Proposed storyline.

[DiDiT]

A Flamewar? Here?

*Grabs popcorn and takes a front row seat*

Now, This could get interesting!  

[Hertzila]

So, is the plot perfect? I'm not going to give an opinion, since my opinion doesn't matter. All I can say is that it is damned better than I could write. But more to the point, it's their game and their plot. A wise man once taught me that "you can always have your say, but you won't always get your way". I think it's time to move on.

AKA, you can say your honest opinion but it doesn't mean that anybody will hear/listen it. But it sure doesn't mean that I or anybody else would change his/her opinion and/or stop reminding the devs about it.

That said, I do hope to see the future if we get alternate campaigns. <insert complaining of the official campaigns late-game story here> (I may know that the story isn't going to change but ^^^)

A Flamewar? Here?

*Grabs popcorn and takes a front row seat*

Now, This could get interesting! 

I was really hoping this and one another forum would have been free of flame wars. Guess not...

[TrashMan]

I'm not interested in defending either side, but after two years of arguing, there's usually no way to go other than personal attacks, and that does no one any good.

So, is the plot perfect? I'm not going to give an opinion, since my opinion doesn't matter. All I can say is that it is damned better than I could write. But more to the point, it's their game and their plot. A wise man once taught me that "you can always have your say, but you won't always get your way". I think it's time to move on.

If you see a man driving a bus towards the cliff, will you warn him only once? Or will you continue to warn him until the last second?

Yes, I posted my opinion 2 or 3 times already. So? Not like I'm starting these threads. Not like it's forbidden to repeat oneself...3 times over the course of 2 years..that ain't much. Heck, I tell the same joke to the same person a dozen times cause I forgot I told him already.


Also, I wouldn't say your opinion doesn't matter. Any developer - any artist - welcomes feedback...or should welcome feedback. Not that it always comes in the form you'd expect. I know I used to be terribly protective of my work early on...You learn to let go of that with time.

[weekendwarriora1c]

If you report a flaw in the game design, it's a bug.  Everybody's happy.

If you suggest something that might make game play a little smoother, it's a suggestion.  Everybody's happy.

If you suggest something that would make the story mesh with the gameplay, or make better sense, it's a violent, baseless attack against Winter.  Suddenly it's personal.

Honestly, I don't understand how the story can be "permanent" or "irrevocable" while the game is still in beta.  Is there already published fiction for it?  Will the wikipedia page have to be changed?

I think Winter summed up his view of things pretty well when he said there has never been a single good storyline idea on the forum.  Really, let's just lock this, lock the main storyline thread, and make it plain that it's not open to discussion.  It obviously is not open to discussion.

[Destructavator]

Part of the reason the plot has been fixed as mostly "permanent" is because a long time ago, before this was done, people would come and go changing all kinds of things back and forth and turning the project into a senseless mess, and progress wasn't really very possible.  No plot can please everyone, and if it was changed for every person who came along and wanted something different, the same problem would occur.

That being said, as far as I know YES, alternate campaigns ARE welcome - I would like to see this and I recall Mattn favoring the idea as well.  It would be VERY nice to have multiple games available for the player to choose from, with different plots and scenarios.  I wish people would get this concept and be constructive by working on developing such alternate campaigns, but why they choose to instead be destructive in trying to tear down the existing plot which the development has been following for years now, just taking all that long hard work and throwing it in a garbage bin, just baffles me.  This isn't a hard concept guys, just un-zip the "ufos.pk3" file and open the .ufo files with a text editor such as wordpad.  You'll see that all the game scripts are in plain English, complete with comments on how they work, you don't need to be a programmer to build your own campaign!

Edit:  ...And if people would get around to building their own campaigns, I would ask Mattn for even setting aside a forum section for such a thing, and hopefully they could make it into the complete program as they become complete.  Those script files determine just about everything, from what models and artwork to use, what research topics exist and what order they come in, how the weapons work, etc., just about everything.

[keybounce]

The main storyline for the primary campaign won't likely be changed, but if you want to push this for an alternate game campaign, it may work, although you may have to do at least some of the work involved in implementing it yourself.  (You can actually do quite a bit with the script files, which don't require programming know-how.)

Where is the current story plot defined? (Where in the script files, and where in the code files?)

[Winter]

To sum up my response from both(!) arguments with TrashMan into one thread:

Let me be completely open, honest and non-hostile here. None of this is meant to offend and I'll try not to use any strong language. It will, however, be the last I ever say on the matter. No further responses discussing any version of the storyline will be forthcoming.

First, I'll start off with an apology to TrashMan and anyone else with whom I've gotten frustrated in the past. I'm sure I've been out of line more than once.

Now . . . What TrashMan and others are asking me to do is change my vision of the game, one that I've been working on for the past 4(!) years, and one that I have always believed in. They want me to write their ideas while removing my own. Considering I'm not getting paid for this job and am doing it solely for the love, that's not how things work. It's not why I'm here. Whenever Destructavator very reasonably mentions the ability to create alternate campaigns, which he's done repeatedly for several years now, nobody seems to listen -- I can only assume it's because none of the people involved actually want to put in the work.

Well, I've been putting in the work for a VERY long time, and while there are certain areas of the backstory that I actually want to work on (the Mumbai massacre for example was good when we came up with it, but it hasn't stood in line with the developing game), the concepts of XVI and the cosmic horror angle are things I'm proud of. I was given the role of design lead after showing my vision for the game and my willingness to see things through to the end. That's what I'm gonna do. That involves changing my plans after discussing them with the design team (I come up with plenty of bad ideas that get dropped by the wayside), as well as sticking to my guns when I feel I'm right.

Like Destructavator, let me encourage any dissenters to create their own campaign, especially one designed by committee. It might help you understand where the project admins are coming from. Without someone to decide the creative course of the main campaign, we'd be back to where we started in August 06, everyone pulling the game in every direction, adding and removing material at random without any kind of structure. I don't think anybody who remembers those days particularly wants to see them again. I certainly don't; I worked way too hard to help bring the game where it is right now, which in my opinion is a place of serious awesome.

I'm curious what you all will think of the rewrites when they're completed, but I know they're not going to be nearly far-reaching enough for some. That's why this will be my one-stop explanation and reasoning. I'm not going to close any topics, I just won't be reading along.

Later.

Regards,
Winter

[Kildor]

Winter, I`ve reread the current storyline, and I have only one arguing. Please, do not call the organism as "virus". Call him as «agent», «parasite», «any-other-word», but not «virus». As biologist, I can`t agree with this label for this organism. You don`t name bat "bird", since it can fly, you name it "animal", right?

Agent of biological infiltration, as example, what`s wrong with this terms?

[Winter]

Winter, I`ve reread the current storyline, and I have only one arguing. Please, do not call the organism as "virus".

See those rewrites I mentioned? That's in there.

Regards,
Winter

[TrashMan]

That being said, as far as I know YES, alternate campaigns ARE welcome - I would like to see this and I recall Mattn favoring the idea as well.  It would be VERY nice to have multiple games available for the player to choose from, with different plots and scenarios.  I wish people would get this concept and be constructive by working on developing such alternate campaigns, but why they choose to instead be destructive in trying to tear down the existing plot which the development has been following for years now, just taking all that long hard work and throwing it in a garbage bin, just baffles me.  This isn't a hard concept guys, just un-zip the "ufos.pk3" file and open the .ufo files with a text editor such as wordpad.  You'll see that all the game scripts are in plain English, complete with comments on how they work, you don't need to be a programmer to build your own campaign!

Just FYI - I never wanted or proposed a complete re-write.
Only changing a few things, that gameplay-wise would amount to changing some research descriptions and entries in the ufopedia.
Mechanicly, and from a programing standpoint, nothing would change.

I worked on enough projects to know that things are interlinked, and you're VERY careful about what you change, and how it affects the project as a whole.

[keybounce]

Whenever Destructavator very reasonably mentions the ability to create alternate campaigns, which he's done repeatedly for several years now, nobody seems to listen -- I can only assume it's because none of the people involved actually want to put in the work.

Alright, how do you define a new campaign?
Where in the script files is it defined?
What additional coding is needed to add a new one?

Where is the current campaign defined?

[Destructavator]

Alright, how do you define a new campaign?
Where in the script files is it defined?
What additional coding is needed to add a new one?

Where is the current campaign defined?

Well, it really depends on *what* you want to change - I'd start by reading the "campaign.ufo" script file, but please understand it isn't centralized all into one specific file.  If you want to change research topics and how they work, look at the research-related .ufo files, they let you change, add, or delete research topics and what triggers making them available when.  If you want to change the models, those are in many different files, but yes, you can make the game load alternate MD2 files, and so on.

I'd read through all the .ufo files to get a good understanding of how the game mechanics work, and then you should be able to figure out what to change to make what you want to do work.

[homunculus]

[...]the concepts of XVI and the cosmic horror angle are things I'm proud of.[...]

paradoxically, it seems that the reason why people tend to like such grotesque cosmic horror fetish fantasies is, as i am very much convinced, the same reason why some discussions get so heated in the forum.
and a good dev shows compassion to people who have become lost in a cosmic horror fantasy about how the story is all wrong.

btw, as far as i remember, the original x-com ufo games have always been about fetish fantasies rather than common sense.
just that an 8 soldier team has never before been claimed to be stronger than all the armies of the earth combined (a direct result of writing about the mumbai massacre, which will now hopefully be replaced with something less cheesy).

[Legendman3]

A Flamewar? Here?

*Grabs popcorn and takes a front row seat*

Now, This could get interesting!  

Rofl

[TrashMan]

Well, if you managed a whole ARMY then it wouldn't be a SQUAD-based tactical game, now would it?

Granted, you can have several squads, but the realism point still stands. Just make sure to tell the player that he isn't the only one fighting the aliens and that Phalanx is used in tactical missions. Large-scale battles are left to the regular military.

So Phalanx are more like commandos and less like an army fighting the aliens alone.