I personally like the story:

[Redcap]

So I am a bit new and took the time to read all the "read me first" threads, which had me a little confused because I didn't know which one of the many to read first . I just have to say I like the story a lot. It is well written, has a lot of fun scientificish things to it. But there was one post I wanted to maybe respond to and see if I can articulate my own feelings. It was the second to last thread and read in comment to the sentence, "and they were called humans".

Man that is cheezy! The rest is quite neat, but ugh, this just stinks. Most humans are aware of the fact that they evolved together with the rest of their world instead of just kind of dropping out of a spaceship with a burning desire to live in caves and hunt with sticks and stones.

I believe video games are not a stage for theological or scientific beliefs to be totted. If someone honestly plays a video game and bases their beliefs off of it they haven't thought much about life or anything. Of course the story wont be perfect, and taylor to everyones views on the origin of the human race. I think the story is fun, it isn't discounting God or evolution (which I personally believe in both, but that is not the point of this post). The story is just fun, and it is meant to be fun. Am I wrong?

So whether you are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or what have you the story is that of a fictional game, and is not trying to fit any current theory of the origins of man. Once again am I wrong?

With that said, who is to say that the original Orions were not from the original earth and that the off branch simply remembered the name "Human" because of the Orion's mastery of history. Or who is to say that it isn't just a coincident and Humans are just so good looking advanced cilizations are just bound to evolve to look like us (Lucky them)

I mean it doesn't matter. It is fun and I say to this poster (politely) smile and laugh when you can. It is a game and isn't beant to make any kind of impact on how people percieve the world they live in except to maybe percieve it as a great place with awesome free games like Freeorion If anything in this post was inappropriate I appologize, and have to say I think the story is fun loving and awesome with tones of mystique, intrigue and good grammar and syntex.

Bet you never thought you would hear a compliment like "good grammar and syntex" which is ironic because I probably spelt syntex wrong.

P.S. This post really really really isn't designed to open up the debate between evolution and global warming and ... you get my point. Simply to say the story is a story of a game and is suppose to be fun in my oppinion. I really will stop now

[Josh]

I like the story too, but at the very end the delivery is off, and I'm pretty sure that deep down the fact that it doesn't match the rest of story's literary quality is bothering people.

[Tortanick]

I really really disliked the idea that the Orions had any descendants at all* that they were Humans is even worse, not to mention completely at odd with our fossil records) since it elevates one race above the others:

In this particular case its a problem since most players will have their own favourite race its even more important that the writers don't play favourite, since it would annoy people who's favourite lost out in importance just so the writers could give extra time to their favourite. I'd go so far as to say if possible no race should be the "main character", every race should get its time in the limelight. That's assuming the story is written well enough so the writers favourite isn't a Mary Sue or worse, the Wesley, if you get either of those you've got bigger problems.

*I Just didn't say anything because, well see Aquauatane's response in the original thread.

[Josh]

Just to clarify, I think having humanity in the limelight is appropriate/makes sense, but the Orion's mystique is ruined if we know where they came from.

[Tortanick]

I think having humanity in the limelight is sensibile

It depends on the timeframe, if we have a realitively short perioud of time then giving a single race the limelight makes sense. If we have a long perioud of time then it wouldn't make any sense that one race is important thought the entire story, power shifts, one day your running the galaxy then one day your someone's vassal. Note, I'm assuming that these races are relatively balanced, a race like the Orions is the exception but they're not playable, and even they didn't last forever.

To use an example, if we set freeorion on earth, and replaced races with nations, if the story took place in 1990-2010 it makes sense to give the USA the limelight. If the story covers the whole of human history we'd give the Romans the limelight for a while, the Huns get theirs, either England or France can get the limelight during their frequent wars and England gets a spell during the empire. Then the Americans and possibly the Chinease afterwords. During the less globalised eara we could have multiple campaigns in parerlell for diffrent parts of the globe.

BTW, my personal view is that the campaign should cover the time from the Fall of the Orions to the end of time itself, with large gaps between the playable sections and possibly a few catastrophies to reset the tech level a bit. Battle for Wesnoth dose something very similar and it works great.

I think having humanity in the limelight is appropriate

That's the reason I, actually its probobly best if I don't bring that up again, suffice to say that its not appropriate to put humans in the limelight because they're human. If they are in the limelight it should extend naturally from their/our charachter and the current galactic political landscape.

Doubtlessly there will times where being manipulative xenorasist basteds would naturally thrust humans into the limelight, and there are times where humans arn't on top but are fighting a war that has little effect on a galactic scale but is very important for humanity. However there are also going to be times when the interesting stuff isn't centered around humanity during those times the aliens should get the limelight. It would lead to a more interesting story, and the players who like the other races would get their campaigns too.

Giving the humans center stage because they are the "chosen ones", or the decendents of the Orions is no replacement good charachterisiation and a story that flows naturally from it.

[shrinkshooter]

I believe video games are not a stage for theological or scientific beliefs to be totted. If someone honestly plays a video game and bases their beliefs off of it they haven't thought much about life or anything.

This is what I like to call a contradiction. If nobody seriously bases their beliefs off a video game, like you say, then why would you ever care about the scientific/religious context? The only time I would is if it were taking away from the gameplay itself. Additionally, there really isn't anything called "scientific belief." That's theory. And theory can be used in any way imaginable when it comes to science fiction. FO is not a vehicle for religious views or anything, so you shouldn't worry about it. However (and I know this is an older thread but still) this is probably the third or fourth time I've seen you bring up the subject of religion, and although I wouldn't say I'm worried about that I do have a slight tingle of concern. It's just a game.

Aditionally, evolution should not be something people "believe in." It actually is scientific fact, and the scientific community at large confirms this and agrees with that assessment. I refuse to respond to anything anyone has to say to this only because I do not want debates of this sort on these forums, but in case you doubt my words wikipedia has an excellent assessment on the documented evidence and the difference between evolutionary fact and evolutionary theory. I just wanted to make a quick poke at this and let it die.

As for humans being in the limelight...well, why don't we just do what the previous MOO games did?

[Tortanick]

As for humans being in the limelight...well, why don't we just do what the previous MOO games did?

Because the plan is for FreeOrion to have a campaign mode, hopefully with a story.

[shrinkshooter]

Yeah, i guess it would be quite a pain to try and coordinate campaigns for more than one race. Bah.

[Redcap]

Campaign, with a story? This just keeps getting sweeter and sweeter! Is it going to be where you can pick any race and start into a story or will it recomend you play races in a certain order to get the full story?

[Tortanick]

I think its undecided, personally I'd like to see mostly self contained campaigns set far enough apart in time and/or space that they can be played in any order. Big things like the rise of a galaxy dominating empire can be briefly explained in the into of every campaign where they're present. But if you want all the juicy details of ambition, battles, betrayals etc. you have to play the campaign where you build that empire.

[Josh]

Its undecided because barely anybody has been paying attention to the story aspect, they've been busy elsewhere like designing races. Races won't come 'till v0.8, but the story can be fleshed out any time the creative team feels like it, such as right now.

[eleazar]

Its undecided because barely anybody has been paying attention to the story aspect...

... because it's not relevant to the current development. Or at least only very slightly relevant.

It would probably be more relevant to try to figure out what features a campaign mode would need. Personally i've never played a 4-X game with a story that is anything more than an introduction. I don't have much of an idea what a campaign mode would look like.


Though i'm not real excited about the official backstory. It's fine as far as it goes, but really doesn't do much to explain the beginning state of the game. I mean i read it, and i know who the Orions are, but it's not clear what any of it has to do with the game, except them made the Guardian and humans are their descendants.

[Krikkitone]

I would see a campaign mode as being similar to a scenario(such as one with civ) The "campaign" is controlled by the initial layout, and scripted events that happen throughout the game.

[Tortanick]

Sounds good to me.