I think this kinda storyline would be way better for a RTS than a RPG.

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Original post by ForeverNoobie I think this kinda storyline would be way better for a RTS than a RPG.

Yeah this storyline is sounding more like an RTS. Let's see how this story will end. I thought about it and I have decided that the story is not suited for and RPG. It will not be an RPG but more likely and RTS. Please everyone give me your votes. Is this storyline better for and RTS?

Where's the object lesson?

Ultimately, science fiction is not about aliens or spaceships or wormholes or fascinating technology. Science fiction is about humans, or, more precisely, humanity, and how it responds to various fantastic stimuli. The best science fiction uses elements completely divorced from our everyday to serve as metaphors for our actual, everyday challenges, and to question our existing responses.

Think about all the great, seminal science fiction you know. Aliens are typically a stand-in for people of another race, and relations between humans and non-humans are a metaphor for relations between ethnicities and nations today. Where the aliens are painted as intelligent, civilized, misunderstood, the author is advocating a more friendly engagement with the Other. Where the aliens are painted as savage, threatening, uncompromising, the author is harkening to our hard-wired distrust of difference because it is frequently an indicator of threat. And both authors are not only fully within their rights, but right.

So a bunch of scientists and professional soldiers are sent to colonize another planet. Why? What does the reason for the colonization say about our present behaviors/policies? If the colonists are sent out because Earth's resources are dwindling, is that a cautionary notice to our present rapacious consumption of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases? If the colonists are sent out due to war, is that an allegory for our apparent inability to respect each other's boundaries and get along on this small space-faring rock we call home? Or is it something completely different - a capitalist opus speaking to the splendors of acquisition, to our innate "right" to have, to hold, to know and to use?

Only in providing such subtext can you furnish a tale of interest that lasts beyond its telling. Consider how often films, television shows, cartoons, comics and other narrative forms - including games - ultimately reduce, in terms of plots, to the dramatic ideals of antiquity. That's because the root confrontations, tragedies and comedies pretty much cover the abstract range of human experience, with all difference then being context. Your sci-fi setting and premise are merely context; now find the core that drives the drama.

Good luck!

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Original post by Oluseyi Where's the object lesson? Ultimately, science fiction is not about aliens or spaceships or wormholes or fascinating technology. Science fiction is about humans, or, more precisely, humanity, and how it responds to various fantastic stimuli. The best science fiction uses elements completely divorced from our everyday to serve as metaphors for our actual, everyday challenges, and to question our existing responses. Think about all the great, seminal science fiction you know. Aliens are typically a stand-in for people of another race, and relations between humans and non-humans are a metaphor for relations between ethnicities and nations today. Where the aliens are painted as intelligent, civilized, misunderstood, the author is advocating a more friendly engagement with the Other. Where the aliens are painted as savage, threatening, uncompromising, the author is harkening to our hard-wired distrust of difference because it is frequently an indicator of threat. And both authors are not only fully within their rights, but right. So a bunch of scientists and professional soldiers are sent to colonize another planet. Why? What does the reason for the colonization say about our present behaviors/policies? If the colonists are sent out because Earth's resources are dwindling, is that a cautionary notice to our present rapacious consumption of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases? If the colonists are sent out due to war, is that an allegory for our apparent inability to respect each other's boundaries and get along on this small space-faring rock we call home? Or is it something completely different - a capitalist opus speaking to the splendors of acquisition, to our innate "right" to have, to hold, to know and to use? Only in providing such subtext can you furnish a tale of interest that lasts beyond its telling. Consider how often films, television shows, cartoons, comics and other narrative forms - including games - ultimately reduce, in terms of plots, to the dramatic ideals of antiquity. That's because the root confrontations, tragedies and comedies pretty much cover the abstract range of human experience, with all difference then being context. Your sci-fi setting and premise are merely context; now find the core that drives the drama. Good luck!

Greetings Olyseyi,

How are you? Thank you for your suggestions and for advicing me on how to proceed with my story. I agree with all you said but I'd like to mention something you didn't know. Yes I will find the "core" to drive the drama of this storyline. That I will definately do. That's why I was asking for ideas because people know other things one didn't think of it before. But what are the lessons I want to teach in the story? You thought this story wouldn't have a lesson? Let me explain.

Yes this story is only an outline. I will gradually fill in the gaps to complete what you call the "context" because that is what this "story" and this "ideas" definately are. They are not refined. But I feel I obtained enough stimuli to create this story on my own thanks to everyone's contribution. But let me tell you something. As simple and cliche this story sounds, it will not go about without a meaning to ponder and not without a lesson to teach.

In the other hand, I am the type of people who likes stories that are also visionary, apart of being related to our present human condition. These are stories that give us hope or gets us on a really good fantasy. My motive is primarily an object lesson, thats fine, but secondarily to provide a really good fantasy, an experience of exploration, of doing in a game what we always wanted to do in real life or what we wanted others to do; to go beyond what is real. If I have to use metaphors to convey this idea thats fine. Anything that makes it good.

Best regards

If I may be forthright, your writing is terrible. You punctuate very badly, your construction is ham-fisted an inelegant, and reading your posts feels like listening to you speak at a transit workers' union rally. And don't dare give the excuse that it was a mere forum post; the way you communicate is the way you communicate. Every time you write you exercise your writing skills.

So write better.

Good luck.

My apologies for making a post while not having read all the posts yet in this thread but perhaps a few ideas that came up when reading your plot :

Perhaps make it so it was a exploration mission from one organisation, but the main generator had a malfunction while sending (due to the secret organisation) and now they are stuck, yet new supplies (items, possibilities, data-records, designs or even small robots) can be send via the old prototype version (can only transport dead materials and not too large a size) (Also makes for a dramatic entry, half the team dead due to the generator breaking down, the survivors making the best of it.. using the prototype generator they receive new orders : establish and outpost (secretly this was what the secret organisation had in mind in the first place and they also planted an infiltrant or 2 within the group)

This gives possibilities to update the plot both on the survivors side and the secret organisation side and gives possibilities for new things to be send through when the group needs them to survive.

Also it lends hope to the survivors to return one day.. either via starship or if the main portal goes back online.. perhaps a robot probe send ahead a long time ago they find hints at some artifact that may help them get back..

Plus the survivors outpost could also be complete with settlers arriving just now.. due to the transporter malfunction the main settlement is destroyed/ irradiated.. a small team from the settlement on a outside camp knows of ancient ruins, the new arrivals are treated and taken with them.. perhaps a new start there is possible.. and hence the exploration and reactivation of those ruins to start a new outpost.. and get back in touch with the home world..

Plus why go to that planet and why send a spaceship for the outpost ? perhaps the planet has a certain ore/plant needed that warrants the cost to not only explore but settle the planet. (Material greed offset by say a darker spiritual complot)

[Edited by - Santarr on March 10, 2006 5:43:12 AM]

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Original post by Oluseyi If I may be forthright, your writing is terrible. You punctuate very badly, your construction is ham-fisted an inelegant, and reading your posts feels like listening to you speak at a transit workers' union rally. And don't dare give the excuse that it was a mere forum post; the way you communicate is the way you communicate. Every time you write you exercise your writing skills. So write better. Good luck.

Just because you are a "staff member" doesn't give you the right to critize me as harshly as you have done in the above quotation. You are making it sound like I am a mere idiot. YOU go excercise your "writing skills" because you need it instead of I because you need to learn to speak to people with respect without overusing you power.

Did I really need you to be straight forward and learn about your metaphorically comments? I would have accepted your comments as professional if you had not disrespect me. Now if this hurts your feelings then do what you might usually do to people you don't like, like banning them. I was not born with a gamedev subscription. This is a hobby I like and there are sites full with people with the same likes. Yes I constantly do excersive my writing skills if you tell me or not I was always going to improve.

Now, I won't continue to ask for more ideas. Let this post be closed. A lot of thanks to Yaposai and the rest of kind people.