Greetings!
The team is now fully staffed with the exception of bringing on one additional animator. It is now, the largest game project currently underway at Stardock across all studios in terms of monthly budget.
For those of you who remember the development of the original Star Control series, you may recall that Paul and Fred worked very closely with fan (SC2 mainly). In fact, thanks to Paul and Fred we've been able to team up Riku who did most of the best known tracks for Star Control 2 back in 1992 and he's in charge of the new sound track.
Now, that said, we have a number of challenges that we need help with. I'll list them below.
Challenge #1: IS Star Control Star Control without the Spathi?
The new Star Control is a prequel. It takes place before the events of the original series.
And for those who are deeply into the Star Control lore, our long-term plan is to make the Star Control universe a multiverse. The Famous battles of the Ur-Quan conflict (part of which is told in Star Control 1 and Star Control 2) take place in one universe. By contrast, Star Control 3 takes place in a separate universe.
As mentioned, Paul and Fred are the ones who wrote the Ur-Quan conflict lore that manifests partly in the first two Star Control games. Today, Paul and Fred, the founders of Toys for Bob, work at Activision which precludes them from being able to work on the new Star Control. However, since Star Control is a multiverse, we can, with patience, hopefully wait for the day for a continuation of the Ur-Quan story.
That said, regardless the new Star Control won't deal with the aliens from the Ur-Quan stories for multiple reasons. First, in the Ur-Quan lore, the humans join the Alliance of Free Stars in 2116, 4 years after the humans are contacted by the Chenjesu and our story takes place in 2086. Second, because we don't want to interfere with Paul and Fred's story, we want to wait until they're free to work on their story again to continue it.
From Stardock's point of view, Paul and Fred own the Ur-Quan lore and in fact, this lore goes well beyond what was seen in Star Control 1 and 2. So while Stardock owns the Star Control universe, we don't make any claim on their lore. Similarly, post-release if others create their own lore for their own universes, Stardock won't be making any claims on that lore either (i.e. no sneaky EULA that tries to lay claim to any lore/assets made that uses the new Star Control engine).
When you visit www.starcontrol.com later this Fall, you will absolutely see both classic and new aliens together since we support both the new Star Control and the original trilogy. We plan to provide a fairly elaborate series of pages to support Paul and Fred's backstory so that it's kept alive for the day when they can return to the Ur-Quan story.
Challenge #2: What IS Star Control?
While game designs are always unique, I'd like to propose that we look at what we are working on together collective as a specific genre (like 4X strategy).
In Star Control's case: It's an action adventure game. Specifically, an action adventure game in which you play as the Earthlings, go out into the galaxy and meet aliens, go on quests, explore planets, and have space battles.
That is what we're in the process of creating.
Challenge #3: Defining some core values
Each person will have their own vision of what they think a new Star Control must contain. Like I said above, SOME people will absolutely say that Star Control is about the Ur-Quan and the Spathi and so forth.
For me, it's a bit more general. I want to interact with really interesting aliens that are well written, funny, charming and try out lots of cool ships, design my own custom ship, etc. That's why we brought on comedy writers early on and have put a lot of budget behind making sure that we're prepared to record 11 hours of voice acting that will be handle through our engine's lips syncing tech (our engine is made by the some guys who led Civilization V's engineering PLUS additional veterans from around the industry).
Challenge #4: Satisfying the super fans
So how are we going to make the hard core fans happy?
Broadly speaking (without giving too much away) we plan to provide fairly extravagant mod tools. Tools well beyond what has ever been made outside of say Spore.
If you've read "Ready Player One" then you have a pretty good idea of the authoring level we are going for. We'll be talking a lot more about this as we progress.
The main point is that our goal is to make the Star Control universe all-encompassing. Infinite continuities with OUR included initial campaign just one of an endless number that the community can provide. If you've seen what the Ur-Quan masters team have done, imagine if they had millions of dollars in engineering hours designated to providing tools and support to ensure that there's a never ending stream of Star Control content.
Anyway, that's where we are now.
Cheers!
-brad
Sure! Why not? The Spathi did put themselves underneath an Ur Quan slave shield. They can go.
Star Control Is:
The marriage of Star Control I and Starflight.
1. A combat engine that's rather accessible and relatively skill based.
2. A large galaxy to explore, places to fly to, planets to visit and say 'oh, cool!', hidden places.
3. Adventure with RPG elements.
1. Starflight 1 and Starflight 2 are the design model. Star control 2, which blatantly ripped off Starflight, is the design model.
2. You fly places. You enter territory, and the natives are likely to come take a look. You talk with some natives. You fight some natives. You fight some natives then talk. You explore planets. You trade with various races to get money, information, and technology. You find objects and technology. You upgrade your ship. You blow some things up. There are fluxes that take you across distances in the galaxy.
2a. The game is about exploring, finding things, making money with what you can find, but and trade, talking with and fighting aliens, advancing, and proceeding through a story. You model against a very successful gameplay shared amongst three classic games.
3. Lander subgames are part of the game, the player can explore whatever planet the player wants to by flying around it and sometimes collecting goodies for profit, aside from planets where you're not permitted.
4. You do not allow any developer or game designer who thinks that it was a good idea of Legend Entertainment to have players click on star systems and planets in order to navigate to have any involvement in this project, under any circumstances, whatsoever. None. Nil. Zilch.
5. You build a team that understands that robbing players of the ability to fly around the galaxy and explore planets also robs the player of completely, totally, utterly key gameplay.
Whatever you do, DO keep the arcade style combat ! ! Without it you might as well drop the game as this is where the different ships you built acquired/upgraded gets to show what they can do, it allowed for an atmosphere where you are placed right on the spot in realtime !, and if you win the reward could be game altering, the same with if you lose, all the modules you added to your ship, the extra fighters the distance you travelled. will be put to the test in battle ! Melee style ! The action the tension of combat and the reward that follows is unmatched.
Lastly, the core concept of what made sc2 so profound should be kept, exploring, discovering new planets and races, HYPERSPACE ! you absolutely MUST have a feel that you have been traveling far and can become without fuel if not careful, dodging or engaging enemies in hyperspace just as the original sc2 was perfect. Harvesting and finding new alien tech as well as Quasi space is essential to have giving a sense of strange excitement, travelling in a different dimension where things act strangely but add some danger effects in it such as a quasi black hole or unknown/unexplored/shocking and surprising elements/phenomena. deepening the mysteries of the universe itself. mining, rare or the most valuable planets should be created such that only landers with specially equipped tech and armor are able to roam upon it, imagine the lighting/duststorms/volcanics/sinkholes,landslip/earthquake effects,strange physics, and creatures that can be created with todays tech !
We definitely have the arcade style combat in there.
BTW, we keep Paul and Fred (the creators of Star Control) updated on the game's progress. They have been very supportive.
I also want to correct something I saw: Again, disclaimer, I am not a lawyer. But my position is that Stardock doesn't have the legal rights to the original lore either. Or, if we did, we have long since refuted those rights. The Star Control classic lore are the copyright of Paul Reiche and Fred Ford.
I post that sort of thing publicly partially because while I own Stardock today, if something happened to me and someone else took over Stardock I don't want anyone to even be tempted.
It is our hope that eventually Paul and Fred will be free to work on a new game in their universe and we'll be there for them.
I totally get what you're saying here, @Ghrom - I mentioned before on a diff thread, I think - I'm a HUGE HUGE HUGE fan of GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire, and even to a lesser extent, Fallen Enchantress. But there's a theme there that had me worried: Every one of those games has a point and click interface - NOT direct control. You move the mouse to the place you want your ship to go, click, and it goes there. That would be DISASTROUS in Star Control. They MUST allow us direct control of our ship. It's this direct control, that I think you're referring to. No clicking to move to a new star system, no clicking on a ship or planet to move there, and DEFINITELY no clicking on a spot to move your lander there to slurp up resources. This is absolutely crucial and you made a very good point.
That's awesome to hear Frogboy.
I just watched the GDC 2015 Postmortem of Star Control where Paul and Fred were interviewed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Napx0MjivCM
That really shows light into how they both started the idea for Star Control and some of the very interesting insights and influences during its development. There were a lot of things that there were very influential, like the game Starflight (well duh), arcade games (Space Wars...never played it), classic 60/70's sci-fi materials (art, books, story, etc) and many other factors.
Star Control is very dear to my heart, as it helped define my childhood. If anyone says *HAPPY CAMPERS*, I'll crack a smile. I do hope Paul and Fred will continue their vision of their original lore (as they said some of the ships that their time has not yet come, and that they will *ABSOLUTELY* make another Star Control game). However, I'm excited to see Stardock's take on the game.
I'm currently playing the Ur-Quan Masters HD Beta (my 20+ time playing StarCon2), and here's the major fun areas for the game:
-Exploration: You don't know whats out there, and you're really not restricted on where you can go on the map, even if it was suicidal. If at the very beginning of the game and you have enough resources, you can fuel up a bare-bones ship and fly out until you run out of fuel, or are destroyed. This made exploration always involving a lot of trepidation. It was exciting, but almost scary sometimes, to go explore the galaxy.
-Lore: Backstory, races, current events, future events, etc. Everything in the game is killer classic sci-fi, and the story is very involving. You actually CARE about the races, about the threat of the galaxy, of feeling (sort of) bad of trading your crew for fuel (lol). Without a good story line, there's no real "PUSH" to finish the game other than feeling the need "just because I spent the money". STORYLINE has to be very good. Races are awesomely strange and each unique.
-Humor: Spathi's Evil Ones....they're fuzzy little bears? Selling your crew for fuel? Melnorme bridge turning purple costing 120K (or 12Mil)? Zok Fot Pik? *Happy Campers* Orz? To me, all of these are classic. Without the humor, its not StarControl.
-Resource collection/Technology: This is fun during the first half of the game, and mixes with the exploration part. Nothing like getting a bigger, better, badass ship. Later on you hit a plateau though. No more technology, and you don't care too much about getting resources (Probes are easy to kill, plentiful if you don't stop them, and 550each....yeah, i don't need to get more TIN or Argon).
-Arcade/Action: Ship design and balance are wonderful and satisfying.
This is what makes StarControl II an awesome game. I hope Stardock make a wonderful game worthy of the name Star Control.
Spathi
I suppose you could try the old Star Trek Klingon thing.
Bashir: "Those are Klingons?"Waitress: "All right. You boys have had enough."Odo: "Mister Worf?"Worf: "They are Klingons, and it is a long story."O'Brien: "What happened? Some kind genetic engineering?"Bashir: "A viral mutation?"Worf: "We do not discuss it with outsiders."
So the Spathi tried to combine their DNA with Syreen DNA to improve ...(chances of getting prom dates, whatever, fill in the blank) and somehow the DNA got mixed up (Umgah??) with Vux DNA. Everyone rushed to get the treatment but of course it failed and is not easily reversible and therefore you now have a Spathi race that looks different, and call themselves a different name to hide their embarrassment, and don't discuss it with outsiders.
Don't even have to name names.
We once were different. Tried to improve DNA with "prettier" DNA. Failed. We don't discuss it.
But, if you're trying to steer clear for morality and ethical reasons...you create different shades of grey areas with this.
Ultimately, a great game will cover a multitude of perceived sins and omissions.
ISSUE 1 IS A BIGGIE
You want a game that does not include ANY races from the original Star Control stories, BUT you still want it to be Star Control, AND you want Star Control fans to accept it, while leaving it open for Toys for Bob to continue their story if they choose too? HERE IS HOW
Instead of a cataclysmic event taking place in the past, make one occur in the future, one that wipes out all life in the Galaxy, and starts over (like a reset button). Maybe this event is triggered by your games new villains. Thousands of years after this event NEW races evolve, some similar to the old races, maybe even on the same planets. A handful of Humans that were some how protected survive, and awaken to a similar but different universe than the one they remember. You can even hide little tidbits that elude to the long dead SC2 races.
Your story line could be that after trying to piece together what happened to the universe, the hero discovers the cataclysmic event that wiped out the SC2 races is about to happen again and tries to prevent it. MAYBE the Precursors are responsible.
I feel a story like this will satisfy SC2 fans, by giving them a sequel, in the same universe they remember, without including past SC2 races, while also giving Toys for Bob the ability to continue on from the UrQuan time period up too the cataclysmic event that creates your universe
Frogboy id love to see your thoughts on an ideal like this as it seems to satisfy your needs without jumping off to a new universe. I have seen you reply directly to other people in these forums so it would be nice to see your opinion.
That sounds Good Frogboy, Star Control is a game that was created out of passion, a type of passion that hits the inner most of all human explorers and the type that wants to explore the mysterious vastness of the universe. What better way to capture true human adventure than to explore the universe and it's wonders, along with the unique technology that allows for it.I know it's a sensitive matter wrt to the legal rights issue, and i fully support your respect towards TFB, i just hope Paul and Fred does someday go ahead with a continuation, perhaps the release of the stardock star control might be just what's needed for them to go ahead with it which will be a win win situation for everyone having your Star Control release and then theirs as well in future, and perhaps all of you working together in the distant future ! I just don't want it to sit there forever like a hidden artifact on an unknown planet impossible to get to because of the planet's impossible weather, however time will tell i guess.Right here and right now, i and thousands of others am super excited with what you guys are busy WRT the new Star Control.If the focus is kept on what it should be kept, the core of what made SC2 so adventurous, i feel you may expand upon it as you wish within it's unique universal concept.One idea for me that would be extremely rewarding is to discover a wrecked mothership on a very distant planet, to find that it was a ship that was wrecked many thousands of years in the past, built by a race with technology beyond current technology, being able to send engineers in to work on blueprinting it for creation back at the home planet/base.Overall perhaps one should have a choice of say 3 or four types of motherships that you could use as your main ship in the game and in addition discover a few like just mentioned on other planets. Getting to those hidden ships and building them must not be too easy however and must come at a cost, perhaps the planet is very hostile, perhaps you'll be pushed to your limits with regards to refueling points, perhaps many battles must be fought, riddles must be solved, or a combination of them all.Again Thank You Frogboy, i and everyone cannot wait for this to unfold !
dup post. [/quote]
oh god pls release another star control
Just wanted to say that this thread gives me even more faith that the game will be incredible.
i really want to respond to these question before this month is over.
Star Control was the single funnest game on my Sega Genesis.
Star Control 2 is the greater game ever made. On any platform, electronic or table-top, ever.
Challenge #1: Yes you CAN have a Star Control with all new aliens.
Challenge #2: "Earthlings, go out into the galaxy and meet aliens, go on quests, explore planets, and have space battles." yep you got it.
Challenge #3: Focus on huge area of exploration, and fun finely tuned combat with Flagship customization. DO NOT allow a ship like the Syreen Penetrator in the ill fated Star Control 3 to, single handily with one ship, destroy the entire Herald Fleet.
Challenge #4: This will be your biggest challenge.
We already had a Star Control that Paul and Fred we NOT involved in. It was Star Control 3. We the fans do NOT want a Star Control 3.5
Star Control IS Paul and Fred.
Is there anything preventing you from hiring Paul and Fred to do the writing for the game?
Writing would be the single most important way for them to be involved.
If they can't be then Can you involve them in ANY WAY with the making of this game?
Also,
You must stick to the Lore of the universe. The first Aliens that Earth encountered on a global scale are the Chenjesu. Since this is a prequel with no Aliens from the Star Control Universe we know it will have to be some sort of tangent adventure that upon its conclusion will not be known by the world at large. Nor by the majority of the space exploring earthling because there is no mention of it the lore of Star Control.
Now some general ideas.
We know there is dimensional travel, with the Arilou and the Orz being two that use it. Perhaps allow a similar form of travel and/or exploration into adjacent dimensions.
Focus on what this game is about exploration and combat. We don't need things like colony management, this isn't a civ game.
Flagship customization is EXTREMELY important. SC 3 took this away from us and it hurt it badly.
Allow us to customize our flagship for specific roles makes the game so fun, from a huge cargo hauler filled to the brim with rare cargo ready to convert to resources to an unrivaled dreadnought of destruction, allow us the player to choose its role.
Thank you for asking this very important questions, i truly hope you succeed in keep the Star Control flame alive.
Devs, please, for a moment, consider this scenario:
You want to make a movie about Batman. You call it "Batman: Final Trial", because you own the right to call it that. Only that you can't use Batman, Gotham City, or any of the lore — in other words the very fundament of Batman.
How do you think fans of Batman would react to that?
I'd watch it.
The Batman analogy is a false equivalence. On multiple levels.
Star Control is not called Captain Zelnick and is not intrinsically tied to a central character or forced to be restricted to a single plot thread. Star Control 1 didn't even have a central character.
By the same token, the world of comics is almost never bound to a central storyline or plot. Characters have been rebooted ad nauseum in the comic world by different artists and writers for decades. There have been dozens of different "series" that branch off into different timelines, interpretations, or adaptations for almost every major character in comic pop culture. And while they may involve a lot of the same characters, the characteristics and backstories of the secondary characters and villains are almost always changed up to keep the material from becoming stale and boring.
Using your own logical fallacy with Batman as an example: how would fans feel if someone like Frank Miller took characters first established onscreen in the campy cornball Adam West series from the 1960s and used none of the fundamental concepts established in it, instead turning it into a dark, gothic, gritty crime drama that eventually paved the way for all the Batman films made later on? As it turns out, I think fans were quite grateful.
Star Control is not called Captain Zelnick
Uh...
is not intrinsically tied to a central character or forced to be restricted to a single plot thread
What? There are many central characters in this fictional universe, and you are indeed forced to be, and restricted to the plot thread. What on earth is going on with you, man.
Usually when you create a spinoff, in comics or games, you can build on existing material. The difference between Frank Miller and this is that Miller COULD ACTUALLY WRITE BATMAN! AND THE LORE BEHIND HIM! BECAUSE HE HAD THE RIGHT TO.
Making a game that is called Star Control but is not Star Control sounds like the grandest logical fallacy right here.
Oktoberstorm, you could always just hide the "Star" in Star Control and call the game CONTROL. All kidding aside, I was a little upset that the original story line and creators weren't involved with this project. I mean, take a look at Star Control 3. However, after thinking through this I finally conceded that its time for a new Star Control regardless of the faults.
I for one, don't care if its called Star Control, or "StarDuster 9 from Planet X, the story of the big boob bots." In the end, we're getting a possibly good addition to a genre that is basically DEAD.
Before some of the ultra-fans (and I consider myself one of them!) down trod this project, or at least the naming of it, lets look at this from an availability view. There's very little games out there that are like Star Control II. I for one am thrilled that a company is willing to take the financial risk at developing a game that might be an extremely fun and interesting take on this genre. Also, the tools talked about might allow the community to come together and produce some amazing offshoots of the original lore.
Until Fred and Paul come back to PROPERLY revisit the Ur-Quan story line, this is as good as its going to get. And who knows, maybe this will be a start of a great new universe filled with races just as lovable as the Spathi or Zot-Fot-Pik.
I'm hopefully optimistic, mainly due to the start of this thread and Stardock knowing they have super fans out there that they need to reach out to in order to make this project widely successful.
I respect your input, and for me this produt will automatically go straight into "non canon -- won't bother".Now what were you saying about StarDuster 9, specifically the Big Boob Bots? That's something I can get behind!
Perhaps take a "wait and see" approach instead of automatically dismissing it.
I do. But StarDock is public about creating this... Thing, and they want feedback. I'm not sure what would affect them the most, so I'll just continue posting.
I'm hoping its a great game and that the "super fans" like you and me will be able to enjoy it, and perhaps even help shape the new universe. I almost look at this as a community project with the modding tools involved.
Yep, we definitely want feedback on the Star Control game we are creating. What affects us the most is constructive feedback and reasoning be it positive or negative. Tell us about your Star Control experiences and what you loved and didn't like about the game and why. What was the most memorable moment for you when you played? What was the most disappointing? What are some experiences that reminded you of Star Control or experiences you wished you could have had.
When the original Star Control 2 game was in development, several people contributed to its creation. They provided a lot of guidance and contributed ideas but they also relied on others to contribute as well. That focused collaboration is what made Star Control such a great game. We here at Stardock have reached out to individuals who have worked on the original Star Control 2. To give you a specific example Riku Nuottajarvi who did music tracks for the original Star Control 2 is also doing music for us. While we are not continuing the Ur-Quan storyline we are still making a game that will very much be Star Control.
I think we can all agree that every last one of us who values Star Control would love to play such an adventure again and enjoy it with our friends, and in many cases our children, and grandchildren (An old guy already told me this personally when he heard about it). We want this IP we love to stand the test of time and not be forgotten and continue to live on. I'm looking forward to running into people who will have played the game and tell me about their adventures in the Star Control universe.
Some of my favorite moments include: Tricking the Mycon into getting ambushed by the Syreen, getting all the useful artifacts from the Druuge without selling even 1 crew member, solving the Spaeth vs Evil Ones problem, only to have it backfire, and then... I forget exactly how it went but tricking the Thraddash into attacking the Kohr-Ah, getting obliterated, then tricking the Ilwrath into attacking the Thraddash who then get so completely annihilated they disappear from the map ENTIRELY. This kind of permanent, wide-sweeping results of your actions are SO INCREDIBLY GAME-CHANGING, there hasn't been a game on God's green earth before or since that gives as much weight to your decisions. Sure Fallout 3 let you nuke a city, and a million games wildly preach the consequences of your decisions, but NONE of them compare to altering the universe so completely like in Star Control. None.
Oh! And another was when you-.... Wait. @Vaelzad - permission to start a new thread on this very subject?! Otherwise we'll go far off the rails for this discussion!
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