(We've got a roster of 7 writers working on this right now, and 2 folks working on commands, so it's moving along well. But more help is always welcome since many hands make light work, and there's a lot of work. So here's an email I sent to those folks, also just copied here.)
Hey guys,
This one is tricky, so if you're not sure about it, feel free to either not do any of these, or not do them until later. The pay rate for these is double the rate for other events because they require a lot more thought -- but in this case also some knowledge of the game. And there's a good chance that I won't be able to take some of these, because these are extremely much in the territory of direct gameplay.
The tab is ActI on here, and these aren't events at all:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l1zPgVQZNLXbGoc9IwWWyaCxYCxajdvun9mVF6HYaTM/edit#gid=70186307These have no icons, but for their precondition commands those are located here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l1zPgVQZNLXbGoc9IwWWyaCxYCxajdvun9mVF6HYaTM/edit#gid=70186307Note that these are very anemic compared to the commands list. That said, there's a limit to how many different things we can realistically require of players (but certainly more than is there could be used).
What is this??
The game is now split into five "acts" in the sense of a play or similar. The first act is called "Arrival," and is by far the simplest of the five. A lot of the more complex game mechanics are not enabled yet, but everything you do is preparing your civilization for the more dangerous later phases. That said, you can fly through this if you do it right (and/or are lucky).
How long does this act last? It's hard to say. Your citizens will be demanding that you do "something, for some reason." That's what this tab defines: a series of objectives (preconditions to exit) that the player has to meet in order for the game to automatically transition over to act II.
At the start of the game there are three territories that the player can land in. Each one of those territories has a different situation in it that the player can read (the demands of their populace), as well as a difficulty level of those demands (1-3), and hints about how to achieve it. So if the player sees something really hard or unpleasant, they can avoid it.
Brief notes:
1. Pay scale: double as for the other tabs. ($2 fully writing a line, $0.80 writing the preconditions)
2. Overall volume: in general I'd like at least 10 entries for each of the human-playable races (at the moment most have one, and a couple have more), and then 100 entries that are for any race (ForRace None).
3. Note that not all of the service types will be present in act 1: see the first tab here for reference, in case it comes up:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l1zPgVQZNLXbGoc9IwWWyaCxYCxajdvun9mVF6HYaTM/edit#gid=18016150124. In your DisplayText, please make sure to explain why the citizens want whatever it is, but there is no actual consequence for not meeting those demands except "we don't reach act II until you do."
5. Conditions involving subjugating other races and things of that nature are SUPER hard, because you're not allowed to directly fight yet in this act! So you have to do things like poison them into submission or other tricky things like that. Anything that involves taking a huge amount of territory or subjugating other races automatically goes way up in difficulty.
6. With the vast majority of these, the focus should be inward. Definitely no other races should be mentioned by name. We might be on a "conquer the faceless natives" mission if we're Burlusts (jerks), but that's about as international as we get with these. We may well be interacting with other races as part of the gameplay, but we'v just gotten to the planet and right now our first priority is... what? Establishing ourselves, certainly.
7. But actually, that nicely sums up our citizens' demands for act I: "what do our citizens consider 'properly establishing ourselves' as a new city/nation?"
Thanks!
Chris
