Let's talk about the 1.0 lore rewrite

There's such a thing as too simple, though, and works cross that line when they become flat or just don't make sense. Star Wars, for instance, is not realistic in the slightest, but it follows its own internal rules that make sense (for the most part), so we grant it suspension of disbelief. But suspension of disbelief is limited: you can only push people so far before they say "that's ridiculous." And the flatter and emptier a story is, the less suspension of disbelief it gets. The Starbound story is pretty flat.

 

The way you phrase it, it sounds like the universe portrayed in Starbound just isn't for your taste then.

 

So, discussing how its odd that an entity arrived on the hub-world of human culture and anhilated it in a matter of seconds in a thread dedicated to discussing a story where said events takes place is somehow holding the story to a "realistic" standard?

I only ask that stories follow their own internal logic.

Making humanity independent from earth is not equivalent to making it unaffected by its destruction. The Vulcans in Star Trek, were not unaffected when their home planet was destroyed, but it also wasn't the only place that Vulcans had settled.

No one is asking them to create a prophetic vision of our real universe... where did this assertion even come from? I just thought I'd participate in discussing the story in a thread named: "
Let's talk about the 1.0 lore rewrite"

I honestly don't even care much about the story, I play the game to chill, build, and explore. If there's a thread where I can share my opinions about it (few as they are) then I will.

Have I done something to make you feel so defensive? Maybe you're not being defensive, the hyperbolic nature of your response leads me to believe you are.

 

You're not the only one I'm discussing stuff with in this thread.

I've already said more or less how the game depicts Ruin's attack on Earth - that it attacked immediately, likely with the use of wormholes. Considering that the Grand Protector seemed to have no idea what was going on until it was too late, it pretty much implied that the Ruin's attack wasn't in any way expected.

 

And isn't the first paragraph more or less something you can do? Plus, it would be easy to expect that a lot of human NPCs in camps and space encounters got there because of that. Apart from that, it's likely that the PC only explores part of a planet, considering how small they are. In fact, there's a reason why the "total humans leading nomadic existence" is unknown, as they could potentially be part of other settlements. In fact, human NPCs are easily the most common, and if there's NPCs of several species in a given area, at least some of them are often human. Finally, if you're being realistic, then think of how people IRL are less interested in space than, say, in the 50s or 60s, and that you're assuming a mentality of colonization would really end up taking hold, when there could be a lot of reasons to not colonize planets, such as preserving their biosphere, or that resource gathering is so automated that they may not even need to send anyone to gather them, or that temporary bases made to harvest resources would really be considered to be settlements.

Why would either the Miniknog or the Kluexian avians drop an asteroid on Earth? The former is shown to mostly have internal issues, and the latter isn't really shown to be anywhere near that agressive. Plus, "finding a way around Earth's defenses" and "dropping an asteroid" seem like mutually exclusive actions, considering that the latter would likely be easy to detect and would be slow (By space standards, at least) to the point of possibly being more expensive than landing there or any other possible methods, not to mention that you're assuming that it is even possible in spite of such an incident never being mentioned, no technology being shown or mentioned that could transport an asteroid (Let alone finding one that would have a high enough chance of killing off all life, as otherwise they would still run the risk of survivors), and that you're assuming that they wouldn't then be able to find the other colonies in your hypothetical case (In which case, destroying Earth would in itself be a really dumb move, considering that it would potentially make their coordinates unavailable, so it would be terrible unless they were going for a war of extermination, which would really worsen the reputation of either, consideirng that humanity is shown to have a high standing in general).

Occasus are "reckless and optimistic". They're merely a really twisted and dark variant, as they're trying to free the Ruin, fully expecting it to leave them alone even through it's obvious that it can and does kill humans as well. In fact, it wouldn't be surprising if they were brainwashed or similar, either by the Ruin, or by their rethoric.

 

If the human institutions were largely unaffected by the ruin's attack, it would be too similar to the hylotl situation. it would also render the stakes lower as The Protectorate would have the least to lose, but a cross species/faction organization(human influence woild decline like a rock, but its existence would not be in question. making the universe more orderly.)

With it being a recent disaster that now renders humanity "an endangered species"' in the cosmos, now humanity has a unique threat compared to the other races. Theirs is not stopping a dictator, or searching for god, or becoming a real floran, but fending off against death and obscurity.

 

Contrary to many recent stories, humanity doesn't need to be in danger of dying out to make a story more compelling. Our threat doesn't need to be "unique" from other races either. Stopping a dictator, searching for god, becoming a real floran, and fending off death and obscurity can all be made into good stories by following a few simple guidlines:

-Internal story logic: We don't need "hyper realism" as has been alleged in other parts of this thread, but we do need a basic understanding of how things operate within the framework of the story.

-Good characterization: We don't need "omg earth is destroyed!!" to make us invested in the stakes of a story, we just need a universe, characters, locations we care about. Using things like the earth to illicit responses is actually a mark against a story, because it relies on our existing feelings and knowledge and excuses the author from creating something special.

These are just two of many tools that could enhance the story we've been given.

Stakes can be as simple as losing a relationship or starting a career. Life and Death can be compelling, but they do not a good story make. It all depends on how those stakes are delivered.

 

Chucklefish envisioned humanity as spread out and scattered across the stars, with no obvious replacement for Earth in sight. That is simply the premise they've set and that's the premise they delivered. They showed us Earth as a place of peace and prosperity, and they showed us its fall.

Are you now complaining that Earth is destroyed in Starbound? If you ask me, you might honestly just as well complain that Star Wars features a space magic element like the "Force".

 

I'm not complaining that earth was destroyed. I'm complaining that there is not set up or pay off in the story for the event. Starbound's earth is a place we spend 10 minutes and do very little. There is a reason I care more about the fate of Stardew Valley's community center than Starbound's earth.

You honestly just compared Starbound's earth to a concept that was strengthed and reinforced over the course of 7 movies? If you want to compare Starbound's earth to anything in Star Wars, it would probably be Dexter Jettster's Diner. Please try again...

Edit: Grammatical Errors

 

Look, I get it, Starbound's Earth just doesn't matter to you. For one, I can't say I feel the same.

There's a reason we spend little time on Earth - it's because it's an intro mission where you learn the controls, in a sandbox game. By the time the mission is over, you're meant to be on your ship and Earth is meant to be already destroyed. With that in mind, I'd say that the intro mission actually did quite well to show how Earth has been, and how Terrene Protectorate has been.

I don't understand why you're beating around the bush and acting like you just not liking how that was handled is an objective fault on the developers' part. Because it's not like all those other stories? Well, of course it isn't, it's a different story. Because they haven't went in detail about "Countermeasures Against Portal Technology"? Well of course they didn't, because no such thing was part of the story they wished to tell.

Maybe I'm just used to working with ambiguity from working with lore of games such as Overwatch, but expecting developers to just magically come up with what you want, acting like they're at fault for not complying with your desires, while you don't spend even a second to take the game's genre and design into account is incredibly presumptuous.

 

Please stop putting words in my mouth. I have not once said that I blamed the developers for not making the story I wanted. I'm not saying that any part of "the story they wished to tell" is objectively bad. I'm honestly at a loss trying to find a way to make you understand. I'm saying the way they present the story is poor, not the story itself. You can make a great tale about the last protector and the destruction of earth, but its not possible without something tethering the player's heart to the consequences of losing it. Giving us a mentor at the academy that we spent time during this intro mission who trained us and was personable or a cadet friend that we connected to and lost in the conflict would be just small examples of this. Earth blowing up feels hollow because its not earth, its not anything. Its a pretty setpiece that launches us into a sandbox, which is all it needs to be. If we're discussing the story, however, I'm making suggestions on how it could be more.

The countermeasure argument I was making is an example of universe building. If we knew of a threat that was building, it gives us time to respond emotionally to the consequence of that threat. I'm not demanding anything from the developers, I'm just casually analyzing and critiquing the story. Please stop pretending to understand my motivation for doing so.

NOTHING IN THE STORY NEEDS TO CHANGE plotwise. I'd just prefer if it was approached in a way that would traditionally allow a character to care more about these events and characters we find ourselves surrounded by. I love the starbound universe, and it holds the potential for so many great stories

 

Well, maybe I did overreact somewhat. Some parts of what you said just rubbed me the wrong way.

 

Correct! Based on the lore we had before, I was expecting something a lot richer and more compelling than what we got. It was a major disappointment, and I can't even ignore it because I have to go through it every time I start a new character.

Also, having no major colonies actually lessens the effect on humanity, from a narrative standpoint. What we have is a situation where humans essentially wiped off the playing field with the destruction of Earth. They're still scattered around, but they don't participate in the story aside from... what's-her-name, the ex-Protector, Asra, and Occasus (who are flat).

But if there were actual human colonies who could take over running the human nation, you have a very different situation. The center of human power was destroyed, and the colonies are stunned and reeling. So write them as basically saying "we've just suffered a huge loss, we're turning inward. We don't care about what's going on in the Miniknog and we're not risking precious human lives over this weird myth about the Ruin. We're just focusing on us." And suddenly you have a conflict to play with--bringing a wounded humanity out of its shell to participate in a battle that affects everybody. Ties in perfectly to the unity theme. It would be great!

But no. Instead, we just make humanity as a whole into non-participants. Whee.

Yes, that's a great conflict. You can go far with that conflict, as I mentioned above, but we never do. Humans just kind of drop off the face of the Earth. They might as well have killed off all the humans except the player and Whats-Her-Name for all the effect humanity has on the plot.

Yeah, I'm confident that the mentality of colonization would take hold because we've been colonizing new land for our entire history, since before we were even human. Unless someone specifically forbids expansion, we will expand, and even if someone does forbid it there's probably someone who's going to do it anyway.

This is a good way to put it. Want to blow up Earth? That can work. Want to tell a story about going to each race and collecting allies? That can work. Want to throw in a human-supremacist antagonist? That can work. The problem is in the execution, not the ideas.

 

Well, the execution is what we got, I doubt they are going to do another overhaul of the lore, as much as I wanted the USCM to have some remnant.

On another note, the execution of poptops are terrible, the way they are introduced in the story gives them no importance whatsoever, and yet, they are humming the theme song! Clearly they should be made bigger in the plot and more threatening, or with pallette swap of stronger varieties and perhaps different parts of the theme song. In addition introduce a father poptop as a boss, and make it capable of slashing tentacles and trees...

 

It's the same as I said in my post before - you come up with ideas and get upset that developers haven't come up with the same thing.

To include such a human colony, you'd need to design a mission for it, a story NPC for it... and you have to consider how that'd mesh with gameplay. It's not Mass Effect, where the story resolves around picking dialogue options. It's a sandbox survival game, where you just explore areas and kill enemies. I can't see how it would work with this game at all.

I do think we should've gotten some sort of human mission, but your demands feel far too specific and disconnected from the actual game if you ask me.

 

They didn't need to use my ideas, they just needed to come up with something that elevated their story above the level of a rough outline. I'm dropping these ideas to show that there are so many things they could have done that would make the story so much better, not because I'm mad they didn't tell a certain story I wanted them to tell. Again, I'm fine with the direction they took the story, but the execution is just so empty, and the execution is really what makes or breaks a story.

As for the mission, I think it's perfectly plausible using the systems you have already. You don't need to add a dialogue system, you just need a mission where you visit a human colony, get shut down by the guy in charge, go do something like save a refugee ship with the assistance of your accumulated allies (in other words, you explore an area and kill enemies), and then go back to the Big Cheese who's been struck by your actions and realizes you're right and they should help you take on the Ruin. If you really need back-and-forth dialogue, bring along an NPC like Esther (there, I remembered her name) to speak for you.

Come to think of it, a super-simple dialogue system probably wouldn't be hard to add. Could add a lot to interacting with crewmembers, tenants, and random NPCs, too.

Anyway, yes I'm aware that Chucklefish isn't going to change the story because of our feedback, but this is a thread about discussing the 1.0 lore rewrite, so I'm discussing my disappointments. This story is basically one big missed opportunity.

 

I'm getting the distinct impression that this thread was not made to discuss the story, but to praise it unquestioningly. Sorry, I must have misread the note that stated that differing opinions were unwelcome.

I LOVE starbound, it doesn't need a story at all. No story. None. I can play in a sandbox and make my own stories. Maybe we should make a new thread where discussing ideas about how to improve the story we have is acceptable?

 

Actually I just made this thread to talk about how bad I believe the old lore was, point out its faults, and explain why I considered the rewrite to be a huge improvement to the setting. Hopefully it made some impact back when it was first published, but now that we're 5 pages in, it's really just the three of us posting a lot, with just a few others chiming in or liking things occasionally.

Well, I suppose we do agree that some kind of human mission would be in order, at least. Maybe some kind of human refugee camp? Maybe a story NPC that was formerly part of USCM? That would be something fun to see explored.

 

Or maybe a shattered piece of Earth or some sort of asteroid base like the outpost. Something small since they need time to recover before they start actually colonizing if they ever decide to do that

 

Well that's not what the thread title suggested to me. You've convinced me that the old lore really wasn't that great, but what we have now just traded the old problems for a different set of problems, while simultaneously shoving those problems into your face so they're harder to ignore. Could have been so much better with some more refinement.

As an aside, I don't really understand the purpose of the new story. Starbound is a sandbox game, so by default you would expect story to be in the background. They decided to add a proper story, which is fine, but why did they go with the half-baked thing we have now? If you're going to go out of your way to add a story to a sandbox game, why wouldn't you take the effort to make it good?