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 Poll
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| Question: |
Assuming no new SC games,how long will Star Control live?( By live I mean played.)
| Forgotten by next generation. |
| Fifty years tops, then lights out. |
| 100 years. |
| A millennia. |
| Immortal, SC story will become a religion. |
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Author
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Topic: How long will Star Control live? (Read 8111 times)
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Lukipela
Enlightened
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Gender: 
Posts: 3620
The Ancient One
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I'd say SC is on life support right now. Look back ten years. There used to be a vast community, with mailing lists and projects galore. Star Control on the web used to be a jungle of sites, all pulsing with life, connected through PNF into a powerful, pulsating entity.
And now? Well, those sites are gone or drifting. The Black Spathi mailing list has pretty much perished. Most sub-projects have petered out, even the once gigantic TimeWarp. The few that still remain are on the back burners of their creators, and have slowed to a crawl. PNF is dried up, a shell of what it used to be. Now one writes for the SCWC any more. The jungle has turned to desert.
This is pretty much the only SC dedicated site left. UQM is an anomaly. It is the project that succeeded, and continues to succeed. It is a promise of the future. Had UQM not come into existence, I very much doubt that there'd be any non-derelict sites left in the SC Webring. In the rustling empty desert, one oasis remains standing. Of course the question is how long this one oasis can last in the desert.
If nothing comes from this project but v 1.0 I give this place 5 years tops. People migrated here to talk, but once the technical side shuts down, the rest will go fairly quickly. The melee community will probably hold out a bit longer, dedicated warriors that they are. But without something to carry the torch (either through mods or new projects) after UQM is gone, we're pretty much toast.
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What's up doc?
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Pyro411
Zebranky food
Offline
Posts: 15
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I believe the game will live as long as there are people in the world that enjoys true "Content" and not eye candy. I have done well in getting all my really young cousins addicted to SC2. Mwahaha their parents hate me now LoL.
But in all seriousness Nothing is truly dead till the last person forgets about it completely, so unless there's a massive worldwide EM Pulse and magnetic storm that destroys all electronics & data storage devices a masterpiece will live on. 
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0xDEC0DE
*Many bubbles*
Offline
Posts: 175
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I'm fairly certain that I'm completely alone in thinking such things, but what the franchise desperately needs isn't a sequel, but a re-imagining.
Fan-boy Ramble Mode Enabled: Toys For Bob employees are encouraged to skip this section if there is any fear from your lawyers about litigious fans suing you over story ideas. Not that I would...
The story of Star Control was cleverly, and quite creatively, constrained by the limits of the available technology of its day.
In the original Star Control, there were only seven ships per side, and fourteen alien races were allegedly represented. 14 ships is a lot of code and art assets for an old IBM XT, as I recall the game barely fit onto a single diskette. From reading the manual, it was understood by me that the Alliance and Hierarchy fleets were amalgamated fleets from all the member races, in that each race provided a class of ship to the combined war effort that best utilized their unique abilities; the Chenjesu provided "heavy artillery", the Ur-Quan provided "carriers", the Arilou provided "skirmishers", the Ilwrath provided "submarines", etc. but it could easily be assumed that each race had all classes of warships back home for their own home defense. So while the Earthlings could be assumed to have built and operated, say, battleships, Alliance High Command never commissioned any of them for the combined war effort, because the Broodhomes were superior in that role.
Then Star Control II comes along, and needs to "grow" the story, and have a galactic adventure mode, but they only expanded the ship roster to 25 ships from 14, because they did not have infinite time to complete the game. No problem, each race is now only capable of making one type of starfaring vessel, and the story is adjusted accordingly, and nobody ever questions the logic in every spacefaring race you meet limiting themselves to one homogeneous class of vessel for exploration/defense, even though we don't do that kind of thing on Earth today.
(yes, I know, all the plans for all the ships besides the Cruiser were destroyed, and the Starbase can only fabricate ships they have plans for, but that certainly doesn't explain why the Druuge, the pre-eminent capitalists, wouldn't have a free market full-to-the-bursting with different types of starships)
The thing of it is, the back-story of Star Control is epic. The fact that they combined it with a fun, fast-paced 2D arcade shooter is certainly a bonus, but in this day and age 2D space shooters are a relic. And the story is so very much bigger than that. Immersive 3D environments have come a long, long, long way since 1992, fleet battle mechanics have certainly improved since then, and in short, everything required to tell the story as the sweeping space opera it surely could be told as is available today.
So I would say, the best way to keep it alive wouldn't be to continue the story, but to tell it again, using all of the abilities modern gaming platforms provide you. Imagine an Ur-Quan "Planetary Siege Unit" not as a funny-looking flat green ship that is under-powered in PvP melee, but as a something akin to a floating city, the size of a large asteroid, and bristling with enough firepower to literally place an entire planet under siege. And then imagine finding a ship powerful enough to completely spank something like that. Or running up against a planet's orbital defenses, and rather than fighting an infinite number of ships until you get bored and figure out that the battle is unwinnable, knowing immediately that should negotiations go sour, you'll need to run for your life as dozens upon dozens of ships swarm on you.
I've always been of the opinion that in a lot of ways, Star Control was ahead of its time. But the times have caught up, and it's entirely possible to tell the story these days with all of the grandeur and scope that such a story requires.
But again, I'm fairly certain that's just me...
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"I’m not a robot like you. I don’t like having disks crammed into me… unless they’re Oreos, and then only in the mouth." --Fry
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Prowler2885
Guest
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Its certainly an awesome idea, but as all of SC, its plagued by needing funds.
Agreed. Great idea; but there could be issues regarding funding (and long-time fans) that can prevent this from happening.
However, to bring intelligent games (and storylines) back into the media is what the current generation is in dire need of. I mean, I hate doing this again, but have you seen the trailers; or bit the bullet, and actually seen "Meet the Spartans"?
I think the re-telling thing could work too, considering re-tellings have been made like mad anyway. Transformers, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Speed Racer. The list goes on. I say, let's try to jump on the bandwagon while it's still mobile.
Plus, I would like to see how the other stuff and battle/melee modes would be. Hell, even toss in classic melee with the refined designs (like SC3 but, good, and not 2.5D). 3D melee with full 3D control (Spathi Eluders sound like fun in full 3D, and would be disorienting to see moving. Hard lock on or track due to the many pods hiding "front"; B.U.T.T. missiles remain, and the person flying the Eluder can have rear-view to target auto-locking B.U.T.T.s), and classic 2D melee with classic "tiny" planets and no 3D control (to keep the classic feel of combat) as well as classic rules (1 primary and 1 secondary (special) firing mode, with "keep forward" no-brakes physics).
There's a concept.
OOH!! We should start a new topic regarding this kinda stuff. But let's not give it a lame topic name like "What stuff do you want to see in a re-telling of Starcon 2?"
Oh, and remember, it'll most likely be in full 3D, but 'classic mode' ideas are also open. You know, just to serve as a starter line for it.
Oh, screw it... I'll start it, and see if I can find a good topic name.
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BatkatA®
Zebranky food
Offline
Posts: 12
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Hello ...
This idea for exploration of the universe to meet new alien races will live forever ...
The exact idea of Star Control
This is inside every dreamer every boy that watch the stars ...
Unfortunately on game market this is possible after some one or two generations becouse there is no other games or new versions of SC2 to remember us...
But WE can change this now!!!
And then we can show to OUR young friends or childrens this OUR dream realized again now!!!
I make a poste here with one my idea... bottom of page 8
Take a look and DO NOT PASS!!! leave your comment or suggestion there is VERY VERY important!!!
http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=2959.msg51805#msg51805
I DON'T WANT TO FORGOT Star Control!!!
Together WE can make the dreams come trough!!!
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« Last Edit: January 22, 2008, 03:37:44 pm by BatkatA® »
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