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Topic: why don't we make it ourselves? (Read 37176 times)
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Shiver
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You don't need to look, I'm right here. Fancy doing some coding, drone?
EP can attest that I make a terrible programmer.
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Tim
Zebranky food
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Posts: 10
Bleh.
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Well, I haven't posted on here since I was a small child. Haven't even been involved in the Star Control community, outside of ghosting it, for 11 years now? (I ran the original Star Control Online RPG.) Wow. Anyway, I was reading this topic, and it sort of inspired me to write this up.
Star Control is what inspired me to become a writer in the first place, and is the reason I have any short stories published, and any work published at all. So, I figured when I read this, I might as well throw my hat into the writer bidding war before it became too intense. 
Backstory:
Immediately following the destruction of the Sa-Matra, the CHMMR systematically hunted down all the slave shielded planets and cracked them. The Syreen, Human, Spathi, CHMMR, and the Captain's homeworld were all freed. The CHMMR then turned their attention to the Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah vessels. The AVATAR vessels proved more than a match for the Dreadnaught and Marauder designs. The Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah even pushed against the CHMMR and their allies together in a push for their survival. But the Utwig, CHMMR, Yehat, and Pkunk fleets combined were too much for even the great Ur-Quan to compete with. The Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah were scattered in the end, and their fleets torn to shreds. The Ur-Quan eventually surrendered, while the Kohr-Ah fought until their last ship in the quadrant.
The Quadrant was reborn with the New Alliance of the Free Stars, and the defeat of the Ur-Quan. With the threat neutralized, the question now became, "What do we do with them now that we have them by the tail?" The CHMMR suggested that we indoctrinate them into the New Alliance, while certain clans of the Yehat suggested the Ur-Quan be imprisoned as they had done to the Alliance. The Pkunk strongly opposed this, and suggested we free them entirely. The Syreen were apathetic to the plight of the Ur-Quan, as were the Orz. In the end, the choice fell upon the Human Captain and Humanity. (Leave this particular historical option open, for the player to decide. Whether the Captain obliterates, enslaves, or offers friendship to the Ur-Quan. Will only directly effect if the Ur-Quan are in the game and in what capacity.)
The Spathi were freed from their Slave Shield by the CHMMR, though on their request they were immediately put right back underneath of it. Several Spathi however did not wish to be encased underneath of the shield like the others. These Spathi were known as the Black Spathi Squadron, they would colonize a small planet some light years away from their homeworld, to watch over their brethren.
The Thraddash and Ilwrath were not completely annihilated by their war that the Captain set them on. Remnants remained of both, and while the Ilwrath would not submit to the Alliance or join them, the Thraddash recognized the power of the Alliance. The Ilwrath in the end destroyed themselves by throwing their troops against the Alliance. The Thraddash become members of the Alliance, some remembering that the teachings of the Captain had kept them alive, while others just wanted the chance to rebuild and avenge their defeat.
The Yehat and Pkunk cultures meshed to one with the Pkunk Queen. The breed of the Pkunk slowly faded away, while the Yehat became the predominant culture, as many had expected. However, the honor of the Yehat, and the peace and forgiveness of the Pkunk had produced a reborn Yehat. The new highly spiritual, honor bound, and slightly psychic Yehat become fantastic ambassadors for the Alliance, embodying all that is good about it.
The Utwig stayed with the Alliance, but have had no significant socio-political or weaponry advances since the wars ended. They have no interest in Alliance politics, and only concern themselves with their influence of space.
The Suppox were more than willing to stay with the Alliance after the defeat of the Ur-Quan. Having made many new allies in the Humans, CHMMR, Yehat, Pkunk, Zog-Fot-Pik, and the various other cultures that made up the Alliance, the Suppox set out to learn as much as they could from every culture and eventually create their own.
The Umgah became funny blobbies for the Alliance. Though what that means isn't really known. Contact with the Umgah is scarce at best, though the Umgah produce many biological fixes for many races in the Quadrant. Humanity in particular is able to live a significantly longer time. On occasion, someone gets some sort of 'joke' in their blood and explode.
The Syreen and Human cultures eventually intermingled with the union of Talana and the Captain. The physiological similarities made the breeding of the two cultures possible, and beneficial for the Syreen, which lacked males, in particular. Humanity eventually breeds out the Syreen culture, though Humanity reaps the benefits in absorbing the Syreen features into it's culture. Humanity advances its own development nearly two hundred years with this process, and their technology, culture, and general physical well being are increased almost ten fold.
The Shofixti culture left Delta Gorno, and set out on their way to find a new homeworld. The CHMMR suggested a planet not too far off from the Yehat sphere of influence. It turned out to be a perfect place, as the Shofixti quickly populated the planet and rebuild their star faring capabilities. Their culture has not changed much since the Yehat uplifted them, and many do not think they will.
The Slylandro while still unable to leave their star system, are visited regularly by Alliance fleets at the request of the Captain.
The Arilou once more disappear from known space, though they appear on occasion to speak with the Humans in the Sol system.
The Druuge continued to do business the way they always had, until the Alliance attempted to place restrictions on their slave trade. The Druuge took offense to this, and left the Quadrant of space. They haven't been heard from since.
The Melnorme still inhabit various Supernova stars in the Quadrant, and on occasion do business with the Alliance.
The Mycon were unable to find peaceful relations with the Alliance, due to their necessary destruction of a certain class of world, in order to rebirth their race. Their lack of any perceived notions of morality, and the lack of any understanding of what an Alliance means, caused the Alliance to have to eradicate the Mycon from the galaxy.
The VUX were unwilling to submit to the Alliance even after the defeat of the Ur-Quan and continued to fight on. The Yehat took it as their personal project to make the VUX submit. Eventually the VUX were defeated, and regulated to a small sector of space where they do not have to make any contact with other star faring races, and are allowed to live out the rest of their wretched existence.
The Zog-Fot-Pik exported Frungy to the Quadrant. That's really all they did.
The mystery of the Androsynth went unsolved for some time, and eventually the Orz completely disappeared from Alliance radars. No one is really sure what has become of them. Even after multiple searches and scans of the area, the Alliance is still not completely sure what happened to the Orz and the Androsynth.
If the Ur-Quan are destroyed, they are destroyed. If the Ur-Quan are put under a slave shield, they are underneath a slave shield where the Sa-Matra was. If the Ur-Quan are allied to the Alliance, they are regulated to just one planet, and are not allowed to build any ships unless specifically commissioned by the Alliance. They live out their lives on a single planet where their greatest defeat occurred.
In the years after the Ur-Quan Hierarchy was humbled by the New Alliance of the Free Stars, the famous Captain that rebuilt the Alliance retired to obscurity on his homeworld. Some years after his retirement, he was asked to serve on the Council of the New Alliance of the Free Stars as the Admiral of the fleet. Though he initially denied the request, he would take them up on their offer and take up the head of the Alliance.
Fifty years pass, and the Alliance sufficiently builds up. Under the guidance of the Admiral, the Council mediates many successful peaceful talks. The Humans, CHMMR, Yehat, and Suppox all have high ranking positions on the Council. The Zog-Fot-Pik, Shofixti, Thraddash, and Utwig also have positions, but do not seem too interested in the political goings on.
After the Quadrant is built up sufficiently, the Alliance decides that it is time to clean up the mess that the Ur-Quan left throughout the Quadrant, and so the second great mission of the New Alliance of Free Stars begins. The mission to free the races that the Ur-Quan left enslaved in their wake before the battle against the original Alliance of Free Stars.
The Alliance decided that a small scouting force would be best for such a long expedition, since sending a large force would cost too many Resource Units, and be highly ineffective. An exemplary young Captain is given control of a prototypical human class Claymore vessel, and sent to begin the process.
Things that will occur in the story:
Introduction of 10 new Alien Races and 10 new Ships. Which will all be freed from the Ur-Quan slave shields.
Encounters with remnants of the Kohr-Ah fleet. (And the discovery of the new Doctrine.)
Encounters with Druuge slave masters. (As they try to capture what you free.)
Encounters with Melnorme. (As well as the main hints of the game.
The Orz return and reveal the 'main bad guy of the story'. (The idea behind this isn't totally fleshed out, but the Orz are just fingers of a darker race that even the Arilou seem to fear. So, the main villain of the story would turn out to be the creatures that control the Orz. The story will explore the darker side of the fish people we all love.)
Gameplay things:
Upgrades possible for the Claymore Class, and certain escort vessels (namely Human cruisers.)
The ability to establish Star Bases in the Quadrant.
Meeting the goals of the Council of the New Alliance of Free Stars (similar to Star Control 3, except you're doing what they ask you to do.
Ability to request reinforcements from the Council, or just the ability to buy ship designs from the Council for your Star Bases.
*Traditional Star Control combat is a MUST HAVE.*
The actual details of the gameplay and story elements are kind of vague, being that I wrote this up in about 30 minutes after idea after idea just sort of struck me. I think this works for a proposal, and leaves a lot of space open, no?
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« Last Edit: January 14, 2009, 03:32:11 am by Tim »
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Cedric6014
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Holy crap, I spent he last 30 min composing this post, and then I see some guy called Tim has beaten me to it! Damn you Tim! Awesome ideas though. that is EXACTLY what I'm talking about
This is what I was going to say:
It’s been a while since I’ve been fired about anything Star-Control related. Last time was probably an abandoned melee league. Nothing like having people not show up to kill the fun there.
I think the UQM project has shown us that a bunch of fellows can get along and do the job. You just need the right bunch of fellows.
I’d be keen as the next person to play something, ANYthing in the Star Control universe. What Nicholai is (or was) doing was promising but I think he’s taken on too much himself and so it will take 10 years to complete.
As Shiver says, there needs to have a slave army of programmers and graphics artists subject to the whim of an all powerful creative director. With Nicholai’s project I believe it was mooted that different writers write different dialogue sets. This can work, although I suspect three are precious few of us who can write quality material. We’d all be expecting something as good as SC2.
A peer reviewed tender process would be the way to select the right people.
There are some good ideas out there for SC game plots. Invite submissions for game structure and plot. It can be anything from a re-hash of SC2 with the same old graphics and engine, to something very new and different. All it needs is buy-in from the people that are going to do the actual work.
The final selection can be a hybrid of ideas, as long as people are passionate enough to bring it to life.
Once an idea is chosen, one person is chosen to bring it to life. Possibly the originator of the idea but not necessarily. They’ll need game designing skills. Whoever is chosen is THE BOSS. The PR3 if you will. Ideally this person would write the completed plot and storyline, but not necessarily.
Next, dialogue writers tender for the privilege of being invobled in this master work. Perhaps these writers have ideas on new aliens to contribute to helf fuel their writing. Clearly this would influence the plot.
With any luck half a dozen excellent programmers, plus a couple of graphics artists are foolish enough to indenture themselves to THE BOSS for the duration. THE BOSS needs to have total creative control, even if a lot of a creative work is farmed out to writers.
I think I might open up a new thread for this, and kick it off with an idea of my own. We’ll see what comes of it (no intention of being THE BOSS though).
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Shiver
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Once an idea is chosen, one person is chosen to bring it to life. Possibly the originator of the idea but not necessarily. They’ll need game designing skills. Whoever is chosen is THE BOSS. The PR3 if you will. Ideally this person would write the completed plot and storyline, but not necessarily.
Why would this person need game design experience? I'd settle for a writer with none. I'm not sure if the plan I came up with could ever take off, but peer reviewing is something I can definitely do. The first test someone should have to pass IMO is to present us with a creative writing sample that has no connection to SC2. If they can't write a story of their own well, I don't want them writing Star Control's story.
Tim: I haven't seen any of your actual material, but your post in itself suggests that you aren't qualified to be in charge of the creation of a fan sequel. Random capitalization of words and excessive parenthesis use is not a good sign. Sorry. You are welcome to try and prove me wrong.
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Tim
Zebranky food
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Posts: 10
Bleh.
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Tim: I haven't seen any of your actual material, but your post in itself suggests that you aren't qualified to be in charge of the creation of a fan sequel. Random capitalization of words and excessive parenthesis use is not a good sign. Sorry. You are welcome to try and prove me wrong.
I wasn't looking to be in charge of anything, to be honest, I was just throwing out the idea. The writing was spur of the moment, so not everything was up to par on what it would be after I actually sat down to edit something. My creative processes are a little less than cognitive at times. I'm more than willing to go back and look it over, and properly edit everything into a cohesive idea - later.
I don't capitalize randomly, nor do I usually use parenthesis frequently. I capitalized where I thought a proper name should be used. I'm well aware of the fact that quadrant isn't a proper name, but it should be replaced by one. I do that while brainstorming on occasion, not uncommon for me. I added parenthesis where I was inputting a personal interjection so not to break from the line of thought completely.
e.g.: The Orz return and reveal the 'main bad guy of the story'. (The idea behind this isn't totally fleshed out, but the Orz are just fingers of a darker race that even the Arilou seem to fear. So, the main villain of the story would turn out to be the creatures that control the Orz. The story will explore the darker side of the fish people we all love.) <- This would be proper for what I was doing.
'Introduction of 10 new Alien Races and 10 new Ships. Which will all be freed from the Ur-Quan slave shields.' <- Ugly, no matter how I try to defend it. 'Star Bases' is also ugly.
The 'Things that will occur in the story:' and 'Gameplay ideas:' sections are full of ugly grammar, I know. As I said in the original post, it was just a rough idea I came up with after reading the entirety of the post. That's all, no offense taken. If anything, I'm embarrassed at how sloppy that turned out. I understand the concerns, and I don't want another Star Control 3 - nor do I want another TimeWarp.
If you're interested in seeing any of the writer's credentials for writing, in terms of actual story and depth and background, I'm more than willing to share a project that I've been working on for the past 6 years. It takes a long time for something to become in-depth and at times it can be frustrating if you're not capable of keeping that line of thought for a long time. I've changed around the exact details of this story so many times I can't count it, but everything has stayed together. It would just be the reference dictionary, and background time line that I created for myself, so that I don't stray too far away from my own canonical ideas.
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« Last Edit: January 14, 2009, 06:10:57 am by Tim »
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Cedric6014
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I'm not sure I'd consider what Tim wrote an example of his writing, it was more a storyline or synopsis. The caps for chmmr and avatar arent necessay but who cares.
I'd encourage anyone to post their ideas so good onya Tim, I'd be keen to see an actual story of yours.
I think there are some good ideas in what you've posted.The one I most like are the black spathi squadron, and the orz menace as the new antagonist.
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Dragon
Frungy champion
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Just thought I'd second what Cedric said - nothing meaningful to add though. This is quite interesting!
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« Last Edit: January 14, 2009, 09:03:51 am by Dragon »
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Tim
Zebranky food
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Bleh.
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The Mycon were unable to find peaceful relations with the Alliance, due to their necessary destruction of a certain class of world, in order to rebirth their race. Their lack of any perceived notions of morality, and the lack of any understanding of what an Alliance means, caused the Alliance to have to eradicate the Mycon from the galaxy. This is the one thing I don't like. From dialogue, it seems that the Mycon joined the Hierarchy because they knew they couldn't defeat them. So I would assume they would attempt to join the Alliance, as they cannot defeat them.
I also gave this a little thought last night, before I went to sleep. Every project that I've ever worked on, whether it be a short story, novel, article, technical writing, etc. I have always had creative input from someone else. One person should not be in control of a project like this, it should be a creative and community effort - that everyone decides on as a whole beforehand what the main objective of the project should be. People should be regulated to specific tasks that they want to be regulated to.
For example, there should be no less than two main writers. You need someone to bounce ideas off of when writing, no matter how good you are. No one is capable of thinking of everything, but two people are capable of thinking of a lot more together than they ever would be by themselves.
Two people should be in charge of writing, two people should be in charge of music, two people should be in charge of graphics, and two people should be in charge of coding - at least. No one's perfect, and someone that's just as enthusiastic about something as you are, can provide a lot more quality to the end that you're seeking.
In otherwords, no overlord, group effort. It turns out better. Just make sure everyone lays out deadlines with the group - realistic deadlines. I'm sure someone else can regulate things and explain how to regulate tasks much more clearly, but it's just something I was thinking about.
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Cedric6014
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I also gave this a little thought last night, before I went to sleep. Every project that I've ever worked on, whether it be a short story, novel, article, technical writing, etc. I have always had creative input from someone else. One person should not be in control of a project like this, it should be a creative and community effort - that everyone decides on as a whole beforehand what the main objective of the project should be. People should be regulated to specific tasks that they want to be regulated to.
For example, there should be no less than two main writers. You need someone to bounce ideas off of when writing, no matter how good you are. No one is capable of thinking of everything, but two people are capable of thinking of a lot more together than they ever would be by themselves.
Two people should be in charge of writing, two people should be in charge of music, two people should be in charge of graphics, and two people should be in charge of coding - at least. No one's perfect, and someone that's just as enthusiastic about something as you are, can provide a lot more quality to the end that you're seeking.
In otherwords, no overlord, group effort. It turns out better. Just make sure everyone lays out deadlines with the group - realistic deadlines. I'm sure someone else can regulate things and explain how to regulate tasks much more clearly, but it's just something I was thinking about.
I always envisaged creative input from a variety of sources, with some people taking responsibility for writing different parts, like dialogue for some alien races. I am worried about having too many chiefs though.
I agree that to be successful, this would need the passion of multiple creative people.But I think someone needs the authority to make the final call in a dispute. Unless the creative group votes on it - maybe thats the answer
Also, I'm now a bit uneasy about the thread I made over in General Discussion. The whole point of this excercise is to provide new and exciting surprises ina new game. Doesnt seem smart to meticulously plan every new and exciting surprise on a forum that almost any SC Fan who would play it is going to read.
Strikes me that we should just find the right people and entrust the story building to them. That way we get to play a new game and not know the plot in advance.
I might close down that thread
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Shiver
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A community effort would turn out the way TimeWarp did. Find a project leader or end up with a mess.
Yeah, you're right. Clearly this is a job for Death_999.
I'm sure he could give some valuable input on gameplay or story, but D9 doesn't qualify for project lead either IMO. I enjoy his fan fic, but his writing is nowhere near SC2 quality.
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