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Star Control: Spring 2015 update

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Star Control: Spring 2015 update

from StarControl Forums

Greetings!

First thing, I talked to Paul and Fred and they suggested I talk to Riku Nuottajärvi about doing music for the new game (he worked on Star Control 2's music) but I don't know how to contact him.  So if any of you could do me the favor of letting him know we are looking to talk to him I'd appreciate it.

Second, with Galactic Civilizations III nearly done, the dev team and art team will be moving on to new projects one of which is Star Control. So the staff up continues.  The core team is already in place and development has been ongoing for awhile (though very little art yet).

Third, the basic plot of the new game has been finalized.  We think people will like it.  Chris Bucholz (cracked.com columnist) is leading the writing effort. You'll be hearing a lot from him in the coming months.

Fourth, from talking to Paul about what sorts of things really matter to him about Star Control we've expanded on the community element of the game.  So in essence, the game will ship with all the tools necessary for modders to create their own "galaxies" (which we refer to as cluster groups until we come up with a better name) that has their own ships, aliens, etc. where users can download and add it to their in-game universe from within the game.

Fifth, the player's flagship will be very very customizeable both in terms of weapons, crew, etc. as well visually.  When players explore planets, they'll find lots and lots of cool stuff including ship parts.  These ship parts (think of them like lego pieces of various shapes) will let players make their flag ships look however they want.  So in terms of multiplayer battles as well as visiting other people's galaxies, we have no doubt we'll see people flying around in Serenity or the Millenium falcon as well as endlessly unique player creations.

Sixth, while we will be creating (and supporting) alien ship designs via Maya and 3D studio, the plan is to allow players to also use a GalCiv III-like ship designer so that when they create their own galaxies to share with the community, they can easily give each race their own unique ships along with their own stories, aliens, etc.  

Seventh, more controversially, the current plan is to have the aliens be pre-rendered. We are still debating this.  There are pros and cons.  The Civilization V team that created the leaders (which speak in real-time) now work here believe we can support real-time.  My issue with that is that it's very very expensive to do it well and I'm not personally keen on aliens speaking English (I realize they did this on some versions of SC2).  I personally prefer the aliens speaking their own language with subtitles.  This is an issue we'll be debating internally and with the community I'm sure for a long time.

Eighth, most of the races aren't humanoids. In fact, off the top of my head, only the Earthlings and one other are humanoid right now.

Ninth, there won't be any official announcements in 2015.  We're not sure if we'll have a public beta but we are sure that we will be offering beta access to the Ur-Quan community and related communities.

Tenth, The game will be using the same engine as Ashes of the Singularity (www.ashesgame.com). 

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks!

-brad

186,594 views 36 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top

That's not what I meant. But good voice actors are ususally expensive voice actors (as with every profession), and if this game is similar to Star Control II, there's a lot of text! That means a significant amount of money just for voice acting.

By the way: It is possible to dislike something without being able to "do it better" yourself. If not, almost no-one would have useful opinions. I stand by my statement: The voice acting in the 3DO version is not good, at least not compared to the writing. I haven't listened to the voices in a while, but I remember that the Pkunk was not particularly good, at least.

Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top

So what if it's expensive, the game industry is expensive and profits are good, if a good game is released, look at starcraft 2, it still sells at a "just released " price and it's been how many years, it comes down to that blizzard is reaping the rewards of a good game, so less complaining work hard, pay for good voice actors and get it done properly, first time. The rewards will follow.

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Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top

Yeah, of course - there is a correlation between production values in a game and its popularity. But games are the result of budgeting and planning, which involves budget compromises. The new Star Control game has a budget of 5 million dollars (https://forums.stardock.com/458037/page/1/#3504517), which is not much for any game, and especially not for a big game like this.

They have to make compromises, and ditching "proper" voice actors in favour of alien languages is a compromise that saves a lot of money, and allows the script to change up to the very end of production.

Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top

I'm not to sure if it's too late of to early to mention something like this but, I would like like the Thraddash to make a comeback.  :grin:

Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top

I'd like a summer update.  :rofl:

Reply #31 from StarControl Forums Top

+1

Throw us a piece of concept art or something.  :drool:

Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top

I'll see what I can *smell*

Reply #33 from Stardock Forums Top

Really don't mind having the text with odd alien noises for speech.  Come on, why would you pass up the opportunity to have the old fart talk alien?  Plus, a friend talked about one of the races (don't know which one it was on, he kind of liked SC3) that the translator (for us text) just didn't get right.  Would get a kick if the translator took awhile for it to really understand a new race.  After all, it's not like you ever met them before, why would the translator get it right at first contact?  Though to ease this getting information from other alien races ahead of time would make the translator function better at first contact.

Also...I never liked how SC2 did minerals.  The minerals themselves meant nothing beyond RU points.  I remember as I played I was saying, "Iron, iron, iron, too bad you don't really need iron to make a ship.  Oooh, I'll make a ship purely out of radioactive material!!!!" (Though now that I think about it, it would be pretty crazy to have a radioactive ship.)  Until you figured out where all the good spots were, harvesting was boring and repetitive.  Instead, couldn't it be more like "Ah iron, I needed to build up my base metal for construction anyway." or even "Ah, creatures!  Looks like we'll be having...umm...meat?...tonight!!"  I don't know, I wouldn't want to take away the pleasure of exotic goods or those lovely rainbow planets, but for the new players that may not want to take the time to find the exotic places, can the mediocre minerals give more than just a few points?

Reply #34 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Maybe a fall update? :|