Hello guys, I've been playing Starbound a lot lately and it's a great and funny game. But when playing I still feel like something is missing when exploring new worlds. From what I've heard, this game should be also based on Star Gate idea - exploring new worlds, visiting new cultures and so on. But when you think about it, what was also the main reason you watched Star Gate? The stories behind every adventure. Starbound is full of so many great things. But they aren't connected to the backstory very much. So I thought...How to make exploration and generally playing Starbound more interesting? Connect these thing with Backstories. What? - Backstories for (almost) every planet. How? Some randomly generated, based on things in the world; some based on continuous "storyline." Imagine having something like "Goa'uld storyline" here in Starbound. Something what would drive you to other places, force you to explore other planets so you could continue your story. The game would have for example 10 "story planets" (more as the story would continue), connected with this main storyline. When the player decides to explore new planet, the game may generate planet with First part of the story. If it does, it will randomly generate the Story planet 1 and adds elements needed for the story. Like in Stargate, next couple of planets could have random backstory (see bellow), or don't have a story at all. Later, the game will generate a planet with the Second part of the main storyline. Example of Story planets: Some examples of "random" backstories: Some examples of "bound" backstories: I hope you like the idea of Backstories, I think it would be awesome to have something like this in-game (Sorry, I'm reposting this from Side-quests, since I feel this is more like a game mechanic, than a simple quest. )
We all want a story mode, and it will eventually be in the game, if the developers are true to their word. Quests and missions are already in the works. But I do really like some of your ideas for the stories, especially the one about the murderer in your village.
Thanks I really hope we get some kind of story mode, so if my idea helps the devs somehow, even as an inspiration, I will be glad
They've already said in the past that there will be a story mode that all players can play through. The bosses that you can currently summon, such as the Penguin UFO, are part of it, but they haven't integrated much of anything else yet.
I'm not sure about stories, but having random 'quests' across various planets would be really awesome. Especially if they had meaningful rewards (The default ones suck. just a handful of pixels and stuff... bleh)
All these ideas sound good, I hope they take inspiration in your suggestion. It really depends on how deep they want to go with their quest system. Just one thing though, I'm not sure it's possible to "generate" a whole planet. All planets are the same for all players, a player can't have a planet others don't have, unless I missed something.
You put more thought into this than I initially expected when I read that title. I like where you are taking this, the possibilities are endless and could provide for a lot of fun and exploring! It would also mix well with this other suggestion about dungeons with rituals http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/rituals-to-open-dungeons.81679/
Hi Dagger7, thanks! About the planet generation...In this case (if its possible) the planet generation would be all the same. But after the planet generataion, the dungeons and things like this are placed, so I suppose the story elements could be also placed this way, without affecting the planet generation itself?
Thanks, I glad you like it! I would love to have something like this ingame and just like you said, possibilities are endless. Even for modding community if people could create new random backstories "packs" and/or storylines
I'd love to have quests for every planet! I'm getting bored by exploring, it's most of the time all the same. And I'm sure they'll make some kind of story, but it'll be like continuous story for player and the planets themselves will still be boring. This random thingies for every planet would be supercool, because you'll never know, what to expect!
If it is randomized it could go blasphemic and repetitive, therefore I like, and monsieur, I do not-a like.
Thanks, I feel the same way I hope the devs will take a look at this thread after they finish current missions. Or use some ideas for random stories and planet-quests Well, more and more random "stories" could be added by devs themselves or the community - mods. And of course, the game could generate planet with a specific part of a main-story only once. So they could be as non-repetitve as possible, I hope
If I am not misunderstanding, you are saying Quests, not backstories? Backstories would take a HUGE amount of time, even if it's random, as it would be taken as canon and people would get pissed at contradictory things. If you are not meaning Quests pertaining to certain planets, disregard what I said above.
Why do you think Backstories would take a huge amount of time? Well, I'm not a coder myself, but if you take some simpler backstory - for example find a source of an alien signal or find clues of murder - you just generate random planet and add pre-generated structure/item (plus maybe some kind of functionality?). And it could act similar to quests, only random for planets you visit. And the newly generated planet could or could not have its own story. And of course, the main story could be more complicated in terms of diversity, mechanics and gameplay, but it would be up to devs what they decide to use/create. Like I wrote before, when I imagine something like goa'uld storyline here in Starbound, it would be totally awesome and give the game whole new level of depth. The planets system -as it is- is a really cool idea. And combined with something which would bring these other planets to life, I can't imagine much better game If only I knew coding, I would start working on this idea and try to make a mod. The ideas for the storyline and random stories for "minor" planets are limitless and I would gladly spend my free time creating something to improve gameplay for me, and hopefully, for other players too
As I said, it would take a long time to write things to be put together, even if it is random, no matter what code. With how many planets there are, there would be at LEAST 200 things being made FOR EACH SECTOR, nonetheless anything for any actual Quests. Also, we seem to have different definitions of backstories, as mine are more like "This person had a revolution from these people, they lost and went underground to return to destroy everything", not "Oh look, blood, its a murder! Backstory, hoh!"
Well, like I said, these were only the simpler stories. You could have as complicated stories as you would want to create. As for the coding or incorporating the idea ingame, nobody says you have to create stories for every planet and sector. I think, for starters, when you create e.g. basic 5 main-story planets (and you only create story elements, the planet still remains randomly generated as it was) and then ten or so random backstories, you have something to start with and even this will make everything much much more interesting. The only thing you have to do then is to make sure the game doesn't give you the same story twice and when you deplete the main story or the backstories, you simply explore "clean" random planets again, until the next update comes.
Sounds like a player. It's practically all they're good for anyway, the NPCs are worthless except for weapon or food merchants ~3~ ...
I think this is a very nice idea, I did not yet read through the comments because I'm tired but I'll do that soon so yeah, good idea but I think it would be hard for it to be worked out.
