Re: Comment on HowItStarts in project6014
proje...@googlecode.com
This might be a good place to point out the general status quo of known
space, as P6014 plays in an era where the Ur-Quan cannot be confident about
their power to say the least. Both the Kohr-Ah and the Kzer-Za are
weakened, and have 20000 years worth of history behind them in which they
left some footprints in the form of enslaved/eliminated/homeless races,
Slave Shields, resupply bases, ship wrecks etc, -- things they have no
control of anymore. This historical condition is probably a necessary key
for making the player feel the general atmosphere of the story.
Considering this background would also at least give us some interesting
questions to answer, like ...
"how Slave Shielded races did or didn't manage to survive?"
or "What happened to other (unknown) battle thralls?"
or "How did the Second Doctrinal Conflict affect the integrity of the
Hierarchy?"
or "How new sentient species did rise without being immediately enslaved
while in arms range with the Hierarchy?"
For more information:
http://code.google.com/p/project6014/wiki/HowItStarts
proje...@googlecode.com
Well I've played the demo and really enjoyed it. The story so far is an
excellent spring board to something greater. There's a new area of space to
explore and a new enemy to fight.
The changing of ships part way though is not a problem to me. After all,
there's still the Mark II to be found ;)
proje...@googlecode.com
weirdsoup: Good to hear you liked it! Hope you're gonna like the demo 0.2.
also, coming in November '11...
Kwayne: Those are interesting questions, and most of them will play quite a
big role in the plot! It would definitely add to the atmosphere to add some
non-functioning old resupply bases/starbases etc even if they had no
functionalities other than a nice lander team text. Got to put it on the
todo list...
proje...@googlecode.com
Is the demo separate from the main story? Or there's something that
prevents meeting the new races before obtaining the precursor starship and
the orb?
proje...@googlecode.com
What about Mark II? If the story jumps over that part of history, four
years doesn't seem enough.
proje...@googlecode.com
We should devise some kind of restriction in style of SC2. Maybe the Chmmr
have rigged the Explorer in such way that you can only access certain areas
of the galaxy / go certain distance from Procyon. Otherwise it will become
too much of a burden to build separate storylines for completing the game
with two different ships / not obtaining the orb.
Let's have the Precursor ship found in this game the Mark II!
proje...@googlecode.com
I remember somebody (Megagun ?) suggested that kind of restriction, making
you experience very deeply the dictatorship the Chmmr are imposing on the
galaxy right from the beginning of the game.
I'm all for having the Mark II in this game, but the graphic assets we have
at this point are not consistent with the art from SC2's ending cinematics.
proje...@googlecode.com
Oh yeah, canon thing. (What I suggested in my last, grammatically
handicapped message was that the Precursor battlecruiser found at the Orb
planet could be Mark II... but I don't think this is a big problem anyway.
We can leave Mark II to project 6015 ;)
I wonder what would be the best way to impose the restriction. Easiest
would be at least to make a barrier into hyper.c which prohibits going
further than certain HS coordinates. Another would be having a
Chmmr "advisor" on board the Explorer who says something annoying in a comm
screen if you cross the threshold.
proje...@googlecode.com
The distance limit sounds better. The Shofixti clue markers might be pulled
closer to the northeast corner, so the explorable territory could cover
less space, leaving more for the rest of the game.
So we find the Mark II on the orb planet... the Captain might even try to
operate it, but the only thing he gets from the ship interface is a
mysterious message: "Not yet!"
We have to use the derelict service ship instead, but we need to patch it
up and get some fuel. The Mark II might be a factory ship that could make
the repairs. (Remember the Mark II type circular ships were the mainstream
Precursor ships that were most possibly used to construct the Rainbow
Worlds)
proje...@googlecode.com
or then, just leave Mark II out... a junkyard planet of abandoned Precursor
ships might be too good to be true :)
I would go with the distance limit too. One idea was to have a small Chmmr
fleet follow captain around wherever he goes and enforce he can't go too
far, but that would pose several problems. Like why couldn't they be used
to combat the Lurg and other baddies then? Or if they could be used, why
should the player bother to buy any escort ships with his own cash.
proje...@googlecode.com
How about instead of following you round, a Chmmr fleet shows up (really
quickly) when the distance limit is breached?
proje...@googlecode.com
Or another idea, instead of having the Chmmr enforce it, make the rest of
space *way too dangerous* (like full of Kohr-Ah) until the player deals
with that somehow or gains a cloaking device or something.
proje...@googlecode.com
An alternative would be that when you get the Chmmr give you the ship they
warn you that it is experimental and untested.. and if you go too far away
from their space your ship could break down and have to be towed back to
friendly space..?
proje...@googlecode.com
An alternative would be that when the Chmmr give you the ship they warn you
proje...@googlecode.com
To allow for multiple pieces of cannon you could say that the explosion of
the Sa-Matra may have generated a rip in space. So from the moment the
explosion happened multiple parallel worlds diverged. This would allow TFB
to change anything they want (6014 is just an alternate universe!) and
could explain Star Control 3 too.
proje...@googlecode.com
Though it's basically a good idea, I think it's also a cheap way to give up
on canon. Treating our storyline alternative in a same way as we treat Star
Control 3 alternative is kind of depressing -- like we're going for the
same level. However we're not the original authors so we may end up using
such a plot device.
I'd like to suggest something before doing that though:
If it's possible we should contact TFB, show them P6014 when it's near
complete. Ask them how much they agree with our concepts and storyline. If
they say the majority of it is not what they ever intended to make, then
okay, we worked enough already so we go with the alternative universe
trick. In the case they say they love it all or more likely there is a
comfortably correctible amount of difference, I think going for the true
canon does worth whatever extra work we're still willing to do.
I mean it would be an absolute total victory over the Star Control 3
disaster, so we should give a chance for a miracle to happen.
proje...@googlecode.com
I don't think it matters whether p6014 is seen as canon or not. We're
striving for it to be considered as canon, but if it's not, we can just
continue to propose it to the community as something worthy of canonicity.
Pulling a "this is an alternate universe" kind of thing will only detract
from the entire experience and feel a bit silly. The fact that it's not
canon is implied by labelling p6014 as a "fan project" or "fan sequel".
As far as the restrictions from the Chmmr go: I've already noticed that
they were implemented (partially?) with the conversations about not being
able to land on homeworlds. This could be explained further by either
having some onboard Chmmr personality (virtual or physical) or even a
hyperwave broadcast link to the Chmmr homeworld (which might not work
properly due to the hyperwave broadcast lag implied with the
instant-communication the Exotics have, if we still go with that plot).
There could even be some kind of Melee bit where the Chmmr give Zelnick the
advice to not attack a certain ship. If Zelnick chooses to attack that
ship, the Explorer is disabled remotely (show some fancy graphics for
that?) and the weapons won't fire anymore.
It's been a while since I've read that original plot developmet document,
and I've been a bit out of the loop, so these ideas might not work properly
anymore.
proje...@googlecode.com
The restrictions of the Explorer could be simply programmed into its
navigation computer. The Chmmr might explain this by saying they don't want
the test type of their ship go too deeply into uncharted territory where
god knows what happens to it, but experiencing restrictions in a ridiculous
amount of cases reveals that the Chmmr doesn't trust us at all. Crew
messages might also complain from time to time, about the food vendor
machine giving useful diet advices, elevators suggesting to go up instead
of down (like in Douglas Adams' Restaurant at the end of the Universe),
computers eavesdropping, and generally butting in into crew affairs. The
last message reaches a final question: "Why does this ship have any
personnel at all?"
The first serious obstacle to P6014 becoming a real sequel to SC2 is the
stuff Grandpa Zelnick tells to his grandchildren in the end sequence, which
can be twisted out linguistically so it fits our timeline, but there is a
simple solution to this particular problem:
The protagonist of P6014 doesn't have to be Zelnick at all. Same universe,
same canon, same characters, yet you don't play the role of the same guy
who took a Precursor ship and blown up the Sa-Matra, found Mark II and
waited five years to marry Talana. That guy is elsewhere, probably went
coreward to save the universe, or he became stranded on Earth doing the
missing paperwork after all the stuff that happened in SC2, and receiving a
formal military training which he probably didn't get on Unzervalt.
proje...@googlecode.com
Well, the parallel worlds thing is just an idea. We'll always come up
against canon unless we get the approval from and work with TFB. Yes, it's
a cheat. The last Star Trek movie did the same kind of cheat, and people
let the parallel worlds thing pass. I had thought of it being something
that the Arilou mention. Make it mysterious. Don't have it in the intro
(like SC3). "We live outside your universe. Since the battle with the
SaMatra things things have fragmented. There are echoes of your time and
space that you are not aware of." And never mention it again.
I hate the idea of no Zelnick! But Grandpa Zelnick does mention: "Oh we
intended to come right home...we got a little sidetracked. Talana and I
didn't make it back here to Unvervalt until almost five years later."
And how are you going to handle the Mark II? I was thinking of ending the
UQM-HD game to have a twist reveal that ship is just a shuttle that takes
you to the 6014 Mark II. At least until the TFB sequel.
proje...@googlecode.com
In the ST universe the parallel worlds idea was already estabilished when
the reboot was made, using that trick there was legitimate. The reboot was
made in such a way because the original universe was boring compared to
today's artistic standards and literature style. A Star Control sequel
doesn't need and doesn't support such an excuse.
Having a different protagonist is a simple, less questionable way to not
bump too much into the future plans of TFB.
proje...@googlecode.com
Hey guys, I really like where this is going! I wrote a bit of an extension
to the 6014 quest before I actually read this post, so it veers off the
storyline so far, but I'd like to help write any part of 6014 that you guys
need help with. If you'd like to use any part of my extension, go ahead. I
can also write whatever is needed to push the story/gameplay ahead!
http://star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=661
proje...@googlecode.com
Is it cancelled, why has there been absolutely no news that ve seen for two
years?
For more information:
https://code.google.com/p/project6014/wiki/HowItStarts