably asking "Josh, how can a 15 year old be into Star Control II???" Well, that is an interesting story, but the long-short of it is basically I grew up with a computer from the '90s and while my friends were playing their mainstream Call of Duty's and their Grand Theft Auto's, I was playing X-Com: UFO Defense, X-Com: Apocalypse, The Ur-Quan Masters (Star Control II optimized for Windows) and Zork I, II and III. Needless to say I became very attached to all of these games (playing Star Control II originally when I was six years old!) to the extent where I have now started and attempted to play through twelve separate Star Control II games, each with their own end goal and playstyle. So I am stuck in the weird crowd where I am too young to be "cool" with those interested in the games I play, and don't fit in with my own age group because I don't like Call of Duty. So yeah, that's my life story in a nutshell, hope you enjoyed and I hope that I can bare witness to the growth of the Star Control community and the revival of this beloved franchise.

It's not Starflight.  Just like you can call any RPG game "a D&D game", all these types of games are "SFB games", it's just that Star Fleet Battles never got the credit for all the games in inspired like D&D did.  All of these types of games owe their original heritage to SFB.

http://www.starfleetgames.com/

I didn't say all space RPGs.  I said you could call these types of games "SFB games" in the same way people call RPGs "D&D games".  There is a lot more SFB in the games you've played than you probably realize.  There is a lot of SFB in star control.  "Hellbore cannons", the Airlou is an Andromedan, the Ilwarthi is a Romulan Falcon Mauler, the Chenjsu has an SFB designed photon torpedo.  Master of Orion is an unlicensed SFU game.  Most of the really good space ship computer games contain overt references to SFB that are only noticed by SFB players.  Most games of this genre ultimately own their heritage to the Star Fleet Universe in the same way that most RPGs ultimately owe their heritage to D&D.

SFB was actually very influential on TNG.  Calling Romulan ships "warbirds" comes from SFB.  SFB was used to basically cooreograph movements of ships that were taking place to ensure they made basic sense and some SFB terms like "emergency deceleration" made it into the show due to this.  There are two episodes of TNG based on SFB scenarios.  The one where Captain Maxwell crosses the Cardassian border and pre-emptively attacks them is one of the most famous historical SFB scenarios called "The Surprise Reversed" and the episode "Peak Performance", where Riker commands the Hathaway against the Enterprise is a wargame is an SFB scenario called "Practice, Practice, and then what?".  Peak Performance is actually a full blown tribute to SFB from beginning to end with many referances to SFB and a character based on the designer of SFB (...with some pretty dead-on casting, whoever wrote the episdode knew Steve Cole).

But SFB is probably the second most influential game after D&D, it's just like Rodney Dangerfield and never got no respect

I can't resist pointing out that a single flaw in the design of Master of Orion has echoed throughout that genre to this day.  The whole reason there is no strategy in space strategy war games is because the people who made Master of Orion missed the point of the command rating system.  And to this day every one of those games has one massive fleet of death marching across the map as a result.  The original system was specifically created to prevent that and make it a thoughtful strategy game.

My name is Adrian. I'm the lead for Stardock's Metaverse team. For those that don't know: Metaverse is our term for ranking, stats, and leaderboard info for our games (single and multiplayer).

I was a very early fan of Paul Reiche III having played Mail Order Monsters on my Commodore 64 as a kid.

I played the original Star Control and later StarCon2 while in high school. My friends and I played Super Melee regularly. I also played StarCon3 in one 12 hour sitting when it first came out... and haven't played it since! Since then I've replayed StarCon2 a few times over the years. It stands as one of my favorite games of all time.

I'm really excited to see Star Control brought back to life and to contribute in my small way to its triumphant return!

Greetings and various apropos felicitations!

My name is Nicholas Chevallier and I've been a fan of Starcontrol since I ruined my older brothers game of it by coming home from school and jumping on to play it without making sure he'd saved (He was out of the house.) Thankfully he was understanding and we had a great time exploring the amazing game together. Been a massive fan since, replaying it at some points once a year and being an active member for the longest time in the Starconrpg website, exploring alternate histories, possible continuations and short-lived but awesome GURPS starcontrol game.

Was not so much a fan of the first game which I got to play a few years after, but am thankfull it started what starcontrol would become and I can see _degrees_ of merit in the third, there was untapped potential there, some of the aliens were interesting and alien others... Less so, it could have been so much more than it was, felt largely the mechanics and plot needed... Finished and re-written respectively. I'm also a massive fan of a race created for D&D by Paul Reiche III: The Thri-kreen which kind of underlines what I loved about starcontrol 2 so much, alien aliens with understandable motives but with a different outlook on life.

Super excited I've scraped together the cash to join people here (full time carer for sick family, cash is a little tight!) if a little surprised that my long rambling excitement in the founder invite was accepted and would be keen to join any skype groups going!

Hi, my name is Jacques, I played SC I, II and II in the 1990's and still play II and III on occasion.   I use the SC2 remake "Ur Quan Masters" and I'm still able to play SC III using the Dos Box emulator.

In the late 1980's early 1990's I also played "Trade Wars" on BBS which was a text-based game where you would explore sectors with a ship, trade with star bases and use the acquired credits to improve your ship's armements or upgrading your ship.  I though something like this would be a nice add-on to  Star Control.  (The mining in SC2 was a way to get RU but trading with other species would be another nice way to do that).  Two of my other favorite games were "High Seas Trader" and Microprose Pirates which also included trading goods.   Perhaps having races of space refugees who live only on ships looking for a replacement world that one could trade with.  The player ship's log could record if a suitable world was found.

Perhaps an option to board a captured ship and fight it out with the captain ?  It was a nice option in Pirates to be able to capture ennemy ships by boarding them.    Ships like the VUX, Syreen, and Orz would seem like good options to capture ships instead of just blowing them up.  If the ennemy captan wants the nice ship you have he might want to duel you for it offering his own ship(s) if he loses.

I though it would be cool to have an option in the reboot to interact with the time period where the Dnyarri took over the galaxie and to help out the Thaalo and Maelnum save alien species that are though extinct in SC2 by hiding them in a pocket universe where their colonies could help out in the effort.  The effort could also include species which were wiped out by the Ur Quan in SC2.  Perhaps to form a new covert alliance ?

Looking forward to seeing the new Star Control come out.

My name is Craig. I've played PC games since I was six, and they were all on 5.25" floppy disk. I loved SC2 from the moment I got it. The melee with my best friend was great. We pushed so many buttons on the keyboard with two player that the keyboard stopped working, making one of us lose the ability to turn during melee...I loved that! Mwahaha!

My favorite part of SC2 though was the giant fold-out map!  I kept that map at my desk and referred to it all the time while playing. I loved picking a constellation on the paper map, and then trying to fly there in the game.  Planet landings, the mystery of the plot, and the great loneliness of space are among my favorite aspects of SC2.  The galaxy is huge, friends are few and far between, and that game conveyed it better than any other I've played.

I would love to learn more about the Precursors during the course of helping with SC(4?)s alpha and founder's program. I was honored to become a founder today!  I want to help grow the story and to keep the majesty and loneliness of space present in this new game, if I can.

I look forward to the next few years with you all!  Nice to meet the Stardock staff too!  You guys make great games! (Demigod, GalCiv1, 2, 3)

-Craig

P.S. Love the Broodhome, Podship, and the Dreadnought!  Big ships for me, please!