The Sun, in the grand scheme of things

Spoiler: it's not very big.

Powers of Ten™

Cosmic Voyage with Morgan Freeman

100,000 Stars: Interactive Map of the Galaxy

A Flight Through the Universe

Detailed Map of the Universe

And the point you are trying to make?

That's it's either pretty arrogant or naive to center concepts and lore around the solar system, humans and earth.

Who's doing that? Certainly not this game.

I'm talking about some forum threads. And blockbuster scifi movies.

When talking about genders, why limit yourself to male or female?
When talking about animal-based bots, why only earth's animals?
When talking about lore, why humanity at the center of it - or any mention at all?
And when talking about food, why only bacon and cheese?

Come on, think outside the box that is the solar system!

It's been bugging me ever since I've read some discussions about which one is the better game, Supreme Commander or Company of Heroes. And people say it's Company of Heroes because HUMONS.

Well, actually it's been a gnawing feeling ever since Superman landed on what must be the most popular place to be in the whole universe.

The problem with this argument is that both sides are making wild assumptions. Life is common, or life is rare.

Some statistics indicate one, others another. The problem with these is that we have far too small a sample set and the data we have is far too limited.

What planet types can (advanced) life form in? (type means Earth like, Venus like, etc.)
How close to Earth is close enough?
What is the actual distribution of planet types?

Since we have at best poor answers, the best we can get is speculation and conjecture.

I take it you refer to the Rare Earth hypothesis on the one hand and Principle of mediocrity on the other: together, the Fermi Paradox.

Considering our context is <awesome science-fiction game>, I'd go with the Principle of mediocrity and vouch for more Starfish Robots and less Earth Is the Center of the Universe.

It is only natural for pitiful humans to center stories around their pathetic pointless lives.

Fear not, there will be no lack of fanfic and slashfic for PA.

Isn't this a bit deep for a video game?

I'm not against having alien squid commanders, but the only motivation behind branching out in unit design should be nothing other than it looks cool.

You are welcome to share pictures, movies and information from extraterrestrial animals with us. I promise I'll study them with great interest in hopes to find even better concepts for units.

No seriously, if you can think up a couple of good starfish robot designs, by all means, go for it!

The only thing that limits us is the number of bones and polygons needed. So a squid with 100 wiggly tentacles is not a good idea. Same goes for a centipede though.

It's a matter of immersion. If we're having a crazy universe I want to see crazy stuff.

And that perspective goes beyond the background story and unit design. Immersion is the reason why I look forward to Planetary Annihilation's single player environment, with an artificial opponent that plays like an alien artifact: not necessarily better, but distinctly different from how a human opponent would and can play.

Thanks for your invitation. I wish I were a good enough visual artist to translate the images in my mind to images one can watch on a screen. Nevertheless I will make do with the tools I have at my disposal.

Zoids makes a promising start on this! ;p

Molga AA
Molga 'Carrier'
Molga Cannon

Mike

I haven't the foggiest what you just said right there. First is was about immersion, then alien artifacts, and finished off with SP AI.

The reason why things tend to be Earth Centric is the fact that Earth is the Centre of "our" Universe.

We can dream and imagine what weird of wonderful life is out there but most people tend to immerse into TV Shows/films/games/books if there is some familiarity there.

For instance take Star Trek, Star Wars, Mass Effect, Lord of the Rings, All have Humans in them doing better in some than others... All really good in their own way.

Would Star Wars had been loved as much if all Humans were replaced by Twi'leks?

Would Star Trek had been as interesting if the "Federation" was devoid of Humanity?

Would Mass Effect had been as enjoyed if the player was a Batarian playing a Previously misguided Hero who saves the Galaxy?

Lord of the Rings is harder because most of the Major races look like Humans anyway (Same in Star Wars but at least there is some variety there) but for arguments sake the Men of the West, Rohan & Gondor are "human" (Men of the West could overlap with one of these but my knowledge of Lord of the Rings is completely from films and Games) and the Hero is arguably a Hobbit who nearly succumbs but mostly Humans (Living and Dead) who allow him to get there.

Basically we are so Earth centric because we are from Earth. In films that are about creatures we give them Human emotions because they are the only emotions we know.
In films that have Aliens in them we give them Human emotions because the people playing them are Human!

TL;DR This kind of conversation is way too deep for PA. I just wanna smash bits of Rock and Metal against things.

That thing looks just nasty! I'm all for something like this, the stranger the better! If nothing else we can make a unit pack called: "Terrors from the Deep"

I'm alllllllll over it! ;p

Mike

love this
Molga AA and
Molga Cannon
Notice how the molga cannon stabalizes his cannon by twisting his wheels
this guy is meant to be in the game
and the overall design of molga is awesome
it makes an teriffying killer out of a simple larva design
Mike please keep the pictures comming

the main reason of anthropomorphic representation of aliens/machines as enemy/ally is buried in the wish and sometimes the necessity to be able to relate to them and understand their motivation.
In movies/TV, aside from cost side of humanoid aliens, it's easier to attribute a story/recognizable emotions to them then.

If you really employ a "realistic" alien design for units and their behavior, they probably would look strange to the point, that people would say "how unrealistic".
Most working aliens (that take a major role and aren't just a side note) in books/movies/tv/.. are extrapolations of known and expected human/animal behaviors and appearances.

My guess for humankind's first contact with an alien race is, that it's over before we noticed. Either we killed the other side without noticing or the other way round.

I wrote a giant post about the diversity of Earth, how it is very likely already representative of what may exist in the universe, and how a game like this doesn't require such an in depth connection between the gamer and the game.

Then I realized that you have a point. What sense is there in our classical definition of robots and weapons. There is an entire universe of possibility. Nukes are so 48484838885 years ago. Why not try matter degenerator, or the quantum displacement beam, or the little black box that eats entire nebulae.

One problem though. That is not this game.

As much as I'd love to see some uber-organic based faction with giant leaf based power plants, tree factories, fungus weapons, and so on... that is not this game.

Perhaps light based entities, or metallic boulder constructs.... but not this game.

A 1000 hour campaign?..... not this game.....yet.

This game is just robots, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

~~~~~~~

I think one of the most compelling reasons to limit the content of this game is just to provide sense to the player. A giant pinwheel may be interesting... but what does it do?

This game is an rts. It's a competition between players. Skill vs skill. Strategies against each other. The game is just an entertaining medium for this to occur.

The AI is meant to simulate players, at varying degrees of competence.

~~~~~~~

I dunno if I responded to any of the problems you have. I'm not certain what they were in the first place.

Anyway, there is lots of room for mods . I know I'm going to try making a campaign over the summer, assuming it can be done.