CURRENT STORYLINE -- SPOILERS!

[Winter]

Rock solid?
That...would be a rather generous statement, given how "light" the story is compared to all the technical fluff.
The XVII virus? The alien empire?
I can understand that you're proud of your achievment and with what you wrote...but calling it Rock Solid is like calling Avatar the most profound and original story ever written.....Ok, not like that, that was a really extreeme example, but you get my drift.

In short, the story doesn't passthe standards you yourself have set for the rest of the game.



Wouldn't that be because the current verion of the game doesn't go that far into the plot?
You can't have people complain when 99% of them don't even know what the plot IS.

Then why do you feel qualified to make judgments on the story when the story isn't complete? Anyone with even the slightest grasp of writing knows that a good story is 1% idea, 99% execution. Amusingly, I've yet to see a single good storyline idea suggested on this forum.

At the end of the day I'm still going to be writing this game, and when all my work is done, I'm going to sit back and reread all the feedback threads where people have expressed their enjoyment of the story and written content. Then I'm going to have a drink in your honour, for giving me yet more incentive to trust my instincts and stay the course.

Regards,
Winter

[weekendwarriora1c]

So you are still looking for storyline submissions?

[TrashMan]

Then why do you feel qualified to make judgments on the story when the story isn't complete?

Because unlike most people who try this game out, I actually read the wiki and forums and I know what your idea for the story is?

Anyone with even the slightest grasp of writing knows that a good story is 1% idea, 99% execution. Amusingly, I've yet to see a single good storyline idea suggested on this forum.

I wouldn't agree with those numbers. A bad plot is a bad plot and remains a bad plot.

Not that you plot is that bad, but compared to other aspects of the game..it's just...luckluster.


Take for example all the design of items, veichles, their description, their background. Very detailed, very focused, a lot of attention being paid to everything being believable or realistic.
And then you have the XVII virus that is more removed from science then Superman. Ironicly, this would work better if the rest of the game didn't have such high standards, but simply because of the glaring contrast, it stands out even more. If the rest of the game was lighter, this wouldn't be such a problem.

And yes, bad story can ruin the game experience. Take for example UFO: Aftershock. I enjoyed the game and the story, up until the point you found out who the enemy really was. It was so utterly stupid it almost completely ruined the end of the game. I still finished it, but it left a sour taste in my mouth.
I'd hate to see UFO:AI do the same thing.


It is your game and your story. I cannot force you to change the ending, I can only give you a honest critique. I've worked on many mods and a few games before, so I'm not talking out of my ass here.
Ignore it if you wish, but don't be surprised when the praise doesn't start pouring in.

[Hertzila]

It also says it has to engineer itself to infect each new set of hosts.

Not in the biological sense. The virus itself doesn't change it's genome but the hosts do.
What you're saying is like talking about genetic engineering humans do to cure genetic diseases like this: "Human race engineers itself to remove the genetic diseases". Basically, it implies the human DNA can naturally modify itself to remove the diseases, while instead it is done by the tech made by humans.

@herzila
as far as i remember, some time ago the devs wrote that, according to the planned plot, the game will be impossible to win.
so, if i remember correctly, phalanx will not be successful.
finally we would have a game that is not all about winning, then.

If this is true (I haven't seen that message), I'm going to be sad. I was really looking forward to blowing the alien mothership(s) into molecules.


About the story, I'll wait 'n' see. Sadly TrashMan has a point, the XVI and the psionics it requires to work is pretty far from reality (as far as we know) but psychic stuff is fairly regularly used in sci-fi so it doesn't bother me that much.

EEDDIITT: And a large one. I had thought that I had read the first post (I guess I accidently read a different post, one without a big story summary) a long time age but it seems not.
I can only say that now I get it why TrashMan and others dislike the story. To be frank, the backstory is... more like a parody of something. A planet sized mothership? Destroying the entire galaxy? Has done it nearly for a million years?
No offence but it seems more like something I and my friends would come up when making our few minute parodies of different things. The difference to the military realism you feel when playing the game is VERY HUGE. The timeline is just ridiculously big and the XVI truly is a total imbecile. I felt much better when I thought this was going to be much more akin to a well-sized empire (not as nearly as big and powerful as the one in summary), controlled by the XVI, of strategic idiots that attack the Earth with way too few forces (with the reinforcements sent not being enough to turn the war whem the humanity has gained some steam) and proceeds to get part of its fleet annihilated by the newly interstellar humanity. Some things would have felt improbable but at least possible.

To try to put it more shortly, the storyline/backgroung info is too long, too huge, too trying-to-be-epic-and-awesome (awesome and epic as measured by the usual internet guy), has too illogical aliens and has too grand scale (THE WHOLE GALAXY?!). It feels like a (slightly ridiculous) parody story that fits a Spaceballs-esque film or a Penny Arcade styled game. Or the Core.

Not to say that there isn't any hope, but I now hold the opinion that it will require a lot more than just a few minor edits to get this to the "military realism" level the rest of the game exhibits.
_{The required} IMHO

[Hertzila]

One more minor note (I'm done editing my last post), there is a simple explanation(s) to the lack of negative feedback: that big spoiler alert in the topic name. For a long time I didn't want to read this topic but curiosity got me finally (sadly I read a wrong post, for some reason, apparently). That is the most important one.
Second one is that in general very few people of the actual playerbase visit he forums (and even then, sometimes just check tech support subforum) of any particular game. The group visiting forums is already a minority, so there is a lot of feedback you won't catch.
And since that summary is nowhere in the game yet, you can only get feedback (angry feedback tends to wake up people to go whine in the forums) when you've already finished it (aka when it's already too late to change much without major overhauls).

Okay, you might get positive feedback too (or neutral, possibly silent, "meh" feedback saying that it's average). But you can get it truthfully only when that summary is in the game files and ships with the standard download link.

[Winter]

Not to say that there isn't any hope, but I now hold the opinion that it will require a lot more than just a few minor edits to get this to the "military realism" level the rest of the game exhibits.
_{The required} IMHO

I'd like to note that the military realism was my idea, too. I had to fight long and hard to keep it in against people who thought it was stupid or irrelevant.

The main thing missing in this forum is a sense of perspective.

Regards,
Winter

[Hertzila]

I'd like to note that the military realism was my idea, too. I had to fight long and hard to keep it in against people who thought it was stupid or irrelevant.

The main thing missing in this forum is a sense of perspective.

Regards,
Winter

Thank you very much for that but this doesn't change the storyline does it? The military realism aspect works in here, it ramps up the immersion a lot. But then the story seems to go from two species fighting into humanity once again kicking the ass of yet another Eldritch Abomination. Which is bad IMO.

[Winter]

Thank you very much for that but this doesn't change the storyline does it? The military realism aspect works in here, it ramps up the immersion a lot. But then the story seems to go from two species fighting into humanity once again kicking the ass of yet another Eldritch Abomination. Which is bad IMO.

Except cosmic horror was exactly the angle we've been going for from the start. Taking on something terrible and powerful beyond imagination with nothing but human implements is an idea that excites me, and has excited gamers in various incarnations for many years (see: [ur=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOOM]DOOM[/url], Delta Green). It's part of what gave the X-COM series its atmosphere, and part of the homage to everything from X-COM to the original Lovecraft stories.

But hey, feel free to turn it into yet another bland Star Wars pastiche. I'm done with UFO:AI for now. Here's your new story, enjoy it.

Regards,
Winter

[TrashMan]

A powerful enemy? Sure, there has to be a sense of danger.
Really alien, different enemy? That gives the horror vibe. It doesn't have to be an Eldritch Abomination to get that effect. For example - see shivans in Freespace.


But the gist is the following.

If you make the enemy TOO powerful, then human winning is downright redicolous. An empire that controls entire GALAXIES - a single planet cannot survive. Impossible. Beyond impossible. It would be like Molassia defeating the United States of America.

My advice would be to tone down the the size and awesomeness of the empire. Especially that "millions of years". In millions of years, their tech and numbers would be so above our it wouldn't even be funny.  They could charge at us barehanded and bury us with their corpses! In other words, make the conflict more believable.


Second would be the XVII virus itself. Changing it's backstory itself shouldn't be too difficult, since it's still not fully integrated into the game. And even if it was, the story/reports would need change, nothing else. So basicly, instead of a sentient, telepathic virus (which is scientificly utterly redicolous), make it a "normal" virus, one engineered to make a species succeptable to psionic control from the big bad(s). There's a lot of wiggle room as to who made the virus and who is pulling the strings.


EDIT:
Cthulu? Lovecraft...Meh...Ok as stories, but not so much for a game. People don't like to loose, and in Lovecraft stories, there is only madness and defeat in the end.

[Winter]

Second would be the XVII virus itself. Changing it's backstory itself shouldn't be too difficult, since it's still not fully integrated into the game. And even if it was, the story/reports would need change, nothing else. So basicly, instead of a sentient, telepathic virus (which is scientificly utterly redicolous), make it a "normal" virus, one engineered to make a species succeptable to psionic control from the big bad(s). There's a lot of wiggle room as to who made the virus and who is pulling the strings.

You call that a good idea? You haven't even addressed who/what the 'big bad(s)' would be, and how in god's name you would make them remotely interesting. I know XVI is a fantastic villain because it's humanity's worst nightmare; an implacable, faceless horror that turns people against their own kind, changing them into ghastly perversions of what they used to be.

So, yeah, whatever. Show me something less 'redicolous' than XVI and we'll talk.

Regards,
Winter

[weekendwarriora1c]

The problem with the story is simply that it does not explain the gameplay.

[TrashMan]

You call that a good idea? You haven't even addressed who/what the 'big bad(s)' would be, and how in god's name you would make them remotely interesting. I know XVI is a fantastic villain because it's humanity's worst nightmare; an implacable, faceless horror that turns people against their own kind, changing them into ghastly perversions of what they used to be.

So, yeah, whatever. Show me something less 'redicolous' than XVI and we'll talk.

Regards,
Winter

Less redicolous?
Anything. Dr. Insano would be less redicolous than the XVII virus.

You're kinda...mixing genres that shouldn't be mixed. Implacabe, faceless horrors are..well...horros. Undefeateble, etc.. I played The UFO series, and I don't recall implacable, faceless Eldritch horrors there.


It comes off as you yourself don't know what you want. You want a faceless horror in a tactical Sci-Fi game? That would be a poor choice from the start, for multiple reasons. This type of game doesn't lend itself well to pure horror (a FPS or adventure type game would be better), partially because of the premise of researching and finding out, analyzing and having heavily armed commandos killing shit and winning.
Part of the horror comes from mistery. And if you find out everything there is about the enemy, he loses a lot of the scary factor.

Well, a virus for one isn't a eldritch abomitation. It's a virus. Faceless tough it may be, it's got no intelligence. But you want some "evil" behind it. So you make it intelligent (stupid as it is)...and psychic (even more stupid).
You seem to think aliens can't be scary enough or strange enough. Well, that shows your failing as a writer, rather than the impossibiltiy of the concept, because truly alien and scary aliens have been done before.

But now I'm going off the tangent.

XVII virus as it is isn't "interesting" as you put it. It's just stupid.

As to who the enemy would be...do you need me for all the answers? You're supposed to be the great writer here, surely you can come up with something to fill in the gaps..But very well. Let's try something, off the top of my head...

So the Alien empire was formed when race X started subjegating other races. It expanded and conquered and soon fell upon the homeworld of race Y. Y was outclasses and was loosing, but they were a race gifted in bioengineering and has psychic powers. So they crafted the virus that would alter the targets brain, making it highy succeptable to psychic suggestion. The virus worked wonders and soon race X became slaves to Y.

From here on you can get creative in multiple ways. Maybe the virus backfired and started affecting race Y, driving them mad. Maybe Y became paranoid and determined to conquer any other race that could possibly harm them?
And maybe, the creators of the virus are simply unknown, their agenda unknown. Would leave thing open for a sequel and gives the air of mistery.

There's doezns of ways one could handle that.


EDIT:
I also noticed you haven't bothered to address point 1, about the huge power disparity.

[NicAdi]

Hello everyone !

My, some rather heated debate going over this storyline business (I might consider saving on my gas bill by simply logging into this Forum for the night... )... Not to mention long-held as well. I am not going to "chip in" with my own ideas on that, though; I've seen how such endeavours are generally treated, and cannot imagine any reason why I'd be even remotely interested in subjecting myself to such grief.
This is, obviously, a one-man (perhaps two?) show... OK, so be it; I don't have an immediate problem with that. Besides, too many "chefs" in the galley could ruin an appetite...

What I would do instead, is to challenge the story, by asking some very simple questions -- some of which could be answered in an equally simple manner by "yes" or "no". For instance:

• Is this fictional planet "Antares" (i.e. homeworld/"prime world" of the infestation) in any way connected with the known star of Antares (a.k.a. Alpha Scorpii)?
• It has been stated in the Timeline/Overview that this infectious agent is "not a real virus, but behaving like one" -- a rather ambiguous statement (to say the least). In what ways it doesn't qualify as a virus, and in what (other) ways does it behave like one, though?
• This particular infectious agent is capable of psionic communication with other instances of itself. Normally, psionic capabilities are attributed to highly-evolved ("high-end") beings possessing large, very complex nervous systems. How does a (presumably) unicellular organism / viral structure achieve such a unique capability? What would the seat of such capability be?
• How does this infectious agent manifest itself in a host organism? What kind of tissues it infects, how does it avoid/control the immuno-response of the host and how it proliferates? It was hinted that, thanks to its psionic abilities, this agent can acquire full control over its host, and maintain it indefinitely; however, it stands reason it will have to first grow and multiply its numbers towards a certain "critical mass" (which may be quite high), before it becomes capable of effectively taking control. During this interregnum, it may be (much more) vulnerable than anytime afterwards...
• The text in the Timeline/Overview is somewhat vague about this ("each living organism making up a tiny part of a larger brain"): Is it the agent itself that can communicate psionically with other copies of itself, found inside different hosts (i.e. the assumption made thus far), or the infected hosts directly between themselves?
• It is stated that the agent "is capable of completely controlling the body of whatever lifeform it infects". What about their *minds*? Can this agent control the minds of its victim, by planting suggestions and forcing them to do its bidding? Can it extract their memories, or use their knowledge to its advantage? Better yet, can it focus the minds of its victims into coordinated efforts to solve new (intellectual) challenges?
• According to the Timeline/Overview, this infectious agent was developed as a biological weapon by the Military, yet ended up being used (and in quite a liberal manner -- "abused") for ensuring political leverage, by a certain group of interests. How was that even remotely possible?! One could safely assume the Military would have: a) Developed the weapon in strict secrecy, and b) Maintained control over it at all costs. How could have ended in the hands of some (presumably) temporarily elected officials?!

P.S.: Please note these questions only deal with the *first entry* in the Timeline/Overview; if some of them are answered in the following entries, then you're welcome to ignore them. However, since these are questions likely to be raised based on the first entry alone, perhaps it would be more appropriate to address them on-the-spot, rather than later...

P.P.S.: This plot sounds pretty much like a biological mirror of the Star Trek's Borg Collective. They (the writers) had trouble in dealing with a truely collective foe, so they had to invent the Borg Queens -- a very controversial move, hated by most hard-core fans... Perhaps there's a lesson in there for the wise.

[Telok]

I don't think that the current plotline is bad in any way, it's just needs polishing and details. It really is just an outline in the current form and needs to be fleshed out.

If you wish to contribute then please do so.

This is somebody else's sandbox, you are a guest here. Please refrain from pissing on the toys.

[Hertzila]

I presume you have read the wiki but a couple of things I think I could answer based on the research texts.

How does this infectious agent manifest itself in a host organism? What kind of tissues it infects, how does it avoid/control the immuno-response of the host and how it proliferates? It was hinted that, thanks to its psionic abilities, this agent can acquire full control over its host, and maintain it indefinitely; however, it stands reason it will have to first grow and multiply its numbers towards a certain "critical mass" (which may be quite high), before it becomes capable of effectively taking control. During this interregnum, it may be (much more) vulnerable than anytime afterwards...

The immuno-response issue is at least one key reason for the re-engineering of XVI for different species. It has to use and abuse everything to stand a chance against it. And especially at the early infection, when there isn't much of it, it's logical to assume it's at its most vulnureable state.
The critical mass thing might be to avoid tipping the host off that he/she is infected. If the XVI would start to infect the central nervous system too early the host might seek medical attention rather quickly.

It is stated that the agent "is capable of completely controlling the body of whatever lifeform it infects". What about their *minds*? Can this agent control the minds of its victim, by planting suggestions and forcing them to do its bidding? Can it extract their memories, or use their knowledge to its advantage? Better yet, can it focus the minds of its victims into coordinated efforts to solve new (intellectual) challenges?

/*This is partly speculation based on my own logic*/ Based on the level it infects the brain I don't think there is any mind residing under the XVI. It basically turns the brain into a processor/HDD for the hivemind with memories and such intact (the one guy who was infected from PHALANX was evidently behaving fairly normally, otherwise he would have been catched earlier). It does seem lossy though, since it doesn't get sentience until a few hosts get near each other and the hivemind gets enough power despite the fact that the XVI infects sentient beings.


Sorry for the late response and welcome to the forums!

This is somebody else's sandbox, you are a guest here. Please refrain from pissing on the toys.

*sigh* Not these "If you don't like it STFU or GTFO" people again... In an open source project no less...