- Joined
- Jul 31, 2013
- Messages
- 387
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This is an entirely opinionated exposition of extremes. Reading further may be a trigger risk. The writer is not liable for any ill humors, exorcisms, plague, sociopathy, or indeed realism.
The Importance of RP
Why, do a single one of you do anything in a sandbox? Do you remember playing with Lincoln Logs or Legos? Is a virtual environment more natural for you instead? Does it matter? What matters in this (and any) game, is your avatar. You protect it, you risk it, you often kill it, but in it is you. You are not bound by your avatar, it is a fiction, a proxy. Your avatar is bound by you. Your impulses, your desires, your goals. I have always argued games, virtual environments, and other uses of software can be works of or tools for art and expression. Minecraft proved that...and look where we are now?
How about making maps...for nearly any game. Did you design your own fortress? Or perhaps the fortress of your enemy, and numerous obstacles besides.
Your avatar, regardless of anything else, you know to be separate from yourself. You cannot in any way fact say that you do not RP. Even more especially when lead is headed downrange and you are downrange, as in action and fps titles.
Where We Are Now
There are a myriad of server options. Playing with legos (and other single player actions) was good enough for me to start, but why not branch out? Let my freak flag fly, as it were. In theory, easy, find a concentration of players and have at. In practice…much more difficult. The largest servers (nearly any game/platform) cater to as wide an audience as possible. Can you find RP there? Yup. You must also be prepared to have your lovingly crafted social space destroyed by not even an agressor, but collateral damage.
Some of even those large servers though protect sectors, and indeed back them up. That's steps in the right direction.
Unlimited social space. We have literally a scaled way down version of our own universe. Sure it's based on a grid, it still exhibits scattering, random action, and distance in a way that only games like KSP (science) and NMS (AAA) are trying to match.
Factions (as they are here) and sadly, the council seats, are weighted. This is good, because it draws the people needed for certain tasks and responsibilities. This is bad because of an inherent narrowing of interest. The community has spoken, and for the most part the vocal community has been the prevailing factions. This again is good, because it promotes teamwork, imagination, and technique. This is bad because it forces an extremely conservative bent on future attempts at progress.
An intensive search through the publicly (main menu!) listed servers will provide nearly every possibility. Can you name a one where it is not your Steve, or guy? There needs to be something connecting your own action figure to the world of the game. That connection is RP.
(Yep, I am rambling, and it will continue)
An Apology
I hope to offend noone. I am sure however I will, so I apologize. This is an opinion piece, on a whim, and if you don't like it so far, please stop reading. Also, I am unashamedly biased toward my own servers population, deal with it.
Moving Forward
The lore for starmade, if I had any kind of influence, would be broad. The near infinite configuration possibilities of entities in game speaks to this. The old (also ugly, poorly fitted, and dangerous) pirate stations were wrapped in what was either crazy alien tentacles or a very strangely shaped asteroid or mass. The freedom of voxel creation, especially with angles and slabs, let's us go from organic, to mechanical, to back again and to places not described so simply.
I do happen to have a bunch of talented writers and a will to use them. Each one of my players surpassed me a long time ago, and have been continually surpassing themselves. The enclosed server environment with a friendly (also a bit unrealistic, but friendly) community, has bred some interesting fiction.
Immersion
The keystone to my tirade of mostly unintelligible verse, is immersion. A joke to some, a serious reality to every game developer since MUD 1. Schine is moving in the right direction, giving depth with npcs and factions, perhaps that even do things. That's all I ask, that and a serious (and open) discussion on the story, the lore, some of us are sure that the grey cat or someone on his team has these ideas bottled. I am aware that a beautiful fiction in a virtual world can be horribly marred by choosing some tiny definition arbitrarily or not.
PS: If you made it this far, I hope you're thinking. This here provided for us by the team of the grey cat is, possibly perfect for present practice among proving grounds prospects.
*bows*
The Importance of RP
Why, do a single one of you do anything in a sandbox? Do you remember playing with Lincoln Logs or Legos? Is a virtual environment more natural for you instead? Does it matter? What matters in this (and any) game, is your avatar. You protect it, you risk it, you often kill it, but in it is you. You are not bound by your avatar, it is a fiction, a proxy. Your avatar is bound by you. Your impulses, your desires, your goals. I have always argued games, virtual environments, and other uses of software can be works of or tools for art and expression. Minecraft proved that...and look where we are now?
How about making maps...for nearly any game. Did you design your own fortress? Or perhaps the fortress of your enemy, and numerous obstacles besides.
Your avatar, regardless of anything else, you know to be separate from yourself. You cannot in any way fact say that you do not RP. Even more especially when lead is headed downrange and you are downrange, as in action and fps titles.
Where We Are Now
There are a myriad of server options. Playing with legos (and other single player actions) was good enough for me to start, but why not branch out? Let my freak flag fly, as it were. In theory, easy, find a concentration of players and have at. In practice…much more difficult. The largest servers (nearly any game/platform) cater to as wide an audience as possible. Can you find RP there? Yup. You must also be prepared to have your lovingly crafted social space destroyed by not even an agressor, but collateral damage.
Some of even those large servers though protect sectors, and indeed back them up. That's steps in the right direction.
Unlimited social space. We have literally a scaled way down version of our own universe. Sure it's based on a grid, it still exhibits scattering, random action, and distance in a way that only games like KSP (science) and NMS (AAA) are trying to match.
Factions (as they are here) and sadly, the council seats, are weighted. This is good, because it draws the people needed for certain tasks and responsibilities. This is bad because of an inherent narrowing of interest. The community has spoken, and for the most part the vocal community has been the prevailing factions. This again is good, because it promotes teamwork, imagination, and technique. This is bad because it forces an extremely conservative bent on future attempts at progress.
An intensive search through the publicly (main menu!) listed servers will provide nearly every possibility. Can you name a one where it is not your Steve, or guy? There needs to be something connecting your own action figure to the world of the game. That connection is RP.
(Yep, I am rambling, and it will continue)
An Apology
I hope to offend noone. I am sure however I will, so I apologize. This is an opinion piece, on a whim, and if you don't like it so far, please stop reading. Also, I am unashamedly biased toward my own servers population, deal with it.
Moving Forward
The lore for starmade, if I had any kind of influence, would be broad. The near infinite configuration possibilities of entities in game speaks to this. The old (also ugly, poorly fitted, and dangerous) pirate stations were wrapped in what was either crazy alien tentacles or a very strangely shaped asteroid or mass. The freedom of voxel creation, especially with angles and slabs, let's us go from organic, to mechanical, to back again and to places not described so simply.
I do happen to have a bunch of talented writers and a will to use them. Each one of my players surpassed me a long time ago, and have been continually surpassing themselves. The enclosed server environment with a friendly (also a bit unrealistic, but friendly) community, has bred some interesting fiction.
Immersion
The keystone to my tirade of mostly unintelligible verse, is immersion. A joke to some, a serious reality to every game developer since MUD 1. Schine is moving in the right direction, giving depth with npcs and factions, perhaps that even do things. That's all I ask, that and a serious (and open) discussion on the story, the lore, some of us are sure that the grey cat or someone on his team has these ideas bottled. I am aware that a beautiful fiction in a virtual world can be horribly marred by choosing some tiny definition arbitrarily or not.
PS: If you made it this far, I hope you're thinking. This here provided for us by the team of the grey cat is, possibly perfect for present practice among proving grounds prospects.
*bows*
