The First Fifteen Minutes challenge.

I think, in not-so-specific-as-Hunam's terms, the challenge to hook people in 15 minutes or less lies in Story, Aesthetics (Sound, Images, all the things that add to the "Feel" of the game), or Action; preferably all three.

If we take the same starting point as the above (i.e., first bit of SC2), Hunam suggests it was good, but not great.  I agree that when you break it down into it's components (mystery is presented, fetch quest, dialogue) it sounds underwhelming.  Nevertheless, I haven't played SC2 in over a decade and I still remember those first 15 minutes better than huge chunks of the rest of the game.  Why?  Because it was shockingly hilarious combined with a genuine mystery.  And when I say "shockingly" hilarious, I mean the humour was so well done I couldn't truly believe it.  I mean, it sucked me right in.  So here we have Story being the reason I was hooked on SC2.  I can't speak for everyone, and I won't suggest that the first 15 minutes couldn't have been even more improved (that's rather off the point, in my opinion), but that pair of Story elements (mystery and hilarity) is what dragged me in.

So, now we begin SCO.  I have no problem with the way Stardock wants to start things out (sorry Hunam, I don't have your back on your gripes on this one, bud).  In any case, I'll leave the specifics of the scripting to the script-writer.  I personally think mysteries are compelling; people just need to know how things come together.  As SCO is likely to explore some mysteries of the Star Control Universe, I recommend that mystery be presented almost immediately.  You could go all Final Fantasy style of story and start the players in a sub-plot, not revealing the grandness of the adventure until after several hours.  It can work... but it can also feel gimmicky.

It's clear that Stardock is keen on preserving the absurd in this latest Star Control, so, again, I recommend you put your best foot forward in terms of silly.  Hunam suggests what looks like a survival crisis/disaster story theme in the outset of the game.  I think you can work with that, but given that the whole story is unlikely to hinge on the opening crisis it feels like a waste of storytelling components.  I'm a believer in the old adage of Bridge (the card game): lead with your longest and strongest.  A crisis is exciting, but if you can't keep the tension it ends up being forgettable in the scope of a bigger story later on.

Now, from what I've seen I think Stardock is more than capable of sucking us in with Aesthetics, and if you have a good Story, then you have 2 of my 3 criteria covered.  As for Action?  I believe I saw somewhere that we may find ourselves planetside within minutes or less of starting the game.  Since I don't know enough about what planet roving gameplay will be like, I recommend that our first landing be exciting, probably scripted events, natural and easy to play, such that I don't have to stop thinking about the story you just introduced so I can figure out how to drive.  This first landing could very well involve Hunam's crisis idea, but I'd keep the crisis brief, mostly just to get my heart pumping before you drop a hilarity bomb on me.  Do that and I'll be yours for life

My 2 cents.

Interestingly if you look at SC lore, humans banished all nuclear weapons to the dark side of the moon.... so it would make sense for there to be no nukes. The nukes were only brought out to fight the Ur-Quan.

Having the first spaceship free of Weapons of Mass Destruction makes sense because that is the only way ALL nations would agree to send out a spaceship anyway. Think of rogue nation states, spies, James Bond, crazy religious fanatics, Trump supporters, hackers, mind-controlling alien lifeforms, etc....

Obviously due to all the space debris we have floating around the first spaceship would have a good PD system with extremely powerful short-range lasers that also double-up for mining and breaking up larger objects like asteroids.

In essence it makes sense that the first vessel ever sent to space would be either an exploration vessel or a science vessel. Or actually both since the first spaceship will be exploring anyway and you need science equipment for proper exploration of the cosmos. Plus the added psychology that humans still believe they are the only "sentient" life form in the universe.

This all leads to the fact that the first spaceship would be sans-WMD and would only have a very powerful short range laser.

I think what would be fun is having the spaceship go to a new star system and break an asteroid for the resources, only to have alien X come and complain that you have destroyed their ultra sacred rock and either you die or find an exact replica.......

Just had to bring religion and politics into it, didn't you? 

Your points actually got me thinking; I thought it would be clever if we do start out as weaponless explorers and then as the story unfolds, the actual process of taking all the nukes out of mothballs from the dark side of the moon becomes one of your first exploration quests. Similar to how your first quest in SC2 was visiting the moon to check out the broadcast station before taking out the handicapped Ilwrath.

Instead, you would be returning home from your first mission of exploration with news of the looming conflict ahead, so one of your first exploration quests becomes finding Earth's massive lunar weapons cache and plundering it for armaments which were once the most advanced weapons ever, but pale in comparison to the destructive power of other species, making you very low on the tech ladder at the onset of the story.

Quoting Awkbird, reply 3

Just had to bring religion and politics into it, didn't you? 

Your points actually got me thinking; I thought it would be clever if we do start out as weaponless explorers and then as the story unfolds, the actual process of taking all the nukes out of mothballs from the dark side of the moon becomes one of your first exploration quests. Similar to how your first quest in SC2 was visiting the moon to check out the broadcast station before taking out the handicapped Ilwrath.

Instead, you would be returning home from your first mission of exploration with news of the looming conflict ahead, so one of your first exploration quests becomes finding Earth's massive lunar weapons cache and plundering it for armaments which were once the most advanced weapons ever, but pale in comparison to the destructive power of other species, making you very low on the tech ladder at the onset of the story.

Yeah, i can definitely see this happening, nothing really to add to it! ;D will still think of another way tho

but i LOVED the idea

Well let me flesh out more the story....

So you fly to this new star system and you have to mine an asteroid to get resources to make some quick repairs and refuel.

Once you have destroyed the asteroid and are in the process of assimilating its resources an alien race comes and declares that you have just destroyed a very sacred asteroid that has served as a point of pilgrimage. You are given 2 options either find a replica or die.... not much of a choice.

So you set out on a quest to find said asteroid. After not finding anything you return empty handed. The aliens chastise you for your stupidity on how you could not know where to get the asteroid from.

You complain it is impossible to find an exact replica of a rock.

The aliens roll their eyes and discuss the stupidity of young races. They tell you of course it is impossible to find an exact replica. What they meant was chemically and structurally the same kind of asteroid. They point you in the direction of a huge asteroid field give you a chemical signature to track and say that you can find the "same" type of asteroid inside a yuuugggge asteroid (and I mean really big) at an asteroid field in said star system. You find a cavern system and explore it to find a couple of asteroids that match the signature received from the aliens.

You think it is weird that it does not physically look one bit like the asteroid you blew up just days ago you have your science team commence an analysis of the asteroid.

However on your way out you are attacked by a space monster which makes the yuuuge asteroid its home which is blocking the exit. You fight it and before your ship is destroyed you are able to slip behind the space monster and run away. However the space monster keeps on chasing you until.

You warp away and head towards the homeworld of the alien race to deliver the asteroid.

Strangely enough the aliens seem "surprised" in seeing you arrive alive.

Their expressions change to extreme joy once you present them the asteroid. They are dancing and stuff.

Just then the science team has completed their analysis of the asteroid and are trying to get hold of you. They inform you that the asteroid was no asteroid at all but a gigantic egg.

You come to realize that you just poached the egg of a space monster.

You confront the aliens about this and they laugh out at the "stupid" humans falling for the biggest intergalactic hoax/joke and that their stupidity will be told for aeons throughout the universe.

To your horror they crack open the egg and prepare a huge omelette and invite you to take part of the feast. 

The omelette happens to be the most delicious and exquisite thing you have ever tasted.

(Eventually you will find out that the egg of the space monster turns out to be one of the most extremely and supremely expensively priced luxury food/commodity in the known galaxy enough to buy you 10 solar systems and you just gave that away, for free, and almost died in the process. It seems that the only reason you were able to obtain was because the space monster did not recognize humans due to their relatively new status in space and therefore the monster had its guard down. Usually it hunts and destroys other alien ships as soon as it enters the system. That means that the space monster now knows humans and there is no chance to go back to obtain another egg.)

The space monster now has a grudge against you and starts hunting you down.

You escape back to earth to arm your vessel with the nukes buried in the moon. Then you travel to another solar system and battle the monster.

You can't kill the monster but now having nukes available you have scared the monster away and it will stop chasing you.

The aliens see your performance against the monster (which happens to have been televised on the comedy channel across the galactic entertainment network as the arrival of the stupid human race - they were also able to obtain footage on the escape from the asteroid).

Once they see that although primitive humans posses some good destructive firepower they approach you as a last resort to join the alliance against the Ur-quan.

Hence begins the real adventure.

If you remember, Vale said that you would start the game in front of a planet to land on as the first thing you do, during the first 30 seconds.  I interpreted that as a kind of "Fwiffo Start" where the first thing you will do is land on a planet that you begin the game at and get your first quest from the first NPC that you meet, the quivilant of Fwiffo on Pluto in SC2 only you meet this one as the first thing you do.  So that quest, then, is that first 15 minutes that they want to draw the player in.  So, obviously, achieving their goal of snaring the player into the game will be all about that one quest.

If they gave us a hint about what that quest was about, then we could give more informed opinions.  All I can do is suggest some possibly intriguing first quests based on what little I know, but they aren't likely to be anything close to their actual quest unless I happened to make a really lucky guess.  But I can tell you that we discovered a few "big moment" types of things that always work for this purpose.  A really good one is blowing up a planet.  So, in this first quest... if a planet were to explode... We have found that gamers always love that...

Or maybe even just one of Jupiter's moons...

Oh! I wanna post too! Gotta start a post on my phone, in order to get my work computer to allow starcontrol.com off the forbidden pornography list. 

Not exactly the first 30 minutes thing, but i like the idea of the first villains we encounter are not the main villains, we kinda of encounter the Ur-Quan pretty quick considering the length of the game, i want a race that everybody fears (and the humans don't know about it of course) and it stays in the shadows, like when you hail it, you see only silhouettes or static... THEY Could appear at the first mission only to give the taste of mystery

Ohh okay how about this story line.

You fly into this new system with your science ship.

You have detected some sort of distress beacon on a planet and land on it to find some sort of alien structure embedded into the ground and a spaceship attached to it.

(What I imagine is a structure like an open flower and a spaceship that has part of it inside the flower. Like a bee or butterfly on a flower drinking nectar).

You land beside the spaceship only to find that some sort of self destruct sequence is playing. A quick scan of the structure and spaceship seems to indicate life forms are present but the scan is not sensitive and strong enough to correctly analyse the signals and determine if they are bio-signals.

Thinking that it must be some sort of nefarious plot to destroy this planet and kill the aliens in the structure and spaceship you set off to disable the bomb. (Actually you end up breaking the bomb because you did not know how to disable it... it is alien tech).

You disable just in the nick-of-time. You search for survivors but apparently you don't find anything and the scanners do not detect any signals at all.

You take-off from the planet to find a fleet of vessels approaching you.

You think that you must have just saved their planet from the bomb and they are coming to thank you.

However as soon as the coms open you hear the aliens screaming alien profanities at you. 

It seems that there is a huge exoplanet approaching that is on a collision course with their home planet. They came up with an idea to blow up one half of another orbiting planet to change its orbit so that it would intercept the exoplanet.

You have just messed up the timing of the blast and have doomed their home planet to be smashed by the incoming exoplanet (think of the movie Melancholia). Opppsss.

You now have 3 options:

1) Ignore their plight and run away.

  - The easy way out and possibly detrimental to the end game as you have one less ally to count on.

2) Find a way to evacuate their whole planet before it is destroyed (and find them a new home)

  - Finding resources and ramping production at Sol to create enough vessel to evacuate a whole planet.

     - Your evacuation success in percentage will affect how much help you can receive from these aliens.

3) Find another way to destroy the exoplanet.

  - That is, you need to get the nukes from the moon back at SOL to add more power to the blast to compensate for the lost timing.

     - Depending on how early and how well you time the blast etc. would affect how much the home planet is affected. A late blast would still save the planet but the proximity of the exoplanet would have created gravitational pulls that would have caused all sorts of floods and earthquakes killing many aliens. Or you could be successful much earlier than that point but it still be close enough that you have chunks of the destroyed planets crashing into the homeplanet etc.

(- You also need to find a way to fix the bomb you broke.)

^ The only thing I can think of when Melancholia is mentioned is..... can't say it, it's a family forum...

If you are going to blow up a planet in the beginning, you don't want to explain too much of why or how it happened yet, Hunam.  That is the whole point of it, to draw the player into the story right away.

So, just as an example... You start the game in front of a planet to land on right away, and get a "Fwiffo-like" first quest.  I'll use Io cause that's what I would blow up here.  So that quest sends you to Jupiter on what appears to be some type of "milk run" first mission.  But when you get there, right away you notice something unusual about Io.  So you go to Io and when you arrive in the system to see it close up there are lightning bolts playing across the surface and little fire walls too, just like in Star Control II... and then you get put into a brief 60 second or so "movie" (or in game, if it can be done cool and dramatic enough there) of Io exploding.

Somewhere in that, are hints/clues about whatever storyline you will be using with this are.  And then this is a major side quest alongside the main storyline for half the game or more.  Maybe 2 or 3 more planets/moons blow up along the way during this questline... maybe even a star before you finally get to the end of it.

They really do love it when you blow up a planet...

Okay! Finally! Here's my take on how the first fifteen minutes of gameplay should go. Think about the original Star Control II. Think about how it fairly-openly guided you through the game's systems, not forcing anything - but still getting you up to speed on ALL systems - conversation, battle, planetary exploration, encountering energy signals, and slurping up resources.

The book The Three Body Problem and its followup The Dark Forest (some of the greatest, most thoughtful sci-fi books EVER - a guaranteed-good-time read if anyone's looking for something) made me realize something very important. There is a FINITE number of resources in this solar system. Eventually earth is going to run out of usable metal, uranium, aluminum, etc. And my theory is:

Earth has used it ALL to take on the challenge of exploring the stars. We banded together to mine the crap out of every place we could safely land, pulled out all the resources to lay the foundation, do the research, create a space elevator, create an orbiting manufacture facility, employ the minds behind it, go through prototype after prototype, develop the technology... and eventually create this ONE SHOT - our first and only interstellar-capable ship, with fuel enough to make ONE jump to the closest star with a possible terrestrial planet - a "pale blue dot", Proxima Centauri II. With resources exhausted and overcrowding on earth, this is our chance. Humanity's big gamble. Our Hail Mary.

You are the captain of this vessel, on its maiden voyage to Proxima Centauri, 4.6 light years away. At 2 million miles from the sun, the radiation on this terra-like planet in the habitable zone, is 400x greater than earth's, but if it has an atmosphere, there's a good chance this could be our Earth2. It's our last, best hope.

To the stars we go.....

We travel 20% the speed of light, and make it there in just under 20 years. Shockingly, everything goes smoothly and we arrive in the targeted solar system. This is where you take over - 10 fuel cells left, not enough to even make it home again, but enough to explore the planets. GIVE THE REINS to the player, and let him land on whatever planet they want. Let them explore this system, teach them about the systems of the game. Navigation, resource gathering (if they choose), exploration at their whim, but no leaving this system.

Eventually, their travels will lead them to Proxima Centauri II. The moment has come. It's time to touch down.

Scanners show very few resources......... but a TON of cities and energy signals! Could it be? Are we really going to make first contact with an extraterrestrial? This is the biggest discovery in the history of mankind! You scramble to your speeder, and touch down on the planet somewhere, exploring this new world before making that first contact.

But all is not as exciting and joyous as you're initially led to believe... the cities... upon your arrival, they have been... utterly and completely obliterated. Buildings collapsed, heavy bombardment, the skin of these previous occupants seared away, freshly exposed bones now bleached in the hot sun of Proxima Centauri. You try another city - nothing left. A third city, destroyed. The entire planet is covered in toxic radiation.

And finally?

A vault. Upon arrival at this vault, a very fearful remnant of the peaceful owners of this planet regard you with fear and disdain at first. You talk your way in, and they realize you're not their conquerers, the genocidal maniacs who paid them a visit not 6 months ago. Their species annihilated, their space-faring capabilities destroyed and their life systems slowly dying in the toxic fallout that is consuming the surface of their planet, they need your help to earn their trust. 

This next part may be TOO like Star Control II (retrieving radioactive elements from Venus or Mercury to save the space station), so feel free to come up with something better, but I envision you needing to gather some resources from nearby planets for these beings, to aid their floundering life support. With life support back online, they pull themselves together, only to give you the most dire news of your life --

Some beings that call themselves the Scryve arrived not 6 months ago, and without warning or negotiation - rained thermonuclear (or plasma? Or microwave?) war from orbit. They had no chance to react or defend themselves, just hot, fiery death from above. And then they left, once the Exterminatus had been carried out.

"They just left??!" you ask, a sinking feeling of dread settling over your body... "But where did they go??"

The alien looks up to the heavens, and points its finger-like mandible.......

--at THAT--

--twinkling--

--yellow star--

--right... THERE--

You don't even have to look. You know which yellow star this creature is pointing at. You can feel it in your skull. 

Sol.

You have no current way to get back, HOWEVER, this species sees you as their only possible savior. The one who can salvage their race and bring them to the stars again, to meet these interlopers in interstellar battle. An alliance is formed, technology is shared, weapons and drive are upgraded, your ship is refueled. You embark on a hasty retreat back to Sol, just praying you make it there first, at least in time to warn them.

But such is not in your destiny. Earth is an irradiated wasteland. The space station a wreckage. There is nothing left. Only cinders. No vault, no underground base, just people who were having coffee with their loved ones when the sky started falling. You read logs of their final days. You witness video of their frantic, stitched-together defense. You hear their laments that the ship that at least had a standing chance to fight was 4.6 lightyears away.

Ashes and dust.

The Scryve sure noted your homecoming though and left a constituent on the dark side of the moon to ambush you. Their three battleships come into view, ominously, and lower their shields to open up a comm, hailing you. You come face to face with your doom. Outnumbered and outgunned, you steel yourself for humanity's last stand.

Out of nowhere, during your conversation - a flash from the wreckage of the space station - and then - a blinding, white detonation on the broadside of the right Scryve ship. Its shields down for communication, the reactor overloads, its fusion drive goes thermonuclear, it veers off course and sheers the second battleship in half, breaking its backbone and exploding as well, in a white-hot burst of light in the darkness. A well-placed missile from a band of survivors in the derelict space station, a speartip into the heart of the unshielded Scryve ship. The third ship's port side is heavily damaged, but still functioning --

There will be no more talk.

Battle Stations. 

Player is now introduced to the combat segment of the game and partakes in super melee. When the battle is over, your real journey begins. Pull together the scrappy remnants of humanity that survived, huddled in the eastern quadrant of the space station. Band together with your new, defeated allies in Proxima Centauri, and SOMEHOW, SOME WAY, form an Alliance of Free Stars to fend off the genocidal Scryve menace from this galaxy!

Did I kill this topic? lol

Nah! people just are not that active for the time being!

LOVED the idea... so much awesome ideas!

I like a Gameplay video that makes the viewer beg for more story!

The site gets a little dry in the last few days leading up to new content. It's like watching an MMO expansion cycle every month

Naw, we are all still reading

Hahaha! I know I'm a little long-winded but I swear it's a good read! 

^ That's what Kavik said...

Speaking of Fwiffo - did anyone play at least half of the way through the game without ever even discovering Fwiffo on Pluto?!? I did!

Did the challenge idea "come" from this?

GDC 2010: Sid Meier Keynote - "Everything You Know is Wrong"

Is there a law that prohibits Stardock from using any of our ideas on this thread? That would be terrible! Nothing we say would ever get to show up in-game and defeat the purpose of suggesting these things!

So, I'd hereby like to release them from any liability in case they want to use my ideas. 

Quote this post in the legal proceedings.

^

Nuking bugs from space sounds like a good time.  Although if it was like an Umgah piratical joke, then the whole world would be destroyed.  I hope dropping nukes in a first encounter will lead to long last repercussions throughout the game.

One of the things that made the SC2 story powerful in the beginning was the fact that you literally went from triumphant return to unwanted pariah in a few minutes.  Your people were dying and you were trying to save them.

Then you immediately dealt with multiple villains threatening retribution, death, dismemberment, and human sacrifice.

This post deserves to be stickied. People put an insane amount of time and work into making suggestions about this "Challenge". The more developer-challenges we are given, the better, I think!

Aside from a story that really hooks the player, the first fifteen minutes should also hook the player on the gameplay. My favorite game tutorial by far is the one from Offworld Trading Company. The writing is entertaining, the pacing is comfortable, the instructions are clear, and the flow of the whole thing really gets you into the game and wanting to play more. With Star Control having so many different "modes" (interstellar exploration, planetary exploration, super melee, dialog, questing) it could be tricky to pack that all into fifteen minutes. As stated in the original post, Star Control II actually does get you through these modes very early. If someone is new to the franchise (perhaps hard to imagine right here), I think it's important to show them what a cool combination of connected elements make up the game at the very beginning without being overwhelmed.