Star Control vs. Gal Civ ALIENS!

Since this game is a sequel it doesn't make sense to just suddenly populate the game with crazy non huminoid races like in Ascendancy (I think in that game the only huminoid race was the smart lizard people).  They would have to have a plot that explained the extermination of all other races then a sudden populating of the galaxy and fast forwarding to hyper drive capability for all the races.  Besides, the custom race feature and ability to mod in your own graphics will allow you to have non huminoid races.

Also, logicially, it seems to me that a lot of intelligent life would have to be huminoid in the sense that at least two limbs or so are dedicated to utilizing technology like our arms and hands are.  If whales were hyper intelligent, not having arms means they cant build and use advanced computer systems that their minds might be capable of thinking up. 

Aw, come on! That's such a cop-out. "Oh, they can't get creative because uhh... they've always been boring humanoids. Since the first GalCiv!" That's what sequels are for. Spicing things up! Adding new features and crazy new races! In fact, 99.9% of sequels add SOMETHING new along the lines of friends and enemies. Am I the only disappointed it appears that not even one new race has been introduced? I mean... what if what if the various iterations of Warcraft never introduced new races? I don't think Taurens or Murlocs or Pandarens were in Warcraft ONE, right? Or I don't know... should Spiderman ONLY fight Green Goblin in every movie? Batman only fight the Joker? Of course not, they're constantly introducing new stuff to every sequel. For better or worse, Star Control III also introduced a ton of new races. That's what sequels DO - why wouldn't it make sense if Galciv did the same? It wouldn't harm continuity - the universe is HUGE and ENDLESS.

But even still, this is not a critique of Galactic Civilizations III, really. This is actually a note of WORRY about the people who are supposedly going to be coming up with ALL BRAND NEW RACES for the new Star Control Reboot! And what I was MAINLY saying is: Please oh please, don't give us blande, stereotypical, humanoid aliens with zero personality for the Star Control Reboot - they have no place here. These aliens you guys come up with need to be insane, outside-the-box, incomprehensible, mysterious, wonderful, quirky, equal parts hilarious and ominous, aliens that test the limits of our imaginations. Not just a dude with 8 eyes, or arms that bend backwards.

So if you love the current GalCiv aliens and think they're the ultimate in creative thinking, more power to you. I still can't remember any of their names except the angry monkey-boys.

OFCS, what is the big deal? So they don't have races that look like blobs and use pseudo pods. If they did would you be happy that they used a similar tech tree, or would you want them to shoot plasma rays from the pseudo ass hole of their living protoplasm space ship? Where does it end? You didn't acknowledge the planned custom races in your reply and I suspect it is because your dissatisfaction goes far beyond the humanoid appearance of the factions. I think you want completely different tech trees and alternative values.

That sounds like a good game but it is beyond the possible planned scope of this game and you know it. Sorry if I am wrong and all you want is non-humanoids. Custom Races, there you go. :) 

Problems:

1) No human on earth could have an alien thought, the concept is impossible. So everything has to be drawn from some source, even if that source is the imagination, which takes it's own cues from past material, or other stimuli.

So all we have are picking things that have not been done much before.

2) Things that have not been done much before are harder to relate to, and some kind of relation to the race helps, at the very least being able to define it somehow for the game, to give it penalties and bonuses for example, or a personality of sorts.

Which narrows us down to concepts which we can relate to, which haven't yet been explored.


Possible solutions:

1) Ask the community for ideas on race concepts, get a thousand, pick a dozen of the best to fit these narrow criteria.

2) Generate your own deep background lore and story, which although you might end up with generic races, these races have enough development in their personalities, people don't care.

Well, that's not entirely true is it? Galactic Civilizations spans what... a hundred stars? And these races specifically inhabit THAT part of the galaxy... unless what, you're only ruler of a small portion of their empire? Considering there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone, there would seem to be PLENTY of places to encounter new aliens.

That's a pretty limited imagination. I'm pretty sure a sentient race of robots would not choose to be bipedal, two-armed beings. If you can attach new appendages at will, wouldn't it make more sense to attach a hundred arms? Or tentacles? Flippers? liquid metal globs of nanobots that can form and reform at will, depending on the situation? Sure, humans conquered earth with our brains and thumbs, but it's hard to find ANY area where humans are a perfect form of anatomy - aside from using tools and being sentient, the animal kingdom whoops our asses in every area imaginable! Birds fly better than us, cheetahs run faster than us, dolphins swim faster than us, insects camouflage themselves better than us, hawks see better, penguins can withstand colder temperatures, bears are stronger, bats can hear better (built in sonar, ffs), rats can smell better, turtles have better protection, water bears (tardigrades) can withstand the vacuum of space, I mean, the list goes ON AND ON. There's nothing we excel at that we're not trounced by something better than our two eyes, two arms and two legs and soft, gentle skin. So for that to be the standard for the entire galaxy seems a little silly.

OMG. That sounds AMAZING. Asshole plasma! I was just thinking about an alien race that IS the ship it flies. Like... the aliens are a race of space-faring vessels! And you go to communicate with them, but they just look like empty vessels, with just these hollow echoing voices droning throughout the squishy, organic halls. And you're so confused until you figure out the SHIP is the creature. See? Even though your response was supposed to be sarcastic, making fun of me, it actually turned out to be a really awesome and creative idea that would expand the mind of the player! People would be talking about it decades later, just like people still talk about the aliens in Star Control II. Come up with some new and different - it doesn't take that much thought.

Completely different tech trees? No, that's too much to figure out. But sure, alternative values, some races might value other life, others might want to destroy it. Gal Civ even includes some of that, but I wish it did a better job at fleshing out WHY they are the way they are. But that's not even really a part of this thread. It wasn't a thread about what I wish GalCiv would be - it's a thread identifying a flaw in GalCiv and hoping/praying it's not repeated when Stardock comes up with AN ENTIRELY NEW CAST OF ALIENS FOR THE STAR CONTROL REBOOT. The prospect is terrifying, and Brad has said he wants as much input as possible, so consider this thread my two cents: PLEASE BE CREATIVE.

This is so very, very, sadly true. Aliens that grew up on an entirely different planet probably won't be EVEN REMOTELY similar to us. Some scientists say we may not even be ABLE to know they EXIST, much less have meaningful contact with them. They may even exist at different wavelengths of light than are visible to the human eye. Who knows?! And that's the point I was trying to make! To wind up with 8 "completely alien" races... that somehow look like us and act like us and have the same physical properties as us and exhibit similar character to humans... is just kind of disappointing. Yeah, there's a blue-human and a monkey-human and an insect human and an 8-eyed human... but they're all generally human. To me, this generally signals a lack of creativity.

But to REITERATE - this is not meant as a critique of Galactic Civilizations, as much as it is a hopeful warning about the future of Star Control. Stardock is creating a WHOLE NEW CAST of intergalactic beings. PLEASE use all that creative brain power to come up with some really amazing, nuanced, out-of-this-world characters this time around!

First i like the idea of the original post,  and wish they would ignore lore,  and do that for galactic civilizations. 

For me there has never been a game thati've seen,  and liked it because of it's factions. Endless space, distant worlds, and the vesari in sins of a solar empire has done a better job in this area ,  and both games are inferior.

Since we are talking about galactic civilizations it is lore locke,  so this is probably not a problem unless it is lore locked too.

I support the post idea to make aliens more creativ,  but i disagree about aliens making a game.

+1, I hope that at least the minor races will be less human that the major ones.

I would like to have aliens like the Slylandro (Star control 2) that have no commonality with the human kind.

It can be funny to send freighter to gas giant.

Omg, this would be awesome. In BOTH games. And that's really the point! I understand everyone saying the lore is locked, etc. etc. - I just think that's a little lazy, that's all. There's a hundred billion stars in just this one galaxy of ours. There's plenty of space to introduce new beings.

Both games would benefit from creative alien species that really challenge the player to think in different ways and come up with new thoughts to solve alien problems. And like Admiralwillywilber said, the aliens may not make or break a game like Galactic Civilizations (or Endless Space, Sins of a Solar Empire, or  Distant Worlds), but in a game like STAR CONTROL?! The game is BASED on your relations with these creatures, good or bad! It would be a disaster. Like a hairy ogre walking a runway model, or an opera performed by people who can't sing. It's INTEGRAL to every aspect of Star Control - and by God, I hope Stardock can pull it off.

Which brings us right around to my first post - "Star Control will ONLY be as good as the amazing races you put in the game, and we are COUNTING on you to step it up, beyond what was imagined for GalCiv III." That means you, Frogboy!

I don't like humanoid aliens myself.  Part of the reason the GalCiv major aliens are what they are is because they were designed back when I was 17 and didn't think of non humanoid aliens (Star Trek: TNG was my main sci fi outlet back then <g>).

However, the newer aliens, especially the minors, are less humanoid and for the new Star Control, only the humans so far are humanoid.