So after having a quick look at the suggestions forum

LALALA OH COOL RACE SUGGESTION
I HAVE ONE TOO LALALA *Nods down at signature*

 

That is in a large way true, what with fish people, bird people and ape people. The thing that strikes me about what a lot of people are suggesting, is that the furriness of the races are both the means AND the end, they exist to be a race of dog/cat/fox people. Thus far, many of the animalesque races so far have not been created "to be a race of this animal" so much as "To be a race that values <x> which relates to being that animal in some way". The animalistic nature isn't so much there for its own sake, but for the sake of the race.

Plus, they're in general a lot more...creative? Than the standard furry arch types, that is "Common domestic animal, but human", the examples of fish people have three eyes and probably look the most alien of all the species, the monkey people are more of a homage to planet of the apes tbh and the birds...well, To be honest I dont have much to say about the birds, but they have one of the deepest cultures which very heavily revolve around the idea of flight and whatnot, so it makes sense that they are what they are.

The point I was really alluding to when I mentioned the scary number of furry ideas, was that maaaaaany the furry ideas tended to work backwards, rather than building an idea and deciding on the creatures appearance and style as the idea progresses, instead thinking of the appearance and style first, then creating a lore to match. Which strikes me as a poor method, as it forces the importance of story and context into the back seat.

But seriously guys, my main point here wasn't "Ew furries" Like seriously. It's not my cup of tea, sure, but I dont care, no ones making me play one, and even if I had to, it's a sprite, who gives a damn about a couple of pixels? It doesn't bother me.

The furry point I made was just because I noticed there was a vast number of them being mentioned, compared to the smaller number of races that actually seemed to fit in with the current feel of the game (Such as the one that TvK mentioned), and that, even in the case of these more relevant races, many of them seemed to exist for their own sake, rather than to add something to the story.

I'm not trying to have the furry debate here, it's really not relevant.

I'm worried because, at the moment, I ADORE the story.

I am soo excited to learn more, and I am so excited to learn as much as I can about so many of the races and the mysteries behind them and all that.

What I'm worried about, are introductions of races and stuff that actually subtract, rather than add from the quality of the lore thus far.

The more races you have, the more races have to be somehow worked into the lore so no one is left out, the more races you're working into the lore, the more chaotic it will get, the more chaotic it gets, the more likely it is to lose quality.

I would much prefer to have 7 very well developed, intelligently designed and perfectly characterized races, than 20 races each trying to fight for their portion of writers attention and story spotlight.

Of course, yes, it could possibly be fine if all twenty races were well written and perfectly introduced.

But in a situation like this, you have two options "they were here all along, we just didn't talk about them until now", "We're changing the a thing here and there to fit these guys in" or "They just achieved space travel and have just been introduced to the other space faring races!"

While the third one possibly can work, once it's been done 3 times in a row, it begins to get stale.

The thing is, you can only write around a story so many times, while still keeping the introduced element relevant, because to give the new races connection with the major players of old races, you need to put them in somewhere, involve them somehow, and that does not often happen seamlessly.

I'm really not judging peoples ideas, so much as realizing, that many are being created in ways and for reasons that aren't ideal, and that adding them could reduce the level of fluidness of the story thus far, more so if added later when the lore is further developed.

(It is kinda way too late for me to be trying to speak coherently right now, so excuse my horrific punctuation, spelling, sentence structure and god knows what else..)

 

No more races past Novakids. More connections and interesting things can happen with prolonged interactions with the current races.

 

If the lore demands a race, or more, then so be it there will be more. I am more concerned with the actual game play aspects as opposed to lore or sprites within the game. This mainly revolves around race attributes and balancing. Each race has a unique attribute and I would much rather select a race because I appreciate the look and possibly lore over a possible race passive. With the difficulty in balancing already, more races will create more problems.

 

I think asking for relatively LESS content in the future is a fear of dealing with the unknown changes that this game is going through. The Change in this case being the 'lore'.
You don't have trust in the devs to add more content and keep the lore great at the same time. This sounds like a faith issue to me. Be positive and have faith that they're molding their baby in their vision.

 

I have plenty of faith in the devs, and the story their writing is one of the best I've seen in a game for quite some time.

What I'm worried about are inescapable facts, such as the fact that, if new gameplay elements being introduced come before story elements, you get the end of dragon age 2.

I dont know how many here played dragon age two, how many finished it or how many noticed how absurd one of the events that took place should you side with the mages was, but initially, there was planned to be one boss fight. Game devs said: "make it two". Because of this, the writers had to write around what was previously going to happen, and what SHOULD have happened, what would have made sense to happen, and then added the best explanation they could come up with in the situation they were in. It was widely considered a very poorly done conclusion, not because of the writers mistakes, but simply because when you force story into the back seat, it suffers.

When I say I dont want more to be introduced, I say this, for fear that a race to be introduced in the future, will simply be introduced to add to the number of playable races, rather than because the story calls for it. And that if this happens, the story, will in turn, suffer.

It is fear, but it is not ungrounded.

 

As others said, these are mostly meanless worries I guess.
For one, the devs already said that their only other planned race, the Novakid, won't be added until probably after the official release of the game, or just before.

I don't see them adding any more races until they've added the novakid. And before they do -that-, I feel they want to make sure the game, lore and quests -are- properly fleshed out for all current races so they already have something very easy to build upon when they add the novakids.

Besides, modders have already proved that adding new races is easy to do in a mod for those people who care mostly about the cosmetic appearance of their character. And from there, if modders really want to try to make a "lore-friendly mod" for their race by giving them a proper background, then it will only take a modder dedicated enough to mod in customized ships, villages and such for their race.

There's nothing the devs here even need to do, leaving them fully free to focus on and only on the core races they intended to focus on.

 

Oh, well I of course have zero problems with modded races. To have a problem with that would be like having a problem with the ocean, while living several hundred kilometers inland, because "It's not right for all that water to be sloshing about like it owns the place"

What I'm worried about is stuff after novakids, where the story will exist and be progressing in it's own way and will have all the complex connections and fleshed out characters and races and whatnot.

Novakids coming in shouldn't cause too much trouble, being an 'air head' race of scattered people, I don't honestly feel like I have to worry about it forcing itself into important parts of the lore unceremoniously, so much as creating it's own stories and doing the wild west drifter thing, maybe bringing reference to occasional unexplained things here and there.

But at the same time, if several races are introduced like that, it creates the 'sand box of shame' I mentioned earlier, where, because they're not part of the 'important' races their role is small, largely unimportant and thus they dont get very well built up and end up sticking out from the otherwise seamless racial interactions.

 

This only matter if the devs even care about adding more races after the novakid.

Even if they ever decide to, though, that won't be after release in my opinion and there are already too many elements of core or advanced gameplay which were slated for just before or after release that (I think) they will prefer to focus on first. Stuff like spaceships combats, more developped homeworld mechanics. On that later example, to quote the wiki:
The developers stated planning to add a number of homeworld control features post release.
Players in Starbound will have the ability to claim a planet as their new homeworld. Once selecting a homeworld, there are a variety of new options available. Tools to mass terraform terrain and control the weather elements are planned features. NPCs encountered in the game will populate the player's homeworld, acting as quest givers and vendors. "

I see them probably wishing to focus on that kind of stuff very much over starting the development of a new race for which there is no existing assets developped yet nor lore written for.

 

Honestly, I think this too, and I think you're right, I do. I dont honestly suspect they'll release another after novakid.

This post was just me noting that I hope they dont.

(Super excited for all that other stuff though)

 

Well i think the game NEEDS to have the following races:
a wolf race
a reptilian (snake preferably) race

just so theres one for every type of animal

 

It has nothing to do with furries, if it does for you I am sure the Apex, Hylotl, and Avian Freak you out. As for some of the suggestions, there are precedants for them. Kangaroo species? Ever read TANK GIRL? Alien cat people, RED DWARF among other sci-fi shows. Crystal people... tons of sci fi references. Lizard people, yep plenty of those in sci-fi and space movies too. You just seem to be fixated on furries too much to the point where it has become suspiciously unhealthy.

 

Horse race

 

the most popular reptilian race is argonians from the elder scrolls games ;3

 

With the ability to run faster as racial trait.

 

Why are people so obsessed with the nova-kids!? they look boring and are just wierd. what we need is a latex fox race or just a argonian-like race.

 

Snake race!
That's my cue!
http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/meet-the-cerpine-year-of-the-snake.8741/

Mod, maybe.

 

What has nothing to do with furries..?

The number of furry suggestions?

Because I literally saw posts asking for "More furry races" followed by pictures of fox, wolf and cat girls.

But really, tell me, did you read past my very first post, or did you just...Man I dont even know what your point was there, but it was kind of irrelevant and poorly thought out as a response to my argument....or maybe my brain is dying....or maybe 50-50.

I'd explain it all again, but I'm really overdue for sleep now. Just read my other posts, it's not about the fact that they are animals that I'm concerned about that much. And really, the fact that they have existed in countless other forms of scifi media just goes to demonstrate, again, the lack of creativity involved. Which I'm sure you didn't read, cause the moment you heard me say a word against animal based characters, you went into attack mode. Just please try to recognize the whole argument being made before you latch on to half of one point and tell me I'm a monster for saying it.

Read my posts. I have nothing against the idea of animalistic races, just the reasons behind them in these cases.

This is going to be my last post, and I cant help but wonder if this is a very well disguised troll post, or a very confusing not troll.

If it's real, then I have to wonder what your logic for needing a wolf race is. What 'type of animal' does it need to cover? Mammals is already covered...twice, by both humans and apes.

 

well humans arent really animals, and the apes are to human like. we need a animal-like mammal

 

...but if you make an animal-like mammal into a human-like mammal, then it's no less human than an ape-like mammal human-like mammal?

...Also have you even seen apes?

They're pretty animally.

A lot walk around on four legs and everything.

I think you're just being discriminatory because people say they're related to us.

A lot of apes aren't.

Distantly, maybe, but really, comparing us to them is like comparing a pig to a walrus.