Should starbounds world be more "Racist"?

After all, it's better to leave them a bloody pulp than rip their life out as to show them mercy.


Eerr, I mean, yea!

 

I havent read through the comments, so I am not sure if someone has said this before, but it would be neat to have some random reactions from enemies. This game, after all, is founded on its endless possibilities.

A group of hungry Florins might attack flesh-races, for example.

An impoverished human outpost might be much more accepting of the passer-by.

 

This is supposed to be a game for adults. Less cartoony and more gritty is the correct direction. Besides, this is specism not racism. And...it should go without saying, this is a game and not real life.
If someone wants to mod out all of the "serious" parts of the game more power to them, but imho the more 'my little pony' the game gets the less interest I have in playing it.

 

I see no indication what so ever that Starbound is intended for adults at all. Everything to the contrary, in fact. The game seems to be built for 10 year olds and we "Adults" (Classifying it as 18+ in this context) are simply along for the ride.

The game is so heavily G rated that it's really actually annoying. See: "Heck" biome. Lack of blood. Duck monsters. Penguin enemies. Cartoonish bone dragons. Lack of depth. Forced underwear (Though most games do that, even "Rated M" games.) The list could go on, but it'd sound overly nitpicky. All those nitpicks stack up however into what is ultimately a censored overly child-safe game six year olds could play without picky mothers ranting on facebook about the game they bought and let their kid play in the first place.

Not that any of that is a bad thing. It's a design choice and well within their right to make a rated-G game. But if Elmo starts singing and a purple dinosaur tries to hug me, I'm sooo out. But that's what mods are for. *Still waiting on horror themed mods*

If it is intended for older consumers, they really oughta step up their game.

 

Really? I find light humor refreshing and a real draw, and an endless trudge towards "gritty" a major turn-off. I'd have probably stopped playing a while back if I didn't find the game's look and tone amusing.

And I'm an adult. Dear lord, I'm an adult.

A "gritty" Starbound is a Starbound I'm not interested in. A Starbound where my bright-lavender Floran can run around in a pretty dress and a rainbow sparkle-cape swinging a massive bone-club and firing a gun that launches tiny piggies with dynamite on their backs and trading weird banter with NPCs who make odd anachronistic references (I was so, so happy to spot the Hark, A Vagrant nod) while simultaneously delving into an overstory with serious events, well, you have my sword. And axe and plasma pistol and sharp pointy teeth and bacon-bomber rifle and...

(I outright reject the idea that "adult"="gritty" and "kid"="fluffy stupid".)

Now, as for racial/species enmity leading to currently-friendly towns NOT being friendly depending on what your character is? Well, I'd hate for it to be a standard, but operating within a range, sure. I don't want to be attacked on-sight at EVERY Hyotl village just because I'm a Floran, that'd be no fun... but once in a while, sure, the rest might be friendly (if snarky) or might raise some prices.

(Personally I'd also like it if I didn't have to kill my way through every Glitch castle or USMC base. Of course, having NPCs realize they're outclassed and stop fighting or run away would be a nice touch too.)

 

Like I said, being heavily G-rated isn't a bad thing. My personal take on "Gritty" vs "Kid" I more think of depth. Starbound doesn't have depth, it just has the fluffy smiles. I'd like to be able to take it seriously rather than it itself being nothing but. Likewise I'd enjoy being able to sit on clouds of fluff dressed in my pretty pink princess outfit, but not for it to be nothing but. Right now Starbound leans heavily towards that latter case.

 

I can't find a quote atm, but I recall a dev saying they wanted this to be a bit more "adult themed" than other sandboxy-exploration games. Terraria comes to mind....I'll try to find the quote for yas.

That said, I have no qualms at all with comic relief, my character wears a cardboard box and a waiters uniform, and I LOVE that.
Just saying, as development has gone on it feels to me like things are getting sillier without a balance of grit. When I use the word "grit" I don't mean "grim"...just perhaps a little deeper and more realistic in terms of character behavior.

It's a matter of taste so I cannot and will not say any of you are incorrect for disagreeing with me.

 

While I do agree, I suspect that the kinds of things that would qualify as "grit" are often those areas that end up as too spoiler-y to reveal outright.

Like the creepy monster shadow or whatever it was in the moon base.

 

The problem I have with the people saying they don't want 'gritty' or 'realism' or 'human aspects like bigotry in the races' is that this all already exists in the lore.

The Apex are an inclusive and hierarchical society that does terrible experiments on its own people who are terrified of their government--this even exists in game in the form of reeducation centers.

The avian murder people as unwilling sacrifices. I have, on more than one occasion had a soon to be sacrificed avian saying they didn't want to die like that.

The Floran hate the Hylotl and the Hylotl hate the Floran. In fact no one seems to really like the Floran in the lore (except the Glitch), as they're an aggressive and murderous species that could very well eat you at a moment's notice. The humans don't trust anyone and have entered into very inclusive societies within the remaining off world military bases, and are known to kill other races on sight, something not likely to give them a friendly reputation amongst the stars, to be honest. Everyone seems to think the Novakids are kind of stupid due to their short term memory issues. . .or at least that's all in the lore.

And that's where we start to run into my issue with the whole thing. These other horrible things, they're in the game. They're shown to us. But the lack of trust or outright hatred between many of the races? Nope. Hylotl and Floran get insulted a bit by each other but that's as far as any of it goes. We don't even get to see Free/Atheist Avians in conflict with the religious ones, despite being told it happens.

What we're told about is a universe that is, in many places, on the verge of war, where terrible awful things happen, where the races have political conflicts much like real world countries, and see each other's practices as barbaric or terrible.

What we're shown is a world where, rather than violence, or even price tariffs, the worst a species that has attempted genocide upon another can expect is being called a mean name.

If you want a game without any kind of speciesm or whatever then gut and rewrite the lore to reflect that, otherwise show, don't tell.

 

I hadn't considered that. Perhaps I'll get my satisfaction with the next patch. Thanks for the perspective.

 

@krylo @Lazogna

In general, I suspect that most of the "serious business" type stuff will be a part of the main quest. At least, that's my understanding of it. A lot of the silliness we see are just going to be the side notes.

Of course, there are indeed still a lot of factions that aren't really represented in game, or if they are, only in a civilian setting. Maybe as things go on we'll start to see more war camps and things like that where you need to be on your best behavior and not overstay your welcome, etc.

Edit: Also bear in mind that the townsfolk we see are generally the "good" ones. If they weren't we'd be finding them in dungeons instead, where they have not so much racism as a "kill anyone that's not part of our group" mentality.

 

Right. The game simply isn't finished yet.

We're still looking at a game whose primary story is in development and not yet implemented. The lore and dialogue and awful labs and crypts show us a universe with some ugly, ugly problems, but what we're playing NOW is the "test-to-see-if-it'll-break-on-the-basics" version. More active and nuanced/situational inter-species interaction is something you hammer out towards the back end.

Don't get me wrong. I really, really like the darker backstory elements going on. I'm really curious as to how/if you end up toppling Big Ape and Kluex and stopping the horrible things Greenfinger is doing. That darkness drives the story. But I also deeply appreciate that Big Ape the individual is played up as a dimwitted, preening bully who goes so far as to give himself a #1 chart-topping song that happens to be mandatory listening. That's funny. (And then it swings around to sad because really, Apex society is not all that far removed from living in North Korea today. Or the recording industry in general zing!) I like that the Novakid are inexplicably cowboy-themed. I like that the Floran are comically goofy and have that pronoun tic.

It's all in the balance, and honestly I trust Chucklefish to find that Goldilocks Zone between goofy and grim. It's just that, well, they gotta finish building said zone.

 

To be fair, that shadow isn't exactly creepy. Kinda looks like a yoshi-whatever type monster and the only ominous thing about it is the lighting they were showing off. I'm a fan of the lighting. But I find it more likely that a monster spawned nearby and they left it in the cut. Possibly intentionally because they noticed it added atmosphere, whatever the monster actually looked like.

In the end I can only really hope for the speedy, but not hasty, completion of the game. It very well could be that the game IS shallow, but that's because the devs are still working on the deep end of the pool where a tentacle monster lies in wait.

 

Please, dont bring Terraria into this discussion. I have found too often that most who use Terraria as an example are simply speaking out of their distaste with the game and their assumptions of all that they believe could be wrong, rather than use actual information brought from Terraria.

There are actually many "adult" themes in Terraria, such as the use of alcohol, and sexual innuendos brought about by NPCs.

 

Wait, wut? Sexual innuendos and alcohol in Terraria?

 

Ale :

(And he sells the nurse outfit during Halloween)

 

I'm still not seeing it.....is that all? Is that somehow supposed to convince me Terraria has mature content? I doubt there's even any drunk mechanics so they could replace the word Ale with Apple Juice....or Vodka for all it matters. And the would be "Sexual Innuendo" is laughable at best.

 

Nope

 

I want a full refund. NOW!