StarControl Forums
The end of the year has come along with possibly the biggest Vault update yet!
I like the idea of quests on the planets but, I hope they aren't bland or too repetitive.
Also if possible I'd like too see a ton of planetary monsters. Games with huge amounts of different monsters are always fun too me.
Button events might also spice things up, like you gotta smash the right combo if you want to get the most minerals or something like that.
If you're looking for suggestions for making planetary encounters more exciting, there was a system for ship repairs in Heat Signature I found particularly fun.
Instead of the standard "wave your virtual wrench and fix the thing!" system we've come to know over the years, instead, it just gives you a series of meters that typically only last a few seconds. These have fun labels like "Oxygen injector glowing an unusual color!" or "Fuel pump bulging!". BUT NONE OF THAT IS IMPORTANT! The important part is that each meter has several buttons to hold down, tap OR NOT PRESS AT ALL. This all occurs over the course of a few seconds, but really lends itself to an immersive moment of panic. The Immersion is particularly strong because while YOU (the player) might not have years of experience repairing space mechanical...things, YOUR CHARACTER does.
Why do I bring this up? Obviously, in Star Control, we don't have a repair system, because health is depicted as crew, and we certainly can't have medical protocol, but there's room for this sort of system. Even if that system isn't exactly the same. That element of artificial panic and immersion was created with a combination of simple mechanisms, clever UI and writing, and player agency. I feel like the exploration game could benefit from that sort of addition.
As for the Bounty Hunter system: first of all, bravo for expanding from Star Control's "Good Guy or Bust" status quo. However, I feel it's necessary to caution the addition of the system.
I love the concept, but if it's basically just a bounty that builds up every time you perform a morally questionable action, it might feel like a cheap and tacked on afterthought. On the other hand, an expansive bounty system with individual regional bounties and reputations might be a massive wallop of SCOPE CREEP.
So if the system is to exist, would there be a possibility within your system to add faction/subfaction tags to ships or races so that the bounties hold more weight for some people than others?
I'm curious, what is the relation between Cider and Nitrous?
I actually liked the planet landings from Mass Effect 1, sure the Mako's handling could have used some improvements, the maps could have been bigger and the locations visited, I'm talking about bases and mines here, could have used some variety. But all in all I found it fun.
"By default, the game procedurally generates planets. But the World Crafter lets us go to a planet and customize it
by placing things on it and manipulating it so that it is particularly interesting to visit (or has various puzzles you
have to solve to get to the thing you want)."
A warning regarding puzzles, they are only good the first time you have to solve them after that it gets boring since you know what must be done, so they aren't good for replayability. I advise having multiple solutions to a problem.
An idea for SC2 planet exploration that was never implemented was to have lander crews composed of different species that affected mission results. I think this would complicated things too much and is not worth the hassle.
For Origins planet exploration what I recommend
As for the lander itself I suggest a hover tank that is piloted by an AI, no crew, if space marines are needed an away team is sent for events. Also I suggest the landers could be repaired using resources. And the lander AIs would have different names so players could form an attachment to them.
About bounty hunters, it'd be nice if you could hire them yourself. Of course it wouldn't be cheap.
An idea I had is for a starbase where multiple species would meet, it would not be a nice place. Essentially a hive of scum and villainy. There maybe one could hire bounty hunters. It would also have battles between ships, in which the player could either participate in or bet on. The battles would be to the death. As a development gag they could be called Super Melee.
As for universes, I was thinking of New Game+ to which you travel to with a fully upgraded flagship and arrive in the Sol system just in time to see your alternate self be destroyed. It would be fun to think how having a powerful ship from the start would affect the story, the Scryve and others would take very kindly to someone with a very advanced ship.
I hope we get to learn more about the Lexites.
Next month I'll be going in depth on Cider vs. Nitrous.
Nitrous = CGI-style rendering engine + core neutral scheduler.
Cider = the rest of the game engine built around Nitrous.
Looking back at Baldur's Gate, the Reputation mechanic could be a sufficient starting point for the Bounty Hunter system. Not only does it affect the number of hunters after you but could impact the availability of resources, purchasing, and side quests depending on your current status. Would not impact core plot elements.
I think some things in games we do because we need to in order to progress. I'm ok with that. I don't remember hating landings in SC2, but that's not to say it couldn't have been improved. You guys are designers with market experience so I defer to your expertise, but since you did invite us founders for input then please take what I say as a game player and not some in-my-own-mind designer.
In a nutshell I would look at it from the point of view of why we need to do planetary landings at all. If the reason the player is asked to do it is meaningful, then the gameplay of the landing simply has to avoid being frustrating or tedious. A quick dip down to grab what you need and up again is fine if load times are effectively non-existent. Give me some kind of scanning game in orbit to find areas of interest and leave it to me if I just want to get some money/building/fuel resources, or if there's some kind of artefact alert.
Give me some form of bookmarking function so I can always go back if exploration isn't what I want to do in the moment.
It's tough to know what people will find fun. I don't particularly enjoy 3D platforming. I'm not so self-centred as to think the game is being made for me, personally, but maybe a lot of your players who remember SC2 will be like me: pre-3D platforming gamers. I think if the gameplay involves timed jumps and dodging it will feel like a chore more than SC2 did. Guess you'll just have to go with your gut on whom to please.
In a broad sense, I think it takes a bit of courage to respect your players enough that they don't need a 110% dopamine rush at every moment of the game in order to sell. I'm not opposed to a really fun planetary landing experience by any means, but I wouldn't be too scared to just focus on making it quick, seamless, and as non-disruptive to the rest of the game as possible. I don't particularly get a rise out of tying my shoes before a soccer match, but it's something I do in order to play the game and it really doesn't feel like a problem.
In conclusion, focus on the "why am I doing it" part. General exploration? Questing? Resource resupply? All of these can be tedious reasons or they can be so engrossing that I don't even think about it (i.e., it's just tying my shoes so I can move on to the next part). The other key is to keep it seamless. If both of these can't be achieved, then I agree that it needs to be a fun game on its own merits. (i.e., if you're going to force me to land because Alien X needs Item Y for his mother's birthday, and then endure landing load times, I'd better have fun actually retrieving Item Y).
With regards to the reputation/bounty hunter issue, this sounds fine. But my personal request is to avoid a good/evil morality system. These are totally overplayed and beyond cliche, in my opinion. I don't want to have to think of myself as "good" or "evil", I just want to play the way I want to play and treat every situation as it comes. If a given interaction causes me to accrue "evil" points or "good" points then getting "good" or "evil" becomes a game in itself, and stops me from responding how I'd like to respond.
If all you're talking about is a Bounty Reputation system (i.e., practise piracy, accrue bounties, increased chance of bounty hunters attacking) then I'm totally cool with that. If you really want a dichotomous system, then I'd recommend having an inverse Bounty reputation, like Rescuer Reputation or something. Defend traders from pirates, increase fame, trade federation sends ships to aid you sometimes? Something like that maybe...?
Maybe have locations on the planet, like caves, ruins, gardens... stuff like that. when the player bumps them, you get a chance of discovering minerals, artifacts or disasters like an earthquake, volcanic explosion, and monster spawns.
I'm also wondering, will there be quest giving NPCs on planets?
(and these quests... I hope they aren't gonna be book report type things where you have to spend 5 minutes reading before you actually do the mission)
Would be nice to have to try avoid swirling indestructible air vortexes, flaming fissures, thundering clouds and some kind of tectonic cracks. Similar to SCII.
Also, would be nice to outfit landers the way you like them, so I can equip my lander for bio data, mining or archaeology... or just general mass destruction of indigenous life.
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maybe have lander drivers you can customize or recruit...(maybe even crew you can recruit from missions) that would be nice too!
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Also...!
I'd like some kind of planet dossier. One that includes the percentages left of minerals, bio data, artifacts, quests etc and some kind of marker on the big map to tell me if I've either visited or fully completed/depleted everything of value on a planet. like Transparent circle for unexplored, yellow for visited and green for finished... something like that.
edit:
with regards to bounties and reputation.........
The rate at which you lose crew could have a direct affect on your reputation, crew price and maybe even get a bounty if you sell off your crew into slavery during a mission!
I find the reputation topic particularly interesting. To build upon it further:
Rather than having a single universal reputation score, the idea of multiple reputations is intriguing to me. Other RPG and 4X games have certainly done this (Master of Orion, Fallout, etc.) and it would be interesting to see a reputation with one species having the opposite effect on your reputation with others. This happened to very limited effect in UQM with certain events like selling crew to the Druuge versus trading with them.
The natural problematic outcome of this is narrative scope creep, of course, and having to balance the story in an adventure game with so many branches would turn into a many-tiered "choose your own adventure" book and I can't comment on the feasibility of that. Many games have tried that but the story often has the same final conclusion (or maybe two conclusions) regardless of your actions.
What if we could have more agency in which factions we choose to support? It's probably too late in development to suggest things like this, but I've always felt that alien species we encounter should have multiple factions. Just look at all the groups we have on Earth, and how seldom we agree. I would imagine that alien cultures would be similar, and not always share the same beliefs across their species. This was alluded to in UQM with the Yehat, Spathi, Thraddash, and of course the Ur-Quan, who had all bifurcated into different religions or sects that were rife with civil conflicts.
Usually a game's narrative depth is not enough to allow us to choose sides, but the moral implications of choosing sides probably always weighed on our minds. What if such decisions could effect narrative branching in different playthroughs of Star Control? I would love to see that explored with more depth, if not in the initial release, then in future expansions as we venture further out into unknown space to make contact with new species.
One problem with different reputations, a bounty hunter wouldn't care if the Mu'kay or Scryve are the ones paying the bill. Well I imagine most wouldn't.
Still I think it would be good idea if attacking freighters belonging to the to a particular species would upset them.
A bounty system could quickly take over the feel of the game and turn this into feeling more like a space trading game than Star Control. It sounds like you just want a means of allowing the player to make the game more difficult in a “natural” way. If you do “bad” things, you will have more encounters for Fleet Battle fights. If that is all you are looking to do I would suggest having the bounty system be “invisible” too the player. If they do bad things, they will have more fleet battle encounters and those encounters will be with “good guys” attempting to punish them for things they have done. But there is no visible “bounty system” or “bounty score”. From the perspective of the player they just notice these “bounty hunters” coming after them if they are stealing (piracy) or doing other “bad karma” things. An actual visible bounty system will make SCO begin to feel like a space trading game, and if all you are doing with it is increasing the encounter rate for Fleet Battles it will seem like a pretty weak attempt at it. If it is “invisible” it does what you are wanting it to do, without the player expecting the other aspects of that type of game that won't be present.
For the lander, I think a “ground drone” would make for the best lander for the gameplay. It is not a robot, it is a drone controlled by someone on the mothership. Like an RC car or airplane or... a drone. There are a lot of reasons for this. A couple of the big ones are that it can have a humanoid design, meaning that it can run, jump... do everything and anything that Super Mario can do. Since Super Marip seems to be the model what you'd like to see in the lander game, this type of “vehicle” allows you to emulate Super Mario in the gameplay. Another reason is immersion. This is what is happening in the game. The player is sending an object to the surface and then controlling it remotely to explore the planet, this “drone lander” makes this true within the story/lore as well as within the gameplay. What the player is actually doing in the game and what the lore of the game says they are doing matches and the player feels fully immersed in the experience.
Then, later, if you want an “auto-lander” you can just give the player an improved “Landing Robot” that is said to act on its own, and then the player doesn't have to manually handle the planet landings anymore. Of course, this assumes that the humans of the SCO universe are the first humans in all of sci-fi that are actually capable of building a robot that doesn't malfunction and either run away, explode, take over the ship, or attempt to conquer and enslave humanity... but the audience will be willing to believe they can do it. Damn robots!!!
In UQM, the Pkunk show up at the final battle only if you helped them during the game, and their ship was effective against the Sa-Matra's defenses. There were different reputations like that throughout UQM, as you could attack anyone you wanted and they react accordingly in the future and limit your play options as the game progressed. If you just went around pissing everyone off, it was hard or impossible to finish certain quests.
If Star Control inherits a typical "bounty quest" dynamic from so many other games as a means of getting extra credits, resources, or uniques, I wouldn't complain. I just don't think it will add much to the game because it has been played out in countless other RPGs where your decisions don't have much effect on the overall story. Would love to see the ability to choose to support specific factions of a race and have those decisions affect your quest choices and gameplay options later on. I could see it adding a ton of replay value to the single player game.
There are a lot of ways to implement “bounty hunters” in SCO. Most of them will make SCO begin to feel like a space trading game that is only 10% finished. First, don't think of them as “bounty hunters” because that will lead down a bad road unless you plan on turning this into a space trading game. Think of them as “interested parties”, not “bounty hunters”.
One simple way of doing this would be to have a percentage of the ships “in the background” of the “living galaxy” (or, in my own terminology, the “Passive Map”) have a varied bounty thresholds. The player accumulates a bounty that is “invisible” too the player. Any “bounty hunter AI Object” that has a bounty threshold meets the players current invisible bounty score will attack the player. This will “bring bounty hunters to life” around the player as they come within their range of action. This is a “programmer game design” way of doing this.
A better way for Star Control, that is more simple from a macro perpective but more work to implement, would be to simple “attach” a “bounty hunter” to each individual “bad action” a player might do. The “bounty hunter” would be a component of that dialog, and would be specifically designed as a part of that “mini quest”. This allows each hunter to be very specific about why they are attacking you, and to be specifically related to the “bad action” that you took. Within this system you might also have “generic bounty hunters” that can be used to respond to more generic “bad acts”. This works better for Star Control, but is obviously more work to implement than generic bounty hunters that react based on a bounty threshold.
My comment was directed solely at bounties. Though I could see it that you attracted bounty hunters more in the space of aliens from which you pirated from.
From what I've read in the text files how aliens see you and their impact on the story will be based on quests, if I stated any more it would enter spoiler territory.
I see freighters and bounty hunters as an alternative to obtaining resources from planets. Though I do think that attacking the freighters of allies or potential allies should make them dislike you enough that they wouldn't want to be on your side.
I'd actually like it if there was someplace I could see my bounty, either a stats page or more naturally part of the game, say some shady space bar somewhere.
Some other things to consider is certain actions would generate different bounty amounts. For example the Scryve might have more resources to put on bounties than other aliens, then again their pride might make them go after the scoundrel themselves.
That could also serve as a moral dilemma, attack those that can't place a high bounty or attack those that can, but you have a good excuse for attacking.
Something else to ponder is making the bounty go way. Destroy enough hunters, bribe them or someone else are some ideas.
If the only thing the bounty is doing is increasing the encounter ratio for Fleet Battle fights I think it is a mistake to make it visible. A lot of people, if not most people, will see it as "very incomplete" to have that value/stat when all it does is make certain AI units attack you when they otherwise wouldn't have. I think that's all they are going for here, from what I read, and I think that can work well in SC. Optional stuff you can do, but if you do it you will have to fight more fights. If you do those optional "bad guy things" too much you will wind up fighting a lot of additional Fleet Battle fights. I think that works well for this simple version of a "living galaxy".
There are few things that cause a "glorious vision" of what a game will be than the term "living world" or "living galaxy". In reality, with the knowledge/toolbox available to most game designers to attempt to realize this vision, there is very little too it and it doesn't actually come anywhere near to living up to the "glorious vision" people have when they hear those words. From what I can tell, all they are trying to do with this bounty is give the player an optional way to "be bad" and pay the price of having to fight more Fleet Battles for having "taken that extra loot". If the player sees a "bounty" on them, they are going to expect much more than that. And if it isn't there, SCO will seem unfinished. If it is an "invisible" reputation system, like many games mentioned early in this thread have, then nobody expects anything more to be associated with it... even if you are saying things like "living galaxy" that raise their expectations of how things like that are going to work.
My God, this may be the second or third time, ever, but I wholeheartedly agree with Kavik. We may be the only two members of the Old Guard left on this forum. WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH KAVIK. Yes, I said it.
I came here for STAR CONTROL.
I came here for THAT game. For THAT experience. I didn't sign up to be a $100 founder, to get in on making the next generic Space Trading Game. I want the STAR CONTROL experience, and you're losing sight of that. No, maybe not losing sight - you're purposely eschewing that FEELING, in favor of jumping on board with whatever is all the rage these days.
So during this review, I'm going to state every single thing from the latest vault update that is desecrating the remains of a once-proud experience by adhering to pop culture gaming trends, and then I'm going to write up the proposed solution to bring back the spirit of everyone's Unofficial Most Beloved 90's Game.
Planetary Exploration
TL;DR: Exploration, for the purpose of Upgrading your core ship's capability is ALREADY a fun mechanic in games, with countless examples listed below. It must be that the other systems aren't in place yet, that makes it "not fun". You have to have purpose, to make this mechanic fun, and if the purpose hasn't been implemented, of course it's not fun yet.
Do you hear a lot of people saying, "Minecraft isn't any fun." or "I sure wish Terraria was fun."? Or any of the 100 other survival games, where the primary goal is: Search different environments to scavenge resources, in order to bring them back to your base and improve your main character and "get ahead" in the world? No. They've sold a million, billion copies because that, in essence IS FUN. Just that act, itself. Continuing the analogy between, say, Minecraft and Star Control (both 2, and Origins), the caves you find are allegory for Star Control's planets. You could mine down for an hour in Minecraft and not find anything (barren planets). Or, you could mine down 5 blocks and hit a vein of diamonds (ruby planets). The excitement was overwhelming. In Terraria you could mine a thousands blocks and just find iron - or you could accidentally drop into the jungle level and - JACKPOT (emerald world)! New resources, new blocks to mine, new loot to find, new enemies to fight. This anticipation, this setting-out into whatever direction you chose, and coming across something amazing WAS THE FUN. IT IS FUN. How is that not immediately apparent? 25 worlds filled with gray dots, and then you come across one filled with Tzo Crystals? THAT IS FUN. And then what do you do with all those diamond blocks in Minecraft? You harvest them. You fight off some badguys. And you bring them back to your base (mothership), and you use them to improve your capabilities. You can all of a sudden fend off more impressive enemies. You can build a really cool looking base (ship), you can get a diamond sword (hellbore cannon) or diamond armor (point defense), and most importantly you can use those to be able to replenish your health and hunger (refuel and recrew), to survive a while longer. This is FUN. There are 1,000,000 examples of why THIS IS FUN.
In Ark:Survival Evolved (10,000,000+ sales can't be ignored), it's even more obvious, the connection: You wake up on a beach, naked (Precursor ship in its original state), you gather what you can, punching trees and rocks to give you the first building blocks (gray, blue, yellow dots in Sol planets). You build a shack out of wood and stone to take care of your base needs (a crew pod, a fuel tank), and you make some weapons out of flint and rope (maybe a couple more basic blasters) and you can defend yourself against the opening enemies (handicapped Ilwrath and Slylandro). And then? You set your sights on somewhere in the distance, some meager supplies in hand, and head out in search of more upgrades, exploring jungles and caves and underwater, mining better and better materials (radioactives, exotics, rainbow worlds), until you're this massive, armored deathbringer riding a velociraptor (late-game precursor ship). This is ALREADY FUN. The masses think this is FUN. These concepts of starting out with nothing, and slowly exploring and mining and eventually finding some really outstanding materials in order to upgrade even more is ALREADY FUN. In essence, even action RPG's like Diablo are distilled down to exploring, killing and upgrading - that's the ENTIRE GAME. And it is FUN.
The point is - there is zero chance that planet exploration, mostly coming across iron planets, but sometimes thinking outside the box and exploring a previously uncharted or exceptionally dangerous area of space and being rewarded with an exotic hoard, and then using that to build up your mothership with even more powerful armaments, wouldn't be 100% FUN already. You're not giving that type of gameplay credit. I think it must not "feel fun" yet, because the rest of the game isn't implemented. Mining wouldn't be fun if there weren't rewards like better armor and weapons. Better armor and weapons wouldn't be fun, if there weren't crazier and more dangerous planets to explore, or bigger and badder enemies to fend off while doing so. It's cause and effect, and you can have the fun without the other.
But have FAITH. Have faith that the source material is true, and carries a following of die-hard fans that remember it fondly - as well as an entirely NEW generation of gamers growing up on THAT EXACT PROCESS. Explore>Mine>Build>Fight>Repeat for better and better gear.
On a separate, but related note, why do you think everyone lobbied so hard to have Crew Dots instead of Health Bars? It's the human connection. It's the fact that you're in DANGER. Your crew is in DANGER. And they're trying desperately to survive. And every dot that goes red and fades out, is another life lost in the war effort. You FEEL that, as captain. And the same goes for sending humans down on the lander. I don't care if it makes sense to just send a robot down - why did the captain of the Enterprise go down with the landing parties? Why not just send out the drones or the rovers or whoever and teleport whoever you find back up to the ship? The point is, people like that danger. And there is NOTHING LESS DANGEROUS than sending a robot. But sending your vital crew? It's a real risk that you have to weigh and there's a human connection there. But if you want more resources, for the war effort - you HAVE to take that risk.
Which segues nicely into the next point... Who would spend ANY time exploring planets and gathering minerals, if you give them ample OTHER way to make endless money? It removes the necessity to land on ANY planets, if you can sell Xolite Crystals for endless, unlimited profit between two trading stations. Who wants that? Who wants to eschew the entire planetary landing aspect of this game, in favor of a Space Trading game?!? Who's REALLY pitching for that? It makes no sense! Why not play one of the millions of Space Trading games out there, already? If your idea is that it's somehow MORE FUN to pick up 45 Sublight Radios for 500CR at Space Station A, and find a place to sell them for 750CR each at Space Station F, then you are FUCKING BONKERS. If that's more fun to you than exploring a planet, you are INSANE, sir. Who wants THAT as their alternate way to make money?!?! And WHY?!?! Anyway, moving on before I get heated.
Space Trading Sim
TL;DR: Don't make another Space Trading Sim, but find a way to include those things in the overall exoskeleton of a STAR CONTROL GAME. Ways to do that, are listen below.
I'm just going to come right out of the gate and say, I don't want another goddamn generic Space Trading Sim. They're wide open, unstructured, filled with endless, rambling gameplay, pointless missions, and have zero permanent consequences since your reputation can wobble back and forth into positive/negative at whim. I'm sorry, but Star Control is NOT THAT GAME. It is a story-driven adventure game with RPG elements and permanent consequences based on your choices/actions. And every single thing about this bustling, living universe with hundreds of trading stations, pirates, bounties, freighters, tradeable weapons and resources, and side missions is... is... the ANTITHESIS of Star Control. There are, approximately, 50,000 Space Trade Sims out there. If I wanted one of those, I'd go play Freelancer, Starlancer, Space Pirates and Zombies 2, Rebel Galaxy, No Man's Sky, Galaxy on Fire, Eve, Star Citizen, Elite:Dangerous, Freespace, the X games, Wing Commander, Space Rangers, etc etc etc ad nauseam. They have a place (obviously), and they're all exactly alike. At THIS station, there's Plutonium for 987CR, but over here it's 1005CR. And at THIS station, there's the Fusion Missiles MKI, and at this station, they have the Fusion Missiles MKIII.
Mission Board: There is a freighter, being attacked by bandits in Orionis System! Please save them!
Do you save the generic freighter you don't give a shit about? Or do you side with the generic bandits you also don't give a shit about?
Boom! Choice made. +574CR - reputations ticks toward Colonial Empire, and ticks away from Anarchist Pirate Kingdom.
Mineral scoop +38 Hadmium ore, +1 Fission Missile Launcher MKIV.
Yeay. (GenericFreighterFemaleCaptain): "Thanks for the help, captain! That was a close one! Here's another mission: We lost another 1 freighter(s) in (System_Placeholder:DraconisPlanet:2b) carrying (Quantity:21GammiteOre), Can you go recover it/them for us? We will credit your account with (ResourcesRewardCommand:874CR)"
Since 1993, I have played that same exact mission on-loop, from that same exact Starbase mission board, with that same exact reward, no less than 500x. YOU KNOW THE ONE. Substitute out the parentheses for, LITERALLY, anything else you want. Played that, right there, COUNTLESS times...
I have never played anything else like Star Control, ever.
So, let's propose some solutions here, to these issues, to keep SC-O from becoming yet another of the countless, generic space trading sims out there. Because if this shit sneaks into Star Control, I'm going to riot.
Obviously, none of these are exactly what should happen in-game, that part is not up to me. But these are examples of how to mold and reshape the tired, cliched reputation system, bounty hunting system, sliding reputation bars, procgen mission structure, freighter raiding and pirate interaction that is SO COMMON and overused and so very boring these days.
Star Control is not about any of that. It's about an epic, focused, story-driven opera through space, communicating and battling it out with a cast of diverse and bonkers aliens, while exploring the galaxy, finding planets with great caches of minerals, and building your ship and power up to eventually take down the bad-guys.
Yes, the overwhelmingly primary source of income in SCO should be what you can find on planets. This is just one reason I said you should not be thinking it terms of "bounty hunters" or "pirates" but instead think of these NPCs of the "Active Map" as "interested parties". They might be anyone or anything that has an interest in the thing you have done that has drawn their attention. This keeps it from naturally devolving towards becoming a space trading game. As soon as you have "pirates and bounty hunters" on your mind, it will quickly become a space trading game through the game elements you add to support that idea.
So, instead, maybe you committed an act of piracy and stole cargo from a ship. This, with SCO's format, could only have happened through dialog screens. So a part of that dialog would have, in this example, explained that the owner of that ship (let's call him "Alex Larson") is "one sore loser";-) So it is Alex, the guy you robbed, who has vowed revenge and promised to hunt you down and pay you back for this. Then, at some point in the future, you will run into Alex again and he will be hostile and maybe even have a plan to defeat you that makes the fight against him more difficult than it otherwise would be.
I would make this bounty system an "invisible" reputation system, if it even needs to exist at all, and make the "vengeance NPCs" unique to each "mini quest" that they are a part of. You might also have some pirates and bounty hunters in the universe, but more as background "living universe" units that are there just to be there as a part of the landscape. SCO shouldn't become too space trading game like, because those are very different games than what Star Control is and to do that well is, I am almost certain, a lot more work than Stardock has time left to release SCO.
I should also add that I don't think Stardock is screwing up Star Control at all, this all still seems very promising too me. There are only three big dangers I can see, from what little I know of what they are actually doing, where things might go very wrong.
This first is along the lines of Cuorebrave's post, that they allow "modern game elements" to obscure the core gameplay. People like simple arcade games. A good game designer creates core game mechanics that are inherently interesting at their core and don't need all of those modern bells and whistles that modern game designers use like band aids and string to obscure the fact that they don't know how to create games that are interesting just in the core aspects of how they work. It is MUCH harder to come up with Chess than Civilization. Civilization is an easy game to design compared to Chess because the fewer game elements you are working with, the better and more interesting those game elements need too be. Steve Cole is the absolute grand master of doing this, SFB is a massive collection of simple but compelling individual "Chess level" game elements.
Another danger I see is their becoming too immersed in a "glorious vision" of what their "living universe" can be. Take it from someone, maybe the only person, who knows how to do that well... you are working on something simple here. You will not "bring the galaxy to life" in the player's mind. You don't have time to come anywhere close to that. Don't allow the "glorious vision" of the "living galaxy" to mislead you into seeing something other than what the player is actually going to experience in the end. You can fake a "living galaxy" for SCO, you don't have the time (or the game design toolbox) to actually create one. From the body of knowledge of the current game industry, "you can't get there from here".
The last big red flag I think Stardock should be paying attention too is the editor. If you hadn't noticed, I generally avoid mentioning the editor. That is because it is FAR more complex than anyone is realizing and it is not going to come anywhere close to the standards of SFB players. At the same time, "gamers don't miss what they have never had" so this is not likely too be an issue with modern gamers. The editor they are making fits into your world, as you can see from the general positive response too it, and I think it is going to go over well with the modern gaming audience no matter how it winds up working out in the end. But don't be imagining that by the time you release the game it is going to be creating a vast array of functionally different and tactically interesting ships. The balance will naturally be what it winds up being, far above the stock ships, and nobody will recognize what our community would call "the complete brokeness of it" because "gamers don't miss what they have never had". The editor is a great cosmetic tool that modern gamers will like, and nobody will notice what they have no frame of reference to notice.
Cuore, you're astonished that you find yourself agreeing with Kavik. But just think about how I feel - agreeing with both you AND Kavik!
Brad, I have to agree, I really don't like the idea of generic quests and space trading. As Cuore said, there are already a ton of those games out there, and IMO Star Control isn't and shouldn't be that game. Quests, sure - but make them meaningful, like getting sent to find the clear spindle or to rescue the last Shofixti etc. I don't want to be going to <randomly determined> location to fight the <randomly determined> for <randomly determined> reward. That's boring and we've all played that a ton before. That simply is not Star Control. I don't want to be trading resources, just let me find them on planets and dump them at starbases (you know, like in Starcon2) and use what I get to build more ships and components for my mothership. Space trading isn't Star Control. And, frankly, nor are bounty hunters. I should either be friendly with a race, in which case they don't attack unless I attack them, or I'm not,. in which case they threaten me and then attack. Again, like in SC2. Why would any race hire bounty hunters? They would just kill me themselves if they don't like me.
And I disagree that "modern gamers" wont like playing planet landings like in SC2. It was fine. It didn't take up too much time but it was just engaging enough to be a fun little diversion between flying around the universe, and it was freaking awesome when you came across a planet with valuable resources etc, it felt like Christmas every time that happened. I don't want to be spending 5 minutes exploring caves etc on every planet, it's just meant to be a bit of a diversion and change of pace, and there are too many planets to make exploring each one take too much time. Hell, you know you're on the wrong track when people are already talking about tech upgrades to make you not have to explore the planets anymore - there's your first hint that it's tedious and needs to change.
On the whole, I'm stoked with SCO and have been enjoying every part of the process, but I do admit this latest update has got me a little worried :-(
There is no space trading. Where are you guys getting that?
If you're talking about the Precursor starbases, that's essentially the same mechanic from SC2 except you don't have to go all the way back to Earth.
As for bounty hunters, if you don't want to see them, then don't go around murdering people. It's supposed to be a free form game, not one that has you on rails.
Also, we aren't talking about some sort of GTA style reputation. This is all purely internal stuff.
Think of it as a quest: You go and murder a Tywom freighter captain and it'll spawn bounty hunters as a result.
We'll definitely take to heart the feedback you're giving. But I feel like you're giving us way too little credit in understanding the game.
For me, Star Control puts me in the position of Captain Kirk with an overall mission. But I also expect to be able to take on side-missions as well as well as see the overall galaxy evolve and adapt based on what I do in the game. This is something other Founders have been explicitly asking for.
You are the hero of the story but the galaxy is a busy place. You can (and probably should) choose not to be evil. But I would not enjoy being forced to play the game in a particular way. I want to explore the galaxy and see that there is a lot of stuff happening out there.
In SC2, we had those annoying space probes for random encounters. I did not like those. Instead, I want the galaxy populated with interesting things that you can choose to never interact with but if you do, to understand that there are ramifications for that encounter.
Interesting compassion to Mako, and how it related to SC2.
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But you know here Mass Effect 1 Mako worked best? In scripted main story missions. There is functioned really well, as an integral part of those missions and 3rd person shooting in between.
It was the weakest during generic planet exploration.
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Andromeda "Mako" is totally different beast. While not as bad as Mako on generic planets in ME1, it was essentially "a horse" for the open world game. Not really inspirational.
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Now think about SC2. Where was the lander most fun?
In the our Solar system. Exploring our own planets and getting the early resources, before focusing on main quest traveling. Same for going to Alpha Centauri and doing high risk reward exploration on rich systems there.
Anywhere else mostly meh... Exceptions being Androsynth space and maybe couple of places that have story driven reason to get to planets. Usually you where expected to get enough RU at some point to totally stop doing planet exploration and focus on other things, which IMHO is not bad.
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Now what can we do for Origins?
First, make any scripted maps extra good. There should be nothing generic on them. Add quests, special rules, anything to keep them different and unique.
Then, work on upgrades. Since over time, lander resource harvesting will become chore, why not have upgrade system that makes it more effective over time, thus making player do it less and less as game progresses. Maybe even at the end have it replaced with automated system (robo lander fetching resources on their own).
Brad's expanded explanation of what they are thinking sounds good too me, I was just providing a warning not to become too immersed in the idea of pirates and bounty hunters because that would almost inevitably turn it into a "half finished space trading game". So they seem to be thinking more along the lines of something I said earlier in this thread...
"One simple way of doing this would be to have a percentage of the ships “in the background” of the “living galaxy” (or, in my own terminology, the “Passive Map”) have a varied bounty thresholds. The player accumulates a bounty that is “invisible” too the player. Any “bounty hunter AI Object” that has a bounty threshold meets the players current invisible bounty score will attack the player. This will “bring bounty hunters to life” around the player as they come within their range of action. This is a “programmer game design” way of doing this."
...so what they seem to be saying is that these "targets" that you might attack to trigger this are the "soulless" residents of what I call the "Passive Map" and not the "major NPCs" of the "Active Map". So, the galaxy is "alive" partly with traffic that is "in the background" and yet you can still interact with these "civilian ships". If you destroy one you gain something from that, but at the same time you spawn a ship that wants to get revenge for you having done that thing. Brad also seems to be saying that the "bounty" on you will be a hidden thing and not a stat that is visible within the game, which goes a long way in keeping this just as "background civilians" without it starting to feel like a pirate v bounty hunter space trading game. This is something you can, and most probably will, completely ignore... but it is there and makes the universe feel a lot more complete. And that is EXACTLY what it should be.
The "living galaxy" partly means having a lot of things moving around that have nothing to do with the actual game, but are there in a "real" way. This sounds like exactly what they are doing based on Brad's clarification of what he was talking about. I was only trying to point out that there is a danger of it beginning to feel like a space trading game if these aspects are brought too much into the forefront through doing things like having a visible bounty on the player within the game. It sounds like they already realize that, which is good.
I don't think there's anything wrong with adding a galactic market, sim trading, sim sim stuff (even though that probably won't be in the game if you read up)
just because there are games that have ruined those experiences, doesn't mean it can't be done right and be fun
The star control franchise was never about staying in one constrictive genre only. The first Star Control was a strategy/action game mostly. It was fun! Second Star Control was an action adventure space exploration game... It was fun! SCIII was like SCII but with colony building, it was fun but... it had issues lol
SC:O already is an action adventure space exploration game as far as I can tell, I don't see anything wrong with expanding what a player can do and improving upon the gameplay with added features!
I'd take it as a sign of how passionate the people discussing here are, and how much we're rooting for a truly great game. There are a lot more puzzle pieces missing for the founders than the designers, and in those vacuums people worry.
Something I took away from one of your updates (November? I don't remember) is that old SC2 fans and people who have even heard of Star Control will be a minority in your expected sales. I don't know if this is based on market research or just instinct, but of course the Founders (at least the ones writing a lot in threads like these) seem to be people for whom SC2 was not just a memory but one of the greatest games ever.
I think you can expect us to try to steer things back towards our own sense of what made SC2 great. You can disagree, and you can say the market has changed, and maybe you're right. That's your decision to make based on the information and instincts you have. I'm not scared of what you're doing. As I said in my previous post, I understand this game isn't for me, personally. But as long as you're asking for my opinion I think it's reasonable to expect I'll pull towards what I remember as SC2.
I joined the founders program because I love Star Control and it was worth the entry fee to be part of this process, no matter the outcome. But if that outcome is that SC:O goes down as one of the greatest games of the decade, I think I might privately take a bit of pride for myself just knowing I was in the proverbial coffee room talking about it. And if it doesn't perform as well as we all hope I might privately be sad. Really, what more is there? The consequences are much more real for you and your team.
Having said that, if I recall Stardock is not a publicly traded corporation. I am not naive enough to think that sales don't matter to you, but you might be one of the few major game companies that can make a great game even at the cost of decisions that would otherwise increase sales. I have no idea how you balance those decisions, but I presume it's a tricky act. We founders aren't trying to balance that - we just want a great game. Maybe that's exactly why you want us in the coffee room?
Where it regards things like planetary landings and general exploration I encourage you to not be scared to give us some busy work. If you come up with a lander game that's so awesome I want to play SC:O just for that, even better, but I wouldn't fret about it, personally.
In other news, I am totally on-board with your Captain Kirk vision.
I was just re-reading your post and this paragraph got me thinking. Are you planning a variable-ending story? If so, can I say I would much prefer that the story be fundamentally unaltered by the way I play the game, but rather the tone could shift. More explicitly, I don't think it would be a good idea that I could "switch sides" if I murder enough tywom. (I have no idea how the story is progressing, so even if this couldn't make sense I hope you'll get where I'm going with this.)
I do think there's a lot of fun, rewarding dialogue that could colour the story if I win by being a colossal jerk rather than a perfect space-boy scout. If there's any underlying reputation, or key benchmark moments in the game that could be telegraphed into the story dialogue for colour I would be extremely supportive.
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