Seeing the clock tick by as you move through hyperspace and not having the whole universe wait for you before moving on like so many modern RPGs do is one of the key factors that made this game great (like Majora's Mask).
Agreed, however one of my grievances with SC2 was that the game clock was not made entirely obvious to the player. You eventually get the hint about when the game will end by the Melnorme who mention they plan to leave before their MetaChron turns completely black by the year 2159. When I first played twenty years ago, there was the impression I could casually explore as long as I wanted to until I realized the Kohr-Ah began systematically killing everyone, at which point you had to start over.
Even SC3 had this approach with the Eternal Ones, who simply ended the game by destroying the galaxy on a certain date. This is a bit frustrating to an uninitiated player, especially in this day and age. Granted, being frustrating and unfair was a common trope in adventure games during the 90s as they would rarely spoon feed the player. I don't know if this would fly in the era of modern gaming though. I think having more specific deadlines given to the player (rather than optional information obtained from another character) would be warranted so that players have a clear idea of how much time they have left to accomplish their goals.
It would also be nice to know when important occurrences around you are taking place. As an example, the Pkunk attempting reunification with the Yehat. Unless you visit with the Pkunk periodically enough to find out they plan to do this, you can't stop them. You just open up your starmap and one day you notice they're beginning a journey across the galaxy that ends with their destruction, with little warning. If you don't have the opportunity to visit them, there's no way to know about it in advance, or even necessarily why it's happening. It would be nice to receive some kind of notification of such an event so that the player can make a conscious decision whether or not to intervene before it's too late.
That was actually one positive about the lame ICOM system in SC3: you could receive updates on current events at any point in time, although the way it was executed took perhaps just a bit of fun out the game. The way it was integrated made it less a way of getting updates and more like a built-in hint guide, so it crossed a line in that sense. There should really be a more engaging way of integrating a game mechanic to keep players informed of current events without ruining the sense of adventure or taking the player out of the experience.
I hope I'm also not going too far to say I'd like to see some kind of quest log or mission itinerary to keep track of the various tasks you usually have to juggle, so that if you're out in the middle of space and don't want to waste the trip, you can see which quests you still need to do as a reminder so that you don't waste time and fuel while you're in a remote region of space. Back in the 90s it was common to keep a pencil and paper to take notes with so that you didn't forget what you had to do, but that doesn't fly anymore these days!
Thanks for the update, Brad! Looking forward to more.
