Lore of Game

in the trailer it was said, the purpose of the war has been long forgotten.. sooo..^^

It's a difference between "doesnt matter" and "not existant". U have very much lore in Unreal Tournament and it doesnt mean i play games with lore different or such stuff. I loved to play UT and i also loved to play Counter Strike but i still say, Games with Lore/Background are better than these without. It is the Detail you can have. It is like to have a Game exactly the same like another but the Details is what makes it unique isnt it?
You can also come along with Gameplay stuff which is unique, but most of the time this isnt the case cause PA isnt as unique enough cause this type of Game is already existing out there with similar features.
The Lore itself is the dot on the i if u want it that way and why not implement it? Who gets hurt if they do so? They could satisfy these people wanting some lore and the people who dont care about it could continue with that and to make some Lore in a short Intro or Some texts with pictures isnt really hard to do, take some hours of time and it's done and all would be happy. So i dont see the point why not to implement it.

I don't see anything. Where has this story stuff (that Commander's are 'people') been confirmed by Uber? None of this seems revelant to PA, as I tried to point out in my last post which you seemed to simply ignore.

Oh well, whatever.

First there's this quote from the thread on Game Tone: Link

Aaaaand then pretty much the entire first post of this thread, most of which is consolidated quotes from Neutrino on Commanders: Link

The information presented there is only explainable by having a distinct lore behind each Commander.

Trust me, I'm following the any and all presented Lore on this game like a hawk. I'll be first in line when something is released that concerns Lore.

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• Commanders are "people".
• They think on at least the same level of thought and reason as you or I.
• It follows from Neutrino's quote that the Commanders are not only sentient, but Sapient and are fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
• They are able to explain themselves and their actions.

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On that note, Neutrino? Give me something to chew on, Please! You've been silent on Lore for too long!

I dare to ask, what's up with some of you people and your apparent allergy to lore? Surely you don't actually think lore (well-tended lore, of course) downgrades the quality of a game? :?

It might be useless in your eyes, but for some of us its the cushion they need to really get their motivation into gear for the game. I personally don't NEED it, but dammit I'll be HAPPY if it's there.

There is a difference between lore and a story. Lore is something that provides a little sustenance for the reasons behind what is going on. A story is a linear progression of events through which a beginning and an ending occur.

If the game had a story, it would have a single player campaign. If it had lore, it would have a little story for each faction with no ending- asking you to fill in the end yourself with the games you play.

A game that did lore right is Kerbal Space Program. There is no outright story, but the Easter eggs in the game such as the pyramid on Duna or the Stonehenge on Vall really make you feel like there really is something going on.

Personally, I think that lore in this game will be a great addition.

I for one would pay for another kickstarter just to have them develop a Campaign for this engine.

I like playing online against people, but sometimes those games go for longer then I have. A campaign gives me something to do in a short amount of time and draws me into the game more.

I would happily tell them to SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY for a full campaign. I am sure some people would be like "wah I paid money for the game and only got the multiplayer part" after it was developed, but seriously screw them. I feel I am getting my monies worth for this piece, I will pay more for a campaign.

Anyone else Agree? (type agree and hit submit if you do)

You think we might get some inner monologues from the commanders?

I'd love that.

Am I the only one that saw "monologues" and thought of reality shows? I can totally see a several hundred meter tall Commander sitting down on a couch and crying his eyes out about his little bots and how THEY HAVE FAMILIES TOO!

I'm not sure about the monologues. Although the commanders have been identified as thinking beings, there's no reason why their thought processes should be structured the same as ours, in such a way that we would be able to understand a stream of consciousness. As a result, their motives, although ultimately based on sapient heuristics, may be as obscure to us as fighting over whether little-endian or big-endian is the superior byte ordering system.

However, this does raise some interesting questions about the lore/story in the game. If Uber has stated that there is lore, then the question is how to present it in a game that doesn't have a conventional single-player campaign.

Here's a thought. What if the lore was revealed through a variety of recordings, text snippets, pictures and other titbits of information strewn throughout the various worlds that the robots are fighting across. What if one desolate world held a mysterious pyramid in a desert, a forested world held the ancient wreck of a megabot, or a small isolated island possessed a functioning data beacon, each inscribed with the three lobed PA logo? What if capturing these mysterious ruins revealed some small bit of information, about the progenitors, the origins of the war, or the ultimate goal that the robots are fighting over? If we know that PA is going to have a near infinite number of procedurally generated worlds, then there's no reason why there couldn't be a small random chance to place one of these unique points of interest. As players played more games, they would gradually come across more of these set pieces, and unveil more about the lore of PA. This would allow players who are interested the chance to learn more about why they are fighting, whilst being easily ignorable by those who couldn't care less.

Sounds like bioshock (candy reward lore tapes).

The problem with lore is this (in a kickstarter / indie game). The moment you "officially" adopt a story, you put your foot into the IP market for countersuit. By saying "hey, dude, we just made an engine - good luck suing us for look and feel outside of England"... it actually does work. The IP is clearly TA (which bothers me, actually, because I want more), and any mention of the "old lore" would cement that (fiction / story / screenplay rights). That's what killed the "Terminator" franchise. Look and feel in the "time travel" scenario, which got an old (Twillight Zone) author (rightfully) pissed off.

However, with respect to "mindless piles of robots" killing each other. This, too, is really dull and monotonous. There's no emotional involvement when units get killed. Just "mass" on the battlefield. I'm sure there are some solutions to this, but the original (ESRB) restrictions that prevent "human" on "human" violence to ages 13-17 are a HUGE marketing barrier. Ironically, monsters are not "human", and so it's mariocart-morality that keeps the largest demographic alive in the retail position.

After 15 years of going on about this, the core reason behind the logic of TA remains "Americans are squeemish about letting their kids mass murder "real people" while they have no such qualms about "people-like robots" (see "Toy Soldiers" on XBox for details) in similar circumstances.

I once argued about this strongly, until the Icelandic and racist games came onto the scene, pushing drug content (meth and similar "enhancement" narcotocs as an RP model to kids). At which point I changed position and said what the MPAA does: War is educational. Violence (martial studies) are fine, within (Geneva Convention like) limits, but general retail content is a good idea, because most parents have NO IDEA what content is in the games they buy their children (see Saint's Row). And views differ widely.

Now, you could adapt the "Saint's Row" weapons (that bat) to the PA engine, and you see just how bad the "mods" can get (like Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3 sites I can name). Generally, as a company, leaving backstory and mods up to players is the (legally) "safe" move. Dull, but safe.

Less TA. More cowbell. da?

I got your lore right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mZZiI4ShQ :twisted:

Watching that makes me want to dust off my old TA disks.

A bit of lore here -

Ascythian, the brave, handsome, rich and intelligent AND modest leader of the robots that everyone was jealous of, beat all the other robot armies [and their not so handsome leaders] and therefore in his first benevolent and wise act as ruler of everything cool was to ban all sports and make war the coolest sport around. Thus resulting in Planetary Annihilation.

And then a bunch of newbs came and the resulting clash resulted in a war that has had no equal to this day.

The robots used to follow the geneva code until they smashed the earth scattering all the commanders throughout the universe. The individual commanders all realised if they could smash as many commanders as possible with giant rocks it'd be a lot easier then a thousand year war hence PA?

I agree with the general sentiment that there should be a focus on gameplay rather than lore. I don't need an elaborate single-player campaign either, but I do like the idea of Easter eggs dotted thru the various planets and asteroids that give us some lore (see yourlocalmadsci's suggestion).

As an exception though, I would love to play a mini-game (or mod?) triggered by an Easter egg that causes me to relive a memory where I am a recently awoken commander that fights and wipes out a human colony that activated me and causes the human race to go extinct. Or, maybe something like Skynet that finally succeeds in wiping out the last resistance members on planet at the edge of the galaxy. Kind of creepy and cool, right? Anyone up for this?

Sigh.

What part of Neutrino saying they hired a seperate person to write the Lore did you guys not get?

It's not affecting your precious gameplay and it's not delaying the games release, so let those that actually give a damn about Lore, talk about it.

I see you're back on the forums with full force, Nanolathe

Err...is anyone here actually saying that there shouldn't be any lore or that we shouldn't talk about it?