I personally don't have a problem with the setting as is, so the discussion maybe just for consideration sake.

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The "Eden Project" was initially started off as a collaboration between the world's seven continents to build massive self-contained space voyagers.

This sentence sounds a little funny because one of the seven continents is Antarctica, since it does not have its own government.

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It's not that these people, plants and animals in SEA are immune. It's just that "miraculously" the continent is spared from the plague (the virus is not airborne). The real reason of this is part of the storyline of the game - along the course of the game the player will realize that there're no miracles in this world. Everything happens for a reason.

Now it depends on whether you consider this miracle blackbox part of the vital information for someone to see whether the setting is too farfetched or cliche.

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They are stuck in SEA because the rest of the lands are tainted by the virus. Think of it as this way - these viruses are incredibly aggressive (killing living beings through accelerated necrosis affecting both plants and animals) but have a very short lifespan, which prevents them from spreading too far away from the intended target. So if these viruses would have burnt itself out in a matter of days, why did these survivors had to make the journey towards SEA? Why not wait until the virus is gone and then start life anew? Two reasons: (1) They don't know the virus have a short life and (2) the virus left them with zero natural resources: all plants, wild animals and lifestock are consumed.

What about the ocean? Is ocean life affected by the virus? Is it only the land of SEA that is miraculously protected? What does the boundary of the miracle look like?

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Those who left the Combine traveled north and eventually settled down in Oasis. They eventually merged with the Lorekeepers whose sole objective in life is to rediscover pre-desertion knowledge, forming a semi-religious order known as the Awakened Order.

What do the Lorekeepers do to rediscover the knowledge?

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Cliche

Objectively, what do you think sets your setting apart from the other games? (Instead of focusing what is similar, focus on what is disimilar for the moment.)

For me that only difference is the mentioning of South East Asia.

Other things in the setting that do not ring a bell:
o Apocalypse
o Abandonment by authority
o Epidemic of massive deaths
o Mutation
o Wars, violent rebellion
o Militant factions
o Conspiracy
o People competing for resource
o People fighting against discrimination
o Conflict escalating into fights
o Protagonist starting in a quiet little village
o Fighting stops after great losses suffered by both sides

I think that given a design, most of the items in it would not ring any bell. The player is going to focus on the new stuff. So the size of the old stuff does't really matter.

To be fair, here is a complementary list of what would ring a bell (for me). I am not suggesting you to make any change, I am just trying to show that such a list exists.

o Modern setting that is not about military or apocalypses
o Interaction that is independent to the government or authority
o People cooperating under factors that prevents them from doing so
o Conflicts resolved
o Protagonist starts as an integrated member in a social setting
o Violent conflict without guns or medieval weapons
o Violent conflicts committed by individuals instead with no association to organizations.

[Edited by - Wai on July 12, 2010 6:38:02 PM]

@Wai

1. Yes, you are right. Epic fail here. *bangs head on table*. Seven eden ships tore into space, one caught the icy flu and then there were six...

2. I can't reveal anything about this part without spoiling the plot. What I meant was, there's an explanation as to why SEA was spared from the virus, and part of the plot deals with this particular plot device.

3. Oceans are not affected by the virus, because it cannot survive in water (if it could, it would have reached SEA through currents and rain). The virus has these characteristics: causes cell necrosis, transmitted through airborne contact, cannot survive in liquids, and have a short lifespan (enough to kill for 2-3 weeks before fizzling out). It is sufficient to say that the virus does not have the capability to spread at all, like pesticide. Now you might ask, how did the world got hit by the virus in the first place if the virus lacks a transmission vector? This is tied to the plot as well: finding out why SEA was miraculously spared from the epidemic will also answer the question of the origin of the virus.

4. Through reverse engineering.

I think it is absolutely great! I love it! Keep it up! :)

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Original post by ruben tan 3. Oceans are not affected by the virus, because it cannot survive in water (if it could, it would have reached SEA through currents and rain). The virus has these characteristics: causes cell necrosis, transmitted through airborne contact, cannot survive in liquids, and have a short lifespan (enough to kill for 2-3 weeks before fizzling out). It is sufficient to say that the virus does not have the capability to spread at all, like pesticide. Now you might ask, how did the world got hit by the virus in the first place if the virus lacks a transmission vector? This is tied to the plot as well: finding out why SEA was miraculously spared from the epidemic will also answer the question of the origin of the virus.

Not even remotely plausible.

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Original post by MSW Quote: Original post by ruben tan 3. Oceans are not affected by the virus, because it cannot survive in water (if it could, it would have reached SEA through currents and rain). The virus has these characteristics: causes cell necrosis, transmitted through airborne contact, cannot survive in liquids, and have a short lifespan (enough to kill for 2-3 weeks before fizzling out). It is sufficient to say that the virus does not have the capability to spread at all, like pesticide. Now you might ask, how did the world got hit by the virus in the first place if the virus lacks a transmission vector? This is tied to the plot as well: finding out why SEA was miraculously spared from the epidemic will also answer the question of the origin of the virus. Not even remotely plausible.

Mind expanding on that?

[Edited by - ruben tan on September 21, 2010 7:17:44 PM]

I like the story, it's interesting. I really like the art too, very nice!

May I ask in what program/language you're making this (like C++, Python w/e)?

I have a prototype engine in Python, and will convert it to a C++ based engine somewhere down the line.

[Edited by - ruben tan on September 21, 2010 7:25:35 PM]

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Original post by ruben tan Quote: Original post by MSW Quote: Original post by ruben tan 3. Oceans are not affected by the virus, because it cannot survive in water (if it could, it would have reached SEA through currents and rain). The virus has these characteristics: causes cell necrosis, transmitted through airborne contact, cannot survive in liquids, and have a short lifespan (enough to kill for 2-3 weeks before fizzling out). It is sufficient to say that the virus does not have the capability to spread at all, like pesticide. Now you might ask, how did the world got hit by the virus in the first place if the virus lacks a transmission vector? This is tied to the plot as well: finding out why SEA was miraculously spared from the epidemic will also answer the question of the origin of the virus. Not even remotely plausible. Mind expanding on that?

1) From a virus point of view there is no difference between rain and humidity. Meaning such a airborn virus outbreak could only exist in the extreamly dry Atacama desert.
2) Generaly a virus isn't alive, just a chain of organic chemicals. Reproduction is through chemical reaction within the body of a host life form. It can't do this without being exposed to the copious amounts of water molecules within all life forms.
3) This virus reproduction involves the attempt to recreate itself by useing organic compounds available in nearby host cells. A shortage of compounds and incomplete reproduction causes the virus to mutate quite rapidly. The lifespan of a single HIV virus cell is seconds, during which the reproduction process generates many mutations which is why it is so hard to kill. Longer virus "lifespans" make it much easier to stop such outbreaks...In all of this "kill" means to stop its ability to reproduce, it is still there, and can be activated again when conditions within the host body become too weak to contain it.

Might as well call your virus a "handwavium" infection or some such inorder to fullfill the established plot criteria.

Also how much time has passed sense the Great Desertion and the start of the game? With all the wars, outbreak, mutations, dark age, combine, rebellion and splintered core suggests hundreds of years if not a thousand or more. Which suggests to me that Great Desertion would be viewed as little more than a curiosity...if remembered at all. And the accuracy of it's representation would be highly questionable (origins of the later Outsider War lost to oral history afterall). Seems farfetched to have such a culture after all this time to still deal with all the angst from the Great Desertion.

[Edited by - MSW on August 22, 2010 2:27:43 PM]

Doesn't really contradict the lore that I laid down though. What you mentioned are valid points, don't get me wrong. But they only apply to naturally occurring virus, don't they?

Like I mentioned, the exact sequence of events following the great desertion is a hotly contested issue in the game world itself. Many historians and scholars that still archived records of the event have different theories themselves as to how the virus wiped out the entire world but seemingly spared South East Asia. Doesn't make sense, but through the game the character will eventually discover the truth.

As to the second topic, yes, four hundred years have passed since the great desertion (see timeline). The desertion is remembered largely through oral history, and over the years have evolved into a mythical state. In fact, many of the newer generation don't really care about the great desertion. The plot has nothing to do with it: it deals much more with the relationships between mutant races and the fight for survival and recovery from the dark ages, than wasting time finding out about history.

In the game world, the desertion is a convenient straw man. Just like how racists are made by parents brainwashing their children by reinforcing their racist views every day ("fuckin' stingy jew", "chink can't drink straigth, etc"), latter generations simply parrot the "angst" of the past generations without knowing the exact reasons why. Think of it as history turning into culture in a way.

[Edited by - ruben tan on September 21, 2010 7:59:42 PM]

I like the setting quite a bit, although the one major cliche that I'd watch out for is a standard vanilla mutants-versus-non-mutants dynamic that dominates the game.

I also have a question about productive capacity-- how easily/much can any of your groups/societies produce machinery, weapons, food, energy, etc.? These factors would have a huge impact on daily life for all groups and the conflicts between them. Even unearthing ancient technology would be problematic, given centuries of disrepair along with a general reduction of knowledge from a dark age.

I think that it would be useful to sketch out the technological ability of the pre-Desertion society, and then imagine the key aspects of their lifestyles that would degrade over time, and how that would limit the ability of the survivors to use what they find, and how easily they might be able to re-discover knowledge they could apply to their lives.

Whatever you decide, I really like what you've laid out. The thought that you've put into things so far is a great sign. And don't worry too much about the possibility of this or that in your game. Sci-fi is always somewhat impossible (otherwise it wouldn't be sci-fi, it'd be non-fiction). But the more inexplicable a given aspect of your story is according to modern day knowledge, the higher the level of technology you'll need to explain that complexity that keeps us from explaining it, and the harder it'll be to describe it in terms that a person living today can understand or accept.