Again, with the humanoids!

I don't really agree with the use of the word humanoid here. I think when you say humanoid what you really mean is anthropomorphic. But, I do see what you are getting at about exotic aliens. The Pixar-like art style probably has a lot to do with this.

For myself, it is far more about the writing. We also have not properly seen all of the aliens, let alone animation or voices for them. So there is still a lot to flesh out. An example of how "humanoid" aliens can still be cool are the Borg. Originally they were meant to be a crazy insectoid race, but the show's budget could not cover that. Instead, they made the Borg cyborg utopians and created one of the best villains of sci-fi history.

Too much panic over ratio of representation of non-humanoids in the game.

It's never about ratio, but about how good is specific alien design, humanoid or not..

Hey, that's fine too! I respect your opinion - I just think the chances of everyone wearing clothes, standing upright, evolving a head with eyes, nose and a mouth, all in relatively the same spot, with arms and hands and legs and feet, are very very small when evolving in an entirely different solar system, across the other side of the galaxy. SCII respected that by giving us a wide-variety of VERY OUTLANDISH and WHOLLY ALIEN beings to discover. It's set my imagination racing for 25 years.

Also, we should take a close look at eye-nose-mouth placement. 10 out of 14 races in Origins have the same exact order of eyes above nose above mouth. Doesn't anyone think, realistically, that order would be the exact same as humans, when evolving in an entirely separate solar system?

***Updated with Brad's confirmed humanoid/non-humanoid aliens***

I disagree with some of the classifications on your list. You added the Sylandro probes which are non-sapient machines. You split the Ur-Quan in two, but did not add the Androsynth to the humanoid list. The Yehat are on the non-humanoid, but the Pkunk are on the humanoid list. You forgot to add the Shofixti. And for some aliens form Star Control classic we never saw the whole body, example Melnorme.

Concerning the designs for Origins, I like what I have seen so far, keep the character art coming.

This is where I think quantity beats quality. I'd rather SCO have more aliens and 2D dialog screen than significantly fewer aliens in all their pixar looking wanna-be glory. One can argue the 3D tech for future expansions and such, but I wanna play original now and not feel like I'm in the galaxy the size of 10 star systems.

Although I have to agree with cuore that ALIEN aliens are preferable, 'cause ALIEN aliens are rad.

P.S. If you promise not to spoil shet in future, I will unblock you on Discord, Matt.

I generally agree with you although I don't care much for any specific ratio.

Realistically speaking, it is extremely improbable to have even one humanoid alien out of a much larger set of alien races than a dozen. Have a look at Earth's species, and you can see how many different species are humanoid. Just about a couple out of nearly 9 million.

But my primary reason for wishing for more non-humanoids to be in the game is that that's what would make them... more alien, and thus more interesting. Back to Earth, the immense variety of life on it is staggering. We have whales, spiders, giraffes, owls, octupi, dogs, etc. All of these are so different from one another, and that's just on our small planet in one system (at least as far as we currently know). What sort of fucked up shit can we find 10,000 light years away from Earth?

One of my favorite races in Mass Effect is the Hanar. Their biology is not too similar to anything we have on Earth, and the game makes an effort to explain in detail how it works, including how "normal" gravity affects their body. While they aren't the most creative piece of fiction you can think of - and are indeed quite tropey otherwise - they're still a lot more interesting than many of the other races in Mass Effect. You meet one for the first time and you think "what IS this thing!?", curious to learn everything you can about this bizarre creature.

Similarly, SC2's Mycon provide an intriguing look into their sustainability of their own lives, what kind of environment they thrive in, and even how they Juffo-Wupform other planets so that they are inhabitable for them.

For these reasons, I generally much prefer non-humanoid aliens in fiction (not sure about my preference in real life :P). I'm sure you can write fascinating stories around humanoid aliens, but having these stories linked to fascinating aliens in and of themselves is a huge improvement.

This seems to be a complete 180 from stardock's original position on humanoid aliens, wich seems to be if I remember correctly, NO HUMANOIDS (cept hunams) in the game! When did this change, and why? I mean, I personally don't particularly care on this point, but I am as curious as heck as to the reasoning behind this change. 

Mind you, I could have simply missed the official explanation, in wich case if someone could link it, I would be immensely grateful. 

I have slowly been kicking out humanoids ap since taking over the design.  

I don’t have a problem with humanoids but I tend to think they’re creatively lazy. 

I do take issue with calling g the Mow,I gas humanoids. They’re basically upright Meercats.

Also, if the Yehat are non humanoid then you can’t call the Trandals, Tywom, or Scrve humanoid.

taking a dog, bug, bird, etc. and making it talk isn’t strikingly creative either imo.  

There are some characters that need to emote in a way that is relatable to human players. That’s why the menkmak and a few others are humanoid. 

Oh, thanks Hunam! What a reward! Did I actually spoil something? Have you blocked me since Mass Effect: Andromeda?!?!? Jeez man, that came out in like February. 

Or was it Game of Thrones? I remember saying something ridiculous like, "Yeah, on last night's episode, Daenerys actually TURNED INTO A DRAGON HERSELF AND BIT CERSEI IN THE VAGINA!" That hardly counts as a spoiler! Come on, man!

If it was something else, I would like to know, man. I won't do it again. But NOT because you're unblocking me - but, because I'm a good person.

Gildon, this is so true man. Nobody sets up zoos to look at different humans. Humans are everywhere, and they're boring. We see them all day and night. There's nothing exciting about seeing yet another bipedal creature with arms and hands. It's just more of the same.

Oh! Okay. I guess we don't really have a super good picture of them to go off of yet. I thought they were humanoid, in the same vein Shofixti is humanoid... or Rocket Raccoon.

But! We take your word as gospel, so I'm revising my post, to put Mowlings under the non-humanoid and we'll go from there.

Good! I wanted corrections. I disagree about the Slylandro - whatever they are, they're a race you encounter and converse with, and they're non-humanoid. The Urquan are two different races. The Androsynth are not in the game (except Super Melee) and you don't have any interaction with them - kind of like the Sentient Milieu. Did you want me to add the Precursors? Burvixese? Etc? You and Brad both think the Yehat are humanoid, and Brad's word is gold, so they're going to the humanoid side, despite me respectfully disagreeing since they have wings, not arms. Humans don't have wings. The reason the Pkunk are on the humanoid side is they're basically the same body as a human (arms, hands, no wings). You're right, I did forget the Shofixti! Adding them, too.

The probes are not a race, specie or civilization. They are non-thinking machines. 

The Kzer-Za and Kohr-Ah are subspecies of the Ur-Quan specie.

The Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm don't really appear in SC2 either.

It would be hard to classify them since we don't know what they look like. You would also have to add the Faction of Eight, the Ancient One and any background species from SCO.

To me also it is not just how the species look, but how they act as well. I'd like for them to behave in non-human ways.

Let's look at the Measured. Let us suppose their legs aren't articulated and use them to just stand and not for walking, instead they would move around using their long arms.

For the Menk-Mack in their culture it could be considered rude when speaking to someone to look them in the eyes. So every time the player is in contact with one of them it would not look at the center of the screen and keep it's head oriented to the left or right.

Basically what we would consider abnormal or strange for the aliens it would be normal.

Thoughtful, Rhonin! Touche. You got me on a few of those, and I always love intelligent debate.

Slylandro robots are a group of creatures you interact with, on the conversation screen and interact with in ways you don't interact with, say, critters on planets. I've got to keep them. They're a huge part of the game, one of the main race characters, and count in my book. 

They are two very distinct races, who act entirely different and have diverged genetically from each other. They count as two.

You DO interact with them, many, many times throughout the game. In fact, you interact with them 50x more than you interact with the actual CHMMR they create (which happens at the very end of the game). Every time you're talking through their slave shield, you're talking exclusively to the Chenjesu and Mrrnmhrrm. In fact, I'd remove CHMMR before I removed the Chenjesu and Mrrnmhrrm. In fact... now that I think about it? They share a screen, just like the Zoq, the Fot and the Pik. Should I break those up into 3 separate races?

I'm not in favor of including them in the list either. We're on the same page. For the record though...

Precursors were giant, hairy mammalians that looked somewhat like a woolly mammoth (known as the "shaggy ones").

Burvixese looked like turtle-creatures.

The Drall were humanoid, but unusually tall and thin.

The Keel-Verezy are invisible to the human eye, and can't be detected, but are all around us - refusing to reveal themselves, for fear of scaring us. Sounds like a monster!

The Taalo were chunks of sentient rock, sharing a base with the Chenjesu crystals.

See?? So, really, we DO know what they look like... and aside from the Drall? They're all very non-humanoid. Should I include those we know about in the tally?

You know, I don't really think we should be looking at SC2 and comparing the number of humanoids it has vs. SC:O until we reach some kind of magical "acceptable" level.

Like I said, I don't think any ratio is "correct". I think it's best to have as many non-humanoids as possible, for the reason Frogboy mentioned - humanoids really are creatively poorer than non-humanoids. So it's not like I'm going to be satisfied with some ratio of humanoid to non-humanoid because that's what SC2 had. Some of SC2's races' visual design was lazy. The Shofixti, in my opinion, are lazy both in written and visual design. They're basically Space Samurai Raccoons. I mean, come on.

That's why I don't really care if we hit SC2's ratio of non-humanoids to humanoids. I just want the races to be as alien and imaginative as can be, because that's simply more interesting than several tropes mish-mashed together.

They are not creatures, not a huge part of the game and definitely not main characters.

You can tell they are the same species by looking at them, and have they diverged enough to no longer be able to breed with each other? Do you also want to add separate entries for every culture on Earth? How about the Yehat clans or Thraddash Cultures? Anyway my main beef is you not wanting to add the Androsynth.

I interacted with them a grand total of once before the slave shield went down.

Sure, if you can tell which is which. Hint they no longer know.

Humanoid turtle.

You're really reaching with that one.

Humanoid rock creature.

Only if you can provide a picture of what they looked like.

Here's how I would have made the list:

Introduced in Star Control: Famous Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Volume IV

Humanoid

• Androsynth
• Arilou Lalee'lay
• Earthling
• Shofixti
• Syreen
• VUX
• Yehat

Non-humanoid

• Chenjesu
• Ilwrath
• Mmrnmhrm
• Mycon
• Spathi
• Ur-Quan Kzer-Za

Introduced in Star Control II

Humanoid

• Druuge
• Pkunk
• Thraddash
• Utwig

Non-humanoid

• Chmmr
• Dnyarri
• Melnorme
• Orz
• Slylandro
• Supox
• Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah
• Zoq-Fot-Pik

Introduced in Star Control 3

We don't talk about this.

Introduced in Star Control: Origins

There is a possibility that some designs will be changed during the development process.

Humanoid

• Dan'Nath (latest update states they were wiped out by the Scryve, so they may no longer appear)
• Drenkend
• Earthling
• Menk-mack
• Scryve
• The Measured
• Trandals (going through a redesign)
• Tywom

Non-humanoid

• Greegrox
• Jeff
• Mowlings
• Mu'Kay
• Phamysht
• Pinthi
• Xraki

Question for Brad, will there be variations in how captains of the same specie look? I saw an image with multiple color variants for the Mowlings.

Also we know the Earthlings hat the Synths, but I am curious if they uplifted any Earth animals.

I have some gripes with one of the new aliens, the Drenkend. I have nothing against their design, it's their characterization that bothers me: "The dim-witted enforcers for the Scryve Empire. They have dreams of greater power but are too thick to do much about it."

The proud warrior race has been done, essentially the Drenkend are just Thraddash 2.0, to make them standout perhaps make them being good as enforcers, but not enjoying their job and always apologizing before they attack someone.

No, no - I said intelligent debate, not just saying the opposite. Justify your opinion. Your NUMBER ONE foe for a large portion of the game is the Slylandro. They absolutely plague you along your journey, until you're strong enough to defeat them.

If you haven't gathered, I'm including aliens that you have conversations with. IF there's a conversation screen, they're in the game in a tangible way. But Androsynth? They are literally not in the game, except for a mention and some ruins. I don't get it.

Alrighty then. 

What are the probes? They are an item, 2418-B: Remote Self-Replicating Robot Explorer Probe, purchased by the Slylandro from the Melnorme. Their purpose was to meet alien civilizations and point them at the Slylandrom home world, but someone set the replication dial too high and instead they consumed any spaceship they encountered. They would not fall under my definition of creature.

They were definitely not my number one foe, at worst I considered them an annoyance, at best a source of RU.

I would not name what we have with them a conversation.

"We greet you in peace, prepare to be disassembled."

The Androsynth did not appear in 2, but the Star Control franchise did not start with it. It started with Star Control 1.

....didn't play it.

I do want to see variations in the same species.  Right now it comes down to budget. The aliens are extremely expensive to create.  Non-humanoid are much cheaper.

There are also very very likely going to be other species you run into that won't be given a name and don't have any territory in "known space" in Origins and you won't be told what their species is during the game.  

Origins takes place in a region of space around 100 light years from Earth.  So it's a tiny part of the universe.  

For the record, I agree that aliens should be, on a whole, alien. While yes the humanoid form is very practical for many purposes, it is also boring and cliche. I want this to feel like Star Control, not Star Trek. And the Syreen and Androsynth are clearly offshoots of humanity so they really shouldn't count as separate entities towards the humanoid/nonhumanoid ratio.

Alien aliens are a staple of Star Control, but at the same time they shouldn't be totally absurd and impossible. Just alien.

Haven't posted in a while, but I lurk.

I am surprised by the amount of human-ish meatbags that might be present in the universe.  I too was under the impression that it was undesirable to have more than a few.

To be perfectly honest, except for the Syreen (hubba hubba - I was 12) I don't remember ANY of the humanoid aliens when I think back to SC2.  I think of Spathi, Ur Quan, Mycon, Zoq Fot Piq, Melnorm, and Orz.  Totally anecdotal, but hey, it's what I've got.

Brad et all, when you have the chance to make humanoid or not, always try not.  I still LOVE the mental image I have of the precursors, and they certainly weren't humanoid.

As of recent changes the list for Origins is:

Humanoid

• Dan'Nath 
• Drenkend
• Earthling
• Menk-mack
• Tywom

Non-humanoid

• Greegrox
• Jeff
• The Measured
• Mowlings
• Mu'Kay
• Phamysht
• Pinthi
• Scryve
• Trandals
• Xraki

I'd say the Mowlings are humanoid still.  I'd also say the Scryve would count as humanoid-ish.  

The Measured.