So I mentioned this on the discord already, but i’ve been trying to think of ways I can help out more directly while waiting for science questions or stages where the theory team will have more to do. During my pondering I thought of creating a story via the loading screens. This idea does appear to be of interest to some others on the discord as well. I’ve created a quick write up of the story that would be told and would like feedback and the like on it before we even discuss creating the loading screen images.
Even if this gets nowhere, at least i will feel like I was helping out, lol.
I think it would be useful for the theory team to come up with an explanation for why all life in the galaxy evolves at the same time and at the same rate, besides relying on coincidence. This is especially apparent in the space stage, where we want the different spacefairing species encountered to be at approximately the same level of development, otherwise the player’s species will be the only spacefairing species and thus no challenge, or another species has already had a head start so massive that they should have already colonized the entire galaxy before you even start. The explanation could probably be something like “The galaxy you start on has been going through a period of constant supernovas, scouring all potential for life across the galaxy, until this period of activity suddenly ceases” but more involved. (I don’t know if invoking supernovas are a good solution or not, its just an idea)
This could be used as loading screen story for the starts where life originates locally (aka, not panspermia)
Also, it involves coming up with a plausible theory, and not primarily focused on the art side of things, which it sounds like you are better at the theory side of things.
If we decide to go with a fallen empire to be where the ascension gate technology is obtained from, we could hint, through the loading screens, that they intentionally advanced some species (not the players species though). That could be a good explanation.
We could also assume that life evolved at different rates, but something related to the fallen empires collapse could have sparked a push in advancements.
I think we are wanting a natural explanation for events occurring before the genesis of life, both on the player’s world as well as all other life in the galaxy. At least for the general case, perhaps it would be applicable for panspermia settings. I would think that fallen empires would only exist with certain universe generation settings at initial configuration, or would be under non-LAWK option, and thus couldn’t be relied upon for all universes generated.
Also, I thought that the ascension gate would be researched and created by the player’s society, which would give it a last milestone for your society to reach, instead of being found somehow in the world. Not that a fallen empire couldn’t have begun creation of an ascension gate, perhaps you could find clues/fragments of the ancient ascension gate that optionally help speed up development somewhat.
I would suggest a change to the end of the fallen empire being an acention gate that is completed, but was built incorrectly or otherwise fails when used (perhaps it was rushed) and thus somehow ends all life in the galaxy and resets it, thus providing an even field in the universe.
I agree 100%. I think that having a storyline about a fallen empire is fine, but it shouldn’t be like one step away from completing the game. I think it really detracts from the player experience if they are just following in the footsteps of a some predetermined “story” path trying to make that one last step happen then at the end.
@hhyyrylainen (Only way I could think to reply to both of you, sorry)
The best natural explanation would likely be tied to a galactic merger event, Sol formed during one of these events for the milky way, but the problem still lies with the evolution of intelligence on multiple planets at around the same time. Even if every 1 out of 10 systems had a planet with life on it, perhaps 1 in 10 of those could have sapient life. If 1 out of every 3 planets with a sapient species was space fairing, that is a .0033% chance of encountering another space fairing species when entering any given solar system. This would only be possible with a massive galaxy and could make it not as enjoyable for players.
We could explain there being a lot of intelligent species as a form of convergent evolution on multiple different planets, but it is a stretch still for that one.
Besides that, those are the best explanations I can come up with that are natural.
You can highlight parts of a text in a post and press the “quote” button to insert it into your post like this.
It seems, though you didn’t reply to me. I’m just against the “following in the footsteps of a fallen empire to get to ascension” thing. I want a Stellaris-like space stage experience with plenty of other space empires to compete with.
That’s completely fine. I hope one of the other explanations I gave will be good enough to explain how intelligence could happen at roughly the same time.
After initial post:
Also the concept of the fallen empire was to prevent the ascension gate from being a researchable tech that depended on randomness for it to show up to be researched. I was making a guess at the time I first conceived of the concept that it would always be available as a tech to research, but extremely rare to get until later in the space stage. My concern there being that some very lucky people could have the gate as one of their earlier techs.
As for the story itself, I can come up with some other endings, such as the species discovering the theoretical existence of the dimension ascension leads or anything else that is suggested as well. The ending of the story doesn’t have to be set in stone this early on in development, but we could also provide multiple endings and let the community discuss which one is the “true” ending of the story.
While doing other things this morning I came to the realization that we could utilize the super massive blackhole at the center of Thrive’s galaxy. Perhaps, like in Spore it messes with how far ships can travel the closer they get to it as the blackhole itself is trying to prevent species from going inside of it. If a player does send a ship into it, when that ship returns the crew on it don’t recall anything even though the ship’s logs and computers record data that leads to the discovery of ascension and with that the ascension gate construction could start.
Reading through this, I do think the idea of having little stories in a loading screen of some sorts is pretty fun. One thing though: if any art is created out of such stories, I think these should seriously be seen as little “exhibits” in the galaxy’s past rather than some sort of binding lore or backstory. Kinds of examples related to what is possible in Thrive rather than an actual history.
A major ethos in Thrive is the idea that stories are completely procedural, subjective to the player, and the result of emergent gameplay. In a future space stage, any backstory is either a result of the player’s gameplay, elements of chance, or subject to the settings a player toggles on a playthrough. So if they want there to be a fallen empire story present, they can choose that and that could confer different gameplay bonuses or objectives, but such a setting can easily be avoided. It would be somewhat jarring to have an entirely procedural game, then force a story onto that game last minute in the last two stages of a massive playthrough.
We also just generally have not established how we conceptualize the galaxy, what exactly a “save” is in the context of the larger galaxy, etc. Is each save just another planet in the same shared galaxy, just in a different timeline of sorts? Is each save in an entirely different universe/entirely different galaxy? So we should establish that before creating any sort of story or exhibit of a story within Thrive.
On justifying the evolution rate of space-faring societies: it kind of sounds like the Fermi Paradox. In real life, I know common thoughts surrounding/“solving” the problem rely on the fact that:
Space is incomprehensibly massive, so even an intelligence-abundant galaxy has massive distances between many potential contact scenarios. And the detection apparatuses of fresher civilizations, like our own, do a really poor job of scanning that space.
Time horizons are massive, the life of space-faring civilizations are relatively shorter, and civilizations miss each other by many years. In the past hundred years only, communication and space technology has immensely transformed; compound that by hundreds of years more, and the communication/technology of species more advanced than us completely flies over our heads. Our rate of evolution could have easily been much slower than a previous close space-faring civilization, and they could have disappeared or reached a different form of communication since.
So ultimately, the distance between us and another space-faring civilization which shares similar communication methods with us could be thousands and thousands of light years.
Could we not rely on this explanation? I guess this would be a bit weaker of an explanation if we have it so that universally, your species is the first species to form a space-faring society. But it could still be used in that case, and if we have it so that prior civilizations exist before the time you officially reach space, that explanation is definitely good enough.
Maybe we don’t even have the stories connected at all to the current universe’s past. It could just instead be that the stories have the same relation as the current concept-art has, which is that they are showcasing the possibilities of Thrive. This way, we don’t even need to require any sort of explanation for connections between the events in the story, and in the game. The story could even end with a successful ascension gate when set up like this, as it would be completely parallel to the actual game.
The way I see how this would work is: each game will be randomly assigned a specific story which will be shown during loading screens along with the rest of the concept art. There would be one ‘chapter’ of each story with each stage, which would be an image (or a couple?) alongside a small bit of text. This way, the player would see the story unfold over the course of a game. We could have different complete stories added to the game, providing variety. Then, we could have the community contribute their own stories to the game also.
I do think having a separate explanation for the setup/configuration of the universe that the current game is set in can be useful, but that could perhaps be included as a common beginning element across all stories.
Seems way more trouble than it is worth. In my opinion that’s vastly overcomplicating the idea of just having some bit of fun storytelling in loading screens.
I was thinking it would be primarily more useful as a way to develop a good set of potential mascots for Thrive. I think that the evolutionary history of the organism is an area that is lacking in the current set of potential mascots. I think that this could be emphasized more, as it is the main goal of the game after all. It is not only about the final product, but about the entire process of evolving the organism there.
I think that selecting a specific story and showing it across Thrive’s stages then would be a natural application of this to the current scheme we have of showing concept art during the loading screens.
The purpose of this would not just be to create art just to show in the loading screens, but for wider use by Thrive for promotional purposes, or other uses.
I think this is a fine idea, but despite the team knowing for like 5+ years that we need a new mascot to replace the disturbance no one has tried to draw one.
It looks like no one who would actually be drawing the art has joined this thread…
That is a good point. I have negative artistic ability, but perhaps I can motivate our artists to get to work by proposing badly drawn designs to defeat:
Here we have “Speedy Tiktaalik”, which has immediately begun smelting metal after emerging from the ocean. (After having failed to do so underwater, of course)
This should be relatively simple to extrapolate forwards and backwards in evolutionary history, and focuses on a sort of novelty to a divergent Earth-like timeline of evolution.
I dont have great art abilities myself, but if we get an art group or some members of the graphics team together we could pull something off. I also plan on rewriting the story line to go with the idea of it being a parallel timeline (or even an event that no longer impacts the player due to the federation ascending)
