Glad to have you back, altugi! I saw you lurking on the wiki lately and I hoped you will do some weapons/techs creative writing, while the storyline thing is undecided. Or do you have some fresh storyline ideas or storyline decision process ideas?
Thanks! Yeah, I have been on the wiki last night and I was really curious about the situation of the storyline. But I was a bit dissappointed to see that only a few paragraphs had been added. They were rather corrections or some minor additions.
Actually I am sorry, because I have no fresh storyline whatsoever at hand right now. I had some time to make up my mind about UFO:AI and I came to some conclusions on what to do and how to approach things. They are just for me, say, they are a clarification on how I see things.
First conclusion is that it is just to early to decide on any "big story" for the game. I will prefer to wait until more features and mechanism are implemented in the game. In the past we had a lot of debates with BTaxis about storyline; now they seem obsolete to me (not just because BTaxis sometimes really gives you the feeling that you can't discuss with him, but because we were discussing about something that can't be really decided in this stage of development.) I think the game's core functions and features need to reach a more mature status. Otherwise we just get into each others hair for things that most possibly will never be there.
Second conclusion: As a extension of my first conclusion, I rather prefer to play the game and see what features can be added to make core gameplay more fun and immersive. Here of course, it is more important what coders, modellers and mappers can or will contribute, since it's their products that are the raw material to built a believable story around. It simply doesn't make sense to talk about big big stories while Mattn and others work so hard to make a functional core game. It's just so much over the spot when you talk about a Egypt scenario while on the other hand you miss mappers, see my point? It is not really realistic. I just want to stick with what is there and I don't want to fly too high. It must just sound stupid to people that do the real work when you talk about big big stories.
Third conclusion: Believe it or not, this game already has a story, or a premise that guides the programmers and the artists: "One day the earth was attacked by aliens. We had to fight back in order to survive." You can see this premise in the current version of the game. I think this is what Mattn and others do implement right now. They did not need any big story to bring the game to this point. So I think it works already healthy somehow. As long as this premise is alive, the programmers and artists will stay on track, this is the track they are on for months now and we don't really need more story for the moment. We just need to think of more funtions and details that can be created out of the things that are already there. (The geoscape, tactical missions etc). I believe that, whatever bigger story we wrap around it, our story will basicly consist of the tactical missions and the way the tech-tree develops. That is my opinion.
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In these days I am working on a personal project (totally different genre; sports simulation) and I have to do my military duty in October (it will be just for a few weeks though), so I was and I will be still a bit busy with myself. I will be around, but I can't say anything on my degree of contribution right now. All I want to dofor the moment is to see the games latest version to make up my mind if any bigger working story can be written for it.
