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Any one else think the lore isn't that great

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by SimplyShadow, May 17, 2017.

?

Should the storyline have more depth?

Poll closed May 31, 2017.
  1. Yes

    92.1%
  2. No

    18.4%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. DraikNova

    DraikNova Spaceman Spiff

    The little pad right next to the arena can sense the player right next to it? Really, the question I have is "Why are there respawn points in every mission? Who made them? And how did they get into the Ruin?"
     
  2. Tlactl

    Tlactl Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Yeah, you respawn countless times before, so why is it suddenly a problem when the ruin blows up with you inside?
     
    STCW262 likes this.
  3. STCW262

    STCW262 Heliosphere

    Well, they could be used to respawn people who normally would be in most of those missions, or they were somehow pre-deployed by the PC's ship, or they may not canonically exist and be just a way to prevent players from having to start all over again from the beginning.
    A MUCH better question is: Why would it be IMPOSSIBLE to respawn anyways when, even while digging through the Ruin, it's still possible to respawn?
    Generally, the ending feels like it was made so that it's the typical "The main character dies at the end" ending, but they then had to put "But the Cultivator revives him/her because, if the PC stayed dead, then it wouldn't be possible for players to keep playing in their worlds"; or, in other words, they wrote the ending without taking into account the genre of their own gam, as such an ending would only make sense in linear games in which respawning is just a gameplay mechanic and not really part of the actual game, or one that has limited respawning rules...Or, generally, not a game that is supposed to be able to be played infinitely.
     
  4. Blevruz

    Blevruz Phantasmal Quasar

    Maybe when the Ruin explodes, the entire pocket dimension collapses, and that's why you can't respawn ?

    Just finding excuses here. They didn't handwave it or anything; only they know why they did that.
     
  5. DraikNova

    DraikNova Spaceman Spiff

    I mean, the Ruin's can distort space massively enough to access planets even when it's in a pocket dimension. I highly doubt its deathroes left the local geometry entirely untouched.
     
  6. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    Funny part is I annihilated my majority of bosses by portal staffs, so i would rate the glitch "medieval" wepaons as highly dangerous.

    It still makes no sense when knowing that the seal is breaking Nox is trying to get the keys and keep the portal closed, because then when the seal breaks anyways the ruin can be attacked anyways. But all in all the attack on earth still makes no sense, the ruin is a huge planetary tentacle beeing and earth was also killed by those tentacles from within, which means the entire ruin would be required to do that and this is mostlikely only happening when it fully could exist the sealed pocket dimension anyways. The entire "earth destruction" scenario looks a lot more based on the oeld concept of the tentacle planets and the http://starbound.wikia.com/wiki/Tentacle_Comet probably "infecting" these planets.


    CF could have kept the old tentacle planets and made these comets appear randomly on other planets and if you fail to kill the comet, it terraforms the planet into a tentacle one, which then to be freed again would require killing the heart similar to the ruin battle. That would give much more "living" story and threat to the game, if that would be hidden in dimensions/sectors X as the old galaxy was, it would have been a much better sandbox than we have now. Our sanbox now is boring AND the story is boring as well.

    artificial story drama made within a stor that doesn't fits into the games world.

    So this was made to make it easier and save the character form going through the whole dungeon again and annoying the player with this process. But given how easy the game is, it was totally unnecessary.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2017
    Blevruz and STCW262 like this.
  7. STCW262

    STCW262 Heliosphere

    Actually, what Staves are is...Not even explained. For all we know, it's either actual magic (Which, considering that the game has some fantasy elements, wouldn't be ruled out) or high-tech weaponry made to look like magic staves for some reason. For all we know, they could actually be reverse-engineered or surviving Ancient tech, which would explain why they're never sold by merchants.
    As of Nox trying to get the keys, it's obvious that she isn't interested in the Ruin being potentially killed before it's released, as opening the Ark simply seems to make acessing the Ruin possible, but the latter can't get out of the Ark that way (In other words, it may be that the Ruin can only get out of the Ark if the seal decays to the point of ineffectiveness).
     
  8. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    I think them not beeing sold is an issue that CF just oversaw as staffs came back after the removal of racial wepaons. All NPC's playable races now use the same wepaons anyways. However the exception are the non palyable ones, arragans and those strange coyote ones still using their native wepaons. Somewher ein SB's development some design changes were made and someone obviously lost track of the things that those changes should all affect and so quite a lot oversightings happened. That same is notceable about the story too. Why do picks and drills still exist they just can't compete with the matter manupulator. Somewhere somewhen some bad decisions were made causing major design flaws, this happened on gameplay AND story levels.
     
  9. STCW262

    STCW262 Heliosphere

    Picks and drills are useful in that, specially early on, when the MM isn't upgraded much, they're basically free temporary bonuses, and, even once the MM is fully upgraded, they can be useful because of their smaller mining squares.
    As for racial weapons, some Floran NPCs also use what looks like assault rifles made out of plant matter and bone, and some Avian NPCs (Namely, the village guards) use macahuatl-like swords.
     
  10. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    if we could craft or repair picks then maybe they could be useful but they break pointless fast ad have no real place in the early game. and the early gme is basically not long. s the majority of the remainign ones are a waste of inventory space.

    Their theoretical point of advantage is negliable and a supertiny niche.
     
  11. STCW262

    STCW262 Heliosphere

    They're mostly useful at quickly gathering ore by using the picks mostly on the ores themselves, not at strip-mining or tunnelling. Enyways, they're mostly useful if found. Buying them is kind of a waste of money, specially as picks can be obtained from tenants.
     
  12. Blevruz

    Blevruz Phantasmal Quasar

    Here are a few things I dislike

    - The Miniknog. It's really really weak now. Also Big Ape has far less importance than he used to, which is sad. And the Apex mission only adds to this - a mere mansion would be a well-implanted Miniknog stronghold ? Even the Miniknog towers you find on random planets are cooler and more imposing.

    - The Avians are kinda plain. Religion seems far less important, and the struggles between Grounded and religious Avian are barely even mentionned, despite being a defining feature of the Avians.

    - The Hylotl forgiving the Floran makes them kinda boring. They now have even fewer interaction with the overall universe.

    - The Florans. Greenfinger being retconned made me pretty sad, but besides that they seem ok. It would be interesting to have more info or remnants of Floran infestation of planets.

    - The Humans having almost no presence off-earth. Besides the USCM being pretty rare, shouldn't we see Protectorate colonies or stuff like that ? How could they have so much influence with so little off-earth presence ?

    - Background plots ? That was one of the great things of the pre-1.0: the background given by the numerous codices (I think that's how you write it ?) like the conspiracy or Greenfinger's notes, and the structures ingame (the Agaran, for instance, were a mystery for a while - now I doubt they are of any use).
    The theory crafting that could be done around these was a lot of fun, and I'm sad most of it is gone - I hope we'll see some of it come back.
     
    Tlactl and STCW262 like this.
  13. Tlactl

    Tlactl Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Thats almost what Ive said before. The protectorate storyline pretty much erased all the lore for each individual race and blanded it down so much that basically the only difference between races is your ship and character sprite. Im just dying to get those racial weapons, quest lines, and intros back. The intros were kinda important to me because it gave your character a unique story rather than just trying to get into the protectorate.
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2017
  14. jrmorris

    jrmorris Space Spelunker

    I apologise that I haven't read much of this thread, but I have two ideas on Starbound and FTL's storylines, combining the two in some way.

    1:
    The USCM/Cultists are the remnants of the Rebels from FTL. The Terrene Protectorate is a reworked Federation, which tried to restore stability after the civil war. Alas, it fell apart again into numerous factions upon fracture of Terra. This storyline goes FTL>Starbound. I also like this one more, despite it's simplicity compared to the other.

    2:
    The events of Starbound's story drastically weaken the attempt at keeping the Terrene Protectorate alive. Subsequently, a period of smaller empires reigns. This ends with the empires being reunited under one banner, under the descendants of the Protectorate's leadership, who restore it's government. Unfortunately, the Mantis do not like this reunification, and spark the Mantis-Federation War. Some soldiers from the Federation's military defect over the course of the war, increasing a very post Versailles like resentment for alien life among a large proportion of the Federation military, who join a long undercover USCM and wage war on the Federation, under the banner of MFK. They almost kill the Federation, until they are weakened by the loss of their flagship at the end of FTL. The Federation proceeds to gain a tiny upper hand, wiping out the rebels. This storyline goes Starbound>FTL.

    Also, I'm not 100% sure this is the correct thread.

    EDIT: And this is a bit of a necro.
     
  15. Vetpetmon

    Vetpetmon Void-Bound Voyager

    Thanks for the necro, but this thread still seems relevant, even in 1.3. Something about the Starbound lore (vanilla/canon) irks me very badly, and it's the whole "Protectorate is the innocent angel that everyone sees it as." Honestly, They've done nothing good for the Earth, such as demilitarizing it. Why couldn't there be more alien races that challenged their authority? Another point to notice is that why the heck haven't humans spread out from their homeworld? Obviously, from real life logic from now, it seems that humans have ignored the fact that they could colonize or even terraform planets, and if humans just stayed on Earth, easy way to blast an entire race into extinction, as seen with the Ruin.

    And can we just talk about the Ruin's ability to destroy planets, despite being locked into the other side of the gate.The ONLY darn gate. And it's not even open yet. Starbound lore sure does have more plot holes than swiss cheese. Where's that Type III civilization that is supposed to be the great barrier to all of the races? Why couldn't the player have fought that civilization to let all of the races colonize the universe instead of them already having a free pass to colonize every planet you then load in? I know, It would require some reworking in the unverse files and the engine itself via flags, but it would make Starbound lore a bit more interesting instead of the overdone "save the world from some massive evil." Why couldn't be "You stop this world-eating monster, but in that path, you also become the threat to the most intelligent life in the galaxy that is still trying to stop that world-eating monster from eating the TIII race's own home." Obviously, there is a whole lotta stuff missing in Starbound's lore that should be considered by the devs instead of a cheezy step-by-step Hero's Journy-styled plot with science-fiction slapped onto it. Why couldn't be as interesting as, let's say, an experienced Original Universe authors/artists's lore and plot?
     
    Ickura and soldierfast90 like this.
  16. STCW262

    STCW262 Heliosphere

    Exactly what part of the lore says the Protectorate demilitarized Earth or that it's outright some sort of galactic government? And I'm talking about quotes and lore books, not some headcanon. If anything, the game shows them to be more powerful than the lore implies, considering that they're shown to be more of a "Knight errant" organization than a political body.
    As for not spreading, well, you're assuming the same mentality as always. For all we know, it could be that humanity decided to not spread because doing so would damage lots of unique ecosystems. If anything, that implies they learnt from history, in that they decided that spreading is more trouble than it's worth, considering that it involves creating colonies, which usually end up either wanting independence or being unprofitable. If anything, a bit of originality was that humanity didn't spread, which is almost never done.
    And why is a "Type III civilization that is supposed to be the great barrier to all the races" a good idea? If anything, what you've suggested would show either a new race that is too stupid to realize the concept of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend", by making them want to stop the Ruin while still antagonizing the Player. In fact, the only way a more advanced civilization acting as an antagonist were to consistently make sense (Down to random encounters) would be if they were supporting the Ruin.
     
  17. FoxDE2

    FoxDE2 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    It isn't that the lore is bad, it's that there's so much more that could be done with it. It's clear that they rushed to make a finished game, but what they should do now is keep working on it and make it perfect at 2.0.

    I think that one of their updates should include optional story modes past defeating the ruin for each species, depending which species you play as/beat the game with. Avians defeat the Stargazers, Apex defeat the Miniknog, Glitch discover their creators, Hylotl/Florans make peace, Humans fight Asra Nox one last time (even if they want to let her get away again for future game purposes,) and Novakid discover more about themselves (there simply just needs to be something, anything, discussing the Novakid because they're pretty darn cool.)

    It'd be cool if they finally introduced the Greenfinger for Florans if they decided to have an all out war between Hylotl and Florans, where they finally make peace at the end. I mean a story doesn't just have to get you from point A to point B, there's a lot of little stops in between.

    Edit: I also think there should be little animated cutscenes, not just the same graphics you see during the game, but...you know, animated stuff. Like a cartoon movie or a pixelated anime looking movie. Something that tells the tale you're about to set off on, and an ending for each unique species as well. I think stuff like that would help tremendously, I mean even Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Genesis had a little slideshow styled movie at the end of it.
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2018
    Ickura likes this.
  18. NPete28

    NPete28 Poptop Tamer

    I'm fine with how the main story is now, but I do agree that there needs to be A LOT more added after you defeat the ruin. I have always suggested a way to overthrow the miniknog, but a Floran/Hylotl war sounds awesome.
     

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