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sirg:
The fact that some of you are experienced game designers doesn't count to much... many big game companies have designed poor games, and other previously unknown companies have made all time favourite games. So good game design it's more a question of inspiration rather than experience.

Kaeau is pointing some important issues: if you, the designers, are creating this game with the X-COM fans in mind, as the core of your target, than you should stick to the original concept as much as possible, or at least to some key features, including UFO design. Almost everybody "knows" that an UFO hovers "magicaly" in the air and has grey aliens inside. At least, it's what people expect - It's OK that you are coming up with something else, if you are in those guidelines. Personaly I like the current aliens in the game (I hope you aren't planing on changing their models/apperance).

I think that just making a remake is a waste of time, and that's why I find it great that you are coming with an original twist to a cliche background story - aliens invading and set on human extermination/agression.

When I decided to post some of my ideas on the forum/wiki and made an account, didn't know about the progress made with the storyline and about the emphasis on realism. So I proposed some wild ideas, like Dirty Harry's Magnum :) (sorry about that, but I played alot of Fallout and Jagged Alliance 2 and thought it was cool).
Then, Winter did a very good thing, and stated on the wiki that no real world weapons or weapons inspired from other entertainment are considered because of the setting, and he even made a bin for rejected proposals.

Maybe instead of revealing the story to the "non-designers" Winter should add a list of guidlines or things that aren't allowed for equipment, ships, beings, research, etc. That if there still are people wanting to contribute. I see there are fewer people on the forum. Besides it's much more easy to put some guidlines of what's accepted and what's not, rather than the whole story, which would be bad, because it will spoil the mystery.

My opinion regarding realism in video games is that realism is intented to enhance the quality of the game, but in most cases it spoils the fun, with extra complexity or boring tasks and even more bugs. So it's a delicate balance to keep. A game will never be realistic... it will always remain a game, but it has to be plausible and consistent, as Winter says. My impression is that Winter is inventing UFOs and alien technology for Area 51:

--- Quote ---We don't want glowing green lights or spikes anyway. Spikes waste material and serve no function.
--- End quote ---


I think it's quite hard to imagine something none has ever seen. It's also hard to imagine a real human spaceship that would fly to Jupiter and back even though we know how our rockets and spaceshuttles look like and how they work.
My plea to the designers is to let their imagination free, and consider less the fact that some features on a hull are a waste of material, or it's not economical to build some system or feature. Maybe you have a better idea of what's realistic and economical for alien designs, but most of the public has no clue, with the exception of saucer and cigar designs :)

If the aliens have slave races serving them, there is no real concern about their supply of ore or other goods. So they could build a ship shaped after a bird, an insect, a worm or a cube, according to their cultural history, whitout any concern towards waste. The aliens aren't some low budget invading company from outerspace.
The big ship I saw in a mission looks very much like a human shuttle, but features green lighting for alien customers ;) Yes, the aliens also follow the laws of physics, but because their knowledge of physics is centuries ahead of us, we don't have to fill all the gaps, explaining in detail how each of their system or tech works (and by that limiting what it can do with our "understanding" of unknown physics), because we can't know. It doesn't matter that much. We won't play the game in the UFOpaedia screen.

From my experience with SF literature, the best SF writers spend very little time on describing how a future technology or how a system operates. That it's left (mostly) to the imagination of the reader, and the writer concentrates on the story and setting - the experience you are having in that writer's new universe. X-Com had brief UFOpaedia entries for each tech, but at a point I got the whole idea of how the engine rendered a field around the craft that made it gain more speed and minimised the G's for the passengers.

I would like to see ships in the game that I will imagine even after I'm done playing, and still remember them years after. That would be a great design!

Winter:

--- Quote from: "sirg" ---So good game design it's more a question of inspiration rather than experience.
--- End quote ---


Not true. Experience counts in everything, it helps creating good things, and making good things better. What it can't do, however, is make bad things good, which is the problem you're citing in your examples. :P

Bad concept or bad execution, both can kill a game with equal ease.



--- Quote ---Kaeau is pointing some important issues: if you, the designers, are creating this game with the X-COM fans in mind, as the core of your target, than you should stick to the original concept as much as possible, or at least to some key features, including UFO design.
--- End quote ---


I don't see why. As I've said, we're trying to do something a little bit different. Straight-up X-COM clones have been done and are being done; Project Xenocide, for example. I was repulsed by its slavish copying of the X-COM source. They've got near-direct copies of several of the old aliens, they just filed off the serial numbers. Even the team don't seem very excited about what they're doing.

That's my impression, anyway.


--- Quote ---Almost everybody "knows" that an UFO hovers "magicaly" in the air and has grey aliens inside. At least, it's what people expect - It's OK that you are coming up with something else, if you are in those guidelines. Personaly I like the current aliens in the game (I hope you aren't planing on changing their models/apperance).
--- End quote ---


No changes are planned to the already-incorporated aliens. However, just because something has been done so often as to be cliche doesn't mean we have to do it too. I personally loathe cliches. A lot of people will appreciate that we're not doing more of the same old formula.



--- Quote ---When I decided to post some of my ideas on the forum/wiki and made an account, didn't know about the progress made with the storyline and about the emphasis on realism. So I proposed some wild ideas, like Dirty Harry's Magnum :) (sorry about that, but I played alot of Fallout and Jagged Alliance 2 and thought it was cool).
--- End quote ---


Don't worry, no harm done. Now that you know the focus of the game, you can suggest more appropriate things.



--- Quote ---Then, Winter did a very good thing, and stated on the wiki that no real world weapons or weapons inspired from other entertainment are considered because of the setting, and he even made a bin for rejected proposals.

Maybe instead of revealing the story to the "non-designers" Winter should add a list of guidlines or things that aren't allowed for equipment, ships, beings, research, etc.
--- End quote ---


This is a good suggestion, I'll try and get something together.



--- Quote ---That if there still are people wanting to contribute. I see there are fewer people on the forum.
--- End quote ---


There are always fewer people on the forum, but we're slowly getting more and more activity now that the general volume of posts has increased. When I first joined, the Design forum would go for weeks without a new post. :P



--- Quote ---My opinion regarding realism in video games is that realism is intented to enhance the quality of the game, but in most cases it spoils the fun, with extra complexity or boring tasks and even more bugs.
--- End quote ---


We're dedicated to maintaining fun and ease of play. Realism is not itself an obstruction to fun, only bad implementations of realism -- i.e. things that are boring, like filling out paperwork or having to click through unnecessary screens. This is not what we're doing. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that well-implemented realism increases fun by allowing a deeper level of immersion. The only requirement for good realism in any piece of fiction is that you maintain it rigidly.



--- Quote ---I think it's quite hard to imagine something none has ever seen. It's also hard to imagine a real human spaceship that would fly to Jupiter and back even though we know how our rockets and spaceshuttles look like and how they work.
--- End quote ---


There's a lot of things that would change with improved alien technology, but there's also a lot of things that stay the same. Gravity, radiation, thrust -- things that humans know and have observed. There are fundamental concepts that are completely unchangeable. For example, precluding gravitic anomalies and extradimensional holes, you can put more stuff in a big box than a small box. This doesn't change. So if the aliens have no logical reason to make a box smaller than they have to, they wouldn't do it.

Culture or insanity are not a factor in this reasoning due to storyline concerns. The aliens as written are not culture-driven or insane, and very big on conservation of resources.



--- Quote ---My plea to the designers is to let their imagination free, and consider less the fact that some features on a hull are a waste of material, or it's not economical to build some system or feature. Maybe you have a better idea of what's realistic and economical for alien designs, but most of the public has no clue, with the exception of saucer and cigar designs :)
--- End quote ---


That's why we have detailed, engaging writeups with all the necessary iinformation in them. I've done my best trying to explain away some of the nonsensical alien designs we already have, and I think I've managed to bring things into a fairly coherent system -- breaking the system would mean more headaches for me and a much less plausible game overall.



--- Quote ---Yes, the aliens also follow the laws of physics, but because their knowledge of physics is centuries ahead of us, we don't have to fill all the gaps, explaining in detail how each of their system or tech works (and by that limiting what it can do with our "understanding" of unknown physics), because we can't know.
--- End quote ---


We can make a pretty good approximation. Some things that people knew 2000 years ago still hold true today -- our knowledge is centuries ahead of theirs, but not everything has changed because of that.



--- Quote ---It doesn't matter that much. We won't play the game in the UFOpaedia screen.
--- End quote ---


It's intended that the player -- any who are interested -- will spend a considerable amount of time reading the UFOpaedia, getting more deeply involved with the story and gameworld.



--- Quote ---From my experience with SF literature, the best SF writers spend very little time on describing how a future technology or how a system operates. That it's left (mostly) to the imagination of the reader, and the writer concentrates on the story and setting - the experience you are having in that writer's new universe.
--- End quote ---


This works well in story fiction, but technical writing needs more detail and a more mechanical approach -- especially if realism and plausibility is one of the aims. We're trying to make the PHALANX people look competent, so we can't leave glaring errors in their logic or have them ignore obvious possibilities for plot convenience. That's lazy writing and does a disservice to whatever it's attached to.



--- Quote ---I would like to see ships in the game that I will imagine even after I'm done playing, and still remember them years after.[/u] That would be a great design!
--- End quote ---


I'd be willing to talk about redesigning the current UFO fleet, but I wouldn't accept flying saucers, which have been horribly overdone over the years and aren't remotely plausible with alien propulsion as we've defined it.

Regards,
Winter

sirg:
I have changed some of my opinions due some of your previous posts in which we were debating (see the date of the later post). I see more clearly some things regarding the game, anyway, thanks for pointing everything in such detail.

You are right about X-COM clones...

It's great if you are planning on changing some of the UFOs. But I disagree with you on what you say about the aliens, being concerned about economics and waste of material. I mean it doesn't sound plausible to me, that's all. Maybe you imagined the aliens with a different mentality or background, so in your story they are different. My impression was that if the aliens have slave races, then there is no real concern about workforce and raw materials (=cost).


--- Quote ---Now that you know the focus of the game, you can suggest more appropriate things.
--- End quote ---


I'll try to do my best.

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