The Next Expansion

[x4000]

I tried to go back to FF8, recently.  The thing that prevented me from getting very far was the summons.  Summons being absolutely needed, repeatedly, and with long and absolutley un-skippable cutscenes.  It's a cool game, and I remember liking aspects of it really well ("The Man With The Machine Gun" is one of Uematsu's best), but I never did finish it for reasons like that.

[iamlenb]

I'd kind of like to see a persistent universe storyline, epic hero space opera style, with one man wandering the underbelly of a divided galaxy building an army to challenge the AI for domination of the broken remains of the former Human Empire.  In this version, you would control your alter ego Trader/Mercenary with a single ship in a barren post-apocalyptic RPG style universe, wandering freely from system to system, trading to make money, questing to gain faction favor and influence, and gathering information on the different factions in each system.

Each faction controls one or more systems with the AI as gatekeepers right on top of the only wormhole out of this little corner of space.  The Zenith guard their wealthy systems with Border Golems that no one in their right mind would challenge... without the assistance of the Spire, long isolated over the other corner of the map.  And surely the Rebel 'X' faction in system 'Y' that just developed technology 'Z' would make powerful ships provided they're paid with resources from Human Pocket Empire Number One, much to the displeasure of Human Pocket Empire Number Two through Five.  I envision lots of NPC interfaction traffic; trading ships, courier ships with secrets about the AI or other Factions, criminals on the run to capture for brownie points, research vessels with technology to barter, space pirates, star ninjas, and even robot ninja pirate zombie factions!  Of course the AI could care less what happens in this corner of the galaxy, so long as the fleshling plague doesn't escape quarantine to the rest of space and stays the hell away from the restricted worlds.

Missions would arise organically from the interactions between factions as you jockey for power, influence, technology and allies.  Once your Human Coalition manages to acquire enough resources, technology and allies to challenge the AI Gatekeeper, you break through' into the regular AI Wars map like the Spire campaign, or 'escape' like a standard AI Wars campaign now controlling the entire resources of the local system cluster and the wormhole back to the Human Coalition Space.

I think it would be awesome to see what kind of gestalt would arise in a game like this coupling multiple factions with the AI Wars style AI decision making.  Simple rules interacting in countless ways would create a supremely replayable universe.  A Galaxy Without Wind.

[soMe_RandoM]

I'd kind of like to see a persistent universe storyline, epic hero space opera style, with one man wandering the underbelly of a divided galaxy building an army to challenge the AI for domination of the broken remains of the former Human Empire.  In this version, you would control your alter ego Trader/Mercenary with a single ship in a barren post-apocalyptic RPG style universe, wandering freely from system to system, trading to make money, questing to gain faction favor and influence, and gathering information on the different factions in each system.

Each faction controls one or more systems with the AI as gatekeepers right on top of the only wormhole out of this little corner of space.  The Zenith guard their wealthy systems with Border Golems that no one in their right mind would challenge... without the assistance of the Spire, long isolated over the other corner of the map.  And surely the Rebel 'X' faction in system 'Y' that just developed technology 'Z' would make powerful ships provided they're paid with resources from Human Pocket Empire Number One, much to the displeasure of Human Pocket Empire Number Two through Five.  I envision lots of NPC interfaction traffic; trading ships, courier ships with secrets about the AI or other Factions, criminals on the run to capture for brownie points, research vessels with technology to barter, space pirates, star ninjas, and even robot ninja pirate zombie factions!  Of course the AI could care less what happens in this corner of the galaxy, so long as the fleshling plague doesn't escape quarantine to the rest of space and stays the hell away from the restricted worlds.

Missions would arise organically from the interactions between factions as you jockey for power, influence, technology and allies.  Once your Human Coalition manages to acquire enough resources, technology and allies to challenge the AI Gatekeeper, you break through' into the regular AI Wars map like the Spire campaign, or 'escape' like a standard AI Wars campaign now controlling the entire resources of the local system cluster and the wormhole back to the Human Coalition Space.

I think it would be awesome to see what kind of gestalt would arise in a game like this coupling multiple factions with the AI Wars style AI decision making.  Simple rules interacting in countless ways would create a supremely replayable universe.  A Galaxy Without Wind.

this make game infinitely playable, you could play same map over and over, is Civil war still on while this happening meaning its Ai v Ai while under protection of Ai untill point of betrayal? or it like captured civilian things u see in home world-er ai?

[Shrugging Khan]

Dood...grammar. Spelling. The language is hurting.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

i'm not really sure i see the gameplay value of a Star Rangers/X/Escape Velocity game converting into a massive RTS ala AI War. 

trying to create a holy-grail do-everything space game just leaves you with Battlecruiser. Hurp. 

IIRC, you could convert a game of Victoria into a game of Hearts of Iron 2... i'm not sure anyone actually ever used that. 

[Cyborg]

Chiming in again. There is a way for trading to work, and that is what the  X  games have managed to do by automating factories and creating the economic situation you want.  However, in a game that involves thousands of ships, this is not as important as if you were saving up for one large battle cruiser that would change the game for you.  In most games, I find trading very tedious.

One part of the idea above I like is AI versus AI, some kind of civil war or aggression scenario. Reminds me of the marauders in AI war, who are absolute jerks to everybody. Maybe you could have the "human rebellion" against "the marauders" happening a little bit more aggressively while the general AI versus player is going on, creating hotspots and danger zones around the map. Even better if one of them can actually lose the game.

[Giegue]

I'd just like to see a sort of story type thing written based on how much the AI and everything has improved. you know, like in versions 1.0 and 2.0, the AIs technology wasn't that far off from humans, it was stronger, but still similar, and then the Zenith were discovered along with the golems, which changed things alot so the AI began to 'distance' itself from the humans while it upgraded its outposts and core hardware, and thats when the Neinzul showed up.

you know, like that except much better, and alot more like the journal entries, except it'd be written in the point of view of multiple sides.

[BobTheJanitor]

I'm hoping that new types of locations get in for the next expansion. Even if they don't have a great gameplay effect, it would add to the exploration feel of the game if every jump wasn't just a planet. I love exploring things in space games, even if there's no point to it. A location that was a giant gas cloud, or a shattered planet rubble field, or a spinning pulsar, or whatever, would be really entertaining to me. Something to encourage more exploration would be interesting too. If there were random dead space locations, with no AI presence, but with no M/C or Knowledge resources to gather, but perhaps you could find something useful there by searching around with a decloaker or some new ship type (I don't know what you could find by searching, just throwing ideas out there), that would make the exploration factor of the game more than just 'send scout, look at scout intel'.

[Echo35]

I'm hoping that new types of locations get in for the next expansion.

Locations and more campaigns are the two things I'd want in a new expansion. They don't even have to be entire campaigns like the Fallen Spire. Just things equivalent to side quests in traditional rpg's, like exploring certain areas, finding something, escorting a ship, etc. I think those two aspects could tie together excellently and really make it feel like you're exploring this galaxy that the AI has stripped away from you.

[Sunshine!]

Keep in mind that we already have "side quests" in AI War: Human Colony Rebellions, Spire Civilian Leaders, AI Co-Processors, Spire Archives, and Golems (kind of).

[Echo35]

Keep in mind that we already have "side quests" in AI War: Human Colony Rebellions, Spire Civilian Leaders, AI Co-Processors, Spire Archives, and Golems (kind of).

I know. I want something more directed, like the Spire campaign.

[chemical_art]

To expand on finding new stuff, I would love to stumble on things that allow more units from other factions. For example I would love to engage on a mini quest of following an AI research report on attempting to weaponize Nenzul clusters. Ifby following this sub story I was able to find my own Nenzul hive for my use I would be very interested in pursuing it. It could even by like the story mechanics now: Find subspace signal, investigate, (random task), find new signal...get cool stuff.


To throw a wrench into everything, I also thought about a borg like minor race that could accelerate in power even faster then the AI. This third party would have its own space and lie dormant. By destroying the AI defenders, a player could unleash this third party, who would then proceed to grow and attempt to wipe out everyone. In most games, this party would never get really strong and would often be wiped out by a vengeful and fearful AI later. If a player would (somehow) nurture the dangerous race, it could cause havoc to the AI while simultaneously attacking humans. It's very messy, but could be cool down the road after this next expansion.

[Giegue]

Keep in mind that we already have "side quests" in AI War: Human Colony Rebellions, Spire Civilian Leaders, AI Co-Processors, Spire Archives, and Golems (kind of).

those aren't exactly sidequests. they are just important objects. I suppose the human colony rebellions do count as a side quest, but other than that...

[Nalgas]

Keep in mind that we already have "side quests" in AI War: Human Colony Rebellions, Spire Civilian Leaders, AI Co-Processors, Spire Archives, and Golems (kind of).

those aren't exactly sidequests. they are just important objects.

In terms of how they function from a gameplay point of view, they're basically the same thing.  It's just the presentation that differentiates them (which kind of makes a big difference).

[Cyborg]

Keep in mind that we already have "side quests" in AI War: Human Colony Rebellions, Spire Civilian Leaders, AI Co-Processors, Spire Archives, and Golems (kind of).

those aren't exactly sidequests. they are just important objects.

In terms of how they function from a gameplay point of view, they're basically the same thing.  It's just the presentation that differentiates them (which kind of makes a big difference).

I know what you are trying to say, but it's semantics. You know what that person means to say. The spire is a very successful expansion with a compelling campaign. The side quests are all well and good, and by all means more of them would be just fine, but I think what the point of the post was is this: another campaign. This would be more than welcome.

At the very least, I think we can count on adding more ships, which is common ground for everyone.