It's a desire Z, and I can change my ringtones. But not my message sounds, those are stored in the internal memory. As far as I can tell anyway.

I kindof agree with that holistic view too, but it's hard to image that in the game other species wouldn't call other species evil.

I wasn't making that argument though. Certainly lot of species in SC would call the Ur-Quan, Ilwrath, Kohr-Ah and others evil. but none of those species are defined as a one-dimensional bad guy. They don't do things "just because they are evil". Even though we don't agree with them or their actions, they don't do those just because they are "evil". They do them for what they believe to be good reasons.

I can see how that works in debates, but logic is still logic, 1+1=2 no matter what, it shouldn't matter if I knew the company that owned it pre-hand or not because any company that owns something is something you'd have to buy licensing from, and it's not hard to see that.

But your logic is flawed dude. You're like a guy on the Xbox-live forums telling everyone that Half-Life can't be remade on their playstation network because Microprose still owns the rights to Wii controllers. And then when people tell you it doesn't work like that you just handwave, tell us you're in the game business and that you know what you're doing and why is eveone being so picky. It's not 1+1= 2 it's x^3+5-bz = sin(3). You're making incorrect arguments because of a flawed fact base, and without correct facts you rest your logical conclusion on faulty premises. Or logically, you're doing hexadecimal mathematics on a binary system.

Eh, you're looking at this wrong. A new Star Control would need a team of like what? 10 people maybe? Toys for Bob has 75 people. They get the money up front at Kickstarter, they can hire a few new people and have their pick of who they want to work on it. It's not like it would ever be their only/primary project.

Alternately they could get someone else to develop it with them. Maybe Greg Johnson's HumaNature Studio would be appropriate. I don't know if their contracts allow them to do side projects like that, but just a thought.

I don't think that's much of an option as they aren't an independently owned studio. If they were, they could decide what to work on and how many people to put on it. Sicne they aren't, the people who pay their bills get to decide what they work on. And they want work on the most profitable of things.

I'd say there is no such thing as "graphically primitive", only shades between good and bad quality.

Eh, I suppose I should have specified that I meant primitive compared to today's standards. Star Control 2 certainly has some high quality graphics considering the format and all, but I would assume that anyone who has grown up with Half-Life 2 and the likes would consider it a little old-fashioned, like we look at pong and space invaders.

And my reason for mentioning it at all is that even with that paltry kickstarter, there's no way TFB is going to be able to churn out ME3 level graphics without a lot more resources than the kickstarter brings.

I don't recall Hayes calling anyone evil; can you find the exact quote? It's quite possible that I just forgot.

One of the great things about Star Control IMO was that there was no actual evil beyond the Dnyarri that we didn't get much insight into, just tragic events. No one was bad just because. I fully expect the Lurg to be nasty, but to have twisted reasons of their own for doing what they do.

Well this is an unforeseen derail. Zim, you might want to consider that not knowing how the licenses, who actually owns what material, hat companies are involved and the names of the people involved does actually make your argument a fair bit weaker. Reading up a bit before trying to argue questions like that might not be a bad idea. You're like an American lecturing Europeans on how the metric system works, and that generally doesn't end well.

Anyway, going back to the original topic about kickstarters, I'll just copy paste my answer from the SCDB here as well.

I think the main problem with this is that TFB aren't just two young guys anymore. I mean, they're two grown men with families to provide for and employees that they are responsible for. I doubt their current employer would let them just take time off to develop a competing product.

And if they do quit, then what? Beyond whatever financial hot water they land themselves as well their employees in, what happens when they finish a game that is graphically primitive by todays standards? Even if they manage to make some money, how long before it runs out? And then what? Trying to find work with another studio with a rep like that might be tricky.

I would love to see a sequel, but not at the expense of those who make it.

Yup. They're kind of the mastermind race on the opposing side and when you finally meet them they'll make a big case for combinating your abilities and fleets to stop the Ultimate enemy(TM). If you agree to working together with them, as far as I recall you literally just get those two rows on a black screen and then the game is over.

But the prologue is not the real game, and in case of P6014 it's not even necessary, since we have an intro sequence where all can be summarized until reaching Beta Naos incident.

Okay, this is really clever.

That said, I don't want to get into a huge discussion about this because it makes some of the mods here angry.

Not just the mods IIRC

Quite the coincidence, I was just browsing through the cool comic thread, the thing in the tree thread and the two headed thingamajig thread last week. Good times. I should visit this place more often.

Meh, I'm a casual enough gamer that peripherals don't really excite me.

I really don't think this game is very well suited to a phone, though.

I've got it installed on my smartphone, Android version. And I agree, maneuvering really isn't very easy. I can't even hit planets properly. Though that might be my lack of console experience. But if you have a proper d-pad or such I think it'd be a lot easier and ight be fun for a long trainride or similar.

[Pearl VX-35]

after mouse (touchpen) support is implemented I could start playing this game    (damn, first I was happy fiddling this to work on a Pearl VX-35 easy, after the first click came the error ^^)

What?

It would sertainly help on a device without a keyboard, though, which I think is what he's getting at here.

Or have him drive off the road while playing SC II on his navigator. Seriously, what. I get that porting to many different platforms is important, but when can playing this game on a navigator for your car ever be more useful than on your phone or computer?

I can hold my venom, but people get insulted anyways if they want to.

Meh, like I said it is up to you what you do. I'd venture to guess that people don't get as insulted if you don't tell them they are like worthless politicans who make you facepalm over their stupidity though.

About the Chmmr shielding habits casting shadows on others, I'm not sure if that's true, as it depends on the situation. It's quite possible that all the Alliance races are merely in a state of rebuilding, nobody could blame them for having higher priorities. But even if they could have the energy to resist, why would they do? Was either Alliance -- old or new -- a do-good moral crusader boy scout corps? Don't think so. That sort of stuff is in Star Trek.

You're right of course. I guess the expression was kind of clumsy. What I meant was more along the lines that this kind of thing casts a shadow over the perceived goody-two-shoeness of the Alliance, which makes them more nuanced and alive. Like you say, the assumption that the Alliance is all good all the time is a bit naive. The original races banded together to fight a threat and allowed at least one member race to commit suicide on a daily basis in combat. The new one was complicit in two  possible genocides even before the Quans were defeated and forced at least one race to join against their will. Just like the Ur-quan aren't enslaving people just because they are evil but rather have a compelling backstory, I look forward to the backstory on why the Alliance does what it does and acts as it acts. Shades of gray are more fun then black and white, IMO.

I do think that any race going along with slaveshielding the VUX is slightly tarnished by association, just as one might argue that any nation going along with the invasion of Iraq was tarnished by that association at some level. Or at least in the eyes of those who didn't join. But that doesn't make the whole race evil or out of character. Also, the way different people refer to it in the demo (Hayes being pretty happy, the Pkunk Queen being much less so) makes for a nuanced view of an Alliance where prioritiesand opinions differ quite a bit. Which is something I enjoy.

I think everyone is jumping the gun quite a bit. The purpose of the demo is to give us a taste of what is to come, they are hardly going to give us exact details on the Chmmr plans to turn Earth into a ice cream stand or the Orz plans to conquer the Pkunk via the use of a limerick contest (Oh damnit now I spoiled the ending!)

The demo gave us all a taste and now we are all fighting with each other as we try to guess on what comes next. That's great! But I am noticing several comments towards what the creators should do or are doing wrong in our various opinions.  Let's be careful not to spit any venom at the creators when we do not know anything close to the full story yet.

I think we're mostly discussing our reactions to the demo and guessing at what is to come. It's only natural that some are unhappy with the story while others are happy. We've all had very different ideas of what the next SC should contain. On a discussion forum like this, we should be discussing our opinions on both what should be done and what shouldn't be done, what we enjoy and what we don't. Otherwise, what's the point of discussing at all? As long as we keep in mind that random voices on the internet in no way get to call the shots or change the story produced by the actual team of course. Hey Cedric, isn't the story pretty much done by now anyway? I was udner the impression that only some dialogue was missing. If so, maybe the should be edited in somewhere so that anyone trying to not just give feedback but also suggest changes is aware of the fact that they are pretty late to the party.

Should the writer team employ mind reading techniques on you so they would finally get a clue about what is interesting to you? You certainly put much effort into saying nothing -- like a politician -- while complaining against something you have no insight about.

The problem is not that you get in the way of any of us -- you don't -- but the awkward minutes of facepalm you make us (well, me at least) perform by poor arguments based on arbitrary presumptions, while you don't show the slightest intent to say anything useful. Saying that you want something new, something original is not helpful, but friggin' annoying!

While I certainly sympathize with your frustration, you might want to take a deep breath there Kwayne. You're making a sequel to something a lot of people hold very dear, so like it or not you'll get a lot of feedback on how you're not quite doing it right. You might not want to let the frustration spill over into insults against people who might come across a bit clumisly, but ultimately mean well. Though that's your call of course.

Anyway, regarding the story I think it's important for those outside the story process to recall that tropes in themselves are not bad. There is a reason they are tropes, and that's because quite often they work well. I have no affiliation with P6014, but based on the stuff in the demo and some of the teaser screens I've seen, I'm fairly confident that they've got some very competent writers that will make this work just fine. There are lots of ways this trope can work, from the Chenjesu not beign as benevolent as you thought to the M:bots strange heritage making itself known to a failure in the Process to a connection to something altoghether different. And the exiting part will be finding out what is going on.

I do agree with hackdx that going along with the Chmmmr shielding other races casts a shadow over other races, but I think that is a good thing. It was mentioned earleir that Star Control is at times almost Monkey Island in space. I think the beauty of it is that it weaves such powerful comedic elements with an actual serious story.  Sure, a lot of the races are pretty wacky, but the Yehat also surrendered in dishonour, the Quan are tortured souls and the even though the Thraddash are silly brutes, you kill them all off in a cold genocide. It's a really werid blend, but it works well. I assume P6014 writers are aiming for something similar.

Anyway, I mostly stay out of these threads because I am looking forward to being surprised but D_999's three word comment jumped out at me in my RSS feed so I got curious. Sorry for the interruption.

You don't actually return to the starbase. You're sent to Earth (so, floating above the slave-shielded Earth), you're given maximum thrusters/turning jets, and all modules are moved to the front (as much of them as possible, anyway) to make room for the bomb.

That's pretty interesting, didn't know that. Though I suppose it doesn't matter technically, it'd be fun to have a spearate Hayes dialogue for if you turn up with not just a single ship, but an entire armada and a decked out flag ship.

Nowif only my stupidAndroid phone wasn't lockwed down like fort knox. Want new message sounds? Download them from HTC!